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Church Psychology
Mental Health Professionals looking at the intersections of social & behavioral science and the formed Christian life. Visit us for free resources and more at www.ChurchPsychology.org
Church Psychology
Authenticity, Transparency, and Vulnerability in Relationships
Ever wondered how to maintain authenticity while setting the appropriate boundaries in your relationships? We have just the discussion for you. I'm Dr. David Hall and with me is Matt Scheuneman. Join us as we discuss the intricate balance between being open, genuine and still keeping boundaries in relationships. We take you through the concept of three concentric circles of openness and how they depend on safety and trust. We also highlight the challenges of being authentic and wisely protecting our vulnerabilities.
Fascinatingly, we examine Jesus' circles of openness, providing you with an impactful approach to nurturing healthier relationships.
As we wrap up our enlightening conversation, we tackle the delicate subject of intimacy and expectations. Uncover the fine line between being true to yourself and oversharing, and how automatic negative thoughts can affect your relationships and the way you perceive the world around you. We emphasize the significance of reconciliation and forgiveness in intimate relationships and how you can find freedom when reconciliation isn't possible. So, ready to unearth new insights and strategies to better manage your relationships? Join us on this journey towards healthier, more authentic connections.
Hi there my friends, dr David Hall, here today on Church Psychology, we're going to talk about the tension and the balance between living an authentic life in a way that is accurately presenting itself into the world in a way that's truthful, while also balancing, being wise and considering your boundaries. That, the idea that not everybody needs to necessarily see every piece of you, how to discern that in a way that, hopefully, is wise and grounded that's what we're going to give them today. Hit that intro music.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Church Psychology, a podcast of the Nagev Institute. We are mental health professionals looking at the intersections of social and behavioral science in the Christian life. Please connect with our free resources in our open community library at ChurchPsychologyorg. We would be grateful if you would follow, like or subscribe to Church Psychology wherever you're finding us, and also leave us a review as we start. If we were to love the Lord, our God, with all of our mind, it makes sense to work on our head space. Let's get to work Well. Welcome everybody to the Church Psychology podcast. My name is Matt Schooniman. I'm here again with Dr David Hall. Hey, david, hey Matt. Great to be here. For those who are watching online. You're in a new space. Hey.
Speaker 1:I'm recording from home today. Hey oh, you know, it is my cat. May walk in at some point and be put out that I'm not giving her my full attention. That's okay.
Speaker 2:This is the second time we've talked about cats. Some people do. Some people like cats. That's true.
Speaker 1:That means you're not one of those people. That's okay, that's okay. So back to the brain and Jesus, yeah well you know, that's what we talk about, but we welcome you all to our conversation. Yes, here's what we're going to talk about today. Yes let's hear it. So there's a phrase that Matt introduced me to because it's one that he uses in therapy and it's one that I've started to use in my own therapy sessions. But it's funny, you pick up different things.
Speaker 2:Either you take a class or you read a book, or you hear somebody say things and it's interesting to you know, it's a really sticky concept to you when you find yourself as a therapist, when you find yourself weaving it into your therapy sessions a lot, and well, yeah, and you start seeing it kind of come up and I don't know if that's just from exposure, but the conversations you're not just forcing it in there they come natural because it's relevant to me and this is a relevant thing that a lot of people are struggling with, kind of relevance. Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's to the point where I was trying to talk about this thought that the other day with the client and I couldn't remember the exact phrase theology and I had a text man while I was in session and just told the client like hey, wait, he'll get back to me in a second, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's funny. But it's, the phrase is, and it relates to this idea of how authentic or how present we are with people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, open.
Speaker 1:How open we are in to to use a phrase that was bigger in the early odds, how real are you keeping it? And the phrase that that Matt uses is this idea of kind of it's kind of three concentric circles, of considering how you interact with the world. And the phrase is being authentic with all, being transparent with some yep, and being vulnerable with few yeah. Unpack that some first.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know where you picked it up. I first heard it from a friend and a colleague at the church I work with. Her name's Katie Neely, and we do a podcast for the church there called the open door, and we were talking about it in that context and it just stuck with me as such a helpful tool to use with people, especially in this day and time, as I've worked with a lot of young adults it's not just with young adults, but I've noticed with some of the young adults I've worked with that they struggle to know how connected they should be with different people in their life, and so it became a helpful tool to kind of give freedom, I think, for people, to put people in different levels of openness based on, I think, factors that are as simple as not simple, not easy, but simple as safety and trust that we as beings are not capable of fully being safe and trustworthy around everybody.
