Held in Compassion: Healing Trauma and Reimagining God with Dr. Frank Rogers Jr.

In this profoundly tender conversation, Dr. Habīb speaks with Dr. Frank Rogers Jr.—author, teacher, and co-founder of the Center for Engaged Compassion—about healing from trauma through the steady presence of Divine compassion. Together, they explore the lifelong process of recovering from abuse, the courage to face betrayal and rage, and the transformation that comes from knowing we are held—always—in compassion. Frank shares how his own journey led him to reimagine God beyond patriarchal images of power and control, toward a maternal, merciful Presence that never turns away.

This episode is a sacred space for survivors, seekers, and anyone yearning to experience love that does not flinch in the face of pain.

Transcript

Beyond Names: Spirituality for Anyone and Everyone

YouTube Channel: Beyond Names with Dr. Habib Boerger

YouTube handle: @BeyondNamesPodcast

Episode: 21

Host: Dr. Habib Boerger

Conversation Partner: Dr. Frank Rogers Jr.

Title: Held in Compassion: Healing Trauma and Reimagining God with Dr. Frank Rogers Jr.

Description: 

In this profoundly tender conversation, Dr. Habīb speaks with Dr. Frank Rogers Jr.—author, teacher, and co-founder of the Center for Engaged Compassion—about healing from trauma through the steady presence of Divine compassion. Together, they explore the lifelong process of recovering from abuse, the courage to face betrayal and rage, and the transformation that comes from knowing we are held—always—in compassion. Frank shares how his own journey led him to reimagine God beyond patriarchal images of power and control, toward a maternal, merciful Presence that never turns away.

This episode is a sacred space for survivors, seekers, and anyone yearning to experience love that does not flinch in the face of pain.

Transcript:

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Welcome to Beyond Names, I'm Dr. Habib. This is a space for spiritual seekers and soulful misfits, for the curious and the committed, for those grounded in a tradition, and for those who are not yet sure what they believe.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Whether you call the Divine God, Yahweh, Allah, Elohim, Brahman, Higher Power, Great Spirit, or you're still searching for language that fits, you are welcome here.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Together, we'll explore the intersection of spirituality and daily life, the wisdom of many traditions, and the ways we return to our true selves, to our source, to the light that each of us carry within.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm so glad you're here. Let's begin with introduction of our conversation partner for this episode, Dr. Frank Rogers Jr, whom I'm so glad to have here. My heart just explodes when I'm in the presence of Frank.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Frank was on my dissertation committee when I was doing my studies at Claremont School of Theology, and he's just an exceptional person, so… Thank you for being here.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Dr. Frank Rogers Jr. is the Muriel Bernice Roberts Professor of Spiritual Formation at Claremont School of Theology, co-founder and co-director of the Center for Engaged Compassion, and also the author of: 

·         Cradled in the Arms of Compassion, 

·         Practicing Compassion, 

·         Compassion in Practice: The Way of Jesus, 

·         Finding God in the Graffiti: Empowering Teenagers through Stories, and 

·         The God of Shattered Glass: A Novel.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: To learn more about Frank's work, please visit the https://www.centerforengagedcompassion.com/. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you for being here, Frank. Welcome.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Oh, Habib, thank you. It is such an honor and joy to be with you, and you are one of those people that my heart just explodes. I beam when I am around you as well, just very, very grateful.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Well, Frank, would you start us off by telling us a little bit about your spiritual story?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, yeah, well, and my last book, Cradled in the Arms of Compassion, really is my spiritual autobiography. It's really the spiritual journey from trauma to recovery. And I love your phrase, the spiritual misfits, because in many ways, I kind of felt that way, too. I'm a cradle Catholic, you know, kind of raised in Vatican II Catholicism, and was really influenced by the contemplative tradition of Henri Nouwen, and Thomas Merton, and the justice traditions of Dorothy Day, and Daniel Berrigan, and Philip Berrigan, and the others. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): But yet also kind of really felt at odds in the church, and partly because I'm an abuse survivor, and I was abused in and out of the church, and so here, this place that was supposed to be, and at times was this amazing place where I could feel connected to some Sacred reality that would be with me in the midst of the horror of the abuse was also a place that was betraying. And so I never felt completely embraced and within it. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And so my spiritual journey has really been my lifelong quest to find spiritual resources to recover from trauma and, you know, from childhood abuse, and so that was my quest. I went to college, you know, to study religion, really to seek God. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean, I wanted to know where… where is a credible understanding, a credible sense of a Sacred reality in a world where children are abused and violence happens in so many, many ways, and, and it's been an unfolding journey of trying to find spiritual resources that are credible in the midst of the violence.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): But also, as an abuse survivor, I mean, I was just riddled and riddled with rage and flashbacks and nightmares and despair and suicidality. I mean, this was… this is kind of the story that I tell in the book. I mean, at 30 years old, externally, I was a professor at the Claremont School of Theology and trying to act the role of being a person of faith, and a family man, and a professor, and be respectable, but inside, I was absolutely ravaged by all of this internal war of feelings and self-destruction. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And so, trying to find spiritual resources that both cultivated psychological well-being and just functional, you know, regulation, but also that kept my spirit alive and kept me going and finding ways to be resilient and hopeful and even compassionate in the midst of the horrors of recovering from abuse. That's the context of my journey, absolutely.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm floored by…so many things in what you're just saying, and I'm realizing… I feel like I'm going to confession for a moment here, because I realize, oh, I haven't read… I haven't read your most recent book, and the truth is, I didn't, because I felt like it was too much for, like…I…. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: When your book was published, I was dealing with the decline of… and subsequent death of my father-in-law, and so I was dealing with a lot of grief that had… I was just kind of in a state of being emotionally raw. And… and I thought, there are way too many connections between your story and my story.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Hmm.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I doubted my capacity to be with it in a way that I would want to be with it, and so I remember making the decision, I'm not reading this right now.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And… I still need to… I still need to do that, and I think it would probably be good for me, now that I'm not in a state of just, like, such rawness and vulnerability that, you know, comes at the height of the grieving process, and when you're going through the dying process with a loved one, so…

