Making Room by Gather
Hospitality. What do you think of when you hear that word?
For some it's old school 'stuffy' entertaining for others it's something to do with the hotel industry. One thing is for sure, as a culture we're not talking about it much.
Food * Design * Relationships have seemed to have taken a back seat to what our culture focuses on and values yet...we find ourselves in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. Something has to change, it's time to get back to our tables, and we're making room for it!
Making Room by Gather invites you into a new conversation on everyday hospitality. One that rewrites the way we approach opening your doors and filling your tables. Shifting the narrative from 'how does this make me look' to 'how does this make you feel' these buildable conversations aspire to inspire connection through everyday gathering.
Kayty's chic and a little quirky interview style will make you feel like you're sitting with a friend talking about how to grow in confidence as an everyday host. You can expect conversations from navigating challenging relationship dynamics to foundational cooking techniques and everything in between.
Whether you are a seasoned host or looking to develop new friendships and grow in your skills for the first time, there is a seat at the table. Join us weekly for new conversations with expert guests and with Kayty in her beloved Date with Kayt episodes. Continue the conversation @gatheritentionalliving
Making Room by Gather
Breaking the Patterns that Break You w/ Tori Hope Peterson
Tori Hope Petersen is the bestselling author of her memoir “Fostered,” and her new book, “Breaking the Patterns that Break You.”
She is a sought-out national speaker and Bible teacher, encouraging women, moms, and youth coming from hard places.
Tori is a leading advocate in foster care, who has advocated to congress, and helped countless organizations serving vulnerable people raise funds by telling her powerful story from stages.
At home, she is a mom and wife who enjoys cooking with her children. With a value for hospitality, the family makes extra food to be able to open their doors and feed whoever might stop by.
Through this conversation we will talk through:
- Tori's background in the foster care system and its impact on her life
- How to reframe the way we approach feeling left out of social settings and the concept of intentional solitude
- What it means to love like you've been hurt
- Tori's upcoming conference, Loved Already
- Celebrate the upcoming release of “Breaking the Patterns that Break You.”
This conversation will open your eyes, touch your heart, and move you towards change. You won't want to miss it!
Follow her on instagram
Buy her new book
Purchase the book she lists as her latest favorite thing!
This Episode is Sponsored By:
Feast & Fettle get $25 off your first week of hand crafted, flavor packed meals delivered straight to your door so you can soak up the season with code GATHER25 at checkout
Watch our Youtube episodes here!
Hey, hey guys, welcome back and happy new year. How is it? 2025? That number is huge, especially as someone that graduated high school in 2010,. Like, the years are flying and I don't know this season I was just talking to Tori about it it was an exhausting one, but our super sweet one for us, and I just have a lot of expectancy for 2025. 2024 was just kind of a weird blur. Maybe it was postpartum, but 2025 is looking really, really sweet, so I'm excited to step into it with all of you guys.
Speaker 1:Well, if you have not heard of Tori Hope Peterson, you must not I don't know be on social media, be around. We've all heard of her. We all love her. She's been kind of in my circle. I've been familiar with her story. We have mutual friends for a while now and when the opportunity came up to have her on the show, it was an easy yes, and I'll talk more about this with her when she's on the screen with us. But I don't read through every single book, cover to cover, for the show. You guys know that in transparency, I just I can't swing it. But this one I knew I had to and it has. I'm going to get like choked up a few times in this conversation, been spoken so directly to my heart, it's going to speak so powerfully to yours as well, and so I'm just really excited to share it with you guys. Well, enough of my blabbering.
Speaker 1:If you don't know who Tori is, here is just a quick bio to catch you up to speed. So she is a bestselling author of her first memoir Fostered her new book, breaking the Patterns that Break you. She's a sought out national speaker and Bible teacher, encouraging women, moms and youth coming from hard places. Tori is a leading advocate in foster care who has advocated to Congress and helped countless organizations serving vulnerable people raise funds by telling her powerful story from stages At home. She is a mom and wife who enjoys cooking with her children, with a value for hospitality, which we love. Of course, the family makes extra food to be able to open their doors and feed whoever might stop by. What a beautiful family mission statement. Well, that is a little bit about Tori, and you know that Feast and Fettle also wants to be on your radar as we kick off this year and help you make meeting your goals and kicking off the new year easier.
Speaker 1:If you're new to the show and don't know about Feast and Fettle. They are a private chef-like delivery service no ripping open packages, no cooking, no prep work on your part. It is like a private chef cooked food for your family, delivered it to your doorstep. They want to make their kids' lunches easier, the snacks, breakfast, whatever gaps you have in your menu planning. They want to come alongside you and give you nourishing, high-quality, foodie-approved food for $25 off your first week. Use code GATHER25, g-a-t-h-e-r. And the number is 25 when you head to checkout and order your first week today.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Katie, a hospitality educator and the host of Making Room by Gather podcast. I am set to see our communities get back to the table through hospitality, but it wasn't always this way. My husband and I moved to Thailand and through it I experienced some loneliness and with it I was given a choice to sit back and accept it or to do something about it. And for me, that meant two things that I needed the healing to learn how to accept an invitation and the confidence to know how to extend one. Through this process, I developed some of the richest and deepest relationships of my life. Through Making Room by Gather, you will hear conversations from myself and experts in the areas of food, design and relationships. You see, there are countless things trying to keep us from the table. But can I tell you something? Take a seat because you are ready, you are capable, you are a good host. Let me flip the screen. I like this one better. It's prettier. We have a lot of mutual friends. Did you know that? I don't think I did know that.
Speaker 2:but I will say, like we haven't even started talking and I feel like I'm just going to cry, like I feel like you're my soulmate.
