Lee Camp
[00:00:00] I'm Lee C. Camp and this is No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life.
We're starting a new practice today with this particular podcast episode. Currently, we aim to produce 30, give or take, new episodes per year. And as you may or may not know, our episodes are aired weekly on public radio, which requires 52 broadcasts per year. So that leaves 22 open slots for pulling "best of" material from prior episodes. We thought you all - those who listen on podcast - might rather enjoy the same practice on the podcast as we have on the radio: something for you every week. So, here's one of our first "best of" episodes on the No Small Endeavor podcast... Enjoy!
Curt
When I'm anxious, I don't think as creatively.
Lee Camp
That's Dr. Curt Thompson, psychiatrist and widely read author in the [00:01:00] field of interpersonal neurobiology.
Curt
Paying attention to the body and what the body remembers gives us a way to actually explore what's really going on.
Lee Camp
Today we discuss Curt's work at the intersection of neurobiology and theology. We talk a great deal about the brain, the body, trauma, and anxiety.
Curt
If I'm less anxious, I'm more able to take the kind of risks that I need to take, creating more beauty for other people. Other people see this and are drawn to this.
Lee Camp
And we talk about what our brains actually want more than a Ferrari or chocolate or sex.
All this coming right up.
I'm Lee C. Camp. This is No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life.
Today's guest is Dr. Curt Thompson. Curt is a psychiatrist in private practice in Falls Church, Virginia, [00:02:00] and is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He's developed expertise in the field of interpersonal neurobiology and he does that work woven together with theology. Today we move in and out of especially two of his books, Anatomy of the Soul, and The Soul of Desire.
Welcome, Curt.
Curt
Lee, thank you so much. It's great to be part of this.
Lee Camp
It's great to have you here - here in Nashville!
Curt
Lee Camp
I, I want to begin today starting to talk a little bit about some of the themes you develop in Anatomy of the Soul.
Curt
Lee Camp
And even though my day job is teaching theology, I confess to a certain level of discomfort sometimes around various forms of pietism, or, or various exercises of piety. And I think it's due to the fact that - at least two things - one has been that I have seen that sometimes [00:03:00] manipulated in certain church contexts.
Curt
Lee Camp
That gives me a little caution.
Curt
Lee Camp
Curt
Lee Camp
And then I've also seen sometimes that some of that has appeared altogether unhelpful. As too simplistic sometimes, with regard to people who are honest about real problems and they get kind of pietistic - pray more, read more - which doesn't seem to get to the root of problems people may deal with.
Curt
Lee Camp
So I say all that to say, I think I have really appreciated in the last decade or so, as I've started realizing the ways in which scientific research and scientific study is finding ways to point to certain things about our experience.
Curt
Lee Camp
That I think, that's what theology at its best is trying to get at.
Curt
Lee Camp
And so I am grateful for the kind of social science, psychology, psychiatry around flourishing. And so helpful. And so, so let me begin with a place that a lot of [00:04:00] people may find an unusual place to start, and that is, tell us a bit about the reptilian, mammalian and neocortex in the brain. [Both laugh] Which I, you know, when I stumbled--
Curt
Welcome to church. [Laughs]
Lee Camp
Yeah, that's right. You know, when I st-- when I started realizing some of that years ago, I thought, this makes so much more sense of how I'm experiencing life. But tell us a little bit about those three parts of the brain and why that matters for the kind of stuff that you're doing.
Curt
You know, for a long time, in the field of psychiatry more formally, we were so enamored with the way that we think. Psychoanalysis in and of itself would be, you know, you'd lay on the couch and the, you know, the analyst would sit behind you.
The analyst wouldn't even be looking at you. They would just be taking notes and, like, recording all the things that you say.
Lee Camp
Curt
They're just recording, like, my cognitions. That's really what they're doing. They're not really paying much attention to the body. They're not paying attention to facial expressions, any tone of voice. We're just recording what you're saying now.
That's a little overly simplistic, but that's not far from the way you were really trained to think about what people are thinking. And so-- [00:05:00] but this kind of, I think all kind of is borne out of a modernist perspective of life. A way of we-- you know, in Descartes and we think therefore we are, and so forth and so on.
But it also meant that we really weren't paying that much attention in psychiatry to what, as it turns out, is the bulk of our actual human experience. And that bulk takes place in our bodies.
Lee Camp
Curt
And as we like to say, you know, shorthand, again, somewhat overly simplified, but not far away from what is generally accepted to be true, that first we sense we are creatures that first sense, and then we make sense of what we sense.
Lee Camp
Curt
The challenge, of course, is that we were, for a long time, paying a lot of attention to the way that we were making sense of things, but we weren't paying much attention to what we were actually sensing, in terms of, like, how our bodies actually incorporate that.
