The Alchemy of Tears with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Alchemy of Tears with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone

Podcast: Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward
Host: Center for Action and Contemplation
Date: September 5, 2025
Episode: Exploring Chapter 7, "The Alchemy of Tears" (from Richard Rohr’s The Tears of Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage) featuring Rabbi Tirzah Firestone

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Episode Overview

This episode navigates the deeply transformative theme of tears, grief, and trauma as pathways to healing and wisdom—both personal and collective. Anchored in Richard Rohr’s contemplative Christian teachings and enriched by the expertise of Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, a Jungian psychotherapist and leader in Jewish trauma healing, the conversation addresses how our suffering, when consciously engaged, can be alchemized into compassion, solidarity, and practical acts of renewal in the world.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Christian Contemplative "Gift of Tears" (00:23 – 21:02)

• Universal Nature of Tears and Compassion:
  Tears are presented as a spontaneous human response to the depth of reality, evoked by beauty, suffering, fear, and awe.

  “Tears… normally come unbidden, unsought, after in the presence of the great emotions of fear, happiness, awe. Just in the presence of beauty. I see a beautiful landscape and I want to cry.” — Richard Rohr (05:29)

• Crying 'For Everything':
  Mourning one thing often expands into mourning the state of the whole world. This is a mystical, empathetic stance.

  “The mystic… sees that the human condition is such a missed opportunity… Just tears of regret of how could we not know, how could we not see…?” — Richard Rohr (03:46)

• God as the Weeping and Vulnerable Divine:
  Reframing God not as angry but as empathetic and grieving with humanity.

  “God is sad more than angry… they [the prophets] represented in their mature state the pity of God for Israel, not the anger of God.” — Richard Rohr (11:29) “What happens if I think of God as a vulnerable and a weeping God? That I’m like, oh, God was the only character in the [Job] story who sat silent and listened to Job for, like, 30 chapters.” — Drew Jackson (13:27)

• From Pathologizing to Mythologizing Pain:
  Without broader archetypes or stories, we risk only medicalizing or diagnosing our suffering.

  “If we do not mythologize our pain, all we can do is pathologize it.” — Richard Rohr (14:40)

• Ritual, Empathy, and Touch in Healing:
  Rituals provide space for tears and empathy; touch is highlighted (as in Jesus’ healings) as crucial for trauma release and embodiment.

  “It is the body itself that holds our fear, our anger, and our debilitating memory. It is the body that must somehow be held and healed and spoken to.” — Richard Rohr (21:02)

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The Alchemical Process of Grief (25:13 – 35:18)

• Alchemy as Transformation:
  Drawing from Jung, suffering and loss are likened to alchemy—breaking down, dissolving, and reforming aspects of ourselves.

  “While scientifically it may not be possible to turn lead into gold, the idea that there is gold in our lead and that there’s gold in our shadow is powerful.” — Drew Jackson (25:13)

• Stages of Alchemical Change:
  Rohr describes seven alchemical processes (e.g., solutio, coagulatio, mortificatio), emphasizing transformation through inclusion of all aspects, even difficult emotions and losses.

  “Notice what is not in there is eliminatio. No elimination. Let’s use all the ingredients, even the worst enemy, as Paul says, death.” — Richard Rohr (29:17)

• Trusting the Process:
  Waiting, not forcing, and letting “the natural chemistry” of paradox and sorrows do their work in the soul leads to hope and newness.

  “We move towards wholeness… by holding these conflicts and paradoxes together in the soul more than in the mind, and just letting them work their natural chemistry… Those who trust in the process create a new future, while others just repeat the past over and over again.” — Richard Rohr (32:05)

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Universal Suffering, Solidarity, and Salvation (31:44 – 35:18)

• God Suffers With All:
  Rohr identifies universal suffering as paired with universal salvation—the divine is present in and redeeming all things through shared suffering.

  “Universal suffering and universal salvation are correlative terms. It’s an essential point of the book.” — Richard Rohr (32:05)

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Rabbi Tirzah Firestone: Intergenerational Trauma and Healing (36:55 – 69:48)

Seven Principles of Healing (Summarized with Emphasis from Wounds into Wisdom)

1. Face the Loss (43:53ff):

   • Confronting, not avoiding, grief and loss is essential; deferred pain becomes intergenerational trauma, affecting even our genes’ expression (epigenetics).

   “When we cry our tears, there is something very deep that happens. There is a disillusion… When we don’t metabolize our grief… it actually affects us physiologically… not only us, but also our next generation.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (39:46)

2. Harnessing the Power of Pain (46:18ff):

   • Pain is potent energy—like nuclear energy—that can fuel healing and peacemaking, not just destruction.

   “If we can just feel our pain, talk about it, use it in some way, harness it… it is not only my pain, it is the pain that humanity is suffering right now.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (47:37)

3. Finding New Community (53:10ff):

   • Healing is relational; isolation compounds trauma, but being witnessed in community is medicine.

   “We are needing to find our kin family that can help us absorb the blows in the world and to help neutralize the stresses.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (53:10)

4. Staying Human and Embracing the “Other” (56:16ff):

   • The healing imperative in Jewish and broader spiritual traditions: love the stranger, resist dehumanization and othering, and convert enemies into friends.

   “‘The true warrior is the one who converts his enemy into his friend.’” — Quoting Reuven in Wounds Into Wisdom (56:16) “We make the other objects and fear them and blame them and then dehumanize them… It is just… a default for us to other the other… resisting that call to other, like getting in there with humanity and understanding that we’re all in pain.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (57:27)

5. Disidentifying from Victimhood (61:11ff):

   • Acknowledging, but moving through victim experiences, so as not to build identity around wounds.

   “Not to let it become our identity. It’s really – it’s a continuum.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (61:11)

6. Interrogating Chosenness (63:51ff):

   • Recognizing the shadow of ‘chosenness’ in religious identity—when it becomes a wedge instead of a bridge, it obscures shared humanity and suffering.

   “Behind closed doors we are triumphalists. We believe in special election, divine election… How do we, as some people are now saying, repudiate those texts?” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (63:51)

7. Taking Healing Action (66:13ff):

   • Inner transformation must express itself as acts of justice, compassion, and repair in the world (tikkun hanefesh and tikkun olam).

   “Taking action is taking inner action and taking outer action.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (66:13) “Every act we do bears ripples… Every effort… moving toward more light and toward more compassion… makes this world better.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (68:40)

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Embodied Approaches to Trauma and Grief

• "Limbic Lava":
  • A vivid term for what happens when the emotional brain (limbic system) overrides logic; the importance of soothing this “lava” so we can respond reflectively, not reactively.