Speaker 1:I said that in the show intro and I meant it. I'm like welling up already.
Speaker 2:Yes, and just for context, I don't think a lot of people realize that the tears are, that's happening. I don't think a lot of people realize that when you do these podcasts, the people who are interviewing you don't always read your book in full, and they don't actually. Usually they maybe read like the introduction, and so I think, just to hear your words and what you said about it and I know that as a mom too it just takes it takes a lot of time to open up a book and read it. So that meant so much to me, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I, I was taking notes and I joke I'm going to joke about this conversation a little later but I could have had you here for two days, like we could have turned this into a conference, because I just there are a lot of people, so I'm not actually choked up, I'm losing my voice Little bold.
Speaker 1:No, there's a lot of people in the kind of like encouragement space, or, if you want to call it, like the personal growth space, that really want to help hurting people, but they haven't experienced a lot of it, you know, and so sometimes their words fall a little flat or they don't know exactly how to encourage.
Speaker 1:And I think what I found with yours, tori, is you know how to speak directly to the heart, and it's because you've been there, you've walked it, you know the things that are not being said, you know the help that's maybe not being given and you fill that void, and so I think that's what makes it so. What word do I want to use? Like I don't know. I just felt like a sponge that was able to just soak it all up, and that's the power that your words have. So I think, to start and kind of like set the stage, you, let's see. You come from your own journey of brokenness and healing, that kind of combination that allows you to speak in this way. So what do you want people to know about your story and how you got to where you are today? Because there's a lot.
Speaker 2:There's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so short synopsis I grew up in the foster care system. Longer synopsis I was born to a single mom who had generational trauma passed down to her and I believe that my biological mom did the absolute best with what she had, and she herself, even though I went into the foster care system and even though my life was not ideal by any means, my mom actually did break a lot of generational cycles and patterns raising me. She just didn't break all of them. She just didn't break, you know, I think, as many as she would want to, and I really believe that that's because she just didn't have the resources that we have today. When I look, you know, when you look at our culture, it's like if people aren't going to therapy, it's like are you okay? Like why aren't you in therapy? Like now it's so encouraged to go to therapy and have counseling. And when my mom was growing up, if you were attending therapy or going to counseling, it was like, are you psychotic? Like are you mad? You know, it's just a very different culture, and so she didn't have the resources that I had.
Speaker 2:I went into the foster care system twice, once when I was four and then again when I was 12, I lived in 12 different homes, which is very hard, you know. It felt like I was just disposable, like no one loved me, like no one wanted me. However, throughout that journey, the judge on my case had me do therapy. He mandated that I do therapy and it was very beneficial to me, I think, starting at such a young age learning to process through my emotions and my feelings. I started therapy when I was 12. And like that's what I mean. My mom just didn't have what I had. And then I had foster parents who took me to church and who gave me a community, and those people supported me and loved me. And again, my mom didn't have that community, didn't have those kinds of resources, and so much of the trauma that I've experienced, or the hurt that I had experienced in my childhood was because of the generational trauma passed down.
Speaker 2:And then I had a teacher who his name was Mr Rodenberger and we were reading the seven habits of a highly effective teenager and the first rule was begin with the end in mind and I was, like what does that mean? You know, when you're like in seventh grade, like what does that mean? And he just said, like it's really, basically, really short. He said it's really important that you guys get good grades and that you apply yourself, because you know, if you don't, you're not going to go to college or you're not going to be able to get a job, and if that's not the case, some of you guys are going to end up like your parents. And it just kind of struck me like in that moment that I wanted my life to be different and I always wanted to be a mom. That was something that was always in my heart and I I knew for my life to be different, I had to do something different.
Speaker 1:Not to laugh, it's just like that's. So I feel like so many people listening are probably just like needing a moment to process that, and I've had seasons of my life that maybe that thought has clicked, but I haven't like processed it to that extent, you know like, yeah, like defining moments. So I'm so grateful for that teacher. I've had similar teachers in my story and in my life and I'm so thankful for their bravery and saying those hard things and that setting Right Cause that's not that's not the norm, right, and they could have gotten a lot of pushback for that.
Speaker 1:I guess a little bit of a followup question. You've had a lot of healing work in different stages of your story that have led to the writing of these books. I feel like a lot of times that kind of processing requires a mirror. So whether it's like someone in our life that, like, calls things out and you're like, oh, I didn't see it that way, so it could be like a relationship or something like that, what sparked your healing journey I mean, maybe this teacher was there, so many people throughout.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, it's so many people and so many different things. So it was that teacher. I had a track coach who you know part of my healing maybe hasn't been people just calling me out, but it's just been people staying there and loving me relentlessly. And so I had a track coach who actually ended up bringing me into his family. So I aged out of foster care, moved throughout 12 different homes, aged out of foster care with no family, and that is quite common for youth who go into foster care when they're like 12 years or older, just because people don't want to adopt teenagers. They want to adopt like little children and so sadly, that's not an uncommon thing. But my track coach actually him and he has two other. He has two biological daughters. His biological daughters came to him. They knew that I was homeless and they said why aren't we letting Tori into our family? Like why doesn't Tori just live with us? And so from there he welcomed me into his family and that would be like a beautiful way to end the story.
Speaker 2:But it was just like I moved in and I was like an atomic bomb. You know, I didn't know how to do relationships. I didn't know how to let people love me. And I would slam the door, you know I'd walk out and I'd be like I'm never coming back and he would just say the same thing over and over and over again this home is your home, this room is your room, and the door will be unlocked when you decide to come back. And he would always say that over and over and over again and eventually, you know, I stopped reacting that way because I started to believe it, and so I think part of my healing was just people loving me.
