(During our Summer Break we are airing important past episodes)
What if the secret to impactful leadership and genuine community connection lies deep within our biological construct? Are emotions and moods contagious, between people and in groups? Why are we unconsciously drawn to certain people and repelled by others? And what does this have to do with leadership?
This episode uncovers the power of our limbic system, our emotional center, and how it shapes our interactions, leadership, and relationships. Embodied Faith host, Geoff Holsclaw (Phd), talks with professor MaryKate Morse of Portland Seminary about LIMBIC RESONANCE, leadership, and the shifts between connection and protection.
MaryKate has authored Lifelong Leadership: Woven Together through Mentoring Communities, Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space, and Influence and A Guidebook to Prayer .
We journey through the transformative power of purposeful love, exemplified by Jesus' actions, and counter the use of fear as a tool for influence. The conversation takes us deeper into the profound impact of creating a nurturing learning environment, fostering the growth of pastors and leaders. It's a deep dive into the critical role of emotions, identity, and spiritual formation in shaping a culture of openness in theological education and beyond.
Finally, we bear witness to the power of authenticity and community in spiritual growth, illustrating how speaking our truth and forming genuine relationships is instrumental to our spiritual evolution. We conclude with a reflective discussion on the transformative power of reading and the influence of books on our lives. Get ready to explore your emotional self and discover how it shapes your leadership and connections. Join us on this enlightening journey and enrich your understanding of the intricate relationship between our emotions and our lives.
Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.
Stay Connected:
(During our Summer Break we are airing important past episodes)
What if the secret to impactful leadership and genuine community connection lies deep within our biological construct? Are emotions and moods contagious, between people and in groups? Why are we unconsciously drawn to certain people and repelled by others? And what does this have to do with leadership?
This episode uncovers the power of our limbic system, our emotional center, and how it shapes our interactions, leadership, and relationships. Embodied Faith host, Geoff Holsclaw (Phd), talks with professor MaryKate Morse of Portland Seminary about LIMBIC RESONANCE, leadership, and the shifts between connection and protection.
MaryKate has authored Lifelong Leadership: Woven Together through Mentoring Communities, Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space, and Influence and A Guidebook to Prayer .
We journey through the transformative power of purposeful love, exemplified by Jesus' actions, and counter the use of fear as a tool for influence. The conversation takes us deeper into the profound impact of creating a nurturing learning environment, fostering the growth of pastors and leaders. It's a deep dive into the critical role of emotions, identity, and spiritual formation in shaping a culture of openness in theological education and beyond.
Finally, we bear witness to the power of authenticity and community in spiritual growth, illustrating how speaking our truth and forming genuine relationships is instrumental to our spiritual evolution. We conclude with a reflective discussion on the transformative power of reading and the influence of books on our lives. Get ready to explore your emotional self and discover how it shapes your leadership and connections. Join us on this enlightening journey and enrich your understanding of the intricate relationship between our emotions and our lives.
Join Attaching to God Learning Cohort: Quieting an Anxious and Avoidant Faith.
Stay Connected:
Welcome to the embodied faith podcast. Today we're talking about leadership and the limbic system, our Emotions and moods, contagious between people and maybe in groups. Why are we unconsciously drawn to certain people but maybe repelled by other people, and what does this have to do with leadership and what does that have to do with the church? As always, my name is Jeff Holstglawn. This is the embodied faith podcast and we are brought to you by Grassroots Christianity, which is seeking to grow faith for everyday people. I'm really excited to have Mary Kate Morris on the show with us today. She is the executive dean of Portland Seminary at George Fox University in Portland, oregon. She's a professor of leadership and spiritual formation, as well as a spiritual director, mentor and coach and author of several books. Two of them are making room for leadership and another, more recent one, is lifelong Leadership. Mary Kate, welcome to the show. We're so glad that you're here.
MaryKate Morse:I'm very happy to be with you.
