Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

130 (Bonus) Deeply Loved: Exploring Empathy and Spiritual Growth (with Bill & Kristi Gaultiere)

• Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw • Episode 130

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In this episode, hosts Geoff & Cyd Holsclaw talk with Bill and Kristi Gaultiere, founders of Soul Shepherding, and authors of Deeply Loved: Receiving and Reflecting God's Great Empathy for You. 

The conversation explores the Gaultiers' journey into psychology and ministry, their insights into empathy and emotional intelligence, and their focus on providing resources for emotional and spiritual health. The discussion also touches on fostering healthy attachment with God and others, stewarding empathy, and the importance of integrating care and guidance in ministry.

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Introduction to the Podcast and Guests


Geoff Holsclaw: Welcome back to the Attaching to God podcast with Geoff Holsclaw, where we are exploring a neuroscience informed spiritual formation. As always, this is produced by the Center for Embodied Faith. We are so happy to have Bill and Christie Gaultier with us. They're both doctors of psychology and the founders of Soul Shepherding a ministry to help pastors, leaders in churches and people of.

All types who desire to thrive with Jesus in their emotional and relational health. They're also the authors of a number of different books on soul care. Most recently, deeply loved receiving and reflecting. God's great empathy for you, bill and Christie, thank you for being on with us today.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Thank you so much Geoff and said we're blessed to be in conversation with [00:01:00] you and all of your listeners. We just love what God is doing through you and live to partner with you in service to him.

Geoff Holsclaw: Oh, thank you so much. And you just so listeners know, you are a part of our second annual attaching to God summit, which is coming out in October 14th through 16th. And there you're gonna spend a lot of time talking about you. Being deeply loved how empathy can help us cultivate, intimacy and independence.

So we're gonna talk a little bit about that today, but we also wanted just get to know you and your work and your ministry. 

The Origin of Soul Shepherding

Geoff Holsclaw: Could you start off by telling us about soul shepherding? Like how did that come about really? How did you come up with that name? Because obviously we're very into shepherding and pastors and the Good Shepherd, so I just love that name.

Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: We, yeah, we do love the metaphor of the shepherd. Obviously Psalms one, three, John, but believe that is a great combination of care and guidance, and that's what we do in soul shepherding. We integrate care and guidance. As in our new book, deeply Loved Empathy is [00:02:00] really at part of everything we do how we listen, how we care, how we pray for people.

And we put the guidance teaching that we bring into that context. So social sharping, we offer resources, care and training for pastors, missionaries, spiritual directors, coaches, church leaders, all kinds of people who are seeking to go deeper with Jesus and emotional health and loving leadership.

So in those different roles, whether it's a spiritual direction conversation, a small group or our Soul Shepherding Institute retreats that we lead for communities of 50 leaders at a time. In all these contexts, we're seeking to provide soul shepherding to integrate the care and the guidance of the Lord for people.

Bill and Christie's Personal Journey

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: And then also I think out of our own childhood and our own formation, we were blessed both to have a large part of our formation happen in the church. And there was so much we received there, especially in terms of our intellectual understanding and [00:03:00] also behavioral training and disciplines and community.

But one of the things that was lacking in the churches that we grew up in was the emotional component and the understanding of the whole person, the whole soul. And one of our calls into ministry came while we were in college where we really had a great passion for Jesus and a devotion to Jesus.

But we had these questions, these unresolved questions, with what was some of this unhealth we experienced in the church and in our families growing up and that we were wrestling with in ourselves. And so we wanted to learn and study and understand the soul more. And back when we were in school, the only option to do that was theology or psychology.

And both of us, each independently felt very clearly, God calling us to study psychology in order to understand the soul better, and in order to bring a better integration there. Between our soul and these other areas where we had so much knowledge and wisdom from God and scripture and church and community.

And we knew that we were called to [00:04:00] ministry, not just the profession of counseling and psychotherapy. So while we both, got our doctorates in clinical psychology, bill and philosophy of psychology, and we were working in private practice, we were always called to be serving in the church and on staff at churches.

And those both in pair always paired for the purpose of helping each person be healthy and whole and holy in their soul.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. Wow. What a great journey to hear from that. I'm curious at what point you guys were, how were you drawn to each other? Let's go way back. What is it that, when you first met each other, did you already both have this fascination and this interest, or was it developed in your relationship?