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Oh, definitely, yeah. And actually, the very first page of the book is a disclaimer, just kind of naming, hey, that this book tells a hard story. And so it's… and so really trust yourself, whether you're ready to read a story like this, or even as you get into it. And I genuinely believe that our soul knows what it needs.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): You know, our soul is always evolving for our well-being and our spiritual vitality, and if we listen to it with, you know, with care, like listening and saying, you know what? I'm emotionally raw. I am not ready for a story like this.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Absolutely, to listen and tend to that, and, you know, the time will come whenever it's ready, and wherever, but that's… that's fine. You're living the spiritual practice by company to your own, your own, soul's yearnings there, yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: One of the things in my experience of ... I don't want to get into details, but…was just betrayal. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That, like, the… I… I still…however many years later, just the… 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Because of experiencing an abusive environment in my home, but then ialso experiencing grooming, etc., ... with someone from the church, the betrayal looms… has loomed so large in my life, you know, from the time of childhood to…I'm in my 50s now, and I still feel times where I feel like I'm reeling from that betrayal.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Hmm.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And… And I am wondering a few things about how you dealt with your search for ... how you dealt with the betrayal, and how you also moved to searching for spiritual resources. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Can you say more about what is it in you that, even just gave you the spark of saying, I know that there's…meaning, or I know that there's more that I'm seeking to understand. How did you make that… make that movement from…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Because you didn't…you didn't go completely into collapse and victimhood, or you wouldn't be here, and you didn't go into perpetration, which is a lot of… some… a lot of people who undergo abusive situations do that, so… can you speak to, like, how… how'd you do what you did?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Well, absolutely, in fits and starts. I mean, this is stumbling, and three steps back, and two steps forward, and absolutely. So, but first of all, I absolutely identify with that sense of betrayal. I mean, I, you know, I was, you know, raped in my bedroom by my maternal step-grandfather, and I had a picture of Jesus on the wall that my mom had put there, you know, kind of praying up to God, and it was like, you know, Jesus, you know, God, whoever you're praying to, make this stop. I mean, why do you let this happen literally before your eyes? I mean, I was looking at that painting, that, that picture on my wall, and that deep sense of, you know, God is not here, doesn't see, or God doesn't care, or I'm not important, or I deserve this somehow, and I'm being punished. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean, a deep, deep sense of that. And I also had a betrayal in the church, as well, by a priest, and.... But, a couple things. I mean.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): One, alongside of all of that betrayal, I did have little moments. You know, in fact, the very first chapter of the book is… describes one moment I had in the church where there was just this, out of the blue, I mean, I, you know, can't explain it, but there's just this sense that there was some kind of a cosmic reality that embraced me with compassion.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Just, you know, doesn't have words necessarily, doesn't have, you know, an image, not a Father God, the guy who controls history, but just some sense that there is some reality, that right now, it feels like this reality sees me, hears me, gets my pain, maybe can't do anything about it, but is willing to just embrace me in a blanket of compassion. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And just that little… that little spark of that is like, I want to know that. I want more of that. And it was like a quest to try to find that.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Now, my own journey was ravaged with suicidality. I mean, I ended up, you know, two years into my professorship, I almost died of driving off a cliff and ended up in a mental hospital, just completely ravaged by, you know, trying to kill myself and the rage.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And literally, in the middle of the mental hospital, as I just became uncorked, I just couldn't hold it all together anymore. I was just ready to rage at this world that… that had betrayed me, and just kind of let it… so badly that the orderlies had to bring me into the padded room, and toss me in there, because I was just out of control, and as I just kind of spewed it, just…took all that rage and said, you know what? My rage is here for a reason. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I'm just going to honor it; I'm just going to dance. It was kind of like Jacob dancing with the angel, except it was a dancing with this demon of rage. I'm just going to… just going to… Why are you so inflaming me? What is… what are you so enraged about? And it just… he kind of did this to the point where it finally just screamed, you were abused, and you really were. It's really true, and you have to face it.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And as soon as I did that.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): It's like it just melted, and I just kind of fell on the floor in the padded room of a mental hospital.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And once again, out of nowhere, it's like this…ocean of compassion just kind of emerged and wrapped me up, and I just laid in it so still, I didn't want to move a muscle. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And it was just… Even in the midst of the rage and the horror in a mental hospital, there is this Sacred compassion that is meeting me. And so it was like, I will give my life to know that more fully.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That's… that's… That was the inspiration, that was the spark, that was the drive. I mean, if it's there, I want to know it. If it's not really there, then life's not worth living anyway, so…let's find out for sure.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. Wow.