Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

110 Armoring Up, Anxiety, and Finding the Right-Sized God (with Lisa Cuss)

• Season 7 • Episode 110

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In this episode of the Attaching to God podcast, hosted by Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw of Embodied Faith, licensed therapist Lisa Cuss joins the conversation.

Lisa shares her journey from teaching to becoming a therapist, her focus on trauma and attachment-informed modalities, and her work with  Capable Life alongside her husband, Steve Cuss. The discussion delves into the complexities of anxiety, personal and collective grief, and the transformative process of attachment both to oneself and to God. Lisa highlights the importance of being seen and comforted by God, the role of trauma in shaping behavior, and the significant shift when individuals recognize God's presence in their deepest pain. This episode offers insights into how mental health and spiritual growth can be fostered within church communities.

Lisa is a licensed therapist (MA, LPC), speaker, and trainer who is passionate about the intersection of Psychology and Faith. In her private practice, Lisa uses trauma and attachment informed modalities to help people journey through deep pain and stuck places to find more healthy connection within themselves, with others, and with God. Lisa also works alongside her husband, Steve Cuss, within Capable Life, an organization that helps people find relief from chronic anxiety and deepens connection with God in the workplace and the home place.

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Introduction and Guest Introduction

Geoff Holsclaw: Welcome back to the Attaching to God podcast, uh, produced by Embodied Faith, hosted by Jeff and Sid Holsclaw. Today we are talking with Lisa Cuss, who is a licensed therapist, a speaker, and a trainer who is passionate about the intersection of psychology and faith and our private practice. Lisa uses trauma and attachment informed modalities to help people journey through their deep pain and.

Places of being stuck into a place of health with themselves, others, and God and Lisa also partners with her husband, which is we love that one. Husbands and wives, and wives and husbands partner. But she works with, uh, Steve Cuss, uh, within their organization called Capable Life, which seeks to help find, uh, or help people find relief from chronic anxiety [00:01:00] and deepened connections with God.

Lisa, thank you so much for being on with us today.

Lisa Cuss: Oh, I, I really appreciate the work you guys do, so I'm honored. I'm honored to have a conversation for sure.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, we, we knew, uh, Steve's work and we had him on the podcast, uh, just a little bit ago, and he's like, you really should talk to my wife about all this stuff. We're like, make it happen. So,

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Lisa's Journey to Becoming a Therapist

Geoff Holsclaw: get into becoming a therapist that wasn't your primary occupation? Is that right?

Is this, uh.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, I originally was a teacher, so I taught school, um, elementary classroom for 12 years. Um, kind of sprinkled through having children some years staying at home. Um, so I did that first. Loved it. Um, my last six years of teaching, I was working with homeschooling organizations. Um, and so they would come in and set up shop and then teach, you know, in.

Funny, it was the opposite of church planting, right? Where [00:02:00] churches are in schools. So this school would meet in churches and then we'd come in and set up school for a day or three to help out, um, and partner with homeschooling families. And I one of those,

Cyd Holsclaw: one of those homeschooling families that was meeting in a church. So thank you.

Lisa Cuss: uh, yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: that.

Lisa Cuss: Oh my gosh. And I think through that, right? Like my hat went off to the parents that were homeschooling and all the different hats you wear when you're doing that. Um, and so I, I was one of those weird teachers. I love parent-teacher conferences because you really get to know the system and get to know the fears that the whole family holds.

Um, I spent more of my time in that job. Dealing with anxiety in kids and would like pull out, um, kids and really spend time on, um, how we can navigate it and push through it. And realized I liked that a whole lot more than I did the content that I was teaching. Um, so [00:03:00] that was, that was one factor. And then, um, also, I'm a pastor's kid myself.

I grew up in, um, Ohio, small town, which had. It's, I mean, even I feel emotional as I talk about my home. Like, um, so many perks, you know, the beauty, I, I cannot remember a time that I didn't know God. Um, and also man, I figured out how to people please really well, you know?

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: Um, and so you take that and you fast forward into being a pastor's wife.

Um, and my, I, I think as Andy Colbert would say, like, I lived a life that was white knuckling it, you know, um, trying to be enough, try not clear on what was god's and what was mine. Um, for sure. Um, and so that became an issue within me. And then the local church in Colorado that we had moved to in the first six years, [00:04:00] um, four young men in our conversation, young dads died.

Um, and when you're in a small congregation of like. I think it was like 159 people. Um, it takes a big toll and when you sit with families and kids, um, when they hear that their dad won't come home, um, something shifts in you like, what does it look like to sit in grief? What does it look like? Um, how do you walk in this?