  “Limbic lava… simply means that my emotional brain has been triggered… my ability to think in a linear way, in a diplomatic way… goes offline… I can’t hear the other side.” — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (50:17)

  • Techniques for “chilling” the nervous system include time in nature, pausing, contemplative practice, and self-compassion.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with timestamps)

• On the mystical empathy of tears:
  “Tears… normally come unbidden, unsought, after in the presence of the great emotions of fear, happiness, awe. Just in the presence of beauty. I see a beautiful landscape and I want to cry.”
  — Richard Rohr (05:29)

• God as companion in suffering, not punisher:
  “God is sad more than angry… they [the prophets] represented… the pity of God for Israel, not the anger of God.”
  — Richard Rohr (11:29)

• Mythologizing pain vs. pathologizing it:
  “If we do not mythologize our pain, all we can do is pathologize it.”
  — Richard Rohr (14:40)

• Universal suffering, universal salvation:
  “Universal suffering and universal salvation are correlative terms.”
  — Richard Rohr (32:05)

• On intergenerational trauma and healing:
  “When we don’t metabolize our grief… it actually affects us physiologically… not only us, but also our next generation.”
  — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (39:46)

• Transforming enemy into friend:
  "'The true warrior is the one who converts his enemy into his friend.'"
  — Reuven, as quoted by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (56:16)

• Ritual as supportive for sorrow:
  "Ritual gave them the space, the permission to do that [to express pain and tears]."
  — Richard Rohr (09:13)

• “Limbic lava” and self-compassion:
  “When I am triggered and my limbic lava is flowing, I can't hear anything… I can't hear the other side… It's the hardest thing, to be able to neutralize that lava…”
  — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (50:17)

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Practical Takeaways & Wisdom Practices

• Allow for Tears: Ritual, silence, and community create room for “the gift of tears,” which are essential for both personal and collective healing.
• Myth Matters: Frame suffering within a larger spiritual narrative to avoid getting stuck at the level of pathology or diagnosis.
• Acknowledge and Metabolize Loss: Don’t bypass or suppress grief; naming and facing it, alone and together, moves trauma towards transformation.
• Find and Build Community: Healing happens in relationships. Seek spaces where you can be witnessed, supported, and be a witness for others.
• Work with the Body: Recognize trauma’s impact on the body; practices of embodiment (gentle touch, presence, somatic awareness) are crucial.
• Stay Human and Resist Othering: Actively work against the instinct to dehumanize others or ourselves; cultivate empathy and practice loving the stranger.
• Pause and Respond vs React: When “limbic lava” (overwhelm) erupts, pause, ground, and choose a deliberate, compassionate response.

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Final Blessings and Resonances

• Contemplation is Enough: Trusting the process, waiting, and holding paradox—this is the contemplative path that leads to hope and renewal.
• Personal Healing as Collective Contribution: Every act of healing, no matter how small, ripples into the fabric of the world (tikkun olam).
• Concluding Blessing:
  “Every effort… moving toward more light and toward more compassion… makes this world better.”
  — Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (68:40)

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For those seeking to live the teachings forward, this episode offers an invitation: face your loss, honor your tears, metabolize trauma, root in community, and let the alchemy of compassion flow outward—changing you, and through you, the world.

Transcript

[Corey Wayne]

You're listening to a podcast by the center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org welcome back.

[Mike Petro]

Friends, to the Everything Belongs podcast with our favorite Franciscan, Father Richard Rohr. Each season of this podcast, we've explored one of Richard's books. And each episode, Paul Swanson, my partner in crime, and I travel over to Father Richard's house to discuss the wisdom of one chapter of one of those books with with him. And then we're joined by a guest who helps us live the teachings forward to think about Richard's teachings in new ways and ask new questions in a rapidly changing world. But this season is extra special because we're exploring Richard's brand new book, the Tears of Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. As a reminder, you do not have to read the book to follow along with us, but we'd love it if you do. Hey, perhaps listening will inspire you to pick up the book later today, as always, we'll join Richard in his hermitage. We talked to Richard about how to remember we're not alone in carrying the suffering and the pain we feel. And in every tear, there is an invitation to alchemize those tears into love and wisdom. I know I say every single conversation is special, but friends, this one is extra, extra special. After talking with Father Richard, Carmen Acevedo Butcher and I will be joined by by Jungian psychotherapist Rabbi Tirsa Firestone to discuss the role not just of tears, but also of trauma and what it means to metabolize our losses and metabolize our grief. We'll wonder together what it means to turn our wounds into wisdom and put our healing in the service of healing the world. Friends, I'm so excited for you to join us for these conversations. Without further ado, let's jump in and head over to the house with Father Richard. From the center for Action and Contemplation, I'm Mike Petro.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm Paul Swanson.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I'm Carmen Acevedo Butcher.

[Father Richard Rohr]

And I'm Drew Jackson.

[Mike Petro]

And this is everything belong Richard.

[Drew Jackson]

In this chapter, you're talking about one of the greatest gifts of the Christian contemplative tradition. And I feel like it's an unknown treasure. The gift of tears I love when you wrote, in my charismatic days, we often spoke of the gift of tears, as did many of the saints. It was a kind of a crying for everything occasioned by the tragedy of any one thing. And I first encountered this when I was in my Pentecostal holiness phase, and they talked about the gift of tears all the time. But they taught it as weeping over your own sinfulness. So you cried because you're just such a bereft, you know, inconsolably bad person. Richard, you taught me it's not crying over my guilt and my sin. You could argue maybe the sin of the world, but in that, the brokenness and the suffering of the world. And in this chapter, when you look at lamentations, you say in this way, lamentations, the prophets, and Jeremiah in particular, invite us into a divine sadness about reality itself, much more than mere outrage at this or that event. So I have two questions for you about this. The first one is, what does it mean, Richard, to cry over everything as opposed to one thing? Or to let one thing lead you to sadness for everything.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Good, I'm glad you state it's both. I think that's the mystical heart and mind does that automatically. It lets one become a stand in for everything. And you don't even always realize, like they say, when you cry at a funeral, you're crying for your own death. That's one example. But every death, I think there's truth in that. The mystic, not that it's important to give it a name, but sees that the human condition is such a missed opportunity for the vast majority of people. It's just tears of regret of how could we not know, how could we not see, how could we not enjoy? How could we waste so many years? I've been seeing on the news those young men lined up on the floor in the prison in El Salvador, all so young, and you just want to weep. Probably didn't have good parenting, good beginning. And now they're treated like dirt. At least it appears. Just the missed opportunity of God's humanity. We're the purveyors of this. We seem to make one another suffer. Why do we do that?

[Paul Swanson]

And you juxtapose that to the tears, which feel like they reconnect us to the, the best of our humanity?

[Father Richard Rohr]

I think so. And what I make in, I think the very beginning of the chapter, note that tears, and this is what's unique about them, they normally come unbidden, unsought, after in the presence of the great emotions of fear, happiness, awe. Just in the presence of beauty. I see a beautiful landscape and I want to cry.

[Drew Jackson]

One of the things that breaks my heart is that I feel very like this feels very Dostoyevsky, right? I just feel like humanity could be so beautiful.

[Mike Petro]

And I feel like it is, but.

[Drew Jackson]

I feel like it could be.

[Father Richard Rohr]

I know what you're saying, so beautiful.

[Drew Jackson]

And it breaks my heart to see people who are like living revelations of the divine acting in hate instead of love and taking satisfaction from pushing someone else down instead of lifting them up. And it breaks your heart because you genuinely believe it could be better, they.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Could be better, we could be better, you could be this way. And you normally know what hurt you, that you enjoy hurting another person.

[Paul Swanson]

Do you all know the poem Good Bones by Maggie Smith?

[Father Richard Rohr]

No.

[Paul Swanson]

She talks, it's. It's fantastic. She talks about how there's these fears we keep from the young to this point. And she talks about how she knows that half the strangers she meet would welcome her with open arms and there's another half who might hurt her. And how we're trying to sell humanity to our own children. Like there's good bones here, like a real estate agent. Like there's good bones in us. We just have to cultivate that. And it's like we're holding both of these consistently and consciously where we recognize our fears and yet are trying to build something. Because, as you're saying, the potential is so good and there's good bones.

[Father Richard Rohr]

That's a great metaphor. The skeleton is so good. How is it that so many of us don't get back to the skeleton of who we are?

[Drew Jackson]

I wonder how much of it is a willingness to have a heart broken open. Like that's painful, hard work. St. Francis is described as crying all the time in his early biographies. You said, I always wondered why. I now believe after 54 years in public ministry, that the gift of tears and the gift of healing are almost one and the same.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Yeah. I don't know if you can be an instrument of healing if you haven't moved to this non rational level of empathy, sympathy, compassion for things, for people, and it can be evoked by a suffering animal. Even that has to matter to God.

