We're here to unveil the truth about the festive season - it's not always filled with joy and happiness or peace, and that's perfectly fine. We invite you to journey with us as we pull back the curtain on our own experiences and challenges during this time and how we've learned to be authentic with our emotions.
We dive deep into the real meaning of peace - it's not just tranquility and lack of stress, but a more profound sense of wholeness and completeness, or Shalom. We'll discuss how our past traumas can hinder our experience of true peace and why it's important to face our dark moments head-on. We'll also share our thoughts on how to find peace amid turmoil and loss and how you can redefine the concept of peace for yourself. This is a journey not to be missed!
We're here to unveil the truth about the festive season - it's not always filled with joy and happiness or peace, and that's perfectly fine. We invite you to journey with us as we pull back the curtain on our own experiences and challenges during this time and how we've learned to be authentic with our emotions.
We dive deep into the real meaning of peace - it's not just tranquility and lack of stress, but a more profound sense of wholeness and completeness, or Shalom. We'll discuss how our past traumas can hinder our experience of true peace and why it's important to face our dark moments head-on. We'll also share our thoughts on how to find peace amid turmoil and loss and how you can redefine the concept of peace for yourself. This is a journey not to be missed!
Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast.
Speaker 2:We are Brad and Kate and our more than 20 years of marriage. We've survived both dark times and experienced restoration.
Speaker 1:Now as a licensed marriage counselor and relationship coaches. We help couples to regain hope and joy.
Speaker 2:We invite you to journey with us, as we are still becoming one.
Speaker 1:Let's start the conversation. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Still Becoming One. We are so glad that you are with us again today.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. We are just hanging in there, starting out December with the rest y'all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, here's this amazing thing that I'm sure all of you can feel is December rolls around and there comes all these kind of extra expectations around what we're supposed to be doing about like how we're supposed to, you know, get ready for the holiday, how we're supposed to, you know, do extra fun things and all these things, and it's great, but they get kind of lumped on top of.
Speaker 1:Just normal life, all the other things that we're doing and to me it just often is like okay, when am I gonna get to all that right? And I love it.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking today I needed to schedule a whole day off to do some things around the house wraps and presents, all that kind of stuff and I was like when am I gonna do that? I don't even know, right, yeah, it's just yep, trying to figure it out, and it is extra and sometimes that's overwhelming. I don't know. It's exciting too.
Speaker 1:Do I sound like a Grinch because I'm saying a lot of?
Speaker 2:no, it's a lot of everything. This weekend we, in the midst of all of that, some really fun things were happening and I thought about sharing with y'all for any of you that are local listeners we attended the grand opening of someone we know opened a new coffee shop in Lancaster. It's called Kaia Coffee Shop, I think just Kaia Coffee Shop, so if you are local, go check it out. It was amazing. I think I've talked about on here that I love my London fogs and exceptional London fog, so we did that this weekend, yeah that was fun.
Speaker 2:With our youngest because she wants and likes anything sweet or coffee. So it worked and was fun and that was something fun that was kind of additional that we did this weekend. Yeah and it's like it's lots of fun, exciting things, and then it's also it's just sometimes a lot, because it's on top of what you're already doing. Sure yeah and, yeah, I know it's exciting month for us. Our boys will be back home for a little while, and that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for that and although trying to figure out flights back from it is always fun, right we?
Speaker 2:have one that flies home, one that drives home, and yeah, but it's really exciting, like I was just thinking this morning oh, it's two weeks until our oldest comes home and then our middle son will be home a little bit later, but yeah, it's just a crazy time.
Speaker 1:It really is and it you know I want to say there's so much joy and happiness and I think this is a great time to remember those things and honestly, that's what our podcast is really about. This month is slowing down enough to remember. You know some of these emotions, but I hope we also get the point across that it's okay if it's hard. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, because I think a lot of times we put this artificial. You're supposed to be happy or you're supposed to be filling the blank emotion of over this time, and if we don't feel that way, we kind of feel like we have to cover it up and not tell anybody.
Speaker 2:But is anybody ever just one emotion at one time?
Speaker 1:That's deep.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but even when I've had really deep-seated joy, which I do really try to focus on that and I think that it's something that I'm this sounds weird, but I'm pretty good at finding the joy, no matter what, I don't know that I've ever like thinking on it. Remember the time where I'm only one emotion.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:There's lots going on in your life. So even if, if joy is your focus and things are, that's the feeling you have, that doesn't always mean things are going well and easy, and or maybe they're going well and easy in one area of your life and not in another. I don't know. I don't know. I just feel like it's more complex than that. And so when we say it's a holidays and it should be this, that's really hard, because I don't think we're often just one thing.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I think you're exactly right. And you know there's just that pressure and you know you go to church or you go somewhere and people say how are you? And I think during the holidays there's this pressure to kind of be up and happy and joy filled. And you know, whatever all that looks like and I know for a lot of people that's just not a reality.
