Trauma, Shame, and Contempt

What happens when shame takes root in a story? And how does contempt become one of the ways we learn to survive it?

Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen explore the complicated relationship between shame and contempt, and why understanding these dynamics matters so deeply for healing and human connection.

Shame can leave us feeling exposed, powerless, defective, or alone. And contempt often emerges as a strategy of protection: through self-criticism, defensiveness, withdrawal, rage, sarcasm, superiority, or humiliation.

You’ll hear reflections on:

• why contempt often forms in response to pain and powerlessness
• what trauma responses like fight, flight, freeze, and fawn look like in moments of shame
• how to remain grounded in dignity and belovedness when faced with contempt

This conversation invites us into deeper curiosity, compassion, and discernment — especially in a cultural moment increasingly marked by outrage, dehumanization, and contempt.

If you’d like to explore these themes more deeply, we invite you to join Rachael Clinton Chen for the upcoming live training, The Art of Story Engagement, on June 13. Together, you’ll explore more deeply how contempt shapes our stories — and how learning to recognize these dynamics in ourselves and others can open the door to greater wisdom, healing, and care. You can learn more at theallendercenter.org/events 

*This episode contains some explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. 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 the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.

At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, click here. If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

Episode Transcript

Dan: I don’t think we often begin with a trigger warning. I’ve never really been too fond of them, but I think it’s fair to say that the focus today is on shame, contempt, humiliation, and something of what happens to the human heart when something as egregious as that violation occurs. Rachael, you’re about to step into an opportunity to talk about this. Let’s do a little advertising first and then jump into the materials. So what’s ahead for you?

Rachael: Well, I am holding the second part of a two-part series on the art of story engagement or the art of holding a story.

Dan: And who did the first? Who did the first?

Rachael: You did. You did, Dan. On May 9th, you held an art of story engagement and I believe that you leaned into the role of shame and story or the experience of shame, the impact of shame. And I have the privilege of stepping into, I would say the sister of shame or brother, if one will, the sibling of shame, which is contempt and the role and impact and experience of contempt in our stories of pain and also the ways that we metabolize them and internalize them. And so yes, it is a four-hour event on June 13th. That’s a Saturday from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time and it’s live and there are CEUs available and live story engagement and space for Q&A.

Dan: No, who’s doing the live story engagement?

Rachael: Well, by live story engagement, I mean you get to see a recording of story engagement.

Dan: Who will be doing that?

Rachael: Me.

Dan: Oh, good.

Rachael: Me, I will be engaging the story. I have a very generous volunteer because it takes a lot of courage and generosity to gift your story to a training or to a learning opportunity.

Dan: Just underscore the privilege I had to work with a woman who stepped into a story of great harm. And all our stories, I mean, if anyone thinks they have escaped shame, they have not read the end of Genesis 2:25, and they were naked and they knew no shame. Then as we go into literally the rest of scripture up until Revelation 20, 21, 22, we’ve got in so many ways the story of shame, the story in that sense, where there’s shame we’ve underscored there will be contempt. And they are in some sense, maybe not identical siblings, but I’ve always thought of it as if shame is the fire, contempt is the smoke. It’s always where there’s contempt, there was shame. Where there’s shame, there will be contempt. So thank you. Thank you for choosing to walk into waters that we’ve got to have language for. We’ve got to be able to see how a gifted caregiver, you and me, engage these difficult categories. So folks can go on the allendercenter.org to find out more information. So add advertisement over how do you engage the reality of contempt?

