A podcast about forming deep relationships, discovering meaning, and living with integrated creativity
Season Nine - Into the Deepest Place
Into the Deepest Place
To be human is to suffer. To be transformed does not deliver us from it. In fact, a great deal of what we do in life is dedicated to avoiding so much of the suffering that inhabits our stories. I only want to read a book that tells me how I can suffer less, or even not at all. But that’s not how life works.
Join Pepper and Curt as they begin to explore The Deepest Place, using Romans 5:1-5 and what we are learning from interpersonal neurobiology, and discover how the gospel helps us form durable hope, not by being fully delivered from suffering, but in and because of its very presence.
Just Faith
If you pick up a book on suffering, you might hope it will tell you how you can learn to suffer less, or even not at all. That’s not what we’re doing here. Instead, we will discover that before we even get to suffering, we must, as Christians, begin long before that, just as Paul does in Romans 5. Who knew that to talk about suffering, it is first really important for us to get a handle on how our attachment to Jesus—through our attachment to the members of his Body and the Spirit?
We invite you to imagine how Paul’s words of faith and justification reflect our real-life attachment processes, and how that lays the foundation for our forming hope in the presence of suffering.
Declaration of War - and Peace
Although the bible doesn’t begin with violence, it gets there pretty quickly, beginning with a snake, then a brother killing his brother, and on and on it goes. And as it turns out, as much as we are at war in so many ways with so many others, we are more at war with God than anyone, and more at war with him than we know. Not that he’s at war with us. We just think he is. It’s no surprise, then, to discover that our suffering is grounded more than we are aware of in the parts of us that still believe, like Adam before us, that God is out to kill us.
Join us as we address the necessary task of identifying the parts of us that still believe we are at war with God—so that in making peace, we can begin to change the story we tell about our suffering.
A Wide Place to Stand
For Jesus followers, as we approach the topic of suffering, we can’t bypass the body. Fortunately, neither does Paul in Romans 5, or what we know from neuroscience. For indeed, the more we pay attention to how the body works, the more the texts of scripture make sense in our world, a world which has somehow over many centuries found a way to separate the body from the spirit in ways that they simply are not.
Come along as we learn how “grace in which we now stand” is no mere metaphor—and shapes our response to suffering in ways we might never imagine.
Glory
Who would ever imagine that glory and suffering would have anything to do with each other? As it turns out, a great deal. So much so, in fact, that when we consider a particular aspect of God’s glory (one that we rarely do), we see how, when we take it seriously, it utterly transforms and prepares us for the suffering we will inevitably encounter. But we can’t encounter it alone. It requires community.
Join Pepper and Curt as they invite us to draw close to God’s glory, even as we draw close to our suffering.
The Story of the Present Age
Finally, we’re here. We’ve reached the topic that this series is about. It’s just that, now that we’ve arrived, we don’t want to be here. Nobody wants to suffer. We want less of it, or none of it at all, not just some tired old story of how to grin and bear it. The good news is that, there are some things we can learn about suffering from what we know of the brain and relationships, things that, once we are aware of them, begin to shed even brighter light on the hope that we are durably forming on our journey through this part of Paul’s letter.
Listen in as Curt and Pepper talk about why we suffer, and how we can begin to reframe it in our first steps toward suffering differently.
Episode 6: May 1
Perseverance
Who hasn’t felt like giving up when the going got, not only tough, but tough for a really long time. We love the idea of what perseverance can ultimately lead to; we would often rather arrive at what we want without having to persevere. Because to be sure: perseverance is not easy. But as we have said on this podcast before, the brain can do a lot of really hard things for a long time, as long as it doesn’t have to do it by itself.
Tune in to hear Pepper persevere in having to be in conversation with Curt yet one more time, and discover again what it means to SNAG the brain while we form durable hope in the process.
Episode 7: May 8
Character
We deeply long to be persons of character; we would much rather not, however, have to persevere through suffering to get there. But it turns out that that is exactly how character is formed. Moreover, the formation of character is the necessary prerequisite for hope that lasts, not the flimsy kind that so much or our lives are used to. And therein lies the good news. The resilience of character, something that others see in us but that we often do not see in ourselves, brings us ever closer to the hope we long to form and maintain.
Listen in to these two characters (Pepper and Curt, that is. Well, maybe just Pepper.) as we learn what we can do to develop the character that we so long to have.
Episode 8: May 15
Hope
Hope is one thing. Durable hope—that’s something different altogether. What is hope, after all? Is it something that merely happens to fall in our laps? Something that we can only hope to have? The world of interpersonal neurobiology has some things to say about hope that are, well, very, very hopeful. And at the same time, shed light on where Paul is going, as he has come all the way from suffering, through perseverance and character to bring us to where we are.
Join Pepper and Curt as we walk together into the hope that is more than just a word. More than what we merely hope we will have. And we’re far more than hopeful that you will agree with us when you do.
Episode 9: May 22
Full Circle
We started this season on suffering with what necessarily must precede it if hope is what we want. And now that we are near the season’s conclusion, we find ourselves where we started.
Come hang out with us to discover how what we first thought would only be painful—our suffering—ultimately, because of Jesus and the way our brains and relationships are made to operate, leads to the joy that enables us to fearless encounter our suffering wherever it will emerge in our lives over the course of them. We can’t wait for you to be with us, and join us in all that God has in store.
Episode 10: May 29
End of Season Q&A
Thank you for joining us this season to learn about confessional communities. In this final season episode, Curt and Pepper answer listener questions to draw you closer to finding and creating your own community.
Episode 11: June 5
Season Eight - In the Path of Oncoming Beauty
In the Path of Oncoming Beauty
In the path of oncoming beauty. Sure, we have talked about this notion over many seasons of The Being Known Podcast. But of what practical value is it? How does it speak to our longings, our grief or the renewal of our relationships, communities and institutions? Is it merely an intellectual exercise, divorced from making a difference in my real life?
