009: Exploring the Four Landscapes of Attachment with Geoff & Cyd Holsclaw

Have you heard of Attachment Theory? Have you ever found yourself lost in the language and terminology? Have you wondered if your less-than-perfect childhood and history of abuse or trauma means you're stuck in a specific style

Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw offer simple, easy to understand language around the concept of Attachment using the visual landscapes of the Pasture, Jungle, Desert, and War Zone. By laying a foundation of joy, Geoff and Cyd explain how our capacity for intimacy and independence can help us move us toward more healthy and whole relationships.

They also share a preview of their "Repairing Distorted Defaults" session at the upcoming Broken to Beloved Conference on September 26.

If you've longed for more secure relationships and a better understanding of your interior landscape, this episode's for you.

Get the full show notes here. 📄

Episode Resources and Links

• Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend at Bookshop.org | on Amazon
• Episode 001: Navigating Toxic System and Maintaining Agency with Dr. Alison Cook
• Broken to Beloved Conference info and registration
• Broken to Beloved Gathering info and registration

Guest Spotlight

Geoff (PhD) is an author of multiple books, affiliate professor of theology at Northern Seminary.

Cyd is an author, spiritual director, and pastor. She is also a trauma-informed, Jesus-centered, integrative coach focused on embodied practices and building a secure attachment to God.

Together, they co-host the Attached to God podcast, offering a neuroscience-informed spiritual formation and are the co-author of Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With You.

Website | Cyd’s website | Geoff’s Instagram | Geoff’s Facebook

Does God Really Like Me? on Amazon

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Transcript

Geoff Holsclaw: 0:00

What we call the desert, would be high on independence but low on intimacy, which means you're kind of like your view of yourself is not needing other people. I'm a self without others, like I'm good.

Cyd Holsclaw: 0:10

Whereas the jungle, the jungle is more like I am a self needing other people. I'm not really a self if I'm not with people.

Geoff Holsclaw: 0:17

Or the jungle person is desperate for relationships, but the desert person is detached from relationships, and so part of that detachment would mean something like, I have really good boundaries, not just boundaries, but I have a wall, and it's surrounded by a moat, and it has a schedule, and I have a clock that knows just about as much time I can spend on people before I need to disappear. And so the movement from the desert into the pasture is not to have better, clearer boundaries.

Cyd Holsclaw: 0:44

I actually need less boundaries so Geoff can learn to let me in more, and to let me through his boundaries, and to make them less walls, and they actually have doors in them. And I actually learned how to put some boundaries up and say, I know that might be needed, but I'm actually going to draw a line and say you need to take care of that yourself. I'm not going to do that for you.

Brian Lee: 1:05

Welcome to episode number nine, guys. We are almost at 10 episodes, and I read somewhere when I got started that most new podcasts don't get past three episodes, and that almost 75% of all existing podcasts don't get past 10 and we already have more than that planned for you. I hope to provide practical resources through compassionate conversations to grow in trauma awareness, set up safeguarding practices to prevent or avoid future trauma and move toward healing and wholeness. I'm your host, and I'm so glad you're here. Listen today. We're talking with Jeff and Sid holzlaw about all things attachment and about what they'll be sharing at our upcoming conference. It is a fascinating conversation, and I just love talking to them. Jeff is an author of multiple books, affiliate Professor of Theology at Northern Seminary. Cyd is an author, spiritual director and pastor, and she's also a trauma informed, Jesus centered integrative coach who's focused on embodied practices and building a secure attachment to God. Together, they co host the attached to God podcast, which offers a neuroscience, informed spiritual formation, and are the co authors of the book, does God really like me? And without further ado, let's get into our conversation with our friends, Jeff and Sid. Geoff and Cyd welcome to the podcast.

Cyd Holsclaw: 2:22

Hi, thanks. It's good to be here.

Brian Lee: 2:24

It's always good to see you guys. I'm super excited because we are hosting you in Richmond for the upcoming conference, our very first one, and you are leading a session on repairing distorted defaults, which asks all kinds of questions, right there.

Cyd Holsclaw: 2:41

We could talk about repairing, distorted, yeah.

Brian Lee: 2:42

Exactly. And defaults. I've appreciated our conversations from the previous summit from I think we did a continued conversation together. Just your understanding and clarity, I think that you provide the simplicity of the way that you describe attachment theory, which has so many different I don't even know what to say, the vocabulary around it or the jargon around it. Everyone has kind of different phrases that they use, and the first time I heard you describe it, Cyd, I was like, Oh, this just suddenly makes sense for me, and I'm hoping that's what it does for the people listening today and for the people who come to the conference, access the live stream later, whatever it is. So why don't you just start us out wherever you want to repairing distorted defaults. What does that mean? Or where do you want to go?

Cyd Holsclaw: 3:26

Yeah, well, we could talk about,

Geoff Holsclaw: 3:28

I think you should do the high level summary.

Cyd Holsclaw: 3:31

All right, I'll do the high level summary.

Brian Lee: 3:33

Let's start there.

