a podcast at the intersection of Christianity & mental health.

Episodes

42 - Everyday Grief & Learning to Feel Feelings (feat. Aundi Kolber)

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This week, our guest host is trauma therapist Aundi Kolber! She talks about how grief is the bedrock of mental health, why smaller traumas & losses are still so important, what it means to really feel our feelings, and how learning how to respond honestly to smaller day-to-day moments sets the stage for encountering larger events.

Things Aundi mentions in this episode/other resources:
- Hear more from Aundi on episode 32 - Trauma, Attachment, & Creating Safety.
- Hear more about grief on episode 17 - Grief & Loss (feat. Dr. Elizabeth Horn & John Pavlovitz).
- Hear more about emotions & feelings on episode 21 - Emotions Aren't Evil (feat. Marc Alan Schelske).
- Aundi mentions being an Enneagram 4 and references recent episodes featuring Dr. Holly Oxhandler & Dr. Jon Singletary
- The work of Dr. Brené Brown
- The work of Dr. Dan Siegal
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler
- the poet Nayyirah Waheed (here's her website, her Instagram, her Twitter, and her books on Amazon).

Connect with Aundi on her websiteTwitterFacebook, or Instagram.

Quotes:
- "Grief is a normal part of what it means to be human.” (tweet)
- “A lot of people grew up with the experience that it wasn’t ok to feel feelings.” (tweet)
- “Grief…kind of represents what our body needs to do to move through difficult emotions.” (tweet)
- “We can have smaller losses and smaller transitions. We have to learn how to feel those too.” (tweet)
- “There’s this idea in the Bible that as you steward a smaller thing, you have permission to steward a bigger thing. I think it’s actually very similar with our emotions.” (tweet)
- “If we’ve never learned how to feel smaller emotions, it’s hard when we get to a point where we’re having to feel bigger emotions.” (tweet)
- “Grief is a bedrock of mental health.” (tweet)
- “Grief is like this microcosm idea that can change in it’s size, but is always at it’s core about knowing how to process.” (tweet)
- “Our emotional experiences are just about as unique as each of us are, and that’s ok.” (tweet)
- “Acceptance is not necessarily being happy.” (tweet)

Connect with Robert on his website, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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Intro/Outro music for this episode is ‘Fall Down’ by Rivers & Robots.