Okay, Kurt, here we go. Ready? Coming in three, two. following the two oh yeah you you go on one but it's it's imaginary okay All right. All right. Ready? Here we go. Just wait, just to be clear, you want me to go on one, but you're not going to say one. Is that right? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Okay. I'll just tell myself I'm going on two. Okay. All right. Why don't you just count me in and I'll start. Okay. All right. Coming in three.
With my friend, Dr. Kurt Thompson. And my friend, Pepper Sweeney. We're here to discuss. Pepper. It's been a long time getting here. I am really excited. My goodness. Me too. And I'm... Excited not just about the stuff that we're going to talk about in the content, but I'm really excited also about being able to do this with you in particular. We've been talking about this for a number of years and really eager to get started.
So Kurt, you know, you talk a lot about your work. I've heard you say that your work lies at the intersection of interpersonal neurobiology and the gospel. to which I say, doesn't everyone's? So I think we will have people that are listening to this that will understand that with no problems. But I also think that if there's anybody listening to this that are my friends, they might be thinking, what does that mean? So let's talk a little bit about interpersonal neurobiology
You know, what is that? So there are a lot of scientific disciplines that have a stake in understanding what the mind is. And I'm a person in my work as a psychiatrist. I also have a stake in that. I'm interested in what is the mind if you go to see your orthopedic surgeon. like to be confident that they know what a bone is and how it works and you know if it's not working well what to do about it you'd like to think that a psychiatrist might have some idea about the notion of the mind and
There are a lot of different disciplines in science. It could be neuroscience research. research on the brain, research on relationships. research on attachment studies, like how human beings connect with one another. all kinds of disciplines that have a stake in this, but over the course of many years, no one had really ever come up with a common understanding of what the mind is.
And my friend and colleague Dan Siegel, now more than 15 years ago, endeavored to really get a better sense of what does it look like for us to come up with that kind of a working definition of the mind. And this notion of interpersonal neurobiology... is the phrase that describes this collective field of scientific study in which we are looking at a number of different elements from scientific research. that speak to what the mind is, and I think even more important.
What does a healthy mind look like? What does it mean when our minds are flourishing? And we come to understand that the mind has a working definition that we'll eventually get into and talk an awful lot about. But I think for our listeners right now, Most important thing to understand is that our mind isn't just something that is to be equated with the brain. It's a lot more.
It does have to do with my neurobiology. It has to do with the neuro... chemical and biological activity of my brain and my body. But it also has a lot to do with how that is being shaped by my relational interactions. We come to find out. gosh, the neurons, the wiring, the cells in my brain are affected in their firing patterns by the relational interactions that I have from the time that I'm born.
And then with my relationships now. And so this kind of collaborative effort of the scientific discipline of interpersonal neurobiology really looks at this combination of the brain and relationships and as they affect. So, you know, as we talked about this being known podcast that we're. endeavoring on. We talked about the idea of this interpersonal neurobiology along with Christian spiritual formation.
Talk to me a little bit about spiritual formation. You know, what does that mean? Yeah. Well, I think Pepper, for me and for you, we are followers of Jesus. We believe in a God who's made the world. a God who loves us and we acknowledge that we humans have a hard time. returning the favor as it were we have a hard time loving God I mean some days I have a hard time even believing
if you'd look at my life. But we do believe that with the coming of Jesus, with his life and his death and resurrection and ascension, that we Christians talk. that we are being called into a life of joy, a life of beauty, a life of...
Creating new things with each other and not not just with the people that I like the most or that I'm Connected to or I'm most like but the people that I'm even different And that whole notion of formation in the language of Christian faith really refers to this idea that, like... Our lives form. right, the things that I believe form.
I like to believe that I get to live independently and I'm making all of my own choices independent of what anybody else thinks or the emotional reactions of other people around me. when in fact I'm being formed every day. I'm being formed by the social media that I consume. I'm being formed by my parents. Even if my parents are not even alive, I'm being formed by the memory of being formed by so many things. And so the question is that I have is.
