Since it has been a few weeks since Rachael and Dan hosted together on the podcast, they decided to sit down and check-in both with each other and the state of the world before launching into more of our regularly scheduled fall content. It’s been a hard season and a hard year. Feeling scattered, fragmented, numb, and isolated are normal. Yet, at the same time, we must also continue to ask ourselves the question: Who do we want to become, how do we want to live in this crazy period? Resources: Listen to a podcast series with Dan and Rachael about “Not Doing Well” Listen to a recent podcast series about “Love and Courage in a Global Pandemic” Read a blog post by Rebekah Vickery entitled “Honoring Our Embodied Trauma in the Midst of a Pandemic”

“We all have something to offer and we all have something to learn from each other in all of our various stages of life and relationships.” -Beau Denton   As the month of conversations about marriage draws to a close, Dan and Becky invite Beau Denton and Ashley Wright on the podcast to talk about how single people and married people can relate better together. Beau was a former Content Creator for The Seattle School and played an integral role in synthesizing podcast episodes, and Ashley serves as the Director of Marketing and Communications for The Seattle School, overseeing the production and planning of The Allender Center podcast. In a couple-oriented world, single people can often feel excluded, or feel they do not have a lot to say about marriage as they are not in a marriage relationship. Beau and Ashley provide deep wisdom and perspective for how single people can, in truth and trust, engage married couples, and invite those who are married to do the same for single people.   Resources: Purchase a bundle of our new marriage offerings, including our Marriage Conference, Marriage Online Course, and Date Nights for 15% off—only until October 10, 2020 Listen to a podcast episode in the Family of Origin series about triangulation.  Read an article by Abby Wong-Heffter entitled “Post Traumatic Single Disorder.”

Dan and Becky Allender invite Paul and Sara Steinke into a conversation about creating and living rituals in marriage, particularly in this era of COVID-19. Paul is the Vice President of Students and Alumni at The Seattle School and Sara is a private practitioner, yoga instructor, and poet. Throughout the episode, they talk about the presence of ritual in their relationships, the specific kinds of rituals they practice to enhance and grow their marriage, and the difference between creating a ritual and a habit.  Resources: Purchase a bundle of our new marriage offerings, including our Marriage Conference, Marriage Online Course, and Date Nights for 15% off—only until October 10, 2020 Listen to a podcast series about the Marriage Quadrants, a system of sorting and classifying patterns and structures that are highly intricate and complex.

This week on the podcast, Dan and Becky Allender talk about triggers in marriage with their good friends Dr. Steve and Lisa Call. You may recognize Steve and Lisa from the new Marriage Online Course.What follows is both a humorous and deeply insightful conversation. Triggers can undermine a marriage relationship as a couple often does not have language or context to understand what provoked their partner, or how to engage one another after someone is triggered.  Resources: Purchase a bundle of our new marriage offerings, including our Marriage Conference, Marriage Online Course, and Date Nights for 15% off—only until October 10, 2020 Listen to a podcast episode, “Reconnection in Marriage with Dr. Dan Allender and Dr. Steve Call” Listen to a podcast episode about “Dissociation in Marriage”

“Can you be faithful with the small?”  -Dr. Dan Allender   As we enter a fall that is full of complexity, we’re going to be having conversations over the next few weeks on the topic of marriage. Before we dive in, however, we want to emphasize that this is a series for everyone—whether you are single, about to be married, just married, or have been married for a long time. Today, you’ll hear Dr. Dan Allender and his wife, Becky Allender, talk about the elements of disruption they have been experiencing in their own lives and marriage, what spending more time together exposes in their relationship, and what they continue to learn about one another during this season of deep change and growth.    Resources: Purchase a bundle of our new marriage offerings, including our Marriage Conference, Marriage Online Course, and Date Nights for 15% off—only until October 10, 2020 Listen to a podcast episode with Dr. Steve Call, “Connection in Marriage During a Pandemic” Listen to the “Love and Courage in a Global Pandemic” podcast series Read the blog post “Dance with Me” by Robyn Whitaker

