Attachment Theory, God’s Presence, & The Image of God: How God Heals Us (Geoff Holsclaw) Ep. #220

Dru (00:00)
a neuroscientist, your mom, and Jesus walk into a bar together. What do they drink and what are they gonna talk about? Join me this week as I talk to Jeff Holsclaw, who works on the intersection of neuroscience and attachment theory, like how people are attached to their caregivers as a child and how that affects their adult years. And he thinks this all fits together with what scripture teaches us about who we are and who we can be.

I find it very compelling. I cut it short at 45 minutes long, but it could have gone a lot longer. And I think we’re going to have it back on because there’s a lot to go through here. So I hope you enjoy.

Dru (00:43)
Where do you see a fruitful use of neuroscience in counseling, pastoring, et cetera, versus you don’t have to call anybody by name, but where do you see it becomes unhelpful?

Geoff Holsclaw (00:57)
Man, that is such a big question, right? So ⁓ neuroscience, counseling, theology, the Bible, the church. ⁓ One is I think ⁓ continually studying how God has made our bodies and brains and how they work ⁓ is always good. And from my understanding is the church has always done that, has always kind of leaned on the at best medical knowledge of our bodies.

⁓ And kind of use that as kind of a springboard for ⁓ all sorts of conversations, you know, that goes back, I believe, you know, all the way to the Old Testament, you know, so we’re just, we’re always kind of using an interfacing kind of the best of what the culture of medicine understands how we work as physical embodied human beings that are, you know, somewhat in the realm of the beasts and the animals. ⁓ So to narrow that to contemporary

questions neuroscience so big right so neuroscience is such a big field if you just say that are we talking about cognitive neuroscience affective neuroscience or talking about just neurology brain scans all that stuff so I I work and kind of research kind of primarily in what would be called attachment theory but more broadly in interpersonal neurobiology spearheaded by someone like Dan Siegel or Alan Shore and that’s really kind of an interface of a multiple ⁓ fields

But it was really kind of how does our embodied existence connected to, and then they use another kind of E, our embedded relationships. So how does that all work to then have this kind of really dynamic ⁓ interplay of embodied and embedded relationships? ⁓ And then for me, obviously as a pastor, as a theologian, how does all that, what does all that mean for

Dru (02:32)
Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (02:52)
something like our relationship with God, being made in God’s image. ⁓ What might salvation look like? ⁓ Sin, shame, how do these things been corrupted? ⁓ And so for me, I really focus on attachment theory, and this could go all sorts of directions, but it’s a very ⁓ like data and ⁓ observation-based psychological science.

Dru (03:20)
Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (03:20)
That is just kind of like how let’s watch kids and parents and how they interact. And then the theory kind of develops from there rather than I think a lot of the earlier psychological sciences, you know, and Freud could be the, you know, little whipping boy who basically just kind of makes up theories and tries to find, you know, data to support it, or it’s just kind of, ⁓ case studies and there’s case studies is important. ⁓ so that’s why I find that this, the side of

neuroscience and psychological science in the little area of attachment to be the place I kind of lean on.

Dru (03:56)
Yeah, well that makes sense. mean, you’re on one of my hobby horses now, which is, ⁓ you know, even in the world of epistemology, theories of knowledge, there is a long tradition of fantasy land epistemology. Like this is how we wished knowing worked. Humans were rational and logical in this particular way. And then there’s another side of ⁓ theories of knowledge.

Geoff Holsclaw (04:13)
Yeah.

Dru (04:18)
where they say, well, let’s just look at how people actually rationalize. Let’s give them rationalizing tests and see what they do, right? And then let’s work our way forward given how people actually are. And it sounds like maybe you’re saying something similar in the psychological side.

Geoff Holsclaw (04:32)
Yeah, and that’s why ⁓ looking into like the side of attachment theory, which just looks at the, are the bonds between children and their caregivers? How are they formed? ⁓ What kinds are there ⁓ when certain things are happening when there’s trauma or distress? How do we adapt? Yeah, so it’s very much like of a bottom up kind of process. ⁓ So certainly it’s in the name, it’s called attachment theory, but people are trying to make it say as well as attachment science,

It really is that ⁓ kind of like fact driven. And I do agree of like, we need to stop. And I think this comes as a heritage from the enlightenment, which is, well, how do we wish people were rather than, yeah, how, how do they act? And this is why, and I know we’ll get back to it, but this is why ⁓ big picture, find the Bible and scripture so encouraging because it’s just very like, this is how people are.

you know, like warts and all. And I really admire especially the Old Testament where whole histories are written not to absolve people of awful things. Like it’s just like, this is our heritage, you know, and I so I find that and there’s actually a lot of we could get into I think a lot of the way the Psalms and the Old Testament narrate things, I think creates tons of resilience and people groups ⁓ that I think the neuroscience is actually just

Dru (05:32)
It is raw. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (05:59)
catching up and figuring out why it’s doing these things, which maybe we could get into, but.

Dru (06:05)
⁓ So let’s talk about attachment for a second, because I think people will hear that in various ways. ⁓ You have different types that you call jungle, pastor, war, I got them out of order. I don’t remember where they all are. But there are different types of attachments, there are different types of ⁓ mis-formed attachments, I guess, right? So none of them are like the perfect attachment. ⁓ But what do you mean when you say attachment?

Are you talking primarily between a child and its mother, a child and its father, a child and its parents, a child within the family? ⁓ What does attachment mean primarily for you?

