150 From Inner Shadows to Secure Souls (with Dr. Alison Cook)

Does security come from the outside? Or is security something we can cultivate from within as we become more and more anchored in God’s unshakable love? 

Geoff Holsclaw talks with therapist and psychologist of religion Dr. Allison Cook about her new book, The Secure Soul: Finding Inner Strength and Connection When Trust Doesn’t Come Easily. They talk about internal family systems (parts work), and how the soul adapts to disconnection by creating "shadows". Drawing on her own story of believing in God yet feeling a “brick wall,” she connects embodied experiences of love, attachment, and neuroscience to spiritual formation.

Dr. Alison Cook is a therapist, psychologist of religion, bestselling author, and host of the top-ranked The Best of You podcast (and has also published a book by the same title, along with . Widely recognized for her ability to bridge faith and psychology in a way that is both deeply practical and spiritually alive, Dr. Alison has spent over two decades helping people move from feeling disconnected to feeling secure, grounded, and loved. And she is coming out with her new book, The Secure Soul: Finding Inner Strength and Connection When Trust Doesn't Come Easy.
 

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Transcript

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Where Security Comes From

Geoff Holsclaw: What does security come from? Where does security come from? Is it something from the outside, or is security something that we can cultivate from within us as we connect to the unshakable love of God? That is what we're talking today. 

Meet Dr Allison Cook

Geoff Holsclaw: Welcome back to the Attached to God podcast. I'm Geoff Holsclaw, where we are seeking to explore neuroscience-informed spiritual formation, and as always, this is produced by the Center for Embodied Faith.

I'm real excited to have Dr. Allison Cook back on the podcast. She is a therapist, a psychologist of religion, and bestselling author, and host of the top-ranked The Best Of You podcast, and she's also published a book by the same title. She's widely recognized for her ability to bridge faith and psychology to deepen practical relationships and our spiritual lives.

So thank you so much for being on. And you're here because you're launching the new book, The Secure Soul: Finding Inner Strength and Connection When Trust Doesn't Come Easily. Dr. Cook, thank you for being on with us.

Alison Cook: on with us. Thanks for having me, Geoff. You guys do such great work, and it's an honor to be here with you today.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Thank you. First of all, happy launch day. I w- I didn't realize till today when I was looking up when your book was coming out, this is... We're recording this in the middle of August, although many of you probably won't listen to this till September, but this is the day that the book launched. How does that feel for you?

How do you... 'Cause you've launched many different books, like what does it feel like?

Alison Cook: like? Every one i- each one is different. This one is more, I have more going on inside of me, a lot of different emotions, because this is a more personal book. I tell more of my own story, and my other books I've kinda stayed more in the expert role a little bit. This one's much more personal, where I'm sharing my own journey.

And so it's, there's a lot more, complicated emotions with this one.

Geoff Holsclaw: Oh, okay. People like hearing about a side of you they didn't always know about or something.

We 'cause we have I don't... I think your children are grown and out of the house. Our children have grown and left. And I always say writing a book or launching a book is like giving birth and sending-- and giving-- and sending your kid off to college on the same day.

Alison Cook: day

Geoff Holsclaw: Because 'cause you're like, you cared for it and nurtured it for so long, but then you don't know how they're doing. They never call. You only hear from their friends who kinda know how they're doing, and they're like, "They're doing great. We love it." And you're like, "If they could just call, that would be nice."

So that's how I think of it.

Alison Cook: That's how I feel about it ... s- that's such a g- 'cause I've said a couple times, this, the, just recently, it's like giving birth, but I, it, you're exactly right. But it's also like giving birth and completely letting go of control. You're not still getting to shepherd and steward. You're just like, "Okay, have a great life out there."

It's a very strange feeling

Geoff Holsclaw: Okay. Yes so all of, for any of you who wanna know the behind the scenes of authors and whatnot it's a really weird experience. I didn't have this question written down but now that you mention it what kinda prompted you to write this book and to take that more personal kind of perspective?

What was the Lord kinda leading you into or drawing out of you?

Alison Cook: of you? He led me through the invitation of my incredible editor. I hesitate to call her an editor 'cause she's also a friend and a writer and just an incredible w- woman of faith. But she actually just invited me. She said, what would it be like for you to step out from behind the expert role and share more of your own story?"