So it's those three things for me, like what's going on in me. Uh, woo. I was armored up in a lot of ways. How do I sit with people? Um, and yeah, just an interest in families and anxiety held that caused me to go back to school.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. 

Understanding Anxiety and Its Roots

Cyd Holsclaw: I'm curious how you came to, label it as anxiety. Like I think anxiety is something we talk about now more openly, this sounds like it was at least a couple years ago when that wasn't [00:05:00] necessarily common language. So like, can you talk a little bit about the kinds of anxiety that you were like. I think people think of anxiety as in like, oh, I'm feeling anxious, and like I'm a little jittery, or I'm a little panicky about something.

Lisa Cuss: Hmm.

Cyd Holsclaw: anxiety shows up in so many ways. I'm wondering how you came to name it all as anxiety and see that as a common thread.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah, and I mean, there's a difference right between chronic anxiety that's contagious, where it's more like reactivity in us and being armored up because, um, we have strategies to get through life and, um, we think we need to be a. Certain way, or we think we need things in order to be okay. So we've got that chronic anxiety.

And then you've got, um, kind of an anxious stance that can come from, you know, your attachment and your family of origin, or you've got an anxious stance that can come from an event or a trauma that is stuck in your body, you [00:06:00] know? And so it just becomes like a defense. And then you've got, you know, generalized anxiety disorder that.

Um, is really like focused on, keeps spinning on, spinning on fears, and also might be a misfiring in the brain. Um, but, but until we know which is, which, what is common is a sense of reactivity, you know, and a sense of a, of, of an embodied feeling that we have in us that can keep us from connecting or producing or, um.

Really in some ways just, just feeling alive and being okay.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. 

The Role of Attachment in Therapy

Cyd Holsclaw: So then out of that set of noticing that anxiety that you were seeing in, you know, in your church and in your school and in the family systems, what, I mean, how, what led you to attachment in your training as a, as a therapist?

Lisa Cuss: Oh, [00:07:00] I mean, that's a good question. Um, I. What's true for me is that while I realized, um, while I realized that I had some work to do, that was part of me going back to school. I think in my head it was really, um, what can I do for others? And then I think it's pain, more pain. Right. That brings me to attachment.

Personal Transformation and Internal Family Systems

Lisa Cuss: So it was about 10 years ago and I'd already, you know, was um, already in the therapy job and in that role and I was more layers of just wounding and realizing some things about myself. I went back to my therapist and um, I walked in and I said, Hey, I can speed this up. Right. Goals, I've got it for us, right?

Our goal. Is that I need a new personality. That's the goal. Because the one that I have right now, it ain't cutting it. And I am really tired of it, you know? [00:08:00] And of course tongue in cheek, she's like, well, you know, let's talk about this. And, um, what is it that you wish you could do that you're not doing with your personality?

And I'm like. Um, I'm so tired of people pleasing and not saying the things that I wanna say, um, outta fear of what it would do to others. Like, I really, honestly, I wanna be able to get mad, you know, I wanna be able to say the things that I need to say and know that repair can be there. Um, I wanna be bolder and not feel like I have to be held back, you know?

Um, and of course she then. Is, well, tell me about, you know, she's the one that led me through Internal family systems, um, into who are you really, and what are those parts of you that are taking over? And if we could hear their stories and if they could step to the side. Then who really are you [00:09:00] with God in the driver's seat of your life?

Um, and it was powerful, powerful for me because the reality is there's a boldness there, there's a playfulness there, there's a strength that, um, there allow me to care but not have to carry everything as if I alone am carrying. Um, and so with that just became, what does it look like? Um, to securely or secure enough, as I call it, attach, um, to myself, to God, to some people around me.

And that means like comfort, but that also means strength. That, that both are true and that

Cyd Holsclaw: yeah, yeah. I just, as you're saying, like I'm tired of being me and I'm tired of what my personality costs me,

Lisa Cuss: yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: to my mind the language that Jeff and I use about, you know, the jungle of anxiety as being one of the attachment strategies we [00:10:00] develop of this sense of hyper vigilance, paying such close attention to the people around us, making sure everybody's okay, we're not hurting or bothering anybody,

Lisa Cuss: Yes,

Cyd Holsclaw: whatever we need to do.

