[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same.
Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us. That makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
I am so glad that you're here, Sarah. Today has been.
I really feel like it was wild today. And yesterday has been a day where I have actively, like, prayed against anxiety and reminded myself and my body, body that care does not have to lead to anxiety. And anyway, so I'm so grateful. When I was going back through your book, which we're going to talk about today, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is like 101 for Sarah. So anyway, even though it's kind of 101, kind of page one, it doesn't feel that way in our bodies always. So I really am grateful for you writing about this, for. For your vulnerability and approachability in the subject, for sharing so much of yourself in the book, and for coming on to talk to me today. So welcome.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Thanks, Alexis. It's so good to be with you and to hang out and talk about anxiety. It's the air I breathe.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.
I wanna say the name of the book before we get started. Cause even as I was making my notes today, I just felt like I needed to take a deep breath. Breath in and out. And the title of the book is Nervous Systems.
So that's like, anyway, Nervous systems, spiritual practices to calm anxiety in your body, the church and politics. And I think I have a little bit of formal education in organizational systems, but I think for a lot of us, even who don't, it is becoming more and more obvious societally how our systems, how they're set up, how they are, you know, continue to be, you know, things in them continue to be implemented. How we practice inside of our systems really, really, really make a difference in how we carry ourselves, how we interact with ourselves, with others, with God even. And so I'm just really appreciative of you pulling those things together. That it's not just like something on you or on me, but we can kind of take a little step back and look at bigger pictures where we find anxiety to be common. I don't know, Is that a fair intro?
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Oh, totally, yeah. I mean, I, I, you know, realized I thought A lot about anxiety and my own lived experience in my body.
Thinking back through childhood, I feel like I always kind of joke, sad joke that I was born probably being buried over in the crib before I could talk. So I think that I've had a. Have a genetic predisposition towards anxiety that was certainly modeled and reinforced by my family growing up. But I would, you know, I just began to think about that experience which many of us have, and then the kind of bigger systemic experience of living in the world and of being a member of the American church. And so there was this interesting kind of breadcrumb trail I was hoping to trace in the book between our personal experiences of anxiety and then to somebody that maybe doesn't struggle with it, but is living in a world where it is just impossible to ignore, especially if we're. We're in the church or if we read the news. So that was, that was kind of the idea. So I'm glad that you picked up on that.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I would love, I want to for sure get to the systems that you talk about, kind of societal systems, church and politics.
But I want to start with what you just named for yourself, because I would name the same thing for myself. And not only would I name the same thing, my family would name the same thing. Like there are. I mean, I was worried.
I was. That's what we called it back then. I was, I was just a worrier child.
My family used to, again, kind of like, you know, joke ish, that I came by it honestly. That was the phrase that we used. My paternal grandmother was also, in the words of the family, a worry wart.
This was what she did. She also, which I want to get there, she also cared so deeply.
She was one of the most caring people I ever knew in real life and one of the most worried and anxious people, you know, and, and she, she learned and she grew and it was wonderful.
And so it wasn't that way throughout her whole life, but it was really something that she battled and it was something that I battled too.
And, you know, you, you start off the book talking about that, and again, it was just something I was like, oh my gosh, this is so familiar to me. And one of the things that hit hard, and I really want you to talk about your experience in this and things that you've learned is that in the church systems that I grew up in. So let's, let's talk there. And especially in college, I can name an early adulthood.
If you saw that bookshelf back then, Sarah, it was filled with books on worry, on anxiety, many of them geared toward women.
And the rhetoric and the refrain was that Jesus has commanded us not to worry.
And so then in people like me, not only are we worried in general, but we want to please God so badly. So then we become worried that we're worrying too much because God has told us not to worry and now we're sinning.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the shame kind of surfaces then too. Yeah, yeah, the shame.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: So I was like, A, talk as much about your personal experience in that as you want, but also B, like, what have you learned as you were researching this book or from, you know, other folks talking to you about that?
That's real, right? I mean, that's not in my imagination. But then, like, how does that manifest in these systems?
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, gosh, I think that whenever I would read the Beatitudes as a kid and I talk about this in the book, or whenever I would be in, like a Bible study at church. I went to a non denominational evangelical church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, growing up in the 80s and 90s. And whenever we would talk about not worrying like the flowers, or not worrying like the birds and the Beatitudes, I just experienced as a kid and have experienced for my whole life this sense of longing for that to be my reality and a sense of failure, frustration, even like doubts sort of sparking a little bit because I was not able to stop worrying. And so for. I mean, I'm in my late 40s now, really through my 30s, there was this sense of shame and frustration. And maybe if I believed more, maybe if I asked harder, maybe if I could pray in a different way, then God would relieve my anxiety. So, so much striving and so much angles, like, you're like. Your voice is like anxiety under the anx.
And so then seeing that modeled for me especially by my dad, I mean, growing up, his flavor was really around body anxiety or health anxiety, which is certainly what I've intuited. But just, you know, as a kid, we had the.
