00:00:02 Speaker 1: Life Audio. 00:00:06 Speaker 2: Welcome to I Wish you could hear This, where we explore great stories and simple, proven steps to help you thrive in life, faith, and relationships. 00:00:16 Speaker 3: In our research, we've heard hundreds of Hopefield strategies for marriage, parenting, leadership, and life that are grounded in science and consistent with biblical truth, and now you can hear them too. 00:00:28 Speaker 2: Hi, I'm CHANTI feldthan. Is there some sort of emotional pattern that you tend to repeat over and over but wish you didn't. Maybe it's anger that rises up out of nowhere and you find yourself lashing out even though you know it's destructive. Maybe it's worry and anxiety that keeps you up at night even though you know Jesus said to not worry about tomorrow. Maybe you feel shame or regret over choices that you made that you can't undo. If there is something that is keeping you stuck, then you are in the right place. Because today on I Wish you could hear this, we are going to dive into the concept of emotional hoarding and provide a practical road to emotional freedom. Welcome everybody. Now you're probably wondering why I'm here alone in the studio. I did not fire Jeff from the podcast. He's still very much a part of it. But today I have a really unique opportunity to interview my friend Lorie Davies, who is also the senior editor for our ministry. And so you are in for a treat today because Lori has just released a book called Emotional Hoarding, letting go of the stuff that keeps you stuck. And today we're going to chat about what emotional hoarding is, how it hurts us, and how scripture shows us a much better way. So, Lourie, I am so glad you agreed to be on the podcast. 00:02:08 Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I've had this date circled on my calendar for a little while now. 00:02:12 Speaker 2: Yes, we've both been looking forward to this. We're so excited. I actually need to open, like, just open the window for our listeners and let everybody know that this is one of my like So I'm so excited about this because Jeff and I were actually in Phoenix having lunch, brunch, something like that, dinner, I can't remember. We were at a restaurant with Lourie and her husband when Lourie got the call that Moody Publishers was going to publish this book, and we basically woke up the whole restaurant, I think because we were screaming. 00:02:46 Speaker 1: And it's true, there was audible response. What a gift that you were in my city. You know, I live so far apart. Yeah, I wrote one of my chapters in Atlanta, So yes, there's been a little bit of geographic crossover. But that was a super great gift to have you at the lunch table with me sharing a meal when I got the call that I would write this book. 00:03:11 Speaker 2: It's just so excited. It's just so exciting, and it's such a good book. And I actually I had the honor of writing the foreword for the book, and one of the things that I said in the forward is you are never going to think about your emotional life the same way again, because as I read this, I kept going, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Like it really opened my eyes. And so just to dive in to let everybody hear some of the insight and give us a little bit of an on ramp into what we're going to be talking about today, I'd love to hear you explain for everybody what was it that really led you to write the book, Like, what was it that really spurred this on? 00:03:56 Speaker 1: There have been seasons in my life and maybe some of your listeners will relate to this. I've been in church and I've heard the pastor preach about freedom and it really lights up something in my soul. And then I leave and I realized that on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm not actually living a life that matches up with that. 00:04:17 Speaker 2: So I'm knowing my own talking about and our listeners have no idea what you're talking about. 00:04:22 Speaker 1: Yes, I think in my own life. I started to sort of examine, well, why am I disconnected from the freedom that Jesus offers, the thing he came to do, the thing he places highest value on that, Why don't I feel that fully and freely? So there was sort of a self examination, which I think is sort of a natural thing that we do in midlife anyway. But then on a parallel track to that, I have in one way or another been serving women in ministry for a number of years now, and I realized I'm not the only one. Yeah, So I thought, well, what would it look like to kind of take a look at you know how physically. I think most of your listeners will have some frame of reference for a physically hoarded home, whether they got intersected with that personally or whether they've just been flipping channels and they've seen kind of what the the just the difficulty around that, both in the person who hoards letting go of stuff and in people who might have a view into that wanting to help and kind of hitting a wall, right, Yeah, So I thought, well, what would it look like to kind of examine that and kind of look at a physically hoarded home and the parallel that it has to an emotionally hoarded heart. And what I found, Shanty was, there are some similarities and very much like a hoarded home, a hoarded heart runs out of space. You know, we can't. In scripture we're told to love the Lord with all our heart and all our soul, and all our mind and all our strength, and Proverbs three five and six. We love to quote this, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. So if he wants all of our hearts, I wanted to take a look at what's the path to giving my whole heart to him? Because if it's cluttered up. If I've stacked and stockpiled things like regrets and resentment and bitterness and anger and all that stuff, then am I really loving him with all my heart? Am I really trusting him with all my heart? 