Join Pepper and Curt as they answer with a resounding, “No!” Instead, journey with them into the deeper recesses of what it means, exactly, to place yourself in the path of oncoming beauty, and discover how God’s resounding “Yes!” to beauty begins where we can’t see it, and ends with the new creation that is surely coming.
The Beauty of Awareness
Given that we are wired to pay attention to danger for the sake of protection, purposefully attuning to beauty can at times feel risky. But when we make it our intended purpose to create space for beauty, be find ourselves seeing any number of things that we didn’t before. Some of those things include our wounds that we have covered for longer than we know. But that only gives us the chance to imagine the emergence of beauty from parts of our lives that heretofore we could only imagine carnage.
Listen in as Curt and Pepper explore what it means to awaken, become alert and attuned to beauty, and how that can chart a course for a new direction of renewal in our lives.
The Sense of Beauty
First, we sense. Then we make sense of what we sense. Beauty is not first something we think about. It is first something we behold with our senses. And our senses necessarily involve our bodies. For indeed, even when we imagine beauty in our mind, we use our brains to do so. This follows the sequence of creation in Genesis 2 when God first formed a body, and then breathed life into it.
Join Pepper and Curt as they explore the role of the body in encountering beauty, and how paying attention to the vertical domain of integration leads to greater awareness of beauty in our world, and in ourselves.
As Beauty Makes Sense of Us
Once we sense beauty, we begin to tell a story about it. We make sense of it. We pay attention to it. We sometimes analyze it. But beauty often reveals things about us. In sensing things, we become aware of feelings and memories that before we were unaware of. In this way, we are enabled to tell our stories more truly. And all of this employs the horizontal domain of integration—the relationship between the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
Listen in as Curt and Pepper explore how the differences between our right and our left enable beauty to assist us in making better sense of our lives.
Remembering Our Future Beauty
It is easy to be amazed, even astonished in the presence of beauty. But it is just as easy to forget it, given how easily distracted we are by so many things. If it is true that what we pay attention to, we remember; and what we remember becomes our anticipated future, then we don’t just recall beauty for the sake of itself. We do so in order to shape the futures of our lives that we anticipate. This is as much true for the parts of our stories that are traumatized as those for which we have fond memories.
Pepper and Curt wade into how committing beauty to memory doesn’t just remind us of a past we love; it transforms our past traumas into futures we would otherwise find hard to imagine.
In the Service of Beauty
Pepper and Curt had the privilege of spending five days in El Salvador as part of a Compassion International team of visitors. This trip offered perspective of how artifacts of beauty continue to bring hope, bring expansion, bring goodness, bring beauty, bring joy into a world where it’s not hard to look around and find carnage.
Join us as Pepper and Curt share about their trip, but more importantly, the extraordinarily durable beauty that is emerging in some of the hardest stories we could imagine—and how all of this is pointing to the emerging kingdom of God.
What is the Beautiful Story
You Are Telling?
Like no other creatures, humans are storytellers. Moreover, our stories all have a beginning, a middle and an end. And the way we tell stories has to do with the end in mind. So, think of it: the stories we tell about our lives—not least the parts that we hate the most—will be governed by where the story is ultimately going. And despite the carnage that we see all around us, the God of the bible is intent upon telling a story of beauty. But he does not intend to have us waiting until the very end for that beauty to find us. He intends for us to experience it now, if only in the hints of what are the harbingers of the deep weight of beauty that is coming.
Join Curt and Pepper as we discover how beauty is shaping who we are becoming as storytellers, as well as the stories we tell. This episode was recorded live at the Connections Conference.
Surprised by Beauty
During Curt and Pepper’s recent trip to El Salvador, they each found themselves surprised by beauty in various ways. Surprise can lead to any number of emotional reactions, depending on what surprises us. When it is beauty that is doing the surprising, we are opened to joy, goodness and even greater beauty than we would expect out of life.
Join Pepper and Curt as they explore surprising stories of beauty, and along the way introduce you to Shaun Groves, a pastor and Compassion International ambassador, whose compelling story of his own surprise with beauty has had him involved with the ministry since 2005.
The State of Beauty
So much of what shapes our perceived distress or joy in life is related to how we transition from one state of mind to another. Our willingness to place ourselves in the path of oncoming beauty does many things, not least slowing our pace in life, such that we become much more aware of when and how we are making a transition from one to another state of mind. And this slowing of our pace makes it possible for us to be aware of so much more that is going on in that very transition—and respond to it in the ways we want to, even if those states are distressing.
Listen in as Pepper and Curt explore how our willingness to practice encountering beauty can help us regulate our affect, and so strengthen our transitions from one state of mind to another—and thereby see the potential for the creation of beauty in situations that would otherwise leave us unable to do so.
Episode 9: Now Available
The Interpersonal Nature of Beauty
Beauty is not just something that sits there and waits for our reaction. It is something that, should we allow ourselves to be open to it, actively draws our attention not only to it, but draws us to draw others’ attention to it as well. In this way, beauty’s purpose serves to engage us with each other—so that we can create and curate even more beauty.
Join us as we discover how beauty reveals the inescapable reality that we were made for connection, and that beauty is one of God’s most powerful means of showing us that this is true.
It’s Time for Beauty
There’s nothing quite like an encounter with beauty to remind us we are temporal—and, temporary—creatures. Who hasn’t wanted the gorgeous sunset to just go on and on? Who has listened to Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, and desired it to go on indefinitely? Beauty is like that. It transports us into states of timelessness that remind us we were made, not for this world—but for the world that is coming.
Join us for this last episode of the season that will remind us of what it means that God has placed eternity in our hearts, and that putting ourselves in the path of oncoming beauty is the beginning of the time for which there will be no end.
Season Seven - Confessional Communities
Confessional Communities: Forming Outposts of Beauty and Goodness
Confessional Communities. We have been hearing a great deal about them over the last several seasons on Being Known Podcast. We thought we would take this opportunity to dive in and take a closer look at their purpose and how they operate. Although the best way to discover these things is to actually participate in a confessional community, Pepper and Curt hope this season gets you a little closer to what it means—and what it takes—to be part of one.
