The Mother Wound: Naming the Ways Mom Played a Role in Body Image Issues [Podcast Transcript]

Title: The Mother Wound: Naming the Ways Mom Played a Role in Body Image Issues

Podcast Date: March 18 & 21, 2025

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Description

Today Heather welcomes Emily and Ryan Baker from the Story Matters Initiative to discuss the Mother Wound and the ways that our attachment to mom, attunement to mom, and our "mom stories" impact the ways we view ourselves and the world around us. Today, Heather, Emily, and Ryan begin this two-part discussion with a conversation about what story work is, how it is different than traditional talk therapy, and how story work can be the key to unlocking repressed or forgotten memories, which can tell a more accurate story about why we struggle in the ways we do. 

In today's episode they introduce the concepts of story work and what it means to be attuned to someone. They also talk about what happens when our moms never had the opportunity to work on their own stories and traumas and how this can leave them with chains to their own pasts that made it difficult for them to be in an emotionally healthy relationship with their children.

Learn more about Emily and Ryan Baker here: https://storymatterscoaching.com

Learn more about the work of Compared to Who? and the 40-Day Journey to improve your body image here: https://www.improvebodyimage.com

Mentioned in this episode: https://omny.fm/shows/compared-to-who/what-was-moms-impact-on-your-body-image-issues

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:02]:

Hey there. Welcome to the Compare To Podcast. I'm Heather Creekmore. I'm so glad that you are watching or listening today. Today, my guests are Ryan and Emily Baker. And, oh, y'all, we're we're gonna go to a tough place today. Because today, we're talking about the mother wound. And most of us who've struggled with body image issues at any level kind of connect what's been going on with mom.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:31]:

Maybe we feel like we learned how to diet from mom, or maybe mom made comments about our weight. But today, we're gonna dig into that in a different way through something called story work. We're gonna talk about what story work is, and that's what Emily and Ryan do. And, we're gonna go lots of different places today, so I'm glad you're here for it. Ryan, Emily, thanks so much for being on the Compare To You podcast.

Emily Baker [00:00:55]:

Yeah. Thanks for having us. We're excited.

Ryan Baker [00:00:57]:

Well, thank you so much. This is so fun.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:00]:

Emily, can you just tell us, like, who you are? Like, where do you live? Like, tell us a little bit about yourself before we dig into the hard stuff.

Emily Baker [00:01:08]:

Sure. We are Ryan and Emily. We've been married almost thirty years. We grew up in Oklahoma. We went to Oklahoma University, but we found ourselves living the last decade in Stillwater where Oklahoma State University So if you're if you're with the state rivalry, it's kind of a funny story. But we, have raised four children, and two of them, our boys, our oldest boys, are in their twenties, launching into the world after college. They went to OSU. And then we have a senior in high school daughter and an eighth grade daughter.

Emily Baker [00:01:41]:

And, yeah, we love living in Oklahoma. We spent about a decade outside of Oklahoma living in places like Saint Louis, Fort Collins, Colorado, A Year in Japan, and we landed back in Oklahoma. So, we've been in ministry a lot of our married life. We have spent some time in the business world as well. And, the last three years, we have been in private practice with Story Matters, our coaching practice.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:08]:

Very nice. I can't wait to dig into that. So story work. Mhmm. People are maybe like, what is story work? What like, I mean, I wouldn't have known what that was. And I did have Dan Allender on the show, a few weeks ago. And so I don't know. We touched on maybe just a little bit.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:29]:

But there's a difference between what a lot of us know or have done maybe even in therapy or counseling, right, where we've, like, gone in and shared, like, here's my story. I was, you know, raised in a Christian home, and my parents are still married. Like, that kind of story of our childhood and what you all do in story work. Ryan, can you explain what that is?

Ryan Baker [00:02:55]:

Yeah. It's a great question. A lot of our close friends still don't know either.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:59]:

I get that.

Ryan Baker [00:03:00]:

Well, it's a broad term. And and one of the ways often people refer to it might be like altitudes, and a lot of people stay at the high altitude and describe their story. Often that's using the left brain, you know, so I was born at this date, I was raised in this kind of a family, you know, yada yada yada. And, really Dan Allender who you mentioned having on, he wrote a book called To Be Told. And really, he outlined and began outlining the concept of moving deeper into your your particular stories of harm. And so you can imagine, like, parachuting out of that plane and landing in the weeds, so to speak, of particular incidences or particular stories, which can feel very counterintuitive because it's like, why would I want to go backwards and talk about a hard place, especially when I'm doing great right now? I was thinking about, like, you you know, how marriage is, like, when you're in a fight, you say, let's pick this up another day, and then that day comes. And you're like, why would I wanna ruin this time? But as so it can feel like that, but, actually, when when we engage these stories of particular harm with integrity, with detail, and engage them with a trusted friend or a guide or a counselor, pastor, spouse, whomever, it can really open up places of healing we would have not thought of.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:29]:

Yeah. That's good. And let me just ask you a question related to that. I mean, I talk to a lot of women and they're like, I don't really remember my childhood. Like, is it easy to access our stories, or is there sometimes work that has to be done before we can do that?

Ryan Baker [00:04:45]:

Well, that's a really great question. I won't say every client, but I would say the overwhelming majority have that same testimony. That's my story. I like I don't have anything. Just our particular entry into this work, mine and then we'll and I both. We had read these books. We used them in in ministry, but I had never done story work. And so we were invited to go to one of Dan Allender story workshops.

Ryan Baker [00:05:13]:

And the assignment was before even arriving was write your story. And the way they advise you to do that was write down five places in your birth to 18 that you can remember something of harm. And I'll even tell clients, it doesn't have to it can be someone stole my bicycle. I mean, it doesn't have to be off the charts. I had a tough time. I I think we both had a tough time.

Heather Creekmore [00:05:35]:

Mhmm.

Ryan Baker [00:05:36]:

Five events. Like, because some of the times our trauma is the low grade, like, lowercase t or low grade trauma that's so pervasive in our lives, but not necessarily standing out in one story.

Heather Creekmore [00:05:50]:

Yeah.

