Editor's note: Yesterday, we shared a devotion written by Dr. Alison Cook, author of The Secure Soul. You can read it here and then continue reading the excerpt below.
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This way of understanding ourselves—as made up of different parts, each carrying their own story and longing for connection—has been the most helpful tool I’ve found for making sense of disconnection.1
It rests on a simple truth echoed across psychology, philosophy, and Scripture: We are multifaceted beings.2 Our souls aren’t monoliths. They’re more like living ecosystems, interconnected places within us, each with its own fears, beliefs, burdens, and ways of surviving. And these parts of your soul don’t only need other people. They need you.
You are not a bystander in your inner life. You are a participant.
At the center of your soul mountain is your core self—your God-created self, the image of God in you (Genesis 1:27). It’s that quiet inner place within where you catch glimpses of calm, where perspective returns, where you can hold what’s true without running from it.3 Not a perfected version of you, just the truest, most grounded place in you.4
For some of us, the language of “self” can feel complicated. We’ve heard enough self-centered messaging in the modern world to be wary. But the alternative isn’t to erase the self. Scripture paints a more honest tension: We are wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and image-bearing, and we are also wounded and in need of healing. Paul himself doesn’t describe the self as something to be erased, but as something to be transformed—“crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) and also “raised with Christ” (Colossians 3:1). His language points to restoration, not annihilation. And Jesus, when asked about the greatest commandment, wove self-hood into the very fabric of spiritual formation:
Love your neighbor as yourself. — Mark 12:31
To neglect the self is to neglect the very soil from which love of neighbor is meant to grow.
Neuroscience also highlights the remarkable nature of the human self: The human brain contains highly developed regions in the prefrontal cortex that support conscious self-awareness, including the capacity to step back, observe what’s happening inside, reflect on it, and choose how to respond.5 You might think of this capacity as wisdom, attentiveness, self-awareness, or agency.
Regardless, this observing “self” is not a distortion of faith but a miracle of creation, a biological echo of the spiritual center Christians have long described as the soul. And here’s the wonder of your design: This observing “self” is capable of recognizing the parts of you that have been lost, exiled, or disconnected. You can learn to turn toward them with the same kind of presence and warmth you would offer someone you love.
Just as you can get to know a familiar terrain, a favorite place, or an old path you love to wander, you can also begin to recognize the patterns of your soul.
Just as you join with God in extending care to others, you can also join with God in extending care to the parts of your own soul. In this way, you become a kind of internal attachment figure for your own soul. You become the one who sees, welcomes, and tends to what has been pushed aside. You become the agent of recognition, the one who learns to notice disconnection and tell the truth:
I’m not okay.
I’m lonely.
I’m upset.
You can become a compassionate witness to your own experience—the one who recognizes disconnection and makes the choice to return, always, to Love. You won’t do it perfectly, but perfection was never the point. Often, the deepest repair begins right there, when you recognize the ache:
I see you.
I’m here now.
You don’t have to be alone anymore.
This is the sacred, ongoing work of inner attachment, what I call becoming a secure soul.
Recognize: I’m lonely.
Recognize: I’m angry.
Recognize: I’m scared.
And while you are essential to this process, don’t think for a moment that you’re doing this work alone. You are not a single parent to your soul. None of us is.
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The Loving Presence at the Center
The truth is, you don’t set out on this journey of reclaiming lost parts of your soul alone. That’s not how you were made. You were never meant to take this journey by yourself. Someone goes with you, clearing the path ahead, giving you courage, and, at times, even carrying you.
This someone is God—Love incarnate, the One who is Spirit and yet took on flesh, who once walked among us in Jesus and still moves within us through the power of the Spirit. The One who, as Scripture says, is Love (1 John 4:8, 16). A God who is not only “out there” in the heavens but also alive within the inner recesses of your soul, like a radiant flame in a mountain sanctuary. From there, light spills into every forest path, every shadowed cave, every fractured place.
