The Art of Relationships: What Are Your Emotions Saying To You?

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What Are Your Emotions Saying To You?

Chris Grace: Well, it’s good to back with another podcast. One of the things we’ve been talking about recently is with a guest Kim Miller and some of the material she’s written in her book, Boundaries for Your Soul. Kim, welcome back to our podcast.

Kim Miller: Thanks so much, Chris and Tim.

Chris Grace: Good to have you here.

Tim Muehlhoff: Thank you, and free to switch that up every once in a while, Tim and Chris.

Chris Grace: Our guest Kim Miller, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Masters in Theology. She’s got a Master’s degree from Regent, which is, if many of you all know, is in Vancouver. She was given an award to an outstanding woman there, Master’s degree in Clinical Psych from some other school that has letters APU. I don’t know what that stands for.

Kim Miller: Its a Biblical School in California.

Chris Grace: Also, Kim, one of the cool things, of course, is just your work, and this your, you have a great family history. Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt are your parents, and we had them here on our podcast we really enjoyed talking with them. They created Imago Therapy and best and New York Times bestselling authors of a book, Getting The Love You Want. We talked, Tim, with them even recently.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, it’s wonderful.

Chris Grace: Then, of course, your aunt June Hunt, teacher, broadcaster. She’s done so much in the area of biblical counseling.

Kim Miller: Biblical Counseling Keys, yeah.

Chris Grace: So Kim-

Tim Muehlhoff: The pressure’s on, Kim.

Kim Miller: Oh, thanks for that platform, I think.

Chris Grace: Not quite sure where you’re going to stack up in this whole thing.

Tim Muehlhoff: My dad is pretty good in arithmetic. What have you done? Yeah, I don’t know. Coupons? I don’t know.

Chris Grace: Kim, one of the things, in your book and by the way if you haven’t yet got it, for listeners out there, this Boundaries for Your Soul with Alison Cook. I remember being at a conference, Kim, with you. I don’t remember how long ago. Alison was there, and you guys were somewhere in the first chapter or two, and we were talking about where you were going and you picked a great co-author. I know that you guys loved doing this together and writing it. What’s been your favorite part about the book? What have you learned? Eventually, I want to talk a little about this idea of your spirit-led self. Start real quickly about your journey if you want, and then dive into that.

Kim Miller: Right. Well, Alison and I became friends in Boston. I was on staff with InterVarsity at Harvard and she was-

Chris Grace: That’s a school somewhere.

Kim Miller: Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but … I did not go there, but I did InterVarsity staff work at there, which is such a privilege. I know, Tim, your son is there, at the law school. I was so excited to be working with students, and I found that their struggles were more difficult than I really knew how to address. I started looking for methods for helping people who have difficult emotional concerns, like all of us do really. I found this method, it’s really a how-to for walking with the Spirit. Right? It starts with the idea that every one of us has a self within, sort of that calm, clear, compassionate, curious place deep within us. If you’re a believer and you’ve invited the Lord Jesus Christ to come live inside of you, then I would call that the Spirit-led self inside.

Then we all have these parts of our soul also, that sometimes can get in the way like clouds covering the sun. The goal is really to get in touch with the Spirit-led self inside so you can lead these parts of you like a conductor leading the different instruments in an orchestra so to speak, Chris. Getting in touch with the Holy Spirit within is the goal, and then leading the parts with love, you don’t have to be overwhelmed by your thoughts and feelings. You have the ability to lead them guided by the Spirit of God.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, that’s great.

Chris Grace: In that, when you, teach on this and write about it, tell us a little bit about what that has meant for you. Do you have any personal examples of how you’ve had to use this? You’re working with a lot of students in this. You kind of come up with this idea of, how do we get in touch with some of those? What are some things that our listeners can benefit from, that you’ve written in this book about, I want to do that, I just don’t know how? What are the steps I can take to get in touch with them?

Kim Miller: Sure. Well, an early experience that I had with this method was when I was in graduate school, and I was really struggling with grief because my parents had been divorced, Harville Hendrix is my stepfather. When I was little, my parents were divorced and I was a Christian from a young age. I had a lot of support around me and I was really doing fine. I had gone to Davidson College, got a Bachelors in Religion, was a missionary for a year in India, and then I went to Regent College to do theology with Eugene Peterson and J.I. Packer in Vancouver.

