Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

127 Landscapes of the Soul: Chapters 1-2 (read by Cyd Holsclaw)

• Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw

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Here is an audio snippet of our new book. Description below. Please buy and review.

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Does it feel like you experience life in a totally different way than others? Like you are living somewhere else, and you can’t build connection or intimacy with God like others can?

There’s a good chance that you, like so many of us, have tried it all: read your Bible more, gone to church more, prayed more, and delved deeper into self-awareness. But you still struggle with discontent, anxiety, avoidance and doubt. You still feel stuck.

No matter where you find yourself emotionally, relationally, or spiritually, Jesus meets you there and helps you move toward a place of peace and rest. As pastors, coaches, and educators, Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw are very familiar with this struggle, and they are prepared to help. In Landscapes of the Soul, they draw on the science and spirituality of attachment theory, biblical wisdom, and the language of spiritual formation to show us why Christians tend to get stuck spiritually―and how to get unstuck and move forward.

Whether you feel like you’re living in a spiritual jungle, desert, or war zone, you will discover:

  • how you are designed to grow good roots through healthy relational attachment
  • how things go wrong through your often-distorted survival strategies
  • how God repairs your faith, hope, and love for Him, others, and ourselves
  • how Jesus quiets your anxious and avoidant faith
  • how to incorporate practices for building your security with God

You aren’t meant to live in the anxiety of a jungle, the desolation of a desert, or the chaos of a war zone. God designed you to live in joy and peace in relationship with Him, as if you are in a pasture, under the protective care of the Good Shepherd.

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:

Cyd Holsclaw: Hi, this is Cyd. I know how much I appreciate being able to listen to a sample of an audio book or to be able to read the introduction or first chapter of a book just to see if it's gonna be something I'm gonna enjoy and if it's gonna be something I wanna hear more of. So, Geoff and I wanted to offer you a preview.

Today for our book, I did get to read the audio recording, which was great fun for me. So if you like what you hear today, you would see the, you would hear the similar if you actually got decided to get the audio book. So here is our book, landscapes of the Soul, how the Science and Spirituality of Attachment can Move You into Confident Faith, courage, and Connection.

And I'm just gonna read for you the preface in chapter [00:01:00] one. So here's the preface. We all get stuck in our spiritual lives. Eventually, maybe we fall into a rut right away or only much later do we realize it has always been holding us back, or maybe we grow and mature for a while, but then everything stops, or maybe a tragedy or a crisis sets us back in a way we didn't feel possible.

Too often we've seen people prescribe one size fits all approaches when we get spiritually stuck. Everyone needs to practice spiritual disciplines. Everyone needs to study and memorize scripture. Everyone needs to serve in the community. Everyone needs to worship and pray more. Everyone needs to become an activist.

Everyone needs to become a mystic. As local church pastors for over 20 years and over 10 as spiritual director and coach Cyd and seminary Professor Geoff, we've known one size [00:02:00] fits all. Approaches don't work. What also doesn't work is trying a little bit of everything. What inevitably happens is people gravitate to what they like best or what works best for them, and then create their own personalized approach and find other people who feel the same way.

To some extent, this is a great solution. However, focusing on what feels good or seems to work for them individually, keeps them comfortably lounging in the shallow end of the pool. When tragedy or crisis comes, they find that life in the shallows can't accommodate the tidal wave. Something deeper needed to be addressed.

What we eventually found and what we share in this book is that spiritual pathways are connected to our relational and neural pathways, and these are shaped by our attachment relationships. These attachment relationships shape in the deepest possible way. The strategies we use to navigate our relationships with God, [00:03:00] with others, and with ourselves.

Over the last 70 years, attachment research has slowly discovered how our relational attachments form why some are better than others called secure and insecure attachment. How four different approaches to relationships emerge from our early attachments and how we carry those different strategies into adult relationships and even our relationship with God.

These four different attachment strategies, which we will call the jungle of anxiety, the desert of avoidance, the war zone of chaos, and the pastor of joy and peace. Our why one size fits all approaches to spiritual formation don't work. But as you will see, we do not need entirely different practices or pathways for the different attachment strategies.

Instead, the goal is to understand how each attachment strategy might use or abuse the more well-known practices and pathways, and then [00:04:00] allow God to meet us in our insecure attachment strategy and move us deeper into secure attachment. Unlike other psychological theories or personality profiles, we were drawn to attachment theory because it so clearly connects with the story of God's love in the Bible.