Ryan Baker [00:05:52]:

Yet, by doing that exercise, beginning to write a story and looking what happens is you it's almost like a signal to your body. Mhmm. We're gonna look. And a lot of the reasons we don't remember is that was a survival mechanism. Yeah. But once we actually, with kindness, begin to engage those places, what I find with almost every client is, like, they can oh my gosh. I just remembered this. This came online.

Ryan Baker [00:06:16]:

Like, oh, that I I just thought of that situation. And so I would say, first of all, don't feel shame or worry if you don't remember, but rather recognize that's probably a safety device that can be healed as well. And and when it's time, certain memories will come back to us to explore.

Heather Creekmore [00:06:37]:

Yeah. That's good. That's really good.

Emily Baker [00:06:41]:

And I would just add one thing. It's very common that we don't remember a lot. And if we do, we immediately negate or or dismiss it. Like, it's not a big deal. We've learned in our young brain to make meaning of it or create a narrative around it or compare it and say it wasn't a big deal.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:00]:

Right.

Emily Baker [00:07:01]:

But when we get in the presence of someone that says your story really, really matters,

Heather Creekmore [00:07:06]:

I

Emily Baker [00:07:06]:

wanna hear that. Can you just tell me a little bit what you do remember? Like Ryan said, it signals our body that we're safe. Yeah. And as we feel safe, and we feel like this person's not going to judge us, there's gonna be curiosity and kindness. We feel that. Like, the we we know that's how God treats us, but the kindness is where we get to turn and look and repent.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:29]:

Yeah.

Emily Baker [00:07:29]:

And so I think that's the beautiful thing is it just begins to fall out of our body. The stories begin to fall out. So the first response, almost with everyone, is I don't know that I even have that many stories.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:41]:

Right.

Emily Baker [00:07:42]:

And then it's like, well, let's just play around and see, and then they fall out. No. I

Ryan Baker [00:07:47]:

know we're building and building, but part of why we don't go there is we have loyalty, and so we feel like we're being disloyal. If I write a story about my dad or my mom or an uncle or whatever, you know, we we have these, sense we have a sense a sense that we will be betraying a system or a person or an individual. And so that's okay. We can be kind to that, but our our goal would be to still step in. Just because you write a story doesn't mean you tell the person. You know? Like Okay. It's it's something you're privately working through. So

Emily Baker [00:08:26]:

And you did great for that, Heather, on your last podcast that you kind of dove into story work. You spent a good amount of time in the beginning talking about this is not blaming. And that's such an important foundation to let people be at ease because it's not blaming, it's naming. Yeah. And naming is taming. And there's so much freedom in naming truth that if we are the light of the world and Jesus is the light of the world, then there has to be, an an awakening and an and a freedom in exposing dark things, but it's so scary at first.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:59]:

Yeah. That's so good. Because it's confusing, I think. So maybe taking my own story, for example. Right? It's kinda confusing to be like, how do I have these issues? Because the altitude, the high altitude version of my story was was raised by Christian parents. I went to church three times a week. My parents are still married. Right? Like, I mean, I tell the joke all the time.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:26]:

We went to counseling, and I was like, thank god we're here. You gotta help him because his parents are divorced and, oh, all the mess. Right? But my story, no. I didn't have any of that. Right? And and looking into, like, the smaller stories. Right? And and I'm gonna kinda shift away from my story a bit. But but I talk to women all the time that say the same things I said. And then as we talk more, like, maybe even, like, three or four sessions more to kind of verify what you're talking about.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:53]:

Not that I'm doing story work per se, but as we talk about their body image story, session four, it'll be like, well, yeah, mom put me on the scale every Sunday morning before church. Or, you know, like and those kind of stories start to come out, which gives you a much different vision personally of, like, what happened. Right? Because so I think we I don't know. The word maybe is gaslight ourselves. Right? Like, I had a good family. I grew up in a good home. I shouldn't have these issues. And then when you do the story work, it's like, oh, maybe.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:30]:

Yes. Maybe that has something to do with it. What are you thinking, Ryan?

Ryan Baker [00:10:34]:

Well, I think that's exactly why we love story work is if if you ask a person to connect their dots, you know, from a present day issue, if you wanna use that term or something that we're wrestling with in the present day, to your story, it's gonna be very difficult. And our left brain is gonna try to work overload, and that's why what we really start with, even though we we with our clients one on one, we, of course, do that. But the goal of story work is to sort of disengage from the present for a moment and just look at an an event. And because usually these are so far in the past, you have a little bit of room to be more honest and tell your story, and it will reveal things that you never thought you would see to which later then you can, come back to connecting the dots. So I think often the narratives we tell ourselves before we've gotten into the weeds are false narratives. They're we don't mean them to be. They're often narratives that were fed to us by others. But but we would have no reason to doubt them yet.

Ryan Baker [00:11:42]:

But to your point, Heather, like, when we're in a conversation and and we're actually in a in the weeds with somebody, things start coming out that you're like, how in the world did that not play out in your larger or your higher altitude version? Never saying that, of course. You're just thinking that, but they they begin the person begins to go, lights are coming on. Oh my goodness.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:02]:

Yeah.

Ryan Baker [00:12:03]:

That's one of the major reasons why this work is different than traditional talk therapy is because, we're trying to utilize the body and the right brain and not just staying in the left brain.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:18]:

Yeah. That's good. That's super helpful. Okay. So today we're talking mother wound. And Emily, I'm so glad you said what you just said. Right? Like, because I I did wanna not gloss over the fact that we're not talking about mom to blame her. I'd be like, oh, now I know all my body images are mom's fault.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:34]:

No. Like, that's not that's not the purpose of this. But I also think, like you said, naming is taming. Right? It's worth exploring that mom has a pretty powerful impact in our lives. Right? Or her absence or her presence, either either way we've been impacted. And, I just I read this quote last night, and I was thinking about all the women that I work with, again, back to my own story. But, like, you know, a lot of our moms didn't grow up with, like, therapy being a normal thing. Right? The only people who went to counseling were the the people who, quote, unquote, really needed it.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:16]:

Right? Story work wasn't a thing. Like, our moms didn't grow up in this era of exploring their past and figuring out what was under the surface of their issues. Right? And so there's this a book called Ryan, you recommended it, the drama of the gifted child. And I read this quote last night, and I thought, oh, there's there's something there's something for us to work from here. It goes like this. For a mother can react empathetically only to the extent that she has become free of her own childhood. When she denies the vicissitudes of her early life, she wears invisible chains. And so I'm thinking that I was raised by a mother who had invisible chains.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:06]:

I probably am a mother who has invisible chains, right? Like let's, let's talk about mom. Why is mom so important? I mean, Ryan, just get us started with, like I don't even know where to start because there's so much here.

