Wholly Empowered

8. All About Correlations Between Belief in a Higher Power and Healing Your Soul - with Colby Wright

• Kristen Russell • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this episode Colby Wright who is a student of spirituality, professor, bishop, author, and podcaster (amateur on all fronts in his words) and I have a wonderful conversation discussing the correlations between how we view our source or higher power and how we find healing. Everything from the father wound and believing in a good God, to different ways to connect are discussed. We had a great time chatting about this and hope you find some value in it. 

Colby’s Podcast is called Awesome Books About God and Jesus with Uncle Colby (on spotify, apple podcasts or anywhere you find your podcasts)

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/awesome-books-about-god-and-jesus-with-uncle-colby/id1753998154
 
Colby's book, The One with the Tiger on the Boat:
https://www.amazon.com/One-Tiger-Boat-Reimagining-Christianity/dp/B083XVFCLZ

Colby’s recommendations:

-Anything by Richard Rohr. 

-The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault

https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Jesus-Transforming-Mind-Perspective/dp/1590305809

-Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

https://www.amazon.com/Julian-Norwich-Showings-Uncovering-Revelations/dp/1642970360

Follow the Wholly Empowered Podcast for updates
https://www.instagram.com/whollyempoweredpod/

 

I'm Kristen Russell, and this is The Wholly Empowered Podcast, where we dive into all things holistic healing and open our minds, hearts, and paradigms to new ideas so we can live our most empowered, healthy, joyful lives. I wanted to hop on really quick and let you know about three things before we get started with this episode. If you are watching on YouTube, it's going to be in a part one and part two. So just keep, keep that in mind as you're listening. There is a part two that you will want to listen to. So all other platforms disregard that. It's just one episode. Also, I have started an Instagram account for this podcast. It's called Holy Empowered Pod, and I'll be posting clips and just updates every time I post an episode. So if you want to keep tabs on, on this, that's a great way to do that. You can also just subscribe and at least on Apple, it gives you updates, I know. So there's some options for you. Also, this episode is with my current Bishop and we. Just had a great conversation. It's very conversational. It's very, just two friends talking about the divine and our experiences and our thoughts on healing and how we view, having a higher power. So again, I know it's kind of a touchy subject sometimes, so take what resonates, leave what doesn't. We're just two imperfect people trying to figure it out like everybody else. So hopefully. You can get a lot out of it. I, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. It was a lot of fun. so I hope you enjoy and Happy Holidays

Kristen:

Okay, so we are here with Colby Wright today, who is he's a professor. He is currently, he has a pastoral role, as you like to say. He is a bishop right now. he is also an author and also a podcaster. And, um,

Colby:

Amateur on all fronts, on everything. Amateur, you know, Amateur, but yes, yes, that's great. Thank you.

Kristen:

We're all just, we're all just here showing up. Right. Yes. Um, and we're just going to chat today a little bit about. the importance of having a higher power on your, on your healing path. So, Colby, do you want to introduce yourself a little more in depth?

Colby:

Sure. Yeah. Okay. That was very generous of you to name that I'm a professor and I have a pastoral role in all that. I think of myself as just a dude, a middle aged dude, trying to make his way through the world and trying to find like peace and happiness and joy and trying to keep kind of my life together. Um, Uh, and, and I'm, you know, I am married and have kids and whatever. So I, I'm trying to be a decent husband. I'm not always great at that. I'm trying to be a decent dad. I'm not always great at that. I have a lot of friendships like this one with you, Kristen, and I'm not always great at those. Um, but I'm mostly just a dude making my way through the world. I'm a Montana boy. Most people don't know this about me. I like to say I've, I've got a pretty heavy dose of redneck in me from my childhood, but then I went and got a PhD. So it's like, how does redneck and the book of Psalms has this great phrase about peace and righteousness kissing. So somehow the Academy and a redneck kissed in me. And, and I still like my jokes. Tilt a lot redneck and but but I do have a lot of education and I teach a business school at BYU. Um, but I also this is I think relevant for your audience So a normal guy just trying to make my way through the world seeking peace seeking joy seeking harmony Honestly, like that's what I really want is harmony With the people around me with the environment with the universe if we can get a little bit mystical right at the beginning here But I really want harmony. But in the last 15 years or so, I've been on a real intense like faith journey, and that has led me to explore in through all sorts of media, whether it's books, podcasts, YouTube presentations. It's been an obsession of mine to learn as much as I can about this thing that we attach the label God to. and I think you and I will explore this a little bit. I mean, it's really sad to me that word has so much baggage attached to it now. And so does Jesus, and so does Christianity. Like, all of these words have just picked up so much baggage. Uh, in fact, I think it was Karl Rahner, forgive me, I'm going to start quoting things that I've read and heard over the years. I think it was Karl Rahner who was a German Jesuit back in, he said this back in the 70s. He said, I think it would be helpful if for the next 50 years, we just don't use the word God anymore. And we just use the phrase, holy mystery. And I think what he was trying to do is like liberate us from the baggage of this, of this thing. But I've just been obsessed, Kristen, with like, what exactly is this thing called God? And how do I connect to it? And what does this thing that I call God Wish for me and so, you know, I assume we'll talk about some of that today. But yeah, so 15 years I've been really doing a deep dive on that and hopefully there's something we can share talk about that I'm, kristen. I'm actually interested to hear your insights on the topic of healing and a higher power. In fact, I gotta say one last thing in the intro It was about a month and a half ago I'm old enough that I get injured sleeping and I woke up one morning and my neck and back was just locked in place and I thought it would loosen up and it didn't. And I needed healing. Like, in fact, I think I called you or texted you kind of with a desperate text of like, Kristen, I need, I need healing. And you met me on a Saturday and, and worked on me. And so I've been on the receiving end of some of your healing work and it was, and it was really helpful. So I'm eager to hear your insights. Let me stop talking. That was too long of an intro.

