47 | Cathy Loerzel: God is Not Afraid of the Truth

Suffering. We don't like it. Most of us probably don't even like the word. Suffering brings to mind experiences of abuse, neglect, rejection, abandonment... traumatic events that lodged themselves into our lives as long-term traumas. How do we get away from suffering?

Our guest CATHY LOERZEL gives an answer many won't like. We don't get away from suffering. It is inevitable and unavoidable in this life. We are made for perfect care, yet none of us receives care perfectly or completely. But the fact that suffering is going to be part of life doesn't have to be defeating or depressing.

As a speaker, coach, co-founder of The Allender Center, and co-author (with Dan Allender) of Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals our True Calling," Cathy has given us a gift as she helps us understand what it's like to "make friends with the reality of suffering." 

Our conversation visits how to "be with" the suffering we face, and to see how God meets us, heals us, and changes us as we walk through whatever kind of suffering we encounter.

Cathy's website

Redeeming Heartache (on Amazon)

Retreats & Workshops offered by The Allender Center

#cathyloerzel #storywork #storyworkcoach #redeemingheartache #suffering #trauma #addiction #healing #recovery #grace #gospel #transformation #awaken #awakenrecovery #awakenpodcast #whatwereallywant #wwrw  #connection #conversation 

Transcript

Greg 0:00

I don't know a lot about Seattle. Washington is one of the states I've never been to, but you hear everything about that there's a lot of rain.

SPEAKER_05 0:07

There is only a few months though. Well, and when I say few, I mean nine.

Announcer 0:11

But uh Welcome to What We Really Want. Conversations about connection. Settle in and get ready for a great conversation. Let's talk about what we really want.

Greg 0:25

Hey friends, welcome back to What We Really Want. This is episode 47. It's called God Is Not Afraid of the Truth. And our guest is Kathy Lorzell, with whom we recently got to have a wonderful conversation. But before we get to that, hun, you and I just got back in town from a week in Nashville, Tennessee. We were exhibitors at the American Association of Christian Counselors World Conference.

Stacey 0:53

Yeah. I kept saying the word exhibit hall. So I'm thinking a hall, one hall.

Greg 0:57

Like a hallway?

Stacey 0:58

Like a hallway.

Greg 1:00

It was a little more than that.

Stacey 1:01

So people-y. So people-y for four days.

Greg 1:05

For an introvert, that was a stretch.

Stacey 1:07

Exhausting, but it was really good.

Greg 1:09

You did great. I I just would have times where I was talking to somebody, and then somebody else would come up to our booth and you just chatted them up like somebody who was an extrovert.

Stacey 1:18

Yeah, right.

Greg 1:19

But we got to catch up with some old friends and meet some new ones. We got to see Nate Larkin, who has been a guest on the show. It was fun seeing people who are in the same space doing the same kind of work. So it was a good week. We're back home now and really excited to share this episode with you. Again, it's called God's Not Afraid of the Truth with Kathy Lorzel. Kathy's a coach, author, speaker, and she is the co-founder of the Allender Center, named after Dan Allender, who is, I guess you'd call him the godfather of all things related to Christians, trauma, and healing, particularly around childhood sexual trauma. But of course, their work goes far beyond that as well. Kathy and Dan co-wrote a book that came out in 2021 called Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals Our True Calling. And it's not a book about how to try and make suffering go away or even how to pray that God necessarily takes it away. It's really much more about learning how to be with whatever kind of suffering we have to face.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Well, and what was the normal that you would want to get back to? Where you where you didn't know what was going on.

Stacey 2:43

So that it was really good to hear and and just experience myself, like this is hard. It's a long journey. And it it's, you know, when you're in recovery, the the issues don't stop happening or or like the struggle isn't the problem. It's how we walk through that. So yeah, it was encouraging to just to hear her talk about the healthiness of that, not running from suffering.

Greg 3:06

Well, I think that people have different experiences with how they have been used to others in their lives talking about suffering. I think some people, it's just never mentioned. You know, you just don't talk about it at all. And then other people kind of live in a, I don't know, maybe a prosperity-driven reality of saying, oh, God doesn't want you to suffer. And so then how do you reconcile that? If God didn't want me to suffer and I'm suffering, then there must be something wrong with me and it takes you to shame. But Kathy and Dan in this book, just and then Kathy, particularly in our conversation, just did a wonderful and compassionate job of talking about suffering. She talks about making friends with the reality of suffering. And not meaning by that that we should go looking for it or find ways to like intentionally stay in it, but just to realize that suffering, when we're made for Eden, but we're not living in Eden, that's gonna be a part of our lives. And I loved how towards maybe two-thirds of the way through the conversations, she was talking about the life, death, life cycle. And we see it in nature, and we also see it in our experiences, just how we're coming to a time of the year where stuff is gonna start to die or go dormant and then get cold and gray for a season, but then in the spring it'll come to life again. And we experience that in life too. And if we're only clinging to the life part of the cycle, it's like living in a greenhouse. That was an analogy that you gave. It's safer, but fruit that's grown in a greenhouse isn't as sweet as the fruit that grows outside in the reality where it can get really harsh and and the elements can can sometimes be damaging and punishing. And then you even got a chance to talk uh near the end about some things related to your upbringing as a missionary kid that you see differently now, right?

Stacey 4:50

Well, first just acknowledging trauma that was there that I didn't ever think was trauma. It was just part of serving the Lord, which can be both. It's part of serving the Lord, yeah, part of life. But I think I guess having a box for the ways that I show up now, you know, understanding that those things started when I was young. Like they were strategies that I learned, not blaming anything, anyone, but just this is the reality.

Greg 5:19

And to name them doesn't mean that we hate God or hate our caregivers, our parents, or whoever, you know, was around when the suffering happened, but it's just that we tell the truth about it.

