welcome to the being known podcast with my friend Dr Kurt Thompson and my friend pepper sweetie we are here to discover and explore what it is to be truly known hey Kurt hey pep hey Kurt I'm wondering if you know what color you're wearing today oh my gosh dude you know I have a color deficiency color deficiency yes and I'm I'm just curious it's just a test I'm just wondering gu I'm guessing I'm wearing a red mock turtleneck and a blue sweater yes that's you're that right yep you're guessing correctly yeah yeah have you ever seen uh like videos of people that like can't see color and then they color blind yes like totally color like like the the world and and they give them glasses where they can see color and just how their minds are just blown I mean they're just like what the right so cool so cool yeah it reminds me of the videos of children who are born with incomplete or complete hearing loss yes and then for for some reason that is correct surgically correct and they put headphones on them and you and like the first time they hear their mother's voice or their oh my gosh just like wow yeah yeah yeah well we are um we are here uh in a season where we are we are talking all about rupture and repair and so far we have um you know we we talked about benign ruptures and um then last week if you were here we talked about limit setting ruptur and uh today we're we're turning a little bit deeper and we're going into toxic ruptures it's important to talk about and yeah you know we're here for it yeah uh we kind of like walk into our topic today with a bit of fear and trembling uh because in some respects uh you know you you hear that phrase toxic ruptures and it it is it is really the nature of what we're talking about anytime we're talking about some kind of rupture no matter how small or how large that feels insurmountable some kind of a rupture that feels unrepairable and it's easy for us at first to imagine that when we use that word toxic rupture that we're really talking about something major something it has to be cataclysmic we're going to war or we're talking about a divorce or we're talking about a significant betrayal or somebody loses their temper in Rage at someone I mean and and those things are truly examples of that but we're going to find as we talk over our time today that toxicity has ways of making its way into our lives in very very small moments because of the nature of how the mind works typically we find ourselves uh when we think about toxic Raptors we're imagining overwhelming or intensely painful mental States so as we said Somebody's screaming at somebody or calling somebody names or we're in a relationship in which you have a disagreement and then somebody just withdraws into silence and they just won't talk to you I I remember having a patient whose life growing up as a child was such that if if she crossed her mother uh and of course she would never know how how badly was it that she had crossed her but if she crossed her mother to some degree her mother wouldn't talk to her for two weeks and she's like a young like like an eight-year-old and her mom won't talk to her for two weeks you know uh that's like relational like literal Suffocation um and so that's one way when these things happen to us in toxic ways and and our listeners you many of you will in your own life experience things are already right now coming to mind about what we're talking about you we've had our own version of what feels like some toxic rupture that feels overwhelming it feels catastrophic uh but sometimes we're not always aware that when things happen to us we also become part of the rupturing mechanism when we for instance we nurture a hurt or a wound something has happened to me and then I just ruminate about it and the longer I ruminate the more I am persuaded that the rupture has happened to me and the intensity with which I feel the rupture the toxicity is really about the event that that took place without always being aware that I'm actually collaborating with it now that I am now part of the rupture by virtue of how I'm telling the story about it and you know we've talked on this podcast before about the list of people that I I keep a list of people that I have to forgive yeah and these these are people who I have either consciously or not consciously basically been holding a grudge against sure and in that sense there was a rupture at some point in time and it continues to be easy for me to name the offending party as like that's it's all about what they did yeah without me recognizing or owning that actually I am now uh um participating in the rupture internally yeah yeah yeah yeah I I I think about um you know a story about particular teacher I had you know years and years ago and I I he should he and that incident should not have any space in my head anymore yeah right and every once in a while it it it it comes up and it's because of the story that I've told myself over the years over and over again yeah and and giving it Credence and giving it you know fan the flame a little bit yeah yeah and so we we can see how of course we're going to get to what what makes a toxic rupture or toxic rupture we can see how these things can uh be the result of cataclysmic events or you know wildly belligerent Behavior but they can also be things that grow out of minor events that become major catastrophes I think about the story of a person that I had treated who he and she were driving they they themselves he and his wife were driving to a dinner date and they passed a restaurant where he had had his first encounter with a woman with whom he' had an affair in in the distant past and he and his wife had come back from that Affair had worked through a lot of things in that Affair but there were some things that were kind of just