Episodes
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How do we respond to trauma that happens on a community level? I (Eleni) was deeply inspired by this conversation with Fr. Paul Abernathy about trauma as a collective experience, and how community itself is a transformational element in the healing process. Fr. Paul is the pastor of St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church, an author, a husband, a father, a veteran, and the founding CEO of the Neighborhood Resilience Project in Pittsburgh. Under Fr. Paul’s leadership, innovative grass-roots strategies have been created and implemented to address acute, historical, transgenerational and complex trauma on a community level.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* The origins of the Neighborhood Resilience Project in the Hill District of Pittsburgh
* What the Trauma-Informed Community Development model is and why a community-based approach made sense
* Cities resemble a human mind — just as we often dissociate from emotions or experiences that are associated with trauma, certain neighborhoods or groups of people can also be “cut off”
* The wound of radical individualism and the foundational Christian emphasis on relationship
* “Never enter this pain alone” — the communion of the saints and how the Church offers us an image of interdependence that can protect us from burnout and despair
* How the current emphasis on healthy boundaries is helpful, but incomplete — we also need healthy connection
* Two questions to ask when we are helping another: How do I love this person? And who will love this person when they leave me?
* The virtue of otherworldly hope — change is always possible
* Remembering the lives of the saints as stories of radical change, and how this impacts Fr. Paul’s interactions with the people he serves through the NRP
* Christ sees us in our potential
* A Virtuous Cycle — If trauma can set off a cascade of harmful effects, then compassion and care has its own ripple effect towards the good
Resources and links mentioned:
* The Prayer of a Broken Heart: An Orthodox Christian Reflection on African American Spirituality by Fr. Paul Abernathy - available from Ancient Faith Press
* Neighborhood Resilience Project Website
* “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by John Donne
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
Today we sit down with Dr. Pia Chaudhari Cameron about the place of the unconscious in the life of faith and healing. We also discuss the poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver.
Pia holds a doctorate in theology from the department of Psychiatry & Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She is the author of Dynamis of Healing; Patristic Theology and the Psyche (Fordham University Press 2019), as well as numerous articles, including on marriage and theosis, the unconscious and prayer, and healing and the Theotokos. Her research interests include theological anthropology, depth psychology, processes of healing, the feminine, aesthetics and beauty. She has trained and worked extensively in Jungian psychoanalysis.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In an amazing synchronicity, Pia was visiting our little Ontario city the week before we were scheduled to record this interview and we got to have coffee with her in person!
In this episode, we talk about:
* Depth psychology, an approach to therapy that takes the unconscious into account
* How does the unconscious fit into Eastern Christian understandings of what it means to be human?
* Ann Belford Ulanov’s contributions to depth psychology into conversation with Christian spiritual frameworks
* The paradoxical tension between suffering and the potential for deeper meaning, and the ongoing dialogue between conscious and unconscious, ego and self, as the place where healing can begin
* True aliveness requires a proper, life-giving connection with our human will rather rather than the abolition of it
* Eros as a love that propels us out of and beyond our selves toward the other
* The difference between the felt experiences of jealousy and envy, and the dangers of moralizing them in unhelpful ways
* Poem: “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
Resources and links mentioned:
* Pia Chaudhari Cameron, Dynamis of Healing: Patristic Theology and the Psyche (Fordham University Press, 2019)
* Quote from St. Macarius: “The heart is a little vessel. And yet there are dragons, and there are lions, the poisonous beasts, and all the treasures of wickedness, and there are rugged ways, and precipices. In like manner there is GOD, there are the angels; there is the life and the kingdom; there is the light, there are the treasures of grace: there are all things.” (Spiritual Homilies 18.9)
* Ann Belford Ulanov, The Unshuttered Heart: Opening Aliveness/Deadness in the Self (Abingdon Press, 2007)
* David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Eerdmans, 2003)
* Icon of the Creation of the Plants (15th c., Monastery of Sucevita, Romania)
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Nicole: www.nicoleroccas.com
* Eleni: www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
Missing episodes?
