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Pam King: Hello, dear listeners. Before the episode gets going today, I wanted to take a moment to ask a favor. Here at the end of this launch season of With & For, we’re running a very short listener survey. You can find the link in our show notes, or you can be old school and type in your browser, With & For.
TheThriveCenter.org/podcast, whether you’ve been listening all season or you’ve just discovered the show, I want to say thank you. As we go back into interview and production mode, I’d love to hear how we can grow and improve. I’m curious about what questions and topics you’d like to hear about, what guests you might want to hear from about thriving in spiritual health, and I’d love your thoughts on format and style of the show.
We’ll be doing a raffle and sending the winner of the raffle some pretty cool Thrive swag. Just click the survey in the show notes for today’s episode, or you can find the survey at thethrivecenter. org. Backslash podcast. Thank you for taking just a moment as the podcast begins to help us grow. And of course, we always want to grow.
I’m Dr. Pam King, and you’re listening to With & For, a podcast that explores the depths of psychological science and spiritual wisdom to offer practical guidance towards spiritual health, wholeness, and thriving on purpose.
Welcome With & For listeners. I am so grateful to have you here for this final wrap up show to our launch season of With & For. It’s been an extraordinarily special experience for me to host the extraordinary guests that we’ve had on the show and also to receive your feedback and comments. I also want to really thank you for trusting me, for allowing my curiosity and my background in research and theology and lived spirituality to guide you through topics that really shape our lives, that give meaning, that weave us into a broader landscape.
that connect us with people and really hopefully allow us to thrive. I just say that because I want you to know I don’t take that lightly. I am extremely excited to introduce you to my right hand woman, Dr. Jilleen Westbrook, who is the Senior Director of Content at the Thrive Center and has been absolutely a pivotal part of Thrive’s developing resources that actually help people grow in their spiritual health and thrive.
Jill, as I call her, has a razor sharp mind, brings focus, clarity, and a great sense of continuity to content development. And I am so grateful for her presence and her fun loving spirit and all her spiritual inclinations that she brings a real sense of lived wisdom to the work at the Thrive Center as well.
Jill Westbrook: Pam, I’m thrilled to be here with you and to get to process this today. this journey with you. I’m so excited. I have a million questions for you.
Pam King: In addition to being Thrive’s Senior Director of Content, Jill is also the producer of the With & For podcast. Jill has been a part of every episode, and I’m so excited to have her on this episode.
Jill Westbrook: Pam, it’s been so fun to dream this up with you. You know, when we first started thinking about doing something where we were talking to people about what they thought about thriving in spiritual health, and we wanted to, for you to have an opportunity to talk with experts in a variety of fields. We didn’t think about a podcast, right?
We thought we’d just gather a whole bunch of people in your backyard and have a conversation. And then this turned into a podcast. And I’d love to talk to you a little bit about how we got there. Like, why did we decide to use this format? Why don’t you tell Tell me what your thoughts were when you said to me, Jill, I want to do a podcast.
Pam King: I think foremost behind this is I just deeply desire for people to thrive and become who they were created to be. And I really understand thriving as a journey of becoming oneself with and for others. So I was hoping a podcast might enable an opportunity for translation and accessibility to, to more people so that they might thrive.
Jill Westbrook: Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense to me, um, because people can access a podcast when they’re running or when they’re in their car. Um, but you and I were really cooking up like, how could we make this something that people could really use? How do you think that landed for people?
Pam King: I think that’s been really important.
You know, a lot of my research has been on actually looking at. the benefits and resources within spirituality and religion. And that’s something that is so often overlooked in a lot of research and also in a lot of other podcasts or personal growth or well being. So I really wanted to uplift the importance of spiritual health and also recognize that not all spirituality is created equally and that there are really important Aspects, or we refer to facets of spiritual health.
And I also realized like the topic is so large, I needed to bring in experts. And the podcast was a wonderful way to bring in people from different research traditions, in some cases religious traditions, cultural backgrounds to speak about thriving in spiritual health based on their own experience or on their scholarship.
So that was really important. As you know, I’ve been deeply impacted by the work of Richie Davidson, and in his episode, I really appreciate how he describes the power of both declarative learning, of learning about something, having something explained, but also that being partnered or accompanied by procedural learning.
When people get to experience something or practice something.
Richie Davidson: This is something we glean from modern neuroscience. One form of learning we call declarative learning, which is learning about stuff. So we can learn the value of kindness. And that’s really important. It can teach us why kindness. is important, the ways that it can be expressed and so forth, but it doesn’t necessarily make a person kinder.
So here there’s a second form of learning, which is absolutely necessary that we call procedural learning. Procedural learning is skill based. It is acquired through practice and it is instantiated in completely different brain networks. Then declarative learning and both forms of learning are necessary for us to cultivate well being and it’s also where the world’s, I think, religious and spiritual traditions play such an important role because they offer a kind of roadmap for the procedural learning that I think is critical and necessary to complement the declarative learning.
So we’ve obviously really taken that to heart in the With & For podcast. And each episode involves declarative learning, where we’re digging in deep into someone’s research or their scholarship, and unpacking ideas and concepts that inform how we thrive. But we’re also sharing our stories. about how we’ve experienced that or struggled with that.