going on in their house at the time and something happened in that moment and it didn't get noticed by him he didn't say anything and by the time the evening was over things were just boiling over what started as a minor traffic stop we were stopped here at the light the restaurant's right there at the light and she notices and before the night is over in her mind now of course this is you know it's it it is emerging out of a history in which something horrible had happened but in that moment right then that they had been working through that history and so forth but there were other things that were going for on for her that day and that week that weren't even about her marriage mhm but this came back into their relationship and so we can also have and we'll see later uh how this happens you know relationally how seemingly minor things can take place U there's a story in anatomy of the soul that I tell about Eugene and he is a he comes home from work and he walks into the house where his uh young son and a couple of his friends are are playing and Eugene just kind of like loses his temper with him and you know the kids are like a little startled by all this and they're they're just being normal 8-year-old boys and you know he's he's upset because they're loud and they're and they're stuff all over the house and CU they're just being 8-year-old boys and he comes into the kitchen where his wife FIS who's been hearing him and you know he met her gaze and she's like I don't know what's going on but whatever's going on with you uh I we don't want that coming out the way I just heard it come out in the family room he goes upstairs and changes his clothes and and you know it it's not just a hard day at work it's something other about about his life growing up that has been this minor thing that blows up in his family room directed at his 8-year-old son that's got nothing to do with his 8-year-old son but has a lot to do with what it was like for him to be 8 years old and have a father tell him all kinds of things about getting things cleaned up and you have to be perfect you have to be this and so forth and so on and there's just lots of things in Eugene's life where there are small ruptures where things are not perfect and he comes in and now this becomes this thing that blows up that starts with something minor it reminds me Kurt that story reminds me I hope I don't derail us here yeah yeah go so we're as we record this we're um we're this is advent and we're you know we've got Christmas coming up here pretty soon and uh It's a Wonderful Life uh one of my one of my favorite not just Christmas you know not just movies around Christmas it's a it's a fabulous fabulous film and when uh Jimmy Stewart's character is has you know we know because we've seen everything that's happened and you know with the bank and every everything and uh and he's sitting there and his daughter's playing the piano and she just keeps playing the same thing over and over again and then zazus comes and she's wants something from him and he just blows up right just completely blows up and it really has nothing to do with what's going on in the room it's everything that he's brought into the room with him that that causes this whole thing and then if you take that even sort of interestingly a deeper level you know uh Jimmy Stewart himself there there were moments with in the movie there's another moment where he's crying in the bar uh and uh it wasn't really written that way but you know he had just gotten back from he was a he was a pilot in World War II and he had just this was the first movie that he did when he got back and he you know they look at it now he had PTSD when he was shooting that movie H and so so that trauma was it just came it came out like just kind of just made me think of that as you were talking telling the story of Eugene yeah yeah well I I think uh for our listeners I think I think it's helpful for us to begin to uh we're eventually going to get to the role that that shame plays in toxic ruptures uh but just a a little uh journey into the neurobiology of this we have talked about this before on other podcast recordings that our general way of being in the world through our autonomic nervous system uh is one that we can talk about uh and Alan Shore the neuropsychologist from UCLA likes to talk about this that our brain is made up of an accelerator that's our sympathetic nervous system and that accelerator our sympathetic drive system we often think about as the fight ORF flight mechanism which it is but it is also the part of our neurobiological system that is in go mode it's like the gas pedal on a car like we want to go from the time children are born they're either asleep or they are going even if they're like two months old and they're just laying there in their CRI they're they're they're like doing all they're moving they're they they're they're all they're in go mode and we are in go mode and we we want to do things we want to connect we want to all these things that we're doing but sometimes that has to be slowed down and that is the what the parasympathetic system is for and the break system we have an acceler we have a break system and the go mode has our heart rate up our blood pressure up our breathing rate up our eyes are dilated all these things like go the break tends to do the opposite and for children the break is not necessarily always something that they themselves can come up with the parents have to break them the 2-year-old who's going to just run out into the street we have to break that we have to say no to certain things and so sometimes when children are learning how to apply the break with the help of a parent who says no we can say no in any number of different ways we can say no very very gently but sometimes we