Ryan Baker [00:14:28]:

Well, I first heard of attachment theory from a book, that didn't also include that you could heal from it. But talking about how important the first even six months, even a few weeks are to an infant, and, I I I never wanna say they throw a book across the room. I think I literally did something physically with this book. I don't know if it went across the room because I knew the the price, and I knew I'd wanna keep reading. But, I think what what what we don't wanna talk about are these times of our life or history that we don't even have memory for or they're preverbal. And we even say things like, I I don't how would I ever know what mom was like? And yet, you know, Kurt Thompson is famous for the phrase, we're all born into the world looking for somebody, looking for us. And so an infant, we know with attachment theory, and and if we've had children, we know they come out looking for mom. Mhmm.

Ryan Baker [00:15:32]:

That's very important. But mom, mom's breast, mom's voice, mom's warmth, mom's softness, her attunement. And we know that when that's not offered, the child, the infant is incredibly affected. You can watch even a YouTube example of the still faced test where when a mother doesn't give the child the needed, attention or affection, the child will eventually become very upset, anxious, and self soothe. And those are patterns that, again, if the mother were to course correct three, six, four, you know, six, eight months in, maybe would be healed. But what typically the mother we're born with is the mother we have when we're in our forties. I mean, they've changed, but their those are the their ability to attune to, meet the needs of the child are are pretty much set. Again, using the the language of Alice Miller, they've ignored their own vicissitudes.

Ryan Baker [00:16:35]:

They've ignored the the chains, the invisible harms that they are refusing to look at, and yet it's it's playing out in how they're raising the child. And I'll just give one story and then, Emily, I wanna let you, Amit, help me because I'm sure I've missed some things. But it was actually Emily with we were at my mom's house for dinner, and she just said, Barbara, that's my mom's name. When when did you go back to work? And I had thought a long time. You know, I thought for a while, And she I what was the number, Emily, that she gave?

Emily Baker [00:17:09]:

Always had told me that, when you were six months old, she went back to work full time because your dad had left. But she said she was celebrating her her her anniversary of work, and it was the exact age of you. So I said, well, when exactly did you go back to full time work? And she said, Ryan was three months old.

Ryan Baker [00:17:28]:

Yeah. And and

Emily Baker [00:17:30]:

And we're talking long

Ryan Baker [00:17:31]:

found out I thought I, for years, sent my parents divorced when I was one year old, and it was three months old. So by finding out information like that in the present helps us to go, oh, this this matters. And I would just say I went into story work thinking my big issue is I grew up without my dad, and it is a huge issue. It's a significant issue. I remember in one of the group conversations, I said the words don't touch my mom. Like, I needed to know that that relationship was secure and safe and healthy. And yet, as much as I love my mom, it was not. And there are many, many wounds, and it does mean no good.

Ryan Baker [00:18:16]:

It does nobody any good to pretend just to feel good that it was a great relationship when there were absolutely significant wounding wounds from even those earliest of days. And it's and then on end, on end to the rest of childhood. So I think moms, are I mean, I don't know. It's one of those it's like, in our culture, it's almost unpopular to say how important a mother is, but it's the mother being attuned to her child is possibly the most significant thing for a human to have.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:53]:

Yeah. Okay. Explain attunement. It was just in case someone's not familiar with that concept. Emily, you wanna explain it?

Emily Baker [00:19:02]:

It's being able to sense the inner world of the person in front of you and to meet the needs of whatever is happening. So it's it's felt, but it's a it's a sixth sense kind of felt. It's I see you are distressed. I feel that you're not feeling well, and I wanna come close, but it's not a fixing. It's a feeling. So, again, to quote Kurt Thompson, it's feeling felt. It's, it's a sense of I'm not the adult in the room, but there's someone bigger and stronger with me. If you think of the steadfast love of the Lord being a refuge, and you can feel angry, you can feel upset, you can doubt, you can be weepy, and that person is stable and does not judge you, but feels that with you and has that empathy, but yet strength, that was that's how I would describe attunement.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:04]:

Wow. Right? Go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan Baker [00:20:10]:

One of the places in scripture that we often would turn to is Psalm one thirty nine. Mhmm. Oh, lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I arise. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down. You are acquainted with all of my ways. It goes on to be it's almost like you know, what's the children's book where the the like, I mean, they're rabbits.

Ryan Baker [00:20:33]:

The baby's like, well, I'm gonna run over here, and the parents are like, well, I'm gonna come find you. I don't I'm not great with children's books, but forgive me on on the detail. But, yeah, you see, like, to feel that as the as a as a little child, as I've grown, like, to feel there is someone who wants to know where I am, how I'm doing. But the nuance that we have to introduce just to say it is sometimes there is a, kind of a counterfeit attunement or a kind of, what what I'm getting at is when the parent is actually needing the child to supply their needs, it can look like attunement. We we can fool ourselves into thinking it is, but in reality, they're just, fueling their own, neuroses. You know? Their own one example would be a a time where Emily and I and the kids were out of town, and we got back in town. I was talking to my mom, and she said, well, you didn't tell me you went out of town. I I didn't know to be worried about you.

Ryan Baker [00:21:35]:

And I just remember kinda like, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. And on one hand, I appreciated it, but what I realized is the it was almost like she missed out on dopamine or something, that I didn't give to her. You know, so just because a parent is worried or has language like that doesn't mean they're good at attuning to you.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:55]:

Yeah. Well and and that's

Emily Baker [00:21:56]:

a funny example, but what the the terminology I often use is that the arrows of care are in the wrong direction. Not parent to child, but child to parent. But as a child, that's all we know, and so we think, oh, we're very close. And, you know, my mom and I are very tight. But then there's that missing link that you think, oh, but I guess I'm always the one caring for mom. Mhmm. And that's not the way it's supposed to be.

