Why do kids climb trees, run really fast, and spin until they fall over? What is the benefit of risky play? And what does that have to do with attaching to God and our spiritual life?

In this episode, we look at the research regarding play and how it connects to attaching to God.

Baggage Claim: Don't miss the new segment where we finish by claiming some overproductive tendencies we share. 

Resources: 

• The Circle of Security (website)
• "Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children’s Mental Well-being" (article PDF)
• The Anxious Generation (book)

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Emmanuel—God with us. We have heard this promise of God’s presence. But might our attachment wounds skew, distort, or hinder us from embracing this reality? Do we live as slaves to our attachment strategies rather than as beloved children of God? And how can we learn to do something different in our spiritual lives?

Summer Joy Gross is an Anglican priest, retreat leader, and spiritual director whose work is guided by the belief that our stories can be transformed by God's invitation to make his love our home base. She is associate faculty of spiritual formation and the art of spiritual direction at the Healing Care Ministries' spiritual direction school. She is the host of The Presence Podcast and lives in North Georgia with her husband, their three teenagers.

Summer has just written a book called, The Emmanuel Promise: Discovering the Security of a Life Held by God.

You can find more about Summer here: https://www.athirstforgod.com/
And the Presence Project here: https://www.athirstforgod.com/the-presence-project/

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

There is an innate need in all of us to know that there is something more beautiful than the dark places of the world we live in. After two losses within their community just prior to the 2020 pandemic, St. Andrew Methodist Church in Plano, TX discerned that God was asking them to go on the offense against the darkness of mental illness.

This is the story of Beacon of Light, a ministry providing much-needed resources, support, and treatment for those struggling with mental health issues while also empowering Christ-centered communities to find hope even in the most difficult times.

Geoff speaks with Arthur Jones and Doug Reed. Arthur is the lead pastor of St. Andrews Methodist church in Plano, Texas. Doug Reed is the executive director of Beacon of Light, launched out of St. Andrews. 

Sign up for more information: https://www.beaconoflightmh.org/newsletter

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

The inaugural episode of season six, and all about "Geoff's Second Half of Life 'Crisis' and why we renamed the podcast" (and note, 'crisis' is in scar quotes).

Welcome to Season 6, of what is now called the Attaching to God podcast.  We are going to be doing more episodes of just the two of us talking (Cyd and Geoff). But we will also have interviews with people, and hopefully a regular guest appearance (if we can get him to commit once a month).

In addition to this, we are adding a regular segment called "Baggage Claim" where one or both of us notice the baggage we are bringing into relationships (big things or small things) See minute "27" for this new segment. 

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

The problem of toxic masculinity is much bigger than contemporary expressions of Christianity. Mistreatment of women and men dehumanizing others is a feature of human culture fraught with sin.  But the church is called to be salt and light, so how can we foster a non-toxic masculinity?

Our guest today is Zachary Wagner, a writer, researcher, and minister. He serves as the editorial director for the Center for Pastor Theologians. We’re talking about his book Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality.

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Many children today are growing up amid adversity, whether brought on by family difficulties or larger societal crises. All children need to be able to deal with stress, cope with challenges, and persevere through disappointments. While we cannot protect children from all hardships, we can promote healthy development that fosters resilience.

Our guest, Dr. Holly Catterton Allen, recently retired from her position as Professor of Christian Ministries and Family Science at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Allen’s books include Intergenerational Christian Formation and Forming Resilient Children: The Role of Spiritual Formation for Healthy Development.

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Research tells us that when people suffer from a mental health crisis, the first person they turn to for help is not a physician, a psychiatrist, or a social worker, but a pastor, a priest, or a minister. Unfortunately, many church leaders are not trained to recognize mental illness and don’t know when to refer someone to a mental health professional. And how do we know the difference between a mental illness and a spiritual issue?

This is what we are talking about with Dr. Matthew Sanford, author of Grace for the Afflicted: A Clinical and Biblical Perspective on Mental Illness, and CEO of the Hope and Healing Center in Houston, TX.

Other books by Dr. Stanford: 

• The Biology of Sin: Grace, Hope and Healing for Those Who Feel Trapped
• Madness and Grace: A Practical Guide for Pastoral Care and Serious Mental Illness

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Does God hate? Is God emotional? Emotions feel irrational, impulsive, and problematic for God, especially when we think about hate, jealousy, or sorrow. But the truth is the Bible is full of all sorts of stories that express God expressing emotions. This episode focuses particularly on God and the emotion of hate.

Our guest is Dr. David Lamb. He is the MacRae Professor of Old Testament and in 2017 the Dean of the Faculty at Missio Seminary. He is the author of "God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist." And more recently has written "The Emotions of God: Making Sense of a God who hates, weeps, and loves." And Dr. Lamb spent twenty years on staff with InterVaristy. 

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

For many people, sorrow, despair, anxiety, and mental illness are everyday experiences. And while we have tremendous advancements in therapy and psychiatry, the burden of living often comes down to some mundane choices, like "Should I still bother to get out of bed?"

Dr. Alan Noble joins us to talk about life with mental anguish and his book, On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living. We talk about faith and hope in the goodness of life amid the struggles and pain.

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

How do we help people get their brains back online? Can the Spirit lead us through a process of healing without triggering re-traumatization? And how can we attach more deeply with God?

Guest Stephanie Rossing (Licenced Marriage and Family Therapist) talks about her own journey as a therapist, discovering and receiving training in trauma treatments (EMDR and Dialectical Behavior Therapy), and how she learned to let the Spirit lead treatment and how Immanuel Prayer helps us attach to God more deeply. 

Also, this Advent, check out our book all about Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With Us.

Stephanie Rossing is a therapist specializing in the healing of trauma. She is also passionate about Immanuel Prayer and using embodied practices to help people strengthen intimacy with God. She longs to help people build emotionally healthy communities that thrive in a secure attachment to self, God and others. 

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

Stay Connected:

• Check out our Attaching to God 6-Week Learning Cohort.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).