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Heads up: this episode discusses sexual abuse and spiritual abuse within the Church. Please be kind to yourself.
Today we sit down with neuroscientist Dr. Hermina Nedelescu for a wide-ranging and deeply important conversation about clergy sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, institutional complicity, and what healing and accountability might look like within the Orthodox Church. We discuss the neurological relationship between abuse and addiction, and why traumatic experiences often shape behaviors in ways that are misunderstood morally, pastorally, and spiritually.
Hermina also shares about her path toward advocacy for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and the founding of Prosopon Healing, an organization devoted to survivor support, education, accountability, and cultural change within Orthodox contexts.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
We also talk about:
* Neuroscience and the evolving theological conversation on what it means to be human
* The neurological connections between abuse and addictions
* Hermina’s path to advocacy for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and the founding of Prosopon Healing
* Why is disclosure so extraordinarily difficult for sexual abuse survivors
* How does the narrative of “one bad apple” diminish our solidarity and shared responsibility to prevent abuse and protect each other
* Spiritual abuse and how it paves the way for other kinds of abuse, including sexual abuse, within church communities
* The use of power in church communities and how Christ described the appropriate use of power
* “Seeing the plank” in our own eye – Becoming more aware to our own complicity and choosing differently
Resources and links mentioned:
* Nicole Lyon Roccas, “Not Everything is Beneficial: Fr. Seraphim Rose and the Nature of Complicity” (May 12, 2026)
* Article: Emily M. Hicks et al., “Decoding the Transcriptomic Signatures of Psychological Trauma in Human Cortex and Amygdala,” October 23, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.23.619681.
* Prosopon Healing:
https://www.prosoponhealing.com/
* The Betrayal Bond by Patrick Carnes
https://www.drpatrickcarnes.com/the-betrayal-bond
* The Milgram Experiments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
* “Descent Into Light” Podcast by the Sisters of the Little Way
https://www.sistersofthelittleway.com/podcast
* Predators by Anna Salter
https://enoughabuse.org/get-the-facts/predators-pedophiles-rapists-and-other-sex-offenders/
* Poem: Please Call Me By My True Names By Thich Nhat Hanh
Other resources about spiritual abuse and clergy sexual abuse:
Some of these resources pertain to these issues in broader Christian or religious contexts. Those produced by/for Orthodox contexts are listed first and marked with an asterisk (*).
* “Resources for Survivors.” Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) website. (https://snapnetwork.org/resources-for-survivors/). May 11, 2026.*
* “Services for Survivors,” Prosopon Healing.*
* “Ongoing Research: Clergy-Perpetrated Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Church,” Prosopon Healing (2024).*
* “Parish Ministry Resources - When The Unspeakable Happens,” Ellen Gvosdev, OCA.org (1994).*
* For Orthodox clergy: “Role of Leadership in Clergy Sexual Misconduct Cases.” Prosopon Healing.*
* “The Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse Perpetrated by Leaders or Other Adults in Religious Organizations in Australia,” Gabrielle R. Hunt et al., Child Abuse & Neglect 155 (September 2024).
* Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church, Diane Langberg (2020).
* “Researchers Reveal Patterns of Sexual Abuse in Religious Settings,” Ualberta.ca (2020).
* Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores, Diane Langberg (2015).
* “What Is Clergy Sexual Misconduct? - MCC Abuse Response & Prevention,” Abuse Response & Prevention (March 6, 2025).
All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Connnect with Nicole and Eleni:
* Find Nicole on Substack Nicole M. Lyon Roccas or her website (www.nicoleroccas.com)
* Find Eleni at
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections
The Re-Creation podcast is a show about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
What can we learn from veterinary science about healing the fragmentation between humanity and creation?
