Try Softer, Not Harder (with Aundi Kolber)

Instead of trying harder, what would it look like to try softer? Aundi Kolber guides us into compassionate attention so that we can reconnect with our bodies, heal from trauma, and outgrow porn. You'll also hear how God relates to us in the middle of our mess and does in-process miracles along the way.

Aundi Kolber is a licensed professional counselor (MA, LPC) and bestselling author of the critically acclaimed "Try Softer" as well as "Strong like Water." She has received additional training in her specialization of trauma-and body-centered therapies and is passionate about the integration of faith and psychology. As a survivor of trauma, Aundi brings hard-won knowledge about the work of change, the power of redemption, and the beauty of experiencing God with us in our pain. Learn more at aundikolber.com

Buy Aundi's books:

• Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode—and into a Life of Connection and Joy
• Strong like Water: Finding the Freedom, Safety, and Compassion to Move through Hard Things—and Experience True Flourishing
• Take What You Need: Soft Words for Hard Days

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Register now at samesexconnection.com

Transcript

Welcome And Try Softer Preview

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa, and I'm here to show you how. Let's go. Hey, thanks for listening to my interview with Andy Kolber. She is absolutely incredible. I feel so privileged to be able to interview her and to share more of her wisdom and kindness and compassion with you. This episode gives you a preview and a window into what it looks like to try softer instead of trying harder. And that is one of the most important shifts for any man who is struggling with porn and unwanted sexual behavior. As men, we have not usually been taught how to do this. In this episode, Andy does a wonderful job of meeting us exactly where we are, being vulnerable about her story, and then giving us some practical action steps we can do to access kindness and compassion that softens us instead of hardens us. You will also receive a beautiful reminder of who God truly is and how that can be another resource toward trying softer and finding the lasting freedom and healing that we have been longing for. Enjoy the episode. Today we really have an awesome interview guest, Andy Kolber, the author of multiple books, including Try Softer, a fresh approach to move us out of anxiety, stress, and survival mode into a life of connection and joy, as well as strong like water, finding the freedom, safety, and compassion to move through hard things and experience true flourishing. I can't think of a better topic when it comes to outgrowing porn. Andi, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

How did you become passionate about trying softer instead of harder?