Rachael: Nobody ever changes by bringing shame and contempt to them to coerce them to change. So these are very, very well-defended places in our heart, in our mind, and in our bodies that have to be engaged with a lot of honor, a lot of tenderness, a lot of curiosity, a tremendous amount of compassion. And I think a lot of patience. I could speak for my own story and life at the places where … And again, when we talk about contempt, maybe we could even define contempt, but I think people know when we talk about contempt, it’s a both way kind of emotion or experience. It could be something that’s directed at others or certainly something that’s directed inward or toward ourselves, but it’s always in response to contempt. It’s not like these things are never formed in a vacuum. And this is something I try to remember even just in my everyday movement, especially in these times we find ourselves in where maybe it was on the podcast or maybe it was at a conference I was just at, the statistic was that I think it was somewhere in the 90th percentile, like that 90% of people right now because of all we’ve lived through are in a pretty constant state of fight, flight, or freeze that’s right on the edge. And I feel that when I’m interacting with just strangers or driving on these streets in Philadelphia, that there is a heightened level of rage and contempt and that that is not formed in a vacuum. It’s again, it is a great defense mechanism to protect against pain, against powerlessness, against betrayal, against terror. And so I can’t, when I’m driving, have an engagement with a fellow driver around like, how did contempt come to be the way in which you keep yourself safe in the world, but it’s at least something I can be mindful of. So yeah, I think these to me are some of the greatest weapons of evil to keep us bound in shame and to keep us, I would say, defended with contempt.

Dan: Well, if shame is that toxic almost drowning experience that there is something so awful, terrible, bad, disgusting, dirty, foul within me or I am. And in that, the sense of contempt, like just the simple fury sometimes I feel when I can’t find my keys or when I can’t find a word which as an older man is happening way more and more… and just I want to rip something in me against me. And that sense of shame is a wound. It is a form of trauma. And as we have said perhaps countless times, trauma always brings a degree of fragmentation. And in that shame experience, numbing, we just go internally dead and the effect often is to isolate, which is another word for most of the time at the prospect of shame or the experience we really want to be invisible, we want to disappear. And oddly, self-contempt is a form of annihilation, a sort of a killing of self in order to escape how raw and naked I feel for my stupidity, for my foolishness, for my sin. All that to say contempt is structurally what the apostle Paul addresses. And we’ve come to this passage many times and that is, it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And then Paul asking, and why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? So we know contempt is not just an internal intrapsychic reality, not just interpersonal, but an ultimate interpersonal. It’s a theological category that you’re addressing. I’m just thrilled that you are choosing to wander into those dark waters. But again, if we can disrupt something of the power of contempt, it really does open us to the sun, to the rain, to the potentiality of that nourishing spring, shall we say, upheaval that actually brings flourishing to our gardens. So grateful, but let me step into how do you understand why people bully, why people humiliate, why people bring contempt against other people?

Rachael: I don’t know if I do understand yet. I have my logical … Okay, you bully first so that you can’t be bullied, or this is just a way that your nervous system has been so deeply shaped. I mean, even in my own story, the places that I have the most contempt are usually where I’m the most afraid of being wounded by either this type of identity or person or the ways that they echo other bullies in my past. And so yeah, I think it is a fiercely protective mechanism and like a form of sabotage in many ways too, to keep people at a distance so that they can’t get close so that they can’t see, but also so that they can’t harm.

Dan: Yeah. My experience as I’ve worked with people is when I see somebody be humiliated or they tell the story of humiliation of being in the presence of this almost drowning of contempt, there’s always a sense that that bully, that parent, that spouse in some sense hated your beauty, hated your innocence and saw something that they envied. So I think if we can begin with that framework where when there’s cruelty directed toward you, part of the motive, part of the reason that person’s expressing that violence towards you is out of envy of something in you they desire to possess, but in some sense have come to the conclusion that they have more power to destroy than merely to absorb and consume. Does that fit your experience?

Rachael: Yeah, in a way that I can feel that in my body. Yeah, absolutely. And envy can feel like such an innocuous word, and sometimes the way, “Oh, I’m so envious of this experience you’re having,” or we can use it in a more playful way where there’s some honesty, but maybe our hearts aren’t actually oriented toward destruction, but when you’ve been able to get closer to where envy is actually a form of hatred and destructive, violating language I’ve heard you use often marring. It’s funny because I was just talking with Michael about how it’s still really hard to metabolize when you’re reckoning with places in your own story where you’re having to own, “This person hated me.” You’ve brought that language to me before like, “Why does this person hate you so much?” And I’m like, “They don’t.” That is ridiculous. That is so hyperbolic.

Dan: Hyperbolic self.