In the second installment of this two-part episode (Part 1 here), we sit down with Jesse Alexis Blum Vallecillo, a veterinary doctor based in Arizona, to discuss how her work gives her a unique vantage point on the broken and blessed interrelationships between humanity, creation, and all the creatures God has made to play therein.
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* How Jesse wound up an Orthodox Christian and practicing veterinary doctor
* The mysterious nature of how creation unfolded in the beginning
* Telling the bees and other ancient traditions that remind us of man’s interrconnection with other creatures
* Examples of brokenness in the behaviour patterns of animals (and their human caretakers) and what to do with them emotionally and spiritually
* Examples of how humans have laboured lovingly with animals to make the most of God’s gift of creation
Other resources and links mentioned:
* Nicole’s Weekly Writing Circle (Spring/Summer 2026): https://nicoleroccas.gumroad.com/l/iyqurh
* Poem: “The Two-headed Calf,” by Laura Gilpin
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
Find Nicole at www.nicoleroccas.com
Find Eleni at www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com
Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
What can we learn from veterinary science about healing the fragmentation between humanity and creation?
In this two-part episode, we sit down with Jesse Alexis Blum Vallecillo, a veterinary doctor based in Arizona, to discuss how her work gives her a unique vantage point on the broken and blessed interrelationships between humanity, creation, and all the creatures God has made to play therein.
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* How Jesse wound up an Orthodox Christian and practicing veterinary doctor
* The mysterious nature of how creation unfolded in the beginning
* Telling the bees and other ancient traditions that remind us of man’s interrconnection with other creatures
* Examples of brokenness in the behaviour patterns of animals (and their human caretakers) and what to do with them emotionally and spiritually
* Examples of how humans have laboured lovingly with animals to make the most of God’s gift of creation
Other resources and links mentioned:
* Nicole’s Weekly Writing Circle (Spring/Summer 2026): https://nicoleroccas.gumroad.com/l/iyqurh
* Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, by Alexandra Horowitz
* Temple Grandin (mentioned) has many books on the intersection of autism, neurodivergence in humans, and animal behaviouralism. A good pace to start is Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals (2010) or Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism (1995)
* All Creatures Great and Small book series, James Herriot (1970-1992)
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
Find Nicole at www.nicoleroccas.com
Find Eleni at www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com
Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
Unseasonable weather patterns, natural disasters, and accelerating climate shifts are increasingly common. Alongside these changes, more people are experiencing environmental anxiety and even ecological trauma.
Contemporary environmental discourses can sometimes frame human beings as little more than a parasite on the planet. One notorious bumper even put it bluntly: “Care for the earth—commit suicide!” But what if the way forward requires more humanity rather than less?
What if healing our fragmented relationship with the natural world begins with reclaiming what it truly means to be human creatures living in communion with God and His creation?
In this episode, we explore the fragmented relationship between humanity and the environment with Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff, a theological writer and translator whose work sits at the intersection of Orthodox theology, liturgy, and ecology.
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* Eden as eschatology—what it was like in the beginning according to various patristic views
* What we can learn from monastic communities about creation care and stewardship
* Different threads of ancient Christian tradition regarding human connection with home and creation—indigeneity (dwelling in the same place as your ancestors lived) vs. the asceticism of exile
* Ecological trauma, environmental anxiety, and Christian anthropology
* Why does a theological approach to ecology matter to us as Christians
More about Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff’s work:
* Website: https://saltalas.com/members/dr-elizabeth-theokritoff/
* Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology (SVS, 2009)
* Article: Elizabeth Theokritoff, “Keeping This Place: Contemplative Vision and Ecological Living as Christian Witness: An Orthodox View,” Mission Studies 41 (2024), 388–411.
* “Keeping This Place: An Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff,” Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery’s Essays & Notes 22-2 (Fall 2025), 7-11.
