The Current
We're seeking inspiration toward deeper discipleship through conversations with people working toward justice, cultivating deep spiritual practices, forming community and connection in significant ways, and helping one another heal from trauma. As we follow Christ to the margins of society, to the wounded and grieving, and into the hard work of peacemaking, we find that we are not alone on this journey. Join us to resist despair, and to regain some hope in the world, in the church, and in Christ.
Most weeks, Pastor Chris Nafis is talking with scholars and practitioners who are inspiring and faithful, and some weeks Pastor Chris is engaging with the book of Acts. Each week, we find the Spirit calling us deeper into the death and resurrection of Jesus, into a life with God, and into loving one another well.
This is a ministry of Living Water Church of the Nazarene, which gathers in San Diego's East Village, the epicenter of homelessness in this city. We are committed to meaningful worship, community formation, and service. Join us sometime :)
The Current
Sook Kyoung Kwon and Jamie Rosen: Art, Trauma, and the Path to Healing
What if the path to healing trauma lies not just in talking about it, but in experiencing it differently through creative expression? In this illuminating conversation, Pastor Chris Nafis sits down with expressive arts therapists Jamie Rosen and Sook Kyoung Kwon to explore the profound connection between creativity, trauma healing, and spiritual growth.
Both therapists share their compelling journeys into expressive arts therapy—Sook Kyoung's transition from Korean theater artist to drama therapist working with refugees, and Jamie's path from trial attorney to finding healing through creative expression after personal loss. They explain how expressive arts therapy integrates multiple creative modalities (visual art, music, movement, writing, drama) to help people process trauma in ways that traditional talk therapy often cannot reach.
"Trauma happens outside and affects inside," Sook Kyoung explains, describing how overwhelming experiences become stored in our bodies, affecting our capacity for connection and joy. The therapists demonstrate how creative expression offers a way to externalize difficult emotions without retraumatization, while "tricking" the nervous system into releasing calming hormones through sensory engagement and play.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as they discuss how religious communities—despite historically embracing embodied practices like music, art, and ritual—have often moved away from these healing elements, emphasizing cognitive belief over embodied experience. "We live in a world where good enough isn't okay... you're supposed to be happy all the time," Jamie observes, highlighting how perfectionism undermines our resilience. The therapists invite listeners to rediscover the joy of play, sensory engagement, and authentic connection that can rebuild our capacity for spiritual growth.
Whether you're carrying personal trauma, supporting others through hardship, or simply seeking greater resilience in challenging times, this conversation offers practical wisdom for reconnecting with your innate creativity as a pathway to healing. As Jamie powerfully concludes: "It's not the word, it's the work."
Hi and welcome back to the Current. This is Pastor Chris Napis of Living Water Church and today very blessed to have joining us two of my favorite people who I've gotten to work closely with over the last several years as we have developed some programming around trauma in our church Two expressive art therapists who are involved in restorative justice and just actual art and performance Jamie Rosen and Suk-Yong Kwan. These two are amazing. They're so much fun to be around. They're such a joy to have uh working alongside of us and many in our church have gotten to know at least Suk-Yong and some of us have gotten to know Jamie also. They are just a blessing to be around.
Chris Nafis:It's always a joy to have conversation with them and I was really blessed to be able to sit down with them and talk about trauma and art and creativity and spirituality and how all these things go together. So I hope you'll enjoy our conversation as much as I did here. It is all right, jamie and sook young. Thank you guys so much for coming on to this podcast. It's like you are some of my favorite people. It's been such a joy to work. How many years have we worked together now?
Sook Kyoung Kwon:uh, well, you guys know each other. Yeah.
Chris Nafis:So yeah, hi, um, it's, it was before covid a long time for suk young and I yeah like 16 17 yeah, 2016 we were doing the women's tea and some of the stuff, and then we got into the flow groups and then jamie came along and that was maybe 2021 yeah, it was before covid too yeah, was it no, no, no, no, no, it's during COVID.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:It was during, I think, we started to, you know, build the program during COVID and then, right after COVID, we started our first group.
Chris Nafis:Yeah Well, we've had like a lot of meetings and every time it's just like a joy to be with you too, because you're just like like joyful, pleasant people who are so like thoughtful and kind and have been really generous with your time, and so thank you all for giving a little bit more of your time for us today well, the feeling is mutual um, I thought I'd ask.
Chris Nafis:So both of you are art therapists and I thought expressive arts, expressive art therapists. I'm sorry, I'm glad you expressed that. Yes, um, I, um. I. I was just saying before we started, like I don't even think I know the full story of how each of you kind of got into this work and specifically cause you both have. Also our work at living water has focused a lot on trauma and learning about trauma theory and how this affects kind of our spirituality and our ability to do what we want to do. Um, but how did you all get into, first of all, expressive arts and then how did that lead you into doing all this work and trauma that you guys have been doing for a lot longer than I've known you, I think.
Jamie Rosen:Well, I'm going to defer to Suk-Young first for her story, because she met you first and that's through her beautiful experience that I got to work with Living Water and you Okay.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So I was born and raised in Korea and my first job was a performing artist. So as a theater artist, I was so in the power of arts, you know, I was so in the power of arts. But the commercial, you know, field of theater and performing wasn't a good fit for me and I realized that after I started acting as a professional actor. Then I found this drama therapy. So, you know, of course, I went back to school and studied counseling and became a drama therapist and started to work with, you know, all those marginalized populations that I really enjoyed working with, like juvenile homelessness, and you know, especially, you know, my favorite group to work with was the North Korean Refuges. So that work was so rewarding, of course, at the same time it was really challenging but life changing and so transformative. After I moved to state I kind of lost that connection with the art. And then you know community and healing and helping, and I was like really struggle with, like you know, immigration at. You know, I became you were now.
Jamie Rosen:You were now the refugee immigrant. Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, Good point, your narrative immigrant. Yeah, yes, yes yeah, good point your narrative shifted.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Yes, so, uh, as as an immigrant, you know, as a foreigner, and I never thought I would be minority yeah, big minority where you were.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So I was really struggling to, you know, to observe that idea. And then then I started to realize, like you know, I need some healing, I need some work on myself. And then I remembered that you know, my power is in art, why don't I go back there? And then I started to kind of find the, you know, the reconnection point, and I was able to come back to, you know, performing, and then I found expressive art therapist community. From there, yeah, so you know, I went back. Of course you know, I went, had to go back to school to get the certificate, and then you know, and then, and then the right, right, you know, and then the right track of becoming a therapist, that let me practice here.
Jamie Rosen:Right and then we met, she met me. So we met in school expressive arts therapy school Okay. First year first day.