Stacey 5:29

Exactly.

Greg 5:30

Something that that Kathy pointed out very succinctly is that if you believe in and love God, that's a God who's not afraid of the truth.

Stacey 5:38

Right.

Greg 5:39

And he can meet us in that honesty where we learn how to call things what they were, name them as suffering, where before you would have just said, well, that's just the way things are. Right. That's how you have to do it when when you're a missionary, when you're serving the Lord.

Stacey 5:51

I was just thinking about Jesus saying if there's any other way in Gethsemane. If he said that, why do we think we shouldn't say stuff like that? Like we don't want the suffering. We wish there, I wish there was another way I could be where I am. We could be where we are in our marriage without having walked through what we walked through. But this is the path.

Greg 6:10

Yeah, that's right. And that's a great, I'd love that you pointed that out because in Gethsemane he said two things right together. He said, if there's any way that this cup can pass from me, but then he said, Not my will, but your will. And so acknowledging the suffering, but also acknowledging a trust in a God who is not afraid of being with us in our suffering and is not afraid of the truth that we tell about it. So yeah, this was a really, really great conversation with Kathy. Um, we hope that it will encourage you, that it'll give you some things to think about and some things that you'll want to share with other people in your life. There's not anybody listening who doesn't know somebody who's going through suffering. Right. So this is episode 47. Our guest is Kathy Lorzell. It's called God Is Not Afraid of the Truth, and it starts right now. Kathy Lorzell, thanks for joining us today on what we really want.

SPEAKER_05 6:57

Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Greg 6:59

So we're in Alabama on Central Time, and you're on the West Coast, correct?

SPEAKER_05 7:03

I am. I'm in sunny Seattle. Isn't it sunny? Right now, it is bright now, and everything is beautiful, and that'll last about another, I don't know, two weeks, and then the big dark will come.

Greg 7:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

But it we do have these gorgeous summers where when you guys have to go inside and turn on your akin thing, you know, it's 75 and no humidity and no bugs, and it's just yes. That is nice.

Greg 7:29

That sounds really good.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

We don't have screens on our doors or windows, like it's just it's beautiful. And and we we go outside for 24 hours a day. Not really, but it feels like that. Yeah, you could knowing that the dark is coming, and then we all go back inside for nine months and then wish we lived somewhere else. Shoot.

Greg 7:50

Well, when you were talking about three months are beautiful. When you were talking about 75, it it reminded me when we had been married for about a year. This was back in the early 90s. We went on a mission trip to the North Island of New Zealand, and it's so temperate there that almost nobody has central heat or air conditioning because it's almost always between, I mean, they do Celsius, but it in Fahrenheit, it's almost always between 40 and 80 degrees. It very it very rarely gets outside of that range. And so we were there in July, which for them was their winter. And so we were in these houses that were, you know, it was 40 degrees outside and they had their windows open.

Stacey 8:30

Toilet seats are real cold.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

Yeah. Well, let's we don't have central air conditioning here, but we do have heat. I'm not about 40 degrees.

Greg 8:40

Well, three minutes in, and we've already covered air conditioning and toilet seats. So that we're we're ahead of schedule. So Kathy, as we get going, um, I just would love to ask you, what do you really want out of our conversation today?

SPEAKER_05 8:53

Gosh, you know, I was thinking about that because you told me ahead of time. That would be the question. But, you know, my hope is always to bring dignity back to places where there's deep shame. And oftentimes uh we don't change if it's just out of shame or fear or disappointment in ourselves. There's no healing. But if man, if we're able to actually bring dignity and humanity back into very difficult places in our stories, there's a lot of healing and change that's possible.

Greg 9:25

Yeah, I love that. Well, Kathy, in a few minutes, I would love for our listeners to get to hear a little bit about your path and trajectory to what you're doing now. But before that, I'd love for you to just take a few minutes and help us get to know you as a person, if you would. So would you would you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_05 9:46

Yeah, I am a mom of two boys, uh nine and almost 12, and um two big dogs that are beautiful and a lot of dog. We live in Seattle, Washington with my husband, and we he's also a therapist and went to the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. So we've been in Seattle for gosh, 22 years. But I grew up a military brat, so lived all over the place. My dad was in the Coast Guard. Um, I worked in the federal government for a little while back in the day. So it it's a it's an odd background to end up doing what I'm doing now. Um, where I was a history political science major in college. Went to Grove City College in in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So it's it's an odd smattering of background.

Greg 10:34

So when you were, when you're was it your dad, your mom, or both who were in the military?

SPEAKER_05 10:39

My dad. Yeah, he was in the Coast Guard for 25 years.

Greg 10:43

Well, that may answer my next question because I was looking on your website and I was just curious about something that you said. What is it about water that makes you come alive?

SPEAKER_05 10:53

Oh gosh. Wow, yes. You know, growing up in the Coast Guard, right, that is the obvious answer. I was always uh more at home on the water than I was off. There is something, well, I I just think for human beings, uh, we're so drawn to it. And we actually know from neuroscience research that staring at water uh actually calms our nervous system. And so, so there's actually something limbically like in the part of ourselves that sometimes has a hard time soothing when we are around water, it naturally soothes us and calms us down. And and water can be very wild and alive as well. And so I think the combination of there's something amazing that it does to our bodies, being in it and being around it, but it also reminds us of just how powerful the world around us is, and and it reminds us of both the the awe of of the world and and the power of it, but also how how beautiful it is. So find myself drawn to water all the time.

Greg 11:53

I love that. Love hearing you talk about it. So if I remember right from what I read, it was around 2004 that you started your postgraduate work at the Seattle School. Is that about does that sound about right?