Speaker 2:There's this woman named Tanya who is kind of like a mother figure in my life. I mean, she is, she is my mother figure, she's like a mom to me and you know she stood in as my mom at my wedding. She just has held me so many times when I cried. Actually, christmas this Christmas season is it's quite a hard time for me. I went into foster care two days before Christmas and for some reason, there have just been more traumatic events throughout my life, throughout this season, that have happened and I just it's like my body remembers or something and I went to Tanya Tanya lives half a mile away from me and I went to her house, you know, over Christmas break, and I literally just walked like I did not knock, I just walked into her door and she was standing there in her kitchen at the door just ready to receive me. I am a grown person, I'm 28 years old right now. I just put my head on her shoulder and just bawled. She just held me. Love of people, that love like Christ and that are there for me and that have not left me, even when I haven't been the like easiest person to love, um, and then from there it absolutely has been.
Speaker 2:I think that and this is gonna sound like a weird, like brag on myself, and I don't mean that, um for it to sound that way but I have always been someone who's been able to receive criticism and feedback. I mean not like perfectly like, especially as a teen, but I think there came a point when I kind of realized that if I took the feedback and criticism, that it would make me better, and so I think from a young age I just started to listen to people, maybe not even when they were talking about me, but when they were talking about anything and trying to apply it to myself to make myself better. Now there has been like a flip side to that where I realized that I was kind of taking everything and not everything was for me and now I can like, now I have to discern, like, okay, this is for me and this is not. But I think when I was in that stage of like just so much brokenness, not having a lot of guidance or wisdom in my life, clear wisdom in my life, just being observant and listening to people was, was really helpful. Um, and then I would say writing. So I have, I have journals filled um from.
Speaker 2:I started it when I lived in a group home, so like um. For people who don't know a group home is um, it's like a more like a facility than a foster home. Um, and typically there are a good number of children living in the home and they have staff typically instead of like parents, and so it was living in. Typically children who are placed there are placed there because it's they can't find any other place for them to go. America says they don't have orphanages, but group homes are actually kind of similar so with usually not as many kids, it's like a developing country.
Speaker 2:But I was living in this group home and I said I wrote like day one, and then that is kind of where my writing journey started and I think that I started to learn how to just process very ordinary things, not like deeply, not like deep things. But I think that I started to learn how to just process very ordinary things, not like deeply, not like deep things. But I think I just learned how to recall and process through things at a young age. But it's, it's so complex to say like where, what part has the healing journey, where has it started and where has ended? Because it's just continual.
Speaker 2:You know, it's I, even though, like, sometimes writing a self-help christiany book almost makes me cringe because, like healing just can't even be, like someone's individual healing journey can't even be encompassed in like a self-help book, because, cause, our healing journeys are just it's nonlinear, it's, it's complex and um, and I think that's part of the healing too, to learn and understand that like it doesn't have to look this certain way, um, and I think healing comes with a lot of like acceptance of the pain that still lingers.
Speaker 2:So, like this Christmas, I think there would have been a time in my life where, when it's when that pain comes and when it's really hard, I would have been like I need. I must not be healed Like I need. This needs to go away, and if it doesn't go away, then I'm not healed. But I see that very differently now. Then I'm not healed, but I see that very differently now. Like healing to me is actually just like the acceptance that this pain is lingering and then walking into the spaces that I know I'm loved, rather than the spaces that are trying to change me or that push out that pain.
Speaker 1:Man Tori. So good, so so good. This Christmas I had something a little bit similar. Growing up it was so crazy. There were seasons of abundance when it came to Christmas and seasons of total lack, grief and death around house.
Speaker 1:Some Christmases and I Christmas has been complicated and I think it is for a lot of people and it's not talked about enough, like you're expected to just enter it with this A joy, right, um, and then people are very quick to joke and call you a Scrooge or a Grinch and all that, and so it's. It's funny, you know, like when you're about to cry sometimes and you're like, okay, I have a choice now to cry or not. Well, christmas morning it just came out of me and so, in my own way, I had a similar experience where I was surrounded by my son and we had presents and Colby was like why are you crying? I don't understand. This is like a really sweet moment and my mind went back to the years past.
Speaker 1:Like, like you said, our bodies remember, our minds remember, and I think there's an invitation, when things like that happen to to enter into it, to work through the healing Right. So yeah, process, and so I was like I just need a moment to grieve something that maybe I haven't grieved before, you know, and then, and then I'll come back, and then I'll be, and then I'll be present. But anyways, let's keep. Let's keep diving through this, so, um, so, uh. Sorry, I like I wrote way more than I usually write in these outlines.
Speaker 2:When I read them I was like like oh my gosh, she really read my book. Like I loved it.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it so much. I did, yeah, but for now, for my own, like referencing, I'm like I don't want to read a script, um, okay so, um, wow, my mom brain right now is like all over the place, um, but, oh, yeah, okay. So when I was reading the book this is one of the first notes that I made and I think it's going to be so important for so many listening you made a connection to being included in a social setting with being loved. So being included equals being loved, being wanted. I'm sure you can attach other things to that and then, with that, the opposite being true so being being left out equals not being loved, not being wanted.
