59 | Chuck DeGroat: Safety And Suffering

Does a focus on acknowledging trauma and providing safety create more resilient or fragile people? That question is at the heart of many charged discussions about therapy and trauma work. Virtually every contemporary therapeutic modality recognizes the impact trauma has on our current struggles. But many people feel it's too much focus, and that the result is people who can't handle anything difficult and who call "trauma" on everything that's hard in life.

Chuck DeGroat has a lot to say about this. He has been a pastor, and is currently a therapist, author, and seminary professor (Western Theological Seminary) who specializes in pastoral & leadership health, abuse & trauma, and navigating spiritual & emotional obstacles on the faith journey.

Chuck is the author of multiple books, including When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse and
Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself and to God When You’re Weary, Wounded, and Wandering. He also authors a Substack page (Sit With Chuck), and a recent post is the subject of most of our conversation.

Chuck lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

#chuckdegroat #sitwithchuck #connection #counseling #spirituality #growth #change #therapy #healing #trauma #narcissism #sexuality #addiction #betrayaltrauma #recovery #grace #gospel #transformation

Chuck's personal page

Sit With Chuck (Substack page, see "Safety and Suffering" posted 1/22/26)

Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at Western Seminary

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro & Welcome
• 3:24 Getting to know Chuck
• 8:28 Being a pastor and therapist
• 11:42 Being a generalist vs. specialist
• 17:01 Narcissism: intentional or unintentional?
• 21:44 Safety and Suffering: the Post...
• 29:58 When trauma contributors aren't obvious...
• 33:46 Childhood rituals from ancient cultures
• 38:46 Safe havens in times of suffering
• 42:09 Pushback on trauma...
• 48:53 Therapy tools as helps, not "hacks"
• 51:52 Wrapping up & thanks

Transcript

Intro & Welcome

Chuck DeGroat 0:00

Things will happen even early in life, and the question isn't how can we prevent suffering? It's when we do suffer, is there a safe haven to come back to?

Announcer 0:11

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 0:23

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to What We Really Want. Today is episode 59. Our guest is Chuck DeGroat, and the episode is called Safety and Suffering. And y'all, I know I always say this, but I'm really super excited for you to get to hear this conversation. It's called Safety and Suffering because that is the title of a recent Substack post that I read of Chuck's. And uh when I first read it, I was hooked by the first sentence, which says, in conversations about trauma-informed care, I sometimes hear the critique: all this talk of safety is making people fragile. He goes on to say it comes in different forms, quotes like, We're raising kids who crumble at the first sign of discomfort. Not everything needs to be labeled trauma. Sometimes life is just hard. A little adversity never hurt anyone. It actually builds character. We're coddling instead of correcting children. We're creating immature adults who can't tolerate discomfort. We're raising a generation without grit. Some of you out there may be listening to that and saying, Amen. Yeah, I've been saying that for years. Others, that just makes every part of you bristle because it connects with some, well, some trauma that you've had from people not understanding and not being sensitive to some of the really legitimate, difficult things that we walk through. But when I read this post, I thought this is a good conversation, especially when I saw a graphic that was centered around the whole concept of male initiation, which was uh the writing of Michael Gurion, who did research across indigenous cultures, talking about some of the rites and rituals that they brought children through in order to produce healthy, well-balanced adults. And those the processes include safety, eldering, community, and understanding your part in a larger sacred story. And I just really wanted to have a talk with Chuck about this, and and it was great. Chuck is a therapist and a pastor. He is on faculty at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, serves as professor of counseling and Christian spirituality. He's also the founding executive director of the clinical mental health counseling program at the seminary. He uh is married, has two adult daughters, has written several books. The two most recent books that he wrote were called When Narcissism Comes to Church, Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse, and Healing What's Within, Coming Home to Yourself and To God when You're Weary, Wounded, and Wandering. We really enjoy getting to know each other. One of those people that we were both kind of like, How have we not met before? But I'm so glad that we did. So glad for the conversation we had, and so glad that you get to hear it now. Again, this is episode 59 with our guest Chuck DeGroat called Safety and Suffering. And the conversation starts right now. Thankfully, here in Birmingham, we didn't really get all that much of it. People in North Alabama got a little bit of it, but it was really Nashville that got hammered. Are you in Michigan? I am. Okay. I'm in Grand Rapids.

Chuck DeGroat 3:23

Yeah.

Getting to know Chuck

Greg 3:23

You guys are used to snow up there. It's no big deal.

Chuck DeGroat 3:26

Yeah. Well, I'm not from here, so it's no big deal for native Michiganers, I guess. I mean, I see them when I get up early and I'm out of here driving, they're out with their headlamps on, and you know, it's minus 10 and they're out in the snow. But for me, I'm a whimp. Where are you? Well, New York originally, Long Island, New York, by way of Iowa, Chicago, 14 years in Orlando, and then five in San Francisco Bay Area. So we were we had spent almost 20 years in warmer locations before we arrived here. So yeah.

Greg 3:58

I I I have said this to several of our guests lately that I've kind of wondered as we prepared for this, like, how have we not talked before now? Because we've got so many overlaps. I was looking at your Facebook page, and the first eight mutual friends on there are all people that have been on this show.

Chuck DeGroat 4:18

Is that right?