00:06:44 Speaker 2: It's such a good question, and yeah, for you, just for our listeners to know, like LORI was the women's ministry director of a large church, Like she's talked to so many different women, and as a lay counselor, like you've seen this play out over and over and over. One thing before we jump into some of the things that you cover, because I want to make sure that we really dive in to helping people understand what emotional hoarding is and what some of that looks like, because that's where I was going, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Like I hadn't quite thought of this this way before. But before we dive into that, just technically, we are talking as if this is only for women, and even though the book is primarily written to women, the concept it applies to everybody, doesn't it. 00:07:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think do you remember the old Secret commercial from I don't know that I'm really going to date Ash. We'll just say it was several years ago, but the slogan was strong enough for a man, made for a woman. Okay, I think that kind of applies here. There are stories and phrases that are aimed, you know, a little more explicitly at women. But I think men would find a home in these pages. In fact, I've gotten some feedback, early feedback from men who have read it, and they're like, oh, I do this too. It looks different. I think it's it looks different. For example, let's pick on anger for a minute. I think the way men and women tend generally to express anger is different. You know, men may kind of when we think about hoarding, men may kind of let harder emotions build up fear. I'm worried I'm not going to be a good, strong provider for my family, and I'm afraid all the time, and it comes out as anger, like a flash of anger. Women. Again, generally I'm generalizing, but women tend to kind of be more exasperated or irritated, a little bit passive aggressive about it. 00:09:02 Speaker 2: Oh no, I know, for people who aren't watching on video, you just saw me cringe. 00:09:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, Shanty just had a physical react. 00:09:10 Speaker 2: I just had a physical reaction to that, because this is one of the things when I was reading the book, was like, oh my gosh, that is my issue, that exasperation, that irritation, and it's just you're right, it is different. But I'm glad to know that if there are men who are listening in on this one. Guys, you're welcome here, just so you know you're going to hear some things. 00:09:33 Speaker 1: I think Shanty, it's important to acknowledge quickly that, for example, I wrote a whole chapter on false guilt. Now men may not struggle as much with false guilt. Feeling guilty, this sense of feeling guilty all the time. 00:09:46 Speaker 2: That's such a mom guilt thing. 00:09:47 Speaker 1: Yes it is. It is. And so men who are listening, if your wife is paralyzed by mom guilt, never feeling like she's measuring up, I'm a terrible mom, I'm wrecking our kid. I'm not doing it like everyone else on social media, you know all that stuff. Boy, a man who reads that chapter could have really deep insight into how to serve his wife and health kind of negotiate this thing that she's buried under because mom guilt is false gill. Both are from the enemy and there's a really clear way to dismantle that. 00:10:25 Speaker 2: So that is a really good point. Okay, so guys, that is another reason why you might be interested in this particular episode. Let's jump into really kind of the content of this conversation so that people know, you know where we're going. Here's the starting point. I think most of the people who are listening to this, everyone's heard the term emotional baggage, right. We have lots of jokes about this, we make memes about it. But in your book, you actually you say pretty directly, emotional baggage isn't really our problem, Like the real problem is this what you call emotional hoarding. Now you started in on this, can you go a little bit further and explain what you mean by emotional hoarding specifically? 00:11:24 Speaker 1: Sure, thanks for asking. I think, as you mentioned, emotional baggage is pretty much out there in our vernacular, and generally, I think what we mean by that is unresolved emotions, difficult emotions that haven't come to a conclusion. There's some kind of emotional you know, kind of pain. Emotional hoarding takes that up and notch with difficult, unresolved emotions that we are holding onto okay, sometimes willfully, like you had a physical reaction a minute ago. I'll preach to myself for a minute, I have been guilty in the past of holding on to a grudge, which is a nice way of saying I'm holding onto bitterness because I liked how it felt in my hands. I wasn't ready to let that offense go, you know. So sometimes it's wilful. Other times it's maybe self protective, like we were picking on false guilt a minute ago, mom guilt. Sometimes the reason that we are feel false guilt, that we say sorry all the time for things that aren't our fault, is because we learned that in childhood. Sometimes so sometimes it's self protective. And you know, sometimes we in a work with me for a minute, in a weird or maybe warped kind of way, we make it almost noble, like if I hold on too that regret, or if I hold on to this shame, I won't sin again, or I won't make that mistake again. So there's all sorts of reasons we hold on. But when I talk about emotional hoarding, the high level view is these are things we are, you know, unwilling to let go of or unable or or maybe we're unaware. We don't even know we're holding. 