I was really loving being there, in Vancouver. I actually chose the school from the airplane because of the mountains on the water and how beautiful … I was like, “Okay, that’s where I’m going.” They had this class called ‘Theology On The Beach’ and I was like, “Okay, I think I’ll study that.” I was doing fine but all this time I was carrying this really strong feeling of grief. I didn’t know how to process my parents’ divorce.

I, one day I was studying with a friend named Joanne from New Zealand, and I said, “Joanne, do you ever feel like you have this knife stuck in your heart?” And she said, “No, I don’t.” I said, “Well, I do, and I don’t know what to do about it.” She said, “Kim, here, take this throw pillow.” She took a throw pillow from my couch and handed it to me, and she said, “Pretend this is a little part of you that’s carrying the grief from your parents’ divorce and see if you can care for this part of you.”

She didn’t know at that time that that method would become an evidence-based practice called Internal Families Systems Therapy, but what she was doing was, she was just teaching me to differentiate internally from this part of me that was carrying this grief so that I could care for it. We all know about Internal … Sorry, we all know about interpersonal differentiation right, that that’s an important not to be symbiotically enmeshed with your spouse. You need differentiation so that you can say, “Well, I understand that you want to go to the movies today, but I’d like to stay home.” That’s differentiation.

You can do that internally too. Instead of being overwhelmed by your grief, you can say to your grief, “I’m going to get some space from you and actually care for this part of me now so that it’s not overwhelming.” That actually really helped me a lot, that process of caring for the part of me that was carrying the grief. Then I began to do that more in spiritual direction, and then I learned it was actually a theory. I was like, “Oh, that’s what I’ve been doing, that’s what worked for me,” and so then I started teaching about it.

It helped me understand how I could be a Christian and really have the living God as a presence inside my life and also still have these different parts of me carrying all these different kinds of feelings. This method involves understanding that we have protective parts and we have exile parts that the protectors are protecting and, we also have a Spirit-led self within.

For example, 1 Corinthians 2 says, “For we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.” In Ephesians 1, Paul talks about that you’ve received a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance, and that he prays that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power, and in John, Jesus says, “Abide in me, and I will abide in you.” There’s just so many beautiful verses in the Bible that talk about the Holy Spirit coming to dwell in the life of the believer. The goal is really to just live from that Spirit-led self within and not be living every day from a part of yourself that’s really overtaken you.

Tim Muehlhoff: How did spiritual formation help? I think we come across a lot of believers who have the Holy Spirit, but it’s almost like a car battery that has a faulty connection. It’s just not firing as well as it could. Did you notice the car analogy, Chris?

Kim Miller: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: My wife will, literally, she’s falling over right now. I know nothing about cars, Kim. I don’t even know if that’s true. I don’t even know if cars have batteries. I think a lot of people have the Holy Spirit, but it’s the abiding part where their eyes start to gloss over like, “I don’t know what that means. Do I pray more? Do I go to church more?” How does spiritual formation, or direction help you click with that part?

Kim Miller: That is such a good point Tim because we could be at church, worshiping God or in a Bible study, or even trying to read the Bible on your own or pray, and you’re like, “Okay, I’m sitting here, I’m trying to do the right thing, right, but I’m just so mad at that person who cut me off, or I’m so anxious about my child not having a good marriage, or I don’t know how to pay the bills, or I have so much envy of my neighbor who has the better car than I do,” or whatever it is.

Tim Muehlhoff: That’s the wild animals Lewis talked about. He said in the morning those wild animals come rushing at you, and he said the job of a Christian is to push those animals back somehow.

Kim Miller: There you go, so the typical Christian answer is “Push them back, push them away.”

Chris Grace: Are you going to disagree with C.S. Lewis?

Kim Miller: Am I taking on Lewis? You told me to give it my very best here.

Tim Muehlhoff: You do. You go for it. Oh, my-

Kim Miller: I would invite … I mean, actually, Lewis probably meant push them back, so you that you can care for them. What about that?

Tim Muehlhoff: I love that.

Kim Miller: I feel better now.

Tim Muehlhoff: We’re going to go with that.

Kim Miller: I feel better now. I’m going to go with that method.

Also, I mean, another person I would love to have a dialogue with, in heaven, is Henri Nouwen because he talks about the false self. I would say, “Henri, what about calling it the part of you that is trying is really hard that isn’t quite walking with the Spirit?” The idea is to really welcome these thoughts instead of push them away. It’s very counterintuitive, okay? You’re in charge. You’re praising God, and you’re like, “I can’t stand my neighbor,” or whatever it is, and how about instead of saying, “Gosh, I’m so terrible for thinking that,” how about saying, “Thank you, protector part, thank you so much for working so hard for me to try to deal with that painful experience I had, would you be willing to get to know Jesus better right now?”