We had a spare room with like a calorie counting book, which is a whole other thread, and then a medical dictionary or a medical dictionary. This is like way before Google. And so he was always kind of worrying and nervous and modeling that. And so in this strange way, when something really bad did happen later on, when he got blood cancer, when my mom was diagnosed with Parkinson's, it's almost like his whole life he'd been ready for anything and kind of bracing and so vigilant and working so hard and so worried that when it happened, he was kind of like, okay, so in this really strange, kind of, I'd say kind of unhealthy way, there was this almost service of it. But gosh, that's not for me, that's not for us. That's not the right way to move about it. And so anyways, it was muddled at home and then in the church just again, this feeling like if I was the better, the better Christian would be able to overcome. What I've learned since, what I've certainly learned since again and again, is that, and this is like spoiler alert for the book, God does not take away, in many cases, our anxiety. God can do what God wants to do, but that we are certainly met in it, just like we're met in suffering, just like we're met and formed through difficult things. So I think a lot of my youth was spent trying to resist and avoid.
And now I'm certainly have more of a hands open posture to try to receive a little bit.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I really do appreciate that because I think that is noteworthy in and of itself. I think there are some folks who experience relief healing in some of those ways, and I think they're are a lot of folks who don't.
And I think even for. I would put myself as almost like a worrier in recovery. Like, I feel so much better now than I did 20 years ago. And I also, you know, have had to. And this is just kind of my bent, but I would say theologically, I have had to reckon with the things that cause me anxiety. So still exist hardcore.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: You know, every single day, all of this. So the temptation to, to, to worry to the extent, to the extent that I, that I did when I was, you know, when I was younger and a young adult is there every single totally.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, as you're talking, I'm realizing, I think, that I spent so much of my life, like, longing for a miracle, like, longing to be healed, longing to see a healing physically or mentally, like with somebody that I love. Longing to see a revival, Like, I think that for a while, I overcorrect it maybe in my early 40s just to say, you know what? I can't. I can't focus or even be open to that because I'm missing what's happening right in front of me. I need to be present now. I have a very, like, very much like a nuanced, I think in a healthier balance, you know, especially after researching and writing this book, like, so Open to and fully believe that God can move and fully heal such a beautiful thing, but also being present and receiving exactly where I am. And gosh, I. The other thing I was thinking as you were talking is how growing up therapy, especially for evangelicals in the 80s and 90s and boomer generation, was seen as. As something that we didn't do. Maybe we went to like a Christian counselor.
But the sort of wonderful partnership that I found, you know, the last, I don't know, 15 years or so, being able to really work through a lot of. A lot of my anxiety with cognitive behavioral therapy and some other, you know, other kind of exposure work has been incredibly healthy. So much so that before, I think I would see my anxiety as this huge force kind of pressing against the door, waiting to kind of come in. It gets bigger. This is, you know, classic, classic therapy talk. But then, like, letting it come in. That was a wonderful kind of spiritual alignment for me. I felt very congruent, just kind of letting it come in, receiving it, and then meeting God there.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Yes, yes, and amen. Yes, and amen. I. I have been loving the trend that I have been seeing lately. I'm in the last several years, probably of this, like, Jesus plus therapy trend. You know, it's. It's the. And there. Because I agree with you. I mean, there were.
When I was growing up, it wasn't. I didn't know any. A single person who was in therapy. I did not know a single. A single person. There was a lot of talk in my context of, you know, you just pray. I mean, that's. That's what you do. If you. If you want relief from some of these things, if you want to experience healing, then you just. I mean, you just pray. And that kind of quote should be enough. Which, again, layers upon layers of that anxiety. Then when it's not enough, you know, I'm not doing it right or I'm not allowing God to come in and do whatever work God wants to do, you know, these kinds of things, it just. It just adds and adds and adds.
So I've been really grateful to see that, to see medication become destigmatized, you know, all of those things. And I hope that that work and those trends continue and even just openness, you know, that we can talk about these things and not have to kind of suffer in silence.
I really. I'm hoping that those kinds of trends continue.
And I do want to talk about the.
Some of the spiritual practices, but I'd love to move to a little bit deeper into some of these systems. There's a part where when we've talked about it a little, I want to dive a little bit deeper into the, into how anxiety, like what we were describing in some ways is kind of particular to certain evangelical cultures, context, circles, I will name one for me.
It's come up recently and I think politically we are seeing this again.
One thing, if you have an anxious kid, an anxious preteen or teen, don't hand them the Left behind series.
I mean, I still, like physically in my body can feel, feel what I felt waking up from a nightmare where it was myself and a disabled relative who had been left behind after the Rapture.
And me and my, you know what, however old I was in this dream, 15 or 16 year old self was responsible in the aftermath of the Rapture for taking care of myself and of my disabled relative.
And it, I mean, yeah, 30 years later, right. I can still, you know, almost 30 years later, I can still, I can still see the pictures in my mind. That might be an extreme example. That is just one thing. But I do think that there is an anxiety, like a systemic kind of anxiety that is particular, as you, as you say, I love that phrasing that is particular to certain kind of bents of evangelicalism. And I, and I will say, I mean, we are seeing some of that play out now as you and I are recording. We are in mid March, which we have been at war in Iran for almost two weeks now. I think if I'm counting correctly, we've seen Pet Heck, Pete Hexith say some very specific things, you know, that have been reported publicly.
And we've seen church communities and pastors responding to this.