Cyd Holsclaw: 3:34

All right. So the high level summary is, you know, attachment research is fairly complex, and you can go into it with lots of different language, and there's, you know, two different streams of it, sort of the developmental understanding of it, versus the more sort of romantic or psychological understanding. Jeff and I like to talk from the developmental standpoint of like, how is child attachment with a parent actually developed, and how does that shape and form your nervous system, and then, you know, as pastors, it's going to show up everywhere in your churches, in yourself. So we have found it to be really helpful to understand attachment when we think about our pastoral ministry and how we're interacting with people in our congregation, and how we're also tending to the growth that is needed in our own hearts and minds and bodies. So to put it really simply, could talk about this all day long, but I'll try to be short, so we like to think of it as a 123, of attachment that then leads to four landscapes. So the one is that we need to have a very strong foundation of joy. And we talk about joy using a definition that Jim Wilder has offered, and that joy is the experience of being with someone who is glad to be with you. And so that understanding of joy that you can find joy even in the midst of great pain and sorrow and even in trauma if you're not a. Alone in it, and if the person that's with you is glad to be with you, like if they have the capacity to handle your emotions and whatever is going on with you, so you can experience joy, even in grief, even in sadness, even in pain. And so it's different than happiness, but it's that foundation of joy that is God's good design that we would all start out with a strong foundation of joy, and you can see that in infant research, how babies are always looking for smiling faces, and they reciprocate with smiles, and so that that foundation of joy is required in order to have the courage and to have the safety to explore two different dimensions or capacities as children develop. So that was the one. The one is the joy. The two is the different dimensions, or the capacities of both intimacy and independence. And so the intimacy is all about the relationship and being close to one another, being connected with one another, and being able to have that sense of belonging, these are my people, and the capacity to be able to be close and vulnerable and relational and connected. And then the other capacity is independence. So having the capacity to be able to go out from those relationships and explore the world and try new things, and you know, be independent and brave, knowing that you can always return back to those strong relationships. And so carrying that capacity for intimacy with you as you go and explore the world independently, and then coming back from your independent time and sharing with your intimate relationships, sort of what your independence brought. So that's the two, the two dimensions of intimacy and independence. And then depending on how strong that joy Foundation has been, the number one, and depending on how much capacity you've developed for intimacy and independence, that will lead you to these three defaults, which are basically these questions that you're asking as you're developing in the world. The first question is, is that question of, Do I have my people right? Like? So it's, are people available to me? Is the question of, like, Are people available to me? And so from that joy and intimacy and independence, if you have a strong foundation of yes, people are definitely available to me, then that will also flow into your second question, which is, will this distress that I'm currently experiencing, will it be alleviated? And so like you know, as a baby, you get your diaper changed. You get comforted when you're when you're upset, as you're older, you fall down in your scrape your knees, someone picks you up and soothes you. All of that builds into that second question of, will this distress be alleviated? And then the third question is, what do I use my agency for? Like, we all have the ability to act in the world. We all have choice. And so it's sort of like, what can I use that agency for? What is it there for? And so the way that you answer those three questions, and that's what we'll be going into at the conference, is we'll be talking more in detail about those three questions and how those three questions also map on to our understandings of faith, hope and love, and so that's where we'll be spending all the time at the conference. But the way that you answer those questions, whether you answer them with a strong Yes, people are available to me, or a maybe, people are sometimes available, but not always, or a no, I have learned that people are not available to me. The way that you answer those questions will then sort of find you living from a landscape is what we kind of think of it as, of like you will be looking at yourself and the world and your people and God through a particular lens that is shaped by those questions. And so those four landscapes, we have used shorthand descriptions because there's a lot of confusing language in the literature about what those different attachments can be called. So we wanted to make it really simple, and so we just used landscapes to describe it. So if you grew up with like, a really secure attachment, we call that the pasture you're living from the pasture that's sort of along the lines of Psalm 23 where the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. It's that sense of you're you're all set, right? You're strong, you're secure, you're that's the pasture. And then we talk about the jungle landscape, which is living from that maybe people are available, maybe they're not, I don't really know. So I have to watch everybody in my life very closely so that I always know when they're available and when they're not. That's that jungle, hyper vigilant kind of place. And then we talk about the desert, which is where you've decided no people are not available, and you sort of go through life, kind of conserving energy and taking care of yourself. And then we talk about a fourth landscape, which is the war zone. And the war zone is that place where. So you don't really have a consistent strategy that works all the time for your relationships because of active abuse or because of, you know, extreme neglect, and so that would be like, if you're familiar with attachment, that disorganized attachment would be in that war zone. So I probably talked longer than I meant to, but that is the one, oh, that was scary. And then the four landscapes, and yeah, so we thought we would go deeper at the conference. We're going to spend a lot more time on those three questions. And then the thing that's so important about all of this is that this isn't something you're doing in your head consciously all the time this actually lives in your nervous system, because we aren't born with a fully formed nervous system. And so throughout your developmental years, as you're sort of wondering about joy, wondering about, you know, working on intimacy and independence, and working on those three questions, your body is literally being shaped and formed by the experiments that you're running. So it's sort of like as a kid, you're like experimenting, and then you keep collecting data, and that data is getting stored in your nervous system and affects how you're wired, and sort of, you know how you respond to the world around you and how you think of yourself. And then, of course, that automatically maps onto our understanding of God and who God is, and what we can expect from church communities. So I'll stop talking now, because a lot.

Brian Lee: 11:33

That was incredible, but you gave us, I mean, a 10,000 foot view in, I don't know, like six minutes was just wild to map out those three defaults, the foundation, the dimensions, the four landscapes. One of the first things you said about the foundation of joy, about babies looking for that smile. And I think it's Curt Thompson, right, that says that we're all born with love someone looking for me. And it's that idea of that attunement. It's like is someone looking out for me from our earliest ages that we don't remember, but how that forms and transforms like you're saying, the way that we attach to our caregivers, to our adults, to our grown ups, to God, to each other, to our community, to our future relationships, and again, just the way that you describe that with the foundation of joy, dimensions capacity for intimacy and independence. And I really like the way that you tie those two together to ask those three questions, which then inform which of the four landscapes kind of that we inhabit, right? Exactly.

Cyd Holsclaw: 12:32

That's a great recap. Brian.