Tim Muehlhoff: That’s good.

Chris Grace: Kim, at that moment, another thing you write about is this idea that, at any moment, right, there’s a stubbornness to us because, at any moment, you say you could choose to walk with the Spirit or go your own way. It is like a moment to moment choice we oftentimes have to make. How do I train myself because I know what I want to feel. Sometimes feeling anger is a good thing, and feeling ticked at this person kind of almost-

Kim Miller: Some adrenalin you get from it.

Chris Grace: Yeah. It can feed itself, and so I know there are moments when I know which way to go, but I fight that, and you talked a little bit about that.

Kim Miller: Another thing to remember Chris, and this has helped me a lot, is that cortisol makes you fat. It really does. If I really want to fit into my jeans, it’s really important to work with the … You can feel free to edit that out too.

Chris Grace: No, that’s awesome.

Tim Muehlhoff: No, that’s great.

Chris Grace: Yeah, it is funny.

Kim Miller: You notice that adrenalin. You notice that Cortisol. You’re, like “Okay, I can tell I’m feeling reactive right now.” First thing to do is to stop and focus on that feeling and just be aware. Say, “Okay, I’m feeling reactive. I’m feeling really triggered right now.” Take a few minutes. Some people say count to 10. Peter Scazzero with this Emotionally Healthy Faith book series, that’s been really helpful because he says, twice a day, take two minutes to stop and check in with your feelings. John Townsend talks a lot about stopping and checking in with your feelings. When you’re feeling anxious, it’s the first thing to do.

First, just stop what you’re doing, take a moment, pretend you got to make a phone call or something and turn your attention to what’s going on inside of you, and then notice that feeling, notice where’s it’s manifesting somatically. God made us to hold our feeling in our bodies, so just notice, where is it? Is it in my neck? Is it in my shoulder? Is it in my stomach? Then see if you can develop even an image of it, not everyone does, but if you can, see if you can connect with this part of you and just start welcoming it and listening to it and inviting Jesus to be near.

Tim Muehlhoff: That’s so good.

Chris Grace: I love that. It reminds me of this passage. Whenever we think about anger and Jesus, you think about turning over the tables and that emotion. But the one passage, Tim, you and I were in a book club and talking about this, that this idea in Mark 3:1 through 6, the withered hand. Do you remember that? The Pharisees knew that there was someone there with a withered hand, and Jesus said, “Come forward.” Then he said to this, he says, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” They were silent. He looked around at them with anger, and he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”

I think, for listeners, when they hear some of these areas, Kim, what you’re suggesting is there are things that we experience and emotions that once we get to figure them out and understand and dissect them, we could put in the right direction or with self-possession or making friends with this, can reveal some very amazing things. Jesus, what he was doing there, was saying, “This anger was an appropriate way of dealing with an injustice, that these people weren’t following and didn’t want anything to do with God.” Right?

Kim Miller: Right. Paul said, “In your anger, do not sin.” It’s not that we’re not supposed to have anger but it’s how do you put that anger to work for you?

Chris Grace: Yeah.

Kim Miller: Right? It’s an important distinction to make, that the parts of us are not bad. Just like you have arms and legs, parts of your soul aren’t bad. You want them, and they can work for you. The problem is if they become extreme, or if they take you over and you’re not being led by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, he had anger, and so that means that anger is an emotion that God gave us, but he never let that anger control him.

Chris Grace: Yeah, it didn’t possess him.

Kim Miller: No.

Chris Grace: That’s right.

Kim Miller: Right. You always want to be feeling your emotions, but not letting them get the best of you.

Tim Muehlhoff: That’s right.

Chris Grace: When you work with clients, and I’m assuming you doing that a little bit.

Kim Miller: Yes, I am. I love my clients.

Chris Grace: There we go, that’s a good one. In-

Tim Muehlhoff: She just had one last podcast.

Chris Grace: She helped you out, Tim, doesn’t she? Tim is eternally grateful right now to you, Kim, although …

Kim Miller: Yeah. We’ll keep this confidential, only the hundreds of people that are hearing this know that, right?

Tim Muehlhoff: Hundreds? Thousands. Come on, Kim.

Kim Miller: Millions of people listening.

