Safe to Hope

Season 6: Episode 17 - Carya & Dan Allender Bonus 2

• Ann Maree Goudzwaard

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This bonus and final episode of the Safe to Hope podcast brings together Dr. Dan Allender and our storyteller, Carya, in a conversation that is both tender and profound.

Dr. Allender—known for his pioneering work in trauma and abuse recovery—invites Carya to reflect on her healing journey through the lens of God’s image, goodness, and gentleness. Together, they explore the paradox of holding both unbearable evil and astonishing grace within one life.

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We value and respect conversations with all our guests. Opinions, viewpoints, and convictions may differ so we encourage our listeners to practice discernment. As well, guests do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of HelpHer. It is our hope that this podcast is a platform for hearing and learning rather than causing division or strife.

Please note, abuse situations have common patterns of behavior, responses, and environments. Any familiarity construed by the listener is of their own opinion and interpretation. Our podcast does not accuse individuals or organizations.

The podcast is for informational purposes and is not a substitute for professional care, diagnosis, or treatment.


Ann Maree
As mentioned in the introduction to each of the episodes in this series, our 2025 story contains childhood and adult sexual abuse, rape, family sex trafficking, ritualistic and satanic abuse. While this episode will not be as specific, the content of the show today may discuss elements of each of these abuses. So we advise listener caution.

Today for the final episode in the 2025 Bearing Witness series.

We’re excited to share with you a bonus episode featuring Doctor Dan Allender and our storyteller, Carya. When Dan heard of Carya’s story and then learned more about her journey, he suggested an episode with both of them having a candid conversation about Carya’s experience. We are incredibly grateful to Dr Allender for this suggestion because it really turned out awesome. You’ll get it when you listen, but Dan is a gifted counselor and a wonderful person who draws out people’s stories well. Carya is just gifted. Um, and over this past year, she has woven her story into a compelling narrative that invites the listener into her world. Together, their conversation was amazing, and I’m anxious for our audience to be bystanders of this experience.

Just as a reminder, Dr Dan Allender is a pioneer of a unique and innovative approach to trauma and abuse therapy. For over thirty years, the Allender Theory has brought healing and transformation to hundreds of thousands of lives by bridging the story of the gospel and the stories of trauma and abuse that mark so many of us. Dan earned his PhD in counseling psychology from Michigan State University. Dan and a cadre of others founded the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology in order to train therapists, pastors, artists, and leaders to more effectively serve in the context of the twenty first century. Dan also served as the president of the Seattle School from 2002 through 2009. Dan continues to serve as Professor of Counseling psychology at the Seattle School. He is the author of The Wounded Heart, The Healing Path, To Be Told, and God Loves Sex, and he has also co-authored several books with Tremper Longman, including Intimate Allies, The Cry of the Soul, Bold Love, Bold Purpose, and he also co-authored Redeeming Heartache. Most recently, he co-authored the forthcoming book The Deep-Rooted Marriage: Cultivating Intimacy, Healing and Delight with Steve Call, also a PhD. Dan also co-hosts the Allender Center’s weekly podcast with Rachel Clinton Chen, which has had more than three million downloads. Dan and his wife Becky live on Bainbridge Island, where they enjoy time with their grandchildren and their three adult children, Annie, Amanda and Andrew.

I sat in on this conversation and just listened. So I’m going to let Dan and Carya pick up where they began and let you listen in as well.

Dr. Allender
Carya, it’s, um, almost beyond comprehension. Such an honor to have the privilege of talking with you about your life. So we met in a context, uh, and you invited me into this conversation. And I’ll tell you three things that I experienced when I met you many moons ago. First of all, you are a phenomenally kind human being, and you have a regard for how people experience the world. And what you can bring to bring goodness is just a obvious, obvious. So, number one, you’re a profoundly kind woman. Second, um, uh, you won’t like this. Probably, but you’re brilliant. Just plain brilliant. Uh, and, uh, I watched how you interacted with others and the language and the context, the issues, um, incredibly kind, incredibly brilliant. And you have a capacity to stay in complex worlds, uh, with a lot of perseverance, meaning there is a certain resilience that is phenomenal. So, first of all, I know, uh, something about the human heart, uh, when we get named, even if we know it’s true, it’s somewhat uncomfortable. So I’m assuming that, uh, naming the level of kindness, the level of brilliance and amazing resilience, uh, is, uh, maybe an uncomfortable beginning. So I just want you to respond to that.