Come join us and find out!
Confessional Communities:
A Community of Formation
We are continually being formed by something. The question is, BY WHAT? If we want to become more like Jesus, we must do the hard work of submitting to thee formational realities most likely to do that. Confessional communities have the potential to form us into truer versions of ourselves, precisely because we are not doing it alone, but in the context of a community whose center is Jesus that is empowered by the work of the Spirit—who is taking advantage of our willingness to vulnerably open our lives to each other. Pepper and Curt explore what it means to be formed into our best versions of Jesus—and how the confessional community enables that to take place.
The Symphony of
Confessional Community
There are multiple forces in play that are part of what forms us. That is no different in the confessional community. What are the realities that we encounter in confessional communities that set them apart from other relational and social encounters—and, as a result, then set us apart to be formed into the image of Jesus.
Join Curt and Pepper as they explore the various features of a confessional community that, given their differences and their interactions with each other enable us, like a beautiful symphony, to become more than the sum of our parts.
Confessional Communities:
Getting Started
How does a Confessional Community get started? What are the fundamental requirements, and am I ready to dive in? Who are the people and how many can be in one? How long do they last? Do you need to have a leader who is a trained therapist?
Listen in as Pepper and Curt walk you through the early stages of starting a confessional community, the questions that might come up, and what is necessary to get yourself ready to be part of one.
Confessional Communities:
Learning to Love Doing the Work
Over the course of time that a confessional community gathers, many things will be learned, including the process of growing in your awareness of what the process is actually doing to provide the opportunity for growth that you are experiencing. Listen in as Pepper and Curt talk about that process of what happens in a confessional community that actually fosters the integration and wholeness that we so long to experience, and the beauty and goodness that we so long to become.
Episode 5 pt. 1: Available Now
Episode 5 pt. 2: Available Now
Confessional Communities:
The Later Seasons
How do we end anything well—and especially those experiences that have become so significant in our growth? Moreover, how do we say goodbye well in a culture that gives us very few resources in knowing how to do that?
Pepper and Curt explore how bringing a confessional community to close—either for an individual who is leaving, or for the entire group coming to an end—is itself an opportunity for greater growth and integration as we practice for the heaven and earth that is coming.
End of Season Q&A
Thank you for joining us this season to learn about confessional communities. In this final season episode, Curt and Pepper answer listener questions to draw you closer to finding and creating your own community.
Season Six - The Beauty of Wisdom
The Beauty of Wisdom: Being Known as the Way of Human Flourishing
We would expect there to be no debate: wisdom is something everyone thinks is a good thing. Who would ever want to be more foolish by the end of the day? But we often seem to be more interested in being right than being wise; more often interested in acquiring information than wisdom. What does it mean to be wise, and how does life at the intersection of interpersonal neurobiology and Christian spirituality—a life of being known—reveal how we can become people of wisdom in a world that so desperately needs it? Join Pepper and Curt in this exciting season as we discover the beauty to be found—and sometimes in places we might not first expect.
The Word of God: The Presence of Wisdom—and the Wisdom of Presence
In the beginning, it was God’s presence that hovered over the deep waters of chaos. But before that wisdom was with God, and then was at his side as God brought order and purpose in his creating the world. Presence. For to know what wisdom is, let alone acquire it, we must first be present to it—in the same way that we must be present to God, to ourselves, and to each other as the starting point to being known; to becoming people of beauty and goodness. Join Curt and Pepper as we encounter the conscious domain of integration—and so learn how wisdom begins by being present.
The Wisdom of the Body: Beginning at the Beginning
God creates mankind in a particular sequence, as Genesis tells us. He begins with mud, into which he breathes his breath. And so we too, in order to become people of wisdom, people who are deeply known, must be present first to our bodies. What are they telling us? And how do we then make sense of what we are sensing? How do we act with our bodies in such a way that wisdom is acquired? We discover even more when we read how Paul considers the body of Jesus to be a collection of all of his followers together. This is the work of the vertical domain of integration. Listen in as Pepper and Curt begin at the beginning of being present to what wisdom has to teach us.
Right and Wrong: Being and Knowing…and Being
We often assume that wisdom is to be equated with knowing things. And indeed, knowing things is important. But only to the degree that it enables us to create beauty and goodness in the world, not least that of flourishing relationships. Our challenge is that so often we are interested in acquiring knowledge because we are more concerned with being right than we are about being loving. The horizontal domain of integration—that of the relationship between the right and left hemispheres of the brain—is the setting in which we learn that wisdom is so much more than knowing: it’s about being known. In this episode, Curt and Pepper will connect with their right and left brains—and with you—as we continue on this marvelous journey of becoming people of wisdom.
Wisdom of the Ages: Remembering our Future
The memory domain of integration is not only about the past, it’s about the future. The future we are remembering. And indeed, becoming wise has everything to do with how you make sense of your past, something you are doing every moment of your life, even if you are not aware of it. For if we are to be wise as we approach our future, we must be aware of how our past is shaping us as much as any new information we accumulate along the way. Listen in as Curt and Pepper explore how our own memory—and the memory of those who have gone before us—enable us to be more deeply known, and people of greater wisdom as a result.
The Story of Wisdom
The book of Proverbs portrays Wisdom as calling out in the streets. She, in effect, is telling her story, and asking us to join her. As it turns out, it is crucial in becoming people of wisdom that we not only understand the stories we tell about ourselves, but that we tell them wisely. And to do this, we need other trustworthy people in our lives who can help us do this. For it is in the very process of telling our stories that we knead wisdom into the dough of our lives. In this episode, Pepper and Curt have the opportunity to continue to tell each other their stories, a telling that opens the door for wisdom to enter.
Where Are You… and Where Are You Going?