Heather Creekmore [00:22:21]:

Yeah. It it's it's who's caring for whom. And, a couple of things came up for me there thinking about so a lot of the women that I work with with body image issues. Right? Like, one of the underlying things for eating disorders even, right, is is really not entering into emotions. Right? So I mean, this is very, like, oversimplified and way too blunt way to say this. So there's my disclaimers. Right? But those with body image issues focus a lot on the outside, and we think we can just master the things on the inside, mostly by just pushing them down and ignoring. Right? And so it's like, if I am feeling, I don't know, anxious, right, instead of, like, stopping and working through, like, well, what am I, like, afraid of? Like, what's bothering me? What's upsetting me? It it comes out as, I think I need to go on a diet.

Heather Creekmore [00:23:15]:

I need to exercise more. Maybe if I go for a run and then lift some weights, then I'm gonna feel like, I'll be able to take care of that anxiety. And so a lot of us have learned I can't say to not have emotions because we have emotions, but we've learned to not see our emotions. And maybe even to come back to the mother wounds, mom was the one who taught us that. Right? Whereas a little girl, you come home and you're like, yeah, it was really a hard day. And, you know, girls are mean. And mom says things like, well, you're too good for them anyway. You don't really need them to be your friend.

Heather Creekmore [00:23:50]:

Like, it completely misses the emotional aspects and and takes it right to, like, you know, here's what you can do, overcome. I don't like, what what do you guys see? Like, any anything?

Ryan Baker [00:24:05]:

Yeah. Well, the the book you've, referenced from drama of the gifted child, the essence of that of that is the gifted child, according to Alice Miller, means the one that's gifted toward caring for others and not caring for themselves. And oftentimes, mothers are seeking care from their daughters. Mhmm. And it can again, it can be something you don't notice until you start to pay attention to, like, what happened when I had emotions? You know, when you were six years old, do your example coming in. What you're also referencing there, Heather, is containment. So we had attunement. Now we're moving into the container where attunement would play out.

Ryan Baker [00:24:47]:

And one of the things that containment is asking is what would happen when you had emotions? What did mom do? What did the system do? Specifically, mom. And often what you just described is it's like deflecting. It's like she's extinguishing your emotions. It may feel good. You're so good. You they don't need you or whatever. That feels kind of a like, oh, that feels good. But yet you're also being told subtly, and I don't want to hear.

Ryan Baker [00:25:14]:

I don't have time or capacity to move toward you, hold your face, and hear how you were wounded. So how quickly does that little girl learn to not I I'm not allowed to look at my emotions. Mhmm. I'm not allowed to name them. It's in fact, I have to bury them to survive in some ways, or I'm gonna be harmed.

Emily Baker [00:25:35]:

Yeah. Yeah. Another way I would say that is the mother is, in essence, saying don't make me feel, fill in the blank. And that is a codependency, meaning the mother needs the daughter or the son to be okay so that she feels okay. That's the essence of enmeshment or codependency. And that going back to that description of attunement, I gave the steadfast love of the Lord as a strong presence that says you are safe to express. Now the containment says, but I'm gonna help you understand that expressing your anger in this particular way will be harmful. So I'm gonna pull you in, but yet you can still feel.

Emily Baker [00:26:14]:

It's a beautiful balance of a strong presence. But so often, our caregivers, mother or father, were not comfortable with our little raw emotions. And so we I think the I mean, the feeling is it's shameful to feel.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:32]:

Mhmm. Right? It's not strong. It's weakness.

Ryan Baker [00:26:37]:

And I have a story. I I mean, I don't know if all my childhood stories matter, but, again, I did there with my brother, and she does not listen to podcasts. So not only not ours, but probably no offense on this one. So I think we're fine. And I and I actually talked to her about this, so I think it would be okay. But there was a there was a story she would tell in the last, say, five years that would come up. It felt like at least three to four or five, like, enough times. We'd be sitting at dinner, everyone's finishing at her in her house, and then somehow we're sitting around and she tells the story of Ryan when you were three or four.

Ryan Baker [00:27:13]:

I don't remember what age or what was going on. You were mad at me, and you hit me in the leg. And then she gets this look on her face, and she says, and it hurt. And I remember the first time she told her, I felt shame. Like, holy. What a jerk. I would've you know? By the time the fifth one came around, I finally had said I'd done enough work to go, mom. I'm pretty sure that that three year old was doing a very normal behavior.

Ryan Baker [00:27:41]:

Your response doesn't seem very healthy. Mhmm. To which she's like, you're probably right. You know? And she kinda like, oh, but I what does that three or four year old need? Like, you they need the adult to get on their level. And there may be a punishment. We're not talking about that. We're saying, but still, what's going on for you? Like, why are you upset? What? Because most likely, that three or four year old version of, you know, myself would be, I need attention. I I need someone to care.

Ryan Baker [00:28:08]:

You know? I'm feeling something. And it's interesting because I would say I would have told you, oh, I got to express my emotions in my childhood. Probably, I was expressing large emotions to get attention. Whereas had she had attunement and containment, I may have had normalized or healthy emotions where I could process them because parents coregulate. Right? She would help me to stay regulated so that I could process my emotions. So, that might be an example of, where that container was not healthy for me personally.

Heather Creekmore [00:28:44]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yes. We talked about it. Let's go back to attachment though for a second. Because there's data out there that shows, like, anxious attachment, can make you more prone to binge eating, bulimia, avoidant attachment, can lead to anorexic, restriction tendencies.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:05]:

You know, basically that avoidant attachment you're starved for you're emotionally starved, and so then that comes out as, like, physical starvation. Can you kinda just take us through, like, what what are these different attachment theories? And, you know, I don't I don't know that there's a quick diagnostics. Right? But, like, how could we know how it's if we're securely attached or avoidant or anxious?