Chris Nafis:First day of school.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Yeah, same cohort.
Chris Nafis:Fast friends, and then yeah.
Jamie Rosen:And so my journey into expressive arts, I think, was started in childhood, probably. Like I feel, like all the trauma that I had as a child and stress I would take to the arts, like I would paint and draw and I had my own imagination and I'd macrame and do all kinds of crafts. Um, and fast forward many years, I went to college and then I went to law school and I was well actually, let's back up when I was in college in psych and art, I worked at Orange County juvenile detention and I went there two days a week and I got to go in and work with a group of youth and it was amazing because they at that time they were more liberal about what you could bring in. So I bring in paint and brushes and drums and instruments and cool journaling stuff and clay and toys and we would like make things. And I noticed that these youth just I mean I had no skills as a therapist or restorative justice or anything back then but the one thing I did notice is when we were playing with the materials, everybody got engaged and started interacting and talking in different ways and seemed excited and the energy levels shift.
Jamie Rosen:And then I'd ask them to journal and keep journals. Energy level shift and then I'd ask them to journal and keep journals and then I noticed this emergence of hope and excitement about their futures start to arise and I attribute always attributed it to the making and the doing and then fast forward for me. I was tired of practicing law. I went into a whole nother career which we don't need to go into, and I went through a difficult divorce and my mom dying and losing a business all at the same time, and my kids were a mess and I was a mess and I had kind of lost my art practice like you talked about, and I noticed that it was only through drawing every day and painting every day, even if it was for five minutes, and my daughter dancing and my son cooking and playing drums that we began to like find light in the midst of the dark yeah, and I was like okay, I already know this to be true that the real healing is, for us, is in the making and the doing and the arts.
Jamie Rosen:And so I quit all my other careers and decided I was going to reengage with the arts. And then I found the Expressive Arts Institute.
Chris Nafis:Okay, and so both of you kind of came to this as like this long like a rediscovery of arts from like an earlier stage in life and a way to work through your own kind of changing lives and our own grief, our own grief trauma, yeah, yeah, yeah it's beautiful.
Chris Nafis:And now you're now your grief and trauma has been kind of turned and opened up to help, like all these people that you guys have, um, you know, engaged with over the years. And so what do you? What do you do now, like, for people that don't really know what, like, expressive arts therapy is? What do you do? Where do you do it?
Sook Kyoung Kwon:um, yeah, uh, should I sure? Yeah, so expressive art therapy, it is therapy. Expressive art therapy is like, in a broader term, like, uh, we use uh, multiple art modalities. It's not only visual art, but we use music and sound, voice, movement, dance, nature, writing, poetry, journaling and, of course you know, drama, storytelling, what else, what else? Photography?
Chris Nafis:It can be anything creative.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Yeah, creative art modalities, and the reason why we kind of, you know, integrate all those different modalities is like we try to meet the client where they are at, what they're mostly comfortable with, and then you know it's an easy, you know, access to the art, but also it serves the client the way that the client can, you know, like, explore their inner and you know their situations in a more free form. I would say, you know, open and free form. Free form, I would say, yeah, open and free form.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So my work as a therapist, like I would say, there's like two big different. Well, the two fields, like one part is more like clinical setting. So I am part of LM Counseling Center and through that counseling center I meet individual or couple or, like you know, group to do sessions, you know, using creative method to help them heal and, you know, learn about themselves. So it's more, like, you know, focusing on clinical setting. But the other part is more like a community setting, because expressive art therapy can apply to, like a group settings and support groups and, you know, different types of training classes, workshops. So either way, like you know, we want to offer, I want to offer, you know, expressive arts process to bring healing and growth.
Chris Nafis:And so you've done it both in like a more formal clinical setting. And then also and that's how, probably how we got connected, because you came and we're doing women's tea, which was somewhat informal, but you were probably using a lot of the same kind of modalities, like women would come, they would drink tea, they would have this like kind of close time together and you guys would do all kinds of art and just a lot of like beautiful things come in, people loved coming to the tea and I think COVID Tea and arts, yeah, yeah, two great things. And then, and you've done some like improv stuff also, yeah, so you kind of work in both, both of those sort of settings, and is that, would you say, that's the same for you, jamie.
Jamie Rosen:Well, no, because mine's a little bit different. And, um, I think Suk-young missed a big part of her work too, the second step of her work. She talked about Ilham counseling, but she didn't talk about the creator's patch. Well, that's. Yeah, I knew that you are going to run that up. So I'm going to back up for a second, because I realized I kind of left a cliffhanger. I was like, oh, in college I worked in orange county, you know, and worked with juveniles. But what I didn't say is I went ahead and went to law school and when I was in law school I felt like I after, while I was in law school, I felt like I shouldn't be there.
Jamie Rosen:There was so much conflict and I was very traumatized by it, Like in school itself PTSD in school, and then I went ahead and practiced as a trial attorney and what I realized is you know, you can make a good argument, you can appear and you can reduce sentences and you can do all these things, but I didn't feel like I was helping people with the tools and resources that would build resilience and joy and help them through difficult obstacles and challenges.
Jamie Rosen:So I was just doing a quick fix moment to moment thing that didn't have anything to do with like a of being, and so it felt very shallow and hollow to me, and so that is another reason I gave myself permission to change careers and it happened, coincidentally, as a result of all the trauma, right, um? And so when sukyung and I both got began at the institute, we had different tracks she was the individual therapy track and I was the group conflict resolution and peace building track, and my niche has always been I do individual work, but I I love group work and I love working with groups that are having a hard time building connection or have obstacles or challenges, and like helping them connect with their senses and their innate wisdom and stuff to to build a new way of being together. And so sook young and I formed our own company. Well, we've always worked together through school with marginalized populations like unsheltered families and youth immigrants and refugees. I worked with veterans. We've worked with um. Who else have we worked with?
Chris Nafis:I've worked with survivors of torture and you do groups in juvenile hall right neurodivergent adults and kids and parents of neurodivergent kids foster youth like a whole.
Jamie Rosen:Yeah, gamut right yeah, range and incarcerated, like informally incarcerated, and we both had a passion for that and so we started doing trainings when restorative justice, too, and restorative practices when we were in school, and we both took to that instantly and integrated that into expressive arts therapy with all of our group work and became certified in those practices restorative justice but how do we do restorative practices that build and change community and overcome adversity and harm through restoring tools? Right, but we also bring in expressive arts therapy and somatic and body-based sensory work in order to supplement and kind of just weave everything together. And that's where we formed the creative patch and also, I think, at the tail end of the pandemic, right yeah?
