I couldn’t find the podcast episode I was looking for. Here’s a transcript of another podcast where Rob Bell talks about Kristen’s follow-the-monster-back-to-its-cave concept:
‘Annie Grace: How can you shift from that place of needing to escape the feelings to get into a place of curiosity about why you’re doing this thing to escape, whether it’s keeping moving or drinking or anything else, all of the things that we do to escape the feeling of ... we don’t even know what feeling we’re escaping, I would say.
‘Rob Bell: Yeah. At some level, I interviewed the feelings. I talked to them and ask them questions, and I assume, well, they’re real, so what universe are we living in? Is it ultimately an adversarial relationship where it’s you against the thing? Or is it a place of love and generativity, which means it keeps making more. What do you do with the feelings? Follow them. My wife, Kristen, and I talk about follow it back to its cave, because it appears like a monster it’s here to devour. You think about anxiety, anger, despair. They present themselves as monsters that are going to devour you. But if you follow them back to their cave, see where they live, my assumption is they’re here to tell you some truth. I just begin with whatever this is, however painful it is, it’s some truth, and apparently I’m not listening in other ways.
‘My wife, Kristen, does all this interesting work on anxiety. Anxiety, for many people, is something to be eliminated as opposed to something to be listened to. If you turn anxiety from a problem to be eradicated, to a truth that is being spoken to you, then you listen to it, because it’s here to tell you something, which is very, very intimate and personal, but it also is a reflection of what kind of universe we’re living in. All of this is both personal and cosmic.’
I couldn’t find the podcast episode I was looking for. Here’s a transcript of another podcast where Rob Bell talks about Kristen’s follow-the-monster-back-to-its-cave concept:
https://thisnakedmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/AE_EP_321.pdf
‘Annie Grace: How can you shift from that place of needing to escape the feelings to get into a place of curiosity about why you’re doing this thing to escape, whether it’s keeping moving or drinking or anything else, all of the things that we do to escape the feeling of ... we don’t even know what feeling we’re escaping, I would say.
‘Rob Bell: Yeah. At some level, I interviewed the feelings. I talked to them and ask them questions, and I assume, well, they’re real, so what universe are we living in? Is it ultimately an adversarial relationship where it’s you against the thing? Or is it a place of love and generativity, which means it keeps making more. What do you do with the feelings? Follow them. My wife, Kristen, and I talk about follow it back to its cave, because it appears like a monster it’s here to devour. You think about anxiety, anger, despair. They present themselves as monsters that are going to devour you. But if you follow them back to their cave, see where they live, my assumption is they’re here to tell you some truth. I just begin with whatever this is, however painful it is, it’s some truth, and apparently I’m not listening in other ways.
‘My wife, Kristen, does all this interesting work on anxiety. Anxiety, for many people, is something to be eliminated as opposed to something to be listened to. If you turn anxiety from a problem to be eradicated, to a truth that is being spoken to you, then you listen to it, because it’s here to tell you something, which is very, very intimate and personal, but it also is a reflection of what kind of universe we’re living in. All of this is both personal and cosmic.’