In the first episode of On Unfolding: Learning to Live the Questions, Ryan and Jennie talk about what happens when certainty stops working and we begin learning to trust ourselves, question the stories we inherited, and take responsibility for the people we are becoming.

The conversation moves through evangelical Christianity and faith deconstruction, attachment, Internal Family Systems, parenting, mental health, identity, and the ways our relationships shape how we understand ourselves.

Along the way, we return to a few questions that have become important to us:

What kind of person do I want to be?

Who am I becoming?

What am I responsible for?

Who are the safe people in my life?

What stories have shaped the way I understand myself?

How do we create space for the people we love to grow and change?

We also talk about childhood experiences that shaped our relationships with certainty, Jennie’s experience of interpreting panic attacks through the language of spiritual warfare, Ryan’s memories of stealing Micro Machines as a seven-year-old and the way his father later helped him see that story differently, and a conversation with our daughter about the difference between the loud stories we tell about someone and the quieter stories that can get lost.

Near the end, we talk about one of the ideas at the heart of this project: creating a safe place for others to find their own lonely way in the world.

Life can be lonely, even inside good relationships. Sometimes what another person needs is not an answer or a solution. Sometimes it is simply someone willing to sit beside them and say, “I’m here.”

In this episode

• Learning to “live the questions” and Rainer Maria Rilke
• Growing up with religious certainty
• Faith deconstruction and learning to trust yourself
• Attachment, safety, and relationships
• Internal Family Systems and adaptive behavior
• Shame and the stories we tell about ourselves
• Spiritual warfare, panic attacks, and competing ways of making meaning
• Parenting adult children and listening without becoming defensive
• The stories parents tell about their children
• Loneliness, connection, and why we are making this podcast

Mentioned

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Thomas Merton
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Attachment theory

Read the show notes and full transcript at theunfold.ing.