Surviving Through White Knuckling

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah, it's it's paradoxical, isn't it? Doesn't it just sound like a paradox? And yeah, I mean, I think part of it is absolutely rooted in my story. You know, so I'm I am a therapist and my specialization is in trauma, um, particularly complex trauma, developmental trauma. Um I often work with survivors, and in part, it's because I am one. I am a survivor of complex PTSD from my childhood. And I didn't have that language for a long time. And, you know, there really has been in the last, I'd say last 15 to 20 years, a huge growth in the trauma field around the depth of understanding about the significance of childhood, what's happening neurobiologically, why things in particular in childhood can have such significance for our adulthood, even when it seems like, you know, if an adult experience, maybe some of those things, it's not going to shape them potentially in the same way. So part of my story is that growing up in just a very chaotic and traumatic, volatile home. My dad in particular was extremely abusive. And part of how I survived that home, that system, was there were multiple ways. But one of them is that I got really good at what I call white knuckling. And that's probably familiar to maybe lots of your listeners. You know, I mean, culturally, that's sort of like our, in a way, it's its own religion. You know, there's like its own, just I think the West in particular is really founded on a lot of that energy. Like, like no matter what it takes, I'm gonna pick myself up by my bootstraps. And what's so paradoxical is that, you know, sometimes we need to do that. Sometimes we don't have a choice, right? And this is where so much of this nuance comes in. But in my story, I adapted to just a lot of trauma, lots of levels of trauma. It was sort of an armor. I became very good at achieving and sort of also like reading what people wanted from me. So a lot of my achievement was probably also combined with, for folks who might be familiar with the fawn response, which is when we over-accommodate threat in order to navigate it essentially. To comply, to comply and to keep that threat as neutralized as possible, right? So the performance itself, the accommodating itself, the walking on eggshells is the trauma response. And so a lot of my performance was very connected to that. And so I just got good at bypassing my body. And so I was an excellent athlete, played college basketball, I did great in school academically. I was a really like never got in trouble kind of kid. And that was so confusing as I started to do some healing work. Because if you looked back at my story, part of I just looked like, oh man, she's kind of got it together, you know. What people didn't see was the dissociation, the panic attacks, the, you know, me waking up at 3 a.m. because it's like my body like being in such hypervigilance at such a young age, having to carry so much because it sort of felt like if I let anything pass me by, the world would fall apart. And so Tri-Softer. Part of that journey towards that, I really was had to be really mature at very young ages, had to sort of, you know, was like the definition of an old soul. And as I, you know, I'm kind of skipping through some of my story, but you know, by the grace of God, like a there's things in my story that I just look back and I'm I just I almost can't believe like that. Oh man, I got out of there, or like that I had it what I needed, you know. And part of that was ultimately, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, but I ended up after college being in Denver, Colorado. And and that was it's been a really important place in my story. I don't, I don't live there anymore, but I lived there almost 20 years. In that journey, I started to begin to have some safety in my life through my relationship with my husband, through some mentors. I went to seminary to become a therapist and began to unpack. Like, oh, oh, there's a lot more here than I realized. And what's so funny is that even as I began to unpack it, I still didn't know how much there was. And I think part of that is the way that God designs our body. Like we can only sort of handle so much at a time. So this, so this much is all that I could sort of handle at that time. And eventually I, you know, I graduated from seminary and had this really wise and kind supervisor, and his name was John. And at that point, I'd done some work, but it was still kind of early days, if you will. And I come in one day to supervision and I'm talking with John about just the weight of everything that I feel like I'm carrying with being a therapist. And he says to me, you know, so kindly, but and not in a condescending way. He said, Andy, you know, I wonder what it would be like if instead of trying so hard, what would it be like if you tried softer with some of these things in your life? And that moment, it wasn't like, boom, you're right, John. Now I'm gonna try softer. That's all I needed, right? You know, like like that would be so, yeah, that could that would be its own thing, right? Like that would be great. But that's that's not what happened. But what did happen is that something like recognized the the truth of what John was saying to me. Like it was like someone handed me a glass of water in a desert, and it was like I was like, you mean like that's a thing people do? Sort of that's that's an option. And so, in a way, you know, my work for the last 20 years has been to create a framework to um, and that's really the book Tri Softer is ultimately the fruit of me saying, What would it look like in a granular practical way? What would it mean to try softer? And so your original question is is what makes you so passionate? And and for me, a lot of it is rooted in this reality that whether someone has a story like mine where there's like all of this relational, developmental, lots of different types of trauma, or you simply live in a culture that literally, um, and this is true in our faith world too, that oftentimes there is a requirement to disconnect from ourselves just so that we can belong, just so that we can function, just so that we can meet this like random criteria that's been assigned to what it means to be a valuable person. And so I've just seen again and again, like that trying softer, obviously there's nuance to it, but I think that what I have seen and what a privilege it's been to see this this last seven years since I almost seven years since I wrote the book is like this deep, almost like for me when I was sitting with John. Like the recognition, like what? And I think I'm so passionate about it because I also think that that's what God is sort of like asking of us often, like when Jesus says, like, are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you burnt out on religion? Come to me. I'll show you how to take a real rest. And the paradox is that we don't become less ourselves, we become more ourselves in that work.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

Thank you so much for this window into your story. I see so many points of resonance with the men in our community. Many of us have been trying harder for years or for decades. As you talk about healing from childhood trauma at husband material, we believe that's really central to finding freedom and redemption in our stories. What might it look like to try softer when it comes to addiction?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Well, thank you for sharing that. And I I actually really appreciate even just your language of like outgrow porn in the sense of, and I'm sure that was intentional, that you know, so often like so many things are looked at as this really binary thing. And growth is not that, right? Because growth has to be incremental. And I think that's a really helpful in-and-of-itself perspective, and and definitely is in alignment with like I think a try-softer posture in and of itself. Because I would say, and and I'm sure we'll get into this more even, but so part of how I the sort of the framework that I develop to say, okay, what does it look like to try softer? And I think this uh applies, you know, to folks, to guys who might be listening, is that it's the work of learning to pay compassionate attention to our mind, body, and spirit, stewarding the profound compassion God already experiences towards us. Like that exists. That's just a truth that just like it's just a reality, right? One of my foundational beliefs is that that just that exists for us. And what is sometimes what happens is that we can't access it or we can't access it fully, or maybe we access it for parts of ourselves that we feel are acceptable. So it's easy to feel like the the parts of ourselves or the parts of our story who are like doing the right thing can get love, right? It's easy to be like, well, I lived up in this area of my life and I did this. So, like, yeah, I can accept whatever it is. Maybe some affirmation, maybe it's support, maybe it is actual compassion. That feels okay. But to the parts of ourselves that feel like, you know, we're the most ashamed, or maybe that hold the most actual pain and trauma, like the the things, the the places that are fueling the pain, right? Like the actual events that happened that caused us or caused you to need to reach for something, a strategy. And I'm sure this is you know, language or different ways you could talk about this, but to look at porn as okay, here's a strategy to deal with pain. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