Chris Grace: In your work, there is a place for people to gain control. What would say is the biggest message that you would want them to hear from this, from what you’ve spent some time writing? What do you hope they can gain or get from this? Obviously, we want them to go out there and get this book because there is so many good valuable steps that you provide. What is it that if you had to summarize it, that you would hope some would at least gather this point?

Kim Miller: Here’s what I would really love people to know, is that Jesus talked about something more than anything else in the Bible. Do you guys know what it was? In the Gospels? A little quiz. A lot of people say, love.

Tim Muehlhoff: I’d say the kingdom of God.

Kim Miller: Whoa. Tim, you’re the first person that I’ve talked to that’s gotten it. You know your Bible.

Tim Muehlhoff: Let’s have that duly noted. It was Tim, not Chris.

Chris Grace: Chris had written it down on a piece of paper and showed it to Tim.

Tim Muehlhoff: Thank you.

Kim Miller: Chris just didn’t have time … He didn’t get to the buzzer first, right?

Chris Grace: I was going to say the kingdom of Jesus, but uh, okay, so keep going.

Tim Muehlhoff: No, go ahead.

Kim Miller: Yes, you’re so right. Try this sometime. Go through the gospels and circle every time you see the word kingdom in the gospels in red letters. Okay, red letters are what Jesus says. You could use a pencil, but go through all four and it will be on every page on average. It’s amazing how much Jesus talked about the kingdom of God. As Christians, our mission is really to spread the kingdom of God.

What does that mean? Well, the kingdom is where the king’s will is done, right, and where the kingdom is glorified. I went to Thailand one time. Have you been there? Oh, my goodness, the picture of the king is everywhere. Okay, so our goal as Christians is really to share the kingdom, to spread the kingdom with other people, to let people know how much Jesus loves them, to let them know about the gifts that he has given in the cross and resurrection so that we can have eternal life with God. Our mission as Christians is really to spread the gospel around us.

Now, one time, Jesus was talking to some Pharisees, and the Pharisees said, “Okay, Jesus, you’re talking about this kingdom so much, where is the kingdom, and when is it coming?” Jesus said to them, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Okay? This work is about expanding the borders, the boundaries, you might say, of the kingdom of God within you. It’s really about internal evangelization.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, I love that phrase.

Kim Miller: Yeah, it’s about sharing the gospel with the parts of yourself that don’t know how powerful and how awesome Jesus is because when we bring these parts of ourselves that are troubled into the presence of the living God, and they encounter him with his power and his love and his grace and his mercy and all the gifts and treasures from heaven that he wants to pour out into your life, they will melt, and they will rejoice, and they will dance and sing, and you’ll find a joy that you’ve never had before. I want everyone to have that abundant life, and that’s what this book is about.

Tim Muehlhoff: I’ve noticed the difference between young, young converts, let’s say preteen converts, or even pre-10 years old and adult converts. I’ve met some adult converts, Kim, that are talking about exactly what you’re talking about. They know they’ve been forgiven. I mean, they know their life. I was speaking with a woman once, and I won’t mention her by name, but she said it publicly that she felt responsible for the suicide of her husband, that she had so belittled this man that he had taken his own life. She wasn’t a believer at the time, but that led to her conversion, and to know that she had been forgiven for that profoundly changed her life. I love that, internal evangelization. I love that concept. We need to speak the gospel to ourselves and believe it. This is elaborate grace that’s been given to you that covers every part of you. That’s brilliant.

Kim Miller: Right. Yeah, so that the truth and the grace of God will reach every nook and cranny, every far corner of your soul so that the light of Christ will shine in every area of your life where you had never even known that you needed him before.

Tim Muehlhoff: And The mechanism will be.. spiritual formation? The mechanism will be…?

Kim Miller: Spiritual disciplines don’t change us, but spiritual disciplines create the space where change can take place. This work is a spiritual discipline. It’s what to do when you sit down to pray? When you sit down to pray, what do you do? Most people will do intercession. Most people will say, “Lord, I pray for my spouse. I pray for my son.”

Tim Muehlhoff: I pray for Chris.

Kim Miller: I pray for Chris.

Chris Grace: You too.

Tim Muehlhoff: Probably not enough.

Chris Grace: Keep doing it, brother. We could use it. I could use it.

Kim Miller: I’ll pray for you.

Chris Grace: Kim, you pray for Tim. Tim keep praying for me.

Kim Miller: You both pray for me.

Chris Grace: Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: No, but you’re right, intercession carries the day.

