The Leader's Journey Podcast Resilience: Growing Your Pain Tolerance
12 snips
Jul 25, 2026 
Chuck DeGroat, pastor, therapist, seminary professor, and author who writes on trauma and spiritual formation. He reframes resilience as transformative growth rather than powering through. They explore how safe relationships, community, and spiritual practices foster lasting endurance. Practical features include distinguishing formative pain from harm and ways to grow pain tolerance slowly and wisely.
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Suffering Can Be Transformational
- Resilience isn't just avoiding pain; suffering can be transformation when held well.
- Chuck DeGroat reframes suffering as a potentially formative process rather than only a problem to eliminate.
Accompaniment Determines Whether Pain Traumatizes
- Pain that is accompanied by connection tends to transform while solo pain risks trauma.
- Chuck points to the autonomic nervous system fact that accompanied pain gives you a fighting chance to avoid lasting wounds.
Ground Yourself Before Helping Others
- Ground yourself so you neither enmesh nor distance from those you lead or coach.
- Chuck advises leaders to develop differentiation and attend to what's happening inside them during relational work.