And so when we start to pay attention to things like my brainstem, [00:06:00] this reptilian brain, and then my limbic circuitry, the part of my brain out of which emerges the things that I sense and feel, if you will, only then to move forward to my neocortex and especially my prefrontal cortex. If I'm-- the more I pay attention to that, the more I start to be aware that so much of my life is actually my prefrontal cortex's work at regulating everything that is coming up from beneath it.
I, then, I, I can imagine that it's easy for me to think that, oh, what I think is really the essence of what is real in the world, without recognizing that the thoughts that I think are even ways for me to cope with and regulate all the things that I'm sensing and imaging and feeling long before, in brain time, long before it ever gets to the thinking process.
And so, if I'm not paying attention-- for instance, [00:07:00] I'm, I'm having an argument with my wife and I really think that it's about the thing we're talking about. Like the problem at the moment is the thing we're talking about, and I'm having the argument with the person that's standing, you know, before me in the kitchen.
And what I'm not recognizing is that, in the first place, the biggest problem is the fact that I'm uncomfortable, literally, with what I'm feeling in my body as we talk about the thing, whatever the topic is. That's one thing. They're like, the problem at the moment is, like, my heart rate is up, my breathing rate is up, I'm feeling tense in my hands, I feel my voice raising. All these things are taking place at the levels of my brain that are far more like dogs and reptiles...
Lee Camp
Curt
...than they are like human beings.
Lee Camp
Curt
I'm having to regulate all that because I think it's about this topic of, you know, you know, why we're so late to go to church.
Lee Camp
Curt
Well, I think that's, like, that's the issue.
Lee Camp
Curt
Right? [00:08:00] But not only that. But I'm also not aware of the fact that, if I grew up in my house, where in which someone was always making sure that you were getting to church on time and you're anxious if you are not getting to church on time-- I'm not aware that also what's happening in the room is that, I'm not just having a fight with my wife, I'm, like, having a fight with my parents. Like, these are, these are the people who are in the room even though they've been deceased forever.
Lee Camp
Uh, you, you, you even say at one point, approximately 80% of the emotional conflict between couples is rooted in events that predate the couple knowing each other.
Curt
When you control for significant trauma, right?
If you, if you control for things like sexual and physical abuse and chronic infidelity, the-- if you, if you control for those kinds of things, outside of that, those statistics are true, right? So the vast majority of what we're getting in fights about have to do with things that, you know, my-- has to do with my [00:09:00] wife's story before she knew me, and my story before I-- so the first two decades of our lives, really, are where so much of this foundation is laid.
So paying attention to the body and what the body remembers is helpful in this regard because then it gives us a way to actually explore, what's really going on in the room, in such a way that we can then make different kinds of choices instead of thinking, oh, this is really about being late to church.
Lee Camp
So, what other kind of significant constructs, just scientifically or with regard to the brain... give us one or two more that have been significant in you developing your work.
Curt
Well, I would say there, there would be a couple of ones. One would have to do - and I just referenced it in [00:10:00] some respects - is how we think about memory.
Most of us, when we think about, what are we remembering, we are thinking, oh, what did I, what did I have for breakfast this morning? And what did I, you know, where did we go on vacation last summer? All that is true. It is equally true that that is only a part of how we remember things.
We remember things generally in two categories. We like to talk about implicit memory and we talk about explicit memory. And the implicit memory and the neural tracks, those neurons, those brain systems that are responsible for implicitly remembering things, are present before birth and are actively engaged and they are recording things and they embed in my brain without me having to pay attention to anything.
They also include things like my perception, my emotion, my physicality. It primes me for things. And so, you know, if I grew up in a house where, you know, every time dad [00:11:00] comes home from work, things start to get really tense in the house, I will be primed at a certain time of night, I will be primed to remember that when the car door closes, I hear it outside, my chest gets tight, my heart rate goes up. I start to feel worried, as a kid.
For instance - this is a case of one of the examples that I gave in Anatomy of the Soul, where the couple's having the fight about things and in the middle of the fight he leaves the kitchen, goes out and gets in his car and takes off. And of course, this is not helpful for their relationship for him to just depart like this.
But what neither of them are recognizing in the moment, that even though he's-- thinks he's arguing with his wife, what he's really doing is trying to regulate his anger that was a product of what would happen when his alcoholic father would come home and things would get dangerous in the house. And one of the ways that he coped, even as an 8 and 10 year old would be, around the time his dad would be ready to come home from work, like he would get on his bicycle and take off, ride through the neighborhood, and that he would be called home for dinner. [00:12:00] But it would give him a break before he would have to deal with his dad. And by the time he was 16, he would find himself, oddly enough, driving his car around. And so when he would have his fight with his wife, he doesn't recognize that it's his dad who's standing behind her, even though he's not in the room.
