With and For hosted by Dr. Pam King

Where AI ends and faith begins, with Dr. Rosalind Picard

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Help us plan season 4. We want to hear from you. Take our survey now! https://forms.gle/doQYx73hoPU2tRdC7

Lauded MIT professor Rosalind Picard invents technologies that help people better understand emotions and behaviors that impact human wellbeing and health.

In 1997 she wrote an incredibly influential book called Affective Computing, which proposed giving skills of emotional intelligence to computers.

Rosalind grew up atheist but she's now a devout Christian–and in this eye-opening conversation, she shares exactly how her faith impacts her work with technology.

We talked about AI’s morality–or lack thereof–and its flaws, but also talked about how AI might enhance our relationships with other human beings. Rosalind shares the one thing she believes AI cannot do for us.

Rosalind Picard, Sc.D., is a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author, and engineer. She is the Grover M. Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at the MIT Media Lab.

Links and resources:

About Rosalind’s work

Recent publications

1997 book Affective Computing

Rosalind’s journey from atheism to faith in Christianity Today

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.

Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King hosts With & For, and is the Executive Director of the Thrive Center and the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary. Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Senior Producer: Clare Wiley

Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis

Produced by Great Feeling Studios

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and Fuller Seminary’s School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. The podcast was made possible through the support from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the host and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

Leading causes of life, with Drs. Somava Saha and Gary Gunderson

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

In our fractured and sometimes dark world, we so often focus on the leading causes of death – but what if we focused our energy on what gives life? That is the pioneering work of my guests today. Dr. Somava Saha and Rev. Dr. Gary Gunderson are leaders in public health. And while they come from very different faith traditions, together they believe that communities have within them the belonging, agency, and wisdom to thrive.

Gary Gunderson is an ordained Baptist minister and professor of Faith and Health at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. He developed the five leading causes of life: agency, coherence, connection, generativity and hope. Gary has managed major faith and healthcare collaborations where he saw these causes in action.

Dr. Somava Saha is a Baha'i, and has dedicated her career to intergenerational wellbeing. She’s currently CEO of Wellbeing and Equity in the World, and her work has reached millions of lives.

Through this conversation, recorded in cooperation with Interfaith America, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how to tap into the power and resourcefulness that exist in the communities you serve -- and how you can work towards being a better ancestor.

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.

About With & For

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Senior Producer: Clare Wiley

Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis

Produced by Great Feeling Studios

Bringing our whole selves, with Dr. Janette Ok

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

We often think of sacred texts like the Bible as being rigid, set in stone. But actually they’re really nuanced and complex, and crucially, they allow us to bring our own complexity. Dr. Janette H. Ok is a New Testament professor at Fuller Seminary. She empowers her students to embrace their unique perspectives and backgrounds, and use those as powerful tools in biblical reflection. In this conversation, Janette also explains how wisdom isn’t something you master, but a way of living you can cultivate. And she shares a practice for how we can go beyond quick Biblical memes, and dive deep into what might transform us.

Links and resources:

About Janette

About Saint Augustine of Hippo

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.

About With & For

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Senior Producer: Clare Wiley

Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis

Produced by Great Feeling Studios

How words can heal, with Pádraig Ó Tuama

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Pádraig Ó Tuama is an Irish poet, theologian and host of the On Being podcast, Poetry Unbound. Belonging, identity and reconciliation are at the heart of his work. Growing up bilingual, speaking both English and Irish, showed Pádraig that there are multiple ways to say things, and multiple ways to look at things. As a young gay man, Pádraig was subjected to abusive conversion practices, and it was his yearning for a better language to understand God and himself that led him to poetry and conflict mediation. Pádraig shows us both the brutality and the beauty of language, how words can destroy or nourish, and choosing which words to use is a power worth cultivating.

You’ll learn how to balance fear and courage, and why you should approach conflicts in your life by admitting what you don’t know. Padraig also shares a journaling practice to draw out your own poetic voice.

Links and resources

About Pádraig
Poetry Unbound
Pádraig’s memoir In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World
Pádraig also read The Exorcist and Oh What A Marvel it Appeared to Me from his 2023 collection Feed the Beast
His latest collection is Kitchen Hymns

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenterFollow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About With & ForHost: Pam KingSenior Director and Producer: Jill WestbrookOperations Manager: Lauren KimSocial Media & Graphic Designer: Wren JuergensenSenior Producer: Clare WileyExecutive Producer: Jakob LewisProduced by Great Feeling Studios

Thriving is relational, with Dr. Richard M. Lerner

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Dr. Richard M. Lerner is a revolutionary force in the field of psychology, which had previously focused on what goes wrong with people. Richard’s relentlessly optimistic vision focuses on what can go right with people, how they can change and grow.

In this special conversation, Pam sits down with her mentor – someone who’s had an influential impact on her career and research, to discuss thriving, relationships, spirituality and transcendence.

Richard is the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science, and the Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University.

Links and resources:

About Richard’s work

Richard speaks at the Vatican

Richard’s books

What makes young people thrive

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenterFollow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About With & For:

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Senior Producer: Clare Wiley

Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis

Produced by Great Feeling Studios

The science behind faith, with David DeSteno

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Spiritual practices can improve your physical and emotional health – but that doesn’t mean spirituality is a wellness hack. David DeSteno’s groundbreaking work explores how religious rituals like prayer and chanting are so beneficial as powerful psychological tools. But what happens if you take these rituals outside of their community context? David can speak to both sides of the equation: the science behind faith, and the mystery of the sacred.

David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he directs the Social Emotions Lab – exploring the effects of emotions like gratitude and compassion. His latest book is called How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, and he hosts a podcast of the same name.

About David’s work:

David’s website

How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion - 2021 book

How God Works podcast

Social Emotions Lab

David referenced:

Michael Pollen

Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research

Rabbi Shira Stutman

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl

Rev. Alex Leach’s Burning Man camp

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenterFollow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

Unleash your wisdom with Chip Conley

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Many of us reach our 40s and have a wake-up call: a major event that shifts our perspective on what matters in life. Chip Conley had the most dramatic wake-up call ever: a near-death experience. Chip was giving a speech on stage when he died – literally. The experience would set off a chain reaction of events that changed the course of his life.

Chip is a renowned entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker known for his pioneering approach to innovation, leadership, and hospitality. He founded the country’s second-largest operator of boutique hotels, then led a travel revolution at Airbnb. But it was his brush with death that spurred him to launch the Modern Elder Academy, a series of workshops and programs that help folks reframe their relationship with aging.

In this episode, we talk about navigating transitions, cultivating purpose, and owning wisdom, and Chip shares a practice for tapping into your own wisdom.

Links and resources:

The Modern Elder Academy

The Anatomy of a Transition - free ebook

MEA on Facebook

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenterFollow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About With & For

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Senior Producer: Clare Wiley

Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis

Produced by Great Feeling Studios

Tension brings us closer, with Elizabeth Oldfield

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Elizabeth Oldfield is a writer, coach and host of the podcast The Sacred, who has dedicated her work to exploring clarity, courage and most of all, connection. And yet – her latest book Fully Alive dives into the seven deadly sins. That’s because Elizabeth believes that sins like pride, greed and wrath, are what break our connection to others. So maybe understanding how these sins are so destructive to our lives might just be a key to becoming more fully alive.

In this conversation, Pam and Elizabeth talk about why hard feelings – like anxiety, grief, and even tension with loved ones – are actually invitations. We have to let ourselves feel complicated, messy emotions in order to draw closer to others and to God. Elizabeth also shares a reflective journaling practice to help you live out your values.

Links and resources

About Elizabeth Oldfield

The Sacred podcast

Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times book

Fully Alive, Elizabeth’s Substack

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenterFollow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

What makes a good life? with Lee C. Camp

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0000

It’s not always easy to see how the four cardinal virtues connect to your everyday life. But prudence, justice, courage, and temperance are vital in helping us thrive. Lee C. Camp is a professor, speaker, writer, and theologian – as well as host of the hit podcast and public radio show No Small Endeavour. His work explores what it means to be flourishing humans - alone and together.

With his wit and wisdom in this episode, Lee will turn your preconceptions about the four virtues upside down. He shares what he learned about courage from having difficult conversations with his wife, what he learned about temperance from sharing a beer with good friends, and the ways that prudence can help us carry the heavy emotional weight of the world right now.

In this conversation, we talk about how to guard ourselves against shame, how to cultivate gladness, and how to fight powerlessness. And crucially: Lee shows us how to turn virtue into a daily habit.

Links and resources:

Lee C. Camp

No Small Endeavor

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenterFollow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About With & For

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Senior Producer: Clare Wiley

Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis

Produced by Great Feeling Studios

Love is ferocious, with Rabbi Shai Held

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0000

One of Rabbi Shai Held’s first experiences of love was from his father, who loved him ferociously. Tragically, he died when Shai was 12 years old. The experience shook Shai’s belief and trust in God.

But Rabbi Held is someone who can hold the messy contradictions of faith and love. He understands that one minute, we can feel intense love, and the next, we’re full of resentment and frustration. Rabbi Held is also the most generous of teachers: he shares his struggles and doubts, in order to hold space for our own.

Rabbi Held's latest book is called Judaism is About Love. It is a radical and provocative effort that points to love as the heart of the Jewish faith.

Rabbi Shai Held is president of the Hadar Institute, an educational center that builds egalitarian Jewish communities through learning, prayer, and acts of kindness. He has received the Covenant Award for excellence in Jewish education and was included multiple times in Newsweek’s list of most influential rabbis in America.

You will walk away from this raw, emotional interview understanding that love is more than a sentiment - - and you'll learn that focusing on divine love is central to your everyday spiritual health.

Links and resources:

About Rabbi Shai Held

About the Hadar Institute

Answers WithHeld podcast

Abraham Joshua Heschel

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org. Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter. Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About With & For

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Senior Producer: Clare Wiley

Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis

Produced by Great Feeling Studios

The gift of deep listening, with Parker J. Palmer

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0000

When Parker J. Palmer was a young man, he became aware of a growing unrest within him. Guided by his inner voice, he turned down prestigious university jobs and instead took a challenging, unstable job in community organizing. Parker then followed his north star again – and moved with his family to live in a radically equal Quaker community for over a decade.

Parker is an activist and author who has written 10 incredibly influential books – including Let Your Life Speak. He founded the Center for Courage & Renewal, which supports leadership, vocation, and community formation. And in 2021, the Freedom of Spirit Fund gave him their Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of work that promotes and protects spiritual freedom.

Parker believes that in this moment of instability, finding our internal grounding is more important than ever – and he shares a beautiful ‘circle of trust’ practice for listening deeply to others. You’ll learn how others are so crucial to tuning into your true inner voice - and how listening to ourselves can then move us out into the wider world.

Links and resources:

About Parker J. Palmer
Parker’s 10 published books
About the Center for Courage & Renewal
Living the Questions - Parker J. Palmer’s Substack
The Growing Edge, Parker’s project with Carrie Newcomer
Parker’s collected On Being columns

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King hosts With & For, and is the Executive Director of the Thrive Center and the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary. Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
Senior Producer: Clare Wiley
Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis
Produced by Great Feeling Studios

How to show yourself compassion, with Dr. Kristin Neff

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0000

One of the most persistent myths about self-compassion is that it’s selfish. But in reality, self-compassion connects us to the rest of humanity – and it’s a critical pathway to thriving.

Dr. Kristin Neff is a pioneer in the study of self-compassion. As Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas and founding director of the Self-Compassion Institute, Kristin has spent decades researching the mind-altering power of self-compassion.

Kristin's findings show that kindness is a better motivator than criticism, and she breaks down how self-compassion connects to healthy spirituality. Kristin also talks openly about how self-compassion helped her face challenges through her divorce and in parenting her son, who’s on the autism spectrum.

You will walk away from this episode with a three-step plan for self-compassion - and a simple practice if you don’t know where to get started.

Links and resources

With & For is a podcast of the Thrive Center, an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King hosts With & For, and is the Executive Director of the Thrive Center and the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary. Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
Senior Producer: Clare Wiley
Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis
Produced by Great Feeling Studios

With and For Returns for Season 3

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0000

With & For is back with a brand new season exploring spiritual health.

What is healthy spirituality exactly, and how does it help us thrive? How do spiritual practices connect us to others? And what does it mean to have a calling in life?

We have some incredible guests this season – leading thinkers from across faith, art and psychology – like author activist Parker Palmer, self-compassion pioneer Kristin Neff, developmental scientist Richard Lerner and How God Works host David DeSteno.

Hosted by development psychologist, ordained minister and professor Dr. Pam King, With & For bridges psychology and spiritual wisdom to help you thrive.

Season three launches January 26th.

The Thrive Center is an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others through spiritual health.

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King is the Executive Director of the Thrive Center and the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary. Follow her @drpamking.

About With and For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media & Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
Senior Producer: Clare Wiley
Executive Producer: Jakob Lewis
Produced by Great Feeling Studios

What is Thriving? – Season 2 Wrap Up with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 13:00:00 -0000

Thriving is a relational journey that involves being deeply connected to others and the community.