Brian Lee: 12:34

Thank you. And I didn't mean to do that, but I think it helps me to process and understand where we're Yeah, and for people who are listening, who have who maybe have never heard of attachment theory before, right? Or it's like, What in the world is this going to be? Yeah, this is so relevant for us, because it informs the way that we relate to each other, to our pastor, to our spouse, loved one, family, God, all these things. And when we've experienced abuse or trauma, that it just wrecks everything, in a way. And at the same time, we talked about this at our summit session, that you're not condemned to stay in one scan landscape for life. Is that correct? Correct? Right? Right? Yeah, you mentioned Psalm 23 with that pasture the landscape and having this secure attachment and that it's maybe not necessarily a goal that we're striving for, but it's somewhere that we can land to feel safe and secure, the four S's right scene, sooth, safe, secure. What does it look like to be there so I can recognize it if, what does it feel like in my body? Yeah, I think I found you guys because originally your podcast was called embodied faith. Right now looking for people who are talking about living a faith that's not just in my head, not just in my feelings, but how do I day to day walk this out? So what does it feel like to be in a secure attachment or in a secure relationship?

Geoff Holsclaw: 13:51

Well, I think this is where I think attachment has like an interesting perspective to add to some of these conversations, where so these two dimensions of intimacy and independence. Just think of those, like old graphs from high school or junior high, where you have to, like, plot the coordinates x, y...

Cyd Holsclaw: 14:09

Cartesian coordinate plane right?

Geoff Holsclaw: 14:11

Where you graph, like, the vertical axis would be like, the capacity for intimacy. You're gonna have high capacity or low capacity. And the horizontal axis would be independence. And sometimes other psychological models will say, well, those capacities are kind of on a single continuum, like just a vertical axis, and that you have the ability to be close to people or intimacy or depend on them, is on one side, and then on the other side you have independence. And there is kind of a history of psychological research that says something like, we begin our life in a state of dependence, where we have all of our needs taken care of by other people, and then we grow in independence so that we can take over our needs together, and the goal is independence. And John Bowlby, early on in the development of attachment theory, he had this deep intuition. That's not right, that throughout our whole life, actually have a deep connection. And this is why I use the word attachment as a positive word. It's not pathological to be attached to people. It means you're human. And so he said, You don't outgrow your attachment. And so then he started doing this research. It says what it is is you grow in your capacity to both pursue intimacy with others, and your capacity to act with the independence, not independence from, but like an independence with and for, like family systems theory, like sometimes the language would be differentiation of self, but that's not a self against or beyond others. It's just a self with others. And so I think, how do you know when you're living out of the secure pasture? It's not just, I think, the base level, is being seen, soothed, safe and secure. That is kind of like the conditions by which you're in the secure pasture. But that's not necessarily always how it feels. It's rather the question of, can I give and receive intimacy with others, and can I act independently with and for others? And is there a reciprocal relationship between those two? And I think that's the really important thing, is, can I have a reciprocal relationship, which means, can I be intimate with someone, and can I receive intimacy from some can someone be intimate with me? And usually you're kind of not really high on those coordinates. If you can only do one or the other, it's like, I don't mind when I act in Independence, but when someone else acts independently and it gets in the way of my independence, then I get upset, or the reverse, like some counselors or therapists or pastors are really good at creating a space for others to be intimate with them, but they don't end up actually reciprocating that they're never intimate or vulnerable with others, right? So that's not being reciprocal. And so I would say, you know that somebody or that you are moving toward that space when you can exercise those capacities in a reciprocal way, rather than a lopsided like either I can only receive intimacy and I can't give it, or I can only give intimacy, but I can't create a space in which someone else can, you know, receive it and then the same for acting independently. That would be my my thoughts. Cyd, what would you add, since you had lots of words around that too, yeah.

Cyd Holsclaw: 17:20

Yeah. Well, I think, I think just the whole idea of feeling free, but let me be careful in the way that I use that word, but like the freedom that comes from I can act and be in such a way that I am neither desperate for people nor detached from people, if that makes sense. And so that's sort of that like, I think the way that it can be experienced is that, you know, you might feel like, well, I do a lot of independent stuff, but is that independent stuff always toward securing a relationship, or always toward the idea of, like, I have to make sure that, you know, it's sort of that, that desperation of I have to make sure my relationships are okay. And so that's where the intimacy would be overemphasized in the point where, like, I have to always be checking and testing my relationships, always making sure that my relationships are okay. That would be sort of on a too high of intimacy without a corresponding independence. And on the other side, would be like that I always have to make sure that I am not feeling beholden to or in need or like I can't be in anybody's debt ever. I can't ever feel like I owe anybody anything, or feel like anybody needs anything from me, and that would be an over in over emphasis on the independence and what we're going for is a high capacity of both of like, I can be vulnerable and close, and I can use my agency on your behalf for you, not because I'm terrified of losing You, but because I truly want to see you flourish, right? It's a difference. It's not it's a threat to me if you're not okay, so therefore I will act to make sure you're okay, but it's I want to make sure that you are living the most beautiful life you can live, because I love you and I want to see you flourish, and so I'm going to do whatever I can to see you flourish, and I'm going to receive whatever you want to give to me for my flourishing too. I'm not going to, like, become like a martyr, or, you know, like a soldiering on no matter what, even though I never allow myself to be cared for. You know, I mean, I just had this happen two weeks ago, where, like, there's this someone in my community who is always taking care of other people, always making meals for people who are sick, always, you know, offering to help. But then it was, it was their turn to sort of fall apart and in need. And, you know, tried to say, hey. And we put together a meal train for you, and the reaction was like, no, no, I don't need anything. I'm good, really. Like, just let us do this for you. And that would be it might feel secure to be like, I'm good, I'm always okay, like, I'm always okay. But it's not actually secure attachment. It's just an over emphasis on the independence. So I think sort of looking at those markers of the intimacy and the independence can be a really good way to look at whether or not you're truly receiving other people and offering yourself to other people in a way that is because you want to offer yourself, not because you feel forced to, or it's demanded from you.