And so it's not just something that was present in the 90s when you and I were going through youth group and things like that. I mean, we're really seeing this now. So I hate even saying this in front of a mic. I would almost say theology aside, but can we talk about the cultural part of that anxiety? We have listeners who are going to fall on all sorts of ends of this. I feel like we could have an appendix edition that we talk about what the theology is that we actually might ascribe to. But regardless, there is this culture that is still being kind of where anxiety is being fed in that way. But anyway, I'm so glad you're glad
[00:16:47] Speaker B: you brought this up. I'm so glad you mentioned the Rapture and anxiety. I was just, especially because of Pete Hegsest comments and current events. And I was just looking through threads yesterday And I took a screenshot and sent it to my husband because there was a. Somebody said, I don't know if you saw this one. It says Costco. Very crowded today. People know about Raptor. Are Preparing Raptor on March 22nd. Spread the word. So, of course, threads love this because raptor instead of rapture was hilarious. But my favorite was raptor on March 22nd. Spread the word. Because that is so much like my dad. I mean, my dad precisely predicted high holy days, Rosh Hashanah. My dad, you know, Yom Kippur. My dad Jewish, converted to Christianity in the 70s. And so we would kind of wait for his next prediction. And so it's. It is. It becomes almost, like, funny sad when that happens. I mean, you grow up like that, but it is actually truly scary as a kid. And I. You're like, it is sort of embedded. My first, really. One of my first and earliest memories was, you know, tracing 666 on my forehead when I was little. I talk about this in Orphan Believers and then running to my mom in the yard saying, mom, I think I'm gonna go to hell. Like, because my dad had talked about it when I was, like, a toddler. So it is deeply scary sometimes. It's funny. It's horribly sad. I mean, it's so many different emotions, but it is all an anxiety response. And it is a need to control and predict and to feel like we have kind of a special knowledge so that we feel good about ourselves. And so hearing that mirrored from Washington is just kind of like an eye roll. And it's like, oh, no, this is not going away. And this is a real thing to talk about. So I just have so many emotions about it that just kind of stir up when I see those sorts of news headlines and tweets, but mostly just a lot of compassion and compassion for ourselves as kids, compassion for people now that are, like, walking through this with their own family and with themselves, you know. So that's such a great example.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I just think that part of that is as I think about the way that it's being talked about. And I, you know, honestly, I've seen some. And I have tried not to pay a ton of attention because I don't want to kind of spark any of those things in myself. But I think it moves to.
You know, there are some things in the book like. Like, you just gave that example of 666. There's. When anxiety exists in these systems like this, or I want to say this in kind of a comparison if the Defense Secretary is stating these things as a reason for war, I think one of the things that I will, that I will say is it is always very hard to argue with God.
And so if God is being pulled in and saying we are doing this because this is something ordained by God is very difficult to argue with that.
At the same time, I think that goes to a couple of things. It goes to, you know, Jesus command, you know, to not worry when that is pulled in.
But it also goes into all of these other things that we might worry about.
When God is involved in certain ways, it increases that anxiety.
One thing that strikes me, and I do think about this as a theologian, I think about this as, you know, someone who's been trained to pastor and to talk to people and things like that, even though we're not pastoring congregation at the moment. But I think about this in a different way is what I'm trying to say than I did when I was growing up as a layperson.
And I. And what I want to say about that is I am hopefully, oh, gosh, when I'm doing my best, I am hopefully aware of what it means when public figures, whether it might be Pete Hegseth or me doing a pulpit fill at a random church, what it means when we bring God into the conversation like this.
I think, because I am aware that it is very hard to argue with God and it is easy for that to turn into something that turns into spiritual abuse even, or, you know, things like that. Because what do you do when someone is telling you God says something or God is involved in something in this way that is very difficult. And I think sometimes the response, at least it has been for me really is anxiety because, gosh, I want to please God, I'm going to do want to be involved in what God is doing in the ways that God wants me to be involved.
And if there's maybe a catch there where you think, I don't know, I'm not sure about this. But so. And so says God?
I don't know. I mean, do you have experience with that? Do you. I mean, how.
What have you seen, if anything, and how that relates to anxiety, like systemically and personally?
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's the ultimate power play, isn't it? Like, what could anyone say when the, the will of God is evoked over. Over a certain pattern, I mean, or a certain decision?
Yeah, I think that it really mirrors how a lot of us who grew up in the evangelical church were taught to, were taught to not question authority, were taught to receive and accept what was being told to us. Because, like you're saying, Alexis, we want to be considered dutiful or good or obedient.
I have a. I think there's also some of us. I mean, you know, I. I love to talk about how I'm Gen X all the time, but there. There are certainly some generational dynamics that I think make some of us question authority more. And so there. There may be the opposite effect where there's an even stronger bristling and in fact, a bristling that leads to disillusionment, disenchantment, and kind of a jettisoning of the faith altogether. So there's that kind of other. Other response, but just thinking about how interesting it is that whenever somebody predicts the world will end, it doesn't happen. And there's this kind of individual church leader or, or pastor or somebody in a public space that then has like an egg on your face, egg on their face moment. It didn't happen then, but maybe they missed something. There's always this kind of, like, awkward day or two, and then they kind of move forward. But this is so different because it's hard. It's our literal government. It. Our national political rulers. Rulers. Sorry, can we take that out? It was. It's our. It's a national kind of political question.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: So I think that it's just this latest example of how we can manipulate and misread the Bible to then project something. And when it doesn't happen, what. What does that mean for a whole government? Like, that's evoking this kind of another end of the world, maybe on the precipice if American exceptionalism doesn't come in. I mean, it is a real cause of lasting harm that continues to kind of melt together church and politics in a very confounding way.