Carya
Yes. I don’t really know how to respond. Um. Thank you. It’s. I’m definitely. I feel honored by that. It is somewhat uncomfortable. Um, because it is hard to believe that those things are true about oneself. Um, but honestly, it’s also quite hopeful because there were a lot of years for me where I wasn’t sure if I would ever really have anything to give other than just staying alive. Um, and so hearing those kinds of things, even though it’s uncomfortable, it also makes me think, “oh, again, look at what God has done.”

Dr. Allender
Yeah. And I think we will come back several hundred thousand times just to that sense of marveling over the goodness of God. And yet the goodness of God is actually lived in and through the face, the mind, the body of a human being who reveals that they are an image bearer. And one of the core beginnings that I want to ponder with you is you were made in the image of God, and you had, um, levels of evil that most people have a hard time actually believing exist. But those who do, still cannot comprehend how one retains, how one grows in and with the image of God. But when you ponder what was done to you to ruin, to ruin the image of God, we know the nature of evil. Uh, in John 10:10, uh, and it’s it wishes to steal, to kill and to destroy. But the word destroy, it’s more wants to mar um, to ruin. So I just would want you to put words to, in the broad sense of the word. How did you encounter a world that wished to absolutely erase, to ruin the image of God in you?

Carya
Mm. Yeah, that’s a big and complex question. Um, and in a lot of ways, I’m not sure that I have great answers for how I encountered it in the moments, because those moments were really just about survival. Uh, but then later, you know, in some of the, the, the process, doing the work of dealing with it, I think that... I’m not sure how much I really spoke about this in my storytelling, but the part of what was so challenging for me in some of those years was— Uh, I deeply believed, not with my mind. So to sort of hearken to that mind emotions distinction that we too readily make in the Christian world. Um, but I deeply believed that the image of God in me was fatally marred. You know, I, I believed with all my being that the best thing I could do for the people that I loved was remove myself from the world. You know, take myself away from being a burden. Um. I deeply believed that I was inhuman. I deeply believed all these things. That I knew the theology well enough to know they were not true. So I was simultaneously believing the lie and the truth.

But, uh, for a long season, it felt like the lie was winning. Like I was holding on to the truth because I knew that it was true. But everything else in me felt like a truer truth was that the image of God in me had just been obliterated and would never be returned. I would I would sometimes think about this is maybe a strange analogy, but I would sometimes think about, um, about myself as being like, you know, a dog or an animal, a pet that had been so mistreated and just covered in filth and feces. And it’s like, “yeah, it might not be the dog’s fault, but you don’t want it in the house when it’s like that.” And I just sort of felt that way about myself. Like, it may not be my fault, but I’ve been so damaged that it would just be best for me to be done with the world.

Um, so I don’t know if this is where you were wanting me to go with this. I think I’m expressing more of the sort of the despair in there, but I think it’s also just important to note that I did believe the real truth, too. And God gave me this really stubborn faith to hold on to him and essentially say, even though I deeply believe these wrong things, I am going to hold on to what I know is actually true. And. It it eventually became the case that then I began to believe that I really was someone again. Like, it’s not just a theological truth that I’m made in God’s image, but oh, I really, actually am. Um, well, just slow.

Dr. Allender
I would love to have twenty hours to follow this, so I’m gonna, unfortunately, cut more to the chase. Part of belief that there was still something of the image within you actually created more torture. Um, it may be a teeny bit of grounding, but it only created that much more. So you know what might be viewed by some as, oh, that must be comforting that you still believe that, it’s more like you are, you’re even more crazy. Um, if you could just in one sense give fully into I’m nothing but a degraded dog, there’d be almost a sense of relief. Like, that’s just who I am. But the image of God within you may have anchored you, but actually increased a sense of the inner conflict.

Carya
Yeah, I think that’s very true. Just the knowing this is so wrong and it makes this so much more painful.

Dr. Allender
Well, we’re not going to step into any particularity here, but but let’s just say cults and evil people are, I mean, it’s excruciating to use this word, but they’re brilliant at being able to weave profound degradation, I mean, incomprehensible degradation along with, at times some degree of of touching your humanity. Uh, that is, um, a touch of your face that brings just a bit of comfort or touch of your body that creates some degree of arousal. So the intersection of your humanity with beastly degradation and humiliation and torture, but also creating complicity, that is, oftentimes, uh, the folks I’ve worked with have been forced to perpetrate some degree of harm. Of others, uh, and some again, we’re not asking you to give us particularity of your story, but the reality that it is not uncommon that a victim will be required, um, to, to kill, um, an animal or another child. So what we’re talking about is evil is brilliant at weaving the body and pleasure or comfort with levels of complicity, of cruelty and harm, but also of humiliation, so that there is, in one sense, no square inch of your body that is not violated and used for a sense of annihilation, but also humiliation.

So what I love for you to do is, again, I don’t want you to have to walk into the particularity, but as you hear me say all that, where does your heart and mind go?