Kristen:

No, that was great. Thank you. Um, Well, thank you. I'm glad, I'm glad that was helpful for you. Last minute massage situation. It was an

Colby:

emergency massage. Emergency, yes. It was super helpful and thank you again for doing that. Good,

Kristen:

good. yeah, well, gosh. We're just, it's, this is what we're here for. Like, you're talking about how you've been on this 15 year long journey and And I have so many things to say about

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what you just said,

Kristen:

or so many thoughts as you were speaking. We'll see if I can get them out. But yeah, just when you were saying the, the attachment, there's a word I want, but the connotations around the word God, and that's, that is so big. That's so huge. and I feel like it is a huge hindrance in people's healing is just this, um, we have so many, so many ideas and like woundedness and just like all these things are attached to this, you know, God. And so, um, as far as Talking about like a higher power. I think I want to keep it like kind of general. Like I don't want to zero in on God. And I think you're on the same page with me there. You're like, we're getting mystical right off the bat. I'm like, we can always get mystical here. This is just,

Colby:

we're going to cover all of it. Yeah. One of the things I was going to say, Kristen, is through my exploration and through my study, and I don't want to just say exploration and study, like I've had a lot of experience that's meaningful to me, sort of like numinous mystical experience that's meaningful to me through it all. One of the things that I, that I, I'm always reluctant to make these broad sweeping statements and yet I love to do it. So here's one of my broad sweeping statements that might be an overgeneralization, but I actually think one of the problems that has occurred and it makes a lot of sense to me is. Whatever you want to call it, Source, uh, God, or Cosmic Love, like there's a lot of labels we could attach to this thing. I'm going to keep using the word God, just for me, that's the simplified version. But I think this thing called God really is a holy mystery, like I think Rahner was on to something. That whatever this thing is flowing through the universe, connecting us all together, and to me, This thing ultimately is it's love like that's what it is. It is. It is the cosmic presence and reality of love but this thing is so big and so mysterious and Humanity is so limited in its ability to comprehend this thing that I think what happens is People have experiences with the mystery Right. The holy mystery. And then we go about trying to articulate it, or share it, or maybe encourage people to have their own experience with it, but words, the minute we take the holy mystery and attach words to it, we've already confined it. And what happens is, over time, we keep narrowing this thing and putting it in a smaller and smaller box. Some of it is unavoidable. The minute we use language, we're putting this thing in a box. But it's not just that. The thing itself is so much bigger than what I can understand that any attempt I make to put my arms around it narrows it, shrinks it, puts it in a box. And so I think there's this like steady pattern over human history where people have an experience, then we immediately put box in a God.. So for thousands, I really believe this for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, this thing, The source, this cosmic mystery has just been getting shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. And then what happens is by the time it gets presented to us in our childhood, and, and let's not be mad about this. There's no reason to be angry about this. The God that gets presented to us in our childhood is almost a caricature of the actual holy mystery. But that's all a child's brain can handle is, is a really watered down to still almost caricature of this thing. But then the problem. Kristen is kids start to build a life around the caricature So what we do is we build our foundation on this really warped, tiny, like embarrassingly reduced version of the holy mystery. And it does lead to all sorts of wounds and and religious trauma is a thing and it's real. And, and I've. I think I've experienced some of it, and I've certainly talked to a lot of people that have experienced some of it, but that's because, okay, one of my favorite theologians, Richard Rohr, says if you get the shape of God wrong, everything you build on top of it will wobble. It will be unstable. But if you think about it, as a kid, you can't get the shape of God right. It's impossible. So you start to build a life on, on an idea of God that is necessarily going to lead to wobbling and shifting. And then as adults, we try to deal with this. It's like, okay, we've built our life on this wobbly, shaky foundation and now we're absorbing wounds. And then it's so easy to understand why people in like their, like twenties to early thirties, they're like, forget it. This thing has caused more harm than it has helped me. And then they just like. They usually say, I don't want to be a part. I don't want to be a part of this anymore. And I, it's super understandable to me. It really is.

Kristen:

Yeah. Yeah. You kind of have to like, and I feel like it goes further than even just childhood, like, for centuries. We've seen this God, and I'm not trying to like, bash on religion at all, um, but that's just where we learn about God often, and for, you know, centuries and centuries, we've had this idea of God that's very like, vengeful, and he's mean,

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and he's scary,

Kristen:

and he's gonna get you, and, and I think that's, you know, it's our ancestors believe it. And I, I, I feel like it's in your DNA, you know, it's like, it's deep, it's deep in there. And then I've also, Talking with, other healers or, people who do energy work or healing work often. If you have like a, a difficult relationship with your dad like your present physical dad, which many people do, that that's the only relationship, you know, with a father. And then that gets put on God.'cause we think of God as you know, a father.

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Yes.

Kristen:

And it transfers to him. And then it's just like you have no one you can trust. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like it's, it can do so much damage,

Colby:

Wow. Yes. Yes. And I think

Kristen:

this is, this stuff we can work through like it's not impossible, but it can feel really difficult. And so I think deconstructing that and going back and saying, okay, what is this higher power that I believe in? And, um, and I was going to mention the, so in Christianity, charity is like the big thing, right? That's like our main thing. And in Buddhism, it's compassion. And there's another one I can't remember, but there's like all these different religions or belief systems where it's basically just love. Is the ultimate goal. And if you've ever watched a near death experience video, I feel like that's the overarching theme. It's like, I just felt so much love and. It's so beautiful. And I think that's really, and you know, I mean, it's such a, like, like all the hippies are just like, it's just about love. And it's like, but it really is like

Colby:

in a,

Kristen:

in a really deep way.

Colby:

