So Much More
This is a conversational style podcast discussing every manner of things regarding art, family, small business, parenting, and spirituality. Dennis and Heather have been married for 32 years, which is no small feat, parents of five children, and musicians and artists. Imagine overhearing lots of conversations.
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So Much More
Renaming Trauma And Redefining Identity:Part 3 of our conversation with Jerry Henderson
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Ever wondered how renaming your traumatic experiences could lead to a transformative journey towards self-empowerment? That's what we're exploring today - the potential to reprogram ourselves, break free from negative self-definitions, and aligning with the divine truth - we are beloved. Join us as we tackle the challenge of believing in our worthiness and discuss how our bodies' physical memories often serve as reminders of past traumas.
On our journey towards healing, we'll leverage the power of decision-making and a handful of influential books to help us redefine our identities. We'll break down the insights from popular books like Body Keeps a Score, Man's Search for Meaning, Loving What Is, The Untethered Soul. Together, we'll explore the power these resources hold in redefining our personal identities post-trauma and setting us on the path to self-empowerment.
As we conclude today's episode, we'll invite you to participate in an exercise of growth and self-reflection. We'll navigate the concepts of gentleness in decision-making and underscore its potential to rewrite our narratives. We'll dive deep into the wisdom carried in Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry's "What Happened To You?", and Dan Allender's "A Story Yet To Be Told". Lastly, we'll speak about the profound importance of self-love, understanding God's love, and how it reshapes our relationship with ourselves and the divine.
Rewiring Trauma and Finding Healing
Speaker 1Welcome to season two of so much more , a lifestyle podcast by Dennis and Heather Drake . So much more is a podcast based on our lives , eclectic and inspired , one where relationships are honored and invested in . We invite you to join us as we continue a lifestyle and a lifelong discussion .
Speaker 2So good , you know what I was thinking about , you know what you're saying , jerry , about . You know , in trauma we experience it and then we put a definition on it or an explanation . But oftentimes that was like a 10 year old kid that made that determination . And so now this , I'm a 54 . So the 54 year old man lives under the sentence or the definition that this young child in a trauma made . And so we do identify that those traumas , we integrate them in some capacity or they become part of us .
Speaker 2But that's not hopeless , because if they were wired in at one point , I certainly have maybe didn't realize it before , but have the potential , the opportunity to rewire .
Speaker 2And so you know you and I were talking the other day about , you know , just kind of this revelation that , oh my God , I am just a pile of programming . I'm a pile of wiring that was mostly done by a hack , a very young human that was raised by wolves and didn't know what they were doing . So , and so I think that , presented with the idea that I can reprogram , is both exciting and terrifying , because primarily , I think , only for the brave , I think a lot of people will just go back to drinking or go back to burying their head under some kind of religious basket , and this is really a calling by God and an opportunity for life , and life more abundant . But make no mistake , no one's saying that it's easy . But I think all three of us are presenting the idea to ourselves , to each other and to the listeners that , man , this is absolutely possible , that you can rewire , reprogram this stuff that has trapped you .
Speaker 4And just in the idea of bringing things back to my particular Christian root , is this idea that , since the very beginning , god gave the job of naming things to humans , and sometimes as little people as young people or people that are in experience . When we name things , we name them , things that need to be renamed . We see God coming through over and over again in humanity and renaming people , renaming situations , even renaming geography , and so the idea is that , following in that spirituality , we would also be renamed . And then , ultimately , you know , in the book of Revelation it talks that one time we'll see God and he'll rename us , because , ultimately , we will have never be fully known till we're known by love . And this idea that the renaming is a maturing and so we can go back to those places of trauma and rename them , not diminish them , not ignore them not , call them .
Speaker 4Not to call them what they're not , but to rename them instead of calling ourselves worthless or dumb , being able to go back and go . No , we were inexperienced , and there's a huge difference between someone who's stupid and someone who is inexperienced . We have so much compassion and inexperience .