And we’re also offering practices so our listeners can actually have the experience of either reflecting or regulating. And I really hope that our listeners will continue those practices. And we’ll be able to experience that sense of what Dan Siegel refers to as integration. Because we know transformation and lives change when there is that declarative learning accompanied with procedural learning.
Dan Siegel: Integration is simply a system enabling its components to be differentiated and then linked. And in the linkage, they don’t lose the differentiation. So, It’d be like being in a room with people of many different racial backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, and embracing the incredible richness of that diversity.
And then in the linking, experience the incredible harmony that arises when there’s this unity and diversity.
Jill Westbrook: We know that people, when they’re in the throes of difficulties, they have a really hard time going to a practice and like, how might people access those when they’re in times of real difficulty in their lives?
Pam King: Great question. So, just like physical training, um, we go to the gym, we work out our bodies, and then we have strength to react and respond when we need it. We need to cultivate a repertoire of practices so that when the rubber hits the road or life strikes in less opportune ways, we can fall back on practices that are tried and true.
And the practices that we’ve offered through Thrive are actually ones that are sometimes traditional, ancient spiritual practices. But all of our practices are informed by research and science. So we are offering experiences to share with others or to do alone that we know can actually change your mind, change your ability or capacity to regulate your emotions that can enable you deepen your relationships.
And it’s vital that we practice these and cultivate these. So When rubber hits the road, we have them. And Jill, as you know, as the season was wrapping up, my family went through a massive health crisis with one of my children. And I found myself in UCLA hospital for two weeks. So much of my life was up ended.
that I literally sat in a hospital room in UCLA thinking, I’m so grateful I have practices.
Jill Westbrook: So what helped you, Pam? What helped you during that time?
Pam King: What helped me in that time was a lot of breathing. Honestly, there was enough fear and anxiety and enough medical issues to process that my cognitive functioning, my ability to make sense of and reflect on things wasn’t quite there, but for me, just breathing.
Being present both to myself, to my daughter, and my own experience to God was really important. And just being mindful that God, I don’t necessarily have words right now, but I’m going to trust you know what my body, my mind, my heart is yearning for and needs, and be with me in that moment.
Jill Westbrook: So if we’re looking how to implement some of these things that we’ve suggested in the episodes and on our website at the Thrive Center.
Like, how do you habituate those? What exactly did you do in that moment?
Pam King: Yeah, I think, you know, in moments when we’re under threat, we often go to what’s become automatic for us. So for me, I love deep breathing. I love, some people refer to them as five and sevens, five counts of a slow inhale and an extended seven count exhale.
For me, that’s very helpful. Now, The irony in this situation, deep breathing is also a go to exercise for my child who was ill, but her lungs were so deeply impacted by the disease that it hurt to breathe. So she was, her crisis was exacerbated by the fact that her coping skill was not employable. So very scary.
Very scary. So for her, just the presence of another, my holding her hand, My mirroring her breathing in massage was really calming for her. I also want to mention that another go to practice for me, and actually, ironically or synchronistically, Cynthia Erickson, the guest of the podcast episode on trauma, was released while I was in the hospital with my daughter.
And Cynthia talks about the irony of a trauma researcher. not knowing she’s traumatized by her experience with her son. In here, I am the host of the Trauma Researcher, listening to her episode while I’m in the moment of my own trauma exercise. But Cynthia offers a beautiful exercise that many people are familiar with, which is a body scan.
In terms of focusing on on your body and moving through your body from your head slowly to your toes and becoming attuned or aware of your body’s sensations and what it’s saying to you.
Cynthia Eriksson: Trauma impacts our bodies. Our natural response to a threatening experience is that sympathetic nervous system fight, flight, freeze response. So that’s our sympathetic nervous system that’s just going to happen in our bodies. And then trauma disrupts how we think. So trauma disrupts maybe messages I tell myself about the kind of mother that I am, or about safety, or about what I can expect in terms of justice of the world.
Then trauma impacts our relationships, because one of the things that’s really a common reaction to trauma and traumatic events is to feel isolated. to disconnect, to kind of feel this uncertainty. I mean, especially traumas that are more relational or more betrayal. Traumas is even more of a sense of shame and disconnection and isolation.
Trauma can disrupt our sense of meaning. Trauma can disrupt how I understand the functioning of the world or where I might see God or how I understand suffering, learning how to pay attention, learning that there are different sensations. And that practicing that over time and paying attention can then give us that awareness for when we are feeling feelings and we notice those sensations in our bodies.
Jill Westbrook: Yeah, really starting to use the body to understand emotions and where you are emotionally. We often hold tension in, in. like our shoulders, our jaws. And so that little scan, just the physical movement, the physical relaxation can sometimes affect the emotional body as well. I’m activating the parasympathetic nervous system and calming us down.
So yeah, those practices are really powerful. I’m glad you were able to access the breathing there, at least. I know when my daughter was really sick, when she was about your daughter’s age, I was never more afraid in my life. And just trying to calm down so that I didn’t make her fear worse. Exactly. It’s really hard when you’re afraid for someone you love.
