I so want you to know that the parts of yourself that you most hate and blame and hide are the parts that hold great wisdom and the possibility of joy.
Sensitivity is a gift to steward.
But for many years I would have called mine a curse.
In my new book, I decided to share some of my story of shifting from cursing my stress to blessing my sensitivity. Along the way, I realized just how many of us feel like we are too much.
When my therapist named that I am a highly sensitive person, "she saw the one part of myself it seemed that everyone—including myself—had labeled as too broken. And she blessed it instead….The part of me that had been most shamed + silenced was the part of me that was wisest.”
“I came to realize that the sensitive parts of our bodies and souls—whether or not you fall into the 20 percent of the population that inherited 'high sensitivity' like me—are the parts through which God most consistently speaks to lead us into life."
Hello podcasting people! What are your favorite shows that cultivate nuanced conversations around faith, religious trauma, spiritual abuse, deconstruction etc? My new book’s coming out June 21st, and I have been saying no to interviews for so long I don’t know where to begin. 😂
Things this new book is about: Psalm 23, practicing courage even when you feel crushed, nervous system regulation, spiritual abuse, leaving harmful religious communities, finding a new expression of faith + safety with God, healing from religious trauma amzn.to/3w7duPH
So, what podcasts would you like to hear me have a conversation on? What podcast hosts would make tender conversation partners about this? Tag away. Also, I’m gonna not take it personally if no one replies to this tweet. This part of book launching is all kinds of weird. 🫶🏼
Today the church remembers that *before* Jesus turned water into wine, cast out demons, or healed the blind, the Father publicly named him Beloved.
The baptism of Jesus is the best news for those of us who keep getting stuck in the mud at the riverbank’s shore, hoping our work will give us worth, hoping we can do and be more.
Before Christ accomplished anything amazing, he was named Beloved.
And his baptism didn’t lead him into bliss. Instead, the first place the Spirit leads Christ is into the wilderness to confront Evil for forty days and nights.
I'm a complex trauma survivor, as are most of my clients. Many of us with trauma histories feel extra tender and easily overwhelmed right now, and I think our wise bodies are telling us something that's true for everyone: we were not made to hold the weight of global injustice.
Psychologists like Paul Slovic have long identified the reality of psychic numbing.
Our empathy for suffering and loss declines exponentially as we're faced with more and more victims.
The human nervous system is wired for empathy to be sustained in the shape of faces and places near us.
If everything feels
like too much right now
it's because it is.
When we grow up w inadequate or inconsistent care, our nervous systems become locked into feeling a modicum of soothing from a stress state, rather than true calm + connection.
Striving becomes soothing—on a physical level.
But the body can’t sustain that kind of pressure.
Constant self-protection through shutting your own needs down, achieving, being exceptionally “good” or “quiet,” etc. is something that helped you survive.
But the striving that helped us survive eventually ends up shriveling us inside.
I’m not reducing the etiology of everything to complex trauma, but we need to be sobered by the effect of long-term stress states on our bodies and well-being.
When Jesus told the story
of the Good Shepherd,
and he talked about
seeking the lost sheep
and rejoicing over finding it,
he meant you.
Every shamed and scorned
and stuck part of you
is a part Jesus seeks,
like a good shepherd
searches for his lost sheep.
The parts of you that feel lost, least-likely to succeed, and last to have faith, are the very parts that Jesus welcomes as honored guests at his table.
May you go about your week practicing being received as a guest at Christ's table.