Other resources and links mentioned:
* John Zizioulas, Remembering the Future: Toward an Eschatological Ontology (Sebastian Press, 2023)
* Olivier Clement, On Human Being: A Spiritual Anthropology (New City Press, 2002)
* Chrysopigi (Golden Font) Convent (Chania, Crete)
* Monastery of Timios Prodromos (Anatoli of Larissa, Greece)
* Gerard Manley Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
Find Nicole at www.nicoleroccas.com
Find Eleni at www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com
Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
In this episode, Eleni takes us on a late winter’s journey through one of her favourite poems, “Nous,” by Scott Cairns ( Scott Cairns) and the post-traumatic experience. What is a nous? How is learning to re-inhabit our ensouled body holy work? Why does it matter?
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
Resources and links mentioned:
* “Nous,” by Scott Cairns
* This poem comes from the book-length collection Lacunae: New Poems, by Scott Cairns (Iron Pen, 2023).
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Find Nicole at Nicole M. Roccas and www.nicoleroccas.com
* Find Eleni at Eleni Opperwall and
www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections: https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Vladimir Miskovic—neuroscientist, Orthodox Christian thinker, and co-author of Dreaming Reality—for a wide-ranging conversation on the nature of the human person. Together we explore how contemporary neuroscience and ancient Christian tradition converge in their understanding of consciousness, attention, and the layered or “nested” self, and what this might reveal about fragmentation, harmony, and healing. From St. Paul’s inner and outer self to the provocative “filter theory” of consciousness, this discussion challenges reductive materialism and invites us into a more spacious, mystical vision of what it means to be human.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* What understandings of human personhood modern neuroscience and ancient Christian anthropology share in common
* St. Paul’s language of the “inner” and “outer” self
* The model of “nested selves” and layered consciousness
* Attention, perception, and how they shape who we become
* Intrapersonal harmony as an icon of Trinitarian life
Resources and links:
* Book: Dreaming Reality: How Neuroscience and Mysticism Can Unlock the Secrets of Consciousness, by Vladimir Miskovic and Steven Jay Lynn (Harvard University Press, 2025)
* “Behind the Book” with Vladimir Miskovic
* Eleni’s article about forgiveness (here)
* Dick Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model
* The synergistic anthropology of Russian theologian Sergey Horujy (1941–2020)
* “Poetry” by Neruda
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* More about Nicole:
https://www.nicoleroccas.com/
* More about Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
In this episode, we sit down with Fr. Stephen Freeman to explore the complex and often misunderstood emotion of shame, drawing from his book Face to Face. Together we examine the crucial distinction between toxic and healthy shame, its relationship to humility and communion, and why the capacity to “bear a little shame” may be essential to becoming fully human. From the Genesis story to the Cross, from personal and pastoral experiences to contemporary therapeutic insight, this conversation asks what shame reveals about God’s intentions for us—and how it can move from rigid armor and isolation toward healing and love.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* Is there a such thing as helpful shame?
* Shame in the life of the Christian
* How shame relates to humility and repentance
* Boundaries and the nature of God
Resources and links mentioned:
* Fr. Stephen’s book, Face to Face: Knowing God Beyond Our Shame (Ancient Faith, 2023)
* Fr. Stephen’s blog: https://glory2godforallthings.com/
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
After deeply wounding experiences, the language of sin and repentance can feel fraught—or even harmful. How can we relate to our “sinner status” in a way that’s freeing rather than self-destructive? What does humility look like when it supports wholeness instead of self-erasure, and how do we discern what we are truly responsible for versus what belongs to others?