It’s hard to know where we are going if we first do not know where we are. The integration of the domain of our state of mind is critical if wisdom is what we seek. For if we are not aware of the state that our mind occupies—knowing where we are—how will we be able to move in the path of wisdom? Join us as Pepper and Curt discover how being known enables us to more consistently be aware of our states of mind, and so have greater access to the wisdom that is being offered to us there.
The Wisdom of Many Advisers
We live in a world that has trained us to believe that we each live in our own personal silo. But this flies in the face of what neuroscience tells us about the interconnectivity of our minds. So much of our anxiety—and our lack of wisdom—stems from our trying to live against the current of how God has created our minds to function. We think we need to be able to live life on our own, and we seek knowledge so that we can do just that. But wisdom tells us that we were not made for silos, we were made for each other. Curt and Pepper have learned just how true this is, and invite you to join us as we explore the wisdom of having many advisers by whom we are deeply known.
Eternity In Their Hearts
Shame doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Shame begins in the earliest communities in which we dwell. It is to those communities we now turn to see how shame emerges there—but also what we can do to retell the stories of those communities: our families, our churches and schools. Listen in as we get to the bottom of the places where our stories begin, and begin to reimagine how God can transform them on the way to doing the same for the larger communities in which we live.
Season Wrap Q&A
Join Pepper and Curt as we come full circle in our journey on the path of wisdom, and as we discover that it is one that we will never stop travelling—we will hopefully only become more deeply joyful as we continue to plumb its fathomless depths. We will review each episode and answer some of your questions that have come in along the way.
Bottom Left Drawer: The Beauty and Wisdom of “Getting Your Ducks in a Row”
This week, Curt and Pepper are joined by our very own Amy Cella, producer of Being Known Podcast and creator of Bottom Left Drawer (BLD) as we discuss the beauty and wisdom of being prepared for various seasons of our life. BLD is all about getting your ducks in a row, so you’re good to go. But what does that mean? Amy shares about BLD and the process of getting your affairs in order, whether that be crafting a will, securing vital documents or getting intentional about the relationships in your life. In this episode we discuss the nine segments of BLD, share some fun stories and get real about the beauty and wisdom of being prepared.
About Curt Thompson, MD
Inspired by deep compassion for others and informed from a Christian perspective, psychiatrist Curt Thompson, MD shares fresh insights and practical applications for developing more authentic relationships and fully experiencing our deepest longing: to be known.
With warmth and humor, Curt weaves together an understanding of interpersonal neurobiology and a Christian vision of what it means to be human — enabling others to tell their stories more truly, realize their intrinsic desire to feel known, valued and connected, and live into their destiny to create beauty and goodness in the world.
Our Podcast Team
Pepper Sweeney
Co-Host/Producer
Whether in his current position as head of programing for The Chandy Group or his years as an actor, director, and producer, Pepper’s entire career has revolved around story. As equal parts 2 and 9 on the Enneagram — with a dash of 7 thrown in to keep things interesting — Pepper truly loves helping people tell their stories. He is thrilled to be working on the Being Known Podcast with Curt Thompson, MD.
(Notice Pepper’s name is conspicuously absent from the title. He assures us he is not bitter.)
Amy Cella
Producer
Amy is originally from Petaluma, California — also known as “Chickaluma,” the egg capitol of the world! Amy has spent the last 20 years as an executive assistant, the woman behind the woman. Although her day job keeps her very busy, Amy has new business and creative ideas almost daily. (Can you say urban chicken store?!)
Thankfully for us, she has decided to settle on the idea of this podcast where she is the taskmaster keeping Curt and Pepper in line. (Not an easy job!)
Keaton Simons
Audio Editor/Music Scoring
Keaton Simons is a singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist. He has released numerous albums, EPs, and singles and is best known for his hundreds of film and television placements (including "When I Go" from the hit TV show "Suits"). In addition to his prolific solo career Keaton is the lead guitarist for country music superstar Brett Young.
Along with writing/production partner Noah Needleman and filmmaker Dennis Dugan, Keaton recently completed both the soundtrack and score for the motion picture "Love, Weddings & Other Disasters" starring Diane Keaton and Jeremy Irons.
Mark Landre Gould
Video Editor
Mark graduated from the world-renowned California Institute of the Arts with an MFA degree.
In 2018, Mark completed his first feature film, "Gone Are the Days," where he was director, producer and editor, and that starred Lance Henriksen, Tom Berenger, and Danny Trejo.
In 2007, Mark co-founded Directional Entertainment, LLC, with business partner Richard Hocutt, to create content for both theatrical release and television.
Currently, they have a project with Amazon studios, “MAHALIA!,” which is being co-produced with Jamie Foxx and Queen Latifah and stars Jill Scott.
Kara Yuza
Social Media Manager
Kara resides in Wichita, KS with her husband and daughter, and serves as a virtual executive assistant and creative content curator for a variety of Christian authors, speakers, and program developers from all over the US.
She holds a public relations and marketing degree from Wichita State University, and a Christian Spiritual Formation degree from Friends University.
She is passionate about people, coffee and traveling. You can easily, and usually, find her with a cup of coffee in her hand having lively discussions with anyone she meets.
PREVIOUS SEASONS
Season Five - The Soul of Shame
The Story That Shame is Trying to Tell
What is it about shame? Why is it that it just doesn’t seem to go away? Moreover, what makes it so destructive? Is it its mechanics? Or is it because it gets so intimately tangled up in our stories? Not only that, but is shame always bad for us? To top it off, how does evil figure into the way shame becomes so much sand in the gears of our relationships, in both small moments and even in the public arena? We explore all of this and more from Curt’s book, The Soul of Shame. Discover that the more we know about this topic—and how evil wants to use it to devour us—the more able we will be to overcome evil with goodness and beauty.
Our Problem with Shame
It’s not enough to know what shame IS. We also have to know how and where it works. Our problem with shame is not just a sensation in which we feel bad. It’s about all the ways that it hijacks our mind, relationships, and mostly, the story in which we believe we’re living. Join us as we open up the hood and begin to look at the engine of this thing we call shame. You may be surprised to find that it’s so much more than a feeling.
