Episode 78: Recovering from Trauma and Strengthening Your Soul with John Eldridge

Recorded this summer while Sissy was away at Hopetown, David interviews author John Eldredge about his most recent book, Resilient, and why strengthening our souls for the days ahead is as equally important as recovering from past trauma.

Automated Transcript

Sissy Goff

00;00;03;15

Welcome to the Raising Boys and Girls podcast. I'm Sissy Goff.

David Thomas

00;00;06;25

I'm David Thomas.

Sissy Goff

00;00;08;00

And I'm Melissa Trevathan.

Sissy Goff

00;00;09;24

And we are so glad you've set aside a few minutes to spend with us today. In each episode of this podcast, we'll share some of what we're learning in the work we do with kids and families on a daily basis at Bazaar Counseling in Nashville, Tennessee. Our goal is to help you care for the kids in your life with a little more understanding, a little more practical help, and a whole lot of hope. So pull up a chair and join us on this journey from our little yellow house to yours.

Sissy Goff

00;00;40;00

David?

David Thomas

00;00;41;01

Yes?

Sissy Goff

00;00;41;27

Do you have trouble sleeping?

David Thomas

00;00;43;27

Yes.

Sissy Goff

00;00;45;08

Do you have a lot of stress?

David Thomas

00;00;47;05

Yes.

Sissy Goff

00;00;48;21

Do you have some anxiety?

David Thomas

00;00;50;19

Have you been reading my journal?

Sissy Goff

00;00;52;23

No. But I notice you stress eating chips and guacamole a lot. I have a better idea. You should join the millions of people who have the Abide Sleep and Pray Meditation App. It's the number one Christian meditation app that's proven to reduce stress, improve sleep, and deepen your experience with the peace of God.

David Thomas

00;01;12;07

I love this idea. Tell me more.

Sissy Goff

00;01;14;18

It has helped me in all those areas and it's been a great way to deepen my spiritual health.

David Thomas

00;01;19;19

I'm going to take your advice and download the Abide app today to help boost my mental, physical and spiritual health.

Sissy Goff

00;01;27;00

Right now, we have a special offer for our listeners when you subscribe. 25% off your first year, when you sign up for the premium subscription, but only if you text promo code. RBG to 22433.

David Thomas

00;01;42;25

Did you hear that? Don't wait. Download Abide Sleep and Pray Meditation today and text promo code RBG to the number 22433 today and get 25% off.

David Thomas

00;02;02;16

Today is a little bit different in that I'm missing my dear friend and colleague Sissy Goff. She is fortunately away running our summer programs at Hopetoun and Kentucky. So she's exactly where she needs to be. But I'm missing her right here in this office. But we didn't want to miss an opportunity to interview this next person who we have long loved and respected his work. So without further ado, John Eldridge is an author, counselor and teacher. He is the president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God, recover their own hearts in God's love and learn to live in God's kingdom. John earned his master's degree in counseling from Colorado Christian University under the direction of two of our favorite people, Larry Crabb and Dan Olander. John loves the outdoors passionately and all beauty, Shakespeare, bow hunting, a good cigar, anything having to do with adventure, poetry, March Madness, working in the shop, fly fishing, classic rock, the Tetons, fish tacos (and you know we love that), George McDonald, green tea, buffalo steaks, dark chocolate, wild and open places, and horses running - all the things that make him a perfect person to talk about raising emotionally strong boys with. John and his wife, Stacy, live in Colorado Springs. They have three sons, Samuel, Blaine, and Luke, two golden retrievers and two horses.

David Thomas

00;03;40;17

John, it is a gift to have you here. I can't thank you enough for carving out time and space to have this conversation. I was just sharing with you before we hit record that your writing, your teaching has been so formative in my work as a therapist, working with boys and adolescent young men and families and in my writing as well, and couldn't thank you enough for just the life giving work you do in this world. Thank you.

John Eldredge

00;04;08;00

Oh, thank you, David. That's super gracious. Yeah. And love what you guys are doing out there in the parents and children world and pediatric care. And it's just beautiful. Yeah. Honored to be on your show today.