And I I really love the quote by Gabor Mate, you know, I don't know how familiar you are with him, but trauma specialist. But he says, not why the addiction, but why the pain.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Right. Porn is the pacifier. I've got a pacifier on my book here because porn is not primarily functioning as a problem, but the solution to the pain. And sometimes it's hard to figure out, well, what pain? What are you talking about? Because we're so disconnected from our bodies.

Window Of Tolerance And Relapse Risk

SPEAKER_00 14:18

That's right. And and I and I think particularly for men, there's very much a gendered element to this that I think is really important to name that oftentimes um men are socialized to be disembodied, right? And valued for essentially a type of masculinity that is values or only allowed a very small part of what it means to be human. And oftentimes it's like, well, you get to, you know, it's lust and anger. This is what you are allowed to feel, right? And oftentimes for women, it's like you get to be sad, but you don't get to be angry, right? What a limited, there's such a limited humanity there, right? And we just know, particularly from a Christian lens, that we were made for fullness. And that that when we do that, when we have to disconnect from our incarnate, you know, Jesus came incarnationally embodied as a full human. So we know that that the model is not to be just a you know one portion of a tiny bit of what it means to be human. And so going, you know, going back to, because I don't want to take us too far on a rabbit trail with that, but going back to this idea of like not why the addiction, but why the pain. And and with Tri-Softer, I think part of that framework is understanding that oftentimes folks have learned, usually because they've had to. And in fact, I would say whether it's more, it's like, is it whether it's intended to be learned this way or not? What happens is is we learn, well, I can't feel that, or I can't express that, or if I did name a need I had to like a parent or a community, what I was met with was shame, or I was met with basically being shut down or stonewalled. And so what I learned instead is don't feel that, don't go there, right? But the reality with our bodies is that energy, those emotions, those feelings, those experiences, they don't just go away. Even when we're disconnected from our bodies, they still exist. So we might not be aware of them. And I and I wouldn't be surprised if for a lot of men that are listening that they might have at times or maybe still be struggling with identifying with their emotions, right? It's often not until that emotion is huge, you're really angry, that you begin to realize, oh, I was feeling something the whole time, I just didn't know. Right. And clinically, there's an that what's happening is that we lose interoception. That's the in that's the clinical word for being able to feel within. And when you chronically are taught not to feel, when you have to bypass your experience in order to stay connected to your family, to a relationship, to a community, our bodies are so wise in their ability to adapt. And what they do is they say, Oh, you don't need that. You don't need to be able to feel your feelings. Okay, well, then we're gonna like we're gonna turn down the noise on that, right? And so part of the work of trying softer and compassionate attention is I I see multiple ways that this applies, but one is is that we begin to learn how to be with ourselves, which can for some folks that language might sound a little bit funny, but it's sort of like gaining the capacity, and I don't just mean that theoretically, but that window of tolerance is super important because it's the range of arousal in which our body has the best potential to be able to like identify what's going on in our body, and we're best able to like live in alignment with our actual values. We are the most open to feedback, we are the most able to be like, hey, you know, the last time I was uncomfortable, that resource I used was so helpful. I'm gonna use that again. That window of tolerance really matters, but when you are disconnected from your body chronically, that window tends to get smaller. And what happens is, is when everyday life things happen, we might leave that window sooner. And when we leave the window, we might go into things like fight or flight, potentially fawning, or a form of dissociation on the lower part. What that means for addiction is that when we leave our window is when we're really vulnerable.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