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: My story was a little different in that… I wasn't… conscious of…. I'm not sure what language you'd use, but, whether you would describe that experience in the church, and then later, when you're on the floor of the padded room, like, I don't know if you would call that felt presence, or you would feel… call it, like, a moment of intimacy with the Divine, or what language you would use, but I definitely…sort of felt like I was in a desert, in terms of connection with the Divine, and so I had developed a lot of misconceptions about… in my mind, the only way I could sort of make sense of what was what happened in my family, and happened in the home, and then what happened, you know, with someone from the church was just that… 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: It was like…if there is a God, one, I don't know if there is a God, and if there is, I'm really, really mad, because I feel like He doesn't… either He's, like, rejected me, or He's just, like, decided not to answer my prayers, or, you know, like, something that I don't understand, and I'm pissed.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so I really turned away from anything to do with religion, with God, with spiritual… I didn't even know… hadn't even heard of the term spirituality at that point in my life. I would not have any reference for understanding what spirituality even referred to. And then however many… but proceeded to live my life in such a way as, like a… functioning… victim.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: You know, like, if you asked me what I felt, I couldn't tell you what I felt. I couldn't tell you what I needed. Like, I… I was so…so, like… like, I don't know how to even describe it, but, you know, almost like… I remember one particular moment when this guy who had been grooming me, you know, took me on a camping trip, and it was…. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: He decided it was time to get naked, and I, you know, and I was sitting on a log, and it was just the two of us in the middle of the forest, you know, in the middle of nowhere, and I remember so deeply, like, wanting to disappear.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Hmm.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: As if I could reverse being back through my belly button, you know, like, in that moment, I wanted to reverse exist. I wanted to…. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so it was like I went through life for decades in that kind of, like, that sort of… you know, internal [making a gesture of shrinking in], and so I was very much, like, easily, people who didn't necessarily care what someone else was thinking or someone else was doing, I was easily influenced. I was just basically pushed around, you know? 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then, at the point where I was like, okay…something in my life is not… it's not working. Something in my life needs to change. And that's when I was introduced to Sufism and Islam.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so, the first point that I kind of connect with that felt presence that you're describing was when I was doing… the prayer on the prayer rug.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Hmm.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And…And it was just felt like, I’d come home, you know.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Hmm.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so that was, like, the starting point of me, developing the faith and the strength to face what I had experienced, and the impact that it had – the unbelievably profound and comprehensive impact that it had had on my life.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: All of which is to say, you know, what those ex… those moments and those of felt presence, those moments of connection, those moments of relationship that gave you meaning and purpose -- how did you pursue more of those -- once you walked out of the… or maybe while, once you walked out of the padded room -- maybe while you're in the padded room...?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, yeah, so… so my… first of all, my gosh, I'm just so moved by your story, Habib, too, and I… I mean, it's not exactly, but it's… it's very parallel. I can really appreciate that, and the power of feeling like you finally come home connected to some reality there that is with you and has compassion and care, and gives then the resilience to be able to go and face, you know, the traumas and to follow a path of healing and recovery. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean, that's just profoundly moving, and, you know, my experience is, you know, when I'm in those moments, and when I was there, it's like, you know what you know, what you know. There is nothing in this world that can tell you that this is not real, that this isn't true, that this is the absolute solid ground of life and being, and if we could stay in this zone or in this connection, we could take on anything. I mean, we could love anybody. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): We could… it's just like this…deep connection with this amazingly spiritual reality.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And then we walk out of the room, and it's like, and all of a sudden, you know, the irritations come back, or the insecurities, and the anxieties. And so, for me, it became a constant toggle between, you know, tending to all of the trauma symptoms, you know, going to therapy, working with the emotions, trying to find ways to regulate, you know, engaging in practices that… of healing the memories, of facing the trauma in ways that could bring healing out of that, instead of just re-traumatization, and bringing that into prayer, and trying to bringing that into connection with that Sacred reality.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): You know, that was the lifelong journey. I mean, it was, you know, 20 years of just continually toggling between being in that deep connection and then having rages, or having despairs, or, you know, questions, or memories that come back, and they're just, okay, I'm going to bring that into this presence, you know, and allow that presence to hold it and metabolize it, and that became really my spiritual work.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And it also involved a lot of deconstruction, I mean, because for me the God… I… it was the same God that you were praying to, like, God, why did You let this happen? Why did You… why didn't You stop this? You know, I prayed to You, you know, nightly, you know, to make this go away, and You never answered my prayers, and… and so that deep sense of betrayal by, you know, this God that could have done something and didn't.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I had to really deconstruct that God, too. I mean, essentially, that God had to die inside of me. The idea that there is some, you know, super being out there that can intervene and control history, but chooses not to, maybe because of, you know, for our own good, or, you know, because of free will, or, you know, because we're going to grow from this, or, you know, because, you know, He has his reasons that we just cannot comprehend, and…

