Naming the Real

Classically, the purpose of a university is the pursuit of truth. But according to Jonathan Haidt and other sociologists, there is a movement in American universities to replace the quest for truth with a quest for social justice. This, as it turns out, is a major issue and is reflective of currents and issues in American society more generally. In this episode, we explore this crisis in education...

Trauma can keep us from living mindfully. This episode—part 3 in a mini-series on mindful living—has two parts: we start with an exploration of what trauma is and how it gets stored in our bodies. Then we turn to practices, including meditation and others practices that involve our bodies, with the goal of developing fully embodied lives that are resilient in the face of trauma and pain. The ultim...

We all have chatter in our brains, and our brain is where so much of life's battle is: the mind can make us miserable, or it can set us free. In this episode, we explore scientifically-backed methods for changing the conversation in our brains, including Ethan Kross's notion of "distanced self-talk," Chip and Dan's Heath guidance on how to make better decisions, and Robert Keegan's work on moving...

A brief update on some ideas and concepts to be explored in Season 3, as well as some news on what's been happening at Naming the Real. Talk soon!

Our society's acquisitive drive for "more" can keep us from experiencing "enough." Life can hurry by without being truly tasted, savored, or enjoyed, and then be over before you know it. In this episode, we explore what mindfulness is and how it can radically change our experience of every moment, interrupting our tendency to live on automatic and propelling us instead towards life-altering awaren...

How do we make sense of the ubiquity of violence and evil throughout human history? In this episode—part of The Barbaric Impulse series—we explore how racism, violence, and all manners of evil are connected to a fear of impurity. Using René Girard's mimetic theory, we explore how societies function by finding scapegoats to quell this fear of impurity and, ultimately, how we can choose to live free...

As humans, we tend towards automatic thinking and behavior that keeps us stuck. Over time, we end up not seeing possibilities for something new or different, even when they do exist. In this episode, we explore the concept of rackets, which is a rubric for seeing why getting stuck is so natural for us: it provides a big payoff (of comfort or certainty or safety) that we like even if it keeps us mi...

Despite self-doubt and whatever shame and guilt we may carry, the drive to be good lies deep within our humanity. But how do we become good? In this episode—the final episode in the "Critique of Evangelical Christianity" mini-series—we explore how the pursuit of goodness is often just the ego's game of "looking good and being right" dressed up in fancy clothes, and how rigid religion mistakes look...

In a world of suffering, we all want answers and we all want certainty to soothe us, but at some point, being right and certain can get in the way of becoming good. In this episode, we explore how the quest for certainty can keep us from thinking creatively and with holy imagination, and what it takes to recover and develop a life of awe, mystery, and wonder, which are necessary for the cultivatio...

Christianity began on the margins: from a Jewish man whose parents were refugees. What if this reality—that Jesus was a man "with his back against the wall"—is essential to understanding the Christian message? In this episode, we explore dynamics of power and powerlessness and how alluring power (through rightness, certainty, or respectability) is, and how it can be the trap that keeps us from flo...

Christianity often ceases to be a lifestyle—a path towards transformation and goodness—and becomes obsessed with certainty and defending belief systems. In this episode, we explore how spirituality devolves into mere religion, fueled by a fixation with making judgments of who's good and who's bad and fueled by an addiction to certainty and having all the answers. More importantly, we explore what...

Scripture is easily and often abused and manipulated to support agendas that run the gamut from silly to downright evil. In this episode, we explore some of the history of this abuse and what lies at its root: a "plain meaning" reading that adopts principles from the Bible while ignoring the methods of interpretation that Scripture itself champions. By adopting the developmental methodology which...

(1) Naming the Real is launching its first public training. It's a 3-day training [re]Storied, and it explores the practices, habits, and disciplines it takes to live a flourishing life of courage and hope, for the sake of the world! It's designed to help you discover agency, authority, and authorship in your story. Learn more at namingthereal.com/trainings  [re]Stories will be the first in a seri...

American evangelicalism has tragically stripped key parts from Jesus' life and teaching in order to focus on conversion while neglecting ongoing transformation—of us and of the world around us. This "Gospel Americana" is a reduction of Jesus' provocative message to something more manageable, controllable, and comfortable, but without much power and with increasingly less credibility. Yet there is...

From its roots in the first half of the twentieth century, evangelicalism has become a powerful political force within American society. This new series—A Critique of Evangelical Christianity—explores what has gone wrong with evangelicalism as a movement, in order to point to new paths forward: both to vibrant spiritual life and the renewal of our body politic. In this first episode, we explore ho...

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

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

Christian Scripture, like most religious texts, has been abused by those seeking to use it for their own ends. But the meta-story of Scripture transcends these abuses and provides a road-map to a life of true inner goodness. In this episode, we explore how M. Scott Peck's Four Stages of Spiritual Development follows the outline of Scripture and leads us into considerations of what practices lead t...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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