Speaker 3Yeah , it's so interesting . Right when I became a Christian at the age of 17 , I had so much trauma that I didn't resolve or deal with , and at that time the church's solution was to believe , to pray , to read your Bible and to just make a decision to forgive or to do that . Well , it didn't get to the core belief system or the wiring that had happened in my body . And the church is getting so much better at looking at trauma and trying to figure out .
Speaker 3What does that look like and how to . Trauma is so complicated , right , I'm not an expert in trauma . I'm an expert in my own trauma and the trauma I've caused myself and others have caused me . But I think , as we look at it , it happened for me in a childhood , others it might have happened in a very abusive relationship later , or a horrific event of abuse , sexual abuse or just a life event of a tragic moment or car wrecks or whatever and that trauma , as I was looking at it in my story , is that others you're saying rename when that moment would happen . I made a decision , so I made a decision about myself as not being lovable , and so that then caused me to hide the unlovable parts of myself , caused me to have to try to earn love , and it showed up in so many dysfunctional ways . I think there's a real key piece of going back to that with help , therapy , professional or however that works for an individual on their journey of renaming that or that decision . Right , a person may have gone through a horrible relationship and a person left them and it was the decision I make about myself in that moment is maybe I'm unlovable , right , and I'm going to be alone forever and nobody's going to know how to love me . And then that starts to play out my life by sabotaging potential relationships or not putting myself back out there . Reality is , we're invited back into aligning that traumatic moment and that decision with what God actually says about us that you are the beloved . And so and it goes back to loving ourselves instead of hating ourselves , because our trauma defined us and made a decision about ourselves . What was that decision we made ? I'm not lovable , I'm not enough , I'm not worthy . Well , that's why so much in the power of believing about loving yourself is going back and going no . In that moment , my parents didn't know how to show up for me and my five-year-old brain didn't know how to categorize that , and so I made these certain decisions . I could go back to that moment , make a different decision about myself . It is aligned in love and aligned with what God actually says . And that becomes the difficult part of playing that out in your life .
Speaker 3I remember , as I started doing that , it felt uncomfortable physically for me to believe that I wasn't bad . And then , as I realized , oh , that's my body's memory , that's my brain's highway of neurons going . I'm more comfortable with thinking horrible about you than thinking good about you . But as I just kept plowing through it with my mind , the thoughts I thought , the words that I spoke , and then the emotion that I attached the science behind the thought of not only do we need to experience the thought of what we want to believe about ourselves , but also feeling the emotion of what that would feel like to love ourselves and actually sitting with that .
Speaker 3It's a very powerful force to rewire us , because our brains often don't know the difference between us and a vent happening now , or is it simply a memory I'm replaying . And as I'm replaying that memory , we've all known it right , we've replayed a moment where you've gotten an argument and then those chemicals start to flow back in you , you start to get tense and frustrated and it can ruin your whole day . So your brain thinks it's replaying or happening again . To where ? If I say in this moment I'm going to think a thought of who I believe that I am aligned with God , feel the emotion that goes with that , wow , yeah , and then speaking the words that align with that , it's all reprogramming and retraining , like we said , that big bag of programming that we are .
Speaker 2Some of this is easier and some of it's harder , but I think the practicality is to make this a practice . Thank you .
Speaker 2Because , I was . I remembered something I think like a year ago . I remember being in fifth grade and I remembered one of our teachers had taken a long hiatus for some sickness or whatever . So we had a substitute teacher and it was a young , younger guy and and I remember liking the guy a lot but , but probably being a crazy fifth grader with my other buddies acting silly or whatever we we must have been quite difficult to be in a class with .
