Episodi
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Have you ever longed to be seen and known as the person you truly are? To share anything with someone and know that you’ll be understood, accepted, and validated?
Emotional responsiveness is the single most essential ingredient of human relationships. Our relationships are built and sustained through emotional intimacy, and the feeling that someone is interested in taking time to listen and truly understand our experiences. But what happens if your parents were distant or emotionally unavailable? How did this impact you as a child? And how do these experiences continue to impact you as an adult?
To start off our new series “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” I talk about what emotionally maturity is (before talking about what it isn’t). This episodes highlights 15 characteristics of an emotionally mature person. I also talk about one possible reason why so many parents today are emotionally immature, and why emotional and spiritual maturity cannot be separated.
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Although we’re used to thinking of adults as more mature than their children, what if some children come into the world, and within a few years, are more emotionally mature than their parents?
In this next Faith & Feeling’s podcast series called “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” we’re going to talk about the ways that emotionally immature parents impact their children’s lives. Through these episodes, you’ll discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion that come from having a parent who refuses emotional intimacy. You’ll also gain some insight into possible reasons why your parent’s emotional development stopped early.
My hope is that these episodes will bring clarity and relief as you see that what you’ve been though has caused you to have these feelings. That you’re not the only one. And that it makes sense.
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Episodi mancanti?
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Why does God sometimes feel so far away? The reason for this could be your attachment style.
We all experience moments when God's love and presence are tangible. But we can also experience feeling utterly abandoned by God. Why? In this episode, I talk about how your early childhood experiences and attachment (or emotional bond) that you developed with your primary caregivers can influence your relationship with God.
Some of us have parents that make imagining a loving Father more difficult, and some of us have parents that make it easier. I describe each of the 4 attachment styles and explore how each style — developed from a pattern that we learned as children to maintain closeness with our primary caregivers — often translates to how we seek to maintain closeness with God. I also talk about 4 kinds of spiritually (secure, anxious, shutdown, and shame-filled) that can result from each of these 4 attachment styles. In other words, how might someone with a secure attachment experience God? How might someone with an anxious attachment experience God?
Get Faith & Feeling's weekly resource emailWhen Your Spiritual Growth Feelings Frustratingly Slow with Chip Watch this episode on YouTubeGrab a copy of my book Stop Saying I'm FineConnect with me on my website Find me on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ -
Do you get easily dysregulated? Or struggle to get back to a regulated state when you are dysregulated?
There’s a reason for that. In this episode, I connect your present experiences of dysregulation to your relationship — or attachment — with your primary caregivers when you were growing up. You’ll see how the emotional environment that you were raised in, and the ways that your parents interacted with and responded to you, shaped the way your brain learned to regulate emotions. I also talk about what secure attachment is, how to know if you developed a secure attachment bond as a child, how the presence or absence of this bond is directly linked to to your ability to self-regulate (and reach out for help) today.
Get Faith & Feeling's weekly resource emailWhen Everything Seems Out of Sorts with David Floge, LPC Watch this episode on YouTubeGrab a copy of my book Stop Saying I'm FineConnect with me on my website Find me on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ -
We all have deep and inherent need for love and acceptance.
But, as children, what happens when unconditional love and acceptance were not freely given? In small ways, many of us learn that a “packaging of self” is what is necessary to find approval and affirmation in the eyes of others. As we begin to develop and experience life in the context of our closest relationships and social circles, we learn that we are liked and accepted by constructing a version of ourselves that puts us in the most flattering light. Maybe if we help enough. Self-sacrifice enough. Do all the right things. Maybe then we will be loved.
In this conversation with a family friend, Ellen, she shares a recent story of dysregulation, triggered by a childhood belief that equated being perfect with being loved. She shares her own journey of growing in self-awareness, untangling this belief from her story, and learning to rest in the unmerited favor of God.
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I think everyone could testify to how imperceptibly incremental our spiritual growth can feel in some areas of our lives.
