compassion requires a softening and to survive trauma, like a lot of times, you basically can't be soft. You have to sacrifice being alive so you can survive. And I think to be truly alive requires a softening.
Brian Beatty:Now many of us don't realize that just as God is profoundly kind, and compassionate to us, we're invited to steward that compassion toward ourselves in the form of self compassion. And how do we do this? And we begin to practice gentleness and attentiveness toward our wounds, in the same way that God is already kind to us. Welcome to restoring the soul, the podcast dedicated to helping you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. I'm your producer Brian Beatty. Thanks so much for listening. On this edition of the podcast, we're featuring a discussion Michael had with our good friend andI Kolber, congratulating her on her recent release of strong like water on March the 21st. And today, Michael and Andi will devote their time together, discussing what it means to discover self compassion. If you're not familiar with Andi, she's a licensed professional counselor, writer and speaker from Castle Rock, Colorado, is specializes in trauma and body centered therapies. As a survivor of trauma herself, andI brings what she has learned personally about the work of change the power of redemption, and the beauty of experiencing God in our pain. So without any further delay, here's your host, Michael, John Cusack.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Here's the big question. And then I kind of want to go all over the map with different themes that you regularly teach about and that you do in your work. We talked about self compassion, kindness, tenderness to oneself. And for our Christian listeners, let me throw in a Bible verse. I actually think that for most people that come to counseling, it's the hardest verse in the Bible, to obey or to align with. And it's in Colossians, three, verse 12. And it says, Therefore, you who are holy, and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, humility, kindness, gentleness, and patience, and over all of these put on love. So if I told somebody, you, therefore, as God's child, go do 100 pushups and run a marathon barefoot on sharp rocks, and then climb a tree, with no hands, you know, they'd go, Okay, if that's what it says. And yet, it's so difficult. And I would argue, impossible through effort to be compassionate, and kind and gentle and patient to yourself. And yet, this is really your life's work. And you mentioned in a previous podcast, this has been your journey, as well as what you do. So here's the question, drumroll, please. Why is it so difficult for us to have compassion and kindness for ourselves?
Aundi Kolber:You know, I think that there's layers to it. Certainly, a lot of the folks that I work with have experienced trauma. And what I would start with is to say that those especially when it's childhood trauma, and it's something that is a really young, default, story, stories and templates that you carry in your body, that I think for those of us who have those experiences, It's especially hard, because often, you know, compassion requires a softening. And to survive trauma, like a lot of times, you basically can't be soft, you have to sacrifice being alive, so you can survive. And I think to be truly alive requires a softening. And so partly, I think, to start there, the part of the reason why compassion and kindness and love is that, you know, especially like developmentally for kiddos, it's really appropriate, not appropriate, but it's, it's normal for kids to sort of blame themselves for their own experiences of trauma because kiddos are very egocentric in that that's appropriate. And because they're egocentric, it becomes organized around Like, it must be my fault. Like, the reason why I'm not taken care of by those who should who love me the most in the world, is because it must be me. The reason why the person who should love me the most in the world harms me, it must be me. The reason you know, just fill in the blank, whatever that is, because that is really just where kids are at developmentally.
MICHAEL CUSICK:I never made the connection with the egocentrism, which is not ego, of inflation of self. It's literally a cognitive ability or inability to see the others
Aundi Kolber:perspective. So developmental stage, yeah,
MICHAEL CUSICK:I wow, I never made that connection. I've always known and said that children blade themselves, but that's why it's their frame of reference. It's all there. Yep. Thank you.
