Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation · Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw

130 (Bonus) Deeply Loved: Exploring Empathy and Spiritual Growth (with Bill & Kristi Gaultiere)

·39 min·2 clips

Bill links Teresa of Avila's "interior castle" to emotions as "the portal into our souls."

1. Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation focuses on Bill and Christy Gaultiere's work on empathy and spiritual growth. 2. Jeff Holzclaw hosts the conversation, and Bill and Christy Gaultiere appear as doctors of psychology and founders of Soul Shepherding. 3. The episode asks how "being deeply loved" can connect empathy, intimacy, independence, and emotional health with Jesus. 4. Bill says Soul Shepherding combines "care and guidance" in pastoral care, prayer, teaching, and training. 5. He names pastors, missionaries, spiritual directors, coaches, and church leaders as people they serve through resources and retreats. 6. Bill and Christy say their own formation came through the church, but they found the emotional dimension missing. 7. Bill describes a college season of unresolved questions about church, family, and his own "unhealth" that pushed him toward psychology. 8. He says his summer as an apprentice butcher in a meat market ended in depression and raised questions about where God was in suffering. 9. Christy says she changed her major from interpersonal communications to psychology after Bill encouraged her to do it. 10. They married when Bill was one year into his PhD program, and Christy started her program three weeks later. 11. Bill says he was drawn to Christy's "positivity" and emotional presence, while Christy says Bill had to learn intimacy. 12. Bill says emotional awareness helped him with anxiety, depression, marriage conflict, parenting, and work misunderstandings. 13. He says Teresa of Avila's "interior castle" image helps him see emotions as "the portal into our souls." 14. He connects emotional honesty with reading the gospels and asking what Jesus of Nazareth experienced as fully God and fully human. 15. Christy says she was highly sensitive, learned to repress emotions, and became depressed, ashamed, and a people-pleaser. 16. She says Bill's validation felt healing because he listened, named emotional intelligence, and showed her that vulnerability increased respect. 17. Christy says empathy can drain people when it is not stewarded with boundaries, solitude, silence, and deliberate soul care. 18. Bill says empathy must be joined to truth and responsibility, and he says emotions are not the same as perceptions or opinions. 19. Bill and Christy speak in an interview style with personal stories, direct examples, and practical distinctions rather than abstract theory. 20. Listeners who want Christian psychology, marriage dynamics, and emotional formation will likely benefit most, while people wanting a short devotional only may skip it.

As heard by us

Attachment, shame, and emotional safety are handled with care, not abstraction.

Jeff Holzclaw frames the episode around attachment-based, relationship-focused spiritual formation, and Bill and Christy Gaultiere talk plainly about feeling deeply, hiding emotion, and finding safety in a relationship that can meet shame with grace.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want an attachment-based, Jesus-centered conversation that talks honestly about shame, safety, and emotional hiding.

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