When people leave high-cont…

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• 🤔 A thought I’m processing [on cultures of control]

• 💕 A thought I’m loving on [the grieving brain]

• 🗳️ A poll [on areas of gratitude we neglect]

• 🔗 Some link love

• 📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts

• July’s free resource: [a gratitude mind-map exercise]

🤔 A thought I’m processing [on cultures of control]

This newsletter comes to you from San Diego, where I am preparing to present the second half of my research on cultures of control. And I’ll give you the Cliffsnotes: my research suggests that it is possible that abuse can be systematized and distributed with or without intention.

Here’s what I mean: if Lead Pastor A is abusive and controlling, that control will be implemented through cultural elements. Meaning - the church’s processes and systems and language and stories all will carry the fingerprints of that spiritual coercion. And these systems/processes will carry that coercion into every room - even rooms that Lead Pastor A isn’t in.

So now Pastor B - who isn’t abusive in the slightest- implements the system they are taught to implement, with no intent to harm. But the person is harmed. Just as if they were in the same room as Pastor A.

To me - this is such a significant piece of information that needs to be understood by churches and victims alike (and I’ll continue to unpack the implications this month!)

❤️ A thought I’m loving on [the grieving brain]

I’ve been loving the work of Mary-Frances O’Connor, who studies the neuroscience of grief. One of the factors she identifies is our brains’ map-making capacity. Our brain is always creating internal maps so we can constantly monitor where things (and people) are, and how to find them.

“If I ask you right now where your boyfriend or girlfriend is, or where you would go to pick up your children, you probably have a pretty good idea of how to locate them. We use brain maps to find our loved ones, to predict where they are, and to search for them when they are gone. A key problem in grief is that there is a mismatch between the virtual map we always use to find our loved ones, and the rea

lity, after they die, that they can no longer be found in the dimensions of space and time. The unlikely situation that they are not on the map at all, the alarm and confusion that this causes, is one reason grief overwhelms us.”

🗳️ A poll on [gratitude]

Last month I asked what areas of need we were feeling out there, and people commented they were feeling a need for a sense of gratitude, so I created this month’s free resource around this idea. It’s a tool to help you go a little deeper into gratitude.

As I was creating it, I was thinking about how easy it is for me to neglect certain areas of gratitude, and it got me thinking:

🔗 Some links for July

Here are some links I’ve been loving this month:

• A ‘Joyful’ July Challenge

• A salad I want to make

• Adult friendship map

• Show I loved in June

• Most played song in June

📅 What you missed in June

Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them and support my research!)

• How do we know what is true? - how do we know what the ‘right’ theology is?

• The real problem with the SBC - It’s not about beliefs; it’s about priorities

• Some thoughts on happiness, gratitude and some songs that give sunny vibes

🆓 July Free Resource | A gratitude mind map

The free resource for July is below (for paid subscribers!).

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How do we know what is true?

This is a question best not to ask too early in the process of…

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But here’s the truth that’s more complicated than most want to know: I’…

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Here’s what we’ve got in store for this Sunny June newsletter:

• 🤔 A thought I’m processing [on finding joy in my work]

• 💕 A thought I’m loving on [hardwiring happiness]

• 🗳️ A poll [on areas of stress]

• 🔗 Some link love [sun-shiney things]

• 📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts

• June’s free resource: [a journal/prayer guide for June]

🤔 A thought I’m processing [on finding joy in my work]

It’s been a little hectic over here. Just a lot going on. And I’m noticing an uptick in stress that comes from trying to keep up with everything.

One of my least favorite things about this kind of stress is that it makes me wish away my life. I just want to get through the next big project and rest. I’m teaching at church this Sunday, so - get through that, and then there is a reset. I’m working on a Dopamine Detox cohort launching tomorrow (sign up here if you wanna join us), so - as soon as I get through that I can take a breath. I’m prepping a few different Psychology classes for a local college I teach at, and - if I can just get a bit more done I’ll be okay.