What are the things in the world that are going to form me, that are forming me? It's not a question of am I being formed? I'm being formed. but what are the things that are going to form me and christian spiritual formation is really this notion that you know at the end of today St. Paul, in one of his letters to the church in Galatia, he wrote this one phrase where he said, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith.
You take a look at that list of words, and I think at the end of the day, I really would love to be more like that. I'd love to be more loving, more kind, more generous, more gentle, more long-suffering. I want to be more that. I don't wake up in the day and say, like, today, I hope I'm more impatient by the end of the day. I hope I'm more irritable. Like, nobody wants it. We want to be formed into people of great loving kindness and mercy.
which is the essence of what the Christian gospel talks about, that God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit is forming us into these icons of beauty.
And one of the beautiful things about interpersonal neurobiology is that when we study it, when we study this interaction, this interplay between the mind and the brain and relationships, we learn some things that point... what it means to be formed in a christian way we learn some things from the creation from the neuroscience that we study we learn some things that actually help and strengthen and infuse our capacity to be formed into people of greater loving kindness.
Think about the world that we live in with all of its fractures in many many different ways today Gosh, I can't think of a time when we would more need the opportunity to be able to form, to be formed into those kinds of people. That's great. So wait, I'm going to say one more thing. Like, like I just, just to jump right into this, you know, we, you and I've talked about this, about how, and I really look forward to doing this with you. And I want to say that in the last.
What has it been? Like eight years, maybe six, eight. I can't remember that we've known each other. Like, I just want to say that. You have no idea. Like, look, remember, I'm a psychiatrist and I will do what I will on this podcast. So you just got to be careful. You just got to be careful. I want to say to our listeners how grateful I am for the way my life in the last eight years has been formed by you, has been formed by.
our friendship that uh you know we've we've shared a lot of uh important moments and we've shared a lot of important uh pieces of our lives with each other, pieces that have been beautiful, pieces that have been gut-wrenchingly funny. Those may be the most important part. And parts that we've shared with each other, parts of our lives that are less than beautiful, that are less attractive. And I just want to say that I'm just so grateful that this whole notion of being formed.
just a really big deal to me. So I'm much more grateful that we're getting to do this together. You know, it's a two-way street. I feel the exact same way. My relationship with you over the years has been... so important and um and i feel like it's really an embodiment of the work that we're talking So there's three things. There's the interpersonal neurobiology, there's Christian spiritual formation, and then there's telling our stories more true.
which I think is what part of what you were just talking about, that relationship that we've had where we've been able to. tell our stories truly to one another to understand our stories um a little bit better through someone so that we can understand the truth of the story because sometimes i think that we tell ourselves lies Right. All the time. So let's talk a little bit about that. How do we tell our stories more true?
Yeah, well, I think, first of all, just a definition of terms, we live in a world in which we... when we hear the word what's true what you know we think of it in terms of uh well what's true versus what's false is it true that one plus one is two yeah
uh it's false that one plus one is three that's a you know those are facts and we say one thing is true another thing is not true But we're also, and that is a way to understand what we mean by truth, what truth is, tell our stories more truly, like factual. You know, I can tell you, yes, my birth date is September 12th. It's coming up, by the way. I'll look for your card in the mail or not. Kurt, can I just stop you right there? Yeah. Mine was Tuesday.
But you didn't tell me. I have yet to receive even a happy birthday from you. Wait, yours is September 1st. Dude. Okay. Happy birthday. But here's the thing. If you go back and you look at your text thread, I think you will see that I told you. that when we record this particular podcast, I will be a year older. We had this whole back and forth, you know, this whole being known thing, which by the way, let me just, let me just say this.
So it's being known with Dr. Kurt Thompson, right? I'm so important to be known that my name's not even on the title. Right? So I'm feeling less and less known. But wait a minute. Let me make sure to mark it down on my calendar and circle it. You aren't the only one that forgot my birthday by the way my mother of 89 years old forgot my
Right. I said, I don't mind being forgot my birthday. You were there. That's the important thing. Right. I mean, and she's so used to you just kind of being there. Like, I know, like for her, every day is your birthday. I guess. I know. Well, it should be. Right. Not that, you know, not that you're that narcissistic, but you know, that notwithstanding this, this whole notion of telling our stories more truly is as much about telling our stories.