[Paul Swanson]

I think that's so much of what this chapter is, inviting us into the preciousness of life and the solidarity and suffering. None of us escaped this life without suffering, without us saying, this is so hard. I didn't know it was going to be this hard.

[Drew Jackson]

I feel like we live in such a dissociated culture. We're so conditioned to shut off our tears. I'm sure a lot of people listening to this couldn't cry if they wanted to. And yet you're asking us in this chapter to feel our feelings.

[Mike Petro]

And I wonder if we need ritual.

[Drew Jackson]

To help us encounter our pain and our tears, just to turn that off.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Man's rites of passage seem to reveal for a lot of men, ritual gave them the space, the permission to do that. You know, you often remark when you come here, my dog, whose name is Opie and is laying here right now. I don't know if you're probably too young, but I grew up with the Andy Griffith show, and it might have been the first show where I had deep empathy. Little Opie, which is Andy's boy, got a BB gun. Maybe you remember this episode. And he shot a bird. And he came to Andy so excited. And Andy, in the fatherly way he often taught, he said, look at that nest over there. There's three little baby birds in that nest. And they're squawking now because they don't have a mother. And Opie, they're all going to die. Oh, my God. Opie just lost it. That he had never made the connection of killing somebody's mother. So you've got to make connections with tears. What is it I'm crying about? I'm crying about this thing. But it expands to everything or to more things at least. And unless that happens, I don't know that you have the gift of empathy or sympathy or compassion, whether you can feel for what. What Gerald Vann called in his book the Divine Pity. The Divine Pity. It was one of the most influential spiritual books I read as a seminarian, that God weeps over reality. There's a straight line from reading that book to this. Could we be emissaries of the sadness of God? I think. I think we are. That God is sad more than angry. And that's what I found in the prophets and what this chapter is about, that they represented in their mature state the pity of God for Israel, not the anger of God at Israel. And we ended up. And most of the response at this point, I'm getting to the book is this is what is life changing for people. We ended up with a toxic image of God. And once you have that, a God who has no pity, but only rage. How can you create a healthy religion out of that?

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah, that's what we become. Emissaries of divine wrath rather than divine pity.

[Father Richard Rohr]

We've been given permission to. To punish Opie instead of to like a good father, take him to the window and say, look at that.

[Paul Swanson]

Well, I love you.

[Drew Jackson]

Say, has God changed? Or have we just grown up enough to hear a grown up God. Good sentence. I'm struck on how much it changes the story when you just shift your perspective to think of God as vulnerable and weeping with us, as Opposed to being angry at us. Think. We talked last episode about Job, and in the Job story, Job loses everything. His comforters show up. They sit with him silently for seven days, and that's the best thing they do. And then he starts to grieve and give voice to his pain. And they all start debating him instead of just listening. And not till way into the end of the story. God speaks. And the question always is, you know, I was taught to read that as God shows up and God's angry. That's not what it says. And the question was always, well, why does it take God so long to speak? And it's only right now in this conversation where I'm thinking, what happens if I think of God as a vulnerable and a weeping God? That I'm like, oh, God was the only character in the story who sat silent and listened to job for, like, 30 chapters.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Excellent.

[Drew Jackson]

That's powerful.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Thank you.

[Drew Jackson]

That changes the whole way that I think about that story. It's a lot of deprogramming to shift.

[Father Richard Rohr]

The camera on that good word deprogramming, which I find almost all Christians need. We don't change the reality. We change our perception of the reality. And my point in this book is, follow the journey of the prophets and you'll find the change we have to change from rage to sadness.

[Drew Jackson]

Richard, the story that you just described, the story of Christianity that you just described to me, is not the one that I was given. I was given all the same players and the same symbols, but the narrative was completely different. That wasn't the myth. And using myth as story, that wasn't the myth that I was given. I'm so struck with what you say in the book. And I'm going to read the whole passage, if that's okay with you, where you say, if we do not mythologize our pain, all we can do is pathologize it.

[Father Richard Rohr]

And that's what the passion narrative was meant to be a mythological statement of. This is what humanity is doing to itself, which symbolically is doing to God.

[Drew Jackson]

That gives us a roadmap to think about it.

[Mike Petro]

Most of us don't have that.

[Drew Jackson]

You know, I love this. If we don't mythologize our pain, all we do is pathologize it. I think we live in a culture.

[Father Richard Rohr]

That'S the best it can do.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah, we don't have a mythology, so we pathologically pathologize, and all we do is diagnosis. Is our story.

[Mike Petro]

Right.

[Drew Jackson]

Whether it's attachment pattern or enneagram number or My particular neurodivergence or the other tisms. It's diagnosis, diagnosis, diagnosis, diagnosis, even the.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Wonderful 12 step programs. Yeah, because I've given it a pathological name and answer. I've healed it. Well, that's a good first step.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah, I mean, and I've, don't get me wrong, I've benefited from all of.

[Father Richard Rohr]

These things and I have too, but you.

[Drew Jackson]

Okay, so let's take a look at how you write this. You say we Westerners have lost the ability to frame the significance of our own little lives. We no longer believe or live as if we're an inherent part of a bigger story. Richard, we're force fed so many stories every moment of every day that come through media and social media and our friends and our families. What big cosmic story do we need to plug back into to help us mythologize our pain?

[Father Richard Rohr]

Of course I'm a Christian, so I've accepted the story of the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus as the cosmic story that includes everybody. We're all on that continuum somewhere. And in recognizing that walking that continuum is somehow redemptive, it makes my story a part of the story. Then I don't have to be morally perfect anymore. I just have to walk the plank, as I keep saying, and trust that Jesus did it. Other holy people, good people, have done it without even needing to call it holiness or goodness. It was just what life demanded of them. They just do what is demanded of them and allow it to soften their heart. And of course that's the message. It wasn't fair to Jesus. It's never been fair. It's an absurdity. And when you can bring the divine pity to the human absurdity, you have salvation. I know it sounds like a cliche now, but we've got to stop making the whole redemption message instrumental. Jesus saved us from our sins. Jesus saved us by our sins, through our sins, through suffering them, allowing them to teach us whatever it is they have to teach us. My own littleness, my sin makes me small or vulnerable. Vulnerability is learnability. Teachability instead of just imputing blame and imputing redemption. But once we made the redemption story itself instrumental, There was some price to be paid, some debt to be paid, and Jesus paid it. Thank you, Jesus. The whole thing is inert. It's ineffective.

[Paul Swanson]

It gets smaller.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Yeah, small. Yeah.

[Drew Jackson]

And that transactional component is such a huge.

[Father Richard Rohr]

That's the word I was looking for, transaction.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah, because you taught me this, that the price paid, like there was always. Well, someone had to pay the price for this. And when you move the camera to the vulnerable God and not the angry God, you don't have to throw that language out. It's that the price paid for love is that we have to be willing to suffer. And even God says it's worth it. And that's a fundamentally different thing. Then we need to be punished. But the other thing of God meeting us in our suffering is, you know, some things are too big to carry alone. The definition of trauma is just something that's too big. It overwhelms our ability to cope. That's one of the definitions, I think, about Dr. B's work on crisis contemplation and how she would talk about how some injustices, some suffering, some evil is too big for a person to carry alone. And it requires a community. And the other thing that she taught is sometimes it requires more than the human community. Right. I always say she taught me that we live in a crowded cosmos where animals and ancestors are there for us. You say that in a chapter, Richard, that Paul, not Swanson, but the apostle, talks about how we're all partners with both the living and the dead, walking alongside countless ancestors and descendants who were wounded and longed for healing. This is the idea, the communion of saints and the idea that I'm supported in my healing by all those who've gone before me, and I get to continue their healing by doing my own work. We've talked about critiquing the system. We've talked about big evil. How do you, Richard, remember, you're not alone in carrying all that.