But this is a way for people to remember things. So, neurally, when people start to be introduced to the fact that, oh my gosh, I'm actually having memory that is coming into the room, that I'm, I'm not even aware that that's what's happening - when people are educated about this, they discover that being aware of the mechanics of the mind actually give them more tools to be able to pause, take a breath, and then also recognize, my goodness, I have a lot of unfinished business that has to do with my anxiety, and my sadness, and perhaps even my anger about my dad that is completely separate from my marriage. And if I'm actually willing to take that on and do that work, it changes my marriage, even though I think I'm just having a fight with [00:13:00] my wife.
Lee Camp
Yeah, yeah.
So could you give at least brief indications of some of the ways that could help people begin to recognize that that's what's going on, and, or to expand that toolbox that you just alluded to?
Curt
Right. I mean, very, uh, one of the simple ways is that, when this discovery is made, it means, I'm now gonna recognize that the things that I'm sensing literally in my body when a topic comes up, if I'm going to then take some time and do some work, what we would say, I have to name the events in my life where I have unfinished gre-- grief that I have not processed, where I'm sad, where I'm angry, where I-- and I carry this memory with me.
If I do that work of naming my grief, of naming my sorrow, of naming my anger, and then doing the work of forgiveness that I have to do as part of that, where I do the work of coming to a place where I no longer hold my [00:14:00] father, my mother, responsible for my emotional wellbeing about this particular thing, I then create space for recognizing that when something happens in the room with my wife, I'm actually able in real time to recognize, oh, the thing I'm starting to feel isn't really about her. And I can then pause and put that to the side. And then be more curious about what is, what's, what's actually happening with my wife?
Can I be cur-- and say, Phyllis (my wife), tell me what's going on for you? And I, I actually have the capacity now to set aside, not bury it, but I can put it in a container right here beside me, and say, can you tell me more about what's happening with you? It changes the very structure of how she and I will relate if I'm taking care of that part of my story.
It also gives me a way to pay attention explicitly to my body and what my body does. So for instance, if I recognize that when this thing starts to come up, I start to get, like, [00:15:00] shorter breath and I get tense, I'm going to do the active practice of taking a couple of deep breaths. I'm going to, instead of continuing to stand while I'm having this conversation with my wife, I'm gonna say, can we please go over and sit down?
If I sit down, I'm gonna lower my heart rate. I'm gonna lower my blood pressure. I'm gonna give myself the capacity to physically be more at ease. When I'm more at ease, I'm sending very different nonverbal signals to my wife that enables her to be more at ease. But I'm also sending those same signals to myself, like I'm picking up, I'm sensing the message that I'm trying to send, both to her and to myself. I become more at ease. If I'm more at ease, I'm less anxious. I can then imagine differently.
When I'm anxious, I don't think as creatively. I don't imagine as empathically where the other person happens to be. When I'm in a different place physiologically, I can [00:16:00] do that and I'm, I'm in a better position to create, to, to make peace, literally, to be a peacemaker.
I'm, I'm much more prone to violence in my thoughts, in my words, my tone, when I'm more anxious.
Lee Camp
So you're, you're pointing, and you kind of say this explicitly in Anatomy of the Soul, that you're pointing us to the possibility then, for those memories, embodied memories, to re-narrate them, to change them in some regard.
Curt
Lee Camp
That was a, a few quotes here. Even though you cannot change the events of your story, you can change the way you experience your story.
Or elsewhere you say, changing our memories can rewire our future.
Curt
Lee Camp
You say, memory is always changing, and you say, your brain activity is taking place in the present moment. You have more power than you [00:17:00] thought. So talk to us more about that.
Curt
Well, I'll, I'll just, I'll give an example. My two parents were, like, really, in many respects, really beautiful people. And they were, I, I have no question about their devotion to me as their son, their love for me. I have no question about that. They demonstrated that in a number of different ways.
They were imperfect. One way that my dad was imperfect was that, as much as he showed great affection toward me, he was also given his story. He did not have the toolbox set to have and-- or be curious about having substantive conversations with his sons.
So I didn't really have any substantive conversations with my dad about the things of life - money, sex, women, career, any of those kinds of things. Not because he didn't care. Those weren't in his, like, skillset. But that had an impact on me.
In addition, I had a mom who was pretty anxious. Loved Jesus - she was the way that I got to Jesus. But also pretty anxious. So we [00:18:00] wanna make sure that we don't make Jesus angry.
[Lee laughs]
Right? So he he loves you. Just don't piss him off.