Greg 4:19

Yeah. Steve Cuss, Adam Young, Kathy Lorzell, Adam, Andy Gullah, Jill Gullahorn, Sharon Hirsch, Sam Jolman, Blake Roberts. All those guys have been on the show. And I've been aware of you. I've heard your name. And as I've gotten to know more about you and read more of your stuff, preparing for this, it's like, oh man, I can't wait for this conversation.

Chuck DeGroat 4:39

Okay. Well, thanks for having me on. And those are all good people. I'm glad we're acquainted with some of those same people.

Greg 4:46

I'm just I'm curious too. How often is it that you do podcast interviews? Do you do a lot of this?

Chuck DeGroat 4:51

You know, there there usually is at least one, maybe two a week, four a month, maybe something like that. Yeah. I think around when when the last book was, I mean, you know how it goes when you're launching a book. You you you pretty much do whatever anyone invites you to do at that point, right? So but you know, I I tend to I was really intrigued by when you reached out, but I've uh have tended to be a little bit more discerning over the last yeah, last six months to a year or so, because I don't have all the time in the world, but I I want to have meaningful conversations with really good folks. So as I've thought about it, maybe maybe more over the last few years, it's more like I want to give my wholehearted yes when I'm doing these sort of outside the window of a publication, you know. I mean, I I I feel like you would understand this. I mean, I think that there are spaces like these where folks aren't acquainted at all. And I I know if someone hasn't read anything I've ever written, but they they maybe just got curious about narcissism in the church. They heard the term and they're like, Oh, just come on and talk about it. But it's yeah, I I just I sense with you that there's a desire to enter into a deeper conversation, and then we have all these mutual friends.

Greg 6:07

So well, so as we're getting going, I I really would like to ask you that question, Chuck. What what do you hope for? What do you really want out of the conversation we're gonna have?

Chuck DeGroat 6:15

You know, I was intrigued that you enjoyed that safety and suffering piece, you know, that little substack. That's something I've been chewing on for a while, and it's actually part of a another book on cultivating character and character formation. And so, yeah, I was really intrigued by your intrigue about that, you know? So that feels like a good conversation.

Greg 6:37

Yeah, I can't wait to get to that part. We we're gonna get to it probably sooner rather than later. But before we do that, if you don't mind, just share a little bit about yourself and your family. I know that you've got two grown daughters who are married, but just yeah, tell us about life and family and all that.

Chuck DeGroat 6:55

Yeah, well, right now, yeah, you're right. I'm in West Michigan, live in Grand Rapids, teach at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. I recently founded a clinical counseling program at the seminary, lead our doctor of ministry work there. But I was before teaching at the seminary, I was a pastor in uh San Francisco, California, and Orlando. And there I was the teaching team, but also started two church-based counseling centers. And so I was very much involved both on the teaching side and on the pastoral care side. In San Francisco, we launched something called Nubegan House of Studies, which is a missional training center. So that's always an intriguing piece for people because they're like, oh, you're the counseling guy or the therapy guy or the pastoral care guy. But I was very much involved in church planting, missional planting, and and church planner assessment and preparation. So that's a thread of my story that's not familiar to many folks, but a big part of that work in San Francisco. But yeah, I've been a therapist and a pastor for well, it goes back to the mid-1990s at this point, you know, and so for quite a while, specializing particularly in the areas of abuse, trauma, narcissism, narcissistic leadership. Don't ask me how I got interested in that. I oh, I want to ask you. I know, right? A lot of people are like, why? Why would you want to do that? And I ask myself that sometimes too.

Greg 8:23

Well, why would you do it and why would you want to do it? Can be two very different answers.

Being a pastor and therapist

Chuck DeGroat 8:27

Yeah.

Greg 8:28

I'm curious about something. Were you I I was gonna ask you sort of about your your professional trajectory, and you've already kind of gotten into that a little bit. You have been a pastor and you're a therapist. Which did were you doing first? I mean, did those did those go simultaneously for a lot of the time that you've been in ministry?

Chuck DeGroat 8:47

That's a great question. Yeah, they they have mostly been simultaneous. I I went to seminary not to be a pastor necessarily, but to do PhD work. I was one of those guys who came to seminary with all the answers already, which is pretty special, you know. And and I had a really kind but direct professor, pastoral care professor, say to me that in unless I dealt with my own stuff, I'd be harmful to the church. And so that was exceptionally important to me. And I ended up doing a counseling degree side by side with my Master of Divinity and taking a job at a church in Orlando near the seminary that I was attending. And so as soon as I dove into church work, pastoral work, I was within the first year, we were developing a counseling center and I was training lay counselors. I sort of dove into both sides of the work. And so I feel like I probably should have given myself three to five years to to get acclimated to the water, but but I've I've always been a little bit of an overfunctioner too.

Greg 9:46

So that seems very unusual that a a pastor were were you the primary teaching pastor at the churches where you served? No. Okay, because I was gonna say if you were, if you had been and were also that focused on counseling, that would have been extraordinarily rare. But even not, even not, still pretty rare.