Jamie Rosen:And we were just we were just noticing people were suffering, groups were suffering, and that we needed not just transactional change.
Chris Nafis:We needed something that was life giving and sustaining, because sometimes we can just create something different for a moment in time, and we wanted to help people start being a different way together yeah, and I mean you all work with so many different people that have encountered hardship in like all these different ways and I think what part of what strikes me about this like just the arts in general, but especially the kind of like therapeutic arts and group work that you all do is that where so many of like the systems that we encounter you know, I see most of this through the lens of our church work, which is a lot of people, you know, struggling with homelessness, but that touches criminal justice and addiction and you know immigration and all those things.
Chris Nafis:Kind of homelessness kind of touches everything, you know. But what I see is that there are all these ways that the world just kind of chews people up and people engage with these systems that are that are harsh and they're meant to sort of sustain themselves and you know the criminal justice system is just trying to kind of get get by or something like you know I've gone to some court cases kind of get get by or something. Like you know I've gone to some court cases. I remember I was a witness in a case and I just came out of there thinking like whatever the outcome of this case, like there is no chance of everybody's harmed. Yeah, and so what? But what you all have done is like really dedicate yourself to actually building resilience and connection and community and people that can help people to heal and be able to navigate, like just the hardships of life more fully. Does that sound accurate?
Jamie Rosen:yeah, and I think I think that's the goal of both of our work is like how do we lean into our existing strengths, yeah, and how do we also enhance those?
Jamie Rosen:and how do we build new regulation? And? And once we can do that, we can build co-regulation and social engagement and connection with other human beings, which is essential to you know, we know this scientifically that to ignite our social engagement system cultivates a release of neurobiologically of hormones that allow you to stay regulated and to enhance the way you show up and your sense of self empowerment and efficacy. And which makes me think about the spiritual community. Right, like when people are very, very stressed or have a lot of trauma, usually what's going on is they are carrying a lot of survival energy in their body and the chemicals are causing them to check out from themselves in the world and fracturing their relationships, their own sense of being, and it's hard to be spiritual and find the support you need and, when you're like, have all that rampaging through your system.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, I mean we've this is kind of of how we framed our the flow groups that we've developed, which, if anyone's listening to this, doesn't know what that is. You know, contact us, look on our website. We've done a lot of work around flow groups. I don't think we're going to address that too directly here today, but how we've pitched that group kind of to the community is that this is these are groups that are meant to be sort of practice groups, healing groups that allow us to actually engage in the spiritual disciplines that we want to engage in.
Chris Nafis:Like we spend so much time in the church talking about cognitive things, learning, belief, doctrine kind of study and that kind of thing like the side of our thinking, side of our brain, and I think many of us like know what we should do, we know what we want to do, brain, and I think many of us like know what we should do, we know what we want to do, but like the difference between knowing how to be in the world in a way that is, you know, loving others, loving God, learning to love and be at peace with ourselves and walking, you know learning like knowing what to do to do those things and then actually being able to do that are two very different things, and for a lot of people, I think, just the trauma, the grief, the hardship that they carry, that we carry, is a big barrier in that.
Chris Nafis:I think we can even have some self-awareness about that. Actually, a lot of people have self-awareness, but then how do you get over that hump, and I think the work that you all are doing is like a big part of of that. Does that sound my own track there?
Jamie Rosen:I mean, I think that that switch that goes off when you're able to tap into, like, like you said, the knowing is one thing.
Jamie Rosen:You can educate somebody about their trauma, you can like talk about it verbally, but it's when feeling the sensations and how they affect their body and then also feeling like when we do something like play together, sing a song together, chant together, make a collage or cook bread together, like noticing the shift in our body, like our body is now producing something different, feeling wise and that choosing to feel that, even if it's for small periods, at a time, and then you know the feeling so you can begin to create that regulation, beyond making the bread or doing the collage, or chanting or singing to each other, yeah, yeah, like you said it yourself, it's knowing versus being Right. That's a way to show up for yourself, right?
Chris Nafis:Could you, could you guys share just a little bit about, like, what is the? How does trauma specifically, or just like the hardships of all of, like just the lives on the margins, how does that affect that? Like, how do people come to you? You know what I mean before um, learning how to regulate. Like what, how do, how do those things affect our bodies, our minds? You've shared, you've yeah.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So, if there isn't really, like you know, clear boundary of different things that we can look for about, you know, oh, this is what symptoms, like you know, from traumatized person, but there is like emotional part that we can feel not regulated, you know, not in control. Also, there's like a lot of physical symptoms that we suffer and also, you know, it affects our cognitive ability. But but also, you know, overall, you know, spirituality is also affected by trauma and other sufferings. And when I you know, I now also think you know, this society is somewhat misused the term trauma, traumatized.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Traumaused the term trauma, traumatized Trauma, trauma trauma. Yeah, and you know sometimes it's overusing and you know, degrading the weight of you know, trauma. So really simply say trauma happens outside and affects inside. So what? Changed in inside, that's. That's you know what we call trauma, and uh something that is happening outside affect us. Uh, too big, too much or too fast it happened too fast so we couldn't really like find a appropriate way to cope. Or too long, too often. So trauma isn't something like big, you know well, it can be yeah, it can be, but not only.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Not only you know like know small things add up and what brings the awareness is like when people kind of reach you know the tolerance level, like, oh, I can't really do it anymore or I don't know what I can do, and oftentimes you know there are close people would notice like oh, my friend or my family needs help, needs something different.
Jamie Rosen:Like they're either sleepy or they're overreacting to situations. They're not able to get up and motivate and get normal everyday tasks done. They're not eating right, they're not sleeping right, like a lot of usually. It's, it's, it's a whole spectrum, yeah, it's. You can notice things that are biological, but everything's so intricately tied, so it's psycho, bio, social, right. Like it affects your ability to engage with other people. You don't want to talk to other people. You know socialize. You don't want to go out. It can affect you in so many ways. Um, yeah, yeah and um so.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So there's like so many different layers, so many different areas that we can look after, uh, but also, uh, there is this like mental health stigma still. It's getting better. You know, I really appreciate the pandemic for that.