David Thomas

00;04;22;17

Well, grateful to have you and excited to mostly get to talk with you about your new book, but to also talk about some of your older work as well that I talk about a great deal in this space. But let's start talking about Resilient. Your new book, It is a Practical Guide to help readers heal and strengthen their souls.

David Thomas

00;04;42;03

Given the events of the last few years, John, you know, we could argue that the worst is behind us. But why is strengthening our souls for the days ahead equally as important as recovering from the past?

John Eldredge

00;04;54;16

Yeah, I love conversations with fellow therapists because you get it and your people will get it. We just passed through two years of global trauma and you know, the high octane stress and the need to rally and the new normal and all that. It's like an automobile accident. When you're in it, your adrenaline gets you through and it gets you through the first few moments after it.

John Eldredge

00;05;20;22

But it's later, sometimes much later, that you're like, My neck is killing me, or how my back just doesn't feel right. Okay, we're in that stage now. We're in the cascade effect here, the cascade stage of something like, you know, the high octane years we've just been through. I'm very concerned, actually, David, for people's wellbeing. I think we're pretty tapped out.

John Eldredge

00;05;46;21

I think people's reserves are either very low or they're shot and they're kind of just running on today. So what I want to do is help everybody say, okay, look, I know you got tacos back and concerts and travel, but that doesn't heal trauma and we need to now care for our humanity. We need to care for our souls and replenish our reserves so that we're well going forward.

David Thomas

00;06;16;14

I love that. John, you write, the perfect storm has converged over the human heart. Will you talk more about what you meant by that?

John Eldredge

00;06;25;23

Yeah. So prior to the pandemic, we were all living in, quote, the modern world and the pace of life and the crazy and the amount of technology. Here's a mind blower. When 911 happened back in 2001, they did some studies after that. And they discovered that people who watched the tragedy in New York on television had the same PTSD as people who were there in New York and it's because the brain has a very difficult time determining what is reality through media.

John Eldredge

00;07;03;27

It's why people go to Top Gun movies, right? You get the adrenaline job, you get the charge, you get pulled into it, and in that moment, it feels pretty real. Okay, so that was our crazy before the pandemic was just too much media, too much global chaos, high octane living. So then the pandemic comes through and clobbers everybody perfect storm is now this.

John Eldredge

00;07;29;22

Folks are rushing out looking for relief. And I'm in there, I'm planning vacations. I'm going to, you know, dinner with friends. Like we just want joy. Now let's just get some relief. But as I was saying earlier, the relief itself does not heal. It's not enough to replenish your reserves. And what I'm concerned about, David, it's people are going to get back to their 9 to 5.

John Eldredge

00;07;54;12

You know, maybe they get to the beach this summer. Maybe they get to the family cabin. They're going to come back into their 9 to 5 and realize that things aren't really any different and then they are really set up for some pretty serious disappointment, heartache, maybe depression, maybe desolation. So that's the perfect storm that's converging here. We are very tapped out as a people and we're looking for relief, but the relief won't heal.

John Eldredge

00;08;28;14

I'm all for relief, folks. I hope you get to Hawaii this summer. I bless that. I really do. But it's not enough. It's when you get back and you go, Oh, my gosh, that didn't work. That's when the real trouble sets in.

David Thomas

00;08;43;24

I'd love to even ask you just how have you seen your own soul affected by this perfect storm?

John Eldredge

00;08;51;27

It's embarrassing. I thought of myself as a fairly resilient person. I am a fairly resilient person. But if I begin to describe this, I think your listeners will start checking the boxes here. So there's the mental fragmentation. I'll pick up my phone. I don't even remember who I was going to call. I opened email. I forget what I was going to write.

John Eldredge

00;09;15;26

There's this short term memory loss, right? Which is a classic symptom of trauma, the effects of trauma and high stress, you know, high anxiety living. There's the weariness, there's the fatigue. But I think what I'm most aware of in myself right now is the very, very low reserves. I got enough to show up for today. I love my work.

