Hello, this is Brian Beatty, producer for Restoring the Soul with Michael John Kusick. All summer long, we're revisiting some of the most important conversations of our 10-year history. We're also celebrating nearly three million downloads since we began this podcast in 2016. Thank you for being an important part of the journey. Enjoy and share today's conversation with a friend. Julianne and I are thrilled to be talking with you, Andy, as we unpack your book, Try Softer. Great conversation in the first episode. And Jules, you had a couple questions about trauma, attachment, and specifically around.
Julianne CusickWell, there's so many things that I we didn't get to get to in the first episode. So I'm so glad that we're back for round two. And I would just love to continue to expand on the idea of our bodies. Um, you talk about attachment and bonding in your book. And I'm a Bowlby fan, so I just love that you had John Bowlby and attachment in in your book. And we want to put a plug out there for the book as well. So the full title of Try Softer.
Michael John CusickWhich, by the way, this is a book. I told Julianne this. If she's going to read one book, it should be Andi's book. And it's called Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us Out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival and Into a Life of Connection and Joy. And of course, it's available wherever fine books are sold, including on Amazon and all of your other favorite places.
Julianne CusickSo
in the first section of your book, Andy, you talk about becoming and how long it takes to become. Can you tell us a little bit about your own journey or the message that you hope others will get on becoming? Yeah. I started the book with this chapter, and then I think the, you know, it starts with, how long will it take? Yes. And pretty much in at least a decade of being a therapist, I feel like this is a pretty much a question I always get asked. And, you know, I want to first say I think that's fair. I think that's fair to wonder those things. But what I've come to learn is that so much of this work is about a posture. It's about an internal posture that teaches us how to be and stay with it. Like stay with the process. Sometimes, like I've written this on social media or things like that, like keep going, but take breaks. I talk about that a lot because it's like this idea of, I mean, this is the journey of our lives, you know, to be um, to become who God made us to be. And there's lots of space for compassion and rest. And in fact, those things usually birth the most growth is comes out of those types of things. But this idea of becoming, I love it because, you know, early on, before I knew really what the title was going to be, I had this picture of essentially becoming whole. And I think that it just speaks to the reality that it's like the tighter that we want to grasp how quickly we need to change, um, the the further out of our grasp it is. And when we can embrace that right now, in this precise moment, and that's what's true about our becoming. It's the already, but it's not yet. You know, we are already loved right now, and this matters. This is attachment. Yes. This is attachment. The attachment is that we are so loved and so valuable right now, in the mess, in the things that we're messing up on, in the white knuckling, in the things that we still want to change. The other deeper truth is that we're already loved. And it's because this is true that we can change. And so all the other elements of it, they just flow from it.
So I want to literally slow down the tape because I I think this is almost needs to be understood, dissected into micro pieces. What do you mean when you said it's because we are loved that we can change?
Aundi KolberYeah, I'm really pointing to a very like an attachment dynamic. So when we talk about attachment from a clinical perspective, we're talking about how our earliest caregivers um attune to us and respond to our needs. And then that sets a template for how we interact with ourselves and others in the world for the rest of our lives. And a lot of tri-software, in a way, is really about the relationship we have with ourselves. And there's a sense in which it's all attachment work because what our earliest attachments sort of the the template that was set creates the template for how we interact with ourselves. And so going back to you know your question of um how does being loved allow us to change? What I think that is true is that as we can embrace, and sometimes this is where I think that there's a little bit of, there can be a lot of nuance. Like sometimes we embrace this first through God. Um, sometimes it's God Himself who shows us and allows us to experience how deeply we are loved. But sometimes, and actually in my case, I I had known God for a really long time, but when I really felt secure and safe enough to lay down my defenses was in my marriage. And that actually allowed me to believe God. So there's a reciprocity that happens in any type of when we feel safe, there is good fruit. When we feel loved, there is good fruit. And I believe it's from these places we can sort of push the limits of our growth and our change because we have a safe base. And this is very much attachment language.
Michael John CusickLike And without that safe base and that sense of being loved, then I have to be self-sufficient. I have to defend against being hurt or abandoned or exposed. And when I'm loved and in that secure place, then I can begin to relinquish those defenses and those strategies and that things like that, and actually begin to be present to myself, including my body, be present to others to be able to receive love and to actually get my needs met in healthy ways, and then to be present with God where I'm actually really being me instead of the me that I think I have to be to get the love and the security. Is that kind of the statement?