Speaker 1:I think that as I was reading that, I was like whoa, I've totally believed that for myself in different seasons without being able to put those words to it. I think that a lot of people listening are probably hearing this, thinking oh wow, maybe that's what it actually is when I feel a sense of rejection from being left out. What did it look like for you to work through this? You could take this really any direction you'd like, because I think that there's a lot we could talk about here, but I kind of want you to dive into your working through this dive into your working through this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when I started this work, when I started writing and speaking, when you write like you write by yourself, you speak, sometimes you travel with an assistant or you travel with someone, but a lot of times you're traveling by yourself. You're eating, literally, you're sitting in restaurants. Like it's so awkward to when you start doing it, like to sit in a restaurant all by yourself, like at a two person table and no one's sitting across from you, and it was just like a little uncomfortable. And I think that was because in my past is because in my past I maybe would have friends or family who wouldn't invite me. Maybe a group of friends would get together or a group of the family would get together and I would later know about it and be like why wasn't I invited? Why wasn't I included? And this must mean that people don't want me around. And if people don't want me around, people must not think I'm an enjoyable person. People must not love who I am. You know it's just like the lies, the painful narratives of who you are just continue to build and build and build when you're not invited into spaces that you think you should be. And and of course, this stems from years of trauma, of feeling like I don't belong right in families. Feeling like so I don't belong in families when I was a childhood, when I was in during my childhood and then in my adult life, I don't belong in this friend group or I don't belong in this family, setting into my adoptive family or into other families that have loved me and taken me in. And that feeling of just not being loved was so big, it was just so big in me and it pretty much consumed, like all of who I was and I was always trying to be whoever people wanted me to be so that they could include me and so that I could be a part, so that I could that belonging.
Speaker 2:And then, as I started my work, I was alone often and in that loneliness, you know, you learn. Like you you build disciplines right, Like that connect you with God, whether that's opening your Bible or listening to a podcast or turning on worship music so that the silence isn't like so, so loud, right. I feel like you start these disciplines and then, like when you know these, when you're reading these truths of what God says about you, or when you're hearing them, or when you're like just sitting in them and worship that like you are loved, that you are worthy, that like Jesus died for you because he loves you, that he's he's your father and you're his daughter. Then like you're able to sit in the silence much more comfortably, like I. The silence I wasn't so scared of it because when I was sitting in that, that solitude or that loneliness, it was like I could, the lies weren't so heavy, like they didn't come as fast because and if they did, I was like, oh yeah, but I actually I know the truth of what God says about me, like I've read that I've learned that I know the truth of what God says about me, like I've read that I've learned that I know that. And it became like loneliness and I think like, of course, I'm all about community, I'm all about friendships, but I do think there's this kind of like holy loneliness, and obviously the really holy people, like the monks, call it solitude and it's this holy loneliness, it solitude and it's this, this holy loneliness. We were able to sit with ourselves and sit with God and know what he, he, says about us. It's actually a gift and I think it comes with practice and for me, I would have never been brave enough to do it on my own, like God forced me to do it through the work that he gave me.
Speaker 2:But now I used to really fear being alone. In foster care I was. I was never allowed to be alone. You're like always with your foster parent and now like being alone, it's. It's something that I'm just not scared of. It because I I used to be so scared of the thoughts that would come, and those don't come anymore because I would. I should say they don't come as frequently and as heavily, because I have learned what what God says about me and I'm not so concerned with being included and wanting to belong, because I've seen that you know the people who love me, for who God has created me to be. Those are the people who who've let me in and who who have invited me, and it's I don't want to have to strive to be, to be something that God has not created me to be, me to be If it wasn't for that that loneliness, I don't know if I would have that that kind of peace.
Speaker 1:Wow, tori, that if it wasn't for that loneliness I wouldn't have had that peace. Wow, yeah, I okay. So I was thinking back when you I love that terminology instead of solitude, the holy loneliness, because that gives it purpose almost. I mean, when you really understand solitude, you understand that there's purpose too. But I definitely am someone that in different seasons of my life have been hurt by solitude, hurt by rejection. You know those things right. And there are three very distinct seasons where I feel like God just brought my life to a halt, like career stopped, social life stopped, and he and I was like I have to fill this time, I have to fill this time. Like the silence was deafening and he has invited me into this, like no, no, no, this is totally like planned by me, this is totally purposeful. Just enter into this with me. But it can be a little bit clumsy. Like each of these seasons that he's brought me to, I've kind of grown the muscle of what that looks like and how to make it purposeful and sweet and rich.
Speaker 2:But no, I get that, I get that and I love giving people that new wording for it that seasons of like yeah, solitude, um, and holy loneliness serve gosh such a rich purpose towards peace, towards peace right yeah, and I think that when we are able to be alone, right, or when we're able to sit in that holy loneliness, I do also think that it prepares us better for relationships, because that I also had, like right, this dependence on relationships. Like I was trying to depend on relationships in the way that I'm supposed to depend on God. I was expecting people to include me and validate me and affirm me when I felt like I didn't belong, when I felt like I was lonely, when I felt like I was hurting. And that should be something that naturally we go to God for. And that doesn't mean that we don't go to friendships and we don't go to relationships for that, Like I said at the beginning, like I could go to Tanya and I can literally cry on her shoulder and she's there for me. We want relationships like that.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, I think if we expect, our like solely that our relationships fill that role and we don't know how to turn to God, then what we do is we actually corrode and we can kind of burn through relationships because people aren't God right, People aren't limitless. Only God is limitless, and so we need to turn to him with those big burdens or what we end up doing is we end up trauma dumping, we end up making our friends carry these very heavy burdens. And again, we're supposed to carry each other's burdens. But in my case what I was doing because I wasn't aware of the way that my trauma was manifesting in me and how heavy it all was I was really making a lot of other people. I was expecting people to carry those loads for me and to be.