And that mommy thing kicks in so fiercely you want to protect and you can’t. And you’re begging God to protect and you’re not quite sure what God’s plans are. Absolutely. So, Pam, you know, I’m wondering if you’re going to be able to carve out some time for rest because you went straight from your daughter into time, you know, needing to finish up the podcast season and we have so many things going on here at the Thrive Center.
How are you going to take care of yourself, Pam?
Pam King: Way to keep it real, Jill. Appreciate that. I’m going to go back and listen to Alexis Abernathy’s episode, which always made the hair on my neck raise as I listened to her admonition. It was an admonition. Yeah, we both said it. An admonition of rest. and finding rhythms.
And you know, Jill, do you want to say that, you know, as I’ve been reflecting on this season, for me personally, one of the take homes is something that I might describe as coming home to my body and just listening to my body, becoming more connected with the natural rhythms of my body, of need for rest, need for activity, need for stillness, connections, or sleep, and I think when we do that, we trust our bodies more.
It becomes an important source of input. Like there’s a language a body has, as you mentioned, around a tightened jaw or a clenching gut or a sense of lightness. And that, you know, we are, especially as an academic, I’m trying to use my brain. My niece always calls me a nerd with lip gloss. I got, a head that I love to use and think about things.
But this work of thriving is really full throttled and full body. And I have found the more that I can come home to who I am physically, my emotions, and I find that connecting with my body enables me to be more aware of my emotions, which alert me to things that bring me joy that probably I should pursue more of, things that make me tense or anxious that I need to either attend to or figure out how to resolve.
And that’s a really important source of information, that awareness in our thriving journeys.
Alexis Abernethy: We have so many demands before us. We feel that We cannot stop. There is too much to do, and we’re not stopping. Know that if you follow the rhythm of this world, you’ll likely be overworking and stressed out, if not traumatized. So I actually get more done following the rhythm of my body and paying attention to it.
Rhythms of deep work and deep rest. This is how I want to lead. For me to survive and then actually thrive in this kind of environment, this I need to have a different rhythm.
Jill Westbrook: Yeah. You know, Pam, when my kids were little, I often felt very alone. And one of the things that’s really come up for me in this journey with you in this podcast is how alone people do feel and how vital relational support is and also how the stories that we tell ourselves that we’ve learned from very young ages about the nature of our relationships impact those, that kind of repetitive pattern of feeling alone.
Could you talk about that and what you learned in this, you know, from our guests about these kinds of issues?
Pam King: Yeah, well, Jill, my research and my scholarship has been deeply informed by relationality. My theology is very relational. And one of the things that I most enjoyed about the season was having scientists and therapists unpack how relationships play out in our lives.
And I’m so grateful to the work of Jim Furrow and Sue Johnson, who talked about how those early relationships in our life form us. and shape us, but how vital the present relationships are to us to make us come alive, enable us to experience vitality, and how Jim described how our becoming is entangled with our belonging, and how important like thriving or growth, or even surviving, like in moments I was at in the hospital, how dependent they are on our deep and genuine connections with others.
Jim Furrow: If we’re not willing to risk, and we’re not willing to reach, we’re not going to necessarily be found. And what we sometimes like to say is, belonging can lead to becoming. That trusting, it’s not just consistency, it’s not just doing the same thing in the same way, it’s actually taking new risks together.
to see more of who each of you are together.
Jill Westbrook: I loved it when Sue said, Do you see what I see? Do you remember that moment?
Pam King: Oh yeah.
Sue Johnson: We need to understand how crucial relationships are for us. They are oxygen. You can’t be a soulful by yourself. That’s the most basic human interaction. Do you share my reality?
Is my reality valid? Do you see what I see? Can you make sense of it? Can you help me make sense of it? Is what I’m feeling making sense? Can you share it? Am I alone? And this is the most basic human contact of all.
Pam King: Having our reality validated. I see, Jill. How hard. you work on behalf of Thrive. How creatively you endeavor to produce resources and practices that actually make a difference in the lives of people.
When people see us, we become more alive. We need that. It’s like our realities, even if it’s our reality, when it’s shared and validated by another. it’s co constructed and it kind of moves from black and white into full color, or at least to HD, that it’s more alive when that reality is shared with another.
Jill Westbrook: Yeah, I don’t think I understood spirituality as being so vitally impacted. I mean, I knew we needed community, but I don’t, I didn’t know that my whole sense of self was being co created. Like, I don’t think I was tapped into that before coming to this work, you know, that I don’t. Your book, Reciprocating Self, speaks to that, but I don’t think, I don’t think I got it until I started hearing you have conversations with people about this.
Pam King: You know, it’s interesting because, you know, I’ve written a lot theologically. I’ve talked about how relationships shape us and form us, like from an attachment theory perspective, or even an interpersonal neurobiology perspective. And as you just mentioned with Sue, when people are attuned to and experience our realities, You know, that changes our brain hormones.
It changes the brain structure. It promotes brain growth for people and that. So it’s not just sentimental that we need people or that we’re relational beings. We are physically, physiologically impacted by the presence of others. To be known and to know another is absolutely essential to who we are as humans.
