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31. Using the Gospel to Overcome Negative Self-talk with John Stange

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 31. Using the Gospel to Overcome Negative Self-talk with John Stange

I had the privilege of interviewing John Stange, a lead pastor, professor, coach, counselor, certified speaker and author. John has written several books and his recent one is called “Dwell On These Things.”

Pastor John Stange shares with us his struggles with anxiety and his great wisdom and insight on overcoming negative self-talk through looking at God’s perspective toward us. We also talked about dealing with perfectionism as I am also a recovering perfectionist. 

  • John Stange’s personal journey through anxiety, having sleepless nights, negative self-talk and excessive worries about “what if’s.”
  • Analyzing the root of his anxiety and preaching the truth of the gospel to his own heart
  • Factors that make people who are serving the ministry quit their role after a short period of time
  • “Why walk a defeated life when Christ already secured victory over our sins?”
  • Questions to ask yourself if you really want to understand Bible scriptures
  • Helpful concepts about seeing yourself through God’s eyes based on John Stange’s book, “Dwell On These Things”

Links and Resources:

John StangeDesire JesusDwell On These Things 

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Transcript of Episode 31

Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 31.  Today’s episode is with John Stange who is a pastor and author. He’s recently written a book called Dwell On These Things based on Philippians 4:8. John has some great wisdom and insight into overcoming negative self-talk and seeing ourselves the way that God sees us.

So let’s dive right in. 

Carrie: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. 

Pastor John: Well, happy to be here, glad to be with you.

Carrie: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Pastor John: My name is John Stange. I have been in full-time pastoral ministry for 23 years and my wife and I have four children. Two are in college, two are in high school. And in the midst of my ministry, serving as a pastor I’ve also gotten quite involved in podcasting and writing and have really been pursuing both of those as avenues where I really have a great opportunity to hopefully encourage people in their faith and hopefully help in a variety of ways. But that’s where I’ve been spending a lot of my time in addition to my service to the church and my ministry, just to my family. 

Carrie: One thing that I’ve found really interesting about you in my research is that while you do have a degree in the Bible, you also have a master’s degree in psychology. How did that process develop? 

Pastor John: Well, one of the things that I noticed when I became a pastor is that a lot of your preparation to become a pastor trains you to teach and preach the Bible and teach and preach theology. And that’s very helpful, but there are two other aspects to your role as a pastor that you really need to figure out a way to invest in one is leadership. So I spent a lot of time just studying leaders and going to leadership training and reading books on leadership and really invested in that. But then the other thing that is typically asked of you is that you be involved in a lot of counseling. And so when I was deciding what to do for a master’s, I decided to pursue counseling and psychology because so much of my task as a pastor involves counseling.

And it probably wouldn’t surprise you to discover that over the course of this past year in particular, I had more counseling than at any other time in my ministry. To the point where I actually had somebody tally up in one given week how much time I was spending on counseling when things were at their worst. And they said a full 29 hours of my week is being spent just counseling. In addition to all the other things that you have to do. So I actually had to figure out a way to balance that a little bit better because it was becoming quite excessive, but that is definitely a role that pastors are asked to actually step in and help out with. And so I wanted to make sure I did it well. And when I got my master’s, I thought, you know what? I’m going to pursue counseling, psychology. Learn these tasks and learn these skills so that I could serve our church even better, hopefully.

Carrie: I think that’s an important point because you can be a really great teacher and lack people skills and being a pastor, you have to find that balance between being able to communicate the word of God and also being able to relate and lead people, like you just talked about.

Pastor John: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And I’ve seen that a lot where people are really skilled in a particular task, or they have a lot of knowledge in a particular area, but they really struggle to take that from their brain to another life. And because that relational piece seems to be missing, so yeah, I agree.

Carrie: I’ve also interviewed a few people on the show who started out as pastors and ended up becoming therapists. And those stories are really interesting as well as kind of like an outflow of just the ministry that they were doing. 

Pastor John: Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. That’s great. 

Carrie: We’re talking about anxiety today and incorporating that with spirituality, obviously. And I’m curious about your particular struggles with anxiety. 

Pastor John: Yeah, it’s interesting because I don’t know that at one season of my life, I would have really thought of myself as being particularly anxious. In some respects, I tend to think I’m an easygoing person. And then as life went on and I took on more responsibilities and as I was trying to lead my household well and try to lead our church well, I started to notice seasons where I would really struggle to sleep. 

I’m not a great sleeper to begin with. So I’m just going to confess that I think there’s something biological there that factors into that, but it was even worse than normal. And I can remember certain times where I would just find myself looking out the window of my bedroom, just looking outside, wondering in my mind why can’t I sleep.

And then as I try to lay my head down on the pillow, I would be thinking about all these what-if scenarios. What if this happens with your family or what if this happens with the church or what if this happens with your finances, all sorts of things. And I realized that I was becoming a rather anxious person.

I don’t know that I always demonstrated that to other people, but within my own mind. In fact, I actually think I tried to make a pretty strong effort to not demonstrate that to other people just to kind of portray that everything was fine. But in my own mind, I have to admit to you I really have gone through seasons where I felt particularly anxious and kind of went on a journey to try and figure out what’s at the root of this and what can I do that would be actually be helpful so that this doesn’t become such a dominant feature in my life.

If I’m going to be doing the things that I think God’s called me to do, I can’t be paralyzed by anxiety constantly. And I can’t give this full sway over myself. So I need to call it out into the light and I need to do something that’s going to actually help me overcome it.

Carrie: What was that process like for you? 

Pastor John: I had to kind of analyze what was at the root of it at first. And what I noticed about myself is that I was trying to control too many things, and I was trying to do too many things without help. And I don’t know if that was a pride issue. I think that’s part of it. I, you know, I think certainly it was a pride issue in some respects, but I also think it comes from this thought of not wanting to burden other people with your problems.

And then also just this thought that sometimes you get in your mind when you’re trying to lead, this is your responsibility. So you just think, look, this is my job. I have to handle this. I can’t give this to somebody else. I just have to do it. Right. It’s just my role. And so the first thing I needed to do was just figure out what was at the root of this.

And again, it was just control issues and a desire not to burden other people and just, you know, the burdens that come from leadership. But the solution for me was multifaceted. And a lot of these things I think come back to preaching the gospel to your heart, where sometimes if you’re trying to do too much, it’s almost like you’re trying to take Christ’s job and do it instead of relying on him to be the strength that we need. And so it was almost like a works-based false gospel that I was starting to preach to my heart that can be very unhealthy. And when I phrased it that way in my mind, my theological triggers went off and said, “Wait a second. You can’t preach something false to your own heart. You have to stop this.” And so I thought, all right, well, what does it look like to actually apply the truth of the gospel to my own heart? What does it look like to be content in Christ and to trust him to do the things that I can’t do and to rest in the fact that he is perfect? I am not, and I’m fine with that.

And so this was part of the journey that I went on, but when I started analyzing that seeing what was at the root and then preaching the truth of the gospel to my heart, that really made a huge difference. 

Carrie: I can really relate to that because I started this podcast and I was doing entirely too much. And I ended up hiring an assistant this year and it was super scary in the beginning.