Tell us a little bit about that.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: we did, but as and as you write about in landscape of this whole bill's better on the independent side, and I'm better on the intimacy side. Bill already had been acting in confidence that was pursuing Foley in all, in his studies in psychology. [00:05:00] Christie here, a little bit anxious, a little bit insecure.

I heard I had to write a senior paper to be a psychology major, and that was intimidating for me. I wasn't sure I could do that. And so actually it wasn't until God brought us together that Bill was like, you can do it. You should change your major. 'cause I was an interpersonal communications major, which is close as I could get to psychology without the senior paper.

So you gave me confidence and I changed my major and then we ended up getting married when Bill was one year into his PhD program. And then I started three weeks after we got married in, in mine.

Geoff Holsclaw: Wow.

Cyd Holsclaw: so newly married in a PhD program. That must have been a lot of fun.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: That was definitely a challenging time of growing both. The good thing was is we were both doing a lot of inner work. We both had the understanding of that. The hard part was, is this one who wanted the intimacy and the connection that was hard to get when we were working full-time to put ourselves through school and in school.

But thankfully [00:06:00] you worked hard at that too. I wanted intimacy too, but I just didn't know it.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Stuff from my childhood and sensitivity to well and smothered by other people's emotions. 'cause that was my connect with my mom's oldest five kids. But I was really drawn to Christie's positivity, her relational engagement, her emotional presence, and that fortunately in my studies in Christian psychology, I was becoming aware of.

My emotions. So that was it was a big deal for me and I went through a really difficult time summer before my senior year when I was working in a meat market as an apprentice butcher, which I mean, you can look at me I'm a great candidate to be a butcher, right? And the butchers realized this is a farce.

This guy's not gonna become a butcher. And sure you they're right. I was given a favor by an executive to get a high paying job for the summer. 'cause I had worked at the grocery store for so many years. And so I got a lot of money, but I had a really rough summer. [00:07:00] They mistreated me very badly.

There's a lot to cutting meat and I made some mistakes and they ganged up on me and it was a hard time. I got depressed and I wanted to be a witness for Jesus, but I really wasn't. And so it evoked a lot of questions for me. Where is God and all this? And then I began therapy in my senior year in college, meeting with my professor.

Who was also a therapist. I didn't actually know that I was in therapy. I was just meeting with her in her office as her teacher's aide, and she kept asking me how I was feeling. And so I figured out along the way, oh, she's giving me counseling.

Cyd Holsclaw: Oh

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: of my emotions. I learned to trust, I learned to connect and that set me up for relationships.

Christie.

Cyd Holsclaw: wow. Yeah. 

Developing Emotional Intelligence

Cyd Holsclaw: So you, it sounds like you probably grew up without a really strong sense of how you felt about your emotions or a real like category for vocabulary for how to speak about emotions.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Yeah, no I did not know, I was an athlete and played sports and, on the football field you get a [00:08:00] scrape you rub dirt on it, you get back in there. That was really my orientation and both my grandparents worked in the steel mills in Chicago. My, my dad worked in the steel mill when he was younger, before he switched careers.

And all of us oldest men, oldest child was, oldest male in the family. And so I had a mentality being from Chicago, city of broad shoulders, square jaw, I'm earnest, I'm intense, I can push through the line and not get tackled and get a touchdown. Yeah, I was not like, I'm Type A, I'm a thinker, I'm a doer.

I'm not, I'm a natural, like therapist type or a monkish type. But there is a sensitive guy in the inside and I can thank my mom for that. And then that's really developed with Christie.

Cyd Holsclaw: So I'm just curious. I know some of our listeners might be listening to you talking Bill and thinking I'm that way. What's wrong with that? Like, why can't I just continue to live in that way? So what would you say has been the value of discovering your emotions? Like how has that enriched your life with God and [00:09:00] then also your life with Christy?

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Yeah, before I was really had the language of emotions and was really aware and the accepting of my emotions. I still had emotions. I, as a teenager, as a young adult, I struggled with anxiety and depression. I struggled with intimacy in relationships. And I didn't understand those things. I didn't know why.

And studying psychology, I began to learn why, but especially as I went on my own inner journey through receiving counseling and then learning to be vulnerable in relationships with friends Christie as well. And then of course with the Lord. Christian and I have always had a high value experiential orientation around intimacy with Jesus or.