Carya
Yes, it you are speaking exactly of some of the kinds of things that I think the language I would use now is that those things were so damaging to my sense of self, the sense of being made in the image of God. Um, I have had some of those experiences that you’ve referred to. And another analogy that that may be helpful is that at in recent years, I was wrestling through some of those things, and the person that I was speaking with was talking about that it was this is sort of a simplistic analogy, but, you know, imagine someone picks up a brick and throws it through a window, and so the window is broken and the brick did it. But of course, the person who’s at fault is the person who picked up the brick and threw it. Totally understand that. But my feeling was, “yeah, but I’m a brick now.” Like I’m no longer what I’m supposed to be now I’m this thing that has been made to cause harm, and that’s sort of my purpose and identity. Um, and it it did just it felt I think that you’ve given some language to how it felt. It just felt like it took over my entire being, um. Yeah. So it just really resonates, like what you’re saying resonates pretty strongly.

Dr. Allender
Well, and again, it’s so important to know that part of our task, even in this conversation, is to name the schemes of evil. We can’t stand against the schemes if we don’t know the schemes. And the schemes you endured are, uh, used, uh, this, this metaphor, you know, with Anne Maree, is it? It’s a bell shaped curve. You may be at the ninety nine point nine nine percentile of of having been traumatized, but evil knows that if we feel in our body some degree of pleasure, particularly with regard to sexual abuse. You can’t touch primary and secondary sexual body parts without sensations of arousal. And yet, if the context of the arousal is also humiliating, um, but also we feel complicit because our body is feeling some degree, it’s like given the level of evil that you’ve had to endure, the notion of adding that there was some degree of pleasure in it, it’s so incomprehensible that it’s almost like, utterly abhorrent to imply that your body would have ever, in the context of that level of evil. But then we’re back to know your body is not a brick, your body is flesh and blood, and God made your body to experience certain things with arousal.

But their intent was for arousal to be bound to such degradation and humiliation, but also complicity. It’s your fault. That again, we’re describing what you suffered at a level of third standard and beyond. But for those of us, including myself, who has a history of past sexual abuse, that’s what my abusers did. Um, and what I can say is, uh, at least one abuse or I would say wasn’t evil, but what he did was evil. Uh, yet the very nature of the people who abused you are evil. And in not just doing evil, they understood something of what your soul and body and your mind would connect with that.

What’s been the process for you? And I know this is impossible, but I’m still going to ask, what’s what’s been the process of coming back to your body’s goodness.

Carya
Ooh, that’s a very challenging question because I would say it’s still one that I’m struggling with. I’m probably— still I probably still locate myself in that place where I know I know truth better than I believe truths about some of these things. And just to back up, just very briefly, what you were just describing and talking about, like I think of the parts of my experience where that pleasure, the body response of pleasure was activated as being like torture because it was so awful. And remembering is so awful, the contradiction between what my body is feeling and what basically everything else in me was feeling. Um, So I experienced what most people would think of as torture. You know, the deliberate causing of pain. But then I think that I think of this as also being torturous.

But so now to come back to your question, I would say that I... I just sorry for the pause there. I just struggle with, um, believing that my body is something that should be cared for or treated with kindness, uh, treated with sort of curiosity and compassion. But I would also say that I’m on a journey kind of right now where I sense the Lord pressing into me that not only are like, not only is it true that I should treat my body with that kind of reaction, that kind of kindness, but like he wants me to. It’s not just true abstractly, but that’s something that he wants me to do.

So I’ve been I’ve been beginning to engage in some things, even just some physical practices, to try to pay more attention to my body, to try to learn how to feel what it feels, which I don’t do very well. Um, but it’s still not at all natural or instinctive to me. So it’s much more often that I have to kind of stop and go, “oh, wait, my body’s feeling something. What might that be? What should I do with it?” “How should I think about it?”

Dr. Allender
And it’s so glorious to hear you say, of course, a part of me wants to say that’s true for all of us until the day we die. But you’re having to do much harder, much, much, much harder work. Except that. Can I. Can I ask you about your love of coffee?

Carya
Sure? I’m drinking tea right now.

Dr. Allender
Coffee’s been very important to you. Hmm?

Carya
Yes. What’s the question?

Dr. Allender
Well, let me just kind of remind you. Do you mind?

Carya
No.

Dr. Allender
You know, before, you know, in in the, you know, fleeing from the context where the cult had access to you. Um, Lynn tells you to take your French press.

Carya
Yep.

Dr. Allender
That was a very interesting part of the story.

Carya
Yeah.

Dr. Allender
So obviously, Lynn knew that you need to take your French press with you because coffee matters to you.

