In this episode we engage Shelly's story in our studio.   Shelly, who has gone through the Allender Center's Narrative Focused Trauma Care levels one and two, brings a story from fourth grade which has had life long implications.  

Gaslighting was Merriam-Webster's word of the year in 2022.  Why did it make such a big splash?  In this episode we explore this concept, its roots, but also the fact that we need language for what is happening to us.  

In this episode we take a look at the idea that we have various parts that make up who we are.  Traditionally theologians speak of Christians having the flesh and spirit, which is true.  However,  we know that we are never in thi...

So often in conflicts we would just love to hear the words, "I am sorry."  However, as great as this is, it really serves as only the beginning of restoration.  While not every conflict needs much more than these words to heal, many d...

Repair is the third major pillar in healthy attachment.  Repair in a relationships is in some ways the most important aspect and also the most elusive.  We know that in this fallen world we will have conflicts in even our most cherish...

In Episode 17 we discuss the importance of healthy containment in our families of origin.   Containment is a process that helps children feel safe involving the emotional support that adults give children. Healthy containment helps develop...

Attunement is the sense that you matter; that someone else sees you and is tending to you. We were made to be attuned to – by God and by our primary caregivers.  When our deepest needs are seen and met, we feel safe and able to attune to o...

We were made to be loved by our primary caregivers.  Three main categories that outline what we were meant to receive are attunement, containment, and repair.  This episode will introduce this topic as we will explore what it means fo...

As Christians we are taught that hatred is evil and yet one of the most important doctrines of God is his hatred of evil.  For present day Christians this often is relegated to a few technicolored "evils" that most can agree upon. However,...

The term NPC came from video games referring to the characters that the player doesn't have control of - they are controlled by the game's programming. When a person's behavior is determined by a system, whether family, church or peer group, th...

This episode seeks to help our listeners this holiday season or future times around family.  We explore the tendency to go into auto pilot where we often return to past or familiar patterns of relating around certain groups, especially fam...

In this episode we explore the concept of "window of tolerance" seeing its connection to meekness.   What we often consider weakness is actually a strength of spirit and mind.  

One of the reasons we find healing so elusive is that we refuse to engage the heartaches of our lives.  It can seem un-American or even un-Christian to look upon the past in a negative light.  However, this is exactly how Scripture be...

Why do we look back at childhood stories of harm? We discuss internal vows we make, agreements about who we are and protectors that develop. These were ways we needed to mitigate shame that are still patterns by which we live our adulthood. Jes...

Take off your shoes, this is holy ground! God desires for us to live in bodies that feel safe and loved. Selah is an ancient word from poetry and we see it in the Psalms. Emily developed a Selah practice with five steps to make space for self c...

Christians in the modern era are often confused about the role our bodies play in our growth.  In this episode we explore the need to be tuned into our bodies which carry many of our wounds and are also instrumental for living fully integr...

Let's unpack the power of narrative focused trauma care (NFTC). We discuss a way to approach healing that combines scripture with modern psychology. We want the Church to take back what should be ours as we talk through how modern Psychology wa...

We close out the Shalom series by unpacking the final stage: Shalom Restoring. We seek to imagine what healing can look like in our particular stories of suffering.

We explore our tendency to seek protection from our wounds in ways that don't ultimately lead to our flourishing.   Building on the shalom arc developed by Dr. Dan Allender, the concept of this episode is shalom sought as false rescues fro...

In this conversation we explore the reality that something went wrong.   In order to grasp how our own stories fit into the larger story of redemption we must examine the particular places where evil has assaulted us.  

In this episode we outline the framework of the Biblical narrative which all of our individual stories find their basis.   Humans were made for shalom which began in the garden and yet still exists inside all of us - the longing to live wi...

In this episode we explain why we created the Story Matters Podcast with direction of where we will go in season 1.