SPEAKER_05 12:05

I did, yeah. Yeah, I came out in 2004. Not I didn't know anything about Dan. I didn't know anything about the school. I just had a best friend who was really reading my story well and said, I think I found this place for you. I think you should come out. I was working as a consultant in DC for IBM consulting for the federal government, was on a very specific trajectory in that area, and she was like, You're in the wrong, you're wrong calling. Uh and I found this grad school for you that does depth work and it asks you to engage your story, and I think you should come out and do it. I thought she was insane, but I owed her a visit. And so I came out to Seattle to hang out with her. And during that time, I was sitting on a tarmac waiting for my flight to take off to go back to DC. And I heard loud and clear from God, like, quit your job. Wow. And so I quit, not knowing what I was gonna do next. And at the end of the day, the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology was the only thing really left standing that was a possibility for me that made sense. And so I got in my car and drove cross-country and got introduced to Dan and realized that there was something really uh uh incredible there that they were doing. And and so I got my master's degree in psychology, and uh, and then while I was there, because I had all this background in uh business consulting, their organization was a bit of a mess. And and so I I kind of started to to not take over, that would be too much of a term, but I lent my hand in helping organize the the graduate school. And and so they hired me on after I graduated, and they had this uh division called Mars at that point it was Mars Hill Graduate School conferences that Dan was in the midst of, and he was doing all of his kind of work outside of the grad school, these conferences, and they were about to shut it all down, and they brought me in just to save it or like, do you think you can do something with it? And so uh it was these and and it was the only way that the public had access to the work that we were doing at the graduate school level. And so I was like, I think this is really important because I don't think everyone needs to get their master's degree to start to do this work, and we need to make it more accessible to people who have their master's degree from other places and pastors and you know, uh nonprofit workers. And so I started traveling around the country with Dan, just listening to people. And then within nine months, I had the first proposal for the Allender Center drafted and went to the board and and got approved to start the Allender Center with Dan.

Stacey 14:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 14:50

And so we started that in 20 that that journey started in like 2009. And by 2011, we had launched our first certificate program and we're off and running.

Greg 15:01

That's amazing. We personally know so many people who really feel a lot of gratitude for everything that happened throughout that whole process that you're describing. In some cases, their direct contact with people who trained there, but in a much, much broader sense, just the influence of so many people who have gone through there and their work. And so it's just it's really cool to hear you talk about it. I am interested in one thing though, going all the way back to when you first went out there, you'd never heard of Dan Alender before. What was your first impression like when you met him? Had you ever met anybody like that before?

SPEAKER_05 15:38

No, I so when I got there, I was very skeptical. Um I came from a pretty conservative oh, uh, their theology, the way that they saw the world. It it was so different. So I came from a very conservative background where you don't ask questions, you figure out what's right, how to how to do it. And it's really just about obedience more than relationship and character. And that's a gross, I mean, there was a lot of relationship in there, so I don't mean to mischaracterize, but but that was the kind of and so I was very rigid internally around, you know, if if you say this thing, then you are a heretic. If you believe this thing, then clearly, you know, you're a left liberal, you know, like all that stuff. And it's it and so I got into all of a sudden this place in Seattle where they were kind of bypassing all of that and going straight to what does it mean to heal in the way that Jesus healed.

Greg 16:40

How wonderful.

SPEAKER_05 16:41

It was quite remarkable.

unknown 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:43

Wow. And it was they were like, we don't care if you're liberal or conservative, like, do you love Jesus and what's happening? And so, right away, they were knocking down all of these barriers that I had been really dedicated to out of my own faith and love of God. But they were teaching me that there is more to it than that. And and so when I first met Dan, he talked in these ways where I was like, he clearly loves God, but he is saying radical things that I I've been trained to dismiss. And yet there's more fruit here and goodness than I've experienced in any other place. And that really messed with me. And and I, and frankly, I was intrigued because it it felt more like the gospel Jesus that I read about than anything else that I'd ever encountered. And I don't know, remind me how like is your audience mostly Christian or are they?

Greg 17:41

Yeah, I mean, at least we think so. Um, yes. The we as an organization are gospel-based, but we're also very therapeutically informed and uh it's a 12-step model. So I'm sure we've got people who don't identify as Christ followers who listen, but I think the majority probably would say that they do.

SPEAKER_05 17:58

Great. I I want to explain things if I I always forget like you know, audience bases and want to make sure that I'm I'm explaining things that may be a bit more uh Christian yes, kind of inside people are understanding. Well, and and what I love about what I loved about Dan and still love about Dan is that he really does just walk right through those concrete barriers that most of us really believe you have to be on one side or the other. And I really believe that if Jesus like was here, he would be doing the same thing, you know, just like walking straight through and being like, uh no, no, to all of it. Yeah, you know, let's go straight to the people. And so that was really sweet to see, and it was very challenging for me, but it brought me to this place of real life and an invitation to deal with my story, to deal with what was shutting me down, where my anxiety was like was centered, what I wasn't seeing in myself, what I wasn't seeing in my family. And that was it very intriguing. And so I was hooked, but also very nervous that he was some sort of, you know, he's I don't know if you've ever met him, but he's like a nutty professor. Yes. Oh gosh. And so he gets up there and you're like, I don't know what this guy's saying, but I'm pretty sure if I could just listen to the words and take them in enough, they would change my life.

Jenna Riemersma 19:25

Right.

SPEAKER_05 19:26

But half the time I'm not sure what he actually means. And so it's a lovely, you know, reversal in the sense of without clarity, really, he's he's invoking places of the heart and a spirit that are much more intuitive. So, anyways, I was hooked. And then I I was on board because I was like, look, if this is happening here, how do we get this into other places? And I've spent the last you know, 25 years of my career doing that.