In this episode, we explore these questions and more with Dr. Peter Bouteneff, Professor of Systematic Theology at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, author of How to Be a Sinner: Finding Yourself in the Language of Repentance, and host of the podcast Luminous: Conversations on the Sacred Arts.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
Resources and links mentioned:
* Website: Dr. Peter Boutneff https://www.peterbouteneff.com/home/
* Book: How to be a Sinner
* Podcast: Luminous: Conversations on the Sacred Arts
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Connect with Nicole: www.nicoleroccas.com
* Connect with Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
In this first episode of season 2, we reconnect after some restorative recreational time to talk about what we have been up to during our break and what we have in store for Season 2. Each of us share our favorite memories from this past Christmas season, and a couple good books that stuck with us. We also name some of our upcoming guests on the podcast, and together we look ahead to some edifying and illuminating conversations coming up in this new season of Re-Creation.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
Resources and links mentioned:
* Books Eleni mentioned:
* Sunlilies: Eastern Orthodoxy as a Radical Counterculture, by Graham Pardun
* Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg, by Emily Rapp Black
* Books Nicole mentioned:
* Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences, by Gila Pfeffer
* Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life, by Dani Shapiro
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Connect with Nicole: www.nicoleroccas.com
* Connect with Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
Welcome to our extra special “Ask Us Anything” Season 1 Finale episode! We received so many questions that we were unable to answer them in one episode, so we hope to feature a more regular “listener question” segment in future episodes to answer them all—and any others you may have in the meantime! Thank you to everyone who shared their questions and who have supported us in our first season of The Re-Creation Podcast. Have a merry Christmas and see you back here in mid to late January 2026!
Please also check out our follow up resource to the last question in this episode: “Beyond Trauma as Social Currency: A Guide to Talking about Trauma for Survivors and Helping Professionals.”
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
Question topics we respond to in this episode:
* How inter-generational trauma relates to the ongoing work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and histories
* Saints we look to as a source of comfort in our personal experiences and professional work surrounding trauma
* Approaching questions around donor-conceived IVF sensitively and with grief in mind, while also trying to understand the human-centered concerns behind the Church’s stance it on this issue
* How to approach vicarious trauma/secondary traumatic stress as parents and spouses, including birth trauma, in a life-giving way
* How useful is the concept of trauma when it’s frequently generalized—or even exploited—as social currency?
Resources and links mentioned:
* Fr. Michael Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska: A Theology of Mission (2002)
* Nicole’s posts on saints: https://nicoleroccas.substack.com/t/saints
* Mary Undoer of Knots - Byzantine Catholic Akathist and Catholic Novena
* Gayle E. Woloschak, “In Vitro Fertilization and the Beginning of Human Life” (The Wheel, 2017)
* You Look Like Me podcast series, a journalist explores the issues surrounding donor conceived people while trying to find the man who, presumably, looks like her
* Nicole’s Winter 2026 weekly writer meetups start January 8 (learn more here)
* Book rec from Nicole: Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others, by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky
* Our follow up resource to the last question in this episode: “Beyond Trauma as Social Currency: A Guide to Talking about Trauma for Survivors and Helping Professionals.”
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
More about Nicole:
https://www.nicoleroccas.com
More about Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
**(12/16/2025) ETA: Audio file corrected at 8:15AM ET**
Wrapping up our miniseries on Genesis 1-3 and the origins of trauma! When humanity fell, it sent ripples of fragmentation through the world. What was once whole and interconnected became fractured, scarce, and out of tune. In this episode, we continue tracing the lines of fragmentation that flow from the Fall by taking a closer look at the breakdown of man’s relationship to nature and to God.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* St. Jerome’s difficult personality
* More on four-fold fragmentation following the Fall (alliteration unintentional)
* Man vs. Nature: fragmentation between humanity and creation
* Nature thoughts with Werner Herzog
* Creation and its involvement in the Fall
* Man vs. God: fragmentation between humanity and God
Resources and links mentioned:
* Christopher A. Hall, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (IVP Academic, 1998)
* Christos Yannaras, “Man,” In: Elements of Faith (T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 53-88.
* Elizabeth Theokritoff, Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology (SVS Press, 2009)
* Katherine Compitus, “The Mental Health Crisis Engulfing Veterinarians,” PsychologyToday.com (November 17, 2023)
* Constantine Tsirpanlis, Introduction to Eastern Patristic Thought and Orthodox Theology (Michael Glazier, 1990), p. 50
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
More about Nicole:
https://www.nicoleroccas.com
More about Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
When humanity fell, it sent ripples of fragmentation through the world. What was once whole and interconnected became fractured, scarce, and out of tune. In this episode, we continue tracing the origins of trauma in Genesis 1–3 by introducing the four kinds of fragmentation that flow from the Fall. We take a closer look at the first two—intra-personal and inter-personal fragmentation—exploring how we become alienated both within ourselves and in our relationships with others.