John Eldredge

00;09;38;10

I show up. I love my family. I show up. But when something more is asked of me right now, you know, a friend's father is dying. Another friend is waiting for a cancer report. It's that stuff that I just feel. So I don't know. It's like I got nothing to offer. Mm hmm.

David Thomas

00;09;59;22

And, guys, you were talking about how your own soul's been affected through this time. You know, our podcast is called Raising Boys and Girls, and we talk about all things parenting on here. I'd love to just ask you, what has the journey of parenting taught you about yourself? How your soul's been affected through that journey uniquely? And and what is it taught you about the heart of God?

John Eldredge

00;10;24;29

Hmm. Well, the first thing it's taught me is that I am far more selfish than I had any idea. Hey, marriage does that first. But marriage, you still have a lot of personal space, right? You've got a lot of bandwidth left for your road biking or your rock climbing or whatever your jam is. Then the kids come along and most of your margin is gone.

John Eldredge

00;10;49;19

Most of my margin like, Wow, am I a selfish human being? Like, it's really difficult to put other people's needs first. I love being a parent. We raised three boys and had an absolute ball doing it and now we've got married sons and we're still parenting. That's the amazing thing is we're still in the mom and dad business and the questions are just bigger and the stakes are higher, right?

John Eldredge

00;11;18;20

Yeah, but I love that. I think the way it changed my soul, the way it shaped my soul. David I began to learn how to love. I began to learn how to love again. To realize that my life matters to other people. My presence matters to other people, whether I am present or not, matters to other people. And that's awesome.

John Eldredge

00;11;44;18

That's really weighty.

David Thomas

00;11;49;25

Sissy I had a mom tell me recently that she was giving a copy of my new book as her new baby shower gift because who needs another onesie?

Sissy Goff

00;11;58;12

Oh, love that. And yes, there's some truth to that. You only need so many onesies.

David Thomas

00;12;03;01

And they outgrow them in about 10 minutes.

Sissy Goff

00;12;06;06

You know what? They never outgrow their David, their need for the word of God. And we love the new Explorer Bible for Kids.

David Thomas

00;12;12;22

Now, that would make a great baby shower gift.

Sissy Goff

00;12;15;16

It sure would. It's the clear language of the Christian standard Bible translation and engaging full color designs.

David Thomas

00;12;22;12

Kids of all ages can explore and understand the Bible for themselves, including fun facts, timelines, photography.

Sissy Goff

00;12;30;14

Your kids will see the Bible as real, exciting and life changing truth. To learn more, go to ExplorerBibleforKids.com.

David Thomas

00;12;39;01

Buy your copy from Lifeway.com and get 50% off using code RBG.

Sissy Goff

00;12;45;15

50% off. That's definitely cheaper than a onesie.

David Thomas

00;12;48;22

Yes it is.

David Thomas

00;12;53;25

One of my favorite parts of your new book was the chapter on Abundance. And I loved when you talked about the mothering heart of God. I was thinking about that as you were responding to that just now, when you talk a little bit more about what you wrote about that.

John Eldredge

00;13;08;22

Yes, I'd love to, because anyone who's followed our work over the years, we talk a great deal about the father wounds and healing from the father wound, preventing father wounds as we parent, as fathers. But when a child comes into the world, our first attachment, our first experience of love is mother. I mean, literally in the womb, like, you receive everything you need from her and her emotional state.

John Eldredge

00;13;40;07

When you are in the womb, her level of joy at your arrival. All of that is our first experience in the world of Am I safe? Am I loved? Will I be provided for? Will my needs be met? And and we can talk about this in and out in the sphere of grace, because nobody does it perfectly and nobody gets it absolutely right.

John Eldredge

00;14;05;08

We all had mothers that were living in a broken world themselves. So this is an accusation. But the truth is, much of the security and the assurance of abundance is what I call it. The assurance of abundance doesn't get imparted in most people's parenting experience, most people's relationship with their moms, and it surfaces in times like now. So you go through something like the pandemic.