Kim Miller: Yeah, right, right. It wins every time, right? How often do we spend time in contemplative prayer, just taking in, practicing the presence of God? Probably not a lot because we’re so overwhelmed by our feelings. We’d rather not be feeling those feelings that we have. So, interceding keep us … I even would dare to say sometimes, intercession might be a manager part of us that’s working really hard to keep our feelings at bay.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, good. Ooh, that’s good.

Kim Miller: Sometimes, we’re praying because we think, “Oh, if I could just focus on another person with a problem and how they need to change, then I won’t actually have to take U-turn to feel my own feelings,” right, and for good reason because our feelings could be really overwhelming, but if we know what to do, if we have the tools to deal with our feelings when we have them, then we can actually do that internal evangelization.

Tim Muehlhoff: It’s noble. It’s noble for me to put the needs of other people above my own needs. Of course, I’m praying for everybody else and not taking that U-turn and focusing on myself.

Kim Miller: There’s definitely something to be said for intercession. I mean, we’re told to do it, and I’m all for it. It’s just one type of prayer, and we also need to be experiencing that contemplative prayer as well.

Chris Grace: Kim, that’s a little bit of the how, and there’s other ways, obviously, God’s spirit in our life, other people, right, people that we talk with can shed light on some of the things, God’s word. There are a lot of different ways we can get at some of those darker places. When I do this internal work that is necessary, are there certain areas that seem more resistant than others? Do people seem to struggle with similar ways in which, okay, God, I can accept this part of me, I can understand that you’re king over this, but when we hold back some areas, they seem to be areas that … Are those that causes a lot of shame?

For example, some of our students, we have seen an increase in, for example, sexual sin, pornography, things like that. They understand, it’s like God’s light and kingdom is shining in lots of areas, but there’s one they keep hidden and afraid of. What is out there that you’re seeing that people are having a hard time navigating this area of their world and bringing light to?

Kim Miller: Yes, so to take the model a step further, we have two different types of protector parts. We have manager parts that are trying to prevent us from feeling pain, and then we have firefighter parts that are trying to put out the flame of painful emotions. I would say that pornography and any kind of mood-altering behavior, any self-medicating behavior, alcoholism, overeating, even somewhat healthy things like over-exercising or over-cleaning, these can be firefighter parts of ourselves that are really trying to put out the fires and flames of the pain that we’re experiencing. I’m seeing that a lot, and you are too, it sounds like. The key is really to get permission from these protector parts to address the exiles underneath that they’re protecting, okay?

Tim Muehlhoff: Talk about the need for self-evangelization when it comes to pornography.

Kim Miller: Oh, yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: We’re seeing the shame that just drives-

Kim Miller: It’s so hard.

Tim Muehlhoff: They can never come back. They feel like they never can come back to the faith or their marriage because they feel like they betrayed everybody.

Kim Miller: I can understand that feeling, and nothing is impossible with God. Nothing is impossible with God, and he can do all things. He can free us from any slavery that we have to any substance or any emotion. We’re built to really be driven by the Holy Spirit. That’s what really brings joy and peace deep down. There have been seasons in my life where I’ve just gotten a little bit used to having that drink of wine every night. Right now, it’s Lent, and I’m doing a fast from alcohol. I feel so much better, Tim.

Tim Muehlhoff: Wow.

Kim Miller: I never was getting drunk. I was just having a glass at night. What’s wrong with a glass of wine at night? I was just getting a little too dependent on it. I thought, “Oh, Lord, do I have to give this up for Lent. Oh, I don’t want to give it up for Lent. It’s just a glass. Don’t I deserve it at the end of the day?” I gave it up, and I actually feel happier now after just a week of fasting from alcohol than I did before.

It’s because I’m so dependent on the Holy Spirit, and every moment that I say no to a glass of alcohol during Lent, I’m saying yes to God. I feel his pleasure. I feel the sense of self-respect. It’s very difficult to get free of an addiction, but it’s so rewarding, and I really encourage people to try, really try.

Tim Muehlhoff: I gave up hair products for Lent. I just said, “No, I don’t need it to do …” I want to take us on one quick tangent very, very quickly. You were at Regent with J.I. Packer and Eugene Peterson?

Kim Miller: Yes. Yes.

Tim Muehlhoff: Did you take any classes from them?

Kim Miller: I did.

Tim Muehlhoff: To die for.

Kim Miller: I did, yes. Yes.

Tim Muehlhoff: Okay, so tell us, from each, what did you carry away from each having been in their classroom?