Speaker 2I only think that with hindsight , because I remember experiencing the couple of months that that guy was my teacher and then not seeing him for like a year , and I happened to be walking home from school through the college and I was by myself and he happened to be walking in the college the other direction by himself , and I saw him and like Mr I don't remember his name but I'm like Mr So-and-so , it's so great to see you and he goes , dennis , and he started gritting his teeth , dennis , dennis , and he picked me up by my hair , he lifted me off the ground . You know my feet are dangling and I'm a , you know , fifth grader and and I remember it hurts so bad that I wanted to cry . But then I thought to myself . The first thing I interpreted that thing was I must be such a horrible person that when this grown man gets a chance to see me he wants to hurt me . Now , you know , now I'm 54 years old . I look back at that and I think you know I mean the knee jerk reactions , what a jerk he was , you know right . But then I can actually even have some compassion on him going .
Speaker 2He was a college guy that was put in charge of a bunch of fifth graders . No one should have to do that and it must have been really hard for him and he probably didn't have the skills to know how to handle someone like me . And so he handled it inappropriate but so fascinating that probably most of the handling that we had as young people were by somebody that didn't know what they were doing , were new at it or messing up , and we're interpreting that wrong . So that's like a whole stew or wrong , you know . But what I did was that for the longest time it became another belief , another card in the in the full deck of , you know , the royal flush of your garbage Cause .
Speaker 2Obviously , if that teacher whatever his name was he couldn't stand me , to the point that when he saw me and he had his opportunity . He inflicted pain against me . That's the kind of human I was , so much so that I needed to be hurt by an adult , you know . And so obviously we're interpreting the whole wrong and so so that's maybe an easier one to step back as an adult . But I think sometimes you have to set with him a little bit and I think you've said it even ask God what you think of me , ask God what , how to discern even that situation .
Speaker 4I definitely think that we should ask God , but we should ask God , maybe with a friend or with someone we trust , because sometimes God is so angry , because , again , obviously not God is not angry , but the way we , the image we have of God , that God would sit in judgment of us . And then we need a trusted friend or someone , a therapist , who can counsel us and say , you know , perhaps there could have been a misunderstanding .
Speaker 4And perhaps you know there's compassion here and there's love here and there's mercy .
Speaker 4I think one of the things that I keep hearing as we're going around and around the great disservice that we've done to ourselves is we haven't normalized failure and it really impedes practice and impedes the way that we live our lives , because we so value perfection or rightness or the end of something and process and failure need to be something that we are so just comfortable with , and we are just so uncomfortable with any of those particular things , particularly , I think , in the Christian faith , the idea of failing at something and the idea , if we reframe failure , it just means you tried and that's a beautiful thing .
Speaker 4It may not have had the desired result , but you're . The effort is there and that you know , understanding that even with ourselves we may not get to this right away or allow the full process to happen right away , but that the practice and the failing that comes through it , and the practice and the practice and the practice that it does , the process , is already built in to growth , healing all those things . It's in the DNA of this life that God put in the planet .
Speaker 2And I appreciate what you're saying and I absolutely do think that we ought to not do that in a vacuum , but I do . I pushed back a little bit on the because I do think that if we'll trust the Holy Spirit Agreed , you know the Holy Spirit will tell us how to reframe those things , but I think you know that I think , if we look back with honesty on our lives , we thought the Holy Spirit told us to say and do a lot of stuff that the Holy Spirit never said to do . So , but I just do . I do want to challenge on the idea that there there's almost like this really holy part of of just , you know , asking God , I , I , I'm seeing myself in this way what did you see ? And it's , and I've just , I've had such a great experience about him giving me , I mean , and just this , hopeful words that are so kind to me and they feel very foreign .
Speaker 2That's why I can almost guarantee their God , because they were , like , actually very , very kind towards , in a way of looking advantage point that I was unable to see .
Speaker 4I certainly don't mean to say that you only have to with a friend , but I think that if you find yourself stuck or you find yourself in patterns that are repeating , repeating and you're not getting anywhere , then it might be time to bring someone else in and say this is what I'm thinking and this is how I'm thinking it and this is the conclusion I'm coming to , and maybe someone else can help us see something differently or hear the voice of love speak in a way that is
Empowering Thoughts on Personal Identity
Speaker 4gentle .