Julianne CusickI
would say absolutely, yes. I mean, I think this is why I think understanding the physicality, the neurobiology of these things that we're talking about matters. Because if we're asking people to do things that they don't yet have the support and resources to do, it's almost cruel. If we're asking people to change, and what really where we need to go is to the very deepest, starting at the smallest, just creating really safety or love. Um, that's where we have to start. We can't be on step ten if we're still on step one.
Michael John CusickI want you to say that again because I agree with all my heart. And here at Restoring the Soul, you know, we see people that are pretty desperate, they've been to multiple counselors or in situations, and um they they come feeling like they've not done enough, that they've not tried hard enough.
Julianne CusickOr that they've tried so hard and nothing has worked.
Michael John CusickAnd yeah, that's my point. And and so you said that it's cruel, C-R-U-E-L, cruel to whether it's a pulpit, a pastor, a counselor, and I see this a lot, a parent, a spouse, to expect or require someone to change when they've not actually addressed the core issue, which is um largely a physiological reality that's causing reactivity.
Aundi KolberYeah,
I mean, I think, and obviously I want to, you know, put in some disclaimers, like if someone's being unsafe, uh you need to set boundaries and you need to do the things that will keep you as the person interacting with that with that person safe. So that that is also true. But unless we really recognize the fullness of what this means, right? So this is where this, you know, I love that you have these all these different elements of what it is required, like what is all uh what makes up a person, um, that especially with trauma, so much of this is happening in on a physical plane. And it's not that the other parts don't matter, but you can have the best knowledge, the best ideas. You could know every Bible verse. Um, but if we are that disintegrated, if we are encoded with various types of trauma, and that those neuro, you know, neural pathways have been traveled millions of times, this knowledge will not create change. It has to be lived into, it has to be embodied, it has to be compassionately witnessed, and it has to be allowed to heal. And so I think that sometimes people are well-meaning, right? Like they want people to change. And I think that's part of why I felt like I I felt like I had to write Tri Software, and I mean that in the best sense of the word, that it was burning in me. That I felt like, why are there not, I mean, there are resources, but why are there not more? Why are why is this not even more of a topic of conversation in everyday culture, not just therapists, not just specialization, but that we need to know about this because people are hurting.
Michael John CusickAnd in every church, why it's not discussed. And and I love how, and I was uh given the privilege by you of writing an endorsement, and I wrote something along the lines of how you're exegetically with scripture, you really do a great job. You have a degree from Denver Seminary, but also just clinically um very um sophisticated in the concepts and on target, but so, so well explained. I have um worked with many, many clients, and we do a lot of trauma work here at Restoring the Soul. They have gone to a therapist who says that they are trauma-informed, and all they do is talk because that person might have gone to a workshop on helping sexual abuse or something like that. And we know the value of talk therapy, but in my journey, I went to counseling for 10 years and never really got wholeness and freedom at the deepest level and started until I started to deal with this aspect of the body. And I've even known people that have gone to EMDR therapists who kind of hand them the EMDR apparatus and they just start doing that as if that's healing, and the people fall apart because they don't have that groundedness and that safety. So will you come back to the idea of you can't move in to heal the trauma until what?
Until we have the ability to tolerate and stay with ourselves.
Michael John CusickBe present.