Geoff Holsclaw:Well, I've been looking, you know, end a bunch of neuroscience stuff, you know, for several years. I like talking about all these things, and but you proposed a topic that I hadn't been super familiar with, which was this idea of limbic resonance, and I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. I looked into it a little bit I was like, oh, this overlaps a lot of stuff that I've, you know, looked into and talked about on this podcast, but not not as like I think, clearly. And so I'm really excited about this idea of limbic resonances. And then what you're wanting to bring to it, which is a conversation about leadership, leadership, you know, in all situations, I know you and I particularly, you know, think about church leadership, I suppose, but this is true, about all leadership. So could you explain what is this idea of limbic resonance? What does that mean?
MaryKate Morse:Well, I Believe that God created us, and God's image, to be in community and to be purposeful with our lives in community, and so we have a special biological construction that allows for that. It's not just something that's in our head or in our like, in a rational mind, in our soul, but there's an emotionality to it, there's a desire of a pole, a call, and so our biology is constructed in order to reflect those different things. And part of the biology is that we have this limbic system and and this limbic system is the emotionality of, of of us and it's we're creativity and play and connection happen in us and actually pretty fundamental to our survival. And then, of course, we have the thinking part of our brain, the executive and the neocortex and all that sort of thing. But I think often when we talk about leadership and and I'm particularly interested in how influence happens for People who lead the church or periturial organizations are trying to influence for Christ somehow, how that, how that happens, you know what that looks like and how do we unpack it in a way that we can observe it. And so studying the limbic system, part of it sort of opened up Some clarity about how all that works. Because I could. I could read about it in other fields inside. But I, you know how do we see it happening in a social context?
MaryKate Morse:So primarily In in us is when, when we we're kind of open for connection, usually unless we've been hurt or damaged or there's been some thing that's happened to us so that then we are closed to that.
MaryKate Morse:But a baby is fully open to connection and so they're reaching out for their mother and it's mostly done through the eyes, it's, but also all the senses are engaged.
MaryKate Morse:I mean it's a very Loaded sensory experience and so the baby is very open to that connection and what they're, what with the mother and the for the father, this limbic resonance is happening, this sort of connection, and where the baby is mirroring the parent and the parent is inviting the child in, and it's how the baby starts to understand who she is, how, how he fits into the world, all those it just.
MaryKate Morse:And so as adults some of that gets lost, but it's still there very much so, and so unconsciously I think more. I mean Is when we, for instance, walk into a room for the first time, our, our antennae are out and we are Resonating to try to see how we fit In that room. Now, for leaders, this is a really important um thing to be aware of, because it's not just you walking in your room with your position and your voice, but it's also walking into the room with your emotional self, this limbic self, and that you can walk into a room and be open, and or you can walk into a room to perhaps purposeful or distracted, and so people that are in that room unconsciously then, uh, are a little more less able to resonate with you sure?
Geoff Holsclaw:so you're saying you know, like from you know infancy or wired for connection.
Geoff Holsclaw:Yes and that's happening non-verbally, you know, with infants, because they can't speak and whatnot. They don't know language and yet their bodies are soaking in this connection. They're like you said, their eyes are soaking in this connection, um, their heart, you know, heart rates and all they're breathing rates. All these types of things are creating these uh connections, which is kind of the building material of our own emotional lives and that all gets imprinted Inside and outside of the, the limbic system, your amygdala, thomas, hypothalamus, which keeps all these really deep memories Uh for us, and they're all so, they all kind of get stored and shaped there, uh, from childhood.
Geoff Holsclaw:And then what you're saying is um, you know, and I looked up this, you know some of these key words, you know before, uh, we got together and there was this one um author who said well, you know, there's this idea of love at first sight. It's like, well, it's actually not love at first sight, it's um limbic resonances at first sight, with a certain person who came into the room and somehow your eyes and your body and your heart rate and your breath rate all synchronized, and so what we call love at first sight is actually this limbic resonance at first sight, and so leaders, um, can be in a connection mode or a protection mode, uh, as some people say, uh, and that affects kind of groups. So how does that? How does that happen, like these non-verbal kind of spreading of emotions? You kind of uh, hinted at that a little bit. How are we spreading these things around a room per se?