have to say no very quickly no because the situation calls for it it's urgent you're about to do something that is really danger you and the real question we have an accelerator we have a break as any standard transmission car driver knows if you just decelerate a standard transmission engine uh if you don't apply the clutch the you know that engine is going to violently come to a halt for sure and I love uh Shore's metaphor of this because what he describes that the what the clutches is an a deeply connected interpersonal relationship so that if I'm if I even have to say no to a child harshly if I quickly move to them and say oh hey dad Daddy needs you I I need you I I because he's across the room and I have to say no because he's about to get too close to the fire or what whatever right if I'm willing to get up and move toward him I'm moving toward him to comfort him I it's the clutch we all know if you for our listeners who uh drive standard transmission cars sometimes you slam on the brake but if you follow it with the clutch quickly enough you don't lose the engine right and this is what it means for us to have an attuned relationship with others so so we can set limits sometimes we have to do so quickly urgently but to the degree that Our intention this gets back to our last conversation about what is the intention of limit setting ruptures and intention isn't just the thought I'm thinking in my head my intention is displayed fully in my physical presentation of my intention I sense it in body Lang I sense your intention with your facial expression your tone of voice your body language everything about that is coming to me with a certain intention and this then enables us to be uh to to set limits it a Connect fashion and this requires the engagement of the prefrontal cortex to have this clutch ready my my autonomic nervous system of my accelerator and my brake they are on auto power they are working I don't have to make that happen it will just it will just happen if I as an adult if I step out into the street and I and I sense a car coming I will I will step back because I don't have to think about it I will step back because my parasympathetic system will pull me to a halt but our need for a clutch our need for an interpersonal relationship that engages the prefrontal cortex whenever a limit is being set is crucially important and so much of this uh these experiences of toxic ruptures take place when the prefrontal cortex is not involved for Eugene when he blew up at his son and the kids in his family room his prefrontal cortex was not working he was on autopilot we're not really paying that much much attention to it and and this brings us to a really uh crucial element here um and that has to do with the fact that when I when my prefrontal cortex is offline when it's not involved as our friend Dan seel likes to say when I have flipped my lid when my prefrontal cortex is not really in the room and my lower brain functions are have now kind of like grabbed the steering wheel of the car uh one of the most important elements that now takes place both relationally literally between me between me and my son me and my friend whoever and literally between certain neural network systems and functional domains within my mind within my brain my body my mind is the experience of isolation I get cut off from another human being and I have part of my mind's function that get cut off from other parts of my mind's function there is this sense of isolation and there is a disintegration that takes place and when this takes place we move as as as we say we move from scrapes small case s to scrapes scrapes literally with on my hand to scrapes with people large case s that didn't necessarily have to be a scrape Eugene didn't necessarily have to respond or posture himself toward his son in the way that he did but he did because his prefrontal cortex was not engaged when he walked into the room he was not aware of what he was aware of that was taking place and so these toxic ruptures lead to what we would call persistent states of disintegration persistent States it's a state that for instance when we say stop from across the room that's going to create a certain level of disintegration for the toddler who hears this they're they're startled they're a little upset by your voice and tone and so forth but if you move across the room that state of disintegration does not persist you quickly close the gap come to their assistance and you help them respond as they should to this particular threat that you were warning them about but toxic ruptures amount to persistent states of integration so we say something to someone we glance at someone with a glance of contempt and then we just let it go and we we we don't come back we're not aware that we're even doing it or someone looks at us or talks to us with a certain tone and we just let it go it's this it's this what feels like a small thing because it's not that big of a deal and we just think oh we're because I can go on and I can I can keep moving we we don't recognize that often toxic ruptures things that become large toxic ruptures begin with small ruptures that really amount to the absence of presence they amount to like no one coming to close the gap um I'm you're making me think that so you know if I'm if I'm walking across the street and somebody gives me a look of contempt I don't really care right but if Kurt who I know who I love and who loves me gives me that same look I'm I'm we have a trauma that we have to figure out and you know so just I don't know I'm just uh just think go yeah I mean we might say that even that person who looks at you with contempt in in you know on the street that you know uh it that's not going to land on us in a in a neutral fashion no but I don't think it's