Emily Baker [00:29:30]:

Well, I don't know if this is fully gonna answer your question right at first, but I do have, like, a modern story that I watched play out. This was particularly in our family this past weekend. Wildfires came raging into our our town, and we were truly in danger. We had to evacuate. We really thought we were gonna lose our home. Many of our neighbors I mean, we're coming out of a pretty traumatic weekend. I watched Ryan, in the midst of it all, really wanting food, and I watched myself not eating. So I was just knowing we were gonna record this podcast, I was like, this is interesting to me.

Emily Baker [00:30:09]:

We were in high stress, high trauma. And, you heard Ryan tell the example of his mom saying, wait. You didn't tell me you were leaving town so I could be anxious for you. So do you get a sense of what his attachment was? Anxious attachment, and he is mothered by food. He feels comforted when he can know I've got food around me. If I need it, it's here. My attachment's a lot more of an avoidant. It's it was irregular.

Emily Baker [00:30:38]:

It was not predictable. I needed the arrows of care were 100% going in the other direction in my in my family of origin. So I I learned early to care for others, and so that left me with that restriction. I don't need I don't need I I in fact, order and cleanliness and routine mother me. So I needed to get my head around what was happening. Mhmm. And once I could figure out, like, what's it gonna be like if we lose our home? I had to I had to I skipped dinner when they all went to skipped dinner home and held our dog not home. We were we were displaced in a in a building downtown, but I was holding my dog for an hour thinking, okay, what's it gonna be like? So what mothered me was the idea of order and routine.

Emily Baker [00:31:21]:

What mothered Ryan was food. So I just think we have to think through, like, what mothers us in these moments of crisis that's gonna kinda give you an more of an awareness of what attachment was like.

Ryan Baker [00:31:31]:

Wow. Yeah. And I I'm not an expert on attachment. I do wanna say, as it's become more popular going back to some of the original literature. So they're secure and insecure, and you ask how do we know. Right? And, you'll you'll hear sort of like it's it's not a %. It's did they get it right 50% of the time? Mhmm. But but when you hear of an anxious attachment, that's actually synonymous with insecure attachment.

Heather Creekmore [00:31:57]:

Mhmm.

Ryan Baker [00:31:57]:

So all of insecure attachments are a type of anxious attachment primarily because the child has anxiety in these attachment styles. And then you have ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized. And so it can be kind of confusing, but the most important, I think, category just was it in the realm of insecure? That's the that's your landing place first. And the the advice I remember Adam Young giving on his podcast was, again, how are they today? You know, if your parents are still alive or if your parent isn't alive, but you know in your adult years. Now again, people change. There can be, you know, someone comes to the Lord or they have a major growth, but you typically can tell in from some of the data of adulthood, what was it probably like using your imagination as a child if you don't already know. And, again, ambivalent is where the the parent, are inconsistent, And that creates one form of response. Right? Like, if I'm not sure, then I may I may always go wanting something.

Ryan Baker [00:33:07]:

I may keep that hope alive, and I could see why that could lead to, binging. Like, I really want this. The avoidant is is, like, I don't expect anything here. I'm gonna take care of myself, and I could see why that could lead to the restrictive tendencies that you're mentioning there. So, but that's just sort of a quick flyover of attachment. I think that it's so important because it's important to just when we start to understand trauma, it's sort of you can have a little bit more kindness to yourself. Like, oh, I didn't just choose this at 18 or 14 or 25 or 32. Like, these wounds were given like, I received these wounds, and a lot of your tendencies, and this is where it gets radical, we wanna sometimes bless them before we curse them.

Ryan Baker [00:34:03]:

That may be confusing, and I'll I'll stop talking.

Heather Creekmore [00:34:05]:

No. No. No. Say more about that, Ryan. You can't just tease that.

Ryan Baker [00:34:09]:

Well, in the in the evangelical world, we're taught you find the same pattern and you put it to death. You you know? My god, you get rid of this. And that's fair. But what we aren't told well, or what most of us also think we're supposed to do is put to death, like, that entire part or that entire proclivity when reality is there's, like, collateral damage if you do that. Like, we don't wanna kill desire just to get rid of what desire led to.

Heather Creekmore [00:34:40]:

Mhmm.

Ryan Baker [00:34:41]:

And so when you bless it, you might say, look. When I was seven, food really helped me. Mhmm. You know? I'm buying myself at home. You know? Mom's not there. And you know what? It it was sort of there for me. A lot of people use shame right there. Mhmm.

Ryan Baker [00:34:56]:

And they begin to shame themselves. And I would say, let's start with that makes total sense that I needed that. And if you can start in that way with some compassion, which your own you'll feel a lot of listeners will probably go, I would never give myself that kind of compassion. If that thought occurs to you, it's it's because we're living out of a shame cycle. Mhmm. And so to begin with, like, I can imagine Jesus going, I get it. Of course. That doesn't mean we're blessing the behavior now.

Ryan Baker [00:35:26]:

Like, let's keep doing it, but let's also not, like, take out a knife and start carving out our own, carving out our own, you know, behaviors before we understand them and can even understand why they were there first.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:39]:

Yeah. That's really, really good, Ryan, because I I feel like even in my own journey. Right? So my first book came out almost ten years ago now. Right? And that was my story. And I really do feel like the turning point for me was God convicting me of the sin of body image idolatry. But also, right, I think the work I've done the last seven, eight years and probably reflected in the way I've been writing the last several years is also the understanding of, like, wow. Like, of course, I'm someone who had to be in control because that's why I felt safe. And, of course, like, I had to keep these eating disorder patterns because that's how I felt safe.

Heather Creekmore [00:36:22]:

That's how I know I'd be accepted. That's what love meant in my family of origin was looking a certain way. Right? And so being able to see and name all of it and and not oversimplify with, you had a sin problem, just get rid of the sin and you'll be you know? So I I really appreciate I appreciate you pointing that out. So, like, when this this insecure attachment right? Like, I don't I don't know if it's fair to be like, well, if you were insecurely attached, now you have insecurity. And if you're secure securely attached, you don't have insecurity. I think that's probably way too broad of a stroke. But I think a lot of us have struggled with, like, body image appearance issues. Right? We would safely say we are insecure.