Brian Lee: 20:44

That's really helpful. So you're saying it's based kind of on, and I love the distinction there. It's not, I'm neither desperate for nor detached from, is that what you said? Correct? Yeah. Okay, super helpful. You know, our first episode was with Dr. Alison Cook, and just talking about the ability to name where we are, right and to name the experiences that we're feeling, or the thoughts that we're having, the feelings that we're having, whatever it is. So as I think through and look back on these memories that are kind of flooding me, it's trying to name those things as do I even feel like I had agency in the moment? Yeah, did I feel like I had real intimacy or independence, where a lot of times it felt very trapped, especially in one on ones with a pastor or with a church leader, whatever it is, there's such a power differential that you don't feel like you have the option to say no or to decline a request or whatever it is. And I think that word agency is so important for people who are looking for healing and wholeness from these kinds of experiences, right? That ability to act and have choice, and so Jeff, I think it was you who mentioned that reciprocal intimacy and independence where I think so often I'm thinking of the last person who I interacted in this kind of a way. They were really good at offering and listening to and drawing that vulnerability from you, but you walked away realizing like, I feel like I have a vulnerability hangover, and I know nothing about this person in return. There was no intimacy there. It was just all vulnerability on my part, and now I walk away feeling kind of dirty or like I was pumped for information that helped them feel better because, you know, quote, unquote, they helped me or they served me, but really it was kind of feeding some kind of narcissistic need, or whatever it is, right? And I think helping people to recognize what they've experienced in that kind of a way helps them to say, okay, if I'm not in a secure or pasture landscape, where am I and what is it like? What does it help us to recognize if we're in the jungle or the desert, or maybe even the word war zone, how does that help us to move forward?

Cyd Holsclaw: 22:46

Yeah, well, it, I would say, like, speaking from a pastoral standpoint, like, because, you know, I mean, our heart at the conference is to speak to pastors and leaders of church communities. I would say, as a leader in a church community, it's really helpful to know your landscape, because it defines the way that you're looking at relationships, it defines the way that you're looking at people, and it defines the assumptions you make about what everybody needs. So even as an example of this, and I don't remember if we talked about this last time we talked to you or not, but this is a classic example from Geoff and I's early marriage, so we were married for maybe a year when I stumbled across the book Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend. Right? It revolutionized my life for somebody to be able to tell me it's actually a good and healthy and even Christian thing to draw some boundaries and to say, this is where I end, and that's where you begin, and this is my territory, and you are responsible for your territory. That was huge in my life, because I needed that, because I had an overemphasis on intimacy, which allowed me to sort of bleed into the people around me and not really know where the edges were. And so that was huge work in my life, and I, as a newly married woman, was like, Jeff, you need to read this book. It's so good. It's going to change your life. It will change our relationship as a married couple. It will change the way that you do think about ministry. It's so amazing. Meanwhile, Geoff, do you want to kind of share what your perspective on boundaries was?

Geoff Holsclaw: 24:23

Yeah, I was like, I don't want to read that book, and I don't remember exactly why.

Brian Lee: 24:27

Yeah, so tell us why.

Geoff Holsclaw: 24:29

Well, I don't think early on I could have said why. I probably would have said, like, I don't need that book or that like. And in one sense, it was true, because what we call the desert would be high on independence, but low on intimacy, which means you're kind of like your view of yourself is not needing other people. I'm a self without others, like I'm good.

Cyd Holsclaw: 24:54

The jungle is more like I am a self needing other people. I'm not really a self if I'm not with people. With my people.

Geoff Holsclaw: 25:01

Well, in the language that Cyd just said that we're going to put into the book, like the jungle person is desperate for relationships, but the desert person is detached from relationships. And so part of that detachment would mean something like, I have really good boundaries, not just boundaries, but I have a wall and surrounded by a moat, and it has a schedule, and I have a clock that knows just about as much time I can spend on people before I need to disappear, right? And so the movement from the desert into the pasture is not to have better, clearer boundaries. I actually need less boundaries. And this is partly why Sid and I are so passionate about this topic is that people's spiritual journeys, and then also, like for pastors, like your pastoral style, like comes out of your attachment strategies, right? And so I didn't need to read the boundaries book, because I have really great boundaries. But someone who's in the jungle does need boundaries, and that that's partly a way of regaining their agency is to then articulate and then hold to their boundaries. And then people who are living in the jungle who don't have boundaries, when you start enforcing boundaries, then the other people in the jungle get mad, yeah? And they're like, why are you so mean, you're like, those people who live in the desert, and you're like, No, I'm on my way to the pastor, right? And so sometimes the movement into the secure pasture can feel like right, something else and so, but for me, you know, I needed to learn how to be more jungly. I need to learn how to live in the moment, let people in.

Cyd Holsclaw: 26:30

You need to learn how to let people through your boundaries.

Geoff Holsclaw: 26:34

And so I think we could say something like to live in the pasture land is to have, is to understand that boundaries are for relationships, that relationships flourish with some sort of structure, with expectations, with with boundaries that are respected. But a desert person has boundaries from relationship. My boundaries are to keep me from having relationships. That's the goal. I don't actually know how to practice intimacy. It kind of scares me. Vulnerability is overwhelming, or it's boring, you know, like all these things in the desert, and so I don't need more of those boundaries. So that's why that kind of has as Cyd and I were kind of these up. And this is typical in marriages, is to marry across these landscapes, the jungle, desert relationship is pretty typical.