The importance of a "true north" and discerning what is most sacred to orient one's life.
Understanding thriving as accepting a truer story of yourself, others, and the world.
Engaging in mindset and behavior changes for flourishing, with self-compassion.
Thriving as having resources built up in various domains (personal, family, social) to buffer from crisis.
The concept of thriving begins with the love of God and love of neighbor.
The alignment of purpose and practice is central to thriving, regardless of changes over time.
Recognizing ourselves as "God's masterpiece" and finding joy and contentment in that.
Thriving as a dynamic, meaningful engagement in purposeful living, adapting to changing contexts.
The idea that one can be struggling or even mentally ill and still be thriving is a "both/and" process.
Thriving as an internal state and relational reality marked by an open heart and meaningful relationships, even on a stressful day.
The journey of thriving involves self-discovery and healing, acknowledging both strengths and weaknesses.
Being "habituated to doing good" and demonstrating one's "best self" in relationships.

Dr. Pam King’s Key Takeaways

Thriving is relational and happens when we are deeply connected to other people, whether that be through our intimate relationships or our broader community.
Thriving involves telling a truer story about life, that there is both beauty and brokenness.
Thriving involves understanding who we are as God's masterpieces, that we all have strengths, and we all can thrive and find life in our weaknesses.
Thriving involves discovering and pursuing what gets you up in the morning – your true north, what is most sacred to you.
Thriving involves self-discovery and healing, which might mean being softer with ourselves so that we can find internal ease.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

The Unexpected Benefits of Play, with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:00:00 -0000

Episode Highlights

"When we laugh, when we are sitting in delight, it expands–It not only keeps us in our window of tolerance, but it expands our window of tolerance."
"We also know that play is just a huge protective factor. It allows people to process their experiences, but also build skills for the future."
"Play is really about doing something for the enjoyment of it, for no other reason, but for the enjoyment."
"The more stress you have, the more play you need."
"To hold multiple emotions that more than one thing was true... gives us tremendous capacity to be resilient and have more mental and cognitive, flexibility as well as emotional flexibility."

Helpful Links and Resources

Books by Dr. Tina Bryson

Follow Tina Bryson:

TinaBryson.com

Instagram

The Center for Connection

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Self-Actualization and Living Your Potential, with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 13:00:00 -0000

How can we grow into our full potential?—living up to what we know is the best version of ourselves, actualizing our goals, and expressing our deepest purpose in a life of impact and love?

Grounded in cognitive science and psychology, best-selling author, podcaster, educator and researcher Scott Barry Kaufman believes that we need to redefine our understanding of greatness and excellence to include our whole selves—our emotions, dreams, failures, and gifts—all to live a life that is fully human, fully yourself.

In this conversation with Scott Barry Kaufman, we discuss:

Education and formation for the whole person, not just our intellect but our bodies, emotions, and spirituality
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the journey that leads to self-actualization
The difference it makes to see the world through growth rather than our deficiencies
What it means to thrive even in the midst of mental illness
The horizontal dimensions of transcendence
And how to connect and align with your deepest values

Helpful Links and Resources

About Scott Barry Kaufman

Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist, author, and humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential. He is the founding director of the Center for Human Potential and a the best-selling author, speaker, and podcaster. He hosts The Psychology Podcast. And he is author and/or editor of numerous books, including his celebrated *Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined*, as well as his latest books, Choose Growth: A Workbook for Transcending Trauma, Fear, and Self-Doubt and Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential. If you’re interested in more from Scott, visit scottbarrykaufman.com.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

The Gift of Mutual Relationships, with Dr. Jessica ChenFeng

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 13:00:00 -0000

Meaningful relationships are mutual. Balanced with give and take, equal influence between partners, and a vibrant dance of loving responsiveness and caring attention.

Marriage and Family Therapist and professor Dr. Jessica ChenFeng is calling us toward a more justice-oriented approach to relationships and to mental health and well-being, She invites us to open-hearted and empathic perspective taking, and seeking an integrated wholeness that incorporates all of who we are—highlighting the gift of mutuality in our most intimate relationships in marriage and family life.

In this conversation with Jessica ChenFeng, we discuss:

The importance of integrated and whole experience of ourselves—allowing racial, gender, and cultural identities to weave together in our sense of vocation and contribution to the world
The importance of mutuality in relationships—but particularly in marriage and family systems.
The ways emotional power flows in a relationship and impacts marriage and family dynamics
The difference between partners focusing on meeting their individual needs and caring for the health of an intimate relationship
And she offers a guided practical exercise to help us lovingly notice and accept our inner experience with a heart open to justice, vulnerability, and the reminder that we are beloved in the eyes of God.

Helpful Links and Resources

Check out the programs in Marriage & Family Therapy at Fuller School of Psychology www.fuller.edu/school-of-psychology/
Fuller Asian American Center aac.fuller.edu/
Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy (SERT) Overview
Circle of Care Model Explained
Positive Psychology and Emotions
Jeanne Tsai's Research on Culture and Emotion
Asian American Values Scale Reference
Race and Trauma Resources
Jeanne Tsai’s research on culture and emotion – Stanford SPARQ
John and Julie Gottman Relationship Research
Asian American Values Scale – Paniagua & Yamada (Academic resource)

About Jessica ChenFeng

Dr. Jessica ChenFeng is Associate Professor at the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary, and is also Director of the Asian American Well-being Collaboratory at Fuller’s Asian American Center. Prior to her time at Fuller she was a professor at Loma Linda University and California State University, Northridge.

Jessica is known for her clinical expertise and scholarship integrating socio-contextual lenses of race, gender, and generation into work with minoritized individuals, families, and communities. In the last few years, her primary clinical focus has been the well-being of physicians, especially through pandemic-related trauma and burnout. She’s co-authored two books, Finding Your Voice as a Beginning Marriage and FamilyTherapist, as well as Asian American Identities, Relationships, and Cultural Legacies: Reflections from Marriage and Family Therapists. She received the 2022 American Family Therapy Academy Early Career Award.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

How to Restore a Relationship, with Dr. Terry Hargrave

Mon, 26 May 2025 13:00:00 -0000

Romantic relationships are sacred, powerful, and life-giving. But I don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to love and let yourself be loved.

Marriage and family therapist Dr. Terry Hargrave has been helping couples in crisis restore broken relationships for decades, teaching them how to get unstuck, improve communication, and move beyond destructive coping mechanisms—to find reciprocity, self-affirming confidence, emotional regulation, and a joyful, lasting love.

In this conversation with Terry Hargrave, we discuss:

How to turn around a relationship in crisis and get off the emotional rollercoaster
How to build security and trust in order to improve or repair a marriage or long-term relationship
Coping mechanisms of blame, shame, control, and escape
Practical steps to learn emotional self-regulation
What to do when only one partner is working on a relationship
The role of the brain and neuroplasticity in relational repair
And the spiritual underpinnings of Terry’s approach to restoration therapy

Helpful Links and Resources

About Terry Hargrave

Dr. Terry Hargrave. Until he retired recently, he was the Evelyn and Frank Freed Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary, and a nationally recognized therapist known for his pioneering work with intergenerational families.

He’s most well known as the founder of Restoration Therapy, which combines advantages of Attachment Theory, Emotional Regulation, and Mindfulness—all in an efficient and organized format that allows both the therapist and client to understand old habits and destructive patterns of behavior and promote change in both individual mental and spiritual health, in order to transform our most intimate relationships.

Terry has authored or co-authored over 35 professional articles and fifteen books including Restoration Therapy: Understanding and Guiding Healing in Marriage and Family Therapy and Families and Forgiveness: Healing Wounds in the Intergenerational Family.

In his latest book project, he worked with his wife Sharon, also a licensed marriage and family therapist. It’s called The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself, and it’s a practical manual co-written with Ron and Nan Deal about how they healed their relationship after almost losing it.

He’s presented internationally on relationship dynamics, family and marriage restoration, the complexities of intergenerational families, healing and reconciliation, and the process of aging.

His work has been featured on ABC News, 20/20, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning as well as several national magazines and newspapers.

You can learn more about Terry Hargrave and his work—and find books, practical resources, and professional training materials at: restorationtherapytraining.com.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Why Morality Matters: Gratitude, Loyalty, and Hope, with Dr. Mona Siddiqui

Mon, 12 May 2025 13:00:00 -0000

You can’t be moral on your own. That’s a radical idea in this time of moral outrage, but thriving in public life requires a sense of mutual accountability, belonging, and hospitality for each other.

Mona Siddiqui is a professor of religion and society, an author, commentator, and public intellectual, and she suggests that the virtues of loyalty, gratitude, hospitality, and hope can lead us through the common struggle of being human together, living forward into a thriving life of public faith and renewed moral imagination.

The connection between faith, spirituality, and living a moral life of responsibility and integrity
The difference between cultivating virtuous character and doing justice
How to thrive in a pluralistic society marked by constant struggle and conflict
The promise of gratitude and hospitality in a life of thriving
And how to pursue a hopeful, forward-looking approach to restoration in the wake of harm, loss, pain, and suffering.

Helpful Links and Resources

Follow Mona on X (Twitter) at @monasiddiqui7
*Christians, Muslims, and Jesus,* by Mona Siddiqui
Human Struggle, Christian and Muslim Perspectives, by Mona Siddiqui
A Theology of Gratitude: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, by Mona Siddiqui
My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey by Mona Siddiqui
The Moral Maze, BBC Radio 4

About Mona Siddiqui

Mona Siddiqui is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Assistant Principal for Religion and Society, and Dean international for the Middle-East at the University of Edinburgh.

Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence and ethics and Christian-Muslim relations. She’s the author of many books, including Human Struggle: Christian and Muslim Perspectives,Hospitality in Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name, and My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey. A scholar of theology, philosophy, and ethics, she’s conducted international research on Islam and Christianity, gratitude, loyalty and fidelity, hope, reconciliation and inter-faith theological dialogue, and human struggle.

Mona is well known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues around religion, ethics and public life and regularly appears as a media commentator on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day and The Moral Maze.

A recipient of numerous awards and recognition, she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, she gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as an International Honorary Member. And Dr. Siddiqui was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire, which is just steps below the highest Knighting—specifically for her public interfaith efforts.

To learn more, I’d highly recommend her books, but you can also follow her on X @monasiddiqui7.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Live Like You Mean It: Emotional and Cognitive Wellness, with Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 13:00:00 -0000

Applying neuroscience and psychology to education and formation, pioneering researcher Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang draws connections between emotions, relationships, brains, stories, meaning, and purpose to shed light on how we learn, grow, and thrive.

Her research on the brain shows how we’re woven together in an intricate and glorious network of life, and when we synthesize the neurological, the psychological, the physical, and the social, we’re able to come to a deeper and more impactful understanding of human development and flourishing.

In this conversation with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, we discuss:

The value of integrating neuroscience with educational, emotional, and moral development
The strange and glorious case of the adolescent brain—how we mature, learn how to think, feel, and exercise our agency, and strive to become wise
The emotional and relational nature of education and moral development—expressed in nurturing conversation between caring adults and youth
The importance of agency, intentionality, and transcendent thinking in human thriving
Neural plasticity and the capacity to change our brains throughout our lifespan
And, the big picture of thriving, that brings together our mental life, neurobiology, and other physical processes—with relationships, community, and society at large.

About Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is the Fahmy and Donna Attallah Professor of Humanistic Psychology at the University of Southern California. And she’s the founding director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education. Candle is just a lovely image for Mary Helen’s work that brings so much light to the world.

She’s also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received several national awards for her ground breaking research and its implications for education

With a focus on educational psychology and the role of emotions in brain development and growth, she’s an expert on the neuroscience of learning and creativity. And her approach offers insight on how our brains shape human culture, morality, and relationships.

She works with adolescents and their teachers (particularly in low socio-economic environments) to understand how we build meaning together—looking at abstract, systems-level, and ethical implications of learning complex information, navigating social situations, and narrating our identities.

Her research underscores the active role youth play in their own brain and psychosocial development through the narratives they construct, and capacities teachers cultivate to support student belonging and deep learning.

To learn more about Mary Helen and her work, check out candle.usc.edu.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Living Artfully: Creativity, Attention, and Making Art, with Makoto Fujimura

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 13:00:00 -0000

You are a beautiful masterpiece. But the practice of living artfully comes slowly, often through brokenness, weakness, or failure. Contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura integrates traditional Japanese styles with abstract expressionism and Christian theology, to explore the beauty that can emerge from the ashes pain and suffering.

Makoto Fujimura—renowned artist, writer, and theologian—joins Dr. Pam King to explore the deep connections between art, faith, and flourishing. Fujimura shares how his Japanese heritage and study of traditional Nihonga painting have shaped his understanding of creativity as a sacred act. Through themes of brokenness, beauty, and slow art, he challenges us to rethink success, embrace imperfection, and create from a place of love and abundance.

In this conversation with Mako Fujimura, we discuss:

What art is, what creativity means, and the human capacity for making beauty
How we can live artfully through imperfection, brokenness, trauma, and suffering
How the practice of a gift economy can lead to mutual thriving
The slow art of pausing, stopping, and beholding that contributes to our mental and spiritual health
And the connection between knowledge and love in a life of creativity and artmaking.