So Dan, Siegel spoke about this from this interpersonal neurobiological perspective, but then Reverend Dr. Alexia Salvatierra, one of my colleagues here at Fuller who is a practical theologian and a beautiful Latina scholar, pastor, and leader, reminds us that if your community is not well, then you are not well.
Alexia Salvatierra: So there’s really this sense that if your family’s not well, you’re not well. If your community’s not well, you’re not well. What does a healthy community look like? This beautiful image of being unafraid, of everybody having what they need, of everybody having opportunity to reach their dreams, of everybody being able to take care of themselves and not having it taken away from them.
All of those are part of the vision of a good life, right? It’s not just an individual good life. Concertación, if you would just literally translate it, means coming into harmony. And the way that it works in our communities is that you hear somebody else with your heart. You hear them from the heart, and when you hear them from the heart, you spontaneously shift.
You are automatically standing on common sacred ground, and you just shift generously.
Pam King: In my response to Alexia is, Well being starts with we. And if we don’t have others deeply involved in this journey of becoming, if belonging does not define our journey, we’re not thriving. We can’t thrive.
Jill Westbrook: Pam, with all the discussion of relationship, and I, I, I think that you’re an expert in relationships. You’ve written a book that’s very well known in this area. Were there any surprises in your conversations with your guests about this?
Pam King: You know, I think something that was really refreshing to me in the opening episode with Lisa was how she talked about a really important antecedent or precursor to experiencing transcendence with your sense of the metaphysical God or whomever.
is this idea of transcending ourselves with our neighbor and our human neighbor and how important relating to one another is as a building block for that capacity for more, you know, ultimate experiences of transcendence.
Lisa Miller: Loved, held, guided, and never alone. We are wired to be able to perceive that. And when we do, everything in our world is is reordered. And in fact, of all the dimensions of lived spiritual life, that which most strengthens the awakened brain is love of neighbor. To one another, we are able to draw closer to God.
Pam King: And I think her opening exercise in that first episode, The Table, For me it was a really profound experience of that when she invites the listener and if you haven’t heard this I really recommend that you listen to this opening part of the first episode when she invites us to invite people into around a table in our minds of those who have loved us well.
Lisa Miller: I invite you to set before you a table this is your table and to your table you may invite anyone. living or deceased, who truly has your best interest in mind. And with them all sitting there, ask them if they love you. And how powerful that was for me in recollecting those persons. I felt such a sense of openness, such more of a sense of self, even though I was concentrating and really reflecting on others.
Pam King: Super powerful experience.
Jill Westbrook: It’s so interesting how the places that we direct our thoughts end up creating how our day goes. Yeah. How, the direction of our lives, it sends us in a particular direction. I, you know, I know that Richie Davidson has done a ton of work in the area of neuroplasticity and training the brain. You want to talk a little bit about that and if you have any takeaways for the listener about sort of the process of training the brain?
Pam King: Absolutely. One of the foundational postures of a developmental psychologist. which I am, is positivity and optimism. That people can change and grow. And Richie does such beautiful and profound research demonstrating that at all ages our life can change and grow.
And we have agency in that. So as I was saying earlier, just as we might go to the gym and work out and gradually lift bigger weights or run a little farther, we can actually engage in psychological or mental or spiritual practices and expand our focus and attention, deepen our sense of compassion for others, gain more insight into who we are, what we value, and identify and pursue a sense of purpose.
So another really great practical takeaway of the show is go find the Healthy Minds Innovation app and spend a month, a few minutes a day, practicing that and cultivate. We all would benefit from more attention for growing compassion, which is so important in this moment in a very polarized world, gaining more insight.
Into who you are and your narrative and being able to identify and actually motivate to pursue purpose, really constructive and very practical things you can do
Jill Westbrook: the topic of purpose. You got to have one of your mentors and a dear friend of yours to the show this year. And he introduced an idea of life review. Have you considered doing this yourself?
Pam King: I actually have, Jill.
Jill Westbrook: You’ve done a life review?
Pam King: I have done a life review.
Jill Westbrook: Oh, that’s so cool.
Pam King: Yeah. Having Bill Damon on the show was just an honor and a blast. As Bill was my advisor, when I did a postdoc with him at the Center on Adolescence at Stanford for a few years at the beginning of the millennium.
and has been deeply influential on my thinking. I was so excited to read his book about his own life review because as someone who’s known Bill for over 20 years, I know a lot about his journey and his missing father. And I remember when he told me that his father was found. I was awestruck because I know that drove actually a lot of his life inventory work that he does as part of his qualitative research.
Bill Damon: The life review is a way of going back in a systematic way into your past and looking for things that you’d never understood, mysteries. And I had a big mystery in mind, which is who is my father anyway? Who was this guy? What was he like? Why did he abandon us? Why did he never return home? So I had a big mystery to uncover.
I write in the book about the psychology of the life review, the psychology of purpose as we develop in the later periods of life, and how I found this to be a growth experience in my own life. Purpose has a transcendent, beyond the self dimension to it. It’s not only about finding a meaningful self development or self advancement, it also is an effort to contribute to the world in some way that’s meaningful.
that is beyond the self. And that’s what gives purpose its special power.
