The One You Feed - Reba Riley on Post Traumatic Church Syndrome

Starting point is 00:00:00 I think what we have to ask ourselves is, how do I live now so that I know I've lived my life well when I come to the end of it? Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

Starting point is 00:00:43 But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

Starting point is 00:01:23 what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to really no really.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason bobblehead. The really no really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Reba Riley, a blogger from patheos.com, a speaker, artist, and healer. She's the author of Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome, a memoir of humor and healing in 30 religions. Hi, Reba. Welcome to the show. Hey, Eric. I'm so glad to be here.

Starting point is 00:02:02 It's a pleasure to have you on. You are the author of a book called Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome, One Woman's Desperate Funny and Healing Journey, which is a wonderful book, and we're going to talk about it in a moment. You're also a fellow Ohioan, so we have met in person even though we're not able to do this particular interview in person, so I'm looking forward to this. So thanks for being here. Oh, I'm so glad you go bucks. Go bucks. All right. My mom will be very happy to hear that. Let's, uh, let's start though.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Like we always do with the parable. There is a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter. I'm changing it up on you. And she says in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. The granddaughter thinks about it. She stops and she looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Starting point is 00:03:05 The great question, which one is going to win? And we're always answering it, Eric, always in the moment. We're always saying, which is going to win? Where am I going to put my energy? How am I going to live this moment? So when I get to the end of this day, I know, you know, who did I feed? Where did I put my energy? You know, when I think about this parable, I think about my work as a chaplain in the Office of Spiritual

Starting point is 00:03:31 Care at a local hospital here in Cincinnati. And there's really nowhere more real in life than when you're near death. And I get the privilege of sitting with people who are evaluating their lives and often really working through what did I feed? And they approach it one of two ways a lot of times. And one will be that they're looking at everything that is amazing about their life and all of the good that they did, the people that they have around them, their family, their friends, even if they've lost their health, they're putting their energy into

Starting point is 00:04:05 the recollecting of those memories and all of the good. And then I have people who, for whatever reason, are not approaching it that way or are looking back over their lives and they're saying, I didn't live the way that I wish that I had. I wish I had forgiven. I wish I had done this. I wish I had done that. And I get to see in very stark terms, the end of life is the answer to that question. And so I think what we have to ask ourselves in this moment is, how do I live now

Starting point is 00:04:39 so that I know I've lived my life well when I come to the end of it? That's a beautiful way of saying it. And that is a clarifying perspective. There's nothing quite like imagining you're at the end and thinking about looking back and going, well, what did I do to help really clarify kind of what's important? Well, I think it's not just what's important, but also that, you know, what is a rich and full life and what are those components so that we can choose them

Starting point is 00:05:05 now? You know, if I want to get to the end of my life and say that I have lived, you know, with joy and kindness and supported others, then I need to do those things right now today. Yep. There is only today. So that's what it means to me. Wonderful. That is the answer to my essay question, Eric. Nice work. You can turn that in after class. Thank you. So let's talk about your book now. Now, you wrote your book a while ago. It is a really great book. I think a

Starting point is 00:05:33 lot of listeners would really enjoy it. We've got a lot of people who come out of the Christian tradition somewhat damaged, and you refer to it as post-traumatic church syndrome. So let's start there. What did it mean to you? Well, post-traumatic church syndrome to me was a way of putting some language to something that I didn't have a way to talk about when I was dealing with it. I knew that I was having a spiritual crisis or maybe a dark night of the soul or many other things. But it to me was the bottom fell out of my life. And when I walked away from religion and faith and God and all the center of myself, everything was gone. And so my

Starting point is 00:06:13 experience of it, I termed post-traumatic church syndrome. And it's the title of the book, not because I talk necessarily about trauma, it's much more about healing. But because that title really speaks to people who've been through that experience. if they hear it, they, you know, they may laugh, they may cry, but they know it's them. And so post-traumatic church syndrome is the story of my journey through my 29th year, when I was dealing with a chronic illness, and that illness, as it does for many people, the illness forced me to face my face my internal life. And what I found that was very disappointing at the time was a whole bunch of anger, a whole bunch of bitterness. And I realized that if I didn't resolve my issues with my faith and my spirituality, that I would

