098 Freedom and Acceptance (Pt. 2)

"Freedom appears very nearly the only value about which people still agree unanimously," says Jacques Philippe in his little book, Interior Freedom. But how does freedom connect to happiness, love, and our life with God and others?
 
These are the questions this little firecracker of a book examines, and that we talk about in this two-part series. 

We look at the difference between "freedom from" and "freedom for", the ideas of locus of control, the constraints of everyday life, and what "inner freedom" might mean, and what it doesn't mean. 

Check out the DMIN in Spiritual Formation and Relational Neuroscience here. 

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Transcript

Recap of Part One: Understanding Freedom

[00:00:14] Geoff Holsclaw: We are jumping in on part two of our Freedom and Acceptance series. We're continuing our conversation about the small but influential or uh, jam packed book Interior Freedom by Jacques Philippe. Uh, last time in the first part we were talking about freedom, Uh, and how sometimes freedom could be thought of as something that's outside of us, rights and opportunities and choices.

And certainly those are important. Uh, we sometimes measure our freedom by the range of options and the choices we might have, but we were also talking about interior freedom that doesn't just depend on those options, but instead it is something else that's based in, uh, faith, hope, And love. 

Exploring Interior Freedom

[00:00:56] Geoff Holsclaw: And so today, especially, we're going to be talking about, well, how do we cultivate that freedom, uh, when we are in circumstances that feel far from free?

[00:01:05] Cyd Holsclaw: And so we are Jeff and Sid Holzclaw, and this is the Attaching to God podcast, integrating neuroscience, spirituality, and faith, produced by Grassroots Christianity, which is growing the faith of everyday people.

Yeah, so that was a good recap, Jeff. And um, at the end of the section about freedom that he talks about in the book, he makes a really important turn, which is part of what was coming up yesterday. 

Accepting Reality and Personal Limitations

[00:01:35] Cyd Holsclaw: And, and I mean, the last time we talked about this in the question about freedom, um, because he says that the highest and most fruitful form of human freedom is found in accepting.

More than in dominating. And so he says, we show the greatness of this freedom when we transform reality, but still more when we accept it trustingly as it is given to us day after day. And so this is taking from a quote that he says, and that it is precisely then that in order to become truly free, we are often called to choose to accept what we did not want.

And even what we would not have wanted at any price. There is a paradoxical law of human life here. One cannot become truly free unless one accepts not always being free to say that again. One cannot become truly free unless one accepts not always being free to achieve true interior freedom. We must train ourselves to accept peacefully and willingly plenty of things that seem to contradict our freedom.

This means consenting to our personal limitations, our weaknesses, our powerlessness. 

Personal Reactions to Acceptance

[00:02:49] Cyd Holsclaw: So I'm just going to acknowledge at this moment when I was reading this quote, when I was reading through the book the first time I was a little repulsed by this idea, uh, because it sounded to me like just be okay with how you're treated.

Like it doesn't matter if someone is being really cruel to you or if someone is abusing you or being unkind to you or if a situation is set up to like there's terrible injustice going on, just accept it. It doesn't matter. Like, have this very passive, like, just let it go peacefully and willingly. Let it happen.

So I'm just curious, Jeff, when you read the book or when you hear that, do you have that kind of reaction or is that just a me 

[00:03:29] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, no, I have that reaction. I have that reaction from people, from kind of how I would hear others hearing it, but I'm, I'm,

Practical Examples and Personal Stories

[00:03:37] Geoff Holsclaw: I mostly want to hear your thoughts because you've done, um, multiple cohorts with the Kineo Center. with women who have come out of, are in the midst of like really difficult ministry situations.

And of course you've coached, um, and been a spiritual director for all sorts of different people. And so you, I think you hear that through a very practical, like, uh, I've been told that I can't preach or that I shouldn't lead as a woman in a church. And then the more extreme, uh, those who have been in abusive kind of marriages, um, are they just supposed to accept that they're Being unfree.

Are they supposed to willingly and peacefully? Um, what is a consent to something like that? Right? So this is where I think some of us go to those and I don't want to say extremes, but in one sense they are extreme examples, but we still needed answer for them. Uh, so how does what he's saying or kind of offering to us fit in with some of those other situations?