Aundi Kolber:Yeah, no, and I think that's, I hope it's validating for folks who listen, who hear that, you know, because I think it can be frustrating as an adult, you can even know it's not your fault. And you will still feel like it's your fault, right. And this, again, is the experiential piece, right? That there's a part there's of you that's holding that pain that has come to believe as a way to survive, this time, this experience, that at least is the story that makes sense where it made sense at the time, partly because that also allows you to stay connected to those who are providing, you know, your your home, or your food or your whatever you those basic needs. And so our bodies are wise in that way. They're wise in the sense that they will do just about anything they can to survive. And thank God for that. You know, but I think that is the first layer I'll start with with that question is that when you've had those experiences, it makes it profoundly difficult. The earlier you learn something, the longer it's lived in your body, the more ingrained, and the more you've traveled those, you know, that neural circuitry that is deeply encoded into your body. And I think that's why for me, gives me a lot of compassion for myself, when I maybe I'm struggling with something around that, that this is like this is an old, old, deeply encoded story, which is why I have to be profoundly gentle. Because it's, it's the opposite, right? It's, it's the repair. It is, like if the rupture is continually feeling like you're always not enough, you're to blame. You're, you know, all all the stories we tell ourselves, then how much more do we have to repair for if the 1000s and 1000s of times that we told those stories, then it's like the 1000s and 1000s of little repairs, right? And so, from there, though, even for folks who maybe would say, Well, yeah, I didn't experience that in childhood, or, you know, maybe they had experiences of good enough parenting. I think even then, this is not an easy concept. And I think partly it's because culturally, you know, especially in Western culture, we value meritocracy, we value pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, we value a certain version of strength, we value. Frankly, we value white knuckling.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Yeah, get over it. Don't be such a baby. I mean, these are all really subtle, that are part of our culture. And they're really unproductive. Yes. So if you're, if you're building a fence, you need to show up, dig the ditch, you know, work hard, maybe get calluses sweat. If you are caring for a child, you're going to have sacrifices and you have to push through. But if that becomes the norm, where you live, and there's no grace, space, openness, softness, to just letting yourself be, then that's gonna lead to problems.
Aundi Kolber:Absolutely. I mean, I think part of why, you know, I think self compassion maybe is getting a little bit more normalized, which I love. But I think a lot of people have this reaction to it, like, oh my gosh, that's so whatever, that's weak. That's selfish. That's, and what's so fascinating to me, I love this. This is where I loved it, like geek out a little bit is that when you understand the nervous system, let's say you have a template where you've always been so hard on yourself, and you just push through and you're just like, get over it baby, like whatever, you know, whatever that means. Part of what is happening there is that when we are having to armor up, we are inhibiting like we're not inhibiting. But we're like, we're not able to process and move through experiences in in a way that's necessarily allowing emotions to fully process. So part of what's happening there is that if you experience something that's really disturbing, it's more likely to be traumatic. It's more or less equally to get stuck in your body, because our body needs to have a certain level of sort of that softening to be able to move through something right. Alternately, let's say that's your template, but you begin to learn how to practice self compassion. Part of what we're doing there. Dr. Kristin Neff talks about this a lot. She's the foremost reacher researcher in the area of self compassion. And she talks about how self compassion taps into our mammalian caregiving system. And what that's doing is like when you have a threat response in your body, which is what we have to sometimes do to overcome things that you know, are really hard or big. We inhibit, it starts to inhibit the cortisol response and adrenaline. And so what that saying is that it's sort of a form of CO regulating in your own body,
MICHAEL CUSICK:it dials down all of the things that make us ramp up, whether it's an actual fight or flight response, or kind of flexing our muscles and pushing in. It dials that down, and then opens us up, as you said, softening to the opportunity for CO regulation to be cared for to receive. Yes, yeah. So Dr. Kristin Neff, yep.
Aundi Kolber:And so this is, this is a big deal. Because what this means is that's actually resilience. So what we're saying is, is that self compassion leads to resilience.
MICHAEL CUSICK:And resilience is big business, in the corporate world and in athletics. So I think where you're going with this is that people who kind of poopoo to use my mom's word, compassion, and say, That's kind of weak, that it's actually contradictory to what they would want, because it makes you stronger, makes you more resilient, it would potentially heighten performance and the ability to be fully engaged. Yes, yes, absolutely.