going to hit me as hard as the other right and I think that the the what what we can do though is that we can say I mean you're absolutely right it won't hit you as hard as it does when it's you know it's like the psalm where we read where and this this is not just anybody this is a person who betrayed me who ate dinner at my table right which is what I think I hear you're getting at exactly right right and so what are we going to do with that uh you know in the these these persistent states of disintegration especially with people that we that we long to have connection with I mean you're right somebody cuts me off in traffic somebody what whatever I'm like okay I can let that go because I don't imagine seeing them again I yeah and even in that it does help like we had talked about in the previous episode that if the person and you know let you know that they didn't mean to do it or whatever it it does help it does get so we are being so that tells me that we are being impacted by that that rupture that's happening even with a stranger um but again I think that there's that would be more of a micro fracture than yeah yeah yeah and I and I think I think what I'm what what what's really striking me as as we're entering into this you know when we began this season uh back at the connections conference our first episode back in October this was before the election and the election in in some the election of 2024 uh was an occasion that was generating both before the election and certainly after the election generating a lot of uh felt sense of rupture Y and so much of this pep is a function of what I what I call the absence of presence this sense that I have a story in my mind that involves other people but they are absent from the room they are not present in the room I can't have a conversation with them in which I'm going to like address the perceived rupture that we have yeah we have an entire now economy a portion of our economy that is based on a social media Matrix of platforms that at one level create some sense of Greater connection and for the most part are doing just the opposite yep and so we can find great joy in that in those platforms but where where contempt shows up in those platforms MH it is offered to one another with no sense of having to take responsibility for this no sense of repair there's no presence with this right and this is why I I'm trying to I want to invite our audience to just consider that when we're talking about toxic ruptures we're and we're going to get to shame here just a moment we're really the one of the one of the primary issues here is this question of isolation this question of like I'm not present to the person with whom I'm having this toxic rupture that is in my mind how many of us who are listening who's had someone do something to us we feel betrayed we feel all these kinds of and they are out of our life yeah and so the story just grows in my head and and there's there's no sense of repair because there's no sense of presence in order to like do something about it right and culturally no matter where one finds oneself in the political Spectrum we are paying so much attention to a story that we are telling that is grounded in the very theme that you read about in the first chapter of the great divorce where when CS Lewis Paints the picture of hell as being a place where people continue to build their homes further and further and further apart from one another yeah yeah so this is one thing that this disintegrated state of a toxic rupture is a deep function of isolation this is where we get to trauma in season four of our podcast we did a whole season on trauma and we talk about trauma being a state first of all being overwhelmed and then being powerless these two pillars I'm overwhelmed and I'm powerless to do anything about the overwhelm and both of these states being powerless and being overwhelmed are functions of isolation and we notice eventually that shame plays such a crucial role in this isolating process and we had the season on the book The Soul of Shame and we recognized that some features about shame first of all are that they are things that it is a neurophysiologic event that leaves me feeling completely isolated and it is in this isolation that my grief begins to emerge this toxic rupture that employs shame as its primary neurophysiological weapon and it basically is saying to you you don't matter to me because even if it happens I'm not coming back to repair this and you know we tend to think of like toxic ruptures as as being big things and certainly they are but what if I'm you know we we've told this story before the young guy who you know as a 10-year-old comes to his dad with the first time he gets a really great grade in math and he's got the 92% and he says dad here's my 92% and dad says to him where's the other 8% yeah you know this is not child abuse this is not an abusive father but it is a moment of Shame that is toxic in its nature it's toxic in its nature because shame is involved and there's no repair made now the thing is that 10-year-old boy has the wherewithal to live his life and do really well and what does he become he becomes an 18-year-old Allstate football player straight A student who is like the world would say like oh my gosh like you come from the perfect family you're doing all the perfect things and so forth and so on and entire and in his mind he's telling himself I am not enough I am not enough I am not enough which is why I make straight A and I'm going to go play you know college football and all the things that I'm going to go do without anyone ever recognizing the multiple number of small toxic ruptures that have taken place that have never been repaired and so for many of our listeners we can start to imagine my goodness like I I I