Pam King: You brought up life review. When you did it, did you like get a new sense of purpose? What, what did it do for you?
Oh yeah. That’s why I’m doing this podcast for sure. No. Oh, I did
in COVID a life review, not exactly the same format as Bill’s. He hadn’t come with up with it yet. Identifying like a gateway moment almost in each decade of my life to offer perspective on.
what my joys, my deepest values, and emerging sense of calling was. And through that, I decided to take on the position of Executive Director of Thrive Center. And that really empowered a pivot to have an emphasis on translational research and the development of resources.
Okay, I knew that you had gone through a process to decide to take on the leadership of the Thrive Center, but I did not know it involved that kind of life review that we then talked about this season.
That’s really amazing that this is a huge part of your own journey. Pam, so much. Speaking of the concept of purpose, I was delighted to get to watch you and Belle Liang interact. Belle’s episode was so fun to record. Belle and I have kind of been ships passing at conferences. We’ve done research around similar concepts.
We’re not far off in age and life stage. And so it was such a treat and honestly such a blast to sit down with her and dive a bit more into her work. And her Episode is so practical in how she not only shares from her own life. experiences of navigating her life as a daughter of immigrants with a different vision for purpose than her parents, but she also really, she also offers practices to the listener to help them reflect on their own experiences.
what their sense of purpose is. And that one where she asks us to tell a story about our life, and then to reflect on what went right on that as a means of identifying core strengths, values, and things that matter. But that episode is so helpful for People wrestling with, okay, I have a general sense of purpose or I know it’s meaningful, but I don’t know how to pursue that.
Or maybe someone who like has no clue and is just beginning to think about what do I want my life to be about? Or for those who are parenting or working with another person, a younger person, or maybe an older person who’s wrestling with issues of purpose.
Belle Liang: If there’s a tool for purposing people, it really is. through helping them to articulate their stories because we all have a story because that’s because we all have a future and a past and we all have our present that we are ideally trying to intentionally live out or live towards that envisioned future informed by our history informed by our past and story is really about making the the influences in our life explicit to ourselves because oftentimes we when we’re not living intentionally it’s like we don’t know what our story is we’re just kind of doing whatever’s put in front of us and we’re we’re not living in a way that is aligned at all with our purpose.
Jill Westbrook: Yeah it was really a delight to watch the two of you enjoy each other the way you did. My big takeaway from that was where she was talking about how the difficulties in your life sometimes are the things that propel you into purpose. Like, we have people at Fuller who have been homeless, who then now want to serve the homeless, or people who’ve had major family crises and now they’re trying to serve people in those similar kinds of crises.
So that was really like, for me, that the big takeaway from that Belle episode.
Pam King: Yeah, that was a huge takeaway and, you know, which makes me reflect on the last episode with my former colleague here at Thrive, Sarah Schnicter, about patience, which I think actually may be the biggest surprise of the season.
for me is how relevant and timely patience is. Patience sounds to me like so old school, almost like a Victorian virtue or something. We live in an instant gratification, more is more, faster is better society. And Sarah’s research really reveals how important patience is. And again, I feel like an endless plugger of episodes here, but if you haven’t heard her episode, hear it.
I know patience doesn’t sound like the sexiest topic, but Sarah’s research unpacks the psychological components, patients, and also the beliefs involved in patients that are so instrumental to pursuing purpose. And what Sarah talks about is it’s important to have purposes that are worth suffering for.
Sarah Schnitker: Anything worthwhile, you’ll have to wait and you’ll have to suffer. And so we need patience. We need to be able to suffer well. Patience is not It’s an eradication of emotions. It is the ability to feel those emotions, but to stay level headed, to regulate through them. As a virtue, patience, I see as doing that for something beyond the self.
So patience is really staying engaged, continuing forward and pursuing the good.
Pam King: So we know we’re onto a sense of purpose when it’s something that we’re willing to wait for. Or there’s something that we’re willing to sacrifice for or to suffer for. And that is not something we talk a lot about in personal growth or thriving and flourishing conversations because, you know, we’re human, we want to avoid suffering, we want to avoid loss.
But true life, fullness of life comes through suffering. comes through rebuilding. And for those of you listening to this a week of release, this is the week after Easter. And for those of us in the Christian tradition, we have literally just walked the paces. We have rehearsed crucifixion and death. And we have walked through and celebrated new life in resurrection.
Jill Westbrook: When I first came to the Thrive Center, I had a very different idea of what thriving was. I had a more of a popular notion of what thriving was that was tied to sort of happiness and rapid growth and sort of, you know, like, vitality. And you kept saying, well, thriving has to do with lament and suffering. I’m like, what are you talking about? So I think that we began with this season to, to, to try to define more broadly and more richly that the concept of thriving, because I know it’s so important for you. You want, you want people to thrive, but people have to kind of know what they’re up, you know, do they want to do this?
What are you up for here? What is the growth? What is the wrestling? What’s necessary in it?