Cyd Holsclaw: 27:16

But then the thing that happens is, you know, like, the longer we're married, the more we can encourage each other to try out and to, you know, move. We move to the pasture differently, but we can both be on our way there, right? So, yeah, Jeff can learn to let me in more, and to let me through his boundaries and to make them less walls, and they actually have doors in them, right? So I can get in and out. And I actually learned how to put some boundaries up and say, I know that might be something that you feel like you know that might be needed, but I'm actually going to draw a line and say, you need to take care of that yourself. I'm not going to do that for you. Yeah. And so those kinds of things you know, like and if you're serving pastorally, I used to at the beginning, when I first started serving in ministry, I would applaud people's boundaries all over the place, because I was so excited for them that they were saying no, right? And so if I asked someone like, Hey, would you be interested in being involved in this, or could you help out here? And someone would say, No, I can't do that. And I'd be like, well, good for you for knowing what you need and being able to, like, draw that boundary. But what I didn't realize is that there were some people that I was just affirming their withdrawal and their sort of like, Yeah, I'm not going to get involved, because I don't want to be at all connected. And what I was doing was celebrating their distortion of that default, right? Instead of, instead of actually moving them by saying, hey, you know, I noticed that you really like to keep to yourself, and you really like to stay on the outside, and you've been here for a while, and I wonder if there's some way that you might like to start trying to be a little bit more connected, or being a little, you know, like, that's the work for someone there, whereas someone on the other side, who's always saying yes to, can you do this? Can you Yes, I would love to. I would love to maybe, instead of being like, Great, I'll sign you up or great, I'm so glad you'll be on with us, on this team, maybe the work for that person is to say, I noticed that you're saying yes to everything. I wonder if it might be a good step for you to maybe try holding back a little bit and see what that's like, to let other people step into those spaces. And so as you think about leading the people that you're serving, it's sort of looking at where are they coming from, and what is the work for them on the way to the pasture. And it's different for different people. It's not going to look the same for everybody. And so having this awareness of what past, what landscape Am I living from as a leader, and then looking at, how can I meet this person in the landscape that they're currently in, while also, you know, helping love them into a direction that's toward the pastor, yeah, and so that's why. We think it's so important for leaders to understand this, because it changes the compassion you have for the people in your congregation. Instead of it being like a, it's not a moral failure or a conscious choice to behave certain ways, but instead it's a it's a culmination of a bunch of things. But instead of it being a judgment or a critique of someone, it becomes a curiosity of huh, how is it that you find yourself, you know, living in this space, and what can I do to show you compassion and to meet you there with kindness and grace and generosity, like we see Jesus meeting people all over the place, and then also call you into the pastor.

Brian Lee: 30:46

That's really good. And I think there's a common thread of curiosity. It seems like in the people that I speak with and work with, that it's so helpful to hear that from both a relational point of view, from your point of view as a pastor, my point of view as a pastor, just to hear about pastors, I hesitate to say leaders, shepherds, who are curious about the people that they're serving and helping. I'm trying to move away from the language of leadership and leading, because that's not what Jesus called us to, right? He said, Follow. Yeah, that's good. A lot of the early work I did centered around Enneagram work, which was really about self awareness, like you guys are saying. And there are so many pastors out there who I feel like are just not aware enough to recognize that this is the place that I'm speaking from. This is the place that I study from. This is the place that I preach from. This is the place that I meet people from, not knowing that they are desperate for or detached from relationships, looking for that same kind of intimacy or independence, or the opposite, whatever it is. And when there is that light bulb moment or aha moment for them, I mean, it could literally change things overnight, right?

Cyd Holsclaw: 31:57

Yeah. And I think it, I mean, it did for me. When I first learned about all this, it was like, you know, it's that proverbial water that you swim in. You don't really know. You don't have any idea. That's why we say it's not conscious. It's embodied. Yeah, so you have no idea that this is the space that you're living from. You have no idea that you're living as if you're in a jungle every day of your life, or in a desert or in a war zone. But you just assume that the whole world is like that, and everyone else is living in that same space, and so you're just making assumptions, and you're talking to people and interacting with people, or not interacting with people, assuming that we're all living in the same kind of landscape. But when you recognize, oh, that's why we don't understand each other, or that's why we don't see things the same way, or that's why we have such different priorities. When it comes to the way that we follow Jesus, it makes sense when you start to look at we're all living in different landscapes, and it's defining everything about us. And when we can get curious about it, and curious about how the other people that we know and are living around and attached with and trying to follow Jesus with, when we start to notice that we're doing that from different places, then it changes the conversations. It changes the ability to understand and be compassionate toward each other, and it changes the way that we encourage and, you know, the way that we want to the way that we want to equip people to be both intimate and independent, to be people who have a strong foundation of joy, to be people who can answer those default questions with a yes, by running new experiments in a new community and getting new data.

Brian Lee: 33:39

Well, and I, to extend the metaphor even further, for pastors or church leaders, or whatever we want to call them, who have never experienced the pasture for themselves, how could they possibly lead the sheep there? Or you're so used to the desert being your default that that's what you're leading people to because you think that's home, because that's what you're comfortable with, right? Yep. Man, oh, man. So for the people like me who have also been on the other side of that with pastors who may not be aware of where they are, who have never experienced the pastor for themselves, or who are just severely damaged or abused by their pastors in some kind of way, what does it mean for us to recognize what landscape we live out, or what default we move towards, and what does it look like to move towards that healing and wholeness?

Cyd Holsclaw: 34:28

How much time do we have?

Geoff Holsclaw: 34:29

Sounds like you need a whole book.