How Shame Targets the Mind
It has been said, “Keep your friends close. And keep your enemies closer.” If we want to know what evil is up to as it uses shame in its quest to devour us, the first thing to know is how the mind works—so that we will also know where and how evil is doing its dirty work. In this episode, we review the fundamental features of the mind—such as the nine domains of integration, attention and emotion—and discover where and how shame, like the evil that is wielding it, parasitically uses the very way our minds work to undo us and all of God’s good creation in the process.
Joy, Shame and the Brain
We were made for joy. The bible and our greatest literature attest to this. But not only this: research in attachment reflects that joyful human relationships are the key to our well-being. No wonder, then, that shame targets our experience of joy as its first priority in disintegrating us, disconnecting us from ourselves and each other. In this episode, we examine why joy is so important to practice—yep, you read that right: practice—and how shame will do anything it can to rob us of as much of it as it can.
The Story of Shame You Are Living
We’re all storytellers. Unlike any other living creature—unless you might find yourself in a C.S. Lewis novel—humans are the only animals that tell stories in the way we do. It is in those stories that our shame takes up residence, with all of the mechanics we have learned about so far, and begins to tell a story that leads to our destruction. Hence, it’s not enough to know about the mechanics of how shame works. We need to know where in our stories it first inserted itself. Listen in as we inquire in which story does each of us believe we are living? The answers we discover may surprise you—and will also begin to pave the way toward freedom from the straitjacket in which shame has bound us.
Shame and the Biblical Narrative
At the heart of all that the Bible is lies a story. Yes, a story about humans and all that we are. But even more so, a story about a God and who he is. In many ways, the bible is the story that God is telling about us. Given what we have learned thus far about how shame infects the way we tell stories to gain the upper hand, we don’t just need a better story. We need a better storyteller. Join us for this episode where we’ll see that the biblical narrative is not just some feel-good fairy tale. It’s the hardest, most beautiful story you’ve ever heard. And evil is working overtime, using shame to keep you from hearing the story that God is telling you about you—and the world of beauty and goodness in which you are to play a central role.
Shame's Remedy: Vulnerability
Hiding and isolation are hallmarks of shame. Moreover, the very notion of exposing our shame is…shaming. Who knew that the very thing that we are most fearful of—our shame being exposed—is the place we need to begin to discover shame’s healing, and to have our stories begin to be told more truly. Listen in as we talk about how, like so much of the rest of the story of the gospel, it is in our vulnerability—that very place in which our shame first took place and took shape—that lies the key to its regeneration.
Our Healing Cloud of Witnesses
For shame to be healed and our lives recommissioned, we need more than good information so we can simply appropriate it on our own as individuals. In the same way that we were made as contingent, co-regulating people who, made in God’s image, require the presence of others for our healthy growth and development, we also need a community for the healing of our shame. A community that can bear witness to our lives and provide guidance in the re-telling of our stories. Fortunately, we have a model for how to do that. Join us as we examine what it means to live truly before a body of people who help us see Jesus seeing us more truly, so that we can see ourselves in the same way.
Redeeming Shame in Our Nurturing Communities
Shame doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Shame begins in the earliest communities in which we dwell. It is to those communities we now turn to see how shame emerges there—but also what we can do to retell the stories of those communities: our families, our churches and schools. Listen in as we get to the bottom of the places where our stories begin, and begin to reimagine how God can transform them on the way to doing the same for the larger communities in which we live.
Renewing Vocational Creativity
Human beings were made in God’s image in order that we might create and curate beauty and goodness in the world, not least through all of our acts of work, whether we are paid for it or not. But evil finds any and all of that creativity to be anathema. No wonder then, that evil has no intention of using shame merely to make us feel bad. Mostly, it wields it to devour the beauty and goodness that God has had in mind for us to co-create with him from before the foundation of the world. Join us as we discover how the healing of shame was, in God’s mind, never just about making us feel better about ourselves, but rather about our joining him in the new creation that is here and is surely coming.
End of Season Q&A
We’ll review our season, take your questions, and pull it all together in this end of season episode. We won’t be ashamed if we don’t answer all your questions, though we know we wish we could.
Season Four - Trauma
Healing Trauma: Creating Beauty in the Bomb Craters of Our Lives
There are few places you go these days without being made aware that there is a thing called trauma. It has begun to take up residence in the collective social consciousness—and it’s really of little surprise that it has. From the pandemic to racial injustice to political rancor to sexual abuse in what we have assumed to be trustworthy institutions to state-sponsored violence—we are more aware of it than ever. But awareness alone isn’t enough to stop it, as is patently obvious. In this series, we want to offer hope to our listeners. Hope for those who know what trauma is up close and personal, as well as for those who may have little to no idea that they have encountered it, let alone that others have. And that hope is ultimately to be found in Jesus, who appears to have made it his mission to redeem trauma wherever he finds it. Part of that redemptive process includes our telling the story of trauma as truly as we can—so that evil doesn’t get to have the last word. We invite you to join us, and listen in as Pepper and Curt start to tell the story of trauma more truly, believing that the end of the story is far better than you can imagine.
Definitions: Encountering Trauma
What then, is trauma, exactly, and how do we understand it to be different from other wounds that we experience over the course of our lives? This much we know: although many of us are able to avoid awareness of trauma, no one avoids it altogether. It touches us as individuals and as systems, including those places we seek and expect to find refuge from it, such as our families and churches. Eventually, it extends to entire cultures where with our violence we resort to systematic cultural brutality and the support of building an empire. Fortunately for us, the Bible is no stranger to trauma, and neither is Jesus. In fact, it is his example to which we will turn over and over to discover what it means to turn our attention toward, rather than away from trauma, for it not only to be healed, but for us to be recommissioned to create beauty in its very midst. Listen in as Pepper and Curt lay the groundwork for knowing not just what trauma is, but what it begins to look like when we move from being its victims to becoming its victors.