Lee Camp
Just don't piss him off. [Laughs]
Curt
Right, right, right, kind of thing. And of course, not that she would be necessarily aware of this, and actually until later years as we started to talk about this, and I, you know, I referenced some of this in the, in the introduction to Anatomy of the Soul, in my interaction with her.
But what, what this meant, for instance, was that, my dad, uh, was someone who you didn't really wanna make him angry. Louis Thompson and Jesus, these are the two people that you do not wanna make angry in your life. And it also meant then that because we didn't have substantive conversations, I didn't really get the opportunity to learn what to do when, when you were angry, and especially when you're angry at your parent, for your parent doing things in ways that were, you know, really not very helpful or unjust or whatever.
And so I grew up being afraid of anger. Not least of which, as I perceived, I like, I didn't want to make my dad mad. And this drives a lot of things. When, when [00:19:00] you're, when you're worried about somebody else being angry or you're worried about yourself being angry, you burn a lot of energy regulating and managing lots of stuff in the room to make sure that you don't piss anybody off.
Like, that's a lot of extra work that doesn't belong to you. And then the thing is, like, you still can't avoid it. Like, it doesn't guarantee it. And at some point, like, you are gonna get angry and, and, and then if I get angry, I just, I feel guilty about it.
So, I just feel like the way I tell my story and my, and, and my memory of my growing up years, typically it would be, if I get angry, uh, you know, the first thing that I think is like, there's something wrong with me for being angry in the first place.
Until, I had the opportunity to do some work with a psychiatrist who was asking me questions that I had never been asked before. And he's asking me questions about my relationship with my mom and my dad. I'm like, huh. And he's saying like, what kind of conversations did you have with your dad and what was it like for you to be angry with your dad?
I'm like, uh... as it turns out, I wasn't allowed to be angry in my house. [00:20:00] And I'll never, you know, I'll never forget when he says, wow, that must have been hard. And it's like, you don't really know how hard it's been until somebody reaches into your soul and pulls something out that they can see, that you can't even see about yourself.
And for the very first time, like, oh, you start to imagine that your story wasn't just one in which, well, you weren't working hard enough to be pleasing enough to Jesus, such that you, you're now like, oh my gosh, like I was actually trained to not pay attention to important parts of my emotional life's development.
That's a very different story. And that is also a story in which you suddenly discover, oh, there are some things about your [00:21:00] parents that you really didn't like. But you're also being given permission to be angry at your parents for the first time, which of course is really hard 'cause I've practiced not being allowed to be angry.
And so at the same time that you're hearing these new things that are really resonant with what your experience really was, you also have to fight through all of the barriers that, that I have constructed. The barriers that kept me from being aware of my own story as it much more truly was. And that's got its own set of conflicts.
And so, my therapist was having to help me kind of sit with the, the conflicts that I was now having to, like, work through, because I was opening all these doors into my house, into these rooms…
Lee Camp
Curt
Lee Camp
Curt
But what this means ultimately, is that I learned to tell a different story. And part of the story that I learned to [00:22:00] tell that's really different is, oh, my past was not one in which, well, when I was angry, it was just because I wasn't working hard enough to be a good enough Jesus follower.
Lee Camp
Curt
It was like, oh my gosh, I wasn't being angry because I was trained not to be, because other people in the house were afraid of it. And that also means, like, you actually get to be angry. And you get to learn how to be angry and learn that your anger actually serves a good purpose, both for you and actually for the other people that you're angry at.
Lee Camp
Curt
That's a very different story than I grew up with, and it's also a story in which, as I live into it, and even to this day, I'm having to grow in that area. Even to this day, I, I'm not working nearly as hard to contain all that stuff now, which means that is energy that I now have available to create beauty and goodness in the world that heretofore, I didn't have access to 'cause it was too bound up with me having to keep all that stuff contained.
Lee Camp
Yeah.
I think that notion of paying attention to my body, you know, I, I probably didn't really start paying attention [00:23:00] to that till, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago.
I remember one day I was really worked up about something emotionally. I don't, I don't even remember what it was now, but I called a mentor friend of mine and he said, he said, well, first thing I have to say is, you need to breathe.
Curt
Lee Camp
And I was like, that's what you've got for me, to breathe? [Curt laughs]
Um...
Curt
Lee Camp
But then over time I've realized, no, that was like really great advice, you know?
Curt
Lee Camp
And then, you know, learning that that can interrupt the fight or flight stuff in our bodies and so forth, by taking deep breaths and lying down on my back and taking deep breaths, and, and then in time discovering meditation has helped me immensely in not having the monkey brain and it running all over the place.