Pam King: The With & For podcast was designed to exist at the intersection of spirituality and psychology, and we’ve always said we’re psychology forward, but it was really important for me to bring on some guests that would bring a more theological or a studied religious or spiritual experience.
And those guests brought, yes, heft, experience, wisdom, and profound insight. And, you know, we were just talking about suffering. So many nuggets of wisdom in the episode with Miroslav Volf. So many. One that sticks out to me is how joy and sorrow are part of the flourishing life.
Miroslav Volf: So, love of God, love of neighbor, seek the kingdom, the good of the world, and in that good of the whole, your own good, and be attuned to what is around you in joy and also in sorrow.
Pam King: In my own work on joy, I’ve reflected on how sorrow is almost the other side of joy, that they both are a response to our deepest loves. One is when we get to experience them, joy, and the other is when they’re lost, defiled, or ruined. And Miroslav casts such a powerful vision that even though in the present moment or in our current life that these deep loves, these things that matter are not what we hoped or realized in the way that we hoped, that as people of Christian faith, we have eschatological vision of the life after where these things are redeemed.
And so that even in our sorrow, we can, you know, raise a hand, I’ll often say in lament of this hurts and this is awful and God, I’m angry, but also I can take heart. and have hope that will be redeemed. And, and that’s where, you know, the psychologist in me kicks in and go, your beliefs matter. Now that is a very specific worldview that not all our listeners hold to.
But when you have a belief perspective that has redemption, that is based on love, that is based on a notion of the eventual flourishing of all persons, of all of creation, in Christ, then you can have great hope. And that enables us to withstand those dark nights in hospital rooms with helicopters landing on top of the roof.
Jill Westbrook: I really loved how practical when he said, love of God, love of neighbor, seek the kingdom. Okay. Yeah. I can live like that. I mean, I can at least try. You know, like that, at least that it gives me real clarity about how to live practically.
Pam King: Well, one of the things I so deeply respect and appreciate about Miroslav is that from his vantage, theology is not just the study of God, but it also involves knowing God.
So not just knowing about God. but knowing God. And that simple invitation to love God, love neighbor, brings that home. Loving God is not always simple, and many of us wrestle and struggle with that. Loving neighbor in a polarized world is also not always simple, but it’s something that we must do. And then we can turn to Richie’s episode who gives us practical tips on how to deepen our sense of empathy and compassion for those who are different than us.
Jill Westbrook: So interesting how that is sort of seeking the kingdom in a practical way.
Pam King: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, I hope a take home for listeners, for those that are Christian, that the season would provide practical nudges or practical tips on how to seek the kingdom. And for those who are maybe like, I’m not sure where my beliefs are, or yeah, I’m spiritual, but not religious, that there’s practical guidance on how to seek a purpose that is beyond yourself, that builds goodness grows goodness in between and among people and equips us all to be with one another and for one another and greater purposes.
And a life unencumbered as Reverend Dr. Dwight Radcliff reminds us. Yeah. So grateful for Dwight and his powerful and prophetic voice who didn’t dance around niceties, but just spoke it like it is. And so You know, as a Black guest spoke to the importance in naming the reality that a thriving life is a life that is lived unencumbered.
And how too many of us take for granted the freedoms and the opportunities that we have, but that not all people live or dream as unencumbered as others.
Dwight Radcliff: I think thriving, if I’m, if I’m going to talk from my perspective. My embodied incarnated experience as an African American man, cisgendered, heterosexual, black man in America.
I think it really has to do with this ability to, to dream and to live unencumbered. If we can just have a very honest conversation that. There are white children in America that dream and their dreams are unencumbered. They can be whatever they want to be. There’s no footnotes. There’s no caveats.
There’s no lid on what they can dream as a child. Thriving is not, there’s not a one size fits all answer solution. I don’t have a monolithic view of the entire culture, but I think that there would be a lot of agreement. around being able to dream, being able to think about the future unencumbered without fear of violence, without threat of violence, without without being laughed out of a dream, without having to be talked into something more reasonable.
Pam King: Dwight does so many things in this episode, but two particularly powerful things in this notion of unencumbered is that I have not talked to any person who did not resonate with this yearning and desire to have an unencumbered life and how important freedom is. And I know again in the Christian tradition, we could do a whole rendition on freedom in Christ and how that enables us to supersede a lot of the barriers and injustices in the world.
Also, what Dwight did was bring home the reality. That the lived experience of many people, especially black people, and he talked about black young people, do not have the experience to live or to even dream unencumbered. And how that’s all of our duties to address that injustice and to realize that part of the work of thriving is not just about me and mine, but it is about we.
and us, and it involves systems of access and systems of justice. And Jill, you know, I will always say that true human thriving contributes to a flourishing world, and our world will not be flourishing until all people. live and dream unencumbered. That’s the kingdom, right?
Jill Westbrook: Yeah, I, my, I think my favorite, and I know we’re not supposed to have favorites, but my favorite thing that happened to me out of this season was putting on my headphones, walking the Rose Bowl and listening to Dwight’s play, playlist.