Rachael: That is so hyperbolic because I think part of what we have to understand is that it’s an impulse or a compulsion and rarely is someone sitting in … Sometimes they are if they’re really diabolical, but rarely are they sitting in a room with their notepad like, “I hate this about this person and here’s how I’m going to strategically destroy them.” It’s really coming. I mean, it’s like this story of Cain and Abel, right? It’s coming from a place that is unbridled in some ways or often maybe even very subconscious and it’s certainly coming out of story and places of deprivation and again, pain and distortion and contempt. And so it’s easy to push it away because we don’t actually want to reckon with someone else’s hatred of our innocence or our beauty or our freedom or our possibility or think that in their own pain they wouldn’t have the guardrails to be aware of the energy that they’re putting out.

Dan: Again, it’s a little bit of an aside, but I think it’s so important to be able to say it could be your spouse, it could be your teenage son, it could be a neighbor in their fury against you. They are your enemy, maybe temporarily, maybe not longstanding, but in that interaction with you, it is the desire to, if we can put a very simple word, they want to hurt you. Well, anyone who wants to hurt you wants to some degree to have power over you and in some sense create a structure where you submit to their violence and in that, for whatever reason, they have gained a sense of escape from whatever your very being brings to them. And I think again, if we go back to envy is a form of hatred and it will inevitably, directly or indirectly, bring a violence against you. And nothing is more powerful than sometimes just the raised eyebrow, the rolling of eyes, the comment that just scatters you. But if you were to respond with, why do you hate me now? You would be viewed as beyond ridiculous for using a word like that. Or, why do you want to hurt me right now? What has caused you to be so sensitive? So how contempt will be brought in a way that I do think it does mar beauty. You have to say at some level as painful as it may be intentional may not have been plotted as you put it, but there is an intentionality to harm goodness, innocence. And in that, so often I think the person does so so that you are at least at their level of not below. But I think there’s another factor if I can jump in and say a lot of times people will assault in ways where they see your brokenness, not just your beauty, but they see your brokenness. And if we can go into categories like with regard to sexual abuse in the deaf community, in the difficulty seeing community, in places where there is fragility because of some degree of handicap, there’s a heightened level of violence and abuse and a heightened disparagement in almost any minority community, majoritarium will find ways to demean. And that’s again, many of our African American friends have long and heartbreaking histories, but it’s true in Aboriginal communities. It’s true in indigenous people’s communities where ever there is perceived, not even actual, but perceived brokenness or weakness, there is almost a desire to bring about greater harm. And so humiliation becomes the economy of how those who are in power keep in power and create a dehumanization of those whom they intend to use or at least intend to violate. Does again, that fit your experience?

Rachael: Yes. I was just thinking about children, right? Just even the category of children or women and children in our world and certain patriarchal or misogynistic structures. Yeah, that’s just very rampant and very few of us can escape the ways we’ve been invited to join in, to join in that humiliation and degradation.

Dan: Yeah. Well, if we just go that Aristotle, Plato, all viewed women as deformed men. And in that sense, the disparagement of the … I mean, I can’t even believe I’m saying it in this day that there are people who are followers of Jesus who want the 19th Amendment to be destroyed because women are too fragile. They’re too emotional and you go, yeah, that’s why road rage is an issue. So many women are taking violence out on the roads because they’re so emotionally decrepit. So yes, whenever you begin to see disparagement, any form of contempt or humiliation, you have to begin with that category of you hate beauty, but any perceived brokenness or actual actually becomes almost this allure to take it to a point of even greater violence. And again, as an only child, I didn’t see this, but I certainly saw it in many of the families. The older brother took it out on the younger brother. The younger brother took it out on the sister. The sister took it out, who knows, on the dachshund, but all that to say there is something of rage within the human heart that wants to bring about this sense of ruin and to the degree we will not own it, that it’s there in a family, it’s there in a culture, it’s there in each one of our own hearts. We continue to, in one sense, not address the question that Paul is asking. Why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? What are we so afraid of that we need the ultimate form of violence to be able to annul goodness, innocence, beauty, kindness?