Imagine this: A loving Presence steps into your inner soul mountain to reclaim every single lost part of you.
Jesus moves along rugged pathways, searches through every cave, calls out across the rocky cliffs, and combs through dense forests. He is not rushed and is not afraid of what He finds. He is steady, intentional, and unshaken. He will go into the deepest, most broken places to bring healing warmth to what has been lost, left alone, or disconnected. And when He finds these unclaimed parts of you, He is patient, gentle, and kind. Because at first, they are like frightened creatures in the wild.
They don’t know what Love is like.
They don’t know if they can trust Him.
But He stays. Not forcing, not judging, just offering the steady warmth of secure presence.
And as each part of your soul slowly starts to trust Him, He gathers them and brings them home. Home, as it turns out, is not a fortress but a feast. At the center of the mountain, the sanctuary opens into a sunlit meadow. A long table is spread with fruit, warm bread, and sparkling drinks. It’s a feast of welcome. A feast of togetherness, of belonging.
Here, each now-claimed treasure takes her seat of honor, welcomed by the Source of Love, the One who brings all things back into connection. The Controller begins to sense what it feels like to be held by someone stronger than herself. She exhales, releases her grip, and turns her face toward the sun. The Shadow, no longer hidden in the dark with shame, begins to shimmer with a shy sort of joy. She’s learning what it feels like to receive Love’s compassion. And the Young One, wide-eyed with wonder, steps into the light at the center of it all, dancing with delight before the One who loves her.
- There’s no shame at this banquet. No judgment.
Only delight in these quirky, sometimes ragged, always beautiful parts of your own soul finally gathered in the Presence of Love, finally sensing what it means to belong to God and to one another.
Each part of you is distinct. And each part of you is thrilled to be gathered with the others.
It’s a glimpse of the greater feast that awaits when every part of you, and every soul gathered at last into Love, is welcomed into the heavenly mountain sanctuary. A quiet warmth, dazzling and steady, spreads through you. You feel vulnerable, yet safe.
“I don’t want You to leave,” you whisper.
And He doesn’t.
Instead, He stays, right there at the center.
Grace keeps flowing, as your whole soul, every hidden place, bathes in the goodness of being fully welcomed, fully seen, fully loved. And slowly, gently, you begin to change.
Not by force.
Not by effort.
But by Love.
You are becoming someone new.
No longer fragmented or lost.
No longer filled with blame or shame.
But whole.
A person filled with Love—the most powerful kind of person there is.
Recognize: A part of me is disconnected.
Return: I am loved, even here.
Watch the Video
1.My understanding of “parts” is informed by Dr. Richard Schwartz and the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, which describes three broad categories of parts—managers, firefighters, and exiles. In this book, however, I develop a simplified and spiritually integrated template of three parts that reflects my own observations and theological commitments.
2.See Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Penguin Books, 2014), which affirms the multifaceted nature of the human self and the integration required for healing.
3.This language is adapted from Henri J. M. Nouwen’s writings on solitude and the inner life and from my earlier synthesis of these themes in my book Boundaries for Your Soul. See Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry (Seabury Press, 1981); Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller, Boundaries for Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings into Your Greatest Allies (Thomas Nelson, 2018).
4.My previous work has explored the “true self” not as self-perfection, but as the grounded, honest place from which we can live and love more freely. See Alison Cook, The Best of You: Break Free from Painful Patterns, Mend Your Past, and Discover Your True Self in God (Nelson Books, 2022).
5.Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (Bantam Books, 2010), 44–45, Kindle.
Excerpted with permission from The Secure Soul by Dr. Alison Cook, copyright Alison Cook.
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Your Turn
Do you recognize the patterns of your soul? You are not a bystander in your inner life. You are a participant with the Lord. As Dr. Cook writes, to neglect the self is to neglect the very soil from which love of neighbor is meant to grow. You’re not doing this alone. Love incarnate goes with you. ~ Devotionals Daily