Jamie Rosen:But especially in a lot of these marginalized populations, the stigma is even worse, like because certain populations really frown upon looking to others for help or admitting to the distress of being emotionally distressed. People don't want to look weak.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Right, yeah, right. And then, you know, oftentimes they just tap into like easier or not helping, coping, you know, strategies, and that makes you, that makes things worse, and oftentimes they just look normal outside, but when behind the closed door they're really suffering and feels like there's no help at all. And what I'm really sad, you know sad about, and you know, is like for a lot. I am Christian myself and I grew up in church, church community, you know, all my family, you know. But church also doesn't really support that in a way that it should be. I am not talking as a, you know, like mental health professional, but I'm talking as a, you know, member of the church.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:That you know, sometimes the saying and the learning and that you know, all those practices that we do throughout the church doesn't really support mental health in a way, and sometimes people just believe that, okay, if I just, you know, have more faith, it will go over. You know, I'll, you know, overcome whatever. You know, the problem that I am experiencing now and I try to educate, try to bring more awareness, you know, especially for my loving, you know, church community, that mental health is, like you know, just same as physical health, you know. Get checked up. You know, because you're doing annual physical checkup, you know mental checkup is like same as that and get treat, get treatment and get help. You know, outside of the church, if they feel like this is kind of like a spiritual thing, you know they kind of.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:You know, some people try to just stick with their like religious practice only. Well, I believe that helps. And the ritualistic part of the worship and then the community that church is offering to the people. You know that is all really really good and really supportive. But also, you know, know there is strong um, uh way, you know stronger way that they, they can be healed and treated and then we can support. So, yeah, so I, I really want church, community, uh, have more awareness that's so interesting.
Jamie Rosen:It's so interesting because I grew up in the Jewish faith and I pretty much despised going to synagogue and going to religious school and there was like this way of the way people showed up in conversation Like if you went to services and you were five minutes late, you were frowned on or locked out, right. If you didn't sit perfectly still in the conformed synagogue, you were a bad person, right. If you got up to go to the bathroom, you were a bad person. So if you were taking care of your bodily impulses or needs, you were a bad person.
Jamie Rosen:And then when we'd have supposed community, like discussions with the rabbi, like the way people would talk over each other and tell each other they don't know what they're talking about and like you know, it's supposed to be this rabbinical dialogue and discussion, right.
Jamie Rosen:But it was like disrespectful the way it was done and like other people's opinions didn't count or differences of opinions didn't count. And so I I've often thought about when, if it, if I hadn't gone to jewish sleepaway camp in the mountains where we had relationship with nature and we got to play together and do other things together, I probably would have rejected my religion Probably. But it was like this other environment where people were curious about me and, instead of arguing, we made challah together, we danced together, we sang prayers together, we built Jewish altars or like wrote our own prayers and Torahs, like it was much more open, where everybody got to participate, everybody mattered, we learned and cultivated values and morals, instead of just being told what your morals and values should be. And so I think it does bring into into question, which is part of the work we all got involved with.
Jamie Rosen:Yeah, with um shelly rambo at boston university right, which is how can we whether it's spiritual or otherwise in terms of our organizations and congregations how can we help people be concerned about? How does trauma impact the way people show up and how organizations and structures run? So what do we need to do to support people so that we can build healthier hives where people feel connected. Everybody wants to take part in it, everybody feels like they have an important role right, so that we all rise together. And so I think that all spiritual organizations, all companies, all healthcare, everybody needs it.
Jamie Rosen:Yeah, because, like Sook Young was talking about, what is trauma? It's too much for too long and your body loses its ability to stay regulated. Like, all of a sudden, you have no energy. All of a sudden you have no energy. All of a sudden you feel like you can't accomplish anything. There's a problem, and so and that's that can happen to anyone I mean, one of my mentors calls today a trauma scene instead of paleo scene. That trauma is so wide right now. But it's not PTSD level trauma. There's all different levels of time. But if it's interfering with your ability to do daily chores and have find some amount of joy and your day meaningful relationship.
Chris Nafis:Meaningful relationships, then you're having trauma response and it's interesting you bring the sleepover camp because so many of like when we were learning some of the modalities early on with you, as you all were teaching us, like what you do and in your group.
Jamie Rosen:It's like going to camp right.
Chris Nafis:So many of them I was like we literally did this at high school camp. You know like this is and it brings you back to that, and those, those experiences are so good for so many people, you're saying because they're deeply connecting, they're physical and they're they're um, there's just this like way of getting out of kind of the, the kind of strict structures of like your normal life, and into this like kind of wild place where you're free to somewhere somebody told us where it became not okay to play.
Jamie Rosen:Yeah, right like formal sports or formal board games are OK, but like just play and laughter and listening to each other in that playful way all of a sudden became irresponsible.
Chris Nafis:Yeah.
Jamie Rosen:Instead. Of this is a way of being, and connecting, and having relationship.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, well, and especially I feel like in church settings, where we want to take everything so seriously, I think, like we're, I think, as a as I you know, I'm a pastor obviously I think like part of the part of our role is to try to get people to take their spiritual lives seriously, that that, that this stuff matters and it you know, it's always a fight for priorities with work and family and everything else and to say, like, this stuff matters, and so there's this.
Chris Nafis:I feel like we have this pressure to like no, you like pay attention to this stuff, but then this, this, the stuff is, uh, like when you take it too seriously, it kind of loses itself in a way you know what I mean like you have to be able to, to like there's, there's needs to be joy in it and play in it, and that can be challenging sometimes well what I love about you know, religious groups, you know can be a very good platform to offer this kind of service, Right, but religious congregations, the ritualistic part, if we see that there's so many good elements already.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Like you said, there's always music involved, there is poetry we read scriptures, we recite them and there is always inviting movement together. We read, you know, scriptures, you know we recite them, and there is always, like you know, inviting movement together, the ritualistic movement together and, of course, the prayer. You know all those things and you know we do retreat, we do small groups. So I think you know those religious practices have like potentials and I believe you know we might lost some of those.
Jamie Rosen:Like you know, the first beginning of this, you know, grouping, um instinct of like this brings us hope, this brings us joy, this brings us like strong, uh, feeling of connection because you know it's, it happens on a spiritual level that's so interesting, because I was talking to a friend the other day was talking about I went with them to church and they were going up for communion and the cracker and I was like asking questions and then we left and we were having an order somewhere and I was like so what goes through your mind when you get out of your seat and you're standing in line and you walk up there and you wait and then they give it to you and he's like nothing, like I'm just going up there to get my cracker and like that.
Jamie Rosen:But I'm like so, like, do you notice the energy of the people around you? Do you feel the heaviness of somebody's heart? Do you like think about your footsteps and your journey from your seat up to there? And like so. We had this really deep, really profound conversation and he's like huh, and I'm like well, I go, like now when I fold the laundry, I take the laundry up and I hug it and I go oh my gosh, this feels so warm so warm and soft and cuddly and oh my gosh, I needed that hug from the laundry.
Jamie Rosen:And then I go to the counter and I start folding and I'm like, oh, this is such a nice movement like. So I'm finding something within, something that gives us back to our unconscious and our spirituality and our way of being.