The wild thing is - unless I take a breath and pause - I might miss a radical reality.

These three activities are dreams come true. Like absolute dreams.

If you hit rewind a few years on my life, you’d find a person who struggles to get out of bed, never imagines teaching the bible again, and can’t imagine going back to school, and hasn’t really even heard of dopamine.

And if you told her about these opportunities coming her way, she would have been absolutely delighted.

This weekend, as an exercise in a book I’m reading (more below), I took a pause and just sat in it for a minute. Taking it all in - sitting in gratitude for this strange, wild existence we partake in as humans.

The goal of this kind of ‘happiness’ practice is not to drown out or repress the very real stress of trying to do all this in a chronic-illness body. But, to make sure the very real stress of trying to do all this in a chronic-illness body doesn’t drown out the marvelous miracle of my life.

So, this week has already been filled with more joy and excitement and less stress and fear. And I’ll take it.

P.S. If you want some of the prompts I’ve been working through, I’ve created a prayer/journal guide for June that you can download at the bottom of this email.

❤️ A thought I’m loving on [hardwiring happiness]

The book referenced above is Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson. He encourages us to balance out our negativity bias (that all humans have) by intentionally noticing the magical and wonderful things in the world around us, which is just full of tiny and huge good things.

“All this good means that each day is like a winding path strewn with pearls and diamonds, emeralds and rubies, each one an opportunity for a postive experience. Unfortunatly most poeple hurry by without noticing them. And even when they do see a jewel, they rarely feel anything about it. Jewel after jewel left behind, lost forever.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. With a little intention and skill, you can take some seconds here and there each day to weave a handful of these jewels into the fabric of your brain, your being, and your life. Little moments of ease, pleasure, calm, determination, joy, insight, and caring becoming neural structure.”

🗳️ A poll on [what gets in the way of happiness]

Let’s start with this recap: in last month’s poll I asked folks what they wanted more of in their relationships, and the majority said ‘fun’! I was surprised, but then I was also like ‘that makes sense.’ So take this as your cue to text some friends and get a game night on the books!

This month’s poll comes from this concept that there are really three core areas of our lives that sabotage our happiness: our sense of safety, our sense of satisfaction, and our sense of connection. What do you need right now in order to settle into joy?

🔗 Some links to songs that give me good vibes

Here are some links to songs that give me some sunny vibes. They’re all different genres, and I cannot explain to you why they give me the particular vibes identified below. But it is what it is.

• A little musical energy - for believing in yourself vibes

• Some pop - that gives wrapping up your workday vibes

• Very repetitive - but gives those nice road trip vibes

• Some country vibes - for those days when you can’t find the sunny

• What is this genre? Pop-ish-folk? - sunny vibes for the end of the world

• Countryish - I think this is a getting your day going vibe

📅 What you missed in May

Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them and support my research!)

• The Danger in the Parable of the Prodigal Son

• On Pastors who ‘didn’t mean to’ - One of the things I get pushback on most often in my spiritual abuse research

• On forgetting - a little love letter to the amazing-ness of our bodies

• Some thoughts (& a worksheet) to help you reflect on the state of your friendships

🆓 June Free Resource | some prayer prompts to cultivate joy and gratitude

The free resource for June is below (for paid subscribers!).

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One is around the findings from my research that …

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I’m feeling a little reflective today. A little in awe of how little we know about the human brain. And how disrespectful we often are towards the complex machinery of our bodies.

Jus…

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I have decided May is going to be the friendship month, so buckle up.

• 🤔 A thought I’m processing [on the importance of friendship]

• 💕 A thought I’m loving on [different kinds of friends]

• 🗳️ A poll [on friendship and loneliness]

• 🔗 Some link love [focused on making friends as an adult]

• 📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts

• May’s free resource: [a friendship audit]

🤔 A thought I’m processing [on the importance of friendship]

This weekend, I’m giving a message about single women, and the way that so many of the systems (specifically in the church) unintentionally isolate and marginalize single women. The problem with systems is that they do more than just neglect certain demographics; they train our brains on what is ‘normal’ and who is valuable. Even systems created with the best of intentions - designed around the majority - can end up, over time, stripping dignity from those outside the majority.