Of course, as therapists, there's a double whammy there. I'm already a private person. I don't love that, that's part of why we become therapists, and and then you're also trained not to tell, share your own story. So it was like, at first when she said that, I was like, "Oh my gosh."

But then honestly, the truth is, as I started to write it and I thought I'll play with it. I'll see how it goes," it was so healing. Then I jumped in with both feet to the process of writing. Just was so healing to write this book, and I forgot that it would also then one day be public.

So I really just went all in with the, wow, this is so therapeutic and healing to write my own journey of reconnecting to these parts of myself. And there's a lot of real time kind of what's that like and it was just, I loved it. It was just such a, a, a genuinely beautiful experience with me and with God and internally and contemplatively.

And then of course it's like, "Oh, this will now go out to other people." So we'll see how that part goes.

Geoff Holsclaw: It's like you're pouring out your soul and it's your personal journals, and then you're like, "But your editor thinks maybe this would be better if it was here, and this would be different." And they're giving you

Alison Cook: always a weird feeling. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: s- for those of you who don't know, you do work with attachment and internal family systems. Some people call that parts work. Could you just briefly explain what that is and, like, how you got into that and w- and why you're so excited about that kind of work as a therapist?

Alison Cook: Yeah, my first book, Boundaries for Your Soul, is really a Christian adaptation of internal family systems therapy, and that model really just changed everything for me. I was... I learned about it almost at the end of my doctoral work. I'd never learned about it in school. It was still kinda coming into the public eye.

For your listeners who aren't familiar with the model, the best depiction of it is the Pixar movie is Inside Out, just this idea that we have these inner parts of us, and we're complex. We're not just one thing, and these different kind of... This inner family, just like we have an outer family, and we've got different kids, and we're trying to help create some sort of harmony in our household, we're also doing the same thing within our soul.

We've got these different parts of us that we're trying to kinda wrangle into some sort of harmony. To the book, part of me, it was so healing to write these stories, and another part of me is "You can't do that. You can't let people read that," right? So we have these inner tensions, and the model is just, was just so helpful to me coming out of an era in psychology in particular, but also in, in Christian circles, where a lot of focus was on belief, right?

So Christian circles, a lot of focus was on what you believe. Get your thinking right. Get your beliefs right. And then psychology in this time, during this time when I was coming up and getting trained, was all about CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. Get your thinking right, really. Look at your thoughts.

And for me, that wasn't super helpful. I didn't have a problem with my thinking. I had a problem being disconnected from my emotions, and I had a problem being disconnected from an embodied, holistic, felt sense of m- God's love of other people. And so internal family systems kinda helped me find those different parts of my inner life and connect to them in partnership with God.

So that was just really a, a real kinda transformational experience to learn about that myself, get trained in it, and then kinda learn how to integrate it with Christian faith and spiritual formation. I see it as really a spiritual formation practice as much as it is a therapeutic modality.

Geoff Holsclaw: So all the head knowledge, whether it's church or the CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, that wasn't always kinda getting at the heart and why there's like lots of parts in our hearts that need to be kinda wrangled, they need to be honored, they kinda need to be healed. Okay, so our work, Cyd and I at the Center for Body Faith, it's a lot of how does your kind of family of origin, your attachment strategies, which then become internalized as parts or doing different kind of things but then how that kind of connects with faith and your spiritual life.

Faith And Felt Connection

Geoff Holsclaw: So can I ask you what was your early spiritual environment, and how did that kinda get either integrated or disintegrated into your heart in different ways?

Alison Cook: Yeah. It, and I grew up in a Christian home loving parents who genuinely loved God and really tried to, teach us and show us the love of God. And so that, I never didn't believe in God.

But I share a story in the book in chapter eight about being in middle school and kinda doing the things I was supposed to do, reading my one-year Bible and reading my devotionals, and crying out to God, and just feeling a brick wall. And that's how I would say, like for me, there was again that divide. I had the head knowledge, the beliefs, but I couldn't connect with God.

In a way, some part of me wanted to. The fact that I was laying in bed as like a 14-year-old crying out to God, wanting to connect with God, but feeling a brick wall, was very confusing to me, and I would tell myself it was my fault. I must not be doing enough. I must care, at the same time, I'm in middle school, I, I must care about vain and shallow things, and like the other kids liking me or getting picked for the team and that's selfish, and that's why God's withholding his love, right? I internalized that carrot holding God and that was confusing to me for a long time. And then in college, I had an encounter with Jesus that really brought that connection piece in, that, that felt experience of God's love.