Speaker 2:Well, and for any of us, I'm sure there are times you've gone to church or gone to a gathering and someone asks that and it's not the answer you to be honest right with that answer you're like I don't know.
Speaker 2:Is this the person I want to share this with? Will they hold it well? Do I want to share? Because there are lots of times in life when people are asking us how we are and the answer is not good or everything's great, right, it's hard, it's hard, yeah, it's hard, and, yeah, figuring out how to navigate that. I actually would like to give people a space, as they go through this advent season, to remember who the people are in your lives that can hold the reality of where you are well, and I would encourage you to be honest with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's really good.
Speaker 2:I think it's hard, but I also think we don't give permission for that, and I think we also, need to like, identify who those people are for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you is like how do you know and you use the words hold something? Well, you know what do you mean by that and how do you know who that is?
Speaker 2:Well, I think people who've earned that trust in your life, that they know that life is complex and that they want to hear both the joys and the hard and they're trustworthy in that. I think Brené Brown calls them a vault like I want to be that for the people that I Love and hold most dear, when they share something with me, it stays. It stays right here between Brad and I. I've always said, like when people share something with me, I I always say, unless it's like deeply personal and like something you just don't share with your husband, I always say, like Brad and I share everything, but outside of that we are a vault, it will go no further. So don't ask. You know, don't share something with me. I'm not able to share with my husband, but outside of that, right, like we want to hold those things really well.
Speaker 2:Holding a well means I take it in, I Listen really well, I don't share it with other people right and then I I do think about how can I Care for you not that it's your responsibility to make it better or to do a ton of stuff, but if someone shares something very deep and hard with me or something exciting, I'm thinking about what it looks like afterwards to follow up with them when. I can, I Want to say I think it.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. Knowing that it's gonna stay put is is a huge part of holding it well. Mm-hmm but I'm gonna say it even goes deeper, because we've had the experience before of Telling somebody you know trusted some hard things going on in our life and and I truly don't believe they told anyone that, but their response was oh, you know what? This situation in my life is very similar, and here's how I got through it.
Speaker 1:Well right, being a vault isn't the only thing, yeah right that that other side of like Holding it well and knowing when to add their stuff in, when not to, had this such an interesting skill.
Speaker 2:Yes, that not everyone has. And the skill of not invalidating. By this is gonna sound bad, but by Saying things like well, we all go through hard times. Yes or well, god was with you. You know, those things are true need to pray more. They're just not what someone needs to hear when they're sharing the hard complexities of life. They just don't help anybody. It actually sort of undermines the trust and the conversation.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, so totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the other thing that's important.
Speaker 2:It just depends on what you're sharing, but I do think it's important to mention, as, as you listeners know, like our, our family is complex and we've had Some struggles and whatnot and we've shared on here as openly as we feel is honoring of our children and and the specific challenges that they've had in their story. And Brad and I do try to Walk that line carefully with people that we open up to in life. Some people know the very In's and outs of Our family and others just know generalities. Does that make sense? So, like we don't share every detail With, but just a few, sure and even that's not every detail, don't get me wrong but only a few trusted people know the complexities and depth of the struggles that we've gone through in the last couple years. But that is on purpose, because we, no matter what, it is our story as well, but it is also some of our kids stories and we feel that that is we need to walk that line of honoring them very carefully, that we're not just sharing their story with everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah so you need to consider what you're sharing, and why as well, and whatnot so?
Speaker 2:right.
Speaker 1:I hope that that gives you an idea, because I think this is such an important part of the topic that we were going to talk about today in continuing our Advent series, in Looking at the second kind of week or second theme of Advent although we recognize. Not everyone does them in the same order right we're looking at the theme of peace today and, honestly, I think this whole idea of somebody holding things with you is a critical part of finding peace well, yeah, we weren't meant to do this alone.
Speaker 2:And, and I think one of the most discouraging things to us is when we are isolated, and Sometimes that's of our own doing. Sometimes it's because it's hard to find people to hold our stories. Well, but isolation doesn't help anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, it's exactly right, it just really doesn't, unless you're sick and try not to get somebody else sick, like it just doesn't help people. I mean, we see it through the gospel Jesus was around people, he was surrounded by community. He did have time by himself, because that is important, but that's taking care of oneself, not isolating because something is going on.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think that being able to be alone is an important skill. It is.