Brian Lee: 34:32

Good thing youou have one coming.

Geoff Holsclaw: 34:33

Wow. Yeah, it'll be coming out summer of 2025, I would say, for your individual kind of spiritual journey. And this is where we don't have time to fill it all out. But sure, the way we talk about it is that there's actually gifts in both the jungle and the desert, like gifts and competencies that are good. A lot of times these things are pathologized, and that's why we use the language of intimacy and independence rather than anxious and avoidant are usually the kind. Axes that these are divided up on, is what you want? Well, what's the goal we're moving toward? And part of that is as people in the jungle, who have a high intimacy capacity, have really strong gifts of, like, social emotional intelligence, of understanding how people are doing, even when you know they're saying that they're feeling other ways, right and so a lot of, like, good non verbal kind of understanding. So, like, all sorts of gifts, and the people in the desert have do have us a high sense of their agency and of solving problems, and of like, we can get this done right. And those are good things. And so moving toward the pasture is not to get rid of the the gifts that you have. It's rather to integrate the gifts from the other landscapes. And so the pastor landscape is really to have a kind of like all the gifts, the social emotional intelligence, as well as the logical and linear and linguistic intelligence, and the cognitive and the emotional all working together. So I would say like Jesus. For individuals, like Jesus is meeting you in the competencies that you have already, but long term, he wants to move you, and that's the language we use in the book. He wants to move you toward the pastor land, which means rounding out those capacities. And so for your own individual journey, you shouldn't disparage like, Oh, I'm a feeler or I'm a thinker, which could be kind of like gross characterizations, but Right? So we don't want to disparage that and become a totally different person, but rather, we want to integrate kind of those two things. And so then the work for you is to kind of know and be like, Yeah, I do experience the world I cannot turn off knowing how everyone in the room is feeling at every moment, like I can't turn that off, right? But what am I going to do with that ability. And then how can I round that off with knowing what my boundaries and responsibilities in each moment are? And then the reverse, you know, someone's like, I can always solve all these problems. So we have, we have a saying in our marriage, which is that I, as from the desert, could be technically right, but relationally wrong, right? So that means, like, Yeah, I'm like the cognitive aspect of this might be true about the reality of whatever's happening, but the relationship is not being tended to in the proper way. And so, so being technically right and relationships relationally wrong means being wrong, right. So I have to grow in that capacity. But that doesn't mean I have to just give up on the good gifts that God has, sure

Cyd Holsclaw: 37:20

Well, and I think along with that, you know, it's like, sort of like, so, so the work is that, like, you know, I'm always wanting to grow more towards the pasture, and part of that is when I feel something strongly, having people around me that I can check that out with, right? So even, like, if there were times when it was like, you know, Geoff body language is screaming at me that he's saying one thing, even those words are saying something different. And so knowing that I have the safety in that relationship with Geoff to say, here's what I'm getting from you right now, is that what you're meaning to communicate and sort of checking that so I'm not just going with I'm a feeler and I'm feeling all of this, and so therefore it's real, but I'm a feeler and I'm feeling all of this, and I need to check it out with you, because that might not be what you're meaning to do right now, even though that's everything that I'm getting from you, and that's only in a safe relationship, though, right? I'm not suggesting you do that with just anybody, but when you're in a relationship that you know is safe, so part of that is like, if you've experienced church hurt and been in a place where you've been, you know, taken advantage of or abused, or, you know, whatever, by someone in a church context. Think that first step is finding and forming relationships with people in your life that you feel like you can have that reciprocal relationship with, and then beginning to test out the complimenting of the tools that you already have, or the gifts that you already have, because all of the things that you do in a jungle, all of the things that you do in a desert, everything that you do in a war zone, you do for a good reason, because it helps you survive whatever you Were in and so it's not like you need to get rid of everything. It's just that you need to under, you know, have the compassion of I wouldn't do this if it hadn't worked for me. I wouldn't do this if it didn't help me survive and get me to where I am today. And now that I am aware, I recognize that there's more things that I would like to be able to to add and places I want to grow. And then I would say, as far as like, the, you know, naming things like you said with, you know, with Allison cook too, is that idea of like, if you can reflect on the hurt that you experience, like, even when you said earlier, Brian, like, you understand now that you didn't feel a capacity for independence or for agency, right? And that you felt like your agency was taken from you, or that you weren't actually given a choice, even just being able to name that now says to you, okay, I need to find safe opportunities for me to exercise my agency, to remember that I have agency, yeah, and so if it was a. You know, I was really hurt by this person, because I was craving intimacy with this person, and they weren't giving me anything back. Helps you to do the work of, okay, I need to really think carefully and sort of test out intimacy with other people and make sure that I'm not being too intimate or too vulnerable too soon, but make sure that there is a reciprocation, and that helps me to sort of measure, how do I learn to be intimate with people I can truly trust? And so I think those kinds of things, the awareness of being able to reflect on what it was that was so hurtful, and sort of what the craving or the longing was that was unmet, or the place where that hurt specifically intersected with your, you know, your landscape, yeah, can be really helpful, because it can help you to have a frame for Okay, now I know why that was so so painful, and now I have some sense for what I can do to sort of strengthen myself so that that particular part of my life doesn't feel so vulnerable or so so like a target that's always getting pressed

Brian Lee: 41:09

and what I appreciated about that, again, with the curiosity, is it? It? It doesn't feel like there's a sense of shame or condemnation, because it's easy to assume or hear, Oh, I'm not in the pasture, I'm in the jungle, I'm in the desert, I'm in the war zone. It's really too easy to assume shame. It's really easy to assume condemnation of like anything other than the pasture is wrong or bad or shameful, or any of these things. And so Geoff, I really, really appreciated when you said the gift of each of those, the gift of being in the jungle, the gift of being in the desert and said what you said about It's a survival mechanism. I wouldn't have survived this long if I hadn't picked up these strategies, right? And without going down a whole nother rabbit trail, talking about internal family systems, the idea of recognizing these other things, like the firefighters and managers and all these things, as a gift, it's like, thank you. I recognize that you were trying to help me to survive all these years,

Cyd Holsclaw: 42:04

and you did help me survive. Yeah, absolutely.