Rachael: Sorry. I’m just thinking about stories. I’m thinking about my own life and the people I feel called to serve and to be close to. And I’m probably a little bit in a season. Again, it could sound like, oh, I’m somehow above this in my own life and I don’t have contempt for others because I certainly do. I think I just feel a lot of despair around this. It’s probably been a season of like, I don’t know if I’m made for this world. I don’t know if I’m going to make it with any sense of my humanity intact in order to … It just feels like the waters of humiliation and contempt are very raging right now in our world.

Dan: And again, the dilemma is as we name something of the motives of the person doing that form of shaming and indulging in other-centered particular contempt, the reality is it’s also a way to escape one’s own inner contempt, one’s self-contempt. And as a means of disparagement, you get to humiliate another. And again, we know the term it’s used often, but it’s an appropriate one. It’s projection. In order for me to resolve the sense of my own inner war, I will in one sense obliterate you. But the dilemma is when you are the victim of somebody’s violence in this sense, the normal response of our stress system is to fight, to fight against it, to push against it or retort contempt to contempt, or even if you’re more mature to have a more aggressive stance against or flight, you simply hightail it out of there. Again, this is hard, kind of why I wanted to offer the trigger warning. The dilemma is fight and flight doesn’t work against other-centered contempt because this is a very painful sentence. It’s very arousing for the bully to see you fight. It only creates more like, oh, go ahead, throw your punch and watch what I do with it. And go ahead and run and you’ll find I’m just as fast as you are and I will be there before you arrive and deliver more. Now that you have that fight or flight, the arousal of upping the ante another level becomes even more heartbreaking, which then leaves freezing, fawning. In other words, I will comply. I will bear your humiliating tearing of my integrity, but even if it doesn’t seem to arouse in the same way, at least the bully knows at that juncture that you are fully under their control. So the normal things we do actually don’t work in the presence of that kind of contempt.

Rachael: So what’s the hope? We can’t really help it. Those are trauma responses. It’s really hard in trauma to be like, I think that’s really what I would most want people to hear is you may not be able to control your trauma responses in a moment of harm, but there is … So what’s the hope? What’s the possibility of life in the midst of this kind of abuse?

Dan: Oh, well, I think in the actual, shall we say, situation where it’s occurring and I hope for the majority of people who are listening, that it’s not current. You’re actually having to tend to stories of junior high school of college or being in the military or an horrible situation between you and your boss. Again, if you’ve escaped humiliation, you’ve escaped another person’s contempt. You have been living on the border of Eden, but let’s just say particularly even if it’s just a little derogatory remark, there is something in our body that echoes to the deeper wounds. So the small wound may be dismissed but it’s going to echo of the realities that we need to tend to. So simply knowing in a way that feels very much like blame shifting, but I don’t think is this person wants to ruin me again, maybe not finally, completely and endlessly, but in this moment they want to hurt me. They want me to suffer a scar that in some ways blemishes. So I think there is a beginning of being able to go, this is what’s happening. You want me to suffer and you want me to be humiliated. And there is a power in naming that if we in some sense can handle the initial sense of fragmentation, which is always going to be the case in any trauma, if there can be something that grounds you in the midst of the high raging winds, that you can hold onto a balcony, that you can somehow stabilize yourself instead of feeling like you’re being literally blown away like leaves, that’s a crucial beginning point and just being able to go, this is contempt. You are violating me. You want me to be ruined right now. And in owning that, I think there is this teeny move to not letting fragmentation take me fully into being numb. Your thoughts?