only thought that toxic ruptures happened like when my parents got divorced but it's like anything else we get a small cut on our hand if I have good nutrition good health care I get Band-Aids I get you know like hydrogen peroxide yeah I can get that like I can clean up and and I can be fine you know uh my wife and I had the privilege of being in Africa this past summer and we spent time at a place called tenwick which is a large Christian Hospital complex there just and I have a a good friend Steve Manchester who's been a primary care physician there for 20 years and you know Steve is quick to point out that they're they're they're doing amazing things but for every patient that they are able to save the patient to the right and the left they lose and the vast majority of these deaths are preventable deaths these are people who if they were living in Cincinnati or in Washington I they would not be dying right but so much of it has to to do with small things that don't really get tended to soon enough mhm and it leads to catastrophe and this is how toxic ruptures can take place and so we look around at our culture even not just our families we look at look at our culture and isolation is rampant Co did not help us with this but we become yeah yeah so I have a friend who um uh is a listener to the podcast Kurt how are you he's a Kurt also oh and he's a um a recovering U crack addict and we were talking and he said and I think this he said that um the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety the opposite of addiction is connection and when Co was coming up he does a lot of work um helping people that are in addiction and when Co was coming up he he was really you know when was happening it was this isolation that happened the death spiked So High um in that Community because um separation is addiction I just thought that was a fascinating way to you know picture of of this really being um true in the world that's right yeah that's right and so you know we can have these we can have these toxic ruptures that we can identify quite easily because they feel big the ones that we can identify but we don't necessarily identify nearly as quickly these minor events that's often just don't go repaired they they never become repaired and the degree to which our ruptures have been repaired is the key to our grief it is the key to what toxicity and the kinds of ruptures that toxicity brings are really all about we can have long-term relational ruptures and you know we we we we think oh this happened 10 years ago or 20 years ago and because it happened then it's a thing in the past you know well my my parents divorced when I was you know when I was 20 so but that was that was 20 years ago I don't I don't know why why is that still an issue for me and then you know we have this way of sustaining and either changing or deepening the nature of that rupture depending upon how we tell stories about it that storytelling process that we as human beings enter into uh it can can extend and grow the rupture we continue a narrative that holds all other parties responsible for our pain for example you know one of the one of the primary challenges that we have in working with patients who are is with with trauma is to find is is to is to discern where the space is where we can begin to help them imagine and consider and then begin to address what part of they suffering are they responsible for and this is these are and this is challenging because it's very it's very tender these are very tender things where something real has really happened to folks that we have to take into consider we have to address but we also eventually have to address what has been my respon if I'm the patient what has been my response to these ruptures and how have I perhaps told a story that actually continues to strengthen the nature of the ruptures by paying more attention to my grief than I pay attention to those who are coming to comfort me this is this is tricky this is hard work and that commitment to comfort that places no Demand on me to make any changes is not actually ultimately Comfort this is what addiction is ultimately about I I certainly you know someone can come to me and and I can say like look the reason I'm looking at porn or the reason I'm drinking so much the reason I'm using opiates is because my life is this and we can be empathic about their life and sometimes and there's a yes I really get that and I want you to stop drinking and this is where it's difficult because I have to recognize at some point that my drinking is contributing to my ruptures it may not be where it started but I now a collaborator with this and and this is this is I mean this is what repentance is in some respects I'm going to repent from the story that I'm telling as part of it but this but I can't do this by myself right I cannot do this by myself so you know I I'm I'm aware right now even as we're talking about this as our listeners they might be what do you mean Kur you mean like when things have happened to us are we are we like supposed to say no that's not important absolutely not what we're saying is that things can happen to us in which shame is the primary neurophysiologic primary affective uh fuel that is really governing the nature of how I'm imagining this relationship how I'm imagining my relationship with Democrats with Republicans how I'm imagining my relationship with people who think differently than I do about sexual ethics how I'm thinking differently about certain things with other people in my church pews all these stories that we tell in which I have imagined I I have I have perhaps ruptures that have taken place but some of them are ones that I am part of because they've happen in my own mind without me taking seriously the role that I'm playing in