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Chris and Beth Bruno host conversations at the intersection of psychology and theology. This podcast is powered by ReStory Counseling.
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We are Chris and Beth Bruno, and this is the Walking With Podcast.
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a team of brave and brilliant story work counselors and coaches around the country, all committed to helping you come alive. Join us as we explore the sacred landscape of the human heart at the intersection of theology, psychology, and ministry.
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We've been talking about what we mean by re-story and what this really actually looks like in the counseling room. And last week we talked about the role of evil and you talked about the two great extremes, the extreme of aloneness and the extreme of withness and the importance of coming into a journey of the place of harm with someone to be with them.
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and talked about offering kindness. And this week, we're going to talk more about the role of kindness in the Restory approach. So tell us a little bit more about what that really looks like. We are pretty committed to our stories. We're pretty committed to our second stories, our ways of being our ways of surviving. And they
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often throughout much of our lives, especially through our upbringing and childhood, but then even into adulthood, we found ways to make it work. And when we find a way to make it work, we stick with it and we're pretty committed to it. And yet, it is our stick to it-ness to those ways of being in the world that also end up bringing so much more challenge and pain and distance and relational harm.
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And I think about, in Romans, where Paul talks about what leads to repentance, what leads to change in our lives. And repentance, I think we often associate with sin, that we turn away from sin, but it's change. It's just changing who we are and how we engage in the world, what leads to it. His argument in Romans is that it is not the law. It is not...
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more rules and regulations. It is not more of a sense of like discipline and making sure that we get the right habits in the right ways at the right time and doing things correctly. There's not a formula that leads to some kind of change. What leads to change, Paul talks about, is the kindness of God. It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. And when I...
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Think about kindness. You know, the immediate word that comes to my mind also is nice, is being polite or nice. And I have to stress it is nothing further than, further away from niceness. Kindness is what I would say at the intersection of strength and tenderness, where there is a strength that says you will not, and a tenderness that says,
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Oh, my friend, my boy, my girl, I love you. Okay, this gentleness in the strength. And four words that a friend of mine said at one point that I just love are bigger, stronger, wiser, and kinder, that God is bigger, he is stronger, he is wiser, but in all of those things, he is not harsh, he is not mean, he is not looking to trip you up.
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on your words or in your actions. He actually is kinder than you could ever imagine. And some things that in the counseling space I'll say to people is, God is really not concerned about your sin. He's really not. And for Christians, that's like, well, wait a minute, didn't Jesus come to pay the penalty for our sin? And my response is, yes, absolutely, which is why he's not worried about it anymore.
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Right? It has been done once and for all. And so now what has separated us from the relationship with God has been taken care of. And now he looks at our sin and he's like, oh, I understand, I get it. I've taken care of that. Now come back, come back to me. Come into my bigger, to my stronger, to my wiser, into my kinder. And I can just envision, I can just see the face of God.
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and how many of us grew up with an angry face of God or a disappointed face of God. And for most of us, those faces look very similar to our mothers and fathers on earth. But God's face is not like that at all. God's face is one of generosity and joy and delight and kindness where he is looking at us in passionate love that will pursue us into the depths of our stories and back out again.
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But it's not just receiving kindness from God. What does it look like for you as a counselor to be the kindness that a person might need to really start to experience a restoring? Yeah, it's theoretical when you think about God in many ways, and for many people, he's so distant. He's so hard to see. You can't actually see his face, but you can see mine.
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And when you see kindness on my face or your counselor's face, when we are in the midst of the place where you are most likely to default to your shame, and instead of joining your shame, I bring a face of kindness, that is both disruptive to the narrative that you've believed about yourself and it is the greatest weapon against evil on earth. I've heard you say a thousand times.
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that disruptive kindness is the way to see real change. We do not expect kindness, but we sure long for it. All of us want kindness in the places where we are most wounded because kindness is relational.
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Kindness is generous, kindness is connecting. Kindness brings you who feels like you deserve nothing from me closer to me. It is not just an expression of, you know, rah rah, you're a good person. It's actually expressing to you that I long to be with you in this place. I do not join evil's rejection of you. I do not.
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turn against you when you feel like you need to be turned against. It is a generosity of I will be with you here still. So when the role of evil is to diminish, the role of kindness is to free. Is to free. Is to free that first story again. To remind you that not everything about you is wrong.
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Now, everything about you is despicable or disgusting or deserves punishment or distance. The freedom is I can actually see beyond that second story, the story that evil wants to tell, I can see beyond and I will remember both for you and with you that there is a masterpiece that was designed by a God who loves us and finds delight in us.
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And I will pursue that with you and I will remind you of it. And that is what I wanna pull out. That is the re-story. That is where, when we can begin to believe that that might actually be true, that's where things begin to change. That maybe I am not what evil has been telling me I am. Maybe I am not alone anymore. Shalom restored.
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And the interesting thing is that where two or more are gathered, there I am in your midst. That there is something restorative, repairing, renewing about the interchange between two people, two image bearers, where one image bearer can bear witness to the other. I see you.
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That is where Jesus enters and the Spirit of God renews. And maybe there will be a conviction of sin and maybe there will be a renewal of heart. That is why it's so important for that psychodynamic, that two hearts, that two people, the interpersonal engagement of a kind person and someone in their story. That's why that's so important.
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And one of the trickiest things is that for most of us, if not all of us, kindness in those places is the hardest thing for us to bear. It is something that we want to skirt away from. It is something that we believe so deeply that we do not deserve. And yet it is the very thing that we long for the most. And so.
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Kindness is not an easy thing. And that's why I call it a weapon. That's why I call it disruptive because it disrupts the narrative. It disrupts the story. It disrupts our whole understanding of who we are and how we are to be, how we've come to believe ourselves to be. And kindness is just not easy. Thanks for listening to the Walking With Podcast where we've spent the last year bringing you conversations at the intersection of psychology and theology.
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As a part of our Restory focus, we're changing the name this fall to the Restory Podcast. It will more broadly encompass what we're trying to do at Restoration and bring under one umbrella our work in the Counseling Center, in our digital laboratory, and with our brother and sister organizations, Restoration Project and Fierce and Lovely. You can find us in the exact same place, so don't go anywhere. The big shift comes on September 1st. Until then, join us next week as we continue to explore the Restory approach.
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See you then.