00:13:19 Speaker 2: On Yeah, okay, so that gets us, I think, all on the same page. So if we're not aware of it, how do you how can you tell? Because one of the things that the book did for me as I was reading through it was it helped like shine a spotlight on Oh my gosh, I am an emotional hoarder in this way and this way. So how can someone tell if they are hoarding? 00:13:44 Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, high level, so ten thousand foot view. If if you're ruminating on something, just thinking about it all the time wakes you up at night, it's the first thing you think of in the morning. The converse to that would be if you're completely stuffing it, like I don't want to feel this feeling. I don't like what it does inside me, so I'm gonna sweep it under the rug. I mean, look at the language we use. We even sort of use the language of a physical structure sometimes, you know, or our secrets are hiding in the closet, you know, which the emotion attached to that is dread right, So I think, are we thinking about it all the time or shoving it under the rug? It also comes out in our physiology. You know, how are you sleeping? How's your how's your how's your tummy? 00:14:35 Speaker 2: Right? 00:14:37 Speaker 1: You know, we start to experience some of that are you in fight or flight all the time? Which triggers all sorts of effects through the body and reeks havoc. So those are some of the high level views. But each chapter, as you already mentioned, deals with an emotion, and in each chapter I give kind of a rundown on hey, you might be hoarding this emotion if A, B, C, D, E, and F. Worthlessness was one of my favorite ones to kind of run through that grid kind of how do we know if we're holding on to it? Some of your listeners might. 00:15:19 Speaker 2: Your book up, hold your book up so people can see what it looks like. Oh okay, for those who are there, we go. I love that cover, by the way, I just absolutely love it. 00:15:26 Speaker 1: So I will say my publisher, Moody Publishers, hit a home run on it. I cried when I saw the cover. That's okay, So let's just pick on worthlessness for a minute, because some of your listeners might be like, well, who would hoard worthlessness? Who would collect that? Who would collect emptiness? Or here are some clues that this might be you. Are you people pleaser? Do you, you know, need to perform? Are you attention seeking? Are you a perfectionist? So you need to achieve unrealistic goals to find a sense of value? How's your comparison and how's your boundary setting? So negative self talk? How do you talk to yourself? You know? Do you say things to yourself you would never dream of saying to other people. If that starts to sound like you or someone you know, worthlessness might be the core wound in play there. So each chapter has kind of a rundown like that that can give you some cues and clues that this emotion might be something you're holding on too. 00:16:37 Speaker 2: I that is so helpful. Okay, now I'm going to just be really open here for a minute. I was really struck right out of the gate, hit me over the head with a mallet by your chapter on worry, right, I realized. 00:16:57 Speaker 1: How was that? 00:17:00 Speaker 2: Well, that's my question for you. My my brain in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day, my brain wants to cycle through the things I'm worried about, like you and I and just as this is just a silly example, but it's these little examples that make everyday examples. So you and I actually tried to record this podcast a few weeks ago. We had all these technical issues, and so we decided, let's let's just try this again. And the night that the night before we recorded, I was up in the middle of the night because this was during a government shut down, and my daughter, who is twenty five years old, who is a consultant, she's an engineer, was having to fly to an area that has been notorious for having to shut down the airport because there were no TSA officers able to work during the government shutdown, and so she was like supposed to leave at you know, twelve thirty in the afternoon, she ended up leaving at like eleven at night, and on the way there, they closed the airport, so they had to divert to a different airport. And so I'm asleep right like, I didn't know that this had happened. All I knew is that she had a really you know, bad experience all day waiting at the airport. So I get up to use the restroom or something, get a glass of water, and I see on my phone that I'd gotten several texts in and by now it's like one in the morning and I pull up and it's from her, And