We mapped out this story in our first book, does God really like me discovering the God who wants to be with us, which moved from Genesis to Revelation to show what it means that God delights in us. In this book, we will go even deeper. Beyond how we can learn to delight in the God who delights in us, to how we can become deeply attached to the God who is deeply attached to us.

Chapter one, surviving trauma and hoping for change. Imagine being dropped on a small jungle island. Your skills, habits, and instincts for surviving would quickly be tailored to that [00:05:00] specific environment. Whatever tools or habits didn't help you survive would be discarded or think of being dropped in the middle of a desert to survive.

You would develop skills, habits, and instincts totally different from what you would need in the jungle. All of us, through the twists and turns of our particular lives, and because of sin in the world, find ourselves in different landscapes. While one person believes life is a jungle, another person lives as if it's a desert.

Someone else lives like it's a war zone, while another lives as if it's a lush green meadow. These landscapes feel like home because they are all we've ever known, and we have developed survival skills adapted to the landscape we live in. And from throughout this book, we will use the scientific research on attachment theory to look at how you actually were dropped into a jungle desert.

War zone or pasture at birth, and how you learn to survive in that environment [00:06:00] by gaining skills suited for that attachment landscape. And we will look at how these landscapes have shaped your faith, how you pray, worship and read the Bible. It has shaped your expectations of churches you have attended and how you relate to other Christians.

Your attachment landscape has even shaped your view of God. But you aren't meant to live as if life were a jungle, a desert, or a war zone. You aren't meant to live in anxiety, avoidance, or chaos. God designed you to live in joy and peace as if you were in a pasture under the protective care of the Good Shepherd.

The good news is that no matter which landscape you find yourself living in, Jesus meets you where you are. He can also help you move toward the life of joy and peace. You are made to live a life deeply attached to God. To show you this good news, we'll spend some time talking about the way God designed you to live.

Part [00:07:00] one, good roots. How your early relationships can distort this design, part two gone wrong, and how we can become deeply attached to God throughout it all. Part three, God's repair. This isn't a parenting book or a relationship book. This book is about attaching to God, following Jesus and growing in the joy and peace of the spirit.

It's a book about how you wound up, where you find yourself, and it's a book about how you don't have to stay there. So let's dive in. He must be dead. He must be dead. I, Cyd was thinking. Just like my father died suddenly, just like my mother died suddenly. Now, Geoff was dead. He must be in the lobby. I was trying desperately to keep it together in front of the security guard, but my heart was racing.

I couldn't breathe. Tears were welling up in my eyes, and my entire body was tense. I was bracing [00:08:00] for impact. Geoff was 30 minutes late picking me up from work. The only explanation was that he was dead. For the first 10 minutes, I kept it cool on the outCyde, but I was already planning his funeral, making important decisions for my future and stealing myself for life as a widow.

Then the what if game started. What if there's something I could be doing to keep him alive? What if he's stuck in a crumpled car and needs medical attention? What if he's passed out in the middle of the toothpaste aisle? What if he's being held at gunpoint at the gas station? What if this was before cell phones?

After 20 minutes, I was pacing the lobby like a caged tiger. My sympathetic nervous system was kicking in, fighting and fleeing within myself. This is ridiculous. He's fine. Can I get a refund on his tuition? Can I sublet our apartment? Could grief pull it together? He's only a few minutes late. I'm definitely quitting this job.

I hate it. I'll go back to California and start [00:09:00] over. Stop freaking out. Stop being a crazy woman. God, don't let him be dead. Do something. Please. By this point, total collapse was threatening. My sympathetic nervous system started giving up because there was no one to fight and nowhere where to flee. My parasympathetic nervous system was taking over, trying to conserve what little energy I had by shutting down my systems, I was avoiding eye contact with the people coming and going through the lobby, feeling so alone, wanting to cry, wanting to be held to get away, to curl up in a ball.

If after four months of marriage he's dead, then what's the point? Will every person I ever love die suddenly? Then our little red Subaru hatchback pulled into the parking lot. I got in and burst into tears. Geoff having driven to the wrong building across town and then gotten stuck in Chicago traffic, had no idea what was wrong.

You might be reading [00:10:00] this or hearing this and thinking she really is crazy, but there's a good reason I was flipping out. It all made sense within the story of my life, a story that literally shaped my body's nervous system and the thoughts in my brain. My father was killed in a car accident when I was 15 months old.