Geoff Holsclaw (06:40)
Yeah, so attachment is primarily the emotional bond ⁓ or the affective bond created between a child and their caregivers. So ⁓ kind of in the West, that’s usually just, you know, the mother and the father, ⁓ sometimes older siblings outside the West, you know, that could be a broader kind of group of grandparents, uncles and aunts and things like that. Right. But it’s that affective bond. And it’s really the research has kind of shown there’s like four pretty

clear adaptive strategies that children and caregivers kind of fall into based on the types of interactions they regularly have. So if you have ⁓ interactions, especially kind of around distress, but also around like joy and play, where the parents are attentive, attuned to the needs and the situation and the child’s abilities, they are in a…

in an appropriate way, they respond to distress and kind of help out. But they also leave a certain room for freedom and exploration in the child. And so there’s this kind of negotiation between like intimate spaces and independent spaces. And so ⁓ when you have that kind of caregiving of responsive caregiving, where ruptures are repaired in timely manners, ⁓ then you kind of create ⁓ what is called secure attachment, where the child both has the resources

imagination and ability to pursue others. So that’d be intimacy is the language we use when they need help or when they want to be connected, but they also have confidence and creativity to act on their own. And they’re able to bring those two capacities together. Now what happens the other three, what we call landscapes, but what attachment, you know, science would call styles or strategies. It comes from when those two kind of capacities kind of get distorted or lopsided.

Dru (08:33)
Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (08:34)
So if you have a caregiving ⁓ environment that is sometimes really on and attentive and sometimes it’s not. ⁓ So where you’re really connected with your children, you’re feeling connected to your child and then all of a sudden it feels like they just disappear. ⁓ So that would be like an inattentive kind of environment where then the child starts internalizing.

the intimacy kind of side and strategies where I need to pursue and always be ⁓ observing my relationships to know, is this a good time to ask for help? Is this a good time to get what I need or is it not? Do I need to hang back? ⁓ Like, is mom like too tired to play? Right, so then you’re very focused on your relationships and long-term, this is often is called the anxious ⁓ attachment or sometimes the ambivalent. And that’s where you maximize.

intimacy and those strategies at the expense of your own independence. And so long-term that ends up kind of have creating a person who feels kind of over-emeshed in their relationships. They have a really strong social emotional radar, ⁓ but they kind of can get overwhelmed by that. And they oftentimes feel kind of helpless to solve their own problems. They don’t feel like they have what it takes to kind of get help. They always need to ask for help. And so that would be on one side. ⁓

And so we call that the jungle as you’re living in this jungle of relationships and you never quite know, it going to be a high, high and a wonderful, ⁓ you know, waterfall and really cool birds, or is it like, you’re going to get like stinging ants and, you know, some, some predators about to get you right. So on the other side would be, ⁓ the desert where you prioritize, ⁓ independence at the expense of intimacy. And that comes from a child childhood environment where maybe your physical needs are taken care of, but your social emotional.

kind of self is either ignored repeatedly so that you just kind of learn not to share yourself or it’s actually rejected. Is that when you share your emotions, ⁓ sadnesses, you get punished for it. ⁓ You have to play alone or we can’t handle you get the repeated messages that part of yourself is not welcome here. And so long term, you kind of shut down from your own emotions. You shut down from your own body is what happens long term. ⁓

And if you shut down from your body and your emotions, you also become blind to the emotions of other people. So empathy is usually kind of lacking or sympathy or however you want to talk about that. And so long-term you kind of, the picture is you’re kind of withdrawing into this desert where, ⁓ you know, emotions are and relationships are not sought, not in a real deep sense. might, ⁓ you might have hangout friends, but you’re never sharing your life. You might watch football with people or you might, but you’re not really.

Dru (11:20)
Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (11:22)
kind of connected. And the reason why those so those are called insecure ⁓ attachment strategies. ⁓ But they are in a sense reliable. And so and this is where the science is really interesting. And it’ll get us to the fourth landscape in a second. But it’s basically like, well, how do I kind of at a minimal level get what I need? ⁓ So in the jungle, you’re really attentive to your relationships. And so that’s a reliable strategy is I’m really good at reading people.

Dru (11:31)
Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (11:51)
I’m really good at, you know, knowing what people need. I never forget a birthday, you know, or whatever. ⁓ And that’s overall, it works. It works for you. And then the desert person who seeks independence, it overall works for them. I solve my own problems. I can even solve your problems, even the ones you don’t ask me to solve. I’m ready to solve all your problems. Like I’m really into my own agency and you know, I’ve kind of created my own little world. I could be married, I could be a parent ⁓ and we all kind of get along, but you know, deep down I’m…

kind of in my own little desert by myself. And that kind of works. And both of those strategies can kind of work maybe for a whole lifetime if you don’t have any serious tragedy. But the war zone is what we call the war zone. It’s also called a disordered attachment, or sometimes it’s called a fearful attachment. And that’s where there’s no reliable strategy, is actually you were probably raised in an abusive or a traumatizing family where the people who were supposed to help you might also be harming you. And so you

You wanna go to them for help, but you’re also afraid of them. And so you have this push and pull. And so you don’t have an organized strategy. You actually never really know how to get the help you need. And so you just try everything. You’re switching between strategies and long-term that creates a person who inside of themselves, they do things that they don’t even know why they do them. The relationships they have with other people, you could feel like from day to day or minute to minute, you’re just interacting with almost a totally different person. it’s because…

For them, they have no organized strategy. And the literature has shown that for a disordered attachment or a disorganized attachment, ⁓ that really those are kind of that lays the groundwork, not always, but often for more severe psychopathologies like borderline personality disorder, bipolar. And so the research is pretty clear that if you’re in this war zone, know, unfortunately you’re getting set up for some pretty bad psychological health. ⁓ So.