Speaker 2Well , I think that we gave some pretty good practical things today . I did tease the idea that Heather would share books and I know , jerry , you're an avid reader as well .
Speaker 4And Jerry already mentioned too . I'll make sure they're in the show notes .
Speaker 2Okay , yeah , and they are again .
Speaker 4Well , I'll write .
Speaker 3The one was body keeps a score .
Speaker 4Yeah , and the other one by Victor Frankel .
Speaker 2Yeah , victor Frankel .
Speaker 4Yeah .
Speaker 2And was there anything off the top of your head , that man ?
Speaker 3search for meaning .
Speaker 4Victor man search for meaning . You do have a top five jury of books that have been influential in that , just say , in the past five years .
Speaker 3Oh gosh . So yeah , that's something that if I've got a top five , you might need to give me a beat , because I'm going to have to categorize those in my mind .
Speaker 4Okay , but there's no one else who knows what top five you're talking about , so no judgment here . You can change your top five in 10 minutes , even .
Speaker 2What are the things that you know ? If somebody was embarking on you know you just what we talked about today . You know you gave to thank you for that , and that might not be enough , but if there is anything I always like to do , the Oprah had a book club , and so I think Heather and she are like you're , Oprah . No , no , no . I'm not open to this scenario . My book club would be like Dr Seuss or something .
Speaker 4So Dr Seuss is pretty powerful .
Speaker 2So you guys can have .
Speaker 4Okay , I'm going to give a few of books that I think that you would agree .
Speaker 3Sure .
Speaker 4At least two , loving what is loving .
Speaker 3What is Yep Byron Katie ? Yeah , absolutely . There's Michael Singer's book the untethered soul , or you know , that's just one that talks about the thoughts and the over identification with thoughts .
Speaker 2Oh man , was that ever a powerful conversation ?
Speaker 3Yeah , that that really did unlock some stuff and so just really helped me see that the thoughts are thoughts , they're not me , but the decisions , as you said earlier , we made the decisions about who we are and what we believe about ourselves , which also is so empowering to say I can make a new decision about myself and you say , well , I didn't make that decision , my dad made that decision . Well , your dad or your mother or your ex partner or spouse or childhood event in later in life events , yes , influenced it , may have even transferred it there's the idea of transferred trauma and all of that stuff but I continued to reinforce those stories , reinforce those decisions and because I have that power to make that decision about myself , I also have the power to make a different decision . And that's all . That's some work .
Speaker 2But it's worth it . I know that for me , that conversation that you and I had several months ago has been life changing to me because I so identified with my thoughts as who I am At the minute I had a bad thought , then obviously I'm bad , I'm the one that had that thought . But if you do kind of separate yourself from it in the sense of my soul or my spirit , or the decision maker within me , the one who agrees really has that deciding vote . So there is within this expression I think we've heard in churches forever that you can't help that a bird flies over your head , but you can't stop them from making a nest in your hair , Right , Unless you're bald . Then there's no hope for you .
Speaker 2But , knowing all seriousness , if I know that birds would fly over my head , then the idea is , you know you'll have thoughts , but I . So the minute I had a thought I was defeated . But when we had that conversation , like you know , I am not my thoughts , I am the spirit who decides . Well , no , I disagree with that . I'm going to go ahead and agree with what God says about me . It was just like all of a sudden I at least got a chance out of the gate to win , because I was defeated before I ever started the race because I so owned , that being who I
Exploring Growth and Self-Reflection
Speaker 2am . So , yeah , if you could get some benefit out of that book , by all means I would recommend that you would read it .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , the Brinamani stuff . You know , all is grace .
Speaker 4Anything by Henry Nguyen . You should read all of that . Absolutely , father Richard Rohrer .