Jamie Rosen:And I think that's what you're talking about. And you're talking about and I'm talking about is sometimes we we get so life is so busy, there's so much to do, there's so many hard things that we're tasked with every day that we lose this reflective ability that engages our senses, that naturally helps us build resilience, because it's a neurobiological response. Right, and it might be picking up my superwoman because off the shelf to support me today, because you know I need a little bit of oomph or whatever, but she gives me that yeah and like oh, she makes me laugh, she's fun to play with and we don't give ourselves enough of that.
Chris Nafis:If you're just listening to this, jamie has like a. It's like a rubber figure and you know both of us. You. It's like a rubber figure and you know both of us.
Chris Nafis:You can kind of pick the figure they have a lot of toys here with it, and so they've got one on the video support uh, but like having that tangible physical little thing and that like physical connection, and then I think, not just having it as you're saying with the communion story, but like becoming aware enough right, actually enjoy and be present in the, in the thing I mean.
Jamie Rosen:to me you were saying, well, she's cricket, like she's leaning, and I'm like, well, even super women and our wonder woman has her days where like has to lean somewhere.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:You have to lean, I need to lean on the speaker.
Jamie Rosen:I need to lean. Lean on Sue Young's friend and Chris. Like it's okay, it doesn't make me less.
Chris Nafis:Two things can be true at the same thing I can need some help and still be superwoman For sure, and I think like I think that's where sometimes the message of the of the church and you know my experience is in is in the church, you know, mostly in the Protestant lower church traditions Um, it's. It's like we're like kind of like what I hear you saying. Sukyong and I really have come to see this, as we've done the work over the last few years Like it's right there for the church Right.
Chris Nafis:It's right there, but so often we push against the things that actually bring healing and I think the church tends to just expand our sense of isolation by making it all this individual thing that we're doing. It's about your faith and your decisions and your practice, and are you having your quiet time and you're reading by yourself and are you in your study and kind of breaking it down from the communal work that we are meant to be doing together, which I think goes against our actual theology and doctrine.
Chris Nafis:And it goes against your neurobiology and it goes against our neurobiology, yeah, and then so on thatology, yeah, and then so on that sense. And then I think we also like there's this um pressure to like hyper spiritualize everything which makes it disembodies our practices and our beliefs more like I would call that uh hyper cognitive okay, hyper cognitive yeah yeah, well, yeah, I think that's right because I think what it is I mean I can get into this's like a. It goes back to Plato, you know, separation of mind and body.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, this is dualism where you know the physical is kind of bad, or at least it's not worth pursuing. And I think a lot of churches stress about, um, getting too much. You know, like, the church I grew up in had no art anywhere. It was very kind of stark, it was in a warehouse type setting. Yeah, and my, I mean we're in, we're not in a traditional church space, I live in water either, but we do have art around and stuff and but I think it was intentional and they would talk about it because they were kind of pushing back against some of the rituals and art and you know, thinking of some of the things that are in like the Catholic church or other high church traditions that are sort of more ornate, um, because they don't want us to get caught in the ritual, they want us to get caught in the belief, and I don't, I think that's like a dualism, that's just like a false dualism.
Chris Nafis:And we, when we uh sort of strip those things of ourselves, I mean of course we don't want to worship the painting or whatever you know, but like if, if we can incorporate art in beauty and sensory things, smell and taste and all those things into our spiritual lives in ways that connect us to one another. That's where, like, all the healing happens Right and that's where the vibrancy of our spiritual lives and the joy and the, that's where this stuff it's like, like I said, it's just like right there and I feel like I'm it gets me really excited because, like, I feel like I don't know that we've sort of figured out how to um maximize it in our church community. I think we're getting better at it, we're learning, but it just feels like there's like a breakthrough right there. If we and as the church you know, bigger than just my little church um, if we can kind of take step through the thing, then there's like potential for lots of healing and goodness I was.
Jamie Rosen:I love that. And I was thinking the other. Well, it's been a couple months now but I was in synagogue for an event and you know we sang together and and I noticed when we sing together I immediately feel peace, right, and I was thinking about like we sang together.
Jamie Rosen:Canter got off stage, rabbi went on and I was like the somatic practitioner and expressive arts therapist me was like wouldn't it be beautiful if the rabbi had said wow, did you all witness and just hear all the vast, beautiful individual voices, how they came together? And like everybody's voice is different, even people had different tunes and sounds and like what was that like for you? Like think about it, like how magnificent that is, and like that breath and that sharing the breath, and like just capitalizing on the connection. Because I noticed there was people who weren't singing too and oftentimes the people who aren't singing don't feel safe singing right because they're worried about their voice or being out of tune, like me, who I'm always out of tune, but I've got because I'm an expressive art therapist, I've somehow overcome that.
Jamie Rosen:I don't care because the joy brings me more right, but like it gives us freedom to deepen our ritual and to deepen our connection, and that's just like a little teeny thing. The spiritual leader in my instance could have done that in my could have like connected people in a whole nother way and it would have taken 10 seconds.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, I mean. So just going back to the camp, thought like some of the most sort of moving times in camp was in like war, like music, worship together, absolutely.
Jamie Rosen:All these high school kids.
Chris Nafis:there's no shame, Everyone's just kind of belting a hundred percent. I'm not, I've never been a singer but like I don't have to worry about my voice because everyone's singing so loud. I agree, but now in church, every time, even even though it's usually like Rachel or one of my kids sitting next to me, I'm still thinking. The whole time I'm singing I'm like are they listening to me? Cause I know I don't have, you know, and I like give into and release those inhibitions. Then it's a profound experience there first yeah.
Jamie Rosen:And in that experience, like at the Jewish camp it was not the first Shabbat, it was like hours of singing and dancing after Shabbat dinner and like holding hands and running around and doing the dances and I'm like they don't give us permission to do this at the synagogue.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Why not?
Jamie Rosen:Right. Well, so at a wedding maybe?
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Yeah, to do this at the synagogue, why not? Right? Well, so at a wedding maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah, I am, like you know, sometimes like really angry about, you know, the education system. Like you know that's actually. You know, like like give uh all our children, you know uh not, like you know, encourage them to enjoy uh all those like sensory things, but more, like you know uh, give them a little bit of shame and fear you're not good enough to voice.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:You don't draw good enough like you know, uh, you're not an artist and you know you have to have certain voice to sing. You have to have certain skills to enjoy painting. You have to have certain body to you know move and dance.