Helpful Links and Resources

Follow Makoto Fujimura on X @iamfujimura
View Mako’s art at makotofujimura.com
Makoto Fujimura’s Writings
Makoto Fujimura’s Books
Nihonga Art and its Traditions
Refractions: A Journey of Art, Faith, & Culture
Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life
Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering
Art and Faith: A Theology of Making

About Makoto Fujimura

Contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura is a painter, an author, a speaker, and an imaginative maker with a gift for theological integration.

A blend of fine art and abstract expressionism, Mako describes his work as “slow art,” being influenced directly by the distinctively Japanese Nihonga style, which is patient and methodical, using slow drying pigments from ground minerals.

Mako’s art has been featured in galleries and museums around the world, as well as notable collections in The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, The Huntington Library in California, and the Tikotin Museum in Israel.

Mako is the author of several books, including Refractions: A Journey of Art, Faith, & Culture, Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life, and Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering. His most recent is entitled Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. And his next book will be available soon—titled, Art Is: A Journey into the Light. And with his wife Haejin, he’s producing a new work on Beauty and Justice.

Follow him on X @iamfujimura, and view his beautiful work at makotofujimura.com.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Life and Faith After Spiritual Abuse and Religious Trauma, with Dan Koch

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:00:00 -0000

On our path to spiritual health, we need to keep our eyes open to the ways religion and spirituality have been exploited to coerce, control, and create chaos. Focusing on the intersection of religion and psychology, licensed therapist, researcher, and podcaster Dan Koch is creating a public conversation about spiritual harm and abuse, helping victims learn how to deal with spiritual trauma, and offering insight and guidance toward healthy religious and spiritual experiences.

From his own personal journey of religious trauma to his extensive research on spiritual abuse, Dan shares insights on how faith communities can both wound and restore. The conversation covers the psychological impact of religious trauma, the complexities of self-diagnosis, and practical strategies for self-knowledge and healing for anyone who has wrestled with faith, struggled with past church experiences, or have lost their religion.

In this conversation with Dan Koch, we discuss:

The psychological study of spiritual abuse and harm, including conceptual definitions and the many factors that come along with them.
The symptoms and most recognizable patterns that point to spiritual abuse
The impact of abuse and trauma on psychological and spiritual health
How to reappraise and challenge harmful core beliefs
And how to find healing, joy, and transcendence as we deal with past trauma.

About Dan Koch

Dan Koch is a licensed therapist supporting patients working through the trauma of spiritual abuse; and his work and insight in this domain emerges from his empirical research. He’s also host of the You Have Permission podcast. With a background in philosophy and theology, he explores questions of faith, doubt, and spiritual well-being. His research focuses on the psychological effects of religious trauma and how individuals can heal from spiritual abuse.

Find more of his work at dankochwords.com.

You can find his podcast, You Have Permission wherever you listen to podcasts and find exclusive episodes at patreon.com/dankoch.

Helpful Links and Resources

Dan Koch’s Website
Join Dan Koch’s Patreon
You Have Permission Podcast
Dan Koch’s Research on Spiritual Abuse
The Spiritual Harm and Abuse Scale Clinical Screener
Development of the Spiritual Harm and Abuse Scale (Article, May 2022)

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Recovering the Sacred in an Age of Anxiety, with Dr. Varun Soni

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:00:00 -0000

We need a recovery of the sacred in our secular world. Because the mental, emotional, and psychological struggles haunting society right now can’t be solved without addressing meaning, purpose, and the longing for connection to something beyond ourselves.

In other words, spiritual health is an essential part of mental health.

In this conversation with Varun Soni, we discuss:

Finding the sacred in our secular culture.
Religious pluralism and what it means to build trust that reaches across religious lines of difference.
The transformative power of finding your “truth north”—your North Star—to orient our journeys of faith and spirituality.
Varun shares six pillars of flourishing; how to align our actions with our values; and the benefit of listening to the cultural narratives and stories we tell.
He reflects on the missing elements of spirituality in our understanding of mental health today, evidenced in his work with teens and emerging adults.
He offers us a Hindu meditative practice to provide inner clarity, stability, and calm.
And he comments on compassion and a cultivation sacred spiritual practices to counteract the loneliness, anguish, and suffering in our world.

About Varun Soni

Varun Soni is the Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California (USC), bringing a unique and extensive academic background to his role. He holds numerous degrees, including a B.A. in Religion from Tufts University, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and an M.A. in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara. He also earned a J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he completed the Critical Race Studies Program, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town, where his doctoral research focused on religion and popular culture. His global perspective was shaped by immersive experiences, including a semester at a Buddhist monastery in India and field research in South Asia through UCSB. Prior to his work at USC, he taught in the Law and Society Program at UCSB.

Beyond his academic and administrative roles, Dean Soni is an author, a producer, and an active public intellectual. He is the author of Natural Mystics: The Prophetic Lives of Bob Marley and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and has contributed writings to publications like the Washington Post and Huffington Post. His production credits include the graphic novel Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary, which is being adapted into a film. He also hosted a radio show showcasing South Asian music and was involved in organizing the 2009 Concert for Pakistan at the United Nations. Dean Soni is currently an Adjunct Professor at the USC School of Religion and serves on the advisory boards for several interfaith and educational organizations.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Wondering Our Way to Courage, Emotional Health, and a Life of Listening, with Kelly Corrigan

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:00:00 -0000

In our world of urgency, certitudes, and immediate access to a flood of information, could it be that a humble curiosity, inspired awe, and delightful wonder might give us the strength to heal and thrive?

Using an expansive emotional vocabulary matched with wit and care, TV host, podcaster, and author Kelly Corrigan is inviting the world to relational vulnerability, compassionate curiosity, and stalwart bravery to face our biggest problems through listening and loving wonder.

In this conversation with Kelly Corrigan, we discuss:

Her approach to having conversations that feel transformative—the kind that unlock and open us up
How wonder grounds her spirituality and personal vocation
The profound lessons she learned from her mother and father, and how each showed up for her when she was at her lowest
How to learn wisdom and leadership through coaching and mentoring
How to build the emotional container of home for a family
What it means to be brave in our world today
And how to communicate love through the simple act of listening through three simple invitations: “Tell me more!, What else?, and Go on.”

About Kelly Corrigan

Kelly Corrigan is a journalist of wonder. Through hundreds and hundreds of conversations with some of the world’s most interesting people, she approaches both timeless questions and contemporary problems … through focused and generous listening, an attitude of awe, and a joyful expectation to be surprised and delighted, even in life’s most challenging and painful circumstances.

She’s the author of four New York Times bestselling memoirs: Tell Me More, The Middle Place, Glitter and Glue, and Lift. Her most recent offering is a children’s book, Hello World, which celebrates the people in our lives and explores the meaningful connections that come from asking each other questions.

Her podcast, Kelly Corrigan Wonders, is a library of conversational wisdom ranging from current events, to arts and entertainment, to psychology and philosophy, and an approach to spirituality and transcendence through the gift of everyday, ordinary life.

A master of conversational hospitality, downright funny storytelling, and journalistic listening, she’s also the PBS television host of Tell Me More, and recently spoke on Bravery at the 40th annual TED Conference.

You can find her podcast, Kelly Corrigan Wonders wherever you listen to podcasts and her full library of resources at kellycorrigan.com.

Books and Media by Kelly Corrigan

Listen to Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Visit [KellyCorrigan.com](http://KellyCorrigan.comhttps://www.kellycorrigan.com/)
Watch Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan (PBS)
Read Kelly’s books, such as Tell Me More, The Middle Place, Glitter and Glue, Hello World!, and Lift.

Show Notes

Kelly Corrigan's TED Talk, "To Love Is to Be Brave"

Kelly Corrigan’s conversation with April Lawson on abortion

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Listening to Our Emotions: Healing Through Self-Compassion, Grief, and Acceptance, with Dr. David C. Wang

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 14:00:00 -0000

Emotional health is deeply intertwined in an ongoing journey with spiritual health. This involves opening to our pain, grieving our trauma, and patiently cultivating a resilience that stabilizes and secures our relationships and our sense of self.

With compassion, pastoral presence, and emotional attunement, psychologist Dr. David Wang is using psychological and theological tools to help us understand and adapt to emotional realities, explore the wounds of our past, and find healing and strength through acceptance and grief.

In this conversation with David Wang, we discuss:

The difference between human development and spiritual formation and how to understand maturity
The centrality of relationships in human life and growth, and how that’s grounded in divine relationality and our communion with God
How to become friends with ourselves, offering self-compassion and being moved by our own suffering
The impact of childhood trauma on adult emotional, psychological, and spiritual health
And finally, how a practice of grief can help us understand and work through traumatic experiences and move toward healing.

Show Notes

About David Wang

Dr. David Wang is a licensed psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he’s also the Cliff and Joyce Penner Chair for the Formation of Emotionally Healthy Leaders and scholar in residence at Fuller’s Center for Spiritual Formation. He speaks and trains leaders globally on trauma informed care. And he conducts research and teaches courses in Trauma Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Multicultural Psychology, and the Integration of Psychology and the Christian faith. He is also Pastor of Spiritual Formation at One Life City Church in Fullerton, California.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

The Psychology of Disaster: The Impact of Calamity on Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health, with Dr. Jamie Aten and Dr. Pam King

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 17:10:00 -0000

One of the hopeful things in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires is how I have seen people within L.A. show up with and for each other. And I'm especially grateful for this audience because I know you are all people who care to show up with people, and for people. Thank you for being light in these hard times.

Show Notes (from the episode page of For the Life of the World)

In this conversation, Pam King and Jamie Aten join Evan Rosa to discuss:

Each of their personal encounters with disasters—both fire and cancer
The psychological study of disaster
The personal impact of disaster on mental, emotional, and spiritual health
The difference between resilience and fortitude
And the theological and practical considerations for how to live through disastrous events.

About Pam King

Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. She hosts the With & For podcast, and you can follow her @drpamking.

About Jamie Aten

Jamie D. Aten is a disaster psychologist and disaster ministry expert. He helps others navigate mass, humanitarian, and personal disasters with scientific and spiritual insights. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute and Disaster Ministry Conference and holds the Blanchard Chair of Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership at Wheaton College. And he’s the author of A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience.

Show Notes

Humanitarian Disaster Institute
Spiritual First Aid
Jamie Aten’s A Walking Disaster: What Surviving Katrina and Cancer Taught Me about Faith and Resilience
The Thrive Center at Fuller Seminary

Production Notes

This podcast featured Jamie Aten and Pam King
Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
Hosted by Evan Rosa
Production Assistance by Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, Zoë Halaban, Kacie Barrett & Emily Brookfield
A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School **https://faith.yale.edu/about**
Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: **https://faith.yale.edu/give**

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

From Rupture to Repair: Relationships, Emotional Regulation, and Our Social Brains, with Dr. Tina Bryson

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:00:00 -0000

Our brains hold our relational history—all the joys, all the ruptures, all the repairs. And even in the most difficult childhood or parenting circumstances, the science of relationships and connection can give us hope for whole-brain and whole-life transformation.

Therapist, bestselling author, and mom—Dr. Tina Payne Bryson is seeking a connection revolution that brings neurobiology and practical relational wisdom to bear on both how we were parented, how we parent, and how we relate throughout our lifespan.

In this conversation with Tina Bryson, we discuss:

The science of childhood relational development and growth into strong, adaptive adults
The brain as our most social organ—capable of holding a lifetime of relational and emotional history
How to emotionally co-regulate with another person to achieve a calm, peaceful, and vibrant relationship
Neuroplasticity and our ability to change with intention toward our deepest held values
And we explore how the science of connection, attachment, and interpersonal neurobiology sheds light on how we were parented, and impacts how we might parent ourselves and how we relate to everyone.

Books by Dr. Tina Bryson

Follow Tina Bryson

TinaBryson.com Instagram X The Center for Connection

Show Notes

What Do You Say?: How to Talk with Kids to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home, by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson

Secure Relating: Holding Your Own in an Insecure World, by Sue Marriot and Ann Kelley

The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child, Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

*Parenting from the Inside Out,* Dan Siegel and Mary Hartzell
*The Power of Showing Up,* Dan Siegel and Tina Bryson

About Tina Bryson

Dr. Tina Bryson is an expert in applying interpersonal neurobiology and neuropsychology to maybe the most central part of human life: our closest, most intimate relationships. A bestselling co-author (with Dan Siegal) of THE WHOLE-BRAIN CHILD and NO-DRAMA DISCIPLINE, she has written several other books on parenting and the brain. Her latest book on the science of play came out in January 2025.

Tina is a psychotherapist and the Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Connection. She speaks and advocates widely, has appeared across media outlets like TIME Magazine, “Good Morning America,” Huffington Post,Redbook, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Her doctoral research explored attachment science, childrearing theory, and the emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology. But Tina emphasizes that before she’s a parenting educator, or a researcher, she’s a mom.

Tina is an absolutely brilliant and motivating and encouraging communicator, breaking down the science of connection in a way that’s clear, realistic, humorous, and immediately helpful.

For more resources from Tina, including her books, and science-packed relationship tips, visit https://www.thecenterforconnection.org/ and tinabryson.com.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Cultivating the Conscience: MLK on Love, Disobedience, and Community, with Dr. Lerone Martin

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 14:00:00 -0000

To realize MLK’s vision of a Beloved Community, we’re all called to live from a moral conscience that interconnects and permeates society with justice and peace.