Speaker 2:I don't think we're even called to that, even scripturally, and so we may dive into that a little bit here in a minute. But then I wanted to kind of, we don't also want to be ingenuine or lie to people, because we're also called not to lie, and so, like, how do we format the openness in that? And so, with those questions in mind, when this was given to me, it helped me put things in a frame of what to give other people, of how to engage relationships from these different levels, and so I'll try to explain it without using just the words of the. You know, when you like, you're like what is being fearful mean? Well, it's to be fearing something you know it's like you can't use the words that the word is Anyway.
Speaker 2:so with and some of these words kind of when, I would assume, as people hear the words authentic, vulnerable, transparent, they're like well, they kind of all mean the same thing and to some level they mean similar things, but I think they do provide angles of like. How much do you give the person in those three circles? So, with authentic, I can be authentic with all what and what that means is like if someone I see, maybe in a church hallway that I don't know very well, says, hey, how are you doing? You know, at times I may say, well, I'm all right, you know. Or if I'm doing well, be like, yeah, I'm doing good.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily say why I'm doing good, Maybe to some level. If someone says, hey, are you okay, and I obviously look sad, I may. I may say like, yes, I actually I feel kind of kind of down today, but I really appreciate you sharing. They may have a follow up question, say, Well, what's going on? I may be like, Well, I don't really feel like talking about it now, but I appreciate your concern. Like that's authentic, but I'm not giving everything away, right, Well, let's talk on on that for a second.
Speaker 1:On the authentic, because this is depending on your cultural context. That's true, this can be really tricky. There's certain cultural contexts that directness is much more valued and in other ones plightness is. I was a niceness if you nice. Yeah, matt and I are in the you know, the southern United States and there's there's often kind of talked about this this sense of you know it's important to be polite and well mannered and sometimes that can, by necessity, be a little inauthentic or feel a little inauthentic at times. Right, it's not exclusive to our cultural space. I have several friends that are English and it's funny kind of things. There are even phrases that to me, if, if you bring for the English friends I know, if you cook a dish for them or you show them a piece of art or something like that, and they say it's quite nice, that means it's not good. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's quite nice and it's the and it's an insult.
Speaker 2:Okay, got it yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not. It's that's not a good thing for it to be, and it just you know some of it if you're culturally aware of either where you are or where you're coming from or the people you're speaking into. They're cues and signs you can look at. And what's hard is in English we have this word friend, and to say that somebody's not your friend implies a negative view of them. But what's difficult is in a lot of other languages friendship is the word itself implies a certain level of exclusivity. The most descriptive way I could describe so many people in my own life is I have a lot of people in my life that I would describe as pleasant acquaintances. But to call them that that sounds cold. But descriptively, that's what it is. They're not truly a friend in that they don't exist within the sphere of my life where there's intimacy, exchange and things like that.
Speaker 2:Well, what you just said was an important phrase that I think we need to highlight is intimacy exchanged.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times people look towards friendships as and this is tricky too, because there's a cultural connotation as it relates to Christianity, to where we are called to do unto others as we would happen to do unto us the golden rule, and so we try to approach relationships and sometimes they've even counseled this way to treat the relationship as you would want it to be treated, in a sense of not expecting them to necessarily give you that. Now there's a difference between expectation and the reality of what is happening in the relationship. I think you know that a relationship can be vulnerable. So if you get to the for skipping transparency for a minute and getting to the center circle when intimacy can be exchanged, right, it's not just the one way place of like. I can give all this. Now we have this unique opportunity as counselors to play the role of an intimate friend or vulnerable friend with somebody and I use that friend term lightly just because it's not truly friendship but they are giving us very intimate, vulnerable things.
