Marriage always carries both joy and challenge… but what happens when life pushes you to the edge? When trauma, illness, loss, stress, or sheer exhaustion stretch your relationship beyond its limits?

In this tender and often humorous conversation, Rachael Clinton Chen interviews Dan and Becky Allender to explore what it means to love and be loved through seasons of extremity—those times when the demands of life exceed our capacity to meet them.

From everyday frustrations to the deep pain of seasons of loss, physical suffering, and ministry fatigue, Dan and Becky reflect honestly on how marriage can expose both our best and our most broken parts.

If you're wondering how to stay connected when life feels impossible—or how to find beauty and intimacy on the other side of pain—this episode is a gentle invitation to hope.

This episode engages the topic of some difficult topics, including pregnancy loss. Listener discretion is advised.

Ever have a day where everything goes sideways and your body just won't calm down? In this episode, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen explore emotional dysregulation: why our nervous systems spiral under stress, especially with a history of trauma, and how we can respond with mercy rather than shame.

Through humor, real-life stories, and insights from both neuroscience and Scripture, they show that dysregulation isn't weakness; it's a signal from your body asking for care and compassion. Their conversation also offers practical ways to tend to your body, mind, and soul.

Listener Resources:

• Read: Aundi Kolber's Try Softer and Strong Like Water

• Read: Resmaa Manakem's My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

• Listen to: Self Care and Practical Grounding Techniques on the Allender Center Podcast

Download the free worksheet: Beyond Self-Care: Build Sustainable Practices from the Center for Transforming Engagement at The Seattle School

If you've ever wrestled with the long, uneven work of healing, we hope today's conversation offers courage for the journey.

Dan shares his recent reflections on the lament of waiting found in Psalm 13 and the persistent pursuit of justice embodied by Erin Brockovich as he rewatched the 2000 film. He and Rachael explore the tension between justice today and the full restoration that is "not yet," bringing these insights into the lingering impact of past sexual abuse.

Healing after sexual abuse shapes not just your body but your whole affective and relational world. When harm happens in relationships, it distorts your sense of safety, trust, and even goodness. You may notice contempt toward your own body, frustration at emotional reactions, or fear around your own desires. Hypervigilance, self-protection, or numbing can become familiar companions, and trusting others—or even yourself—can feel risky. The work of healing in adult life is laborious, requiring vulnerability, patience, and courage to reclaim desire, goodness, and the capacity to be seen.

They consider Psalm 13 as both a cry of lament and a thread of hope. It doesn't promise immediate relief. It simply says, "I trust in your unfailing love," leaving open the possibility that this is not the end of the story.

Healing is not a linear path or a once-and-done process. It's a lifelong journey of tending to what remains—the physiological, emotional, relational, and spiritual aftermath of trauma. And yet, even in the hard work, there is invitation: keep choosing life, goodness, and the beauty of your own desire.

Every small act of caring for your body, each moment of speaking truth, each return to beauty becomes a protest against despair—a glimpse of the wholeness that is coming. Healing itself is a form of justice.

* This episode engages the topic of abuse, particularly sexual abuse and child abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

Healing from spiritual abuse and religious trauma is not a simple, linear journey. In this week's episode of the Allender Center Podcast, Rachael Clinton Chen sits down with Dr. Hillary McBride—psychologist, researcher, and author of "Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing"—to explore the invisible wounds that trauma leaves on our minds, bodies, and spirits.

They talk about:

• How trauma can be reinforced by the very systems meant to guide and protect us.

• The profound importance of witnessing, connection, and radical welcoming in your recovery journey.

• Recovering parts of ourselves that were buried under burdens we were never meant to carry.

• What it means to grieve, to repair, and to show up for ourselves and our communities.

This conversation is an invitation to sit tenderly with your own story, to bear witness to your pain, and to glimpse the possibility of love, mercy, and goodness in the midst of it.

You can order your copy of "Holy Hurt" by Hillary L. McBride, PhD, here: https://hillarylmcbride.com/holy-hurt-book/

In this week's wise and profoundly human conversation, Dr. Dan Allender sits down with longtime friend and former student Michael John Cusick, founder of Restoring the Soul and author of the new book Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love.

Together, they explore the link between spiritual exhaustion and divine love, and how attachment, or the way we learn to connect and be connected, shapes our experience of God, ourselves, and one another.

Michael shares pieces of his remarkable story: from surviving profound childhood trauma and addiction to discovering the slow, sacred work of healing that unfolds over a lifetime. He reflects on the moments that first revealed divine love to him and later, the painful exposure that became the turning point of his adult life.

Dan and Michael talk about what it means to practice attachment—to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure—and how even our deepest wounds can become doorways into God's relentless, restorative love.

This episode engages the topic of abuse, particularly sexual abuse and child abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

When you hear the words "surrendered sexuality," what comes to mind—loss, shame, control? In this conversation, you'll hear a different vision.

In this week's episode, Dr. Dan Allender is joined by clinical psychologist and author Dr. Juli Slattery. Together, they open up a vulnerable and hope-filled dialogue about sexuality—one that goes far beyond rules or "right answers."

Drawing from her new book Surrendered Sexuality: How Knowing Jesus Changes Everything, Juli shares how her own journey, through disruption, prayer, and deepening intimacy with God, led her to recognize the unspoken pain so many of us carry around sexuality.

Rather than focusing on behaviors, Dan and Juli invite you to see sexuality as a core part of being human: your body, your emotions, your longing for connection, and ultimately, your intimacy with God.

They also reframe what it means to surrender. Instead of shame or control, surrender becomes a gentle, ongoing invitation into the goodness of God—an opening to more pleasure in life, meaningful healing, and deeper trust in Jesus.