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And, you know, I was really influenced by Melissa Raphael, a post-Holocaust theologian, who said, you know, that kind of a view of God sounds a lot more like Hitler than it does like a benevolent being. And maybe that patriarchal God needs to die, that there is, you know, that the real God is really much more a maternal presence that is with us in compassion, side by side, and helping us to endure and find capacities of resilience in the midst of it. And so that was a radical reframing of who God is, and an old God that had to die for a new God to be known from within.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, yeah, I'm smiling because I'm remembering my own struggle with that, and… and I'm wondering, you know, two questions immediately come to mind. What practices helped you with that? And then, of course, from that and your previous comment, tell me more about your process of spiritual healing. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, one at a time. I know when I…was with a teacher that I have the utmost highest regard for, her name is Dr. Rosina Fawzia Al-Rawi.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I did a 40-day retreat with her, and one of the things that she told me to do was to recite Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, which is “in the name of God, The Most Merciful, The Most Compassionate.”

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I had to recite that 21 times between every verse as I was reading a chapter of the Quran, and… and at first, it was like, there was this steel plate, you know, like, I… it was like… I couldn't, like, I just couldn't do it. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then, eventually, it shifted, and then it became, like, this being washed, and it really helped me release my misconceptions of God from childhood experience, and…reorient myself to… God is, first and foremost, Merciful, Compassionate, Loving.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Did… did you have any particular practices that helped you in that re… that deconstruction of the God of your childhood, and that reforming of a relationship with God, and having a greater sense of who you believe God to be now

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Your teacher reminds me of one of mine. His name was the Reverend Dr. James Earl Massey, when I went to college, and he was one of my first contemplative teachers, and his words to me that I still remember were, he said, Frank, God's first and last and only impulse for you and everyone else is always compassion.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And if you know this, you know everything.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean, that has been kind of a… of a mantra for me, and that's exactly like what you're describing, you know, the Bismillah ir-Rahman, ir Rahim, and the merciful and the compassionate, and... And tell me what I…