Speaker 2:I'm not exchanging them with them, yeah it's a unidirectional relationship and so I can't technically be within their small circle. I can maybe play a part for a season, but I can't be one of the few that is in that circle. It has to be someone that can have intimacy exchange. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that that was a really good phrase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's another way that I would think to describe it being authentic. Besides like, being authentic is authenticity? Yeah, exactly it is. I think it's this idea of a deliberate way of being in the world that doesn't engender deceit. I am trying I'm not trying to mislead or misguide. I'm trying to show the things that I show accurately, right, but that does not necessarily mean I show all things or everyone's entitled to all things, and this is something that I've experienced in the work as a psychotherapist that I've become very sensitive not always to my credit, but I've become very sensitive to what feels like demands on my emotional space, because you do it for a living and requires a certain amount of energy and focus. And then I'll be out in more casual social situations, and I've maybe even given this example in the podcast before, but there's a. So Matt and I work in the same office. We are next to a grocery store, whole Foods Mart, which is a great to make healthy choices, not great on the wallet. Give a little, take a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1:And the grocery opens right as I was moving into this building and there's a person that's worked there. This person has worked there since it. I don't know if anyone else has been there as long and if this person is working to register, I will go to great lengths to avoid going through their lawn. And here's why. This is not an untying person, this is not a, but this person feels intrusive to me and, given that a common sort of thing in the cultural space that Matt and I inhabit, if I am going through a checkout line at a grocery store, a certain amount of chit chat feels like someone's saying, oh, you're having a good day or anything else I can help you with things like that.
Speaker 1:It's a yes or no question. It's one that I can decide how much detail I want to get into. Probably have with this person is this person will ask me more probing questions, and a typical one that they'll ask is so what do you have going on today? And I will give Work. Yeah, I'll give a very minimal deflective answer, be like work or not much. And then this person will ask a follow up question. Be like oh, so what is that much looking like for you today and immediately? As far as I'm aware, I've not been unkind, but internally, my mind goes, I don't want to talk with you about this.
Speaker 2:I don't know you.
Speaker 1:And so that's kind of the most superficial level of relationship and, because of just the nature of the world, so many of our relationships end up having to be like that. They don't have to be inauthentic, there doesn't have to be deceit and we have to make decisions this idea of sometimes people will ask things and this is something that I think will cut through all three levels, and this is something that definitely affects, I think, the work that Matt and I do, and I definitely think about it in couples' work and family work. Sometimes people will ask to something that they are not necessarily entitled to or they have not necessarily proven safe for that information they want to be let in. Right, and there's definitely stuff we can unpack there. But to put a bow on at least my perspective, authentic it's this idea of without deceit. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be deep or detailed, right, yes, but I am living in a way that isn't engendering falsehood. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a really good way to put it, because I think that people struggle, whether they say it out loud, that I think that deceit word is something that people don't want to be. Now, the other way that I think that I've used is, in a sense, they want to be people of integrity, which is, in a sense, to say, aligning what is on the inside with what's on the outside. So how I feel with what I project. If I were to say I'm doing great, like this other niceness, like inside I'm having turmoil, I think it kind of adds to the turmoil, you know, but and so it's holding these boundaries, I think is another way to put it of I don't find you yet and it's not unkind to say this, I don't find you yet as someone I know to directly say to someone maybe, but like internally, to, it's the cultural issue.
Speaker 1:yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the cultural issue, but I think that to inwardly process do I trust or feel this person is safe is fair to assess. It's actually healthy to think about.
Speaker 1:To go back to church culture sorts of things, and I think that is can be an underlying sort of thing that happens in a lot of church culture spaces that you know we're brothers and sisters in Christ we're in this together and oftentimes that becomes a challenge to saying that because of this community we're in, because we're living this shared life, you need to not assess safety Right. You don't need to not assess that. Basically, we need to treat everything on the same level.
Speaker 2:Yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 1:That's not scriptural. I mean. There's several different ways that highlight this. I think the one that came the most among me was Proverbs 18, 24. The translation I'm looking at is a man with many friends may be harmed, but there's a friend who stays closer than a brother. Another translation I remember learning was a man of many friends comes to ruin, and it's this idea of if you were open too widely, how might that expose you in ways that doesn't represent wisdom?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's non-discerning. Yes, it's risky. I mean it's bad risky in the sense of I think it's where people get burned a lot. And you know, back to the young people that I've worked with is our culture, at least in where we are based on, where they were either erased geographically or through the church, but especially, too, within the context of our, you know, tech culture, where it is celebrated to expose all the good in your life. You know, like you share everything. If I have a thought, I share it. If I have this picture, I share it. You know, like there's a level to which I think even our tech culture, through social media, has promoted an aspect of openness that is unhealthy. I'm giving everything to everybody and sometimes it gets to a place of. I'm sharing a lot of really deep things that are reserved for maybe different layers that are not appropriate for the social sphere.