Being a generalist vs. specialist

Chuck DeGroat 10:05

Fairly rare. And I was grateful to have that opportunity in both churches to be able to preach and teach regularly. And I I think I'm I'm one of those guys who's a generalist. You know, I I've gotten to do lots of different things and I can teach and I can counsel. And I probably don't do any of them particularly well. Um, but I get to do them. And in San Francisco in particular, I had a lot going on then. This was a church that was, uh, if anyone's familiar with Redeemer Church in New York City, Tim Keller, this is a church that was sort of planted in the image of that church and with the DNA. And it it migrated in a different direction over time, but it was for me a sort of a second education, a second seminary education. I learned so much in that context. Of course, San Francisco itself is a unique environment to learn in. But yeah, I, you know, even there, I had the opportunity to be a part of starting this thing called Nubigan House of Studies, where I was particularly attuned to the health and spiritual formation of pastors and planters. And so I've always been able to sort of straddle these two worlds in creative ways. And I don't know, I mean, people ask me sometimes, even with the work I'm doing now, how did you get the job that you got, you know, and how do you get to do the things I I do? And I do sort of pitch myself that I've had the opportunity to do these things and live in these various worlds. And I've really, I'm a learner, I'm curious. And so I don't consider myself an expert in anything. I go into all these different spaces with a ton of curiosity and always learning.

Greg 13:12

I mean, when you're saying the things that you've been saying the last couple of minutes, and especially when you talk, refer to yourself as a generalist, I mean, something inside of me just like jumped up and and just started paying attention because I feel the same way. I mean, yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit good at a whole lot of things and not really a master at all that much. And and I don't know about you, but I used to feel shame or less than this over not being like super good at anything, or at least seeing myself that way. Have you ever read a book called Range by David Epstein? Uh no. I haven't somebody posted about having read it. And it's yeah, it's called Range, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. And I read that and it was just, it was so helpful. Yeah, it was so helpful for me to see the different perspective. Because in the introduction, the author basically used two well-known people from the sports world as an example of a generalist versus a specialist. And it was Roger Federer and Tiger Woods. And it's really fascinating, but it's really helped me to feel like I don't need to have a default of criticizing the way that I am, you know, or or, you know, propping myself up for the way I am. The way that I am is just the way that God's made me. And and to be able to dip into a lot of different things has just become more fascinating. And when you talk about curiosity, man, I'm right there with you. I love learning about things and finding out about things. And I really resonated with that when you were talking about it.

Chuck DeGroat 14:47

Yeah, it's it's fun to be endlessly curious and to be in spaces like uh you get to do this and you get to talk to loads of different folks and have these kinds of conversations. I mean, I feel like in the seminary world, I I'd love to redo my seminary education with my current colleagues.

Greg 15:02

You talked about being in Orlando. Did you go to RTS?

Chuck DeGroat 15:05

Yes.

Greg 15:05

Did you did you have any classes with Steve Brown? Were you there while he was there?

Narcissism: intentional or unintentional?

Chuck DeGroat 15:09

Yeah, yeah, of course. I was, in fact, yeah, I got to know him well. And he's had me on Key Life a number of times, you know, that podcast. And he was my professor in several different classes. My favorite experience of Steve was that when I was doing this dual degree, there was a particular preaching elective or said, I needed to take something. And and and I signed up for a course with him. And I said, Hey, Steve, the only problem is I won't be able to attend the course. And if you know Steve, Steve's like, oh, that's that's no problem. You're you're in the counseling program, that's that's fine. And he gave me an A for a course I never attended. So I I really hope no one from you know the the registrar from RPS Orlando didn't hear that.

Greg 15:48

I think the Statute of Limitations has probably run out on that.

Chuck DeGroat 15:51

I think it's run out at this point. But Steve's been incredibly kind to me and also really honest with me, too. Another professor who uh, you know, named I mean, it was great to have him in ministry or in seminary because he named the realities of ministry in a way that other profs weren't naming those realities, right? So I agree.

Greg 16:12

The fact that I had gone for so long as a Christian, living in the church and existing in pastoral ministry myself, and had heard so few of these things. And when I'd heard them, I'd heard them so rarely. Like when I when I hear you talking about what you were doing and what you were working on while you were in pastoral ministry, I'm like, wow. I mean, that was kind of ahead of some trends that I think thankfully are improving a little bit now in the church. But as we start to kind of shift over to talk about this Substack post that you wrote in January, I want to say something, an opinion comment, and have you talk about it because I'm curious to know what you think. When we're talking about what people do in ministry and the difference between intent and impact, I think that's something that shows up a lot. I mean, there are some people who are just clinically diagnosable narcissists and they were drawn to ministry because of the power. But I also think that there are people who behave narcissistically but have some really caring and good intentions in there, but just have some a lot of really significant blind spots too. When people in ministry leadership wound those that they're shepherding, how often do you feel like it's intentional versus there really is something good motivating it, but they just really fumble?