If you’re like me, you often feel a disconnect between the theology that that you believe and the reactions that leak out of you in everyday life. Even though you know something is true in your head, it doesn’t seem to be shaping your heart or steering your hands. Sometimes you feel defeated because you don’t like how you’re acting, what your response was, or the way you sounded. But you don’t know how to change. You wonder if you’re doing something wrong. You wonder why God is working transformation into your life so frustratingly slowly.
In this conversation with a family friend, Chip, he shares a recent story of dysregulation that puts words to all of these tensions so beautifully. We talk about what initiated a deep inner change in his life five years ago (after decades of following Jesus and years in full-time ministry), and he models how true spiritual growth and emotional maturity often begin with getting to know your story and learning to tell it more truly.
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“We all are born into the world looking for someone looking for us, and we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives.” - Curt Thompson, MD
But we all have those experiences of being unseen. Un-chosen. When care was not given. When no one came. Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to stop listening to our gut instincts. We learned to grit it out and turn off the messages of our healthy needs. We stopped crying out. We no longer asked for help because we didn’t want to be a burden on others, or we didn’t expect anyone to respond.
This conversation with my friend Kylie is just so beautiful. Through her story, she names a deep-seated belief running throughout many of our stories: asking for help doesn’t change anything. You have to do it on your own anyway. We process the ways that not asking for help can become a learned trait, and when carried into adulthood, fuel patterns of striving, exhaustion, and inadequacy. We also talk about the ways that Kylie is learning to trust in God’s rest, responsiveness, and delight.
Get Faith & Feeling's weekly resource email Watch this episode on YouTubeGrab a copy of my book Stop Saying I'm FineConnect with me on my website Find me on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ -
What happens when the circumstances of life force you to grow up too quickly & shoulder a weight of responsibility or caretaking far beyond your developmental age? When our bodies carry the story of an interrupted adolescence into adulthood, how can this kind of trauma impact us? And how do we begin to heal?
In this conversation, my friend Jonathan shares a recent experience of dysregulation: a chest-tightening, drowning sensation when too many people around him needed too many things. Together, Jonathan and I process how this everyday moment with his family strikingly paralleled some of his childhood experiences, and he names the longing inside so many of us with similar stories: “Can someone just take care of me?”
We talk about what he wishes he could tell his younger self, and how the way we are in our bodies tells the story of who we’ve been up to this point in our lives.
Check out Jonathan's book: Digging in the DirtGet Faith & Feeling's weekly resource email Watch this episode on YouTubeGrab a copy of my book Stop Saying I'm FineConnect with me on my website Find me on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ -
How we walk into a room will always carry evidence of our formation.
The way we act, if we get big or small, whether our voices soften or louden, if our shoulders hunch or straighten, whether we anticipate acceptance or brace for unbelonging...it all tells a story. A story about something we’ve lived.
In those moments when it feels like you don’t fit in and that shame-filled question wells up inside, “why can’t I just be normal like everyone else?”, there’s always a deeper question: what is your definition of “normal”? Where did it come from, and when did you learn that you did not meet that standard?
This conversation with my friend Amina is just so beautiful. Through her story, she shows us that when we read rejection into a room, it’s roots can often be traced to pivotal moments of self-rejection in our childhoods that are still living inside of us today. Together, Amina and I process what it really looks like to belong, when to trust the invitation of others, and how to walk into a room as your own friend.
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We are in a series on Faith & Feelings all about emotional dysregulation. Another way to describe this term is the inability to control your insides. It’s those moments when everything seems out of sorts. All of us experience emotional dysregulation, but so many of us can get dysregulated without even realizing it.
Whether it looks like exploding or imploding, whether it feels like getting really angry or shutting down, dysregulating moments always point to something deeper. Something that needs to be noticed, named, and processed inside of us. How do we begin to notice & listen to what are bodies are trying to tell us?
In this conversation with licensed therapist David Floge, we talk about what emotional dysregulation is, what it can feel like in our bodies, and practical ways to self-regulate. This conversation is such a fun combination of clinical insight and personal experience. My hope is that you’ll find it practical (and you’ll also laugh, because some of the stories that David and I share are really funny!).
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Few things impact your minute-to-minute—life more than emotional dysregulation.