John Eldredge

00;14;33;23

I mean, what was with the toilet paper and the horror dig at all of that? But well, you're watching human behavior. See, it's the fear of deprivation. It's the fear of not having enough. And I think we're actually there. I think we're in like a really big another round of that coming because of the economy and supply shortages and that sort of thing.

John Eldredge

00;14;55;29

It triggers people. And if you did not receive that deep settled attachment and the assurance that your needs will be met, you are more likely in a time like this to be anxious, to be fearful, to do things like hoarding or try and buy gold and bury it in the backyard or whatever. You know, kind of our little human idiosyncrasies are.

John Eldredge

00;15;25;16

The reason I put it in the book is because the book is about resiliency. It's about healing our souls from all that we've been through and for tomorrow, so that we're in a better place tomorrow. Receiving the attachment love of God, receiving the assurance of abundance is actually part of our salvation. It's actually part of what it means to come under the loving care of a loving God.

John Eldredge

00;15;54;21

He created Mom. Mom, it's his idea. Mothering is his idea, right? And so all of that nurture and mercy and care and attachment, that's all still available. Again, you can get it directly from the source.

David Thomas

00;16;09;04

Love that. This season we are focusing on raising emotionally strong kids and I love to ask you, what is a favorite memory or story from your own growing up that shaped you into the person you are today?

John Eldredge

00;16;27;17

Yeah, first off, right on. Right on. Well done. Can we say not just emotionally resilient children, but emotionally resilient parents as well? Yes. Yeah, we all need that. So I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was pretty traumatizing. I was almost like a street kid. I lived with a very street kid mentality, hyper vigilance and no trust of anyone and no attachment.

John Eldredge

00;16;55;11

But my rescue was my grandfather. And my grandfather was a really good man. And I would go to his ranch in eastern Oregon in the summer, and I would have an entirely different experience of a secure household where I was totally known, totally sane, totally delighted in. And then he would take me out and we would work. We'd work in the field.

John Eldredge

00;17;22;16

Then we'd fix fences and irrigation ditches and stuff. And that built an emotional stability into my life that I didn't have at home. It was healing to me. And I still look back on that with just enormous gratitude and affection.

David Thomas

00;17;39;17

So grateful you shared that we have so many single parents who are listening to this podcast. We married parents who the other parent is just not invested for some reason in the game of parenting. And we talk a lot about other voices in kids life, other adults, grandparent, aunts, uncles, teachers, coaches, mentors who are going to mother and father kids along the way as well as their own parents are sometimes instead of their own parents, more than their own parents.

David Thomas

00;18;05;12

So I'm so grateful for you to tell that story. This feels like such a picture of that. And also love to ask you, you know, jumping to current, what's one thing that has helped you be more emotionally strong yourself in this last season?

John Eldredge

00;18;21;13

I'll tell a little story that leads up to the answer. For the past several years, I would come to God in a time of prayer for someone or something, anything, you know, my auto repairs, my taxes, my aging mother, anything. And every single time Jesus would say to me, John, give everyone and everything to me. So this is first theater, five or seven cast.

John Eldredge

00;18;48;21

All your care is upon the Lord because he cares for you. And I'm like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. That's great. Now what I was talking about was my taxes, you know, and he would say it again, John, give every one and everything to me. And what I've learned over the years and what we're teaching people now is the practice of benevolent detachment, where once a day, sometime during your day, you pause and you just learn the grace of release.

John Eldredge

00;19;19;16

You can't carry the world, France. You sure can't save it. What is building emotional resilience in me is I am not carrying things as much, and I call it benevolent detachment because I'm not cynical, I'm not checked out, I'm not angry in love. I'm just releasing everything once a day, at least, especially at bedtime, if you want to sleep well.

John Eldredge

00;19;47;26

But what that does is it opens up margin for me to be actually emotionally present, because I'm not all tied up and worry about the latest thing. Right. I'm not sideways on all that.

