The Allender Center Podcast
The Allender Center
The Allender Center Podcast features Dr. Dan Allender and his team engaging topics on healing and restoration through the unique intersection of theology and psychology. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join us to gain refreshing insight into understanding your story, handling relational struggles, recovering from trauma and abuse, and more.
The mission of The Allender Center is to help people tell their stories with awareness and integrity, and to train them to listen to the stories of others with care, artistry, and skill so that they may foster redemption and healing in their lives. The Allender Center is a pioneering organization committed to boldly engaging the impact of trauma and abuse, providing healing and teaching to individuals, couples, and communities, and training professionals to listen and enter into stories in a way that facilitates transformation and hope. For information on all our programs and live events, visit theallendercenter.org
The mission of The Allender Center is to help people tell their stories with awareness and integrity, and to train them to listen to the stories of others with care, artistry, and skill so that they may foster redemption and healing in their lives. The Allender Center is a pioneering organization committed to boldly engaging the impact of trauma and abuse, providing healing and teaching to individuals, couples, and communities, and training professionals to listen and enter into stories in a way that facilitates transformation and hope. For information on all our programs and live events, visit theallendercenter.org
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 14, 2021 • 34min
Engaging Our Stories with Gwen St. John
Today is the start of a series of episodes we've been eagerly waiting to share with you. We're going to be engaging the stories of some of our dear friends and colleagues in order to help you—our listeners— get a better sense for how to look at and read your own story. In this episode, Dan and Rachael talk with Gwen St. John, a therapist and long-time Allender Center facilitator, about how her experience growing up shaped who she is today as someone with high sensitivity, and how this led her to become a "reader of people and the world." Listen closely to the ways Dan and Rachael engage her stories of harm with care and kindness, and how they invite her to stay in her body while recounting these stories. Listener Resources: Do you relate to high sensitivity? Take a quick survey, recommended by Gwen Learn more about Gwen and her counseling practice Curious about pursuing your own story work? Learn more about and apply to Story Workshop—applications due August 31, 2021
Aug 6, 2021 • 34min
Fly Fishing, Play, and Restoration
We all need space to play: a concentrated period of time that opens the door for the restoration that our hearts and bodies most desperately need. One of the ways Dan, Rachael, and good friend Dr. Steve Call find restoration is through fly fishing. Over the course of this podcast episode, you'll hear both humorous and insightful anecdotes from all three about their various endeavors into fly fishing and, even if you yourself are not energized by fishing, you can't help but be swept up by their delight. And as you listen, ask yourself: Why do we need something that so deeply captivates us? Listener Resources: Listen to the podcast series, "A Summer of Play" Read blog post "It's Summer, Let's Play!" by Robyn Whitaker Listen to podcast episode "Play, Anxiety and Resilience: How to Help Kids in a Pandemic" featuring special guest Dr. Pam Davis
Jul 30, 2021 • 33min
Curiosity and Hospitality
In the final episode on hospitality, Dan and Becky step into the realms of ideas, experiences, and suffering. What does it look like to be hospitable to an idea, particularly a new idea, that is offered to us? How can we be more hospitable to suffering, and what does that look like? Throughout their conversation, Dan emphasizes the importance of being able to differ with an idea while also being able to welcome it and ask questions that are not defensive, but have a kind of hospitality that will allow us to be transformed by what we're engaging. Listener Resources: Listen to the first two episodes of this series on Hospitality Read Romans 12:9-21 (MSG) Read a blog post by Dr. Dan Allender titled "Forgotten Hospitality" Listen to the first episode in podcast series "A Summer of Hospitality"
Jul 23, 2021 • 26min
Providing Hospitality: A Conversation with Becky Allender