So to be true to someone, for instance, to be true is to be faithful. The word truth in English comes from the older English word, which is the word trust. And when we say that we pledge someone our trough, my trough in merit. I'm pledging my faithfulness. And so to be true, in addition to it meaning what are the facts, it also means what is the faithfulness? What does it mean to tell my story faithfully?
And I know that, you know, some of the work that I do, and I mean, I think in our relationship too, there have been opportunities. for us to begin to talk about things and i know that for instance there have been moments when I've shared things with you in which I was probably aware that to do so was going to be a little anxiety-provoking.
because I was about to reveal something to you that would be potentially embarrassing, that would be shaming to me for you to see that. And so what that would mean is that I'm walking around with a part of my story. that I keep buried, part of my story that I keep out of my awareness. I'm not living very truly because I'm living as if this part of my story doesn't exist. That's not being very faithful to the story. And the reason I don't want to talk about it is because there's too much shame.
But if I'm sitting with you and I tell you part of this, I'm even having a memory of a particular thing that I shared with you in which... Like the very act of saying this to you meant that I was not holding this by my. And it allowed me to look at that part. With you together, it's like you were like you're standing shoulder to shoulder with me and we're both looking at the part of, you know, a particular part of my story that I really, really hate.
And the nature of what I'm seeing changes because I'm not looking at it by myself. And because I now know that you know this part of my story and you're not leaving the room, you're not walking out on it. It means that the very nature of my, what I've believed to be true about this part of my story, that this is a part that shouldn't be talked about. This is the thing that you should be ashamed of. Like that's what I believe is true. I should be ashamed.
And you should keep this under wraps. You shouldn't be talking about this. That's an unfaithful way to tell the story. your presence, enabling me to be known by you, which is, you know, it takes risks to do that. Enabling me to be known by you around these, this particular, these particular.
you know parts of my story actually enable my story to be told more truly and the beautiful thing about this is that that shame is actively transformed by virtue of it being heard by you by me being known by you and it therefore is a more faithful rendition That means that at the end of the day, I have more energy available to me to create new things because that energy is now not being bound up with me keeping that part of my story hidden.
and buried. I'm not burning energy doing that. I'm now, I now have energy available to do something different. And that all happens because you enable me to tell my story more truly. That whole notion, I think, is an example of what we mean, the essence of what it means for us to be known. We're being known by others.
so that we can tell our stories more faithfully to what is true. And this is where the notion, I think, of Christian spiritual formation comes in, in that one of the more important questions that I ask patients that I'm working with is... Right. What's the story? Whether we know it or not. We all wake up every morning and head toward the shower.
with a sense of what my day is going to be like. I got things banging through my head. And in that moment, like I'm telling the story about my life and my day and how it's going to unfold. And, you know, I tell people that there are many days when I believe that I'm living in the middle of the gospel. I'm living in the middle of this time between Christ's first appearance and his second. We're somewhere in the middle of that timeframe, but you know invariably somewhere in my day
I'm going to live like I'm living in some other story. I'm going to like, because I'm going to lose my temper. I'm going to get irritable with somebody. I'm going to be immensely envious of, you know, somebody I'm often envious of you. the most beautiful man in the world. I am often, so at some point, I'm going to live as if I don't really believe I'm living in the middle of a gospel story. And the gospel is a story that is present and trying to transform our...
And so to tell my story faithfully doesn't just mean I'm going to tell it any way I want to. I'm going to tell it in light of this notion, in light of the gospel that says we live in a world. where god is coming for us he's always coming And what is it like for us to be pursued by a God who can't believe his good fortune that he gets to have relationships with?
And so I think that's also an element of this that's important because there are plenty of people who who believe that they are telling their story truly when they say, you know, my my my dad doesn't love me and he never. And that's the end of the story for them. And like, that's as true as it gets for them. There's no more additional faithfulness that we can add to it as far as they're concerned.