Chuck DeGroat 17:35

It it's complicated in a sense because I do the way I understand personality disorders and narcissism, first of all, there's a spectrum. Yeah. It's not do you have it or you do you not have it, right? There's there are plenty of guys that I've done assessments for who are elevated on the narcissistic spectrum, but not fully narcissistic personality disorder. But I think the second thing when it comes to personality disorders, the way I understand narcissism and the other personality disorders, is that that behavior is largely adaptive, which is to say, it's what we we've learned as a result of the trauma that we experienced, you know, early in life and one way or another. And I've I mean, I've sat with lots and lots and lots of men who are diagnosably narcissistic and have gotten down to those early stories. And it's like they didn't, they didn't wake up one morning and say, I'm gonna put the armor on and I'm gonna shoot at any enemy that comes my way. It's sort of like it's that evolved, you know, and and continues to evolve. Again, longer conversation, but I much of the time when I do this work, I I don't I don't find men in particular, I work with men and women who are diagnosably narcissistic, but men in particular who wake up in the morning thinking I want to harm people. In fact, much of the time they're not aware that they are. The language that we use in the psychological world is that they're egosyntonic, which is to say that the mask that they're wearing is the only mask they know. And so it's just like, I may not name narcissism, and they're like, Well, I'm just confident, you know. They don't even know it's a mask. Yeah. They don't even know it's a mask, right? And so, but as you start to tease that out and you do this work and you that I do, you may get back to some of that story and allow them to begin to bridge that gap between how they've been wounded and how they wound, right? You know, for me, it's not as simple as as what I see on the internet sometimes as you say, oh, he wakes up in the morning and he just wants to harm people. It's it doesn't work like that.

Safety and Suffering: the Post...

Greg 19:33

Well, and you've you've written a book about when narcissism comes into the church. And I would encourage people to who are curious to find out more about it to read that. But something you said a second ago piqued my interest because you talked about how a lot of the narcissistic behavior and the mask is is coming out of that person's own personal unresolved trauma, which carries with it a bit of irony, I think, because sometimes narcissistic leaders, leaders who are behaving narcissistically, let's put it that way, are among the ones who are kind of trauma deniers, poo-pooing on the whole concept. Maybe the ones that you're talking about in the Substack when they say, you know, we're raising kids who crumble at the first sign of discomfort. Not everyone, not everything needs to be labeled trauma. But but it's ironic because some of why they're being so dogmatic about that is because they haven't resolved their own.

Chuck DeGroat 20:26

Yeah, they're split off from their own. Yeah. And it's, I mean, I I've gotten to see some really incredible things over the years. And some of the more incredible moments are those moments when you're working with a man who would make statements like that, right? About trauma or about people being weak or needy today, and who go to the depths of their own story, their own wounds, and find themselves compassionate for the little boy, for instance, you know, who was wounded and who lives on within him today, you know, the little boy who, in many ways, has been denied and repressed, but really animates so much of what he does. And when when that guy finds tears and and grief and care and empathy for that little guy inside, and transformation begins to happen. That's that's the beautiful work. And inevitably their theology changes, their philosophy of ministry changes. I mean, a lot of these guys are like, I can't go back and be the same pastor that I was before. I can't go back to that church. They expect me to show up in this particular way. And so that's what I'm sure you're in it for, I'm in it for that kind of transformation.

Greg 21:35

Yes. Speaking of the Substack post, January 22nd, I think you posted it, and it's called Safety and Suffering. And as I started to read it, the very first sentence in there is just what grabbed me. And it said, in conversations about trauma-informed care, I sometimes hear the critique all this talk of safety is making people fragile. And man, I was locked in. I'm like, I don't know where this is going, but I hear this a lot myself. And like, I can't wait, I mean, I can't wait to hear more about it. And so when my wife Stacy and I started Awaken in 2015, one of the first things we knew that we wanted to do, other than forming like a community of people in recovery, was to have these intensives and workshops to help people who struggle with addiction and people who struggle with betrayal trauma kind of have a place to come to understand it. And one of the therapists who has has been a longtime friend and staffer at these intensives does a talk about trauma. And when we would first do it like back in 2016, 2017, and we asked the men at these intensives, tell me what you think of when you hear the word trauma. It was almost always something like being in a horrible car accident or being kidnapped or being attacked by a wild animal, you know, or like, you know, trauma would be the beginning of a show about people who drive an ambulance. You know, it was it was very medical or shock or event-based. But now, like when you're asking, because now you're we're getting a very different answer. We're getting people who understand because they've heard about complex developmental trauma and you know, the ongoing, you know, we may call it little T, but it has an awfully big effect because it's all it's every day, it's all the time. So there's a lot of people who know enough about trauma to give them something. To talk about. But then I think the reaction to that is what you were referring to at the beginning of the post. And so would would you just kind of talk about what it was that you were noticing that led you to write that? And then, like as we get into it, I'd love to talk about the graphic that you put in there. This is an audio-only podcast, but we're going to give people the ability to go find this. But the concept of safety, eldering, community, a sacred story. Just I'd love to hear you tell us more about it.

When trauma contributors aren't obvious...