Jamie Rosen:Be a theater dancer.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Yeah, and that fear is, like you know, everywhere now, everywhere, now, like every, every individual carries a certain amount of that fear. That is, like you know, it's not only self-conscious about like how to present in the world, but it's more like how to be, how to be. So, if we can regain reconnect with that, like you know, innocent childlike, you know, joy of playing, joy of enjoy our body, joy of like using our senses and whatever we are given from god, you know, uh, in in a playful way we call that. You know, uh, the psychological term is like range of play, range of play. So, uh, I think, you know, usually we start, like you know, like like open, oh yeah, open range, you know we're trying to bring up is like, okay, we can extend the range, we can open up the range and you titrate it.
Jamie Rosen:You titrate it by giving little Little bit of, and they don't require skill, like this notion in the schools that you have to be an artist or you're not an artist. It's just not right. Like we are all born, this is what expressive arts philosophy is. We're all born creative human beings and we all have the capacity to engage our imagination. We all have the capacity to play, and so we. How can we use our hands if we don't have hands our?
Jamie Rosen:body our senses to be playful and explore different um surfaces, different touch, different smells, different tastes, and see what things do and through that it enlivens you, it starts to build, get your system to start to feel safe and playful. I mean, we were just working in the jail yesterday with some women and we started really slow with just make a sound together and then we said like let's bring in another sound and let's add, and it got so we did body full.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:It got so painful.
Jamie Rosen:So these women who are 100 shut down no range of play, like barely can get out of bed to come to our group right and come in like this, and they were like yeah you know, and everybody played along, but it was also individually.
Jamie Rosen:They wouldn't do that. So it was the us giving them an invitation and then there being no shame and like no judgment, and seeing that you can be playful and not be judged, and then it becomes easier and grows the range. Yeah, and so magic can really I. I always tell clients and groups that we're our, we can be our own magician and we can trick it's literally trick our nervous system into releasing happy hormones, healthy connection hormones, and we have the control to do it. Like I can come in here and complain to you about my horrible day and everything that happened. Everything's wrong. Or I could come in and go oh my gosh, look at all these. I wonder what her story is Right, and then start having a story with Suk-hyun and, at least for the moment, I'm releasing new hormones that can build a potential new way of being, maybe for five minutes now, maybe 20 minutes later, but these things can help completely change our nervous system. And so that's the power of expressive arts. Isn't about like fine arts.
Jamie Rosen:Yeah it's about engaging anything with your imagination and creativity so that you can use it as a tool or resource to build resilience and joy and curiosity and fun. And like how I can play with her, but she also has a story, so I can write a story. Oh, she probably has a song, a soundscape, what would she be singing? And then write the song, dance, dance. To put the dance to the song, and then you're changing your whole story through the third, so you're able to not sometimes in talk therapy when we keep talking about our own story. It's too vulnerable and it will re-traumatize us. But if things start to come out with her or her or her, it's outside of us, so we can revisit it in a way that feels safe yeah, a lot of the creative mediums like there's enough, um, it's, you can be.
Chris Nafis:You can be kind of vulnerable in a measured way because you don't have to be so. On the point of like this is right.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:What happened to me?
Chris Nafis:I'm sharing you the worst moment of my life or something, but you can express the emotion of that and the feel, the you know, just all sorts of aspects of that, while keeping the event itself kind of shrouded a little bit and only expose what you want to. You know what I mean, right, and I think, and I think all this, like I think for for you know, this is a church podcast and a churchy audience and I think, like where this is, where this is really exciting for me in the um, on the faith front, is that, like this is the stuff that can help us to lead vibrant spiritual lives, which, to me, is not just about believing the right things. I think theology matters and I, you know, I've spent a lot of my life studying theology. But I think learning, like the education, is not just that cognitive, intellectual thing. It's like our physical education and how to actually connect with other people.
Chris Nafis:Right, if we're supposed to love God and love others, then that means we have to learn how to be a little bit vulnerable with other people and open up to them and receive their vulnerability right, and if we want to like, open up to them and receive their vulnerability right, and if we want to, like, learn how to serve and do hard things that God may be calling us to do, we have to have some resilience and some strength that, like we don't. If we're always kind of closed up on ourselves, if we're always feeling, you know, threatened, if we're always kind of pushing everyone away because we just kind of can't handle, you know, opening ourselves up, we have this narrow range of play, as you guys said, or, you know, we have all this rigidness in ourselves Then we're not going to actually enjoy the life that God has given us and we're not going to actually be a joy to be around for others.
Jamie Rosen:Well, he's not asking of you just a belief system. He's asking for you to be have a way of being.
Chris Nafis:Right system.
Jamie Rosen:He's asking for you to be, have a way of being right, exactly just like if you're a restorative practitioner. It's not like in this setting I'm restorative, yes, I b-e-i-n-g. Being it all the time right. Well, of course we're human. We make errors. But how do I, how do I be a good, the spiritual person all the time? There's values and ways of being that you want to embody.
Chris Nafis:Right, if I want to be a person of hope, then maybe doing some of the things you were just describing, right, instead of just kind of cycling through all the negative stuff which many of us you know we're all doom scrolling and you know, with there's so much negativity and cynicism this is confessional for me because I'm like too cynical, right, but if I can learn how to kind of turn myself towards more of this hopeful stuff and more of the creativity and the openness and the joy, then that can affect my whole life, right, and the lives of everyone around me. Yeah.
Jamie Rosen:And I love when I, when we've been working with you with the flow group, right, like they have the privilege of hearing back from people within the groups or from people running the groups, that the things that would happen for people, that would enhance their spirituality, would enhance their way of being able to embrace and act in alignment with their values and morals. Right, and you know, for me one of the big breakthroughs is in um 2023, a book finally came out, the brain, on art and because because we we caught, we've always called the research we've done in expressive arts arts-based research. So, by interviews and by you know your artistic response to this the poem or the song is the research that it matters. But now somebody finally did a good job of compiling, like scientific. Because, right, our world relies on the brain scans and the body scans and the scientific got to justify everything part of the brain evidence.
Jamie Rosen:So now we know that certain parts of the brain that enhance resilience light up when we're engaging in all of these artistic, creative, embodied forms like dance, poetry, music, chanting, singing. And so we're like, okay, here's the science. For you scientific people who don't buy into the importance, like it's not arts and crafts, it's not unnecessary play, it's part of, like, indigenous cultures around the world, there's a reason that they live an artistic life. That's in connection with nature and that's because it allows us to be resilient um thriving individuals versus like surviving, right, right. And there's like all of those things Our body picks up neurologically on our environment and we interocept constantly and exterocept safety. So if we're out of equilibrium and don't find all of these things, the interaction and the health that we can derive from these tools, then no wonder we're out of balance.