Just the sense of like, “Okay. I’m like, yes, it’s a great thing that I have help, but I’m also like having to let go of control of things that I’ve been doing and what’s going to happen if I start letting go of that control and somebody else is gonna take over, and I think we do that with God so much in our own lives. We try to take control over things that we have no control over, even things like our own health like I’m up at night worrying about all of these things that could be happening to me are going on. And instead of saying, okay, I don’t have control over this. God loves me. He cares about me. He’s for me.

And I think that’s what you’re talking about in terms of having a theology of how God sees us. And really speaking that into ourselves is so important. 

Pastor John: Yeah, exactly. I agree. A hundred percent. 

Carrie: So, talk to us about negative self-talk because I think a lot of people really struggle with that. And what have you found to be helpful in your life?

Pastor John: There’s a variety of things that I have found helpful. And one of the things that I’ve noticed that is helpful for me is to know that I’m not the only person that wrestles with this. So when you serve in a public role, right now you’re putting yourself out there publicly doing a podcast, right?

So you’re just basically, you’re subjecting yourself to the opinions of others. And that could be a challenging task to do no matter what role you do it in. So you can imagine when I became a pastor I was subjecting myself to the opinions of many, many people and my opinion being sometimes the harshest and frequently, I would find myself preparing a message.

So I’ll use a sermon as an example. I’d prepare a message. I’d have it all straight in my head. I’d get up and I’d preach it. And then afterwards I’d have this thought that it didn’t go as well as I thought, or maybe the feedback I got on it wasn’t exactly what I was anticipating. And I would find myself spending the rest of Sunday beating myself up over perceived weaknesses in my presentation or times when I tripped over my words or ways that I could have said something better or something that I forgot to share that I meant to share or someone’s reaction that I misinterpreted or whatever it may be. And I just have all these thoughts going through my mind. Just the imperfections of what I had just shared and all this negative self-talk about, oh, why can’t you be as good of a speaker as this individual or that individual. And that’s a very unhealthy thing to start drilling into your mind. And I would suspect that’s probably one of the contributors to a lot of people who serve in public ministry roles quitting after a short period of time because they just spent a lot of time in self-accusation instead of refreshing their heart with the truth of the gospel and preaching the same message to their own heart that they just preached to their congregation. And eventually, I needed to get to the spot where I started to see the opportunities that I was being given to speak or to lead as opportunities to help people, not opportunities to look good while you’re helping people. And what I mean by that is this: Yeah it was a big change in my mind. I thought I used to wrestle with after I would preach a sermon, or lead a meeting, or whatever it may be. “How did you look doing that? Did you do okay?” And it was basically “how did you look doing it?” And then somewhere along the way, the Lord helped me to flip that in my mind to say, “did you help somebody?” And judge what I had just done by whether or not I was seeking to glorify God and help people. And when that became the measuring stick that really helped me with probably the major area of negative self-talk that I was wrestling with. Just trying to understand what it looks like to glorify God and help people Instead of worrying about how I looked while I was trying to do it.

Carrie: I think that’s been probably one of the greatest gifts that this podcast has ever given to me, just like, you know, through the Lord’s work, it’s showing me that it doesn’t have to be perfect to help people and I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. So I know that I have to go back and listen to these episodes and we joked. Before I hit record, there was a squeaky chair in one of them and it drove me crazy like I can hear that chair. And probably other people are listening to this in their car or they’re in the bathroom getting ready in the morning and they don’t care. You know, they’re probably not even noticing that. And somebody is going to be really blessed by that episode. But here I am and all I’m focused on is that annoying chair in the background.

Pastor John: Right. Instead of thinking of all the ways that you’re producing helpful content, you’re just hearing that chair that needs a little grease or a little oil.

Carrie: Right. So now I’m like, you know what? It goes out. There’s some people that like it and it’s helping some people and that’s all it really matters and it doesn’t have to be perfect in order to benefit other people. So that has been an unexpected gift, I guess, of going through this process.

You actually were really gracious enough to send me a copy of your book, “Dwell on these things” and I am really enjoying it. So I appreciate you for writing it, and you encourage readers to dwell on 31 different truths in God’s word. It’s written a little bit like a devotional, right? To kind of read one each day.

Pastor John: Yeah, it could be used that way for sure. Yeah. I wanted it to be useful in that way. If someone wanted to use the chapters in that kind of fashion, they definitely could. 

Carrie: So would you be willing to share a few of these with us and how they can transform our thinking and self-talk. 

Pastor John: Sure. There’s a variety of things that are mentioned in the book that kind of point us to things that the Lord is trying to communicate to us that sometimes we forget to communicate to ourselves, or we forget to repeat to ourselves after he’s communicated them. And so when you look through the book, you’ll see on day one, we talk about the fact that you are loved more deeply than you realize, and we start off the book with that concept because we want that to be a baseline for what we’re thinking about as we start to adopt God’s perspective toward us as our perspective toward us, as well as we work through the book, we talk about the blessing of walking by faith rather than by sight to experience greater joy.

I think a lot of times we think that there are all sorts of things we need to see ahead of time or know ahead of time to be able to actually experience contentment in life. But scripture shows us that we can walk by faith. We don’t have to walk by sight If we’re going to experience the greater joy that the Lord wants us to have.

I think something else that’s in the book that is most certainly a helpful concept for any of us. If we’re feeling anxious or just worried about a variety of things is the fact that scripture encourages us to have hearts that are ruled by the peace of Christ. And so when we get into the third section of the book that we talk about letting your heart be ruled by the peace of Christ.  And I can tell you just from experience, there are all sorts of things that I have tried to soothe my heart within this world or all sorts of things that I have told myself, this will bring you peace if you just acquire this or achieve this or obtain this or whatever it may be. And there’s nothing this world offers me that has ever produced lasting peace in my mind or in my life.

And when you look at what scripture teaches us, scripture teaches us that we can let our hearts be ruled by the peace of Christ. And when his peace is ruling in our heart, we’re actually being ruled or led by something that’s everlasting, not something that’s temporary, not something that’s just here for a moment and then goes away.

Some of the chapters in the book talk about ways in which we can live out the things that the Lord has taught to us. And so there’s a chapter where we talk a lot about giving grace to those around you. And that can be a very helpful thing for us internally as well, because we start to realize that we don’t have to demand perfection from ourselves. And we don’t have to demand perfection from others. And as recipients of the grace of God, we can demonstrate the grace of God to other people. And I love what scripture tells us in the book of acts, where it reminds us that Christ taught that it’s better to give than it is to receive.

And in a moment like that, where you’re giving grace to somebody else. I think we even have the opportunity to see how that plays out where just giving grace to somebody that ends up being a blessing in our own life and in our own heart. So those are some of the concepts. There’s 31 different concepts that we focus on in the book, but those are just a few of them-just a sample of some of the things that are in the book that I truly hope will be helpful to others. If they’re trying to develop a perspective of what does it look like to actually talk to yourself like God talks to you and repeat a message to your heart that actually lines up with the truth of his gospel. 

