The God With Us Podcast

We spend a lot of our life reacting to the things that come our way. How can we reduce our reactivity by paying attention to our attachments and what do we have to learn from Jesus' time in the wilderness?Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

When we observe snap decisions in ourselves, how do we know if this is an immediate response to the call of Jesus like the early disciples had? Or just impulsivity? In this episode Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw reflect on holy indifference, disordered attachments, and secure attachment to the Father through Jesus' baptism and temptation.Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

As we enter a New Year after celebrating fulfilled prophecies of 'God With Us' at Christmas, can we live with expectancy in a world that seems to predict the worst?Join the podcast community and never miss an episode or news.Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

Please join our "God with Us" podcast community.As we continue exploring the presence of God in everyday life through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, this episode considers how a relationship of trust and acceptance with God gives us courage to acknowledge our own sin.Resources:The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O'Brien, SJSleeping At Last: "Eight" (about Enneagram 8s)Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

In our second season we will be using the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola to integrate insights from neuroscience, attachment theory, theology, and daily life in our weekly episodes.We talk about what we've been up to for the last 9 months, and what this next season is going to be all about. Resources:The Ignatian Adventure, Kevin O'Brien, SJ: https://www.amazon.com/Ignatian-Adven...Transformational Coaching: https://www.newleafnetwork.ca/transfo...Gravity Leadership:https://gravityleadership.com/podcast/ (look for the episode on Axiom 5)Neuroscience of Change:https://www.coachesrising.com/neurosc...Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

"Wow! That sounds hard." Today Cyd and Geoff talk about how the presence of a parent expresses and teaches how to understanding the presence of God. In other words, the parent's presence expresses God's presence.  And when this happens our children learn how to live integrated lives—with God, with themselves, and with others. Our special guest in this second part of this parenting mini-series is Megan Dimmer of Menuha Studio.  We talk about learning to work with how our kids are wired, at all the different stages, acknowledging the things that are hard, and working with their choices. Quote of the episode: "Parenting with God frees me to be myself so my kids can be themselves so we can all be glad to be together."Recommended resource is Dan Siegel's The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind.Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.Find out more about Megan Dimmer at Menuha Studios.

Parenting takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, and a lot of creativity.  What would it look like to have God with us in our parenting, and to help our children experience that God is really with them.  In this episode we talk with Jen Coursey, executive director of Thrive Today, about helping our children connect with Jesus, to walk through big emotions, and help them find peace in the turmoil of life. Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes. Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/Find out more about Jen Coursey at thrivetoday.org (or on Facebook).  Read Jen's weekly blog here. 

Our brains have special relational circuits that can turn on and off, with profound results for our relationship with God and with others.  When our relational circuits are off it is like driving at night with you headlights off.  Not good. Everyone is a hazard, or an enemy.  Our brains go in problem solving mode and people are only viewed as problems. When our relational circuits are on, then we are driving with the lights are on and our emotional brains are connecting with God and with others.  People are bigger than our problems.  When our circuits are off, God feels far off and uncaring, and we feel alone—abandoned. But when we warm up our relational circuits through remembering God’s grace in the past and present, but practicing appreciation and gratitude, then it is much easier to connect with God. We also connect relational circuits to a previous conversation about joy (“I’m glad to be with you in this…”) and how it connects with sadness and other difficult circumstances. And we end by talking about how God’s relational circuits never go off.  God is never overwhelmed by us, our emotions, or what we are going through.  God is always glad to be WITH US no matter what!Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes. Find out more about Chris Coursey at thrivetoday.org. Thrive has an upcoming online training on Nov. 9th (check it out here).

Please join our "God with Us" podcast community.Today's episode focuses on the hope that God is not done with us.  God is always re-creating, re-making, and re-shaping us and our world. We can either receive this ongoing work of God or we can resist it. In the season we continue using the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola to integrate insights from neuroscience, attachment theory, theology, and daily life in our weekly episodes.Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

Please join our "God with Us" podcast community.We explore scriptures that speak to us of how close God is, how he loves us without qualification, and how this impacts our daily lives.Resources:The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O'Brien, SJ: https://www.amazon.com/Ignatian-Adven...Centering Prayers by Peter Traben Haas: https://www.amazon.com/Centering-Pray...The Chosen:https://studios.vidangel.com/the-chosenInterested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

It's been a while... Geoff and Cyd speak briefly about how we've experienced God in the times of COVID-19 and our plans for a new season beginning in September.The Prayer of Ignatius (Suscipe) that Cyd reads:Contemporary translation:Take, Lord and Receiveall my libertymy understandingmy memoryand all my will.Everything I have is yours.I now give it back to you.Dispose of it according to Your will.Give me love of yourselfand your gracefor that is enough for me. Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

Is it OK to be afraid of the coronavirus?Is there "good" fear and "bad" fear? Why does the Bible teach us not to fear? Are we supposed to just deny our emotions? Isn't that unhealthy?We need a better way to talk about FEAR, otherwise we will misunderstand the FAITH God is calling us into. In this new episode Cyd and Geoff talk about what we can learn about fear from the story of Jesus calming the storm and calling the disciples into deeper faith.They talk about two kinds of fear (bottom-up that is based in immediate survival and top-down that we have time to think about).  The first one is often called "good" fear (the fear God gave us to survive).  The second is "bad" fear (the fear that leads us away from faith).  The end reminding us that "even though we walk through the valley of death, we will fear no evil, because God is with us" (Ps. 23).Resources:Joseph LeDoux, "Feelings: What Are They & How Does the Brain Make Them?"oseph LeDoux, "Rethinking the Emotional Brain" (advanced). And please CHECH OUT our new book, Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With Us. "In a world dominated by feelings of deficiency and distress, we badly need to hear the message of this book." ~ James Bryan Smith, author of The Good and Beautiful God.Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.