[Father Richard Rohr]

You don't achieve it by figuring it out. You surrender to it. You'll notice in the mystics, the language that overtakes them is the language of let it be that we first find in the mouth of Mary. Let it be, let it be. Let it teach you not who to blame. Stop trying to blame anybody for this huge human tragedy that takes huge vulnerability.

[Paul Swanson]

In this conversation, I think you mentioned this chapter, but it also. It opens up for me, too, when Jesus says, don't weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Go ahead.

[Paul Swanson]

And it's never really made an impact on me, but reading it in this context, it's that invitation to deeper vulnerability and solidarity with the passion. Mike, you're Leon slight the communion of saints to the ancestors. And I think about the ways that we live with this. This gets into our lineages, into our bodies. And Richard, you write about this when you say, as therapists and researchers now teach, that trauma mostly resides at the cellular level in the body more than the mind. That is why the response to the mind and talk therapy, even if accurate, often falls short in healing a traumatized person. Note how in the Gospels Jesus almost always touches people when he heals them. It is the body itself that holds our fear, our anger and our debilitating memory. It is the body that must somehow be held and healed and spoken to. And you say that in this paragraph and that there's whole fields of studies and the popularity of the body keeps a score. And my grandmother's hands talk about how this gets stored in the body. Why do we have to get out of our heads to heal? Why can't we just think our way into healing?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

We.

[Paul Swanson]

Why is it embodied?

[Father Richard Rohr]

I suspect the irony of the Bible being a printed book when it really got bad was after we started reading and printing and thinking we could understand things by logical formulations of words. You look at all the world religions in their ancient forms. They had much more to do with ritual and ceremony, ancestor worship, death, confrontation. And I love the Bible. I mean, the whole point of this book is to get people to love the prophets in the Bible better. But the Bible has done a number on Western civilization thinking it can be figured out. And what we do is make even the suffering of Jesus an exercise in necessary suffering to pay a debt to an angry God. And let's be honest, that's 80% of Christians believe that it's entirely instrumental, leaving God unchanged and us hardened. As Hebrews says, in several ways, Jesus is the end of all sacrificial religion. If there's any sacrifice that could be used in a mercenary way to pay God off. And that's why he just, he has no patience with the caged up animals. That's why he has no patience with the demanding of sacrifices from the poor in the temple. But we didn't end the sacrifice, we just changed the location somehow. And still there's a necessary sacrifice. That's the phrase. And I remember having ministers in my young years when I didn't know how to formulate this. Stand up angrily, you're denying the redemption. How dare you. This was a necessary sacrifice. No, it was the end of sacrifice because you're using sacrifice in an instrumental way.

[Drew Jackson]

One of the things that's interesting about that is as long as sacrifice is about Jesus paying the price so I don't have to, it gets me off the hook. And then I don't have to be crucified and I don't have to be strung up between things and I don't have to carry my cross.

[Father Richard Rohr]

You just have to be, forgive me. Nice.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah, well, it creates a very detached God and a very detached humanity. And no wonder individualization runs rampant in Christianity.

[Drew Jackson]

And we're so selective in the imitation of Christ. Right? Because we should be like Jesus and that we should be nice. But it doesn't mean that. That he bids us come and die or be crucified ourselves or take our own journey through the underworld or in the language it used in this chapter, submit to the alchemical process ourselves. Which is scary stuff you write. In describing the growth process, Carl Jung uses the brilliant metaphor of alchemy. Alchemy was an early pre scientific form of chemistry by which people sought to create gold by mixing the right elements for the right amount of time, to the right degree and at the right temperature. While the practical results of alchemy were mixed, to say the least, at best, to put it mildly, Young nevertheless applies it as a helpful metaphor for human transformation. And if I were to take all the things I've read about Jung and alchemy and try to boil them down, while scientifically it may not be possible to turn lead into gold, the idea that there is gold in our lead and that there's gold in our shadow is powerful.

[Father Richard Rohr]

There you go.

[Drew Jackson]

And the only way to get there is to break it down and to melt it down. The whole, I think essence of Jung's teaching on alchemy is that things need to be broken apart to be put back together. Things need to be dissolved, to be recombined like a caterpillar goes into the.

[Mike Petro]

Chrysalis, doesn't just grow wings, it breaks.

[Drew Jackson]

Down completely and is like goop in.

[Mike Petro]

There and then rebuilt.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Right.

[Drew Jackson]

And that's the alchemical pot. The idea that Jung talks about solusio, the solution is in things being broken down into solution and then re solidified differently. And to start with, I hear maybe you saying that tears are part of.

[Mike Petro]

The solution that dissolves us and breaks us down.

[Father Richard Rohr]

I just opened and I noted it's on page 111, but I'm just going to read the seven. There's more than this, but these are the ones I remember. Kun Yunxio just putting together contrary ingredients. We weren't taught how to do that, so we don't know how to deal with paradox. Soluzio seeking a solution by the death of one substance to become not dead, but a new substance. Sublimatio. Coagulatio sounds like the uggy word coagulation. But you gotta let something come together to take A new shape. Calcinatio, calcification. The hardening needed to coalesce into substance. Mortificatio. We spoke of mortification. But that there's a necessary dying. Not the one I was talking about before, but a losing that is really a falling upward. Use my language. And finally, the most ugly of all portray foxio changing even to the point of appearing unattractive. And your sins, for example, might be your best teachers. I have to thank, as you just did, Carl Jung, for making this marvelous connection, that alchemy was the pre chemical word for chemistry, for the mixture of different ingredients in new and creative ways. It works. This is what any good spiritual director is doing. Let's coagulate this, let's sublimate this.

[Drew Jackson]

Let's break it down.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Let's take it, break it down, take it apart. Notice what is not in there is eliminatio. No elimination. Let's use all the ingredients, even the worst enemy, as Paul says, death. Use that as one of the ingredients.

[Drew Jackson]

It's wild too. That part of the alchemical process is one trusting that the. That things need to be taken apart, to be put back together in a more healthy way. That life does this to us.

[Father Richard Rohr]

And that's what a good therapist is helping you do, giving you permission and space to do. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no.

[Drew Jackson]

But you talk about the unity in the midst of it too, in that if you trust the alchemical process, the idea is that when everything falls apart, when you are completely dissolved, and some folks listening to this have gone through that, where they've been completely broken down by life. Jung says there is something. Some scientists call it a reordering principle. There is something that holds you and puts you back together. I love in psychology and alchemy, Jung says the highest and most decisive experience of all is to be alone with our own selves. I must be alone if I'm to find out what it is that supports me when I can no longer support myself. Only this experience can give me an indestructible foundation.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Contemplation.

[Mike Petro]

Yeah.

[Father Richard Rohr]

That's why we named our center that. That's why we teach that contemplation is holding. What the world teaches you, you can't hold. Thank you.

[Paul Swanson]

And I feel like he gets voiced in lamentations in that praise. After all the lamenting. There's that praise that jumps up out of that like thread being held underneath.

[Father Richard Rohr]

That singing that Jeremiah is leading us toward. Read it please, listeners. Read the book of lamentation. And if you can Allow it to lead you. You'll be in a puddle of not private sadness, but universal sadness for the human situation, the human tragedy, the human absurdity. And everything in you wants to say it didn't need to be this way.

[Paul Swanson]

I think about that universal sadness leading to universal solidarity, leading to universal salvation. And this is the alchemy that we are experiencing very in those movements, the breaking down the new forms. It takes that bigger myth to be able to participate and have that. Even the capacity to see that.

[Father Richard Rohr]

You're getting to what I hoped would be a major point. As you know, I believe God is saving the world. God is saving everything. But the concomitant part of that is God is suffering in everything. Universal suffering and universal salvation are correlative terms. It's essential point of the book.