Greg 19:54

Yeah, I can see just in even in the first, you know, 10, 15 minutes of our conversation, how your makeup and Dan's makeup are pr are very different in some ways, you know, and that probably made things pretty interesting. Probably helped, you know, I I would imagine the things that were different in him were very helpful for you, and vice versa. Uh, I can imagine that's been a pretty, a pretty cool personal and working relationship over the years.

SPEAKER_05 20:23

Yeah, we've had a blast. You know, he his his greatest flaw, if he has one, that he he doesn't know how to create order out of out of whatever makes sense in his brain. And and so a lot of my job was to listen to him take in what he was saying, and then create it into something that's teachable that you can break down into a methodology. And that's what I did for him and and did for the Allender Center. And it worked. I mean, the the the way that I first met Dan was because as a student of his, he gave us a final, like he taught this class called Faith Open Love, which was amazing. And uh he gave us a final on it, which was insane. You're so everyone is spinning out like, how do you study for this and actually figure out what to do here? And so I took his notes and all of you know, this battery of information, and I created a cheat sheet basically, a study guide to it.

Greg 21:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 21:20

And it was all about the Orphan Widow Stranger model and Prophet Priest and King and all the stuff that we ended up writing about in Redeeming Heartache, and that started as a study guide for his class. And I passed it out to all of my friends because I was like, You guys, I think I've crapped the code here. And I mean, it was, it was like that, right? It's like Dan Brown book, where I'm like, I got it. And so I passed it around, and all of our friends who had gotten the matrix is what we ended up calling it, all aced the final. And so Dan found me and was like, Are you the person who created this thing? I'm like, Yeah. You know, I was embarrassed because he's very intimidating and I wasn't sure what he was gonna say to me. And And he was like, you know, Kathy, it's brilliant. Um, uh everyone who got a handle on it got an A. And I wonder if you could come back and help teach my class next year.

Greg 22:09

Wow. Wow. That's so cool. Well, getting into a little bit of what I told you when we spoke last week that we'd like to talk about, I I love that you said at the at the onset that you'd love to have a conversation that invites people to experience dignity in places where they felt deep shame. And I think shame as we're all three of us in this conversation. Sounds like we grew up in the midst of conservative Christianity where deep shame sometimes is something that just happens, but sometimes I feel like in in my story it was kind of conditioned in a way. Maybe not maybe not with that intent or even with that terminology, but it was definitely the byproduct of some of the messages, a lot of the messages that were there. And so I think when it comes to just about anything we could talk about, there are going to be people of faith listening who can resonate a lot with the experience of carrying a lot of shame around. And so when it comes to our stories and then specifically some of the suffering that's in our stories, I think that that's going to be really helpful. And there's several questions I have, but you know, talking about story work, here in 2025, I think there are probably a lot of people who have become more familiar with what we mean when we say, hey, I went to therapy and I've been doing some story work. But I would guess that there are probably far fewer people who realize that we have a lot to thank you for in that, because it spent a lot of your time at the Allender Center, the Seattle School, in developing story work as a therapeutic approach, right?

SPEAKER_05 23:46

Yes.

Greg 23:48

This may be asking for a lot, but can you in just a few minutes kind of give us the the bird's eye view of what story work is for people who may not be familiar with it?

SPEAKER_05 23:59

Yeah, so again, there's nothing new under the sun, right? And and so when we talk about story work, there there are a lot of different therapeutic modalities that we're building off of that we're pulling from, but we've kind of concretized it into one theory that we find really helpful. And so basically, Dan Dan's been doing work with childhood sexual abuse uh for the majority of his of his career. And trying to get people uh to step back into their stories of harm and abuse stories in particular is very, very, very difficult because of the shame. And because even if you tell the story of what happened to you, there's always this part in the back of your brain that's saying, yeah, but I did this too. Or I wanted to go to that sleepover, or I didn't say no, or I went back, or I was aroused. Like there's all of this stuff that you you start to move into when you start doing this work, that people really don't want to, they're so afraid that they're gonna be exposed and they they feel so much shame around what happened. So, what Dan started to find was that if you bring people into a specific narrative, a specific scene within your story, and you go really close onto the ground of it. So oftentimes when people tell stories, it's like, yeah, I got abused when I was seven. Or, you know, yeah, my dad was really angry and he yelled at me a lot, and that was really hard. So, what story work does is, and and let's be clear, that does that is fine to recognize, that will not heal you.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:40

Because the pain of it happens in the particularity of the feelings, the emotions, the sensation, the shame that was heaped on you, the confusion you had as a kid. And you cannot access that stuff unless you get down onto the ground level of all of those stories. And so what we do in story work is we say, look, there are probably seven or eight stories from your childhood that need to be deep dived into, where you hit the ground and we slow it way down. And so what story work does is asks you to actually write a childhood trauma narrative in detail. And what happens when you actually write a story is that you something else in your psyche takes over where there are different parts of you that start to get engaged in the writing. And oftentimes you'll tell a more truthful story because you're not realizing what you're writing. And then what we do is so we'll have them write, you know, a thousand-word narrative that's very detailed in the ground, right? About specifically what happened. And it's not just, you know, this thing happened at a birthday party. It's like I was seven and I remember I had this dress that I loved so much, and I wore it because I felt so beautiful in it. And um, you know, and I remember my mom, but you know, we're getting into the details of these stories, which is bringing up body memory, it's bringing up emotion that you haven't accessed, it's bringing up and getting you face to face with the little boy or the little girl that actually experienced that. And what we know about trauma is that the trauma isn't necessarily what happened, that's a traumatic event. The trauma happens when it's not handled with love and care. Yeah. And so oftentimes people will get into these stories and then they'll realize wow, this happened at this birthday party. And and and then the question is, well, who could you tell? And and so we can handle traumatic events. They're awful and horrifying. But if we have someone safe that we can go and tell who walks us through it, who has empathy, who has care, that traumatic event won't get lodged in us.

