Episode 115: Alison Cook - Your Emotions Are Not Your Spiritual Enemy

In this episode of The Bible for Normal People Podcast, Pete and Jared talk with counselor Alison Cook about emotions, psychology, and the Bible as they explore the following questions:

• Should psychology and Christianity be at odds with each other?
• What is spiritual bypassing?
• How have Christians view emotions throughout history?
• What do we fear about emotions?
• Is there such a thing as a bad emotion?
• Why do we have emotions?
• Why do churches often shy away from discussion about sadness and anger?
• What is the value of envy?
• What are some helpful tools we can use to confront unhelpful platitudes?
• Why do we fear self-acceptance but not self-condemnation?
• What helpful information can emotions give us?
• How are emotions portrayed in the Bible?

Tweetables

Pithy, shareable, less-than-280-character statements from Alison Cook you can share. 

• “We're emotional creatures, we’re intellectual creatures, we’re spiritual creatures, we’re physical creatures. We’ve got to deal with all of these categories to be whole.” -Alison Cook
• “If there’s a situation in which you’re just noticing that triggers anger, envy, or compulsivity, or perfectionism, whatever it may be, typically underneath that is a wound or a vulnerability that needs tending, that needs your care.” -Alison Cook
• “Jesus said to love our enemies, right? And is it possible that he meant even the enemies inside your own soul? Your own inner critic?” -Alison Cook
• “We fear this idea of self-acceptance versus self-condemnation.” -Alison Cook
• “God’s gonna take care of you, right? Well, I don’t know. I hope so… sometimes God doesn’t take care of it and he does, in a deep… rich way, but it doesn’t always work out nicely.” -Alison Cook
• “God wants to heal you, and you know what? He might use prayer and he might use a wonderful psychiatrist.” -Alison Cook
• “Jesus didn’t… heal everybody and every body in the same way. You know, he operated very differently with different people.” -Alison Cook

Mentioned in This Episode

• Book: The Interior Castle
• Book: Boundaries for Your Soul
• Instagram: Alison Cook
• Website: Alison Cook
• Website: Free Guided Reflection
• Patreon: The Bible for Normal People

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[Introduction]

Pete: You’re listening to The Bible for Normal People. The onlyGod- ordained podcast on the internet. Serious talk about the sacred book. I’mPete Enns.

Jared: And I’m Jared Byas.

[Jaunty Intro Music]

 Pete:Welcome normal people, to this episode of The Bible for Normal Peopleand our topic today is your emotions are not your spiritual enemy. And ourguest is Alison Cook.

Jared: Yeah, Alison Cook is, what I like aboutAlison too is she is a practicing -

Pete: She knows what she’s talking about.

Jared: Yeah, that’s true. Finally get someone on-

Pete: Yeah, finally.

Jared: Gee. But she’s a counselor, so she’s apractitioner, which is what I really like. So, she’s dealing with mental healthand emotional health on an everyday basis, and she really specializes in theintegration of faith and psychology, which is something we haven’t talked aboutprobably enough on the podcast, and really appreciate that. So, she has a PhDin religion and psychology from the University of Denver. She lives in Bostonand just is a practicing – just – she's a practicing counselor. And I thinkthat this was a, within five minutes I thought – oh my gosh, we’re just notgonna have enough time to talk about everything here.

Pete: And we didn’t. But we never really do.

Jared: That’s true.

Pete: But yeah, just this whole thing aboutaccessing your emotional life, just to be a healthy person and how often and,you know, Jared, there are people listening who probably have this experiencetoo of being told your emotions are bad, you shouldn’t, you know, listen tothem, but Alison says – oh, no.

Jared: Right.

Pete: That’s the entry point to all sorts ofthings.

Jared: Well, it’s understanding ourselves.

Pete: Right.

Jared: It’s assuming that we could cut off partsof ourselves or even just the detriment or the harm that’s caused by calling,like, a huge part of who we are bad, like, emotions are bad.

Pete: Or not relevant.

Jared: Right.

Pete: And they’re both not healthy ways, becausewe are emotional beings and we all feel them and, yeah, she just has some greatadvice, some great insight into the emotional life and the life of faith. Andsomething that, you know, Jared and I, we’ve actually been sort of to ourselvestalking about, for, I mean, I remember years ago Jared, you saying thepsychological angle of like, theological shifts, for example, that’s somethingthat doesn’t get talked about. It gets reduced to like, an intellectual issue,and it’s not. It’s a whole body kind of issue.

Jared: Right.

Pete: And that’s the kind of thing that needs tobe talked about more, so we’re finally doing it. Here.

Jared: Yeah, this is the first of probably manyon this intersection of our emotional lives and our spiritual lives and how theBible fits all into that. So, let’s have that conversation.

Pete: Right.

[Music begins]

Alison: Jesus said to love your enemies, and isit possible he meant even the enemies inside your own soul? Your own innercritic. Yeah, is it possible that extends even to the parts of yourself youdon’t like? Like, I’d love in a sermon, to just say, hey, you know, God wantsto heal you, and you know what? He might use prayer and he might use awonderful psychiatrist.

[Music ends]

Jared: Well, Alison, welcome to the podcast.

Alison: I am so excited to be here with you guys.

Jared: We are excited to have you here. So, we’dlike to, we want to dive into some interesting topics that maybe we haven’ttouched on before on the podcast, but before we do that, let’s get to know youa little bit. So, what’s a little bit of your spiritual bio and how did it comeabout that your, you know, your faith intersects with what you’re doing now?