Dru (13:36)
Right.

Geoff Holsclaw (13:48)
That was really quick. That was really long. That wasn’t that quick. But yeah, go ahead. Back to you.

Dru (13:51)
Yeah. Well,

it was great. And I suspect a lot of people were like having their minds successively blown by every next thing you said. And it’s really difficult not to hear that and instantly start saying, yeah, I’m the one who did that to my kids. then because I’m the other one, right, ⁓ or whatever, so not to hear that kind of ⁓ reaction to it. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (14:06)
Uh-huh.

Well, just to jump in, that

is the trouble with a lot of the attachment research is it can produce a lot of shame in people. And the researchers and the way they talk about this have not helped the situation at all. So like when Sid and I wrote our book, Landscapes of the Soul, we really wanted to offer a lot of hope and a lot of compassion because yeah, a lot of people could just hear that and be like, I broke my children or that’s how I was raised. I’m going to be stuck there forever. And that’s actually not the truth, right? There is a lot of growth. There’s lots of opportunity for sure.

Dru (14:34)
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I found that with my own children, where I’ve come to these realizations of what I’ve done as a parent, where I’ve failed, fallen short for various reasons, they’re very quick to forgive and move on with the next version of me, right? So there can be hope, depending on how bad you messed up. It is really hard not to hear that and feel immediately ashamed of your own parenting. ⁓

Geoff Holsclaw (15:04)
Yeah. yeah.

Dru (15:08)
Yeah, so ⁓ the last point you made, there, I want to go back to that very quickly because I want to make sure we’re clear. Were you saying that basically the environment can, you you might have the same person who has a tendency towards a personality disorder, but the environment can set that off, trigger it, exacerbate it in some way? Or is that like someone with borderline personality, are they always going to be the same borderline personality in every environment?

Geoff Holsclaw (15:32)
so this gets into a deeper question that attachment theorists have always kind of wrestled with. So Dan Siegel’s had several kind of high profile arguments with, we, and it’s really comes down to like the nature nurture kind of question, which is, ⁓ do we have these temperaments that are kind of baked in genetically or something like that? Or do we have the environments that shape us? ⁓ so that’s of course a huge question. I think, ⁓

Dru (15:44)
Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (15:58)
I side with Lisa Feldman Barrett who says, we’re the kind of people whose nature requires nurture. And so that’s kind of the space we’re in. So it’d be something like, yes, you might have a predisposition to borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia or something like that. ⁓ But if you were raised in a secure kind of environment and that you yourself,

Dru (16:06)
Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (16:25)
have kind of a secure attachment, which then can both toggle in the appropriate way between intimacy and independence, then the likelihood that that’ll be a critical disorder for you goes way down, right? But if you’re in an abusive situation, then that would go way up. And then people who don’t even necessarily have a disposition could still have that. And I always wanna say, just because you were raised in a war zone doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have those.

Dru (16:38)
Okay.

Geoff Holsclaw (16:56)
those kind of like psychological disorders. just means it’s kind of like people get the trauma research wrong that like ⁓ most people who are abusers were themselves abused. And then they read that that all people who are abused become abusers. That’s a logical fallacy and the research doesn’t say that right. Most people who are abused don’t become abusers. And so many people who are raised with a disordered attachment, they find later in life pathways toward healing. And that’s awesome.

Dru (17:24)
Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (17:24)
That’s great, and that’s what we want. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, good.

Dru (17:25)
Yeah, I think that’s what I wanted to clarify. Yeah, I mean, it’s like, I know there’s a lot of research talking about people raised in very broken marriages, right, in very broken households can go on to have very strong marriages because they recognize the frailty of marriage and they don’t take anything for granted and they work. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (17:43)
I have a great reason for that.

It’s the same for like if we want to get to the helping professionals is so someone in the war zone, they ⁓ well, I’ll go in the reverse. So I already said someone who is raised has a secure attachment. have a high capacity for intimacy, but also a high capacity for differentiation if we want to use that language or ⁓ independence. so ⁓ and they can combine those kind of gifts and skills. And in one sense,

their brains and bodies have been shaped to process both kinds of information, real high social emotional, but also high agency, you could also say logical linear. So someone in the war zone, they have the inverse of that. ⁓ They have learned to toggle in a non-integrated way between a high relational pursuing strategy, and then they also go to a high isolated individualist strategy. I’m gonna do it all.

Dru (18:15)
Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (18:39)
So, ⁓ whereas someone in the jungle, in the desert, they only kind of have half those strategies. So someone in the jungle, they just kind of have a really strong muscle for social emotional kind of intelligence, but they kind of have a weak muscle. They don’t have both. And then the desert’s the opposite. So someone coming out of a disordered attachment who has high trauma, when they do their healing work, then, you know, and this is the kind of wounded healer adage is they actually already had all these skills and all these competencies.

Dru (19:07)
Mm.