[00:04:36] Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. I think for me, like, I don't necessarily have trouble with the idea of like, I have to accept. that I'm not always free, like because of what we talked about in our last episode about, you know, freedom isn't always just for me. It's freedom, you know, my freedom affects other people's freedom. But yeah, when I hear him talking about accepting things peacefully and willingly, uh, the thing that leaped up in me was all the stories that I know, um, you know, from my own life, from other people's lives, where you're in this sort of toxic culture, where things are set up in such a way where people are routinely shut down or forced out.

or, um, you know, actively even spoken against. And any, if you try to speak into that system or ask questions about it, or even try to, um, say anything about it, it's like, you know, the, the being shut down or being pushed out or being told you don't have a place here. And it sort of smacks against that idea of like, if we are truly the hands and feet of Jesus in the world, Jesus didn't just always peacefully and willingly accept things that were going on, right?

He's spoke, um, to the Pharisees, pretty, pretty, pretty, uh, bluntly, um, he wasn't just peacefully and willingly allowing that kind of stuff to continue. And so that's why, you know, it's hard to, okay, well, what is our role? Is he saying that our role as Christians is to just sort of roll over and not care and just be like, okay, well, whatever, I still have peace inside of me.

It'll be okay. That just didn't feel like a very satisfying or appropriate even. Um, for following Jesus. So that's what happened to me. And then I think it's interesting because he does say like now, I mean, you know, he says as part of that quote, we find it difficult to do this because we feel a natural revulsion for situations we cannot control.

And then he said, but the fact is that the situations that really make us grow are precisely those that we do not control. So, as you hear me say that, and knowing some of the things that I have faced, not being able to control situations, some of them being what's just not really the right, things shouldn't be happening the way they are.

But many of them by my own, like, you've seen me hold myself captive, um, by thinking that I should have, um, you know, more control than I do. I'm curious what all of that prompts in you before I would go into, 

[00:07:05] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, so 

[00:07:07] Cyd Holsclaw: we go into the stories. Yeah.

The Role of Control in Modern Life

[00:07:08] Geoff Holsclaw: I think the question of control is really important and, uh, it kind of presses into our modern moment. Um, so we in the West have a high sense of what we ought to be able to control. Is that, you know, we now have like the invention of electricity, of clean water, of cars, automobiles, um, free transportation, uh, and, uh, Air conditioners and temperature controlled environments and, and waiting.

And now we have cell phones. Uh, and so we have this kind of immediacy demand to know anything we want to know at a moment's notice to control our environment, to maximize our comfort, to automate different processes so that we don't even have to think about Where our food comes from, how it was made and who made it. Right. So we have all these layers of control that we, that we think we have, uh, when we're actually

living out of control, because I can't make, any of my own food. And if all the food production, then like, I'm totally dependent upon all these other things that I feel like I'm in control of her. So,

[00:08:20] Cyd Holsclaw: And if the Wi Fi goes out for a single day, you suddenly recognize how little control you 

[00:08:25] Geoff Holsclaw: And so. Um, there is so there's a movement even outside of like spiritual traditions, uh, that are trying to reclaim that the world is out of control. It's out of our control. Uh, it can't be tamed. Uh, we want to tame the world, but the world is not ours to tame. Uh, and so, so that, that control question is, I think, uh, In our modern world, we have expanded in an unhealthy way, what we expect to be able to control in every moment of our life. And then when we, when we don't have that control, then we're disappointed. We're upset. We're angry. Now that, so I'm saying all that alongside of the very just seeking justice, seeking the righteousness of God, where you do want to change the world. The circumstance where, you know, injustice and violence needs to be set.

Right. Um,

abusive situations need to end and someone needs to step in. Right. So it's these two things. Um, but the truth is, is that first one that I was describing dominates more of the moment moment. Um, aspect of our lives and certainly abusive relationships and unjust situations, um, occur. I'd certainly occur and we need to work against them.

Right. And so it's holding those two, those two things together.

[00:09:44] Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. And that actually, the one thing that you said that really leaped out at me just there was when you were saying, you know, that when there's an unjust or a situation going on that we actually need to be working on changing it made me think about it takes interior freedom. To be able to engage in trying to do that work, um, because without interior freedom, you're not going to be able to enter into it in a way that is actually going to be transformative.

Um, and so that even just made me think about that. Um, but I know that. 

Lessons from Chronic Pain

[00:10:17] Cyd Holsclaw: You have, you know, I know that you have had lots of experiences in your life too, where you weren't in control or where you ended up in situations or circumstances that you would never have chosen for yourself. Um, but I know there's one story in particular from high school.

So can you tell us about that experience?