And it is, again, disorienting and discouraging for a lot of us. But if we can be trained to see it and have a little bit of discernment to sit and then bring the question, maybe in prayer, maybe to bring the question to God and say, hey, what are you doing here? Why are you. If we can bring healthy critical thinking agency and, gosh, the good kind of reason that God has given each of us, I think that there may be a way forward if we take a little bit of. Little bit of space and learn to give some more kind of breathing room to these kind of big news headlines and kind of take. Take a step back and say, wait a second, what's really going on here.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I know this, this might feel a little disconnected, but I'm going to see if I can bring it in. Because whether we're talking about politics like we are in this point in the conversation or kind of these personal and intrapersonal things that we've talked about earlier or so many other, so many other areas.
One of the themes that you bring out in the book that actually felt really affirming to me but also very difficult is this theme of anxiety being a shadow side of deep care.
Because I think, you know, I'm hearing that come out in the, in the political.
I hear that come out, you know, even you mentioned orphan believers, but even like, you know, some of your dad's experiences of this, like, like he just cared so deeply, you know, wanted, you know, well being and, you know, all of these things.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: You know, you, you have a lot in the book about caregiving for your parents in, in at the end of their lives for your son.
But, you know, there's just. I'm reminded, you know, again, when, when I'm doing my best, I'm reminded that I think I want to think the best of the, of the leaders, but I also think the best of people who are being affected by it. It's like we're not. I don't think people are trying to be fear mongers. Like, I think it really is coming from a place of deep, deep care
[00:26:39] Speaker B: and
[00:26:42] Speaker A: that connection can be really hard to navigate personally and within these systems.
So can you talk about that kind of shadow, that kind of shadow side and that deep care that can be on the other side of anxiety?
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think it is the, I think it is a pathway or a trail towards connection or, or healthy empathy across difference. I do think that if we can really understand, again, we can see if somebody is, if somebody is working under a lot of fear, if they have anxiety that's kind of taken root around political change, maybe there's economic uncertainty and that's driving some of their voting patterns or behaviors.
If we see somebody kind of in the manosphere or doing more of a trad wife route and the idea of kind of opting out and trying to kind of remove themselves because they're anxious, that is such a natural human thing. And I think that you're right underneath it. If you take, take it like a stone and kind of turn it around in your hand, you can see this, like, longing for people to be safe, to be okay, for their family to be okay. So there's a way that we can talk about These dynamics that are driven by power and greed and corruption. And those things, I think are all very true, but there's also many regular, normal people that are trying to put food on their table, that are trying to, like, live their lives and get through and find purpose and connection. And so when you think about it like that, gosh, there's. How can we not have a tenderness towards other. Towards other people, Even if that is manifested in ways that are not only different, but also sometimes dangerous or offensive, still, there's a humanity, like a kernel of humanity underneath it that I think we can kind of plant and then that can kind of bloom or grow a little bit. And so with my. In my own family's story with my dad, gosh, we did, I guess. I think I read about the north, this. And orphaned believers after he was diagnosed with cancer. It was the first year of the pandemic. He. We drove out to the ocean together.
And I just. My. My first thought was, I don't think I can handle a few hours in the car. This is. We're gonna have such intense conversation. I know we're gonna talk about politics and the end of the world and everything, but, you know, I brought my laptop and I just approached him curiously and I said, dad, tell me the story of when in the seventies you met Jesus.
And like Alexis, the conversation was, like, full of twists and turns and plenty of kind of potentially triggering political things. But, gosh, hearing about the kind of good, the way his life changed, the goodness that was kind of instilled in him, his intense kind of conversion moment, it was. It was one of the most important conversations of my life. And it made me, like, love him in a deeper way, even though I could see the bigger connections that layered out politically as to why I was taught what I was taught about politics and about end times. Like, I understood it in a bigger cultural frame. Like, of course, in the 70s and 80s, this was in the water. Of course, you read late Great Planet Earth, and it sold more copies than the Joy of Sex. Like, I get it now. I can put the click, the pieces in place, but more importantly, I can, like, see that you were doing your best and that there was something so good and profound and how God met you. And I can see that in my life, too. And I can see that kind of hand traced on me, too. And so it. Like, everything is so complicated, but there is a certain opportunity, if we can put ourselves in the position to see it, which can be hard sometimes.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. I mean, that's great.
Sarah, thank you so much for that because, yeah, I think that I felt a lot of grace in that connection.
Yeah, I just, I felt a lot of grace in that connection for sure.
Maybe we can move a little bit to. We have mentioned your dad a couple of times and you share a lot in this book in Nervous Systems about your journey as a caregiver to both of your parents near the end of their lives and when they were, when they were both ill.
And I'm curious, I'm curious about, for you in writing a book on the topic of anxiety because we, I think I'm trying to find a way to phrase this because in my family we have done a lot of caregiving, but I recognize that it is not experience that everyone has had, especially folks our age, I think.
So, you know, very briefly, I think I might have mentioned my aunt earlier, but she became disabled when I was in middle school and we all lived in the same small town and so caring for her was really an all family effort. And so I was introduced to that kind of really hands on caregiving as a middle schooler, you know, as a young teen.