Aundi KolberYeah, to be present, and really going back to, you know, we've talked, I think it might have been the first episode, we talked about the window of tolerance, that good trauma therapy happens when we can have one foot in the past and one foot in the present. And if we have two feet in the past, that is the definition of retraumatization. And so a therapist, whether it's talk therapy or, you know, a more holistic or a combination or whatever that looks like, in my opinion, to be trauma-informed means to some extent that you are tracking the nervous system of the person that you're working with, that you are creating and helping them link to their resources that they've experienced in their life that they have maybe already present that that they're maybe potentially not um aware of, and and really building those with them so that they have a sense of stability, so that when you're processing trauma and you've got that foot in the past, when you come back to the present, there is a sense of safety, there is a sense of connection and support and things to help replenish. Um, and and I think it's it's vital that we, you know, help people know how to take breaks from the pain. And I mean that in a healthy way, that it is okay. We're not made to constantly experience a water hose of pain. Like we just can't sustain it. And so I believe that part of what good trauma therapy is going to include is really helping people learn how to um build and nourish the resources that are available to them so that when they go into that trauma, that they can um, you know, it's like sort of like someone who's running a marathon. If you ask someone to run a marathon every single day at their top speed, they're not gonna be on the on the third day, they're gonna be not in a great place. So I think it's the same is true with trauma therapy, because that's kind of what we're asking people to do. Well, and you're bringing up that what's true in the physical is true emotionally, or what's true emotionally is is true physically. And I love that analogy as you talk about becoming and how long does it take. Um, I've wanted to know on my journey, well, how long, right? And a very wise man said to me once, it takes as long as it takes. But when when we look at our infant, right, if we have a child or have ever been around a child, when when they're born and they're helpless and they can't feed themselves or clean themselves or warm themselves, or we're not yelling at them, saying, hurry up, grow up, walk, talk, do all of the things. And yet we do that to ourselves emotionally instead of saying, No, it takes time, it's a process, it's a journey of becoming. It's like learning a foreign language or learning to dance. Those can be really painful, awkward experiences, and to me that that's more similar to the emotional journey of becoming than try harder or do these techniques or jump through these hoops or six steps because it's it's not linear, it really is more of a developmental, and I think that goes in line with attachment. What do infants need? They need to be safe, they need to be secure so that they can grow. And you're saying that's the very same thing that we need as human beings, not human doings, but human beings, is we need to be safe and secure to be able to grow emotionally and to be able to, especially with trauma, to heal from that trauma. Yeah, I think that's such a great um analogy. And I and I think you're right, it is it is in a sense developmental. And for so many people, um, and again, not everyone, sometimes people have had good enough parents in the sense that um, you know, that they have really been able to attune to their needs in a way that has allowed them to maybe experience an internal voice that is a good enough parent in themselves, you know. That doesn't mean they're exempt from pain, but they may have a slightly different experience, that they may um be more, it might be more intuitive to listen to their body, might be more intuitive to attune to what's going on. However, we know that something like 35 to 50 percent of Americans have an insecure attachment. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. And that doesn't mean that that everyone's walking around unable to function. But what it does mean is that we have got a lot of folks, a lot of folks, who are affected by various types of this attachment trauma that is um not necessarily allowing them to be able to be the parent to themselves that they need.
Michael John CusickAnd
to get their needs met from others in healthy ways that would allow them to flourish instead of continue to to live out some kind of brokenness. Um I want to come back to your book, and these ideas are woven into your book, but one of the most helpful concepts for me, and I think we touched on this in the last podcast several months ago prior to you being a published author, is Dan Siegel's concept of the four S's, that every infant, and now we've learned from womb to tomb, so through all of life, that everyone needs to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure. And this has really changed my practice because I used to try to get people to see their wounding, or you know, whether it was a small t or a capital T, as we talked about in previous episode. But when you start to talk about being seen, soothed, safe, and secure, everybody wants that. And everybody kind of goes, Well, oh yeah, I I wasn't soothed here. It wasn't so much that I had the crap beaten out of me, but when I fell and skinned my knee uh when I was five years old, and somebody said, We don't cry in this family, you know, there there was a message of I wasn't soothed. Now, is that trauma? Uh, not sure, but we do know that that is a kind of attachment wound, right?
Aundi KolberYeah,
and I mean I think the thing about that, and I and I think we could prop, I mean, I think that some of this is gonna be just like how some where someone's nuance is with certain types of trauma. But what we do know is that if that's your framework for feeling feelings, what that does mean is that our ability to process emotions in our body is going to be smaller because what we've learned is it's not okay to feel our feelings. You won't have support when you feel your feelings. And so over time, I absolutely do think that can become a trauma because what happens is that it builds and it builds and it builds. And then what happens when something, a very significant loss and a significant grief comes along, and what you've what you've set up, the template you are given is you have maybe no idea how to feel those feelings. It is so scary to feel those feelings that then then what does look good? Well, that's when addiction looks really good. That's when numbing ourselves, that's when doing things that maybe are not congruent with who we are feels like a good choice because what other resources do we maybe have available to us? And obviously that's gonna look really different for every single person, but this is how over time this shapes the narrative of a life, I think.