the sustenance of that rupture and in this way I become someone who's practicing resentment for example and in so doing I remember wounds by remembering meaning I I once again go back and revisit it and put put that story together again in the same way and I reject hope in that same way this is really tough for us which is why we need a community of people who can be present to our wounds who can be hospitable to the parts of us that are suffering you know this is what Jesus is doing in healing toxic wounds toxic ruptures when we think about the woman in Mark V who comes with a bleeding problem we've talked about her on this podcast before this notion here she comes with her evidence her embodied toxic rupture in that she has a bleeding problem but she also because of it has become this scapegoat in the community and Jesus is basically saying in her healing now I want you to go and live a different life but how is she going to do this when he says to the woman caught in adultery in John 8 where are your accusers there are none yes correct there are none now go and sin no more it would be easy for her to say but I but I don't have a job but I how am I going to feed my kids all the and he is Unapologetic about what he says or this he now is inviting her to tell a different story about her story while he is also comforting her and acknowledging what has been done to her and we live in a culture that makes it really difficult for us to imagine that we can both name our ruptures where they have taking place and at the same time begin to take responsibility for the parts of our our the role that we have played in how that has taken place and so it's true that we may be the victim of a rupture and we also have to be aware of the of the of the elements of that rupture in which we also now become its cause or we may have been the cause of of other ruptures where shame has been the primary weapon that we've used or has been used against us and whether these have been large cataclysmic moments or whether this has been a series of small moments that have all kind of gathered steam over time these toxic ruptures lead us sometimes to despair to hopelessness to resignation we just leave relationships behind we assume I want nothing more to do with the church I want nothing more to do with that group of people who are different than me that have done the whole range I I don't want anything to do with my parents with my in-laws with my this with my that because we're trying to protect ourselves and we are going and so we just want to acknowledge that this happens to us personally but it also happens in the context of our minds culturally where we are so disconnected and isolated from everybody else who's on our internet platforms telling a very story about us than we want to be told about ourselves and we're soon going to make a turn in our series here about what do we do about repairing ruptures but I want us to recognize that toxic ruptures are a really big deal and they are often mostly a big deal because of how subtle they are yeah yeah and when we name that and identify that the good news about this is that as soon as we begin to name them we put the lie to the great liar we put the lie to the accuser we pull the curtain back on what evil is up to uh because for all of our listeners as hard as toxic ruptures are and how pervasive they are in so much of our culture and our personal lives we have really good news that's coming yeah yeah I think that brings us to our application for this week and um you know uh what we'd love you to do this week is to you know sit for a minute either turn your phone off or leave it across the room or set it upside down so you're not you don't see it you don't feel it and I want you to sit and think about what toxic ruptures that you have experienced that just easily come to your mind how many of them are large ruptures and how many of them are quite small but may be a part of a collection of unrepaired ruptures and in what ways are you now aware of how you're contributing to the toxicity of the ruptures that you had experienced or you have experienced how does your ongoing contribution to the rupture help you or in what ways does your maintenance of the rupture protect you from something that you are afraid of this going to require you to be real honest with yourself and um it's always a a a great thing if you can a great help if you can write this down name it and um and then if you can share it with somebody because we don't do this work alone ever yeah yeah thanks Kurt um I'm looking forward to uh taking the turn towards repair and uh but I appreciate you going um into the uh this whole idea of toxic ruptures and um helping us to see where you know even if these things happens to us we play a role in keeping them alive so thank you my friend thank you my brother yeah yeah and we're going to be bringing uh Amy in on YouTube now uh so stick around for that uh and if you aren't on YouTube head on over we'd love to see you right on and you can see Kurt uh red and blue Ensemble I love you buddy really really really it's actually burgundy but we aren't going to go there okay [Music] yes hi guys hey hey he it is burgundy yes what are we going to say a what no just just I yeah yeah no I I I want to say like I'm I'm aware of feeling I I'm just like okay I I want I want to get onto the repair part of our episodes because I'm just aware of the of the of the felt sense and and I'm just thinking about like our in our for listeners like you're like okay thanks Kurt for the reminder okay yeah let's get to the yeah it's great no I I was thinking the same thing and then pep said it I was like I I'm really looking forward to the okay it's pretty clear there's rupture yeah now now what yeah and it and it um strikes me again