Carya
Yeah.

Dr. Allender
So. And then it. Let’s just say later on, when there’s that freedom with Tara to go to the conference. Um, you’re aware the coffee or drinking just sucks. Um, and so you, you’re free to go into a coffee shop by your self. So it’s very clear— you know, look, I’m a Seattleite, uh, even before I came here, but even now, because of that, like, we are coffee snobs, like Starbucks is like, “are you kidding?” The only reason I’d go to a Starbucks is because when I travel, at least I know, uh, the uniform nature of the lack of good coffee they offer. But we have coffee shops, and we know good coffee. Um, and I’m not even close to the snob that some of my friends are.

All to say, there was something about coffee that was a remnant of the presence of the goodness of God in your life.

Carya
Yeah, I think that’s right. Part of the reason that I hesitated slightly as you began asking me about this is that I don’t drink very much coffee anymore, and I don’t drink caffeinated coffee at all, um, which is a health related thing, but it is true. I mean, I would, I would own Coffee Snob very much that I would rather not have a cup of coffee than have a bad one. You know, I would I it’s important to me when I’m drinking coffee that it be good. And I do think that there’s an element in that, that I would just sort of latch on to, to say that in more recent years, I think I’ve kind of even embraced that a little bit to say, um, “I think that God doesn’t want me to be a glutton or to be overly concerned about food, just as Scripture teaches. But I also think that he gives good gifts, and he delights in my delight in his gifts.” And if I make myself a good cup of coffee, even if it’s decaf and I can actually slow down and say, “this is really enjoyable and I am glad to be sitting here drinking my coffee and looking out my window.” But that is actually honoring to God and is part of what he wants for me.

Dr. Allender
Oh so beautiful. Again, I’ll go back to I love your language and how you put thoughts together, but there has been something about the very nature that coffee brought you, at least in certain seasons, maybe not quite today in the same way, but a sense of delight. And to go, “oh, okay.” The very nature of the relationship that God created with Adam and Eve is one of delight and honor. And that’s the very nature of what evil wants to ruin in every human life, and yours so much more dramatically, yet still the same principle of turning delight into something that creates such horror and taking honor and creating such degradation. So the fact that something in you knew, good coffee is a taste. Back to again what Scripture says, taste and see the goodness of God and the living God was using the good taste of coffee as a reminder. There is, you know, even if you didn’t put words to it, then there’s something good, something good you want and you can create and you can be part of. Is that a fair way of putting it?

Carya
Absolutely. And what it what it brings to my mind, to another coffee story that I think I briefly referred to is that when I was living with the Kutchens, I would make my coffee and then I would take it down, after I’d eaten my breakfast, I would take it down and sit outside near the barn with the kittens playing. And I do remember that as a very I remember that time and often those mornings that I might feel pretty awful. But there was also something really sweet about sitting outside, I have this cup of coffee that I’m really enjoying and I’m really enjoying these kittens play and, you know, just remind me that there’s that God is good. I mean, it’s a small thing, but that I think that that was a very deliberate choice that I was making in that season of there’s not much that feels good in my life and therefore it’s really, really worth taking a little bit of extra time to do this thing that brings some joy.

Dr. Allender
Yeah. And I, I always wonder who will one day sit at the left and the right, uh, of the Son of God. And I think, I think it’s very possible that the Kutchens will be, uh, at the left or the right of our God again. What? I’m sure they would, uh, if they were to hear this, they would just. Oh. He’s exaggerating. Um, right. And like, oh, no, I’m not. Oh, no I’m not. But the reality that they sort of like, maybe you’d like to tend to the lambs. Um, maybe you’d like to be in the barn where life, tragically, no doubt, death. But life in its mewing in its smells. Uh, in the beginnings of the day with a cup of coffee.

Um, what’s your sense of how well they understood what they were doing?

Carya
That’s such a great question. I don’t think I don’t think that they were totally clueless. I mean, they had been involved informally just through church and and other things with helping people. And they, you know, had had gone to some conferences on sort of counseling related stuff. So it wasn’t like they had no concept of any sort of thing about trauma. Um, but they also weren’t trying to be my counselors. They were just trying to care for me. And I don’t think that they had the foggiest clue what any of us were getting into. Um, I think that they just had a really clear sense of “God is saying yes to this, and therefore we’re saying yes to it, and we’ll see what happens next.”