Starting point is 00:06:57 never be able to be at peace. And so I went on this really wacky, crazy journey through 30 religions before I turned 30. And the book is the result of that journey of both physical and spiritual healing through those 30 religions. It is a wonderful book. The title describes it pretty well, being desperate, funny, and healing. It's all those things. Let's talk, though, about what caused you, after religion having been this huge part of your life for so long, what caused you to walk away from it? The truth is, Eric, that I just realized that the life that I was experiencing was very gray and all of the answers that I had been given were extremely black and white and I couldn't reconcile those things. black and white, and I couldn't reconcile those things. And this, you know, the sad part about the tradition that I grew up in was there wasn't any other option for connecting with God or spirituality, period. Either it was this black and white, our truth is the only truth, or you

Starting point is 00:07:58 weren't allowed to have a relationship with God or spirituality at all. And so when I talk about post-traumatic church syndrome, I don't just talk about walking away from the church. I walked away from a huge part of myself. And that's the part that I was trying to heal through this journey, 30 religions. And how long were you sort of away, would you say? Like, how long was that period after you sort of had, you know, death by a thousand cuts, but there being sort of a final break? Yeah. And before you embarked on this project? It was the better part of a decade.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Okay. It was the better part of a decade. So it was a while. In the book, you describe, you know, you are dealing with this chronic illness and you also visit 30 different religions, some of them being various denominations within Christianity, and then others being well outside of that. As a result of that, what was the, I don't know if this is even a fair question, but the biggest learning for you? Can you summarize it in a, I know you wrote an entire book about it, right? I was going to say, you're going to have to read the book for that. You know, I can't summarize the whole book in one topic sentence. But what I can say is what I believe in now.

Starting point is 00:09:11 And I believe that love is bigger than everything. And not in a trite way. I mean that connecting with that internal love for yourself, first and foremost, connecting with your love of however you would define spirituality, something that is bigger than yourself, whether that is you would say God or I say the God of verse, which is God plus the universe, or, you know, just the love of other people. people, when you can really deeply connect with love, that's bigger than all of the other things that we put between ourselves. It's bigger than all of our differences. And at the bottom line, at the whole end of all of it, what do I believe in? I believe in love. I believe that in that force that is so powerful that it is able to heal us and bring us together, both internally and externally. It's true. And true. Yeah. Why don't you tell us a story from the book that, you know, that brings that concept home? Again, we're not going to get the whole thing, but I'm giving you an opportunity to just, you know,

Starting point is 00:10:22 share a story or two. Readers that have come out of a, especially an evangelical background, will probably really resonate with my mother as a character in the book, because my mom was watching me walk through this, you know, journey of illness, and then also all these religions from her seat still in within evangelical Christianity, okay? And so my poor mother, you know, thinks I am just going to hell in a handbasket. I, you know, I'm one week I'm with the atheists one week I'm with the, I didn't even tell her about the witches. I knew that she would have a heart attack, you know? So I didn't, you know, so my poor mother and she's trying to figure out, you know, how can I love Rebecca through this? And so I would say one story was when my

Starting point is 00:11:06 mother came to a point in this journey in the book where she had an experience praying for me, where she realized that her love was bigger than the differences that were between us. You know, whatever church I was visiting or whatever, that she is my mother and that she trusts God with my heart and soul and that she was able to love around those differences. And in her acceptance of that, even though we still don't agree on many things, we were able to love each other despite all of those things that were between us and still are between us. Because the bottom line is it doesn't matter at the end of the day what I think about, you know, X theology or Y theology if I'm not loving my mother, you know, if she's not loving me.