Chuck DeGroat 23:58

First, to just address trauma, I I get, I hear people often ask, you know, like, why are we talking so much about trauma? And, you know, five years earlier I wrote a book on narcissism. Why are we talking so much about narcissism? I could easily say, why do we talk so much about sin or forgiveness? Or I mean, there are lots of words that are misused and overused. And so the reason I wrote books on these things is because I want to use them carefully. I think part of the narcissism work has been to more carefully define it because it's so overused and misused. But there's a sense in which we're all living in a story of trauma, the 1,185 chapters between Genesis 3 and Revelation 20. We're all living east of Eden in exile and disconnection and alienation, right? And so, you know, trauma is simply Greek for wound. And so we all bear that early wound, that primal wound that goes back to Genesis 3. But there's this, you know, there's this larger understanding of trauma that many of us who do this work have that understand that, as you name, the developmental trauma, the complex trauma that spans back to our childhoods. I think one of the reasons I wrote this piece, and one of the reasons I address this in a new book that I'm finishing up on character development formation, is that for some in the trauma world, the conversation swings to the other side. And you know how this goes with all different kinds of things, right? These things always swing. And one of the things I can't get rid of is I I have always been a therapist and a pastor. I think psychologically and I think theologically. So I can't divorce, you know, my my psychological head from my theological head. Sometimes I wish I could, right? Um, I think when we we talk about trauma, we move so quickly to safety. And what we often begin talking about is how we raise our kids. And I thought a lot about this 20-some odd years ago when my daughters were born. I was studying psychology, I was studying attachment. It was very, very important to me to create safety, to bond well with my daughters, you know, eye contact, holding. I could tell you stories about how it changed the way we with my second daughter in the hospital, changed the way we engaged her from the outset because a doctor wanted to take her away for fear that she had aspirated some fluid. I think that's the word. There's a maybe another word. But a midwife who was in the room said, no, no, no, no, no, put that girl on her mother's chest and she'll be fine. And she was. And so there are these beautiful intersections of what I was learning psychologically and applying to my parenting. And at the same time, maybe it's just because I was a failed parent, but I could not keep my daughters from pain. You know, it's like we're we're we live in a world east of Eden. And no matter what, you know, I'm I tell the story in one of my books of, you know, I'm changing a diaper on one of the girls at one point, and I put her on the ottoman, I set her down on a blanket, I'm ready to go, and I turn to the side to grab a diaper and she falls off, you know, and she starts bawling her eyes out. And that's just one of the stories, and you're you know how this goes. I mean, we we try to do our best, but I think when the pendulum swings to safety and we don't have a way of holding suffering, we want to do everything we can. We become anxious parents who do everything we can to keep our kids from any kind of pain rather than saying the the reality is that our kids will experience pain at different stages of their life in all kinds of different ways, but it's more about how we show up. It's more about our presence, it's more about how we hold it and contain it.

Childhood rituals from ancient cultures

Greg 28:57

It's just so timely. I mean, this is connecting to a conversation I had just this week, because another thing that we do through our ministry is we have these cohorts we put together with ministry leaders who acknowledge that they didn't receive adequate training in things like addiction and trauma in Bible college or in seminary, and they are realizing that since they've been in vocational ministry, it's like the the seesaw has tilted to where almost every meeting they have is something, you know, having to do with compulsion or addiction or sexual brokenness. And like I really want to help, but I'm afraid sometimes just my lack of knowledge about this is I'm making it worse. And so we do these cohorts. And this week, just two days before we were recording, I was with a group and there was a a ministry leader who was just talking about he was very well naming the struggle of okay, I've got a a a 20-year-old college student who is addicted to pornography, and I'm trying to just graciously walk with him and just be curious, and yet he doesn't have any of the obvious trauma story elements. Uh he's like, I mean, my parents were great. I had a fantastic stable upbringing. And and one of the things, and this is where I'm going because you're talking about safety. Yeah. The the guy who's asking the question is like, I feel frustration. And I'm like, I get it, right? Because we want to find a smoking gun that makes it make sense. And if there's not one, we kind of want to say, well, dude, what's wrong with you? You know, why didn't you take this great upbringing and just make better choices? But even in that, I'm like, here's the question I would ask this kid. You had great parents. That's awesome. Sounds like you had a really terrific dad. What was it like when he talked to you about sex? And a lot of times the answer is, well, he never really did talk to me about sex. And then, well, what was it like watching your parents navigate conflict? Oh, I never saw my parents fight. And so, like, we'll realize that under the the guise of this perfect upbringing, it's not that they had the trauma elements of abuse, abandonment, or rejection, but they had the the the sneaky one of neglect. Like in the in in the desire to bubble wrap our kids and keep them safe, we actually kept them from having the kind of resilience that rupture and repair creates.

Chuck DeGroat 31:17

Yeah, that's right. That's so good. I mean, that those are such those are tangible angles, right? I mean, when you go in with those particular kinds of questions, you get to some bedrock things and which I think are are so important. Yeah, I mean, when it comes to addiction, right, it is it is complicated. And I I do think that oftentimes we're looking for some sort of smoking gun. Yeah, that thing that happened. And my students get frustrated with me when I talk about these kinds of things. Are you looking for me to kind of badmouth my parents? I have had students, by the way, come to me and sad perfect parents, but generally the question that I ask is, but did you have honest parents? You know, I'm I'm not looking for perfect. I don't think any parents are perfect, but did you did was there honesty, was there safety, was there space for you to to name that I looked at porn last night, right? Is there space for you to to struggle, to wrestle, to know and to be known? God knows my wife and I were not perfect parents, but but uh I noticed it when my girls got to to college. I I hope I'm not telling on them right now, but like there are a few times that they went out and they drank and they had a little too much to drink. And they went to college locally at Calvin University here. And we would be the first call. Hey, can I come home? Can I can I sleep over tonight? I'm not doing well. Can you come pick me up? And that told me we didn't do every everything perfectly, but they felt safe enough to be able to find their way back here and for us to be able to wrestle together.

Greg 32:45

Thank God they did. Yeah. Safe enough to safe enough to be imperfect because mom and dad have shown me that they're imperfect too.