I was in the car and when I was 26 years old, my mom died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. I found her on the bathroom floor. These pivotal moments still lived in my body, even if I wasn't consciously aware of them. And every time I got anywhere close to the possibility of death, these adrenaline filled moments returned to my body and clouded my brain all without my conscious choice or understanding.

Every time someone in my life wasn't where they said they would be, I assumed they were dead, not late, not stuck in traffic. Dead. It only takes once. [00:11:00] It only, it takes a long time to learn cognitive information and practical skills. That's why you spend so much time in school, learning math, history, reading and writing.

That's why you have to practice so long before getting your driver's license. It takes a lot of brainpower to store and then recall facts and figures, skills and techniques. Relational and emotional learning, however, is faster. From earliest childhood, you are constantly watching and interacting with people, picking up everything like a sponge.

You need fewer positive or negative emotional experiences before your brain and body. Remember and recall those interactions using past experiences as a guide for future expectations, but fear or trauma learning, especially when connected to key relationships is the fastest of all. It only takes one event, one experience, one tragic accident, or one act of abuse for your body and brain.

To learn the lesson below conscious thought and [00:12:00] awareness. You have learned the new reality thought or unthought it sounds like. I won't ever do that again. It's always my fault. I'm never going to tell anybody about that. I guess I'm helpless in these situations. I have no choice. I have no voice. The younger you are.

When these accidents, traumas or abuses happen, the less you are able to think about the promises you've made to yourself, the hopes you've given up on, or the fears you've internalized. It might take years or decades to realize the lessons you've learned and what you've learned. What we all learn is how to survive survival skills.

We are all trying to survive and surviving takes skill, especially when you are alone in the wilderness with winter coming and you are trying to win a million dollars alone. A survival reality show drops 10 people off in the middle of nowhere. The game is [00:13:00] to see how long contestants can last, finding their own food, making their own shelter, and enduring the bitter elements.

Each contestant gets to choose 10 pieces of gear to bring with them outta 40 possible items. With these minimal tools, they have to hunt and gather food, protect that food from animals, and stay warm, dry, and hydrated for as long as they can until they either tap out or are removed Under medical advisement, the last one to survive wins.

Along with their physical tools, each contestant comes with a vast knowledge about where to find food, different ways of starting a fire, how to build a durable shelter, and anything else they've learned about surviving in the wilderness. All these survival skills are necessary if they want to be the last contestant standing, or really the last one.

Shivering and hungry, you are the same. You have survival skills, relational and emotional survival skills you learned as a child. Skills that helped [00:14:00] you when you needed protection abilities that helped you when you needed connection. Maybe your survival skills are focused on how to read people, understanding how they are doing and what they need, or your survival skills are focused on problem solving, understanding patterns, and following rules.

All of us have relational and emotional survival skills that developed with any particular relational and emotional environment. Over time, these survival skills grow into attachment strategies. These attachment strategies are the regular use of specific survival skills to navigate the relational and emotional environment you live in.

You'll learn specifically about these attachment strategies in part two. Most of the time you're not thinking about your survivor skills or attachment strategies. You're just using them. When you're distressed, threatened, or overwhelmed, they activate. And you don't usually know or think about it, your survival skills and attachment strategies [00:15:00] automatically shape your view and experience of other people, God, the world, and yourself.

And a big part of your relational reality is how you shift between connection and protection. Connection or protection. In our first months of marriage, Cyd and I, Geoff, were cruising down the highway headed to Chicago. We were sharing favorite songs, talking about life, and enjoying each other's presence.

Our focus was on the conversation and the music. We were connecting about the little things and the big dreams of life. Miles flew by without a thought about actually driving the car. Then, and this regularly happens in the Midwest. We drove right into a heavy rainstorm, the likes of which I had never seen before because I was raised in California.

The water rushed off the windshield between the wiper blades as visibility decreased to almost nothing. I turned the headlights on, slowed way down, and turned the radio off. [00:16:00] We stopped talking. I needed to concentrate on driving. Because of the storm, my focus shifted from connection to protection, my connection skills of listening and talking turned off, and my protection skills.

In this case, the ability to drive through a storm turned on switching from connection to protection happens the same way in your body and brain because of your autonomic nervous system. A NS, the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, which Cyd was moving through when she thought Geoff was dead are part of the a NS.

Your a NS keeps your lungs breathing, heart beating, stomach digesting, and a bunch of other things. This all happens without your conscious awareness. When your a NS senses that life is safe and manageable, it focuses on connecting with others. When your a NS senses a physical or relational storm, it focuses on protecting you.