That's when we're at highest risk.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

That's right. That's when we're vulnerable to engaging in these addictive patterns into engaging porn, even when you're like, oh man, I really didn't want to do that, and I'm so dysregulated, you wouldn't necessarily even say I'm dysregulated. You just know you need something. Right? Because that's what dysregulation does to us. We're not like giving this great explanation, we're not like super articulate, we're just driven to get that pain met. So the work of trying softer is about learning first and foremost to recognize you even have a window of tolerance, you have a body, and that body needs to be fed. That body has needs, you have capacity, you have a capacity that gets maxed out. And there are lots of different ways that that is true. And when we learn to tend to that, this ability to notice, to think about thinking, to recognize, oh, when my wife said that, that brought something up for me. I felt some shame and I wanted to disconnect from her now, and I don't know what to do with that shame, and I don't want to feel that shame, and I need something to deal with that, right? So the question is, is can we slow it down a little bit? Can we, and this is where it's like again, there's so many applications to the literally try softer, like, because sometimes we want it to be finished in a moment. And so, can we begin to just get curious about in this moment, what would I need to stay even a little bit more present? Would there be something that would be a resource to me? Would there be a person that I would feel safe enough just to articulate ham struggling? Right. And so all of these things are this way in which as we learn to pay compassionate attention, we stay more and more in alignment with ourselves. And that moves us in the direction of healing.

Grounding And Self-Compassion Practice

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Amen. I love hearing all the influences of polyvagal theory and somatic experiencing and integrating it even with Christian faith. I think your voice is really unique, so thank you. Andi, would you be willing to lead us in an exercise and learning to pay compassionate attention to ourselves?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Absolutely. Um, what I might just invite folks to do, because a lot of times I think one of the most basic things that I think is important is the necessity of some cues of safety. And this is from Polyvagel theory, right? And I think that really pairs well with working with the window of tolerance and all the things. But I like to really invite folks as much as they're possible to start from a grounded place. And I think particularly, I'm sure that folks are, you know, men who are listening are probably on a whole range of where they're at in their own healing. And I think it's important not to assume, I like to not take us to too advanced things too soon because. We get lost wanting to be someplace we're not ready to be yet. So a really simple and easy resource, and I'm sure you guys have taught, you know, I'm sure you talk about things like grounding, but oftentimes I think because this concept is getting more popular, which I love, but also we start to think, oh, I know what that means, and we actually don't do it. Right. And so just as a trauma survivor myself, I just want folks to hear, I and I've been in my own personal recovery for 20 years working this. Um, I use grounding all the time. And so what I would just say is that grounding is a way in which we are working to orient to the present as much as possible because, God willing, the present itself is actually safe. And a lot of times our activation that comes up is rooted, it can be rooted in the present. So I don't want to completely, you know, say that's not true, but it's often amplified by the past, right? And so, especially for those who have a history of developmental or attachment or relational trauma, there can be when relational pieces come up that can in and of itself be activating. And so, yeah, so taking a moment for those who are listening, and if you feel comfortable engaging this, um, I might just invite you to do a practice called I am aware. And I'm gonna model it for you, and then I want you to consider how you could apply this in your present moment. And this is me using my five senses to come into the present. So I am aware of this glass of water, and it's got a decent amount of weight, and I can feel the weight of the glass pressing down on my hand, and I am aware of just a little bit of the hum of my computer. Um, it's going just a little bit more, and I'm aware that the lighting in my room is fairly soft, and I am aware of the smell of just a little bit of lemon in this room, and I'm aware of where my feet are touching the ground, and the way that the earth, the ground, the floor is pressing back up to my feet. So, for those who are listening, our your work, your invitation is to take a moment in the space you're in and to use the details that are actually there to use that to come into the present moment. And for this next part of the practice, this is something that is another theory that I really love that I integrate a lot, is from the work of Kristen Neff, Dr. Kristen Neff, around self-compassion. And I think for those who, you know, have learned whose bodies are often reacting really quickly and maybe you're leaving that window. I think there can be a lot of mixed emotions around how that happens and it can be frustrating. And I want to be mindful, you can adapt this as you're listening to what feels best to you. I like to put my hand on my heart, partly just because that in and of itself is communicating something to my literal body. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna actually say a mantra and you can say it in your mind's eye. Or if you want to, wherever you are, wherever you're listening, if it feels good to repeat it out loud, feel free to do that.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

I am experiencing a moment of pain.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

I am not alone. May I be kind.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

So as you engage that in whatever way feels good to you, maybe it's even just hearing me say it. Maybe it doesn't even feel right yet for you to say it, and that's okay. I wonder what you notice. And if it feels okay, could you let yourself receive any portion of that? Even if it's only five percent. Would five percent of any softness that you might experience feel okay to you? And as you do, you might just notice is there any softening?