It's like we're. Are always paying the cost to sort of maintain connection

Lisa Cuss: yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: Todd Hall, I'm doing a course with him and he said the other day, like, want connection so desperately that we will sever parts of ourselves in order to maintain pseudo connection

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Cyd Holsclaw: authentic and genuine connection with you, so I'll do what I, I'll, I'll take what I can get, taking what I can get means I have to. Push parts of myself away or sever parts of myself, then I love that you're doing this work of internal family systems and sort of bringing those parts back into the conversation a part of the process of securing attachment. That's just,

Lisa Cuss: Oh,

Cyd Holsclaw: yeah.

Lisa Cuss: oh completely. [00:11:00] I think what I so like about what you're saying is, and we can notice what we've severed, and really the, the motive is good. You know, like the. In all of these, um, like the ways our strategies, the ways we armor up, the ways we protect. At one point were so helpful in us being able to survive and in some ways thrive.

You know, and it's like grateful for that and so good. And now. You know, and now that we have other resources that we can tap into and when we can be aware of a God who has strength and who holds all you know, and who can give what we need, and sometimes and many times through his people, you know. Then we can look at the things that we are tending to sever or look at those strategies that we're leaning way too much into, you [00:12:00] know, or ways that we're trying to be God, um, and can allow ourselves to become more human

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: let him be God.

And it's so much more connecting.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. Isn't it? It's Steve who always says you get to be human, right?

Lisa Cuss: Yeah, it Hi. And that in his words, and even as we figured out our own dance and marriage and permission to be human, it's been so healing.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: So, um, thank you for just taking that, that journey with us. 

Attaching to God: A Deeper Connection

Geoff Holsclaw: really curious, like, as you know, a person of faith, you know, follower of Jesus, but then you're also trained in, you know, what is called like attachment based therapy or approaches. Like for you, what does attaching to God or feel like?

Like how would

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: words around that?

Lisa Cuss: Yeah. I think, um, I think Kurt Thompson, when he said the words, we [00:13:00] all enter this world looking for someone who's looking for us.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Lisa Cuss: it means so much to me. And, um, to answer your question, I think attachment to God looks like given permission to lean in to find a God who is not all about judgment. I.

Or condemnation or right doing, um, but looking for a God who is looking for you as he created you with calling, with permission to both hurt and permission to grow and repair. Um, and so for me, attachment to God, um.

You know, when I, I did a class before I went into training for counseling, um, it was led by a pastoral counselor at a church. Um, and when that first year that we did was identity in God and the second year was, who is God in pain? I feel like I could have spent five years on identity [00:14:00] in God, um, and right sizing what identity is and that our doing comes out of that.

I think for me that's where, um, a deeper level of attachment to God began. I would've described that as, um, that class is where if you were to strip everything off, like all clothing that hides you, like everything that covers your flaws, and you could be outside from, you'd by a tree like that is just like waving and could put your hands in the air and say, this is me.

Nothing hidden. And that, and then you can envision like the God of the universe. It is both big enough to see y'all, but also small enough to see you, um, and that his hands are both holding you and holding all, um, it's permission to say, this is me and I am going to linger in your love and your grace.

Whether that's in adventure, whether that's in beauty, [00:15:00] whether that's in, um. Reading and, you know, stimulating that way. But, but those are the things I think to me that, that build the attachments of posture, um, of this is who I am and I'm gonna take that open-handed and receive.

Cyd Holsclaw: Hmm, Hmm. Yeah. So much of what you said there of like, in, in a lot of our human relationships, we can say, this is me, while also showing only the parts of me that we think are gonna be pleasing or acceptable. And so that sense of, of this is me, all of it, all of the humanity,

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: and finding yourself deeply. And fully loved in the midst of that

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Cyd Holsclaw: God who sees it all. Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: And in that is grief, right? Like there's, there's joy and there's grief. Um, and so I think for me, the more I [00:16:00] can do that, the more it even impacts as I sit with people, you know? Um, what's interesting is when I first went into to this profession, um, I still wanted to be there for people in the right way.

I was very confused about. Honestly, I think I thought my job was, was healer. Um, and in that role I was also very afraid of what I'd come up against. Would I'd be able to handle it, you know? And of course in attachment with God and in right sizing who God is and who I am, like man, Jesus is healer and he is over time and timing and I am along for the ride, you know?

Um, and so then. Uh, I'm real. I nerd out on trauma and nerd out on how it's held in our bodies and nerd out on, um, the safety, you know, that people are craving the ways they, they crave [00:17:00] to feel seen, but also are afraid to be seen. Um, and yeah, I'd say that has been an interesting place for me to sit in. The mess that you can hold between yourself and someone else.