This isn't an episode with tidy conclusions or quick fixes. It's an invitation to step into the mystery of sexuality as part of your discipleship journey, and to discover that in surrender, you don't lose yourself. You find life: a life that is more whole, more connected, and more deeply rooted in the goodness of God.

What does it look like for the Church to become a true place of hope, healing, and care when it comes to mental health? In this week's conversation, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen are joined by Laura Howe, a clinical social worker and founder of Hope Made Strong and the Church Mental Health Summit, a free online event coming up on October 10, 2025.

Laura shares her journey into bridging faith and mental health—born out of frustration and a longing to see the Church rise to its calling as a safe, caring community. Together, they explore the unique role the Church can play in mental health support: not as a replacement for clinical care, but as a vital presence of peer support, belonging, and discipleship that helps people feel seen and held.

This episode touches on:

• How churches can move beyond programs to cultivate a culture of care

• The power of peer support as the "missing piece" in mental health conversations

• The theological and cultural obstacles that keep communities from engaging suffering honestly

• The very real challenges of compassion fatigue and burnout for leaders—and practices for resilience

Whether you're a pastor, ministry leader, caregiver, or someone longing to see your church embody greater compassion, this conversation offers both hope and practical wisdom for building communities where people can truly experience the canopy of care we all need.

For many, theology brings to mind dusty bookshelves, abstract arguments, and rigid dogmas. But what if theology wasn't static? What if it could move, breathe, and shape the way we live, love, and lead in the world?

In this episode, Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen are joined by Dr. Lauren D. Sawyer to talk about living theology—a way of engaging God and Scripture that doesn't stay confined to the context of books, a classroom, or even church, but instead has "feet" that walk into our everyday lives. Lauren shares about The Seattle School's new Certificate in Living Theology, a one-year online program designed to bring theology into conversation with psychology, culture, story, and community.

Together, they explore why theology is never neutral, how our contexts shape what we believe, and why listening and dialogue are as essential as doctrine. You'll hear how living theology is less about arriving at final answers and more about cultivating a faith that is reflective, embodied, and responsive to the complexities of our time.

If you've ever longed for a way of doing theology that feels deeply connected to life, justice, and relational depth, this conversation is an invitation to consider what it means for theology to truly come alive.

Learn more about the Certificate in Living Theology: theseattleschool.edu/programs/living-theology-certificate

This episode engages the topic of abuse, particularly sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

Dr. Dan Allender and Linda Royster, LCMHC—two of the leaders of our Recovery Week experiences—come together to reflect on the heart and history of this sacred work.

Dan shares about the origins of Recovery Week in 1988, a gathering that began with a bold hope: that healing is possible for those carrying the wounds of childhood sexual abuse. Linda offers her own story of first encountering The Wounded Heart and the ways it opened her to the possibility of transformation.

Together, they invite us into a deeper understanding of what it means to hold both the personal and the collective—acknowledging that no one suffers in isolation, but always within systems and contexts that shape our stories. Linda speaks to the profound intersections of racial trauma and sexual abuse, and the complex layers of shame that can silence and fragment survivors.

Recovery Weeks create a space to move toward those particularities of the harm you've experienced—where you may want to freeze, minimize, or look away—and to take the courageous step of naming what is true. The goal is not to erase or resolve shame, but to walk through it, opening the way for transformation.

This conversation is an honoring of the decades of work poured into Recovery Weeks, and a heartfelt invitation: to those who come, your presence is already a profound act of courage. Our hope is that you might encounter a deeper healing that makes way for new life.

We are made in the image of a wildly creative God—and that means creativity lives in each of us. Yet, while it flows freely in childhood, many of us lose touch with it as adults, buried under busyness and productivity. What would it look like to recover creativity—not just for ourselves, but within our closest relationships?

This week, Dan and Becky Allender sit down with longtime friends John and Sue Cunningham, who are both creative in their own right. John is a potter, Sue is a poet, and together they've discovered both the beauty and the challenges of nurturing creativity in their marriage.

Their conversation explores:

• The vulnerable (and sometimes costly) work of encouraging creativity in one another

• How creativity can be both communal and connecting, and also deeply individual and isolating

• The patience, generosity, and curiosity that can support your partner's creative passions

• Practical ways to offer meaningful feedback and engagement without shutting each other down

Whether you write, paint, play music, garden, or simply long to bring more beauty into your life, this episode will encourage you to see creativity not only as a personal practice—but as a vital part of your relationship.

Marriage isn't only shaped by the big events and ruptures—it's also shaped by the little things. The small arguments that seem to surface again and again, the shifts in family roles as children grow up and move out, and even the physical changes that come with aging can quietly wear away at a relationship if left unspoken.

In this episode of the Allender Center Podcast, Dr. Dan and Becky Allender are joined by Dr. Steve and Lisa Call to revisit the topic of marriage following the release earlier this year of their book, The Deep-Rooted Marriage.

Together, they name the everyday tensions—like bickering over household tasks or navigating the emotional weight of an empty nest—that can strain a relationship.

More importantly, they share how couples can stay "buoyed together" through kindness, curiosity, and honest conversation. From asking simple questions like "What's going on for you?" to practicing story work that helps us understand the deeper histories beneath our conflicts, this conversation offers hope and guidance for cultivating resilience and intimacy in marriage.

Whether you're facing small resentments, major life transitions, or simply longing for more connection, this episode invites you to consider how kindness, curiosity, and story work can deepen your relationship.

Please Note: This episode contains some mature language; listener discretion is advised.