Heather Creekmore [00:37:07]:

We have some insecurities. Right? Like, I don't I don't know. Like, how how does that relate? Is there something we missed with the way that relates to attachment? Or, like, what what are your thoughts?

Ryan Baker [00:37:19]:

Well, I wanna do I'll start on this, and then I I think Emily has some good things to say on on this as well. You know, the word insecurity is a is a pejorative. Like, we like, you're insecure. It's never positive. We don't say, hey, guys. I mean, we kinda use it as a as a again, a shaming tool. But the root of that is do you feel safe? Mhmm. Right? Do you feel safe? And, of course, we aren't talking necessarily physically safe.

Ryan Baker [00:37:43]:

But in your space, in your family of origin, for example, did you feel seen and cared? The the eyes light up when you walked in. And when you don't have that, what you end up having to do through because of, again, thinking all the way back to the still face study, is you fill in the gaps. I must be ugly. I must be undesirable. I must not be enough. And so shame is constantly trying to convince you if you do something, this environment will accept you. And that's that's something we're born with, but so to your point, Heather, we're all in some sense insecurely. Right? Like, we're not born in the Garden of Eden.

Ryan Baker [00:38:24]:

Mhmm. However, in healthy families, I think you find studies that really reveal an examples, where when the person the child is delighted in, they feel safe. They may not have the same insecurities that other children have, and that will help them especially if the parents can walk that way all the way through adolescence and into early adulthood, then they can be secure even in a world that is constantly trying to tell them they're not enough. And so, Emily, I was gonna see if you wanted to add to that about safety.

Emily Baker [00:39:00]:

I think that it's just so important to always come back to what it is to be trauma informed. And I I I said this to a client the other day, and it just you could see that her eyes just, like, lighting up. If you think about just a scenario of two little boys coming to third grade, one woke up to a mother delighting in him, serving him breakfast. There was calm. There was clean clothing. He got to school. His brain is fully regulated. Blood is flowing into his prefrontal cortex, and he's ready to learn.

Emily Baker [00:39:31]:

Another little boy, woke up on his own. Mom was either not there or distracted or angry. There was disruption. There was chaos. There was you can name it. His little body, the blood flow is in his amygdala, his fire alarm that says, am I safe? He's he's just trying to survive. The next layer up, it's, am I safe, am I loved? Like, do I belong here, am I secure, do I have that strong adult in the room? And then the final one is can I learn? So am I safe, am I loved, can I learn?

Ryan Baker [00:40:08]:

Will you use language around what you're touching on your head because of the listeners that aren't watching?

Emily Baker [00:40:13]:

That's true. I'm talking in, like, in my visual. I'm touching the back of my head for the amygdala, the fire alarm. If all of your blood flow is keeping you alive and safe, there's no blood flow to the prefrontal cortex that gives you the ability to reason, learn, be creative. The the center part of the brain is, am I loved? Do I belong? Which in junior high and middle school, most of us, that's firing all the time. Do I belong? Like like, we're on high alert to fit in and not be cast out. That's a real thing. And so we have to think through the trauma brain of now the prefrontal cortex, that forehead portion of the brain.

Emily Baker [00:40:55]:

That's the grand central station. If that's not online, we have to get we have to break through the shame, which, you know, this is going back to what Ryan said about blessing. We wanna bless the little children that were in trauma and how they coped and how they got to regulation. Mhmm. Whether it was dissociation or, you know, they they figured out a way. But, when a teacher who welcomes those two little boys can stoop down and delight in that little boy and regulate his body and say, you are welcome here. I love you. I'm so glad you got here.

Emily Baker [00:41:33]:

How can I meet your needs? That little brain and that little body is going to regulate. And so if we can just have that kind of compassion Mhmm. Towards our own bodies like we do just hearing because we all have that, like, when we hear about little boys going to school, we all go, oh. Right? Yeah. Can we have that same kindness and compassion towards our younger selves to say, of course, I turned to whatever behavior to feel safe? Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Baker [00:42:02]:

Out of complexity. Someone someone's gonna be listening going, oh, well, my mom did make me breakfast and drove me to school, and I felt you know? And I would have that clean clothes on. In fact, I was this little girl that shined in my class, and and I would the complexity would be but do you feel safe if you knew it was all to make mom feel special? It was all to be mom's, trophy. So I'm making good grades because mom's proud. When I come home with an a plus on my spelling test, that's when her lies light up. So that's a complexity that's still an unsafe environment, but you would never be able to name that. Yeah. Because everyone would say, are you crazy? Your parents are still married, and and you had all this good stuff.

Ryan Baker [00:42:51]:

Right. But I did not have my own passions. I didn't have my own emotions.

Heather Creekmore [00:42:56]:

Yeah. I

Ryan Baker [00:42:56]:

was having to actually do this stuff for mom.

Emily Baker [00:43:00]:

That's such an important complexity to bring up because I would say the majority of our clients are in that category, the price of privilege, the the category of, on the surface, everything looked great, so, therefore, I must be crazy for feeling the ways I'm feeling.

Heather Creekmore [00:43:15]:

Right.

Emily Baker [00:43:16]:

So you have to go into that deeper layer of, but what was mom or what was dad communicating to me? And, you know, it it does get pretty complex there, but it's an important one to to to at least be have it as a category.

Heather Creekmore [00:43:31]:

Yeah. Okay. So here here's my story. This will maybe exemplify what you said, Emily. You were talking about going to school, and so that took me back to my going to school experience. And then Ryan added the layer that maybe this is gonna bring it all together. So for me, it was not knowing if mom was going to approve of how I looked before I went out the door. Mhmm.

Heather Creekmore [00:43:54]:

So I had to pass inspection. Now no one in my family would have ever said that. Right? But I knew every day, I mean, probably from middle school on, that if I wasn't and we I did a lot. I don't iron at all now, but I don't know. For some reason, I was ironing a lot back then. If I wasn't ironed correctly, like, if things weren't wrinkle free, and if this is the nineteen eighties, you know, my bangs, we don't even have bangs, do we? I'm like, like, we're done with bangs.