Um, and whether the person before me knows it, in my mind I'm like, where is God in this? You know? Um, and how he's already shown up, how is he going to continue to reveal himself in this? Um, it's been really beautiful,

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: beautiful piece.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah, that makes me think of, um, we use, uh, you know, uh, an attachment and I'm sure you've come, you know, you know this too, but that attunement like right, the

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: of the attuned caregiver who can, who can feel the child and know sort of what the child is experiencing and then can also like res respond in a way that is going to be helpful. so [00:18:00] that attunement that God offers. Um, of just, yeah, I, you know, and I love the way that, um. John and Soon Lap Now, and Jim Wilder and Anna Kang wrote this, you know, joyful journey book about Emmanuel journaling and, and actually walking through the prompts of, I see you, God, saying to us, I see you, I hear you. what this is for you. I'm glad to be with you and I'm doing something here.

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: what I hear you saying too, is that whether, whether the people you're working with know it or not, you are sensing God's attunement to them. Of pain.

Lisa Cuss: Yes. Yeah. And, and with some people it's, you know, as I look at like woundedness, um, I feel like I'm working with some woundedness and people who do not know the Lord, you know? And that is a, that's a beautiful place I think to, in a human size, reflect safety and [00:19:00] reflect grace and permission. Um. To be and to explore.

But then it, for believers or for people who have been in the church, like I, I feel like we have, um, people who, um, often come to counseling and they are, they're so bold and, and so into, um, teaching and reminding people who Jesus is and who God is and who he can be for them and his love and his grace for them.

And they, um. Are in the gap of experiencing that love and grace for themselves. Um, and usually, often there's, there's some trauma behind that as well. And then I, I feel like I see people who at one time were in the church and, um, and when the God card is involved, woundedness is so complicated. Uh. And so have walked away or still [00:20:00] long for it, but are really leery.

And so a lot of the pain and the grief, um, it's complicated because it's like, um. There's a confusion of of, of what was people and what was God and, and, and what do people think of me and what does God think of me? What does my inner critic think of me that's different from what my holy, what the Holy Spirit thinks of?

And it's just all this big mess. 

Healing Through EMDR and God's Presence

Lisa Cuss: Um, and the beauty of, I mean, I, I do EMDR, um, and just love that process of, um. Yeah, because it, it opens up the body to grieve what has been held. Um, and something that's been so beautiful lately is just seeing people come to, oh my gosh, we need to completely change the target of our EMDR.

Because what I'm realizing is. Um, it's no longer about the people. It is [00:21:00] now about God and, and where was God. And I wanna figure that piece out and man, when we, when God's in charge of that. And that's the question right there. Um. Being able to sift through that and, and for people to be able to see the images of a God who is there amidst pain, who comes in to interrupt it, who comes in to promise, presence, to come in, to help you feel seen.

Um, oh, it's just been beautiful work.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. I, I could go off on so many. I, yeah, could tell stories all day long about that. Uh, so Jeff, I'll let you ask a question.

Geoff Holsclaw: Well, no, I, I think you guys should, because I think, um, know, like we also have interviewed and we've talked with this guy Carl Layman. He does EMDR. He does all that stuff too. You know, he's a He's been doing it for 25. I dunno, [00:22:00] 40 years. He's right. But his whole thing is, is like when people connect with the God who was there in the midst of the pain, who is happy to be with you, he is like, that's where I see this is Carl Layman speaking, that he's like, that's where I see the, the, the fastest and the deepest kind of work.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: I don't know if that happens to you, but I'd love for you Aven, Sid, who, you know, if you guys could share stories or just talk about like how God shows up. Uh, where was God when, and then saying, well, I was there. I'm sure you both have these stories, you just gotta draw 'em out of each other.

Lisa Cuss: Go ahead.

Cyd Holsclaw: Well, I know that, you know, I mean, I mean, for the sake of confidentiality, I know, you know, some of the people I might tell stories about, probably listen here, so I don't wanna tell someone else's story, but mean, even just my own, I mean, there. there was one experience, and I wrote about this in our book that's forthcoming too, but just when I was four years old and or five years old, I don't remember exactly how old I was, but you know, my, [00:23:00] my mom was gonna, she was dating this guy that we were, he, she, you know, and there was, marriage was possibly in the horizon.