[00:10:36] Geoff Holsclaw: When I was about 16, I was, you know, back when they still had physical education, PE, we were playing football. It was slightly rainy. Uh, I was going somewhere through a really deep pass. Um, I was running full speed and my foot slipped out from under me, uh, while I was running and I, I jerked my back really hard to regain my balance and I actually ruptured one of the discs in my back, uh, and that rupture of the vertebrae, um, well, the disc between the vertebrae, uh, then, uh, you know, I don't know exactly what it all is. Uh, some listeners probably know, you know, but some of that rupture jelly juice that it makes up. The disc was pushing straight on my spinal cord. And so I was getting terrible sciatic pain down my left, uh, left legs, the nerves of my left leg. And I had all these other back pain problems. And that's a whole long journey of about five, five years of near constant, uh, back pain that severely, um, uh, shaped my life getting in and out of cars, sleeping at night. Uh, and so what I learned, uh, I learned all sorts of things, but basically I learned that if I made a choice to play athletic games with my friends, I was also responsible for one or two days of, um, Extra pain to go along with that choice. Um, and that there was no complaining. Uh, there was no pleading.

There was no way out of that situation that one inevitably led to the other. If I was going to have fun with my body, I like playing sports. I was going to have incredible pain. And then the reverse, I could not do anything and that I wouldn't have as much pain, you know, but then if I, you know, Did I walked around with ibuprofen in my pocket for basically, you know, five years, you know, every four to five hours I was just taking ibuprofen, which is not great for your intestines, by the way, but that's just like where We we were at in the page meant pain management kind of place. And so

[00:12:44] Cyd Holsclaw: Well, And the way I remember it is I don't even remember you being able to do very many athletic, because I feel like I met you at the very end of that five years when you were just starting to maybe get some relief from all of that. But I just remember, like, even when we would do, like, we would play Frisbee together.

And you were kind of limited even in like your ability to play frisbee. And then like for the next day, I remember you would be really sore, even just having tossed a frisbee around on the beach or take a walk. Uh, and

[00:13:14] Geoff Holsclaw: so there was all sorts of Physical limitations, right? And people who have chronic pain or are disabled, they understand this, right? There's no amount of, of explaining it to someone's going to make it any better. No amount of getting angry at other people or myself is going to change that amount of pain at that moment. And so there, there, you know, there's basically acceptance or not acceptance of a situation that's not going to change. Um, and and so I, I found, you know, and God redeemed all these things, you know, and there's, I'll probably tell more of that story. Um, but I found out later in life that the lessons I learned early in life are very rare for someone like me to have learned so early in life.

And that's because I had it forced upon me, which is physical limitations should be embraced and not, you know, skirted that, you know, my body and my emotions, um, are not totally in my control. But there is a large part of my emotions in my body that are in my control. Uh, and I can't just outsource or blame people because now I'm angry because actually, um, I'm just angry cause I'm in pain and that's nobody's fault.

So why should I spill that anger out on other people? Uh, that's not fair to them. Right. So there's, you know, there's different lessons of acceptance, I guess.

[00:14:29] Cyd Holsclaw: yeah. And so since we're talking about interior freedom, like how would you even say, like, if Jacques Philippe is right about his assertion that, you know, sometimes the, uh, the, The fact is that the situations that really make us grow are precisely those that we do not control. How would you say you grew in your experience of interior freedom just from having experienced this thing that was outside of your control?

[00:14:57] Geoff Holsclaw: Um, that. I embrace circumstances pretty quickly that when I could see, um, that things weren't going to change, then I would stop thinking about it. So, and there's a freedom in that. Like I don't usually dwell on circumstances. It's like, Oh, this is a circumstance. All right. Well, this is either good or bad. And for me, they're usually are neither. They just are like, uh, Oh, we're stuck in traffic. Okay. I'm going to be late to that thing. Okay.

[00:15:25] Cyd Holsclaw: Which is so opposite of me, right? Because I grew up with the like, we're stuck in traffic. What can I do about it? Like, how can I get out of this? What can I, how can I go around? Like, what rules are possibly breakable in this moment?

[00:15:37] Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, and it's not that I just give up and don't do anything, uh, but, you know, when it's clear that there's nothing to be done, I'm, I'm pretty quick just to be like, well, there's nothing to be done. So, uh, how else is your day going today? Like, let's just move on. Uh, and I know for some people, um, you know, that there's this thing called like toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing.