Rachael: Yeah. I’m thinking about some more recent experiences in the presence of envy and contempt that I will confess and I can bless this part of my heart. I also feel my own contempt towards this part of my heart, but it’s still shock sometimes when that comes like, wait, what? I thought we were having a good moment. I thought I was offering you goodness. I didn’t realize my good … What I’m attempting to offer was actually probably intensifying something that you feel and have had enough experiences of that in a particular familial relationship to not like, I don’t want to be prescriptive always like, well, this is just what I’m going to get, but I want to be wise. And so to feel a little more ready for some of those things that come that do feel really sharp but are always more subtle and to go, because it does make me want to fight. I do want to fight. And in this particular season of a lot of nervous system overwhelm, it’s not pretty. When Michael and I first started dating, he was like, So how many fights have you been in? I was like, I’ve never been in a physical fight. He’s like What? I’m like, no, I’ve never been. I’ve never physically harmed another human being. I’ve never hit someone. I’ve never slapped someone. I’ve never punched someone. But have I used my words to be sharp? Absolutely. Look, mine’s totally verbal. It’s totally verbal fighting and posturing probably. Little tiny chihuahua dog with a huge big bark that will then flee if anyone tries to bite me. And so yeah, I think that capacity to not be shaken in a way that I have to leave the room or I have to power up and say something that almost confirms what they’re trying to do. And it’s really hard, but to just take a breath and be like, I don’t have to take this bait. But I still sometimes am like, what do I do now?

Dan: Well, I think you put it brilliantly in terms of there’s certain people that you’re more likely knowing are going to in their own lack of honesty, care, and frankly maturity. They’re likely going to assault you in some form. And particularly if you stand on a way of thinking about life or a way of addressing certain cultural dramas differently than they do. Politics would be a good example where you know that your views are not the same and the likelihood is their incense, their fury, even if it’s modulated, will somehow be a comment that is meant to trick you with your foolishness. So the preparatory, I know this person, especially if we come into these domains, likely will verbally make it clear they want ruin for me. I think that’s so important again, to be able to name beforehand. But a lot of times interactions with people, it feels like, especially in our culture, this rage, this contempt, this look at you and want you destroyed comes out of nowhere. And therefore the body immediately is going to be in some degree of trauma response. You can’t be assaulted without your body literally in less than 0.005 seconds your body’s going to be in that fight, flight, freeze, fawn process. Thank God. Thank God for all those capacities to be able to create honor and survival. But to be able to name right now, I know what this tastes like. I know what’s happening. And that’s that naming of, right now I’m being humiliated. And I think the next framing for me is Psalm 131. And again, it’s only three verses even if I don’t have the full complete memorization. But the Psalmist begins with, I don’t tend to wild and wonderful things. My eyes are not haughty. My heart is not arrogant. And I think a lot of us need to be able to own. That’s really true of us. We’re not looking to be the best, the brightest, the most competent. So it’s a way of saying I’m not living for envy. I’m not looking at those opportunities for majesty.

Rachael: Yeah.

Dan: So it’s an acknowledgement of I see where it takes people. I don’t want to go there. But then for the Psalmist to say, but I know how to soothe myself. Notice to shift. I’m not arrogant, but I also need care. And in some sense, notice this because I’m not arrogant, I especially need care because I’m not using what arrogance provides, what haughtiness provides humiliation, contempt, judgment, cursing at one level others. I need protection and I need care. And so that next phrase is, I know how to soothe myself. I know how to hear in my body, right now, this is an ugly interaction and I need your presence of kindness, spirit of God just to survive, let alone not retaliate or not flee or not freeze, et cetera.

Rachael: Just part of what I’m loving is how it actually at least internally creates a shield against both forms of hatred that might be coming. Like that hatred of vulnerability that invites us to hate our vulnerability or to believe our vulnerability is what set us up for harm and not the actual hatred of another human being. And it also protects against an accusation or an indictment that whatever is being envied is coming from some bad place in us that’s causing this other person to feel this thing. Oh, so crucial. Yeah.

Dan: Right. We are such narrative people that we often link somebody’s failure of us with our own failure versus being able to honor the reality is, no, this is this person’s momentary, I hope, not character-logical cruelty that’s operating. So I need more than that though.

Rachael: Yes. Yes. Let’s say that.

Dan: Well, if we begin with those two elements of being able to name it and internally begin that process of I find myself when I’m in the presence of somebody, and it may not be outright cruelty, but where there’s clearly I’m being judged and it’s not a judgment invitation into like to be of help where there’s just sort of a look like you’re an idiot. I tend to touch myself, put my hand on my chest if it’s not too obvious or even just putting my hand on my wrist. In other words, I know how to tend, I know how to soothe and I’m going to have to do a whole lot more soothing at another point in time, but I need it right now.