Attaching to God as you talk about.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: it's been super helpful for me because, we all have the emotions anyway. We're just maybe not aware of 'em. They would be unconscious. So it's really helped me to develop emotional intelligence, which is critical for [00:10:00] success in our work. It's helped me manage conflicts, certainly in marriage with Christie, but we are raising our kids.

In the work situation. There's always misunderstandings, tensions that come. And so being able to have that language of emotions really facilitates the resolution of conflicts and the deeper connections that we can have.

Geoff Holsclaw: So I wanna now start asking questions of Christie in a second. 

The Role of Empathy in Spiritual Growth

Geoff Holsclaw: But the last question for you, bill, about, about this is like, how has maybe your understanding or relationship with God changed then since maybe like a before and after of having a more vibrant emotional life.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Yeah, it's been huge. So as a natural thinker, doer, I'm always thinking about it, Christie. Sometimes I'll say to. Hey, bill Penny for your thoughts because she, she wants to just, she knows that I'm a thinker and I'm thinking something, they're worth way more than a penny, but I dunno where you got that phrased.

Yeah, I don't either, but she knows that if she ask me about my thoughts, some emotions will probably come tumbling out. Now she might [00:11:00] realize there was emotion there before I do. I'm better at it now than I used to be, but I'm not nearly as connected and at tune as Christie is. Yeah, my relationship with God really changed a lot.

So learning the language of emotions, learning to feel, just like my Bible reading became totally different. Theresa Avila teaches this is something that we write about in deeply love, but she says that the soul is an interior castle. Our souls are so vast so deep. There's so much touch.

And the portal into our souls in many ways is our emotions. Of course our thoughts matter every bit as much as our emotions, but the emotions take us deeper. So in my prayer life and in talking to God to be able to be more emotionally honest and vulnerable, that really facilitates a closeness to be able to read the gospels and consider Jesus and his personal experience, what that was like as a fully God, but also fully human as a human being.

What was he experiencing? Jesus of Nazareth and the pages of the gospels and that's like a mirror for me. [00:12:00] To relate to, to see what maybe I might be feeling, and then to see how he deals with his emotions and his temptations and trials and challenges in a loving way. Always loving God, always loving people.

And so I, I would say that the self-awareness and development of emotional intelligence is just really helpful for a flourishing faith. And I, maybe the way to put it best is what we write about in deeply Love that 'cause that's our wording for empathy is being deeply loved. We all want to know that we are really deeply loved, and that includes being deeply known.

And so empathy is central to being deeply known, being able to share our emotions, our needs, our struggles, our hopes, confess our sins. So as we're more vulnerable in those ways, it fosters this intimacy that we all long for. And actually that then relates to that independence that we also long for. The two can.

There can be some. I felt perceived tension between the two, but the more that we are able to, to [00:13:00] bond and connect in a healthy way with God and others, that facilitates awareness of our true self, knowing our needs, being able to set boundaries, differentiating self from other. So it's a big integration between intimacy and independence.

And I would say that becoming more aware of my emotions has facilitated all of this and made it

Geoff Holsclaw: I'm sure Christie can give a hearty amen to that journey. I know Sy Sid I'll just speak on her behalf. She was, she learned to be sneaky too, because if she came to me and was like, Geoff, what are you feeling? I would just say, I don't know. So she's actually, I need to ask what is he thinking about?

And then I'll find out what he is also passionate about, because then he'll get excited or he'll get frustrated and I'll know. So she was sneaky about that too. So Kristy, you checked in early on saying that you were on the other side, that you were maybe in your emotions or. Too little, too much, I don't know. But like, how would, how did that kind of formation serve you or maybe hinder you? And then what were some of the ways you started growing maybe the opposite direction of Bill a little bit.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Yeah I [00:14:00] was very emotional. I'm a highly sensitive person. I've always been one to feel my emotions very strongly, but also grew up in a situation where it was not okay. I was not acceptable to show emotion, to have emotions and needs. So I learned to repress those, to hide those, and in the process became depressed and felt a lot of shame. Incredible amounts of shame and hiding and pretending and masking and trying to please people to secure myself and all took a lot of energy to manage. So when Bill actually was safe, he was a safe place for me to be emotionally honest. And when he held a space of grace, it, it was amazing. It was incredible to have somebody who actually.