Greg 27:54

Yeah. So so if you if you know from other experiences that or at least perceive that you don't have a safe person, then that's that's a problem. And then if the if when one of these traumatic events happens, you go to who you hope is a safe person and they either don't believe you or turn it on you or don't respond well, then that that adds to it. So it's it's it's almost like what I hear you saying is these traumatic events, all of them are potential traumas, but whether or not they become a long-lasting, powerful trauma that continues to have unfolding impact in your life, it really depends on how it's handled.

SPEAKER_05 28:34

That's right. And so what we find in in the work is that often the abuse itself, like the the big A abuse, right, it is and I'm gonna say this really carefully and then I'll explain it, is not as damaging as what got you there or what didn't care for you after.

Greg 28:55

Yeah, I we I think we understand, but I'd love to hear you flesh that out a little bit more.

SPEAKER_05 29:00

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So so we call it the abuse before the abuse.

Greg 29:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:05

Or the setup. And and so for a lot of people, you know, who come into my office, right, they're wanting to talk about their childhood sexual trauma. Sometimes that's from a parent, right? And so that gets conflated where the setup is within their own family system. And so then, you know, you're just bringing dealing with the big A abuse on lots of different levels. A lot of people, their abuse happened through a babysitter, through um a family friend, through a friend that was coming over for sleepovers from a cousin, right? And and so, and and they're coming in and saying, gosh, you know, I need to talk through this. And it's true, like there's a lot of work that you need to do around that particular narrative of what happened, right? And so you write the story. So story work will ask you to to dig into that story, which needs to be fleshed out and and looked at and healed, and have an empathetic witness, see what was happening, give space for that little kiddo to express all of the things that they needed to have expressed in in that moment to a safe adult, but couldn't. And so so you kind of redo that here in the here and now, and it's really actually quite healing. Now, when you do that, there's also this other level that says, what was the setup that got you to the place where you were vulnerable to that abuse?

Greg 30:24

Which I would imagine when they freshly open themselves up to answering that question, probably just opens a floodgate of new grief. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

Yeah, because you know, kids are designed to protect their parents. Because what other choice do they have? Right. Right. And so they turn on themselves before they'll turn on their parents. You know, and and that often will will hand not hand people over because I don't I want to be careful about the language, but it it means that, you know, if they're living in a world where their parents are um not wanting to attune, they're not wanting to be connected to the child's emotional experience, they're they're busy or you know, just having to work a lot. Like there, there are lots of reasons for this to happen that aren't just evil, but but our circumstances and a child is like, okay, you know, mom and dad are busy. I'm gonna go and find life somewhere else. And all of a sudden they are, you know, they go over to their neighbor's house who has soda and chips after school. And it's so fun and magical. And the parents aren't around, and you and this older kid who's four years older than you, you know, he takes an interest in you and you're so excited because now you have someone to play with and someone who's around. And mom and dad are distracted, you know, and and this ends up being your abuser.

Greg 31:45

Yeah, because when you're in that context and at that age, you don't know the difference between attunement and grooming. I mean, you don't know the intent of the person and and what they're doing. You just know that it's attention and that it feels good.

SPEAKER_05 31:58

That's right. And almost 100% of the time, that will be the place where someone won't want to go to in their story because they knew something about it felt good.

Jenna Riemersma 32:08

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

They were offering life in a way that life was not available to them in their home. And a child will then turn on themselves and say, I'm dirty, I'm bad. How could I have done that? I deserved it, or I didn't stop it, or you know, whatever that internal voice is, right? And so then they'll go, let's say they do go to mom and dad and say, Hey, this happened, you know, like what I'm not sure what this means. And mom and dad are like, oh my gosh, you know, like how how could you let that happen?

Jenna Riemersma 32:45

Right.

SPEAKER_05 32:46

Right. That's that's dirty. And we we don't do that. Or, I mean, I've heard this one a thousand times, like, well, we're Christians and we need to forgive.

Jenna Riemersma 32:54

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:55

And so for forgive them and we're never gonna talk about it again.

Greg 32:59

Yeah, yeah. And it's and when you talked earlier about the child turning it on themselves, I was just listening to a uh another friend, Phil Herndon, who's a therapist in the Nashville area, and he was talking about abandonment and how when he was having some repair conversations with his son, I think when his son was getting into adulthood, he just was acknowledging some failures. And I think the concept that came out is I don't want to be demonized or deified, you know, because really neither one of those in a lot of cases tells the whole story. I mean, I'm sure there are some people who to demonize their parents, maybe that would be accurate because in some cases, like some people just ended up with horrible, horrible parents. But then but most of us know. And then the the the other side of that is if we deify them because they represent, you know, God more than anybody else in our lives, then if anything's wrong, it must be my fault. And so somewhere in the middle is hopefully one of the one of the destinations of this kind of work.

SPEAKER_05 34:02

Yes. Well, and and one of the phrases I use a lot is God is not afraid of the truth. And or else he he would not have written the Bible the way he did. Right.

Jenna Riemersma 34:12

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 34:12

Right. I mean, the stories in scripture are so broken and and so wild and also so full of redemption, but he doesn't shy away from the reality of what it means to be human.

Greg 34:26

Yeah, every hero in the Bible is a flawed, failing hero, every single one of them.

SPEAKER_05 34:30

Deeply flawed. That's right. That's right. And and that actually should make us feel way more free to move towards a truer story.

Stacey 34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:39

Right. Like, you know, look, if David's kids were sitting with me in, you know, doing story work, it'd be like, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

That'd be rough.

