Episode 435 - How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain with Toni Collier
How do we find people who can help us carry the weight of our stories? How do we learn to experience safety in community when relationships themselves have often been the source of deep pain?
Author, speaker, and podcaster Toni Collier has endured profound hardship throughout her life, including caring for a parent at a young age, surviving an abusive marriage, experiencing sexual betrayal, enduring sexual manipulation as a child, walking through two divorces, and more. Learning to trust others with the deepest parts of her story did not come easily. Yet through the healing power of what she calls a Confessional Community, Toni began experiencing layers of healing and freedom she never thought possible. In her latest book, Don't Try This Alone: How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain, Toni shares how authentic, vulnerable community can become one of the primary ways God brings healing through suffering.
In this episode, Davey and Toni talk about why confession and vulnerability are such essential parts of healing, how we can become safe people that others trust with their pain, and the emotional and spiritual dangers of isolation and hidden suffering.
If opening up to others has felt difficult—especially in seasons of pain, disappointment, or heartbreak—this conversation will remind you that healing was never meant to happen alone and that God often uses deep, authentic community as part of the restoration process He wants to invite you into.
“We do not have to do this life alone. The way forward is always with God and His people.”
-Toni Collier
Website: https://www.tonijcollier.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonijcollier/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/colliertoni
Other: Episode 326 https://www.nothingiswasted.com/podcast1/episode-326
Book: Don't Try This Alone: How to Build Deep Community When You Want to Hide from Your Pain https://amzn.to/4mSMgED
Not living the story you expected? Pain changes us but doesn't have to define us. Find out how to begin your healing journey today: nothingiswasted.com/starthere
Looking for help in navigating the valley of pain and trauma? Our Nothing is Wasted coaches can help: nothingiswasted.com/coaching