Alison: Oh! That’s great. Yeah, I was just sayingto you guys a little bit about how I discovered you, kind of on the other sideof a pretty intense faith journey, and so I have a little bit of an inner fangirl right now that’s so excited to be talking to you live, because I’velistened to so many of your shows, and have been so enriched by them, so I’mreally grateful to be here. So, I, you know, my faith journey is prettyeclectic and convoluted, but I grew up in a Christian home, fairly diverse.Catholic mom, Protestant dad, a lot of evangelical influence, small littletown. Ended up in New England in college at a secular school, was really drawnto psychology but was really kind of warned against studying psychology by alot of folks in my Christian communities. It was kind of in the 90’s, I guessmid to late 90’s when psychology was still sort of seen of a little bit as athreat -

Pete: Mmm.

Alison: To those within faith communities. Atleast, that was my experience, and I was just drawn to it. I just wasfascinated by human beings and I saw God in human beings, you know, I, that’sjust, that imago Dei, you know, concept just for me was intuitive. Andso, I just kind of started studying psychology and ended up really, you know,in a sort of secular, kind of on track to do sort of the standard clinicalpsychology route, but found myself very frustrated by, the divide betweenpsychology and religion and spirituality. So, and it works both ways, becausein the psychology community, it’s sort of like, how do we study people who arereligious assuming that that’s bad, right?

5:00

Pete: Right.

[Laughter]

Alison: And then you get the same from the otherside, you know? It’s just, and, I was like, why are these things at odds witheach other? Because, in my mind, psychology, you know, psyche originally. TheGreeks looked at it as the study of the soul. It eventually became to be knownas more of the study of the mind, but it is the study of the human psyche andto me that went hand in hand with the study of God, right?

Pete: Mmm.

Alison: How do you know one without the other?And, so for me, again, that was very intuitive but nobody in my world seemed tothink that was intuitive. So, I ended up doing a joint degree in psychology andreligious studies. And so, I cobbled together this, sort of, hybrid, where Iwas really trying to understand, you know, sort of what this meant. You know,Kierkegaard became my hero in that of, to know the self in the context ofknowing the power that created it, right? So, you know, I really, my wholeacademic and professional experience has been rooted in this both/and of faithand psychology. Both personally, professionally, and just in my own lifeexperience of trying to understand my own self in the context of what it meansto also know God.

Jared: So, how does that kind of play out inyour, where you are now kind of in your faith journey and how you look at faithcommunities?

Alison: Well, I think as a psychologist we havethis unique position. You know, we’re in this sort of healing business, I liketo think. I mean, not all psychologists would look at it that way, but, we’relooking into, we get to peek behind the curtain. And it’s really hard to see inbinaries when you’re dealing with the human soul. And so, I’m always lookingwith an eye toward what’s going on psychologically. So, when I’m in, let’s sayin in practice, right, where I’m working with an individual client or with acouple or with a family, I’m thinking about all the psychological nuances,what’s going on here in terms of mental illness, trauma, emotional health,spiritual health. How is, if there’s a spiritual component, a lot of my clientsare faith based, how is the faith-based component working for them, how is itactually harming the system in many ways. So, I’m always trying to keep an eyeout for both of those components – the psychological and the spiritual. WhenI’m in church communities, ya know, it’s really hard, because in many ways I’mconstantly filtering the message, whatever is coming at me from the pulpit orthe worship songs, through, how does this work psychologically, how is thislanding on people psychologically, and it really makes it a little bit trickyto just be, sometimes, in either world.

Pete: Yeah.

Alison: Because I do tend to think that goodtheology should breed good psychology and vice versa, right? They should. Again,that’s kind of an idealistic way of looking at it, but, so, I’m always tryingto think in both places, you know. So, it kind of keeps me constantly on mytoes, I guess, wherever I am, is kind of filtering through either, both ofthose lenses.

Jared: So, it’s such a broad topic that I have,like, a million places I think we could go -

Alison: Yeah, yeah.

Jared: For the intersection of psychology andreligion. I just think it’s such a, like you said, it’s been at odds for so longI think that there is so much rich things that can come from that. But, wereally wanted to talk about this idea of spiritual bypassing because it’s aconcept that I wouldn’t have been able to put a word to, or a concept behind,but had definitely experienced it in my tradition growing up, and even as apastor, where I was a pastor at what would be kind of called a “mega church”. Wherewe were seeker sensitive and so there was all this positive language forpositive thinking was there to kind of get you through all the hard times, andwhich is kind of a ripe place for this idea of spiritual bypassing. Can you saya little more of what that is and how, maybe some examples to give for peopleto get a context for what we’re talking about.