Geoff Holsclaw (19:09)
all these robust ways of connecting with people, they just use them in very detrimental ways. But when they start a healing journey, ⁓ then they can use all those skills in beneficial ways for themselves and for others. And so there is a sense in which oftentimes, yeah, those people become the greatest healers, pastors, preachers, therapists, they can have great marriages, they end up becoming super nurturing to their own children, because they kind of had a negative example of everything that was done to them. So then they’re like, well, if I kind of just

Dru (19:14)
Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (19:39)
flipped all that. And then as best I can, and then like you said, if I apologize for what I messed up and just apologizing is actually the repairing of ruptures is this huge, you know, healing process, which of course, you know, the Bible knows all about too. but yeah.

Dru (19:45)
Right.

Right.

Well, okay, speaking of ⁓ the Bible, I am interested in, mean, because you’ve made a lot of statements here, claims about human anthropology, what we are as humans, and how are we supposed to be versus what we actually are, ⁓ how we might be better than what we’re supposed to be in. ⁓ So I wonder where are the spots in scripture you go to to root some of this thinking? I mean, what you’re saying sounds very intuitively correct. I think people who’ve…

Geoff Holsclaw (20:07)
Hahaha

Dru (20:26)
worked with people out of traumatized homes or came out of those, they can feel the truthiness of what you’re saying. But where in scripture do you go without the, I don’t want to call it a mistake, the temptation to over read into scripture, what might not be there.

Geoff Holsclaw (20:43)
Yeah. ⁓ well, so back to be, being an attachment theory apologist. So they get into trouble with other psychological scientists and anthropologists because in a sense they have a normative, statement built into it. Like secure attachment is better than insecure attachment. And that’s, that’s even almost a moral statement. And that’s where anthropologists, know, they went, that’s not like people are just adapting to the

Dru (21:03)
Right, right.

Geoff Holsclaw (21:12)
And it’s whatever. there’s a lot of, ⁓ you know, some areas of the psychological science outside of a vague, like human health and wellbeing. It’s kind of like, there’s no like goal that you’re aiming for. And attachment theory is different. Like they have a goal. Like, yeah, secure attachment is, you know, and all the research says is if you have developed a secure attachment, your mental health and your purpose in life, like go way up. So that’s where I find it.

Dru (21:13)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (21:39)
more congruent with scripture is yeah, there’s like a normative edge, you know, and we could argue about what exactly that is, right? But you know, ⁓ most religions and certainly the Bible have this kind of like edge that we’re going through. Okay, so that’s a real long build up to it. ⁓ I personally have kind of rooted it in like the image of God kind of language ⁓ from Genesis one and two ⁓ in the sense that ⁓

going back to the intimacy and independence is, we’re made for some sort of union relationship with God and with other people. But then you seem to have ⁓ in scripture, if we want to use a high responsibility or even call to obedience, like there is expectations of both partnerships ⁓ in this relationship. And so it’s not all God doing everything and I’m just passive. And it’s not just I do everything and God’s kind of passive waiting for us to do something. There’s this active partnership.

And that’s where I see attachment theory and then the broad story of Scripture really fitting and I kind of just summarized image of God is within all that. But there’s this kind of two way relational interaction and you get bad spiritualities, which could be either jungle spirituality, which is just like God has to do all of it. Is God, you know, and I’m just kind of here. I don’t know what to do or a desert spirituality, which is like everything’s up to me. And and so.

Dru (23:01)
Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (23:03)
You know, I think there’s some markers all throughout scripture in the Old Testament. I would kind of look to ⁓ Jesus in the New Testament and the way he gathered the 12 disciples. I forget which gospel says it. It’s in Mark, what’s in Matthew, Mark and Luke. I think it’s Mark that says clearly ⁓ that Jesus gathered the 12 to be with him. So that’d be that intimacy side. And so he would send them out to preach, cast out demons and heal the sick. And so there was this very much like it’s

baked into his understanding of discipleship of, you’re gonna be with me and we’re gonna, you know, do that. And you’re gonna go out for me and I’m not even gonna go with you. And so Jesus sends out his disciples multiple times without him. And so that’s kind of more the independent side. And so I think Jesus, ⁓ we kind of talk about how the journey with the 12 disciples is kind of taking these insecurely attached and.

people all over the place and kind of slowly building a secure attachment such that if we’re reading Matthew’s gospel at the end, you know, he basically sends them out on a mission, but he also says, I will be with you to the end of the age. And so there’s again, that kind of like dual thing.

Dru (24:10)
And you know, so the question for the biblical scholar would be like, well, why do think they were insecurely attached? Or did you mean they’re not securely attached to Jesus?

Geoff Holsclaw (24:20)
It could be a little of both. could be a little of both. So I would say, yeah, I think there’s all sorts of people who could technically be securely attached to humans and not be securely attached to God in some fashion. ⁓ So yeah, that’s definitely possible. So I wouldn’t want to say like anyone who doesn’t have a relationship with God is insecurely attached. Although there is, you’re not, ⁓ but as a theologian, I would say something like, but you’re not attached to the most secure attachment.

Dru (24:22)
Okay.

Order.

Right.

Geoff Holsclaw (24:48)
because humans are fickle, they will either die on you or disappoint you, right? So the most secure attachment, get this when you read the whole Psalter altogether, you kind of get that kind of idea of like, God’s really the only secure thing to cling to. So when I think of attachment, I think of like, the language in the Psalms about clinging or holding onto, lifting up by eyes. ⁓ Paul talks about holding onto Jesus, who is holding onto us in a

Dru (24:59)
Right.