I pull up my Life three sixty app, and which you know, our family we all have, you know, the tracking app. We all love kind of keeping tabs on each other. It's one of our family things. But I see that she is Wow, wait a minute, she's not where she's supposed to be. She's two states away and she's on She's driving on a turnpike at two o'clock in the morning, and not a great turnpike either, Like it's not a great area. And I'm like, what the heck is going on? You know, I'm like all these you know, worries, and and so I ended up actually calling her to say I see her moving. What's going on? She explained the whole thing, but I was not able to sleep now here I am. I'm the mom of a twenty five year old, right, And yet it was like it kept coming back, like did she rechro tell yet she's driving through this bad area? And you know, it's it's one of those things that I would love to be able to not hold on to that, And so what is it that causes us to hold on to those worries. You were saying, it serves a purpose, like it's serving a purpose in us. Is it that I think somehow I'm going to magically get her safely to her hotel if I worry about it enough, Like. 00:20:21 Speaker 1: Well, what I mean, even Jesus spoke to them, right, don't worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough. Yes, we're trouble of its own. Yeah. Well, first of all, let me just by the way, fun fact aside, Shanty and I both have twenty five year old morgans. 00:20:37 Speaker 2: Yes, we do mind it. 00:20:39 Speaker 1: Sack minds a young man, Trus is a young woman. Yeah, so that's fun. First of all, Shanty, I think it's completely natural and normal that you experienced worry when your daughter was driving in an unsafe area at two in the morning. That's not out of bounds. I would be concerned about you. Thank you as a friend and as a mom if you didn't have some level of like the worry rises right. 00:21:04 Speaker 2: With what anxiety is for, right, like it's moving a purpose of some kind. 00:21:09 Speaker 1: Yes, so I think your question speaks more to if I can't sleep tonight and I can't sleep tomorrow night and I'm constantly paralyzed by worry, with worry for my kids or whatever your listeners. 00:21:25 Speaker 2: Want checking the tracking app. 00:21:27 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I was shocked when I was writing the book. There's actually a term called meta worry, and it's worry about how much you worry my goodness. Okay, so let's stop that. I you know, I think I think as women, I think it's safe to say we uh, we're pretty good warriors, you know. And I think sometimes we confuse worrying with problem solving. So if I just worry about this, I'm going to get to a solution. One of the clinical experts that I interviewed for the book offered that, and I think that that really landed with me. Like, if I just I'm a big I used to be a newspaper journalist, if anybody remembers what newspapers were, and so I'm a kind of just the facts person. So if I just get more facts, that will help me not worry. But that's not how worry works. Worry, if we don't close the loop on, it just becomes this runaway thing that really can take over our lives and our thinking and starts to wreck our relationships. Certainly, wrecks our sleep as you experienced. I mean it can, it can spill over into We'll have a hard time making decisions because our brain's always clicking with how how do I close this worry loop? And guess what we're worried about one thing? Haven't closed that loop. Then another worry comes, Then another worry comes, then another worry comes, and one of the clinicians I interviewed said, it's just too much. Eventually we shut down. You can't even do it. So we need a way out of that worry. First of all, we need to give ourselves a little bit of grace and understand the worry I'm experiencing is normal and it's good, but it crosses over into something that can consume us if we don't get a lock on what's my path out of this? 00:23:26 Speaker 2: So okay, so take us on, for example, a path out for and I'll use back to my example. I've talked to Morgan. It's you know, I'm she's okay, she's you know, on a on her journey for an hour, another hour and a half till she gets to her hotel in another state because she's having to drive instead of fly. And my brain I want to be able to go back to sleep. I want to not be worrying about, well, you know, has she reached the hotel yet? Has she reached the hotel yet? And I want to not be obsessively like checking the tracking app, checking my phone and tomorrow and the next day and the next day, because there's always something right. So what do I do to get freedom from that? Take me through an example of a process. So the first step, it sounds like, is to tell yourself this is normal, like ish, like anxiety is there for a reason. It's just bad when it goes beyond what that reason is. And for us to think by worrying, I can problem solve it. 00:24:38 Speaker 1: Right, right, which is checking three sixty all the time. If I just check the app again, it's going to lead me to resolution. But there's a much better way, okay, And so remember when I don't think people use the phrase so much anymore, But there used to be this like, well, if you can't sleep, try counting sheep. It turns out there's a vastly better way. And let's just use your example. You know, we haven't talked about this. Your listeners need to know we haven't. This isn't rehearsed. We're just let's just workshop this example in real time. 00:25:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, please do so. 00:25:11 Speaker 1: One of my favorite passages in scripture, and I know this. We have a shared love for this passage. It's Philippians four eight. It's all the whatevers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just or right, depending on your translation. So, really, what this is, Shanty, is a systematic way to re calibrate. 