313 - You’re Not Broken: Wholeness, Recovery & Spiritual Healing with Jamie Marich
“We've pushed the science so hard, the soul is missing.” ~Dr. Jamie Marich
What if the biggest problem in therapy is therapists who haven’t done their own work? Jamie Marich explores recovery, spirituality beyond religion, and why no modality, guru, or system can replace embodied healing.
I love show-and-tell as a teaching method, especially because it emphasizes the importance of therapists doing their own work. Dr. Jamie Marich is the perfect participant. They have a substantial catalog of “personal artifacts” to share:
growing up inside evangelical Christian nationalism
recovery from addiction and participation in AA
processing their queerness in an unsafe environment
reconnecting to their spirituality beyond organized religion
These mementos highlight Jamie’s rebel journey back to wholeness and a spiritually fulfilling relationship with God, free from rigid dogma.
What is wholeness? It’s a divine attribute that all humans share, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Unfortunately, many of us were brought up in religious traditions that attach sin at birth. Rather than reveling in our innate completeness, we spend our lives searching for an external fixer––a priest, guru, or other expert.
Therapists with unexamined patterns or traumas are susceptible to the lure of becoming the problem solver. “I can't help but wonder how many people get into this 'cause of their own…I dunno. I don't wanna sound like a judgy bitch,” Jamie cautions. “But inevitably, it just seems like something [they’d] be good at without ever having looked at, is this something I've really been through and explored?”
Jamie invites therapists to think of themselves on a collaborative journey with their clients. “After these years of living and trying so many paths, after surviving two pretty high-demand religions, and studying yoga and Vedic philosophy at an ashram, I’ve learned that no one has all the answers.”
I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on Jamie’s experiences with AA and how they align with my own work in Al-Anon. 12-step recovery isn’t for everyone, and Jamie and I acknowledge the harm that can happen in those spaces. That said, I like how Jamie reframes the 12 steps as a flexible foundation for healing. “I think what I've learned throughout my various journeys, my faith journey, my recovery journey, even my journey as a therapist is that so much of the core of what is helpful is still there.”
The tools we need to heal have been inside us all along.
GUEST CONTACT & BIO
Dr. Jamie Marich (she/they) is the founder and director of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness and Creative Mindfulness Media. Jamie is the author of over 15 books and manuals in the field of trauma, recovery, and expressive arts, including the best-selling Dissociation Made Simple, and her memoir You Lied to Me About God. She is currently enrolled at the Chaplaincy Institute studying Interfaith Ministry in preparation for a career transition.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
The Wounded Healer: Ministry In Contemporary Society
NeuroAffective Relational Model™(NARM)
Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy
Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing
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