Speaker 2:Right Most people struggle with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of people struggle with it and I'm trying to learn. You know how to do that better myself and I think you know. So there is that side, but you're right, like having somebody along with you on the journey. I think actually leads to a better sense of peace. So yeah let's talk about that Like what is peace, when we're kind of talking about this.
Speaker 2:Well, I think actually, what does the world think pieces, and then what do we actually think pieces? Okay. Because I think it's different. I don't know. I think when people say peace, we need peace or the peace on earth. I think there is this glorified definition that all is well and calm and right.
Speaker 1:So I looked up a definition. I looked for the emotional definition rather than the world one, but right. So it says yeah says peace is an emotional state characterized by a sense of tranquility, calmness and freedom from disturbance. It involves a deep inner harmony and a feeling of contentment, often accompanied by a lack of stress, anxiety or conflict. Oh, what's that like? I don't know. No, but I do agree. I think that is the thing that we're often talking about when we're like oh, I just want a peaceful day.
Speaker 2:Okay, yep, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Like just some calmness, a lack of anxiety and some harmony.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds fabulous. I don't know how often we experience that this side of heaven or Eden.
Speaker 1:No, I think you're exactly right. Like, what we are looking for is what Daynael and I would call a return to Eden Right. Or Shalom, yeah is going back to a sense of peace. Shalom, what Kate just said, is the Hebrew word for peace, and it really means completeness, wholeness.
Speaker 2:Which we are not, and so that begs the openness to redefine what peace looks like for those of us who are not yet in that place, which is all of us on earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, Every one of us is in that space without that Correct. So what is peace?
Speaker 1:This goes a lot into exactly what we often do in our coaching and counseling practice.
Speaker 1:We often work with the Daynael and her idea of story work, and part of that is this idea of peace. And there's this quote that I love by Dan that says each of us was designed for Eden living in a perfect relationship, a state of Shalom with ourselves, with each other and with God. But now that Shalom has been shattered, we are separated from Eden, living in a world marred by brokenness, disconnection and trauma. By trying to protect ourselves in the midst of harm and cut ourselves off from future harm, we create a false Eden, a place where our hearts are hardened to both the reality of trauma and the hope of restoration. Those structures that we turn to like addiction, disassociation, sabotage. They further bind us to our trauma and separate us from the true goodness and delight of living in relationship with others. It's only when we recognize that Shalom or peace has been shattered and that our attempts to recreate it have left us more broken that we can authentically move towards restoration and the promise of deep, lasting healing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1:So, like it is that challenge that man, maybe all of us are looking for, what peace, relaxation, lack of stress look like, but the realization that most of the things that we do to create it probably are separating us from it even further.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would imagine. But I think that when we become cognizant of it, then we can try to walk that tension line in a different way, in a way that we can get as close to some of that peace here on earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you had said when we were talking about this that we often run to numb peace rather than seeking real peace.
Speaker 2:Or thrill or like happiness.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say what do you mean by numb?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, we can start with that, but I think it can be many different things. For people, numb is just like I think the absence of feeling anything feels peaceful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% right, and this is one of the things that I hear, and this is gonna be a bad advertisement for coaching, but what I hear from some of our coaching clients sometimes is this idea of like oh, you know what Things got heavier before they get better because we're no longer numb to the things that we're already holding.
Speaker 2:Or not just numb. We're no longer aware of them and we're no longer able to. We no longer want to. I should say just use the vices that we have developed as strategies and coping skills to deal with those feelings.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so that means we have to kind of engage it yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is tough. It is hard right, like feeling heavy, dark feelings is doesn't feel peaceful, but sometimes we have to go through that. I think all the time we have to go through the dark night in order to get to what moments of peace can actually feel like.
Speaker 2:True, I think even what we would describe to be happy or joyous feelings, often we don't want to feel them either, because, as I said earlier, I don't think we just have one emotion going on inside of us. So to be joyous or happy during this time, there's also a piece of you that has deep grief or shame or all kinds of other things. So I think that it's just too complex to describe ourselves as having one emotion, and so even the emotions that are typically thought of as good can also be confusing and hard.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's exactly correct, they. There's a lot of that, right so it. I've seen lots of people who are like I don't know what to do with feeling happy. I don't know what to do with feeling joy.
Speaker 2:Because happiness is accompanied by uncomfortable or no, you're right. Like I don't know, it's accompanied by other emotions.
Speaker 1:And, to be honest, I think the biggest one is that calm peace of I don't have anything to do. I talk to so many men who feel every moment of their life with noise, with something, because they don't know what to do in times of peace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can. I mean, I can be guilty of that too.