00:25:36 Speaker 2: Our thoughts, okay, to land on. 00:25:41 Speaker 1: Places that God wants our thoughts to go. You know, all the whatevers, whatever is this, whatever is that? How does that end? You probably know it by heart. 00:25:48 Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, no, because I always. 00:25:50 Speaker 1: Think on these things. 00:25:51 Speaker 2: Think on these things. 00:25:52 Speaker 1: Yeah, think on these things. So the Lord is telling us, so, Shanty, you're racked with worry. Your daughter is driving. It's crazy late, she's a young woman on the road. You're racked with worry about that. And the Lord after you kind of experience that flush of what is very natural, the Lord says, hey, Shanty, think about these things. So first of all, what is true? Whatever is true? So with your example, what I mean a really high level truth is the Lord knows exactly where your daughter is on the map. Yeah, he cares about her more than you even have capacity to. He protects her, He guards her, he's fiercely jealous over her. He can send an army of angels to protect her, surround her car. Right, that's true. And a friend pointed this out to me years ago. You know, all of these whatevers are translated differently in different translations of the Bible. But true is always. 00:26:57 Speaker 2: True, and I love that. 00:27:00 Speaker 1: It's a great starting point, and I believe it's our starting point for a reason. So what's true about the situation or true about God? And the next one, whatever is noble? So this one is sort of like I even sit up straighter in my chair when I say that word. There's a there's a way to this kind of So it may not apply so cleanly to your example with your daughter, but let's say you're in an argument with somebody, somebody you love, somebody you care about, and there or maybe there's been just a little jab and there's an offense there. So with this whatever is noble, there's there's really a call to kind of pull your thoughts away from what is petty or minor or shallow and really fix your thoughts on what's noble. Like, Let's say you and I got tangled up about something. I think we've been friends long enough and we've worked together long enough to trust each other to know that if I said something, you know, maybe you could look at that and go, well, I bet she's tired. She's not usually like that. So I'm gonna I'm going to choose not to be offended. I'm not going to look at the minor. I'm going to give a more generous view to my friend here. Yeah, so whatever is right a line you're thinking with what God says is right? So back to your daughter. We serve a God who really cares about working all things out for good, you know, So you can rest in that. You can then start to maybe slip into sleep. Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. I love that last one. Chuck Swindahl writes, think of this category as containing the things that are fit for God to hear. 00:28:52 Speaker 2: Oh, I love that. 00:28:53 Speaker 1: So even if we can't come up with something, it's hard to come up with something admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy when you're nots about your daughter on the highway at two in the morning. But often we can just flip this right into worship. Yeah, And I have noticed in my life it's really hard to worry and worship at the same time. Worship really just swallows the other up. So it's a systematic and I know, shanty of all people in my life, you love that because you want the process. It's right, It's there's the process here, It's in the Bible. 00:29:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I appreciate that so much. I am new in trying to think about things this way because you know, I just read your book for the purposes of writing the forward. Just you know, it was just a few months ago, and I'm still very much processing through that. But what I will say for everybody to be aware of is you don't realize how much freedom you're missing until you actually get it by going through some of these processes. Like you know that it's kind of like when you're sick and you didn't realize how sick you were until you suddenly feel better. 00:30:05 Speaker 1: You're like, whoa feel better? 