People get frustrated with that. Like, I'm glad that you named it. Like the hippies, whatever that means these days, right. Like it's a term from the sixties and seventies, but like the hippies were all about peace and love. And I don't, I'm not old enough to remember the movement myself. I was a little, little kid at the tail end of that. But let me say this religious fundament, not religious. Let me say Christian fundamentalists and I'm not meaning to cast stones, but Christian fundamentalists really resist this notion. That it all is really about love and peace, and yet I'm with you. In fact, Kristen, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off here, but not at all. A big part of my journey, I loved what you said earlier. A lot of us grew up with a notion of a God, frankly, Of a sociopathic psychopathic God, because the messages were God loves you more than anyone in the universe. And if you sin, hell hath no fury that can compare to the wrath. In fact, one of the worst phrases out there, I think one of the most destructive phrases out there is the wrath of God. and one of the turning points for me and, and, you know, that I have my own podcast that I'm doing based on this book that I'm doing a translation of that I think is just transformational and I have to bring a little bit of it in so that's the book that I'm translating is written by a woman who had 16 visions of God back in the 14th century. And the visions are stunning. They're expansive. They're beautiful. But literally from start, the first page of the book and the last page of the book, the woman's name is Julian, and she says, Love. On the first page, she's like, God showed me that it's love. And on the last page, she says, Why did God show me this? It was love. And the whole book and all 16 visions, the book is called Revelations of Divine Love. But what it really should be called is the unwrathing of God. And in fact, one of the things that she says all throughout the book, but she talks about how much God loves us, right? Like she talks about, let me give you just a little bit of imagery. God's love is closer to us than the flesh and bones are to our hearts. Like she just has all this beautiful language about how God's love never turns away from us. Even when you feel like you're not loved, even when you feel like you're in the depths of despair, God still holds you in love. And then she has a couple of mind blowing statements that I think just tie into all of this. And Kristen, remind me to come back to what you said about trust, because I think that's really critical. She says, Julian says. I saw that with God, there is no anger. None. Kristen, I was jogging when I first listened to that, and I heard it. And my soul knew it was true, but it was so contradictory to things I had heard throughout my life growing up in, in religion. I had to stop. Like I was, it stopped me dead in my tracks and I, for the first time in my life, Kristen, I contemplated the notion. What if this thing we called God, what if the source, what if this cosmic present with the life force as the Hindus call it, what if this thing literally had no anger And no wrath, none. And then she says later on, I saw that it was impossible for God to forgive us. And I was like, wait, what? But then she continued by saying, because in order to forgive, you must first be offended. And our God is never offended by us. And, and so it's like scores of pages of just a beautiful depiction of a thing that is only ever, always love. And to me, Kristen, when you said, man, so many of us, you know, not us, but like so many people have difficult relationships with their dads. Like, let's just name it. Everybody has an imperfect dad. I'm a dad. So sadly, my kids are getting a reflection, you know, and we do call God Father. We could have a whole discussion on that, but like, we call this thing father, and we can't help but associate with our earthly father. And it's really unfortunate that none of us get a perfect earthly father. And some of us have better, I had a beautiful father, a father full of love, I'm very grateful for that. Maybe that's why it's been so easy for me to fall in love with God. But it is true that the more problems you have with your dad, this person that's supposed to be a reflection of the divine father, then you lose trust. And Kristen, I think this is the crux of the matter. If you don't have a presence in your life that is reliable love, then you don't have any basis for trust. And when you don't have any basis for trust, man, that's a boat without a rudder. I, I, I'm, I mean, pick your metaphor. That is a boat without a rudder. We're all All looking for a handle to hold on to because there's a lot of turmoil. There's a lot of tempest where we're all on the boat that's being tossed around on the ocean. It's a scary place. This world is a scary, treacherous place. It really is. And what we're looking for is a handhold, something that we can grab onto that we know isn't going to move on us. It's not going to shake on us, and it's not going to drop us. And that thing is love. That's the anchor. But if we never got it from our fathers, it's, it's a little bit hard to imagine that there's something bigger out there that can give it to us.

Kristen:

Yeah. Yeah. And that's where, um, I know like in our faith tradition, we believe in Christ and we believe in a heavenly mother, uh, like a divine feminine and, the Holy ghost and angels and all these things. And I feel like that's, that can be a really helpful. If you can't lean on God, I've spent a lot of time leaning on. My Divine Feminine Heavenly Mother presence, and I've spent a lot of time leaning on Christ. He's been like, someone that I can trust, even though, I don't know, it's just different, for some reason, for me, between, the Father God, and then the Son, that's my brother, you know,

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and

Kristen:

so I'm like, even, this is what we believe, and even if, We have it all wrong or, you know, whatever. It's like, you have to have your things that you can lean on and you can believe. And I almost feel like it doesn't really even matter as long as you know that there is something benevolent, that's bigger than you, that's got you. I was, one of the main things I wanted to talk about today is just that, when you're doing these, a lot of times with these healing modalities, like, I used to do neuro emotional technique with my chiropractor and I've done a lot of energy healing and the, kind of the prerequisite that they check with you before you start is, do you believe in a higher power? And it doesn't even matter what it is. It could be the earth, you know, it could be the universe. It could be God. It could be whatever. but just having that kind of base is such a important, it's an important part of the healing process. And I know like, Alcoholics Anonymous, that's one of the steps you have to recognize a higher power. and I was talking to a friend about this, whose husband is very involved with that. And, I was just asking her what their, And a reasoning is for including that just when I think it's to let go of control, like realize that you're not in control and giving that up to someone else that's bigger than you. And I think there's a lot of different reasons why we might need that higher power.

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Yeah.

Kristen:

I think sometimes it's, like if you don't believe there's anything bigger than just you, I feel like that's really depressing.

Colby:

I feel like that'd be terrible

Kristen:

for your mental health, right? Well, and Kristen,

Colby:

can I, is it okay if I jump in here? Yeah, yeah. Finish your thought if you want to finish. Just, just basically that. You've said so many good things right there that I, I want to just like latch onto this and like explore. I'm, okay, fundamentally, here's the truth that nobody wants to face. And without, and I love the language that you used, something bigger than us that is benevolent, something that is such good language, something bigger than us that is benevolent. Because if you don't have that in your life, then there is one reality that you will either refuse. You'll either refuse to acknowledge it, or you will become completely despondent when you do acknowledge it. And that truth is, we fundamentally are not in control. We spend our whole lives, I mean there's a whole field of psychology on the illusion of control. We spend great amounts of energy and resources trying to delude ourselves into the idea that we are ultimately in control. And we're not. I mean, we can make some choices and I'm not trying to say, I'm not trying to be fatalistic. I'm just saying, and you're aware of this, but your listeners wouldn't know it. My best friend that I've known for over 20 years, his son who was 18 years old, just died of cancer three weeks ago. There was nothing they could do to stop that. They tried everything and they're beautiful people and God bless them. They, they did everything they could for their son and he still passed away. I know people who have done everything right and they've lost their jobs and experienced financial ruin. I know people who have done everything right and they've wanted to get married and they've never gotten married. I know people who have gotten married and gone through horrific divorces and they've done everything right. I know people who have gone blind. What I'm saying is like, fundamentally, we are not ultimately in control. And if you're not in control, I mean, imagine I finally look in the mirror and say, yeah, I'm not in control. And if I don't believe in a benevolent thing in the universe that's bigger than I am, then you become a nihilist.