Another way to describe this term is the inability to control your insides. It’s that unexpected spiral into anger, anxiety, or insecurity. It’s what happening inside of you during that unsettling relational interaction. It’s what’s going on when you burst into tears over losing your keys, or emotionally shut down when you feel like an outsider at a social gathering.
A huge misconception about emotional dysregulation is that these overblown or shut-down reactions happen out of nowhere. When we mistake them for isolated events, we may feel embarrassed or perhaps a little perplexed, so we just keep going. We rush past them without a second thought, or we try to move on as fast as possible.
However, when big and seemingly illogical emotions, reactions, or behaviors come up in response to something, I’m learning that wisdom looks like slowing down and getting really curious about why we responded that way. There is always a reason why. In this episode, I highlight two key reasons why processing our own moments of dysregulation, and understanding the deeper story, is essential for our spiritual growth and emotional health.
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Have you ever walked away from a conversation or situation, feeling bewildered or embarrassed, and thought to yourself, “Why on earth did I do (or say) that?”
We all have those disproportionate emotional responses to situations that typically wouldn’t affect us in such dramatic ways. You know in your head that your reaction was not rational, but your body was living out a different story. The counseling world has a term for these responses: emotional dysregulation. Many of us don’t realize that these revved-up reactions tell a story—a story about something we’ve lived. They point to a deep-seated something that has gone unaddressed in our hearts.
In our next podcast series called “Why On Earth Did I Do (Or Say) That?”, I’ll be inviting several guests to share a recent story of dysregulation…and together, we trace the deeper story. My hope is that these conversations will create a greater awareness, compassion, and curiosity about your own moments of dysregulation, and what might be underneath.
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Sometimes suffering lasts…and where is God in this? How do we find joy, hope, and love when life becomes undone?
When life doesn’t make sense, we need a theology of suffering that helps us expand to hold the brokenness & beauty of our world together. Over the last few months, we’ve been hearing from 8 wise, kind, and deeply authentic people about their stories of pain & sorrow, and what they’ve been learning about hope, lament, joy, and courage when life get really hard. In this episode, I wrap up our “When Life Doesn’t Make Sense” series by sharing some of my reflections on the ways hardship shapes us, why the story we tell about our suffering matters, and how lament invites us back to a place of belonging in the bigger story that God is telling with our lives.
*Some of the concepts of this episode were taken and adapted from The Theology and Psychology of Suffering by Tyler Staton.
Last week's episode: The Things My Eating Disorder Taught MeGet Faith & Feeling's weekly resource email Watch this episode on YouTubeGrab a copy of my book Stop Saying I'm FineConnect with me on my website Find me on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ -
Over the last 6 years of recovering from an eating disorder, I’ve known one thing to be true: mental health struggles are difficult to describe, and they can be exhausting to live with. It’s a daily waking up to an inner battle that can be overwhelmingly unnoticed by others, and there is a certain strength that is required to endure pain that lingers, especially when it’s unseen.
As we wrap up our second podcast series “When Life Doesn’t Make Sense,” I share one of my stories when life hasn’t made sense: receiving an eating disorder diagnosis. Whether your story holds a similar diagnosis or a different kind of addiction/mental health struggle, or if you’re listening on behalf of a loved one, this episode is for you. I put some words to what mental health struggles can feel like, what my recovery journey has looked liked, and what my eating disorder has taught me along the way. I hope you’ll listen in.
*In this episode, I mention suicide/suicidal ideation. If you’re thinking about suicide and need to talk to someone, call or text 988. If you are worried about someone, you too can call or text 988 to get resources. Remember: you matter. Please listen with care.
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I recently heard loneliness described as “an agonizing hunger.”
It is possible to be in a room full of people and to feel more lonely than if the room was empty. It is to be unseen. And being unseen by those close to you is, in some ways, worse than having no one see you. This form of loneliness has a name: emotional loneliness, and can be experienced by anyone, regardless of your marital status.
In this episode, my friend Carley joins me to share about her experience of emotional loneliness, woven throughout her story of singleness. By inviting us into the ache of this story, Carley beautifully extends an invitation to all of us: that the very place where we feel most deeply alone is where we can most fully receive the welcome of God. I hope you’ll listen in.