Speaker 1:Well, and it also breathes in authenticity, as you're talking about. It comes to mind because there's this pressure to share good things, and so people will oftentimes, in this desire to overshare, they will over curate their life, and so they'll be very vulnerable, but not necessarily very authentic. You know a metaphor that's come to mind, matt, as we continue to talk through the levels of authentic, transparent, vulnerable. I've thought about the idea of a house, and the first level is it's a house that you're on the outside of looking at and the shades are drawn and you can see the windows, you can see the brick or the siding or whatever it is, and so the house is not trying to pretend to be a car or a barn or something like that. I see that this is a house. Transparency may be where you know there are glass doors or the window shades are open, you can look in. It's in, you know, and not just in a creepy sort of way, but like there's an invitation to look in. Versus the last bit, vulnerable is actually being invited into the house.
Speaker 2:That's right yeah.
Speaker 1:You know to go sidestep a little bit of what this is like for Matt and I and our work as counselors, because it is there's so much of what we do. That is strange, that it's we engage in this, though vulnerability in some ways with people, and that our clients often are deeply vulnerable. Right, but it's a unidirectional relationship and we are also existing for our clients in ways that are set apart from their normal lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We don't inhabit the spaces of being their friends or relatives, or I mean that's against our professional rules to be these things. And oftentimes, in the work that Matt and I do, we are walking with people, sometimes being read into parts of their lives that they have not shared with anybody. But even then, even as intimate as the relationship is, even that's qualified, I don't mind. My clients, I don't believe, owe me. They don't have a duty to share absolutely everything in their lives and there are lots of things about them that I don't know. I am unaware of the positioning of birthmarks on any of my clients outside of what would be, because that's something that's up in nature in my relationship with them versus if I was their primary care physician.
Speaker 1:It made more sense for me to know that, and so sometimes it's also the nature of the role and you look at that there are things I will share with a male friend that are different than what I will share with my wife, and it's not even necessary that I am less genuine or vulnerable with my wife, but the nature of the relationship leads to transparency in different ways, and so it goes back to this global thing of thinking about boundaries, and oftentimes where I think church culture gets really unhealthy is this idea of being authentic, means this full extreme of that you live without any discernment or boundaries of use in why and what way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, and I think that's been again for those listening as you're. Probably, if you disagree with this, we'd love to hear from you, and so please let us know. But also, you're probably sitting there thinking, well, where do I land on this? Maybe it's even where do my friends land on this, because likely you've grown up in cultures who have indoctrinated you into different levels of this. Maybe it's been to the place of authenticity means I have to be totally open with everybody, but then that burns me, and I think that's sometimes where a lot of church hurt comes from.
Speaker 2:There is a total openness of your life, but not the safety and trust or even the exchange of intimacy, as you said before.
Speaker 2:That then hurts people in the process, and so my encouragement would be, as we continue to talk about this is to think about in your own sphere of friendships or relationships, even if it is to list them all out and then put them in those spheres and to see who is where, and is it truly for you authentic to all?
Speaker 2:Vulnerable or transparent to some, vulnerable to few? Because I think that at times we may have it like well, I don't know if I have anybody in my vulnerability sphere. I've counseled people in that and I've encouraged them at times to like all right, take the people in your transparent circle who there could maybe you engage into this process to even openly be vulnerable with, because there is where you can start the process of saying how can I move people between circles? I would caution against taking someone in your authenticity sphere who's not yet in your transparent circle. I keep using different phrases, but I would hesitate to take an authentic relationship and move it straight into vulnerable because you have to kind of you move in ways to build trust and safety, and that takes effort and time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's. I want to give an illustration to what Matt's talking about but also to maybe give a little permission. So we've talked about it and I'll speak to how I would define this in my own cultural space. And I do want to highlight that I inhabit a certain cultural space as a white Southern male in Eastern Tennessee. There are conventions and rules that I kind of work in that don't necessarily translate this across, and so think about this, of how it fits into where you are and it may be different.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the whole question of how someone I'd see, someone we'll talk about being at church, someone that's in the outer most circle, it's someone who I want to give authenticity to and they ask me hey, how are you doing? I want to respond in a way that feels authentic and I'm like, I'm okay and in my speak culturally, that communicates. You know, maybe not the best but I don't want to complain and you know it's coded but it's culturally relevant because I don't want to be like, oh, I'm 40. We talked in an episode past about spiritual bypass. I don't want to give is like no, the Lord just carrying me in ways that are don't necessarily represent my heart.