[Drew Jackson]

Sitting with it is the thing, right? I mean, that's. That's what I appreciated about. Again, the thing about sitting in the alchemical pot is it just has to do its work and you often don't see where it's going. Jung talks about it as going round and round in circles. You say this. We move towards wholeness. I'm convinced by holding these conflicts and paradoxes together in the soul more than in the mind, and just letting them work their natural chemistry. There's. It's all about waiting, trustfully holding without panicking, and anticipating even in the silence that an answer will be given. It's hope added to faith and love. Those who trust in the process create a new future, while others just repeat the past over and over again. But it sounds like a lot of that is sitting in our tears.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Without answers, without yes, let it come unbidden and end unbidden. I'm move to the first poem by Rosemary Trommer. The heart understands Swirl God. That strikes me as true. How the churning of opposite feeling weaves through us like an insistent breeze. The whole book is in that opening poem leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves, blesses us with paradox so we might walk more openly into this world so rife with devastation. Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan. This world so ripe with joy. Oh my God. How can both of those be true?

[Paul Swanson]

Why do you end this chapter with this line from Sister Clara about cooperating with grace?

[Father Richard Rohr]

To trust these new alchemical reactions, we have to trust the swirler that someone else is allowing these to mix and do their work on us. We can't stir it right and expect the right soluzio. It is done and we look at our lives. At least I do at my age, almost like an apparition how did this happen? How is it that this doesn't bother me anymore? How is it that I can overlook offenses and I don't need to punish people who've been mean to me? I really don't. How did that happen? It was done to me. Thank you, brothers. Thank you.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you.

[Drew Jackson]

Thank you, Richard.

[Mike Petro]

Everything belongs. Will continue in a moment. Rabbi Tears of Firestone, PhD, is an author, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in the international Jewish renewal movement, and a renowned scholar and teacher. Widely known for her groundbreaking work on Kabbalah, depth psychology, the healing of intergenerational trauma, and the reintegration of the feminine wisdom tradition within Judaism, and her own memoir writing, Rabbi Tirza lectures and teaches internationally about harvesting our ancestral wisdom, especially honed to assist us in this critical time in world history. Her latest work, combining research in depth psychology, neuroscience, and the field field of collective traumatology, is highlighted in the award winning book, Wounds Into Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma. Friends, I cannot recommend this book enough. It has so much wisdom for every reader. Today, Carmen and I get to unpack the seven principles of healing featured in this unbelievably helpful work alongside Rabbi Firestone.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Foreign.

[Mike Petro]

Tears of Firestone. It is such a joy to get to have a conversation with you. Thank you so much for making the time to chat with us today.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

I'm so happy to be here, Mike, thanks for the invitation.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, goodness gracious, we are so honored. You know, we've been looking at Richard Rohr's book, the Tears of Things, and this episode we're talking about, Chapter 7, the Alchemy of Tears, how we learn universal sympathy and grace. And I gotta tell you, there is no more exciting of an opportunity than for us to sit and chat with you about this. Before we even jump in, I have to say thank you, Carmen. I know you've been loving it at least as much as I have.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Oh, yes, because I wish, Rabbi Tirzah, that I had had this book when I was 20 and trying to process trauma, because you bring in the stories and you give us a family of fellow people on the journey who are walking together. So thank you for that. It's not isolating.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Oh, thank you so much. And just as you said, Carmen, the book is drawing from Jewish stories, but it is us about so much more. It's about what we're living with and what all of us are living through right now. And it belongs to the world, not necessarily to one people.

[Mike Petro]

You give us in this book, Seven Principles of Jewish Cultural Healing. And I, in reading Them learned so much. And also every single thing I could find a way to apply to my own experience and my own journey. I grew up a Pentecostal Charismatic Christian. Right.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Really.

[Mike Petro]

And so I did. And you know, Tirsa, one of the scriptures that I heard read a lot, and it was a source of confusion for me initially, was this verse From Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verses 9 through 10 in the Elder Testament, as I love how you refer to it. And it's God speaking. And there is this idea of laying the effects of bad choices or trauma or wounding upon children. It says the entire family is affected. Even children in the third and the fourth generations are affected. And then God goes on to say, but I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Yes.

[Mike Petro]

And when I read your book, what I see right at the top is it seems that you're telling us that while we think about our tears and our hurt and our loss, trauma and grief are intergenerational. But it seems like you're telling us, so is healing. Does that sound right?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

That's beautiful. Beautifully said, Mike. I retranslate that particular passage to talk about not the sins of the father, but the fathers and mothers, but the wounds that they've incurred, which often accrue when they're deferred, when grief is deferred, and the wounds that result from the trauma that results from the deferred grief get passed on. So when we cry our tears, there is something very deep that happens. There is a disillusion, as we say in alchemical terms. I'm also very steeped in Jungian psychology and dissolving the wounds through tears and turning them into something else. When we don't metabolize our grief and when we don't metabolize what has happened to us. Now science is showing us that it actually affects us physiologically. Not the genes, but the expression of genes. You know, you might ask, why are people talking about intergenerational this and that all of a sudden? It's because there has been scientific data, studies that have come out. We understand that our environmental stresses, the wars, the displacement, the hunger, all the things that our ancestors and now we are living through in this age of echo, anxiety and this age of wars and tremendous moral strife, which we can talk about, those things actually affect us physiologically, not only us, but also our next generation. So, yes, the wounds that are not metabolized get passed down generation after generation until someone says, ah, this is not mine. This is bigger than Me, this didn't start with me. I can work with this. I must stop this. I must stop the buck, so to speak. I must stop this and bring consciousness to bear.

[Mike Petro]

In his memoir, Jung writes, I feel very strongly that I'm under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete, unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. And it always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fit fate, had posed to my forefathers and foremothers and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete or perhaps continue things which previous ages had left unfinished. And I've heard you talk about image deposits in our souls, right? And I wonder, are we carrying around unfinished stories and unwept tears that were handed to us?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Yes, I think so. How prescient of Carl Jung to know that before there was any science at all, but he felt the unfinished business of his ancestors, of his father. He was the son of a minister who had a lot of complexity that was not a lot of stones. And here in his life, he turned over the stones and looked underneath at what he called the shadow. And that's the work that each of us must do. Because as we see currently, that unfinished business will continue to generate more and more problems. All of the traumatologists in the world talk about this unconscious tendency to reenact our injuries on ourselves or on others. And that is, those are the words of Bessel van der Kolk, a great traumatologist, and many others. Everyone would concur. What is that knee jerk reaction that wants to reenact? Freud called it repetition compulsion that wants to reenact our trauma again and again. So now we have the science to back all this up and we have to start waking up.

[Mike Petro]

Your very first principle. You kick us off on this journey by saying, face the loss, face it head on. What would you say for listeners who that's sort of revolutionary for them because they've been taught not to cry their tears and not to face their loss, but to run away from it?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Yeah, well, let's just say that we are all suffering a kind of moral injury right now. That's a kind of trauma. It's very subtle, but it's not so subtle. And I, and I hope that our listeners will identify or associate with this a personal experience. It's a kind of trauma that arises when we witness or fail to prevent acts that violate our deepest moral Codes that fail to listen. It's hard to read the newspaper today without suffering from some sort of moral trauma. Like, I want to do something about this. So we have to speak that. Not let it go into us, permeate us on a somatic level, but rather face into it and feel the profundity, feel the. The rage, the mourning. Move the energy from the inside to the outside, if you will, and turn, as Father Richard says so beautifully in his book when he talks about lamentations and talks about the prophet Jeremiah. Metabolize the grief. Don't let it turn into rage. Allow it to dissolve and pour through us as tears.