Curt
Lee Camp
But I'm having to do stuff through my body...
Curt
Lee Camp
...rather than trying to think myself into a solution, right?
Curt
Right. Now it is true that we do have to use our thinking brain to remind us to breathe. So it's not like my thinking [00:24:00] brain is offline completely. Like I, I do have to use my imagining, planning brain, the part of my brain that can be aware of potential consequences if I choose one path versus if I choose another path.
And that part of my brain then can help me recognize, oh, I now need to pause my thinking brain and enter into my body, and I can come back to my thinking brain and be in a better place to do so once my body has been calmed.
Lee Camp
You're listening to No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life.
If you've not yet done so, go out and subscribe today wherever you get your favorite podcasts. There you can find show notes, plus a PDF of my extensive interview notes including material not found in this episode, and a complete transcript of this episode.
I do love hearing [00:25:00] from you. Tell us what you're reading, who you're paying attention to, or send us feedback about today's episode. You can reach me at lee@nosmallendeavor.com.
This is our interview with Dr. Curt Thompson. Coming up, we'll hear more about the significance of connection and friendship, and the challenges of living well in a culture of instant gratification. And we'll hear what our brains actually want more than a Ferrari or chocolate or sex.
Part two, in just a moment.
Welcome back to No Small Endeavor and our interview with Dr. Curt Thompson. Another major topic in Anatomy of the Soul - you say there's something each of us wants more than-- the context was, more than chocolate, the Ferrari, sex. And you say, and that is connection.
Curt
Lee Camp
Describe that for us in terms of mind, and or neuroscience.
What, what does that mean from those disciplines, this [00:26:00] desire for connection?
Curt
Well, we'll start with observable data. When a newborn comes into the world-- We'll just start with this one piece. So, when a newborn comes into the world, uh, on average, about 15-20% of their neural load, of the neurons that are in their brain, are doing the kind of work that would enable that newborn to remain alive. About 15% of the brain is.
The other 80-85% of the brain, uh, of those neural networks are really waiting, in order for them to eventually do what they need to do. They're waiting for human interaction. They need the interaction with another brain in order for them to be at ease. In order for them to be able to ask eventually for what they want, and so forth and so on.
So much of our brain's activity and its capacity eventually to become what we call in our field, integrated. This sense of [00:27:00] connecting to one another depends a great deal upon my brain, being able to connect with somebody else's brain, that someone else sees me.
We see within hours of a newborn coming into the world, they notice someone looking at them. And as we like to say, every baby comes into the world looking for someone looking for her, looking for someone looking for him, and that never stops.
The neural development itself depends upon this regulatory capacity that only comes to a newborn or infant from an outside brain. We like to say that the most effective way in which human beings operate in the world is related to the degree to which I can regulate my affect, I can regulate my emotional highs and lows. In some respects, we say that's, that's kind of like what we're doing all the time. I'm regulating my emotional tone.
Now, I do so through lots of different mechanisms, but that's exactly, that's a large part of what my [00:28:00] behavioral activity is about. If I'm left on my own to do this, to figure this out by myself, you-- well, one can imagine that if you just leave a newborn there on the tray in the delivery room, like, they're not gonna survive.
That's kind of a motif for what it's like for us when we become isolated later on as human beings. If I'm left isolated, my brain doesn't have access to someone else's mind that can enable me to what we would call co-regulate. I'm much more effectively able to regulate my emotional tone through the experience of co-regulation that someone else provides for me.
When I'm left by myself and I'm in distress, I will do whatever I can to reduce that distress as quickly as possible. That's what the brain will do. If I have a test tomorrow and I'm anxious about it, 'cause there's some stuff I gotta work on, it's far easier for me to just go play a video game. And my distress is [00:29:00] immediately reduced.
Now, tomorrow is a different story. But my brain will look for expeditious ways to reduce its distress. But if I call my friend and I say, hey, could we study tonight for this test tomorrow, in the short run, that takes more energy, it takes more effort, all kinds of things. But in the long run, I learned that I can do hard things if I'm helped by doing it with someone else.
That's the basic motif for what we do with everything in life. It also means that there is a certain kind of work that I have to do to bring this to bear. And so this notion of being-- what we like to say in our work is being seen, soothed, safe, and secure. Those are, that's a, kind of a four word, kind of, idea that was first coined by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, in some of their work. We like for-- we have to be [00:30:00] seen, by someone else. Literally, a newborn has to be seen by the people in the delivery room.
We have to be soothed, because most of, so much of what our, what we long for from someone else-- I have a longing, I have a need. I want to be s-- I want that need to be soothed. Now sometimes that need is really, like, it feels like I'm in crisis, right? I'm in pain. I have, I'm-- there's an emergency. But sometimes I'm just sad. And you, I, I get a call from my friend Lee. I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better after call. Like, so I'm, there's a soothing that takes place. A whole range of ways in which we're soothed.