And single women in the church have been saying this for years.

As I was prepping this message, I was reflecting on what drew me to my current church: a core value of significant friendship. When I saw those words on their home page back in 2020, and looked through their gatherings and events and small groups, I realized I’d found a church that values relationships in all their forms. It doesn’t treat romantic love as if it is somehow more sacred than friendship. And it doesn’t assume that adults don’t need friends because they have partners.

More and more, I hear language that implies your partner can be all things to you - all the friends you need bundled up in one person - but that isn’t how life works. A diverse and plural group of friends is one of the greatest gifts a human can have.

And that’s why this month’s entire newsletter is around friendship.

(And the free resource for paid subscribers is a friendship audit I made to help you reflect on the energy you are getting from your relationships and the level of investment you’re experiencing.)

❤️ A thought I’m loving on [different kinds of friends]

Chronic illness aside, I am generally an initiator in friendships, and I know how that feels. More than once, I have assumed that other people’s inability to initiate means they do not value my friendship. With that interpretation, it can be painful - to keep inviting and to look back in the text thread and know that it’s always you who starts the convo. But, over time, I have come to accept that this failure to initiate doesn’t always reflect a value or priority system, and for me, it isn’t a friendship deal breaker.

I love this quote from Nina Badzin:

Here’s a truth in friendships: effort and care doesn’t always look the same from each person…

Some people show effort by initating. Others show effort by saying yes, showing up, and being fully there when it counts (not on their phones, not half paying attention.) Let’s be honest - sometimes the excellent planner ‘falls short’ in other ways.

That doesn’t mean you can’t feel tried of being the planner. It just means the question isn’t only ‘why aren’t they stepping up?’ It’s also: does this dynamic actually work for me? And are these good friendships in other ways?

…You’re measuring effort and care through initiation and planning because that’s your skillset, while they’re expressing effort and care through consistant and enthusiastic participation. And through gratitute to you.

❤️

🗳️ A poll on [friendship]

What do you wish your friendships had more of right now?

🔗 Some link insight on friendship

Here are some graphics I liked on friendship recently.

📅 What you missed in April

Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them and support my research!)

• When the system is the perpetrator - Implications from phase two of my Spiritual Abuse research

• Amaze Amaze Amaze - Some pondering & wondering thoughts following Splashdown

• Some thoughts on attachment, a journaling exercise, and a worksheet to help you explore your attachment to God

🆓 The free resource for May is below (for paid subscribers!)

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For me, yesterday was almost an out-of-body experience. I could not believe I was witnessing a REAL splashdown. My whole life, I’ve heard about this, learned about it, watched it in movi…

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I just watched the launch of Artemis II. Wow. What a beautiful way to start this month. Humans: we are so, so wonderful and beautiful and capable of so much when we work together.

Here’s what we’ve got in this newsletter:

• 🤔 A thought I’m processing [on attachment to God]

• 💕 A [journaling exercise] I’m loving

• 🗳️ A poll [on rest]

• 🔗 Some link love [from this past month]

• 📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts

• April’s free resource: [attachment to God]

🤔 A thought I’m processing [on attachment]

I have a sort of a simple framework I use to think through attachment in relationships (including God). It’s an oversimplification of attachment, but on a basic level, it involves three pieces: (1) how you view yourself, (2) how you view the other person, (3) how you view the relationship.

• Anxious attachment happens when you have a LOW level of trust in yourself but a HIGH level of trust in others. You feel like you need them to be safe. You have a HIGH value of the bond of the relationship, but it feels UNSTABLE (so you frequently panic that you’re being left).