Aundi Kolber:And certainly, this is where I think sometimes people get confused is that this is not saying that we don't need to do hard things. Sometimes this is not saying that hard work is bad. This isn't none of those things. But it is saying, and this is where an awareness of our body really matters, is that if you're having to push yourself it out of your window of tolerance into a fight or flight response, or into dissociation, in order to do something, or if something is super painful, and for you, the only way to get through is to disconnect from yourself. This is the invitation of self compassion, to turn towards that pain, and to attend to it. And so there's, there's a lot of layers there. And I think it's one of those things that we can explore for years that we keep learning
MICHAEL CUSICK:back to Colossians. Three, because you know, as we're talking about restoring the soul, I always like to bring in a theological biblical perspective that people might not have considered. So this idea of self compassion, it's in like verses 12 through 14. And most people in their Bible, if you go to Colossians, chapter three, there's one of these man made titles where they broke it down. And it says, and I don't like the title, but it says rules for holy living in the NIV. And then it goes through, you know, put off the old self put on the new and, and then it gets to verse 12. And one of the rules for holy living is be compassionate to yourself, gentle kind, and it's as if it's like the, it's like the bow on the first 11 verses that says, Oh, by the way, you're not going to be able to do this. Unless you have self compassion. Otherwise, you're going to feel pressure, you're going to turn in on yourself, as you said, you're going to beat yourself up. Everything that's the opposite of gentle, kind, and compassionate is where you're going to end up. And then who wants to, you know, live the Christian life or try to do what's right or be loving, if you're in that space. So it really seems to me to be a key ingredient. So I don't believe this but devil's advocate for a moment, and I'm curious if you hear this argument, you know, the idea of loving yourself is not biblical. I, I've been at a conference where I was talking about loving yourself, and somebody literally stood up in the back row about 300 people there. And they said, That's not biblical. Where do you see that in the Bible? And I think there's a lot of, you know, verses that talk about it, and there's a lot of concepts, but it just seems to me anymore to be just a major theme. Like would God say hate yourself? Or therefore holding dearly loved? beat the crap out of yourself. And don't be humble but be proud. And instead of being gentle, be rough instead of being kind. really treat yourself the way that you would a really annoying next door neighbor who you want to take revenge on. That's not the heart of God. And yet internally, we, we theologically try to justify this idea. So first of all, respond to the person that says it's not a, quote, biblical idea. To love yourself.
Aundi Kolber:Yeah, I mean, for me, the first thing that I think about is, frankly, love your neighbor as yourself. And so to me, I'm like, as yourself, so how do I love my you want me to go, like kick my neighbors, but like what like, like, you want to go shame my neighbor, you want me to go, you know what I mean? Because that's how I'm like, because that's, if that's how I am with myself. That's what you're what you know what I mean, that's what the expectation would be. And so I think that's like, to me, I think we so often like we people read that love your neighbor. That's beautiful. But there is a neurobiological reality in which when we are not connected to our own body. So if you're cognitively loving your neighbor, but you are disconnected from your body, because you hate yourself, there will be very, very, very firm limits on how you can love your neighbor,
MICHAEL CUSICK:right? You might be able to go shovel their driveway, or help a little old lady across the street, but your heart will not be able to lavish goodness and blessing, especially if they're somehow irritating or unlovable. You can't you simply can't sustain that. Right.
Aundi Kolber:That's right. And I think there is a sense in which, you know, yes, you have to, you have to sit with that a little bit to be able to see that reality. But to me, you know, I think this is why it matters, that we are available to truth that can come through things like research and science. Because without understanding I mean, essentially, we don't have access to empathy. That's part of what we're saying, we both don't have access to empathy, or compassion. So I just would challenge someone to go live the Christian faith without those, because I just don't see that being possible.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Have you followed some of the stuff on social media about the churches and a pastor in particular? Who said empathy is a sin, and that it leads to inwardness? We won't go down that road. But it was recently speaking at the prince gathering and Dr. Scott McKnight, foremost, New Testament theologian in the US read an article about that. And he just said, Are you kidding me? I mean, where have we gone? I, I know, I'm kind of truncating the thought that you were on. But because of limited time, as we're having this conversation, I'm thinking where in society have we seen this compassion? And I'm sure you follow Simone Biles, the Olympic, you know, more successful than any other gymnast and how recently, it was in the Tokyo Olympics, where she chose not to do her competition, because there was a concern that she could be hurt because she wasn't at her best. And there was worldwide outrage. You know, maybe it was divided down the middle, maybe not there people like, Oh, that's wonderful. But she did it, because she's been in a very public journey of abuse, recovery, and trauma. And I thought, especially knowing that story, wow, how hard that would be knowing that to become, you know, a zillion gold medal winner, you don't try softer, you try harder. And you show up at four in the morning, and whatever. And so with this trauma journey, of having been abused by a Olympic, you know, official staff, people and coaches and doctors, to be at that point in front of the entire world with this expectation, what courage and integrity. And I think very few people have any sense of what would be required in that. But to me, this is an example of, I am going to love myself, my neck could snap, my career could end. And maybe selfishly, I don't think it's selfish, like I'm not at my best, and I can't perform for my team. And I see versions of that happening again, and again. We're women and men are going nope, I'm not going to do that. And I think sometimes when there's a spiritually abusive organization, or person, and people go, you know, I'm not going to do this, I'm going to step away. It might not be initially against a resistance of evil, or darkness. It might just be like, I don't deserve this. And it's a way of being compassionate. Setting those boundaries. It sounds like is a big part of compassion. So I'll let you comment but then talk a little bit about boundaries and how that's part of how we develop compassion for herself.