And you know, I could see for our family there wasn't. We didn't feel another option. It was, I mean, logistically and things like that, they had resources, but it was just, I don't know, I would say maybe it turned into kind of a family value for my grandparents and then kind of passed on through us. But I. And then we had other experience as well, you know, grandparents with cancer and things like that. We've, you know, chosen to caregive at home as opposed to in other places, which just kind of made it the proximity there.
And so I recognize that while that not an experience, that that's necessarily common. And so I think that's kind of where this question is coming from for you, knowing that like some of it is familiar to me in some ways.
But for folks who have not had that experience or read in your book about your experience, can you share a little bit about why it was important to you to include those experiences in a book that talks about personal and systemic anxiety?
[00:33:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The, the flavor of personal, personal anxiety I talk about in the book is really around the body. And that was very much modeled by my dad specifically. Gosh, he keeps coming up, but just a lot of very intense memories as a kid of him being very nervous about something, some sort of symptom that ended up being benign in his own body and communicating that to me before I really could understand that. And then just Going one of those. Kind of one of those kids that went to the doctor every bee sting. Amoxys, that sort of pink bubblegum amoxicillin was in the fridge most of the winter.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: I can taste it now.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that one never leaves. Yep.
So I, again, I think, was born with a genetic disposition, but certainly the idea of body or illness, anxiety was modeled to me. So when my dad finally got sick, um, after. I say finally, meaning after worrying about it, when the thing happened that he had spent his whole life worrying about, he was diagnosed with blood cancer, multiple myeloma. He was so. He was so, like, calm. It's almost like he was bracing for decades. And when it finally happened, he was like, okay. Same with my mom's Parkinson's disease and then dementia. He was always so vigilant and worried about her. It's almost like then when it came to pass, like, okay, she's going to be fine. It was very disorienting for me and was a good clue into, oh, I like. Clearly anxiety was driving this, and I'm surprised at what's happened now. But I had a choice then to move towards them in that specific season or to emotionally at least distance myself. We live 10 minutes away, but Alexis. It was such a profound time of needing to understand how my own anxiety and my own self was different and differentiate it from some of their experiences.
But it was profoundly challenging for me as a person seeing their parents who took care of them imperfectly, then imperfectly being the one to try to manage care. It was important for me to write about it because I think that, gosh, what's the statistic that many people are in the sandwich generation caring for kids and parents? And I realized that even if readers couldn't understand either didn't have an illness anxiety experience, which is most people, or specifically had not yet come to the point where they would be in a place to care for one or both parents. It is such a universal, basic kind of human thing that I felt like, gosh, I think there could be helpful pieces here. And that's always the point of, you know, of telling our stories in books, to use our own stories to compare and contrast with other people's.
But I guess I would also just add that my experience as a caregiver was very unnatural. I'm an enneagram for I'm feelings first, I guess. But I'm also.
I'm not an. I'm not a natural kind of person that cares in a way that you might think of an enneagram, too. I'M not. The way that I cared for them was very administrative. I'm really good at. I. You know, if my mom would go to the er, I'd be eager to walk back with the doctor on call and just go through the drug list and her dosage and her symptoms. Like, I was encyclopedic. But it was harder for me to have a lot of energy around the kind of care that was required at various points. Specifically, there were many months when they were here living with us, other months when they were in a facility or in a rehab or hospital. But, gosh, the visceral care that was required, assisting with toileting or just changing sheets, that kind of stuff was profoundly uncomfortable. And so good for me. What a spiritual practice into moving towards discomfort and. And hitting our limits and like, man being able to see the need for God and God's goodness in a way that I never understood before.
So it was by far the most difficult and also really quite profound thing that's. That's happened. And now that they've both passed, I'm just beginning to, with even a little bit more distance, kind of see and understand some of that.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: Gosh, thank you so much for sharing that. I. I want to talk about those limits a bit because you share them quite vulnerably in the book, many of them.
And I think, you know, I think about myself now.
I am. My primary caregiving responsibilities are for kids.
And, gosh, I hope that what you just said continues to resonate with me, because I think there is almost, I mean, for me, I think there, and I think for others, too, there can be kind of this, like, superhero expectation of parents or caregivers in general.
This.
You know, I've heard it. I probably won't be able to come up with the quote, but recently it was shared with me. Kind of even how we see our parents, you know, like, growing up, the phases in which we see our parents, kind of how we. We idealize them, I think is how it is. And then. And then we demonize them, and then finally we humanize them, you know, and I think it's that step when we can come to the humanization and realize what you just said. They imperfectly cared for us. And then we will. Many of us will have the opportunity to imperfectly.
To imperfectly care for them, which feels very, very difficult.
And it feels difficult to think about, you know, being a parent and realizing now we're on the imperfect side of caring for our kids. And then, you know, I feel like on my Southern Baptist grandma Should the Lord, Terry, you know, then they will be the ones who will be imperfectly caring, you know, for us, hopefully in our older years. But that limit sometimes, I mean that. That realization of limits can feed anxiety because we don't want to be limited, especially when we are caring for someone we love so much.
It's impossible for us not to be limited, but it can feed that anxiety because, you know, those limits are those. Then those are just things that don't get done or they can't get done, or maybe they're impossible because of a situation. Maybe it's not on us.