Starting point is 00:11:56 And so that scene specifically where my mom was wrestling with my journey and came to this understanding that in her words, love is bigger than everything. Yes, that is a lovely section of the book when she does do that and realizes that her God is big enough that she can trust you to him. Exactly. Yeah. And when she realized that, it was a big step in her faith, personally, of being able to

Starting point is 00:12:20 let go. And then also, you know, for her to see in the past seven years, the work that this journey has done in the world, you know, now that it's out in the book, and the healing that the story is bringing to other people has been a huge faith builder for her, which is just so interesting, because, quote, unquote, our faiths aren't exactly the same. But when it comes down to it, all of the religions that I went to every single one, it comes down to it. All of the religions that I went to every single one, and even the ones that weren't religious, wherever I found love, in my mind, I found God. And that was super surprising to me as a former evangelical. What do you mean God is in all these places? You know, when love was there, that was that was all that really mattered. Yeah, yeah. It makes me think of

Starting point is 00:13:03 Richard Rohr.'s latest book is The Universal Christ. And he sort of talks about that idea that, you know, God is in everything. But he says a couple of different times, he says, basically, anything that's pulling you out of yourself towards others in a loving way is for all intents and purposes acting as God in that moment. And I love that definition. And we can feel that. We can feel when we're being pulled up and out of ourselves versus when we feel like we're collapsing into ourselves. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

Starting point is 00:14:09 our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

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Starting point is 00:14:45 Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really No Really

Starting point is 00:15:02 and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You and I talked briefly a little bit about depression and how you and I are both certainly sufferers of that. And I've had some of it now going on with me. And it is such a feeling of an internal collapsing inwards, this small, tight, achy thing, whereas, you know, love is this outflowing. And so I agree with you about that idea that where we find love, where I see it, is where I tend to find the divine for me, such as it exists. You know, you asked me about a story. There's one other one that comes to mind for me, such as it exists. You know, you asked me about a story. There's one other one that

Starting point is 00:15:45 comes to mind for me in my journey. I went to this church that I didn't agree, and still, you know, I didn't like what they were doing. I didn't agree with their worship style. I hated their doctrine at that time. And as Chance or the Godiverse or Serendipity would have it, I also joined this exercise program, this bootcamp, and it met at this church. I didn't know this when I signed up. And so I show up the first day and I'm literally doing like laps in this quote unquote sanctuary that was also a gymnasium. And I'm just getting more and more angry about thinking about how they treat people and, you know, what their, what their theology says about this population or that population. And I remember I tripped a little bit over my shoelace and I almost fell into this table.

Starting point is 00:16:35 And the table was this little girl who had leukemia and it was her picture. And they had the signup sheet for her family, everything that they needed. And Eric, the margins were overflowing. People were just signing up left and right. And I remember having this huge moment where I went, oh my gosh, this is what it's about. It doesn't matter what I think of what they're doing because they're showing up for their community. They're being here with kindness and love for this family. And that set me free from the judgment of them, you know? And in setting me free from the judgment, I realized, you know, if love and forgiveness are going to start anywhere, where do they have to start?

Starting point is 00:17:22 You know, they have to start with me. So if I'm judging people because they're judging me, it's just a vicious circle. And so being able to let go of that judgment and step back and allow people to take care of each other in the communities that they're in and see that love that they have and recognize it and say, okay, there's the divinity, there it is, is a really beautiful thing. Yes. And I loved that story in the book also. And it is one of those things that is challenging to reconcile when we look at certain religions and like you said, what they believe and what appears to be in certain cases kind of hateful, you know, but then you look a little closer and you see that that love is there and that there is kindness and love. Now, it tends to be limited to that community. And that's that's challenging. Right. I think the the broader the love is. But but I do think it's helpful for me to see that because it takes away the idea like, oh, these people are uncaring people. These people are monsters. These people, because they're not at all. And I tend to believe the best way to get to know and understand somebody is to look for the good in them. And it's always there. And I loved that story because

Starting point is 00:18:35 it was so evident in that moment that like the outpouring of the people in this church to another person in the church was suffering, was overwhelming. And there it is. There's that, that outward movement of love. The outward movement of love. Yeah. And you know, Eric, you know, when we think about the parable, I think that happens within communities too. It's not just internal, whether you're feeding the good or quote unquote bad, you can see in communities how they are taking care of their own to the extent to which they are. And I think if you look again for that good, like you can, you can more accurately assess something than just the prejudicial element. Like you were saying, like, they're all like this, they're all like

