Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

Does security come from the outside? Or is security something we can cultivate from within as we become more and more anchored in God’s unshakable love?  Geoff Holsclaw talks with therapist and psychologist of religion Dr. Allison Cook about her new book, The Secure Soul: Finding Inner Strength and Connection When Trust Doesn’t Come Easily. They talk about internal family systems (parts work), and...

Mental health resources increasingly focus on the self as the antidote to psychological suffering, offering strategies for prioritizing self-care and self-esteem. Yet as people focus more on the self, their suffering may actually worsen. Clinical psychologist Joshua Knabb argues that when people focus less on the self and more on God, their mental and spiritual health may improve. Clinical psychol...

Geoff Holsclaw welcomes Rusty McKie—spiritual director, somatic coach, pastor, author of The Art of Stability , and founder of Steadfast Ministry .  In this special Father’s Day episode, Geoff and Rusty talk about how seasons of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation shape both midlife discernment and a boy’s transition into manhood. Rusty explains his burden to help fathers and sons navig...

Geoff continues talking with regular guest David Clayton about how the Desert Fathers and Mothers understood sin as discorder (of all kinds) and how asceticism was a path toward freedom to love God and others.  They discuss sin not merely as rule-breaking but as patterns that impair clear seeing, free choosing, and loving well. Asceticism is presented as training that frees the heart by reshaping...

In this episode on early Christian monasticism, Geoff and regular guest David Clayton explore how the Desert Fathers and Mothers understood sin as discorder (of all kinds) and how asceticism was a path toward freedom to love God and others. They discuss sin not merely as rule-breaking but as patterns that impair clear seeing, free choosing, and loving well. Asceticism is presented as training that...

What if you have more power over how you experience your life than you think? What if you could learn how to change the patterns that are keeping you stuck? What if there is a life-changing art of self-brain surgery? Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw interview neurosurgeon, trauma survivor, and author Dr. Lee Warren about the shift from feeling like a helpless “patient” to acting with agency like a “doctor.”...

You often hear that we live by the stories we tell about our lives and the lives of others. But how does that actually work? It works through our imaginations, that part of the mind that allows us to see what’s deeper, that ‘something more’ of experience, that reality bigger than the world.  Dr. Justin Bailey joins the show to talk about how the imagination dwells at the heart of discipleship and...

Host Geoff Holsclaw interviews Dr. Kyle Strobel (Institute for Spiritual Formation, Talbot School of Theology) about his book When God Seems Distant: Surprising Ways God Deepens Our Faith and Draws Us Near.   Kyle explains “early consolation” as a common season where God gives pleasure and zeal that can mask unformed character, and how this can be followed by “the desert” where these early consola...

In this episode of the Attaching to God podcast, Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw explore the ancient Christian “Great Exchange”, that Jesus became what we are so we could become what he is—taking on humanity, sin, weakness, and death to give righteousness, strength, adoption, and life. They contrast Peter’s Passion-week emotional “yo-yo” with Jesus’ steady “yes,” holding both intimacy and independence with...

During this Easter week, Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw talk about how we walk by faith, and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7), but that this isn't just blind faith. They discuss walking by faith, emphasizing that Christian faith is relational trust and attachment rather than merely ideas, and that faith crises often begin with emotional wounds and ruptures in church relationships that later get trans...

Geoff Holsclaw and regular guest David Clayton continue their monastic series, exploring how “unexamined strength becomes brittle” while "examined weakness becomes formative."  Using desert monasticism as a “laboratory of revelation,” they describe how removing distractions exposes deeper emotions, thoughts, and disordered attachments, all of which invite humility, integration, and grace...

Hosts Geoff and Cyd talk about how to return to joy in a doomscrolling world by creating small moments to turn toward God instead of compulsively turning to devices. They explore why people doom scroll—negativity bias, seeking control, dopamine loops, emotional avoidance, fear of missing out, and “revenge bedtime procrastination”—and how constant exposure to global danger can overwhelm the nervous...