And that encounter came on the heels of a first love, right? A first romantic love. And it wasn't lost on me that I learned what it felt like to fall in love, to be loved. It was a very kind boy. And then in the wake of that breakup, suddenly I could feel, God's love. Something had changed. I didn't understand how to connect those dots, but it was when I read Kurt Thompson's Anatomy of the Soul to get into your lane a little bit in the neuroscience, and began to understand there was actually something in that experience of real human intimacy and mutuality that actually opened up something in my own embodied reality, my own nervous system, my own neural pathways, that, that allowed me to encounter the loving connection, the loving presence I'd so longed for to encounter from God when I was a kid.

And so took me a long time to piece all that together, and a lot of kind of flawed theological understanding along the way. But that re- was another thing in a- in addition to in- internal family systems, that, that neuroscience of how- Love, I say in the book, love is felt in the body. It's experienced in the body before, it's formed in the mind.

We can have belief and not have a embodied understanding of what God's closeness feels like, and that was my experience

Geoff Holsclaw: Oh, that's great. Some people maybe start longing for God's love because their family of origin maybe is unsafe or just lacking in different ways. But some others, it's when you get a little older and there is that kind of first love or broken heart, romantic love, and how then it kinda...

That's the pathway to open up kind of our hearts for the greater love that is God. So there's all different paths. 

The Controller Adaptation

Geoff Holsclaw: You talk quite a bit at the beginning how, of the book, how we just have these aching hearts from disconnection. But when that happens I was really interested in how you talk about this thing called the controller.

Like, when we grow up and we have we enter into the regions of disconnection and our soul adapts, and I love that. So this is sidetrack 'cause Cyd and I talk about strategies and you talk adapt. Sometimes we can get so wound up "All these things are sin and I'm a bad person," and it's like there's a, a place to talk about sin, but I love how you talk about adapting.

Could you just talk a little bit more about that? How does the soul adapt to these other places? And then maybe we could go toward the controller that you talk about.

Alison Cook: Yeah. Yeah, in my own story, I a part of me was good at school, a part of me could disappear into my algebra books, a part of me was very comfortable in my room by myself doing my homework. And there w- but there were other parts of me that longed to be connected to my peers, that, I was watching my friends, start to date and all those things, and it just wasn't, in, in, wasn't what was happening for me.

And so you adapt. I went all-in, with the part of me that was really good at school and I name her the controller. And again, this is, there's a normal kind of component to that, but when it gets extreme, right? For me, maybe that was, some people they might move into perfectionism, or they might move into people pleasing.

For me, it was hyper achievement in a way, and also some people pleasing. But that controller is trying to create a sense of safety, a sense of certainty. And so while the behaviors may not be all bad I think about this in religious circles when we see a controller come in. I'm gonna be the best, at serving.

I'm gonna be the best at scripture memory. I'm gonna be the best. Again, these aren't necessarily bad things in and of themselves, but when they're driven by that ache, b- by that I, "I can compensate here because I don't actually feel comfortable here, I actually don't feel seen here, I don't feel held here, and I'm gonna deny those needs and just overcompensate here," that's where we get into trouble.

And so that controller is the part of us that is working to prevent pain, right? It's working to keep us with this sort of false sense of security through, again, could be performance, achievement, perfection, pleasing c- taking control, problem-solving, all these things that, again, aren't otherwise bad things, but they get extreme when they're, when we're not honestly also facing simultaneously these other longings, these other deeper vulnerabilities.

And so that's where I see everybody has some form of this controller.

Geoff Holsclaw: So the controller isn't best known through like the behaviors, as you said, but like the motivations, is

Alison Cook: Yeah. We see it through the behaviors, but what's underneath it... so now for example, Geoff, like I still work really hard. I have a strong work ethic. There's a part of me that enjoys, tackling a to-do list. Am I working from that place of joy? From that place of like Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire, "I feel God when I run," right?

This is the... Or am I working from a place of I've gotta earn love, I've gotta make sure everybody... See, that kind of urgency. That's an adaptation. That's survival. And health, sometimes the behaviors might even look somewhat similar in some cases. Like I'm still working really hard, but that inner check of what's my mode, like is this to...