Ryan Baker [00:44:24]:

I certainly don't.

Heather Creekmore [00:44:25]:

You certainly don't have bangs. But it was like my bangs had to be right, my hair had to be right, and my clothes had to be wrinkle free. I had to look a certain way before I could get out the door. And I knew if I didn't look a certain way, I was gonna have to go back and I was gonna have to re iron or redo my hair, or I was if if time was short, I was just gonna get in trouble for lack of a better way to say it. Right? Because I was not leaving looking how I should look. And I think you're the one that said assembly, but to get that smile, to feel that approval, it add to all come together for me every morning. Yeah. And if it did not come together, it would there I was not approved of.

Heather Creekmore [00:45:11]:

And even so my husband and I met at 30. And so we're 30 years old driving to my parents' house. He had met my family before, but we're this is my first time I'm taking him home. We're engaged, I think. And I fussed with my hair and makeup for about a half an hour of this hour long trip. And he's like, what is your deal? Like, you don't fuck this. I'm not sure we're gonna see me. You're gonna see your family.

Heather Creekmore [00:45:35]:

What are you doing? And I wasn't able to articulate it. But now I recognize like, oh, no. Like, it's it for years, decades. I mean, I would say even until, like, recently, it was, I need mom to smile and almost do the god, you know, well done my good and faithful servants. I need her countenance to shine upon me when I walk in the door to know that I am approved of and good. And if I don't get that, it's oxygen that's gone. Right? The oxygen supply is gone. Okay.

Heather Creekmore [00:46:05]:

Emergency mode must go, like, must find that somewhere. Right? So yeah. There's my apologies. Go ahead. Right?

Ryan Baker [00:46:13]:

And you would go out of your house having received that approval. So let's say it was the good day you're what was it like for you when you did receive it? How long did that last? What was it like transitioning into the school building?

Heather Creekmore [00:46:26]:

I don't remember. But but again, I fit the type of your overachiever. Right? So I did get straight a's and, you know, did all the things, was in all the extracurriculars. I I think trying to prove something, of course. Right? But I did not get applauded even though those other achievements were important to me, and I I'm sure I got some applause for them. The applause was for looking a certain way. That was what was most important. And I noticed when I got to work in my twenties, it was this very strange feeling of, like, I've got something now that mom can't touch.

Heather Creekmore [00:47:09]:

Yeah. She can't tell me how to do my job. She has no input here. This is mine, and I'm gonna make something of it because it's mine. And it's it's a weird thing to say out loud, but I was very aware of that. Like, finally, I've got something I own. This is me. And then there's this other part of me that mom had too much influence on and that, you know, remained for decades, I think, until I did this work.

Heather Creekmore [00:47:37]:

Yeah. Well, that's a lot about me.

Emily Baker [00:47:40]:

Well, that's

Ryan Baker [00:47:41]:

Oh, that's really good. That's that's what we're doing.

Emily Baker [00:47:43]:

That's really important to name because for you to feel that freedom was your first alert that there was something off in the amount of care for her, that you were you were an extension of her. So there's something all there that's to be explored. But as you were talking, I do say I hear such the distinction of, like, even in the Romans eight, the law of sin and death. Like, this just you get it right or you're you're not leaving this house versus the freedom, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus to set you free. Yeah. So that's the contrast of being free from that. But I think what Ryan was hinting at, just because I know him well, how did it make you feel when you did succeed? We have to name the, this is Dan Allender language, the arousal structure around getting it right. And that's why it's hard to break it.

Emily Baker [00:48:34]:

Because if we get good at what we had to get good at, we don't want that to be something like we have to name, oh, wow. It really actually felt amazing to get it right, have her approval, go to school feeling like I'm on top of the world. Right. Otherwise I mean, like, that's the fuel. Yeah.

Ryan Baker [00:48:54]:

I would say I'm so sorry, Heather. No problem. I would throw it in. I'd sprinkle in The grades must have been an extension because work was your place of hiding. So you weren't hiding at school. Like Mhmm. You knew that school was also observable. Right? We have to bring home assignments and tests and scores.

Ryan Baker [00:49:15]:

And I'm curious. And, again, I'm not asking you to answer this here, but what comes to my mind would be, where else did secrets exist? Mhmm. If it was a no. I'm not saying this just to you, but my guess is it doesn't just start at work at twenty. Mhmm. We probably have to find ways to have our own world Mhmm. Away from mom.

Heather Creekmore [00:49:37]:

Yeah. Yeah. I had a friend who had

Emily Baker [00:49:39]:

a mom very similar to how you're describing, and she hid candy in her beanbag.

Heather Creekmore [00:49:43]:

Mhmm.

Emily Baker [00:49:43]:

That was very comforting to her because not only could she have the candy, but she was getting away with something that mom didn't know about. And there's that's a two part freedom.

Heather Creekmore [00:49:53]:

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, I I I think for me, it probably looked like dating tendencies older in my you know, through my twenties. Like, praise God, there was no find my. That would have not been good for me. Or maybe it would

Ryan Baker [00:50:10]:

have been good for me.

Heather Creekmore [00:50:11]:

I don't know.

Ryan Baker [00:50:12]:

53 5

Heather Creekmore [00:50:14]:

3 60. Oh, I was so thankful that that did not exist. But yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I wanna tie this up. And there's no way to tie this up. That's a really poor way to say it.

Heather Creekmore [00:50:28]:

Let's say someone was listening and they're like, woah. I never really thought about the fact that maybe I do have some stuff. Maybe there's things that happened with mom that were not so helpful. Where can she start? Like, is there hope? Is she just gonna have to be awkward around her mother forever? She thinks about these things secretly and and tries to have a normal relationship with her. Like, what what do we do with all this? Well Are

Emily Baker [00:50:56]:

we both just not

Ryan Baker [00:50:58]:

There's two questions. The two questions are this is the whole, you know k. What is their hope? Head nod. Mhmm. Will it be awkward around mom? Head nod. In other words, when we differentiate, that's the psychological language. In the Bible, Jesus says that when you walk with him and you're his disciple, you may not get along great with mom and dad. I'm not saying that's okay, but What I'm saying is your first call is to be true to who god made you to be in the journey of your own healing from which actual healing can be offered to mom.