Cared about what I felt, and he will actually listen to me, empathy and validated my emotions. I hadn't experienced that, so that was incredibly healing for me and it was also very freeing for me in terms of growing and confidence. [00:15:00] I had no understanding or awareness of emotional intelligence and what that was, and he kept seeing that and calling that out in me and validating that, that was real and that was important and that God would use that if I would let him and.

I so needed that because I didn't, I only felt shame and ineligibility and hypersensitive to rejection, which kept me from risk.

Was a big deal for you, Christie, when I was vulnerable with you because ear, early in our relationship, I, I was definitely oriented towards gracious learning. Just I was close to my mom.

She was very sensitive, emotionally, fully learned. Deficits that were there in that relationship and the wounds that were there. But from the start, I was oriented. I wanted to listen to you, I wanted to be caring. Now, sometimes I would get frustrated or the football mentality would come out, but I was so surprised when she would ask me how are you feeling?

She kept pursuing my heart and when I finally took the step to trust her in a deeper way, and it is [00:16:00] like I trusted her. But the experience of being vulnerable, it deep more than I could articulate what was frightening to me. But I took courage and I was vulnerable with her and I was so shocked that you respected me even more.

When I was vulnerable. Yes. And that really changed the dynamics in our relationship. 'cause at the start it was builds the. Oldest child, parentified child, Christie's, the baby of the family, the one with needs. And so we could interact that way. Yeah. But we weren't able to very well switch it the other way, but then when we learned to do that, wow.

That, that made a big difference. That was huge. Yeah. I so respected him when he was willing to trust me and vulnerable and let me in, let me actually know him. That was huge. And I felt like you were actually a real person, not a, not just a hero. Anymore, and it helped, and you told me it helped, and I saw it helped you feel safer.

Yeah. It helped me to be even more honest with my emotions, knowing that you actually had emotions too. Yeah.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah, it, you're describing a lot of [00:17:00] parallel between what Geoff and I also discovered. I'm curious though, one of the things that came up for us was because intimacy was so important to me it sounds like it was for you, Kristi, that when Geoff started getting more in touch with his emotions, he was also more willing to.

Tell me when he was feeling hurt or upset with something I had done, which was then harder for me to go, oh my goodness. I like, I'm used to you being like the steady, even flow guy who just sucks it up and keeps on going. And so for him to start suddenly it felt like he was picking on me all the time, even though he wasn't.

He was just finally actually expressing his emotions about how he was experiencing me and our relationship in ways that he hadn't done before. So I'm just curious if you guys ran into any of those kind of bumps along the way.

Challenges and Growth in Empathy

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Oh, definitely we did. And I think that one of the things that was good for me about that is it forced me to realize, oh, I need to develop better [00:18:00] resilience and not be so dependent upon his approval and him having good feelings about me. And so that was. That was good for me spiritually too, because that fostered greater attachment to God.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah, just the way you said that, that's just that resiliency is so important. Yeah. And so you guys are doing this deep work with empathy now, and you've already said empathy, you call being deeply loved. Can you say a little bit more about how you arrived at that definition or that understanding of empathy?

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Empathy, as I started to tell you, my story has been so healing, so life changing, so freeing, so energizing for me personally. And it's through the Ministry of Empathy that I've been able to really agree with and receive God's love before shame kept me from that. And you guys do research and you understand neuroscience and you understand.

Yeah. I remember one of the neuroscience continuing education classes that I took where [00:19:00] they were doing some brain scans and the guy doing the research actually he lost his, he lost a parent. I don't remember if his mom or dad and he came to meet some friends for coffee. And he was really struggling and they said, Hey man, welcome.

How you doing? He's ah, I was really struggling. I'm really grieving, I'm really missing my dad or my mom. And they just brushed over it and, oh, what c do you want today? And just dismissed him and didn't respond with empathy. And the shame centers of his brain are what lit up, and that's what science shows us, is that when somebody doesn't respond to our need, to our hurt, to our.

Emotion with any empathy we go into hiding. We go into that place of shame. Oh, I guess it's not okay that I feel this way. Nobody's gonna understand. And that was so helpful for me when I began to realize that I needed to seek out and actually ask for empathy. And then to get curious about what about in my relationship with God?