Starting point is 00:19:18 that. Well, just like I'm not all good or all bad, and you're not all good or all bad, that person isn't either. And I think if we can come to see the humanity in each of us, that's where that love has to begin. Yep, yep, totally. I'm in a 18-month interfaith spiritual guidance program, and it's very interesting because we are looking at all faiths. And when you look underneath them all, it's not very hard to see very quickly what the core teaching is, right? It all comes down to love one another. Yeah. Or, you know, love one another and love God such as it is or whatever that is, you know, but it's all that basic idea, again, that sort of outflowing versus interning. You know, Eric, I, I want to say love, I feel like can kind of get, you know, touchy feely,

Starting point is 00:20:09 like it's, it's squishy and whatever. And what does that really mean? And for me, what I've found, not just in the journey through 30 religions, but also in my battle with depression, which is ongoing, um, is that kindness, the actual actions of kindness is basically if love was to like roll up its sleeves and put on work boots, kindness is what would happen. Kindness is the action. It's like that outflowing of the, it's the verb, the outflowing of that love. And so back to the story of that church that was taking care of that little girl and her family. If they just sat around and felt, oh, I feel so loving towards them, that's not helping anyone. But with the kindness and the actual action and taking that and bringing you up and out, that is how you see it.

Starting point is 00:21:03 It's love made visible is, is when you're actually really being kind. That's what it is. And, um, and I have used, used kindness actually to battle depression, which we can get into if we have, if we have time. Um, but just the refocusing on it is there's so much power in it. Yes. And we do have time because that's what we're going to talk about now. Because that is a very interesting concept. And I, you know, tell me more. How do you use kindness to battle depression? Radically, Eric, I use it radically. So just a quick history, because I haven't written about depression yet in any, you know, book or anything. After my, my beautiful book came out,

Starting point is 00:21:46 I was doing all this good work in the world. And I got hit with a really life-threatening, debilitating depression. And the thing that I am probably most proud of in my life is that I, with the help of others, saved my own life because it was so dark, Eric. And so I have this huge passion for, you know, talking about how I handled it. I don't know if you ever handled depression, how I, you know, how I managed it. And, and, and one of the ways was that I, in conjunction with all of the other things, I mean, you know, you've got to see the doctors, you've got to do the therapy, like you've got to do all that work. But I was still had no will to wake up in the morning because I had absolutely no purpose. Like why? What's the point? You know? And that's a very dark place that people, even people who aren't depressed understand,

Starting point is 00:22:39 but people who are depressed know exactly what I'm talking about. Like, even if maybe you're not actively suicidal, there's no reason to even do anything. And it's very, very black. And so what I decided was from the literature, it showed that, that if you were kind, it was supposed to like lift your mood or something. And I was like, all right, well, whatever. I'll, I'll try it. And I ended up, it ended up being the difference maker for me between just barely surviving and being able to live again. Because what I did was I said, okay, it doesn't matter how I feel about how I'm waking up in the morning or whatever. My goal today is that I'm going to make a difference for someone else in some small way, at least. And that began to snowball. And I ended up doing this

Starting point is 00:23:31 project, Eric, where I did 5,000 random acts of kindness over a period of about 18 months. And that project gave me my life back. Because when you are able to get in touch with something that's bigger than yourself, because depression, as we talked about, it's like you're imploding. I mean, you're just closing in on yourself. And if you're able to pull up and out of that just enough to reach out to someone else to help them in some small way, I can't really explain what that alchemy is, but I know that it works because it gives back to you way more than you can possibly give. And so how I've used it now, and you know, I did all this 5,000 random acts of kindness, which I think it averaged out to like 10 a day or something like that. It became like this lens that I was looking at the world through.

Starting point is 00:24:23 So I wasn't waking up anymore. Like there's no reason for me to live. It was like, okay, there's at least a reason for me to help somebody else today. And that actually turned into, like I said, getting my will to live back and my life back. my life back. And I'm not going to say it's a, this is not a simple thing, but it is, it is doable. And I think a lot of times when you're in depression, you feel like there's nothing I can do. There's nothing, nothing, nothing I can do. Well, there is always something you can do. And that something is to find somebody else who needs help and help them. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

Starting point is 00:26:04 We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

Starting point is 00:26:20 His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's gonna drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all.