Chris Nafis:I mean, it's just and spiritual traditions have been doing this stuff forever, right? That's the irony of it.
Jamie Rosen:Right, and they've known it forever.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, we've known this for thousands of years. Now there's like brain scans and scientific ways to sort of measure things. But now we've got to call the spiritual communities back to doing what has been a part of the tradition.
Jamie Rosen:Well, just like acupuncturists and alternative medicine people have known this because they're intuitive and they listen to the body's wisdom, as do spiritual leaders. They're with people, they're connected to people, they're reading people. Modern medicine was based on a cadaver. The nervous system, understanding, was based on a cadaver in the past, so we really didn't understand this stuff until we actually had more of these light up systems. So, um, once again, I think expressive arts and all of this spirituality is about listening to our inner wisdom, which is often right, right, and then we've lived in a world that has turned us towards. We have to read it in a textbook, or somebody has to have told us it's okay to do that. We can't trust that, and so it's like you said. That's so interesting. Spiritual people have been doing it for centuries yeah, since the beginning of time.
Chris Nafis:Back to our own roots and our own tradition and our own practices. Yeah, some of the greatest art in the history of the world is all coming out of spiritual traditions and spiritual you know, absolutely People paying for spiritual art that depict the stories and the symbols and the things that have been so meaningful for us for so long.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So it's all about reconnecting, restoring, you know, the beauty and the wisdom that we always had.
Jamie Rosen:Yes, but I think what's really important is this can all sound like great Right, but we live in a modern world where there's a lot of stress, a lot of aggravation, a lot of situations, and so the ability to find things that when first educating yourself about your own nervous system so that you can tell when you might need some help and some support, and educating yourself, what does support look like? Support could be walking in the grass or smelling the flowers right, it doesn't have to be something that's super expensive and so that's knowing that enlivening the senses is going to bring you to the present moment and it's going to help you release and trick your nervous system into releasing some healthy hormones, and it may just get you through the day. You may have to go then treat yourself to your favorite food or a hot bath, like sometimes. We just have to keep doing healthy alternative things that do enliven our senses.
Chris Nafis:yeah and it kind of reverses the spiral right, like as we can spiral downward into the negative stuff where you know you start feeling bad, so then you develop a bad habit and then that makes you feel worse, and then it breaks your connections and then you kind of go. But you can reverse the cycle if you start to, as you're saying, kind of trick your nervous system or if you start to do the practices that you, that you should rewire your brain and just choose.
Jamie Rosen:By I mean the choices we make. Yeah, but we don't have capacity to make different choices. Sometimes when we're so depressed, yeah Right, and so that's when we really need help. Yeah, yeah.
Chris Nafis:And that's the beauty of the spiritual community is we have each other to lift each other up. You know, we can be there for someone else who maybe doesn't have the capacity to do it themselves, and we can invite them into a space of worship or a space of the flow groups or the space of like community connection and say, hey, come, come sing with us. You know, if you can't sing, that's okay, just sit there and listen to the rest of us sing, and uh, and we can kind of lift each other up in that way too.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:And always, like you know, I encourage people to think about like spiral up, spiral down. Uh, so there is like no perfection of like healthy state, so it's always like fluctuating, and it's okay to feel bad sometimes, it's okay to feel depressed. It's just knowing that you know, oh, you're aware enough, like you know, uh, how your body and how your emotion feels like, and then you know you have enough tools and skills, uh, to you know, to do the spiral up. So spiral up doesn't like you know this or you know it's it needs.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:It takes time, it takes practice, but just knowing that and have some, you know good tools and skills here and there, and also you know, if you have, like, you know, uh, supporting um people, supporting community, uh, that's, that's enough. I mean, you know enough, good enough, good enough, practice, good enough, self-care, good enough? Uh, you know feeling, but we all say that and the reality is we don't live in a world where good enough is okay, know feeling, but we all say that, and the reality is we don't live in a world where good enough is okay, like you're supposed to be happy.
Jamie Rosen:Happy is a bad word, right, because that's not life. It is a spiral like. I can be happy and sad at the same time, and I can feel both emotions 1000 times all day long, and I can be happy and angry, and so I think we have to like yeah, so try not to be perfect. Try not to be, like you know, social media perfect all the time yeah.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, well, that's the other part of this.
Chris Nafis:is like social media really puts this even, I mean even in like the art stuff, right? Like, uh, cause we're no longer just trying to be, you know, like a fun. You don't just have to be a good singer in your little cluster of friends You're now competing with like the entire world. You know what I mean. And the best singers in the world have the most popular TikToks and everyone else stinks, you know, and there's this way that that that just further drives us away from it. But if we can get rid of that competitive edge and if we can learn to enjoy it for the sake of itself and not have to be you don't have to be a influencer to enjoy dancing, right?
Sook Kyoung Kwon:really I, I really want to, like you know, a talk and tell the younger generations, like you know, please rethink about connection. So the connection that you're making through social media uh, not be good enough for you. So there's other ways. Like you know, we're losing a lot of like you know, real touch, a lot of you know like intimate connection, a lot of like offline relationships, and I know there is like cons and pros of like, of, like you know, connection through social media and technology. And technology brings, like a lot of you know, possibilities, the good things, of course, but especially for the younger generations. You know they were exposed to social media and technology way too soon, way too young, and that kind of blocked them from having different level of connection within nature, within physical touch, physical, you know being together, and it became kind of normal you know, that way.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So I think you know this society and, as grown up as like adult, you know, as grown up as like adult, you know we have to, you know, try really hard to break that stigma and then, you know, try to offer alternatives, which I believe, we believe it's more genuine way of connection.
Chris Nafis:Right, which is often less convenient. But then, if you think about it like that's, that's how you end up having all these negative coping, that's how people end up addicted to meth right Is because it's a convenient way to escape your problem. You know it's easy and quick, but eventually it it leads you into more destructive patterns. I think social media is kind of maybe not to that extent it's all like getting developing a meth habit and you know, being too on, you know Snapchat or whatever too much isn't the same thing, but it is kind of similar where you go for like the cheap fix of like this connection and you, you know, maybe harder to like, actually get together.
Jamie Rosen:I mean, I read an article the other day that said that social media creates the isolation that has increased the suicide rate. So it's like thinking social media is a substitute, right, and then people, that's not real interaction, right. There's no honesty, there's no vulnerability, there's no, it's like makes you feel bad, right, and then it's become so such a large thing and that's some people's only way of interacting and that it's like their mental health is so bad that it results in suicide. And those are the highest numbers of suicide rate. Nights are people who actually are suffering from isolation, but it's been because of social media. Yeah, yeah, it's not just a warning.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:It but it's been because of social media. Yeah, yeah, it's not just a warning, it's scientific research that shows you know how it affects our daily life, and you know relationships and the way that we think and we feel. So I think, yeah, this generation we really have to, you know, pay more attention to. You know how to provide them, uh, different experiences.