Speaker 1:And I want to be authentic In my transparent circle. This is somebody who they live in my life in such a way that they're going to see more, and I you know these are people. My wife has recently gone through a medical procedure where she's been in recovery process and we set up a carrying bridge for that, where giving updates for people and it was something that people we let people into that weren't in our authentic circle. These are people that were in our transparent circle.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a good example of that.
Speaker 1:Yes, and because we wanted them to see. You know, because these are the people that we felt the exchange of intimacy was appropriate, Like, hey, this is something going on in our lives. We appreciate you all knowing, we appreciate you all praying, we appreciate the support, and that's a wider circle.
Speaker 1:And then the last bit, of course, is these are the people we truly bear our hearts with, but it's a small group and so hopefully that illustration may help. And the second note I wanted to make was on this idea of permission, and here's a key permission in this Oftentimes we feel, or we believe that, in talking about these concentric circles, that having somebody in the innermost vulnerable place is that we owe that to people in our lives, based on the role of who they are, as a parent, as a sibling, as a pastor, a spouse Right, and this is, you know, if you disagree with this, don't come to me, talk to Matt.
Speaker 2:But here's what I would say. It's called info at churchpsychologyorg.
Speaker 1:But I will. As a therapist and as someone who tries to walk as a, a faithful believer, this is what I would say. You can have deep regard and respect and honor for somebody in your life, but that does not mean that they are a safe person to be vulnerable with. That's right. Yeah, I walk with people that their parents do not fit into those. Their parents may not even fit into the transparent place. I do believe that there is duty to care and honor in those relationships, but that does not equate that I can share all these things with you. I know people in their marriages. I do not believe that that is the call to marriage, but we work with people in that nice work. We are in sometimes some triage places with people in their marriage and their spouse is not going to be a kind person, a balanced or safe person in that vulnerability.
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Speaker 2:The thing that is relevant to your call for permission is not necessarily what I hear you say is a permission for the season. Yes, it's not a permission indefinitely to say, well, because my parents or my spouse or my pastor has hurt me, that I can now indefinitely keep them in the circle of authenticity, or even at times, if I'm honest, I want a fourth circle of disconnected cutoff.
Speaker 1:I would agree with that. I would agree with in. Like all things are quite, I think, with your spouse, you always want to be living towards that great vulnerability, but in the season that may not be, and maybe a long season, but I do completely agree with you that that cannot then therefore become an excuse to be avoidant of dealing with some things that should be dealt with.
Speaker 2:This goes into more aspects of conflict resolution, which maybe we'll do an episode on that soon.
Speaker 2:I think that there's a level to which this plays out into that verse of as far as it depends on you live at peace with everybody.
Speaker 2:There's a call to If there's conflict or there's rupture within the relationship that has created a lack of safety and trust, and maybe you've had to push people outside of circles to assess, especially with these important relationships that are bound to a new way it's not just this random person that you've known, but this is your spouse, like that type of thing to pursue it and assess what broke, the safety and trust. How do we reconcile that if possible, and then how do we repair so that we can build safety and trust back. And that brings people back into different circles and so again, that's more conflict resolution. But I think for the person is to recognize okay, I have to keep them there for a little bit, based on the safety factor. How do I start moving them deeper, closer to me? What do I need to do that? Maybe it's to see somebody, maybe it's to talk it out in a way with a third party, but to look at that and analyze it.
Speaker 1:Last bit on this is because you talk about as different people are in different parts of the circles, that people sometimes in the season of life sometimes move into different places. Sometimes somebody who's in a more transparent place in your life doesn't stay there and it doesn't necessarily come from a rupture, it could just be seasonality.