We were supposed to be on our best behavior at this dinner and. By the time we came home from dinner, I think I'd been trying so hard to behave myself that I had like, I don't know, I didn't even end up going to the bathroom all night for some reason. And as soon as we walk into the house, had to go to the bathroom so badly and uh, I just decided I was just gonna stand over a register and just go down the register right through my. My little red tights. And I just remember in that moment it was just, you know, everybody became dysregulated because I mean, now as a pa, you know, as I can imagine, as a parent and as a homeowner, thinking of like, oh my goodness, this is so bad for our heating and cooling system. This is what's gonna happen here. And you know, the. I think the embarrassment and just everything, right? Everybody's activated. Nobody's in their best place. And I just remember in that moment feeling just so ashamed and [00:24:00] so humiliated. then it turned into sort of like a family joke that they didn't realize what was happening to me every time they told it.

'cause I mean. Apart from the person who experienced the humiliation. And it is a funny story, but for me, it wasn't funny. and I didn't even know how to communicate to my family like how humiliated I was. And so one of the, one of the first encounters I had with Jesus in a tangible way, it's not even like I thought of this on a regular, ongoing basis or thought about how much impact it had on me. Um, but then in this encounter, this is sort of what he brought up. Like this is, this is the sort of the memory that. That came to my mind. in that memory, Jesus was able to, to look at me and to be with me. And he wasn't, he wasn't the least bit ruffled by any of this. Like wasn't upset, he wasn't irritated, he wasn't annoyed, he wasn't even surprised. And just his calmness and his presence with me. And I just remember like, [00:25:00] I know this is not me 'cause I would've never, ever made this turn. But he just looked at me and he just said, what a clever choice

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: You know, I knew I shouldn't go on the carpet and I knew, you know, so I mean, what a clever choice, which just radically transformed the way that I experienced that memory.

Lisa Cuss: Mm.

Cyd Holsclaw: didn't even realize how much it impacted me, but like from that moment forward, there were just small shifts. I started to see where I just was speaking to myself a little bit differently. There was a lot less shame and how could you be so stupid kind of feelings within me. it was more like. Oh, it makes sense, right?

Like and that's what you were talking about earlier with those survival strategies. Like they make sense in the moment that we pull them forward

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Cyd Holsclaw: up they make sense and we need them. Now I, right. I didn't actually need to go in the in the register. Right? I could have done other things, but in that moment, that was the best resource I had available to me, and Jesus knew [00:26:00] that.

He was able to narrate that for me in a different way, which then made this huge impact on the way that I see myself and just sort of slow shifts in my subconscious and my implicit memory just started to show up in ways where I were like, normally I would've gotten really upset with myself in this moment, and ha, I'm not getting mad at myself right now, and the only thing I can point to. this encounter with Jesus that might have made that difference. And just starting to see the sort of effect of just that one story. And I could, I mean I could tell like 30 others, but just that one story and it's so impactful to me. '

The Impact of Jesus' Presence

Cyd Holsclaw: cause it was sort of the first one that felt like, oh the difference that it makes when Jesus is there his heart rather than, you know, carrying the memory. the way, I'm sure I've interpreted it over the years. It's like, it's probably even more extreme than it actually was just in the way that I was holding [00:27:00] it, so,

Lisa Cuss: Oh, I, I mean, yeah, and, and what an image of a kid who is holding. Everything and it and the reality even within your own bodily fluid that needs to come out

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: and, and an encounter with God who says, clever choice, because it has to come out. You are not to.

Cyd Holsclaw: looks like a drain.

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah,

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Geoff Holsclaw: exactly.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah. And you did what you needed to do.

Yeah. And now that that's been emptied and now that we can validate and then it's like there's room for more. Yeah.

Cyd Holsclaw: and now I think it's, now I think it's a funny story right now. I can see the humor in

Lisa Cuss: Can laugh at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's powerful. 

Imagery and Personal Reflections

Lisa Cuss: And even just, um, I think imagery, not everybody thinks in [00:28:00] imagery. Um, what I'm seeing for people, you know, the worst part, um, for me in my life. And then as I sit with people and they talk about what's the worst part of it, and then I'm like, okay. And then if that would've happened, then what?

You know, and if that would've happened, then what? And what we come to is then I would be alone. You know, then I would be with all of this and alone, or then I would be with all of this and I would be abandoned. 

Attachment Strategies and Loneliness

Lisa Cuss: And I mean, that's what's behind our attachment strategies too, right? Like and then what? I don't care whether you're anxious ambivalent, or if you are anxious avoidant, at the end of the day, the worst is that I will be alone.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

God's Protection and Strength

Lisa Cuss: Um, and so what I'm finding in this work too is just the images that I believe the Lord is giving, um, to bring restoration is often like there's been a theme with many of just, um. And, and sometimes just a bubble, you know, [00:29:00] that, that there is a bubble of protection that might be invisible to others, but like sensed in themselves and what's in that bubble and what it, and the, um, words of truth and strength that are there.