And I, you know, sometimes I think that gets, you Blamed on everything. Um, but yeah, I think sometimes kind of accept and forget. I, I don't know if that's a thing. Um, but, um, so that'd be one. I think the other one is I come across as not expressing emotions. And for a while people would think that I was out of touch with my emotions. Um, And then after kind of doing some work and kind of just understanding, I, I don't think I'm disconnected from my emotions, but I found that I don't need to express them to people as often as other people think emotionally healthy expression should happen. And I think that came out of this time of, of chronic pain, which is, uh, you know, I know it would have been detrimental to everyone around me. You know, I would just have been a horrible person to be around if I was letting you in on my pain. At every moment and letting my emotions flow outward. And so there was unless so in my mind, and there probably is a problem with this at some point, right? I'm too reserved, but in my mind, uh, like, unless you need to know how I'm feeling, I'm not really just going to be offering to you how I'm feeling about something because maybe me being sad or angry or confused. Isn't needed for all of you. Uh, I probably err too far on one side, but I think our culture, at least in circumstantial areas, errs too far on the other side, which is, uh, freedom and authenticity means that all my emotions need to be expressed and that you need to somehow, you all need to deal with them and somehow,

um, but. That's not how I function. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but that's, I think I learned that through this time.

[00:17:42] Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. Yeah. 

Motherhood and Choosing Reality

[00:17:44] Cyd Holsclaw: And I think back to all the experiences I've had too that were, you know, circumstances I would not have chosen or even circumstances I thought I was choosing. So I mean, there's lots of circumstances where I would have never chosen, but even I mean, we had talked about, you know, I'm going to stay home with the kids when they're born.

And I thought I was choosing those circumstances. Um, but I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. And so I'm even just thinking back to the way life actually is structured when you have two kids who are a year and a half apart, a little less than a year and a half apart. Uh, There's just a lot that didn't feel very free to me.

Right. And it's sort of like, did I really choose this? Um, just the sense of like, I'm always responding to the needs of these two kids. I'm changing diapers, I'm feeding, I am putting them down for naps. I am calling doctors. I'm dealing with crying. I'm feeling like I had absolutely no choice. No initiative.

My whole life was seriously just reacting, um, and I think in that season of my life, it was more reactionary than it was actually responding, um, of just sort of reacting to what was happening with these little bodies around me and feeling very much like this is not what I thought this was going to look like.

And this is not sort of, I wouldn't, I don't know that I would have chosen this if I'd known what it was really going to be. Um, and so that's just one story of situations where I didn't control.

[00:19:10] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, and so, and that's where I think the inner freedom is supposed to be cultivating, which is I did choose, you know, and this is really difficult for mothers with young children. Like I did choose to become a mother and we did choose that I would be But I wasn't choosing this dirty diaper and this waking up in the

middle of the day, right?

But then in one sense, cultivating the inner freedom is to, is to kind of do that long way around of like, but in a sense I did, like I am choosing this, uh, again, each and is that kind of what you were getting at? Like I'm, I'm

[00:19:45] Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. Yeah. And I do think.

[00:19:46] Geoff Holsclaw: feel like I'm choosing it.

[00:19:47] Cyd Holsclaw: Right. And that is how I got through that season. And I do think that season shaped me tremendously. Like I'll agree with Jacques Philippe that I actually grew so significantly in that season because that's really the season where I really started to learn like this is the day in front of me today.

And no amount of grumbling and complaining and getting irritated is going to change what is in front of me today. And I don't even know everything that's in front of me today. There might be like a diarrhea blowout in somebody's diaper. I can't even anticipate that, but I can start this day remembering that.

You know, I am, I chose to be a mom, we chose to have children, God blessed us with the ability to have children. And we have these two beautiful little human beings and it's like a daily surrender to what is in front of me today. Um, and I had to put all kinds of reminders for myself around the house.

Like, I don't know if you remember, but I used to have little like things on the dish soap or on the shampoo bottles or like note cards all over cupboards reminding myself Like this is, you know, what to be grateful for and how to continue to choose the life that I was given, not just survive it, but to actually choose it.

Um, and so, you know, I could choose how I would enter the day. I could choose how I was going to face the situations of the day and set my perspective on what are the good things in this day and how is partnering with Jesus making a difference in this day and how can I partner with him even more?

[00:21:17] Geoff Holsclaw: So to make this. 

Three Responses to Unchosen Realities

[00:21:19] Geoff Holsclaw: Even more practical, you know, cause I think this is a little bit practical and, uh, and we're, we're sharing stories, but then cause Jacques Philippe, he talks about, uh, three different ways you can respond to a situation. So I think, uh, and I know like right when you came across this, you're like, Oh, this is so helpful.