Because it's so exciting to steward gifts God has given me, and it's such a delight to do this work with God in partnership, and I know when to rest, and I can rest, and I can set it down, and I know my worth isn't about this, right? Is that what's going on? That's healing. That's a healthy controller, right?

We don't want these parts to go away, but or is it from that place of of striving, and earning, and approval-seeking?

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Doesn't Dallas Willard say that faith isn't against effort but it is against earning? Something like that. I don't quite have that, that

Alison Cook: That's good. Yeah, I like that

Geoff Holsclaw: so well, before we move on the controller, it's kinda tricky too because the troll- the controller in your family systems or even your social worlds can often be affirmed, right?

You can get a lot of praise. You can... People can call it a virtue like, "Oh, wow, look at all the, the stuff you're doing." And and so then it's kinda bec- it just, it feeds into it. Is that right?

Alison Cook: that right? Exactly. Exactly. They're often, the controller part of us is often the part of us that other people affirm.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Yeah. And so what's wrong with it? 

Meeting Your Shadow

Geoff Holsclaw: There's nothing wrong until you feel burned out or let down or empty and you're like, "Why? I'm doing all the right things." It's like, so then you kinda talk about this thing called the shadow that is a

Alison Cook: Which leads us right to the shadow.

Geoff Holsclaw: So could you unpack what you mean by the shadow and how that shows up in people?

Alison Cook: Yeah, and I call the shadow the part of us, and I'm blending internal family systems here with sort of Christian history and Christian spiritual formation 'cause there's a, a rich history of this idea of the shadow, right? But the shadow is the part of us that harbors those longings and passions and emotions and frustrations that the controller's trying to keep away, it's the part of us. So for me, that's the part of me that m- while I'm working so hard on my homework and just being a good girl and getting everything done, that's the part of me that is in my room just feeling so left out, like so unseen, so invisible, crying out to God in my journal, using swear, using the F word, i... That was one of the vulnerability hangovers I had. I was like, "I can't believe I admit this," that I was scrawling that in the, in my journal, at this same time, right? Because those are the shadowy emotions. Why am I not good enough, and the shadow part of us I look at it as standing b- at the edge of the vulnerable parts of us and a longing for relief. So we have to watch the shadow part, and this is where sin can come in. It's not the emotions that are the problem, but it's what we sometimes do when we're not honoring those emotions. We might reach for relief in ways that we shouldn't.

Now, the need for relief isn't the problem. Again, the shadow needs to be seen and witnessed. It needs to be held and honored so that the shadow doesn't start to act out in ways that tries to get what we want in ways we shouldn't do it or tries to get relief in ways that aren't constructive. And so the shadow is this, I liken it literally to like a flame, it's, it reminds us that we're alive. It reminds us that we're human, that we have passions, that we have needs, that we have desires, that we have longings, that we have hurts, that we have wounds. It's important. We need this part of us in the soul in our system, and we have to tend it constantly 'cause if we try to exile it, if we try to banish it, th- those feelings don't go away.

They come out sideways in ways that they shouldn't. But if we can begin to notice what is underneath the shadowy feelings, the resentments even, the jealousies, usually underneath those is a longing,

we can learn to witness that longing and bring that longing into connectedness instead of in a shameful place in a corner of our soul.

We can begin to cr- have a h- more whole experience, a more integrated experience. so suddenly the controller isn't working to outrun the shadow. The controller's taking into account some of the shadow's longings. And here's the thing- You know, and God, how He designed us, we have this capacity, I call it the sp- we call it the spirit-led self, but as humans, we have this a pat- capacity to observe ourselves. We can notice these different movements in our soul. It's different than my pets. I love my dogs, but I remember learning, 'cause I felt so bad leaving my pups when I'd go away, that they feel sad, but they're not aware that they feel sad, and that's what is a big distinction. It's the awareness that causes humans a lot of pain and but it's also beautiful. It's like I can become aware. I can notice. I'm working really hard over here, and over here I'm feeling pretty resentful.

And I have that God-given capacity of agency to observe that, to notice that, and this is where I can become this, this tender of my own soul in partnership with God's Spirit.

I can notice. I can recognize these movements. I can recognize the shadowy emotions, notice them, not hide from them, not shame them, but notice them. I can recognize when my controller's getting out of balance. And God's given us that, that agency, that ability to observe and become aware of ourselves.

Geoff Holsclaw: there's so much there. Thank you. No it really is. 