8:55

Alison: Yeah, and I very much grew up in a churchcommunity that prioritized, you know, I could even think of the little caboosemany of us learned - facts, faith, feelings - right? Where we’re gonna put ouremotions at the bottom of the hierarchy, which, doesn’t really make sense. So,I definitely grew up in that environment where emotions or feelings were seenas a little bit of the enemy, and I, I definitely, as I kind of studied it... So,what’s interesting about the concept of spiritual bypassing - the term actuallyarose from some psychologists who were noticing in their clients who were moreinto new age traditions. And what they would notice is they would kind of wantto bypass the painful emotions in the name of kind of these kind of like yogi platitudes.You know, “I’m just following my bliss”, instead of really being willing to diginto some of the painful emotions. So, I was reading about this, and I waslike, well, we do this as Christians all the time! Like, why aren’t, why isn’tanybody talking about this from the perspective of a Judeo-Christian tradition?And very few people were. I started researching it. So, I wrote a couple postsabout it and I was shocked with how many people resonated with the way inChristian communities, folks encouraged others to bypass their true emotions,the authentic emotion that they’re experiencing in that moment with a nicesounding platitude, right? And it could be anything from, you know, “you don’tneed to feel sad, look, God has given you so much.” Which is just completelyminimizing that authentic experience of sadness that that person has shared inthat moment. Or, “you don’t need to feel angry, you know, you’re not, anger isa sin. We’ve got to figure out how to pray that anger away.” You know, and it’sthis kind of way of slapping a pat answer or a platitude or a very narrowinterpretation of certain, you know, scriptural passages onto a really robustexperience of a healthy emotional life. And so, all that really means, to breakit down, is spiritual bypassing just means you’re going to bypass any emotionthat feels painful or negative or “sinful” or bad by going to a spiritual, somesort of spiritual platitude, to just sort of put a band-aid on it so we canbypass that experience of having that emotion.

Jared: Well, you know, maybe say a little more,because even in that list of words, it’s interesting how we group those thingstogether. So, somehow in the church, in a lot of traditions, we’ve equatedpainful and negative emotions with sinful and bad.

Alison: Yeah, exactly.

Jared: And, do you have any insight as to howthat came about?

Pete: Yeah, why do we even do that?

Jared: What’s the history of that a little bit?

Alison: That’s a really good question. I mean, Idon’t know exactly. I do think it emerged, there’s a parallel sort ofhistorically, a parallel trajectory within both the growth of evangelicalismand fundamentalism in this country in particular, but also in psychology I haveto say. Because in the field of psychology, you have this, prioritizing, theywere prioritizing cognition and behavior way before they were prioritizing anysort of emotional or wholistic approach. Now, today, and I live here in Boston,and there’s amazing, wonderful research coming out of even, secularinstitutions, you know, that are really getting at look – we're emotionalcreatures, we’re intellectual creatures, we’re spiritual creatures, we’re physicalcreatures. We’ve got to deal with all of these categories to be whole, andthere’s more and more of a bent toward that. But even in psychology, when I wasstudying it even, but even from earlier on, there was sort of this prioritizing,and I think It comes out of the enlightenment. It comes out of while prioritizingwhat of you think, objectivity, cognition, let’s get our thinking correct.

Pete: Right.

Alison: Which, you know, it sort of filtered intoChristian, you know, Christian subcultures as well, but also filtered into psychologywhere it sort of like, we can’t trust our feelings. Now, from the church angle,you know, I don’t know when this started, because I think many folks in churchhistory understood the importance, you know we think of Saint Teresa andIgnatius and Augustine and these guys who were in touch with their emotions andprocessed their emotions. So, I don’t know when it became explicit that thatwas sort of a bad thing to do. I do know that in evangelical Christianity, youknow, the most common verse that I hear is, you know, the heart is deceitful,the Jeremiah verse -

Pete: Yeah.

Alison: We can’t trust our heart and heart meansemotions, which, it doesn’t necessarily.

Pete: It definitely does not mean that in the OldTestament, but yeah.

Alison: Yeah, thank you!

Pete: Well, it includes that, but it’s notlimited to that, so...

Alison: Yeah, and so, also, even just this ideawe can’t trust ourselves at all -

Pete: Right.

Alison: Which is at odds with, again, goodpsychology where there is a sense in which you can start to trust yourself, andpart of that is beginning to have this healthy relationship with your emotions.

13:52

Pete: Well, let me ask you Alison, I mean,because this, you know, there’s, one question is like what we’re talking aboutnow – how did this come about? Like, what’s the history of it? But the factthat people act this way, they’re deriving some benefit from it. They’regaining something for what they’re doing, even if we think it’s dysfunctionaland not healthy, so, maybe on that more psychological angle, like, what arepeople gaining by spouting the platitudes?

Alison: Well, you’re avoiding the painfulexperience of an emotion. And, so, they way that I look at it in the psychologicalmodel that I use, and it’s really growing in popularity, it’s called internalfamily systems. And the book that I read integrates this model with theChristian theology. But, they talk about how, you know, all, we have threeessential categories of ways of operating in the world. We have protectivecategories, and those protective categories are trying to keep us safe frompain, safe from harm, and those are the parts of us get us out of bed and theycan bottle up the emotions because we do need to bottle up the emotions to getto work and get through our day, right?

Pete: Mmm hmm.

Alison: But what happens is, and then the second categoryis the numbing parts of us. The parts of us that wants to numb the pain and so,those are the parts of us that might, you know, turn on the television for sixhours or, you know, drink, or whatever the things are that help us escape. Andthen the third category that we all, kind of, I think it’s part of the humancondition to avoid, are our vulnerabilities, and those are the vulnerableemotions. Feelings like loneliness, pain, sadness, insecurity, doubt, and theseare just normal human emotions that we all have. And a healthy, whole personlearns to balance all three of these categories. Like, we do need, at times, tobe able to say, “ok, I’m sad today.” There’s something sad that’s on my heartand I need to sort of put a gentle boundary around that sadness so I canfunction in this other space, but I’m not denying that sadness, I’m not exilingit. So, the, ya know, and then there’s a time where we need to escape a littlebit so the whole person integrates all three of those categories. But to yourquestion, I think the fear is - who wants to feel lonely? You know, who wantsto experience the pain of heartache, the, what people don’t often realize untilthey go through this journey is, it’s in the experiencing of those emotionsthat healing occurs. You can’t heal what you don’t bring to the surface toacknowledge, right?