Continuing a conversation about hospitality, Dan invites his wife, Becky Allender, back to the podcast to recount a personal, life-changing experience that changed their perspective of hospitality. Sometimes it is assumed hospitality is setting a 'perfect plate' for guests, however, we need to remove ourselves from the idea that hospitality is simply entertainment. How are you engaging others at the grocery store, in your neighborhood, or at work? What does it mean to offer care and welcome from the heart? Throughout the episode you'll hear more of Dan and Becky's stories as well as how they are actively changing in order to become more hospitable in their day to day practices. Listener Resources: Read a blog post by Dr. Dan Allender titled "Forgotten Hospitality" Listen to the first episode in podcast series "A Summer of Hospitality"
Jul 17, 2021 • 34min
What Is Hospitality? A Conversation with Dr. Tremper Longman III
Hospitality over this past year for many meant logging onto a Zoom call, however, as we step into a 'new normal' there is greater opportunity to not only embody hospitality but to expand our understanding of what it means to truly 'welcome the stranger.' Listen as Dan talks with friend and fellow professor, Dr. Tremper Longman III, this week on the podcast about Old Testament practices of hospitality, the inequality of hospitality, and much more. Listener Resources: Read a blog post by Dr. Dan Allender titled "Forgotten Hospitality" - https://theallendercenter.org/2021/07/forgotten-hospitality/ Listen to the first episode in podcast series "A Summer of Hospitality" - https://theallendercenter.org/2018/06/summer-hospitality-1/
Jul 9, 2021 • 29min
Trauma-Informed Parenting with Abby Wong-Heffter
Dan is back this week with Abby Wong Heffter to talk about trauma in light of their upcoming training, Effective Trauma Care, in just a few weeks. Today's episode is invaluable for anyone navigating the lasting effects of trauma from this past year, but particularly so for parents. Abby shares her own experiences of parenting as a mom and step-mom in this season, ways to know if a child has been significantly affected by trauma, and how to tend to your own mental health. Effective Trauma Care is coming up this July 22-23! Learn more about what Dan and Abby explore over this two-day event and register today. Resources Read a blog post, "Good Enough Parenting in a Time of Crisis" Learn more about Effective Trauma Care Listen to a podcast episode, "Parenting in the Midst of a Pandemic"
Jul 3, 2021 • 28min
Trauma-Informed Care with Abby Wong-Heffter
This week on the podcast, Dan begins the first of two conversations with special guest Abby Wong-Heffter, a teaching staff member at the Allender Center and coordinator of the Concentration in Trauma & Abuse at The Seattle School. Together they dive into the topic of trauma and the parts of Abby's story that reveal how she found her way to becoming a trauma-informed therapist.
Jun 26, 2021 • 58min
Food, Kindness, and Our Bodies
Picking up on the episode from last week, today you'll hear the second half of a conversation on food and our bodies featuring guests Matt Tiemeyer, LMHC, and Diane Summers, RDN, CEDRD-S, CD. They discuss a range of topics from the connection between desire, shame, and food, to how we can heal our relationship with food and our bodies. And, as you listen, remember that no matter where you are at in your journey with food or in this season of heightened stress, it is never too late to "turn back to kindness." Listener Resources: Matt Tiemeyer practices at Blue Harbor Counseling Diane Summers practices at Hope Nutrition Therapy Center Read an interview with Matt and Diane about Redeeming Food & Body
Jun 19, 2021 • 28min
Engaging Food & Body
Food and how we feel about our bodies can be a place of great conflict, especially as we emerge from the pandemic. It's imperative we treat our bodies with kindness and be able to name the dangerous influence of diet culture. So today, we're bringing this episode out from the archives! You'll hear the first part of a conversation recorded in 2020 featuring guests Matt Tiemeyer, LMHC, and Diane Summers, RDN, CEDRD-S, CD about how we can step into greater kindness around food and our bodies.
Jun 12, 2021 • 28min
Flourishing and Anticipation
This week on the podcast, Dan and Rachael continue their conversation about what flourishing looks like as we emerge into a different stage of the pandemic. Much is reopening, and yet we're also waiting in anticipation for what is to come in the next few months. How can we continue to be faithful in the small without giving in to the urge to jump into major changes? What imagination can we grow for what we are anticipating in this next season of life, particularly as we begin to allow our hearts, bodies, and relationships to flourish?