Your nervous system does one or the other very efficiently, [00:17:00] but it doesn't do both at the same time. When you're focused on connecting, you don't feel a need to protect. When you switch to protecting, it's very difficult to connect. It is God's good design that you shift between connection and protection.

Your nervous system was made to scan your environment, focus on what is happening inCyde and outCyde of you, and decide whether it's safe to connect or whether you need to protect yourself. When Cyd was leaving work and talking with coworkers, she felt safe. Her a NS did not detect any dangers inCyde or outCyde her, so she prioritized connection.

She chatted with the security guard, thought about what she would make for dinner, and was looking forward to seeing Geoff because her nervous system didn't detect any danger. She was able to be calm and relational. But once a few minutes had gone by and Geoff had not arrived, Cyd's a NS detected danger and flipped into protection mode.

She was reacting from a place of survival, moving [00:18:00] between the more active sympathetic system, fight or flight, and the more passive parasympathetic system rest and digest. Because her survival mode had been formed through the childhood death of her father, and recently reinforced by the death of her mother, Cyd started bracing for another death.

Now, here's the twist. All of us flow between connection and protection in different ways and for different reasons. Why? Because we have lived through different experiences, some traumatic and in different relational and emotional environments. How we were raised, the specific survival skills we've learned and the attachment strategies we've developed, all impact how we respond to the common storms of life.

Yes, maybe no. Let's shift from how our nervous system works to how it became wired to react the way it does much of your life with God, with others, and with yourself. [00:19:00] Boils down to one of these three words. Yes, maybe. No, your specific survival skills, your attachment strategies, and your relational hopes and dreams emerge from this.

Yes, maybe or no, of course you don't consciously know this. You were a baby when these words began shaping your life. You don't realize how these words control your movement between connection and protection, but they do. Yes, maybe or no, are the three possible answers to one simple question. If I'm in distress, will someone help me?

Yes, someone will help me. Maybe someone might help me. No, someone will not help me. One of these three words has been defining your relationships, influencing your emotions, shaping your experience of your body, and directing the flow of your thoughts. One of these three words, yes, maybe no has been forming the very [00:20:00] development and function of your brain, the structuring of your nervous system, and how you experience connection or perceive the need for protection.

One of these three words has become your default expectation when it comes to relationships. We will learn more about these attachment defaults in chapter four. Sometimes you are completely accurate in understanding that certain people are not trustworthy. They really aren't dependable and are not for you.

But other times you're making assumptions about someone's availability without knowing it and never giving them the chance to prove otherwise. It's because of your default of yes, maybe or no. Thankfully, as you will see, you can change your answer. Rather, by becoming securely attached to God, your answer will change, and this will change everything in your life.

The yes, maybe or no that you live from is not your personality type. [00:21:00] It is the strategy you used to protect yourself and survive, and God wants more for you than to just survive. God wants you to thrive, but how does this change happen? The problem with problems, websites, ads, magazines, and books. Even books like this one often utilize the same pattern.

Identify a problem, offer a simple solution. Then show how life will get better. Are you tired of spending all your time shopping and cooking? Get your groceries mailed to you with recipes? Then you'll have more time for the things you love. Problem solution, better life. It's the way of marketing, and it's effective, it sells.

Simple problem, speedy solution. Superficial new life. You might be reading this book because of this formula. Maybe you picked it up because you feel stuck, like something is wrong or broken about your ability to connect with God or others. Maybe you [00:22:00] worry that you have an anxious or an avoidant faith and you want to fix it, or you just learned that you have attachment strategies living below your consciousness, and they are influencing almost every choice you make.

Now, you definitely want to fix it. That's not a bad thing. Your brain isn't very open to change when it is focused on problems. When you are focused on getting rid of a problem, your stress level goes up, your cognitive function goes down, and you lose your curiosity and creativity. Starting with the problem, puts you into protection mode.

Recently, I, Cyd decided I wanted to learn how to play worship music on the piano. I already knew how to read music because of many years of classical training in piano and clarinet. I am especially strong in sight reading, but not great at improvising with just the chords in mind. However, Geoff has played the guitar since high school and thinks in chord structures.

My brain doesn't seem to work that way. [00:23:00] As I tried to learn, I got frustrated. I could easily articulate my problem. I can't think in chords because I'm so used to reading the notes on a page. I stumbled across a worship piano program online for one low price. I could learn chord progressions in every key and learn to apply them to worship music to sound like a pro.