And I’m like, Oh, hip hop. Okay. So we put hip hop, we create this playlist and I’m listening to it. And I felt like I understood things. in a different way than I had understood things before. I really felt that the art spoke to me in a way that words couldn’t do it. I’m still wrestling with that. Really powerful. I feel changed by the Dwight episode.
Pam King: That’s one we’ve gotten a lot of really great feedback on. I got some warnings that Pam, do you know that it says there’s explicit content in your podcast?
Jill Westbrook: Uh huh. There is explicit content in our podcast
with, with, yes, for sure.
Pam King: But yeah, and I think Jill, just to even bring it back to where we started or where I started talking about coming home to our bodies, art engages us at the sensory level, you know, in terms of music, it’s, you know, auditory, you’re walking, you dance to music also at that, you know, kinesthesic, that movement level. And art is so important for waking up our body, offering new understanding and new perspective from kind of a bottom up way. You know, we’re so used to thinking about things like, Oh, like, it would be me to read the lyrics and judge lyrics, but to listen to the music, experience it, to, really imagine what the artists are conveying and what they’re living is really powerful.
Yeah, that emotional response to the art helps you to understand what matters in a different way. Like you, you, You feel it.
Jill Westbrook: I think Susan David always talks about the signposts. Our emotions are signposts to things that matter to you. It’s things that are meaningful and important. That he was really quite amazing in offering that for us.
Pam King: Let’s dig into art and beauty more in season two.
Jill Westbrook: I think so. So Pam, you know, in approaching the end of our conversation here, do you have any other takeaways that you would want to share with the listeners? Is there anything that, I mean, in doing this, do you feel transformed yourself?
Pam King: For sure. You know, I will speak to the personal transformation and then somewhat of a deepened realization.
But for me, my life is always changed by people. And I feel really fortunate to have been the host, to have these deep, personal. conversations with extraordinary individuals who generously not only shared their scholarship, but stories from their lives with me. And that, that always changes me and enlivens me and inspires me.
I really hope as listeners that you’ve had the experience of being with me. and my guest, and that you are wrestling with your own story as we shared parts of ours, that you are taking on these practices and opening yourselves to experiences of other people’s perspectives or of slowing down, of becoming aware more deeply of yourself or that which is beyond you and hope this has been transformative for you.
Jill Westbrook: So, Pam, could you offer, going back to the practical, tips for thriving as we approach the end of this episode?
Pam King: Absolutely. Lean into love. And we can experience love in a lot of ways. First, is by offering ourselves love. And that can be tuning into your body and loving yourself despite annoying tension in your back or an achy joint in your hips.
But to love yourself, give yourself grace in this journey of thriving. And my second one will be find love. in your relationships. Be with people who know you, who see your reality, who validate that, who co create reality with you, with people who’ve got your back and can advocate for you. And that needs to be reciprocated.
So these are people whose realities you can affirm, who you can validate, and you can share with. The third would be lean into love, in your narrative about yourself and your place and purpose in the world. Think about who you are in relationship to the different communities that you belong to, whether it’s a family, an ethnicity, a geographic or regional group, a faith tradition, and think about what your purpose is in the bigger story of the world.
And one of the things that Miroslav Volf said to me that I thought was so wonderful was to talk about people’s truths with compassion. and respect. And I think we need to become compassionate storytellers where we can respect other people’s stories and where our stories are broad enough that they can include the dignity and respect of those who are different from us.
Miroslav Volf: I think we go wrong when we don’t honor people’s own search for truth. It’s truth seeking conversations about something that has a claim upon your life. Argue with others, but argue in such a way that honors everyone. This is a kind of central Christian conviction that comes straight from the Bible.
That’s what I need to do. Whatever they do, whatever they think, honor everyone.
Jill Westbrook: It’s so interesting because all three of your takeaways include love. You know, love of self, uh, love of others, and then a broader love for the world and the way we operate in it.
Pam King: So I guess it comes down to love yourself, love others, and tell a story that allows you to love the world with purpose. And that’s a beyond the self purpose.
That is such an important theme throughout the show, that thriving is not a personal growth project, but it is really something that is beyond the self. It’s relational with other humans and that which informs our beliefs about ultimacy. In my case, God. And that goes back to the podcast title, With & For.
Thriving is becoming ourselves with and for others.
Jill, thank you so much for joining me on this wrap up. My pleasure. Listeners, thank you so much for being with us. Please keep your feedback coming. We love responses on social media, emails, texts, smoke signals, however you want to send it. Really easy to give us feedback by looking at that survey at thethrivecenter.org/podcast or click the link on today’s episode page.
Jill Westbrook: In the interim between seasons, We’re going to be offering shorts. We are going to be creating short episodes.
They’ll be practical. They’ll offer new insights. They’ll be coming at regular intervals. You’ll start to see some of those showing up in our social media, so follow us at Instagram or Facebook or X. Subscribe so you don’t miss a moment. Keep following. Stay tuned. More to come.
Pam King: I also really want to thank the guests of the season who took their time, brought their expertise, shared in many instances vulnerably, and lastly, I want to thank folks beyond the screen. Lauren Kim, a Thrives Operations Manager and Organizational Wizard, a Consulting Producer, Evan Rosa, and a heartfelt thank you to Wren Jeurgensen for her extraordinary and beautiful creative touches on our graphics.