Chuck DeGroat 32:53

That's right. And safe enough to suffer in relationship, right? And that's what we're talking about here, right? I think that this combination of safety and suffering, there's something about doing it in in the presence of a safe other who can hold you, who can hold space. And that gets into that larger conversation that I introduced that goes back to my PhD work back in the early 2000s around really around male initiation. One of the things I discovered there through some of the reading that I was doing was that there were there were four essentials for initiatory work. And if your your listeners aren't aware of this, in in ancient cultures and indigenous cultures, there were particular kinds of ways. There are rituals, there they weren't all uniform, but there were notable themes and patterns, and there are ways of raising boys and raising girls that fit within these sort of schemes or patterns. And so the four sort of the four conditions for male initiation are safety, eldering, community, and a sacred story. And what's important about that is that this conversation about safety didn't arrive on the scene in like 2015 when we started talking about trauma more regularly on the internet, right? Yeah. And in books. It's actually a conversation that goes back to again ancient and indigenous cultures, how young boys and even young girls would be held and loved and known. Imagine these, these, these larger families, you know, where it's not just mom and dad, but it's grandma and grandpa's older siblings and uncles and aunts held within a community, held within a sacred story. This is what meaning is. Whether it's dancing around the fire or baptism in the Lord's, you know, held within a sacred story, eldered, which is to say someone a little further along on the journey who bears witness to your life, bears witness to your sufferings, and within community, which is to say you've got other peers who are like, you're not alone in this. And I mean, you in the world that you've been in, Greg, I imagine that there's probably something of that that resonates with uh recovery work.

Greg 35:04

A thousand percent. I mean, the eldering, that you're describing a really good, effective sponsor and 12-step recovery. And then the community, that's the meeting, you know, that's the people that say me too, or give, or they go first and give you the opportunity to say me too.

Safe havens in times of suffering

Chuck DeGroat 35:19

Yeah, yeah. And even AA, there there is a sort of sacred story, you know, that begins in a recognition of powerlessness, which I often say is is right where Matthew 5 and the Beatitudes begins. Blessed are the potokas in the Greek, uh, the poor in spirit, those who've come to the end of themselves, right? And so it's held within this frame of okay, you're loved, you're safe, but you're coming to an age where you're gonna have to go out into the world. And the world is scary and the world is dangerous. And, you know, in these ancient cultures, they would have in some cases really kind of primitive rituals. We don't have to get into the rituals, some of them are kind of strange, but they would have these rituals. And and I'd want to say, you know, and we have ours too. You know, it could be as simple as like the first time we let our girls walk down the block to a neighbor's house, you know, and it Sarah and I are waiting by the door, kind of peeking out, you know, this like peeking out to make sure they get there. And then they we let them go on their bikes a little bit further, and then we let them stay overnight at a friend's house, or all these things that we're doing, but we're checking back in, they're held, right? In that they're safe, they're held, they come home. How was it? How do we hold our children? How do we hold those we're discipling in safety while at the same time encouraging them to take risks, to step out, to grow, to develop?

Greg 36:44

When you were talking about ritual, Chuck, it was reminding me, and I I'm racking my brain right now to try to remember the name of the show because it's been a while since I saw it, but it was like a documentary show. I think it was on Apple TV, and it was five or six episodes of zooming in on different parts of basically the season of a child's life when they're developing attachment, either secure or insecure. And I remember that the very first episode started in Japan, where apparently there's a very common ritual where they will teach their kids a level of autonomy so super young. Like it was a three-year-old being sent out on her own to go to the store, or it may have been a little boy. You've probably heard about this, but like and the cameras were following, but not interfering. It's like this is through downtown Tokyo, and like the parents stayed at home. I don't get that. You know, that's definitely there's definitely some cultural divide between how we do these rituals, but but it's what you're describing, and and and it is eldering community. It's and it's and it's helping, it's being a part of writing the story.

Chuck DeGroat 37:53

That's right. That's right. I'm and I'm glad you brought up cultural differences and you know, attachment theory tends to to be taught in sort of a flattened Western, individualized kind of paradigm. And it really is important to say, well, what does that look like in African culture and Hispanic culture and Asian culture and so forth? There are really unique differences. And so it's important for people like me not to sort of judge.

Greg 38:18

Right.

Pushback on trauma...

Chuck DeGroat 38:18

I I don't know, I'd be curious. I, yeah, there's a part of me that feels a little bit judgy about sending a three-year-old out into me too. But I'd, you know, I'd want to get curious, but but here again, like things will happen even early in life. And the question isn't how can we prevent suffering? It's when we do suffer, is there a safe haven to come back to? It's about rupture and repair, right? And so the the goal, I think, early on for me was a misplaced goal, and that was to protect my girls from the harm of the world because I had experienced it. And this is that was me going to the opposite end of the spectrum. And when I finally realized, I can't keep them from suffering, it's just gonna happen. Then it was like, well, then how do when they do come back, how do I show up well? And I think that's the case. We can generalize that to ministry. That's in some ways the way I I work with pastors, right? It's it's sort of like some of them assume that if they take a class from me, it will uh keep them from ever experiencing any of the pain of ministry. And maybe this is where Steve Brown, the intersection of Steve Brown comes in, because you know, Steve, Steve just told us flat out, ministry is gonna kick your ass. You know, yeah. You know, he normalized it for us. And so, you know, part of the work there is to say, when it gets hard, who how are you gonna find your way back to that elder? Who's your community? Uh, because too many of us in ministry are you know lonely ministers and lonely vocations.