Speaker 2:I was expecting humans to be to me, what God was is supposed to be to me. And so I think when we're able to sit in that holy loneliness, we can actually enter into friendships and into relationships much stronger. And I think that sometimes we look at seasons of loneliness like you're saying, like this is so sad and this is so hard. But actually if we change that perspective and say, could this possibly be a gift in which God is trying to prepare me so that I can enter into relationships and maintain them more holy and more wholesome and more healthy holy and more wholesome and more healthy then I think that when we look at holy loneliness that way, it can really be a blessing that in a season that transforms us.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, my friend, I've never like. You know, when people go listen to poetry and they snap. I've never done that. I felt like the appropriate response Just to kind of close this out for listeners. If someone's like, okay, I totally am the person that connects kind of like being included with being loved. This is something that I want to work on. Can you give them a few, either like thoughts to meditate on or action steps to kind of work towards rewriting them?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, first, I think when we are maybe left out, we first think about the person or the group that's leaving us out. And what I have had to realize is I can just need to give people the benefit of the doubt, like there's probably a reason that I maybe wasn't invited, and it's probably a good reason, and it probably has very little to do with me and maybe something to do with the environment or something to do with, like, the situation, um, or maybe just like as simple as forgetfulness. And it's not because, like, they're forgetting about you, it's just because or they're forgetting about me, it's just because, like, we all have heavy, hard lives, like, and we're all juggling a lot. Maybe it's not heavy and hard, but we're just juggling a lot and so I think giving people the benefit of the doubt is just that's been something that's just really helped me, like and to see the best intentions and the people around me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um and uh. The other thing is you know, when you are left out or when you are not invited, I'll sorry. You like what you were like. Let's wrap this up, and now I'm gonna tell you a whole other.
Speaker 1:No, please I'm gonna tell you a whole other story.
Speaker 2:Do it, I might, yeah yeah, recently there's like this dream speaking engagement. I think that every Christian woman aspires for. It is a massive women's conference and a lot of my cohorts and friends go there and they speak there and it's beautiful, the work that happens there, the work that the Lord does, and I've never been invited there. But during the same weekend I was invited to a much, much, much, much smaller conference like one percent of what of the people and I went there and I was just feeling like so discouraged and that's in, all these lies just started, you know, through my mind. They just started coming and it was like you don't belong at that other conference. You're too rough around the edges. You'll never belong there. Your past has like ruined you to be in a space like that. And I'm, you know, all my cohorts and my like speaker friends, my author friends, are like making posts that they're there and I'm, like you know, I feel like the only person that's not there, the only woman that's not there. They're there and I'm, like you know, I feel like the only person that's not there, the only woman that's not there. But I am at this, in this space that I'm supposed to be in, and I just like I just really in the moment, like I, there was a huge part of me that just I didn't want to be there. I was like I want to be, I didn't want to be where I was, I wanted to be somewhere else. You, you belong here. It's not that you don't belong there, it's just that you do belong right here.
Speaker 2:And something that I tell myself in a lot of different situations is that these are God's kids too, because oftentimes we're, maybe we're not, maybe we're not in the space that we want to be in, but we are in some kind of space. And so how can we serve and love and show up just as zealously as we would at this? Bigger, more, you know, bigger it's really just bigger. There's nothing else that necessarily makes it more valuable, other than that it's bigger, and bigger actually doesn't mean more valuable. And so one of the ways that I've just reminded myself when I am doing unseen work in my home, or when I'm doing unseen work as a good neighbor in my community that is probably never going to be put on social media on social media when I am doing work at a much smaller conference and not like a bigger conference, the reminder is just that these are God's kids too. They are just as valuable in the work, and the people here deserve exactly how you would show up in any other space.
Speaker 1:You're talking to so many hearts, my friend. So good, so, so good. There's a lot to chew on there, but I, like I said we could be here all day, so I got. I might jump back to that point, but I do want to ask you this next question, which all of these themes kind of overlap a little bit. But there's a quote that we use a lot in culture to love Like you've never been hurt. And you have a chapter in your book that I I read the title I was like, ooh, this is going to be a good one to actually love Like like you've been hurt. And I want to read a quote from the chapter.
Speaker 1:What would it look like for our hurt to be used when we fully acknowledge our wounds? Our hurt doesn't control us through triggers. Rather, our hurt motivates us to serve those who have been through what we've been through. My friend, so many of us have been taught that relationships need to be carefully curated, to only engage in them when you're able to be emotionally spot on or fully present. I think that there are a lot of these subconscious narratives when it comes to hospitality, when it comes to adult relationships, all of these things. So what would you say to someone who is wanting to explore this for the first time, who is like this does not reflect my current community, my current understanding of relationships that I really want to love from this, from the place of my hurt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this chapter was born out of really out of a prayer meeting. So it was at my church and my church does prayer meetings every Monday at noon and, um, we were, we like it's just a group of people and they just pray, um out loud. And so my pastor, he actually spoke up and he started praying and he said we just pray for the trailer park in town. What they're going through has to be so hard. If there's anything we can do, lord, just help us, guide us. And I literally like stopped the prayer meeting.
Speaker 2:I was like what's going on in the trailer park? Because I actually used to live in the trailer park and the trailer park in our town is weird, like it's like in the middle of our city, like in the. I don't live in a city, I live in a town, um, but it's like in the middle of the town, um, in the midst of all this commercial, these bigger commercial stores. It's very strange like the location of it and things. Um, and the people who live there are probably some of the most, if not the most, impoverished people in our community, and so I lived there when I was a kid and so it just like really shook me like what's going on? And he said so it's private property, and so they have their own water lines, and he said that their water had been shut off because of the water lines not being taken care of. It was contaminating other parts in the city, um, with I don't know what, but with like very dangerous stuff, um, and so they had to turn the water off and they couldn't go to the bathroom, they couldn't shower, they didn't have drinking water, and I was just like, okay, what's happening in like a developing countries is happening in our town, and I just like I just like left.