And. And I think that that can feed the anxiety. So. So then what?
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that at that, at best in health, that scenario can draw us to the present. Which is why I talk a lot about, you know, embodiment in the book, trying to understand being able to look around and understanding gratitude. Like, thank you, God, that I'm sleeping right now after this day in a bed with a pillow and blankets. Like, thank you, God, that I was able to feed myself food, even if it was like.
Even if it was a sub that had a lot of, like, processed meat. Like, thank you that I was able to feed my family. Like, it really, there's a very, like, particular, like, sometimes hour by hour need to hold on to those little anchors. And that sometimes adds up to a difficult week that you get through. And then there's a month. But gosh, the.
I just think about how part of me, when I was not doing the most healthy patterns of. Of coping and really my anxiety was spiked in caregiving, really wanted to check out and escape.
I really wanted to think about things like wellness culture. Like, maybe if we could save up, I could do like a weekend somewhere. I could do like a. A circuit at like the local spy, right about that. Like, I would try what I could, but nothing would really help or help for long. And in fact, sometimes when we're in a space where we are able to get away, it only heightened for me the intensity of the time or the feeling of lack of control that I was having, seeing my parents move into even worse health or more crises. And so I began to realize that the only way to really find a sense of peace was. It was for me very much a spiritual question. And it was very much the idea of again opening my hands and practicing this idea of holy indifference and saying, God, what. I so much want my parents to not suffer. They are suffering. Let me see your goodness and love. Let me believe that their life is being Sustained right now for a clear purpose and that you are in it. You know, sometimes it would be thinking or praying about that scenario or a different scenario every day, multiple times a day. You know, other days, gosh, I just, I did just check out. I would just watch a bunch of Netflix and take a nap and whatever. Like, I mean, you know, we're all just like human and we're all doing our best. But I think that there's a real call towards very by the moment, grounded, embodied noticing and gratitude that really, it sounds so self helpy, but it really truly helped. Especially when I can open my hands and say, God, just please just remind me that you're here and doing something and let us feel your love right now. At least a little bit.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd kind of like to move in that direction a bit if we could and just ask you to elaborate on some of the things that you just talked about, but also on some of the other practices that, that you mention in the book. I think, you know, we mentioned this like command from Jesus not to worry. That sometimes feels very unfair and ominous and you know, all of these kinds of things. And so I don't, you know, I, and I know you don't either. I don't really want to approach it from that perspective.
But I would say as someone who, who was introduced to even the idea of spiritual practices, you know, less than a decade ago, I have been really encouraged by continuing to hear how, you know, how different people are.
Yeah.
How different people are utilizing some of these things, have been around many of them for centuries. You know, what resonates with people, it feels meaningful, you know, to others. And I, and I don't, I don't even really want to say like what works or what doesn't, you know, but it's just like what is, you know, what have you found to be, to be meaningful for you? In this space I'm feeling for myself, I can say anything is going to be better than what I tried to do for a long time, which was just kind of like will myself not, not to worry, will myself to not feel anxious. You know, it's like, okay, that doesn't work. I'm not looking at these practices as being some sort of fix, but I'm looking at them to say what? Yeah, what, what. That's the term that keeps coming to me is like what might be meaningful for me in, in those seasons or in those moments, even when I'm, when I'm feeling, feeling anxiety. Come on.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: You're right. Yeah, you can't you can't. We can't think ourselves out of it or try a little bit harder. It only reinforces what's going on. And I think then for. At least for me and for, for many of us makes the sort of need for, for God in our life. There's a. There can almost be a desperation at points, I think, when it's a really hard day.
Yeah, I thought. I talk about several spiritual practices in the book.
Again, I talk a lot about embodiment in the body section. And I talk about that because, gosh, the, the way that I imagined embodiment, not me for I thought about it being this different kind of person that was like maybe a little less anxious, a little less Type A could access like big stretches on beaches and yoga and maybe wore linen. I imagined a different kind of person than how I tend to experience life in the world and the city and my pace. And I just then realized that thinking about the, the life of Jesus, like the real things that like just I began to really focus almost like visually sometimes thinking about Jesus making fish for his friends, thinking about Jesus walking around in sandals, thinking about Jesus, like being tired. I really just thought about the fact that the whole wild story of the Christian life is that God was embodied. And gosh, if that's the incarnation, there must be something good there, even for type A nervous people that live in the city.
Then there was a family systems therapist named Edwin Friedman who wrote a book in 2006 or seven, I think, called Failure of Nerve that talked about this idea of being a non anxious presence.
He wrote the book in the lead up to Y2K. So it was a different time in the nation where there was a lot of collective anxiety about what might happen or if the world would end or if we should be stockpiling canned goods and moving to some lands, whatever that flavor was like, if you remember that time.
But Friedman just in a really cool way models this idea of how when anxiety is at the top, either for a business leader or a pastor or a person that has kids or a human, because we're all leading all the time and influencing all the time, we model anxiety and it trickles down. And of course the same thing works for being non anxious. And so it was this really practical way that I think in churches and in our own families, when we choose to take a beat, to take a moment, to take a breath and to model curiosity, to be open, to choose, even if we may still be feeling anxiety, to at least lean into the part of us that may Be able to experience peace or hope for peace, and then to.