Rachael: Right now.

Dan: I need it right now. But then the ability to in one sense bring kindness, kindness of God through some means that allow you to stay connected, to stay present, to not fight, flee, freeze. Again, nothing is wrong with those wonderful responses that God has given us, but when it arouses in some sense the one who’s bringing harm, I honestly don’t want to give them that power. I don’t want to give them that pleasure. I need tactics to know what’s the next step. And I go back to this passage in Isaiah 50. We’re not going to go through the whole passage, but it’s the suffering servant speaking about being shamed for being righteous. And what he says is, I offered my back to those who beat me. Oh, this is careful. You need to in one sense hear this very carefully. My cheeks to those who pulled out my beard, I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting because the sovereign Lord helps me and I will not be disgraced. A caveat loud and clear. If somebody physically is threatening you, this is not a passage that is meant to be taken as let them beat you. If a person is attempting to humiliate you, it is not a passage saying, just endure it because that’s a very godly response. This is saying, I can defy it by staying present. I can in many ways resist your power by not having to respond, fight, flight, freeze. So there’s a silence that comes when you have lost words, but there’s another kind of silence that comes when you don’t choose to engage. Another way of putting all that is you know how to build a boundary where you don’t find yourself going into the water to be drowned by that person who wishes harm.

Rachael: Yeah. And I think part of what I’m hearing in it, because first of all, I am called to be like the suffering servant, but I am not. I don’t have the exact calling of the suffering servant, but there’s something about that language of like, maybe can you read it again like, because the sovereign Lord, from that part…

Dan: “Because the sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced, therefore listen to the next phrase, therefore I have set my face like flint and I know I will not be put to shame.” So the word that I love is that notion of there is a defiance in the silence that ultimately lets the person rage, not with eyes looking at them with contempt to contempt, but a look at some level of grief, anger, but also I will not get into the water and let you drown me.

Rachael: Well, yeah and there’s something what I just keep feeling is like it’s that like I get to actually be rooted in my belovedness as a child of God, as one who is like made in the image of God. That is the deepest truth of me and therefore also the deepest truth of you and how far you’ve come in this moment from your truest identity, but I will not let your fleeing and your fight against being beloved shake me from my roots. There is a defiance and I have seen this defiance in people who have known incredible harm. Again, exactly what you’re saying. It’s not the spiritual bypassing, oh, we just forgive our enemies because that’s what… Again, not that we don’t forgive, it’s just that’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about forgiveness. It’s not the, I’m not impacted, so therefore I don’t get to tend to the parts that are actually deeply wounded in this moment, but I am like my face like Flint, you cannot take away my identity and my dignity. You actually do not have the power to take my dignity.

Dan: I think that so sweetly and deeply summarizes something of Hebrews 12:2 and following, “For the joy set before him, he endured the shame of the cross.” So there isn’t a, I just have to endure it, but a kind of, I, in the middle of this really horrible experience have the opportunity to reaffirm, restate, reenter, take on my belovedness and offer in the way I engage you the same that is for you. So I think if we can underscore the importance of this coming work that you’re going to do, I don’t say this with jest, I don’t say it with lightness, things you’re going to engage with a real live human being, engaging the reality of their own heartache is just again, incredible privilege to see someone story and in-story their life in a way that brings a clarity of this is what I’m meant to be a person who does not wither in the presence of shame and contempt, but in many ways allows that, and again, it is shitty ground, it is terrible ground, but in that particular kind of soil to say, I can know a level of joy. It’s not going to come quickly, not going to come easily, it’s not snapping your fingers and making it occur, but it’s meant to be how we grow in a culture and a society like ours that is brandishing humiliation and contempt at a regular basis. So I thank you for what you’re going to offer and indeed thanks to that very courageous person for offering their story and reflection.

Rachael: One, likewise, for your good labor to engage and to disarm and to give imagination that shame never gets to have the final say. So grateful for you and hope people will check it out if this seems like something that could be good for their heart

Dan: Amen.