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Do you notice if that hand, if that's on your heart, does that feel supportive to you?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

And if there's anything here that feels like a resource, I might just invite you to come back to it. Understanding that things like self-compassion, we know from literal research that self-compassion tends to make people more accountable and better able to live in alignment with their values. So if it feels helpful to you, I might just invite you to come back to this as a resource.

Finding Safety And Places To Exhale

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Thank you so much. I feel a softening or a melting into tenderness that's very different from trying harder. And it's a different kind of strength, it feels more healing.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, and I know, you know, I just want to honor that precisely because of the things that we have talked about, like what men in particular are socialized, that can make some of these practices difficult. And what I want folks to hear, what I hope your readers will hear, is that this is why it's such a big deal that this is not all or nothing. That it literally, when I say, like, is there a percentage that you actually could access? So if it's 2%, let's do that. You know, and maybe tomorrow you dip your toe into 3%.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

There are no baby steps.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

These are giant steps.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

These are giant steps, yes. And what's so interesting about this work, and what I love, so I love to geek out on how things connect. Like that's I think part of why I love my work for multiple reasons, but I love seeing how things come together. And so something like this, something like both grounding and self-compassion, part of why they matter, there's like the actual functional parts of them that are that are helpful and good. But it's also literally because it's actually communicating safety to your nervous system. And because that's happening, we're accessing more of ourselves. We are more in alignment. Our prefrontal cortex is more online. And when that happens, for the work of healing and working with addiction, part of what that means is that the resources you have are more available to you. So the things in your life that feel helpful and supportive are more accessible because you feel safer.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

That's really cool. It's a common experience to feel like, I know what I need to do, I know what would help me in this moment, but it's like my brain is unplugged. Absolutely. So that safety, grounding, self-compassion can help us come back online and actually use the things that we know can help us.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think this is where too, you know, I'll just say, like, and sometimes it can be because relational safety can be a big part of this. So when we have a person, um, I think that's why that story with John is also an important one, because I didn't just come to be able to receive Tri-Software, like, not that I don't have sometimes experiences or ideas that are on my own, or I might experience them with God, but I also felt a certain level of relational safety with John. I trusted him. I didn't feel judged by him. And sometimes one of the things that I say is that my nervous system, literally, like before, I hadn't really studied the nervous system, I didn't know about those things. But what I understand now, in retrospect, it was like I felt like I could exhale around him. Right? And so I might just invite your listeners to wonder about that. Like to take even the clinical language and that stuff out of it. Where in your life are you able to exhale? What are you doing? Who are you with? What faith practices? What scriptures? What books? Where in nature? What music? Those are resources. And I think one of the things that's exciting to me about this work is that part of what pain and trauma does to us is it narrows our view. Like it makes us very, like we can't help it. Like that's what happens. That's be like we have to neurobiologically, it narrows our field of vision. And part of this work of trying softer, like I think one of the implications is that we start to be able to recognize a little more clearly what's actually available to us. That there's actually a lot of goodness that oftentimes, if we've been, and I want to be careful, I'm sure not every one of your listeners might identify as a trauma survivor, but whether you are or not, it's a common experience when we're struggling with addiction, also, right? Because we're we're having to leave our window. That's part of what's happening to cause that craving. And to, you know, those things are very tied together. And it's when we begin to sort of braid in the goodness and braid in those things that make us feel like ourselves and supported that helps to make it a little bit easier to tolerate the discomfort, right? Of I know that I could go there and I have all this available to me. And that's really special and exciting, and I think does come from that tri-softer perspective that it's not the shame that heals us. It's not the hustle, it's not the white knuckling that will wear itself out. We are limited, we have finite capacity, and that's okay because God designed us to need love and goodness and support, and that's also how we heal.