how critical the Curiosity and having a hospitable group of people around us is to this work like see the guy that you mentioned that you know comes home and yells at his 8-year-old and then his wife is like huh I'm thinking that's coming from somewhere else and if it's if it is done in a hospitable way it gives us our best chance to like go change our work clothes and think huh I'm going to be curious about that totally totally yeah yeah yeah and this idea like okay so triggers and grudges stood out to me and the application like these triggers like there's no avoiding them like there are going to be triggers whether we're stopped at a stoplight and we noticed a restaurant that we're and we're flooded M and so it's like it's not the work is not to avoid these things because that's a lost battle that's and and what you said at the beginning Kurt the work is also not to kill it but to master it yeah right and and you you you you shared with me in a personal setting about when when these things come up um being able to regulate them being able to regulate when you know because as best we can as best we can moment but but and the point is that that they're going to come up you're not going to probably not going to be able to kill it right entirely I mean it's you know yeah no no I mean there you you you I just continue to go back to the first three chapters of Genesis there is this sense in which the the serpent was a creature that God made right right it didn't it didn't just show up on its own I mean it showed up in the garden with its intention on its own but it didn't just like exist on its own God made this and there is this sense in which it's a trigger right it it comes in they don't know it's a trigger yet but but they're they're given one simple task yeah don't eat of this fruit don't eat that tree and it's it's it's really tricky it's it is really tricky and I sometimes think that we think that growth and maturity is measured in terms of I never get triggered right maturity maturity maturity will be I I will recognize that I'm mature fully mature when there is no longer like when the snake comes around I will no longer be afraid of the snake like I will just see the snake and I will like this would be great as opposed to maturity actually being a growth in my capacity to better regulate when I am triggered right not when not if oh yeah when I am triggered right and because for me for me that's a matter of the the because I even if I if I don't regulate it well enough if I don't do it perfectly even that leads it it contributes to the rupture because now I'm judging myself for not having you know responded to the rupture in the right way which is just piling onh if that makes sense makes sense yeah yeah okay the whole Grudge thing like Kurt when you said okay if there's a gr like if you're holding a grudge there's a there has been a rupture at some point yeah and tot like in recovery in the rooms that much of the work is about what is your part like you say this whole Liturgy of stuff and they're like What's your part it's like what are you kidding me what is my part but it's like that's where the like okay so then a grudge sometimes I'll say I I want to say we but we're not I'm not even aware of what the rupture was I just hold on to this Grudge and that will that would could go on forever right but then if my part is holding on to it that that is the Hope because then I have to figure out what the grudge is right right the rupture is I mean right yeah yeah yeah well I I think about you know so I grew up in this house where we were taught to be where I was taught to be afraid of being angry uhhuh and I was taught to be wary of anybody who's anxious oh gosh right so like so we're all working really hard my my my father who as we said right he's not an angry guy because nobody everybody's working so hard not to piss him off right so this is right now he and he truly wasn't but like you just didn't want to be in the room if if you could like you know there's urban legend of Lewis Thompson you know you just don't want to you know mess with him and at the same time like he's like he's just such a beautiful man I I I know this but what what but but it's also a situation where like for all of his giftings and all of his Beauty like he and I never had a single substantive conversation he didn't approach me for anything there was a lot uh you know neglect would not be the right word that's too hard a word but there is a certain sense in which like I was missed like there are just certain things that that a son needs from his father in particular that I I didn't get and I don't I'm not even aware that there's a certain there is a rupture that is there that is not grossly toxic but it is minorly toxic there is a rupture that takes place that nobody knows is like my my I don't I don't have some sense that my dad knew exactly what he should be doing and chose not to do it he didn't he didn't know but I I didn't also as a 8-year-old as a 15-year-old I wasn't aware that you know except that one story I think I've told here before where my you know my mom comes to me and says well your dad came to me and wanted to know why it is that you will talk to me about certain things but won't talk to him and I remember even as a 15-year-old looking at her and saying do you do you hear what you're asking do you see what's going on here and she acknowledged that and nothing ever came of it like you know there was no conversation between my dad and me about any of these any of these things and I kind of went on and didn't really think about this and it wasn't until later in life literally until just a few years ago when the last of my three brothers who died from cancer passed away and I'm the only remaining member of my family of origin and I remember