Speaker 3Yes , and then there's a great one that you know it's what happened to you and it's one of those really really good books . It's Oprah Winfrey , as well as a doctor , dr Bruce Perry , and it reframes the conversation from like what's wrong with you is what we often ask . What's wrong with you , what's wrong with him ? You know , the better question is what happened to you ?
Speaker 4And not in a sarcastic tone .
Speaker 3Yeah right , what happened to you ?
Speaker 4Yeah , yeah right the idea of that curiosity that says , oh , I bet there's a story here .
Speaker 3Yeah , it's the same question we can ask ourselves right , instead of what's wrong with me to what happened to me , what is my story ? And well… what else would I think about myself with those events in my life ? Or what else would I think about myself in a religious system that says I'm bad , that I'm horrible ? Of course , that's gonna start programming me to think that and that's something that is happening that I can make new decisions about .
Speaker 4Yeah , we love everything that we've read by Dan Allender . He has a story , a book called A Story Yet to be Told , and that idea of rewriting , renaming stories that we tell about ourselves .
Speaker 2It's so funny because these conversations they pivot like a pinball machine bam , bam , bam . But each one of those little bounces have really been maybe long studies or long periods , or even sometimes short periods , but still moments where contemplation and prayer and consideration and study . Because , yeah , we do some research a long time ago with the father wound , with John Eldridge , and all of a sudden he speaks of Dan Allender and then we bump over here to listen and then the next thing he's like absolutely rocking our world to the point where we're I don't know if we'll stop listening to him and never speak of him again or regularly . Let that thing open up , whatever it was opening up .
Speaker 2And so I think , wherever you find yourself on the journey , there are the times where there's a grace to it and there's a time where it's a fight . But it's worth it for you to press in to get the more of the so much more that God is . It's worth it for us to do this . But if it were easy , everyone would walk in it and I think it's not for the fate of heart or the weak of will , but you gotta decide . I wanna be a better husband for my wife and I wanna be a better friend to you , jerry , and I wanna be a better father to my children and I wanna be an awesome grandpa one day .
Speaker 3Yeah , absolutely , and , like you said , it's not easy . But I think the key , even for men I mean for men this is a hard one to be gentle with yourself in the process , realizing that it is hard . And just because it is difficult doesn't mean that you're the only one who's not gonna be able to figure this out right . Shame will end . All this stuff will keep telling you the message Well , that works for everybody else . I had that thought for so many years . That works for everybody else . That's not gonna work for me because I'm different and wired this way , and this happened to me . Now it is the work that we do , and we do it in gentleness , because when we beat ourselves up , our minds and our bodies say I don't wanna go back into that work again , because every time I go into that work with you to try to resolve that , you beat me up and I start to avoid it . And . But if I'm gentle with myself and loving towards myself , I invite myself back into the work instead of resisting myself to go into the work .
Speaker 4There's another wonderful book called the Allure of Gentleness by . Dallas Willard .
Speaker 3You can get to it .
Speaker 4The scripture tells us it's an evidence of the Holy Spirit . So being gentle with ourselves would then allow us to idealize this . This is the presence of God working gentle .
Speaker 2My examples of teachers , coaches , parents were mostly I'm not feeling sorry for myself , it's just kind of the way it was . It was like more of a . You'll get this if I yell you into this .
Speaker 4Very masculine text .
Speaker 2Yeah , and a lot of us have experienced that and so I've dealt with my sons , unfortunately , like that . But it's ultimately again goes back to because that's how I deal with me , and so I think maybe even a year ago we were presenting that idea . What would it be like if I was gentle with the young Dennis or the young Jerry ? Like , how would I treat the young Dennis if I saw him walking ? If there was a time machine and I was walking down that college campus , would I lift him up by the hair and wanna hurt him ?
Speaker 2For years I think I did , because I felt like that . Maybe I didn't really follow the thought through , but I think that reminded me of weakness , because I was little , I was young , I was weak , but I would really want to have that time machine just to hug him . And that's so contrary to how I was raised or what I observed from the way I was raised , and I just think that gentleness towards us . That's a hard thing to do , probably for me at any moment , but certainly for me as a man I could say that and we're so afraid of gentleness because in our minds it doesn't equate with justice .