00:30:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's you know, like that. 00:30:10 Speaker 1: A few months ago, I was really worried about something like paralyzed, worried about it, and my son was over and I was talking to him about it, and he said, well, Mom, you know, you wrote a whole chapter on this, and I kind of was like, well, yeah, I did. So I went and I literally read the chapter and I kind of started because there's more after that, more before and more after, and I kind of worked the whole thing, and I came out into the kitchen and I was like, guys, it works like it works. Imagine that scripture would reach through time, be transcendent, be powerful, help lead us to victory, do all the things that it promises to do. But yeah, so it was it's like I'm embarrassed to admit that. 00:30:57 Speaker 2: Bet No, it makes total sense. I've had very similar anyone who has heard me speak on stage, anyone who's heard me do a marriage event or women's event, Like you need to know that, Like half the time I'm standing up there in my mouth is moving and I'm saying X y Z, and I'm going, you just did that last night. Like this thing that you just said to, for example, the women in the room you gotta be careful, is like you just did that. And so yes, it's just because we have written about these things doesn't mean we always know exactly what the heck we're doing. So you talked about hoarding worthlessness, and I think you hit a couple of us square between the eyes when you said you may not think of yourself as doing that, but are you a people pleaser? Like? Ah? Okay, So moving on, we talked about worry. You mentioned anger a little bit. Give us another topic. Do one of the other topics in the book, take us through one of the others that people might see themselves in a lot. 00:32:07 Speaker 1: Of these we use even the language of holding on. You know, we hold on to grudges. We live buried by regret, buried under a mountain of regret. I might pick on regret for a minute. I was wondering, because yeah, I think as we especially as we age, we just have more behind us. Right, So there's there's more sinful choices in the rear view mirror. Hopefully fewer as we, you know, begin to walk more closely with the Lord. But all of us have kind of stuff in our rear view mirror that we just cringe at. We wouldn't want anybody to play those things on a giant screen. You know, things we're ashamed of or or you know, in my in my chapter on regret, there's kind of a fork in the road right out of the Choote, and it is did I sin? If the answers yes, Scripture offers a really clean cut way out of that through of all people, the apostle Paul, who could have lived his life in utter regret had he not sort of grabbed the agency that was before him and let the Holy Spirit do the great work of grace in him. The thing I might talk about here to answer your question specifically, is I spent a great deal of the chapter on but what if I didn't sin? What if it's just regret born from you know, why didn't I ever get that master's degree? Or why didn't I go seek counseling sooner? Or why didn't I play with my kid more when he was little. So those kinds of regrets I learned in researching the book are actually they dog us longer. They're harder to resolve, because one of the therapists I interviewed said, it's like trying to fix a ghost. It's not like so a regret born from sin. We can kind of address that, you know, we can confess and repent and make it right with the person we've injured, but a regret born from just I wish things would have gone differently or life didn't turn out the way I thought it was going to. And I bet there are a few listeners right now, maybe even with tears welling up, because for many of us, this thing doesn't go like we thought it was going to go. So what do you do with that? And what I found is that grace is the great anecdote for our regrets really born from sin and non sin, but in the kind of fixing a ghost category, boy, grace can swoop in and do its big bold work in our lives. 00:35:01 Speaker 2: So like giving ourselves grace and accepting God's grace. 00:35:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great observation, because we can't if we don't if we don't know grace in our bones, we can't grow in grace with others. So I think as it relates to regret, for example, I think just understanding that that grace fills that huge gap between this is what I wanted or would have wanted, this is what it is. And when we look at how grace kind of sweeps in and fills that gap and drives us to our need and recognition for really for Jesus, it's a really beautiful I loved that chapter administered to me personally, Yeah. 00:35:50 Speaker 2: Me too, well, And it is another example of what you talk about with all of them, which is that there's something that there's a reason you're holding onto it like, and that may be one of those that if I just hold onto this enough, I won't I won't not play with my kid again. But yeah, you know I don't. 00:36:13 Speaker 1: I'll be better with my grand I'll be better. 00:36:15 Speaker 2: With my grandkids, right exactly, even though that's just completely false, Like we don't need to hold on to that for that to be true. 00:36:24 Speaker 1: You know, I might take the role of interviewer away from you for a sec and kind of flip a question over to you because it occurs to me like this just came to me that if we're buried by regret, that means we're spending an awful lot of time looking back and also probably feeling some level of ick about it, whether it's remorse, whether it's you know, I just beating ourselves up, negative self talk, all that stuff. I think that can well, I know it can really hurt our relationships. So much of the work you've done over the years really The target is. 00:37:03 Speaker 2: Relationships. 