136. Healthy Attachment and Spiritual Leadership, with Todd Hall, author of The Connected Life

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Todd Hall is the author of The Connected Life and professor of Psychology at Biola University and faculty affiliate at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program. 

In this episode we discuss a key component of healthy leadership: secure attachments.  Healthy leaders more likely grew up with safe and secure attachments (primarily with their parents or key caregivers) or have worked to develop safe and secure now in their adult years.  Todd Hall unpacks how to grow into a healthy leader by developing those safe and secure attachments.

THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDES:

• Todd Hall is the author of The Connected Life and professor of Psychology at Biola University and faculty affiliate at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program.
• According to Todd Hall, a “connected life” is a life in which we feel known and accepted by the important people in our lives.  And we don’t feel alone with our emotional pain.
• Having a secure attachment is characterized by:  comfort, challenge, and companionship.
• A life of healthy connectedness requires healthy connections in our childhood.
• When we don’t have strong connections, according to Todd Hall, we can develop unhealthy insecure attachments.
• Anxious attachment manifests as a feeling that people in my life won’t be there for me.
• Dismissing attachment manifests with shutting down their connections and sense of need for other people.
• Todd Hall shows how our relationships with our childhood attachment figures impact the way we relate to God.
• Todd Hall tells his own story of struggling with his relationships as a child and the healing he experienced as he grew up.
• Peer relationships can also affect our sense of attachment in our relationships.
• According to Todd Hall, the experience of suffering can lead to growth if it is processed well.
• We process our suffering well as we bring our suffering to God.
• The act of “lament” can be a way of bringing our suffering to God.
• Lament includes four elements:
  • An address to God.
  • A pouring out of our suffering to God.
  • A request to God to alleviate our suffering.
  • An expression of trust in God.
• When we suffer we also need to bring our experience with people who are safe.
• In order to lead well, pastors and church leaders need to address their own attachment needs and learn to be attuned to their own emotions.

RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:

• Books mentioned:
  • The Connected Life, by Todd Hall
  • Relational Spirituality, by Todd Hall
• Website:
• www.connectedlifebook.com

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