Kurt Kroon: On the intersection of self-love and Christian spirituality

Do you believe that you’re fundamentally good at your core? That underneath it all you’re a perfectly worthy, deserving and loveable human being? Or do you believe that you’re flawed in some way? That your goodness has been masked by certain actions, behaviors, thoughts or mistakes you’ve made and you rely on God’s love to save you?

In this week’s episode, we have a fascinating conversation with Kurt Kroon about the intersection between self-love and the church, the conflicting messages you can receive and the way Kurt has been able to reframe the messages he grew up with and become the pastor he is today.

We discuss some of the problematic messages of the church, and the ways these can be in direct opposition to the message of self-love. One such message that many Christians have received from the church is that they shouldn’t trust themselves - that there’s something bad about who they are, but if they listen to what the church tells them to do, they can be ‘fixed’ by Jesus. We look at the danger of messages like these that teach people to outsource their voice and rely on external sources to tell them what to do, and we give you some ideas for how you can rediscover your internal voice and learn to trust yourself again.

We also talk about the nature of truth and the human desire to ‘know’ all the answers and have certainty about the world. We go into Kurt’s personal journey and how being given permission to ask questions and get curious about the messages of his faith, rather than accept them as foregone truths, opened up a whole world of wonder.

And stay tuned until the end, because we discuss some ideas that we know will resonate with so many of you - the difference between self-love and arrogance, the prevalence of imposter syndrome and how to truly take care of yourself when things get tough.

We hope you love this episode as much as we do and if you know someone that needs to hear these messages, please share it with your friends.