Aundi Kolber:Yeah, yeah. Well, I just want to echo. I just have profound respect for Simone Biles, I think for her as not only an abuse survivor but a black woman in America, to have the profound, I would, I would put that under the realm of fierce self compassion. And I'll just say Dr. Kristin Neff, has done a lot of work around that, too. So I just want to give her props for that specific phrase, but it's this willingness, it's there's a desire to care for oneself, it's attending to oneself, but the fierceness requires a mobilization. Whereas I think, typically self compassion, like a lot of the ways that I talk about it is through the lens of tenderness. And in the other sort of balancing is the fierceness and I would say that, it's like, I believe that healing requires both. And I believe that's really the heart of God. I mean,
MICHAEL CUSICK:so say that, again, healing requires fierceness and tenderness? I believe
Aundi Kolber:so. And I'll, I'll talk about that with boundaries in a second, because I think it's very interlinked, but I believe it's also the heart of God. And, you know, I lately I've been thinking about this in in who Jesus was that he was both, he both invited, rest to those who are weary. But when there was injustice, when there was, you know, the ways that people were being abused, there was a fierceness. Like, this is like, this is like a no, thank you. I'm not okay with that. Right. Yeah. And that, I think, you know, part of healing. And this is where I'll link it to boundaries is that boundaries, they create safety. So we can be tender. But to have boundaries requires a mobilization of saying, No, you may not know things like Sorry, I'm not available. No, this is not okay with me. No, I will not be able to fulfill that, you know, and not that boundaries are always like, we have to do this in every relationship. It's not all it's not necessarily about a reaction to someone harming us. But for those of us who have experienced harm,
MICHAEL CUSICK:well, it's about us harming ourselves by not saying, or stating
Aundi Kolber:parties participate in the harm, I believe that we have first been taught to harm ourselves, usually, because I know that I can, I would say for many of my clients, and for myself, there to speak up for yourself was, was not okay, and perhaps dangerous. So, you learn that, right. So that's, that's, that's the template you carry in your body. So you become an adult. And if that's the template, then you continue to operate in it, and you participate in your own harm. Wow. And so healing requires a reclaiming, like, this is the body that God has given me, these are the limits, this is my finiteness, these are the gifts, these are the relationships, and I can protect those. And that is fierce, to say, it requires whereas tenderness requires a softening. I would say fierceness requires a rising up. And not from a place of, you know, hopefully not from a place where we're having to go outside of our window of tolerance. Although I know for some folks, especially when you're learning boundaries, that can be very tricky, and triggering at times. So I think there's lots of grace for that journey. But there is a sense of having to inhabit
MICHAEL CUSICK:your strength. Well, even as you're talking, I'm seeing that you're inhaling when you said to expand. And then you exhale when you talked about the the tenderness. So the tenderness and the fierceness the fierceness isn't an egocentric, I'm going to get to, but inhabiting ourself, where we expand into who we really are. And the tenderness is softening and releasing into who we really are. But both sides of it are part of our our true self.
Aundi Kolber:I believe so. And I think that's so beautiful. You know, and I think it's just one of the things I've been meditating on lately is just that God made us to inhabit the fullness of our humanity, like Jesus came fully human. That blows my mind all the time. Just how human I mean, yes, God, divine, and fully human.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Do you Do you realize and I know you do. Because you went to seminary and you You've spoken and worked deeply and for a long time with people, but for Christians, how foreign that idea might sound that Jesus came to make us fully human. Because so often the messages were to be less human. that we need to dial down our humanity, our desire, our neediness, our dependency. And it's exactly the opposite. And in that expansion of our need, in our, our dependency and interdependence, we actually become who were meant to be. And we become like God, I like to mess with the question, Is God needy?