God With Us In The Mess

SPEAKER_03 34:09

And he provides that love and goodness and support in so many ways that you described through people, through nature, through our breath, through bodies, through music, through any kind of resource. How do you sense God relating to us in the middle of our mess if we could really see it?

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah, I love that question. I think you know, this for me is vital to the work I do, because I think a lot of my work is ultimately attachment-based. Partly because so much of the work I do is helping folks kind of examine their wounding, which tends to be relational trauma, attachment trauma, right? And to see this reality that God in God's self is relational, first of all, which I think is fascinating and so cool, right? So it makes so much sense that we're so relational and how much that affects us when we don't have the safety and the care, like how how deeply that matters. And so, to your question of, I think for me, you know, first of all, I think God's posture to us in pain is wildly kind. Yeah, wildly kind. And I often think of so grateful that Jesus, God calls himself Emmanuel in Jesus. Like to me, that actually literally is like the testament to like this is attachment language. God with us. And I think this matters in so many ways because God didn't have to do it this way. Like, we could have been designed for it to be like God being like, hey, here's a bunch of stuff to work on your pain. I'm gonna just, I'm gonna ship it to you, you know, and come find me when you're done. And then we can connect. But that's just not how God is. God became fully human to be with us. And to me, I'm like, like when we think about what safety looks like, there's lots of different ways of cues of safety, but relational safety is where we first learn safety. Like as babies, we don't get safety just because our environment feels safe. And we don't have the capacity to have internalized safety. What we can have capacity for and what we're wired for is relational safety. And so, in a way, I think God mirrors that for us and says, I will be your relational safety, and I will help you rebuild the other places where you need safety in your relationships, in your environment, in yourself. And so I just love that because it's sort of like that's what God is like to us in pain of a profoundly good, kind, compassionate and doesn't save us from the consequences of our actions, but but doesn't use that to punish us. And there's a difference. Working for our good. I think that faith, whether I'm explicitly, you know, I sometimes work with clients who are not faith-based and I value them and respect them and value their process. And one of the tenets I just hold about the world is that God's the author of healing. And because that's true, our bodies are designed to heal. And I think we can just, like for me, like that is a source of so much gratitude that that's true.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

So good. Andi, what's your favorite thing about healing?

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Maybe I'll say one as a therapist and one as a person. My favorite thing as a therapist, I love getting to be with people in their in-process miracles and getting to see like that journey from them, you know, having this realization like I never thought, for example, I could trust myself. Or I thought it was always going to be this way. And that watching them, observing them see it. Like, oh, I have been doing the work and it is shifting. And it's not just me seeing it, but they begin to see it and and not and not just see it, but like embody it. Like them coming in and telling me a story about this, you know, maybe it's like a boundary that they set that to them would have felt like I could never do that. I can't even imagine being able to do that. And then they do that thing, and they are able to recognize it and feel a sense of gratitude and of like recognition of being able to own that. Like it's just beautiful to watch. And then I would just say, for my in my personal story, there have been these moments where sometimes, if I've gone through like a big, you know, part of my story because it there was so much extensive relational trauma, particularly like with my father, and a lot of things. There were times where even in my recovery, something would happen and it would, it would send me out of my window, or I would have a lot of trauma that I would have to essentially reprocess again. And in that, it's extreme, it can be very disorienting. I think of trauma a lot like you're just like in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and you're like, how do I, am I gonna get back out of here? I am, I don't know, you know. And to me, I it's the experience of when you get sort of a tether to that safety and you begin to get back to yourself. And it's sort of this feeling of like, oh, there I am. Oh, there I am. That to me, like feels also like a miracle that that's possible. Anytime I've experienced that, and you know, again, decades of of my own healing work, which I'm so grateful for, because a lot of times, if that happens, it happens for less time. But that experience of the return, wow, it's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

Absolutely. There you are, there I am. I love how you called that an in-process miracle, not some kind of finish line or arrival, but on this ongoing adventure, truly miraculous, and thank you, God, for making that possible. Yeah, Andi, thank you so much.

Links And Closing Blessing

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Absolutely, so good to be with you. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Everyone, go down to the show notes if you would like to get the link to Andi's website, her books, and future resources. There is abundance here. And always remember you are God's beloved son, and you, he is well pleased.