Greg 39:51

Yeah, well, first of all, when it gets hard, people like Steve at least do you the service of saying, you're gonna know this is what's happening. I I heard about this. I I I knew to expect this, and I may have said, Oh, it won't happen to me. But then when it does, at least you know what it is.

Chuck DeGroat 40:06

That's right. Yeah. And and so, you know, this this idea that even you know, the training that you do, the training I do that somehow it immunizes us from suffering is misguided, right? It's how how do we metabolize our suffering? How do we can we learn to grieve? Can we learn to move with it and through it? And and by the way, that that might sound nice, but I I think you know, then there's this larger conversation about all the different kinds of ways that we cope and we and we disconnect so that we don't have to uh metabolize our suffering, or as Frederick Biekner says, steward our suffering, right? And so then we've got to ask ourselves when I do suffer, how do I cope? What do I do? What do I do with my sufferings? For me, I learned very early on that alcohol was a very easy way to self-soothe. And so that was an early go-to for me. It was a late, medium, and late go-to for me. It wasn't just early. At various times throughout my ministry life, it was like, this is really hard. And I don't really feel like going home and journaling right now, you know, or calling my friend. But I know, I know that my friend Tanker will greet me at the door and I'll just pour a cup and be a little bit better about myself after that, you know. And so one of the ways that we disconnect, numb, self-soothe. Yeah.

Greg 41:28

Well, in addressing what constitutes trauma and how like traumatic events actually turn into traumas that we carry when we're not attuned to, when they're not responded to in healthy ways, when when we don't get resolution to them, you know, there are probably a lot of things that get called trauma that I would say maybe, well, we'll see, you know, or maybe maybe not yet. But one of the reactions to the wide introduction of trauma into the cultural discussion that I have seen and been troubled by among Christians is there's a lot of attention being paid right now, primarily in kind of the segment of of biblical counseling that we would call neuthetic, that are sort of trauma deniers. And, you know, like body, the body doesn't keep the score is is one thing that I actually saw. And basically trying to refute all of the things that that are leading or or accompanying Christian people down the path of exploring their trauma. And I guess if you have noticed that, like I have, what do you think people who are writing these things are reacting to? Like what are they afraid is happening?

Chuck DeGroat 42:39

Yeah, you know, I I'm not as attuned to those kinds of things. And I'm really grateful for some folks in the biblical counseling world. I mean, that's you know, this language of biblical counseling. I I have to ask, what kind of biblical counselor are you? You know, there are guys like Jason Kovacs and Bob Kellman and folks like that who are are writing about these kinds of things because they're they're talking to fellow, I guess, biblical counselors. They're probably considered the heretics, but the mavericks, the rogues, the rogues in the biblical counseling world, right? But they they're taking seriously the body, uh, right? We're in sold bodies, we're embodied souls, right? They're they're trying to work this stuff out biblically and psychologically. I do think, you know, it's it's I I I tend tend to empathy. I I understand that people see some of these developments, probably in part because I do the work I sit with lots of pastors, and I there are guys who end up coming to me who come against their will and they sit with me and they're like, oh no, I'm with the narcissism guy or something. We we find our way to empathy for one another, you know. But I hear from them, oh, I just thought that this meant, well, fill in the blank, that that you just think all pastors are bad, or you just think all pain is trauma, or you just don't take sin seriously. And there are often very sort of extreme understandings, you know, that you think empathy just means that you've got to feel with all your feels about every single thing that happens in the world, and no possible person could do that, you know. And we we just have to work through these things in ways that are you you just can't on the internet, right? On social media. What's interesting about it, even as you ask the question, people change their minds. And it's not just about changing their minds, it's about a whole body change in the context of relationship, in in the embodied work. I'll work with a guy who will be like, I hate trauma, and I don't believe in the category of narcissism. And by the time we're done, he's like, Yeah, I I understand that there are elements of trauma in my own story, and I have a proclivity to narcissism, and I'm okay with that. It's it's like we've brought it down into their bodies and into the real world. But I I mean, I'm never afraid of someone saying to me, I'm just I'm worried that the word narcissism is being overused. Yeah, I am too. That's what I'm saying.

Greg 44:55

It probably is in some sense.

Chuck DeGroat 44:57

It probably is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so you're, you know, your two-year-old is not a narcissist.

Therapy tools as helps, not "hacks"

Greg 45:02

So what's coming up for me is I hear you talking about that, Chuck, is the loss of curiosity. And I think the very real presence of presumption and certainty that when you say this, I know what you mean and you're wrong, and I've got to jump quickly to you know, making sure that you know that you're wrong, which is to me, it's a very child consciousness approach to take. But that's, you know, that's what social media has conditioned us to do. But when I get into nuanced conversations with people, and like the guy in our cohort on Tuesday, who wasn't saying, man, every college student I'm talking to is some, you know, fragile snowflake. He was just saying, this is what it seems like, this is what it feels like, but help me understand that's where the good stuff can happen, is when we are able to maintain or retain our curiosity. And I, you know, I'll confess some of these books that I've noticed, the biblical counseling books that are that are kind of poo-pooing on trauma, I haven't read them. So I can't speak authoritatively about them. But if what I would guess is happening is at all what's happening, there's somewhat a degree of reactivity.