Speaker 2:I think that I mean, yeah, that happens a lot with the transient nature of young adulthood. You graduate from college I was just talking to a guy about this and he's grieving the loss, I think, of these deep relationships he's had in college. But because of the transition of jobs, the moving, I think in a way he's noticing these relationships change, and not necessarily all for rupture reasons or break of safety and trust, but that naturally one lives in different cities now and it's harder to be in contact with that person and that's hard. Change is hard like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's grief, and grief is often an appropriate, natural response to the loss that happens and change. We sometimes think that if we live our life the best way we can, the grief is avoidable, and it's not always. But to get permission is not necessarily try to force things, because by the nature of these concentric circles they get smaller. You could only live with so many people in the transparent space and be a healthy person.
Speaker 1:You can only live with even fewer people in a vulnerable place, and I do want to give a quick personal anecdote. It can move in, not necessarily just in one direction, it can kind of go in and out. I try to not give names, as I'm talking about things that may come across as less positive. This is more positive things I'll share.
Speaker 1:A friend named Ben and Ben and I were really close when we were in high school.
Speaker 1:We became friends in high school and he was one of my closest friends, and we actually had a janitorial business together in our late teens and we'd have a lot to, and our friendship was based on certain shared phase of life, certain shared interests, and it just kind of grew apart over the years, and some of it was that there's never a rupture.
Speaker 1:But his life took on different focuses. My life took on different focuses. We lived in different places and kind of things like that and what I've noticed, though, but he's someone who's stayed in my life and, as we're in our 40s now, he's somebody that I would consider him closer at this point, and it's not necessarily because we talk all the time or things like that, but I have a deep level of trust with him, and some of it comes from the years he's been in my life, that he's been in that authentic place. That's not necessarily in the transparent or intimate place, but he's been in that authentic place in a way, and our seasons of life have converged again in a certain way that he's somebody that if I was creating a short list of who I would reach out to in great need, he would be on it and I would want to be on that list for him, and so I think there's Anyway. But to go back to the verse in Proverbs, not everyone has to be your best friend.
Speaker 2:That's right, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:And in Matthew, jesus in talking to disciples I believe this, matthew 10, 16, it's talking about sending his disciples out, but hold on, sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, to be wise as circums, as innocent as doves. And the call to wisdom is this idea of discernment. You're supposed to assess and discern the world around you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's good. Even as you mentioned Jesus maybe I think there's another verse or passage in which we see this from him but just reflecting on his life in general, he had similar concentric circles in the way he related to the people in his life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are the crowds, there's the crowds. There are the crowds that would be your best friend and they were actually considered his disciples too.
Speaker 2:I mean, they weren't just random people, but they included everybody from Pharisees to disciples, to curious Greeks. They were all of them. They were following him around and he was authentic to all those people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you kind of move into his core group of followers, the men and women that were his followers. There were the 12 that he invested in two different ways and he talks about in giving himself in a certain way to that, that. Trying to find the verse it is Now it escapes me the one specifically but basically, where he tells the 12, everything that the Father has given me I'm giving to you. But even within the 12, there was a small. His smallest circle was the three, was James and John, where he showed them things differently early on. This is told in the three synaptic Gospels, but the raising of the dead, of Jairus' daughter, and in two of the Gospels, in Mark and in Luke, there's in raising her, he says to them do not tell anybody, which includes the other nine. And the same thing. It's the same people that witnessed the Transfiguration. They are let into an aspect of Jesus' power and its deity that were not seen in that moment.
Speaker 2:And his grieving.
Speaker 2:They were the three that were a part of the Garden of Gethsemane, where he was desperate I mean desperate is a strong word because he is Christ but he was deeply desiring their attentiveness, to be with him in his suffering, continuously calling them to pray with him only if stones throw away to hear his weeping and crying and despair. Yet they fall asleep and the disappointment that he has with that and the call that out of them. And so all of that is there's a reason he invited those three and not all of them.
Speaker 1:And it was a vulnerability, and a vulnerability that even wounded him, because that's the other thing, too, which you still have people in it. It doesn't necessarily mean that that vulnerability is always the same. To go back to the verse I was trying to think of, it was John 15, 14 through 16. And this is to the 12,. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. I've called you friends because I've made known to you everything I've heard from my father.