Kim Miller: Yeah. Okay, a couple of things that I really remember, so I actually did a guided study with J.I. Packer on the doctrine of hell because I was really interested in if it exists because, if it really does exist, that was going to make me much more motivated as a Christian to share the gospel. He gave me a great book, Hell: A Hard Look at a Hard Question. It really summaries everything the Bible has to say on the topic, and in fact, I do believe it exists and it’s a serious thing to be thinking about every day.

Tim Muehlhoff: Sure.

Kim Miller: Anyway, that was a great guided study I did with him that helped me become clear on that topic, and then I had a great cause with Eugene Peterson. He’s with the Lord now, and did you know that when he was almost ready to pass over to the other side that he began talking with people that he was seeing. Did you hear this?

Tim Muehlhoff: No.

Kim Miller: Yeah, his family reported this. I read it an article. That’s really an amazing thing about him. I took a class with him on Jewish traditions and how Jesus interpreted the Jewish traditions in light of himself, really indicating that he was the new people of God. He was the king of the new people of God. That was a great class. I also remember him saying to me … There was something that happened to the school. I think a homeless person came in, and it was disruption, and the person was saying that he had seen angels and demons.

I went to Eugene and I said, “What do you think? Do you think he really saw angels and demons?” I remember Eugene Peterson saying to me, “You know, when I hear something like that, I wait to see what happens next.” I thought that was such good advice. Now, I do that a lot. Whenever anything happens and I’m thinking, “I don’t know how to respond,” I just wait and see what happens next. Then I also remember him saying when someone’s in grief, if they’ve lost a loved one, just go sit and be present. Just go be present with them, and that’s what they need more than anything.

Tim Muehlhoff: Did you have office hours with them? I’m so jealous right now. How great would that have been? My goodness.

Chris Grace: We brought J.I. Packer out here to teach a class. One of them was on the Puritan faith and their history. I remember sitting in on his class with that and just being the new way of looking at work, for example, how we envision and how the Puritans have viewed work. I’ll never forget. It changed and transformed a little bit of the way I see what I do on a day-to-day basis as unto God like the Puritans saw their work. Packer was just brilliant in so many of these ways.

Kim Miller: Yeah.

Chris Grace: Kim, when you think about this, you’ve also volunteered so much of your time with our Center for Marriage and Relationships here. Thanks for doing that, and thanks for seeing us and coming in.

Kim Miller: Such important work, you’re having such a huge impact all over the world.

Chris Grace: Yeah. Thanks for doing that and stopping by on this podcast. Tim, it’s great to have someone like Kim here.

Tim Muehlhoff: What a great podcast, thank you for taking time to do two.

Kim Miller: Well, I’ve always wanted to be on Car Talk, so thank you so much for having me.

Tim Muehlhoff: I love Car Talk.

Chris Grace: Very much like it.

Kim Miller: You helped me so much with my cars over the years.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, I had one car analogy. Come on.

Chris Grace: That’s huge. You did.

Tim Muehlhoff: No, I used to love listening to Car Guys, but I didn’t know anything about cars. They were so good together. It was a delight to listen to.

Kim Miller: Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: Well, thank you for being on our podcast.

Chris Grace: Thanks again, Kim, for stopping by, and to all of you, we appreciate you joining in with us. Check us out at cmr.biola.edu, podcast, Tim, blogs, videos, all kinds of things, events going on.

Tim Muehlhoff: Absolutely.

Chris Grace: Good to have you guys. Thanks for joining us.

Chris Grace serves as the director of the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships and teaches psychology at Rosemead School of Psychology. He and his wife, Alisa, speak regularly to married couples, churches, singles and college students on the topic of relationships, dating and marriage. Grace earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in experimental social psychology from Colorado State University.

Tim Muehlhoff is a professor of communication at Biola University and author of several books, including I Beg to Differ and Marriage Forecasting. For the past 18 years, he and his wife, Noreen, have been frequent speakers at FamilyLife marriage conferences. Muehlhoff regularly writes and speaks for the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships. Follow Dr. Muehlhoff on Twitter.

Kimberly Miller is a Marriage and Family Therapy Associate certified in Imago therapy and Internal Family Systems therapy. She is also the author of Boundaries for Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings into Your Greatest Allies, scheduled for summer 2018 release by Thomas Nelson publisher. Kim and her husband, Ken, live in Southern California.

By the Biola University Center for Marriage and Relationships. Discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.