With our words and our actions and the way that our body is being carried, like the way that we're manifesting our presence, to then take a moment and remove the anxiety. It actually affects other people pretty quickly. So I talk about that a little bit in the book. And then I talk a little bit about some Benedictine vows specifically of stability and fidelity.
The idea of long suffering, of if we are blessed with the gift of a long life, to be able to put the season we're in, in proportionality with maybe other seasons. For example, the five years of intense caregiving for my mom and dad seemed completely endless. And now that I am freshly past them, I realize that there are perspectives to learn in the midst of them and then also after those times. And so the idea of fidelity, of staying faithfully put where you are, I think is really challenging and really beautiful, and modeling stability to our families and friends.
The thing that I love about these practices is that they're ancient, they're nothing new, but they seem again and again, in whatever kind of political or cultural era we're in, to have something really good to say to our souls and really nurturing to say to our spiritual life. And then the, the last thing that I would mention is this idea of holy indifference that I learned about through the Ignatian exercises.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: I'm so glad you went there. I was going to ask you, really, if that wasn't on your list, I was going to go back and talk about holiness. Please. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. So I.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: So I did the ignition exercises a couple of years ago with my friends Dan and Renee, who lead a retreat center here in Seattle called Soul Care Seattle. And I had resisted doing them for a while until I kind of knew that things were so bad I kind of had to, like, I. I didn't think I had time. And then things were at the point of my mom and dad that were so intense, I realized I was kind of desperate for them. So basically, for an hour a day, I would walk through kind of a certain kind of guided, nine month long prayer journey and have direction once a week. And Ignatius talks about all sorts of interesting things. He talks about this, like, spiritual dossier where we go through from like first memories, from the earliest memories on, and write down kind of all of our consolations or times when we felt like God moved towards us. And then seasons of desolation where we felt distant from God and to kind of.
So I feel like it was this opportunity to really think back about anxiety from the very start of my life and also find graces.
At one point in the Exercises, we got to the idea of holy indifference, which I was not familiar with. It's also called detachment.
You can use that same word.
I think a lot of people, when they hear the term holy indifference, think that means not caring, it means checking out. But it's actually very much the opposite.
There's all sorts of examples like Jesus on the sermon or Jesus on the cross praying, your will be done, not mine. Or I love Saint Teresa of Lasso's daily Offering, where she says to accept for love of you the joys and sorrows of this passing life so we may one day be united together in eternity. So like, the idea of acceptance, of having your hands open is this core of it. And really Ignatius talks about these binaries. He says, whatever the two options are, a long life or a short life, fame or disgrace, which I love in our Internet age, health or illness, whatever the possibilities are, can you open your hands and say, God, I believe that you are in this and that your good goodwill is leading this decision and that I can trust you. So much so that the outcome becomes less important. And I think that the most master spiritual holy indifference practices have gotten to the point where they really can feel a sense of equanimity or peace about whatever outcome.
And so, gosh, I think about it. I think about indifference all the time. I really mean it. I think about it probably every day. I think about it bringing up my, my teen right now, who's in the midst of being a 16 year old kid and going through all sorts of developmental changes and all sorts of big questions about the world and anxiety. I probably three or four times this week have practiced indifference around some of those parenting decisions because I believe that God loves my kid and that God's will and God's love and goodness is kind of on my kid, my kid's life. And so it's not up to me. So it's this way of kind of letting ourselves off the hook, relaxing and knowing that it's sort of not all on us to strive and work and push and do.
Yeah. So indifference, I think, is this way to ground us from the inside out. And then that gives us the energy and clarity to do the work of justice, the work of service, the work of showing up.
It is very much, I think, a essential part of all of that work. Being able to be grounded well in ourselves, to be able to really sit and use our hands, to kind of further God's kingdom. I guess.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah, I was really, really hoping you'd come in on holine. Difference.
Is it all right if I share. I'm going to share a couple of things that I think they're not spiritual practices, but things that I think, you know, have worked for me a little bit. Again, I said I'm not going to use the worked, but, yeah, they help me.
First, I will say, as you were talking about holy indifference, I was thinking I was at a retreat several years ago and we were praying the welcoming prayer by Thomas Keating, and one of the, one of the fellow retreat attendees was saying that he and his spouse will sometimes joke. Said young kids, kids at the time and that they would sometimes and they'd say the welcoming prayer. They would say, welcome, welcome, welcome. You know, kind of like.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: Kind of like whatever, you know, like, I love that. I love that kind of a little
[00:53:31] Speaker A: sarcasm in the welcome because we're welcoming everything that comes to us today, right? Like, everything. Because that's so good. Who knows what it'll actually be, especially with those, those young, young kids parenting years.
But I, you know, so I thought, oh, you know, the welcoming prayer is one of those that I've, I've also struggled with.
But, you know, and it's, it's hard to say, okay, bring, you know, okay, Lord, I trust you for these, you know, for these things. But I, I saw a little short clip from a psychologist that I had met at a conference last month, and he was the, the first part of this little, short, very short video.
I was really like, okay, you don't know me, because, you know, he's just talking in general about, like, do you ever have these experiences where you'll start to feel anxious because maybe there's an email that you sent two hours ago that you're not really sure if you really said it the way you wanted to. And the person hasn't respond, you know, and he kind of goes down these rabbit holes that men.
