A Thoughtful Faith | Glenn McCcracken | Ep 7

Glenn's Bio:

Glenn McCracken is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a busy private practice based in Little Rock, Arkansas. He obtained his bachelors degree and masters at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.  He is the founder and president of The Tov Life as well as SparkFit. With these two ventures he pursues his twin passions for mental health and physical fitness. He is married with one daughter and can reportedly Turkish Get Up his family!

The Conversation: 

First off, this episode is a bit of a mess and not up the "high standards" that you've come to expect from a professional outfit like our own. Sosh had some technical difficulties that made the sound less than stellar, and then he had to bail halfway through to pick up his kid from soccer practice! Then Glenn's laptop died at the end, so the interview ended more abruptly than the Bros had intended. Despite all of that, Glenn is a fascinating guest, and there's some good stuff in here.

First off Sosh stumbles through an introduction. Can you believe he still can't pronounce Brodhisattva?

Glenn explains what he means by the Tov Life. Tov is Hebrew and roughly means "good" or "enough." It's Glenn's belief that everyone is enough when they walk through his door, and it's his job to help them find that.

He talks about his practice and how the pandemic has changed mental health treatment for better and worse. He and the Bros consider what effects the surge in mental health awareness brought on by the pandemic might have for the future. 

Glenn then shares his journey. He realized that he wanted to be a therapist while recovering in an inpatient rehab between 7th and 8th grades. When he got sober, AA provided a stable community throughout high school. it helped build himself up and ingrain him into counseling.

Glenn fell away from Christianity both due to his dark path and what he calls poor modeling by the professed Christians around him. But Young Life was an anchor for him. It helped keep him sober and showed him good examples of Christians to emulate. 

In college he continued on his path to counseling, all the while frustrated at the slow pace. He also got into personal training as a way to pay the bills. Oh, and he was a cheerleader, because he's a smoke show.

He didn't really find his way back to God until he met a preacher through his personal training work.  Glenn traded PT time for lessons on the Bible! They started meeting for coffee and the man had a profound influence on him. So much so that he almost ended up going to seminary!

In his adult life, Glenn has continued to be guided by his faith, but it is by no means blind. He  studies. A lot. He says he's interested in seeking Jesus, but even more so in seeking the truth. He believes that the Kingdom of Heaven is right here and now. Eternal life and heaven are here. We create it, and we live it each and every day. He brings a lot of mindfulness and ideas about non-attachment to his Christian faith as well. Glenn thinks that the things that get you out of bed in the morning are your gods. For him, study is a big one. 

He keeps sane with mindfulness, exercise, play, and maintaining boundaries. He's not kidding about boundaries either. Apparently he doesn't bring his laptop charger home from the office to limit his time working at home--hence the abrupt cutoff at the end of the interview!

The conversation ends with Glenn describing Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy which is the foundation of a lot of his work as a therapist. 

And that's it, although the Bros wish they'd had another hour or two to pick his brain!

Guest's Book Recommendations:

• Radical Acceptance by  Tara Brach
• Crucial Conversations
• On the Threshold of Transformation by Father Richard Rohr
• The Nag Hammadi Scriptures
• The Mystic Christ by Ethan Walker III

Other People and Things Mentioned:

• The Enneagram
• Insight Timer
• Tarah Brach's Loving Kindness Meditation
• Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• The Human Library
• Evryman
• How Jesus Became Christian by Barrie Wilson, PhD

Credits: 

• Writers:  Enoch Daniel & Sosh Woodbine
• Producer:  Enoch Daniel
• Theme Music:"The Future is Ours" by Scott Holmes Music is licensed by CC BY-NC 4.0.
• Sound Effects: “Meditation” by eliasyian & “record scratch” by luffy both licensed by CC BY 3.0.

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