Secure Soul With Jesus

Geoff Holsclaw: I have so many questions, but I wanna move on to the, the section about, like, how do we develop a secure soul in God. So I think we'll just keep going there. You mentioned doing this in partnership with God. Could you kinda talk a little bit about that?

So what does cultivating a secure soul in relationship to God's love, like, how does that look and what's kinda the path for that?

Alison Cook: Yeah, I think in my experience again, I had the belief about God. I had s- loved studying theology. I had this sense of God out there. And what the, the... I remember the moment I suddenly read John 14 and about how Jesus says, "I'm sending you a spirit, the comforter, the counselor, who will make His home within you," and how that just lit up everything for me in a different way, that Jesus, the Spirit, comes into these places in our soul.

And I... This became really the... All of my work is about trying to help people look into their soul. I give the metaphor of a mountain. It's like walking into a mountain. It's complex. It's layered. It's shadowy. It's vast. It can be daunting to really begin to do the work of journeying into, inside your own soul but this is where the Spirit lives.

This is where Jesus goes. And just as Jesus wants to find every soul out there, He wants to find every lost sheep, He wants to find every lost coin, He also wants to find every lost part of you, and you're part of that journey. You go with Jesus. Just as we go out into the world to care for friends, to care for neighbors, to find people who need God's love the most, we go into our own inner world, looking for those places inside where there's wounds, where there's heartaches, where there's hurts, maybe from long ago, that still live inside of us.

And so becoming a sec- secure soul, the way that I look at it, is this inner work of learning to look inside, look at those places, look at those, those parts of us that still need care. And we don't do that alone. God goes with us. Jesus goes with us. He paves the path. And then from an attachment science perspective, just as when, we are seen, witnessed by another person, if I have shame, and I take it to my husband, or I take it to a friend, the shame just dissipates in loving presence.

We know this, right? But the same is true within our souls. Just as if I meet that part of me, that, that part of me that was swearing in her journal, and I kinda felt uncomfortable. I'm sitting with her kind of... I'm kinda with that memory. She's... It's very real inside of me, and I'm kinda feeling the shame of it.

But that same work, that same neural pathway of compassion, we can extend. We can open up inside of us through Revisiting those places, revisiting those memories, not to stay there, but to bring the healing balm of God's loving presence into the places where the hurt still lives in the body. And I've just found that work to be profound.

I call it inner... This is the work of internal attachments, to take nothing away from the importance we need of other people. But I've also found in my life, as much as we need other people, I love my favorite, one of my favorite all-time therapists, Yalom talks about this existential, he's an existential psychotherapist who talks about the ache of isolation that is just universal, that no other human being can fully understand what happens inside of me. And so as much as I need other people to see me and be with me, there's also these places where ultimately myself and God are the ones that are gonna fully be able to meet some of those places exactly as they need to be met. So it's it's not the only path to healthy attachment, but I think it's a crucial missing piece of it that we often don't talk about

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. 

Recognize And Return Practice

Geoff Holsclaw: So how do we... what would be a practical, if you were, not maybe with a client who's dealing with something like, really difficult, but just like more at a popular kind of level, how would you encourage someone to kinda go about that? Like finding these kind of maybe controllers or s- shadowy parts and then just allowing Jesus to kinda walk with them.

How would you encourage someone to

Alison Cook: Yeah, and that's what I'm trying to lay out in the book is my own journey of that. And I think it can look different for everybody. I, I, me, the- I've boiled it down to this process of recognize and return. And so the recognition is, I share a story in the book of kind of becoming aware that I was silently resenting someone else's success. so the recognition is I recognize without shame, oh, that's what's happening right now. That's the truth. I immediately... Now, for me, I've done this work, so it comes quickly. I immediately can almost feel, I put my hand on my heart, and I can almost feel the long tail of that back to middle school, feeling like belonging is scarce. I remember the feeling, of not being chosen. That's an old wound, right? And so there's that tenderness that this isn't only about today, this is also about a long story of feeling this way. So there's that tenderness with that younger version of me, right? I've... Sometimes I'll even just pray.

This happened the other day. I'll just... I'll pr- I'll go to pray and say, "God, here's that lingering feeling of resentment or of frustration." And the image of that young girl will come to mind "Oh, yeah, that was rough." And kinda the compassion toward her helps me A, separate out I'm not the, I'm not her anymore, I'm an adult now, but, B, the compassion comes in, and that's the return.