Working at the intersection of politics, religion, and education, Dr. Lerone Martin of Stanford University is carrying forward the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a social and historical context desperately in need of renewed moral imagination, connection across racial and economic divides, and the transformative power of love.

In this conversation with Lerone Martin, we discuss:

How his spirituality integrates with the meaning of education and formation
The legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., his vision of thriving and justice, and the relevance of his life and writings for the contemporary world
The role of emotion and affect and music in Christian faith and spirituality
We dive into the core elements of MLK’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
We explore the joint power of courage and love in non-violent action
We look at practical insights about the kind of morality that leads to thriving,
And we close by asking the question posed in Martin Luther King’s final book, Where do we go from here?

About Dr. Lerone Martin

Dr. Lerone Martin is the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor in Religious Studies, and the Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

He’s a historian of 20th-century religion and a cultural commentator. He’s written books about White Christian Nationalism in the FBI, as well as the making of modern African American Christianity—as well as a book about MLK’s adolescence and his early sense of vocation and calling.

He stays deeply connected to teaching and community service, teaching the “Why College?” freshman course at Stanford, inspiring underserved high school students in Los Angeles and St. Louis, and developing programming and teaching courses for the incarcerated.

Visit the King Institute online at kinginstitute.stanford.edu or follow him on X @DirectorMLK.

Show Notes

“I Have Been to the Mountaintop” (Delivered by MLK in Memphis on April 3, 1968, a day before his assassination)

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (April 16, 1963)

Where Do We Go from Here?: Chaos or Community?

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Activating the Science of Happiness: Healthy Habits, Self-Compassion, and Meaning, with Dr. Laurie Santos

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 14:00:00 -0000

Science can change your life. The more we study what makes people develop, grow, learn, and flourish—the more we see how the practical application of scientific findings can help us transform our life and experience—into a life of value, meaning, purpose and true thriving.

Yale psychologist Laurie Santos has spent her career investigating the human brain and how it thrives. From her popular Yale course to her podcast, The Happiness Lab, she’s communicating actionable and hopeful lessons for how to build lasting habits, cultivate self-compassion, manage complex emotions, and realign our lives toward meaningful happiness.

In this conversation with Dr. Laurie Santos, we discuss:

How the mental health crisis affecting young people changed her, and how she teaches psychology
How our brains lie to us
The role of positive and negative emotions in a good life
How feeling good can lead to doing good
The psychological and relational benefits of faith and spirituality
And she offers practical insights, science-backed guidance, and powerful exercises for managing misalignment and difficult emotions.

Laurie Santos on how to activate psychological science for more happiness and meaning (from the episode):

“Some of these factors that we know scientifically do work. From simple behavior changes like being more social, doing nice things for others, just healthy habits like sleeping and moving your body, to mindset shifts, to becoming a little bit more present, to becoming more other oriented, to becoming more grateful, more self-compassionate, and so on.

There are shifts that we can make that can have a huge effect on how we actually interact in the world.

We need to understand that we're not perfect, we're just human. And we will mess up a little bit too. But it's really the journey that matters.”

About Laurie Santos

Dr. Laurie Santos is the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University and host of The Happiness Lab podcast. Dr. Santos is an expert on the science of happiness. Her Yale course, Psychology and the Good Life, teaches students how the science of psychology can provide important hints about how to make wiser choices and live a life that’s happier and more fulfilling. Her course recently became Yale’s most popular course in over 300 years, with almost one of our four students at Yale enrolled. Her course has been featured in numerous news outlets including the New York Times, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, GQ Magazine, Slate and O! Magazine. A winner of numerous awards both for her science and teaching, she was recently voted as one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” young minds, and was named in Time Magazine as a “Leading Campus Celebrity.” Her podcast, The Happiness Lab, has over 100 million downloads.

Listen to The Happiness Lab podcast

Visit [drlauriesantos.com](http://drlauriesantos.comhttps://www.drlauriesantos.com/)

Show Notes

*Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing* (Justin Barrett and Pam King)
Self-flagellation, frustration, and criticizing ourselves
Kristin Neff on Self-Compassion

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Longing for Love - Advent Meditation (Week 4)

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Welcome to the fourth and final week of our Advent Meditation Journey.

If you’re longing for a more meaningful Advent season, this meditation invites you to reflect on love—the heart of Advent and the fulfillment of all our deepest hopes, longings, and desires.

Throughout this series, we’ve explored hope, peace, and joy. Now, we turn to love—the love of God made flesh in Christ, Emmanuel. In this quiet time, you’ll be guided to reflect on what you love most, where your life feels aligned—or out of alignment—and how God’s love might invite you to reorder your heart.

Find a quiet space, take a deep breath, and let yourself settle into this sacred moment. Let’s begin.

⁠https://youtu.be/zi2d5IPCCM0

Check out our blog - Fourth Sunday of Advent: Love.

https://thethrivecenter.org/fourth-sunday-of-advent-love/

https://depree.org/de-pree-journal/love-that-comes-near/

To receive all four meditations, visit https://thethrivecenter.org/ and sign up for our newsletter https://mailchi.mp/fuller.edu/sm-practices-for-spiritual-health-part2. We at the Thrive Center wish you a season filled with the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Longing for Joy - Advent Meditation (Week 3)

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Welcome to the third week of our Advent Meditation Journey.

If you’re longing for a more meaningful Advent season, this meditation invites you to pause and reflect on the deeper joy that often hides beneath the noise and hustle of December. Each week, we focus on a different theme—Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love—and today we turn our attention to joy.

Joy is more than a fleeting feeling—it’s rooted in what we love and how we live. This short reflection will guide you to consider the longings that shape your joy and help you notice where God may be meeting you right now.

So take a few moments, find a quiet space, and let yourself be still. Wherever you are, however you are, know that God welcomes you here. Let’s begin.

We at the Thrive Center wish you a season filled with the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ.

To receive all four meditations, visit

https://thethrivecenter.org/ and sign up for our newsletter

Check out our blog - Third Sunday of Advent: Joy.

https://thethrivecenter.org/third-sunday-of-advent-joy/

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Longing for Peace - Advent Meditation (Week 2)

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Welcome to the second week of our Advent Meditation Journey.

In this sacred season of waiting, we turn our attention to peace—not just as a feeling, but as a way of being rooted in God’s presence. This meditation invites you to pause, breathe deeply, and explore the longings that stir beneath the surface. However you are today—tense or calm, weary or expectant—you are welcome here. Let this be a moment to bring your whole self before God and receive the peace that passes understanding.

To receive all four meditations, visit

https://thethrivecenter.org/ and sign up for our newsletter

https://youtu.be/FYCPLepj1kU

We at the Thrive Center wish you a season filled with the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ.

Check out our blog - Second Sunday of Advent: Peace.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Longing for Hope - Advent Meditation (Week 1)

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Welcome to the 2025 Advent Meditation Journey.

If you are longing for a more meaningful Advent season, we invite you to join us in setting aside time each week to reflect, pray, and re-center. Advent is a season of preparation—a sacred invitation to slow down and open ourselves to the coming of Christ.

This is the first week of our Advent Meditation Journey. In this season of sacred waiting, we pause to reflect on longing and hope. Whether you’re feeling grounded or weary, hopeful or uncertain, you are welcome here. This brief meditation is an invitation to slow down, tune into your heart, and open yourself to the quiet stirrings of hope. Find a comfortable place, take a deep breath, and join me as we begin this Advent journey together—with honesty, stillness, and expectation.

Check out our blog - First Sunday of Advent: Hope.

https://thethrivecenter.org/first-sunday-of-advent-hope/

To receive all four meditations, visit

https://thethrivecenter.org/

and sign up for our newsletter

https://mailchi.mp/fuller.edu/sm-practices-for-spiritual-health-part2

https://mailchi.mp/fuller.edu/web-thrive-advent2025

⁠https://youtu.be/FYCPLepj1kU

We at the Thrive Center wish you a season filled with the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Experience Love — Advent Meditation (Week 4)

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Christmas is about the love of God given to us in Christ. Love compels us forward through darkness and light—enabling us to grow and change, connect and relate, forgive and let go, and make a difference and seek justice.

This December, we’re celebrating Advent with you by offering four guided meditations by Dr. Pam King—considering how to cultivate the Advent virtues of hope, peace, joy, and love into our lives this year.

We’d be grateful if you considered the Thrive Center in your year-end giving. To make a year-end tax-deductible gift, visit thethrivecenter.org/contribute.

Don't forget that Season 2 of With & For launches with all new episodes on January 6, 2025!

Show Notes

Jesus said, "As I have loved you, you must love one another.”
“Love compels us forward through darkness and light, with its power to connect and heal.”
Love for God, love for others, and love for yourself
You are beloved.
Breathing practice
Attuning to sensations of love in your body
What are these feelings of love saying about you, your values, your beliefs?
What does love say about your deepest beliefs about what matters most in life?
Who needs love from you today?
How do you live out love in the world?
What is one thing you can do to lean into love or to live out love?

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Embrace Joy — Advent Meditation (Week 3)

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Joy is more than a feeling. It’s a virtue. And it’s something we can cultivate. We live into joy when we encounter who or what matters most to us. It’s associated with our life's deepest yearnings and connection.

We’d be grateful if you considered the Thrive Center in your year-end giving. To make a year-end tax-deductible gift, visit thethrivecenter.org/contribute.

Don't forget that Season 2 of With & For launches with all new episodes on January 6, 2025!

Show Notes

The Shepherd’s Candle—symbolizing joy
Joy is more than a feeling. It’s a virtue.
Cultivating joy through encountering who and what matters most to us
Breathing practice
Loving and joyful presence of God
How are you experiencing joy in your body?
Joy’s insight into our values, opening us up to creativity and connection
Does pursuing joy require you to step out of your normal routine?
What can you do to bring joy to another?

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Discover Peace — Advent Meditation (Week 2)

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Peace can be elusive, but if set an intention to be instruments of peace—both in offering it and experiencing it—it has the power to transform us. Peace is often an indication that life is in balance and going well, either in the immediate or the eternal sense.

We’d be grateful if you considered the Thrive Center in your year-end giving. To make a year-end tax-deductible gift, visit thethrivecenter.org/contribute.

Don't forget that Season 2 of With & For launches with all new episodes on January 6, 2025!

Show Notes

“Peace can be elusive.”
Peace is more than a feeling—it’s an indication that “all is well.”
Consider the Prince of Peace, who comes to dwell with us this Christmas
Breathing practice
What brings you peace?
Where do you feel peace in your body?
What has been preventing peace for you?
“Peace is often an indication that life is in balance, and that life is going well, either in the immediate or the eternal sense.”
Setting an intention to pursue peace
“Peace I give you.”
“May the peace of God be with you and pervade your life this week as you anticipate the coming of the Prince of Peace this Christmas.”

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Take Hold of Hope — Advent Meditation (Week 1)

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Hope is powerful. It’s more than a feeling. It’s a foundation for getting us through even the darkest of times. The season of Advent provides the opportunity to attune to hope, become aware of our deepest hopes and desires, and then align our lives to hope.

We’d be grateful if you considered the Thrive Center in your year-end giving. To make a year-end tax-deductible gift, visit thethrivecenter.org/contribute.

Don't forget that Season 2 of With & For launches with all new episodes on January 6, 2025!

Show Notes

“Hope has the power to transform and involves our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.”
Take hold of hope with simple steps of attunement, awareness, alignment, and activation
Breath work
Attune, in order to feel sensations of hope in your body.
How are you experiencing or feeling hope in your body?
Notice, don’t judge.
What do the feelings of hope say about your deepest desires?
Where does your hope come from?
How can you align your day with your hope?
How can you align with hope to reflect God's desires for you?
What is one thing you can do today to lean forward into hope?

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Season 2 Trailer! Reconnect, Repair, Rebuild in 2025

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 14:00:00 -0000

How can we reconnect, repair, and rebuild our fractured world?

We need grounded scientific insight that we connect us with what is good, true, and beautiful. We need wider perspective that guides us toward purpose, community, wisdom, and spiritual health.

Developmental psychologist, ordained minister, and professor, Dr. Pam King introduces Season 2 of With & For, which launches on January 6, 2025. Inviting guests with expertise in psychology, spirituality, and leadership, this new season will tackle practical questions with courage, openness, and hope—focusing on insights, stories, and exercises for how to reconnect, repair, and rebuild our fractured world. How to find psychological, emotional, and spiritual health, and how to find one another in love.

This season, episode topics include:

The power of positive emotions like awe, wonder, curiosity, and transcendence, along with other research backed practices that encourage them.

The dangers of spiritual and religious abuse, the psychological impact of childhood relational trauma, and how to heal from the wounds of the past.

The neuroscience behind our emotional health, its impact on how we develop, learn, grow, and make meaning.

The science behind core human relationships, the emotional vulnerability and power dynamics of intimate romantic relationships, as well as the challenge of parenting and being parented.

Why and how our moral lives and cultivating virtues are fundamental to joy and thriving.

The legacies of racial justice and consider the spiritual and moral underpinnings of nonviolent resistance. The healing properties of art, creativity, and beauty, and how they offer comfort and strength beyond words.