You came and showed me to read this, read this thing. You're like, well, let's talk

about it. Uh, and so, and that you've been trying to cultivate this too. So can you go through, he talks about rebellion, resignation, and then consent.

Um, 

[00:21:46] Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. And he talks about those being, yeah, he talks about those being the three responses, um, when you're faced with something you would not have chosen. Um, and you know, I definitely started, I lived much of my life and still struggle with that first response, which is the rebellion and rebellion is basically the idea of resisting the reality that is in front of you.

So that was really helpful for me to think about. But it wasn't rebellion as in like, I refuse. This authority or like, I refuse, but it was like, I will, I refuse to acknowledge that this is what's real. And so he talks about rebellion being that way of like pushing against reality and saying, that's not real.

I'm, I, I refuse to accept it as it is. Um, and then he also talks about the second possibility of resignation of like, okay, 

[00:22:37] Geoff Holsclaw: before we get to the, that second one to be concrete, because you shared this with me, you know, it was kind of like, uh, and rebellion seems like such a strong word. So like maybe resistance, it's like, why does it have to be this way? And I remember you were just be like, how come the water doesn't boil faster?

Or why, why won't the internet like be faster or like these little things where you're just like, There's one that was like, I can't remember, but, but it's just like, I think sometimes we can all take on that posture of like, ah, like, why is it this way? Uh, and we are all kind of maybe like, you know, eighth grader, who's just like dissatisfied with everything.

There's nothing

in the world that is right. 

[00:23:19] Cyd Holsclaw: I have a great story about that. I was just at the gym this morning and there was somebody who put their hand under the soap dispenser. And like, you know how sometimes the invisible eyes don't actually recognize your hand. And so the soap wasn't coming out and she had to do it like three or four times.

And then she just went, ah, and she threw her hands in the air and I just kind of chuckled. And she heard me chuckle and she turned and she looked at me and she goes, it's the small things, isn't it? Everything is so complicated. And it was like, in that moment, the thing that was, it was sort of a resistance to the reality that the soap dispenser required some patience, 

[00:23:53] Geoff Holsclaw: Which is exactly an example of. What I was talking about technology and all these ways we're trying to control our environment to make it better, but that it just makes us less, uh, you know, we just feel more out of control. Okay. So that was like resistance. So it's in the small things. So I just wanted to

like, it's not like the full on rebellion, like shaking your fist at God, you know, and just running away and like selling your inheritance and blah, blah, blah.

[00:24:16] Cyd Holsclaw: No, it's 

[00:24:16] Geoff Holsclaw: it's the small 

[00:24:17] Cyd Holsclaw: like, It's, I don't like this reality. I refuse to believe that this is what's real, right? Like it should be different. Um, and there are times when it actually should be different and we've kind of hit that already, but like that sort of daily moment by moment, I, it shouldn't, this thing shouldn't be this 

[00:24:33] Geoff Holsclaw: So then the second one is resignation.

[00:24:36] Cyd Holsclaw: The second one is resignation, which is basically just giving up. Um, like I am powerless to do anything in this situation, therefore I won't even hope or try. And I like how he says this, he talks about how resignation is actually a declaration of powerlessness without hope. Um, so he's not just talking about like choosing not to act or a sort of stepping back because you're realizing it's not the right time or it's not the right, but it's basically the resignation is like, I give up.

There is no hope. There's nothing I can do. I just give up. And then the third choice, which he presents is a word that I know is going to be hard. Um, I didn't like it when I first saw it either. Um, as he says, we can choose consent. Um, and that he's saying that that's where the key to interior freedom lies.

And so the way that he describes consent is saying yes to a reality that we initially saw as negative. With sort of a stubborn hope or a stubborn insistence that something positive may arise from it.

And so then he brings that back to back around to the faith, hope, and love that he talked about at the beginning of the book, which we read from the introduction on the last episode. But he says like the ultimate difference between resignation and consent is that with consent Even though the objective reality remains the same, the attitude of our hearts is very different.

That act of consent contains faith in God, which is the faith part of it, confidence toward him, which is the hope part of it, and then hence also love, since trusting someone is already a way of loving him. 