SPEAKER_05 34:51

Well, no, rougher than anyone else. I mean, honestly, it's like there's there is such deep harm. And God even said, look, you know, part of the the result of your sin is that your your family is going to be infighting for the for generation after generation. And and so God's also clear. Like, look, there are impacts to our failure of one another, and and it, and you we have to work towards healing of it. So when I look at family of origin stuff, so many people are like, but my mom and dad did their best. Like, sure. And they failed you. Yeah. And you will fail your kids. And so, what do you want to do about it? Because by by just continuing to say, well, you know, I don't want to look at it, it doesn't actually allow you to heal in the way that you're then going to be able to be a more healed presence for the next generation.

Jenna Riemersma 35:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:41

And isn't that the point?

Jenna Riemersma 35:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 35:43

So when I look at honor, honor has to be a truthful telling. It's not demonizing, it's not saying it's all your fault, and therefore I have no responsibility. That's not what we're saying. But what we're saying is things went down when you were a kid and they impacted you, and they changed your style of relating, and they shifted how you're meant to be in the world. And you then armored up to try to protect yourself, and you're hiding from shame, and you're not actually being the best version of who you're meant to be, because in some ways, evil is one because you've decided to stay silent and stay cocoon away from the story that you need to tell.

Greg 36:22

Right. Well, speaking of something you said just a second ago, that's the point. Okay. I want to talk about what I think some people think the point is when they begin to engage in this kind of work. I'm going to do a little bit of a long setup to a question that I'm really interested in your answer to. Because you mentioned Redeeming Heartache, which was a book that came out a few years ago that you and Dan co-wrote about suffering. And in the introduction, there are two very short statements that Dan made that I identified with immediately when I first read them. One was life is a long search for what we lost in Eden. And then the other one is everyone knows that something is not right. I think most of us who are open to doing work around our trauma would resonate with those two things, even if we weren't sure yet exactly why. But then he he says a little bit later that the book invites you to a journey not to resolve past suffering, but to wrestle with it until you gain the blessing you're meant to receive to walk, even with a limp, into more joy and to experience a measure of healing. And so this kind of gets me closer to my question here. And that is I would imagine that there are a lot of people who, if they're going to go into this kind of work, they don't want the point of it to be to be able to better coexist with my suffering. They want it out of my life, right? They don't want to feel these things anymore. And what you guys are saying in this book is that's not realistic. You know, that's not that's not the the destination that we get in a fallen world. And so redeeming heartache, how much of that involves learning to have a different relationship with a suffering whose impact sticks around?

SPEAKER_05 38:16

I mean all of it.

Greg 38:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:20

The number one thing, you know, I I right now I I see uh a lot of clients and doing story work, you know, every day. And the number one thing I'm inviting people to do is to identify where they can't tolerate their feelings. And it's not life is not healing, it's not about eliminating suffering. It's about learning how to manage how to have peace with it. And I don't mean to like never search for joy, right? But it's a sense of we can't get back to Eden. You know, every day that you wake up, even if you've built a beautiful life, you're living in a fallen world.

Greg 39:07

Which sucks because we were made for Eden, but we don't get to have it yet.

SPEAKER_05 39:11

Even the people who were made for Eden couldn't keep it.

Greg 39:14

Right.

SPEAKER_05 39:14

So it's like, look, you know, I don't know what to tell you. Even if we had Eden again, we we don't know what to do with it.

Jenna Riemersma 39:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:23

And and so so much is is like, okay, can we get to a place where you can feel your feelings, you can feel grief, you can feel sorrow, you can feel joy, you can uh feel disappointment, and and you're not afraid of any of it. It's not that you stay in it and wallow in it, but but when it comes to you, you know how to be with it. You know, and and that allows you to really have such compassion and empathy for the lived human experience and capacity to manage the the beauty and the brokenness of the world. There's no way that we're going to be able to only experience the beauty, the goodness. And so I talk a lot, and I think maybe I talk about the book, but I can't remember now. But that there's a scale, right? And so if we want to experience, you know, the the plus 10 of joy and delight, right? Oftentimes what Christians do, especially is like, oh, we just want to stay on the on the positive. So we're just gonna believe in the goodness of God, we're just gonna believe that everything's gonna work out. It's like, well, that's just not true. Like beautiful people who love God get cancer and die.

Jenna Riemersma 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

Like, so this is not like it doesn't just work out. What does work out mean? Well, it it means you can live the life that's before you with dignity and integrity and joy and goodness and and be fully present to it, right? That's what workouts.

Greg 40:52

Which is un which is unlearning a lot of the constructs that have been there. Because one of the things you did say in the book, this is a quote, is you said in our efforts to flee the suffering and evil in the world, we erect barriers to protect ourselves from the shattering of shalom. That's right. And I, you know, that's not just something that we do as individuals. I think that's something that we do institutionally as the church. I mean, I don't know how many really solid biblical, honest sermons I've heard over the course of my 50 years as a Christian almost that really were honest about suffering. They're much more descriptive of getting back to Eden and you know, the hope of one day, which is great. I mean, I love hopeful messages. I love, and the Bible is filled with hope, but sometimes the hope that is deferred for right now, it's it's not enough to hold on to when the suffering is not acknowledged, you know, and there's something powerful in there about just having somebody to acknowledge and bear witness to the suffering that we're going through.