Because I was having trouble trusting God's love. I was in the midst of a compassion [00:20:00] fatigue. From my ministry work and having three teenagers in the home and I was beginning to doubt God's love for me because of all the suffering I was walking through with my clients. The struggles in my kids' life, people at church I was in relationship with.

These were good and godly people and the suffering they were going through. I wanted God to protect them. I wa I wanted to see his love in the ways I felt it was loving and I wasn't seeing it. And so it brought this crisis where I realized I professed God's love, but my behavior, my emotions are showing I'm not totally trusting and agreeing with.

That's love. Why is that? And if you had asked me, is God a, an empathetic God? I probably would've said no. He's not empathetic to the people that right now that I'm giving empathy to that are struggling. They don't feel empathy from God. And so that, that was part of my curiosity and reaching out.

Actually, Jane Willard played a role this, we've been so blessed to be really influenced and mentored by [00:21:00] Dallas and Jane Willard and her and Dallas. Their empathy for me in that season when I was at a wall. We write about in our book Journey the Soul with stages of emotional and spiritual development, and I'd hit a wall and they both really mirrored God's empathy to me in my wall.

They both gave me incredible empathy and I had so much respect for them and their knowledge and I had spent. Thousands of hours listening to Dallas. We, we would go hear him speak and we would listen to all, every CD we could get our hands on and even cassette tapes and listen to 'em on rewind and over and read all their books.

And we're just, growing so much. But then to actually experience God's love being ministered to me deeply in those hearts of great pain and hiddenness and questions and doubts and wrestlings, there's where I could be safe with them and say, i'm having trouble trusting God. I get all the ideas.

Dallas, I get it. I love it. It excites me. I wanna believe it's true, but I'm finding that if I'm a hundred [00:22:00] percent got gut level, honest with myself and God and you, my behavior shows, there's some areas I don't trust God. I'm trying to control my kids and secure my kids' future. I, that, that that they're showing, I'm having trouble trusting God's love for them.

Cyd Holsclaw: So the way you say, I'm having trouble trusting God's love, I'm just wondering if you're talking about what I'm thinking about. So I'll just test it out with you. So as a highly sensitive person. Because I think I fall in that range too. I think I, and I talk to other highly sensitive people who have a lot of struggle with what you were just talking about with compassion fatigue, and so I think some people that I know have really struggled with empathy because empathy feels almost like I am identifying with your experience so much.

When I leave this conversation with you, it's still with me and it just wears on me. So what would you say to people like that where they just feel like they can't, like the more people they empathize [00:23:00] with, the heavier life feels? I think you're getting at it with what you were just saying, but I'm just curious what you would say.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: It's astute and important that you're asking this. Thank you. 

Practical Steps for Stewarding Empathy

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: We dedicate a lot of our book to addressing this and how to give empathy without it draining your soul and about the importance of boundaries and learning to steward our empathy. This was something I hadn't learned when I hit my compassion fatigue 20 years ago.

I was not stewarding my empathy. I was giving it out everywhere all the time, and it was exhausting to me. And so I had to be able to get in balance and realize I wasn't getting the soul care I needed. I was just the one doing all the helping and giving it all out, but nobody was giving it to me. And I had to learn to set a lot of boundaries on my ministry, on my work, and take and be very intentional to put myself in a place where I could receive empathy from.

My spiritual director, which at the time was Jane Willard and from Bill and [00:24:00] from Friends in my Soul Care group, and began to ask very specifically for it. And then to be able to take lots of time in solitude and silence where I was really closing down all of my orbiting around everybody else and caring for everybody else's needs all the time, and tuning into everybody else to be able to get in touch with what was really going on in the soul of Christy.

And where was God in that? And to be able to make space, to seek him and to experience him, and to let him speak into those questions, those pains, those hearts, and learning and taking heart from him about the way that Jesus actually set boundaries. He was very good in his inner journey, outer journey rhythms, his inflow from the father and the spirit and his overflow in his ministry.

And I had to learn those rhythms. For myself, which we also write about and deeply love and give some tools, and then I had to learn to steward my empathy. I could. I had to realize that I can't tune into the news all the time. It doesn't do [00:25:00] any good for me to empathize with these people all over the world that I don't have any relationship with or any power to influence.