Speaker 2:I was like I have to go figure out what we need to do, and so I left the prayer meeting and I called the mayor and I was like what is happening? What can we do? Um, and he gave me the the phone number of the manager of the trailer park and I, um, I called her right away and she was just like a wall up, did not want to talk to me at all, and she was just like we're going to get it fixed. We're going to get it fixed. Like you know, I think she thought it was like a city official, like someone, just another person like coming at her and, um, I was just listening to her and I was trying to ask her, like, okay, what can we do? Like how can we help? Like I'm just a community member here, I'm not any person in power trying to shut down the trailer park or anything. And she just was very like we're going to get it fixed. You know this. This problem isn't your problem, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:And I could tell she was just kind of done with the the conversation and I was like, okay, before we get off the phone, can I just tell you, um, that I actually used to live in the trailer park as a kid and I realized I probably should have started there. Um, in her, you could just like hear her wall crumble across, like on the phone, and she was like, oh really, and her voice just broke. And she's like actually, we really. And her voice just broke and she was like, actually, we could really use drinking water. She was like can you get us a bunch of bottled water in drinking cups? And we were just done. We went and got a ton of pallets of water from Walmart and delivered them to the people in the trailer park and it was just this moment of like I had to show her my hurt and my brokenness and my pain, and I was trying to do it without that, yeah, and it didn't work.
Speaker 2:And so and I think in this, this love like you've never been hurt, the idea is that we step into spaces and we forget to relate to the broken people that we're serving. We forget to bring our own brokenness and our own pain into the situation, and what it actually does is it actually usually causes more hurt. We're offering sympathy and not empathy. We are stepping on a stage and pointing fingers rather than holding hands and walking with people or sitting across from people, and I think it's just really necessary that we remember our hurt when we're trying to love other people who are hurting, or else they can just cause a lot more hurt in a lot of ways. And I have I actually there's so many other, you know cause you read the book.
Speaker 2:There are other stories that I admit that I caused hurt because I had forgotten my own hurt and I was trying to maybe function in a way that I had seen really strong leaders function in the church or I had seen people who you know had a lot of influence or who were, you know they have these big titles and so I was trying to kind of function and lead like they did and with the people that I serve. That just doesn't work, like and, and so I just think that that quote like love like we've never been hurt Really if, if we look at it, we need to rethink it and we need to love like we have been hurt. We need to remember our hurt, we need to, we need to process our hurt, we need to understand it, we need to heal from it, and we also need to remember it for the sake of the people that we, for the sake of the people that we serve.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, I feel like so many of us are on this quest for belonging and purpose but at the same time wanting to erase these chapters of our past, and I think that one leads to another. Like I was telling my husband recently, this is a very, very small scale, very small story, but bullied a lot middle school and high school, verbally, physically and I told myself I would never move back to my hometown. We moved away. God had us here and has had us here for five years and I've had to face that a lot and face it again. Like I drive by the schools, like all those things right, and I kept telling my husband I wish I could. Just I wish that wasn't part of my story. I wish that wasn't part of my story. I wish that wasn't part of my story.
Speaker 1:And in the past few months God has really shown me that through working through this, I know how to see people now in a different way. I don't just see people, I see hearts, right, and you're able to just respond so differently when you love, like you've been hurt, right, like and if, and that looks so different for all of us. Right, like maybe someone it's a season of a really difficult cancer diagnosis, or a sick parent, a childhood loss I could look like anything. And if we all respond there, oh my gosh, what a robust I like, then everyone's cared for. I don't know what I'm having a hard time processing that Right Exactly.
Speaker 2:I don't know what. I'm having a hard time processing that.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly. Yeah, you know. What I'm saying Is that, like it's the first time I'm processing that, so it's a little choppy, but no, it's, it's exactly right, like um another story that I shared in the book, which I you know.
Speaker 2:But, um, I had a friend named Alexa in college and her dad had passed away and when I was in college, I had this quote unquote job. It wasn't like a real job. I was an athlete in college and all the athletes had the same job and that was to look over the weight room while people were working out and we just all did our homework, but I was paid for it, so I was doing my job. I was sitting outside of the weight room and there were like classrooms surrounding the weight room and Alexa comes out of her class and she just like falls into my arms. She starts crying. I know that her dad recently passed away and I told her I was like Alexa, you just need to trust God. And I mean she just like wailed, like the cry that she let out was so big. And she was like Alexa, you just need to trust God. And I mean she just like wailed, like the cry that she let out was so big. And she was like Tori, my dad just died.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh yeah, like, but I said that because that's what I had heard other Christian leaders say and I so I was, for context I was saved when I was 17 and then went straight off to college and you know the, the Christian. I went to a Christian college and those were the people that I looked to for guidance on how to be a faith leader and how to um, just how to express my faith. And when I had had my own emotional turmoil and mental struggles in college from my trauma from my childhood, that's what I had heard people say like you just need to trust God, you just need to pray more. And so when and it was funny because like it did hurt me, like it hurt me a lot, because I was like, wait, I do trust God, like I do pray, I do love God, but like I just I that doesn't mean that I'm completely healed from being a being abused for years, from being tossed around from home to home, from being disposable to people Like those are really big pains.
Speaker 2:And like when I said that to Alexa, it's like I forgot that losing your dad, your earthly father, is a really big pain. And so I think it's just another example of like when we forget our own hurt, we hurt other people, we, we resort to shallow maxims, we resort to quick fixes and like we just have to remember that, like God is not a bandaid, you know and our faith is not a bandaid. Know and our faith is not a bandaid, and when we treat it as such and when we forget, you know just the depthness that our hurt and pain and suffering can actually offer in situations of other people's hurt. It can just be so damaging and when we remember it, it can be so healing for us and for and for other people.