Carrie: That’s good. I know that in my counseling practice specifically, I work with a lot of people who have OCD sometimes like there’s a form of OCD called scrupulosity. And we’ve talked about it on the podcast before. It’s where you have all of these intrusive thoughts about God. You know, maybe God is angry at me. Maybe I’ve sinned. Maybe I’m going to hell, even though I know that I’m saved, those types of things people tend to ruminate on. And a lot of times people I work with are somewhat spiritually confused because they’ve sought out teachings to try to soothe some of this from a variety of different sources. You know, this person says you can lose your salvation. This person says you can’t lose your salvation. How do I know who God really is? And I know a lot of times people say, “okay, well in order to know God read the Bible that’s his word that’s his love letter to you.” How do we form this healthy theology of an understanding of who God is if there are so many different teachings that are saying are based on scripture. 

Pastor John: Yeah, that could be a tough thing for a new Christian, in particular, to try to discern. Thankfully we have the internal witness of the holy spirit and he points us in the direction of truth. So I believe that any suggestion I give needs to come under the fact that the holy spirit will actively point us in the direction of truth. I do believe he does that. So I would encourage anyone that’s really wrestling with that to just begin with prayer and trust the holy spirit to lead you in the direction of truth. And then as we’re looking at scripture, I think it’s also helpful to know that when you’re reading through the Bible if you really want to understand the Bible, you need to ask the question, what does this section have to do with Jesus? Or maybe I could say it this way: how is this portion of scripture trying to point me to Christ?

So if I’m in the book of Genesis, I need to be asking that question. If I’m in the Psalms, I need to be asking that question, but I mean the gospels or the letters of Paul or the general letters or the book of revelation, the whole thing is trying to point our minds to Christ. And specifically, when you look throughout scripture, you see the message of redemption as the Lord is trying to redeem lost humanity. And he’s trying to redeem fallen creation, right? Like it’s all, there’s this message of redemption all throughout. And so that points us to the gospel and the gospel is if you want to summarize the gospel, you could summarize it this way. It’s the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ.

And so in Christ lived the perfect life that we could never live. He lived that on our behalf. He walked a mile in our shoes. He’s our merciful sympathetic high priest. He knows all details of all things, and he actually walked it and lived it. And he did it perfectly without sin. And then in his death, he paid for our sin.

He took our sin upon himself so that ultimately we could be justified so that we could be declared righteous because he who knew no sin became sin for us. And then in his resurrection, he defeated the power of sin, the power of Satan. And the power of death. And he shares that victory with all of us who believe in him with anyone who trusts in him.

So the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, I think it all comes back to that. So now, you know, let’s think about some issues that sometimes we deal with and let’s plug it into that metric. If I’m dealing with, and we were just joking a few moments ago about perfectionism and the desire to kind of get everything right.

You know, whether the chair’s squeaking or whether all the words we say are exactly right, or whatever it may be. We deal with perfectionism. Well, let’s plug that into the gospel. Well, scripture tells us that we are not perfect. But Jesus is, and he came to live the perfect life for us because we couldn’t do it, which tells me I need to stop pressuring myself to be perfect because I’m not perfect.

And if I’m pressuring myself to be perfect, I’m preaching a false gospel to my heart because Christ came to this earth and was perfect for me because in my own strength I couldn’t be perfect. And so, you know, so that’s one element of how I think preaching the gospel to our hearts. Actually helps and it helps point us in the right direction. But then when you get to issues like Christ’s death, you know, I think sometimes we think that we have to be some sort of sacrificial martyr who can’t ask for help or can’t ask for assistance that we need to somehow, you know, die for our own sin or suffer for our own center, whatever it may be. And yet Jesus came to this earth to die in our place because we couldn’t die for our own sin ultimately, and have any sort of redemptive aspect come out of that.

And so Jesus who is perfect died in our place. And then scripture tells us that he rose from the grave. He defeated sin, Satan, and death. And so that victory gets shared with me because I trust in him. He’s already secured that victory. So what sense does it make for me to walk a defeated life or to just spend all this time telling myself how I’m defeated in this area or this area, or this area? Christ already secured victory over my sin Christ secured victory over my faulty thing.

He secured victory over death. I don’t even need to live in the fear of death because he’s already secured victory over it. He defeated death and even the deception of Satan or the accusation of Satan scripture tells us Satan loves to accuse God’s people. And I think sometimes we repeat Satan’s accusations in our own minds, almost like we’re trying to do his job for him. And that comes right back to the resurrection as well because Christ secured victory over sin, Satan, and death. And so Satan is defeated. So I don’t need to act like Satan is victorious. He’s been defeated. And so for me, it comes right back to preaching the gospel to my heart and understanding that the message of the gospel is woven all throughout scripture.

And if someone teaches something that does not line up with the truth of the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, then that gives me a good metric to know how I can actually filter that out and not welcome that into my thinking. 

Carrie: That was a lot. That was good though. It was a lot. I was really trying to filter in thinking through some of the things that we just talked about like is God mad at me? Well, you know, God loves you. God loves you. He sent his son to die for you. There’s no greater love than that. Nobody else is going to be out here giving their life for you. 

Pastor John: Right. When you look theologically, what scripture says, it says, you know, prior to coming to faith in Christ, we were under the wrath of God, right?

We were like, yes, you were under the wrath of God. It speaks of that in the book of Ephesians. Okay. But then Christ came to this earth and took the wrath of the father upon himself so that we could become objects of mercy. Instead of objects of wrath. And so scripture actually says, you’re an object of mercy now. So if scripture is telling me I’m an object of mercy and that Christ already took the wrath of the father upon himself, then why don’t I just believe what it says instead of just trying to make it up. You know, it’s like, we’re trying to make up the opposite of what scripture says because we want to make ourselves feel bad sometimes.

And it’s like, let’s not torture yourself. You know, just believe what it says and believe what he is. 

Carrie: Or sometimes we try to take over maybe the role of the holy spirit and almost like over-convict ourselves. Sometimes people can air on one side or the other, right. Then they’re never open to correction or conviction. But then on the other side, it’s like, let me pick apart and confess every single thing I’ve done. Even the things that I know I’m already forgiven for. I keep bringing up the past sins over and over and over again. And we’re just really torturing ourselves at that point. 

Pastor John: Yeah. You’re absolutely right.

Yeah. We’re prone to extremes. 

Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So tell us where people can find “Dwell on these things”.

Pastor John: “Dwell on these things” can be found literally anywhere. So you’ll be able to find it on Amazon. You’ll be able to find it at Barnes and noble. You’ll be able to find it pretty much any store you go to and which I’m really excited about the wide release that the book is receiving. But if you’d also like to find out some more information about it, or if people would like to read the first three chapters for free and just kind of see if it’s for them, just go to my website: desireJesus.com and you can read the first three chapters of the book right there on the website for free.

The publisher gave me permission to be able to post that. And so that’s right there. You’ll see a link to it right on the front page of the website. 

Carrie: That’s great. And we’ll put a link in the show notes too. So since our podcast is called hope for anxiety and OCD, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, a time where you received hope from God or another person.

Pastor John: Certainly. So in 2008, my wife and I feel like the Lord was calling us to move to Langhorne, Pennsylvania, which was a couple of hours south of where we were living up in the Pocono region of Pennsylvania. And we felt like the Lord was leading us to move here and replant a church that was just about to close down.

