Certainty can feel safe until it becomes the thing that keeps us stuck.

In this conversation, therapist, pastor and longtime friend Alva Carter-Pope joins me to explore what begins to open when we stop demanding fixed answers and allow curiosity to become part of the healing process.

Together, we talk about healing, grief, spirituality, sovereignty and the courage it takes to question the beliefs, patterns and inherited ideas that shape our understanding of ourselves and the world.

Alva shares how profound loss at a young age opened a lifelong inquiry into healing, choice and human possibility. Her story reminds us that grief can awaken questions we never knew to ask, and that those questions can become pathways toward freedom.

At its heart, this conversation is about the wisdom of curiosity. It is an invitation to trust your own inner knowing, listen beyond certainty and recognize that healing often begins when we become willing to ask a different question.

In This Episode

* Why healing can feel like chaos before it feels like growth

* The spiral nature of transformation

* Curiosity as a pathway to healing

* Grief, loss and personal awakening

* Belief versus direct experience

* Spirituality beyond rigid religious structures

* One truth, many paths

* The role of imagination in healing

* How conditioning shapes identity

* Why comparison keeps us stuck

* The relationship between healing and personal freedom

* Learning to trust your own inner authority

About Alva Pope

Alva Carter-Pope, LCSW, M.Div., MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker, ordained pastor, educator and founder of Touchstone Counseling Services, a wellness practice dedicated to helping individuals and communities heal, grow and thrive.

Drawing from more than two decades of experience at the intersection of behavioral health, spirituality and human development, Alva helps people navigate grief, trauma, life transitions and personal transformation with greater self-awareness, resilience and intention.

She is also the creator of The Third Option Living Framework, a psycho-spiritual model centered on Pause, Presence and Pivot that invites people to move beyond binary thinking and discover new possibilities for healing, wisdom and growth.

At the heart of her work is a simple yet powerful belief: healing is not about fixing what is broken. It is about expanding our capacity for connection, choice and becoming more fully ourselves.

Connect with Alva

Facebook - Touchstone RVA: https://www.facebook.com/touchstonerva/

YouTube - The Third Option: https://youtube.com/@thethirdoptionpivot26?si=mcIkyF2XLJ6CLEbm

Continue the Conversation

If you’re longing for deeper conversations around sovereignty, healing, feminine embodiment and meaningful connection, I invite you to join Sigma Femme Society.

Join here: https://sigmafemmesociety.substack.com/subscribe