Strong like water, p.1
Strong like Water, page 1
In Strong like Water, Aundi Kolber emerges as one of the most trusted and approachable voices at the intersection of faith, trauma, and body-centered therapy. The practices alone are worth reading this excellent, well-researched, heartfelt book.
EMILY P. FREEMAN, author and host of The Next Right Thing podcast
Strong like Water is a beautiful gift for anyone who has felt like they have to stay strong to survive. With wisdom drawn from her own story and her clinical expertise, Aundi Kolber reimagines strength as a dance of tenacity and tenderness, of holding tight and of learning to release. This brave and insightful journey through resilience is a revelation—one that honors both the grit it takes to survive and the compassion it takes to heal.
DR. ALISON COOK, psychologist and author of The Best of You and Boundaries for Your Soul
The process of navigating hard things is not a linear path for any of us, but with clarity, resources, research, and the deepest wells of compassion, Aundi lends her heart and expertise as she guides us through this road map of healing and discovery in her latest offering. Strong like Water contains truths that ultimately lead us back to ourselves and the ever-present reminder that God has and always will be with us on our journey of becoming more beautifully human in the midst of adversity. This is a book I need now and will surely return to as often as necessary.
PATRICIA A. TAYLOR, writer and anti-racism educator
I’ve never had such a personally moving, healing, and formative experience while reading a book. Aundi offers wisdom on every page as well as practices for your mind, heart, body, and soul that will help guide you through pain and that embody what true flourishing and resilience are all about.
STEVE CARTER, pastor and author of The Thing Beneath the Thing
I was deeply moved reading Strong like Water and felt comfort and confidence from Aundi’s practical, compassionate words. The work of healing and integration often feels heavy, like it’s easier left undone, but Strong like Water adds direction, lightness, and hope to a worthwhile journey.
KENDRA ADACHI, New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way and The Lazy Genius Kitchen
Strong like Water is a trustworthy guide away from fear and into the safe embrace of love, where healing resides. I will carry Aundi’s words into the corners of my everyday life—as a neighbor, parent, spouse, and friend. This book is for the hurting, the rattled, the stuck, the numb; which is to say, it’s for each one of us. All is not lost. The gentle way of hope awaits.
SHANNAN MARTIN, author of Start with Hello and The Ministry of Ordinary Places
In a culture full of conflicting messages about the value of strength, where to find it, and how to use it, Strong like Water is both an anchor and a lighthouse. Aundi’s book is full of gentle, resourceful tools and generously offered stories. What a gift this book is for all the weary souls who aren’t sure if they have what it takes or what they need, or are afraid of what they might find within themselves.
TASHA JUN, author of Tell Me the Dream Again
With careful thought and gentle intention, Aundi is a trusted guide who distills what she’s learned as a trauma-informed therapist. If you’re feeling like you’re holding the weight of the world, this book will speak to your soul, offer needed resources, and invite you into the sacred work of healing.
KAYLA CRAIG, author of To Light Their Way
Aundi shows a way beyond “toughing it out” and “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and it’s a gentle and self-compassionate approach. Ultimately, it’s the way of Jesus, and Aundi is a wonderful guide into it.
CHUCK DEGROAT, PHD, LPC, professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality, interim DMin director, Western Theological Seminary
Strong like Water beautifully acknowledges the courage that survival requires and offers practical tools to move from simply coping to gaining embodied strength. Over your own deep waters, Kolber’s voice will rise as a wise and gentle guide, calling forth your inner strength and testifying to God’s redeeming love.
CLARISSA MOLL, author of Beyond the Darkness
Strong Like Water is such a timely book as so many of us deal with the pressure of needing to be the “strong one” in one way or another. This book is an encouraging guide that will help you gracefully navigate the many experiences of life that call for strength.
MORGAN HARPER NICHOLS, artist and writer
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Strong like Water: Finding the Freedom, Safety, and Compassion to Move through Hard Things—and Experience True Flourishing
Copyright © 2023 by Andrea M. Kolber. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of painting copyright © Tracie Cheng. All rights reserved.
Interior illustration of measuring cup by Amethyst Studio/thenounproject.com. All rights reserved.
Interior image of brain copyright © Axel Kock/Adobe Stock. All rights reserved.
