1KHO 818: The Courage to Be Known | Michael John Cusick, Sacred Attachment

**Ginny Yurich** (0:00)
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Welcome to The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000hours Outside. And I'm so honored today to have an author here who wrote a book that I really loved. And sometimes, you know, there's not a huge crossover with 1000hours Outside, but there always is some sort of crossover. It's like almost always embodiment and relationships and that type of thing. And so I'm always thankful when an author who probably is like, why is this person asking me to come on their podcast says yes. So Michael John Cusick, author of Sacred Attachment. You've got your own podcast as well. This is Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love. You talk a lot about addiction and just having a fuller life. So Michael, welcome.

**Michael John Cusick** (1:54)
I'm just delighted to be here, Ginny. Thank you.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:56)
Okay, before we kick it off, I want to tell people about what you have going on. You talk about restoring the soul a little bit in the book, I'm pretty sure, because I remember reading, I think about that. But you have a nonprofit that you've had for 25 years where you're really helping people who are struggling with where they're at in life. You also have your own podcast. So tell us about the things that you have before we kick it off into some of these conversation topics.

**Michael John Cusick** (2:17)
Yeah, you bet. So I've been a licensed therapist for 32 years in Colorado, but I've also walked through a fair amount of my own struggle and brokenness with addiction and trauma from early childhood. About 25 years ago, as I was in private practice and also a professor training graduate students, someone called me up and said, Hey, well, you work with one of my friends, but they're in a field where they're really serious and intense. They happen to be a physician. I won't talk about what kind, but they want to go somewhere for like two weeks and just dig into their stuff. I thought that was the craziest idea I ever heard. But I did that and I had the flexibility to do that because of the university I was with. What I saw happen during that time was absolutely profound. The connection, the safety, the transformation that really led to nine to 12 months of counseling change in about two weeks, because we met for three hours a day.
I left Academia, started this non-profit organization, we care for the caregivers. Clergy, NGO workers from abroad, some first responders, some military, but people that either don't have access to counseling, where they're living or where people are stuck in their attempts at therapy and counseling. It's a really beautiful program that we get to see. Every year we give away anywhere upwards of $300,000 in scholarships to people that are qualified for those services. So people can check that out. Thanks for being gracious to talk about it, restoringthesoul.com. That launched a podcast that we've done for eight years now. That's just me sitting down with thought leaders in the field of psychology, mental health, Christian spirituality, the integration of those two.
Sometimes I'll just talk about my own material in my books, and we've had everybody from poets to Emmy Award-winning musicians and on and on. So I love what I do.