We're then made to feel safe. What I mean by safe is, I have to learn that I live in a world that is at least predictable enough. That I can be in my house as a, as a 2 year old, and I can run around and I can be okay. Now, I might slip and fall and hurt myself, but that's not because the house itself is unsafe. My parents do a good job of protecting me from things on the outside of my skin that [00:31:00] might be dangerous. That's important. But the other element of safety that's crucially important, is that my parents are also having to protect me from myself. My own impulsivity, my own tendency to run into the street when the cars are coming. And so there is the element of restraint that I have to develop that is also part of safety. They protect me from the outside. They also protect me from the inside. And that's the element in our culture that in many respects has not received probably nearly as much attention, which is where we get into addiction and a whole range of other things that we do.
But if that's the case - if I'm seen soothed and safe - it then leads me to go on to be secure. And the way I use that word is that it leads me to then go on and take risks that are proper. And those risks might mean I make mistakes. I might get my knee skinned or my nose bloodied. I might get my feelings hurt. But when I do, I have a place to return to, which I will be [00:32:00] seen, soothed, and safe.
All of that is a process that is highly correlated with the neural integration within the brain that runs from the brainstem to the limbic circuitry to the prefrontal cortex.
It also is highly correlated with the development of what we call secure attachment. And the research in attachment studies is also something that demonstrates that there is extraordinarily high correlation between the development of secure attachment and the capacity of a person's prefrontal cortex to enter into its proper function. There are nine different functions to the prefrontal cortex, that when you don't have secure attachment, this whole notion of being known, being seen, being loved, this co-regulatory process, when I don't have that, there are certain features of my middle prefrontal cortex that just don't get off the ground very well.
Lee Camp
So the... you say something, like, about friendship [00:33:00] in Soul of Desire... this is actually language from Aristotle and Aquinas, you know, that friendship was kind of seen with them as kind of a fundamental moral practice.
Curt
Lee Camp
Um, but you lament, it seemed like, in Soul of Desire, that perhaps this has been eclipsed by the ways we've thought about marriage as the primary place where, where it kind, it can kind of eclipse the way in which we can be connected in ways that can fill all that kind of stuff out that you were talking about.
Curt
Lee Camp
Curt
The, the philosopher of science, Michael Polanyi once famously said, uh, there's no such thing as science. There are only scientists.
Lee Camp
Curt
Lee Camp
I've never, I've never heard that line from Polanyi.
Curt
Yeah. I find it to be of great comfort actually, for me. Because I think we're, it's very easy for us to say, science says this, neuroscience says that, and we're really talking about people who are saying things about the data that they observe, and then we have to decide if we're willing to trust the people who are telling us about their observations. And where the-- where that gets to that is, is really, [00:34:00] you know, Polanyi's astute observations about the nature of culture and how we, we, we live in a culture that is increasingly individualistic, increasingly isolated.
And then with Covid, we have kind of, like, this exclamation point that not so much causes it, but like really pulls the curtain back and reveals how isolated we've been. And what that means is that even relationships... we end up placing lots of weight, lots of responsibility on certain individual relational entities, including marriage.
Culturally, we've kind of come to a place where friendship itself has become so anemic.
If I were to pull a hundred people and ask them, how many of you can give me the names of 3 people who if I were to ask them, they could tell me every single thing there is to know about you? [00:35:00] I'm guessing less, fewer than 20 would be able to tell me that. And by that, I don't just mean your demographics or your vital statistics.
I mean, they would know your inner life.
These relationships are not highly valued. We don't train people to-- this is not a virtue that we talk about as much. And so, we've kind of lost track of the fact that we-- about how much pressure we're putting on relationships. We have a popular music industry that has, for the last 70 years, kind of increasingly, kind of just named those kinds of diatic relationships, whether now it's in marriage or not, as long as it's kind of like, you know, circling around the sexual hub, we've just put a lot of pressure on those.
And you, you map onto that our devices that make it increasingly [00:36:00] possible for us to think that we're having relationships with people with whom we actually don't. We become less and less able to know how to do friendship.
And the less able we are to do that, the more pressure gets applied to things like marriage. And so it becomes this, uh, law of diminishing returns on both sides of that equation. Friendship becomes increasingly less and less well-developed. Marriage has more and more and more pressure applied to it, that it was never intended to bear.
And I think that one of the things about what our neuroscience studies, and the, the people that, that are talking about it, uh, demonstrate is that our capacity to build friendships - friendships that are deeply connected, even with people of the opposite sex - is a far more significant feature of what it means for us to flourish, a far more necessary hard deck.