And you know, shut its doors forever. And so we moved here to get involved in church planting, church revitalization. And I remember at the time being very convinced that the Lord had called us to do that, but that doesn’t come with any guarantees. So when you’re moving to a new area, you’re not certain if you’re going to be able to connect with people. And I believe that the Lord was paving a way for us to do so. And in my heart, I did believe that it was all going to work. But I remember at one point very, very early in the process, this was just a couple of days or a couple of weeks, I guess I should say before we moved down to this area, I agreed to do a wedding down in this area, in the building that we were going to use. So in the church building. And I remember at that point, there weren’t really very many people that were part of the church. There were just about six or so active people that had been part of the church that hung on to help us plant the new church. And I remember as the wedding was about to get underway, I started watching people pull into the parking lot and I saw one car pull in and another car pull in and another car pull in and before I knew it, the parking lot was filled and I thought, wow, this is exciting to see for this wedding. I’m just hopeful that the day comes when we have worship services here, that people will actually become part of this church, that we actually have the opportunity to build a church. And I just remember looking out at that full parking lot and just praying to the Lord, just a very simple prayer.

I just prayed, Lord, may it be so. May this be the type of thing that we get to see again when this church really gets underway, not just for a special event, but for the believers gathering together for worship gathering together on a Sunday morning gathering together mid-week whatever, whatever the Lord willed. And so I just remember having filled with the hope of Christ in that moment. And just a confidence that the Lord was going to help facilitate that even though I was certainly tempted to drift toward anxiety in that process because it was certainly a big step of faith for our family to come and, and move to a new area and try and get the church going.

But I remember sometime after that, a few years after that, when the parking lot really was filling up on Sunday mornings and looking at that in my mind, coming right back to standing on that porch and thinking, all right, Lord, this is wonderful. You answered that prayer. You filled us with your hope.

You gave us confidence in you. And now we get to see with our eyes, the type of things that we were seeing by faith for the past several years. And that was a real blessing to me. It was confirmation that when the Lord leads you in a particular direction, it’s best to just obey because he’s got the details already figured out. And sometimes he asks us to make big steps of faith. And so we just go and we get to see what he has planned on the other side of that step. 

Carrie: It’s so beautiful when you’re able to just look back and see how far the Lord has brought you in a particular area and things, and all the challenges that there were, I’m sure along the ways of like, are we ever going to be able to do this? Is this ever going to grow? That’s awesome. 

Pastor John: Yeah. You’re right. Big challenges. 

Carrie: Well, thank you so much for being on the show and talking with us about preaching the gospel to our hearts. I think it’s been a great conversation. 

Pastor John: Well, Carrie, thanks so much for having me on. It’s been a real pleasure.

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I felt like we had a little bit of therapy on myself today on this episode, talking about my perfectionism and difficulty letting go of responsibilities and delegating them to my VA. In all seriousness, I really needed those reminders today that Jesus has overcome sin, death. Nothing is too difficult for him.

As I like to remind myself on a regular basis, God is way bigger than my problem. So allow that to encourage you today. If you would like to stay up to date with what’s going on on the podcast, you can join our email list at www.hopeforanxietyandocd.com. Thank you so much for listening. 

Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of by the world counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam. 

Until next time may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

30. Developing Self Awareness with Lola Sodunke

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 30. Developing Self Awareness with Lola Sodunke

In this episode, Lola Sodunke of Joy In Purpose Podcast shares her wisdom and insights about self-awareness and how it can lead to a greater connection with God.

By listening to our conversation, you will learn about:

  • Self-awareness and its importance
  • Setting boundaries and learning your values and beliefs 
  • Ways you can become self-aware as a Christian 
  • Involving God in your self-awareness process

Links and Resources:

Lola Sodunke, MA
Joy in Purpose

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Transcript of Episode 31

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 30. Today, I got the opportunity to sit down with Lola Sodunke where she talks to us about self-awareness. She did a great job incorporating how God is involved in our self-awareness process as Christians and our Christian community that we’re around. I really hope this interview blesses you today.

Carrie: Lola, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Lola: First of all, thank you for having me on the show. I’m really excited to be a part of your, this episode is a little bit about myself. So I will say that I am a child of a Nigerian immigrant. So I came to the United States with my parents.

I came with my parents. I was 12 years old. So I have what will be considered a bi-cultural upbringing. So being Nigerian and living in the United States, I am a fourth-year doctoral student in a counseling psychology program. It’s been an amazing experience. I’ve gotten opportunities to work with clients. We’re dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma. I’ve also got into the experience of administering psychological assessments to understand client’s strengths and weaknesses, and then potential problems and cognition or emotional reactivity. And most importantly, I really like administering psychological assessments because it also helps inform treatment recommendations. 

I’m very passionate about the field of psychology. So I like doing community outreach at my church and just providing opportunities for people to ask questions and provide psycho-education and mental health topics. 

Carrie: Awesome. That sounds really good. So are you hoping once you get your doctorate to focus on psychological testing? 

Lola: Yeah, I would like to because I really like how we can integrate that. Like I said with treatment recommendations and even for the older population, it’s helpful for assessing diagnosis for dementia, for the different types of dementia.

Sometimes some people have TBI traumatic brain injury to see where they’re at and then make sure to make recommendations to help improve their quality of life. 

Carrie: Right. On one of our first five episodes, we talked about assessment and about the importance of that and the difference between anxiety and OCD. Why it’s important to differentiate those in terms of getting the treatment and help and support that people need.

So that’s really awesome that you’re going to be contributing to that. Today, we’re talking about self-awareness, which I guess is a big concept. So how do you define that? 

Lola: Yeah, it is a big concept. I guess for some people it could be overwhelming. I became passionate about this topic because I realized how people become sufferers wherein therapy you see that light bulb moment.

I also noticed that it can also be a reason why people come to therapy when they realize some things about themselves that they would like to change. So self-awareness is a skill that we can work on. It’s basically a way to be able to understand yourself, understand other people, and understand how other people view you.

So when there’s something called internal self-awareness, think about being able to look at your personality. So looking at yourself as objectively as you can. Even though we have our own blind spots and biases, knowing your strengths, your weaknesses, your thoughts, your beliefs, your motivations. What emotions do you experience on most days?

Are you still one that is generally sad? Always anxious. Sometimes we just go through life and we’re just going. Self-awareness allows you to be able to pay attention to different parts of your life. You can focus on my feeling fitness-wise. How am I doing psychologically with my relationships, with finances, with friends, if you have kids with your kids, with your spouse.

So self-awareness is being able to look at yourself as objectively as you can. There’s also something called external self-awareness. Like I was saying earlier, external self-awareness is how other people feel about you. As much as some people might say, they don’t care what other people think. We also know that no matter how smart you are, if you don’t have a good social network, you’re not going to progress much in life.

You might be good at your job, but if you don’t have a good relationship, they don’t see you as a good leader, you might not get promoted in your job. So I’m not talking about when people just don’t like you because they don’t like you, but where people and we’re tribal, so we are made for human connection and social connection.