MaryKate Morse:well, uh, people, uh, what we do when we walk into a room, is we actually sniff bodies? Is how I like to think. We are looking for signs and it's very implicit. It's not sometimes we're aware of it and we notice it, but usually it's very instantaneous. It's also contagious and a social group. It's usually together around a certain identity or purpose, and so they're looking for certain things, so they're sniffing that out, in other words, and so they'll be making judgments or decisions in their rational part of their mind.
MaryKate Morse:But the emotion of it has already happened, and once a person has made a decision about whether someone that's walked into a room is someone they wanna engage with or not, or is safe or not, once that decision has been made, it's very hard to change it, really difficult.
MaryKate Morse:So I think it's very important and this is, I think, what Jesus was able to do is Jesus was always open, so he was alert to all that was happening around him.
MaryKate Morse:He came out of an embodied purpose of love, not of lead, but of love, and so for leaders walking into environments, even hostile environments, perhaps being able to reach for that resonance part and be open to it to come in. So you're the one that is in an open loop position. So you come in warm, you come in relaxed, so you're managing that connection. So it's not just a non-anxious presence, as like Friedman talks about. It's much more a deep-centered understanding that we are rooted in Christ and through Christ. We can have this in any kind of an environment, have this reaching for connection, this reaching for love and when people, especially in our day, when people are so struggling with loneliness and distraction and separation and all these sorts of things, that to have someone look at them and you have to learn how to do this so it's not, doesn't cross over its line into sexual, because sometimes between genders that's another whole topic. I don't wanna go down that road.
Geoff Holsclaw:Sure sure, but it's unsettling, like eye contact can be unsettling for certain people. Yeah, for sure.
MaryKate Morse:Well, and in certain cultures you wouldn't do it, but you still. There's this sense of warmth and relaxation because you walk in wanting to have a connection, because that's what people need and it's through connections that people are changed. So what's interesting about limbic resonance is, once you're in a resonating kind of a mode with the group so they allow you platform or whatever you can begin to regulate the well-being of the group through your own, which is why it's important, because if you walk in with this understanding that I'm open to connecting, you're resonating with other bodies, can regulate them and bring down the drama that's going on in a room. Not always, but I often think of when Jesus was taken out of the synagogue and they were gonna throw him off the cliff and he didn't go. I mean they stopped. Why did they stop? And I just think it was a disruption of Jesus's quiet presence that he didn't get caught up and become part of that hysteria.
MaryKate Morse:And that's a dramatic point and I don't know if that always works, but it's symbolic of the power of that presence to regulate a room, regulate a room and then actually after that, if that's done long enough, if there's a loving, open resonance over time, it actually changes people. In fact, the research has shown that people like in a therapist's office, that people are changed less by what the therapist says, but more they start to revise their emotional responses to match that of the therapist because they trust the therapist, and so then they start to match it and that's how healing begins to happen. So for leaders it's the same sort of thing. It's that being resilient and calm and aware of the emotional work that has to be done in order to help influence a group.
Geoff Holsclaw:Right. Well, there's been a sea change over the last, I think, 20 years in training of therapists. You know Freud, when he started he thought that the cold, rational therapist was optimal. It's a disengaged observer therapist. But it seems like training has gone the exact opposite direction.
Geoff Holsclaw:Is that the therapeutic kind of alliance or situation is supposed to be not emotional and certainly not sexual, right, like you mentioned, but it's supposed to be connecting of the limbic kind of emotional kind of centers of our lives and that true healing and transformation happens in that deep part of us rather than just through our thoughts and our brains. I just want to point out one thing that you mentioned, because you're starting to be so positive, which I totally affirm, right, but you can also have the negative limbic residences too, right. So if some leader or some strong personality in a grumpy mood comes in, then it affects the whole group. You can kind of get which creates like a dysregulated state. So and this is where the anxious presence right so Freeman talks about that right so an anxiety permeates the whole system, and that's not just because someone says, hey, our budget's really far behind, and you know, or whatever.