Ask us anything HERE. Send us your questions by Dec 13 and we’ll include them in the last episode of this season, airing December 23, 2025!
In this episode, we talk about:
* The four-fold fragmentation following the Fall (alliteration unintentional)
* Intra-personal fragmentation - man vs. self (alienation with and within ourselves)
* Inter-personal fragmentation - man vs. man (and woman)
* Buber’s notion of I-Thou vs. I-it relationships
* St. Basil on women’s equal worth
Resources and links mentioned:
* Pseudo-Macarius, Homily 43 in The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, tr. George A. Maloney, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 219-222.
* Kyriaki Karidoyanes Fitzgerald, Persons in Communion: A Theology of Authentic Relationships (InterOrthodox Press, 2006)
* Meghan Hyatt Miller, “The Only Question That Matters About AI,” (December 6, 2025)
* St. Basil, “On the Origin of Humanity, Discourse 1,” in On The Human Condition: St Basil the Great (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005)
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
Our AMA episode airs on December 23! You have until Dec 13 to as anything—just fill out the handy form HERE. It’s quick, easy, and anonymous.
About
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
What’s up with those nice fur coats God gives Adam and Eve before they’re exiled from the Garden? Who was really cursed in the so-called curses He dishes out after the Fall? This week we’re back to the Genesis narrative, exploring what it means in the light of trauma, healing, and what it means to be human in a broken world.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
Ask us anything HERE. Send us your questions by Dec 13 and we’ll include them in the last episode of this season, airing December 23, 2025!
In this episode, we talk about:
* Winter blues
* The profound significance of the garments of skin (Genesis 3:21) for our lives, deaths, and healing
* Did women get leg hair before or after the Fall? A theological inquiry.
* The curses aka the punishments aka the consequences spelled out by a loving God.
* Introducing the fourfold fragmentation the Fall enacted: within ourselves (intra-personal); between us and one another (intra-personal); between humanity and creation; between humanity and God.
Resources and links mentioned:
* Jean Danielou, From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1979)
* Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse, Popular Patristics Series (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2019)
* Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, Life after Death (Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1996)
* Fr. Steven Freeman, Face to Face: Knowing God beyond Our Shame (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2023)
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
More about Nicole:
https://www.nicoleroccas.com
More about Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
In today’s episode, we’re still in the Garden—reflecting on the role shame and blame play after trauma, loss, and other rupture experiences in our lives.
Ask us anything HERE and we may answer your questions in the last episode of this season, airing December 23, 2025!
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* Adam and Eve’s participation in the fall and their immediate response in the aftermath
* Shame: is it ever a helpful emotion?
* Don’t conduct Zoom calls naked
* The necessity of facing our shame in community with others
* Co-regulation 🤝 self-regulation
* Fig leaves = our desperate attempt to avoid the distress of shame, guilt, and blame
Resources and links mentioned:
* Ask us anything HERE for our final episode of the season, airing Dec 23, 2025.
* Definition of shame and moral emotions found in: Piretti et al. (2023). The Neural Signatures of Shame, Embarrassment, and Guilt: A Voxel-Based Meta-Analysis on Functional Neuroimaging Studies
* Fr. Stephen Freeman, Face to Face: Knowing God beyond Our Shame (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2023)
* Eleni’s Substack article, “Winnicott, Eden, and the Relational Ground of Self: A few extra thoughts”
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
More about Nicole:
https://www.nicoleroccas.com
More about Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
Back to humanity’s Ground Zero. How do we understand Adam and Eve’s human nature before the Fall, and how does that shape the way we view both humanity and God? In this episode, we revisit this ancient story through the lens of human development and the parental love of God.