I bought it. It seemed like the right solution problem. I can't think in chords to play worship piano solution. I'll buy a step-by-step course to relearn chords and apply them to worship songs. Better life. I can improvise on the piano based on the chords. I diligently watched the videos and reviewed my music theory and chord structures.

Then the first worship song was introduced with just the chord names written above the lyrics. It was like a wall went up in my brain. I couldn't make the connection between the chords I had just seen written out, and the simple letters. Now sitting above the song lyrics, I still hadn't made the connection [00:24:00] to translate the chord names into rhythmic movements for the melody to float on.

I was still stuck and wanted to give up This selling of transformation, moving from problem to solution, often falls into one of two traps. Sometimes both. The first trap is thinking that more information will change us. If we can learn more about the problem or discover the perfect solution, then things will change our diet, our relationships, our parenting, our career, et cetera.

This is what we try to do when we buy a program to teach us something. We buy information to solve our problem. Sometimes the information changes things for a little while until it gets hard or complicated. Then we go looking for better information to solve the same problem. We try that for a bit before changing again, and on it goes.

The second trap is relying on our willpower to implement the solution. Our culture loves willpower, hard work, and bootstrapping. We just need to try harder and do [00:25:00] better. This was Geoff's initial solution to Cyd's problem on the piano. You just need to practice more, he would say, and then you will get it.

The trouble is that relying on willpower rarely lasts. Science shows that true transformation doesn't come from fixing problems through information and willpower lasting transformation comes from a vision of life that is so compelling. It is impossible to stay where we are. From that compelling vision, we start to see the real problem and have the desire to implement a lasting solution, vision of a new life, the real problem, lasting solution.

Let's get back to the piano problem. I spent some time digging into these questions. Why is playing worship piano important to me? What difference would it make to be able to sit down and play worship songs? I discovered that at the bottom was a desire to connect with God in worship. I just wanted to [00:26:00] pour out my heart like Geoff could when he played guitar by himself in his office.

The deep desire was not to play for others or to help out on Sundays. It was just to worship at home. Once I discovered my vision of a new life, Geoff surprised me with some easy worship piano books that included all the written notes and chord names. Now, I could sit down and read the sheet music, something that was already easy for me and just connect with God.

Instead of solving a surface problem with an impractical solution for a life you might not really want, we want to offer you a vision of the life God has always wanted to give you. Name the problems that keep you from this life and end by looking at spiritually sensitive and science backed solutions.

God's good design. Rather than beginning with all the struggles you have right now, your fears or frustrations, your doubts or disappointments, your [00:27:00] anxieties or avoidances, we are going to explore how God designed you to be securely attached to God and to others. What would it be like to be so deeply rooted in God that you are full of faith, hope and love, full of faith in God being available to you?

Full of hope for a better world and full of love overflowing to others. How would everything be different? If you could connect with people in healthy relationships without regularly slipping into protection mode? How would it be to freely offer yourself and your gifts to the communities where you belong and the people you love?

This is the way God designed it to be. God designed your brain and your body to be deeply attached to God and to others. Once you have a vision of how these deep roots are designed to help you thrive Part one, you can understand how your attachment goes wrong, part two, and see how God is repairing it all.

Part three. [00:28:00] Reflection for each of the chapters. In part one, we will offer a few reflect reflective questions to help you pull out the ideas from each chapter, cognitive, respond to those ideas effective, and connect those ideas with your faith. We encourage you to engage the questions from all three categories, cognitive.

What stands out to you from the explanation of social emotional learning trauma or your connect protect priority in your autonomic nervous system? What feels clearer to you after reading this? What do you find confusing? What feels like confirmation of your own experience? Where do you feel challenged or in conflict with an idea effective?

What did you notice feeling as you heard about survival strategies? Search online for Feelings Wheel to help put words to what you're feeling. [00:29:00] How did your body respond to what you read? Did you feel yourself slipping into protection mode? If so, what were you reading when you did? Did anything you read bring you calm and connection?

What was it? Faith. How do these understandings of survival and protection connect with your experience of God and a following Jesus? What sounded like good news to you? If you were to have a conversation about this chapter with Jesus or another member of the Trinity, God the Father, or God, the Holy Spirit, what would you want to talk about?

I hope you've enjoyed the preface and the introduction the chapter one to landscapes of the soul, how the science and spirituality of attachment can move you into confident faith, courage, and connection. [00:30:00] And if that has sparked your interest we hope you'll enjoy the rest of the book.