Geoff Holsclaw:Right, they're not just communicating ideas that create anxiety. It's rather their whole bodies are just, you know, spreading the anxiety around shifting behavior, collapsing bodies, lack of eye contact, tone of voice, all those types of things. So so what does this mean for you personally, you know, and this affects me also is, you know, you're well, actually, before we talk about training a pastor, are there more examples or other ways in which we notice Jesus, kind of modeling this? Or you mentioned, kind of you know, how he walked through the crowd, you know, and kind of changed the atmosphere there? If you're going to be a little more charismatic, are there other kind of examples that you can think of or that you've thought through?
MaryKate Morse:Well, I think all of Jesus' all the stories in the gospels, you can see this reflected and how Jesus managed himself, positioned himself, and I think there's two things that have to be balanced. It's not just going in with a sort of this open loop I'm going to love you sort of a thing, you know, and just let it be a love fest. It's also very purposeful. I mean, jesus was on a mission to accomplish the will of God, to be the son of God, and so he had, there was an influencing factor in it. I think that's really important to notice, so that when Jesus so, for an example, the woman caught in adultery is another, another really obvious example of how Jesus, in a very hostile environment, how he stayed calm and he loved not just that woman, because it could, he could have said and done different things, but he loved that, he loved everyone there, sure, and he disrupted the panic and the fear and the hostility by just simply creating space. You know, that's when he, you know, bent down. And I don't think he bent down to doodle in the dirt. I think that's sort of overreaching the text, but I think he bent down. I think the weight of his love and the disruption of this ugly thing that was happening to this woman and also just the path that these people were on. So then he was able to reach out and he was all the way through. Even though he was open to what was happening, he was purposeful in it. And so there's an authority that comes from out of love that you carry and go into our in an environment I mean I've been in. I mean I've been in places in my own life where I've had to walk in or interrupt something with and I'm not a very big person and interrupt something and hold my ground. I think an iconic picture of this there's a couple iconic is like Rosa Parks and also the man in Tiananmen Square, tiananmen Square that stood there. I mean there has to be more in you than just anger to have a quiet response for the sake of doing the right thing. And so they were. They.
MaryKate Morse:I think I see those symbolic as purposeful love. You know, purposeful love and disrupt, to disrupt the fear. That is a more ancient and natural reaction and we have people feed on it. They, you're right, jeff, I mean people use it in order to enhance their influence. They create fear and feed on fear, and that's all very emotional. So how do you counteract that? And coming in angry and fearful is not, I don't think, helpful.
Geoff Holsclaw:Right, right, well, and we don't have to go down the whole like politics or even marketing and capitalism or consumer like, but they're all kind of trying to connect to your limbic system to try to get the money out of your hands and to try to get the votes right. So they're trying to play off those more protection based responses that come out of our limbic system, which is, you know, fear, fight or flight, these types of things. But the limbic system is also supposed to lead us into connection and that's where I think Jesus and that's why I think people love to be around Jesus which is the stories you get.
Geoff Holsclaw:Yeah, they're just like and that is teaching had an authority that was above the scribes and the Pharisees, not just because they're the words of God or something like that, but probably because he carried himself. You know and we have like all sorts of non-scientific ways of talking about these types of things oh, he carried himself in a certain way, or he had a certain aura, or you know all these types of things, and it's like, well, you know, you're probably trying to give words to this limbic response that you have to. You know charismatic personalities and things like that.
MaryKate Morse:Yeah, and I don't you know. I know that Jesus is often thought of as a charismatic leader, but I think sometimes charismatic leaders do exist and there are good things that come out of charismatic leaders, but I also think sometimes that is so amped up.
Geoff Holsclaw:Sure sure.
MaryKate Morse:That limbic thing, the resonance and how they're trying to regulate that, that's so amped up that it becomes that. You become the center and what you are doing is the center. And for Jesus it was always about us, you know, willing to be that loving and purposeful leader for the sake of us. And so we model that. Yeah, we model it.