Dr. Allender
Well, and again, we can’t make it a technique. It can’t make it a mere strategy. But there is something so brilliant about, in one sense, having you tend to lambs that needed to be rescued, um, to be in an environment that is so sensual, so living, when even if they didn’t know the particularities of the story, had to have some idea that death clung to you. Um, and so in one sense, they’re intensifying your agony. This isn’t a rescue. Um, this is, in some ways, a slow process of letting your body, heart, mind, soul come into the intensity of the intersection between death and resurrection, between death and life, um, and the level of tender time. Unrushed. I think it’s one of the reasons they will sit at the Lord’s right or left. 

That is just maybe one of the most compelling parts of the story of we’re talking about people who can wait for redemption and not rush. And I’m assuming that’s an element to which, um, you have tasted, well, something even better than coffee. 

Carya
Yes. Yeah. That is the thing that I marvel at the most about the Kutchens. There’s a lot there to marvel at, but their patience, the fact that they seemed not just able to wait, but just unbothered. I mean, they were they were in agony for me at times. I could tell that. And so they wished it was going faster for my sake. But there was just such an incredible sense of, there’s nothing wrong here. Meaning there’s nothing that we need to be doing differently or something that Carya needs to be doing differently. That is sort of the problem or the reason this is taking so long. And so it takes years and that’s fine. I just I just marvel at it. I mean, I marveled then, to be sure, but probably even a little bit more now.

How did you not hit the end of your tolerance for this?

Dr. Allender
Yeah. Well, and again, not to say you didn’t have it before, but it it has to be part of your capacity to persevere and to be patient in process with others because you have seen such a gift of what what they offered that is the kindness of God. Again, I’m always returning to Luke 15, and the fact that the father look for the son from afar, which means he’s patiently sitting and maybe not every moment of the day, but patiently sitting, waiting. And I do believe that is one of the soil of redemption that allowed you the space and time to come back to yourself. In other words, the parts of you that were forced to be prodigal had the opportunity to come back without judgment, without hurry and rush. That again, curious as to how you have thought about Luke 15, in the story of the prodigal and the older brother.

Carya
Yeah, I think that I would probably naturally identify a lot more with the older brother than the younger. Um, not not because I don’t have elements of that prodigalness in me, especially, you know, in the context of the abuse. But I think that that’s kind of how I’m more naturally wired is to to sort of do things right and then to be annoyed when other people aren’t. Um. But I think that the, the piece of that story where the second son, the prodigal son, is so lost and the father is so eager for him. Uh, I think that speaks volumes to me. Just again, going back to how I felt like essentially that I was so lost that. That God couldn’t possibly want me. Like it couldn’t actually be tru that God would want me. What would be wrong with him if he would want me? You know, uh, and so to be reminded that... sorry, just to back up again, I mean, I think the way that I often thought about God again, knowing that this was theologically incorrect, but feeling it strongly... was that he was gonna let me into heaven when I died, sort of on a technicality, like, “okay, yes, you accepted Jesus. So you’re in.” But the no sense of like. But he’s actually delighted in me. He wants me to be there. He’s so glad. Um, and that is something that is I’m experiencing a resurrection there, too, of, like, believing, not just knowing that it’s true that he’s delighted in me, but sometimes being able to really believe it.

Dr. Allender
Yeah. well, I have suffered far less. Far less. And I, and I think somewhat representative of others, um, have a hard time believing that I am a man that others and ultimately God could delight in and wishes and has joy and honoring. And again, back to that framework. That’s what evil in the cultic setting ultimately is wanting to ruin most deeply. Um, the reality of you are an image bearer who is delighted in by the living God and honored with a level of, um, humility that in some sense, the God of the universe takes you in more than godself itself. So you, you know, it’s like, “no, this can’t be true. Ah, it’s a nice story. It can’t be true” And so let’s just say layer by layer, every human being’s having to grapple with this. But because of the level of untold cruelty and suffering, it just, uh, almost again, unimaginable that you have come into any sense of that goodness.

And you talk about how, you know, intending to the lambs that as they grew up, they knew your voice and that it was such a sweet connection of going. “Oh, indeed. Uh, his sheep know his voice.” I’d love for you to put words to what you know, the voice of God.