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Like,

Colby:

I mean, this is where people like Voltaire and Nietzsche, this is where it ends up. The people who are smart enough and honest enough to admit the reality, but they can't see a higher power. So like Voltaire, Voltaire and Nietzsche, you become, you become a nihilist. And when you begin, even the nihilists would admit. This is not a good way to live, like, this is, this is not a good way to live, but, but I don't have any other options. And so, what you're presenting is this alternative, like, well, but wait a second. There could be something out there, bigger and higher, and I'm going to keep using your word, that is, Benevolent, that's, that's both powerful and full of love, man. You put those two things together, Kristen, but you have to experience it. You can't read about this. You can't intellect your way into this of like, Oh yeah, like maybe intellectually there's some higher power out there. No, no. Like you have to taste it. And when you taste the reality that there is something bigger, that is benevolent, that is supernaturally powerful. And supernaturally loving and benevolent. Well, guess what? Now I can peacefully relinquish my control. I never had it in the first place. I thought I did. What I'm really doing is turning in an illusion. I thought I was in control. I know I'm not, but now I can peacefully let go of that delusion and put it in the hands of this benevolent thing. That's good stuff. It's beautiful.

Kristen:

Yeah. Yeah. And it's hard because I mean, I know I've gone through this, I'm sure, probably you have, I think almost everybody has, who is, who has this idea of God, like it's like we believe in God, we know, like we're taught, that he's, he's good, he's, he's there, but then, like you were listing all these things that go terribly wrong.

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Yeah. And it's

Kristen:

so hard. It's all, it feels almost impossible to trust that God does have your back. You know, this is like the, the great trial of being a human is like, how do you, you know, it's like, how do you heal from that? And

Colby:

yeah. Yeah. So Kristen, I, I just love where you're taking this conversation, by the way. so I, I feel like in, in all of this, what you just named is faith, like, and here's, that's another word that has too much baggage behind it. Right. But to me in its simplest form, faith is believing that there is a supernatural power that is benevolent and loves me. And even in the moments where it feels like my life is going to hell in a handbasket, And, and I'm of the opinion, I really believe this, we will all experience these moments. We will all experience these moments where we just feel like our life is spiraling out of control. Faith is to continue to believe that even this, and, and I'm sorry to quote her so much, but she's on my mind and I'm reading her so much, but Julian, this is one of the beautiful things that Julian says in her book that she saw. She's like, I saw that all of creation is held in God's hands in love, and that he's not going to let anything fall, and that he's moving all of creation, including you, and including me. He holds all of us in his hands in love, and he's moving all of us in the direction of goodness and salvation. Again, even when you can't see it or feel it. And also, that God will not let anything happen that he cannot put right in the end. But that's hard to see if if you're my friend and his wife and you're literally watching your son take his last breath Yeah, that's kind of hard to believe that there is a benevolent force in the universe now I have to say and I it's their story to tell and they've not given me permission to tell the story But even in those moments in the last hours of their son's life in the last days of his life It was almost like there were whispers from beyond comforting them and telling them that you can still trust in the benevolent force. And it was, it was really sweet and really special, but, but, but don't expect that all the time, right? Like you and I have probably both in situations where I didn't feel that right. Like in my life was just, it was bad. It was painful. It was dark and I didn't feel or hear those whispers. And my friends would say that too. Cause he's been battling cancer for six years and they would say there were a lot of moments over those six years where things just felt dark and despondent and difficult and hard. But that's where faith comes in is like to hold on, hold on to that trust and that belief that there is something benevolent and beautiful and loving.

Kristen:

Yeah. And that's a, it's so real, like, being in the moment and just being angry or just not, you know, you're saying, knowing that ultimately like, God won't...I'm not going to say exactly like you did, but the things that happen to us here, we'll be able to be'fixed" or remedied. Yeah, he's not gonna let it get out of control. He's not gonna, yeah. And it feels out of control. It does feel. It's like, whatever. This is completely out of control. Yes. But, But, yeah, it's like, I feel like if you can really see kind of the bigger picture, if there's a way you can get a glimpse of that, that's so healing. And, that's why I've gotten so passionate about, some of the energy work that I've gotten to benefited from, because it's, Using visualizations to, on a subconscious level, tune into that, and for me, it's Christ and the Atonement, you know, I, I really believe that that, that's the ultimate, it, it takes care of everything, and like, things might suck,

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in this life,

Kristen:

and like right now, and you might not be able to see your way through it, but Having someone guide me through, being able to see that on more of a soul level, like an energetic spiritual soul level,

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is

Kristen:

the most healing thing I've ever experienced.

Colby:

Yes.

Kristen:

Because I can actually get there, even if I can't consciously get there, I can subconsciously get there

Colby:

and it heals you. Kristen, can I, can I translate some of what you're saying? Because it's so good when you talk about healing happening at an energy level. That resonates so deeply with me. Um, I've been saying for years, so I'm going to quote myself and I'm going to quote somebody else. I've been saying for years that when it comes to woundedness and I'm not talking about like a knife cut on your arm, I'm talking about soul wounds, like emotional wounds, that healing is most likely to happen when we have an authentic encounter with love. Like, I've been saying that for a while. Healing is most likely to happen when we have an authentic encounter with love. But that's what you're saying. You're just using the word energy. Because love is the most beautiful of all the energies. And don't try to make it more scientific than that. Let it be a little mystical. Let love. In fact, I hope the day never comes where I read a scientific paper about the neurology and the chemical deconstruction of love. I don't want that. I want love to be something at the energy level. And I think that's what we're talking about here. And so let me quote one other person just around this topic. her name is, I think, Miriam Heidland. She's a Catholic nun. She said, and she, she spent most of her life studying healing. She's got an interesting back story where she suffered through addiction before she became a nun. And so she's experienced a lot of woundedness and healing. So she says healing is the ongoing encounter with God's love and truth that brings us to wholeness and communion. You, you don't have to say the word God, but healing is the ongoing encounter with love. That's one of the truest things I've ever heard in my life. Healing happens when we have an ongoing encounter with love. And I think part of what you do in your energy work is, and I don't want to make it all exclusively love. I know there's other forms of energy, but I think you create spaces for that sort of energy to be present. And that's what healing comes from is from the energy. Primarily from love. So this to me makes a lot of sense.