Michael John CusickAnd your book,
Tri Softer, is so relevant for addictions. You know, the the subtitle was about uh move us out of anxiety, stress, and survival, but you could put the word addiction in there as well because so much of the addiction field is now about embodiment and emotional regulation and distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness and mindfulness and all of those kinds of things that are components of DBT, dialectical behavior therapy. But um, what you're talking about really does apply to almost any issue that we could struggle with because it all emanates from our physiology and our body.
Aundi KolberYeah, I mean, I think sometimes it is hard because, you know, I talk about trauma and I talk about trauma-informed, but it's it is this dance, this tricky place because I think for so many people when they hear trauma, they check out because they're like, well, that's not me. Um but I think it the even deeper message is that we're actually really talking about the nervous system. We're talking about nervous system states, we're talking about resilience, we're talking about the ability for our body to move through emotions and move to completion. That's a very somatic psychology idea that something moves towards completion. And in a way, that's what trauma is the opposite of that. Something did not fully complete in the process of something feeling overwhelming or difficult. You know, in a situation, we can move through painful things and it doesn't necessarily become trauma if we have support, if we feel safe, if we know it's okay to feel our feelings, if our body's able to complete the physiological reactions that happen when we've moved into fight or flight or potentially, you know, out of dissociation. And so, you know, when you talk about this addiction piece, I think absolutely, I think more and more what we're seeing is that trauma is essentially oftentimes the gateway for folks because um they don't feel like they have and this is not always a conscious choice, but it's like on a subconscious level, this feels better than the pain.
Michael John CusickRight, right. Yeah, and uh people may not be familiar with the author Gabe Ormate, who wrote a book in the realm of hungry ghosts. And that's the first book that I ever read that absolutely brought these ideas together. The idea of attachment and development of our nervous system, and how that sets us up for addiction and compulsion.
And I love Aundi, that you talk about it's not the trauma itself that we actually with love and care and connection and support, you know, if you take a situation that is has the potential to to leave a traumatic imprint on someone, and one person is in a home with with violence and emotional disconnection, and they're alone and they're scared, and the other person is in a home where people are connected and involved and their safety and warmth, it's almost like that person is able to ride the wave versus getting pulled under by the wave. And so so much of that, what you're saying, is not what happens, but how it's responded to. Yeah. No, and I one thing and I don't know who to give the credit to on this uh quote, but I had read something that said something like, it's what happens after the trauma that matters most. I said that.
Michael John CusickYes.
Julianne CusickOf course. It was Michael accuser. It's why she was no C.S.
Michael John CusickLewis said that. No. Say it again.
Aundi KolberYeah, so it's and I again don't know who to give credit to, but that um it's what happens after the trauma that matters most. And that's exactly what you're pointing to is this idea that especially this is why things that happened in our childhood that if they happen to us as adults, we'd be like, whatever. Like maybe we'd move through it pretty quick and we're like, okay, that was a little bit painful, but I I'm, you know, I whatever. I have resources to move through this. But when you're a child and you literally depend for your very like everything, just to your next meal, roof over your head, clothes, where are you gonna get where you need to go, and you don't feel safe in your family, you don't feel seen by your family, you are not to allowed to feel feelings in your family, you are shamed for having feelings in your family, just for existing. It's not hard to see how quickly these things add up.
Michael John CusickYeah.
Aundi KolberAnd so that's why I put such an emphasis on it's how we experience something that often matters the most. Because two people can have the exact same experience, but maybe the resources behind them, the support they were given, um, the previous attachment um foundation that they had, all of these things impact our body's ability to know whether or not it's safe enough to move through it.
