The Felt-Sense of Faith: A Journey from Knowing to Feeling God (with Margery Arnold, PhD)

Renae: Well, hello, Margery, thank you so much for joining us for the second TraumaWise ministry Summit.

Margery: I am very happy to be here. Renae, it's always a good time with you.

Renae: Thank you. I appreciate that. I you know you know, you and I have had a history of walking in this space together on so many level levels. I think we knew as soon as we met, we were going to be lifelong friends. And so I know you really well, but there's a chance that maybe some of the people who are watching or listening to this. Have never had the pleasure of meeting you, so if you could please introduce yourself, that'd be great,

Margery: sure. Well, my name is Margery Arnold. I'm a psychologist living in California. I was raised Roman Catholic, and I'm still a practicing Catholic today, and yeah, let's see. I worked with kids, mostly who were in the foster care system for about 10 years, working in a yeah, in various settings, and then I definitely needed a break, and I that's when I that was right around the time that I met you, and we were taught. I'll let you tell more about that, but we, I was looking for something where I could help change the community, because I felt like we humans could be living a lot differently that would prevent a lot of mental illness and a lot of just struggle. So I was going a different direction, and that's when I met you, and you helped launch me in that direction. So I've been doing mental health ministry for six years. And, yeah, I'm interested in talking about this with you. Yeah, absolutely.

Renae: Well, I think what's when we met, it was at a training where we were both being trained to talk to the community about ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, and we had not met before. And in fact, I knew only maybe two people in the room when I when I went in, but a lot of people knew each other, but there were, like, a few flashpoints in that that those two days together that I recognized someone who has had some of the same journey that I've had with with faith, with, you know, the unpacking and understanding of neuroscience, and then also As an adoptive parent. And I think that that having the those three layers of working in that professional space as an advocate and a helper, being in the ministry space, and then as a parent who's experienced the breakdown of systems, you and I had an awful lot, and continue to have an awful lot to talk about and to collaborate on. Yeah, so I I'm really glad that we get to do this here, and I think that what you know recently, you've been sharing some about how your understanding of the embodiment of of God's love has changed for you, and what that means for your work, what that means for your community, and also your relationship with yourself and with God. So I'd love for you to share that with us.

Margery: Sure. Okay, so as I told you, I'm well, I don't know if we should talk about attachment first, or we should talk about, well, I'll just tell my story, and then we can kind of take some points. So I, as I said, I've been a cradle Catholic, so I've grown up going to religious education and all that. And you know, definitely had my period of time where I was away from the church in young adulthood, but I was still really curious, and luckily, the person that I fell in love with and married was also Catholic, and so we kind of have nurtured each other through that our Faith Journeys, and so, yeah, my curiosity kept me coming back and then practicing as a Catholic. And I knew a lot about God in my mind, and I had wanted to understand more, so I'd done a lot of Bible studies, no no professional training whatsoever, but just Bible studies and trying to understand our church, understand God, understand why, you know, why are we here? What are we? What's this all about? And so I felt like I knew even a lot of Scripture. And I knew that God loved me, but I didn't feel it right. I didn't have that felt sense of just that sureness that I am loved. I am loved, loved, loved. And I Yeah, so I definitely have had a lot of struggles with doubt about God, about church, about everything, and then maybe through that struggling and that just, I don't know, he didn't give up on me, I guess, and he brought me to people who could help me along the way. But what changed for me was when I got really sick, I got either long COVID or chronic fatigue, whichever, in 2022 and all of a sudden, like I really needed God, because before I was just much more independent. And I could go to God sometimes, but, you know, God was going to do what God was going to do. I just had to take care of myself. And so there was something that I had been wanting to do for a while that I heard about and I and it just seemed amazing, my husband got a Jesuit education. And the Jesuits are like an order of, well, probably a lot of people know now, because we had a pope who was Jesuit, but they're an order of priests who have education as a as their job as what and and I always felt like they were very open, and they had a very big view of God, and I was always attracted to that. And then I found out that they had these spiritual exercises, because I when I was in high school, the only Jesuit education nearby was all male, so that wasn't a thing, you know, that I was for me, but I got the chance through the Loyola Institute of spirituality, which there's one here in Orange County, and to do the Spiritual Exercises of st Ignatius. And I guess there's a lot of different iterations of this. So this is a nine month retreat, basically, not really, but retreat in the world because you're you just commit to praying 45 minutes to an hour every day, and to going and talking with your spiritual director once a week. And, yeah, there's a retreat at the beginning and at the end, but, and we meet once a month. Yeah, online. We were we met online because it was still, well, I think it was one of those things where we were like, realizing, Oh, we can reach more people if we do it this way. So, like, some of the people in my small group were in way far away, so we wouldn't, I wouldn't have met them. But what they do in that retreat is they just you at the beginning. I don't want to give too much away, but there's we do Lectio Divina, and we do so that is just reflecting on the the Scripture several different ways, and then maybe even putting yourself in that scripture and like, what would it have been like to be there and the first, probably 12, or it was like all the way to Christmas, probably, so I started in August, so More than 12 weeks, just week after week, every scripture was about how much God loves us like and so I was just bathed in it, you know, and it took a long time before I actually had that felt sense. And I was just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing to have that steadiness. And I can't always feel it, but I know how to get back to it after doing nine months of practice. Does that make sense? Like I feel like, you know God now I feel I know that God is always there, always and it's just a matter of how tuned in Am I to God, it's like, almost like a radio signal or something. And I like that idea because it sort of like, you know, you can think about how music flows, like you feel it in your body, and, yeah, so it's pretty awesome to have that. And, yeah, I don't know what more to say, like, but you asked me some questions I've been talking about,

