Naming the Real

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...

Do we see desire as good or as something warranting our suspicion and judgment? In this episode, we explore the role of desire in Western history and, specifically, the different conceptions of desire within Greek and Hebrew thought. Far from being a mere academic exercise, understanding how desire has been framed in history can help us understand our own relationships to desire. This is paramount...

In this second episode on Internal Family Systems, we explore how to integrate our exiled parts. Ultimately, integration happens through conversation—through naming, labelling, and talking about the exiled parts of us, and by learning how our unwanted behavior is the very thing pointing us to the legitimate needs and desires which must be addressed if we are to live a flourishing life.

A consistent practice of gratitude will change the structure of your brain and transform the way you see the world. In this episode, we explore the gratitude ladder—a simple rubric for giving thanks no matter the challenges or circumstances you may be facing. 

No bad parts. That's the mantra of Internal Family Systems thinking, which explores the notion that each of us is made up of various parts (including exiles, managers, and firefighters), each with a different function, within our personality. This episode explores Internal Family Systems with the goal of helping you become self-aware and a fully integrated human being. And it's about how each of u...

Differentiation is the antidote to anxiety. Differentiated people refuse emotional reactivity, they stay rationally grounded, they refuse to take on the anxiety of a system, and they are able to form meaningful relationships and connections. In this episode, we explore a rubric for practicing differentiation in everyday in life, in order to live a life of courage and hope.

All communities involving human beings can be held captive by anxiety. In this episode, we explore the core ideas of Family Systems Theory: that in unhealthy systems, the entire system may orient around the anxiety of its most anxious member(s). That systems are resistant to change. That triangulation is a function of codependency. And that the only path out of anxious systems is through self-lead...

Everyday there are things we know to do and that we avoid doing. Such norms and customs make up the stuff of culture. But where do these cultural rules of engagement come from? In this episode, we explore how all culture traces back to our desire and, ultimately, to our desire to be known, included, and accepted. Far from being an academic exercise, understanding where culture comes from can chang...

Human beings tend to see differences as a threat, but to feel safe and secure we look for people who look like us or who we deem similar to us. These dynamics may be natural, but they can lock us into very low levels of relating to others and to the world. In this episode, we explore how our core, common desires are the key to establishing connection with others, no matter how different they might...

This episode launches a new series within the Naming the Real Podcast, which is an exploration of the nature of human desire. In this episode, we explore the core human desire, which we call love—the desire to know and be known with affection and without fear. And we explore the implications of human desire, because human motivation is quite simple: we act in pursuit of love or in pursuit of power...

We change the world through care and curiosity, which humanizes those around us. But there are forces of fear and anxiety at work in our culture of entertainment and endless stimulation which must be recognized and named if we are to build lives of courage and hope. In this episode, we explore the ways technology is creating a push towards tribalism and mass psychosis, and how—like totalitarianism...

Fear comes to play an important role in an over-stimulated culture of entertainment such as ours. In this episode, we explore the nature of fear and its development in our society—how it breeds a lust for certainty and ultimately breeds polarization and tribalization. Specifically, we examine the role that the internet and social media play in promulgating fear. And—most importantly—we chart a pat...

In this episode, we explore Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, which is even more relevant today than when first published in 1985. Its premise—that technology changes the way we experience the world and can diminish our ability to think—has profound implications for our over-stimulated culture. Indeed, technology and an addiction to entertainment is exacerbating many of our societal dysfu...

We all have a winning strategy to get what we want in life: an unconscious formula for success. It's part of being human. And yet we can get stuck or lost in our winning strategy. And winning strategies can be at the heart of imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and even self-loathing. In this episode, we explore what winning strategies are, how we can be aware of them (and grateful for them), and how w...

All humans develop strategies for survival, not just physically but psychologically and emotionally. These strategies become our automatic, and even if they make us miserable, we love the certainty and predictability that they give us. Nevertheless, as we grow older, the impulse to not simply survive but to thrive allures us, even if our inability to thrive torments us. In this episode, we discuss...