Brian Lee: 42:07

And so being in the jungle helped me to survive. Being in the desert helped me to survive. As bizarre as it sounds, being in the war zone helped me to survive the environment that I was in. And so now that I feel like I'm in a place where I have a little bit more agency and a little bit more control of my life to make decisions from a more secure place, maybe not a secure place, but more secure than it was, right? How do I use that in a way that helps me to move forward towards that health, towards that pasture, towards that security, without again, the polar ends of being overly desperate or overly detached,

Cyd Holsclaw: 42:47

which I think goes back again to that feeling. You know, you asked earlier, what does the pasture feel like in your body, or what does it feel like to live from the pasture? And I think the goal that we're all aiming toward, and I don't know if any of us are fully there, right? But I think the goal that we're all aiming toward is like, you know, you're in the pasture when you can enter into other environments, and you can see the unhealth, and you can see the distortions, and you can know, I feel for these people, because they just don't realize where they're at or how broken they are, or even if they do realize how broken they are, how tragic that they aren't doing anything about it, but it doesn't immediately reflect on you and your poor choice for being there or your like vulnerability. But it's like you can observe it and notice it without becoming entangled in it, right? I think that's a that's a secure place.

Geoff Holsclaw: 43:44

I think that the language would be like peace, right? Yeah, like you're Shalom. You're at peace outside of the circumstances, or outside the drama, or whatever people like I'm thinking of, you know Jesus, you know on the cross while dying, he says, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. And it's kind of like, well, they kind of do, like they sentence you to die, and people are taking all this activity to make it happen, right? They know what they're doing. They're killing you. But in another sense, I think it's that, it's that self compassion, it's like, well, no, they're acting out of survival strategies that they think lead to a flourishing life, but that Jesus knows doesn't. And so in that sense, there is, like, they don't actually know what they're doing. And so I think, yeah, part of what Sid is saying is, I think, you know, as we continue to grow, then we can offer that compassion to other people and be like, Okay, it's wrong what they're doing, or it's even abusive what they're doing. But you know, we can imagine a world out of abuse and pain and trauma of a family system or a social system in which what they're doing is a survival strategy, but now we need to figure out a way as a community, for all of us to move out of that, and that's the really hard work. And sometimes it happens just through individuals, and then sometimes it happens as the system starts changing in various. Ways. But and

Brian Lee: 45:00

Sid, I want to go back to something you said, recognizing for people who have been hurt or harmed in any kind of environment, it doesn't have to be church at all. Right, yeah, but for those of us who have recognized that when we walk into a new relationship, like you're saying now, that we have some sense of agency where we may overdo it on the jungle strategies, I think you were saying of looking for that, maybe I need to, you know, let these people whatever it is. I think on the other side, there's that desert strategy, which I think I am more in line with, of recognizing how entirely detached I walk into a new environment. It's like, No, I'm not going to make eye contact with these people. No one's going to get in for this time I because I have this need to feel safe first before I start making connections. So it comes from both sides. And just having that awareness that that's the way that I'm walking in is so helpful, yeah,

Cyd Holsclaw: 45:47

and then having compassion for it right? Almost like, if you go back to the internal family systems, it's like, okay, yes, I see you. I hear you. I understand you're feeling threatened right now. I understand that this feels dangerous. Thank you, and I'm going to take a baby step and see what happens, right? Yeah, and so I think that's that, that's the place where that understanding of yourself, understanding your particular places, of even just having the awareness you know, like for for me, might be I'm going into a new space, and I know I'm, it's likely that I could walk away from this conversation feeling disappointed because I don't feel like this person is willing to be vulnerable with me, or isn't willing to be intimate with me. Well, when I walk away and I end up feeling disappointed, I can say, well, of course, of course, I would feel disappointed because I have a high intimacy meter, and it's very hard for people to meet that meter. That doesn't mean that the other person is the problem. It means part of the work that I'm doing is allowing people to offer what they're able to offer, rather than demanding that they offer everything. You know. And so it's that sort of understanding as you go into situations. This is my natural default. This is the thing that I am looking for, and chances are very good I won't find it, not because it's a terrible place or terrible people, but because my my grid for that, or my lens for that, is different than maybe other people in this room. So

Brian Lee: 47:20

helpful, and I think even hearing baby step for some people, I want to kind of put that in perspective, because there's an example I'm thinking of where, because we can only control ourselves, right? We can't control the environment, interactions, any of that stuff. And for me, recognizing coming from that desert landscape of I need to be detached, because it has hurt too much when I've gotten involved or when I've been in relationships, and for people who are walking through their own experience of religious trauma or any kind of trauma, it's so easy to feel isolated. I mean, sometimes overnight, you lose an entire community of people. So what does that look like to find community again? And for me, it sounds like a baby step, but it felt monumental to walk into a new church is the first major hurdle, right? And I very specifically remember the first day, and I talked about it with my wife, that we consciously chose that sounds so silly saying it now, but to just make eye contact with the pastor as he walked by, because always it was just heads down walk by as fast as we can. And for us, that felt monumental. And at the same time, was a baby step towards not even intimacy, but just towards reconnecting with a human being. Yes, to say, Hey, I see you as a person. I know you see us all the time, but I'm going to choose to acknowledge your presence this time. And it's been very small baby steps along the way. But I just want to encourage people who may be out there listening, it's like, I don't even know what a baby step looks like. I don't know what it looks like to find community again, because it's easy to again imagine. It's like, oh, it means I'm in a small group laughing and crying with these people, and we're having dinner together, and our kids are hanging it's like, no, no. Just start with can I make eye contact with someone? Can I recognize if I'm coming from a jungle or from a desert landscape or maybe a war zone landscape? Can I recognize, do I feel safe in my own body? Do I feel safe with this person? Do I feel safe in this environment? Any last words before we wrap up?