I may have said this here too before I I remember saying to to philis I became aware within a few weeks I just became a gathering storm of Rage wow and I'm like where is this coming from and you know as I as I came to say oh so it turns out there are certain conversations that you can't really have until certain people are dead but you don't know that like you don't know it until like the river just like it's it comes at flood stage in an hour this is what will happen with rivers right they will they're they're just you gradually see them and then boom they just like and and now they're like 6 feet over their Bank and I'm like oh my gosh it's a collection of toxic ruptures that were very very subtle and minor by virtue of things not being said in my family people are feeling it people are sensing it and people are doing all kinds of things to pretend things aren't happening nobody would look at my family and think oh my gosh like there is a cauldron of toxicity in that Thompson family no one would think this right and yet we had our own particular little pot of giardia growing yeah here drink this and you know nobody was dying no no it wasn't killing people but we were not well yeah and so for many of our listeners I think this is what it's like if if I can't look around and see dead bodies everywhere and see like if it's not a war if I'm not living in Ukraine then like really like it's not it can't be that bad right and we would want to say actually this is part of the lie that evil perpetrates which is this sense that you know yeah if you know if I'm not missing a limb then I must be healthy right it's like being pecked to death it's like you get pecked to death it's like oh it's no big deal right yeah right well it's a big deal right right yeah yeah and I think I I think I'm also just really I I have I just feel acutely like we're in this season where you know in our in our moment culturally there just there's yeah there's just lots of conversation about you know the other othering and the and and the Divide between you know they we kind of call it this yes the nation is so divided like like who who are we talking about like can you name names and if you can think of a name with whom you know you are divided like like a person within within that could be within Arms Reach then go have a conversation with them yeah no rather we like no I I I know I'm too busy I'm on my phone just general yeah I'm I'm I'm I'm abstracting everything and we're going to get to this when we eventually talk about repair this notion that in the same way that isolation and disembodiment is is such a crucial repeated element of of rupture that is toxic so will embodiment be a crucial element of prepare I mean this is what the serpent does in the Garden of Eden right he wants to talk about God from a distance he doesn't want to talk with God when God comes along later in the afternoon to have his daily walk and we end up doing the same thing I have a rupture and instead of going and talking with that person I want to talk about them with other people who will kind of you know maybe help me provide empathy for me but also may just help me continue to tell the story the way I want to yeah and and uh the idea of telling a different story about our story is uh yeah right right and the application made me super excited about um Coming getting to the I think it's the next episode on repair we're hoping I'm hoping you're gracious cuz it's like thinking about ruptures that happened a long time ago where maybe the people I'm not we're not in relationship with the people it's like what do we do with that yeah and I want to highlight for our listeners here too I just just to just to make sure that um we're I'm clear about this because I mentioned quite a bit this this notion of what part of the story are we contributing MH right um my capacity uh to tell a different story can't happen until my uh until I've had the experience of feeling felt uh in order for me to in order for me you know even in recovery rooms a right there is this sense in which uh to answer that question and what what role did you play what's your part I can't get to that if I have not yet first felt some sense of empathic connection uh regarding the part of my story where I truly have been wounded right where I have been run over in the crosswalk if I'm The Pedestrian who stepped into the street got but you know icept in this I got run over by you know a drunk driver in a blackout you know I I can't start to work on being more careful until like I get my fractured femur taken care of right m and so I I want us to know that this is a this is a rhythmic um dance that we been that we're involved in that um that your story matters and where the ruptures have happened to you it matters that those be heard those stories be heard and that you have the and that that you have the sense of being hospitably received in order for us all to then begin to be curious what can I begin to do about repair yeah what repairs are possible what repairs may not be because of things that I have nothing to do with because other people aren't able to be part of that repair work we'll get to some of those questions and Reflections as we go forward great which is soon soon yeah soon and very soon right on all right thanks you too it's great guys all right everybody next time next time love you all right love you [Music] this podcast is produced by Kurt Thompson pepper Sweeney and myself Amy Chella audio production and editing is by Kat and Simons video production and editing is done by Mark gold if you'd like to connect with us you can find us on social media atbn pod if you like this podcast tell a friend if you love this podcast tell everyone you know and please like rate and review wherever you listen be well be know