Pete: Mmm hmm.

Alison: And so, there’s so much relief that comesas you learn to engage some of those painful and hard emotions, even anger,envy, shame. You know, there’s so much to be gained from, you know, we talk alot in our book about befriending those emotions. There are cues and signals thatwe need to listen to and understand so that we understand ourselves better andare leading ourselves into healthier relationships with others too.

Jared: So, I want to get back to some of these,what you’re talking about, I’d like to maybe tie in the Bible a little bit ofsome of these Biblical expressions of negative emotions -

Alison: Yeah.

Jared: Because I think we can find a lot of thoseexamples. But before we do, I’m gonna maybe test something, both with you andPete here. I have my own theory, a little bit, of why this would have comeabout, and it’s a little more sociological. And that is, for me, this is what Iwould have experienced more anecdotally is, it’s a little bit of a powerdynamic where we’ve created a sense in which the product we’re selling inchurches is that Jesus takes away our negative emotions.

Alison: Yes.

Jared: And so, to express those openly and totalk about them in some way is a rejection of Jesus’ efficacy, like, theproduct’s broken if we still feel anxious or we feel afraid or we’re sad. Ithought Jesus was supposed to fix those. And so, there’s this like, shameelement of like, I don’t want to betray the community or betray my leaders andpastors by saying I still have these. And I also feel like maybe it’s my faultthat I still have them, like, I didn’t drink the Jesus Kool-Aid the right way,and so I still have that. So, would that be part of that as well?

Alison: I, it, you know, breaks my heart thatthat’s what people are feeling, and I think that rings very true to the livedexperience. It’s not my understanding of the Jesus of the Gospels who was afriend, no stranger, to many emotions. Jesus got angry, Jesus experiencedanguish, grief, sorrow, he experienced a full range of emotion. You know, thosethings weren’t zapped magically way from him.

Pete: Lonely, lonely, abandoned. Yeah, right.

18:52

Alison: Loneliness, abandoned, rejection.

Pete: Misunderstood.

Jared: And I hear you talking about theacceptance, first of all, if we accept that Jesus experienced those, thenthey’re not “sinful and bad”.  Like, the“negative emotions” aren’t sinful, they’re normal. And what I hear you sayingis, the more research we do, the more we can accept that this wholisticunderstanding of people as emotional beings has to incorporate “negativeemotions”, right?

Alison: Yeah, and, you know, I love that you’reputting it in quotes. It would be interesting, what are those, you know,negative ones. You know, I, the one that comes to me the most, or people ask meabout the most is anger. Which is actually a really holy emotion on many occasionsand anger can also do a lot of harm. And that’s where emotions have a lot ofpower, and I think one of you was alluding to that, right? That’s what’s scaryabout them, is their power. There’s a lot of energy in emotions, they’re hardto contain, but they’re not bad or good. They, they’re cues. I always say thatthey’re signals. They can give you really important information about you,about what’s going on in your relationships, about, you know, and so you reallywant them as your allies. You want to build trust with your emotions so thatyou can lead them well and listen to them well. You don’t want them to ruleyou, but you don’t also want to shove them away, so...

Jared: And before we get to some of the morepractical outputs of that, I did want to just come back to the Bible and, Pete,you may be able to speak to this too, but, if we go ahead and accept thereality that we are emotional beings and accept that emotions are part of howwe experience life and experience God, it’s interesting that when we go back tothe Bible we see a lot of permission giving for these experiences and theseemotions like in the Psalms and in Ecclesiastes and in Job and in Jesus. So, Imean, I just want to name that for a lot of people, I think, I was taughtgrowing up that being emotional is, like you said, not something that you wantto be, and you definitely don’t want to have the, again, I’m going to keepsaying “negative emotions”-

Alison: Yeah.

Jared: But I think it’s a biblical idea thatthose are part of the human experience.

Pete: Mmm hmm. Yeah, I mean, one thing that youmentioned earlier, Alison, that really struck a chord with me is, I think aboutknowing ourselves and, I mean, just my, anecdotally, I’ve sort of experiencedthat people don’t really know themselves very well, and we’re more content tolive on the surface. Maybe because the pain is something we don’t want to see.But I think that’s what you’re saying, you know, getting the, befriending youremotions, you know yourself better and knowing yourself, I mean, John Calvinsaid, not that we’re necessarily John Calvin fans -

Alison: [Laughter]

Jared: Peter Enns is a Calvinist.

Pete: Yeah. He also wasn’t an idiot.

Alison: Yeah.

Pete: Yeah, so. But you know, knowing yourselfand knowing God are like two sides of the same coin. You can’t really know Godunless you know yourself, and you know yourself better if you really know God,but they almost feed off of each other. And, I don’t know, maybe when peopleare giving platitudes, it’s what happens when you’re not in, to use the phrase,“in touch with yourself” and really sort of know what really makes you tick.

Alison: Yeah, I think that, I mean, I love theCalvin quote. Saint Teresa in Interior Castle talks about, you know, shesays all problems in the spiritual life start with the lack of self-knowledge.

Pete: Hmm.

Alison: And I think, there’s a sense in which,and again, Kierkegaard, you know, his whole anecdote to despair is beingoneself before God. Knowing who I am before God, that intimacy of thatboth/and. And I think, to kind of make it less conceptual, you know, I know inmy own life, the more I know myself, and the more I invite God into all thoseparts of me, and they’re all welcome, you know, they’re all welcome, I, there’sthat flow back and forth, you know, between who I am and who God is.