Cover designed by Eva M. Winters
Published in association with Don Gates of the literary agency The Gates Group;
www.the-gates-group.com.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® (Some quotations may be from the earlier NIV edition, copyright © 1984.) Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked BSB are taken from The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible, BSB. Copyright © 2016, 2018 by Bible Hub. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked CEB are taken from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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The case examples in this book are fictional composites based on the author’s professional interactions with hundreds of clients over the years. All names are invented, and any resemblance between these fictional characters and real people is coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4964-5471-3
Build: 2023-03-09 08:21:46 EPUB 3.0
For my mom—thank you for passing me your Hungarian fire.
For Jude, Tia, and Brendan—the loves of my life.
And for survivors everywhere:
may your healing come.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Strength in the Waves
Part 1: Embodied Wisdom: The Flow of Strength Chapter 1: The Cost of Being (a Certain Kind of) Strong
Chapter 2: The Nervous System: The Sacred Road Map of Our Bodies
Chapter 3: Safety Is the Magic Ingredient
Part 2: Compassionate Resources & Rhythms for Becoming Strong like Water Chapter 4: Strength with Connection
Chapter 5: Strength with Inner Trust
Chapter 6: Strength with Goodness
Chapter 7: Strength with Emotional Flexibility
Chapter 8: Strength with Moving Through
Chapter 9: Strength with Integration
Chapter 10: Strength with Reimagining
Benediction
Acknowledgments
About the Author
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Flow of Strength
Hyperarousal vs. Hypoarousal
Strength and Neurobiology
Working to Build Felt Safety
The Vagus Nerve
Attachment Styles
Strength and Neurobiology
WHAT IF THE
TRUEST STRENGTH IS AS EXPANSIVE AS THE TIDE;
THE FIERCE & GENTLE ELEMENTS DANCING TOGETHER AS ONE?
INTRODUCTIONStrength in
the Waves
Blessed be water,
Our first Mother.
JOHN O’DONOHUE, EXCERPT FROM “IN PRAISE OF WATER”
THE WAVES OF THE MIGHTY PACIFIC OCEAN crashed in front of me; the sparkle of the water and the intensity of the shore break were almost hypnotizing. I buried my toes in the sand, which was speckled with rocks and black dust, as I took in the majestic view. I never tired of the ocean and came here often—mostly, just to be near it; to be regulated by the rhythms of the waves (though I didn’t have words for that yet). I wanted to feel immersed in something much bigger and more powerful than myself.
The chaos of the ocean mirrored the tumult I felt inside. I’d graduated
I was only twenty-two, but sitting by this oceanside, I felt much older; worn. Is life always supposed to feel this hard? After a few decades of pushing myself at all costs to achieve and tying myself into pretzels for everyone around me—honestly, I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Even more honestly? I was not completely sure I ever had.
Others told me I was the strong one, the spiritual one, the wise one, the responsible one, the good kid, the girl who would get things done. There was a part of me that liked these labels. And there was some truth to them—there was a ferocity as strong as the rushing tide that coursed through me. Many of these traits had been hardwired in me as a way to survive the tumultuous and at times traumatic household I’d grown up in, but my family’s dysfunction had begun generations before. I carried my ancestors’ pain as well as their strength: I was the daughter of a refugee who’d escaped in the back of an ambulance from a war-torn country when she was only four. I was the granddaughter of a man who’d survived a childhood of poverty by eating leftover corn from pigs and who had the audacity to flee Hungary with his family when the only other choice would have been to join the oppressor. I was the great-granddaughter of a Croatian woman so tenaciously determined to live that she’d fended off thieves with just her fists. These were the stories that had been passed on to me, and this was the fire and fierceness that ran through me.
And yet this strength had come at great cost, not only to my ancestors, but also to me. Kids aren’t meant to hold adult problems or adult pain. Kids aren’t meant to grow up when they’re still small. Many of the qualities that folks affirmed about me were the result of living in and through trauma. I had never known anything different from the family I’d grown up in. What most people didn’t see was how much it cost me to have so little support and to feel as if I was always on my own. To feel that the world was constantly on my shoulders; that I had to remain tough, responsible, and put together no matter what—it was a heavy burden to bear.