Starting point is 00:26:32 Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead.

Starting point is 00:26:48 It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 5,000 is a lot. An average of 10 a day is a lot. Let's just start with one. Yeah, well, no, I'm not even overwhelmed by the number of them so much as how you found them and what you chose. Because I think that's, at least for me, I kind of get stuck there sometimes. I kind of just, I'm going through my day and I've got this to do and that to do. And, and, you know, there are obvious examples for me of where I, where I do that, but. But finding the random part or the non-obvious acts of kindness is always a little bit of a challenge. And so, you know, tell me about some of the ones that were your favorites to do or some go-tos that you would be able to pull out and go, oh, boy, today's a—I haven't got much today, but I can do this.

Starting point is 00:27:43 I'm going to tell you a story, Eric, that I have not told on anything anywhere. Okay. So this year, I went through the depression I told you about, the major depression, several years ago and recovered from that, mostly. It's still a challenge, but I was really doing pretty well. And then within this last calendar year, I was pregnant twice and had two miscarriages. I'm sorry. Thank you. And I also had to have surgery because of it. And it was just a tremendously dark time. And because I was pregnant, I got off antidepressants. And because of that,

Starting point is 00:28:18 all I ended up in as bad of a state as I had been like four years ago. And I was set to talk about overcoming depression with kindness at a church. And it was my 37th birthday. And I realized I was, this was, it was like on a Wednesday. And I was like, I am going to have to either cancel this because I'm so deep in this depression, or I'm going to have to actually do it again. Like really do it right now today. I've got to do it. It's one or the other. I mean, they're going to cancel it because I'm not living it or I'm going to like literally practice what

Starting point is 00:28:52 I'm about to preach. So what I did is I thought, who else in this vicinity in the city is struggling in the same ways that I am? And how am I feeling? I'm feeling so sad. I'm feeling a tremendous amount of grief. I am depressed. I am, you know, broken. Like my body is not working right. I'm angry. Who else is feeling this way? And I thought of the hospital at the top of my hill. Right, right. That has thousands of people in it that are feeling that way. Okay. And so I thought, all right, so why don't I just go to the hospital and I'm just going to write notes and I'm going to leave them around just notes of encouragement, you know, quotes, um, whatever. And so I packed up my stationery, I walked up to the hospital and I,

Starting point is 00:29:38 um, I just, that's what I started doing. I had some post-its, I put stuff in the, in the bathrooms, I put like affirmations of, um, you know, like prayers, like non-religious prayers, but just in places where people would find them. Because if you're in a hospital, you know, chances are you're either visiting someone and you're having a hard time or you yourself are having a hard time. And so here I am being this like bandit of kindness. And remember, I'm super depressed and very grief stricken. And I felt ridiculous. I was like, this is not working. I'm gonna have to cancel my speech. But then I found the chapel in the hospital. And I walked in and I thought, Oh, my gosh, you know, anybody who's coming into this chapel to pray, they really need encouragement. So I

Starting point is 00:30:23 sat there and I wrote these notes. And as I did it, Eric, I felt this. It's not that the pain left, the depression didn't walk away. But what did change was the energy. Because what I was doing, I was like, I refuse to feel this fruitlessly. I will not feel fruitlessly. If I'm going to be in pain, I'm going to help somebody because of it. And so I sat there and I wrote these 30 notes. And with every one, it was like, I'm transforming this right now. I am taking this pain and I'm going to do something good in the world that wouldn't have existed if I was not in pain. And what I call that is the alchemy of kindness. It's like you take all of that energy and you got to do something with it.