Pete: Yeah. And that involves vulnerability.

Alison: It’s vulnerable.

Pete: And you know, I mean, intimacy -

Alison: Yes.

Pete: Right? I mean, and I think, again, I don’twant to generalize, but you know, American men don’t always do well with that.

Alison: Yeah.

Pete: You know, and I think a lot of, you know, alot of times men are in charge of churches and we don’t really, wecompartmentalize things. Again, that’s a gross characterization, but still, myexperience bears that out with, you know, myself and a lot of men that I know. And,I guess, you know, you’re saying not to do that.

[Laughter]

Alison: [Laughter]

Pete: You know, to, I mean, because you’retalking about vulnerability -

Alison: Yes.

23:42

Pete: And intimacy with God and, I mean, if Ican, you know, launch a theory of my own like Jared did, I think sometimesoverdoing, let’s say, notions of the sovereignty of God and the power of God,that’s, that’s a very non-intimate way of talking about the creator and it reflectsmore what’s going on inside of us, perhaps, than it does on how God can beexperienced. Because that’s a rather off-putting sort of way-out-there God whosort of makes cameo appearances in our lives, and, you know, top down kinds ofthings instead of being more intimate with us and us with God.

Alison: That’s right, and in relationship too. Andif you think about a human relationship, a marriage or a friendship where thatvulnerability, right, where you’re able to say “man, I am struggling. I ambroken with this.” That’s where love come in. That’s where we know each other.That’s where connection and belonging and all those things that we crave occur.So why would it be any different with God?

Pete: Yeah.

Alison: And that sense of bringing, and that’s David,you know, that’s the Psalms, you know, we see it throughout the Psalms to getback to the Bible, as you’re saying. We see it throughout most of the greatcharacters. You know, Moses with his fearfulness, you know, Jonah with his bitterness,you know, these guys were pretty raw - 

Pete: Right.

Alison: In their emotional life.

Pete: As is God, really, in the Bible too. Imean, you know, there, again, this is part of a particular theologicaltradition Jared and I are very familiar with, but, you know, God is withoutpassions. God doesn’t have emotion. And, I don’t know, I read the Bible and Ithink God has tons of emotions in the Bible and some of them are a little bitoff putting now and then, but you know, they’re there.

Alison: Yeah.

Pete: And, I see, I keep coming back though to,you know, to why more people don’t get that. You know, like, why there’s gottabe some deep reason that maybe more than wanting to avoid pain, because nowyou’re bringing God into all this. And, maybe not taking into account thebiblical witness itself to the kind of God we’re dealing with. And I, I stillwant, I’m not saying there’s an easy answer to this. I still really wonder why,like, people don’t just get tired of that sort of thing. You know? It’s justnot real. You know, you’re not really living. But I guess maybe we’re all numb.I don’t know. Maybe that’s exaggerating the numbness part. You know, we’re justnot willing to face things, and we just sort of plod along with life and maybenever wake up.

Alison: I thought, yeah, I’m kind of thinkingalongside of you here. You had an interesting point when you were speaking tomale power in the sense that I think the emotional life has historically sortof been relegated to the feminine -

Pete: Mmm hmm.

Alison: And therefore inferior. If you think ofsort of the patriarchal structure where vulnerability is weak, you know, versusstrength. And I, that dichotomy is also not scriptural. I don’t think we seethat dichotomy in God, as you’re saying. I don't think we see it in a lot ofthe stories of the Bible, but it surely is a dichotomy that we’ve seen playedout historically with relegating the emotional life to sort of a position ofweakness. And so, I don’t know if that’s part of it, if that’s part of what haskept that so steeped.

[Music begins]

[Producers group endorsement]

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28:24

Jared: If we can, I want to take us to somepractical things, because I think, I think these are, this spiritual bypassing,where it can be easier to, when faced with someone who’s in grief, say thingslike, “well, God works all things together for the good,” ya know, “hope forthe best” and not really being able to connect with other humans at this deepemotional level in empathy and being present with because it’s too hard. Whatare some practical ways that people who, maybe they’re in a church and theysay, “Yeah, oh my gosh. I just feel like I can’t be real with people here.”What are ways that they can, because you can’t really change anyone butourselves, what are some practical things that they can do. Maybe questionsthey can ask when people give these platitudes, or what are, maybe, helpfulways or tools for them to, maybe start to get other conversations going aroundthis.

Alison: Well, what I tell people, oftentimes, ifyou’re going to share something vulnerable, let’s say you’re struggling withone of these emotions that you feel shame about. Envy is a big one, again,where envy is actually a powerful cue to really important soul work. So, that’san important emotion to pay attention to and get to know and seek to understandand not exile and not pray away because it’s a really important cue. So, that’sa good example of one. So, what I coach people is to say, I would say, beforeyou share, because the platitudes hurt so much and lead to that exiling. Say,“I need to talk to you about something, could you just listen? I just needsomeone to listen.” And just test the waters a little bit, because we’re nottaught, I don’t think, to listen well. And so much of what we need in theprocess of healing, in the process of becoming whole is just a witness. Someoneto bear witness to what we’re kind of thinking through or experiencingemotionally.

Pete: Hmm.

Alison: So just to invite people, could you dothis for me, you know? Could you just sit with me while I process this, andjust kind of see if they’re able to do that. So at least you kind of set alittle bit of a norm that you’re -

Jared: Yeah, you’re kind of giving someoneinstruction -

Alison: Yeah.

