Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick

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  Episode 408: SOUL CARE SUMMER - Brad Jersak, "The God Who Never Looks Away" 20.07.2026 43min

  As part of our Soul Care Summer, we're revisiting a conversation that's stayed with many listeners. Somewhere along the way, many of us picked up the idea that God can only look at us through gritted teeth, or worse, has to look away. Brad Jersak joins Michael to gently dismantle that picture, showing that the ache of feeling far from God was never God's doing. The conversation moves through a recovering addict's encounter with pure light, Cornelius in the book of Acts, and a fresh reading of...
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  Episode 407: SOUL CARE SUMMER - Curt Thompson, "The Look That Sees You" 13.07.2026 30min

  Michael continues his conversation with Dr. Curt Thompson, picking up where last week left off. There's a tender ache running underneath the neuroscience here — the ten-year-old boy on a summer evening, looking for permission to just be a kid, and the mother who couldn't see it. Most of us carry some version of that missed look, and Curt names how the body remembers what the mind can't always explain. From there, the conversation moves into the architecture behind that ache: the domains of co...
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  Episode 406: SOUL CARE SUMMER - Curt Thompson, "You are Dirt and Breath" 06.07.2026 39min

  You were made for beauty and goodness. You feel that, even on the hardest days. What neuroscience is beginning to show us is that this longing isn't incidental. It's written into the architecture of how you were made. In this conversation, psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson opens up the world of interpersonal neurobiology and what it has to do with the soul, how the mind is not the brain but something that emerges between bodies and relationships, how 80 to 85 percent of a newborn's neural...
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  Episode 405: SOUL CARE SUMMER - Chuck DeGroat, "The Nine Faces of Narcissism" 29.06.2026 47min

  Most people picture narcissism as loud, obvious, and easy to spot. The research says otherwise — and so does the Enneagram. In this second conversation with Chuck DeGroat, Michael and Chuck work through all nine Enneagram types and the unique way narcissism hides inside each one: the nine's quiet, invisible anger; the two's helpfulness that quietly demands to be needed; the three's stage self that performs even in the counseling room; the seven's flight from anything that feels like limitatio...
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  Episode 404: Brian Zahnd, "Why Heaven Has Gone Missing from the Church" 24.06.2026 42min

  There are at least three wrong ways to write about heaven, and Brian Zahnd spent his new book carefully avoiding all of them — too sentimental, too sensational, too escapist to bother caring about the world right in front of us. In this conversation, Brian and Michael talk about why heaven isn't a far-off destination but a realm woven through the space between every atom of this one, and why love and wonder might be the most reliable hints we get of its nearness. Brian shares the mystical mom...
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  Episode 403: SOUL CARE SUMMER - Sheila Wray Gregoire, "The Great Sex Rescue" 15.06.2026 45min

  For decades, the church's answer to struggling marriages has been clear: pray more, submit more, give him what he needs. Sheila Wray Gregoire's research asked a different question: What if the advice itself is the problem? Drawing on a survey of 20,000 women, the largest ever done on Christian women's marital and sexual satisfaction, Sheila lays out what the data actually shows: a stark gap between men's and women's experiences, the quiet damage done by teaching women that sex is only his nee...
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  Episode 402: SOUL CARE SUMMER - Aundi Kolber, "Try Softer, Part 2" 08.06.2026 32min

  We can know we are loved and still not be able to let it in. The gap between believing something and feeling it in the body is not a faith problem — it's a physiological one. In this second conversation with Aundi Kolber, Michael and Julianne press deeper into what it actually takes to change: why being loved is not just a comfort but a biological prerequisite for growth, why asking someone to change before they feel safe is, in Aundi's word, cruel, and what it means to come home to yourself ...
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  Episode 401: SOUL CARE SUMMER - Aundi Kolber, "Try Softer, Part 1" 01.06.2026 33min

  Most of us were taught, somewhere along the way, that the answer to pain is to push through it. Try harder. White-knuckle it. And for a long time, that worked — until it didn't. Aundi Kolber wrote Try Softer as a love letter to her younger self, and in this conversation with Michael and Julianne Cusick, she unpacks what it actually means to pay compassionate attention to your own experience — not as self-indulgence, but as the very thing Jesus modeled in taking on a body. They explore why our...
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  Episode 400 - Dr. Gary Chapman, "The Love Language That Matters Most" 25.05.2026 26min

  Most people who know the five love languages have tried speaking their partner's language — and wondered why it still isn't working. The problem usually isn't the language. It's something underneath it. Dr. Gary Chapman returns with new research showing how personality, empathy, and the subtle dialects within each love language determine whether love actually lands. In this conversation, he and Michael explore why speaking someone's love language can backfire if it runs against their personal...
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  Episode 399 - Ken Shigematsu, "How To Become Yourself" 18.05.2026 52min

  Shame doesn't only live in the dark corners of a broken life. It lives just as quietly in the person everyone else envies — the one who has achieved everything and still wakes up feeling like it isn't enough. Ken Shigematsu grew up moving between Japan, England, and Canada, carrying the weight of a shame-and-honor culture that most Western theology never addresses. In this conversation, he and Michael explore why deep grace is different from knowing grace is true, what it means to grow our ca...
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  Episode 398 - Michael John Cusick, "The Temptation of Jesus and Your Attachment" 11.05.2026 34min