[00:54:30] Speaker B: Sounds like me right down. Right?
[00:54:33] Speaker A: And he said, you know, okay, here's. He's a, he's a Christian psychologist, but he's like, here's a few, you know, three questions, you know, that you can ask yourself. I was like, okay, I was keyed in at that point.
But he said, you know, when you start to build this anxiety, just ask yourself, what exactly is the reason I'm feeling this? You know, like, really, where is it coming from?
Second is that thing, like, whatever it's coming from, the thing that I'm worried about might happen what's real life? Like, what's the, what are the chances of that actually happening?
And then he said, okay, like, and then what's the worst case scenario, basically? And how, like, could you deal with that, you know?
And he's like, because probably there's a difference between the answer to the second question, which what is most likely? You know, and the third question, which is like, what's the worst case scenario? That was really helpful. And then also, several years ago on this podcast, I was having a conversation and one of my guests said, talked about imagining the best case scenario. And Sarah, if I am not telling you, that felt like the stupidest and most brilliant thing I had ever heard in that moment, because I was like, I don't even know if I'm capable of imagining the best case scenario. But I tried it. I tried to put that into regular practices for me. There were a whole host of reasons why I was resistant to that at first.
Part of it, if I'm being really honest, I think is fear of being let down, you know, But I'm like, here's the deal. I spend a lot of energy. And I especially, I used to spend even more energy imagining a worst case scenario. If I'm going to be expending that energy anyway, it is kind of more fun. And I learned in this practice for me that it is way more fun actually to imagine the best case scenario of something. And a lot people of, you know, and it's like a lot of times probably neither one of them happen. But even when I have memories of the process, a lot of times my memories of the process are imagining the really wonderful things, you know, that could happen in a situation rather than imagining the worst.
[00:56:46] Speaker B: As you're talking, I'm literally doing that right now about a specific scenario in my life. Like, I was honestly practicing in real time. Yeah, Isn't that so fun?
[00:56:54] Speaker A: I mean, I just was. I was so grateful for that because it really did feel very foreign to me in that moment. And since then, I've tried to bring that into my practices for me, to combat an anxiety, because it's fun, you know, Like, I learned that it's. It's fun, you know, to kind of imagine those.
[00:57:15] Speaker B: Yeah, here's the. Here's another thing that's making me think about, Gosh, so much of. I think a lot of our lives are centered around avoiding pain and suffering or moving towards comfort. And I think that for folks that are in a season of trial or affliction, in whatever way, some of us in very real Ways in terms of safety, of gosh, of deportation, of war. I mean, obviously some of us in ways that are quite substantial, but others in sort of regular, everyday, what, suburban American life. Like the idea that I spent decades avoiding suffering and being afraid of bad things happening. And then when they really do, maybe this is like the healthiest version of my dad's kind of accepting that he had cancer or my mom had Parkinson's disease, dementia. Like there's this way in which, gosh, the way that of course we're formed, the way that we begin to understand and have empathy for other people, the good character formation and connection that comes through other communities of people, whole hosts of people in the same situation through suffering is so profound and human and meaningful and character forming that I.
I would never think to run towards it. I would never want it for anybody. But I see that we're in those rooms, we look around and there's a lot of other people there.
There's a lot of really beautiful conversations and opportunities to be well formed and experience life more fully and being human more fully.
And so I say that as a person that's just had a little bit of that lately. So I really try to think about avoiding suffering differently now than I did a few years ago.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: Gosh, thanks for sharing that.
I don't really have anything to add except for the fact that I will be thinking about that, thinking about what you just said as I go about my day.
Sarah, I feel like we've covered a lot of ground.
I feel like we've covered a lot of ground. And I just want to say for listeners that there's so much more ground to cover in the book, and I really do believe, having read it, that for people who have struggled with anxiety, like either one of us have, or for people who have loved, who have dearly loved someone who has struggled with this, I think that there is something here for you. And I believe that there are facets. Kind of like when you talked earlier about picking up the rock and turning it over. I'm imagining now, like a gem cut, thinking there are things that are going to hit people differently in this book as they read it, I believe. And so I just think it's worth picking it up, going through it.
[01:00:05] Speaker B: Thank you, that's so kind.
I really appreciate you saying that, Alexis, and I hope that. But I also get a little bit quirky and funny in it too. So hopefully it's not.
I always tell people it sounds intense, but it's also hopefully pretty readable.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: No, absolutely. Absolutely. I was reading a book on preaching when I was in seminary and it was talking about when we were sharing stories. The advice was to be to share stories that people who were listening could say, me too.
And I felt like there was a lot of that in this book. Like you're sharing stories where the readers can say, ah, me too.
And that's helpful. So thank you, Sarah. Again, the name of this book that we keep talking about is Nervous Systems, Spiritual Practices to calm anxiety in your body, the Church in Politics by my guest, Sarah Blips. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me for your.
Just for your willingness. And really, it feels very brave when I hear you sharing. And so thank you for being willing to do that for the benefit of us as well.
[01:01:12] Speaker B: Thanks, Alexis. It was such a gift to be with you. I love this conversation.
[01:01:17] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show Notes, Music and podcast production by Seth Buscetti. Be sure to give us a review on on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also Visit
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Sa.