Jared: Who may not know that this is theappropriate thing to do.

Alison: Yeah, yeah.

Pete: You have to train people to take youremotions seriously.

Alison: You kind of do, yeah.

[Laughter]

Pete: In a way, you know. Can you back up for a second,because you said something interesting about envy about being a real, sort of,window to the soul. I mention it because Jared has a real problem with that -

Alison: [Laughter]

Pete: And so just, I mean, you can send us a billif you want for the therapy here. So just, okay.

Alison: You bet.

Pete: Because that really intrigued me, and envyis something like, it’s a Cain and Abel story. There’s envy there right away,it’s like, it’s really the first sin.

Jared: I don’t, I don’t...

Pete: And then murder comes after that.

Jared: I don’t really feel safe in thisconversation.

Pete: You don’t feel safe?

[Laughter]

Alison: [Laughter]

Pete: I’m sorry you feel that way Jared.

Jared: [Laughter]

Alison: Do you want us just to listen?

Pete: Should we listen to your emotions now?

Jared: Yes.

Pete: Can you handle that, male? Anyway, so,yeah, just, could you unpack that. Because that’s, just something inside of meclicked and I don’t know what’s clicking, but it sounds important.

Alison: Not to be too reductive about it, but Ithink typically underneath any protective emotion, and I think envy is aprotective emotion, meaning it’s trying to keep us from harm and we see thatperson over there that has that thing we want as a threat. Typically,underneath any protective emotion like envy is a vulnerable feeling, avulnerable emotion, and the one underneath envy is desire, and desire is a hardemotion to reckon with. Usually, envy is a cue to what we desire.

Pete: Okay.

Alison: And when we get into contact and wereally connect to our desires, there’s sometimes pain, there’s sometimes loss,you know. And so, envy becomes a little bit of that, it’s a cue, again, I saylook at it as a trailhead and see where it’s leading you. Dig a little deeper,look at what is underneath that. There’s usually a longing.

Pete: So, ask yourself, okay, I’m feeling theemotion of envy or something -

Alison: Yup.

Pete: Why? Just start investigating that, maybebeing curious and investigating that like -

Alison: Well you just nailed, actually we do,there’s five steps that we lay out based on this model of therapy, and thefirst one is get curious.

Pete: Okay.

Alison: You just nailed it. It’s get curious. So,again, in curiosity is not with judgement, not with criticism, not with asolution, it’s, “oh! That's interesting.”

Pete: Oh, that’s so hard.

Alison: Yeah.

Pete: We want to judge right away.

Alison: Yeah. We all have healthy inner critics.

Pete: Oh, gosh. Yeah.

33:09

Alison: And so, you get curious. The second stepis to befriend, which is, that compassion piece. There’s a reason that envy isthere, I don’t want to act out of it, but I’m curious about it. You know, andjust start to do that, this is just this internal, and again, we’re not taughtthis stuff. You know, we’re not taught this stuff in churches, you know, peoplego to counseling to do this stuff. But it really is stuff you can do every day.You know, you can kind of do your little emotional inventory, you know, whenyou’re doing, you know, your morning routine. You know, there’s this thing I’mfeeling, I’m curious about that, and you know, then you kind of go through, wehave a list of questions that you can take yourself through exactly where you’regoing Pete. You get curious about it and try to understand it, and you kind ofget to the root which is usually something more vulnerable.

Jared: And it’s hard to get to the root becausewe kind of get defensive with ourselves if we are going to those withjudgement, right? If we’re putting judgement on it, it’s hard to get past ourown defenses of, well, like, I don’t want to feel this because this is a badthing to feel, and it can kind of get our circuits crossed.

Alison: Correct. So then, you’ve got the envy,and then you’ve got the beating yourself up for feeling envy, and that justleads to a lot of chaos inside. As opposed to going, okay, I get that I don’twant to feel angry, so I’m going to be compassionate toward that part of me, orenvy, and then I’m going to, but I need to spend some time with this envy andI’m going to journal about it, or I’m going to just, because we don’t tend tochange or grow in the context of criticism and judgement. We grow and change inthe context of compassion, and that also applies to our internal relationshipwith our self with these parts of ourselves.

Jared: Well, and I think, you know, just to tieit back, because I think, you know, you mentioned you can experience this in therapyand counseling, which I think is true, but this also sounds very Buddhist tome. And so, I think we could learn something in our Christian practice from ourBuddhist brother and sisters about this curiosity and observing our emotions withoutjudgement and befriending and having self-compassion. Would that be, would you haveexperienced that as well with, like, Buddhists practices, doing this maybe in amore religious context or a spiritual context.  

Alison: There certainly isn’t the fear or what,you know, psychologists call self-acceptance in the Buddhist, in most Buddhisttraditions that there is in Christian traditions. We fear this idea ofself-acceptance versus self-condemnation.

Pete: Mmm hmm.

Alison: And that might also get at that rootwe’re talking about, it’s sort of like, we’re supposed to condemn ourselves,which isn’t actually true.

Pete: Right.

Alison: But in Christian traditions, that’s whatgets translated. We, in our book, how we, we’ve tried to flip it to say, youknow, Jesus said to love our enemies, right? And is it possible that he meanteven the enemies inside your own soul? Your own inner critic.

Pete: Hmm. Right.

Jared: The way we make enemies with ourselves orour emotions.

Pete: Yeah, the inner critic.