Renae: I will, you know, and I want to reflect back a couple of things in there is that, you know, we in Scripture, and this is actually come up more than once during this summit already is that, you know, Jesus was very clear that we, we need to go to the Father as children, that it's that it's through that sense of of of wonder and awe and utter dependence that says, Wait, I'm going To stop trying to be the in charge adult. In fact, there is an in charge adult who's got everything covered. And, you know, my, my focus, of of in that dependence, that submission, piece of it is not, you know, submission that I wouldn't be able to be my own person, because, actually, God has created me to be exactly who I am. That's not, you know, God doesn't want to take that away, but, in fact, wants me to live into it, but I can only live into it if I have that felt safety and that attachment and that container, that co-regulation that says, I will never leave you, forsake you. I've got you. I'm right here, just like when we pick up an infant and say, I got you right. We take care of the physical needs, but also the emotional. And then that piece too of of being delighted in, and that has been that, that part of being delighted in has been my struggle for a number of years. And I mean, it's been the last 10 years has been better, but for years, it never occurred to me that God would delight in me like that. Yeah. I knew I was I knew I was loved,

Margery: yeah. But

Renae: that particular piece I to me when we talk about the the messages of attachment, a secure attachment, that the I am precious part, right? That my I'm I have a voice. My needs are important, and then I'm precious. I really struggled with this preciousness piece, because I had this, I had this deep connection with God, but I didn't know or believe or feel that delight in the same way. And so that's been this unpacking for me over the last it's, well, it's been about 14 years now, or some, no 1111, years or so. And so I appreciate that, that piece of I you know, you and I have talked a lot about neuroscience and with people all over we've done like, this is part of how we became such good friends, as we were co trainers on this curriculum. And it was a lot of developing trust and learning from each other. And it was like, it so cool. It is the model that I use when I for the TraumaWise trainer cohorts that we all team teach first before we go out into the world by ourselves. Yeah, because it was so rich, and particularly as we were talking with people about how we form neural pathways with repeated experiences. Yeah, and we know that those repeated pathways, those that become those, those ways of our understanding, and that our beliefs are formed based on our experiences, not because of words Yeah, but because of what we've experienced. And so that piece of the embodiment of spending that 45 minutes to an hour of sitting in with wonder and openness and curiosity and and saying I'm, I'm. My body's not going to be going and doing my regular thing. I'm doing something new. Yeah, focused on this relationship. I think that that's something really important for us to hold on to in this conversation.