Too often we think God is fine with us being separated from him.  But too often it is us who are happy to have things between us and God. It is us who are content to be distant.  But can we—like our cat, Johnny—become desperate to be next to God, interested in what God is interested in, and discontent to be distant from God?Cyd offers a brief reflection on trying to follow hard after God. Where are you feeling distant from God? And how can you press through into God’s presence, the presence that God always offers to us. And please CHECH OUT Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With Us. "In a world dominated by feelings of deficiency and distress, we badly need to hear the message of this book." ~ James Bryan Smith, author of The Good and Beautiful GodInterested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.

Why did Jesus gather disciples who probably hated each other? What did this have to do with God's mission? And what can we learn from the Prince of Peace?Cyd and Geoff talk with Dan White Jr, author of Love over Fear: Facing Monsters, Befriending Enemies, and Healing Our Polarized World.  They talk about why we don't need better “conflict resolution” skills. Rather, we need better “dealing with our fear” skills—because while love cast fear (1 John 4:18), it is also true that fear casts out love. Concluding Challenge: If you are feeling spiritually dry.  Just take a step toward someone you consider an enemy, or who thinks you are their enemy.  Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.And you can find Dan White Jr. on Facebook and Twitter, and please check out his book, Love Over Fear. 

We all fail at parenting.  It is what you do next that makes all the difference!So often we want to be the perfect parents. But the reality is that we aren't.  So what do you do when you blow it?Cyd and Geoff talk about the process of rupture and repair while parenting.  Cyd talks about her own journey of repair (reconciliation) with her own father, and how God our faith is always ready to connect with us when we feel like failures as parents. Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/ Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.

What does it mean to be a neighbor? What if it just meant learning to slow down, ask questions, really listen to the answers, and be honest with our emotions?  This is what it means to be attuned to someone, and how God attunes to us.Over the Thanksgiving weekend Cyd and Geoff watched "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" with their two teenage boys.  In this bonus episode, all four sit down and talk about how Fred Rogers models God's transformative presence, the power of slowing down.  And they end by asking with Jesus was really this "nice" with people, and with "attuning" and "empathy" is really all that nice in the first place. Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.

Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.In this last foundational episode, talk about the second half of what it means that humanity is created in God's "image", and what it means for understanding God as "God with us."Have you ever questioned your purpose, wondering if what you do really matters?Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/Humanity was made to live in God's presence (as God's idols). And humanity was made to represent and extend God's kingdom as his images.

Please join the God With Us Podcast Community(on Slack), where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.In this third foundational episode, talk about the first half of what it means that humanity is created in God's "image", and what it means for understanding God as "God with us."In fact it is better to think that being God's images is better understood as being God's IDOLS, placed within the temple of creation, to represent God's presence and to dwell within God's presence forever. Then we talk about a better way to read the Book of Exodus, not just as a deliverance story (from slavery), but a dwelling story (creation of a new house of God).  And all this points toward Jesus, the "Word become flesh, and tabernacling among us" (John 1:14). We also talk about how our two black cats help us understand whether we truly belong in the presence of God. For more on the foundation of joy, see the first couple of chapters (free) from Does God Really Like Me?Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/

How does joy and the face of God fit together?We have personal barriers, cultural barriers, and theological barriers to understanding joy. In this episode Cyd and Geoff explore these three barriers to joy, and why joy is essential to understanding what it means that God is truly with us.Joy is not happiness. And joy isn't pretending things aren't bad.Rather, JOY is being in the presence of someone who is glad to be with you. Joy is an interpresonal state. Happiness can be felt alone. But joy is always in connection with another person.We cover the neuroscience of joy in the development of babies, the preistly blessing of God over Israel (Numbers 6:23-26), and the delight of God over us all.For more on this foundation of joy, see the first couple of chapters (free) from Does God Really Like Me?Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/And please join the God With Us Podcast Community, where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.

Many of us have felt abandoned by friends and family, even by God. Does God really understand what we are going through? This episode focuses on the power of presence, of being with someone.  And Jesus really is part of our lives, in the depths of despair, in the despair even of death.  Geoff and Cyd lay down the foundation of this podcast, looking at the personal and biblical basis of God's presence in our lives.  And the contrast other ways of talking about God (as distant or vaguely everywhere), and why we need to remember that God is really with us. And please join the God With Us Podcast Community, where you'll get updates, resources, and be able to continue the conversation, and even help us plan future episodes.Interested in have Cyd Holsclaw offer you spiritual direction or coach? Go here: https://www.facebook.com/cydholsclawcoach/