Trauma and the Mind: Shattering Beauty
We begin our exploration of how trauma affects us at the beginning—for it is with our minds that we perceive that trauma has occurred in the first place and what its nature is. Join Pepper and Curt as we review what the mind is and how trauma affects it. Listen in as we catch the first glimpses of the effects of trauma and what we need to pay attention to as we seek its healing. We’ll see together how, if beauty is what God has intended for all of creation—ourselves included—to become, trauma is one way evil will attempt to devour that beauty before it is realized. But keep in mind that despite the ways that trauma can shatter our mind, God never runs out of options.
Trauma and the Brain: It’s Not What You Think
If the mind goes first, it necessarily will involve the brain. In this episode, we will explore how trauma affects the brain in particular—not least how it perceives our inner and outer worlds—and how being aware of this can give us clues to how our healing can begin. Join Pepper and Curt as we discover how the brain is for far more than thinking, and that paying attention to all the other things it does can usher us into the healing process in ways that we might not easily guess. Along the way, we will be reminded that even when the brain has had a tough go of it, God is always able to go one better.
Trauma and the Body: “Then the Lord God formed the man…”
To the great surprise of many, our bodies are how our minds most often and most powerfully let us in on reality. As we like to say in the business, first we sense, and only then do we make sense of what we sense. But what if our “sensing” mechanism—the body—has been the very thing that has encountered so much physical, sexual or emotional bludgeoning? Those who have experienced trauma often perceive that their bodies have been violated, and in some twisted way have also betrayed them. And then go on to keep up the bad work of continual betrayal. In this way, trauma becomes something that our bodies themselves remember in ways that we are often unaware of. What are we to do? Join Pepper and Curt as we pull back the curtain on how the body can be wounded—but also how we can begin to take the first steps toward inviting that same body can be the very source of our healing, long before we are able to imagine in in our thinking minds.
Trauma and Shame: Self-Perpetuation
Of all the things that trauma can do, its capacity for self-perpetuation is unmatched. And at the core of that experience is our neurophysiological encounter with shame. Be it the way we sense the world, or the story we tell about what we are sensing, evil will want to use shame to strengthen the experience of isolation that we feel in response to traumatic events. But God has no intention of leaving us in shame’s wake, and with the coming of Jesus—not least his own experience of trauma and the shame that it carried—we have a model for how shame can be addressed as our trauma is healed. Listen in as we discover how connection dispels shame, making it possible for us to imagine and live into life that is beyond our wounds.
Sexual Trauma
What is it about sex that seems to make everything—especially trauma—so much more difficult? Moreover, how is sexual trauma so much more debilitating than some other forms of our topic? No matter how much we would like to wish otherwise, there is just no getting around the fact that few things shatter lives more than the events of trauma that surround our sexuality. Join Pepper and Curt as we wade into this, one of the more sensitive—and beautiful—topics of this series. Sensitive because it addresses the parts of what it means to be most fragile as human beings. And beautiful because it addresses those same parts from which our greatest vulnerability and generativity spring forth. But above all else, join us because if your story is being told through the lens of sexual trauma, Jesus is at the ready to meet you to make sure that you begin to tell your story very differently.
Family and Generational Trauma
Despite our fierce commitment to individualism, trauma is far more likely to follow the way the mind has actually been made, rather than the way we have for the last several hundred years tried to pretend that it works. We would like to think that the trauma that I experience or perpetrate will only have effects on me or the ones upon whom I inflict it. But that would not be true to the way the brain works. As we will discover, what happens in one generation doesn’t’ necessarily stay in that generation. Rather, it can have the tendency to travel down ancestral lines, leaving others to pay the price for events that occurred long before they were even born. Join Pepper and Curt as we discover the steam that the train of trauma can gather over the course of generations—and what we can begin to do to stop it in its tracks.
Trauma and the Church
One thing we know about infections: some of the most difficult to treat are actually contracted inside hospitals. How is it that the place where we come to heal can also be the very place where some of our most painful experiences of trauma occur? From pastoral and spiritual abuse to sexual assault that spares no denominational traditions, that place where we would expect to be as safe as any can at times seem like just the opposite. And who would want to have anything to do with a God that would appear to turn a blind eye to such behavior? Join us as we pull the curtain back on what it means to encounter trauma in the church—only to discover that what we encounter may surprise us, especially when we find out that none of it surprises Jesus. And he is just the one we need to help us make sense out of what makes no sense at all.
Healing Trauma: The Power of Presence
If there is anything we know about trauma, it’s that it depends on disintegration and isolation to do its dirty work. And if there is anything we know about its healing, it’s that the presence of others is the beginning of integration, which leads to the creation of beauty and goodness in the face of painfully broken stories. But it’s tricky: for the very thing we need the most—the presence of loving relationships—is often the context in which our traumas have initially taken place. Listen in as Curt and Pepper talk about how we can begin to practice the presence of God and of others—the presence that we need despite our terror that it is something we won’t be able to survive.
Healing Trauma: The Wholeness of Integration
We were made to create beauty and goodness in the world. But evil has other plans, and wields trauma as a way to devour us before that goodness and beauty can be realized. But—God had other plans beyond those of evil—plans that evil never saw coming, and still doesn’t. For indeed, God’s intention is not to ignore trauma, but wade right into it and right up to it, allowing himself to be subjected to its worst possible form. And so, despite the traumatic execution by crucifixion of a prisoner from a backwater village of a now non-existent ancient empire on a non-descript Friday—we call that Friday Good because God has come not merely to be with us in our traumas, but to transform them, bringing us to wholeness, to beauty and goodness, in ways we could never imagine. Join us as we together imagine Jesus coming to find us in the bomb craters that make up the story of our lives—and as we then tell a new story of beauty and goodness that will transform our minds, and change our brains along the way.
Wrap
We asked listeners and followers what they wanted to know more about.
We received more than 40 questions seeking additional wisdom on sexual trauma, generational trauma, trauma and the church and more.