So it’s important to also know not to be hyper-focused on it to also to have people view you. Are you telling that maybe you just sit there and you’re smiling, but then you think you’re having a good day? So you’re just being yourself and throughout the day, people are like, are you upset? Are you okay? Because they’re interpreting your body language and your facial expression is different. In your mind, you’re happy. You might even think I thought I was smiling. Other people see it as if you’re frowning. Self-awareness, there are two components to it. How you see yourself and also other people see you. There’s a healthy balance and there’s an overboard, or sometimes you could be in a group in a social group where the social norm is gossiping, but then internally your values telling you that you don’t gossip.

You know that you don’t fit in with that crowd so you don’t associate yourself to that. Sometimes there’s a social norm, there’s a social group and it’s toxic. So being able to also navigate your own beliefs, your own values, and then navigating the values of this other external social group and seeing does it align with you?

Because sometimes some people they’re part of a group and because they’re so self-aware of the group and they want to please the group. They’ll just go along with the group. So there’ll be the one there’ll be gossipy, but internally it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t align or doesn’t align with their values.

So it’s important to know where you stand with how you view yourself and also how you view other people. And to some extent, how they view you. It’s important. 

Carrie: I agree with that. Let’s kind of break that down a little bit. I think one of the things that we learned from this pandemic was that in America we’re such a go, go society.

A lot of times we don’t take the time to just sit and maybe self-reflect and check-in with ourselves. How am I actually doing? Am I stressed right now? What are the signs that I’m stressed right now? How does that manifest in my body? And then I think too about what you said about other people and how they perceive you.

One of the things I had to learn earlier on in my life was that I have a thinking face. And that my thinking face really disconnects me from the people that are around me. And actually, they think that I’m mad, but I’m not mad. I’m just really lost and kind of deep in thought. And that actually inhibited some of my early client work. Someone came out with me and was able to give me some feedback on my session and found that was really helpful. Another friend from church who said, “you know, I wondered when I first met you if you ever smiled.” So then it was my effort really like, I probably need to smile more, especially when I’m around other people.”

And it wasn’t that I wasn’t happy, but that was really how I was perceived. And maybe I think maybe I wasn’t fully as happy as I am now, but I wouldn’t say necessarily that I was in a depressed state or anything of that nature, but people could have perceived me that way. And I think this is important in terms of anxiety and OCD.

Oftentimes we also have misnomers about how other people see us like, “Oh, well, those people think I’m a bother” or “I really shouldn’t speak up here because then they’re going to see me as too aggressive or mean.” Oftentimes that’s not even how people are perceiving the situation. If I set a boundary, people are going to think that I’m mean. That may be true in your family system, but it may not be true in the larger societal context, which is kind of what you were saying there a little bit earlier.

Lola: Absolutely. This is why it’s important to know your own values and your own beliefs because it’s not just about other people. First, it starts with you.

What do you value? What are your own beliefs? How do you see yourself? What is important to you? I gave an example earlier about gossiping. If gossiping is not something that you want to engage in, even if you are in a group of people and that’s what they do, they might not like you but you know that’s not something that I want to do. It’s the same with setting boundaries.

What is the most important thing to you? It’s important that I go to bed at a certain time. So you stick with that time. Sometimes you think that other people are going to be upset, but then you also have to give yourself time to stick to that boundary. To really see that other people are upset or maybe they were just using you and monopolizing your time.

I just have to realize I have to let certain people go. You have to have a balance in what do I think of myself? How do I view myself? How do I want to be in this world? And how do I want other people to see me? It can be tricky and it takes time. This is what I encourage people to do on their own. And when they’re still having issues with what they to seek the help of a therapist. We are always objective. And sometimes it was saying it out loud “I like to go to about a certain time.” And then Frank always likes to talk till midnight. After seeing it, I realized my boundaries are important for my own well-being and engaging in that. Another example that you give that was really helpful was you talked about how a client shared something with you or a friendship or something with you.

So those are like two people that their opinion was important. If a friend from church that they’ve already known you for a while. They know you’re a good person. I know they’re saying something to you. So you’re able to take it in and say, okay, they might be right about this. And this is not what I’m thinking. So I can change it. We want our client to know that, okay, this is my thinking face. It’s not about you. I’m thinking. I’m processing. Maybe thinking of the next question to ask you and things like that. Also, the people that we talked to that this feedback confirms is also important. I can help us to navigate where we want to make the changes and what changes we want to make.

Carrie: Right. Is this person giving me feedback because they’re trying to help me? And it helped me improve as a person or are they trying to tear me down or make me kind of go the path that they want me to go on. I think those are helpful questions for us to ask when we’re receiving any kind of constructive criticism.

I’m curious for you to put kind of like a spiritual lens over this. How do ourselves as Christians becoming more self-aware? Do you feel like that leads us to greater connectivity with God? 

Lola: You know what I think that’s a great question. I don’t think that you should go into self-awareness and leave God out of it. As a matter of fact when people ask me how do they develop self-awareness? I say it’s a skill that can be developed. Start in your prayer time. Ask God to open your heart to what he would like for you to change about yourself. Also, some of us are only focused on the negative. We don’t even recognize our strengths.

So going to a prayerfully where you take your paper, your journal, your pen, and even start with your strengths. Ask him to open your eyes. What are my strengths? Because some of us, we pick ourselves apart with our anxiety, with our worry that we don’t even know what we’re good at. So look what your strengths are. 

What are the things that other people have said that you’re good at? Write down your strengths. What are your weaknesses? I need them to address those weaknesses because sometimes I put focus on our weaknesses. It’s like there’s grace. Even start with one thing at a time.

What are scriptures that are aligned with the thing that you’re trying to change, and just also invite God into it. Invite your Christian circle, your support group into it. And also, like I said, go to someone that you trust. It’s easier for some people to be more self-aware than others.

So sometimes we have to ask a friend, trust a friend, not just anybody. Trust a family member. And if you’re someone that you feel like you’re sensitive to criticism, tell them that so that they can use that in their feedback to you. “I’m really nervous, but I want to grow. I don’t want to stay the same.”

What are some things that I can change? What are my strengths? my weaknesses? You tell me one strength. Tell me one weakness. If you feel like you’re going to be overwhelmed. You can also ask them what are ways that you think I can change.  How can you hold me accountable? So, this is why we can rely on our brothers and sisters in Christ. Whatever you want to share, whatever you’re working on, they can hold you accountable and be prayerful about this. Sometimes you’re focused on one thing. Maybe on giving back to other people. Maybe you’re someone that has internal self-awareness, you’re good there, but when it comes to reaching out to other people, making sure that you’re being kind, you’re being patient, you show other people grace. Maybe that’s something that God wants you to work on. So I would say be prayerful as you’re navigating stuff for when it’s and what to work on and also invite your brothers and sisters in Christ to hold you accountable. Someone that you trust, that you have a relationship with that you trust. Be gentle on yourself. Like I said, you can start with one strength and one weakness. We’re all working progress. So don’t feel like, “Oh my goodness. I have all these weaknesses.” Many of us have a lot of weaknesses and just take it one step at a time.

Carrie: I absolutely agree with that because I think some of the clients that I work with have multiple issues or multiple diagnoses. They have a lot of stuff that they’re working with. And so always starting small. The small changes in our lives and the slow and steady progress. That’s going to be the most sustainable.