The return is always to love. The return is recognize this is happening. There's a long story, a long narrative of it. I love Dan Allender's Story Work. There's a story here, right? And I can return always to love. I am loved even here. And that has changed everything for me. I am loved even here, no matter what I'm feeling, no matter what's happening.

And counter to, maybe what it might seem like, oh, is that indulgent, that is what is transformational. It's God's love that changes us. It's the kindness of being met in those places that, in my experience, changes us

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. And if it's true that God is always loving us, then he has always loved us at every point in our life. It's us that don't necessarily know and receive that. And so I loved what you said "I'm no longer that person anymore, but that person is still a part of me," and so you wanna kinda bring all of ourselves before God's love rather than just, parts of ourselves, and

Alison Cook: So often the thing, the things we struggle with today have a long history, that maybe have nothing to do with the person in front of us.

And so to just take a moment and honor, "Oh, that's there for a reason. There, there was hurt there," and that's that compassion. And then that settling I'm loved even here.

And what I've found is when I do that, I'm so much more able to meet whatever it is that's happening to me today with a little less... a little more softness, a little more truth, a little more kindness

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I know, like I'm almost 50 and I still have things that go back to like middle school, and I'm the youngest brother who's a twin nobody ever knew my name because they didn't know which one I was, and so I'd always get called by my last name. And there's like this long-term nobody knows who I am, like aftereffect, where it's like you can tell yourself but like there's this, yeah, there's this kind of deep in there.

‌

Geoff Holsclaw: Y- you talk kinda near the end, you just brought this up, like h- cultivating compassion for others. How does learning to honor your anxious and avoidant or protective parts, how does that rebound then into your relationship with other people?

Alison Cook: I think of Jesus' words, "Love others as yourself," as almost more of a correlation than a prescription sometimes. He's... There's something really wise in what he's saying. It's s- almost a like a this is how it works. You will love others as love... and again I'm using some creative, interpretation there, but there is a correlation there, and I've seen it in my life, I've seen it in the people that I serve, that as I am able to be with myself in this compassionate way, not indulgent, there's a containment component, right?

There's a containment component. I see what's happening here. Isn't saying it's good, it's saying I see it. There's a being seen in it. Same with our kids, right? I see what's happening here. There's a strength in it. I'm not unaware, right? When we are able to be that way with ourselves without shame, we've learned a skill, and that is the same skill we need to have with our own children.

That is the same skill we need to have with our own spouses. That is the same skill we need to have with our friends and neighbors. I see you, and I'm here with you. I'm not here with shame. I'm not here to... I'm not making a moral judgment in this case. I see you. I'm here. I can hold steady as I am with you in this.

It's a skill. It's a muscle we develop, and the more we develop it inside of ourselves, the more we are able to use that skill with all the people around us.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. So cultivating like a compassionate curiosity and for ourselves and for others. Is there is there any last thoughts or just kind of things that you discovered through the process of writing this book that you'd wanna share for us before we finish up?

Alison Cook: I just I'm grateful for your questions. It just, it is... Again, and I don't know that everybody will have the same process that I, the book, it almost has a little bit of an allegory component where I am imagining, having these conversations with younger selves. I it's but the, the basics of just, I love how you said, just recognizing, yeah, that narrative inside of me, it's still there.

It's just true, and I love how you just said it. It I, it just, and I have those, and it's just such a liberating, It's like there's a self-acceptance in it that I find just so freeing when you can be with your own self in this way. So I just long for so many of us, who've struggled with willpower, trying to use willpower, have struggled to try to get our thinking just right, and all of those things are important, but there's also this, this ingredient of just compassionate self-attunement that I think is very biblical and incredibly freeing.

Geoff Holsclaw: thank you for being on with us. The book is The Secure Soul: Finding Inner Strength and Connection When Trust Doesn't Come Easy. Where can people find your work and where you're at online and how to connect with you more?

Alison Cook: Yeah. It's, you can find the book anywhere books are sold, and then my, you can find me at dralisoncook.com. Everything is there that I do in the world, so

Geoff Holsclaw: Excellent. That, that'll be in the show notes. Thank you so much, and I appreciate you jumping on, and God bless all your work, and I hope this book really connects and helps a lot of people

Alison Cook: Thank you. You as well. Appreciate you