But the gospel, right, the Christian spirit, the voice of Jesus would say, your dad may not have loved you, but I, your older brother. I love you so much. I won't even let death get in between us. And that's what we need to tell our stories more truly. And that in its essence is really what has happened between you and me. You know, when you talk about this idea of God is coming.
that's a that's a concept that um can be hard right to to to believe to feel to understand yeah but when kurt is coming for me I see God in that. I see, I've had really an embarrassment of riches when it comes to.
mentors and people that have have been coming after me through my life in that way and you being certainly one of them and and it's in those moments where you know like you talked about some of the our conversations where we've shared sort of some of the uglier things about ourselves and you still stay You didn't look at me with disgust and walk out. And it's at those moments where I can feel God's presence. I can feel him through you and through those relationships.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. We, I have a, I have a phrase that I often use when I say to people, nothing about the world is ultimately real for us until we feel it in our body. Nothing is. And by that, I don't mean that quantum mechanics aren't real until we feel. I don't mean that. linear algebra or any of those kinds of things where i'm not talking about just what i was going to say that linear right i can't even say it so i wasn't going to say it i take that back
But there is a sense in which like gravity is real when I fall and skin my knee. That's when it's real. And in the same way. I mean, I think this is what the scriptures tell us, right? That God formed a man out of the dust of the earth. And then he breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils and man became a living being. There's a certain sense when you listen to that story, you're like, oh, there's a particular way that he did that.
And I don't know that it means like that's always the way that it's done, but I'm just aware that God starts with mud. God starts with the material world. He starts with these things that are common to all of us. And he then relationally like breathes his spirit into us and we become living beings and we don't become a living being until both of those things are coming together.
And I think it's interesting. It doesn't just say, well, and, you know, he took his spirit and he had his spirit and he threw some mud up in the air at the spirit and the mud became animated. Right now, there's this sense which he he starts with the body. which is one of the things that we will eventually talk an awful lot about here, about why the mind is first an embodied process.
When we talk about being loved, when we talk about trauma, when we talk about all the number of things that we're gonna talk about over the course of this podcast, we will be quick to remind everyone that If I'm not sensing whatever it is that we're talking about in my physicality, it has not yet taken up. full residence with me. And so you're right. There's a sense in which we could read the gospels. We could read a story about Jesus healing a blind guy in John chapter nine.
But what I really want to know is what was it like for you to imagine being there on the side of the road when these cats approach this guy? And Jesus, without asking any permission, Once the disciples start this conversation without asking any permission of the guy, he just like starts, you know, he spits on the ground, makes mud. slaps it on the guy's face. The guy's like, he's just minding his own business, right? And the next thing you know, quack, quack, there it is. Like, who does this?
I mean, this is one of those moments where God, once again, Jesus is like reenacting Genesis chapter two, this sense that he's going to take mud and he's going to make something new for. And I'm like this sense that if we're going to be loved. then it's going to be necessary for me to feel it in my solar plexus. I got to feel it in my face. I got to feel it in my chest. I got to have the sense and that I have to sense that it's happening.
I'll just be working really, really hard to pretend that it's there when it's really not, which is why our relationship or the relationships that we have with others by whom we're deeply known make all the difference in the world. for helping us to be formed into these people of light, these people of love, joy, peace. At some point I want to talk about, it doesn't have to be today, but at some point I want to talk about how do we cultivate.
Because I know even for you and I, it wasn't the first time we met that we started bearing our souls to one another, right? It takes time and, you know, there's some work involved and, you know. I know I'm not alone in, in having shared things with people in the past where my trust was betrayed. Right. Or where, you know, those kinds of things happen. So I would like to. you know talk about at some point like how do we develop those kind
not scare people away from the, in the very beginning and all those things. Right. Right. And, and we will, because I would want to, I want to, for our listeners to know right from the start. This project of becoming sons and daughters of God is really hard. This project of becoming bright light is really hard to do. And the whole notion of developing... often in the course of it will, you know, include moments when we are betrayed, moments when the things that we hope to have happen.
either don't happen or we think they're going to and then you know we get hurt and those hurts aren't repaired and So I look forward to talking more about that in particular, because it is a beautiful task that is set before us, and it is an extraordinarily difficult task. And even in that, even in those times where, you know, betrayal or, you know, something like that, that is part of the formation as well, right? But then we have to go and repair, repair those.