Alison: Yeah, is it possible that extends even tothe parts of yourself you don’t like? The part of you that keeps reaching forthat binge. That part of you that, you know, and I teach this stuff like, withaddicts, you know, in recovery, and they’re just like - woah. You know, like, canI really extend compassion toward that part of me.

Alison: Well, I’m guessing that’s gonna be a lot moreeffective than beating yourself into submission.

Pete: Right, yeah, like gaining that weight andgetting angry because you binged, and now you’re gonna pummel your body and allthat sort of stuff, right, that doesn’t work for long.

Alison: I think we see it in the way Jesus waswith the folks he interacted with externally. He invited in, you know... Thepeople he was hardest on were the most judgmental, legalistic, harsh, you know,on, oh, you know, you’ve messed up. And the people that he invited in were thepeople that were messing up and the people who were wounded and hurting. And so,that applies internally, that we all have those kind of, legalistic parts ofus, whatever they’re trying to get us, you know, like you’re saying with theexample of weight, Pete. You know, like, I shouldn’t eat that thing, and I’msuch a jerk, what’s wrong with me.

Pete: Yeah.

Alison: And beating up on whatever part of us inthat moment gave over to something we wish we hadn’t done instead of going,man... And think about how you are with your own children, that’s why they talkabout this as an internal family. You know, when your child is acting out, youconnect with that child. You try to understand. And it’s kind of like, workingwith your emotions is kind of like parenting your own internal world -

Pete: Hmm.

Alison: With care and connection and curiosity,and you’re setting gentle boundaries, you know, but you’re also not beatingyourself up.

Pete: Yeah. Okay, not to beat a dead horse here,speaking of beating yourself -

Alison: [Laughter]

38:04

Pete: But just to complete something, because Ithink you stopped short earlier about, you know, being curious about thingslike envy and befriending it. Are you, are you suggesting that if you followthat trail, you’re going to find some pain or some loss somewhere, maybe insideof you that has not been dealt with well?

Alison: Yeah. Typically, and especially if it’schronic or extreme. You know, we all might get a little angry in traffic, youknow, that might not have a deep wound underneath it. But, if there’s asituation in which you’re just noticing that triggers anger, envy, orcompulsivity, or perfectionism, whatever it may be, typically underneath thatis a wound or a vulnerability that needs tending, that needs your care.

Jared: Well, and sometimes I think that’s oftentrue, but I want to maybe give a more neutral understanding too and test thatwith you, Alison. Because with, like, envy, it may just unearth a desire thatyou might say, oh, yeah, I just actually want that thing and I wasn’t able tobecause it feels vulnerable to say I want that thing because my culture ortradition might have said it’s not good to want that thing and so I covered itup and it’s coming out as envy. But it doesn’t necessarily, I feel like, bethis traumatic experience, or this deep grief or loss. It could just be, yeah,I had some shame about that and now I can acknowledge it and maybe it’ssomething I want to pursue and can attain myself and that’s a healthy thing todo.

Alison: Exactly. I write about that exact thing,Jared, but it doesn’t have to be a deep, you know, I talk about long, you know,there’s big “T” trauma’s, you know where there’s a long tail back to deepwounds, and then there’s just these really, oh – that's just information Ididn’t realize. And I write about how I was envying a woman, and I, who, and Iwas like – what is going on? And when I followed it, I was like - oh, that is, Ididn’t have any idea that was something I wanted.

Pete: Mmm.

Alison: You know, and again, that’s reallyhealthy information and then all of a sudden, I, there was no envy. I just,that part of me I hadn’t connected with, it was a genuine part of who I am thatI just had kind of not really ever uncovered.

Jared: Mmm hmm.

Alison: And there it was. And that’s again what Imean when I say emotions are often cues. And that’s why we want to pay attention.We don’t want to get buried in them, but we do want to give them someattention.

Jared: Yeah, so, your emotions are messengers,and you want to say, like, what is this trying to tell me -

Alison: Yeah.

Jared: About how I’m feeling or what I want orwhere I am or -

Alison: Yeah.

Jared: Well, you know, I just want to express myfrustration to tie, you know you mentioned Jesus here, my frustration that, forme, and maybe it’s because of my perspective over the last ten years reallyshifting so much, but it’s frustrating that Christianity hasn't been the main repositoryand place to find this self-acceptance and self-grace and other acceptance andother grace. It took, you know, folks like Carl Rogers and the change paradoxand modern psychology of – hey, guess what everyone? You don’t change, peopledon’t change when you yell at them and judge them and chain them and criticizethem. They often change when you accept them fully. Like, that seems sofundamental to the gospel to me, that’s been part and parcel of our traditionfor two thousand years that, it’s just been frustrating that it’s, like, whyisn’t the church the one preaching this gospel, and it’s... Not to say anythingagainst Carl Rogers and psychologists, I think that’s great, but it somehow hasgotten covered over with this other... Like, I think we say that though. Ithink that’s what’s frustrating to me. Is, I don’t know any Christian whowouldn’t say – yeah, grace and acceptance and that’s how people change andthat’s how I would change. But we don’t really seem to practice it that much.

Alison: Yeah, I share that. It breaks my heart aswell, the number of folks who have felt sidelined in this way. You’re right. Wedo say it though, sort of, you’re right. But it’s a sort of superficial veneer.We have to tack on, you know, to go back to the spiritual bypassing, but “God’sgot it”, you know, “God’s gonna take care of you”, right? Well, I don’t know. Ihope so. You know, and that, you know, when you’re in my line of work,sometimes God doesn’t take care of it and he does, in a deep, you know, richway, but it doesn’t always work out nicely.