Ryan Baker [00:51:37]:

It's not healthy. But is there hope? And I'll I'll turn this back over to Dylan. I'm gonna say yes. That's why we love story work. There's a lot of avenues. We see it. I mean, that's why we do what we do. We see it with the clients every single day.

Ryan Baker [00:51:52]:

And I we have other resources. The Allender Center is a great resource. I've there's all sorts of, therapists and counselors and coaches on their website, but we certainly are open to seeing people. But the point and it doesn't have to be official either. Right? You can I just I just wanna say this, though? If you just read the books and listen to the podcast, that's not enough. That's what I did. I did that until we went to story workshop. And at story workshop, I wrote my first story.

Ryan Baker [00:52:23]:

It felt like I wrote it with my nondominant hand, so to speak. It was just so bad. And I don't mean that literally. It was typed, but you know what I mean. Like, just I went in and the and my the, the facilitator said, Ryan, you're at 30,000 feet. And, ironically, it was Adam Young's wife that was also in my group at the time, as a co facilitator. And they were just both very tender and helped me to readdress that particular story and then and then to even continue on in the work. But I realized as a pastor, I love theory, but I didn't wanna get into the actual doing of things.

Ryan Baker [00:53:01]:

You You know, those who can do, those who can't teach. I don't really mean that fully. I love both. But I would just say if you're listening to this podcast and you think, man, I would love to do something in this arena, I would say do more than listen to podcasts and read books.

Heather Creekmore [00:53:16]:

Yeah. That's good.

Emily Baker [00:53:18]:

Yeah. I would just, add that it's a it's a mirror to see your own face. To see your own story, you cannot. We've all been there. Every story coach I know had to do the work first because we cannot see our own story. So find a mirror. Find a friend, a spouse, a pastor, someone that when you tell them stories, you feel felt. That's gonna be your first like, if you don't wanna do the actual, I wanna go find a story coach and pay the money and do the story group or individual work, that's fine.

Emily Baker [00:53:54]:

But I bet I we pray, and we pray that we're leaving behind for our children's generation that our culture will shift and people will hold stories the way that they used to and that trauma care will be a part of our culture. It's not right now. We impair. We, you know, we what do we we just do all kinds of coping mechanisms to not hold each other's stories. But I think we could all think of a friend that even if it's over Marco Polo, find someone to say, I wanna talk through some things that are coming up for me. Yeah. Writing is another one. Very therapeutic.

Emily Baker [00:54:29]:

Start writing your stories

Heather Creekmore [00:54:31]:

Yeah.

Emily Baker [00:54:31]:

And see what falls out of your body. And it needs to be a particular story, not maybe the overarching 5,000 feet, but Yeah. When to one. And I know this is a particular episode about mother, but mother may not have buffered father's comments. It may be that dads are coming up for your listeners as you think about, you know, how you are interacting with your childhood and where you were wired. We were wired in our families of origin, and that's what we wanna look into. We just can't do it alone. We've gotta do it from here.

Heather Creekmore [00:55:05]:

Yeah. That's so good. And it's it's funny you said about writing it. Like, we'd walk people through my 40 workbook. And one brave woman last session was like, you know, something weird happened. I decided I should write in my book this time, and it was much more effective. And I was like, oh, I didn't even think to, like, tell y'all. You have to write it out.

Heather Creekmore [00:55:24]:

Like, you because it's just like you said, story work or body image work, like, whatever work you're doing, you can't so what you said, Ryan, you can't just do it in your head. You're not actually doing anything if you're just thinking about it. Like, you have to get it out there. Being in community, talking with someone, sharing this, like, that's when the healing happens. So I really appreciate you pointing that out. And you guys, I appreciate you both. Like, this was such a helpful conversation. Oh, you handle these issues with tender care and, you know, just scriptural truth.

Heather Creekmore [00:56:01]:

So I really appreciate you guys being on the show today. Will you tell everyone, Ryan, you hinted that maybe you can take, clients even if they're not in Oklahoma? Do you do

Emily Baker [00:56:10]:

virtual work? Or Most

Ryan Baker [00:56:11]:

of our clients are virtual.

Heather Creekmore [00:56:13]:

Okay. So tell us tell us how we connect with you or how how we find you.

Ryan Baker [00:56:17]:

Www.storymattersinitiative.com. Story matters, the word initiative. That's a crazy word. Dotcom. And then Emily and I are on there. We do the consultation for just to kinda see if that would work. That's where you find us. But, again, I wanna just say you had doctor Allender.

Ryan Baker [00:56:35]:

I love I'm I'm a facilitator there. Look at their stuff, look at their story workshops, their spiritual abuse workshops, their NFTC. So there's a lot of avenues that one can take, but we certainly are taking clients and do groups ourself.

Heather Creekmore [00:56:51]:

Great. And you have a podcast too. Emily, tell us where to find that.

Emily Baker [00:56:55]:

Yeah. It's on all the podcast domains. It's story matters podcast, and we just started it last September, just this, you know, September of twenty four. And, really, we just decided to record conversations that we have as a couple raising teenagers and young men and doing this work. And kind of honestly, our passion is seeing the church become more narrative focused and trauma focused, because we believe that ultimate healing comes from God's word and his gospel and his his trinity, but we have separated out body and and spirit so much that we're trying to help the church see this as sanctification work. This is not Yeah. Psychological. Yeah.

Emily Baker [00:57:44]:

So we just start recording conversations, and it's, a way that we wanted to also bless our clients. We don't want their hour or hour and a half to be us talking. We want it to be them getting the process, but we have a lot we wanna say, oh, this would be helpful. So we created that podcast as a way of kind of giving them some content.

Heather Creekmore [00:58:02]:

Love it. Love it. Well, thank you all so much again for being on the show today. And I'll make sure that there's links in the show notes to your podcast and your website. So people can connect with you if they're ready to dig deep. So thanks again. And thank you for watching or listening today. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living.

Heather Creekmore [00:58:20]:

Bye bye.