Geoff Holsclaw (25:18)
What is that, Philippians 312, I think, or around there. And then, and this is maybe a dispute, but I think like, hesed language and then covenant language is also kind of like, basically this attachment language of God has made, has chosen Israel and has vowed to always be attached to his people, and then is asking for the same in return, and then holds each other accountable for how well those attachments are going.

Dru (25:44)
Yeah, I mean, even the issue of dwelling with Israel and Deuteronomy, who else has a God that’s so near to them? Like this idea that he chooses to be with them and whatever that means physically in their world. ⁓ Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that verb, debach, which means to ⁓ cling. It often has a sexual connotation, ⁓ like they should be one flesh and cling to each other. But… ⁓

Geoff Holsclaw (25:47)
Absolutely.

Dru (26:11)
In Deuteronomy 30, see I’ve set before you ⁓ life and death, good and evil. Choose God, listen to him, cling to him. It still has this of almost like this sexual intimacy with God that you’re looking for in that kind of very peak passage towards the end of Deuteronomy. ⁓ Can you like, okay, that’s a good ⁓ tentative case from the Bible for like, there’s something there, there. ⁓

Geoff Holsclaw (26:39)
I could give

you more, it might take us a long time, yeah.

Dru (26:41)
Yeah, no, I think the audience would

appreciate, ⁓ are there some specific things in Jesus, what he says that are indicative to you, like that just imply for you, this is an attachment issue or specific things that Jesus is doing, or even Paul, I mean, in the way he treats the people who he’s shepherding as well. I think it’d be interesting to hear some details that people could ⁓ point back to when they’re telling somebody about this podcast.

Well, yeah, like what? ⁓

Geoff Holsclaw (27:11)
Yeah, yeah.

Well, well, we’ll have to go back, right? Because I think when you look at the attachment research, and not just attachment, but then also like the affective neuroscience, especially from like, you know, almost birth to nine months, and how children and parents interact non-verbally. So really quickly, ⁓ the eyesight ⁓ of children is scanning to find faces.

Dru (27:17)
Okay.

Mm.

Geoff Holsclaw (27:44)
and especially eyes. And it’s really interesting that humans are one of the few species that actually have white in our eyes. And that’s so we can both lock on eyes and you can also have a joint attention to other things. And so it’s almost impossible if you’re talking with somebody and then all of a sudden they look over your shoulder, it’s almost impossible for you not to turn around to follow their eyesight. And so like your cats and dogs don’t really do that. Your dog’s a little bit, but.

Dru (27:50)
Great.

Geoff Holsclaw (28:10)
So this idea of locking eyes and seeing faces is super important for attachment research, but then also just the neuroscience that that we’ve been looking at. ⁓ And so when you, when you look at that, the joint attention, ⁓ how do kids find out whether something is scary even before they’re talking is so they’re visit a friend’s house. They’ve never seen a cat before. ⁓ You know, they’re whatever they’re 10 months old. This cat wanders in.

⁓ And it does something and the child is scared. What does the child do? It looks at their parent, right? And if the parent is not scared, now they’re not scared, right? Their emotions are being formed, but if their parent is scared, now they’re even more scared, right? And so that’s called social referencing, right? So ⁓ what you look at, so you have somebody in your life that you look at to find out what the rest of environment is doing and how you’re supposed to respond to it.

So now we go to say, you know, number six and the blessing of Aaron is twice. You know, it says that God’s face is going to be upon them, that it’s shining upon them, like something like the light, you know, if we were to think, and then it’s also turning toward them. And so, and then you get God’s face quite a bit in the Psalms and other places that is both a face of joy or a lot of times in English and you’re the expert that gets translated as presence.

Dru (29:39)
Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (29:40)
Right. But, you know, the word is face. And I understand that. Yeah, face is right. That’s true. It’s plural. But there’s something to that. And when you especially when you read the Psalms, there’s quite a bit of like, who do I look to to find out how my situation is going? Right. And the call is always to be like, well, look to God. Right. Where I lift my eyes up. Right. Or that I’m sure you have these. ⁓

Dru (29:44)
Right. It’s actually faces, but yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (30:07)
the Psalm numbers, but it’s like when I was looking at the wicked, I was distraught. But then I thought of your holy place and my soul found rest. I remembered where to look. I remember or to dwell. I remembered your dwelling place and I remembered and then I remembered their end. All right. So in scripture, there’s a lot about like who’s looking at who. So then if we want to turn to Jesus, you know, the famous kind of like Peter walking on water, right? He’s doing a bold thing.

Dru (30:11)
Right.

Geoff Holsclaw (30:34)
That’s both kind of this combination of intimacy and independence. He wants to go to Jesus as part of this affirmation of relationship. Jesus is walking on the waves, but he also has to get out of the boat. So that’s also him flexing his independence muscle. Right. And what’s the failure there as a story unfolds, it’s when he takes his eyes off of Jesus that he sinks. Right. ⁓ so that’d be kind of, ⁓ I know there’s a long, ⁓ winding kind of way to kind of get back at your kind of attachment, but I think that’s part of it is, is we really start thinking of.

Dru (30:58)
Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (31:04)
the faces we look to, faces, ⁓ can communicate instantaneously, delight and shame. Right? So if you find someone at a party that you didn’t want to be at speaking for myself, right? I’m a home body, right? So I’m going out, you know, I’m like, is that one friend that I know going to be there? Right. And then you see them and they see you and they smile and then your whole body chemistry and your whole setting feels better because they delight to be with you. Now, of course, the reverses, you know,

maybe it’s just to be general, it’s the in-laws or it’s your boss, right? And they’re frowning at you. That face is gonna totally change your day. And so I think when we start thinking about that and how Jesus is interacting with people, that for me is very suggestive, especially when Paul says that the light of God’s glory has shown on us in the face of Christ. That is very much like an.