[Mike Petro]

Any tips for us on how not to switch off when we feel overwhelmed by the overwhelming hurt in the world?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

I deal with this question all the time. Sometimes I just put myself in the presence of God and allow myself to talk to God, journal, go into nature somehow, sit against a tree, lie down on Mother Earth and wail. There are many. You know, I think moving it out of our nervous system is really. Don't let it get stuck in our bodies because it's so much better to be feeling what we are feeling rather than getting numb. Numbness allows all kinds of other problems. So feel it. Let it move through your nervous system. Let it move out.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

What I so appreciate about your principle, too, harnessing the power of pain, is that you give us hope, like I know many of us have done. The dissociation or the numbing and always feeling defensive. What trouble is going to happen next? Always reactive. And you put together at the beginning of that these ways that we can actually enter into what Father Richard calls the tears of things. You write, trauma disconnects us from our bodies, and we must learn to reinhabit them so we can begin to harness the overwhelming intensity of our experience and put it to use. Body awareness is critical to reclaiming our lives. And so I just want to sit with that notion for a minute. And then secondly, you quote from Rami Elhanan. Rami says we have an enormous ally on our side, the power of pain. It is very much like nuclear energy. You can use this energy in order to bring darkness and destruction and pain, or you can use this energy to bring light and warmth to and hope. Can you say more about how this works, how we can do it?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Well, it is. It's not an easy key to turn, but it is a key that turns. And I'll bring in my teacher, Ramiel Hanan here, whose daughter Samadar, was killed by a suicide bomber at the age of 14. On a mall. She was shopping with her other friends. They were all killed. And he admittedly in. And I tell this story in wounds into wisdom, turned into a raging animal. He was. For a year, he was uncontrollable. He hated. He wanted vengeance. He was fuming. He was. He couldn't work. He was a volcano. And then he went through an experience which I will tell very briefly, in which he had this awakening. And he saw a Palestinian woman. He was invited to a meeting and he saw a Palestinian woman who's step off a bus with a necklace on and the picture around her heart of her daughter who had been killed by an Israeli sniper. And something inside of him went in a bizarre kind of moment of metanoia, you might say. And he had this transcendent experience where he realized, oh my God, this rage that I am carrying, this is happening on both sides. This is happening on all sides. And his rage converted into this disillusion that Father Richard talks about, this outpouring, a sea of tears. And Rami Elhanan has become one of the great spokesmen for peace in Israel now and one of the great activists because his heart melted at that moment. So he talks. This is his quote. Thank you, Carmen. That talks about harnessing the power of our pain and realizing it has so much power if we can just feel our pain, talk about it, use it in some way, harness it. But it is a body experience. It is not to turn away from, but it is to master it, to convert it into a kind of activism, into a kind of universalism. It is not only my pain, it is the pain that humanity is suffering right now. It is not a small case pain or small case suffering s suffering. It is the suffering in the world and we are sharing it on all sides.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

That's beautifully said, beautifully said. Can I ask you also to talk just a moment about limbic lava? So that is an unforgettable term. So can you help us understand what limbic lava is?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

It is simply a colloquial, a way that I understand what happens in the brain because I am not a scientist, I'm the farthest thing from it. And limbic lava is when we are activated, our sympathetic nervous system gets activated in a way that we cannot control our responses because something has been said or. Or we have seen something in the paper or on a report and it just starts to boil in us. And this happens, unfortunately for me, I'm going to full disclosure here, say that this happens regularly nowadays where I see the things that are going on on the world stage, I just like, this can't be happening. No, no, no. And my limbic lava, that simply means that my emotional brain has been triggered. And there's a certain kind of sympathetic nervous system reaction that shuts off my prefrontal cortex, which means my ability to think in a linear way, in a logical way, in a diplomatic way, to hear someone else, to cognate another position, all of a sudden, all of that goes offline. And when I am triggered and my limbic lava is flowing, I can't hear anything or. Or anyone. I can't hear the other side. So we all need to be able to. In this day and age, I think, be able. And this is the hardest thing, to be able to neutralize that lava, to be able to do something that I sit at my altar, I say a psalm, I go outside and take a walk, my dog, I. Whatever I can do to cool out, literally. And so that I can reclaim my. Another part of my nervous system, and I can cool out, literally to chill. Literally to chill. And my parasympathetic nervous system comes back online where I can access hearing and logical thinking. I can be not reactive, but reflective. And that's the difference. That can happen when we can learn to, as His Holiness, the Dalai Lama says, tame our minds.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

That's helpful.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

And I can see how it so clearly sets up principles three and four. So I'm so intrigued that your third principle is finding new community. Here at the center for Action and Contemplation, this is the thing we get asked about the most. How can I find a community that can hold all that I am, all that I'm going through, these new places that I'm going into as I'm transforming and healing and recognizing the pain of others. I've heard you talk about how important it is for us to be witnessed and experience withness, which is brilliant. Thank you for that. What guidance for us in the importance of finding new community, and how do we do it?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

First of all, let me just say that all of these seven principles are the distillation of my narrators, the people who told me their stories, the people who live through the worst traumas, the hardest tragedies. And they did that alchemical hard work of turning their heavy metals, their deep rage, into tears of association, tears of feeling the grief of the world. And each of them, I would say many scores of people that I interviewed, really got locked into isolation at first, because you think no one could be feeling these things. No one. There is nobody who understands in particular I would say we're speaking in a post Covid era where the isolation was horrendous. You know, there was so much terror and fear of, what is this pandemic? What is going on here? But we did learn that you can reach out in a magical way to a cyber community. More than ever, we are needing to find our kin family that can help us absorb the blows in the world and to help neutralize the stresses. So finding our community, I can't underscore enough. There are many ways. I have found that cyber communities can be equally positive and healing. It's always good to meet people in person for hugs and handholds, but if that is not possible for us, if really important to reach out, get online, find your community. And this also includes the internal community. I work a lot with ancestors in my work and doing the ancestral healing and finding our positive, well and wise ancestors whose presence is blessing us and who can give us a feeling. We also lived through healing hell and high waters. And we can bless you now and give you strength just by calling upon us. I know that might sound a little strange to some listeners, but it is really powerful.

[Mike Petro]

This is what Richard's doing in the Tears of Things. He's pointing back to Hebrew prophets as elders and ancestors, potentially even for us in the Christian tradition, as ancestors who offer wisdom.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Absolutely. Well, they're your ancestors too, because we're all in one lineage. Right. Think about Jeremiah, think about Isaiah, Ezekiel. Think about these people who lived through, you know, what must have been the zealotry, the stupidity of the leadership. You know, these are things that we're feeling today. Like, how could they make such a mistake? What is like the indignation, the sense of rage and indignation that Richard writes about so beautifully. And the tears of things, yes, they were feeling all of these things, and they have that written down in their scrolls that we can draw from and help us feel, okay, I'm not alone here. I'm not alone.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I love that. I love also how that's a natural segue that if we are in community, then we're also asking ourselves how we can stay human, and so we're less likely to fall into the fear, the blame, and the dehumanizing. So in other words, we need community to resist this sort of default that can happen when we're in isolation. So one of the people in wounds into wisdom, who I just would love to meet really is Reuven, the Romanian octogenarian, a refugee, many times oppressed and hated, as you write, by the red Army, Antonescu's fascist Nazis. But his spirit is unconquered. And he says the true warrior is the one who converts his enemy into his friend. Now, I have to tell you, Tirzah, I struggle with this. Oh, yeah, I do. I struggle.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Oh, yeah.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