Faith, Hope, and Love in Interior Freedom

[00:26:16] Cyd Holsclaw: And so this is where I wanted to talk about this on the Attaching to God podcast, just because this sounds to me very much like what we're trying to say, um, in our book and in our cohorts is that it's that it's that growing in faith, hope, and love, which is rewriting the defaults of our attachment and our attachment insecurities that in that space and in doing that and working with God and partnering with God to grow in faith, hope, and love, we're also growing in our capacity.

for freedom. And so one last quote, and then we can just talk about other things. But one last quote is he says, you know, we often blame our surroundings while the real problem is elsewhere. Our lack of freedom stems from a lack of love. Our heart is imprisoned by our selfishness or fears, and it is we who need to change to learn how to love.

Letting ourselves be transformed by the Holy Spirit. That is the only way of escaping from our sense of confinement. People who haven't learned how to love will always feel like victims. They will feel restricted wherever they are, but people who love will never feel restricted. Which there's so much to unpack in that quote, um, and I just want to add, right?

It's not, so the, the reason that attachment has been so exciting for me, and I think it's been so healing for so many people is because it helps you to understand or helps you to see. Loving doesn't just mean trying, like you can't, you can't increase your capacity, like just try harder. Right. Cause that's what we're often told, um, in spiritual language and spiritual, like it's, it can be easy to get that whole, I just have to try harder.

It's my fault that I don't have greater faith, hope or love. It's up to me to make sure that happens. Um, and so I really appreciate the way that he talks about like, We have to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, letting ourselves be transformed by the Holy Spirit. That is how we escape from confinement and learning to love at the feet of Jesus in partnership with Jesus in attachment with Jesus, that then we will feel, well, we're not restricted when we, um, learn to love and I would say, borrow the capacity of Jesus.

[00:28:33] Geoff Holsclaw: That's great. I don't know what I would add to that.

[00:28:38] Cyd Holsclaw: All right. Well, then I guess we're done talking about it for now. And again, that's only like another 10 pages of the book or less.

[00:28:47] Geoff Holsclaw: Yes. 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:28:48] Geoff Holsclaw: We'll probably have more freedom and acceptance, um, kind of podcast to integrate some of these things, but I guess I just want to end with this perspective kind of cuts against the grain

and it can be confused with 

[00:29:02] Cyd Holsclaw: against the 

[00:29:03] Geoff Holsclaw: it cuts against a certain grain. Um, You know, because there's a certain kind of political or social orientation that, um, and which is more conservative, which is like, well, we need to emphasize personal responsibility.

We need to emphasize individual choices. We need to emphasize, um, that each person, you know, uh, is responsible for what happens in their life. And then you have the opposite. Which is, well, there's systematic racism and there's, you know, patriarchy and, you know, there's all these isms that are controlling our life.

And then we need to change the system and the structure so that we can guarantee freedom. And I think some people will hear this message as being more on that conservative side, um, but I don't think, uh, that's what, um, The heart of the matter is because it's supposed to rebound again into love of God and love of others, service of

others, uh, in a sense so that I am so inwardly free so that I and you and we are so in the freedom that we have been set free in Christ that then we can proactively and actively Seek the freedom of others

when they are in places and situations of unfreedom, right?

And so they actually go, uh, together. So I just want to kind of frame it with that larger conversation of, we're not just saying cultivate inner freedom, take responsibility for your life and stop being so emotional and,

uh,

focus on self control. Uh, but sometimes people can hear that. And sometimes these same kind of. Observations of conversations do fit into that, but I just want to say that's not what we're encouraging.

[00:30:39] Cyd Holsclaw: yeah. And so I'll just say again, I think it's, you know, the more capacity we have, the more, the greater our interior freedom, the more capacity we have to bravely and courageously enter into situations that are unjust and unloving. And, you know, You know, partner with God in a way that is transformative rather than just more violence, more domination, more, you know, like it's a different, it's a different way of entering in when you're entering in from a place of freedom rather than.

Place of rage or anger or, um, you know, whatever else might be the posture. So I think there's a posture difference in the way that we would engage justice work out of a place of interior freedom and

[00:31:26] Geoff Holsclaw: Non reactivity,

non anxious 

[00:31:29] Cyd Holsclaw: reactivity. Yeah. 

[00:31:31] Geoff Holsclaw: So true. Well, thank you for organizing these couple of episodes, Sid. Thank you for bringing your heart of

[00:31:37] Cyd Holsclaw: I could talk about this book all 

[00:31:39] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, we'll we'll have, uh, other episodes, please. Uh, like always like, and subscribe, uh, uh, the podcast on YouTube or your favorite podcast players, right.

Reviews if possible, and please share this, uh, wherever you might be led. 

Um,