Chuck DeGroat 46:13

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I I I think that there's this larger question too of, you know, has therapy overtaken the role of the pastor? That's a larger conversation. I mean, I think that's a conversation that dates back to the late 19th century, early 20th century. And in some ways, the abdication of pastoral care, the role of pastoral care that that led to the gap being filled by so-called professionals, right? So there's a long conversation and a historical conversation around that. But I think that there's some sense of like there's this shift of power. And you know, just scroll through Instagram and it it it worries me too that there's so much therapeutic power nowadays. Now, by the way, I'm contributing to it in the sense that I founded a clinical counseling program, but one of our values of the program. As hopeful and humble therapists. And what I mean by what we mean by that is that we have immense power as therapists. Someone comes into our office, we've got a particular expertise, they want to know what to do in the situation of abuse in their marriage or something like that. And our words matter, our presence matters. So how do we hold our presence with curiosity and with humility? But I do think that as you know, some folks out there are watching the shift, they feel like the therapeutic has taken overtaken, you know, the role of pastors. And people are leaving churches and they're going to therapists. And yeah, okay, that's a worthwhile conversation to have. But shifting to the extremes either way isn't very helpful. So I oftentimes today people will say, Well, Chuck, you I find you critical of some therapeutic modalities, or I find you critical of some therapeutic postures, or the ways in which uh nervous system work has become so oversimplified and reduced to technique. And if you just do this little vagus nerve practice, you know, you'll just be fine and you'll be regulated and everything will be great. I I have a problem with that. So, thus, writings like Safety and Suffering, which try to hold. I mean, I think that's what you're trying to do, right, Greg? Both of us in our own ways are trying to hold both ancient and contemporary spiritual formation practices, psychological wisdom, holding these things, good theology intention, right?

Wrapping up & thanks

Greg 48:29

Well, yeah. I mean, and seeing these things as potentially useful to serve a deeper helping purpose, you know, like EMDR, brain spotting, those aren't supposed to be hacks. They're there, we shouldn't think about trying to find hacks in this work because it's complicated work. And so I think that's important. But the other word you used a lot was power. You talked about recognizing that power with humility, because there is recognizing that you have it because of your voice, either as a therapist or a pastor or a sponsor or a mentor. But that's it's an entirely other thing to desire that power and to wield it and to be a and to be threatened when you think somebody else might be speaking a voice into there. Because if what we really want as a pastor and as a therapist are to be co-laborers in helping this person that is on a journey of of healing, then threat and the paranoia of, you know, am I gonna lose, lose something isn't so prevalent. It certainly shouldn't be. Yeah, it shouldn't. You mentioned some of the resources that you have. We're gonna put some some links to some ways that people can connect to your writing and some of the soul care support options that you've got. But, you know, what would you want people to know that that are some resources that you've got? And maybe we'll we'll begin to end with that.

Chuck DeGroat 49:51

Yeah, well, I mean, I I I've written a number of books, and the the latest one is a book on character formation. It's we've talked a lot about emotional health over the last 25 years, right? And one of the things that that I've been wrestling with over the last few years, Greg, is that with all this talk and all the resources we have today, how come we're only becoming more polarized? Why aren't we becoming more healthy? Or why doesn't it seem like we're becoming those are the kinds of questions I hear from people, right? And so I wanted to for a while now begin to shift maybe at least part of the conversation to character formation, you know, sort of a deeper and maybe even a more theological lens to the realm of character development, the conditions for deep character change, not just personality, not just learn your Enneagram and tweak, tweak a little bit here or there, but like how do we do the deep work of becoming a people who exemplify love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and et cetera, right? So that's part of the work I'm involved in now. People can can look that kind of stuff up on the Substack and follow along with what I'm doing there. I I just wrote an another piece yesterday on my work with narcissistic men, and I I listed a bunch of the resources. I I love to show people my notes. As you know, most of us just beg, borrow, and steal from others. And so I wouldn't be anything without reading the Kurt Thompson's of the world and Daniel Siegel's and Janina Fisher's and Patricia DeYoung's and folks like that who've informed the way I understand narcissism, personality disorders. And so people are looking for those little, you know, rabbit trails to follow. I try to leave some resources behind that people could check out my website to learn more about some of those kinds of things too.

Greg 51:35

When you talked about all the attention that's being paid and it has made us more polarized, I think it's just something I'd like to say as we wrap up is that it's it isn't information that heals. You know, information is helpful and it's useful and it can bring some things into clarity. But then what is it that's happening on a heart level with that information? And I I just really appreciate how the the work that you're doing and the writing that you're doing is helping to point people in that direction.

Chuck DeGroat 52:01

Yeah, thanks for what you're doing too, Greg. And I think one of the things that is most heartening in this is that although you and I aren't close friends, I mean, they're they're such beautiful intersections, right? And we're not alone in it. But I'm grateful for all you're up to as well.

Greg 52:16

That's kind of you to say. Chuck, thanks for spending some time with us. God bless you.

Chuck DeGroat 52:20

Thanks, Greg.