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I've had another Muslim colleague who shared with me, you know, Rahman and Rahim, you know, The Most Merciful and The Most Compassionate, and I said, what's the difference, right? And, I mean, they both come from, you know, the Arabic root for womb. They're both like this womb-like regard. What's the difference between All Merciful and All Compassionate?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And he said, Rahman is that cosmic, universal compassion that sustains the entire universe, that it spreads and permeates all being.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And Rahim is God's compassion for you in particular, Who sees us individually, and knows us by name, and knows the numbers of hairs on our head, and walks with us, and this combination of this expansive reality of compassion, and it's very particular. It's just beautiful. I just… I just love that. So that… that is actually one of my mantras as, Bismillah ir-Rahman, ir Rahim, as well.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Wow, beautiful. Yes, there's this saying that a black…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: On the darkest night, you know, the smallest black ant on a black rock on a dark night does not escape, that God knows that, and knows every detail, and yes, that there is singular and universal mercy present at all times.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Oh, I love that, I love that. Yeah, even on the darkest night, on the darkest rock, the blackest ant that's been in there God sees every detail of that and holds with compassion. I love that, so…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): So for me, the major practice that helped me into this was a radical reframe from, you know, all of the things in me that feel like they disconnect me from that reality. You know, when I start feeling, you know, the angers, or the despairs, or the anxieties, or the, you know, the rage at God, even, you know, and just, you know, how could You possibly do this?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I, early on, were taught spiritual practices that those were bad, that those were wrong, that those were sinful, those were signs of spiritual immaturity, and they needed to suppress them, I need to try to make them, you know, let go of them, and let them dissipate out into the world, or need to try to, you know talk myself out of them through some contrary practice.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And that was, for me, was like trying to push a buoy underwater. I mean, as much as I said, okay, I shouldn't be angry at God, you know, if I'm really spiritual, I just… I would be at peace with God, that rage would just come back up. Every time I would see a picture of Jesus, like, that's the one that didn't come, you know? 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And so the practice that became, for me, a life changer was when I stopped fighting all of those interior realities within me, and started recognizing, well, what if those different emotions and drives and impulses were there for a reason, actually came from some place.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean, there's a reason why I respond to that way, and that these are really, like, cries of the soul that are aching to be heard instead of being manipulated or suppressed or managed.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And so when I said, okay, I'm enraged at God, let's explore that. What is underneath that rage at God? And began to face, well, wait a second, I mean, it makes no sense that, you know, God was this perfect being that could have stopped this and didn't do that. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean, that just doesn't make any sense at all, and so brought that into the reality and into that space where I experienced the God I knew for real, that God of compassion that I met in the church, or that I met in that padded room, let's bring that into that space.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And when I did that, it dissipated all of those images of God. It's like, no, that just melts away, and something new replaced it. So it's this constant turning with compassion to our own interior experience and bringing it into the presence of the reality that we know in our bones when we are back home with ourselves.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That, that prac… I call that the kind of a compassion practice. That's the practice that was the central, most, you know, healing thing that I'm engaged in.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So that's kind of an answer to both the question about how you shifted your… how your relationship and conception of God shifted, but also your means of spiritual healing.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: It's… you're kind of… your answer was the same answer to both questions, which was around this accepting what is, and then the compassion practice, which was for you to not resist the darkness, or the rage, or…the… whatever that was, to…be in compassionate relationship and bring this… I'm going to use the language that you use in the compassion practices, the sensing the Sacred, but this… you bringing that together with your sense of the Sacred, your sense of that God, as being present and being compassionate that you experienced in the church, and in the padded room, and so on.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, for me, this is one of the invitations of spirituality and of contemplative practice, is…you know, this recognition that, you know, we do have these rages, and we do have these anxieties and despairs and heaviness, and whatnot that, you know, we usually try to suppress, but that's not all of who we are, either. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean that deeper down, there is this… this self-essence, this spiritual essence within us, whether… whatever you call it, the True Self, or the imago dei [image of God], or the immortal diamond, or the Buddha nature, but there is this deep essence within us that is our True Self, and when we come back home to that, we realize that we have spiritual capacities that are deeper than the rages or the anxieties and the despair, and one of the invitations of contemplative practice and spirituality is helping us move from when we are just enmeshed in those kinds of inner reactivities to cultivate that contemplative awareness of accessing that deeper, True Self that can hold and be with the angers and the irritations, the rages at God, or whatever, and hold them with curiosity, hold them with compassionate care, and from that deeper self, and then from there, see what is underneath this that needs to be healed, or is aching to be heard, or aching to be restored, and allowing that Sacred presence to meet us at that space. Life-changing, fundamentally, fundamentally restorative spiritual practice. I think that's one of the deep gifts that spirituality has to offer us, yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Well… In my experience of spiritual healing, I…I experience a similar resistance, whether it's doing Sufi healing, or whether it's doing Internal Family Systems therapy. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Whenever I try and… if I'm just going to, like, sit with the rage, or if I'm going to sit with the shame, or sit with the part that's collapsed, or sit with the… you know, you get the idea, right? I could go on and on. There's…we humans, we have these things. It's all part of the experience, right?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Right.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, if I try and sit with that directly, I almost always hit a wall. Like, 99.9% of the time.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: It's… it's like a… it's like a replication, on some level, of the freeze experience.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so, it's like…I am… In a fog.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Like, just gray fog, there's a wall of gray fog, and I cannot get to the other side. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And if I try and, like, be with that, and, like, what's underneath that, and what is the… if I try and personify it, or try and give it, you know, assign it colors, or images, or, you know, any of that, like, fog. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: That's my… my patent response in my system that I have developed to survive my life is…the fog. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So…what I have found, it works a whole lot better for me, is I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm feeling this. Alright. Yeah, I'm feeling it. Okay. How can I foster my sense of connectivity to the Divine?