Um, and then others just, you know, see this really. Huge pair of hands that's holding them and their situation that has not, you know, maybe didn't change. Like we can't change what happened, but we can change the reality that perhaps we were not alone and perhaps we're still not. And if that's what I'm living out, that looks different than having to armor up because I, I might be alone, you know?

Um, yeah. I just all really. Yeah. Really beautiful.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: you had said, um, earlier that you know, when you experience God, you know, there's. sense of [00:30:00] comfort, but you also use the word strength.

Lisa Cuss: Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw: and, and sometimes I get, um, it's kind of one of those things where when people talk about secure attachment, um, like there's, the language goes to, oh, it's like when I'm safe, it's when I'm comfortable and nothing's wrong, which. Is kind of true. Um, but like secure attachment often also has that other side of like being, um, not just comfortable, but having courage or like the, the strength to go out. So could you talk about that a little bit? So it's not just about how like, I'm safe to be myself, but I'm also strong myself in the world, like I can go out. Does that make sense? I was wondering how

Lisa Cuss: Completely. I've actually, yeah, I've had to do a lot of work on that. Um. Because by nature and Enneagram or what I crave comfort, you know? Um, and yet also if you're just only in comfort, you also, it, you're missing out, you know? [00:31:00] 

Understanding Refuge and Fortress

Lisa Cuss: Um, so for me, I, I really, um, Psalm 71, you know, if you look through the Psalms and, and David, when he's crying out because he's overwhelmed.

Often used, God is my refuge, God is my fortress, God is my rock, God is my deliverer. And sometimes it's like. Angstily, like, please be this for me. And sometimes is like, no, this is who you are. And so I, I really zeroed in on refuge and fortress and wanted to understand what's the difference between those.

Um, and for me, like when we can understand those, that is that social connected state in our nervous system, um, that, that will help us feel at home, both in the easy and in the hard.

Cyd Holsclaw: Hmm.

Lisa Cuss: The more I looked at refuge, it's a place we go to hide. It's a place we go to escape from to get away from, so that we can right size who God is and who we [00:32:00] are, you know?

And in that we can be refueled and strengthened and sometimes that looks like a lot of comfort and a lot of ice cream, or it looks like a beautiful vacation. Or it looks like quiet around you in your home and no other voices. Um, refuge can look so many different ways. Refuge has become a verb for me this morning.

I'm aging, you know, I am. I am refining. I'm refining who God is and who I am for permission to be the right size version of me with God. But then you look at fortress and the Hebrew word for it. There's different versions, but it, it basically means, um. A place of defense outside of the castle walls is generally where it was, um, in the Old Testament, and that it is built for defense so that you can be strong when the arrows are coming.[00:33:00] 

Right When the chaos is around you, this is a place of defense, but not for you to hide. It is for you to be, it is for you to be strong. It is for you to do the hard. Um, and, and the reality is that whoever God is in refuge and who we are. We are that same when the arrows are coming and we are in fortress living.

Um, and that's the beautiful part. It, it's both warmth and it is, let's do the thing you know as well and let's go shake it up and let's right size, um, out of the strength of God, not because I'm armoring up in my own stuff.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah, yeah. I noticed you've said that several times throughout the podcast, so I just wanna make clarify again. 

Armoring Up: Defense Mechanisms

Cyd Holsclaw: When you say armoring up, connecting that to a posture I.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah,

Cyd Holsclaw: like [00:34:00] anxiety of this, I have to protect myself. I have to defend myself. Is that how you're using it?

Lisa Cuss: I mean, that's a really good question. Yeah. I, I think of it as, um, I am, I. Armoring up is whatever we think we need to do to be okay. Um, and when we're facing battle, when we are like assuming we're in a battle that is no longer still going on, right? So if I have, if I have to, people please to be okay, like many, many people I work with had to appease, had to make sure everybody else was okay around them so they could be okay, right?

And it was a gift. But that's also a way of armoring up. In life when that same battle isn't going on, that we just think it is, you know, we don't realize that battle is done. Um, armoring up can look like always responding, um, with anger and rage or to fight, you know, um, and you might have had to at some point, but that's not the [00:35:00] same battle we're in.

That's just our strategy to get through. That's armoring up. Being perfect. You know, if we had to be perfect growing up. Um, and that was a way to armor up. Then we have a really strong inner critic, and now today as adults we could armor up with our inner critic. But it's just a way we fought a battle at one point and it's no longer the same battle now.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Jeff.