A few of the questions asked include:
How does trauma play out in our relationship with God? And how does this affect our ability to attune to God?
Can trauma cause a type of amnesia where we forget past events? And why/how does this happen?
If I already have grown children, is it too late to heal my trauma and not pass my trauma onto my kids?
Season Three - The Soul of Desire
Desire: A People of Longing
We are people of desire. And it doesn’t take much or long to know that that’s true. Our relationships and, as it turns out, our brains tell us so. But desire is a tricky thing, because as much as we know that it lies at the core of our being, it’s also something that has created no shortage of trouble for us—for as long as we have walked the planet. Just ask Adam and Eve. What does it mean for us to long for all we long for, and how do we reconcile that the very thing that fuels the deepest longings we have is also the source of so much pain and brokenness? Join Pepper and Curt as we kick off Season 3 of the Being Known Podcast, and as we begin the journey into the Soul of Desire, discovering just how much life is waiting for us—right in the center of what we may be more afraid of than anything. And just so you know—we’re longing for you to meet us there.
Beauty: Desire Made Manifest
If desire is the fuel in the tank, then where is it taking us? Yes, our longing is to be deeply, fully known. But our desire is only just beginning to get our attention. For before you know it, from watching children to watching sunsets we soon discover that our ultimate longings are directed to find their home in nothing short of beauty. We begin by making things, and the number of things we want to make is endless. But we aren’t satisfied to make mediocrity. No, we want to create beauty in all of its possible dimensions and in all dimensions of life. Moreover, we will discover in this episode that beauty isn’t a luxury, something we might get to have once we take care of all the other important work of life. No—beauty is something we were—and from God’s point of view, literally—made for. In this episode, Pepper and Curt will explore how our desire to create beauty is not just an add-on, it’s necessary if the life we want is to be realized.
Beauty: Becoming What We Create
It’s one thing to consider that beauty is what we might discover, or something we long to create. But what happens when we clue in to the fact that there’s even more? What happens when we are made aware that beauty isn’t just something we want to create—it’s something we were destined from the beginning to become? For as it turns out, to bear and restore God’s image necessarily includes bearing God’s beauty. Who knew that when God looks upon us, beauty is what he sees? Join Curt as he and the most beautiful man in the world explore together how our imaginations are reborn and our minds are renewed when we consider the destiny for which we were truly made.
Trauma and Shame: People of Grief
It takes very little to see that if longing and beauty go hand in hand, then trauma and shame are more than willing to make sure that none of that ever lasts, and in some cases makes sure no handshake ever happens. For truly, as sure as we are people of desire, we are people of grief. From our brains to the rest of our bodies, from our inner lives to our relational realities, our grief so fills our minds that we hardly notice that so much of life’s work consists of managing our grief, looking for trouble so we can head it off before it finds us. Given the brokenness and pain that seem so ubiquitous, no wonder we mostly see ourselves as problems to solve rather than beauty waiting to be revealed. Join Pepper and Curt as we unflinchingly name our grief—without forgetting that we were made for so much more.
Confessional Communities: Telling Our Stories More Truly
Trauma, shame and their healing, at their heart, take place in the context of intimate human relationships. How does participation in a confessional community create space for the healing we are seeking to emerge? In this episode, Pepper and Curt explore these ideas and more, inviting you to begin to imagine how being part of a vulnerable community not only makes possible the healing and vocational recommissioning we are hungering and thirsting for, but does so in a manner that simultaneously grounds and strengthens our formation as spiritual creatures like few other practices do. Listen in as we discover how confession is about so much more than sin, and what happens when men and women, together—that’s right, we’re going to talk about sex!—commit themselves to creating and curating beauty, rather than devouring it. Moreover, we’ll see how this takes place, surprisingly, in the very presence of their trauma and shame, and not in their absence.
Imagine That: Looking at What We Don’t Yet See
The emergence of beauty and goodness in our world requires that we first imagine it to be so. But trauma and shame shatter and atrophy our imagination, leaving us fearful of imagining, let alone naming the beauty and goodness we long for. For new creation to dawn, it must be led by our willingness to imagine a world we cannot yet see. Moreover, once we catch our first glimpse of a newly imagined future, making it more permanent requires lots of practice. And that practice requires perseverance, because if we want our imagination to wire for beauty and goodness, we much repeatedly fire it to do so. Join Curt and Pepper as we imagine with you what beauty and goodness can become, and how the people who take the stage in the biblical narrative know exactly how hard it is to imagine a world that they have never seen before.
Dwell
To remain in one place while not being continually entertained or stimulated from something outside ourselves is increasingly difficult. But if we are to become outposts of beauty and goodness—like any artist—we must be willing to remain in the presence of others and of ourselves, over and against our impulse to run away as quickly as we can to reduce our distress as expeditiously as possible. Join us as we delve into the heart of Psalm 27:4 and discover how dwelling is a necessary step in becoming aware of our longings and our griefs, as well as those of others, and how staying put—as odd as it initially might seem—is the first step in our movement toward flourishing. But not only this. For we will see how dwelling “…in the house of the Lord all the days of my life…” is so much more than you might have imagined.
Gaze
It requires little effort to gaze upon a brilliant sunset. But what about our trauma? What about the parts of us that we hate the most? Who wants even to glance at that, let alone gaze upon it? But as we will see (no pun intended), it is when we take the time, by dwelling, to look upon our wounds in the presence of others—and do so long enough to fully take them in—that we begin to experience what new creation not only looks like, but what it feels like in our bodies as our souls are renewed.
Inquire
First, we dwell. Then we gaze. But eventually, these states of mind lead to our inquiring, asking questions with curiosity and without condemnation. We live in a world that rarely creates space for such inquiries. But we will see that the questions we explore in this episode are the ones that God has already asked of us—and will continue to ask as he enables us to collaborate with him in creating and becoming the beauty and goodness that he has imagined before the foundation of the world.