  Most people assume temptation is about weakness or willpower. But the wilderness story in Matthew 4 reveals something far older — evil moves first against the places where we have not been seen, soothed, safe, and secure. In this conversation, Michael and AJ Denson walk slowly through the baptism and temptation of Jesus, presenting them as a portrait of attachment under siege. They explore how the devil's opening accusation — if you are the Son of God — lands precisely where God's voice had j...
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  Episode 397 - Geoff Holsclaw, "Your Attachment Style Shapes How You See God" 04.05.2026 1t 3min

  Most people assume their distance from God is a faith problem. It may be something older — a pattern in the nervous system, learned long before you had words for it, that quietly shapes how close you let God come. Dr. Geoff Holsclaw and his wife Cyd spent years watching people plateau spiritually and realized the stall wasn't theological — it was relational. This particular conversation with Michael John Cusick traces how our earliest attachment wounds create an image of God in our own likene...
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  Episode 396 - Liz Hall, "Find Meaning In Suffering" 27.04.2026 1t 1min

  Dr. Liz Hall is a psychologist and professor at Biola who, at 45, was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer — and discovered that her training had barely prepared her for it. She joins Michael to talk about her book When the Journey Hurts, co-written with theologians Kelly Kapic and Jason McMartin, and what a decade of research and lived suffering taught her about meaning, faith, and staying human in the hard middle. They talk about why the degree to which something threatens our worldview i...
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  Episode 395 - Jay Stringer, "How Our Deepest Longings Shape Love, Healing, and Transformation" 20.04.2026 1t 8min

  Welcome back to the Restoring the Soul podcast with Michael John Cusick. In this episode, Michael sits down with licensed therapist, author, and researcher Jay Stringer for a deep and vulnerable conversation exploring the core desires that shape our lives. Together, they unpack themes from Jay Stringer’s latest book, Desire: The Longings Inside of Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow. Over the course of their dialogue, Michael and Jay examine the five core desires: wholeness,...
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  Episode 394 - Brian Lee, "From Broken to Beloved: A Journey through Spiritual Healing" 13.04.2026 52min

  Welcome to another episode of "Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick." Today, Michael is joined by Brian Lee, founder and director of Broken to Beloved, a ministry dedicated to providing practical resources for recovery from and safeguarding against spiritual abuse. In this heartfelt conversation, Brian shares his personal journey through repeated experiences of spiritual abuse and how these challenges birthed a passion for helping others reclaim their belovedness. Michael and Bri...
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  Episode 393 - Safe and Secure: Attachment Styles, Boundaries, and Spiritual Healing 06.04.2026 39min

  Welcome back to Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. In this episode, Michael John Cusick and AJ Denson continue their exploration of the “four S’s” of attachment—seen, soothed, safe, and secure—focusing today on the final S: secure. Together, they dive into the meaning of secure attachment, both psychologically and spiritually, and how it’s reflected in our relationships with God and others. Drawing on personal experiences, biblical narratives, and insights from attachment theory, Mi...
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  Episode 392 - Michael John Cusick, "Understand Safety and Boundaries in Attachment Relationships" 30.03.2026 31min

  Welcome to the Restoring the Soul podcast with Michael John Cusick. In today's episode, Michael and A.J. Denson continue their deep dive into the four S's of attachment: Seen, Soothed, Safe, and Secure. Drawing from the work of Dr. Dan Siegel and integrating insights from neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual formation, they explore how our early relationships shape not only our emotional lives but also our connection with God. This conversation unpacks the vital importance of safety ...
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  Episode 391 - Ericka Anderson, "Freely Sober: Exploring Christian Perspectives on Alcohol" 23.03.2026 30min

  On this episode of Restoring the Soul, we’re joined by Ericka Anderson, author of Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith. Together, Michael and Ericka open up a thoughtful and grace-filled conversation about the complexities of alcohol use among Christians and the personal journey of overcoming dependence. Ericka Anderson shares candidly about her own struggles with alcohol, the internal battles that come with trying to moderate or quit drinking, and the lived realities of...
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  Episode 390 - Mark Batterson, "Gradually Then Suddenly" 16.03.2026 36min

  Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. In this conversation, Michael sits down with Mark Batterson, the celebrated pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., and multi-time New York Times bestselling author. Together, they dive deep into the inspiration and lessons behind Mark’s latest book, "Gradually Then Suddenly: How to Dream Bigger, Decide Better, and Leave a Lasting Legacy." Drawing from three decades of ministry, Mark Batterson shares s...
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  Episode 389 - Jay Stringer, "The Civil War of Desire: Exploring Longings, Growth, and Healing" 09.03.2026 44min

  Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. Today, Michael is joined by author and therapist Jay Stringer for a deep and vulnerable conversation about his newest book, "Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow." Together, they explore the civil war of desire that shapes our lives—how our deepest longings birth both our greatest joys and our most profound heartaches. Jay Stringer shares how his personal and professional ex...