I'm only gonna be married to one person, but like if I have, like, if I have 6 or [00:37:00] 8 really good friends, that's a far wider net on which I can stand in order for me to then create beauty and goodness in the world.
Lee Camp
Yeah.
You alluded to friendship between men and women, and in Soul of Desire you talk about kind of reframing the way we think about even the notion of attraction, changing the narrative, perhaps, around the notion of attraction. But would you talk to us about that a bit?
Curt
Yeah.
Well, again, I think it's easy for us to imagine if I'm, if I have attraction to another person, my understanding of what that even means is something that has been shaped in culture for the last 500 years.
Lee Camp
That you're bringing a cultural construct to your own interpretation of what you're experiencing.
Curt
Exactly. Exactly. And that cultural context means that if I'm with someone with whom, to whom I'm attracted, in our current cultural moment, it's all kind of understood and shaped through the lens of sex, and through [00:38:00] genital sex. So there's the sense in which, if I'm attracted to this person, not just physically, but like emotionally, I love being-- especially someone who's of the opposite sex, and they really care for me, love me, and so forth, you know, I might find myself, of course, being sexually attracted to them. But it's easy for me to just imagine like, that's what this is really about. And what I'm missing is this additional sense of being seen by this person, of being loved by this person in ways that are far beyond sex.
With, with sex, you know, the, the upshot is orgasm. But as we know, even, even with sexuality, the way God has created us, sexuality has a built in rate-limiting step. It's rate-limiting. It's just like in chemistry. Like, you can't just have, like, an ongoing eternal orgasm, like for the next three months. [Lee laughs] I'm just, like, living.
You know, and the thing is, like, I'd never, I, I, I'd starve to [00:39:00] death because I wouldn't get anything else done, 'cause I'd be just too busy being orgasmic over the next, over 3-- that's a long time. Like, I'd be like, I, I, I'd have to have like a 3-month sabbatical just from that, just cause I'd be so worn out for being exhausted from that.
But the thing is, like, that's not how it works, right? And you, it's, and, and given that it's rate-limiting, you, then like, oh, what's, what's left? Like, what do we then have to do afterwards? Oh, the thing that, like, still remains, even after orgasm is gone, is like, I still long to be seen, soothed, safe, secure. I long for that.
And you know, we, we know, we who are married, who are having, you know, and even those who aren't, who have sex with their partner, and you know, you can, you can have sex and it's been wonderful. And like 20 minutes later you're in the middle of a fight. Because, when we talk about Ecclesiastes, this notion of, He's put eternity in their hearts.
This notion of, I, my, the deep-- like he didn't, it didn't say, like, He put sexual organs in their hearts. He put orgasm in their hearts. That's not what the text reads. [00:40:00] The text reads that there's something far bigger, far deeper, far grander than that. But we live in a world that repeatedly tells us, no, that's really as big and as grand as it gets, is like having that kind of holy grail. And so it's, it is crucial for us to actually practice turning our attention toward what the texts actually say the bigger grander story really is.
And I think that we find that when we are able to give ourselves a break from all the messaging, that we find that our minds actually open up to beauty and goodness in ways that we begin to really get, oh my gosh, sex is a beautiful thing, but it's not The Thing. But it's really difficult for me to believe that or imagine that when that is the food that I'm taking in with nearly every breath of my life.[00:41:00]
Lee Camp
So in just the few minutes we have left, if there are folks who've listened to what you've shared today, this sort of notion of, yeah, I can see there are, there are places I, I would like to go towards what Curt is describing - the healthy parts of what Curt is describing. But this is new to them.
What sorts of kind of initial, starting, practical steps, exercises, endeavors would you suggest that people consider?
Curt
Well, you know, I, I, I would say, the first thing that I would wanna say, is that if you really want to begin the journey [00:42:00] of living into this life of flourishing, that you're really promoting with the podcast and with the show, I think, you know, the words of Jesus come to mind when he says, the gate is narrow, and the path is narrow, to life. Which indicates from the very beginning that this is not easy to do. If I really wanna get in shape, I'm not gonna get in shape in 5 minutes. I'm gonna get in shape over a long period of time.
And so that's the one thing that I wanna say, because people can become quickly and easily discouraged when they hear the next thing that I would want to say, about like, well, what, what are some practical things that we can do? I mean at the, at, you know, at the risk of, of sounding shamelessly self-promotional, I mean, one thing that you can do is like, you can read some of the stuff that I've written, some of the stuff that other people have written, that would require actually some, some work at your doing some exploring about being-- and, and being curious [00:43:00] about the nature of how you've been living your life.