In a world of self-promotion, self-esteem, and self-worth, is there a place for Christian humility? What can we learn from the monks of old and how they connected humility to love? Host Geoff Holsclaw welcomes back David Clayton (Spiritual Director and Forensics Behavioral Analyst) to continue our monastic series ( Voices from the Kellia ), where they talk about how humility for the monk was not j...

Cyd and Geoff continue their Lent/wilderness theme by challenging common images of God as stern, aloof, or judgmental and emphasizing instead that God’s face is turned toward us with joy.  Using the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:22–27), they describe two dynamics: “amplification of joy” (God’s face shining upon us) and “returning to joy” (God turning toward us to bring peace), illustrated through pa...

In this new episode, Geoff and Cyd explore joy as a crucial part of practicing Lent, making Lent worthwhile by creating space for a deeper connection with God. They begin with a gratitude practice, and then reflect on Hebrews 12:1–2 and “the joy set before Jesus" as he endured the cross. They link this to wilderness experiences and the concept of spiritual bypassing. Dive deeper in our new bo...

In this final Lent episode on Jesus’ temptations, Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw explore the third temptation as an attack on Jesus’ agency—shifting from anxiety-driven hyperactivation to independence-driven deactivation of attachment. They discuss how modern pressures like hustle culture, comparison, and radical self-reliance can pull people toward building “lesser kingdoms” instead of using their agency...

The Attaching to God podcast continues a three-week Lenten series on the Temptations of Jesus. This episode reframes Jesus’ second temptation as an attack on his secure attachment to the Father—an attack on FAITH , provoking anxiety and testing whether God is really available . Geoff and Cyd talk about all the different reasons we develop “trust issues” and how they come out in our lives. They def...

The Attaching to God podcast returns after a break to begin a three-week Lenten series on the Temptations of Jesus. Hosts Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw (co-founders of the Center for Embodied Faith) reframe Jesus’ first temptation as an attack on his secure attachment to the Father—an attack on hope. The hosts connect this to modern anxieties that push people into “protection mode,” explain Jesus’ script...

What is so important about joy? The great commandment is to love God and others, but is joy even more central than that? Where does joy fit in the landscape of political outrage and cynicism, in the seriousness of life today? We're talking about it. Looking at why joy and love are so connected. Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment...

In this BONUS episode (before season 8 starts), host Geoff Holsclaw starts experimenting with regular guest hosts to dive deeper into certain topics. This episode sees the return of David Clayton, a spiritual director, supervisor of spiritual directors, and a trained behavior analyst and facilitator of psychological safety.  David will bring us the "voices from the Kellia" —the monastic...

In this episode, hosts Geoff & Cyd Holsclaw talk with Bill and Kristi Gaultiere, founders of Soul Shepherding , and authors of Deeply Loved: Receiving and Reflecting God's Great Empathy for You .  The conversation explores the Gaultiers' journey into psychology and ministry, their insights into empathy and emotional intelligence, and their focus on providing resources for emotional a...

In this special book launch episode, Geoff interviews Summer Joy Gross about why spiritual directors are reading and recommending Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection . This episode touches on the need to balance between intimacy and independence in spiritual life and the benefits of using attachment theor...

In this special book launch episode, Geoff interviews Monica Mauer about why therapists are reading Landscapes of the Soul , and how it can help their clients. Monica is a therapist, therapist supervisor, and founder of the Center for Family Transformation . Monica talks about the unique and very helpful terminology used in the book to describe the different attachment strategies, such as the JUNG...

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

In a sense, this is where all the attachment stuff started, with Cyd telling the "Shepherd Story" to our boys during bedtime. Over and over, year by year, she did this little guided meditation with them. She was doing attachment work with the Good Shepherd even before we had language for it.  Many listeners and cohort members have asked for a recording of this prayer exercise, so here it...