But I like what you said really about allowing God to reveal those things to us in prayer in terms of behaviors that we might need to change in our lives. Oftentimes just having clients be able to develop the tolerance to sit with things that are difficult is really important. Sometimes we’re in a lot of pain and we use unhealthy ways to get out of it, whether that’s stuffing, whether it’s exploding.

Whether it’s just complete avoidance like I’m going to pretend like that’s not actually there. Do you feel like maybe knowing some of those things, the ways that we get out of self-awareness, do you think that that’s helpful for us as well? 

Lola: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll give an example there. People don’t want to hear any bad news.

Someone is like, the old teacher that you knew, something she’s going through, something that like, “No, I don’t want to hear it.” It’s like they put a blinder on. They just want to ignore. I don’t want to hear any bad news, only good news. You have to ask yourself. Okay. That’s good for the moment, but it’s not good with helping you build relationships. Self-awareness is paying attention to the patterns of your life. What patterns do you gravitate to? How do other people see you? Maybe when you’re by yourself you’re cool, but other people see you as angry as exploding. It’s important to know your patterns, but like I said, it takes time to work on those things, to move away from them. But even recognizing those patterns is powerful because then you can look at yourself in an objective manner and say, do I like being like this? Do I want to continue in this way? And then the next step is, what can I do about it? This is where your community comes into play and then seeking therapy to help you with that.

It might make you feel uncomfortable to know that while I am one of those persons that when someone does say something that might be sad news or bad, I just ignore it. And I just don’t want to hear. I just shut them down. How does that make that person feel? I don’t even come off as self-compassionate. It might make you feel bad in the moment, but the goal is to work on it and to improve because it’s going to help you to connect more with other people and help you to have more fulfilling relationships. 

Carrie: Absolutely. I think what you’re talking about is especially true in very intimate relationships. If you will have a hard time being self-aware and you have a spouse or boyfriend, girlfriend, that’s probably the person that you could ask first tell me one strength or one weakness. If you’re not married, just a very close friend that you spend a lot of time with.

It really knows you because oftentimes when we’re in relationships with other people, that’s where we notice our differences in terms of how other people approach situations. And we can become really frustrated by that because they don’t approach situations the way we think that they should or the way I like. They don’t do it the way I would do it.

And then it causes us to kind of look in the mirror and go, “Oh, well, why do I approach this situation this way?” or “Why did that make me so distressed when they acted in that manner? And that those types of times are really good for self-reflection. Anytime that you get really worked up about something or you have a conflict in a relationship instead of avoiding that really kind of trying to be curious about it and be reflectful on yourself as well as the other person. How were they impacted when I shared something? How was I impacted when they shared something? That’s good. 

Lola: Yeah, absolutely. 

Carrie: Do you feel like that it’s possible for people to be too self-aware because someone might say, “well, you know, in Christianity we really just need to focus on the needs of others and being giving to them. You know, I don’t want to focus on myself too much.”

Lola: Okay. Yes. Okay. I really liked that question. I think that sometimes we can be too focused on certain areas of our life. Like I said, some people know their strengths, some people know their weaknesses. I’ll give an example. Let’s say you’re prepared for a presentation as you’re about to get up, you realize you forgot to add an image to a slide and that’s all you’re focusing on. Oh my goodness. And you’re nervous. You’re focusing on your heartbeat. You’re focusing on the peak you have in your stomach. You’re sweating. In that moment, I will ask someone to pay attention to what’s going on in their body. Why don’t we try external self-awareness?

Are people in the audience connecting with the topic? How come you’re not noticing the person that is not in their head? The other person that is raising their hand to ask a question. So you have people who are focused more on external self-awareness. They care about pleasing other people more than what is their values and their abilities and their motivation.

So I think as Christians, and I think it’s the same criticism with this personal development. As a Christian, I would never tell anybody to focus on something without including God into it. We all have our own area of growth and you have to be willing to be open to what area of growth God wants you to focus on.

There’s some people that they’re so self-aware that they only notice the problem in certain situations. What about the positive things that are going on? They can tell you the problem. They can tell you the problem with the particular project and maybe they’re right about those problems that will come up in a particular project. Maybe you don’t have the answer to that problem and still want the answers to that problem. What about the good things that are coming out as a result of this? I think with anything we can pay too much attention on it, but the best way I can answer this question is to say, bring God into it.

There’s also a healing that comes in when you’re focused on yourself and focus on being the best you. You’re also more gracious to other people if you’re more patient with yourself. You’re more likely to extend that grace to other people by being patient with them. If know that you have flaws and weaknesses, you’re also able to be gracious like they have flaws and weaknesses.

Like the Bible says. I’ll put it this way before we correct someone else’s wrongdoing, it’s important to you to correct our own wrongdoing as well. And to be able to make sure that we’re making those changes in our life. When you know that you’re a human being and you’re a sinner, it’s easier for you to be able to say, you know what. I have baggage too. I have things I’m working on too. So I’m not perfect as I’m trying to correct you in what you’re doing wrong or whether I think that you could be doing better.

Carrie: Absolutely. Grace is one of the topics I’d love to dive into the podcast at some point in time. I absolutely agree with what you said, that when we are able to receive grace from God ourselves, it’s so much easier to give grace to other people like it has to flow through us and out of us. That’s very good. I know that you have a podcast. Um, can you tell us a little bit about your podcast? 

Lola: Yeah. So my podcast is titled Joy In Purpose. The name of that podcast came about because on this path of fulfilling your purpose, whatever it is, some people are at a stage where they’re like, I don’t even know what my purpose is.

We all go through disappointments and failures and good times as well. I noticed that sometimes when we go through road bombs or we’re facing people telling us no, it can really bring us down and make us question ourselves. So that’s why on this journey to purpose, on this journey of navigating our purpose and fulfil our purpose, there’s going to be disappointment along the way. So my podcast is talking about the journey of purpose and just finding the joy in purpose, finding the joy within ourselves in purpose. So I invite other people to talk about their journey of purpose. Just talk about what I call their purpose stories.

And I also curate conversations related to purpose and mental health.

Carrie: Awesome. So at the end of every podcast, I like for our guests to share a story of hope because our podcast is called hope for anxiety and OCD. So this is a time where you received hope from God or another person.

Lola: This past year, 2020, and even this year, societally, we’ve all gone through a lot. And for me also with my program, there’s a lot of work, dissertation papers, classes. Just this year has just been stressful, just a lot going on. And the previous year too. Recently, I got awarded a scholarship from my program and the scholarship was determined by the faculty and they picked myself and another applicant to receive the scholarship for the summer semester.

And I am so grateful for that. So in the middle, a lot of things going on. To me, it felt like, “Wow, hope.” That’s hope. It just really made me look up and just be appreciative of God and his faithfulness. 

Carrie: Yeah, it’s just always so good. And when you’re in that moment of provision of like, oh God came through for me in this situation. It just gives you encouragement that next time you’re facing another situation that he’s going to open a door, come through for you.

This has been a really great conversation on self-awareness and I really appreciate you being on the show and sharing your wisdom with us. We wish you the best in your studies. 

Lola: Thank you very much. I’m glad that you had me on to speak with your audience. I really appreciate it. 