Speaker 1:And so Jesus had this discernment process of certain people come in different ways and certain people are shown different things in different times, and even for the this was a sermon I heard fairly recently and because sometimes certain disciples get a bad rap and one of the hardest ones is Thomas. He gets known as doubting Thomas, but in the story of Jesus and the resurrection with Thomas, part of what he's asking is when he's expressing his doubt to the other disciples. They all have seen Jesus and he hasn't. And they saw him when Thomas was out. I think he was getting food or something like that. They were carrying hiding in the upper room and Jesus showed up. And so we give Thomas a bad rap, but he wasn't given what the other disciples were giving us. But when Jesus appeared to him, you Thomas didn't push it. Because what Thomas said was if I can put my hands in his side and it touches wounds, then I'll believe. And Jesus appears and says here I am and Thomas doesn't go okay.
Speaker 1:He goes with it Before Thomas gets known as a doubter. But in there it's not necessarily favoritism, I think, because I think there is deep love and calling that in Jesus' ministry that he has for different people. It wasn't necessarily these three are my favorite, but these are the three that I am vulnerable with in this way, even to my cost.
Speaker 2:Well, in that vulnerability, to carry that thought on a little, at least two of the people that are part of that trio is John, who wrote one of the more powerful not they're all great Gospels, but the one that actually was written later has such like power behind it and relates to its impact on kind of the Greek world moving on. And then Peter, who was the foundation of the church as it went on and as much as they disappointed him or let him down, despite amongst his vulnerability, he used that to bond deeper with those. Obviously John's writing the Gospel but calling him I don't figure out the phrase now beloved disciple, disciple of the Jesus loved, just such intimate language as it relates to his relationship to him. But then with Peter, one of the biggest let downs or hurts, or even, if you want to use the word, traumas of Jesus in his relationship is when Peter denied him.
Speaker 2:But later Jesus was so beautiful in John as it's written, peter denies him three times, jesus gives him three times to acknowledge his love for Jesus, and then Peter gets the calling of feeding and tending to Jesus's sheep. And so there's such beauty in the reconciliation of rupture within the people that are in the intimate circle that then drastically changes those lives. Now obviously that's all Jesus doing this, who's perfect in all things, and so it's hard for us to attain that type of repair from a rupture. But, as you were saying, it relates to even people in your intimate circle have the propensity to harm. Jesus was well aware of that harm but I think also showed us avenues to repair in what that does.
Speaker 1:So, as we're considering these things, I want to maybe kind of, as we reach towards the end of talking about some of more of what this looks like too.
Speaker 1:And our work is as therapists you oftentimes we're navigating in any sort of relational work we're doing couples work, family work, and sometimes it is people are trying to navigate that level of the different levels of intimacy and expectations, and we deal with a lot of culturally informed false beliefs about so many relationships. Met talked today earlier about how social media culture has kind of created this idea that I kind of lay out my entire life and by being fully, by letting everybody see everything without qualification. That's me, that's somehow virtuous and it isn't necessarily. It can be conceded, it can be unhelpful because there are things that people are not necessarily entitled to know or should know. When I'm doing working with couples, and particularly if there's some difficulty that they're working through, I will often encourage them to find confidants outside of their marriage, even if it's a shared thing. I think of work I've done with couples struggling with infertility and that's a very hard thing because you're in it together and it affects you different ways.
Speaker 1:And it is good to try to be able to be authentically present with one another, but it's really hard to bring all your vulnerabilities because it can be the other person's not a neutral party in it, and some of what we offer to friends that aren't necessarily intimate family members is because we experience a certain level of detachment, or we may have certain wisdom because of lived experiences or other things. And I keep on going back to the idea of marriage work that I've worked with a lot of couples that their idea of intimacy in their marriage is that every thought that pops into the other person's head, I'm entitled to know, and I can tell you as a marriage therapist no, no One of the things I say to couples a lot is it is very important for you to live truthfully with one another. Truth is not synonymous with every fact. There are any numbers of thoughts that I have on a daily basis that do not represent good or charitable things, and I'm glad that my wife does not read my brain.