Kristen:

I'm glad it's speaking to you. Cause, but like, it's all language, right? Like it's the soul level. It's the energy level. It's the subconscious, spiritual, whatever. But it's all kind of the same.

Colby:

I think it's really the

Kristen:

same thing to me. It is.

Colby:

Yes, I think that's right. And I only say that because like your listeners are all super comfortable with the language But there gets to be some weirdness sometimes, right? Like, like, I mean you and I have talked about this that when we've gone out to lunch There gets to be some weirdness sometimes in various religious cultures They like they don't love the idea of energy work and it's like what do you think love is? Like, I mean, that's an honest question. What do you think love is besides energy? Like, anyway, so I, I just, you're right. We're just using different words to say the same beautiful, powerful, important thing.

Kristen:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's like, yeah. And you can't avoid it. Like it's feelings. You know what I mean? It's the vibe you're putting out or receiving

Colby:

vibe is such a good word, right? That's a good word.

Kristen:

Yeah. And so it's like. You're doing energy work whether you mean to or not, but yeah, like we're all just like spend on each other vibes. Yeah

Colby:

All the time.

Kristen:

Yeah, so it's just being intentional But um, but when you get somebody who really knows what they're doing And can help you on a soul level. Like it's, I don't know, I guess I get, I just get passionate about it. Cause I'm, I, I feel like we, we talk about healing and we talk about, especially, among Christians, it's like, well, Christ can heal you. And it's like, well, sure. How, like, whatever, I don't know. That's not helpful. You know, I feel like through, through doing this in a very, um, just, using modalities and practitioners that are very intentional. It's like harnessing the atonement and using it in your life. And it's the most powerful thing. And it, and I just want people to understand, you know,

Colby:

can I, can I make a comment on that?

Kristen:

Yeah.

Colby:

So you said some really interesting things earlier that I wanted to loop back to and tie into this. So you, you talked about the importance of the divine feminine and how that's a conduit for, I don't know if you said a conduit for love, but that's what I picked up from. It was like, you definitely feel connected to that. You talked about Christ being a presence that you very much relate to and connect with. Um, I think this is so important and beautiful because, again, you know, I made this point at the beginning that it's, it is human nature to take the divine mystery and collapse it into something that becomes a caricature. And I actually, and some people think this is heretical for me to say this, but it's like whatever, I think there's a lot of scriptures that represent Compressed caricatures of God, and I actually think some of the writings that have done the most damage and inflicted the most spiritual trauma are the scriptures themselves. Now, I love the scriptures, and I read the scriptures every day, so I'm not saying throw your scriptures in the trash. I just think there are some elements in the scriptures that paint an image of God where he's angry, he's wrathful, he's violent, he's a bit bipolar. And unpredictable and volatile, look, those are all words, wrathful, vengeful, angry, volatile, spiteful, violent that you could find, if not the words, but depictions of God in the scriptures that way. And yet that's all so contradictory to the divine mystery that I've experienced and to the holy mystery that Julian of Norwich articulates through her experience. And where this all connects for me is, Jesus. I believe came to clarify all the confusion about God. It says, I think in Galatians and the Pauline epistles, that he is the image of the invisible God, that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. And then Jesus himself said, look, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. I and the Father are one. And so Kristen, it's super interesting. I've had a lot of people come into the office in my pastoral role. And when we get to talking, it takes a while, like we have to peel back the layers of the onion. But I had one woman once who just like, she finally got there and she's like, well, I guess I just always imagined that God was kind of disappointed in me and I'm such a sinful person and I'm so imperfect. And I imagined that God was kind of, and I said, well, how does Jesus feel about you? And she's like, Oh, Jesus loves me. And I was like, well, that's interesting. And I said, help me reconcile that. And she, and she goes, she, she, she sat back and she goes, I mean, I guess now that we've gotten to it. I sort of imagine a good cop, bad cop scenario where, where Jesus is the good cop and God, and God is the bad cop. And so, that's so

Kristen:

relatable though. It is relatable.

Colby:

I've, I've felt that. So one of my favorite quotes, and this comes from a guy named, uh, Brad Jerzak. He wrote a book called A More Christlike God, which the title alone is so good. But he makes the statement, God cannot be less Christ like than Jesus. Whatever this thing is that we call God, it, in the Christian tradition, God cannot be less compassionate, less merciful, less loving, less forgiving, less tender, than Jesus was. But Kristen, do you know how hard it is for me to get people to believe that? Because we have for so long operated under this paradigm where God has been collapsed into this box and he's violent, he's bipolar. But what, what is so beautiful to me is if Jesus is the reflection of the heart of God and let's, let me run with that for a minute. So if God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and, and I also want to name to just When I say God, to me, there is equal parts feminine, equal parts masculine. I don't want to be exclusive on that. If God and Christ are one, and God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all united, and they all have the same heart, and Christ shows us what that is, then Christ for us gives us the best, clearest definition of what love is. And, what's beautiful about the Christian tradition, and I think specifically about our tradition, is what we believe above all else are two things. Love is to heal people. Like, you can't read the book of Mark without Jesus healing somebody. I dare you. Go read the book of Mark for more than 15 minutes and Jesus heals somebody. And some of it's totally random. It's, it's like doesn't fit the story at all, but it's just like, Oh, we've gone too long without talking about Jesus healing. We better have a healing story. So first and foremost, love is healing. I actually think those are synonyms. But secondly, love is voluntarily absorbing other people's wounds to help them. Get through it. I mean, this is what we believe about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I think this is particularly beautiful in our tradition. This is what we believe about Jesus on the cross. And frankly, this is the totality of Jesus's incarnation. Jesus became flesh to absorb our wounds. So that we could heal from them and Kristen what I hear you talking about with your intentional purposeful energy work and modalities is Finding an outlet for the woundedness Like when I came to see you and my back was all wrenched up and you were like, hey I'm sensing that you're carrying this burden And I feel it on the left side of your body, and I'm feeling that this is what your soul is weighed down with my body. Couldn't carry it. I needed somebody else's soul to carry the water with me. It was too heavy. And because it was too heavy, my body seized up and you stepped into the space and you said, I'll carry the water with you through my hands, through my words, through my presence. Well, this is Christ. Christ came into the world saying, I will carry the water with all of you. And one of my favorite quotes from Richard Rohr is, it takes the entire body of Christ to bear the burden of sin. And when he says sin, he doesn't mean mistakes. When he says sin, he just means pain and suffering. It takes all of us to carry the water together to all be mini Christs through the energy work. Sorry, that was a super long, Rant right there. I'll stop talking.