Speaker 1:Wow. That goes so against hospitality culture right now in the most beautiful way. I feel like so many of us are like hospitality is not working, community is not working, and it's like this is an alternative that comes with immediate, immediate change. So thank you for leading in that so authentically. Well, I've talked about a few of the themes in the book that stood out to me that I wanted to touch on, but what about for you? What are you excited for readers to consume work through as they get their hands on the book?
Speaker 2:Yeah, above all else, I think. Um, so there's a story I share in the book. It's actually around Christmas.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't know when this is going to be released, but just for context, everybody, this is being recorded five days after Christmas, so that's why we keep bringing out Christmas, um, and so I was probably like three years into marriage and my husband and I were kind of organizing presents for everybody and, um, one of the nicest presents in the in all of the presents was this leather bag and I put it in this woman's pile. Her name was Kimberly. Kimberly wasn't always very kind to me, but I really wanted Kimberly to love me. She was just like this woman at the church, you know, like a leader in the church. I wanted to be accepted by and loved by, and my husband was like we're not giving that to Kimberly. He was like why are all the nicest gifts in Kimberly's pile? Like you need to give your family nicer gifts. You never give your family nice gifts.
Speaker 2:I was kind of offended. I was like what do you mean? I don't give my family nice gifts? What are you talking about? But like it was all laid out in front of me, right, and so I have to actually like, be honest and evaluate it and my family actually didn't have nice gifts and what I realized was that this was a pattern all throughout my life and it was it's really like the overarching pattern that has, um, just really hurt a lot of my relationships and that has hurt me, and that's that I have ignored the people that love me and love the people that ignore me, and I pursue the people that reject me and reject the people that pursue me.
Speaker 2:And, um, and we all do it in our own, I think. I think a lot, I shouldn't say all. I think a lot of us do it in our own subtle ways, and realizing that and changing it has been very transformational for me, and so my hope is that people just see these like very subtle. These patterns are subtle, are subtle, and so my hope is that people see the very subtle, quiet patterns in their life and that they see that they truly are loved and they begin to function from the identity of not having to earn love but from the identity of being truly, genuinely, fully known and loved.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, so good, tori, it's so good. Well, okay, I keep having all these side thoughts, but I want to lead it all here because I know I would imagine you're going to talk more about it at your conference, right, it's right after your book launch? Oh, yes, and so for anyone listening, that's like I just want to hear more. I want to soak in more, I want to be around more of this messaging and content and inspiration. You have an upcoming conference called Loved Already, and the description of the conference is empowering you to live out your true identity right where you are, with what you have and, from what I know of you and some mutual friends that are going to be there Alicia Bricholi is a dear, dear friend Yep, I know it's going to be incredibly transformational for everyone that's there. With your love of hospitality, girlfriend that you like, have this in the bag. It's going to be so good. But can you tell listeners maybe a little bit more about what they can expect and how they can sign up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the conference is March 29th 2025 in Defiance, ohio, and everybody's welcome. And our objective really is to make people feel like they're right at home, like they're like right in their home church, even if they're not, or they're right in their community. And it is connective and it is meant to bring women together and just lead them to an authentic intimacy with Christ. We say that we do not want to create an emotional high for a day that's what a lot of conferences do but we want to reflect in intimacy with Christ during the conference so that women can carry that out for the days, weeks, months and years to come. Um, and so we bring in um speakers from all over, speakers, teachers, preachers, um women speaker, teachers and preachers from all over and we worship together and we learn together. Um, and we connect together. And, yeah, if you'd like to come, you can go to Tori Hope Petersoncom slash loved already and, uh, there are conference tickets there and we would love to have you. We invite you.
Speaker 1:Amazing, ah, so much richness. Well, um, we're going to end with three questions that we ask every guest, and I want to hear your answers as well, um, but first, why don't you tell people where to buy the book and where to follow you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um. So my new book is called Breaking the Patterns that Break you Healing from the Pain of your Past and Finding Real Hope. That Last, and you can pre-order it anywhere books are sold. Amazon does it. I know some people are anti-Amazon, do your thing, but it is 25% off on Amazon right now. So if you're a deal getter, if you like the deals, um, yeah, you can pre-order it anywhere books are sold. And, um, you can follow me at Tori Hope Peterson. Um, just something to remember is that Peterson is not S O N, it's S E.
Speaker 1:N. I did that. I wrote that right on our show notes and oh well, you know. So I caught it somewhere, but not okay. Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 2:No, no, I didn't say that Cause it was you. Oh, I hope you didn't. I say that. No, I didn't say that Cause I say it on every podcast, because my husband gave me a last name that everyone spells wrong, so it wasn't you, I was not saying that because I was like I was like darn it, you saw. No, no, Go listen to all the podcasts I do.
Speaker 1:I say it on every single one. I promise I was sending out Christmas cards. We have three Petersons that we send Christmas cards to. They're all spelt differently. I know somewhere like some spell it with a D too. Oh, my goodness, no one of them was an I N, peter S I N. Oh, I've never seen that before. I know so I'm also the queen of typos, so I was like this is very typical of me, sorry, tori.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't even notice. I didn't even notice.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's have fun with these questions. So the first one is something you have eaten recently and loved.
