Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Urich, I'm the founder of 1000 Hours 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 1,000 hours outside, but there

always is some sort of crossover. It's like almost always embodiment and relationships and

that type of thing. 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 and divine love. You talk a lot about addiction and just having a fuller life. So Michael, welcome. I'm just delighted to be here, Jenny. Thank you. Okay, before we kick it off, I wanted 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.

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.

And 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.

And 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.

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