Chuck DeGroat

Remember: You are not loved for being above the human condition. You are loved for being deeply, achingly human within it.

The Age of Cruelty The Costly Loss of Character and The Paradoxical Way Forward

Is there hope in this age of cruelty?

open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

“There is no human who has ever lived who is garbage. A ludicrous impossibility, heresy even. And every Christian should unequivocally say so.”

Thank you @winncollier.bsky.social

Excited to land on a title for my next book!

Who You're Becoming: The Slow and Courageous Work of Cultivating Character In a Narcissistic Age

Coming next Fall.

When Character Conflicts with Power How Authority, Influence, and Responsibility Challenge Our Formation

Growing up doesn’t necessarily mean growing mature. With age comes anxiety, shifting your nervous system into self-protection - a state that thwarts growth in character.

open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

Follow me here and on Substack at “Sit with Chuck” as I share this deep change process.

#CultivatingCharacter
#NextBook

We’ve got to create the embodied conditions for deep change. And that happens beneath the level of words, thoughts, and behavior. The transformation of character begins when our bodies retune to the whisper of Eden - peace, wholeness, rest - from a survival orientation to a connection orientation.

All of these things can be helpful, but if they’re merely new behaviors on top of a taxed nervous system in survival mode, nothing substantial will change. We might see cosmetic change, performative change – but not deep change.

HOW PEOPLE CHANGE // I’ve been asked for years about how people change.

I hear the traditional answers - an act of repentance, engaging healing practices, taking a short break or sabbatical, reading a good book.

When Patterns Tell the Truth How Our Early Stories Shape Character—and Why Surface Fixes Never Go Deep Enough

Character is reflected in your deeply ingrained habits of heart that show up without even thinking about them.

And these habits of heart are ingrained in your earliest days, within a 'connection orientation' or a 'survival orientation'.

open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

Even after 27 years of engaging my own work, I’m still surrendering to the mystery of it all.

See Ch 6 of my book Healing What’s Within for more.

Our bodies + souls respond best not to the glaring light of interrogation and exposure, but to the tender glow of curiosity.

Your life isn’t a problem to be solved…your story isn’t a frantic search for the missing smoking gun that - when found - will finally help you make sense of your pain.

Recovering Character in a Performative Age Halloween Masks Are Not The Only Masks We Wear

It’s Halloween, and we’re all talking about who we want to be. So maybe it’s the perfect day to chat about the masks we wear and who we’re becoming.

open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

Embodied wisdom. And so counterintuitive today.

Sometimes it takes a psychologist to remind us of what the Psalmists modeled for us. 

When the Soul Grows Weary It's More Than The Body That Keeps The Score These Days

You don't quite have words, but something is off. You feel stagnant, stuck. The incessant scrolling takes you from one painful story to the next. Your days feel repetitive, resigned to the tyranny of demands, rutted for what has felt like an eternity.

open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

It’s fun to see this finally arrive. Coming October 14 - When Narcissism Comes to Church in Spanish.

a.co/d/fVy1gVy

Happy Sunday.

What a gift to be teaching for a few days at the Young Life Good Way retreat.

“Beauty will save the world.” -Dostoevsky

May our own increasing connection allow curiosity to come back online within, and in our collective discourse.

(End)

So try this: cultivate your own peace – and be that peaceful presence, even in spaces of disagreement. Don’t abandon your convictions, but allow your convictions to arise from connection, not reaction.

3/4

And nervous systems don’t see political parties – they just see threats.

We dupe ourselves into thinking social media posts will change people’s minds, but our nervous systems are incapable of curiosity in threat mode.
2/4

“If we desire peace, let us cultivate peace in ourselves and in our hearts.” - St Teresa of Avila

The underbelly of a narcissistic culture (and it’s narcissistic leaders) is shame and fragility, as I’ve been saying for a long time. A nervous system in perpetual survival mode.
1/4

Getting Into The Work Without Doing The Work When Helpers Harm

Even self-awareness itself seems to have become a commodity – marketed, platformed, and repackaged, sometimes fueling the same narcissism we sought to escape.

(Some thoughts on how those of us who are helpers need to do our own work.)

open.substack.com/pub/sitwithc...

True freedom of voice comes from deep inner work - regulation, shadow/story work, connection to your true self, and discovering authentic agency and voice.

Absent that, it’s not transformation - it’s just another reaction.

When therapists like me tell someone, “Just use your voice” or “Just be yourself,” we may be unintentionally encouraging them to shift from flight into fight - or from one survival response into another. And that may set them up for further pain. 1/2

A prayer to center on dysregulating days:

Calm me, O Lord (inhale)
as You stilled the storm (exhale)
Still me, O Lord (inhale)
keep me from harm (exhale)
Let all the tumult (inhale)
within me cease (exhale)
Enfold me, Lord (inhale)
in Your peace (exhale)

(an ancient Celtic prayer)

Pardon my handwritten reflection in two images, cobbled together.

I sit with people in complicated grief every day. I sit with my own heart, as well. This is a letter to my heart – and maybe to yours as well, if you’ll receive it.

Once upon a time, I naively believed I could protect my kids from suffering.

But suffering is inevitable.

What matters most isn’t whether pain comes—it will—but whether we have to face it alone. Solitary suffering is what leaves the deepest wounds, even traumatic wounds.

“What is the value of great theological erudition or great pastoral adeptness or intense but fleeting mystical experience or social activism when there is not a well-formed heart to guide a well-formed life?”

~Henri Nouwen