Margery: Yeah, yeah. I hadn't thought about it, but in a way, I was building the wires that could connect to that antenna that could connect right in my body. And I want to say for sure, like, the first 45 minutes was like, forever and ever. And I didn't always do 45 I just, like, I didn't, but, but daily I did. And yeah, I started noticing, like, how much better my day went when I if I missed it and I it was totally different. I'm like, Oh, so it's where, like my body started to crave it, like I need to sit down and just be loved and and and be with God, and, yeah, and part of that time also is journaling. So it's not like you're meditating for an hour every day, although some people do, but anyway, but yeah, the wires like it became in my body, that embodiment of it because, and that is one of the exercises, is like putting yourself in there and really trying to do, you know, what would it sound like? What would it smell like? What would it you see? What you know? And you just reminded me of something that's like a it's a really Catholic experience that we do every year on Sunday, where we're the crowd, and we go through the passion and we're the crowd. And so we're like saying, Crucify him. Crucify Him, you know, and so usually my Palm Sunday experience is like a little like, I don't, I don't. I'm more aware of my sinfulness and my the ways in which I fail and how easy it is to fail. But this year was totally different. And I don't know if it I just never noticed this before in the scripture that Jesus is telling, and I know he tells Peter, he's going to fail, right? He's going to fail him, but he I wish I had the Scripture right in front of me. It's, it's Luke. And not only that, but he says, I know you're going to do this, and I'm still going to put you in charge, and I need you to lead everyone like, I know, like he's about to be like, that means going to be killed. And he knows that these people that he loves the most are gonna let him down, and he still has all this mercy and love for them, even knowing what he knows like I was just like, like, I never felt that before. You know that like, that possibility for redemption is always there, always Yeah, so it doesn't matter. It doesn't it's unconditional. You know, I know you sign your emails now unconditionally positive regard, or something like that, and you do like, you do it like, if people mess up, you're like, it's okay. I got you, we're gonna figure this out, right? And you model that you make mistakes too, yeah, which I love in your letters and yeah, just felt so I felt so light. Instead of feeling so heavy after that liturgy, I felt so light and like, Oh my gosh. He really, really, really loves and he knows all our foibles. He knows how we're gonna, you know, mess up, but he still loves us

Renae: this amazing, I love so I heard so clearly the and the yes and piece of this, when you're talking about the Peter, you're going to do this, and I'm going to still do this, and I feel like that such a beautiful representation of of my my understanding of who God Is, is the embrace of the and that it's neither this or that this, but that there's not a there. God doesn't have to qualify his regard for me. Yeah, he doesn't have to qualify his love for me. It is, and it what you were talking about with the practice and I, and I've said this in a couple of places, but I'm not sure if I have any of the the recordings for this summit or not, but I I myself have a daily practice that if I miss it, it skews my whole Day and but it's not because everybody, if you've seen my room, you know I don't have OCD, I don't, I don't. I'm not a person who has a compulsion for things or needs to do things I have ADHD. I can't form a habit to save my life for real. But, but the this is part of my investment in myself and investment in my my practice of aligning every day. And I starts with faith and my scripture writing and my reflection, and then it goes through heart, mind, body and soul, and I align each of those into and it's reflection. And there's there's gratitude, there's memories, there's wrestling, and it takes me 45 minutes to an hour every day to go through that. And I and I demand that of my life. I demand that of my schedule, and of my people and my family is very used to me saying I gotta go do my Bible study now and but not but, and it includes all of this because God wants heart wants me. I'm supposed to love the Lord with all my heart, mind, body and soul,

Margery: that's right, and

Renae: bring all of that. And if I'm not in alignment, I'm not in alignment for that day, I don't have access to all of the things that I usually would. And it is a practice. I think that's the part. It's not a perfect, it's a practice, because we continue to evolve and understand more and that even that journaling piece, it's a it's a dialog, it's a dialog, right? Yeah, and I love that. It does bring to mind the last May of May 2024, when they published that study about about DNA and the being able to change the DNA code, how it's read in the body, by creating what they called a fear extinction event. And that way, when we have this, when we have these, whether it's intergenerationally or whether it's our own trauma, and our DNA in our body says, Oh, this is we need to change how this person's body and brain is responding to things. So we're going to turn this switch this particular way, as it is a survival mechanism. Yeah. So again, that could happen historically with epigenetics, or could happen in our in our current lifetimes, for that's that protection piece, right? Because our bodies are so good at keeping us alive in general,

Margery: you're saying, just to clarify, you're saying that our bodies are going to keep us safe so they're going to make us more hyper aware of things to be afraid of absolutely, once we've experienced something bad happening, yeah, okay. And

Renae: it could be, it could be epigenetically, too, that we would have a predisposition to have error from something that we might not have experienced before. But it generationally, yes, it's already predisposed. And what this study learned was that if we can give people similar circumstances, but a different outcome. Yes,

Margery: that

Renae: it will actually change the DNA marker and flip that switch.