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then, I can… Make a shift where it's, allowing my sense of connection to the Divine, and bringing the…what you're saying, bringing the sense of connection to the Divine to the situation, whatever that might be, or the pain, or the wound, or…or so on. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: But if I go to the wound, instead of to the Divine, I get nowhere.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I have to go to the Divine. I have to go to the Divine first with the awareness of the… of the experience of the wound, or whatever. Do you have any, any thoughts, any tips, any… what does that strike in you when, when I share that experience?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, well, so… so first of all, I can totally relate. For me, it wasn't a fog. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): For me, it was… it was like this… this…castle that was 6 inches thick, you know, that would just come down and say, you know, like a wall. I mean, it was just like a fortress. It's like, you know, between me and the pain, or the emotion, whatever, we are not going there. We're going to do everything we can to absolutely keep you from being there. Mayday, mayday, it ain't happening. Right?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): So… so I totally, I totally relate. And… and so what I found, maybe similar, was that if I try to push past that wall, it ain't happening. If… if I try to, if I try to, hey, you know what? Apparently, healing happens if we're over there, or we need to do that, that wall would absolutely not budge.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And what I needed to do, first of all, was, okay, well, instead of trying to be with the wound, or be with the rage, I need to be with what's real. And what's real is that there's a wall here, or in your case, a fog. So my invitation was, well, let me just take a step back then from the wall, and just be with the wall.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And just access that deeper self in me. Okay, I'm not going to fight the wall, I'm not going to try to push past the wall, I'm not going to try to make the wall go away. I'm just going to breathe into a grounded awareness that this wall is here, and this wall means well, and it needs something, and it is asking for my care right now. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And so, kind of stepping back into my spiritual essence, where my spiritual capacities for compassion and curiosity and groundedness and openness, but to the wall, not to the wound on the other side of the wall.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And that would be a place where I would have access to the Sacred, too. Like, okay, you know, how would my sense of that Sacred, compassionate reality be with me here, and be with this wall, first of all?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And then I would tend to the wall. Why is the wall here? You know, why is the wall keeping me from the pain on the other side?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And for me, it's usually because if you go over there, you're going to be swallowed into an abyss of pain, and it's going to… you're going to not get out of bed for weeks, and it's going to be nothing but re-traumatizing, and… and then if… well, of course, no wonder this wall is here! That means you're protecting me from… from getting mired into something that… that seems absolutely like an abyss of pain.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That's not going to be helpful to me either. Absolutely. The point of being with the pain is not just to be re-traumatized and re-experience it all and get sucked into it. The point is to be with it in a grounded, healing, restorative way.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And so then I say to that wall, you know, if it were possible… I agree with you. If we're going to get swallowed into the abyss, let's not go there.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): But what if we could be with that, whatever's on the other side, in a grounded, compassionate, even connected to the Sacred way? Would that help you allow me to be with what's on the other side of that wall?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And in very… yeah, if you could do that, great. And so, like you, it's like, okay, so me, armored with my sense of connection with the Sacred, let's now see what's on the other side of the wall.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): It's like the fog and the wall just want to make sure that when we are with the pain, we're going to do it from a grounded, spiritually resilient, connected, restorative way, and not in a way that's just going to get sucked into the pain.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That's… that's my experience, yeah. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I'm curious how that resonates, or what that brings up for you.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Honestly, I'm not sure.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, I think that the…I don't remember, I'm trying to think about, well, what is my process? And is my process what you're saying, which is being with the wall? Like, being with your sense of connection to the Divine and the wall simultaneously. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I feel like…it's my… I don't necessarily have that…consciously, as part of my process, is being present with the wall itself, or the fog, which, in my case, wall definitely fits just as well, because it's almost like the fog has this real denseness, you know, like, that you can't get to the other side of. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I feel like, rather than being so, like, present with the wall, in a state of connection to the Divine, it's more as if being in a state of connection to the Divine allows me to be present with…the reason for the wall.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, like, if it's the pain, or if it's the hurt, or if it's the shame, it's like my… what I experience is more like, okay, if I can be with, for me, Allah, if I can be with Allah and have that sense of connection to Allah, then the pain of…it's… it's not… like, the depth of it, or the… it loses some of its power over me, so to speak.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then, it's like, then I can… that, that reduction in volume, so to speak, of the pain, or the wound, or the whatever the case might be, the volume gets turned down that… on that, the volume turns… is turned up on the sense of connection with the Divine, and then I can…access, or I'm open enough to receive, like, a key teaching, or, you know, some insight, or… which very often for me, is the same thing, which leads me to my next question. What is your key teaching? 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: But I know that oftentimes what's on the other time, other side of the wall, if I can move… if I can bring my sense of the connection to God to the pain, or the wound that… there… there is this… like, the key, and oftentimes for me, is knowing that I'm Habib, which, for those of you who are not familiar with Arabic, Habib is the word for beloved.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, it's the one who carries the love of God, so one who is loved by God is referred to as the beloved. So, one who carries the love of God is loved by God.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And… I think that that was such a central misconception from my childhood experience that oftentimes the key teaching for me is, once again, oh no, you know, it's not that God doesn't love you, God does love you, you know? And so I feel like there's… that's that key teaching for me, is just the centrality of God's love for each and every one of us, that each and every one of us are the beloved, lowercase b, and that God is Beloved, capital B.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So… What's your key teaching?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's very similar, and I love you kind of talking about your process as well, because, because it resonates with mine as… also, and also with how trauma is healed. I mean, one of the key things about trauma recovery and healing is that going back to the places of pain just to feel that pain again is only re-traumatizing. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That is not helpful to our systems, it's not restorative, it doesn't help us grow, and so those fogs, or those walls, they mean… they're good. They know that if we just get sucked back into it, that it's going to be re-traumatizing, and so….