God's called me to steward my empathy, to make it available to the people he's asked me to journey with. So therefore, I need to not watch movies that stir up all this empathy and it doesn't do any good. And I need to be careful around news and what I expose myself to in order to make sure that I'm giving empathy where God's asked me to.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. Beautiful language around that. Stewarding empathy for the gift. That it is and taking good care of it and stewarding it wisely. Yeah. I'm curious, bill, maybe I'll ask you this since I've asked Christie some questions and then I should probably let Geoff ask a question too, but I'm curious. In today's culture, a lot of times, and I hear this in my kids' generation especially of, when you talk about validating and saying Kristi, you had to go and ask people.

I just need some validation, some empathy. And I know that there can be, that can be a tenuous balance [00:26:00] between like just validate me versus how are we actually helping people develop in their spiritual lives. So what would you have to say about that sort of a little bit sticky topic.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: I think we need to differentiate between emotions and perceptions. Or opinions. So my emotions are about me. My perceptions, my opinions are about people, the world, the environment. And so we don't wanna be, when we're listening to somebody, we actually don't wanna be validating your perceptions or opinions necessarily.

'cause that might not actually be tied into reality. But their emotions, we can validate that as their experience. It's true of their subjective experience. Is it true of. In a sense of integrating with God's word? Maybe or maybe not. Is it true in terms of the reality around them? Maybe or maybe not.

And God is the one that's the arbiter of truth ultimately. But differentiating that as we listen is really [00:27:00] helpful. And then I help people that I talk with and when we teach, we do this, is helping them get the language of, 'cause sometimes in our culture when we say, I feel we might mean I'm feeling the emotion of frustration.

Or we might mean I have the perception that you're a frustrating person, and those are actually different things, and it makes a big difference in our communication with people. If I say to Christie, I feel you're a frustrating person, that's gonna be hurtful to her. If I say, I feel the emotion of frustration when we have this kind of an interaction.

See, I've owned it. It's about me, my emotions about me and the source of my emotion is not Christie. She might have. Triggered it or done something that affected it. But I'm responsible for me, for my emotions and my needs and what I do with them. So helping people learn that and take responsibility that way is really important.

And yeah, there is some difficulties with empathy and there is a conversation that's happening. And we're having like empathy wars you said it was a great term. You used Geoff [00:28:00] on your Instagram and yeah, there, there's a. A conversation in a situation, the culture where some people are using empathy, like as a tool for manipulation.

It's yeah just validate me because I feel this, I should have what I want. I should be able to define my reality, my, my gender, my world. I'm the author of all things and it's kinda that's God's place actually. And so I, I have a realm where God has given me some willpower and some responsibility, and it's around my emotions, but they don't create reality.

My emotions are a response. The reality. And sometimes the word empathy is used in a way that really means coddling and fraternizing and res rescuing and enabling people to just have whatever they desire and to be selfish and not consider what is, was true and moral. And so what we're talking about in our book, deeply Love, the way we're talking about empathy, is we're integrating empathy with truth and responsibility.

So we have a formula in quotes, a formula for growth. Empathy plus truth, [00:29:00] plus responsibility equals growth. So we all need empathy. We need the soft side of love. We need someone that listens and validates them. Empathy is just trying to understand someone's emotions their thoughts, their experiences, so they could know that they're deeply loved by God.

That's how we define it and deeply loved. We all need that kind of empathy. We say empathy is oxygen for the soul. But that kind of empathy needs to integrate with and respect what is true, the truth of God's word, truth, that science reveals what we can observe to be true and real in the world around us.

Certainly the spiritual realm of what is real truth is super important. You should know the truth and truth shall make you free. Jesus said. Then also responsibility, meaning I'm responsible for me, and learning to take ownership of my life is super important. Nobody. Grows OR is really successful in life or loving if they're not learning to take responsibility for themselves.

So that's the way we're talking about empathy. We're putting it in that kind.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, [00:30:00] I think that's so helpful. 'cause I know that's how I had resistance to empathy early on in relationship to Sid because it was like if I, acknowledge her emotions. It's also validating them. And I don't agree that she should be responding to this situation with all that intensity.