Margery: I didn't know that. That's so cool, a

Renae: fear extinction event,

Margery: okay, so maybe even something that you got epigenetically in your lifetime, if you work through that, then it will, it'll change the gene back to the next how the I should say, how the gene is read in the next generation? Yeah, that is cool. That

Renae: wild and and it was very specific. It has to be done in relationship? Yes, it has to be done in relationship that you need to experience whatever relational piece of that. So it's whether it was, you know, humanity versus nature versus whatever, but there it has to be shown to you, and you experience it written with repetition, and then it changes your DNA. And I think that this is that piece of what it we we when we go through these practices, especially those that bring us into a corporate understanding of of hope and love and peace and rootedness and groundedness and something that is life giving. Um, then we are creating those opportunities for, if it maybe, maybe there has been something in our genetic makeup that has kept us from being able to hope the same way, or love the same or see the same way, or or trust the same way. Yes, and these practices help us to to adjust. I think so. I'm thinking it might even be I'm not. It's not everyone. I am not a scientist. I am not a geneticist. I'm just seeing that there's this potential that that we're actually changing at a cellular level, yes,

Margery: when

Renae: we get these practices

Margery: and what, okay, can I make it very specific? Yes, so that people, because you and I understand what we're saying, right? But let's make it very specific, like my grandmother, I'm making this up. My grandmother had a, like, an extreme fear of spiders, because maybe she had it her her her mother, her mother, when she saw a spider, like, screamed and yelled when she saw it, right? So that's what my grandmother grew up with, this extreme fear of spiders. And then maybe she even saw somebody get really maybe somebody died, because people did die from spider bites when my grandmother, yeah, and so she had this really strong fear of spiders. So then she get her, let's say, then her daughter doesn't even have to see a spider. Doesn't have to go through those experiences, but just the first time she sees a spider, has an automatic, like phobia, almost like of spiders, that's not explained. It's just like this fear. She's like, I don't think it's that dangerous. I know in my mind, but my whole body and my whole I can't I gotta get away from this. I might even stop breathing, like, like, extreme physical reaction because of the way I'm reading the DNA that my body is reading, the DNA that my grandmother grew up with. Okay, actually, my mother would have right? And so it can be passed down that way. But here's the cool thing that. And you know this, I know, but so I was thinking about, how do you what are the relationships in which you do that? We get that chance again, like, say we didn't get something we needed. Everybody does gets things that don't get the things they need when they're a child. I mean, that's just kind of get a lot of really great stuff, but and some there's always a wound, right? But when we're parents, when we're parents, again, are we have more plasticity in that whole arena of trust, that we're actually able to heal, not just through other people 's love for us, but through our love for other people, for our little people. And I know you like to talk about how I can't, even if I tried to do it about the telomeres and how love heals the telomeres that have to do with the epigenetics? Yes, yes, either one of us are scientists, but I know you've, you've told that story a lot, so yeah, God is amazing, and what are his roles for us love one another as I have loved you and love me with all your art, mind, body, soul, like that's all skillful. Love is what we need, yeah, that kind of love and love like that. You gotta have a community, and you gotta have some scriptures, and you gotta have some rules, some ways of and you sure have to have redemption, because you're not. I mean, I'm not there yet, but I'm definitely not there. I want to be there. I want to love like that.

Renae: Yeah, I think that's beautiful. I The the opposite of scarcity is abundance and scarcity is fear based, and abundance is love based, right? Love abundance is that trusting. It doesn't mean that you have all the answers, but it means that you do have the hope, yes, and that you do have the and is faith, yeah, right, because you're you're believing, and you have faith and things that are not yet seen, yeah? But I think that's part of why. Also, if we look at Scripture over and over and over, it says, Remember, I am the Lord your God. Yeah, remember I love you. Remember that I have been there for you. Remember that I'm never going to leave her abandon you, and it's all throughout, over and over. Remember, remember, because we have such poor memories.