Practicing For Heaven: A People of Beauty
What happens when we faithfully practice dwelling, gazing and inquiring within the confessional community—within the house of the Lord? As it turns out, nothing short of the emergence of beauty and goodness within the community itself, the very place where the hard work of hope is done. Goodness and beauty that then spills out into every other domain of life that the members of the community occupy. Furthermore, the very hard work that happens in the community—unlike Las Vegas—does not stay in the community, but extends through the lives of the participants to become the artistry of new creation wherever their footfalls land, be be that in their family, their place and form of occupation, their friendships and their churches. Join Pepper and Curt to find out what glimpsing into heaven might be like—God’s heaven that is already here and is surely coming.
Season Two - Domains of Integration
Be Ye Whole… Integration and the Symphony of New Creation
What does it mean to flourish — to be whole even as our Father in heaven is whole? And how does becoming acquainted with the mind’s domains of integration help us get there? Join Pepper Sweeney and Curt Thompson as they explore the notion of integration and why it matters so much — to everything.
Are You Paying Attention?
Awake. Alert. Attuned. Join Pepper Sweeney and Curt Thompson as they start at the beginning, exploring the domain of consciousness, and discovering why paying attention to what you’re paying attention to matters so much. Because if you don’t begin with consciousness, there won’t be as much to your ending as you would like.
“And he formed the man from the dust of the earth…”
Dirt. Mud. Bodies. God began with bodies, and the vertical domain of the mind reminds us that if we aren’t paying attention to our body (that’s right, our body) there will be a great deal of life — not least our relationship with God and others — that we’ll miss. Join our conversation as we awaken to why the triune brain is so much more than just three-part harmony.
You’re Right. You’re Left. And In That Order.
Who’s in charge here? As it turns out, the way the right and left hemispheres of the brain work says a lot about how we answer that question. And, be assured, that’ a question that we need to answer — whether we know it or not. Listen in as Pepper and Curt introduce the horizontal domain of the mind, and why, as it turns out, it really is important for the right hand to know what the left hand is doing.
Remembering the Future
What is memory when it comes to the brain? When it comes to time? And when it comes to relationships? And how is it that our memory has as much to do with the future as it has to do with the past? Moreover, what does it have to do with changing our past and our future? These are all important questions, so…don’t forget to tune in as Pepper and Curt try to recall the domain of memory. (Did you see what we did there?)
What’s Your Story?
Storytellers. That’s what we are, and we can’t get away from it. But just how truly do we tell them? It turns out that, just as important as the story you tell, is how you tell it. And that makes all the difference. Join us as we explore the narrative domain of integration, and discover the interpersonal neurobiology of attachment. We can assure you: After you’ve listened in, you’ll have quite a story to tell.
Your Mind’s State of Affairs
Who knew that what state of mind you’re in really does, scientifically, refer to more than New York. Join us as we discover the state domain of integration, and learn that it’s not only important to be aware of which state we’re in, but why so much of our troubles — and the potential for beauty and goodness — is to be found in moving from one state to another. And we don’t mean moving to Pennsylvania.
Life Would Be So Much Easier…
…if it weren’t for… people. Or would it? As it turns out, our minds depend far more on the minds of others than we may know. But once we do know, we’ll see why it’s not good for any of us to be alone, and why loving our enemies as much as our friends isn’t just a noble idea pulled off the pages of an ancient religious text. In this episode, come explore with us the interpersonal domain of integration, and see why we so desperately need each other if flourishing is what we seek.
It’s Only a Matter of Time
We humans, as far as we can tell, are the only creatures to occupy a temporal domain of mental activity — the perceived awareness of our past and our future, and most importantly, that we will die. How does our awareness of time shape our mind, for good or for ill, and how does that awareness potentially prime us to be agents of beauty and goodness on the earth? Join Pepper Sweeney and Curt Thompson as we explore the notion of time — and we try not to lose track of it in the process.
We Didn’t Make This Up
Like all spiritual disciplines, when we attune to the eight domains of integration we have already introduced, transformation ensues. Not by might. Not by power. But by the Spirit of God. You might think we’re kidding. But when you listen in as we explore the transpirational domain of the mind, you’ll see that, even though the word—transpiration—is one that is made up, what it points to is far from make believe.
That’s a Wrap
Join Pepper and Curt as we recapitulate Season 2 of the Being Known Podcast. And, no, “recapitulate” isn’t one of the domains of integration. But if we come up with another one, that’s what we’ll name it. The domain of recapitulation.
Season One - Being Known
Episode 01: Being Known
Join host Pepper Sweeney and psychiatrist Curt Thompson as we together awaken to the journey of being fully known.
Episode 02: Longing and Beauty
We are people who long to be known — that, together, we may create beauty in the world. But, could it be that beauty is not only what we long to create, but also what we are destined to become?
Episode 03: Vulnerability
To be vulnerable is not first something we choose. It is something we are. In this episode, we explore how our vulnerability opens the door for hope, healing and creativity.
Episode 04: Story
One thing that makes us uniquely human is that we are storytellers. But in what story do you believe you are living? Believe us, how you answer that question changes everything.
Episode 05: Anthropology and Plausibility Structures
What does it mean to be human, and who decides the answer to that question? Listen to find out why those questions are so important, and how “…standing at the crossroads and asking for the ancient paths — where the good way lies…” can help us answer them — even if there are a lot of syllables in this episode’s title.
Episode 06: Mind
What is the mind? And if we answer that, what does a flourishing mind look like? And if we answer that, what does it mean to love God with all of it?
Episode 07: Emotion
What are you feeling, and where do you feel it? Join us as we discover why emotion is so critical to life — and regulating it is even more so. And while we’re at it, we’ll also see why it’s so important to God.
Episode 08: Neuroplasticity
Learn what it means for our minds to be renewed. Literally. And how our brains can change along the way. And, best of all, discover that we don’t have to be left with the stories we have told ourselves.
Episode 09: Wrap
Join us as we recap this first season of Being Known — and all the new words Pepper has learned.