Speaker 4If I'm gentle , then I'm letting someone get away with that , I'm letting myself get away with that . And if we understand the evidence , or what ? Is revealed to us in scriptures that justice is gentle . I mean not on evil , but on the victim , on that which is good in that it is restorative , not retributive , and we have a lot of retributive theology as opposed to going , what is love offering and what does gentleness lead us into ?
Speaker 3Yeah , there's a great set of books . It's not a set of books , it's a great author , doctor . There's a great system that Richard Swartz , dr Richard Swartz teaches , and it's about internal family systems . Great book by that talks about you are the one that you're looking for how to show up in relationships healthy , but then another one called no Bad Parts . But what it does is it addresses exactly what you were just talking about , dennis , which is there's parts of us that along the way , we've abandoned about ourselves . Right when we look back at those moments of that moment when you dealt with that teacher and you felt a sense of weakness , so you decided in that moment that weakness was something that was bad . I'm not sure if you did , but I'm just playing on that and so what you did was you wanted to . I'm saying what you did , but what a person would do in that situation is to want to Thanks for reading my mail in front of everybody .
Speaker 3Yes , what a person might do in that situation is I want to abandon the weak Dennis . Yeah , okay , but that's not a weak Dennis . That was a Dennis who just needed to be loved and treated in a different way . And so what we do then is we develop protectors , and so I want to abandon the weak part of me or I want to protect actually , I want to protect that part of me . So then I create this piece of me that shows up angry or dominant , because I feel like that protects that piece of me that feels weak . But going back with gentleness to visit that kid and to love them is all so much about what Dr Richard Schwartz talks about in internal family systems .
Speaker 4And also what Jesus invites us when he invites us to witness being able to go back to those painful places unafraid , because we're bringing Jesus with us , but being able to say how should we name this ? What does this look like ?
Speaker 2Thank , you yeah , I know , in contemplation you can you know if you're directed at all in it . You can do that in a practical way , because we're talking about some practical things here
Discovering Self-Love and God's Love
Speaker 2. I think one of the practical things I learned was just asking the spirit what do you , you know , what do you have to say about this ? Or , you know , what do you think about this ? Because I like to play guitar , I play music and I've had a lot , oh , through my life , a lot of people tell me turn that guitar down , it's noisy , you know , you're , you know . So I've had this like gift or something that I like to share , but not everybody wanted to receive what I was offering .
Speaker 2And , you know , through some contemplation , you know , I asked actually kind of a very open-ended question to spirit what do you , you know , tell me something that I don't , that I didn't know about myself ? You know , and I really felt like I heard the spirit Lord say I like to sit and listen to you when you play guitar . And I just wept when I had that thought . That hopeful thought was amazing to me because , you know , it kind of makes sense if he's omnipresent , he's got spare time , because we think oftentimes he's got to be out , you know , feeding all the hunger or whatever but he can be everywhere .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , that's our job , right ? Good point , so I can I can , through contemplation , ask him about those things . And it's amazing like we're oftentimes afraid to ask the question because we say , what ? What if he doesn't answer ? But my thing with people is , what if he does ? It's worth asking those kind of contemplative questions because it's amazing , what an undercover's . And for me it was such a cool thought because I had , because it echoes in my head . People say I want you to turn that dang guitar down to him . I imagine him sitting right in my little recording studio sliding up one of the chairs right in front of me as I'm playing guitar and enjoying being there , and that's .
Speaker 4What does that do for you as a man to feel like you're enjoyed by God , Right ?