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): But on the other hand, when we can be with those memories or with those hard feelings, but from a grounded, spiritual essence, restorative place that can be with it with compassion and give it care, like we are when we are connected to the Allah or to the Sacred within us, then it's profoundly healing and restorative of those places of pain.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And what I hear from you is that when you're able to connect with that Sacred essence, it's like, the reason for the fog, it dissipates.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): It doesn't need to be there anymore, because, yeah, that's where the healing power is, to be with those hard things from that grounded, resilient place. And it's like the sunlight of that connection just melts away, the fog, so the fog doesn't need to be there to protect us away from that anymore. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): I mean, that's… that feels very similar to my… my experience as well.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And in terms of the core thing for me, it's very similar for you. It is that we are held in compassion. Period.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And… and partly for me, I mean, you know, sexual abuse, one of the… one of the… the… things that comes to us is this profound sense of shame. I mean, I lived with the shame that I was excrement. I mean, that what had happened to me soiled me into my bones, into my tissues were damaged. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And not only that, but if anybody in the world knew anything about that, they would immediately be repulsed by me, which is why I had to hide all of my… all of my past and all of my pain under this professional facade of trying to be the perfect professor, or the, you know, the perfect person of faith, or whatever, because of the profound shame that I was absolutely untouchable in my bones. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And the antidote to that was, like, in the padded room, or, like, in the church. It's that sense that in God's presence, in the presence of that maternal, Sacred source, that source looks at us, sees it all, and holds it with nothing but compassion. Nothing but compassion. You are loved, you are held, you are seen, even in the pain that you have known. Even in the shame that you carry, I see it, and I am undaunted by it. Non-plussed. Completely with you in compassion.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That's my primary ground.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And this corollary to that is, and when we know that, we can hold…in ourselves or in others, any form of pain, any difficult emotion, every… any shame, it all can be held. It can all be faced. It can all be companioned. It can all be carried in this absolute Sacred compassion that holds everything. Period.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That's my… solid ground.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: It's… as you know, I don't need to tell you this, and it's… I've mentioned this on other podcasts. We’ve all experienced some kind of trauma.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Many of us, it seems like the world today is a world where we are… if we turn on the news, we are faced with unbelievable life circumstances, there's… there's so much, so much trauma in the world. 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And… people…continually struggle with how do they deal with their own trauma, and how do they care for themselves in the face of…of all that's happening with them individually, but also with all that's happening globally.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I know that you have devoted much of your professional life is to…the centrality of this teaching around compassion, around God as compassion, around God that you are held in compassion, Period.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, I'm wondering if you could… if you were going to distill some tips for somebody who's struggling with self-care, who's somebody who's struggling to hold what they're going through, in a compassionate way, are there any particular suggestions, or…tips you might have for them?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, the tip would be gentle with yourself, that there is a reason why it's so hard.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That whatever the challenge is, the deep shame that you might carry, or the self-judgment that you might carry, or the severity of the rage or anxiety that just feels, you know, that is untouchable. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Whatever it is, it's there for a reason. You weren't born that way. It came from someplace. In its deepest root, it's rooted in suffering. It's rooted in pain.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And so instead of judging ourselves for that, beating ourselves up, or trying to manage it, turn and recognize there's a reason I feel this way. And it came from heartache, it came from some deep suffering of some form, and have compassion for that, even if you don't know precisely what it is. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Just an awareness that, yeah, something in me knew such pain that it now takes the form of this shame, or this judgment.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): So, yeah, be gentle with ourselves. We're not bad for what we feel. It's actually rooted in suffering. And when we can connect with that, our hearts can open with compassion towards ourselves. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): No wonder I carry so much shame. No wonder I carry so much rage. No wonder, given what I've been through.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): It's like really hearing this… Mr. Rogers, you know, Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, he's just one of the… I love him, but he's a man of profound compassion, but he would say that he could never hate anybody whose story he had heard.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Which is to say, you know, when you really hear and know the circumstances, the pain, what people have… what the challenges people faced, and how they struggle to overcome, when you really hear that, your heart opens to them.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And same is true for us. Let's recognize that there's a story underneath everything that we are struggling with internally, and be open to what is that story? What is that suffering?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And when we hear that and honor that we can have gentleness and compassion for ourselves.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): It's almost like you answered my next question before I got a chance to ask it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I was going to ask, like, how do you make the connection between this compassion for the individual self, and compassion in relation to what's happening globally. How do you… how do you bring those together? 