Kristen:

That was those beautiful. I'm like, Wow, colby. That's it's true. And I think as as Christians were, you know we're taught to mourn with those that mourn and try to be Christlike and so, you know, you do want to use Him as your Guide or I don't know blueprint, I guess.

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Yeah

Kristen:

for your behavior. And I want to I just want to mention, as far as like, when I do energy work, I'm very much like, I'm just a facilitator and Christ is the healer. And. You know, it's, I don't know. It's kind of a hard balance because it's like, I'm not Jesus. I can't take on everybody's crap, you know, like. Right,

Colby:

right, right.

Kristen:

So we have to like, give it to him and, um, not absorb it ourselves, but like, be the facilitator that's like, helping it flow to Christ and putting it. He's already done it. It's already done.

Colby:

Well, and that's why yeah, I think that's why your original question and like the premise for our episode Why is a higher power important? Because ultimately humanity can't be the ground right like we can't be the lightning rod for this stuff

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Yeah,

Colby:

I mean on a small level we can write like for for my child When my toddler is four years old, I, I, I have it in me. Like I can take that and ground that and help them get through it. But the older we get, the deeper the wounds get, the heavier it gets. You're right. We can't be the repository, the receptacle for everybody else's wounds. But if there's somebody else behind us, if it's a chain,

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right?

Colby:

Like if it's a chain. So, if I have wounds that I can't carry, and I can give some of it to you, but you're really just one link in the chain, and we keep passing it, well, somebody's got to absorb it in the end. Like, it's got to land somewhere, and that's what you're saying. And where it can land is with that cosmic presence of love and benevolence. But if that cosmic presence doesn't exist, then it does get stuck in us. Yeah. Like that's, that's the beauty of it. I think the beauty of the cosmic presence of benevolence is we can all be handing off the wounds until it finally gets to the cosmic grounding spot.

Kristen:

And I think there's, there's a lot of ways to, to do that. And I think what you were talking about, and this is maybe not as related as I was thinking, but you were talking about how it's so difficult to convince people that come into your office That, that they are supported or that, you know, that God is there for them or whatever. And you almost, you have to, you almost have to do it on like a, a subconscious level. That's why all these like healing, um, meditations and breath work and things that get you kind of outside of, um, your conscious mind. are so helpful to get you to Christ or get you to your healing mode. I didn't mean for this to be so Christian, but I also am like, that's what, that's what I believe. And that's what you believe. And I,

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yeah,

Kristen:

I think it's great. But, um, but yeah, whatever your, you know, As long as it's, to me, light and Christ are the same. They're synonymous. So if your intention is towards light, I think that is wonderful.

Colby:

Yeah. And okay. I so appreciate everything that you're saying here. And, and, and you're right. I think unintentionally we sort of got this into a very Christian space, which I, which I, which I love. I

Kristen:

love it.

Colby:

But you and I, you and I can easily zoom this thing out. Yeah. Right. Like for instance, I have met people who, for whatever reason, and no stones need to be thrown here, right? But for whatever reason, they experience so much religious trauma

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that

Colby:

the word God And the word Jesus and the word Christianity and the word sin and the word repentance have picked up so much baggage that they've become unhelpful. And I have known people that I think for the good of their soul had to step away from religion. They, they weren't going to get through this if they stayed in the space that created the baggage of the problems. So they get away from it. And they just sort of let go of that whole like paradigm, but they get into the things that you're talking about. They get into mindfulness, they get into breathing. They get into connecting with nature. They get into the subconscious and I really appreciate the observation that you made. Um, it's important for us to somehow get deeper than the conscious mind. In fact, a lot of this spiritual mystics that I. Sort of respect and listen to and consider to be mentors. They all agree that as long as we stay in the conscious mind You're you're trapped in the ego's attempt to control things like the mind. I'm not saying the mind is bad We're all using our minds. But as long as we stay up there We're trapped in the illusion of control and the ego is fighting really hard to just keep things in Control, even though we're not in control, it's when you drop below that into the subconscious, like you just described, that you actually can get away from this control game and you have a better chance to encounter whatever it is you want to call it. The source, the life force, cosmic love, the benevolent thing. And so I've known people that went away from religion and found the cosmic love. That's great. I have, I think that's fantastic if that's how it goes.

Kristen:

Can you hear me?

Colby:

Yep. There you are.

Kristen:

Okay. My my I think my microphone died. Okay, well, maybe we'll just keep going and my audio just went out and if it's a little different. Oh, well,

Colby:

yeah, it's it sounds great.

Kristen:

Okay. Okay. Awesome. Well, I can't remember what we were just saying. It was really good.

Colby:

So we had just said that there are people that have to sometimes leave religion to find that source.

Kristen:

Yeah. And I was saying I might be called a heretic, but, but I think it's, I think it's healthy and I think it's almost necessary often to, even if you're staying in religion and you're not necessarily stepping away. but I feel like you have to kind of step back and just let go of all your preconceived notions or just the things that you That maybe you've been taught. And like, I don't think everybody has to do this, but I think it can be really, really helpful if you want a closer relationship with your source to just step back and say, okay, what, what is this? And really like feel it on a more soul level.

Colby:

I love that because as long as it stays at the intellectual level, I mean, as long as it's all about knowledge and belief,

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it's

Colby:

not very transformational.

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I mean,

Colby:

I heard somebody say recently. You don't fall in love with truth. You fall in love with beauty. And you don't get converted by truth. You get converted by beauty. And I think what you're talking about when we use the word conversion is having an experience, and I love the language, at the soul level. It's having an experience at the soul level of beauty and love. That's, that's beautiful. Sorry to reuse the word, but it's beautiful.