And much more.

Subscribe to With & For wherever you listen to podcasts and visit us online at thethrivecenter.org/podcast.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Individual, Relational, Aspirational: The Three Pillars of Thriving with Dr. Pam King and Nada Jones

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Dr. Pam King joins longtime friend, entrepreneur, and inspiring podcast host Nada Jones on for a conversation on thriving and self-discovery in mid-life. Nada Jones is the founder and CEO of Liberty Road, a podcast and organization for entrepreneurial women focused on growth, wisdom, sharing stories, and finding purpose. She has a regular podcast where women in the middle third of their lives share their journeys of self-discovery.

Together they discuss Pam’s approach to thriving as a developmental psychologist; the adventure of women entering and exploring the middle third of their lives; Pam’s definition of thriving; and what might get in the way of thriving during this challenging period of life.

Pam shares resources from psychology and spirituality that can provide for people to grow and support others, describing three pillars for a thriving life: individual, relational, and aspirational.

Show Notes

About Liberty Road podcast and organization
“Pursuing your future doesn't end at 40. In fact, it may mark the beginning of knowing who you are, what you're capable of, and what you really want.”

Thriving at the intersection of three pillars of life: individual, relational, and aspirational.
“In the deepest part of my being, I really want to enable people to thrive in a very holistic way. And live more fully into who they are. Living more authentically, living with deeper connection and, and with deeper purpose.”
Not just another self-help platform
“How do you help us understand purpose or thriving when maybe we haven't put ourselves first?"

Examples for each three pillars
Stay-at-home mom moving into a new phase of life
“Start with loving ourselves and giving ourselves grace.”
“Bring out the best in yourself. Love yourself.”
What images come to mind as positive memories of competency and strength?
Obligations in relationships
What are we actually living out? Is it consistent with our values?
Change your environment or change yourself.
What is spirituality?

Pam King on life in the “middle third”
Reprioritizing and making professional shifts
What keeps you grounded? 10 minutes of silence of meditation.
What are you currently reading? Open and Unafraid by W. David Taylor / Strength That Remains, by Tracy Kidder

About Nada Jones

Nada Jones is the founder and CEO of Liberty Road, a podcast and organization for entrepreneurial women focused on growth, wisdom, sharing stories, and finding purpose. Discover more of her work at www.liberty-road.com.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Human Relationality and Growth: Psychological and Theological Perspectives with Dr. Pam King & Evan Rosa

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Dr. Pam King joins the Yale Center for Faith & Culture podcast, For the Life of the World, for a discussion of human development, purpose, relational intimacy, and spiritual connection—all through the integration of developmental psychology and theology.

With host Evan Rosa (Yale Center for Faith & Culture), she reflects on human change and plasticity in the midst of a whole complex life; relational attachment for the sake of intimacy and exploration and ultimate purpose or meaning; the proper place of self-love; God’s enabling and loving presence as the ultimate secure attachment figure; the importance of learning, gaining skills, and the pursuit of expertise; the prospects of regaining emotional regulation through relationships; the game changing impact of deliberate psychological and spiritual practices to move us well beyond surviving to a life of thriving.

Show Notes

Martin Buber’s I and Thou
John Bowlby and Attachment Theory
Trolick’s Still Face Experiment (Video)
Justin Barrett & Pamela Ebstyne King, Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing

Production Notes

This podcast featured Pamela Ebstyne King
Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
Hosted by Evan Rosa
Production Assistance by Macie Bridge and Kaylen Yun
A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give‍
This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of Blueprint 1543. For more information, visit Blueprint1543.org.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Roots to Fruits: How to Live Out Love in Turbulent Times, with Rev. Dr. Pam King

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 14:00:00 -0000

If we want to bear good fruit in our lives, we must have strong roots. Good fruit must lead to love. As the Rev. Dr. Pam King offers in this episode, “Root into love so that you can live out love.”

Speaking on Jesus’s parable of the Tree and Its Fruits in Luke 6, she draws on theological and psychological resources to reflect on the role of active and intentional love in a thriving life.

Luke 6:43-45: “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, produces good. And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”

Show Notes

Luke 6:43-45: “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, produces good. And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”
“I believe this scripture … redefines reality and redefines fruit.”
True love in *The Princess Bride — “Wuv. Twoo Wuv.”
“True love is the greatest thing in the world.”
“Root into love so that you can live out love.”
What is thriving? What New Testament parables of Jesus express thriving?
Redefining “Good”
What is good?
“Good” is a four-letter word
There’s always a right answer in Sunday School: “Jesus”
Defining the Relationship? Or Define the Reality?
A reordering of values
“… a radical reordering of values and a re sanctification of sanctioned behaviors. He describes the kind of conduct that is appropriate for this kingdom that he will be leading. It is love your enemies, do good out of love. Give generously out of love. Lend without expectation. Love your neighbor.”
Fruit is a symbol of love
Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz, “The Home of God”—what is to come is coming now. “Inbreaking”
Flux in congregational or community life
The Reciprocating Self
Conformity is not synonymous with uniformity
“We are each invited to bear fruit out of our own giftedness.”
“Bear fruit as yourself.”
“Pam, you’re a good Pam.”
“We bear fruit by living out God's love. in this world as ourselves.”
Tree imagery in the Bible
“A tree firmly planted, or some versions rooted, by streams of water, that does not get blown when the winds come by.”
What kind of tree are you?
How do you root into God’s love?
Eli Finkel and third-person perspective taking
“When people take a benevolent third person view in the Christian worldview, God's perspective, and they actually write those things about a person, the conflict is still there, but they're able to interact and care for that person more effectively and see that person more wholly.”
“80 percent of Americans young people are lonely. We are in a cultural mode of despair in many ways. We are losing our relational capacity.”

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Assessment: How to Reflect on Our Progress Toward Spiritual Health with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 13:00:00 -0000

“How did it go?” As we pursue purpose and spiritual health, we need regular opportunities to take stock and understand how our efforts are making an impact in our lives and in the lives of others.

In the process of pursuing purpose, cultivating joy, and connecting more deeply to ourselves, we need to learn how to audit and assess how its going as we live out our spirituality and refine our values.

In this episode, Dr. Pam King explains assessment—the final (and absolutely essential) step in the process of cultivating agility and adaptivity for spiritual health. At this stage, we take stock, adapt, and flex, ready to start fresh and begin anew each day.

Show Notes

Audit and assess
Take stock, adapt, and flex, ready to start fresh and begin anew each day.
Consider cycles and frequencies of assessment
The Ignatian Prayer of Examen
Becoming aware of where God is most fully active in our lives
Slow down, connect with God, and take a different perspective
What are we made and created to do?
What is our purpose as full human selves?
The importance of patience and pausing
Accountability
Utilize emotions as signposts
Drawing on the first step of attunement
How to facilitate the final step of the cycle and move toward beginning again

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Activation: Intentional Steps Toward Your Purpose with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 13:00:00 -0000

“Activate your skills, gifts, and passions for the benefit of others.”

Activation is the practical step in the cycle of 5 A’s for Agility in Spiritual Health—where we implement a practice or exercise, make a move toward our values, or experiment with something to help us grow.

In this episode, Dr. Pam King walks through the fourth step of the 5 A’s: Activate. This step in the cycle draws from each previous step, going from non-judgmental observation, internally connecting to our values, and then puts our values into action for the sake of living out our purpose.

Show Notes

Implement a practice or exercise, make a move toward our values, or experiment with something to help us grow.
“What is one thing I can do today to more clearly align my life to those values and those sources of joy and mattering that I thought about when I was considering alignment.”
An attitude of discovery
Enacting intentional behavior; bringing our values into real life
“Activate your skills, gifts, and passions for the benefit of others.”
Activating your purpose
What will get us one step closer to our purpose?
Stay mindful of the feelings we attuned to in the first step of the 5 A’s.
Positive, expansive feelings
Small microsteps forward
Moving toward what matters most

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Alignment: Connecting Our Experience with Our Values with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 13:00:00 -0000

“When our life is aligned to what truly matters, that is when we experience the most enduring joy.”

In this episode, Dr. Pam King explains the 3rd step in the 5 A’s of Agility for Spiritual Health. Alignment is the process of becoming more reflective, drawing connections between our thoughts and emotions—and our beliefs, values, habits, and the experiences that shape us.

This is the step where we look for our intentions and expectations and hold them up to our raw experiences and the possible meanings associated with them. We begin by identifying what's true or what's false in our feelings and thoughts so we can more clearly move toward our purposes.

Show Notes

“Alignment involves aligning the insights that you gained from taking inventory and attuning to your feelings and becoming aware of their meanings of then aligning these feelings to your ideals, your values, and what you assume matters.”
What matters to you?
Taking stock of what we attuned to, and what we became aware of
How do we align what is with what we want?
How to practice alignment
How do you spend your time?
Reflecting regularly on life goals
“When our life is aligned to what truly matters, that is when we experience the most enduring joy.”
Resilience and stability

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Awareness: Non-Judgmental Reflection on Our Emotions and Thoughts with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 13:00:00 -0000

It’s not easy to reflect on our emotions without judging them or running away from them. It’s difficult to stay with challenging or frightening feelings and thoughts. But to cultivate awareness means taking an open, curious, and non-judgmental approach to observing our minds.

More than simple or immediate observation (like Attunement), awareness asks us to get curious and reflect on our feelings, emotions, thoughts, and the landscape of experience we discovered in step one of attunement. What emotions are coming up for us? What thoughts keep coming into our consciousness?

In this second step of the 5 A’s of Agility for Spiritual Health, Pam King explains how we can become more emotionally aware and open-minded about our psychological reality. The key to observing our thoughts and feelings is to simply look, and not judge yourself. Let the emotions come and go, and learn from they provide information to us.

ANNOUNCEMENT: With & For Season 2 launches on January 6, 2025!

Show Notes

Jill Westbrook introduces the episode
For the most enriching and helpful listening experience, make sure to start with the beginning of this series!
More than immediate observation: we must reflect non-judgmentally
Just observe, don’t judge yourself.
Examining the meaning of our feelings, thoughts, and sensations
Attach reflective thoughts to our embodied and psychological experience
Journaling is a powerful exercise to connect kinetically with emotional realities.
Narration and storytelling helps with processing non-judgmentally.
Cultivating curiosity and open-mindedness
“So be curious, welcome the dust, welcome the muck, hold it, consider what it means and what it's pointing you towards.”
“Avenues for growth. Avenues for loving yourself.”
Uncover the values that fuel our life.
Understanding anger, sadness, disappointment, joy, delight—all as emotional signposts to meaning and purpose
Emotions that direct us to what matters.
Practical Example: Anger
Practical Example: Sorrow or Sadness
“Linger, but don’t loiter.”
“You’re not in this alone.”

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Attunement: Paying Attention to Our Feelings, Thoughts, and Sensations with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 13:00:00 -0000

What’s happening right now? What do you feel? What physical sensations are present from head to toe?

The first step in practicing the 5 A’s of Spiritual Health is Attunement—a simple, direct process of connecting to reality, perceiving your experience of the present moment, and paying attention to our physical sensations. It’s as simple as a clear-eyed consciousness: listening, feeling, acknowledging, being aware of basic sensations.

In this episode, Dr. Pam King explains attunement and the foundation it lays for cultivating greater agility and adaptivity. She oconsiders theological and psychological grounding for the benefits of attunement, and offers practical techniques, including a body scan and breath exercises.

Show Notes

Jill Westbrook introduces the episode

What is attunement? And how does it support personal agility and adaptivity?
Connecting to reality, the present moment, and our physical experience and sensations
Clear-eyed consciousness
Listening, feeling, acknowledging, noticing sensations
Embodiment and rooting in the body
Our bodies are part of the created order.
God has given us bodies to know and serve God.
Pain and stress, joy or pleasure
How do we attune?
How to perform a body scan
Breath exercises
Walking as a spiritual practice of attunement
Breathing
Andrew Huberman’s breath exercises: “the physiological sigh” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSZKIupBUuc

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Agility and Adaptation through the 5 A's of Spiritual Health with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 13:00:00 -0000

How can we cultivate agility and adaptivity in our chaotic, shifting times? Dr. Pam King offers a research-backed cycle of practices to incorporate into the rhythms of your daily life—helping you navigate change and work through life’s obstacles. She calls them the 5 A’s of Spiritual Health: Attunement, Awareness, Alignment, Activation, and Assessment.

In this episode, she introduces the 5 A’s, explaining the context, process, and benefits. She comments on the contemplative practices and psychological science that support this cycle of habits and offers reflections on why these simple movements can be so transformative.

ANNOUNCEMENT: With & For Season 2 launches on January 6, 2025!

Show Notes

With & For Producer Jill Westbrook introduces the episode
“Why do we need to develop agility as a practice?”
Developing agility and adaptivity
What the 5 A’s are: “a cycle of practices synthesizing, research on different contemplative practices from different spiritual traditions …. and psychological research around the efficacy or the impact of different types of spiritual practices on human well being and health.”
Attuning to our bodies and physiology
What sensations might mean
Engaging emotions, thoughts, values, actions, and behaviors that lead to a thriving life
Dealing with complexity and unpredictability
Tuning into our sources of meaning and purpose
How to cultivate more spiritual vitality and sense of purpose
“At the center of thriving is adaptive growth.”
“We want to be able to grow in a purposeful direction.”
“Thriving is living life on purpose.”
Agility allows us to balance goals, relationships, and values.
Attunement
Awareness
Alignment
Activation
Assessment

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A Psychology-Backed Framework for Healthy Spirituality with Dr. Pam King

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 13:00:00 -0000

In this episode, Dr. Pam King discusses why spirituality is so essential to the human experience, and how it operates as the antidote to the culture of anxiety and despair around us.