Geoff Holsclaw:Well, let's get into the modeling then. So for the us, for the training of like pastors and leaders, you're doing a lot of great things there at Portland Seminary. What, how has this kind of changed or shaped even how you think of this whole, you know, multi-year process of raising up leaders and pastors?
MaryKate Morse:Well, I think that some of the most important things that can happen in seminary education happen through connection and not through information. I think information is really great, I love it. I use the other word I love to learn. I really have and sometimes the learning just flips your mind and just gives you a new understanding of things. But that deep transformation that changes me comes through my connection with Christ and must come through my connection with other people.
Geoff Holsclaw:Right.
MaryKate Morse:And so being very purposeful to build connections in a classroom or in a learning environment is just as important as the information that's being shared in that environment, and it doesn't. I'm not talking about being touchy-feely or you know all that sort of thing. I'm talking about creating a culture in which there is an openness to it, where every voice matters, where the deeper questions that are sought, not just theological questions, but identity and purpose and direction questions, where people, where you created an environment where people can bring their true self, they can show up not with the constructed self which often happens in training environments, seminaries, whatever. You bring a constructed self because you want to look, put together and good, but to just be your authentic self and let everyone's in that place. Then it's astonishing.
MaryKate Morse:There is then a work that begins to happen that's both communal and individual, that is beyond our making. I believe that's when the Holy Spirit is optimally able to work in people. I have seen students over time because this takes time in these kinds of environments just really really change. You also then have to talk about emotions. You have to help them see, understand what they bring, how they embody, which is some of my writing has been how do you observe it embodied when someone? And then how do you manage it? How does it become more like Christ? All of those I think are so important and need to happen in theological education. Otherwise, you're preparing people to replicate something. You're not preparing people to transform others.
Geoff Holsclaw:Yeah. So that deep transformation, it doesn't just come through those ideas, right, it doesn't come through techniques. The deep transformation for individuals and communities is that retraining, training and retraining of that limbic system, of your whole body, of your mind, emotions, spontaneous responses Some people call that character. In other episodes we've talked about retraining the right brain. We're so left brain information driven. How do we do these? You know?
MaryKate Morse:as others say. Yeah, it's why I think formation is spiritual formation, because we're trying. What we want to do is shape someone to be like Christ, who is our perfect model? Sometimes we over spiritualize Jesus, so he's not our model, but I don't think there's any better model than Christ. How do we create formational space so that those kinds of things can happen? So, like at Portland Seminary, you have a form, you're formed every single semester. Every semester, you have a formation class that has a completely different pedagogy. The pedagogy is around creating these connections and deep conversation, places of bringing authentic self, and because it takes time to do this, it's not something that happens. You can perhaps fall in love instantaneously, like you talked at the beginning of the show, but sometimes that works long term and sometimes it doesn't.
Geoff Holsclaw:It's hard to stay in love in that way over a long period of time. You have to train yourself, you have to practice.
MaryKate Morse:Exactly exactly.
Geoff Holsclaw:So for leaders and pastors. You know, and this is not absolute right, but, you know, for a long time the model for training pastors was like get the right information, like the doctrine, the Bible study tools, so that they can give the rest of the church the right information. And the right information will transform our lives. Unfortunately, especially in the West and America, we found that not to be true. True discipleship is not happening with just more information. And then we kind of, you know, with the business shift and kind of a leadership shift, you know, became techniques and skills, like, well, you know, if you do the church the right way, if you do these things, if you give people the right tools, then transformation, you know, and then it's kind of the information is one thing and then there's these skills. But the truth is we haven't, you know, a lot of people can just do the skills or the techniques and even spiritual formation skills. I fast, I meditate, right.