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And… and it sounds as if you're saying, if… if you can…be present, In a compassionate way, then you can hold all of it with compassion.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we could recognize that all forms of, you know, violence and vitriol and all of that, that is so hard. It's so hard to live with in the world that we are, but recognize all of it is rooted in suffering. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): It's all rooted in deep pain, which gives us the capacity for having some curiosity and compassion for what's underneath what makes this person act this way, or believe this way, or hold this ideology, or that can seem so challenging and offensive. It's somehow it's rooted in their pain. It's somehow…

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): They're doing the best they can to try to navigate the suffering that they have known, and it's coming out in these ways.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): So it opens up the possibility to have compassion for all persons, for whatever is the pain underneath that.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): That also, though, also means, though, that there is a place where we can have compassion for someone, but also need to draw boundaries against dangerous and destructive behavior.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): So, from a, you know, a survivor of sexual abuse, you know, I might be able to come to a place of having compassion for the priest's, you know, the suffering that gave rise to the behavior in that priest, or in this perpetrator over here, but that in no ways minimizes the pain of what they do, or the danger that they pose to other people, and so we need to also be bold and courageous and very clear about sequestering people who are dangerous and going to violate people, and keeping the vulnerable protected, and doing what we can to create the boundaries that are going to be safe for all persons. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): But we could do that and still have compassion for the persons that are so mired in their own pain and suffering that they cannot free themselves from the destructive behavior that they are enmeshed in. Both could be true at the same time.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. To distinguish between the action and the personhood.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: I… I recall a relationship with a relative. I will leave this individual unnamed, but this person's behavior toward the opposite gender was inexcusable.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Yeah.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Inexcusable.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And yet, when I was able to sit with the person behind or underneath all of that, I was like, it took me a while, but I realized, oh…he's…just a little boy yearning to be loved.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Now, that did not excuse his behavior.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Exactly.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And it's right to say no.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Exactly.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: This is not okay.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: And yet, if we can be in a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves, and a sense of compassion for the individual, we can… we can often recognize what else is going on there.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Absolutely, that's exactly… yeah, what I mean by both can be true at the same time, that we can have genuine compassion for the boy in him, and what he went through, and who is feeling unloved, and alone, and in a world that's telling him, you know, these…these terrible ideologies. We can have deep compassion.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And at the same time, it's inexcusable and needs to be corrected, and boundaries need to be put in place and need to be confronted. But to do that and still have compassion for the boy at the same time.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): And my experience is, when we can treat persons with that kind of compassion, it has the possibility of then melting some of that severe, egregiously bad behavior, and they're able to access a little bit more of their own True Self within them, and, you know, that's the hope of transformation. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): When we just shame them, that's only going to… that's only going to further give pain to that little boy inside and only entrench all the more the terrible behavior. But when we can have love and care and compassion, even when we're having boundaries, it has the potential of melting of the person that's carrying these egregious behaviors and beliefs, so….

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): The power of love, compassion, that's our deepest hope.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for sharing from your personal journey and your personal experience, and being so honest and courageous, and open and authentic.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Any parting words? Any last words of wisdom?

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): Well, just deep gratitude to you, Habib, for creating a space to be able to bring these types of things and to talk about, and, and also just to recognize that it's a journey. It's a journey that we are all on. I would not have been able to tell my story so publicly, you know, 30 years ago. Far, far from it. 

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): It's a journey of healing, a journey of recovery, and we give ourselves patience and grace and as we… as we all are, trying to find that deepest self and that connection with the Sacred that, restores us, so…

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes. Well, I find you and your…who you are as a person, a testament to God's grace, and inspirational, and I trust that others will also find the same in your story. And so, thank you for just tethering yourself so strongly around compassion, and knowing that…that God holds us in compassion always, yeah. Thank you.

Frank Rogers Jr. (he, him): First and last impulse, always, Compassion.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: First and last impulse, always, Compassion.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Thank you for joining us on Beyond Names. Before we go, take one breath, please, to just pause and reflect for a moment on this conversation with Frank and what sticks with you from this conversation.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Again, Frank, thank you for the inspiration to embody compassion, to be compassion, to carry compassion for ourselves and others in all the world.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: May something you heard today help you connect with the light in your own heart. May you grow in compassion, clarity, and courage. May you find your way, again and again, back home to yourself, back home to the Divine, however you name it.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: If today's conversation spoke to you, please like, share, and comment on this episode. Please follow Beyond Names.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: To make an appointment with me, please visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Until next time, may you be light, may you consciously participate in growing your light, and may you share your light.

Dr. Habīb Boerger: Peace be with you.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or other mental health issues, please utilize the below resources.

·         Mental Health Crisis Hotline/Suicide Anonymous: Call 988, or text 988, or chat at https://988lifeline.org/

·         (Military Veterans press 1 for service. You can just text them and say 'I'm feeling really low' ... or call and they will get back to you very quickly. [This line has veterans helping veterans.])

·         National Alliance on Mental Illness: https://www.nami.org/Home

·         Mental Health America: https://mhanational.org/

·         The National Institute of Mental Health: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/

·         American Psychiatric Association’s Healthy Minds Healthy Lives Blog: http://apahealthyminds.blogspot.com/

·         BPChildren (resources re. children with bipolar disorder): https://www.bpchildren.com/

·         Live Through This (a collection of portraits and true stories of suicide attempt survivors): https://livethroughthis.org/

·         The Trevor Project For Young LGBTQ Lives: 

·         https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ 

·         MedlinePlus from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health: https://www.medlineplus.gov/