SPEAKER_05 41:54

Well, and I think once once you start to to make friends with the reality of suffering, and I don't mean that to say like we should look for suffering or figure out how to stay there, right, in the in the pits, but but when we when we learn that the life-death life cycle is everywhere, it's it's in everything. We're about to move into the fall season where everything around us that has been alive for the spring and the summer is gonna die and not really die, but go dormant, lose its leaves, lose its color, it's gonna go, you know, into the dark season. And and then life will be rebirthed out of that again. Well, what how do what do we do with death? What do we do with the inevitability of it? And and and I think our capacity to be present to death and to to grieve, to mourn, to let it shatter us, knowing that life comes again, but not if we're only clinging to the life cycle. You know, I think a lot of times we want to live in the greenhouse where we can grow vegetables or fruit any time of the year because it's fake. Well, my tomato plants are meant to die. And then I replant them again. Like they're not meant to continue to produce. And when you ask things to produce, even though they're meant to go through the death cycle, the fruit becomes less sweet. Yeah, it becomes more bland. Like, have you ever tasted a tomato that's that's comes out of a greenhouse that's manufactured versus one that is grown on the vine in your backyard? Right. It's sweet and it's it's complex and it's incredible. The greenhouse one is fine. Like it'll go on your BLT sandwich and it's fine, but it has no taste. Very little flavor, yeah. Right?

Stacey 43:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:33

Very little flavor. And so I think this is the part where where, gosh, especially as Christians, when we know that death is not the final answer, we just don't want to deal with it. And we certainly don't want to honor it. We certainly don't want to let it take us down and like actually feel the grief of it. But if we learn how to do that, there's so much more beauty and goodness that's available to us. And then we can be with other people when they're suffering because we're not afraid of our own. But wherever you've denied your own suffering, you're gonna ask other people to pull themselves up by the bootstrap and deny what's actually really tragic.

Greg 44:10

And that's something that maybe as we're kind of approaching the end of our conversation in a few minutes, I'd love for us to spend some time with. And I I've been asking all the questions, but I know there's something that you and I talked about as we were kind of reviewing the book, and that was Sally's story. Um, you know, from from chapter three, when you were talking about a story work group that you led, and there was a woman in there who was very reticent to tell her story. And I think it just really gets back to what you were talking about. I mean, what's going to coax us out of the safety and the protection of the greenhouse to living wide open in the world where there's death that occurs is gonna be having people who bear witness with us. And just was gonna see, hun, if you wanted to just share some of the things about Sally's story that connected with you. And let's talk about that for a few moments.

Stacey 44:57

Yeah, it was the details could somebody who didn't wasn't familiar with all of this would be like, your story is nothing like Sally's, but um there's so many ways that it that I resonated with it because as a missionary kid, you know, I became a Christian when I was five. My parents pretty much um they also became Christians around that same time. And they dad quit his job, they uh joined a mission board, they went through the training and like within a year of becoming Christian. Yes, one year after they became Christians. And so they were probably five-year-old Christians when we moved to Africa, West Africa. So they're like, we wouldn't change it for the world, but it was hard for them. And as a kid, you know, I've always just chalked it up. Anything that was hard for me was just like, I mean, you you yeah, you're put in a boarding school. That's just what you do. Yeah, your parents leave you when you're nine with strangers, and that's just serving the Lord, you know. And I never until we got into recovery and therapy, and even then, I think it was more in the last three years that I acknowledge like just how incredibly traumatic it was to be put in a boarding school. And and also that didn't mean my parents were monsters. You know, I asked them, how could you do this? This is like crazy. I can't imagine doing this with my kids. But they said, yeah, it's what you do. I mean, it's what so many people did back in the 80s. And so I I think just I don't know, just hearing the the way Sally initially, you know, would have shared her story versus what how it really went down. It's like that's so how how many people I talk to and what we do, it's the same. They minimize because somebody else, you you can always find somebody else who had it in your mind worse.

Greg 46:51

Objectively worse, objectively worse. Details, whatever.

Stacey 46:54

It's just like as I personally have acknowledged that pain. And I've thankfully I have been able to talk to my parents about it. They're not like in counseling and and totally understand all of this, but but I've been able to talk about it to a degree with them. And I think that for me, the way it's helped is just it doesn't have as strong of a hold, or it doesn't have a hold, but like it's just not as hard to talk about it now that I have talked about it so much and I have had people acknowledge and Greg understands. And so yeah, it it that was just really helpful for me to read through that part and just realize, yeah, it's okay that maybe my suffering wasn't X, Y, Z, but like it was so traumatic for that nine-year-old little girl, you know, and just all the ways that I've uh that I still feel abandoned in different situations. And and then just to I can think for me to remember, like, yeah, of course. So I remember the the past, but it doesn't take me down to the darkness again. It's just like, oh remember, yeah, that's right. But that's not happening right now, you know? And so yeah, that that was just a piece that was really good for me to to read through.

SPEAKER_05 48:07

Oh, I'm so glad. Well, I love how you've articulated that that process. Uh often what I talk about is that we go noseblind to our own stories. Right. Yeah.

Stacey 48:18

I'm a missionary kid. I mean, what would there be traumatic that would have happened to me?

unknown 48:22

Right.

SPEAKER_05 48:23

Yeah, right. Nothing, I'm sure. Oh, well, and this is where it gets really confusing growing up, you know, and as a pastor's kid or a missionary kid, right? Because you're you're part of the team. That's right. And so there's also the sense of my parents are doing something really meaningful for the gospel. And so I need to be okay.

Stacey 48:41

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 48:42

Or because they can't, they can't be making a mistake here or they can't be hurting me because we're doing this for God.

Stacey 48:49

Right.

SPEAKER_05 48:50

And and so that's such a setup for a kiddo, because if they start to question it or they're impacted by it, you know, then the parents are immediately like, but we heard from God that we are supposed to do this. That's right. And so how could you be upset? And then the kid is like, I love God too. So I shouldn't be upset. And I need to just be part of the team.

Stacey 49:09

I must not trust God enough because that's a big thing that I heard a lot growing up. Like, you're not trying if you're worried or doubting or scared or struggling in any way. It's like, um, well, I mean, trust the Lord more. Because when you do that, uh the the I guess the not spoken thing is what then you will be fine. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:29

Well, and that's why telling your story and and getting closer to it. So you you the first story you tell about your story is never really the story.