Geoff Holsclaw:Right, but they don't. They're still not that lasting transformation and that's because you know, like what you're saying, the formation needs to kind of go deeper, it needs to kind of move beyond the neocortex and kind of penetrate a little further down. So I'm really excited to hear that. You know, I wish you know, 20 years ago I was forced, you know, to take these formation courses. I kind of fell into the spiritual formation track, you know, outside of seminary, frankly, which I'm grateful I did, but I'm glad that you are creating systems to make that Like number one. So you brought up spiritual formation. So what would this mean for spiritual formation? So maybe we'll kind of shift from the leadership kind of conversation but, you know, for practical, everyday people. They're, you know, trying to grow and their love of Christ, love of others, are trying to read their Bibles or all these types of things. Like what does, how is this shift for you kind of affected some of those classical spiritual disciplines or the way you pursue your spiritual life?
MaryKate Morse:Well, I think, when we think of spiritual formation and and we know that's being conformed to the image of Christ I Think we translate that into things, behaviors that we do. Yeah, like you said, you know, I fast, I read my Bible, I go to church, I serve, I tie, and we go through these disciplines, the, the disciplines can create habits, but they don't always they're they're they're tools, they're not the objective. Sometimes these tools are helpful and sometimes so you have to put the tools aside. And what I find my critique of formation in the West is that it tends to be very individualized, about trying to reach for your, your good feelings about Jesus, and it tends to be very discipline oriented. And I think, instead, that's good, I Am all for that and teach, but I think what also is critically important is the connection, the sense of connection that you have, that there's, you are resonating with others. That not that you are, and it's not just a small group movement, like I'm in a small group and we talk and we pray, but that there, but there's a safe place, and which is what the lifelong leadership book is about, that that there is a safe place where I can be myself and really say the unspeakable. Yeah, you don't have a place in your life and I know sometimes we have spouses and things. But we need communities that we can say whatever the unspeakable is in us and I'm not talking about growth, sin, it can just be doubts or struggles or depression or anger or all kind of things. Because unless we can speak it out and we can have a community around us who will help us in the healing process, I, I think we live a constructed life rather than an authentic life.
MaryKate Morse:And so I see formation kind of goes into that. That larger arena of Well, not larger, it's usually it's it's more, it's more frightening. It's takes more time and work and reflection. But to have people in your life who are going to, where you can bring Everything to them, then that allow again, it's it. I feel like we get shut up Because we've closed these parts of ourselves, like we need a good flushing. And when we have a place where we can speak our truth, our reality, it gives room for the Holy Spirit, I think, to move in and do the revisioning that needs to happen. The revisioning is not just person to person, very much so, but grace. I think Grace is that revisioning that God does in us and changes us in ways, helps us overcome things and changes in ways we never imagined. But it's because we've been opened.
Geoff Holsclaw:Yeah, yeah, one groups are I always, you know, tell Whoever will listen. You know, like following Jesus is not a solo sport, right? You have to do it in community and that's because you need training, that limbic Retraining, revisions, where you have to practice in small that you know, this is why small groups are important, or family systems and things like that, where you're practicing how to do that and and then giving real-time feedback about, like you know how that was. You know I was. You know I got the real-time feedback that my body posture was very Off-putting to my wife early on in my.
Geoff Holsclaw:You know, my hands are on my hips, I'm not even, we're not even talking, we're not even in an argument. She's like you look angry. I was like I don't feel angry. She's like, but you, you look angry, right. So you in community, you get the real-time feedback about what is my body expressing. How does this fit together? And then you get that, that, that retraining and it, like you said, it takes a lot of work over time and so to have safe communities, trusted people, they allow you to kind of, you know, fail at it exactly like you're, why I told you what you were unaware of and that, just that simple gesture of your hands on your hips.
MaryKate Morse:Because I don't. We don't really fully know how we think. We know we construct a self, but people are reading something different most of the time right right.
MaryKate Morse:So, yeah, I yeah, and you need the, you know. I also just want to add that just we just it's a balance between learning, I mean that our mind and our habits and our Relationships and emotions, that all of those things work together, and what we're trying to do I think we're in a period of time, just your podcast. What you're trying to do, jeff, it's all about trying to bring perspective and balance so that we are more like Christ and less wobbled and Reflecting the world more than yeah.