Speaker 1:And vice versa to her.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and there's a concept of and I just had this conversation with another person but of what's called automatic negative thought, and usually the first thought that pops in your brain is typically negative and not always the truth of what you believe. Now, the trick, so to speak, is that you don't allow the automatic negative thought to fester or take root and then you kind of obsess over that, but to challenge it and to replace it with what is truth, or just to recognize even that that's what that is. And so to your point. If I were to then share every automatic negative thought one, it would be damaging to my spouse and two, it's not what's truly what I believe Usually it's driven by emotion or a trigger.
Speaker 2:That's something that has sparked me through maybe fear or sadness or anger, or just something that's popped in my head.
Speaker 1:As humans we are being formed and what we have, this idea that truth, is the most spontaneous version that we come upon, and I don't necessarily think that's any more indicative of the truth of any number of things. I am a selfish person and my thoughts are very selfish, so much I don't want to be that. I want to submit myself to a formation process that allows me to step out of that, and I don't want to be deceitful with my spouse or other people that I have intimate relationship with.
Speaker 1:I'm always authentic. The vulnerability is something that I think it's measured, it's done in different times. Even talking about Jesus, there were moments where Jesus went off by himself, that what he was continuing with in different moments were not shared in those moments To think about, because so many of the themes that Matt and I have been unpacking and will continue unpack is this idea of life, intention and imbalance. We can have this idea of deep reservations or circumspection, where we don't really show a very open or authentic version of ourselves, or this living in this deep oversharing that doesn't represent discipline or wisdom or things like that. If you're struggling with that, maybe see a therapist. It's awful what we think about.
Speaker 2:We know some good ones we can send you, though. That's funny.
Speaker 1:Matt. Other thoughts as we continue on, unless we're yeah.
Speaker 2:I think I don't know if we're at time of final thoughts, but I would just say that we encourage you I may have said this in some way before, but we encourage you to take just, in a sense, a assessment of where you are in this. Even as you were saying about these automatic negative thoughts, it was making me think that it may not even be easy to say I can put a person in one circle versus. They encompass all three at different moments. Some can't go deeper than the outside circle. In a sense, thinking more of a sphere with core aspects, I bring people deeper in, but at times I may still have to be authentic instead of totally open with every thought. Again, it's not necessarily vulnerability, it's more just. I won't say a phrase like loose cannon, we're just like shoot off every thought is not necessarily vulnerability.
Speaker 1:It's kind of exhibitionistic of that. I'm just kind of out in ways that aren't necessarily good reasons, because I like the attentioner, because I feel that all these things matter in some transcendent way.
Speaker 2:Take note of where you are with these relationships. I would say, for those relationships that are intended to be intimate, a best friend that you have that you felt disconnected from your spouse if there's a conflict there, your parents, if there's some level of disconnect because of a harm, is to not avoid it but to press in somehow. Maybe that pressing in is not necessarily just open the door to vulnerability again, but to assess what has broken safety and trust. And how do I pursue that? How do I pursue reconciliation? Sometimes for you this is the freedom piece that we talked about. I'm going to give freedom to people that at times, based on the other person's choices, you cannot be reconciled.
Speaker 2:You're called to forgiveness work. Reconciliation is a two-way street. You may pursue forgiveness of this person's act that has harmed you and broken safety and trust, but they don't recognize it nor come in any type of repentance to that situation. We can forgive and we can continually forgive, because it's not a one-time thing. Maybe we should also do a forgiveness episode, absolutely yeah, and so all that to say is our call is to pursue it, but, based on their actions and what they choose to do, they may have to stay in the authentic circle. My call for people and my encouragement is to take note of it. Don't run from it, but to address it. But sometimes we're only capable of one way. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah it does yeah Well, I think that's a good ending point.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, I feel good about it too. Well, we appreciate you all listening to us. We will continue to bring you deep thoughts and deep talks, mars side of the country. So, david, thank you again for what you bring to the table and we look forward to talking to you more next time.
Speaker 1:Use the Walmart, thank you.
Speaker 2:See you soon. Thank you again for being a part of our latest episode of Church Psychology. If you have enjoyed it, we hope that you will share this episode with others in your life, and please do remember to follow, like and or subscribe to Church Psychology, wherever you're finding us, and leave us a review. We look forward to connecting with you again soon.