Cyd Holsclaw: 49:19

Well, I want to go on a whole big tangent after you just said to Am I safe in my own body? Right? Because there's a lot that we can do to feel safe in our own bodies that carries us with a different kind of strength and resilience into different environments. It's not always the environment that's going to make us feel safe in our bodies, but I won't go into all of that, but I think that's why we're so excited to come and be with people in person at this gathering, you know, is because there is a lot to talk about. And you know, as as pastors, as people who are given that sort of responsibility and and position of, how do we create spaces where people. Can take those baby steps that are so monumental, and we can be, you know, celebrating and encouraging that in ways that don't look like, oh, that's all you're capable of, or you need to do more, or, you know, it's but to be able to recognize those little, tiny baby steps that are actually monumental. That's one of the things I have a heart for. Is always wanting to actually notice those things and say, I see what you're doing, and I know this is tough, and I just want to really applaud this in you and the you know, you don't need to compare yourself to the person sitting next to you, because you I see you are doing huge things that's important. And so, yeah, really looking forward to being with everybody at the conference and being able to talk more about those defaults and the faith, hope and love and, you know, and having just a real heart for people to be able to disentangle the people and the systems that they've been hurt by, and to become reacquainted, you know, with the God who designed us in this way and has provided everything for those 123, to be solid, so that we can move closer into the I mean, there's an invitation for every single one of us, sure, and so that's that's really Exciting, and we'd love to talk more about that invitation, you know, as we're together in person too. Yeah?

Brian Lee: 51:26

Geoff, anything from you?

Geoff Holsclaw: 51:30

Oh, no, no,

Brian Lee: 51:33

we'll save it for the conference.

Geoff Holsclaw: 51:34

Yeah, without opening a whole new vista of things about I

Brian Lee: 51:39

every time I talk to you both, I just this. I feel like it could go on for hours and we would still never get the bottom so I really appreciate your depth of knowledge and the way that you communicate it in the way that I don't know about anyone else, but I just understand it and have such a big appreciation for what you do and the way that you do it. Can't wait to see you at the conference. We would invite everyone else to come. It's four church pastors and leaders, and yet it could be helpful for just about anybody. So if you feel safe showing up, we would love to see you there. And if you can't come to Richmond, we've got the live stream available as well, with the recordings available Geoff and Cyd. Where can people find you online?

Geoff Holsclaw: 52:17

So you can find us, mainly on embodied faith.life is our main website that'll there's some links from there to our podcast, which is the Attaching to God podcast. Also my kind of place where I kind of write, and then Cyd also at cydholsclaw.com and we're very findable on Facebook, at least I am. Cyd's not on Facebook a lot.

Cyd Holsclaw: 52:41

I don't do of social media but I try to every once in a while, but yeah, scydholesclaw.com. You'll see there too that I do like a six week cohort on finding safety in your body. And we do a six week cohort together on that embodied faith. Dot Life website about attaching to God and practices you can be doing in order to be working towards the pasture and and then, you know, we have a book that we've already written together called, does God really like me, discovering the God who wants to be with us, and that's really exploring those dimensions of intimacy and independence and how we are intimate with God, and God has also sent us as independent ones in the world. And then we also have a forthcoming book, which we cannot share the title with yet, but it's all about this attachment stuff that we've talked about today, and we'll be talking about at the gathering, and that'll be coming out next summer, summer of '25.

Brian Lee: 53:37

And I'm sure when we're ready to release a title, we will be talking all about it here, or I will be sharing it with everyone. So thank you, Geoff. And said, thank you again, so much for your time. I always love learning from you and hearing from you, and we'll see you soon.

Cyd Holsclaw: 53:49

Yeah, it'll be great to see you in person in an embodied way.

Geoff Holsclaw: 53:52

Yeah, looking forward to it.

Brian Lee: 53:53

I just love talking to them. I could talk to them all day long and never get bored. If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, be sure to check out the Holsclaws and say thanks for being on the show. You can find links and all the things in the show notes at brokentobeloved.org We want to invite you to the upcoming Conference. It's being held Thursday, September 26 in Richmond, Virginia. It's designed for pastors and church leaders who want resources on becoming more trauma informed, and for setting up safeguarding practices in their own lives and the lives of their churches to prevent future abuses from taking place. If you're on the other side of that equation and you've been wounded or hurt by the church, I want to invite you to the first ever Broken to Beloved Gathering that will be held Friday, September 27 and features Aundi Kolber, therapist and best selling author of Try Softer and Strong Like Water. You can find information and register for both or either events brokentobeloved.org. Subscribe or follow to get new episodes automatically. If you enjoy, please leave us a rating and review. It really helps us out. As a 501c3 nonprofit, our work is made possible by our generous donors. And if this has been helpful to you, consider joining us today at broken to beloved.org/support coming up on the show. We have Chuck DeGroat, Laura Barringer and many more, and next time, we'll be talking on episode 10 with therapist and author Aundi Kolber. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to listen. I hope it's been helpful. Here's to moving toward healing and wholeness together. I'll see you next time.