Geoff Holsclaw: talking, I don't know if, I don't know if this, I don't know where that language comes from. Right. But as you were talking about, I was thinking of, of David going to face Goliath and how Saul wanted to give him a, the

Lisa Cuss: Yeah,

Geoff Holsclaw: armor.

Lisa Cuss: it was so.

Geoff Holsclaw: fit. so heavy. It was big.

It was for someone else, this for a different time and it wasn't for. What now? You know, God was, you know, working in David and so I have no idea if that's what, but that just jumped into my head. So just throw that out there.

Lisa Cuss: You know it. 

The Story of the Japanese Soldier

Lisa Cuss: Yeah, I mean, I can tell the story that it comes from with, hi Unata. [00:36:00] Are you familiar with the Japanese Imperial Intelligent Officer? Um, world War ii. Um, so.

Cyd Holsclaw: I think I am, but go ahead.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah, so.

Cyd Holsclaw: continued to fight the war after it was over, right?

Lisa Cuss: Yeah, so he's in, yeah, he's deployed to the Philippines from Japan. Um, uh, I think it was like nine months before the world was, the war was over, but of course didn't know that and given two commands, um, I. And his, you know, his craft was gorilla warfare, but it was no matter what you do, um, don't stop fighting.

So tear down the enemy structures, um, you know, keep going. And then, um, don't die, don't surrender. They're really the same command, but under two different subsets, um, no matter what while the war is going. And so he continues over that. And then when the war is over and it's communicated. Can't believe it because I gotta [00:37:00] keep to my commands, right?

I gotta gotta keep fighting. Tracks Were flown over. Leaflets communicating. The war is over. Everybody can surrender and go home. But he was too much in his commands

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: with the word

Cyd Holsclaw: his commanding officer actually finally told him that the war was over, that he finally quit fighting. Right?

Lisa Cuss: 29 years after his original commanding officer came in. To me in my mind, and I know I, but I just create this image of the commanding and officer coming over, like looking in your eyes and you know, given the salute of honor saying, soldier, you have done your duty. You are released, you can surrender and you can go home.

Cyd Holsclaw: Oh, and that's so much like what we do with our parts, right? When you're doing the, these parts of yourselves that have been fighting this battle your whole life, and when we're fi, when they're finally seen and [00:38:00] understood, can say, well done. Thank you for your service. You're released.

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm. Well, and I think, I'm just thinking through, I mean, that's in a sense, a tragic story.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah, I used it as a sermon illustration once, as soon as you started telling it, I was like, oh, that came in a sermon once. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: put that in our first book, I'm pretty sure. Uh, but, but there is a sense in which, um, surviving is in a sense. 

Survival and Healing

Geoff Holsclaw: Part of what God has given us, right? God has designed us to survive and Jesus as our good creator, uh, has given us all these tools, sin does warp them.

And so back to the like, you know, encountering God or where was God to have to have Jesus, you know, come and be with us and say, not shaming, uh, like the stuff you did is wrong and sinful. I can't believe you did that right? But it says like you. You were built to survive [00:39:00] and you found ways to survive. But I have more for you

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: have healing from that. And we can deploy some of those things in different ways, and some of them will just give up. Um, and, and let's keep moving forward. I've bringing, you know, John 10, 10 I the fullness of life. Like let's, let's get back onto that project of the fullness of life rather

Lisa Cuss: Mm.

Geoff Holsclaw: battle that we've been stuck in.

And so having our creator. know, join us like that commanding officer, um, and say, Hey, let's, let's keep going. Let's go to the next thing, the new thing, the, the thing that's full of life. That's so powerful.

Lisa Cuss: Oh, so powerful. So powerful. And I, when I first heard that story, I was like, who in the world does that? And I look at my own life and I'm like, oh no, I

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: more than 29 years, right? I've been assuming some battles that are no longer there, you know? Um, and there is an invitation to release those things and to hold onto the one who holds [00:40:00] it all, you know?

And yes, as you say, the commanding officer, but yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: I didn't ask Sid if I could share this, but Sid and I are both, younger siblings and so we have that kind of like. Have that sense of older siblings picking on us and all that stuff. Right. And just before we got on this podcast, we kind of had an interaction where I think both of us were doing that to each other. And I was kind, I just kind of casually was like, are you ready for the podcast with Lisa? And then, you know, the two of us just went, you know, like,

Cyd Holsclaw: I'm like, I'm always ready. When have I ever been late?