Carya
Mm mm. Yes. This is something that I would say is possibly the I’m thinking off the top of my head out loud here, but I think this may be the thing that I have grown the most in, in my relationship with God in the course of sort of working through my healing process, is that I would say that I have learned to recognize his voice in a way that I did not know was even possible beforehand. And, you know, this is in some circles of of Christian tradition, this is a little bit of a controversial thing, like, what does it mean to hear God’s voice and how can we know and all these things? Um, and we’ve talked about that a little bit earlier in the series, and I certainly think that, you know, Scripture is the thing that we use to interpret what we think we are hearing from the Lord. But when I think about my own experience of hearing God’s voice or sensing the Lord’s leading, thee primary word that comes to my mind is gentleness. He is always so gentle with me, far more gentle than I am with myself, or than I want to be with myself. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, I was praying about something and was sensing his gentleness and response, and I actually started arguing with him about it. And I literally said like, “no, I don’t want you to be gentle with me.” I can’t remember at the moment what the issue was, but I was so frustrated and I was sort of looking for him to mirror my own reaction to myself. And that wasn’t his reaction. And that gentleness has become one of the hallmarks of how I’ve learned to recognize his voice and I. It’s not a litmus test, you know. It’s not. This is I’m now remembering this as part of what I was arguing with him about is like, how do I know that I’m not just trying to give myself a pass when I think I hear you being so gentle with me, and I do think that those are legitimate questions to be considering, you know, am I just trying to make myself feel better? Um, but but what I am just sort of continually surprised by, but have also learned to recognize as well, is that Jesus always interacts with me or comes to me with a spirit of gentleness, with a spirit of, um, of kindness. And that the way that that I perceive him, that I sense him, even when it’s correction, it’s a gentle, loving correction. Um, and so I guess going back to the litmus test thing, like, I don’t want to say in a reductionistic way, like, “oh, if I think there’s something gentle coming from God, then I know it’s really from him.” But it has become a sense of I feel that I can discern it in my spirit like that. That doesn’t seem like him or that does. Um, and always holding it loosely, you know, open to correction. But, um, I think that’s the thing that just amazes me about him is that he’s so big and so good and so strong and so righteous, but he’s also so gentle.

Dr. Allender
Yeah, yeah. It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And then Paul’s next sentence or next clause says, “why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt?” So you’re reluctance to bear gentleness and kindness. Paul’s addressing for all of us. “Look, none of us know what to do with that level of kindness.” It’s it’s to put it in its most fundamental. It’s very uncomfortable and at some level unbelievable. He is approaching us with that level again of delight and honor. So to step into something of the internal world, you know, as I mentioned with Ann Maree, that the notion of parts that even the psalmist is talking to a soul, saying, “O my soul, why are you downcast?” So there is an inner dialogue.

The cult wanted you to, in one sense, be phenomenally divided in so many different parts. But as I spoke with her as well, that there is a sense in which part of your own brilliance and creativity is allowing parts of you to bear certain things. So rather than going into the did reality, the construct of parts, alters, persons. Um, uh, what I want to come back to is more. How? How do you hear parts? How did you how do you and how do you intersect those parts with the voice of God?

Carya
Mm. Yeah. That’s a that’s a great question. Um, all your questions have been great questions.

Dr. Allender
Uh, except for the coffee. That probably was a little shocking.

Carya
A little bit. But then. Then I got there.

Um, the way that I hear parts really varies, so sometimes I hear them as very clear, distinct sentences in my head, you know, and sometimes that comes unbidden. They’ll just say something, um, and sometimes it’s, uh, a reflection about something that’s even contrary to what I am thinking. So. Like there. I’m trying to think of a good example. Like I might be interacting with someone and just feeling a little uncomfortable and not sure why. And then I might hear one of my parts articulate some particular reason why they’re uncomfortable without me having asked them. And then other times I will ask, you know, “does anybody inside understand? Or could they help me understand, like what’s going on right now?” And so sometimes there will just be really clear answers. Often it’s emotion. So I will feel what they are feeling. And it’s hard for me to describe this but I can tell the difference between it’s them feeling it and it’s me feeling it, even though they’re all me.

And then another thing that’s true, which I. I’m only thinking about this now in the context of what you said about sort of the imagination that’s involved. Very often the way that I interact with and hear from my parts is I actually see them. Which might sound, uh, very weird to someone who doesn’t have familiarity with it, but my understanding is that it’s not all that uncommon. So I will often in my mind, see a little person, uh, that may or may not actually look like me, that may or may not be the age that I currently am. And I will see their body language. I’ll see what they’re doing. Sometimes I will see them sitting and talking to Jesus, which is wonderful when that happens. Uh, but sometimes I’ll see them, like, curled up in a little ball and, you know, shaking or sobbing or something. And that’s an indication of sort of like that’s how they’re telling me whatever it is that they’re telling me, they might not be using words. Um, but it’s like I can see a little person there reacting to whatever’s going on.

And often I will also see them in specific kinds of places. Um, there’s, there’s a, a place that has kind of developed in my mind, a picture of a very well-appointed library with, uh, leather furniture and a huge fireplace and lots of books. And that is one of the most common places that I’m able to sort of go and invite my parts to be there. And it’s like a place where they feel safe and comfortable. So if they are there, then they’re at the very least sort of feeling, uh, not necessarily totally happy, but but willing to engage, kind of calmly and moving towards being willing to listen to the Lord as well.