David Thomas

00;20;00;04

Great. Okay. At this point in the interview, hopefully you've already dropped Resilient and your Amazon card. I'm going to give you a second if you haven't yet and leave your card open because I want you not only to grab a copy of John's current work, but I want you to go back and get some of his previous work, too.

David Thomas

00;20;19;16

In fact, John, if you look over my shoulder in the screen you're looking at right now, you will surely see a copy of Wild at Heart and Killing Lines, maybe a couple, because I'm giving them out frequently. I have loved and appreciated those books for years and I recommend Killing Lions to countless parents of adolescent boys and young adult sons.

David Thomas

00;20;40;21

All right. On. I love it. And just wonder, will you talk for a minute about that book and even just what you hope young men could take from that work?

John Eldredge

00;20;50;15

Yeah, I'd love to. Killing lions is a fun story because my oldest son, Sam, and I wrote that together when he was coming out of his teenage years, moving into his young adult years with a whole lot of questions about love and romance and commitment and money and work and careers and so it's a dialog between a father and a son, and he he is willing to push back, which makes it a good read.

John Eldredge

00;21;20;14

It's not just straight forward. He's willing to push back on answers that seem simplistic. And so it was a joy to write it together. And the idea being that there are some core things the young man needs to know, core among them all is that you are not on your own to figure your life out. And regardless of what your emotional support base is on a human level, you have a father, you have a father who loves you and who is with you as you are sorting out everything from college choice or tech school or military, to romance and love to all of it, like your dreams for your life, you're not on your own.

John Eldredge

00;22;11;00

It's just such a core message because most young guys feel like it's up to them to figure their life out, and that's a really crushing load.

David Thomas

00;22;18;12

So my favorite gifts to give for graduations. I would love every young man to read that at that milestone as life.

John Eldredge

00;22;25;29

I love that.

David Thomas

00;22;27;02

So grateful for you and your son writing that really, really grateful.

John Eldredge

00;22;31;13

Thank you.

David Thomas

00;22;36;01

Sissy. Have you ever watched The Chosen?

Sissy Goff

00;22;38;22

I have. What an incredible look at the life of Christ.

David Thomas

00;22;42;05

It really is. You know, even though many of us are already familiar with the life of Jesus, the chosen tells the story with such a fresh and compelling perspective.

Sissy Goff

00;22;51;28

That's what I love about it, David. And you know what? The Chosen Season three begins in theaters on November 18.

David Thomas

00;22;59;01

I heard the theme of Season three is from Matthew 11:28. “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy, burdened, and I will give you rest.” How many times have we quoted that verse in our offices?

Sissy Goff

00;23;11;14

Too many to count. It's such a good reminder. The chosen season three picks up right where season two left off with the famous Sermon on the Mount. I love Jesus teachings in Matthew 5-7.

David Thomas

00;23;23;12

Me too. And the most exciting part of this season will be getting a look at the trials and tensions and questions that living out Jesus teaching brought to his followers.

Sissy Goff

00;23;33;22

But you know, David, that's why Matthew 11:28 is such an incredible theme for the season, because in the midst of all the trials, Jesus still gives us rest.

David Thomas

00;23;43;06

That is a message we share every day in our work, isn't it? I'm so excited that millions of people who will watch the chosen season three will also be reminded of it.

Sissy Goff

00;23;52;19

Episodes one and two of the chosen Season three will begin in theaters starting November 18th, and episodes will start releasing for free in the chosen app before Christmas.

David Thomas

00;24;02;26

We need to plan a watch party with our staff. Wouldn't that be amazing? For more information, visit TheChosenTickets.com.

David Thomas

00;24;15;06

Okay, so we like to end the podcast with something fun. We're going to move from the substantive to something a little silly, and we love food around here. You even reference one of our favorite tacos a few minutes ago. I want to ask you first, are you more a kaso or guacamole guy? And then also, what's your favorite taco?

