AUTONOMIC BULLYING happens when we presume authority over another person’s internal state and insist they override their embodied reality to meet our expectations. It treats dysregulation as moral failure rather than embodied reality. sitwithchuck.substack.com/p/autonomic-...

Gaslighting is telling someone that what they know to be true — what they can see with their own two eyes — is false.

She lived in a time where abuse was rampant, where authorities proclaimed, “We have the right reading of reality. Obey or pay!” She refused the game. She’d lead many into a new way of Jesus-following through humor, humility and ingenuity. I’d like to ask her how we might navigate our present times…

Love to all of you who saw the news about Philip Yancey and heard a tender part of you whispering within, “Is there anyone we can trust?”

Character isn’t declared nor is it performed. It grows in the quiet, where safety is present to foster integrity within, where love, joy, peace and more are not mere window-dressing but the fruits of an inner live cultivated in communion and connection, not division.

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.” -General Omar Bradley, Armistice Day, 1948

The new year is not an audition for a better self but an invitation to notice what no longer serves and what quietly wants to grow. 🌱

New Year’s Longings: Leaving Resolutions Behind | Listening from the Heart open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

"The great problem of our time is not to formulate clear answers to neat theoretical questions but to tackle the self-destructive alienation of man in a society dedicated in theory to human values and in practice to the pursuit of power for its own sake." —Thomas Merton

“The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering humanity.” —St. Athanasius, 4th c

“A great deal of injustice survives by self-ignorance. When you are poorly attuned to your own selfhood, it is easy to remain in denial about what fears, pain, and desires lead you to perpetuate suffering in the world, even your own. Reclaim practices of self-encounter.” — Cole Arthur Riley

People often ask me, “Does a narcissist realize he’s so egocentric?” Actually, from the inside out, everything seems fine. Psychology calls this an ego-syntonic state—when patterns, defenses, and adaptations feel completely aligned with who someone thinks he is. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

When the mask becomes the face: on ego-syntonic lives, character formation, and the courage to be real. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

Remember: You are not loved for being above the human condition. You are loved for being deeply, achingly human within it.

Is there hope in this age of cruelty? open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

“There is no human who has ever lived who is garbage. A ludicrous impossibility, heresy even. And every Christian should unequivocally say so.” Thank you @winncollier.bsky.social

Excited to land on a title for my next book! Who You're Becoming: The Slow and Courageous Work of Cultivating Character In a Narcissistic Age Coming next Fall.

Growing up doesn’t necessarily mean growing mature. With age comes anxiety, shifting your nervous system into self-protection - a state that thwarts growth in character. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

HOW PEOPLE CHANGE // I’ve been asked for years about how people change. I hear the traditional answers - an act of repentance, engaging healing practices, taking a short break or sabbatical, reading a good book.

Character is reflected in your deeply ingrained habits of heart that show up without even thinking about them. And these habits of heart are ingrained in your earliest days, within a 'connection orientation' or a 'survival orientation'. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

It’s Halloween, and we’re all talking about who we want to be. So maybe it’s the perfect day to chat about the masks we wear and who we’re becoming. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

Embodied wisdom. And so counterintuitive today. Sometimes it takes a psychologist to remind us of what the Psalmists modeled for us. 

You don't quite have words, but something is off. You feel stagnant, stuck. The incessant scrolling takes you from one painful story to the next. Your days feel repetitive, resigned to the tyranny of demands, rutted for what has felt like an eternity. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

It’s fun to see this finally arrive. Coming October 14 - When Narcissism Comes to Church in Spanish. a.co/d/fVy1gVy

Happy Sunday.

What a gift to be teaching for a few days at the Young Life Good Way retreat. “Beauty will save the world.” -Dostoevsky

“If we desire peace, let us cultivate peace in ourselves and in our hearts.” - St Teresa of Avila The underbelly of a narcissistic culture (and it’s narcissistic leaders) is shame and fragility, as I’ve been saying for a long time. A nervous system in perpetual survival mode. 1/4

Even self-awareness itself seems to have become a commodity – marketed, platformed, and repackaged, sometimes fueling the same narcissism we sought to escape. (Some thoughts on how those of us who are helpers need to do our own work.) open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

When therapists like me tell someone, “Just use your voice” or “Just be yourself,” we may be unintentionally encouraging them to shift from flight into fight - or from one survival response into another. And that may set them up for further pain. 1/2

A prayer to center on dysregulating days: Calm me, O Lord (inhale) as You stilled the storm (exhale) Still me, O Lord (inhale) keep me from harm (exhale) Let all the tumult (inhale) within me cease (exhale) Enfold me, Lord (inhale) in Your peace (exhale) (an ancient Celtic prayer)

Pardon my handwritten reflection in two images, cobbled together. I sit with people in complicated grief every day. I sit with my own heart, as well. This is a letter to my heart – and maybe to yours as well, if you’ll receive it.

Once upon a time, I naively believed I could protect my kids from suffering. But suffering is inevitable. What matters most isn’t whether pain comes—it will—but whether we have to face it alone. Solitary suffering is what leaves the deepest wounds, even traumatic wounds.

“What is the value of great theological erudition or great pastoral adeptness or intense but fleeting mystical experience or social activism when there is not a well-formed heart to guide a well-formed life?” ~Henri Nouwen

This 4th century wisdom gives me a bit of hope amidst these days of deceit, delusion, and duplicity: “For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed and undeceived them all from every deceit.” — Athanasius of Alexandria

I relate.

I’m doing a 5 day soul care intensive again this week with a man in midlife - a journey with common threads for each of us who’ve navigated this passage, and yet wholly unique to each man.

I hit send - my manuscript on character is in the publisher’s hands now. I’ve been down this road a number of times before, but it’s always a vulnerable moment. And you invariably wake up in the middle of the night thinking, “I forgot to add this!“

Every five hundred years the empowered structures of institutionalized Christianity, whatever they may be at that time, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered in order that renewal and new growth may occur.                                                              Phyllis Tickle

Just because it’s not sexual sin doesn’t mean it’s not moral failure. Or to put it more positively, moral integrity encompasses far more than sexual behavior - it involves how we show up, how we lead, how we receive feedback, how we use power, and so much more. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithchu…

Looking for a Sunday afternoon read? You can access my newest Healing What’s Within at a great Kindle sale price of $3.99 right now - but likely not for long. a.co/d/gSP34bQ

"Those who do not speak the words of God with humility must be advised that when they apply medicine to the sick, they must first inspect the poison of their own infection, or else by attempting to heal others, they kill themselves.” ― Pope Gregory I, The Book of Pastoral Rule, 590AD

A little poetic reflection as I write on character formation these days - amidst evolving narcissism.

Naming clergy harm didn't begin a decade ago. "Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling blocks before the blind as may be the occasion of their ruin." (Richard Baxter, 1656)

"Loving humility is a terrible force." Here’s the context: “At some thoughts a man stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and he wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love.

Have you noticed how the language of spiritual and emotional health has been co-opted. Might it be more helpful and substantial for us to talk less about health and more about the slow work of character change? Check out my latest Substack and offer thoughts. open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

"Divided among many loves, you are torn apart; you are restless everywhere, at peace nowhere. Gather yourself together in your true self. If anything outside you delights you, ask who is its maker." Augustine