Starting point is 00:31:04 So you can either self-destruct or you can let it come out through your hands and your heart and do good in the world. I love that story. It gets better. Okay. So I ended up as my being abandoned of kindness. That's how I ended up becoming a chaplain at the hospital because I ended up talking with the chaplain about what this ridiculous thing I was doing, writing all these cards. And that's how I ended up. So because of these, you know, this, this situation that I've been through in this

Starting point is 00:31:30 last year, I'm now sitting with people and, and, and holding space with them. And I never, ever would have done that. And I am not one of those people who's like, God gives you stuff to, so that you can become better or whatever. All I know is that whatever horrible thing is happening, depression included, that there is a method to be able to take that and turn the energy out so that it isn't imploding, that it's going out in a good way instead. I love that. I love that idea. I don't believe either that we get things given to us as an

Starting point is 00:32:05 opportunity to grow or it's just not my personal belief system that things happen that way. But I am a pretty firm believer that pain is an opportunity. Pain is 100% an opportunity. And I came home from the hospital the other day after, you know, just getting this privilege to sit with some people who were really struggling. And I said to my husband, I, I can't believe that this is what happened because of these miscarriages. Like I just am in awe that because I was willing to say I am so hurt, I'm so broken right now, who can I help that I get to do that work and, and be with those people. Like it's just, it's beautiful. And so my encouragement to anyone who is walking through something that's really dark right

Starting point is 00:32:51 now is number one, I wasn't just there. I'm still there some days, you know, but what you, but my encouragement is to reach out with that pain and make it into something beautiful. I mean, put out into the world, something that wouldn't exist if that pain and make it into something beautiful. I mean, put out into the world something that wouldn't exist if that pain didn't exist, because that's how you can turn it around. Actually, I'm going to read a paragraph from your book because this is a perfect time to do it. And I thought it was a beautiful paragraph. So I'm going to read this paragraph for your book and then we'll see where we go from there. This is why being broken is so beautiful.

Starting point is 00:33:22 Being broken means you have cracks for love and light to shine through, gaps for the Godiverse to burrow and bloom, space to move from the person you were to the person you will become. Being broken means healing can find you and hope can gush forth like a geyser, flooding every part of you until you can see why the breaking was necessary in the first place, to give birth to you. until you can see why the breaking was necessary in the first place, to give birth to you. So I rested my healed spirit and broken body in this deep pool of hope, choosing to be thankful for both what I had and what I lacked. Because real victories, real victories happen in weakness, where strength is closer than your very next breath. Thank you so much for reading that. You know, it's what no one tells you about writing

Starting point is 00:34:06 a memoir is sometimes you're like, did I really write that? Because it's so true. And that is exactly what I experienced just, you know, this year when I was so broken and so depressed and, and in this state of complete weakness and brokenness at the hospital. And, and it's the same principle that that's where the growth, that's where it is. That's where it all is, is this potential for beauty. Not that the brokenness itself is, but that, you know, we forget that a breakthrough requires a break. And I have to always remind myself that, that yes, yeah, I may be broken, but that's the

Starting point is 00:34:46 beginning. Right. When you're in a lot of pain, sometimes there's nothing worse than somebody telling you like, this is a growth experience. You're like, uh, screw you. Um, and yet I do find deep in pain that even if I can hold onto that a little bit, it's helpful, right? If I can give a little bit of, even if I don't know quite

Starting point is 00:35:05 how, but that like, this is gonna transform in some way that can be enough to hold on to just to know like, that's again, it's not a way out. And sometimes it's really annoying to hear, but I almost always find it also hopeful. I think it depends on the level of darkness that you're in because it can go either way for me. But one thing I can say that I can always tell myself, and I'd love to share this with our audience is that in that brokenness, whatever you're doing, you're still breathing, you're still walking around, you're still doing your dishes, you're still taking care of whatever it is that you have to take care of, that it's really brave to do those things. A lot of times I can't hold on to like this, I'm going to grow from this or whatever. All I can think about is like this moment

Starting point is 00:35:53 and to remind myself that I'm being really brave right now because this is really hard. And throughout, especially this last year of going through the miscarriages and the depression, what I said to myself over and over and over and over is I am encouraging. I am encouraging. I'm not just surviving. I am being very brave right now. And I'm encouraging. And I hope that that helps somebody out there,