Cyd Holsclaw: I'll just embarrass him for a moment. Early on, there were a couple times when he said to me you shouldn't feel that way, like you feel that way, but this situation does not even give you a reason to feel that way. You shouldn't feel that.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. That's terrible. But, and so I think being able to, 'cause like we talk about attunements and attachments, and empathy is so core to that. And just going back to your I guess foundational statement of being sole shepherds as you talk about care and then guidance, and that kind of sounds like what you're doing there is the care, is the empathy, but then the truth and.

And the responsibility is also that guidance. We talk also about like how God meets us, but then he's also moving us and God meets us where we are. But that, [00:31:00] he doesn't want us to stay there. He wants us to grow and move forward. In just the last little bit of our time is there. 

Final Thoughts and Resources

Geoff Holsclaw: Is there anything that like you'd want to encourage our listeners about this conversation? Either about your own spiritual journeys and becoming more attuned to your emotions as well as truth or kind of empathy that you just wanna it could also be a challenge, invitation, or a word of comfort.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: You. Yeah, I just would hope and pray for all of you who are. And to really know down deep in your heart, all the way down to your bones, that you are deeply loved. And you probably know that intellectually at some level. We read the Bible as Christians, we come to understand that, but to actually learn to experience that's what we're talking about here.

That's what we're writing about in being loved. And it's a journey of vulnerability, of course, with God facilitate through. Bible reading through prayer, other spiritual disciplines that spiritual connection and attachment to not, but also through the body of Christ Jesus'. New [00:32:00] commandment for us is that we love one another, and Paul calls us, as I just referenced, he calls us the body of Christ.

So we, we are Christ to each other, imperfect as we are collectively. God uses us to be ambassadors for him and two Corinthians five 20 teaches that we get to represent. Christ, and we do that for each other. That means I, I can represent Jesus to Christy and to my students and to our spiritual directors that we train in soul shepherding and my family and my friends, but it also means I need to receive that.

Sometimes I need Christy, my friends, my spiritual director, to represent Jesus to me because and so that's when empathy is put into our human relationships and we're vulnerable to talk about the challenges, the needs, the struggles that we're having there. God gets to work into the nooks and crannies of our life more deeply.

'cause sometimes when we're like doing our Bible reading or a print, we're just in our own space with that. It's not as, not tangible enough. So that's where we really need [00:33:00] the palpable human relationships of attachment and conflict and need and hopes and to embody Jesus to each other.

And so that's what we want for you who are listening. We want you to experience that deepening love of God's presence in your life, including in your relationships with people.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah.

Cyd Holsclaw: often say I'll, and Christie, if you have anything you can say in just a minute too. We often, we all know you get to the places that you get in relationship. You come up with those wounds and your attachment strategies and the lack of empathy out of relationship, and the only way to reclaim it is in relationship.

So in relationship with people and with God. Yeah. Christy, do you have anything you would wanna add to what Bill had to say or anything else that you would wanna our listeners to hear?

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: I think I would just wanna affirm them for engaging with you here, and also would invite them to glean what they can from us too. We're blessed to follow Jesus together and community. We [00:34:00] learn and grow in community. We need safe places. Many of you are leaders, pastors, therapists, and you don't have very many safe places.

So I would encourage you to really recognize God has entrusted the care of your soul for you to steward well under him and with him, and he wants to be your soul shepherd. So just invite you and affirm you for joining us here and talking about these things and making a priority in a space for you to put yourself in a position to be able to receive from God his deep love and care for your soul.

Geoff Holsclaw: We've been talking with Bill and Christie Gaultier, their book, deeply loved receiving and reflecting God's great empathy for you. You can get that wherever you buy books. They'll be sharing even more about this on our second annual summit attaching to God's summit. But where can people find your work and where people can people connect with you?

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: We will go to soul shepherding.org and there you can learn how to come on retreat with us. Or talk to a spiritual director. Live right [00:35:00] now we have over 50 spiritual directors and coaches available, and you can learn about our deeply loved book. Go to soul shepherding.org/deeply love book. You can learn all about it.

You can buy it on Amazon or wherever books are.

Geoff Holsclaw: And you they also just, all the listeners, they also have more resources in book form more than you will find on Amazon. So they have a couple of really good prayer guides and things that are just absolutely wonderful. You can't get those on Amazon, so they have lots of resources.

Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for just taking the years to just develop all these resources and thank you for your most recent book.

Bill & Kristi Gaultiere: Thank you so much. Great to be in conversation with you and all your listeners.