Geoff Holsclaw:Well, on the more. Just to kind of end on this, you said being more like Christ. You know, and I always go back to Romans, you know, 12 to you know, to you know, be conformed, you know, by the mind of Christ. So you'd be transformed, all these types of things. And the more I learn about the brain, the more it's like, oh, the mind of Christ doesn't just mean the ideas and thoughts of Christ, like what if that means the limbic system of Christ and what if that means the transformation of, like, my emotions is part of Having the mind of Christ and putting on Christ. You know all these types of things and so, yeah, this podcast is just that.
Geoff Holsclaw:You know, I called it embodied faith because it's like we got to take all this stuff really seriously as we follow Jesus. It's not just, like you know. Well, thank you, while you too, I'm just kind of learning from people, like you have been doing it longer and just trying to connect with people. Well, is there anything else that you're, just to finish off, really excited about that you're participating in and some of these kind of realms of the neuroscience and spiritual formation?
MaryKate Morse:Well.
Geoff Holsclaw:You want to tease us with all the cool things you're up to you and your school.
MaryKate Morse:Well, we are Thinking about well, we're not just thinking about, we're doing it of thinking of ourselves as a Seminary on the way with Jesus, that we have this imagination of People on a journey and we join people on a journey for that period of time, for risk and discovery and community, for deep transformation, so that when we continue on that journey, we are, we are, we are able not to just know things and do things, but but be more like Christ when we leave. So we've changed how we deliver and how, how we've constructed our curriculum and also put more of it throughout the curriculum a focus on healing, because that seems to be the need right now. So much people are hurting, depression and and all those sorts of things, especially among young people. Those indicators are just going out of control, and so what can we do to resource pastors and chaplains and spiritual directors in order to have some of those Mindsets and skills towards how to create healing environments?
Geoff Holsclaw:Oh, that's great. I'm a part of a dispersed religious order who's one of their core kind of rule of life is deep healing and so it's not just that you have silence and solitude, it's not just you engage in work, it's that are you working on your healing. I was so appreciative when I found that out and I'm sure you know this and is telling us for all the listeners. Before Christians were called Christians, they were called followers of the way.
MaryKate Morse:Sure, that's what you guys Right people to the way well.
Geoff Holsclaw:So how can people find you and All the things you're doing and where you're at?
MaryKate Morse:Well, I'm at Portland Seminary right now doing an executive dean role, so that takes up a lot of my time. But I can be found just MK Morris at George Foxedu or Mary Kate Morris at Gmailcom, so if you type in my name you'll find me. Okay, I don't think there's other. Mary Kate Morris is in the entire world.
Geoff Holsclaw:No, there's not. And just for those who are listening, it's Mary Kate. One word Mary Kate Morris, excellent. Well, thank you so much and you're not to blame. But this whole limbic residences put me on Internet search, which led to me buying a book. So my wife is not pleased that our podcast is Leading to more book buying. But I was used was cheap. I think it's arriving today, so sometime today I'm gonna get this. It's the general theory of love. I don't know if that was the was at the background of all the stuff that you learned from. Oh, she's holding it right there. If you're not watching this on YouTube, she has it right, right there.
MaryKate Morse:Okay, one of the most transformative books I've read. I've read it years and years ago.
Geoff Holsclaw:Well, you kind of just pushed me to to get it, because I had it like on a list and it was like bopping around on my brain. And then it popped up when I was researching for today's episode. I was like, well, today's the day I'm gonna get it.
MaryKate Morse:I know I have my all my students read this book.
Geoff Holsclaw:Oh good, all right, well, I'll, I'll be dipping into it soon. Well, thanks again, and we should do this again sometime.
MaryKate Morse:Lord bless you, jeff, and all that you do.
Geoff Holsclaw:Yeah, thank you.
MaryKate Morse:Bye, bye.