00:37:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, relationships, more gratitude, leaning toward the other person with generosity and benefit of the doubt. Look, if we can't that's what we're talking about here. If we can't even do that for ourselves, if we can't believe the Lord when he says, my grace is sufficient for you, if we don't have that locked down and settled in our own hearts, how can we possibly extend that kind of generosity toward our spouse, toward our kids. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. 00:37:35 Speaker 2: Actually, well, I mean I think you know what my thoughts are on that, which is that if you're locked up with that, there is no way really. I mean, I guess you can into some degree, but it's definitely not going to be out of a place of freedom, right, It's definitely it's it's going to be probably to assuade your false guilt for example, right, Like it's those it's that like that people pleasing stuff that we were talking about, Because if I am hoarding any of these things, really it's not just regret, it's any of these things. If I am kind of relying on them for something, I'm definitely not relying on God right, I'm definitely not in a place where I can be a source of life for someone else to the degree that I'm supposed to be. Now, obviously, God can use any of and does use all of us every day, even when we're hoarding stuff. Otherwise, you know, we would all just slink away and ghost it in our little caves individually, because we're all imperfect in this way. But our goal what Jesus said in John ten ten when he was talking, he was talking about how the enemy wants to steal and kill and destroy. He wants to make us believe the lie. Right, he wants us to not have an abundant life. When Jesus says, but I have come so that you may have life, and you may have it more abundantly. One of the reasons for that is well, because he wants us to have an abundant life for our own joy. But he also is very clear that one of the other reasons is so that we are the ones who can pour life into others. Right for the people who are stuck, the people who are in their closet with their stuff and don't know how to get out of it. And so to me, that's one of the main like sort of transcendent purposes behind your book. It's for us to really be able to get some freedom, but not just so that we have a happier life. 00:39:51 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that would utterly miss the point, you know that it freedom's the target, and the ancillary benefits of that are innumerable. I mean, one of my whole one of my chapters was devoted to dread, which is around this idea of kind of the dread from keeping secrets. You've talked a lot about that, like if we're keeping money on the side, if we're keeping secrets from our spouse, you know, kind of that just doesn't end well, it doesn't go to a good place. So we're talking about marriage relationships here, but let's talk about the most important relationship, our relationship with God. You know. I think the thing I hope my reader's most experience in the journey of these pages is freedom so that they can get this relationship unclogged and beautiful and victorious and pure and all the things that God wants it to be, so that then He can unleash us to go be his hands and feet in a hurting world, which, if you've looked at one headline lately we need it, that's you know, and then certainly in our homes with our spouses, with our kids. Yeah, you made a good point, you know. I don't want readers to fear picking this up. I don't want them to think this is they're going to get beaten up, because they're not. It's the most tender journey, and I think there's some laughter in it. I mean I laugh about I don't worry. 00:41:26 Speaker 2: This is one of the things I love about Laurie is that she just I don't know how she manages to make serious things funny, but she does. So. 00:41:34 Speaker 1: No, it is well, we have to we have to laugh in a book like emotional hoarding. I mean, we don't hoard the good emotions. We find twenty bucks in our jeans and we just express joy. 00:41:46 Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we don't hoard that. 00:41:49 Speaker 1: So in a book that's looking at hard things that we hoard, I had to stop and laugh, like I needed periodic breaks. So it's not a big, hard, heavy journey. I think it's that's sweetest. 00:42:01 Speaker 2: It's a very sweet journey. It's very fun and very like it's very helpful. I know we're getting to the point where we need to start wrapping up. But I would love One of the things that we love doing on the podcast, and one of the reasons why we called it, I wish you could hear this is that we hear stories upon stories upon stories. I'm like, everybody needs to hear this story. And I know that there's a story that you often share from the book that helps sort of bring home a principle that sort of sticks, helps us stick in the in the minds of everybody listening to this. 00:42:46 Speaker 1: You know, grace is something we talk about a lot, but what is it really Jesus never used the word. We don't have a first Corinthians thirteen, like grace is this? Grace is that kind of verse. I'd love to just share quickly a story that brings home grace in a really powerful way for me at my free readers too. So when I was I've been in publishing in some way or another my whole career, and when I was a really young assistant editor on a magazine. I think I was twenty four, So I was young and broke, straight out of college, living in a big city. I had just moved to Phoenix, and I'm working at this publishing company and I made an error, an editing error that literally required stopping the presses, which is a really costly thing to do now we do so much digitally. But there was ink and paper and color correction and all that stuff, and I made this error. I think it was like sixteen thousand dollars in nineteen ninety. 