She works through the Thrive Center’s 6 Facets of Spiritual Health (T.H.R.I.V.E).

1. Transcendence & Spirituality

2. Habits & Rhythms

3. Relationships & Community

4. Identity & Narrative

5. Vocation & Purpose

6. Ethics & Virtues

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

The Six Facets of Spiritual Health with Pam King & Dan Koch (You Have Permission)

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Pam King joins licensed therapist Dan Koch on his podcast, You Have Permission, for a discussion of the six facets of spiritual health.

Show Notes

Subscribe to Dan Koch’s podcast, You Have Permission and his Patreon at patreon.com/dankoch
Pam’s research interests: positive developmental psychology and theology
How do psychologists perceive religion, spirituality, and theology?
How does spirituality and religion factor in human development?
William Damon (Stanford University) on moral development in the wake of the Columbine shooting
“My work has really focused on how do we offer people insight into the psychological benefits available in spirituality and religion at their best.”
Youth group
“What's the question I could ask that would get her thinking about the potentially harmful theology?”
Purity culture at youth group
The Thrive Center’s rubric of Six Facets of Spiritual Health
What are the six facets of spiritual health?

Contemplative neuroscience
Fight, flight, freeze
Built in rhythms of work and rest
Sabbath
Ancient rhythms and practical wisdom that give us permission to rest
Listen to Pam and Dan discuss facets of “Relationships and community” and “Identity and narrative” in the Patron-only second half of the conversation, available via patreon.com/dankoch

Contemplative practices
How to make changing diapers a spiritual practice: “Oh, we got a pooper!”
Directionality to narrative
Ethics and virtues.
Ethics as “real-world application to moral thinking.”
Virtues as “building up certain regular capacities in ourselves such that we will naturally make good ethical choices.”
Intercessory prayer and loving-kindness meditation
How youth approach morality in the context of community and family

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A Practice: Dr. Cynthia Eriksson Body Scan for Awareness

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Close your eyes, press your feet into the floor, notice your bottom in your seat, feel your lower back in the chair.
Notice other sensations in the body and any tension in various places.
Notice the movement of your chest.
Starting at the top of the head and moving through each area of your body - paying attention to any sensations, energy, numbness, cold, hot, slowly moving your attention, noting the sensations.
Notice and accept what is in your body.
Bring attention back to the feeling of the body in your seat.
Allow awareness to return to any sounds and the space around you.
Open your eyes.

S1:E9 Responding to Trauma: Psychological Tools for Resilience and Recovery with Dr. Cynthia Eriksson. Here Dr. Eriksson guides you through a body scan to identify places of tension and discomfort in order to access and identify complicated emotions you might be experiencing.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A Practice: Dr. Lisa Miller on Closing Doors so Others Can Open

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Invite a time when you really wanted something - a job, a person to say, “yes,” or an acceptance letter.
Imagine that you grabbed the handle of the red door and it was stuck. You kicked the door because it was stuck. You were prepared to go through it but couldn’t,
You shifted 180 degrees because it was stuck - and saw a yellow door, wide open.
You crossed over to an opportunity that was open and good.
On the other side there was someone who was more right for you, or you got into a better school program, or got a better job - better for you than you had wanted.
When you think about the time of the stuck red door and the hairpin turn to the yellow door - was there anyone there who was your guide encouraging your turn?
This is a trail angel who guided you to a hairpin turn.
How are these moments formed, or are some of the most important parts of our lives guided in some way - who helps us discover our journey?
Where in your road of life is God or your higher power? Are they in the open yellow door and in the stuck red door?
Are they in the trail angel?
What are the guiding moments and deep kind of knowing and perceiving that is our birthright?

Listen to the Full Episode - S1:E1 Loved, Held, Guided, and Never Alone: The Science of Spirituality with Dr. Lisa Miller. Here Dr. Miller guides you through a practice that will help you understand how to recognize doors that are open to you and doors that are closed, so helpful for finding a path forward when facing obstacles.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A Practice: Dr. Richard Davidson on Gaining Insight

Mon, 27 May 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Find posture, check in with your body, and take several deep, calming breaths.
Be intentional about your motivation and find a place in us to understand that practices to cultivate our own wellbeing can also help others.
This is a radical act of generosity
Bring into your mind a situation that has been challenging in some way in the recent past - whether work, family, etc.. not too difficult, but something challenging. Identify what it is.
Reflect on your own beliefs and expectations about that situation. What beliefs and expectations are we bringing to that situation?
Envision how things might be different if we came to the situation with a different set of beliefs and expectations.
Would it be different with the different beliefs and expectations?
End practice by dedicating whatever insight we may have gleaned to the benefit of others.

Listen to the Full Episode - S1: E3 Cultivating a Healthy Mind: The Neuroscience of Awareness, Connection, Insight, & Purpose with Dr. Richie Davidson. Here Dr. Davidson guides you in a practice to gain insight into your life.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A Practice: Dr. Lisa Miller and Your Table of Spiritual Companions

Mon, 20 May 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Close your eyes and take 5 deep breaths.
In your minds eye - set a table before you.
You may invite anyone living or deceased who truly has your best interest in mind.
Ask them if they love you.
Invite your higher self - true eternal higher self - ask you if you love you.
Ask you higher power if they love you.
With all at your table sitting there - what do they need to tell you now?
This is your counsel - they are always there for you.

Listen to the full episode - S1:E1 Loved, Held, Guided, and Never Alone: The Science of Spirituality with Dr. Lisa Miller. Here Dr. Miller guides you in a practice where you use your imagination to call up the people in your life who have loved you.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A Practice: Dr. Cynthia Eriksson on Grounding in the Body

Mon, 13 May 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Practice modified from Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Begin with breathing into the nose and out through the mouth
Notice the space you are in - turning to the left and looking behind you, then turning to the right to see behind you. Feel the stretch.
Take in the space. Notice where the wall meets the ceiling. Notice the dark and light and colors in the room. Name them to yourself.
Take 3 deep breaths, noticing where the air moves in and out of the body.

Listen to the full episode - S1:E9 Responding to Trauma: Psychological Tools for Resilience and Recovery with Dr. Cynthia Eriksson. Here Dr. Eriksson guides you through a practice to ground you in your body in order to settle emotions.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A Practice: Dr. Richard Davidson on Developing Awareness

Mon, 06 May 2024 13:00:00 -0000

We reflect on our motivation for doing the practice.
We attempt to frame the practice from the idea that practicing is altruistic - helping ourselves and others.
Bring into your mind and heart someone you know and love.
Consider their difficulties. As we breathe in, we practice removing their difficulties, and as we breathe out, we extend our love and our wishes for that person to be happy and free of suffering.
Dedicate the practice - any insight or benefit to the wellbeing and welfare of others.
Reflect on how a simple practice like this in our lives can be cultivated for the benefit of others.

Listen to the full episode. S1: E3 Cultivating a Healthy Mind: The Neuroscience of Awareness, Connection, Insight, & Purpose with Dr. Richie Davidson. Here Dr. Davidson guides you through an awareness practice.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

The Big Picture on Thriving & Spiritual Health — Season One Wrap Up with Dr. Pam King & Dr. Jill Westbrook

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Show Notes

Why podcast about thriving and spiritual health?
Pam’s deep desire for people to thrive and become who they’re meant to be, with and for others
Practical and applicable insights for personal growth and well-being.
Bringing in experts from different research methods, spiritual traditions, and cultural backgrounds
Richie Davidson on declarative and procedural learning
Dan Siegel on integration
Growing through the throes of difficulties
Cultivating virtues and deepening relationships
Pam’s personal experience halfway through the season: caring for a child with a medical emergency
What helped Pam through the recent trauma?
When under threat, we go to what’s automatic
5 x 7 breathing
“Her crisis was exacerbated by the fact that her coping skill was not possible.”
“My holding her hand was very calming for her.”
Cynthia Eriksson on trauma and activating the parasympathetic nervous system for
Alexis Abernethy on self-care, rest, and rhythms
“Coming home to my body… listening to my body… aware of the natural rhythms of my body… trusting our bodies more.

Feeling Alone
Pam King’s deeply relational theology
Becoming is linked to our belonging and connection with others?
Shared and validated by another
Pam King’s co-authored book, The Reciprocating Self
Dan Siegel’s approach to “intraconnection” and research about attunement and awareness of others.
Alexia Salvatierra: “If you’re community is not well, then you are not well.”
Richie Davison on neuroplasticity: we have agency in our life changing and growing
Engaging in psychological or spiritual practices to expand our attention, deepen compassion, gain more insight into our values, and identify our purpose.
Find the Center for Healthy Minds Innovations App (FREE)
Purpose and Life Review with Bill Damon
Belle Liang on telling a story and finding your purpose through your own life narrative and “letting your life speak”
Sarah Schnitker and t he virtue of patience as a relevant and timely approach to life today
Miroslav Volf on joy and sorrow in the context of Christian faith and redemption
Hope for God’s presence amidst the sorrow
Psychology of belief
Theology is not just the study of God, but the knowledge and love of God, and seeking the kingdom
Life unencumbered and free
The Black experience and longing for living and dreaming unencumbered
Thriving involves systems of access and justice
“True human thriving contributes to a flourishing world. And our world will not be flourishing until all people live unencumbered.”
Dwight Radcliff on hip-hop theology and an embodied response
“Art engages us at the sensory level.“
Susan David on emotions as signposts
Art and beauty
Three tips for thriving based on Season 1 of With & For
1. Lean into love for yourself—finding compassion and grace for yourself
2. Find love in your relationships, co-creating meaning and purpose
3. Lean into love in the narrative of your life and your place and purpose in your community and the larger, bigger story of the world
“Beyond-the-self” purpose as a central podcast value

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

The Power of Patience: How to Wait Well, Persevere Through Suffering, and Navigate a Fast-Paced World with Dr. Sarah Schnitker

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 13:00:00 -0000

We live in a high-speed, high-efficiency, get-it-done-yesterday society. Why would we talk about patience? But the old adage, “Patience is a virtue” is true. A core ingredient to our spiritual health in our frenetic modern world is the ability to live fully in the moment, exercise control and stability through arduous or challenging (and even traumatic) circumstances—doing so with poise and style.

Research psychologist Dr. Sarah Schnitker of Baylor University has pioneered the scientific study of patience among the virtues, exploring the physical, emotional, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions of this timeless and timely virtue. She defines patience as the ability to remain calm in the face of adversity and suffering—being able to wait well and not become inordinately overwhelmed by anxiety or sorrow.

Patience makes us ask not just “What’s worth waiting for?”, but “What’s worth suffering for?” Our English word for suffering comes from the Latin word for “enduring suffering.” And Sarah Schnitker brings theologically rich dimensions to her psychological study of patience.

In this conversation with Sarah Schnitker, we discuss:

The definition of patience as a virtue
The essential role patience can play in our pursuit of meaning and purpose
The connections between waiting and suffering—and the theological and spiritual context for patience
How patience is related to goal-setting and complementary to courage
And Sarah offers guidance for how to cultivate patience in our own lives, using a research-backed strategy to identify, imagine, and think.

About Sarah Schnitker

Sarah Schnitker is Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University. She holds a PhD and an MA in Personality and Social Psychology from the University of California, Davis, and a BA in Psychology from Grove City College. Schnitker studies virtue and character development in adolescents and emerging adults, with a focus on the role of spirituality and religion in virtue formation. She specializes in the study of patience, self-control, gratitude, generosity, and thrift. Schnitker has procured more than $3.5 million in funding as a principle investigator on multiple research grants, and she has published in a variety of scientific journals and edited volumes. Schnitker is a Member-at-Large for APA Division 36 – Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, is a Consulting Editor for the organization’s flagship journal, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, and is the recipient of the Virginia Sexton American Psychological Association’s Division 36 Mentoring Award. Follow her on Twitter @DrSchnitker.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Redeeming the Past: Owning Your Story, Cultivating Courage, and Finding Peace with Dr. William Damon

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Developmental Psychologist William Damon, who has spent decades at Stanford University's Center on Adolescence, has focused his career on studying the human lifespan, growth, and thriving. His latest work introduces the concept of the Life Review as a tool for personal discovery and peace.

Dr. Damon's research systematically studies purpose and its operationalization for human thriving.

Purpose Defined: An enduring life goal that is both meaningful to oneself but also makes a difference beyond the self.
Key Characteristics of Purpose:
- Enduring and long-term.
- Personal, meaningful, and provides Agency and energy.
- Transcendent (beyond the self).
- Is a "lifespan developmental capacity" that is "never really complete."
A Caution: "Purpose is not a silver bullet." It does not replace a moral code or guarantee happiness.
Thriving Defined: "Becoming the person you always dreamed you’d become."