And so, like I’d done for much of my childhood, I let myself feel pain in one of the few places that it felt safe to do so—here, near the water. This was where I saw a glimpse of who I truly was. This was where I felt the Spirit of God. This was where I could find at least a glimmer of the peace for which I’d been looking; this was where God whispered that I was loved in such a gentle voice that I almost missed it. This was where I understood Jesus’ words, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). This was where I could sink into these words from the psalmist: “Be at rest once more, O my soul” (Psalm 116:7). This was one of the few places my body could fully exhale.
And finally, finally, she did. My body settled.
I wonder whether you’ve ever felt alone and weighed down by the burden of needing to be “the strong one”? Maybe you’ve found identity in your armor—your tenacity, your ability to survive. After all, it seems to be the thing people like best about you. Maybe you’ve tried to let others know how much you’re hurting, but it’s always ended either in your being misunderstood or experiencing heartbreak. So now when your heart is tender, you shame yourself or find a way to suck it up again; you’ve decided that vulnerability just isn’t worth it. Sometimes it might seem like being unemotive—pretending and suppressing what you truly feel or need—is the only way you’ll actually be loved at all. After all, it can feel as if society constantly berates you with these messages:
No pain, no gain. Pain makes people strong.
Well, at least you’re going to learn an important lesson.
Stop complaining; it could be worse.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Everything happens for a reason.
God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.
Just pray about it.
Now, let it be said—there are elements of truth in those statements. When the going gets tough, the tough do get going. Faith and prayer are great resources to get through difficult experiences. Certainly, sometimes there is no other way to survive than to white-knuckle our way through life when circumstances require it.
And yet. When the idea that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” plays out in real life, we see that it just doesn’t hold up. What doesn’t kill us can actually make us isolated, traumatized, and deeply harmed if we don’t receive the support we need as we go through it. We’ve internalized these platitudes and, as a consequence, we feel exhausted, burned-out, and disconnected from our truest selves. These phrases may come from well-intentioned sources, but unfortunately, they’re only keeping us stuck—pretending; suppressing; believing the lie that strength, and ultimately wholeness, looks only like denying ourselves at every turn.
Is there a different way? What if emotional health doesn’t always look like being “the strong one”? What if sometimes it means stepping back and letting ourselves receive or grieve or feel? What if it’s not just facing hard things—though that matters—but also knowing our limits? What if it’s loving others, but also letting ourselves be loved? What if the truest strength is as expansive as the tide; the fierce and gentle elements dancing together as one? What if this strength has the flexibility to be both soft and bold; to both nourish and protect—because it is rooted in a foundation of love rather than fear?
What could life be like if you were strong like water?
At thirty-eight, sixteen years after I last watched waves pound on that familiar Pacific beach, I return.
So much has happened since I was last here. Within months of that long-ago afternoon at the ocean, I moved to Denver, where I soon met my husband, found my vocation, had two kids, and began hours of therapy and millions of tiny healing moments, all to piece together the fragments of my story that trauma had shattered. The first step had been letting myself be nourished as I learned what it meant to be truly strong. Not in the way I was used to—the strong that had required me to be something I wasn’t; to pretend and suppress and ache. Not strong like the world often measures it—through brute toughness and forced smiles. Nope, this was different because God had begun teaching me to be strong like Him.
He taught me what it was like to receive and feel and grieve and savor and lean in and lean out and be fully alive—to be strong and flexible like water.
I sit in almost the exact same spot on the beach as I did when I was younger. I dig my toes into the black-speckled sand. I gaze at nearly the same view. But the experience is different because I am different. Not because I am perfectly healed. Not because I have all the answers. Not because I am now somehow impervious to pain. God is teaching me that no matter where I am in the process of healing, I am worthy of receiving love, compassion, care, and support. I finally realize that experiencing moments of both courage and tenderness is part of my journey.
Now I know what it’s like to feel safe in my body. Now I know in the deepest parts of myself that I’m beloved by the God of the universe. Now I know how to find the people who make me feel like myself. Now I can honor the generational stories that helped shape my family. Now I know it’s okay—beautiful, really—to feel my emotions. Now I know how to move through pain, rather than suppress or be toppled by it. Now I know what it’s like to feel a solid sense of myself rather than constantly react to fear or trauma.
Now I know what it’s like to be strong like water; to gather in the aching parts of my story and support them with compassion and hope. Now I know, and I can never not know again.