• Avoidant attachment is when you have a HIGH level of trust in self but a LOW level of trust in others. You feel like you can’t rely on them. You have a LOW/NEUTRAL value of the bond of relationship. (You behave as if you are fine without it).

• Secure attachment is when you have a HIGH level of trust in yourself, and a HIGH level of trust in your partner. You have a HIGH value for the bond, and it also feels STABLE to you.

• Disorganized attachment is when you have a LOW level of trust in yourself, and a LOW level of trust in others. You can have a HIGH or LOW value for the bond depending on the day, and it often feels UNSTABLE.

When I think about most of the way we interact with God, it seems like in most churches we’ve got some pretty intense Anxious attachment going on. My hunch is that this developed in response to watching people operate like Avoidants with God (we’re fine without Him; we don’t trust Him). The church compensated by emphasizing our frailty. But, in many churches, they went a little further than just describing our fallibility and humanity.

My hope is that we would begin to believe that trusting and valuing ourselves is NOT a threat to our attachment to God. Your relationship with God does not DEPEND on you feeling worthless. It isn’t contingent on hating yourself.

(For those of you who are paid subscribers, I’ve attached a free worksheet that you can use to explore your attachment with God through this framework at the bottom of this newsletter. LMK how it goes!)

❤️ A [journaling exercise] I’m loving

Love this journaling exercise from @Aliabdaal - and when you do it (if you do it) - one of the ‘rules’ is “you must have 3x as many things in the ‘what’s working’ column than in the ‘what’s not working’ column. That’s a great way to help your brain compensate for its negative bias.

🗳️ A poll on [on rest]

Here’s the poll for this month:

🔗 Some link love

Here are some links I’ve been loving this past month:

• Obsessed with this artwork

• A recipe I want to try

• A guide for regulating your nervous system

• Some insight into what happens in our brains when we don’t move enough

• Most listened to song this month

📆 What you missed in March

Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them and support my research!)

• Control: the abuse prevention strategy that makes abuse worse - 5 problematic narratives that keep churches from responding effectively to abuse

• What if this isn’t a breakdown, but an invitation? (The Psychology of the Midlife Crisis)

• Some thoughts on finding true things to tell yourself, noticing nature, stress & planner layouts

🆓 The free resource for April is below (for paid subscribers!)

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Here’s what we’ve got in this newsletter:

• 🤔 A thought I’m processing [on affirmations]

• 💕 A thought I’m loving [on noticing nature]

• 🗳️ A poll [on stress levels]

• 🔗 Some link love [a planner’s dream]

• 📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts

• March’s free resource: [daily affirmations worksheet]

🤔 A thought I’m processing [on affirmations]

I’m not an affirmations girlie. I have always thought of affirmations as a form of toxic positivity or like ‘putting-stuff-out-into-the-universe’ type stuff, and that’s not my vibe.

But recently I’ve been doing an exercise where each morning I notice all the different parts of me, and what thoughts or feelings are most active. I spend a few minutes leaning into that part of me and just brain-dumping all the associated stress/frustration/fears.

And then I think through what that voice needs; not like smothering fears or frustrations with positive self-talk - but more like - what does this part of me need to hear? From God, from me? And I think through what feels authentic, true, and important for that part of me to know.

One example: I noticed the other morning that a part of me is just longing to connect with God, but as I leaned into that part of me, I also noticed that I have nothing to bring - no cognitive energy to read my Bible or pray, no emotional energy to process, and even thinking about it leaves me feeling a little exhausted. So, I wrote all that down, without editing or correcting. And then I wrote next to it my ‘affirmation’ —> “God needs nothing from you.”

I’ve been liking it. That’s all.

I made a little journal page for paid subscribers that will walk you through this process if you want to try! (scroll to the bottom of this newsletter)

❤️ A thought I’m loving [on noticing nature]

Loving this study out of Concordia University of Edmonton. It was a two-week study, where some participants were just asked to:

• Notice the everyday nature they encountered in their typical daily routine (trees, birds through the window, clouds, etc.)