Kristen:

No, it is. Yeah. No. And I love that. I was gonna ask you, as, someone who speaks with people in a spiritual guidance setting, um, how you've seen, uh, the, so I assume everybody you're talking to probably believes in God on some level,

Colby:

or maybe not. No, the overwhelming majority do, yeah.

Kristen:

Yeah. And I'm just curious, like, how you see that affect them with, uh, They're healing. And I feel like we've talked about this a little bit with like all the beliefs we have about God, but, as far as people who believe in God or don't believe in God, do you feel like there's a big, I don't know if you've seen that difference at all,

Colby:

but, um, I don't. Okay. I'm not sure I can say with great certainty and clarity that I've seen a huge difference between the believers in God and the nonbelievers in God in terms of healing. But let me tell you why I think that is. Most of the people that spill into the office in my pastoral role have, they have ideas about God. That I think are very limiting in the healing journey. And, and so, the people that view God, sorry to repeat the words. The people that have a view of God that he is mercurial, volatile, disappointed, angry, wrathful, vengeful, spiteful, violent. Those people actually really struggle to find healing. And, and in fact, what most of those people ask for in the beginning, although I hope they leave with a very different sense, what they ask for is sort of a list of penances. What do I need to do in order to, to get the wrath of God deflected away from me? They don't say it that way. They say, what do I need to do to repent? But can you hear what's embedded in there? In order for me to be healed, I have to be forgiven. And in order to be forgiven, I have to please this God. That's a little bit unpredictable. Like that's all baked in there. so that's why I do think believing in the wrong God. Okay. Sorry. This is my quippy statement on this. I actually think the only thing worse than no God is bad God. Like I really kind of believe this. Living life with no God at all has the potential to lead you to nihilism, which is not cool. It's not a good way to live, but living life with a bad God can inflict some really deep wounds, really deep wounds. The people that come in, well, okay, to be honest with you, Kristen, I'm just raw, I'm being raw. The people that have a really beautiful view of God, like they understand this idea of love and benevolence, don't usually come to see me. Because I don't think they're struggling to find healing. Like, I'm making an inference there. I've never asked somebody that. Like, I really want to take a poll. How many of you have done something that you think is like a pretty egregious sin? You've never gone and seen an ecclesiastical leader, but you found healing. And then I just want to ask them, okay, tell me about your beliefs in God. And I'm pretty sure they're going to say, Oh, I believe that God is benevolent and loving and kind and forgiving. So this is a challenging question for me because I don't think I get to see a representative sample. The sample I see is mostly people with ideas about God that have been collapsed and reduced or people that are agnostic. And those people, those two groups tend to look, they struggle with healing. Let me just say that they don't look the same, but they both struggle with healing.

Kristen:

Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, because I had a list of questions for you. This has been very conversational, which is great.

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Um,

Kristen:

and I was like, I should ask him one of my questions that I had, but then we just covered all these things. I'm like, this makes a lot of sense that would be, that would be the, how it goes.

Colby:

It's

Kristen:

been a

Colby:

great, it's been a great chat and I've, and I've loved your insights and the language that you use. Like you, you just have a real nice, beautiful, intelligible, like accessible way of talking about these ideas. So it's, it's really helpful. Thank you.

Kristen:

Yeah. I feel like you have studied all these things so deeply, and you've thought about it so deeply. I've tried. It's, it shows, and it's, it's really helpful. I hope so. Yeah, One more thing, I wanted to ask you, because you've talked about before, just all these different ways to connect with God. And I think that's so valuable, because there's so many different ways to pray and there's so many different ways to connect. Um, would you want to go over some that you have as many as you want? Just to give people an idea, like if you're trying to connect to God, whether you're religious or not trying to connect to a higher power.

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Yeah.

Kristen:

What's a good way to, um, to do that on a more soul level?

Colby:

You might regret asking that question. I have so much to say. I'm going to try to keep this very, very brief. You're fine. Um, well, first off, Kristen, I love the invitation that if there is a benevolent force in the universe, and if it really does love us, then it, then it does want to be connected to us. And so just embedded in your question is the implication that it's possible that we can be connected to this benevolence that's bigger than us. And that alone is a really beautiful, inspiring idea. we could do an hour long podcast just about this, but let me say a few brief things. I heard somebody say once that, If God loves you and wants to be connected to you, and if God wants to get at you, and again, when I say God, I just mean cosmic love, the source, like it's, if God really wants to get at you, it's most likely to happen in the stillness. And what you said earlier, I think is just so profound about getting to the subconscious level. And so I've been studying this a lot, listening to a lot of people, Cynthia Bourgeau, Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr, and actually going all the way back into the Middle Ages, into Bonaventure, and just, okay, there are so many different types of prayer. Most people don't even know this. Real quickly, there's petitionary prayer. That's your standard, Dear God, please bless me with this. Like, that's petitionary prayer. Most people are aware of petitionary prayer. Something that's been going on for literally thousands of years that's somewhat been lost in the Christian tradition, not entirely, but is praying the Psalms. There's something that's coming, that comes out of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It's called the hesychastic prayer. and, and I'm not going to define any of these, I'm just going to list them off. So, okay, petitionary prayer, praying the Psalms, esochastic prayer, there's, uh, prayers of gratitude, there are meditative prayers, there is contemplative prayer, and there's two or three others that, you know, I don't, I haven't studied enough to give you any intelligent comments. But I now believe that they all have a place. I don't want anybody to abandon any of their prayer practices, but I do believe that the pinnacle form of prayer is contemplation. And I want to be a little precise in my answer. Some people think that contemplation and meditation and mindfulness is all the exact same thing. And it's not. And Bonaventure, I think gives us the roadmap Bonaventure says so. And he was writing in Latin, right? So there was meditatio and there was contemplatio meditatio. Meant to turn something over in your mind It means so meditation means to actually focus on and think about something So and if you think about meditation, that's what you do in meditation. You might focus on something in nature You might focus on breathing. You might focus on how the chair feels Like this is this is kind of a very buddhist approach by the way to mindfulness is a focused meditation Okay, so meditation means you're you're still actively thinking You Contemplatio. So meditatio meant to turn it over. Contemplatio meant to empty the mind. And those are very different things. So, Meditation is to ponder on and actively think about something. Contemplation is to actually empty the mind and simply make space for God. And what Bonaventure says is you meditate your way to contemplation. And a good way to think about it, Kristen, is think of a continuum from active to passive prayer. So like petitionary prayer is a super active prayer. You're vocalizing, you're on your knees, you're saying thanks, you're asking for things. That's a very active prayer. As you move into praying the Psalms and hesitastic prayer, these are more memorized prayers, still active, not as active. Meditation probably pushes you a little bit more towards passive. You're still active in the sense that you're thinking and focusing, but the ultimate aim is to get to that contemplative state. And then in the contemplative state, I mean, I should be careful about what I say here. Let me just say this in the contemplative state, you might experience a state of peace. You might experience a state of harmony with all of creation, and you might experience a connection with the benevolent presence that's bigger than us in the universe. So I I'm a really big believer that If you can work towards a state of contemplation, passivity, and stillness, that's where some good things can happen. But can I give one caveat on that? Because all of the great teachers of contemplative prayer will tell you the same thing right away. You should expect this thing to suck for a while and episodically. In fact, John of the Cross, Was very clear about the St. John of the Cross, who was a contemporary of Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross was like, Hey, in fact, have you ever heard of the phrase dark night of the soul? You can just nod your head if you've heard that phrase. Okay. Dark night of the soul comes from John of the Cross, and we completely misuse it these days. These days we use dark night of the soul to mean I'm going through a faith crisis. That's not what he meant. What he meant was the closer you get to God, You will experience what's called a final purgation, meaning God needs to know, get a load of this. I actually think this is beautiful. God needs to know that you're not interested in God just because of the cool things God can do for you. God needs to know that you want a relationship with that divine loving presence, even if that divine loving presence can't offer you anything. Because that's true love. True love is I don't expect anything from you. I'm here to give you my presence. So what John of the cross said is you should expect as you go through this journey and you get into a contemplative state, you might experience peace. You might experience harmony. You might experience connection with divine love, but you'll also experience purgation. You'll experience darkness because God needs to know that you're here for love and presence and not for all of the blessings that God can give you. So my short answer is stillness, contemplation. It might involve meditation. It might involve the Psalms. It might involve hesitastic prayer. It might involve petitionary prayer. Contemplative prayer and stillness is the answer, but don't expect it to all be, you know, gumdrops and unicorns along, along the way. Sorry. That was kind of a long answer.