John Eldredge

00;24;34;14

Oh, man, guacamole. Come on, guacamole. And the fact is, Chipotle has a killer Glock. People like really killer Glock. My favorite taco place is in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I live in Colorado and we get up to Steamboat. You know, sometime in the summer, there's a taco place on the River Lake. You get your tacos at the counter, you go sit on the deck by the river.

John Eldredge

00;25;00;06

And so you get beauty and you get nature and you get tacos. And it's an American owner, but he has a Latin American wife and she's the chef and the cook and so that's like killer tacos. So Cabo Taco, if you ever get to Steamboat folks.

David Thomas

00;25;16;21

For making me want to book a ticket right now, it sounds amazing. Before we let you go, John, will you tell our listeners where they can connect with you online and where they can pick up a copy of Resilient?

John Eldredge

00;25;29;10

Yeah. So Resilience out in the world now. So we're at Amazon where we get your books and we are at Wild at Heart dot org. And then I'm going to give a shout out for a really cool thing. So we have an app that's free called The One Minute Path, and this app has actually been a rescue to a whole lot of folks.

John Eldredge

00;25;48;12

It's over a quarter million people now. It's free. It's on the App Store. It's called the One Minute Pause and it guide you through twice a day, just learning to stop and take a breath and let everything go and recenter your life and the love of God. We just put a new feature in there called 30 Days to Resilient.

John Eldredge

00;26;07;11

It's a morning and evening meditation. It's part devotion, part prayer, part just quiet and beautiful music. Yes, but not for that. It is so healing. It's free people. So you can get the one minute pause app and when you open it up, you'll see 30 days there and you just listen to this morning and evening reflection. That's very, very healing.

David Thomas

00;26;31;24

I'm so glad you mentioned that. I've used it. I love it. I have two college aged sons who are using it right this minute too. I'm so glad you mentioned that.

John Eldredge

00;26;39;09

Oh, right on.

David Thomas

00;26;41;03

Thank you again. Can't thank you enough for carving out time to do this. It's so great to get to talk with you and grateful for the work you're doing.

John Eldredge

00;26;49;24

I am truly honored. David, thanks for opening up your platform and your work here to this message. And yeah, just keep going, David. You're doing good things for the world.

Erick Goss

00;27;01;02

Hi, I'm Erick Goss, dad of three and CEO of Minno, a streaming platform for Christian families. You know, we can learn so much from our children as grown ups, we tend to focus on doing the right things and knowing the right things. And so when it comes to our spiritual lives, we often put more faith in our faith in God than actually putting faith in God himself.

Erick Goss

00;27;28;05

But if we look at the lives of our children, we can see a childlike faith, a simple trust. And I think the Lord is calling us to that kind of faith in our parenting. John 15 four says “Abide in, Me and I and you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me.”

Erick Goss

00;27;49;16

This verse reminds us that a life in Christ is not about the outcome, but instead it's about abiding in Christ and experiencing Him. God commits to helping us through those struggles. Kids are not as interested in goals as much as they are in the pure enjoyment of the moment. It is grown ups. We struggle along our faith journey asking questions like Can I trust in God's goodness?

Erick Goss

00;28;11;26

And Can I believe God is truly in control? Kids believe that Mom and Dad are good and they trust that Mom and Dad are in control. So they don't fear. Yes, I think we can learn a lot from the simple trust of our children. How can you let go of your fears as a parent and trust God today? How can you enjoy the Lord daily and truly abide to His love?

Sissy Goff

00;28;36;28

It's our joy to bring the experience and insight we gain through our work beyond the walls of the Daystar House.

David Thomas

00;28;43;14

If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with your friends and don't forget to click the follow button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. To learn more about our parenting resources or to see if we're coming to a city near you, visit our website at RaisingBoysandGirls.com.

Sissy Goff

00;29;04;01

Join us next time for more help and hope as you continue your journey of raising boys and girls.

Guest UserOctober 25, 2022

Episode 78: Recovering from Trauma and Strengthening Your Soul with John Eldridge

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