It's not just a matter of like, oh, I've, I, I like this life that they're talking about. I'll just go do that. It will also include-- it, it requires your not doing things that you are deeply primed toward doing. We are far more addicted to our lives and we know that we are. I, I tell people, look-- I, you know, one of the things that happens in our office is that people frequently come in, basically without knowing that this is what they're saying, which is, I really want to feel better. I just don't wanna change my life.
Lee Camp
Curt
That's really what they... can you please help me feel better? But please don't ask me to do anything to change. And it's hard, but it is worth it.
I would also say, doing this together with someone else is, is important. So if you have one friend, uh, or two friends that you would say, look, I'd like to begin to practice telling our stories to each other. That's one thing. Do you have one friend or [00:44:00] maybe two friends you'd say, like, I wanna, I wanna get together with these folks and I want to tell them what I can tell them about my story.
Now, what's difficult is like how we were saying earlier, like, I have a particular story that I tell, at least that I thought that was my story until someone starts to ask me questions. And once they start to ask me questions, I realize, oh my gosh. Like, there is a completely other set of stories that are true about me that I didn't know that I didn't know.
Lee Camp
And it's, and it's tricky too because in this, in terms of not everybody can handle receiving our stories, right? And it's, it's finding people who are trustworthy, honoring of vulnerability, and, and have a certain maturity themselves.
Curt
Lee Camp
Curt
It is tricky. And I, and I would say, like, the other thing too that can get discouraging, people-- you know, we, we talk about some of the work that we do in these, what we call confessional communities, in our practice, and that we're trying to help export into the, you know, the general lay community.
And people will often say, well, where can I get one? Where can I, where, where, where is there one that I can join? And I say, like, well, it's actually more the question of where, [00:45:00] how, how can I start one? Which is a far harder thing to consider doing. And then I say, Paul Borgman uh, this professor of literature at Gordon College, wrote this book called Genesis: The Story We Haven't Heard.
And he teaches Genesis, or taught Genesis when he did, as a literature course. And he look-- and he looks at, in his book, the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, and he writes, "Who knows how many people God asked to go with Him to Canaan before Abraham finally agreed". We don't know because there's no story there.
Jesus comes then, later, and asks disciples, and we know that there were people that he asked who chose not to go with him. I wanna say, like, Jesus knows how hard this is. God knows that this is, that this is a difficult endeavor. And you might ask people who are like, this sounds crazy. I don't wanna have anything to do with this.
I would wanna say, keep asking to do that kind of work. There are other things that can prime you for this. The [00:46:00] pastor John Mark Comer, out of Portland, is doing-- their, their, their work, their group is doing a lot of work on the disciplines of the, of the spiritual life that I think that are really helpful in–
Lee Camp
And I'll just note for listeners, we have a, a really great, long interview with John Mark about a lot of that stuff on our podcast.
Curt
And I think that those kinds of practices are ones that prime us to enter into this kind of new storytelling work that we can begin to do. But I think it, it, it's also, I, I would wanna highlight that we're not just telling stories just to feel better.
We are telling stories differently in order for us to be more open to what the Spirit wants to do with us in bringing the kingdom of God to come in forms of justice, in forms of peace.
This isn't just about having a flourishing life that gets me the kind of house and car and family that I [00:47:00] want. This is about creating justice and beauty and goodness in the world.
Lee Camp
Yeah, it seems like exercises like this can be a form of self-indulgence, but that's not the point, when done well, right?
Curt
That's right. Yeah, that's right.
Lee Camp
Thank you, Curt, for your great time with us today. We're very grateful for you to come be with us.
Curt
Always a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
Lee Camp
Thank you.
You've been listening to No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life. This has been our second episode with Dr. Curt Thompson, talking today especially about his two books, Anatomy of the Soul, as well as The Soul of Desire.
Again, make sure you go subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts, to make sure you don't miss a single episode.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Lilly Endowment Incorporated, a private philanthropic foundation supporting the causes of community development, education, and [00:48:00] religion, and the support of the John Templeton Foundation, whose vision is to become a global catalyst for discoveries that contribute to human flourishing.
If you've got feedback, we'd love to hear from you. Email us. feedback@nosmallendeavor.com.
Alright, thanks to all the stellar team that makes this podcast possible. Executive producer and manager Christie Bragg of Bragg Management. Executive producer Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. Associate producer Sophie Byard and Tom Anderson. Our music director Tim Lauer. Sound design and mixing by Cariad Harmon. Music beds by Tim Lauer and Blue Dot Sessions.
Thanks for listening. I'm Lee C. Camp.
No Small Endeavor is a production of Tokens Media, LLC and Great Feeling Studios.