00:43:54 Speaker 2: So we were talking easily sixty eighty thousand dollars. 00:43:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was the kind of mistake that you get fired for. So I took a box with me to work the next day. I knew I was going to get fired, and Shanty, I was so broke that I was just hoping they would fire me afternoon so that I could get paid for that day. So all day I just sort of had this. You know how you can tell when someone's in your workspace, someone's behind you. So sure enough, right around the noon hour, there's a shadow behind me, and I fully expected it to be my boss with a pink slip, and that was going to be that. And it was the publisher of the company. I want to say, we published like twenty five magazines. It was a big publisher. And he's standing there and I worked in this cube farm, so there's you know, twenty people easily within earshot if the conversation gets loud. So I'm really trying to be quiet and tell him I'm so sorry, and and I know he I can't pay him back that dollar amount, you know. And finally I said, I know you're going to need to fire me, so I'll go to HR and do whatever. And he boomed, in the loudest possible voice, fire you. So now the corporate cube farm is snapped to attention. Fire you. I just put sixteen thousand dollars of training into you, like you're the most trained employee on my staff today. And gosh, this story still gets me so many years later, because I needed that job. I really needed that job. So he then did the unexplainable. He asked if he could use my desk phone, which gen z Ors just look that up. And I pushed back from my desk, and he called his executive assistant and said, I cancel my one o'clock I'm taking a VIP to lunch. So he, you know, offered his arm and I took his arm and he marched me through that campus and took me to lunch at a restaurant that had white tablecloths. It was just the fanciest place I had ever dined in. And so that, to me, demonstrates the kind of grace that God shows us. Grace to me looks like a white tablecloth because it was so far beyond what I deserved. I deserved to be fired and instead I got lunch at a fancy restaurant with white tablecloths. 00:46:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah, that's a beautiful example. I could talk to you all day, Lorie, listen, but I know we're out of time. And one of the things we always want to do when we're wrapping up, and this is a common thing that our listeners are aware of, is we want to leave our listeners with one big takeaway. We've talked about a bunch of things. And as you think about everything we've talked about, and your heart for all of our listeners here and your potential readers, what do you most want them to know? Like, if they remember one thing, if they think about one thing, what do you most want them to take away? 00:47:27 Speaker 1: Yeah? I most want them to take away, and myself too and you and all of us that we'll know we can be free. I'd love your listeners to know that. And actually Jesus wants you to know, it's it's sort of freedom that he set you free. I love the redundancy in that, you know he really wants us to get it. Shanta, you mentioned John ten ten earlier. You know that he came so we could have life and have it to the full that is available to us. That's why he came. And it's a freedom life and it's ours for the taking. So if we're bound up by grudges and bitterness and anger and false gill and worry ride yeah yeah, worry all of it, Well, that starts to sound like a life of bondage, not freedom. 00:48:21 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:48:22 Speaker 1: So he came so we could have a better way and it's available to us. He doesn't hide the ball, you know, he shows us a path. I love that toward freedom. 00:48:31 Speaker 2: I love that. I so Lorii, I just have to say thanks to Lori Davies for coming on the show today and being willing to share your perspective. I want to tell our listeners that Moody Publishers is actually going to give away three copies of Emotional Hoarding, So keep an eye on our social media right after this episode drops, you'll see an opportunity to get one of those free copies shortly, and I'm going to urge everybody. I've known Laurie for a long time, you need to know she is the real deal. This insight that you've heard from her is throughout the pages of the book, and it really truly is one that I would encourage you all to look at. If you know someone who would benefit from this conversation, who would benefit from listening to this, please share today's episode with them and tag us on all your social media channels, and we would urge you to subscribe to our podcast. Thanks for joining us, LORI, thanks for listening to I wish you could hear this. Remember to subscribe to our podcast, and as always, forward today's audio or video link to a friend, counselor, or pastor who would be encouraged. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find dozens of other FITH centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.