Right. Yeah. We'll talk at some point, I'm sure, in more detail about this notion that part of what it means to. flourish part of what it means to grow is to learn what it means to weather those kinds of ruptures to repair ruptures we we know that from research you know rat brains there's a this famous study that gets done where they you know the researcher took group of rats and gave them everything that they wanted.
kind of rat disney world and then you give this set of rats uh another set of rats you know tasks to do and then you impair them along the way right you give them you you give them uh rat disney world but then you take it away and you give them infection or you give them malnutrition or you deplete them of water or whatever but every time
You bring them back to what the other cohort of rats are experiencing. You bring them back to Disney World every single time. Then you give both cohorts an experience of an overwhelming stress. And not surprisingly, the cohort that survives the overwhelming stress is the cohort that has been given multiple episodes of distress over time. But with each time, with those episodes of distress, they are brought back to a place of flirting.
And, and then what's not so great for any of the rats is that when they're sacrificing, you look at their brains, you find that the rats that are in the cohort that were stressed. Everything about their neural interconnection. were thicker. The neural networks were more densely connected. There were more neurons and the neurons were bigger around. There's clear neurobiological. that would indicate that even their behaviorally expressed resilience
is reflected literally in the neural circuitry in their brain. That when we as humans repair ruptures... our relationships actually become even more resilient and strong after the rupture is repaired. than it was beforehand and so the question is not you know am i ever going to have a relationship in which everything is perfect no i want a relationship in which i know
that when a rupture happens, repair is going to follow. This is why we tell parents, look, your kids, we say like, look, the only way you can't screw up your kids is just don't ever have them. It's the only way you can't screw them up. And what kids then need, they don't need parents that are perfect. They need parents who are honest and parents who are willing to genuinely repair ruptures when parents are responsible.
And kids then learn that life and joy and flourishing are not to be found primarily in the absence of suffering, in the absence. but literally can be discovered in the middle of that. And despite. Because suffering, pain, does not define who I am, but rather connection to someone who is always coming to find me, even in my suffering, is what defines how my life flourishes. Wow. And that is being known, right?
It really is. And I just think about our current state of affairs in our world and I think, man. More than ever, do we need people who would be willing to do the work of allowing themselves to be known and who are simultaneously seeking out others? to give them the opportunity to be known. And doing that especially with people with whom we perceive at first glance that we have great differences. But like has been said by many, you know, those things that are most personal to us are universal.
I may have differences politically, differences religiously, theologically, and so forth and so on with others, but everybody knows what it's like to be. Everybody knows what it's like to be connected. Everybody knows what it's like to be loved, forgiven. Everybody knows. And it's some of those topics that I think that interpersonal neurobiology has some things to say to.
And so echo St. Paul's words when he talks about in the first chapter of Romans, where he says, look, from the very beginning, God has used his creation. to reveal to the world his nature. And he never leaves himself without a witness and so in this day when you know Even our sermons and our religious rhetoric seems to be perhaps less able to capture people's attention.
One way I think that God can continue to speak to his people, and by his people I mean everybody, is through the very neuroscience that is part of the world that he's created. Kurt, I think that's a great place for us to end our first episode of this being known podcast. we've given just a taste of what's to come. We'll be delving into all these subjects and many more as we move forward. And I can't say enough how just honored I am to be here. and how much I'm looking forward to.
Yeah. Yeah. Right on. Me too, Pepper. I'm just, I'm so grateful that you have wanted to do this. It's just a real, it's a real honor and it's a real. Getting to do this with you is... I imagine Jesus being in the room and winking at me. So just really grateful. He's winking at you because the joke's on you. I love you, Kurt. Oh, right on. Love you too, man. Till next time, buddy. Till next time.
This podcast is produced by Kurt Thompson, Pepper Sweeney, and myself, Amy Cella. Audio production and music is provided by Noah Needle. If you'd like to connect with us, you can find us on our website, beingknownpodcast.com, or you can find us on social media at beingknownpod. Be well and be known.