Dr. Allender
It’s so beautiful. I just want to underscore that for some I don’t question. We’ll hear that and go, “oh, that’s really weird.” Um, but it’s actually the way our brains operate, uh, again, for all of us. All of us. Like, I have a very young part of me that remembers, to some degree in my body being, uh, tied to the garage door because I used to run away as a three and four year old. Um, and that young part that will not be contained. Um, my wife will at times say, you you you won’t let me, in one sense, hold you because you don’t want you don’t want to be constrained. And often that that part of three or four year old will come visually back because I’ve seen photos of my mother having tied me to a garage door.

So what you’re naming is actually how the brain works. But given the severity of the cruelty and evil that you bore, it had to in some sense go broader and deeper and therefore a bit more of particularity, maybe with names, maybe with functions. And certainly holding certain memories that others don’t have to share. So in some sense you’re you’re living what all of us live, but at a deeper, harder and more complicated level, and likely in a world that’s kind of said to some degree. “You’re weird. Um, this is not normal.” This is whatever. So even the therapeutic process, uh, you know, as you describe, uh, tragically, uh, that one initial therapeutic experience. And again, I’ll go back to the Kutchens that I’m so there are there pain on your behalf there, naming and apologizing? Um, my gosh, how righteous and restorative to name bad. I don’t know what to say. Bad therapy. Bad bad, bad therapy. Um, and and yet to give you that grounding to know this is not you, that’s somehow bad-wrong.

Um, uh, this is too big a question for what few moments we have left, but, like, you’ll be in the process, like we all are, of growing to know the internal world and how to live with that with others. Um. I’m assuming this. So you just tell me. But there must be a sense in which you’ve really come to like some of those parts.

Carya
Yeah. That’s true. Um, definitely have a lot of affection. There’s a part that I referred to, uh, who I called Christopher, and that that part is, uh. This may sound odd, but, you know, a part of me that I think really highly of. And, um. Yeah, I feel a lot of respect for that part and concerned for him. I’m in a place right now in my counseling work, where we’re dealing with a lot of things that are pretty deep, kind of core issues for that part of me. And so there’s there’s a very real way in which he’s not doing well right now. And, uh, until I feel concern for that and for him, which, again, I realize some of this might sound strange. Um, so I do I, I have come to like them sometimes they just kind of crack me up, honestly. Um, and sometimes they frustrate me. And, uh, sometimes we all just kind of ignore each other, and sometimes we don’t. I will say that. I mean, this is a, I think, a somewhat controversial and complicated issue, but, um, the process of having parts be willing to essentially, I mean, one term is integration. So having parts kind of come to a point where they’re willing to sort of let go of their assignments and allow me to take over the responsibilities that they used to carry and that they’re able to rest. Uh, that’s not something that I am, like, actively working on as the goal, because I don’t think that’s productive. But it is something that I believe will happen someday, and that someday might be after the new heavens and the new Earth for me. Um, some of it might happen before then, and I would look on that as being a positive thing. Like, I’m not I’m not actively trying to prevent that from happening. I’ve heard stories of some people who are like, they enjoy their parts so much, they just want to keep them around forever. And I wouldn’t say that of myself. Um, but I’m evolving happily with them.

Dr. Allender
Each one is different, but each one is an aspect of you. So in that sense, um, the reality is— I when I work with folks, I don’t work toward integration. Um, you put it brilliantly. That is to come to understand how the different parts of all of us are functioning on behalf of who we are, while simultaneously honoring them, honoring them for, in so many ways, the gift of what they have brought for us in knowledge of the world, of God, of ourselves, and that there are seasons like, well, I’m the father of, um, you know, a forty four year old and a forty year old and a thirty six year old. There was a relinquishing of the role of being a parent, uh, at multiple stages. So when we begin to go, wait a minute, wait a minute, it I’m not trying to make you similar to all of us. All of us similar to you. But there are universal factors here letting go, that is. And there are moments with adult children where I’m like part of the other parent I used to be has to kind of go. The parent I am needs to speak to the parent I used to be, and it’s a literal conversation. Like “Dan said, that this child is no longer in your home. In fact, they just paid for a vacation for you and your wife.” So just that process again of inner dialogue that we are actually speaking neurologically to parts of us. This is not weird. This is how our brains are actually wired to hold memory with a kind of particularity of image, smell, taste, sensation, language that’s different than who we are today. Yours just bears a tragic extremity that you have come to be able to see the knitting of these different strands into a larger whole. So if integration is anything, it’s that the parts are working together and with some degree of honor and delight to one another. And I, you know, can only say that God is a marvel. You are a marvel and redemption is a marvel, and you have been part of that when evil would have wished from the depths of its hideous being, to wish for nothing but thievery and murder, and marring so in many ways what you know, as we come to some degree of conclusion. Um. But This is terrible to ask you, but, I mean, you must be aware that you are a marvel.