Geoff Holsclaw: we both just kind of got a little bit offended, right? We armored up with this like, you know, um. siblings and parents just expect nothing of us. But I could do it. I'm a big boy now and I'm a big girl now. Like I think we just

Cyd Holsclaw: I don't need to be managed.

Geoff Holsclaw: we had this Friday afternoon kind of like, you know, situation.

So anyways, yeah, we all kind of, we keep doing that, you know,

Lisa Cuss: Keep doing it. 

Geoff Holsclaw: yeah. Well

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: a delight. I'm like, [00:41:00] we could keep talking and talking, I feel like. Gosh.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: this has been a lot of fun. Sid, I don't know if you have any last thoughts or questions or,

Cyd Holsclaw: No, I guess, I guess for, you know, so for listeners, let's say, um, you know, like they, like maybe someone is listening to themselves for the first time or hearing some of these stories and going, man. I didn't even realize how armored up I am or how I'm still fighting battles. What would you want someone like that to, to hear?

Lisa Cuss: Oh man. First of all, I, I think that it's not surprising. It's, it's something that probably unites us as humans. Um, and so first of all, I'd wanted to hear you are not alone. That's my story. Sounds like that's your stories, right? And so everybody who does that, may we raise our hands. Um, and it's also not surprising to God, you know, that he created us so that we can do these things when we need to.

And [00:42:00] that also, um, it's not where we have to stay, you know, that we can honor what was, and we can also realize that there's an invitation that we can live strong, but we don't have to be armored up and an invitation into letting our armor down. And oftentimes I think that happens more in reflection than it does in the minute, you know?

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: That oftentimes we can hear, release your armor and think, oh my gosh, I have to do it right now. And, um, how, what does that look like? That just makes,

Cyd Holsclaw: up even more. I

Lisa Cuss: I know that's scary. Yeah. And that it's a, it's a slow process and you have a God who knows that. Um, and people I think who, who will see you or want to see, you know, that too.

Um, so there's permission and a call, um, and even if it starts with. Um, a thought of God, I, [00:43:00] I want to begin to trust you enough to even let go my armor or let down one piece of armor. Um, and would you help me even see what that armor feels like or what that armor a hint at what it might be? That that's enough, you know, even that is leaning in and it's a start.

Cyd Holsclaw: Hmm. Thank you for that.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Final Thoughts and Resources

Geoff Holsclaw: well, where can people find you or the things you're doing with Capable Life or other, other

Lisa Cuss: Yeah. So we're, um, on life@capablelife.com. That's the organization that Steve and I are both involved in together, um, which is all about. Managing anxiety in the workplace, in the home place, and fostering connection, um, within ourselves, with others, and with God. Um, and then I, in my counseling, I am at, um, pathways counseling.

Um, so I, if you look up Lisa cuss at [00:44:00] Pathways Counseling, you'll be able to find my website. Um, it's a little bit more about me and what I do. Um, those are the main places. I'm not all over social media.

Geoff Holsclaw: You, you probably have a very calm and uh, uh, fulfilling life. Then, uh, any secret projects that you could preview or you and Steve gonna write something together or you're like, no, I'm not. You sound like a mystic. Like, I'm like, you probably have all these

Lisa Cuss: Oh my gosh. I have a lot of ideas that are brewing. Um, we are, we're wanting to do some things with just mental health and what is the church's role? What are things, the church, I. What would be helpful for the church to know? What can the church do that's different from professionals? What can professionals do?

And just bring some, um, layman's terms and some clear tangibles with it. Um, so that's something we have in mind. And then, um, yeah, we have all kinds of other ideas. We'll see as they go.

Geoff Holsclaw: So

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: ideas, so little [00:45:00] time.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: exactly

Cyd Holsclaw: Yep.

Geoff Holsclaw: that

Cyd Holsclaw: Can resonate with that.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: you so much. Um, I would love to figure out how to do this again, and we would love to, especially on that last project, partner with, with what you and Steve are doing because that's our, definitely our, our hope is bringing attachment.

Before the church, especially to help pastors and churches kind of grow in their secure attachment. You know, so people's mental health as well as we could raise people's mental and spiritual health and maybe reduce the, you know, the spirit, the church hurt that is often

Lisa Cuss: Yes.

Geoff Holsclaw: happening these days. So.

Lisa Cuss: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: you again so much.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.

Lisa Cuss: Thanks so much. Yeah, I've enjoyed. I love being in on the conversation. Thanks guys.

Cyd Holsclaw: Yeah.