Damon's latest book, A Round of Golf with My Father, introduces the life review process. This work was motivated by his own experience uncovering a big mystery: "Who is my father?"

What is a Life Review? A systematic way of looking into your past and history to uncover mysteries and understand who you’ve been, and what that means for your present and future (drawing on the work of Robert Butler).
Forward-Looking Approach: The process acknowledges that "The past is not dead. It’s not even the past" (William Faulkner), and helps reframe and redeem past emotions (regret, guilt, shame) for the present.
The Process: It involves "Making a case study of yourself" and addressing difficult emotions by moving "From blaming to claiming to gaming."

The path to self-understanding and purpose is driven by emotional connections between courage and curiosity.

Courage is Essential: Cultivating courage is an essential virtue for a thriving life, particularly when confronting difficult or traumatic aspects of our past. Small steps make a big difference in overcoming challenges and leveraging purpose. (See also: Aristotle on courage).
Positive Youth Development (PYD): Damon's work highlights the opportunities of youth by focusing on strengths and assets rather than flaws. As Peter Benson stated, "Everyone young person has a spark."
Scope of Purpose: Purpose extends beyond personal motivations to include a wide range of psychological, moral, relational, historical, and spiritual factors. "Purpose is not an elite endeavor."

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at ⁠thethrivecenter.org⁠.

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King

Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook

Operations Manager: Lauren Kim

Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Dreaming Together: Dealing with Conflict, Finding Belonging, and Doing Justice with Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 13:00:00 -0000

Wellbeing begins with we. “If your community is not well, then you are not well.” Thriving is collective. But our atomic individualism and narrow focus on ourselves is constantly pulling us away from the mutual belonging, reciprocity, and vibrant flourishing that can only be found by seeking the good of the wider human community—the neighbor, the stranger, the migrant, the farm worker, and the poor.

Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra is a scholar, organizer, activist, and pastor, and is Academic Dean of the Centro Latino as well as the Assistant Professor of Integral Mission and Global Transformation at Fuller Theological Seminary.

She offers a healing message for those who wrestle with the pain and suffering caused by structural and systemic injustice, calling for listening, empathy, and action. Alexia’s faith is rooted in community and kinship. She affirms the wisdom of the body and cautions against over-intellectualization, offering instead a larger emotional vocabulary, emotional attunement, and the ability to hold and live with complex feelings.

The power of community is on display in our ability to celebrate and suffer together. And in Alexia’s work as an activist, she shows how fractured communities can reconcile through the power of a shared dream.

In this conversation with Alexia Salvatierra, we discuss:

The unique wisdom that Latin- a/o culture brings to spiritual and theological conversations about thriving and spiritual health
The complex, communal, and collective nature of thriving
How her theology as a Lutheran pastor was formed by compassion and concern for the poor
The challenge of Western Christians to see beyond individualistic rationality and the atomic unit of the self when thinking about wellness and thriving
The transformative potential of a common dream to unify and reconcile
The power of beautiful stories that are deeply connected to truth and goodness
Seeing relationships as not just an end goal of thriving, but a means to thriving.

About Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra

Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra is the Academic Dean of the Centro Latino at Fuller Theological Seminary, as well as the Assistant Professor of Integral Mission and Global Transformation. Her work is a beautiful mosaic of immigration reform, faith-rooted organizing, cross-cultural ministry, and building vital holistic Christian community. Throughout her career, she’s played a central role in founding and convening communities for social justice, including the New Sanctuary Movement, the Guardian angels Project. Matteo 25 a bipartisan Christian network to protect and defend families facing deportation, the Evangelical Immigration Table, and the Ecumenical Collaboration for Asylum-Seekers. She is co-author of God's Resistance: Mobilizing Faith to Defend Immigrants and Buried Seeds: Learning from the Vibrant Resiliency of Marginalized Christian Communities.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Responding to Trauma: Psychological Tools for Resilience and Recovery with Dr. Cynthia Eriksson

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Note: This episode contains content about trauma. Listener discretion is advised.

The path toward hope and healing is often charted through pain, suffering, loss, and grief.

Coming from two decades spent studying post-traumatic stress disorder, researcher and clinical psychologist Dr. Cynthia Eriksson Cynthia has worked with individuals and communities in the wake of major tragedy. Her psychological and spiritual perspectives emerge from first hand experience with Cambodian children exposed to the atrocities of war, Ugandan refugees, Haitian victims of earthquake catastrophe and infrastructure collapse, or at home in Pasadena tending to frontline workers who are often left burned out and traumatized from relief work.

Cynthia Eriksson discusses how to pursue resilience and recovery by reflecting on the role of faith and spirituality; habits and rhythms of life; and relationships and community.

Both resilience and thriving recognize the complexities of life, and both affirm and require the actualization of human agency.

In this conversation with Cynthia Eriksson, we discuss:

How leaders and helpers and caretakers can identify trauma in themselves, and come to recognize, accept, and respond.
The importance of paying attention to our brains, bodies, and environment.
The 5 R’s of resilience to trauma and recovery from trauma.
Spiritual responses to suffering and pain—which can often result in incredibly profound experiences with God—and this includes expressing anger at God within a struggle.
And practically, we talk about how to deal with avoidance, defensiveness, and blaming others or ourselves—basically, the potentially destructive nature of coping mechanisms.
And we close with a beautiful grounding practice that connects us all to our bodies and emotions, to engage trauma, and stay on the path to thriving.

About Cynthia Eriksson

Cynthia Eriksson is Dean of the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy, and is a Professor of Psychology in the Clinical Psychology Department.

Her research is particularly focused on the needs of cross-cultural aid for mission workers, as well as the interaction of trauma and spirituality. This work has included trauma training, research, and consultation in Monrovia, Liberia; Kobe, Japan; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Barcelona, Spain; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Gulu, Uganda; and Amman, Jordan.

Eriksson also collaborated with colleagues in the US, Europe, and Africa on a longitudinal research project on stress in humanitarian aid workers funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. She also participates in the Headington Program in International Trauma at Fuller.

She has completed research on risk and resilience, exposure to stress, and spiritual development in urban youth workers funded by the Fuller Youth Institute.

Eriksson and her students are currently exploring the intersection of cultural humility and culturally-embedded resilience practices through collaborations with ministry agencies and Fuller colleague Alexia Salvatierra.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

From the Inside Out: Relationships, Mental Health, & Interpersonal Neurobiology with Dr. Dan Siegel

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 14:00:00 -0000

In developmental science, there are lots of debates between nature and nurture. And Dr. Dan Siegel’s groundbreaking work in interpersonal neurobiology demonstrates that we are naturally wired for nurture—and furthermore, we cannot thrive without it.

Over the past five decades, he has sought to explain through attachment theory and a study of the brain, how relationships shape our feelings, thoughts, memories, stories and personal narratives, and how all these offer an opportunity for us to integrate all of our personal subjective with the world outside us.

Dr. Dan Siegel is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He has authored numerous research articles, books, and accessible materials that apply what we know about the brain to our most sacred and significant relationships.

In this conversation with Dan Siegel, we discuss:

The connection between the mind and the brain, and why that matters for our thriving
Coming to terms with big, challenging emotions—especially fear
How psychological integration creates flow and harmony and helps us deal with chaos and rigidity
The scientific connection between focused attention, open awareness, and compassionate intention
He walks us through a mindfulness exercise he calls “the wheel of awareness”
The neurobiology of interpersonal relationships
And we discuss how that impacts not just our spirituality and relationships, but society as a whole.

About Dan Siegel

Dr. Siegel is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person seminars that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach.

He is author of many books, including, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation, The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive, Parenting from the Inside Out: How A Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive, and his most recent, IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Freedom from Fear: Mental Health, Justice, and Hope for an Unencumbered Life in the Black Church with Rev. Dr. Dwight Radcliff

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Seeing justice, equity, and social transformation through the lens of hip-hop culture and Christian faith, Rev. Dr. Dwight Radcliff offers a vision of freedom and unencumbered life for the future of the Black community to which we can all bear witness.

Raising challenging questions about the meaning of thriving in a culture dominated by fear, he speaks in a prophetic voice, interweaving the powerful, compounding effects of the language of the Gospel and the language of hip-hop.

As a cultural theologian, community leader, and pastor, one of Dwight’s many gifts is presence—presence to emotion, to the realty of injustice, and to the complexities of thriving in the context of race and gender.

He speaks about the power of purpose and calling in his life, pointing out the unique insight hip-hop, rap, and R&B music can offer the human experience. He calls us to be attuned to the whole reality of pain, suffering, trauma, and struggle when discussing psychological and spiritual health and thriving. And he bears witness to fear, anger, and grief—re-sensitizing us to our pain and vulnerability—speaking truth for the sake of beauty and justice.

In this conversation, we discuss:

Thriving as the ability to dream and live unencumbered, and the ways the Black church embodies that thriving
The grievous reality of Black double-consciousness that results from systemic racism
And his personal experience as a Black man today
Mental health in the Black community
The power of sanctified purpose
How hip-hop culture and music help us understand thriving at embodied, emotional, and familial levels, beyond the horizon of rational understanding
And how the prophetic vision of hip hop operates in the same tradition of justice spelled out by the Gospel that Jesus taught and lived.

About Dwight Radcliff

Theologian and pastor Rev. Dr. Dwight A. Radcliff Jr. is Academic Dean and director of the William E. Pannell Center for Black Church Studies and is Assistant Professor of Mission, Theology, and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. Prior to coming to Fuller, Dr. Radcliff taught at Vanguard University, Azusa Pacific University, and the Southern California School of Ministry.

He has published in The Journal of Hip Hop Studies, and is a recipient of the Parish Pulpit Fellowship graduation prize and the Hooper/Keefe Preaching Award. He completed post-master’s studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas and the University of Oxford.

He currently serves as senior pastor of The Message Center in Gardena, California, where he leads with his wife, DeShun Jones-Radcliff, who serves as the church’s director of administration. He and his wife have two daughters.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Life Worth Living: Faith, Flourishing, and What Matters Most with Dr. Miroslav Volf

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 14:00:00 -0000

We’re in a crisis of meaning. It’s like our existential compasses are off kilter. Uprooted from faith, social, and civic communities—the very institutions that once supplied narratives, a sense of identity, and belonging.

But meaning and purpose are central to our spiritual health and therefore thriving. And theology comes into play because psychologists are more concerned with how meaning is made descriptively—looking at the cognitive and affective processes of our brains and behavior. Whereas theologians are concerned with prescriptive meaning, commenting normatively about how we should live.

This episode features renowned theologian Miroslav Volf (Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School / Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture) and author of the bestselling book, Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most.

We need stories of love and hope to define our lives. And much of Miroslav's life's work has been devoted to understanding what constitutes a life worth living.

In our conversation, he shares about a God who is with us, who is loving, and who created us for love, calling us to an active role in the flourishing of this world.

In this conversation, we discuss:

How to discern what really matters and how to be intentional about a life worth living
The need to challenge the hyper individualistic assumptions of our day, focusing on thriving life as a life of connections and convictions
Spiritual health as dependent on our relationships with one another, with God, and creation
Spiritual practices that quiet, create space, and slow us down—allowing us to attune a broad and secure space for human becoming and unfolding
Miroslav speaks openly and vulnerably about his own experiences of faith, suffering, hope, and flourishing

About Miroslav Volf

Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and is the Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

He was educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany, earning doctoral and post-doctoral degrees (with highest honors) from the University of Tübingen, Germany. He has written or edited more than 20 books, over 100 scholarly articles, and his work has been featured in the Washington Post, Christianity Today, Christian Century, Sojourners, and several other outlets, including NPR, On Being with Krista Tippett, and Public Television’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.

His books include Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, Allah: A Christian Response, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World, For the Life of the World: Theology that Makes a Difference (with Matthew Croasmun), and The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything (with Ryan McAnnally-Linz).

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

The Science of Relationships: Healing, Emotion, & Connection with Drs. Sue Johnson & Jim Furrow

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 14:00:00 -0000

We need each other. We are relational beings, and our thriving—or languishing—often hinges on relationships. In this episode, psychologists Sue Johnson and Jim Furrow not only explain why relationships are so important, they offer practical advice on how to pursue healing, emotional regulation, and lasting thriving in all kinds of relationships.

Sue Johnson is the creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy, the gold standard in tested, proven interventions of couples and author of many books including Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Jim Furrow is a marriage and family therapist and an internationally renowned trainer of Emotionally Focused Therapy.

This conversation goes from profound to practical, covering the biological and psychological science to explain why belonging gives way to becoming. We discuss the rampant emptiness and loneliness, fear, and depression people today experience and the connection between relationships and a sense of meaning in life. Sue and Jim also provide a framework for how to understand your attachment style and the way it impacts your relational health. And they discuss the practical ways we can grow and change so that we can engage in and sustain fulfilling and life giving relationships.

In this conversation with Sue Johnson & Jim Furrow, we discuss:

What it means to be fully alive, in all the existential fullness that being human means
How to bring together the spectrum of emotional realities with our lived experience
The crisis of loneliness we face today, and what we can do about it
The role of empathy and caring in the healing process
An introduction to attachment science, the role of attachment figures in thriving relationships
And the therapeutic and relational practices that lead to security, a sense of worth, empowerment, and competence in life.