Michael John CusickAnd
can I give an example of how that plays out in adulthood as well? You probably know the book In a Different Voice by Peter Levine. Yes. Uh pioneering work, and Peter is one of the the the uh patriarchs or the the theorists of uh sensory motor therapy and really attuning to the body. And I remember in his book, he spoke about walking off a curb and he was hit by a vehicle, um, and he was taken out and unconscious for a period of time, and he woke up and there was a woman who I think she might have been a nurse, but the the dramatic part of the story, she wasn't attending to his physical, you know, broken bones or whatever might be there. She had her hand on his shoulder and she was looking into his eyes, just completely attuned, saying, You're okay, you're going to be okay, help is on the way. And he unpacked that for a whole chapter about how if that had not happened, his body would have reacted as if he was still unsafe in that moment. And that's so powerful. Um, you know, we're trained in therapy offices to do that kind of attunement, but it's so powerful when that happens just on an everyday level as a way of kind of creating resilience.
Aundi KolberYeah, what a great example. And I, yeah, his work has been profoundly impactful for me. And I think, you know, it's just such a model for this idea of, you know, I I hope and pray that this is what Tri-Softur sort of encourages, that it's it's it's interpersonal and it's and it's internal. And and then also it's with our God who loves us. And it's all of these resources that allow us to change how we're relating to ourselves. And and that's that attunement that you speak of that that woman gave to Peter, there's a sense in which that's almost the attunement we give to our body and to our younger self that may still be carrying a lot of that pain because it can literally change everything.
Michael John CusickI
just want to comment uh, as people are listening, that this conversation and so many conversations like this on the Restoring of the Soul podcast are not a dualism. And what I mean by that is that we're talking about psychology and interpersonal neurobiology over here on my left hand. And over here in my right hand, we're talking about the Bible and Jesus. Um, I'm reminded of the passage in Mark and Matthew and Luke. Most people will be familiar with it that says, What will it profit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their very soul? Again, soul is body, mind, emotions, will. In Luke, that passage is translated as, what will it profit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their very self? And so in in both of those verses, there's this reality that in trying to gain the world, in that trying harder, in the being driven, in the trying to just keep things moving on the treadmill or the hamster wheel of life so that I'll be okay and to survive, that that's actually a kind of violence to my soul. Eugene Peterson's the one that introduced me to that term. He said that when we live in unhealthy rhythms, that we're doing violence to our soul. Um, it also just makes me think so, so present what you have written in Tri-Softer, um, how it really represents the work of Christ, who in his very first sermon said, I have come to bind up broken hearts and to set captives free. And that binding up of broken hearts is this disintegration that you're speaking of.
Yeah, and I love, you know, going back to that verse that you were talking about, what does it profit a man to um gain the whole world and lose his soul? I've I've actually thought about that a lot in this work that I've done, that this that's sort of what it's like. And I think what often keeps us stuck, though, is that our automatic response then is shame.
Michael John CusickRight. Right.
Aundi KolberAnd I think if we could see, if we could shift that to it's like it's more like God is calling us home. It's more like, you know, it just brings a tear to my eye. This idea of home is so powerful to me that there's a sense in which God is home at home with us in ourselves, and we get to come home to ourselves. And I think of embodiment like that. Embodiment is living at home in ourselves. And I think that in that sense, too, like all of those things meet it, have an intersection of of what we're talking about, and that it's it's not shame, it's not uh condemnation that that allows us to heal. Um, it's compassion.
Michael John CusickJulianne, you were gonna say something before we wrap up.
Julianne CusickOh,
I just want to say, well said to Andy. Um, and I'm hoping we do a third interview because I was thinking about our inner language, and in your book you talk about the inner critic and getting it to quiet down. And so there's just, I think, so much to be said and to discuss about our inner thoughts and how we talk to ourselves and the language and the tone that we use. So that's where my mind was going, but I don't think we have time to do that today.
Michael John CusickI wish that we could just keep talking and talking, talking. I know that your book is going to change lives, and my hope and prayer is that it it just spreads throughout the Christian community and the church so that what you've written about really becomes a normal way of doing life. Because I think it's the way of Jesus. I think it's the way of living in unforced rhythms of grace.
Aundi KolberMan, well, I just received that, and that's my prayer too. And you know, I it's really my prayer that folks will begin to just engage this idea of what does it look like to be kind and gentle with ourselves in the same way that God is already kind to us.
Brian BeattySo we've wrapped up another episode of Restoring the Soul. We want you to know that Restoring the Soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in, our intensive counseling programs in Colorado allow you to experience deep change in half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more, visit restoring the soul.com. That's restoring the soul dot com.