For me, I read that so much more as like this embodied human attachment kind of passage of like, if we could just cling to seeing that face and not worry about all the other faces in our lives, how much different would we be?

Dru (32:15)
That’s fantastic. mean, and again, I think what you did there is just called us back to passages we all knew and just never thought about. they’re there, you know, like you have this intuition that God’s face shining upon you is generally a good thing. But it is a little like it is a little vague, even in ancient Hebrew. It’s a little vague what’s what exactly is being referred to there. But you I just want to point out what you did is you strung together. Well, it’s like it’s not just one place. This is actually happening.

Geoff Holsclaw (32:28)
Right.

Dru (32:42)
in multiple places and it becomes the focus of the story.

Geoff Holsclaw (32:45)
I found that the more of this neuroscience and attachment that I’ve learned, the more scripture just comes alive and you’re like, ⁓ like, you know, I’m always telling people, I’m sure you can agree with this, is ancient people knew lots of stuff. Like we think we’re so smart, like scripture had all this figured out. just kind of like, and so I think even back to the science and attachment question, why do we even dabble in this? Apologetic is not quite the right word, but it’s.

Dru (33:00)
Right. Yeah.

Right.

Geoff Holsclaw (33:14)
know, it’s kind of an on-ramp. This is a cultural moment that people rely on. And then to say like, Scripture’s been saying most of all this stuff already forever. And sometimes it helps the familiar become strange so that then it can speak to us again. And so that’s kind of, that’s partly why I’m in this whole world is because I think it just helps us read Scripture again in a new way.

Dru (33:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, I love it. And that you started with joint attention and the sclera and the eyes. ⁓ know, ⁓ like, I wasn’t sure where you’re going with this. It was always like a joy ride. It was like an episode of Better Call Saul. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and let the reader understand that we have an entire episode we did with a developmental psychologist who works on joint attention and how that functions within worship. Yeah. Gideon Salt.

Geoff Holsclaw (33:44)
I’m not just reading the popular literature. I read those articles. I love the real in the weeds articles. ⁓

really? Who was

that?

Dru (34:03)
He’s at York University in the UK and ⁓ Josh Cockayne, who’s an analytic theologian who’s now a priest in the Church of England and they wrote this book for Baylor on how joint attention is basically central to our learning, our worship, our emotional health. And I think you’re filling in like some very deep pockets about how it affects our emotional health and developmentally. ⁓ Yeah, I think, ⁓ you know,

Geoff Holsclaw (34:25)
love Josh’s work, that’s great.

Dru (34:31)
I hear something like this. don’t know how much everybody else is as insecure as I am about things. But I hear all of this, and I think, OK, I definitely have areas of insecure attachments that I can see have created situations in my life that maybe I wasn’t so proud This is the diagnosis. think my children are in the generation, they’re all in their 20s, where that’s all they want is the diagnosis. So they can just say, oh, I have insecure attachments.

I’m type three insecure attachment. That’s why I act this way. And then I’m not saying my kids do that, but I work with a lot of college kids and that is a very standard vernacular for them. So I wonder if you could give us a little taster of like, okay, well, that’s the situation, but where is the off ramp going to? Or is there an off ramp? you just say like alcoholism? always, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’m an alcoholic and I will always be.

Geoff Holsclaw (35:03)
Yeah.

Dru (35:23)
I’m an insecurely attached person who grew up in a jungle and I will always be, or is there like, you said healing, is there something that moves you out of that?

Geoff Holsclaw (35:31)
Yeah, I definitely think there’s things we can do to kind of move out of that. There’s we could talk about if you want to. Right. And I agree with you that there’s this comedian I follow. makes a whole joke about that of like, figured out that I’m insecure and anxious. And then someone asked him, well, what are you going to do about that? And he’s like, I just told you that I’m insecure and anxious. So that’s what I. Yeah, that’s what that’s exactly what the joke is. Right. And so so, yeah, just letting people know what our maladies are on. Great.

Dru (35:49)
Yeah, no, I’m telling you so you can do with me now. Yeah, yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (36:00)
⁓ and we don’t usually treat our physical bodies that way. Sometimes people do, which is tragic, right? But then we treat our mental health or relationships that way. And it’s like, well, why is that? ⁓ so, so if you want to kind of move forward and start rounding out your capacities for intimacy and independence, like the real bottom kind of rung would be getting better at moving from like, and this is a whole nother conversation, but kind of like when your nervous system is set for protection.

Dru (36:30)
Mm-hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (36:30)
rather

than for connecting with people. ⁓ And so getting better at knowing when you’re kind of that way. And it’s really interesting too, because like how you hear voices and how you process faces changes. Your brain’s looking for totally different information ⁓ when you’re in kind of this protection mode. So Stephen Porges and others, Pauli Weigel theory, they’ll kind of talk about all this. And so how do you kind of shift from protection mode to connection? Well, and this goes straight back to scripture, right?

Dru (36:44)
Wow.