So can you share with us a little bit more about how this is possible for us on a daily basis?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Yeah. I love how you're saying that Carmen Reveen was a magnificent guy who came out of the Holocaust with a little fiddle that he plucked off the wall. It was a gypsy fiddle, and he played for me, and he played his harmonica and he refused to hate. But as you say so. Well, it is a default in our human nature to objectify the other. Martin Buber called it I it relating. We objectify. We make the other objects and fear them and blame them and then dehumanize them. And then that gives us license, God forbid, to do horrendous things because they are the enemy. Now, I want to point out that in the Torah, as I call it, the Elder Testament quote, unquote, no fewer than 48 times does the Torah tell us in various language injunctions, to care for the other, the stranger who lives in your midst. It's called begare, hagar, hagar, betokhem, to love the stranger, because we ourselves have been the stranger. We know what it feels like to be othered. We know what it feels like to be outcast or to be the outlier, to be marginalized, because each of us knows that how it felt in the third grade to be bullied. But also our people, our ancestors, many of whom have been displaced, they've lived through wars and famines. We have that in our human totality. We have that in the collective psyche, the collective unconscious, but we also have it in our bodies. And so we are told no fewer than 48 times. Why is that? Because I think the divine intelligence that wrote these scriptures, the prophetic voice, understood that it is just, as you say, Carmen, a default for us to other the other and to disown. Oh, but those people, they voted like that, or these people, they are. They're ignoramuses, you know, just however we do that, we also other our own selves. By the way, I want to just point that out. We do do that all the time, to put our own selves out of our hearts, to judge ourselves mercilessly resisting that call to other, like getting in there with humanity and understanding that we're all in pain.

[Mike Petro]

I feel like as we zero in on the fifth principle, which, for Me, I will admit my favorite chapter in the book, and I think super strong Medicine, this idea of disidentifying from victimhood. Before I ask you for some guidance on that, I want to ask you about the both and of that, because in recognizing you talk about this so well, we have agency. We get to choose how we tell our story. We get to decide am I telling a story of victimhood or not. And yet I read all these accounts in your book, and at no point are you saying disidentifying from victimhood is not acknowledging that we have experienced loss and trauma. So my first question when we talk about disidentifying victimhood is how do we hold the both end of acknowledging our loss? Just like you said, it starts with facing the loss, naming the truth of what we've been through, and then not letting that become a story of victimization.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

And not letting it become our identity. It's really. It's a continuum. And again, I think Father Richard talks about this so beautifully that we, when we dissolve, we move through experience and we don't get stuck. We don't coagulate. That's the. Another alchemical principle. We're coagulatio. You know, things come together, but we don't. We want to move through. And yes, this happened to me. Yes, it is horrible. I am extremely vulnerable. I want to go into my cave and lick my wounds, but I have to keep moving through that tendency to isolate in the cave to identify with my story. I'm a psychotherapist. You can't tell a person, well, it's time to move on now. Absolutely not. But not to let it coagulate. Years ago, we used to say incest. Victims of incest, we never hear that term anymore because psychologists understood that's a death knoll. If I become a victim of incest or a victim of sexual assault, and that is all that I am, and they heard people introducing themselves as such, then it is a place of deep stuckness, disidentifying from victimhood. And you've already kind of underscored this, Mike. It is the other side of the coin to the next principle which is confronting our sense of true chosenness and entitlement. My victimhood could entitle me to do things or to feel things or to think things that keep me and my people or keep me stuck.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I appreciated that you brought up as your sixth principle this, you said, redefining Jewish chosenness. And then you help us see that universally also. So you talk about that chosenness in some form is a cornerstone of the three Abrahamic traditions. And for me, being raised evangelical, in my childhood, we were told we were chosen, not in so many words, but we were saved by the Lord and others were lost and needed us to save them. And so it's the same kind of a. And you write, the notion of divine election creates an unbearable burden to fulfill, a destiny that demands obedience and superhuman excellence. Can you help us see how that can become a point of connection to a world that is suffering?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

I once sponsored a panel at my synagogue, and it was an evangelical Christian, a beautiful guide and teacher, rabbi and the Muslim imam. And in this panel, it was talking about the things that we speak about behind closed doors, each of us to our constituents. What do we really say? What do we really believe behind there that actually serves to separate, not join us to God's community. What are the things? And it was just, I'll never forget this because each one of those leaders and, and I was the moderator, so I was like, had my mouth open as each one confessed that behind closed doors we are triumphalists. We believe in special election, divine election. We believe that we have it and the others don't, that each of us has in our sacred teachings, violent teachings or teachings that are a call to violence. You know, it might be subtle in the prophetic, let's say in Judges, the Book of Judges. It's not at all the book of Deuteronomy. Not at all. So we have that in our ancient, ancient literature. And how do we, as some people are now saying, how do we repudiate those texts? Is it the time to confess those triumphalist notions? Because look what's happening as a result of these deeply inculcated beliefs.

[Mike Petro]

All of this flows together. If we identify in victimhood, then we will act towards making sure that we will never be victimized again.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

That's right. And again, that lives at a nervous system. At a somatic level, we start to see the world as an existential threat rather than as, ah, we are all activated here. We start to live in a defensive posture rather than as servant leaders.

[Mike Petro]

I so appreciate that. And I appreciate the fact that you end all of this with the last principle, where you talk about taking action and you clearly show us that there's inner work to do that then can lead to outer work. We can put our healing in the service of healing the world, which is really, really beautiful.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

In Judaism, we have, I'll say very briefly, a kind of dictum that says there are two kinds of repair. We are here to make the world is Unfinished. The world needs us and needs each and every one of us. And the Creator left it unfinished so that the creator could be partners with us in tikkun olam in the repair of the world. But there's also what's called. It's the other side of the coin, which is tikkun hanefesh. It's the repair of our souls, of our own souls. And so first, we must take care of ourselves. We must do self care. And true self care is built on self awareness. We have to have compassion for what's running me, what's inside of me, where I get lost. We have to parent ourselves lovingly so that we can then go out and take our wisdom and take our self awareness into the world and shed it in the world and have compassion on others in the same way that we have compassion on ourselves. Taking action is taking inner action and taking outer action.

[Mike Petro]

In other words, at one point you say, when we overlook our suffering, our actions will likely bear the hallmarks of the trauma we're fleeing. And so we are the center for action and contemplation over here in Albuquerque. And one of the things we see, you know, when we talk about how contemplation and action go together, it's inner work and outer work. If we don't do our inner work and if we don't do our inner healing, it seems like our activism can still have that unconscious trauma acted out. Right?

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Yes. So well said. You know, sometimes it's that limbic lava flowing, I've got to do something.

[Father Richard Rohr]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, my God, I'm.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

And we come to our activism from a sense of rage rather than heartbreak and our heart breaking open. And we feel that. You can feel that. And usually it galvanizes other people to react to us and push back. We get pushback rather than, oh, I feel your generous spirit. I feel I don't agree with you, but I love you because my heart is also in such pain.

[Mike Petro]

I've so loved your book. I've so loved this conversation. And in this last principle, I realized that wisdom can lead us to our work. And it seems like what you're saying is in the alchemy of transforming wounds into wisdom, Our healing doesn't have to be just for us.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Deeply embedded in my tradition is the idea that every act that we do, every act of tikkun hanefesh on our own selves, act of healing, act of self awareness, act of self improvement. And every act we do, a smile on the street, a hand reaching out, a contribution that we make every act that we do bears ripples. It ripples out into the whole. No act. Just like no person lives in isolation. Everything is in motion. And so I guess the closing to this chat we've had is a blessing for all of us that we remember that all of our efforts count. Every effort. Listening to this podcast, reading Father Richard's book, moving toward more light and toward more compassion. Every act bears a strong reverberation and a resonance on the whole, making this life better, making this world better. And thank you so much. My heart feels so full of gratitude right now.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Thank you.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for showing us how our wounds can lead to wisdom and being a living demonstration of how our wounds can help us find our wisdom teachers. This has been a treasure. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, my gosh, Carmen, what an amazing set of conversations. Conversations this month. This chapter is so profound in a lot of ways. I know I say this a lot, but in a lot of ways it feels like the beating heart of the book for me. When Richard writes the gift of tears and the gift of healing are almost one and the same, and then talks about this process of alchemy where our tears help dissolve our anger and the hard stuck part places inside of us so that we can find meaning and so we can heal. And he says, in this way, the prophets in Jeremiah in particular, invite us into a divine sadness about reality itself. Much more than mere outrage at this or that event.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

What I appreciate about it all is that it gives me. It gives us permission to weep, as opposed to how some of us. I know, I was. You're raised to think, tamp them down, stuff them down. And one of my favorite quotes is like a Cohen for me, of Richard's here is felt reality is invariably wept reality and wept reality. Assume compassion and kindness.

