{"podcast":{"title":"The Allender Center Podcast","slug":"the-allender-center-podcast-1093683","podcast_index_feed_id":1093683,"rss_url":"https://theallendercenter.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://theallendercenter.org","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/e/8/f/f/e8ff350178e26c4c/TAC_Podcast_LogoBadge-UPLOAD-V2.jpg","author":"The Allender Center","episode_count":616,"summary":"The Allender Center Podcast features Dr. Dan Allender and his team engaging topics on healing and restoration through the unique intersection of theology and psychology. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join us to gain refreshing insight into understanding your story, handling relational struggles, recovering from trauma and abuse, and more. The mission of The Allender Center is to help people tell their stories with awareness and integrity, and to train them to listen to the stories of others with care, artistry, and skill so that they may foster redemption and healing in their lives. The Allender Center is a pioneering organization committed to boldly engaging the impact of trauma and abuse, providing healing and teaching to individuals, couples, and communities, and training professionals to listen and enter into stories in a way that facilitates transformation and hope. For information on all our programs and live events, visit theallendercenter.org","last_synced_at":"2026-08-01T00:18:44.426745+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-allender-center-podcast-1093683"},"episode":{"title":"Why Is It So Hard to Tell the Truth? with Dr. Monique Gadson","slug":"why-is-it-so-hard-to-tell-the-truth-with-dr-monique-gadson","published_at":"2026-01-16T14:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-allender-center-podcast-1093683/why-is-it-so-hard-to-tell-the-truth-with-dr-monique-gadson","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-allender-center-podcast-1093683","url":"https://theallendercenter.libsyn.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-tell-the-truth-with-dr-monique-gadson","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/theallendercenter/TAC618-Export.mp3?dest-id=214185","summary":"Most of us say we value the truth—until it unsettles us, costs us something, or asks us to change. Truth has a way of disrupting the stories we use to survive. That's exactly what we're talking about on the podcast today. Dr. Monique Gadson joins Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen to explore why truth-telling feels so threatening—personally, relationally, and culturally. Drawing from systems theory, theology, and her lived experience, Dr. Gadson names anxiety as the central force that keeps us from truth. When we lack the capacity to tolerate the discomfort truth brings, we turn to projection, delusion, scapegoating, and certainty as coping mechanisms. What begins as an inability to regulate anxiety within families and relationships spills outward into institutions, churches, and society itself, resulting in polarization, blame, and a deep resistance to accountability. The conversation presses especially hard on the role of Christians in this moment. Rather than leading the way in humility, repentance, and truth-bearing love, the church is often entangled in systems that suppress truth to protect power, purity narratives, or a false sense of goodness. Dr. Gadson speaks candidly about the cost of being a truth teller, particularly as a Black woman, and the reality of being scapegoated for disrupting dominant stories. Yet she also offers a grounded hope: freedom comes through differentiation, integrity, and the slow, courageous work of managing anxiety rather than projecting it onto others. Truth, she reminds us, is not about annihilating one another, but about creating the conditions where real relationship, responsibility, and repair are possible. Ultimately, this episode invites us to ask not only what is true, but what does truth stir in us—and can we bear it? As…","meta_description":"Most of us say we value the truth—until it unsettles us, costs us something, or asks us to change. Truth has a way of disrupting the stories we use to sur…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2693,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-allender-center-podcast-1093683/episodes/why-is-it-so-hard-to-tell-the-truth-with-dr-monique-gadson/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-allender-center-podcast-1093683/why-is-it-so-hard-to-tell-the-truth-with-dr-monique-gadson.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}