Jamie Rosen:Yeah, yeah I mean, we all know when we force ourselves, like you said, sometimes it's hard. Yeah, I don't want to go to that thing. And you go and you're like, oh my god, I feel so much better right and it's because you're connecting with human live beings which releases oxytocin and dopamine, which is very hard to release on your own in many circumstances. So, yeah, I'm a church. I've been to your church.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, like come and connect and come and be in person and come in and like do the harder, do the sometimes slightly harder thing, that's a little less convenient. We almost we're talking about doing even this on zoom and here we are in person and it's so much better.
Jamie Rosen:But when I find, um, chris, what so living water allows, like as a stranger who walks in there, whether it be for Thanksgiving or for group or just coming by on a Sunday, it feels like a very open place to walk into and and a safe place to walk into. So so obviously you're doing a lot of things right, but I think a lot of spiritual places do not feel that way.
Chris Nafis:Yeah.
Jamie Rosen:And I think that is a travesty, because I do think and I've had this conversation many times with my children that spiritual feeling safe, to be spiritual to whatever level you want to be spiritual within a place where other people are being spiritual, is one of the quickest places to regulate your nervous system and to feel seen, supported, heard and safe system right and to feel seen, supported, heard and safe. And so it's a real shame that that we I know we talk about growing this work all the time, like how do we get spiritual congregations to really embrace this so that they're all thinking about?
Jamie Rosen:what what could happen?
Sook Kyoung Kwon:it's. It's not easy, you know. Yeah, part of the church community. You know myself, like I often, you know, offer, you know, my program to my community group. Like you know, last three, four years you know we try to train new facilitators from so they can kind of, you know, spread out, you know, into the whole community and, you know, bring this work into their community. That's our hope but it's not easy. Community, that's our hope but it's not easy. You know I see two challenges there, you know, just limiting to religious congregations. First is the authority matter. So oftentimes, so oftentimes, pastors and spiritual leaders have all those authority to teach, to train, to offer programs, and you know other members are more, like, you know, humble, to become a leader and offer programs rather than just like supporting. And also the other challenges I see is like one, it's not easy to become a facilitator and you know, to lead such a group. But also you know there is lack of belief that an art can help.
Chris Nafis:Right.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So we have to kind of like you know, not fighting, but you know there is lack of belief that an art can help right. So we have to kind of like you know, uh, not fighting, but you know work through that. Two different. You know challenges within congregation also and, um, through counseling center. Uh, lm Counseling Center is also non-profit but Christian faith-based organization and we try to offer this type of program, like flow group or other means, other training classes to church communities. So I did some retreat programs for, like you know, I did some retreat programs for, like you know, church members. But when we're trying to reach out to the leaders of the congregations, you know they're more like you know oh, that's nice.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Is it like biblical?
Chris Nafis:Right right.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:So there is still like a high wall to climb. So, Chris, that's your job.
Chris Nafis:It is, I know, and I kind of laugh, but I really do think that that's kind of what I've been wrestling with, and not just me. Like I think we've had conversations together about this how do we share this Cause like I said, it's like it's right there. It's like it's right there for church communities, for faith communities of different sorts. How do we? How do we kind of share it in a concise way, not in an hour long podcast that someone has to listen to in order to kind of get it, but like how do we get through to folks that like this is actually something that can be tremendously enriching for a spiritual community, for individuals in that community, can bring healing to people who are really struggling, and the world is a hard place right now.
Chris Nafis:I think even people who you know our church is a lot of folks that are on the street and like really, really struggling in like severe crisis all the time. But I think even even sort of middle-class people, like life is just hard right now In a lot of ways. There's a lot of stress, there's a lot of forces that pull us into isolation, that kind of pull us out of our bodies, and this stuff can be so good and healing. We have to find a way to do it. We're going to, we're going to do it and we're going to figure out a way to share this. Whether it's we need to write about it, we need to. You know, do some more podcasts, not just mine, but, like you know, we're working on it and if there's any funders out there, lily decided not to fund it, but we will find someone who's going to help us off the ground. We're committed.
Jamie Rosen:I'm wondering, like I think there's this so there's this big trauma responsive movement or trauma informed movement for all enterprises right now? Yeah, and I think that there's this notion that spirituality itself is trauma informed, just like there's that same notion in restorative justice.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Yeah, yeah.
Jamie Rosen:Like people assume, because it's restorative justice. It's trauma informed and spirituality. Why wouldn't it be trauma informed? We're here to help people, we're here to expose them to. But I think that's where the ignorance is of what is trauma and how does it affect our spirituality and how do we show up. But also, people don't want to focus on trauma. So then you're like so it's like this resilience building, like how do we couch it? With leaders, so that we're actually can catch their attention.
Chris Nafis:Well, well, it's one of those things where everybody wants to talk about trauma and stuff, but they all want to talk about it in other people. That right deal with it in themselves or kind?
Chris Nafis:of I know somebody yeah, that, like we all, we all carry it and it is. It's like it's not just like a you have trauma or you don't. I think there is, like there are severe forms of, you know, ptsd and stuff that's a little different than like your everyday. But, like, we've all experienced hardship, we've all had people that have bullied us or marginalized us in different ways. We all have, you know, these things that it's either been too long right, or or too intense, or you know too much too fast. We all have those things that we carry with us. And even if we don't this is the other thing that I've been trying to tell folks like, even if we don't, having a strong central nervous system that is like well adapted and having these practices in place can make us more resilient in case we do face the trauma.
Jamie Rosen:Well, that's the idea, with resilience building and doing this work.
Sook Kyoung Kwon:Yeah, there's always a little better version of you, sure Always.
Chris Nafis:Well, I feel like we always can talk forever. I think we may have even gone past Jamie's time. Sorry, jamie, but we should wrap this up. We'll get you guys back sometime. And thank you again so much. Oh, it was so fun and all these years of work. We really appreciate you guys and, yeah, glad to have the connection and so good to be here in person with you. Any final final words.
Jamie Rosen:No, I'm just grateful for this opportunity and grateful for the work you do and grateful for the desire for us all to spread the work, like it's not the word, it's the work. Not the word, it's the work. That way, yeah, that's not the word, it's the work yes, yes, all right, all right.
Chris Nafis:Well for those listening. Thank you for tuning in and, uh, we will see you later. Thank you.