Speaker 1:I think we all can yeah Right, and I think our 21st century life has kind of led itself to that, that it's like, oh, the commercials on, so I'm gonna look at my phone during the commercial or you know, wait, I needed to pause something for a minute, so I'm gonna look at entertainment in order to fill that minute. Like we're just not good at sitting in peace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very true, and so recognizing that, about ourselves understanding that part of it is brought on by our culture and what is available to us.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:But I think it's a human condition, regardless of what is available to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I first had to challenge this. Interestingly, I think I first had to really challenge that for me when I was sitting in a tree stand. Oh boy. Because you know I love being out in fall in the woods. I love all of that and it's beautiful and it's peaceful and it's quiet. Well, when I didn't have a like nine-year-old with me, it was peaceful and quiet, but he was amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, you took all of them. I did at times Right.
Speaker 1:So like, but just sitting and being content with your thoughts and talking to God. And you know, listening and just being present, I think, is a really hard but important skill that leads to, or at least encompasses, this emotional state of peace.
Speaker 2:Right, but you said something there of being content with your thoughts. Most of us are not content with our thoughts. Most of us have a large amount of contempt for ourselves, so our thoughts usually lead us on a journey of, you know, not liking ourselves thinking about things. Who knows? It just usually goes down a track of contempt. So why would anyone want to sit with that?
Speaker 1:Why would anyone want to sit with that? Well, that's a great question.
Speaker 2:I mean we need to.
Speaker 1:We need to, why Right?
Speaker 2:Signing up for that doesn't exactly sound like tons of fun.
Speaker 1:I mean part of my answer, for that is those thoughts, those pressures, those things. They're going to leak out somewhere. So, we either choose to think about them, deal with them, process them, or they're going to leak out in some either unhealthy distractions, or they tend to leak out in either self anger, right Like towards yourself you could eat them away, drink them away, you know, just have your brain be pretty nasty to yourself or pour out on other people that you love in anger, frustration, irritation constantly yeah. Right, they're going to go somewhere.
Speaker 2:They are. They are so recognizing that for yourself and figuring out how to be a little bit more comfortable with yourself and what goes through your head. And if you're not figuring out why, you're not, because most of us are not, but it's very nuanced to you.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:So figuring out why that's such a hard thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, I know I've probably said this before in the podcast. I know this isn't your favorite. To me, I don't think I could get there without journaling, just because I think my thoughts go so fast sometimes that I have to slow them down in order to. Yeah. Hear myself, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I am not speaking against journaling, it's just been something that's a source of frustration to me, not, and it's I have for people being like, well, you should be curious about that. I have like figured out for me it is my hand cannot write as quick as my mind thinks, and then my hand hurts and then I'm frustrated and so. But I have found, with my mentor and coach, whom I love dearly to, I still don't use it all the time. I'm not a constant journal or but a typing journal, and that is much less frustrating to me. So, yes, there is a part of that where being able to get those things out of your body is really important. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of the things, since we're talking peace specifically, I think I think you should be, you, everybody should be curious about what the self things are that are sending you towards numb rather than towards peace, because I think they are different.
Speaker 2:Self things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So whether it's you know activities, that it's like picking up your phone, going to the next activity, you know that that rob you of an opportunity to feel peace. Or is it you know habits, other destructive things, that we're trying to create peace when it isn't really there in that way? So I think the numb yeah. Is our 21st century feeling of peace, but that's not actually very peaceful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's important to sort of figure out how to interact with peace. I think. And I think today also think it's really important, as we talk about peace, to honor that Peace really is living in a broken, fallen world. And if you think about two countries that decide, okay, we're gonna have peace, which we know. There are lots of countries in the world where there's conflict. That peace doesn't automatically mean everyone in both countries is happy with everyone in both countries.
Speaker 2:Right, there's lots of complexities to it, and I think we need to remind ourselves of that in our own lives. So when we are seeking peace, it's important to honor that. That is probably not going to be a state of just joyous content feelings often and all the time. There are gonna be moments, there are gonna be hours, days perhaps, but the reality is it's going to be interwoven with other thoughts, other emotions, other feelings. It just isn't. I don't believe peace is as simple as everyone thinks, that somehow we can get to.
Speaker 1:I love that and I'm gonna even add on top of that that and even how we've been talking about it is it's this thing that we have to do ourselves, and that it's this emotion that we have to bring to ourselves, to and recognize, and I think I'm like many people when I think of a peace in scripture one of the ones that pops into my head is the 23rd Psalm, which is so deep, with this emotion of peace, that we often read it at funerals because we don't know how to get our head around the fact that it's about today and here, but it starts with this idea of the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.