Carya
Oh, gosh, that is terrible to ask.

Dr. Allender
I know you can kick me later.

Carya
Oh, I don’t even begin to know how to respond to that. I mean, I do. What I know is that God has done things in and for me that don’t astonish me from that kind of theological perspective. God is amazing and he can do anything. But they astonish me in reality. Um, just constantly. I look around at my life constantly, and I am amazed by what it is, given what it was. Um. And I’ve. I’m not unaware of some of the gifts that he has given me, and I want to be a faithful steward of those. Um, and I hope that that’s part of what I’m doing and doing this whole podcast project. Uh, but I would say that that most of what I see is like, you know, humanly speaking, I’m not sure that I should be functional. I’m not sure that I should be alive. I’m not sure that I should be, um. Yeah. I mean, I’m just on really basic levels. I probably shouldn’t be able to live independently and take care of myself and all these things. And not only has God enabled those things, but it’s like he’s just standing there in the heavens with a bucket of goodness, and he just keeps dumping more onto me, like, yeah, I’m not. I’m not even done yet. I’m not even done yet, you know?

Dr. Allender
Yeah. I mean, again, what you’re describing, even if you don’t like the word are, you are a marvel. And in that there is the sense that in the extremity of what you have suffered. If I minimize, then to say, well, I just have never gone through anything like that. She is such a marvel versus being able to go, you’re a testimony. And in that testimony you’re a testament. You are a promise to the reality that no human being...no human being is unredeemable. Um, and the process is not simple for anyone. But in that there are again, these these creatures like Lynn and Joy and Tara and the Kutchens, and certainly likely more than those figures who are like these shining glories who probably see themselves as just kind of like “I’m just a normal person.” And you go, “oh, give that up. I’m sorry. Give that up.” Because you are this marvel that reminds us we all need, we all need, but we all give. And in the interplay of I’m desperate for the redemption you have known. I never want to have to suffer. I want no one to have to suffer what you have. But I want to become more like you. and I. And for who I am. I’m meant to give what I have received. And that’s what you’re doing through this series and what you’re doing in the other realms that you’re part of. And with all that, all I can say again is thank you, thank you, thank you.

Carya
Well. Thank you. I’ll maybe just end by saying that, uh, when I met you in the context that you referred to at the beginning of our conversation, I knew that this podcast project was happening, and I knew that I hoped that you could be involved in it, but I also felt like I was not supposed to ask you about it, uh, because it was an entirely different kind of context, and it felt like it would be inappropriate to sort of drag this other thing in. And then I sensed the Lord nudge me otherwise, and I’m so glad that he did. And, um, it’s just been a real delight to do this.

And I also hope this is an okay thing to end on as well. I really appreciate the things that you’ve repeated, both in our conversation and in your earlier interview with Anne Maree, making the point that although my experience is an extreme one, it is that we all kind of live in that same world. I think that that that’s been one of the motivating points that I’ve wanted to make, that we’ve talked about a lot, is that I do want the church and the world to have eyes, to see the level of evil that there can be, and to be able to take that seriously and deal with that. But I also want people to just understand that we are all living on these spectrums, and that, as I’ve said many times, I don’t think that my story is only relevant for others with the same kind of extremity in their stories. I think it’s I hope that it’s relevant for everyone. So I appreciate you reinforcing that.

Dr. Allender
Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I’ll just say, uh, not not wishing to then have the last word, but just to come back and say, um, being in your presence is to know something of the wild, wild glory of God.

Ann Maree
And those of us at Help[H]er one hundred percent agree. We’re so grateful to Dan and Carya for this amazing conversation, and hope that our audience have gleaned something useful and hopeful from what they’ve said. Friends, this may have been a difficult story to hear this year, but these episodes have opened our eyes wide to more than just the evil that exists in the world and in our Christian institutions, including churches, seminaries, and in the home—this season revealed more of God, more of his glory, more of his grace, and more about his protection, his ways, his thoughts, and his love. I know that might be hard to hear for some of you going through some of the most difficult times. Our desire and our prayer is that this season encouraged hope, even when the darkness of night descends and threatens to overcome, as it did for Carya.

We’d like to invite you to join us again next season in 2026, when the topic of our Safe to Hope podcast will be on spiritual abuse. We are so very encouraged by those who are willing to tell those stories, and we’re excited to interact with the experts on this topic. If you’d like to stay up to date on releases, subscribe to help her dot help and be the first to know.