Jared: Well, and maybe it’s through folks likeyou.

Alison: Yes.

Jared: And these practices and methodologies thathelp us, maybe that’s a way God works out these things. It’s not through goingaround our pain and trauma and emotions, but it’s working through them.

Pete: Hmm.

Alison: I’ve been thinking a lot about what Iwish, because I don’t want to just, kind of thinking alongside of you, I don’twant to just be frustrated with the church faith-based communities for notdoing this. I want to try to provide solutions. So, I’ve been thinking a lotabout what I would love to hear from a pastor.

Pete: Mmm.

Alison: You know, and I do think, you just kindof touched on it, Jared. Like, I’d love in a sermon, to just say, hey, youknow, God wants to heal you, and you know what? He might use prayer and hemight use a wonderful psychiatrist.

43:04

Jared: Right.

Alison: And we as a church want to come alongsideyou and help you find the right resource for what you’re dealing with. Youknow, and again, not that they have to become mental health experts, but just anod -

[Laughter]

Pete: Yeah.

Alison: To the complexity of the human psyche andall the myriad of ways that healing can occur.

Pete: Yeah, I’m gonna guess, Alison, not to pegyou here, but you might have some thoughts about so called “Christiancounseling”?

Alison: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Pete: You know, and I say that, I mean,respectfully because, I mean, I know people in that field, but -

Alison: Me too, yeah.

Pete: You know, sometimes it’s just a higherlevel of platitude, perhaps. You know, I’ve heard things like well, “you justhave to read more Psalms.” Or, “you have to pray harder,” or just, “have youbeen to church lately and then you’d stop feeling this way.” That’s what, youknow, what you love to hear pastors say. It really depends on, I think theirtheological disposition, whether they have room in their worldview and theirway of thinking about God to say, you need a good therapist.

Alison: Yeah.

Pete: You don’t need to pray right now.

Alison: Yeah.

Pete: That’s not helping you.

Alison: Yes.

Pete: That might be a source of x, y, and z.

Alison: Yes.

Pete: You need someone to come alongside you tohelp you get to know yourself.

Alison: Yeah, the harm that that does, because Isee it in my office then, right? You know, I’ve got to not only work throughthe issue that came through, but then the shame.

Pete: Right. They’re more messed up coming to seeyou.

Alison: It’s so painful to me, that’s why I’m sopassionate about trying to talk about this stuff, because it’s, you know, and Iknow what you’re saying, you know, I started out in studying Christian counselingand then I moved to my doctoral work, and, you know, it’s really hit or miss.There’s a lot of schools of thought, and there’s some really excellent folks inthe trenches doing great work and get the sort of, really the incarnationalpresence aspect of, I think, the therapeutic relationship which is so much about“being with” more than it is, you know, and using tools and techniques andstrategies and what science has to offer and what faith has to offer. But yes,it can, yes, there can be those where you’ve got to tie it up in a little bowand put a little scripture verse on it and it’s just sort of masquerading asanother form of, you know, it’s just gonna, it can be really wounding.

Pete: Yeah, yeah.

Alison: Jesus didn’t, you know, heal everybodyand every body in the same way. You know, he operated very differently withdifferent people and so, then once, you know, I caution people, I say, ifthere’s ever anybody that says, you know, “this is the way you’re goingto heal,” or “this is the only way,” notice that.

Pete: Yeah.

Alison: Because there’s a lot of, we’re reallycomplicated beings and so you really want to work with somebody who, you know,you get, I always want to empower people if they’re going to go see acounselor. Test it out, ask good questions.

Pete: Yes.

46:00

Alison: You know, make sure you’re finding folksthat are operating in that both/and space.

Pete: Yeah. Well listen, Alison, I, unfortunatelywe are coming to the end of our time here. We feel like we owe you some money.Should we -

Alison: [Laughter]

Jared: Yeah, right. What insurances do you take?

Pete: Yeah, I hope, like, none, probably, becauseshe’s a good therapist. So anyway -

[Laughter]

Well listen, yeah, we are coming to the end ofour time, but help us for people who want to track you down. Like, do you liveon social media, do you have a website, and where can people find you?

Alison: Yes, so I, my website is just my name, https://alisoncookphd.com/, and I have on my website I actually have an audio download that ifyou’re wanting to kind of start engaging your emotions more, in a sort ofstructured way, because sometimes that can feel hard, there’s a guided sort ofreflection that you can download for free on my website to kind of just beginthat process of engaging those emotions. I kind of walk you through the steps,some of which we talked about today, and then I’m on all the social mediachannels, and I tend to post a lot about these topics and I’m always sointerested in what people are telling me about their experiences and reallywant to be part of changing that. So, I would love for people to find me andlet me know what they’re thinking and just continue this conversation, it’ssuch an important one.

Pete: That’s awesome Alison. Listen, thank you somuch for taking the time to be with us. We really appreciate it.

Alison: Thank you guys for everything you do,you’re awesome and I’m just so grateful for what you do here.

Jared: Thanks again. Well, have a good night.

Alison: Alright. Bye-bye. See ya.

[Music begins]

Pete: Alright everybody, thanks for listening.Hope you enjoyed this episode. We learned a lot and be sure to, if you’reinterested, you can find Alison on social media and on her website and just agreat and valuable topic.

Jared: Yup, so we’ll see you next time.

Pete: See ya.

[Music continues]

[Music ends]

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