Geoff Holsclaw (36:59)
it’s Thanksgiving ⁓ and gratitude, right? If you could just start the practice of being grateful for, you know, for whatever, right? And start building. And there’s also, we don’t have time to get into it. There’s reasons why people who are traumatized can’t even do that, right? So I don’t want to say this is super easy, but it is a step. So it’s kind of just building those gratitudes and then building the memories. So if you have ⁓ joyful memories with your family of,

Dru (37:00)
Mm-hmm. Right, gratefulness,

Geoff Holsclaw (37:28)
or friends, and then you just start bringing them neurologically to the front of your mind so that they’re ready to access. of course, and then, you know, if you’re on a spiritual journey, doing that with God, what are the times in the past that I actually have, even if I’m in a dry moment now or for years, like when did I feel like, God was near or God was doing something like, and so, and this goes again back to, you know,

Dru (37:55)
Right.

Geoff Holsclaw (37:56)
the Old Testament, is is remember. Yeah,

Dru (37:56)
The heartbeat of scripture.

Geoff Holsclaw (37:59)
remember all the things God has done. Like we celebrate them. We have festivals and we tell the story again, intergenerational. Right. So scripture is already telling us these practices. So that’d be one. And then the other one would be to ⁓ start developing kind of like the two sides of like social emotional kind of competencies for being in relationships. But then also the say logical linear, but like

the capacities for independence and starting to round those out. And you’re probably stronger than one on the other one. And so people who are real strong in the social emotional, ⁓ they often are the ones who then discover boundaries and that they have to learn how to enforce boundaries and enforcing having an enforcing a boundary in a relationship is a practicing independence. It’s doing that other work. But people like me, I was more of a desert person. We actually have.

Dru (38:46)
Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (38:50)
too many boundaries. Like I don’t, my wife and I joke because she like read that towns that cloud and towns in book boundaries and she loved it, you years ago and I was like, I don’t, I, my boundaries are probably too good. Right. So what do I have to do? I actually have to learn to maybe the first step is figure out what my emotions are. ⁓ beyond maybe just anger, ⁓ and to not just

Dru (38:51)
Right. Everything’s a boundary.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (39:15)
spill them out on people randomly, but then mostly hold them to myself. So getting better at sharing your emotions in a productive way rather than a destructive way. ⁓ And that’s a practice of intimacy is I’m being vulnerable with part of myself that I usually ignore and I’m actually going to tell you about it. ⁓ so then, so doing those, so those three things would be like the smallest building blocks of like practice gratitude, build joy, and learn how to enforce boundaries if that’s what you need, but also learn how to share.

Dru (39:22)
Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw (39:44)
and I could go into some more of that, but that’s kind of the general steps. And those things then would build to something like, how do I seek and be vulnerable with God? How do I also learn in obedience to the things God has clearly told me to do? And am I doing those things? That’d be another kind of spiritual trajectory is learning to do those things. And we always end with, you know, as a Christian that Jesus is the good shepherd. he’s, he’s leading us, ⁓ in all those different ways and through those things.

Dru (39:46)
Yeah.

I mean, without wanting to weaponize your system here, ⁓ I it does sound, think of like the church itself, like as a social organization, ⁓ like you could almost do this as a church-wide program of ⁓ how people interact with, because I’m thinking it’s enough to work on yourself, right, which are things that we need to do in our own responsibility, and I think you can find Scriptual’s report for that. ⁓ But at the end of the day, like you actually have to like,

Geoff Holsclaw (40:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dru (40:42)
Christ doesn’t call us as individuals to work on ourselves, right? Like we, he says, leaves your gift at the altar. Like the organization, the structure of the organization changes depending on the issues between brothers and sisters. ⁓ So do you see this as a natural fit, kind of that organizational, whatever you want to call it, that social corporate level, or is that like taking it into a different realm?

Geoff Holsclaw (40:49)
Yeah.

I definitely see that. think some like attachment researchers are actually moving into that kind of more social corporate level rather than just kind of individuals. ⁓ We always just say like you and all of us didn’t get to where we are outside of our relationships and we’re never actually gonna repair or heal or flourish outside of relationships. ⁓ There can be a small amount of time which maybe you need to be out from certain relationships.

or all relationships, but that’s not even really possible. But that’s not a long-term strategy. ⁓ so you always, and so people, you know, who talk about deconstructing faith or being disappointed with the church, it’s like, I get it. And yet there’s no long-term healing without being in community. And so I always kind of say like, my hope for the church is that we would be a community of people who are the best at repairing ruptures. And that idea of repairing ruptures doesn’t have to have sin.

as part of it, like sometimes it’s just like physical injury at death, right? But it can also be sin, right? And so we want, and I always want to have that very large view of sin, which is, well, it’s the sin I do, but it’s also the sin that’s been done to me that then kind of gets recycled and finds its way out in and through, right? So it’s this whole system or what Paul in Romans five calls the kingdom or the reign of sin. And so are we the best group of people who can repair ruptures? The tragedy is,

is lots of churches will repair only some ruptures and then we ignore or we sweep under other ruptures. ⁓ And, you know, long-term. Yeah, yeah. I don’t, I think anyone could have heard that and come up with their own bunch of examples on tragically. And that, and that is tragically the problem. And that’s where I forget what Psalm it is, right? ⁓ we’re basically just goes, it’s one of the long ones. I think it’s in the seventies or eighties where it just goes through like Israel.

Dru (42:39)
Examples of that would be.

Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (43:00)
we’ve done all these horrible things and failed God all these times. And it’s like, that’s, that’s a huge healing moment, where you’re being that’s kind of, that’s where I think the intimacy and independence through confession come together of like, I’m being vulnerable by not ignoring all the things that I’ve done wrong. And I’m speaking it out loud. So I’m owning my own agency, again, about the abuse of my past agency, you know, so I just like, yeah, that’s

Dru (43:01)
yeah.

despite all this. Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw (43:30)
That’s what we need more of.

Dru (43:32)
Yeah, if we had forever to talk, I would want to ask you things like, yeah, well, what do do with Israel’s constant ⁓ refrain where they include generational sins into their own, where they say, this is what my ancestors did, therefore I repent, right? We’ve had some thinking on that. And ⁓ then ⁓ what does the turning look like in scripture for the next generation? exactly, because I think this is a common problem. ⁓

even that I’ve experienced, where I look at my parents and their failures and then I think, well, I’ll never do that, but then I just end up committing a whole different set of pendulum swinging. ⁓ On that note, one last question, because I’m dying to know what you think, because I have a feeling that you will have some very cold takes on this. What do you do with this kind of wave of, it’s mostly millennials, but these 30-somethings who are canceling their parents and they’re just breaking up with their parents and saying, I’m not going to talk. Have you heard of this?

Geoff Holsclaw (44:31)
yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dru (44:31)
Okay, yeah, I

I’ve heard several podcasts of people talking about why they didn’t have their rationalized and I thought, my reaction was, that’s horrible. That seems like the least productive thing. Understanding there are some parents where you do have to put up a boundary, have time apart for physical or emotional safety. But what do you do with that when somebody floats that past you?

Geoff Holsclaw (44:53)
yeah, no, I get that. I think. ⁓

have a lot of thoughts. I think it goes to… ⁓

Dru (45:02)
Yeah, we can imagine.

Geoff Holsclaw (45:06)
I’ll just say it. I think what it has come down to is not so much, maybe the attachment theory is even part of this problem, but the of the therapeutic nature of our culture feels very confident about what good or bad kind of social emotional relationships should look like. ⁓ And so there’s high ideals, high idealization maybe. And that’s… ⁓

And then there’s kind of the certain impulse of like toxic people need to be eliminated from my life. ⁓ which in theory sounds healthy, but in practice, I would say if a whole community of people are constantly acting that way rather than saying like, man, you bother me so much, or I am so angry with you and we’re going to keep figuring out ways forward. Right. I think under the guise of.

it’s healthy for me to do this. We’re actually fragile-izing ourselves. We’re making ourselves more fragile. ⁓ And, ⁓ yeah, I could go on and on about it, but I think there’s something.

Dru (46:17)
And making ourselves

more attachment fragile or emotionally fragile, on the whole, I’m going to guess you’re going to say is not a good thing.

Geoff Holsclaw (46:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s not a good thing. and we could just end this going back to kind of the attachment relationship is they talk about a good enough parent. So back to, know, we don’t want parent shame, right? You have a good enough parent who repairs rupture in a timely fashion. All the research says is like, you’re never in a relationship that doesn’t have ruptures. That’s impossible. And a rupture could even just be like, I’m hungry and a little grumpy, so I didn’t hear you, right? ⁓

So it’s impossible. And it’s actually, if you try to be a parent that’s always in tuned and always there for your kids and always helping them out, you actually make them fragile. You create more anxiety in them by trying to do that rather than making their life better. So they’re weaker for it. And so a good enough parenting relationship is one where repair ruptures are repaired. And that actually creates hope and deferred gratification too. And so I think

when we want to kind of take it, say, I can’t be with my parents anymore for the sake of my children or something, you because sometimes that’s way it is. Like grandma and grandpa can’t be trusted. My children, their values or whatever. And it’s just like, what are you teaching your kids? Basically, you’re teaching your kids. You can’t ever be around with people who are different than you or disagree with you. ⁓ You’re teaching your kids and yourself. I don’t have the resources to deal with people that I find frustrating or offensive. And. Like that just creates all sorts of problems and yeah.

Dru (47:53)
I can imagine. ⁓ I’m going to guess people are going to be upset that I’m now ending this interview. ⁓ But you and your wife, Sid, Sid could not be with us today. ⁓ She’s alive, but she couldn’t be with us today. ⁓ But you wrote this book, ⁓ Lost Care of the Soul. that what? No. Landscapes of the Soul. Sorry. I had it in my mind. ⁓ So people want to read more than go there or some of the other books that you’ve written.

Geoff Holsclaw (47:55)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Yeah.

Landscapes of the soul,

Dru (48:21)
And where else can they go if they want to find more? Because I have feeling that a lot of people will want to follow up on this.

Geoff Holsclaw (48:27)
Yeah. ⁓ All of our work is you could, we just started the Center for Embodied Faith. All of our work could be found at embodied faith dot life. there you’ll find a link to our substacks, our podcasts, certainly our book landscapes of the soul. and all the different, we have some trainings that we do and stuff like that. So we teach around other places too. So, but yeah, embodied faith dot life.

Dru (48:48)
Excellent.

And body, that’s a good one. That’s a really good one. All right, Jeff, thank you very much. Thank you for your wisdom. This has been very enlightening. And again, I think we all want to hear more. So maybe we can have you back on sometime and grill you with really hard questions. Oh, excellent.

Geoff Holsclaw (49:04)
I would love it. This has been super fun. So

I don’t quite get into the technical theological stuff as often. So this has been a delight.