About Sue Johnson & Jim Furrow

Sue Johnson is the creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy and author of many books including Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Jim Furrow is a marriage and family therapist and an internationally renowned trainer of Emotionally Focused Therapy.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

How to Navigate Life: Psychological Tools to Find Your Purpose with Dr. Belle Liang

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Do you know your purpose? How do you understand your own life story?

The science of purpose demonstrates powerful benefits across mental health, physical health, longevity, career fulfillment, and relationships. However, this vital sense of meaning can often feel elusive.

Purpose is defined as an actionable and enduring goal that is meaningful to oneself and contributes to the world beyond oneself. This kind of purpose is crucial to spiritual health because it integrates our beliefs, values, and sense of ultimacy into action.

In this episode, Dr. Belle Liang (Boston College, author of How to Navigate Life: The New Science of Finding Your Way in School, Career, and Beyond) provides research-backed, practical guidance on how to identify and pursue purpose.

Dr. Liang identifies four essential elements of purpose that must be aligned:

Character Strengths: Your inherent positive qualities.
Skills and Expertise: The abilities you have cultivated.
Deeply Held Values: The principles that guide your life.
A Sense of Contribution to the World: How your efforts benefit others.

Dr. Liang guides listeners through a real-time, practical exercise to help align these elements, ensuring that purpose becomes less an "ephemeral object" and more a concrete tool for navigating the journey of life and cultivating thriving.

In this conversation with Belle Liang, we discuss:

How family history shapes us as individuals
The importance of differentiation and emerging from early family dependency into a healthy sense of oneself as an individual
The role of faith, spirituality, and community in our understanding of purpose
A psychological definition of purpose as using strengths and skills and values to make a positive impact on the world
And the practical elements of finding and living your purpose as an individual, with Belle guiding us through a practice of reflecting on our past and finding our purpose

About Belle Liang
Dr. Belle Liang is a professor of Counseling, Developmental, & Educational Psychology at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. As the founder and Principal Investigator of Purpose Lab, she is committed to advancing understanding of positive youth development, including mentoring and relational health, through her research. Her expertise in purpose interventions, including those that are technologically mediated, is reflected in her current work leading the development of True North, a curriculum and web-based application aimed at helping individuals and organizations cultivate purpose with data analytics.

With over 100 publications, Dr. Liang is recognized as a knowledgeable speaker and collaborator in the field of positive youth development. She is grateful for the opportunities she has had to contribute to the field and to translate research into practical application, as demonstrated by her recent co-authorship of the bestselling How to Navigate Life: The New Science of Finding Your Way in School, Career, & Beyond, published by St. Martin’s Press.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Cultivating a Healthy Mind: The Neuroscience of Awareness, Connection, Insight, & Purpose with Dr. Richie Davidson

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Dr. Richie Davidson’s research has revolutionized the way we understand the brain and how plastic and malleable or changeable the brain is. Just like we train our physical bodies and go to the gym, he and his team at the Center for Healthy Minds have shown that we need to train our brains and work them out as well.

As a result, he is changing the way we understand well being—to think of it as a skill—something we do and practice as active agents of our own well being.

His research can give us a whole new appreciation of Christian contemplative practices or disciplines. Although we can't control all that happens around us or to us, we do have some control on how we respond, merging helpful insight with concrete practices that make a difference for our minds, so that we can become more regulated, peaceful, receptive, open, and even more trusting.

In this bountiful conversation with Richie Davidson, we discuss:

Two kinds of learning—declarative and procedural—that need to be integrated in order to cultivate mental and spiritual health
The four pillars of a healthy mind: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose
How to cultivate a mindset for healthy relational connection
How to understand the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and how this impacts our well-being and spiritual health
The over-emphasis (even approaching hype) on mindfulness that seems to be present in our culture
What a healthy approach to meditation might be in our spiritual lives
The science and spirituality of love and compassion

About Richie Davidson

Dr. Richie Davidson is a pioneer in contemplative neuroscience, and does cutting edge research on the neuro-correlates of emotion and meditation. He's also the founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he's the William James Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Rhythms of Work and Rest: Leadership and Self-Care After Trauma and Burnout with Dr. Alexis Abernethy

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Coming from decades of research, clinical work, and practice in the field, Dr. Alexis Abernethy cuts through theory and ideals, addressing the complex realities of life: loss, trauma, systemic racism, the grinding and wearing away from the stresses of everyday life, and the pressure to lead in the face of unsolvable suffering and need.

Alexis keeps spiritual health real and accessible, addressing research-backed principles on sleep, concentration, irritation, relationships, and burnout.

Absolutely essential to spiritual health and thriving in our chaotic and frenetic days, Alexis describes rhythms that we can internalize before we get to those soft symptoms or signs of stress.

In this conversation, we discuss:

Her research and therapeutic work with traumatized pastors after Hurricane Katrina, emphasizing the necessity of self-care for the caregivers.
How to identify the symptoms of burnout and how to respond.
The Christian practice of Sabbath rest, worship, and singing, which Alexis personally experiences as a source of healing and restoration.

Pam’s Key Takeaways

Catastrophes don't hit us all the same. We all weather life storms in different ways. It's when we find healing and restoration in community that we can integrate personal, relational, and political thriving.
Limitations can be our friends. Irritation, lack of concentration, fatigue are all signposts to the need for self care.
Burnout is complex, often involves a shift in our context, making our environment or job not a good fit for who we are.
To quote Bessel van der Kolk, our bodies keep the score. Burnout and psychological stress are often manifested with psychosomatic symptoms.
We need to be aware of our relationship to time and how our trust and faith come into play when it comes to rest.
I need more microdoses of rest and perhaps macrodoses of sleep.
We thrive when our vocation lines up with our work. but we need to address our culture's workaholism by talking more about strategies for rest that contribute to spiritual health.

About Alexis Abernethy

Alexis Abernathy is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology in the Fuller School of Psychology, where for over 25 years she has served as Chaplain to the Faculty, Chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and her current role as Chief Academic Officer at Fuller Theological Seminary. She graduated from Howard University with a BS in psychology. She received her MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Her primary research interest is the intersection between spirituality and health and her Spirituality and Health Lab includes three research teams: Experience of Spirituality and Health-Related Outcomes; Spirituality, Cancer, and Health Disparities; and Spirituality, Culture, and Eating Disturbance. She is author of many journal articles in psychology of religion, as well as Worship That Changes Lives: Multidisciplinary and Congregational Perspectives on Spiritual Transformation (2008). For more information, visit her faculty profile.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Loved, Held, Guided, and Never Alone: The Science of Spirituality with Dr. Lisa Miller

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 23:15:00 -0000

What does science have to say about spirituality?

Dr. Lisa Miller, clinical psychologist and researcher, has made the case through years of research collaborations that spirituality is a birthright to the human species. In her best selling book, The Awakened Brain, she notes the glorious complexity of the human spiritual brain, revealing an innate capacity for transcendence. But she's not content to stop at these psychological capacities. She wants to help people with practical, tangible, evidence backed interventions that lead to their thriving and spiritual health. Lisa not only gives words, but explains scientifically why spirituality is so transformative.

In this conversation with Lisa Miller, we discuss:

The neuroscience of spirituality
Guided meditative practices to fortify spiritual health and a sense of love, purpose, and possibility
How paying attention to our inner mental and spiritual life builds awareness and resilience
Research findings from the science of spirituality that we're wired for transcendence
How transcendent love fortifies our brain in ways that buffer against depression and anxiety
How human connection and spiritual guides are vital for a healthy life and even a thriving democracy
And we explore all of these experientially, working through the ideas with practical exercises to increase our awareness

About Lisa Miller

Dr. Lisa Miller is bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain, and researcher and professor in clinical psychology at the Teachers College of Columbia University. Learn more on her website.

About Dr. Pam King

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

A New Podcast on Spiritual Health, Wholeness, and a Life of Thriving

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 22:00:00 -0000

With & For is a new podcast exploring psychology, spirituality, and culture, with the aim of helping you grow wholly alive, with and for others, and a higher purpose. In this introductory episode, podcast host Dr. Pam King shares elements of her personal story and background, along with the goals of the podcast, and let's this season's guests share their personal take on what it means to thrive.

With & For is hosted by Dr. Pam King—the Executive Director the Thrive Center and Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Show Notes

Dr. Pam King introduces the show. Drawing on twenty years as a psychologist, pastor, and parent, her mission is to help people thrive.
Our approach to spiritual health is informed by years of psychological research that provides empirical insight into how aspects of spirituality can be helpful for thriving.
What is thriving?
"Thriving is growing wholly alive with and for others and a higher purpose."
"By pursuing spiritual health, we become equipped with the skills that we need for resilience in hard times, and also for pursuing purpose and meaning and connection throughout it all, given that we all thrive differently."
Season 1 guests share their responses to one of Pam's favorite questions, "What is thriving to you?"

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Our Spiritual Brains: The Science of Our Innate Spirituality - Lisa Miller

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:00:00 -0000

"Every single one of us is born with natural spirituality."

This preview clip features With & For guest Dr. Lisa Miller—bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain, and researcher and professor in clinical psychology at the Teachers College of Columbia University.

Lisa shares about her findings in the science of spirituality; our innate capacities to perceive, to feel, and to know a transcendent relationship; and the amazing role of the human brain in seeking out this transcendence beyond ourselves.

Show Notes

Don't forget to subscribe to With & For, which is launching in January 2024.
Happy Thanksgiving from Dr. Pam King and The Thrive Center!
How gratitude and positive emotion enlarge our capacity for joyful transcendence and activate our innate spirituality
Pam King introduces Dr. Lisa Miller—bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain, and researcher and professor in clinical psychology at the Teachers College of Columbia University.
"Every single one of us is born with natural spirituality."
"This capacity to perceive and feel and know a transcendent relationship is one third innate. We are all born with the wiring, but two thirds environmentally formed gives way to a tremendous impact of our environment."
"Although this is our birthright, it must be cultivated, and it is an opportunity of our lifetimes to do that."
"We invited 18 through 25 year olds to come in and tell us about a time where you felt a deep personal connection to God. ... The same neural correlates ran in every single person."
Credits

About Lisa Miller

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

What Makes a Healthy Mind? Awareness, Connection, Insight, and Purpose - Richie Davidson

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 11:00:00 -0000

With & For is launching in January 2024! Subscribe now in your favorite podcast app. In this preview clip, With & For guest Dr. Richie Davidson—a pioneer in contemplative neuroscience—shares how his research on the neuroscience of emotion and meditation has led him to identify four pillars of well-being and human flourishing.

Show Notes

Don't forget to subscribe to With & For, which is launching in January 2024.
Pam King introduces Dr. Richie Davidson, the William James Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Pillar 1: Awareness
Pillar 2: Connection
Pillar 3: Insight
Pillar 4: Purpose

About Richie Davidson

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Welcome to With & For: Spiritual Health, Wholeness, and a Life of Thriving

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 21:43:00 -0000

Listen now and subscribe to With & For—a new podcast from The Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Starting January 8, 2024 the show will explore insights from psychology to understand what it means to become spiritually healthy and thrive.

Every Monday, Dr. Pam King will host expert guests whose work sheds light on practical steps toward growing fully alive, connected, purposeful, and whole.

And don't miss "Playing with Light", for a weekly series of short reflections from Dr. Pam King, all in the With & For podcast feed.

Show Notes

Coming January 8, 2024 from the Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary, this is With & For, a podcast for growth seekers and people focused leaders that plumbs the depths of psychological science and spiritual wisdom to offer practical guidance toward spiritual health, wholeness, and a life of thriving.
About Dr. Pam King: "It's my life's purpose to help people thrive."
I've spent the last two decades at the intersections of psychology and spirituality, wrestling with the most practical questions of how people grow, relate, and become their whole selves. We're all walking a path towards spiritual health, discovering that it's something we pursue in deep relationality with each other, and always for a greater purpose than ourselves.
Obstacles to spiritual health
Life's hustle and bustle, he relentless bombardment of stimuli, the frantic pace of life
Epidemic of loneliness, relational strains, and a misleading culture of self reliance
Crisis of purpose and vocation, and the meaning of work
"The tears in our social and moral fabric are eroding a sense of who we are, as relational creatures that thrive with and for others."
"With & For is my invitation to pursue thriving through relational connection: who we're with. And through purpose: what we're for."
Weaving scientific insight with spiritual wisdom
Concrete practices that keep us on the path towards spiritual health and thriving
Season 1 topics and themes
The hallmarks of a healthy mind
how to find purpose
what to do when you encounter trauma and suffering
Compassion
Self care
Rest
Patience
Relational neuroscience
Reorientation of theology around human flourishing and a life worth living
The psychological dynamics of racial and economic justice
Our innate capacities for transcendence
"Each Friday, I'll share a short practical reflection that I'm pondering, in a series on the pod I like to call Playing with Light."
Both science and spirituality are showing us that we are interconnected, relational, purposeful beings, and we truly thrive with and for others.
Subscribe in your favorite podcast app today so that you can join us when we launch on January 8th!

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

About the Thrive Center

Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
Follow us on X @thrivecenter
Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

About With & For

Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.