Stacey 49:38

This is so true.

SPEAKER_05 49:40

Yeah. Right. Because you have to start with what you needed to believe as a kid in order to make it okay.

Jenna Riemersma 49:49

Right.

SPEAKER_05 49:50

But in that, you're you're revealing things that are telling. And that's why the story work is so cool because you know, if you wrote your story, Stacey, right? Before you understood any of that, someone else would read that at who isn't noseblind to your story and would have a jaw dropped.

Stacey 50:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:07

And say, So true, whoa. Yeah, you got sent away when you were nine.

Stacey 50:13

You skirt over this like it's normal. When you're not sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and they because they have nothing to lose, right? They don't need to protect your parents. And so that's why there's something lovely about saying our story with other people and in relationship, because we can actually help each other say, gosh, I mean, it's like when someone walks into my house who hasn't been to my house for a while, I'm like, what how does it smell? Does it smell like dog? Like, what do I need to do here? Do I need to light some candles?

Stacey 50:44

That's what I ask all the dogs.

unknown 50:46

Right?

Greg 50:47

Yeah.

Stacey 50:48

We have a stinky, I maybe stinky. I'm very sensitive to dog smell. When I get it in, when I inhale it, I'm like, just gag. It's so gross. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Greg 50:57

And Kathy, don't you think it's um that was a leading question. Kathy, do you think um that it matters who are the ones that we ask to be those witnesses to our stories? Because not everybody is going to be trustworthy with that. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 51:16

Yes. Yeah. No, that's that's really important. You know, and that's what we were talking about before is if people are refusing to look at their own trauma and refuse, you know, if if they're still holding tight to, I had the perfect family, my mom and dad were great Christians, I, you know, had the yeah, I got abused, but that was something that evil was trying to do to me, and I'm okay, I'm fine. Like they're not gonna hold your story well. They're gonna do to your story what they've done to their own, which is dismiss it.

Greg 51:43

That's right. That's right. There's something about a safe group of people in a community that just probably for a lot of people who do this kind of work, it's the first time they've ever had anything like that.

SPEAKER_05 51:54

Yes, and it's incredibly powerful. You know, I love doing individual work. I love doing group work and in person and in on land, in beauty, like there's something incredibly powerful about what we can do with each other in community. And and so I think there's room for both, but gosh, uh if you're only doing individual work and never actually getting to experience a group of people weeping on your behalf, right? Or or raging on your behalf, or and and men and women both. Like we run co-ed groups often because there's also something that you know, often women don't have the experience of men being kind and tender and for them, or men experience women being for them in a way that's very mothering. Yeah. So I think, you know, and and that all goes to the body of Christ. Like that's we're meant to be the village. We're meant to be for each other and warring on behalf of each other and and loving each other in ways that that each of us can't do on our own. We need community.

Greg 52:59

When we step into that kind of work and we experience the redemption and the healing that comes from it, then as Christians, we can turn and carry that into our churches, into places where so many of our leaders haven't been trained to know how to do this and just see it expand in those, in those deeper, you know, communities of faith. And I mean, it's pretty beautiful to think of the potential of what could happen after choosing to step into some really, really difficult work.

SPEAKER_05 53:25

Absolutely. I mean, this this work has transformed um communities and churches and families. Um, you know, and if it if we hadn't seen the direct fruit of it, I don't think I would do it. Right. Right. Uh, you know, because stepping into people's worst stories of the of their human existence is hard. Yeah it it actually brings it brings healing.

Jenna Riemersma 53:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:49

And and to see it work that way and to see um more life in the land of the living, more beauty, um, more people being present, more people being able to love and to grieve and to be parents. And, you know, the world right now is is a mess.

Jenna Riemersma 54:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:07

And we have to be willing and able to feel it, to be present to it, to grieve it, and then also be able to set a beautiful table with all the abundance that you have to offer and and laugh and hold hands and you know, and and celebrate as we're also weeping. Yeah, all of it has to be true.

Greg 54:27

And to be present in those times and those experiences where people walk out of deep shame into recognizing their dignity as an image bearer. Right back where we started. Hey, I know that there are gonna be people who are going to be interested in investigating some of the ways of involving themselves in this kind of work. And we're gonna put some things in the show notes about that. But just real quick, as we're wrapping up, what are some of the things that you offer in terms of workshops, intensives, experiences? If if somebody was wanting to look into doing some of this work, just give us a nutshell and then they can find out more about how to how to pursue that in the show notes.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

Yeah. So um, you can go to the Allender Center website and they have story workshops and certificate programs and lots of resources for folks, including recovery weeks for people who have suffered childhood sexual abuse that are incredible. There's tons of options. Um Dan and I have done a bunch of uh online workshops and things like that that you could that you can look at, as well as the Allender Center team. And then I the work I'm doing now, you can find me at my website, KathyLarzell.com, and I'm doing story work and intensives. But the main thing I do are run retreats. It's something called sacred interruption retreats, and it's for women at this point. But we do we we do story work and body work and ritual, and we really work through how to clear some of this uh trauma debris in a group setting, and it's really, really quite beautiful. So that's that's what I that's what's available. And there's a tons of stuff, and you guys can put that on your website, but lots of great podcasts like Adam Young and different folks who are doing this work, and so yeah, it's it's a really fun area to dig into.

Greg 56:13

Well, we're gonna do our part to help more people find out about how they can step into this kind of work, and we're so grateful for the last 20 plus years of your life, you know, learning about this, uh incorporating it into your own walking story, and then be getting to a place where you could help others do the same. And and we're really grateful for you taking some time to talk to us, Kathy. Thank you for being with us today.

SPEAKER_05 56:37

Thank you so much. Oh, absolutely. It was a pleasure. Good to meet you guys.