Today we’re revisiting a conversation that Dr. Dan Allender had a few years ago with Dr. Chelle Stearns, Associate Professor of Theology at The Seattle School, exploring her ongoing work of developing a theology of abuse. She believes that as a theologian, an artist, and a witness of other artists, she is called—and we are called—to hold together immense sorrow and stunning beauty. Ultimately, Chelle invites us to wrestle with how we address trauma in view of the embodied life of Christ, and how this might change the way we tend to the stories of harm in our own lives and communities.  Resources: Watch Dr. Chelle Stearns speak on ‘Lament and Hope Through a Trauma-Informed Theology’ at The Seattle School’s Seventh Annual Stanley Grenz Lecture Watch Rachael Clinton speak at the 2019 Theology & Trauma Conference  Read “Let the Lament Come” by Heather Stringer

This week, we’re re-sharing the second half of a series Rachael Clinton Chen and Dr. Dan Allender recorded last year on the particulars of spiritual abuse. Throughout their conversation, you’ll hear them discuss the effects that spiritual abuse has on our bodies, including dissociation and shame. Because spiritually abusive leaders rarely stop with mind control, they work to create a system in which they can control every aspect—including the bodies—of the people under their authority. Rachael and Dan also explore the long, slow movement of healing in the wake of abuse and the work of tending to small areas of growth, trusting that God is contending for us in the big areas. No matter how long it takes, how can we begin reclaiming our minds and moving back into our bodies? What are the small steps we can take on the long road to healing? As we attune to that which is beautiful and true, and to that which honors the dignity in who we were created to be, we may begin living into the hope that trauma, death, and spiritual abuse do not have to have the last word. Resources Read an article “Enigmas, Myths, and the Shame of the Strong Silent Type” by Beau Denton Read “Leading out of Healing” by Wendell Moss Read “When Shame is Deeper than Salvation” by Andrew Bauman

Last year, Rachael Clinton Chen and Dr. Dan Allender dove into a series on the dynamics of spiritual abuse and forms of trauma that can emerge in situations of spiritual abuse. This week, we’re sharing with you their conversation about some of the particulars of spiritual abuse including mind control, dogmatism, suspicion, and loyalty. One of the first categories you’ll hear them unpack is mind control, including the implications and consequences of abusive mind control which distorts desire for attunement in order to grow suspicion and mistrust.    All of these systems and categories, however, are ultimately about control—structuring power and authority in such a way that spiritually abusive leaders have total control over the minds and bodies of those in their communities. Ultimately, though, Dan and Rachael invite us back to that which spiritual abuse most fundamentally sabotages: hope. Resources: Listen to an episode of the podcast where Dan and Rachael address listener questions about spiritual abuse.  Read a blog post, “Dogma, Abuse, and Embodied Theology” Read a blog post, “Tuning in to the Unseen”

Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen welcome back former podcast guest Jimmy McGee, President and CEO of The Impact Movement, to have a conversation about the final two qualities of a well-lived story: curiosity and commitment. According to Dan, Jimmy is one of the most curious people (and voracious readers) that he knows. As they talk with one another about these two qualities of a well-lived story, you’ll hear how Jimmy came to be so deeply curious and his commitments to wholeness and formation and to passing on the gifts that he has been given.  Resources: Read Between the Dreaming and Coming True by Robert Benson Read Living Prayer and The Echo Within by Robert Benson Read Great Negroes, Past and Present by Russell L. Adams  Read How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious by Fritz Ridenour Learn more about pioneer civil rights organizer C.T. Vivian

As our hosts, Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, continue to explore the qualities of a well-lived story, they invite friend of The Allender Center Danielle Castielljo to engage the topic of courage. Danielle is a writer, mother, and recent graduate of both The Seattle School’s MACP graduate program and The Allender Center’s Certificate in Narrative Focused Trauma Care Level I and II. Through their conversation, you’ll hear many stories from Danielle’s life, including her courageous journey to graduate school and the work she is called to do in the world.  Resources: Listen to new and past episodes of Danielle’s podcast, The Arise Podcast   Read A Shining Affliction    Learn more about Danielle and her work by visiting her website  Listen to a podcast series on Love and Courage in a Global Pandemic  Learn more about Danielle’s practice, Wayfinding Therapy