• Pay attention to how it made them feel

• Record responses

This basic daily mindful noticing showed significant increases in ‘well-being,’ (which is like positive emotions, life satisfaction, connectedness…)

So that’s cool.

(I’ve been trying it, and the part I find the hardest? Noticing how it makes me feel. I have had to create a word bank because it’s so hard for me to come up with anything.)

🗳️ A poll on [on stress levels]

Despite all that I do to manage my stress levels, I’ve been noticing a lot in the past month. There’s just a lot going on. My hunch, for aw hile, has been that we’re all pretty stressed. But curious about that hunch. So…

🔗 Some link love

Okay, I’m in deep in the journal world right now. Like the planner-journal world, not just the journal-journal world. So, this section is going to be pretty niche, but for those who are nerds like me - here are some setups/concepts I’ve been loving recently:

📆 What you missed in February

Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them and support my research!)

• What Are You Ready to Shed?

• What Valentine’s Day gets wrong

• A scary thought about Sunday Scaries

• Relational dynamics, why you might hate everyone right now & a resource to help you notice your “internal weather.”

🆓 The free resource for March is below (for paid subscribers!)

✏️ Free resource: Daily Affirmations Worksheet

I’ve been trying this practice (that I wrote about in the first section of this newsletter) to start my day, and I’m kind of loving it. Let me know how it goes for you!

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I would like to say this is a wisdom I have earned with age, but the truth is - I’ve always known it: love - wherever you find it, in all its form…

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Anyway! Here’s what you can explore in this newsletter:

• 🤔 A thought I’m processing [on why you might hate everyone right now]

• 💕 A thought I’m loving [on relational dynamics]

• 🗳️ A poll [on what you want]

• 🔗 Some link love

• 📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts

• February’s free resource: an internal weather tracker

🤔 A thought I’m processing [on why you might hate everyone right now]

Okay. That’s an exaggeration, but seriously: have you noticed an inability to tolerate people recently? Have you noticed how mild annoyance morphs into grating irritation really quickly? (Am I projecting?)

Our brain is so committed to protecting us that when the threat system is activated, we make a couple of big changes in how we engage with others. More black and white thinking, more painting people with broad strokes, less trust, less willingness to tolerate disagreement. o

And while that reflects amazingly adaptive brain functioning that has kept us alive for thousands of years, it also is not helping any of us navigate this situation/world. And it might actually be contributing to the state of the world.

So. Deep breaths, everyone. Regulation before reaction.

❤️ A thought I’m loving [on relational dynamics]

I like this:

🗳️ A poll on [on what you want]

Been thinking recently about how I’m the most annoying friend/family member cause I’m always running around telling people about the terrible things we’re doing to our brains and dopamine and blah blah blah. And a friend asked me recently - you’re creating resources you think people NEED, but what would you create if you were thinking about the resources people WANT?

And it’s got me thinking a lot. So help me out:

🔗 Some link love

Quotes, Journal prompts & recipes seem to be the theme of the links I’ve saved so far this year:

• 11 inspirational quotes

• High-protein brownies

• Some questions from monks

• A salad that looks amazing but probably isn’t

• Values Compass

• January habits to ‘change your year’ (skeptical but saved)

📆 What you missed in January

Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them and support my research!)

• Why putting your phone down might be the best thing you can do for democracy

• Winter is for hibernation, not hustle

• Some thoughts on things I’m leaving behind

🆓 The free resource for February is below (for paid subscribers!)

✏️ Free resource: Internal Weather Tracker

I first got this concept from Austin Kleon (who I think got it from someone else). But it’s been really helpful for me in my life, as I’ve shared before, and a while back I made myself a little mini-planner that helps me track a few things each day: gratitude, internal weather, mood.

When you don’t have time to journal, do morning pages, or have a quiet time, this short/quick prompt can be really helpful. Below is the worksheet and an example!

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