Naming the Real

Rigid thinking often makes deeply felt emotional needs and insecurities. In this episode, we explore why getting stuck in rigid stage 2 thinking—with its polarization and its toxicity—is so common (especially in our contemporary world) and what we can do to divorce ourselves from an addiction to rigid certainty that doesn't allow for healthy doubt, skepticism, and creativity.

Non-dualism (or non-dualistic thinking) is an idea that comes up often in world religions and in talk of spirituality in general. But what exactly is non-dual thinking or a non-dual mind? In this episode, we explore the reality that non-dual, both-and thinking is critical to our growth and spiritual development as humans. And is an answer and remedy to the anxiety and polarization that grips our society.

Christian Scripture, like most religious texts, has been abused by those seeking to use it for their own ends. But the meta-story of Scripture transcends these abuses and provides a road-map to a life of true inner goodness. In this episode, we explore how M. Scott Peck's Four Stages of Spiritual Development follows the outline of Scripture and leads us into considerations of what practices lead to a life of flourishing. Specifically, practices of self-emptying in order to become open to a source of spiritual power beyond the limits of our own will power.

To make progress in our spiritual development, it's incredibly helpful to understand the Jungian concepts of the ego (or "false self") and the shadow. In this episode, we explore how these ideas illuminate M. Scott Peck's Four Stages of Spiritual Development, as well as our human experience, more generally. Ultimately, we explore what it means to live as an integrated person who is not stuck in the ego's game of hiding in small, incomplete stories, so that we can instead live courageous, vibrant lives.

Part of living a flourishing, courageous life is learning to embrace our limits and limitations. A lesson I seem to re-learn often...and again this week!

The Four Stages of Spiritual Development from M. Scott Peck is a paradigm for understanding how we grow, change, and mature spiritually. But there are obstacles standing in the way of our maturity. In this episode, we explore the core temptations that beset us at each stage of our development, with notes on how we overcome them.

Deconstruction is the process of taking apart a belief system in order to investigate its validity and truth, often in response to a crisis or a period of disorientation when our faith or beliefs no longer seem to work. In this episode, we explore M. Scott Peck's simple but profound schema for understanding spiritual development which, in turn, can help us understand and aid our own deconstructive processes. Ultimately, understanding his schema can help us become vibrant, courageous, and joyful human beings.

Critical race theory, until recently a fairly obscure academic enterprise, has become a mainstream topic of debate, conversation, and attack. In this episode, we explore what CRT is, why it has become a battleground in our polarized society, and how we can transcend reactive polarization with thoughtful engagement.

We all have a longing to feel good and pure, but the reality of our humanity is inner conflict and continual contradiction. We have dark and light impulses; we have tendencies to both generosity and selfishness. In this episode, we explore how we are changed from the inside-out: not through attaining through will power some level of manufactured purity, but in learning to hold all of our contradictions with acceptance and humility. And we explore practices to help us live into this flourishing life.

Even if it gets suppressed or ignored, we all have a longing to be good and to do good. This collective longing can express itself in the shape of purity culture—sociological movements in which people strive to be pure, with sexuality and sexual purity often at the forefront. In this episode, we explore the evangelical purity movement of the 1990s and also purity movements more generally. Specifically, we explore how lasting change happens, and how we can escape the false gold of purity culture by pursuing real transformation.