The folks at Fuller Studio who’ve coordinated emails, Patrick Duff, who actually gave us the seed for this vision and helped us record, and Lauren Meares, also at Fuller Studio. I’d also like to extend a broad thank you to influencers in the field who have supported the show, to all of you who have shared the show and please keep sharing it, and I want to thank our institutional home.
I’m part of the faculty of the School of Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Theological Seminary. Thank you for granting me the time to bring this podcast to others.
Jill Westbrook: And thank you, Pam, for your wisdom, your leadership, the beauty that you bring in the world, for how you model caring for others, and your brilliance touches my life every day.
Pam King: Aw, Jill, thank you. Back at you.
Jill Westbrook: Love you, Pam.
Pam King: Love you, Jill.
Thanks, everybody, for listening today. Thanks for being with and for something greater than yourself.
Jill Westbrook: Amen.
Pam King: With and for is a production of The Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. For more information, visit our website thethrivecenter.org where you’ll find all sorts of resources to support your pursuit of wholeness and a life of thriving on purpose. I am so grateful to the staff and fellows of The Thrive Center and our with and for program. Jill Westbrook is our Senior Director and Producer. Lauren Kim is our Operations Manager.
Wren Jeurgensen is our Social Media Graphic Designer. Evan Rosa is our Consulting Producer. And special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology in Marriage and Family Therapy. I’m your host, Dr. Pam King. Thank you for listening.
Episode Summary
Dr. Pam King and Dr. Jill Westbrook take a look back on the first season of With & For and its unique approach to exploring thriving and spiritual health. Together they draw upon insights from the twelve expert guests featured in this inaugural season—reflecting on their wisdom, and pulling key moments from each conversation to weave a tapestry of interdisciplinary scientific research, diverse spiritual perspectives, and practical guidance for a life of thriving.
Show Notes
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- Visit thethrivecenter.org for more resources on thriving and spiritual health!
- Why podcast about thriving and spiritual health?
- Pam’s deep desire for people to thrive and become who they’re meant to be, with and for others
- Practical and applicable insights for personal growth and well-being.
- Bringing in experts from different research methods, spiritual traditions, and cultural backgrounds
- Richie Davidson on declarative and procedural learning
- Dan Siegel on integration
- Growing through the throes of difficulties
- Cultivating virtues and deepening relationships
- Pam’s personal experience halfway through the season: caring for a child with a medical emergency
- What helped Pam through the recent trauma?
- When under threat, we go to what’s automatic
- 5 x 7 breathing
- “Her crisis was exacerbated by the fact that her coping skill was not possible.”
- “My holding her hand was very calming for her.”
- Cynthia Eriksson on trauma and activating the parasympathetic nervous system for
- Alexis Abernethy on self-care, rest, and rhythms
- “Coming home to my body… listening to my body… aware of the natural rhythms of my body… trusting our bodies more.”
- “A nerd with lipgloss.”
- Feeling Alone
- Pam King’s deeply relational theology
- Becoming is linked to our belonging and connection with others?
- Shared and validated by another
- Pam King’s co-authored book, The Reciprocating Self
- Dan Siegel’s approach to “intraconnection” and research about attunement and awareness of others.
- Alexia Salvatierra: “If you’re community is not well, then you are not well.”
- Richie Davison on neuroplasticity: we have agency in our life changing and growing
- Engaging in psychological or spiritual practices to expand our attention, deepen compassion, gain more insight into our values, and identify our purpose.
- Find the Center for Healthy Minds Innovations App (FREE)
- Purpose and Life Review with Bill Damon
- Belle Liang on telling a story and finding your purpose through your own life narrative and “letting your life speak”
- Sarah Schnitker and t he virtue of patience as a relevant and timely approach to life today
- Miroslav Volf on joy and sorrow in the context of Christian faith and redemption
- Hope for God’s presence amidst the sorrow
- Psychology of belief
- Theology is not just the study of God, but the knowledge and love of God, and seeking the kingdom
- Life unencumbered and free
- The Black experience and longing for living and dreaming unencumbered
- Thriving involves systems of access and justice
- “True human thriving contributes to a flourishing world. And our world will not be flourishing until all people live unencumbered.”
- Dwight Radcliff on hip-hop theology and an embodied response
- “Art engages us at the sensory level.“
- Susan David on emotions as signposts
- Art and beauty
- Three tips for thriving based on Season 1 of With & For
- Lean into love for yourself—finding compassion and grace for yourself
- Find love in your relationships, co-creating meaning and purpose
- Lean into love in the narrative of your life and your place and purpose in your community and the larger, bigger story of the world
- “Beyond-the-self” purpose as a central podcast value
- What’s coming next for With & For
- Thank you to our expert guests this season, our wonderful production team, and the administration and faculty of the Fuller School of Psychology and Marriage & Family Therapy at Fuller Theological Seminary
About the Thrive Center
- Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
- Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
- Follow us on X @thrivecenter
- Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter
About Dr. Pam King
Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. Follow her @drpamking.About With & For
- Host: Pam King
- Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
- Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
- Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
- Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa
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