[Mike Petro]

When Richard talks about God standing in solidarity and the invitation to become emissaries of the tears of God. And instead of me looking at God going, why are you doing this to me? Or looking at God going, are you angry at me? Going, God weeps with me over the state of the world.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Right.

[Mike Petro]

That just. It's such a game changer.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Absolutely. And when we pair that with Julianne of Norwich's real insight, that she's also weeping because God loves her so deeply and loves the world so deeply, it's like, you know, if you've ever had a difficulty with someone, but then you realize that they really meant things well and you might have gotten it wrong and you realize, oh, my gosh I am loved. There's that weeping for Julianne of Norwich of, wow, I hadn't really noticed how much God loves me. It's that feeling you get when you're out on the marsh beside a tree in the busy city, and you realize, wow, this is really mysterious and amazing and miraculous and. And it's love. And then what can you do but weep?

[Mike Petro]

Really tears, I feel like, dissolve unhelpful stories and invite us into the process of telling better stories.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

So one of the things I'm wondering, you know. Cause you and I have talked about this some, is what happens when we're bowled over by grief and trauma.

[Mike Petro]

Rabbi Tirza gives us so much wisdom there. And really, really what this podcast is all about is living the teachings forward, taking these beautiful gifts that Richard gives us, and then amplifying them and even being willing to ask new questions. And so what Rabbi Tirzah does is she not only helps us face our tears, right? Her first principle in our conversation was face the loss, but she also brings in a lens on trauma. When I did my grief and trauma certification, on the very first day of the very first class, the chair of the program sat us all down and said, here's something you need to realize. And grief and trauma are so related, but they are not the same thing. They have to be handled differently. And if you don't deal with your trauma, you will not be able to grieve. And what he actually literally said is that, like, physiologically, grief, the alchemy of pain into meaning and healing, is a higher brain function, and trauma is a lower brain function. And what happens is when our traumas are triggered, our lower brain kicks us into survival mode and tries to override our higher thinking to get us to take swift action to protect ourselves. But the problem is, when we're traumatized and those traumas get triggered and activated, it shuts down our ability to slow down and cry our tears and let those tears dissolve old, unhelpful stories. Does that make sense? And has that been real in your own experience?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Yeah, because. And I love the way you explain that so clearly, because I think if you're blindsided simultaneously by trauma and grief, it can be so confusing how to make sense of it and how to deal with it. And it really helps to know that. And that's where Tears book comes in in her teaching, that when we go through these seven principles and really, really work with our trauma, then we can grieve better. We have space to grieve. And otherwise, it's just so Overwhelming. What I also love is that just the way you gave us this understanding, this concrete understanding of grief and trauma. She gives us the language to understand our trauma. She gives us stories of others. So I really love all of this beautiful teaching of language that gives us the tools to enter fearlessly or fearfully into our trauma, however we are at the time.

[Mike Petro]

So when Tirzah gives us these skills to slow ourselves down, to get in touch with that trauma, to look at those stories, to say, is this my story? And is this someone else's unfinished story? Am I being invited to weep someone else's unwept tears? That brings us to a point of clarity which can help us heal. Oh, God.

[Drew Jackson]

It's such valuable teaching.

[Mike Petro]

I really hope people put wounds into wisdom on their reading list for after they finish up the tears of things.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

She's like the therapist we all would like. Oh, my gosh, Rabbi Tirza like. Or if your car were broken down on the road and the car being broken down is trauma, and Rabbi Tirza pulled you, you'd be like, great. I know this will be. We can do this.

[Mike Petro]

It's so true. And it's such a. It's such an invitation, and for me, honestly, to see the divine that way. Origin says that life is a hospital in a classroom. And he says that Christ is a teacher and a doctor. And if you put those two things together, what you get as a therapist, someone who really is working with you and listening to you and helping you heal. Right. We had this insight in this episode about even in the book of Job, God being a character who listens deeply, lets Job say everything he has to say and then responds helpfully. That's such good counsel. What advice would you give our listeners for when that limbic lava erupts and when they feel themselves overtaken?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

The first thing is to take a step back and pause. And you're not retreating, you're. You're pausing so that we don't react, but we respond and just taking a beat, literally. So, like, an email comes in, and the reptilian part of me, if it's an email that sets me off and I take a step back, take my hands from the keyboard, and then I just pause. And I try to see it from the perspective of bigger rather than just my own small ego. And this also helps me have better response eventually. And then with limbic lava, I always think self compassion, like, what part of me needs my attention? What part of me is in pain? And I think, if we can pause, walk out into nature, that is one of the biggest things. And even if we're in a city, I used to do this in London. I'd go to my favorite plane tree, which was right around the corner, and put my hand on the plane tree and just stand there listening. Like you said, Job being deep, listened to by God. There's something about the way the plane tree in the middle of all the taxicab honks and everything of London. I could feel that plane tree listening to me as I listened to it. So there's a lot of love in creation available to us wherever we are.

[Mike Petro]

A lot of times when I work with spiritual directees, I talk to them about what I call snaps. S N a P s. So it's when you feel yourself triggered or when you feel a story coming in, you stop. First of all, just stop.

[Drew Jackson]

Pause.

[Mike Petro]

Notice what's happening. Ask what is trying to be expressed. If it's fear, if it's anger, if it's sadness, and then do it on purpose. S N a p purpose. Because when you do something on purpose with purpose, it reveals its purpose. So if you're feeling afraid, be afraid. Don't do it by accident. Do it on purpose. If you're angry, be angry on purpose. And then the last S is start again. And I find you know that it's just contemplation. It's pausing and listening. And I hear that so much in what you're saying about go slow. Listeners, thanks for being with us. We look forward to seeing you again next month. Until until then, we give you every.

[Drew Jackson]

Blessing as you embark on your own healing journey.

[Mike Petro]

Face your own losses, cry your own tears, cry the unwept tears of others, and find ways to ground yourself when that limbic lava erupts so you can start the whole process all over again. Thanks so much for being here with us today.

[Announcer]

Thanks for listening to this podcast by the center for Action and Contemplation, an educational nonprofit that introduces seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. To learn more about our work, Visit [e-mail] Everything belongs is made possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters and.

[Mike Petro]

The shared work of Mike Petro, Paul.

[Rabbi Tirzah Firestone]

Swanson, Drew Jackson, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Jenna Kuyper, Izzy Spitz, Megan Hare, Sarah Palmer.

[Mike Petro]

Dorothy Abrams, Brandon Strange, Vanessa Yee, Cassidy.

[Announcer]

Hall, and me, Corey Wayne. The music you hear is composed and provided by our friends Hammock. And we'd also like to thank Soundon Studios for all of their work in post production. From the high desert of New Mexico, we wish you peace and every good.

[Corey Wayne]

Do you feel called to walk a more contemplative path? The center for Action and Contemplation is an educational nonprofit supporting the journey of inner transformation. Our programs and resources will help grow your consciousness, deepen your prayer practice, and strengthen your compassionate engagement with the world. Learn more about our resources, such as publications, podcasts, email series, and [e-mail].