———————–

I hope this interview causes you to be curious about how you can become more self-aware and what that looks like in your process.

Something I realized that I forgot to tell everyone about is that we now have hope for anxiety and OCD t-shirts. Isn’t that fun?  I designed this t-shirt on Teespring. And so if you go to our hope for anxiety and OCD website, and then click on the store, it’ll actually take you to an external site when you click on the t-shirt.

I don’t actually print them here or mail them out or anything like that. There is another company that does. I did order one just so you know, I wanted to feel it and see how it looked. The color is great. The printing is high quality and it’s a super comfortable shirt. So if you are looking for a way to help promote the podcast, or you just want to add a t-shirt to your collection, you’re welcome to go onto www.hopeforanxietyandocd/store. You’ll also find my ebook on there as well, which helps you find a therapist that’s a good fit on the first try. Thank you so much for listening.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam.

Until next time, May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

29. God, Feelings, and Theology with Aron Strong, LMFT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 29. God, Feelings, and Theology with Aron Strong, LMFT

I had the privilege of interviewing  Aron Strong, LMFT, a former pastor turned therapist.  Aron talks about how having a healthy theology about God and HIS feelings, helps us understand ourselves as we grow closer to God.  

  • Does God have feelings? What emotions does God feel?
  • The importance of knowing God and understanding His emotions
  • God is for us, not against us
  • Understanding human emotions
  • Why did God create emotions? 
  • To negate emotions is to misunderstand who God is. 
  • How to manage intolerable and overwhelming feelings
  • Brief overview of the modality created by Aron called Attuned Systemic Repair


Links and Resources:
Aron Strong, LMFT 
Pathway Counseling
In Relationship Marriage Retreats

Support the show 

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 29

Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 29. Today, I was able to interview one of the local counselors here, Aron Strong. There were so many different things that Aron could potentially speak to that we really had to narrow it down as far as what he was going to talk about today. We landed on discussing the intersection between having healthy theology about God and God’s feelings, which helps us understand our feelings since we’re created in his image. This is a conversation that I believe we really can get a lot out of. So let’s dive right in. 

Carrie: Welcome to the podcast. Tell us a little bit about you. 

Aron: My name is Aaron Strong. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and an approved supervisor. I worked in church ministry for 15 years as, pastor and some other roles. I am now the founder and the director of pathways counseling in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I’m the co-founder of a company called the In Relationship that focuses on helping therapists in the general public develop healthy relationships in a lot of different contexts.

And we have online courses and marriage workshops and other stuff. And then I’m also the creator of a therapy called Attuned Systemic Repair and we’re developing that. I’ve been married for over 20 years. I’ve got a 15-year-old son and a bunch of pets. That’s a little bit about me.

Carrie: Are you a dog or a cat person?

Aron: We have both, 2 dogs and 4 cats. We didn’t always have cats. We had a dog once that thought of cats like tennis balls. And so that didn’t work out well. We had her for a long time. When she finally passed of old age, we got some new dogs that were a little more cat-friendly and so now we have a diverse brood in the home.

Carrie: That’s interesting. You’re the second person that I’ve interviewed that started out as a pastor and then became a therapist. Can you maybe briefly tell us a little bit about what that transition was like for you or how God brought that about. 

Aron: Sure. Well, for me, it was a little traumatic. I didn’t plan on leaving the ministry.

My wife and I had met on staff at a church in California outside of Fresno in a town called Clovis and worked at that church for 13 years, 12 years. And then moved across the country to Tennessee, to work at a church out here. That didn’t work out. We had thought it would pretty quickly.

And so I was there for about a year. And then I was out of ministry and left wondering what was next and prayed and sought counsel. I didn’t feel called back in the ministry, which was kind of shocking for me. I always thought I’d always be a pastor and working for a church, but then God led me to pursue marriage and family therapy.

And that wasn’t something that was ever on my radar. And so it was a little surprising for me. I enjoyed it as a pastor, but when you’re a pastor, you’re expected to know a lot more things than you actually know. And so it was always terrifying for me. So if I was going to do that and I was going to do it right, and what that meant grad school and the whole deal.

And so I talked to my wife about it. We prayed about it, felt it was right and then at 40 years old, I had changed careers. 

Carrie: That is an inspiration to somebody out there that’s listening that feels like they need to make a change and do something different. So that’s awesome for you to be brave. 

Aron: Yeah, I think I’m probably better at this than I was working for the church.

I hadn’t quite expected that. It was a hard transition. Working full time plus doing grad school and an internship and trying to manage a family. It was not an easy transition, but it was definitely worth the price. And so I’m very, very pleased to be where I am now.

And you know, that God called me into this and I still get to do a lot of ministry. It looks a little different than it used to, but I still do a lot of speaking at churches and training and kind of integrating faith and theology with clinical therapy. it’s neat to be able to draw from both.

Carrie: Absolutely. That’s a good segue into what we’re talking about on the show today, which is essentially how our theology of feelings, how we understand God’s feelings and our feelings and those interactions and connection pieces. How was it helpful for us as Christians to understand that God is a God who has feelings?

Aron: Well, it’s really interesting is our perspective of wondering about God’s feelings. And I think we often forget that we’re made in his image. So the reason why we have feelings is because he has feelings. It’s not hard for him to understand how we feel. We actually have all his feelings. That’s how it works.

God has all the feelings and we don’t think of him that way. Scripture shows all those feelings of anger, joy, and sadness. He feels hurt. There was at least one time he felt horrible. There was at least one time he felt regret, making the world around the time of the flood. He feels longing. He knows what it’s like to feel misunderstood.

He knows what it feels like to love someone who doesn’t want to love you back. He feels weary at times. He knows what it’s like to feel jealousy of wanting the affection of the one that you long for. All of those things that are regular experiences, or feelings that he experiences and scripture talks about.

So we can feel comfort in knowing that we have a God who not only understands our experience, our experiences help us connect to who he is, and we have a better understanding of who God is because of our experience.

Carrie: That’s really good. I think a lot of times people focus energy on the maybe negative feelings of God like God must be mad at me. God must be disappointed with me. And it’s hard to find that balance in understanding that there are times where God may be upset about our behavior, our sin, but at the same time God delights in us as his children. Our own woundedness really clouds how we see God based on our interactions with caregivers and maybe former spouses, other things that have really messed with that view, harmful church experiences.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Aron: Yeah. It’s interesting that even before we’re born we have feelings. Feelings, or sensations that happen in our body that communicate to us about our experience of something and the part of our brain that does the processes. Physical feelings also process emotional feelings.

It all runs through the vagus nerve in our bodies. We literally feel our feelings in our bodies and that begins in utero. We’re born feeling feelings, but what we don’t have as a language to describe what’s happening to us. So our understanding of feelings comes through our development and our interaction with parents and caregivers and other people in our lives.

Then based on however our family manages emotions or has language for them, or doesn’t talk about them. We try to build models. We don’t think about it, but we just do of how to manage feelings and what that means. In that context then we kind of do something very similar with who we believe we are and who we see God as.

As we build our models of who God is based on our interactions from others and our own felt experiences in contexts. And we construct ideas of what those things are out of the lack of knowledge or direct interaction with him to know him personally.