Speaker 2right that I'm not despised by everyone , everything which is kind of like sometimes my view about myself and my assumption about other people , and that , because you do , you read anyone's sour , look at their fate . While they must think I'm just , you know , they might have just got a pinched nerve in their hip , who knows , but we read into that always through our story , you know . So what if we could ask these things and begin to address these things ? And ultimately , I think you know the message of today is what if , if you could love yourself ? Just not not that you're saying you'll never change , but right now , what if you didn't change anymore right now ? Could you be loved by yourself and by God , and he's able to ? And what prevents you Other yeah , I mean other than our ?
Speaker 3other than our history of thinking and wiring . And , you know , when I don't like myself , I naturally assume that God doesn't like me , right ? And and then I say no , no , no , I believe God loves me . Okay , I just invite you to like , and that may be absolutely , maybe 100% on . No , I totally feel that God loves me and I have no issue there .
Speaker 3I just had maybe have an issue with myself and loving myself , but then , you know , I for me , I had to look at how I even was having communication with God and my communication with God was showing up more so on the I'm so sorry repentance , you know , and focus it on so much negativeness , because I thought that that's what God was focusing in on about me , right ? And when I think that God is focusing in on all the bad about me , then do I really or I think that I've got to keep figuring out how to please that God I really then think that the God that talks to me that way or views me that way , really loves me ? Because at that point it's more of a conceptual yeah , no , I believe God loves me unconditionally and , yes , I felt his love at times and , you know , it was beautiful , but the overarching theme was that I needed to prove something .
Speaker 2You could quote a bunch of doctrine or a bunch of things that you're supposed to believe , but if you , in your quiet place , what do you really believe ?
Speaker 2And for me , the one of the the you know cards that had to be pulled out of the house of cards that I built myself was , you know , I studied and preached a sermon called God likes me , yeah , and cause obviously he's got to love you , that he wouldn't even be good if he's in love with everyone , but does he like you ?
Speaker 2You know , and so , meditating on that kind of thing and it was funny too , cause I was struggling in this area and as a preacher , you know , you got to prepare and it's I felt so woefully unable to preach and help people with something that I struggle with so much , and but it's really within that study , cause I really felt inviting me well , no , go ahead and study it out , because that what you find out you'll share and what you find out will be helpful to you too , you know , so I did , I just took the journey and and it was really kind of wrestling that idea that he likes you , and a lot of people can't even say that , right , you know , yeah , he loves you , but does he like you you ?
Speaker 2know cause you got to look , you know but when you choose to be around you , and I and I think that the end of that study for me is to find out that he really would for us , right , yeah , and that's , that's a hopeful thought .
Speaker 3Well , and if you think about it , if love heals , then love also heals our relationship with ourself , cause we have a relationship with ourself Right .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 3And how we view ourselves and see ourselves . It heals our relations .
Speaker 4love heals that relationship that we have with the divine right , that we've seen the divine in a certain way or but it also heals our relationship with ourselves and as you look at Christ and how he interacted with people , there's a lot of healing of the relationship between people themselves Think that Jesus really did a beautiful job in showing us what it looks like to live as the beloved , where he's able to , I guess deep in his bones , know how deeply he's loved because he is able to do these incredible wonderful things and have people receive the incredible wonderful things all different ways and never be defensive , and that living in a in a way that you would never have to defend yourself . What freedom that would be if you didn't feel like you were constantly on trial .
Speaker 4Like what if you could live so loved ? And what if we could practice , you know , these embodied practice of living as the beloved . What if everything we did was not on trial ? And that would be , that would be . There could be a lot of joy in our lives , and that I see a lot of joy in the way that Jesus lived , even a very difficult life . Yeah , and there was . He found practices that allowed a lot of joy Table practices , table sharing one of them . Yeah , table sharing .
Speaker 1You've been listening to Season 2 of the so Much More Podcast with Dennis and Heather Drake . We want to take a moment and express our sincerest thanks for the investment of your time and if you're interested in continuing conversation or more information about what we discussed , please email us at somuchmorepodcastatgmailcom . If you're interested in some of the creative projects that Dennis has done , you can find out more information at drakensonscom or find us on Twitter at so much more podcast . We'd love to hear from you .