Margery: Yeah, rich, yes. Which reminds me, I didn't take the spider example all the way through, so if I were to take it all the way through, right? So I have a fear of spiders, but maybe my adoptive daughter doesn't, right? She doesn't have those same genes, right? So, and I love her, and she loves little creatures, and I'm watching her play, and she just loves everything about certain ones. Maybe she just thinks that spiders are the greatest, which actually I do, because I think spiders are, they're amazing, they're so cool, they're so beneficial. But just through that, and through my love of her, through that relationship, I can actually widen my ability to withstand spiders. I may never get all the way, but I could, if I wanted to, through repetition. What did you call it? The the extinction of the fear? Yeah, and that's what you know in trauma therapy, when we talk about that window of tolerance, that that's all we're doing, is extinguishing more and more situations in which that fear arises. Yeah,

Renae: well, this is the when exposure therapy became one of those validated, evidence based practices. Is that it's it works, but not not. It doesn't work for beneficial reasons or for long term or sustainable ways, unless there is felt safety in it. Yeah,

Margery: if you don't, all you're doing is re traumatizing. If you're not, if you don't, yeah, you have to have and so having that trust in that relationship or that love or that hope, whoever it is that's lending it to you, be your therapist or your partner or whatever, then you can make things bigger, right? You can trust more.

Renae: And I think that speaks to the the you know you, and I quote you all the time and say, Dr Margery says, until we die, because that that piece of I get so frustrated about the self regulation, oh yeah, concept, because it just heightens this, this lie that we are supposed to be independent. In fact, we are interdependent. We are so connected, this unbelievable and that that just true self regulation is just internalized co-regulation that we're drawing upon. Yeah, um, but what you're we're describing here in this journey, right? And even the way that your spiritual practice over this nine months was, here's the piece that's that's you and God, here's the piece that's you and your director, here's the piece that's you and your cohort. And like, it's incrementally getting larger in your community, and I'm sure that even in the relationships of people who didn't even know you were doing this, they get to experience it as you're you're practicing a new way of seeing how you get to engage with the world, because that started in this practice with God, yeah, Yeah, musical regulation

Margery: and the community helped me stay into practice, right? Because I tried having quiet times before and all that stuff, you know, but yeah, you're right, yeah.

Renae: So what any other thoughts about how this, how this helps you to relate to attachment in the way that you have thought of it before, or it's made it rich, or things that you're thinking of differently. I'd love to hear any any ways that that might be helpful for people who heard the ministry Summit, yeah, and maybe especially for those who maybe they don't have, like myself, didn't have a secure attachment and have had to work on getting to an unsecure place and being aware of, you know when we might default to an insecure strategy for getting our needs met? Yeah.

Margery: Yeah, I would just say one thing I've learned for sure, is that, well, I always quote you and saying you can't give what you don't have, and so if you don't, I didn't have that felt sense with God. I couldn't give it to my children. I could give them scriptures and songs, and we act out, you know, all the stuff. But when it came down to in our faith, we have a confirmation. When you're, you know, in high school, one of my daughters went through the other one did not. She did everything she was supposed to do for the confirmation. She did the service project, she did all the, you know, whatever, but she's like, Mom, I just think I would be lying if I said I believe, because I don't believe, you know, like I couldn't give her that felt sense. So I guess what I'm saying is, if you're in ministry and people are having bringing to you whatever they bring to you, just believe them, Believe them that they that is exactly what they're experiencing, and just be curious about it, and don't blame them or judge them, but try to help them find the ways in which they can connect to that felt, sense. Uh, yeah,

Renae: I like the phrase. I use this a lot with my kids and with other people. I've started to just this is part about middle age that I love, is you just kind of stop caring as much about certain things. And so I'll still say this to other people too, that I hear what you're saying. 100% you're totally experiencing that. And it's not the full truth.

Margery: Oh, I like that. It's not

Renae: the full truth. So I know you can't see this piece over here, so I will hold it until you get there, and I'm not going to push you toward it, but I'm holding this piece over here. Okay, 100% you're experiencing that 100 it's, you know, if it happened, something that happened that shouldn't have, you're right, it shouldn't have. Yeah, you're feeling this way about it. That's a terrible way to feel 100% Yep, it feels icky, awful, and, and, and love that

Margery: I'm going to go hug my daughter and tell her, then I love that. Oh,

Renae: Margery, thank you so much for your transparency and sharing your heart and your journey in this and I am so thankful that I get to share in the this spiritual part of your life that's not 100% where we met. This is where we've, we've, we knew right away we could, we could talk about it and explore and be in that space. And it's always been a safe space for us to discuss, and so I appreciate you continuing to make that safe, and now opening up and sharing with other people your experience and your wisdom, and that's pretty awesome. So thank you so much. This

Margery: was a delight. I always I miss you. I need to be with you more, so we will do more.

Renae: Thank you. Alright, thank you Margery,

Margery: thank you. Bye, bye.