Aundi Kolber:You know, I think this is literally me just riffing on this, I have no, you know, I think I might feel differently in an hour. But when I think about that concept, I don't think God's needy in the way that we think of needy. I don't think it comes from a place of lack, right. But God is I think, maybe I'm trying to think of a different way that we think of needy when it's not the lack. Like I think God is tender in the tenderest way that needy could present itself. God wants to be with us in the way that a neediness could be present itself. God has, like I think God inhabits those very human characteristics. But I think God is fullness. And so whereas our neediness might come from, it's like a signal of maybe where we have not enough.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Yeah, so I'm referring to, I frequently quote, St. Teresa of Lisu, who said that our poverty is our capacity for God, or emotional, relational, spiritual poverty, not per se monetary. And so our neediness is poverty. And God, because there's no lack or scarcity, he has wealth. And his need is to spread the wealth. And that he can't not do that. There's a compulsion to spread the wealth to give himself away to a tune to be the secure place. As we're having this whole conversation, and your book is built, in many ways upon this assumption, it all assumes that there is such a thing as love, that there is a place a person, whether that's a parent, to an infant, parent to a teenager, partners, spouses, where we look one another in the eye, we look to their heart to their being. And it's transformational. It does something to our neurobiology. And I'm struck by how in Jesus, very last sermon on the night, that he was betrayed, he said, all the stuff I've been teaching for three years, here's the summary. Here's, here's what it's all about. Okay, listen up. I'm the vine, you're the branches. Remain, stay, abide, be with your word, inhabit. And that is like par excellence, the metaphor for attachment. Right? That everything neurobiologically in utero, to death is like a branch and a vine. And to the degree that we somehow are severed, or that that's kind of disconnected or perceived to be disconnected, there's death. And this is not a small point, you should come back, and we'll talk about this. But you know what Romans 623 says, For the wages of sin is death. And I don't know how many times you've heard, well, that's God's punishment for sin. And my pastor at a very conservative church got up once and he said, God is not punishing you, and God does not punish you. And I literally went, I'm going to join this church. And I did. But the wages of sin is death. Because the branch and the vine somehow gets severed, and the branch can't live the same way that if I cut off a limb on my tree, it's like pulling the plug of a ventilator, in ICU, death will ensue. It's not punishment. It's just what happens when you're dependent upon that. And I say all that to say, and I want you to have the last word. But I say all that to say that love has us, which is a phrase that I use, that, that God didn't just give us an idea of love, but that he gave us a person. And he became a person. And he entered into the messiness. And back to your initial point, the realness of our story, and showed us that love is trustworthy. Love is dependable, that we're attuned to and that ultimately we are safe and secure in love.
Aundi Kolber:Yeah, I think that's just, it's beautiful. And I think for me, what faith has really what my faith has really been Come is mostly just this idea of it's an it isn't attachment. I mean, it is the experience it is the actual embodied being with. And I can't imagine it not being that way anymore. I don't really want anything different. And, and I think, you know, I love, I love that phrase Love has us because I really believe that's God's heart and desire that there's a sense in which even when we can't hold on, love holds us. And so I think there's such this beauty that, you know, I think of, you know, the verse where God is working all things ticket. And that, you know, has been used so many times to spiritually bypass for people and put bows on things. But if we can honor the reality of of life and how hard it is, but hold the tension of the hope that God is working it to good. Like, that's when you say love has us. That's what it reminds me of.
MICHAEL CUSICK:You have been listening to part two of a conversation with my friend and colleague and one of my favorite people and author of the book, try softer, if you have not read or gotten a copy of try softer. Please, please please, if you care about change, healing, transformation, restoration, becoming yourself. This is a book that is a must read. It's it's really a book, although this word is not. In the book, to my knowledge, it's a book about discipleship. It's a book about what it means to follow Jesus into becoming the you that you were created to be and Andi has a new workbook called the try softer, guided journey, a soulful companion to healing. And all of these are from Tyndale. You can find them on Amazon or other fine bookstores. But please make sure to check it out. And we're so grateful for andI coming by the studio.
Brian Beatty:So thank you for listening to another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. What we're all about is helping couples and individuals get unstuck. You know how some people go to counseling or marriage therapy for months or even years and never really get anywhere. Our intensive programs help clients get unstuck in as little as two weeks. To learn more visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com