Speaker 1:And there's just such a sense of peace in that. But I think one of the things that's really important to recognize is we start reading at Psalm 23, where maybe some of you need to start reading at Psalm 22, where it is a little bit of a different theme. Right, it is where David is crying out and saying I'm feeling really, really lost. And he's saying I'm just a worm, I'm not a man, I'm scorned by all mankind and despised by people. God, you've cast me out, you don't care about me, you, you know. He just goes on and on about how awful life is, and then we get the 23rd Psalm of peace. And so often, in the midst of the worst turmoil, of the loss of you know, we can't even understand the depths of it. That's where peace often shows up, is in just that place of giving up control and just being able to rest.
Speaker 2:Well, this is really a testament to like we really can't have peace outside of Jesus that's why he came to bring peace to the turmoil. And when we're literally preparing our hearts for celebration of the coming of Jesus becoming a man on earth, and when we think about how he came to us and we sing all of these songs about peace and calm and all of these things, it's really interesting to me because Jesus came as a baby and the story we learn about is of Joseph and Mary welcoming their child into the world also God's son. And there's nothing peaceful about labor. I don't know. I mean, I've given birth to two of our four children, and one naturally and one via an emergency C-section. Neither of those experiences were peaceful.
Speaker 1:At all.
Speaker 2:Right, like even with modern medicine, they're still not peaceful. It's a whole jumble of emotions and I just find it interesting that we sing peace on earth and calm, because Jesus is bringing that peace and that calm, but how he came and him entering into a human life is not peaceful and calm.
Speaker 1:No, no, that's right, and I think that is a great reminder that, in the midst of the screaming and the hurt and the busyness and the craziness and all of the things, there still can be peace there.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:This is not about I need to escape or I need to make everyone behave, or I need to you know any of those things. It really truly is about an emotional state of understanding that you can find, rest that you can take care of your needs that you can slow down and look towards what God can do in your life.
Speaker 2:And that God holds the mess, like we talked about people holding it. I think we tend to think like we need to be at peace for God to hold us. I think God is our peace and he holds the complexities with us. He hurts with us and we don't need to put on this face that everything is great. What we need is to come to Jesus and know that he is going to hold the complexities and that he brings a peace, as the Bible says, that surpasses all understanding. It's not only just about an emotion and I think sometimes the emotion doesn't come along but we just we know that it's his peace that can bring all of this into order and I don't know it can make our lives peaceful in a way that nothing else can, amidst some really hard stuff.
Speaker 1:Really hard stuff, and that would be the biggest message that I would love you all to hear is that we do not need to put a bandaid on something we don't need to just be surface level in order to experience peace this Christmas. In fact, sometimes being messy, showing our wounds and living in the scars is actually the pathway to peace.
Speaker 2:Yes, we tend to, though. When people I think this is another thing that needs spoken into when people share the heart of where they are, we are uncomfortable, and so we try to put them back in their box and say, like we're just-.
Speaker 1:There's some scriptures for you to make it all better. Just lean on God those things.
Speaker 2:But we also, I think, can be really guilty of telling them they are not relying on the Lord and shouldn't be expressed like if they continue to struggle and Continue to have these hard complexities, then they're just choosing to stay in it, they're just wallowing in it, they're just complaining a lot I wouldn't say gossiping, because it's about themselves, but it's almost like that.
Speaker 1:Well, you just refuse just need to give it up, you just refuse to help yourself out of your situation. Yeah, can you imagine somebody saying that to David? Oh, you're just that low and down. You know what. You just need to trust in God more like. That's just ridiculous. All right that we can't sit with somebody else's really heavy junk mm-hmm and Not just go to.
Speaker 2:Well, if you had more faith, things would be better Idea that doesn't mean people don't need to do things in their lives, that they shouldn't just stay in a stuck place, but if you're holding someone, something with someone, that's just really if you are feeling uncomfortable. You need to be curious why yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1:I love that. Excellent. Well, I hope that gives you a lot to think about as you may have some peaceful time coming up in your In your Christmas season hopefully.
Speaker 1:I hope so. Yeah, we would love to hear from some of you. Stop on by to our social media. You'll find us at at still becoming one, and we would love to hear from you on Facebook or Instagram. Yeah, and yeah, we hope that you will check us out next week, as we're going to be talking about the complicated emotion of joy. Hey, so until next time.
Speaker 2:I'm Brad Aldrich and I'm Kate Aldrich. Be kind take care of each other.
Speaker 1:Still becoming one is a production of Aldrich ministries. For more information about Brad and Kate's coaching, ministry Courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrich ministriescom For podcast show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at still becoming one Dot com and don't forget to like this episode wherever you get your Podcast, and be sure to follow us to continue your journey on still becoming one.