Join us as we explore the deeper meanings of the Fall – not merely a story of sin, but also a story of growth, maturity, rupture and repair.
Ask us anything HERE and we may answer your questions in the last episode of this season, airing December 23, 2025!
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* Reviewing the Genesis narrative in chapter 2: protection, connection, and freedom
* What Adam and Eve are like before the fall—and why this matters
* Adam and Eve as culpable adults vs. Adam and Eve as childlike and not yet ready
* Nicole’s thought experiment, or “don’t take candy from strangers”
* “The tree of knowledge itself was good”
* This was not God’s plan B: the Lamb slain before the foundations of the earth
* Holding two views in tension
Resources and links mentioned:
* Ask us anything google form HERE
* St. Basil the Great, On the Human Condition, edited by Nonna Verna Harrison (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005), quoted p. 51
* Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 11-14
* Apocryphal text, The Life of Adam and Eve
* Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, Book II Ch. 25
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
We return to Eden, our original home, and explore the world for which human beings were created. Coming back to the three elements of safety (protection, connection, and freedom), we talk about how the last two—connection and freedom—are crucial elements of our original human nature.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* How connection shows up in the garden
* Radical trust
* What a fetus’s favorite shape is
* Why freedom is the foundation of all love, both human and divine
* The reason ai therapists make no sense
* Fear of freedom and why risk is unavoidable in healing and growth
Resources and links mentioned:
* Part 1 of this series
* Orthodox creation icons, an example here
* Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh, Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters) (Orbis Books, 2010)
* Ronga et al., At First Sight: Fetal Eye Movements Reveal a Preference for Face‐Like Configurations From 26 Weeks of Gestation. Developmental Science, 28 (2), 2025
* D.W. Winnicott, The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship (London Press, 1960)
* Ainsworth, M., The Infant-Mother Relationship. American Psychologist, 34 (10), 1979
* Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
More about Nicole:
https://www.nicoleroccas.com
More about Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
If trauma has shaped our world, what did the world look like before trauma?
Join us as we begin our Genesis 1–3 series and discover how creation itself might be a blueprint for healing—one built on safety, connection, and freedom. Maybe the story of “the before times” can help us better understand how to reclaim what’s been broken.
Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS wherever you get podcasts.
In this episode, we talk about:
* A new miniseries about Genesis 1-3
* How Genesis 1 “starts with safety” — a world structured, ordered, and ready before humans ever arrive.
* God’s boundaries—light from darkness, sea from land—as acts of protection and containment, not division.
* Humans don’t have claws and that’s a good thing. Also parenting + relationships with our caregivers.
* Sabbath as the ultimate expression of safety: rest as a sign of a world secure enough to stop, delight, and dwell.
* What Genesis 1 might reveal about a God who creates from calm, not chaos—and what that tells us about safety as the foundation of healing.
Resources and links mentioned:
* Genesis 1-2:3 (NRSVCE)
* Donald Winnicott and object relations theory
* Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man
* Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath
* All music featured on this podcast is used in accordance with Creative Commons licenses. For a full list of the tracks we use, visit https://recreationpodcast.substack.com/p/music-featured-in-our-episodes
Let’s Connect:
* More about Nicole:
https://www.nicoleroccas.com
* More about Eleni:
https://www.eleniopperwallcounselling.com/
* Subscribe to our Substack for show notes + behind-the-scenes reflections:
Re-Creation is a podcast about trauma, faith, and mental health from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Hosts Nicole Roccas, a trauma-informed coach and author, and Eleni Opperwall, a registered therapist, explore what it means to be human after trauma through honest and hopeful conversations. Drawing on Orthodox tradition, professional insights, and personal stories, they share reflections to support healing, wholeness, and spiritual growth.
Disclaimer:This podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional mental health care.
Get full access to The Re-Creation Podcast at recreationpodcast.substack.com/subscribe - Show more