Starting point is 00:36:17 because sometimes there's really not a lot that you can hang on to. But that is one truth. That is, if you are still breathing and you are still doing whatever it is you're doing, that you're being very brave. Let's talk a little bit more about that idea of couraging, which is, I'm assuming brave as a verb. Yeah, brave as a verb. And it's kind of like we talked about, you know, how kindness is like love, is like the verb of love. To me, cour encouraging is that it's that act of being brave. And, you know, we think of courage a lot of times with like the big C courage and somebody that's, you know, on a battlefield or someone that's saving a life or someone that's fill

Starting point is 00:36:54 in the blank. And that is absolutely courageous. And this does not take away from that. But I'm talking about courage with a little C, the everyday actions that it takes to walk through the hardest times in your life. So, you know, when no one tells you about your life falling apart is that, you know, you still have to wake up the next morning and you still have to put your feet on the floor and you got to put on your shoes and you have to take care of your children or the dog still needs walks. There are a million things that happen in the midst of that brokenness that

Starting point is 00:37:25 require some action. And when we're in it, we're doing these things and we're just looking in the mirror, just feeling like a failure and feeling just to complete despair. And when we look back from the future at this time, at the broken time, we're able to look back and go, oh my gosh, I was so brave that I kept going. And so my, I guess what I, what I hope people can hold onto if you're in that dark place, if you're in grief, if you're depression, it's illness, whatever it is that you're, you're walking out your courage in the moment, that's when you need it is to be able to look at yourself and be like, I don't feel brave, but I am brave right now. And, you know, I learned this, not just from the depression, Eric, but also, you know, from walking through chronic illness for a

Starting point is 00:38:09 decade, because I look back now and I'm like, how did I survive that? How did I keep going to the doctors? How, how did I do that? And that's actually where this encouraging idea came from, because when the book came out, all these women would come up to me and hug me and say, I was so brave. And I would look around and go, what, who, you know, and it took the future. It took the, you know, the, the lens of the future to be able to look back and say, oh my gosh, I was encouraging so hard when I was showing up to those churches and, and I was trying to work out my spirituality and I was showing up to those doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with me. It just was so brave.

Starting point is 00:38:46 And I don't want to ever discount my own bravery again when I'm broken. And I don't want other people to discount their bravery either. I think that's beautiful. And I think we do tend to discount a lot of what we do in life because we compare it against some grand ideal. a lot of what we do in life because we compare it against some grand ideal. And I think that in most lives, there are so many moments of bravery, of kindness, of decency, of love, of sacrifice woven into any life and that most of us just don't appreciate it about ourselves because we're either focused on the moments we're not that way,

Starting point is 00:39:25 or we're thinking we have to do something grand for it to matter. A hundred percent. You know, I think life is full of gravel and glitter, both things. And oftentimes it's like, what are you, what are you collecting? You know, what are you holding on to? Because you get both every day and you are both every day. And it's like, which one? Oh, that's kind of like the parable, Eric. That brings us full circle

Starting point is 00:39:52 and is a great place for us to wrap up this conversation. You and I are going to continue in a post-show conversation. And listeners, if you want to hear that, you can go to oneufeed.net slash join and you can become a member of our community. Get the joy of supporting the show here, post show conversations and other great things like ad free episodes.

Starting point is 00:40:13 Reba, thank you so much for coming on. And I really appreciate you sharing everything you did. Oh, thank you. And thank you to everyone who's listening. I'm just sending you the biggest love and hug through the microphone. Wonderful. Keep encouraging. Keep hug through the microphone. Wonderful. Keep encouraging. Keep encouraging.

Starting point is 00:40:27 All right. Bye. Just a reminder to check out Omega's wonderful new podcast, Dropping In. It's like attending Omega, which is one of the world's leading places to help people learn, grow, and get inspired. Longtime public radio journalist Karen Michael is there, and she is sitting down with these great teachers and giving you a little access to their courses and also getting inside their minds by doing intimate interviews. So again, I highly recommend checking out Omega's new podcast, Dropping In. It's available on Apple Podcasts and most popular podcast apps. Subscribe today. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast.

Starting point is 00:41:26 Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you?

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The One You Feed - Reba Riley on Post Traumatic Church Syndrome

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