Kristen:

No, no, that's great. That's what I, that's what I wanted. what you were explaining is how I have, that's been when I've had the most profound experiences with the creator is, Meditation to contemplation.

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Yeah.

Kristen:

And just allowing space to receive.

Colby:

And, and Kristen, I want to put it out there. I think this could be helpful for people because there are a lot of people that use meditation, stillness, mindfulness, and contemplation synonymously, and they're not the same. And I want to name contemplation is the stripping away of consciousness to get to subconscious where you are. Present. You are just being, you're not thinking, you're not problem solving. You're not thinking of your next sermon. You're not even focusing on a leaf. You're not focusing on even the breath at that point. You've gone to a deeper place of how you just described it. And so I think it's a beautiful idea that could be helpful to people that you meditation can get you to that subconscious just state of being. It's just true being. That's what it is. It's just true being.

Kristen:

No, I love that. And it takes, I feel like, I feel like often people get intimidated by meditation because they think it's that they think it's contemplation and it's, it takes time to get there.

Colby:

Yes.

Kristen:

Like,

Colby:

and it doesn't happen every time, right? Like give yourself grace. And I would say this, have no expectations going into it. Like, like don't say to yourself, well, Colby and Kristen described it this way. And so I guess I've got it. No, it's like, have no expectation. Just hear what Kristen just told you. Meditate. Into contemplation and that gets you to pure existence and just go for it. Like go on the journey Go find it yourself and give yourself grace.

Kristen:

Yeah. No, that's great. Thank you colby for that. Yeah. No, I, I just, I was hoping with this episode, people could just kind of see, see the spiritual side of healing and find ways to connect more with their higher power. So I feel like we've given them a little, I don't know, we've given them we're so we're so benevolent. I feel like this has been a really good conversation that's covered a lot of. Different aspects of this and

Colby:

I've enjoyed it. And every, every time we, every time we talk, you point something out, you have an insight, you have a way of saying something that just really lands for me and takes my understanding farther down the road. And so I just appreciate it. Appreciate the work that you do.

Kristen:

Well, thank you. I feel the same way about you. And every time I listened to your podcast, I'm like crying in the corner, you know,

Colby:

unfortunately, I am too. And I do the podcast.

Kristen:

Thank you. Well, we're feeling things, so that's good.

Colby:

Yeah, we are feeling

Kristen:

things. So, I wanted to ask one more question. Do you have any, books or resources, just something you'd recommend to people that might help them on their

Colby:

path. Sorry, I'm pausing because I've read and listened to so much stuff, and I feel like It kind of depends on where you're at, like, I sort of, when people come into the office and they explain what's going on and what they're thinking, I kind of feel like, Oh, here's the book for you or here's the podcast for you. but I, but I will say this, like one, here's a book that I love that a lot of people have read the wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Borgio is, I just think it's a really beautiful kind of modern approach to Jesus and healing and thinking about God differently. So that's one book I would recommend. Cynthia Bourgeois is just full of wisdom. I think anything from Richard Rohr is awesome. and then Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, I think is worth a read. And the translation I recommend is Mirabai Star. So yeah, Cynthia Bourgeois, Richard Rohr, Julian of Norwich. Can't go wrong with any of that.

Kristen:

Wonderful. Okay. Thank you. Um, and where, tell us about what's your podcast name,

Colby:

your book,

Kristen:

your, how do people find you?

Colby:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm hard to find actually. My, my podcast is awesome books about God and Jesus uncle Colby. So again, that's awesome books about God and Jesus with uncle Colby. Um, I really don't have an online presence and I wrote this book for my kids a while back. It's, it's called the one with the tiger on the boat. I actually. Did put my heart and soul into it. I don't know how much, much it helps adults or whatever, but, um, if they want to get in touch with me, they can email me. It's Colby. Wright at BYU. edu. So Colby. Wright at BYU. edu and just Kristen, thanks. You're a beautiful human being. This has been awesome. I've enjoyed the conversation.

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