Speaker 2:Last night my husband and I were watching a show together and this is like a s'more, but without the work. So you get the graham cracker and you get vanilla frosting, put it in the fridge and then chocolate chips on top of it. Like a s'more, but without the fire and the roasting and the work. You know what I'm saying. Delicious Graham cracker, chilled icing homemade icing is the best, but if you don't want to be fancy, just get the kind from the store and chocolate chips. That's so fun.
Speaker 1:I feel like we're entering into that like lazy cooking season for people. Everyone's all cooked and baked out. Oh girl, yeah, it's a lazy cooking.
Speaker 2:I love cooking, like love it, and it's a lazy cooking season. Oh wait, I have to give you one more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please, I got a.
Speaker 2:Costco membership for Christmas and Costco meatloaf it's like a. It's like pre-made, like they have. Like, if you go in the back, they have all these like pre-made meals and they're already made. You just have to put them in the oven and their meatloaf it's like a meatloaf with mashed potatoes. You must get it.
Speaker 1:So I'm you don't have to cook it.
Speaker 2:You're welcome.
Speaker 1:I'm a huge Costco girl. We're new friends, you'll learn that very quick about me. So, my favorite I haven't had the meatloaf yet, so I'll have to try it. The stuffed peppers have you had the stuffed peppers? I haven't, but now I'm going to try that. Those are just as phenomenal, yeah, so okay, we'll do a swap this week. You get the peppers, I get the meatloaf. That's awesome. Okay, how about a gathering you attended that made you feel a strong sense of belonging?
Speaker 2:And, if you could pinpoint it, what it was that made you feel that way. So my last speaking engagement of the year which it wasn't really I shouldn't even call this speaking engagement because it wasn't it was like nothing I've ever attended before. Um, it was. So it was some of the top, it was some of the top leaders, um, in child welfare, and child welfare is a fancy more policy, um, politicky word for um foster care, child protection, and so it was a group of like 20 people and I was invited and I just felt I was the only former foster youth. So, or something we say like in the space is like person with lived experience in the room.
Speaker 2:Other people had been leaders and influencers in the space in different ways and a lot of them have been researchers, had just done incredible. There's not a lot of research, there's not as much research as there could be on foster care, and that's what makes getting good results of foster care so challenging. And so they're just some of the most intelligent researchers and people I had ever been around and I learned so much from them and I mean these people were just, they were truly some of the sharpest people I have ever met and you know you get into those spaces and you're like why did I get invited here? But they just like they were, just like you belong here. You know you're incredible Like we see you as one of the smartest people we ever met and I was like you're crazy.
Speaker 2:But just their acceptance of me and the way that they listened to my story and the perspectives that I had around foster care and how we can create better outcomes for children were just so welcomed and it was. It was really neat.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, it was very, very cool. So, wow, wow, wow, so grateful that you got invited and thankful that those meetings are happening. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And just to like the synopsis of that, because, like now, people are welcoming people into their home, often on this podcast, like, right, I was invited, I was listened to, my voice was valued, just, I'm saying this cause like, how do we actually then apply this? No, I mean valued and and yeah, I was invited, my voice was valued and I think I was just I was listened to and then I was asked, I was asked more questions, like it. It was invited, my voice was valued and I think I was just I was listened to and then I was asked, I was asked more questions, like it. It was like I had, I had something to offer and then they thought I had even more to offer after I thought I didn't.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's so incredible. So many levels my background in college I studied social work before I did a huge career shift and so I know, I know. So I'm like I wonder who was there. Maybe I know some people. I still follow some people in the space. Okay, this is always a fun one. Something you've discovered recently that you think everyone should know about a Netflix show, amazon purchase anything fun and random.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to do a book. Um, yeah, I'm sorry I didn't discover it recently. It's actually been my favorite book for a long time, but my my dad got it. So, um, it's this.
Speaker 2:My my dad got me this book for Christmas this year because, um, someone came to my house this year and they were like what is your favorite? I have this. I'm like sitting by my bookshelf and it's there's a lot of books in it, and this person was like, what is your favorite book? And I gave it to her and she was like I well, I like gave it. Like I handed it to her. I was like this is my favorite book. And then she was like I want to take this home. And I was like, okay, this home. And I was like, okay, but then I was kind of sad because I was like, wait, that's my favorite book. Like I wanted to give it to her. But also then I was like, wait, now I don't have my favorite book because it's um.
Speaker 2:So my dad got it for me this year, um, and he got me the hard cover and I had the soft cover. So I felt like I've been, I haven't read it and I haven't opened it in like four years, um, but I started leafing through it and it's called Love Henry and it is letters by Henry Nowen, who is probably one of my favorite Christian writers, authors, and so you can just like open it at kind of any time anywhere and just read a letter, and you can read a bunch, or you can read one or two, and through every letter I usually feel convicted or just held and, yeah, I love it. It's a comforting and very sweet book Love Henry.
Speaker 1:I 've actually never even heard of it, so that's a new one to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think it's not like a popular book, but it's a good one, very good.
Speaker 1:Those are the best ones. Yeah Well, I don't even know how to wrap this conversation up. I feel like I'm at a loss for words just because I don't feel done yet, but I know it's so good. Well, guys, I hope that as you are listening today, you feel seen and known and hope. I hope you feel a lot of hope of cycles can be broken and freedom can happen and there's community available, there's new stories available. Your story's not over yet, right? And yeah, there's hope. Yeah Well, be sure to follow Tori Head on over, look at her conference, see if you're able to make it, buy her upcoming book. Remind me, it's February. What's the release date? February, february 4th.
Speaker 2:You can pre-order it now, and then you get it on February 4th.
Speaker 1:That's the best. That's like my favorite way to order books and to support my favorite authors. So well, guys, share the episode. If you loved it, leave a review and we will see you next week.