Get a copy of Lindsey Gibson's book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature ParentsLearn more about Richard Schwartz's books No Bad Parts & You Are the One You've Been Waiting ForGet Faith & Feeling's weekly resource email Watch this episode on YouTubeGrab a copy of my book Stop Saying I'm FineConnect with me on my website Find me on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ -
Have you ever poured out your feelings to God, before editing your words?
So many of us have internalized a narrative that stuffing down our emotions is strength. As children, we may have witnessed how “being fine” was praised and celebrated…and in some Christian contexts, even called spiritual maturity. So, we grew into adulthood having learned to disconnect from our own inner cries.
In this episode, my friend Lauren joins me share about a recent miscarriage. By inviting us into her own grief and pain, she beautifully models why we have to let ourselves notice, name, and feel our emotions. It is the cost of being emotionally alive. It’s the cost, even, of holiness. Pouring out our big feelings to God is how we experience his presence in our pain. This takes tremendous courage. But, as Lauren helps us understand, unless we make space for our emotions, we cannot know the depths of God’s love. I hope you’ll listen in.
Check out Lauren's books Unstacking Your Grief Tower and What Made That Feel So Hard?Learn more about the organization that Lauren founded TCK TrainingGet Faith & Feeling's weekly resource email Watch this episode on YouTubeGrab a copy of my book Stop Saying I'm FineConnect with me on my website Find me on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ -
The image of the family is so deeply imprinted onto us: pressed into our minds, hearts, and sense of who we are in the world. What do we do when our families are sources of pain or confusion… or worse, harm, neglect or abuse? In this episode, my friend Ashley joins me to share about a painful relationship with a parent. She puts words to the long-lasting impact that absent or abusive parenting can have on our relationships with ourselves, others, and God.
Ashley sifts through these experiences with such wisdom, care, and surprising gentleness, inviting us into her own internal process of making sense of her childhood, naming how she’s been wronged, and offering compassion to the younger versions of herself who ached to be safe, held, and loved. She bears witness to the costly pursuit of learning and unlearning ways operating in the world that are no longer necessary, and of trying to live between the love you understood and the love that every child deserves. I hope you’ll listen in.
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What do you do when it feels like God broke His promise to you?
Grief and pain come to us all, and sometimes they come through shattered dreams: when life crumbles, and with it, the God you thought you knew. In the disorientation and confusion of what grief can be, we can experience a death without a funeral. Those unseen, unclear deaths of ideals, expectations, hopes, and even versions of ourselves.
In this episode, my friend Melissa joins me to share her about her family’s move to Togo, West Africa as missionaries…in which they staked everything they had…to the excruciating decision to return to the US just a few years later. She puts words to the visceral feelings of failure, shame, and not-enoughness that can surface when your whole world “dies.” By guiding us through her own messy, interior journey, Melissa beautifully models how staying awake to these deaths can be the crucible in which new life and spiritual wholeness is birthed. I hope you’ll listen in.
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What do we do when something unexpected happens, and life suddenly curls up into the frightening mark of a question? When we’re standing on shifting ground, how do we live this question well?
In this episode, my friend Iris joins me to share about an injury during high-school that nearly resulted in the loss of her leg. She puts language to the panic, powerless, and self-contempt that can come when something happens in our lives that we would never choose. With gracious honesty and gentle humor, Iris helps us understand how being transformed into a person who experiences the Shepherd as near and kind begins by practicing a a more compassionate posture towards the darkest parts of yourself and your story. I hope you’ll listen in.
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I often wonder if, in our Western context, we’ve so fused the American dream with the risen Christ that when suffering enters our lives and does not leave quickly, all we know how to do is hide, judge, or despair. Prolonged, continual experience of weakness, pain, or loss often places us in a position that feels vulnerable and unsteady. How do we keep on living with pain that has no foreseeable ending?
In this episode, my friend Jenn joins me to share about her husband, John’s, cancer journey. While suffering can cause us to question God’s nearness, Jenn bears witness to the truth that living with pain that lingers can mean more fully receiving God’s presence that lasts. I hope you’ll listen in.
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