And so we don’t know him personally, then we kind of like we do with celebrities or other people in our lives, we don’t know them, but we build ideas of them based on what we hear and what we see and how people talk about them. We may read a report that they did, but we don’t know them personally to understand what’s really going on inside. So part of our experience in our faith journey is beginning to understand who God is personally and how we interact with him and learn from him and understand how he sees us. Helpfully, a lot of our personal experiences in life help us once we have a good framework to understand them, how to understand who God is and how he sees us and being a parent is probably a great example of that. Because I can both love my son and want to murder him in the same moment. That’s what it’s like sometimes no one knows how to hurt you like your kid when they’re being rebellious. I remember the first time, you know, um, my son told my wife, he didn’t like her, and the pressure feelings because she loves him so much. So there are times that you can absolutely love someone and be disappointed in them, but that’s not the totality of your belief in them because you love them.

And when you understand the totality of God’s love for mankind and for us individually, then his anger or his jealousy or his disappointment, or those things have a context that isn’t against us. God’s feelings are always for us to draw us into relationship. And when we understand the context of how God manages and expresses his feelings, we begin to understand what a healthy expression of anger or a healthy expression of jealousy might look like. We tend to do ours. It’s very self-centered and about ourselves, but God’s feelings are for us. He’s jealous for us. Not against us. He’s not disappointed to drive us away. His disappointment wants us to live up to all the good things that he has in store for us and wants to draw us into the fold.

And so those things aren’t to drive us away, they’re always to draw us closer to him. 

Carrie: That’s really great. I like how you, how you put that. If we have this understanding of God’s love like at the deepest level that we as humans can really understand it because I don’t think that we can fully grasp the depth and the height of God’s love for us.

But if we can somehow tap into that and filter God through that lens of love, then these other feelings are going to help us make more sense that God desires to be in relationship with us. And wants us to be close to him. And oftentimes when we have certain feeling experiences, our tendency is to do the exact opposite. It’s to do what Adam and Eve did is to run and hide from God, you know, because they felt ashamed or to be afraid and isolate.

Aron: Yeah. It’s hard. We tend to think people are one feeling. If someone is angry, all they are is anger. And we miss the complexity of who God is and who people are. God has this very strange dynamic that we’re not used to where he is fully love and grace and mercy and compassion. And he is holy and he is righteous and he has judgment and he has wrath.

And he’s not one of those things. He’s both of those things. And when we understand the balance of love and desire for relationship and accountability, and managing the context of relationship that keeps it healthy. It’s the interplay of those two things that helps us understand the total, who God is.

He’s not love at the expense of any sort of accountability because no relation can function that way where there’s no rules and no boundaries, and people can hurt each other as much as they want. “But hey, we love each other like that.” That’s not a healthy relationship. Likewise, someone’s only judgment and wrath and condemnation. That’s not a real relationship either. There’s no tenderness. There’s no connection inside of that. And so the context of the fullness of who God is and both of those aspects and all of those feelings that go inside of that, they show up in us in everyday experiences with our spouses or our bosses or strangers in the freeway when they cut us off in traffic. And we feel like that stranger isn’t caring for me because of the way they’re driving.

But they don’t know me. They’re not thinking about me. The context, I think about it and I want to hold them accountable because I didn’t feel cared for. So this interplay of needing to feel loved and managing accountability is the dynamics of all relationships, both our relationship with God, our relationship with others and our relationship with ourselves, where we have to lead ourselves.

I have to lead my feelings. I can’t let them just leave me because one feeling can’t represent all of who I am, but when I let a feeling do all the talking for me, I ended up saying things that I don’t really fully mean. My anger does all this talking and I regret everything I said because that anger didn’t reflect the rest of me.

It was only just this one piece of me. And so I have to leave my experience and I have to submit myself to be cared for by others. It’s a very complex dynamic. I think that’s why we struggle with it so much. 

Carrie: I would agree with that for sure. What kind of things do you see Christians doing to get out of their feelings in an unhealthy way where maybe they really need to be with what’s there?

Aron: I would say Christians tend to do the same things. All humans do. I don’t know that Christians manage it any better than any other person. It’s funny. There’s one thing every human being has in common with every other human being on the planet. It’s not their class or their race or their culture or their socioeconomic status.

That’s not their traumas. You don’t get to pick those things. You don’t get to pick who your parents were or where you were born. There’s so many things that make us all very unique from each other, but the one thing we all have in common is we all have the same feeling. Everyone knows what hurt feels like.

Everyone knows what disappointment feels like. Everyone knows what longing feels like. Sadness. Those are universal expressions that live inside of us. The contexts in which those feelings occur are very different. but the feeling itself is universal. We all have the same feelings. They’ve even done research on facial expressions and paired with emotions.

They’ve gone to every culture around the world, and they’re all universally recognized because again, we’re all made in God’s image. So we all have in the same way. So the inappropriate ways Christians manage their feelings, look a lot like the way the rest of the world manage their feelings because we don’t know what to do with them when we feel overwhelmed.

And so we avoid them, we try to pretend like they don’t exist. I can’t tell you how many, especially guys like to do this, they’ll come to my office and they’ll say, “yeah, I don’t have any feelings.” And I’m like, “really?” And they’re like, “no feelings.” I’m like, “you’re never angry.” “Oh, well I’m angry. Oh, but never frustrated while I’m friendly.”

“Bored?” “Yeah, I’m bored.” “Irritated?” ”Yes. Apparently, you only get the bad feelings, no good feelings, but you got a lot of feelings. So we tend to suppress them. We avoid them. Oftentimes we overexpose them to everyone because we don’t know how to manage our feelings. And so we really want somebody else to do all that work for us.

And so we express it in a very large way, but oftentimes the ways we express it, make it kind of intimidating or overwhelming for others to care for us in the ways that we can. Sometimes we want others to know what we need without having to disclose it. And so we just want them to know what it is. And so we drop hints or innuendos. For me, manipulation means that we’re trying to get our needs met without disclosing what they are.

It’s actually a protective strategy that we use to protect ourselves and still get our needs met. It’s not against someone, it’s to try to help ourselves, but we’re not going to, we don’t trust others enough to let them in on what’s really going on in us. So there’s a lot of different ways that we don’t know how to manage our feelings well, and everybody tends to do them pretty similarly in categories, I suppose.

If everyone’s unique in their specific ways they try to manage themselves. There’s also broad categories that we all tend to fall in, in terms of the ways that we do that. We overexpress or we under express or we swallow, or we pretend like they’re not there until we explode. There’s so many options we get.

Carrie: Yeah. Something I hear commonly in my office. I imagine you may in yours as well. “Well, I’m angry about that but I mean I really shouldn’t be”  or “I feel guilty that I feel this way, that I feel sad about that”, or “I know I need to just like have joy in the Lord, but I just feel so depressed right now.”

And sometimes there’s Christian mask, almost that we put on things like somehow we’re supposed to feel a certain way about a situation. And if we feel differently, or if we have a complex feeling, if it’s multi-feelings, then we may feel guilty for one of those feelings or the other. And somehow there’s this expected Christian response.

And if we don’t fall into it, all of a sudden there’s like this guilt and shame over our experience. 

Aron: Yeah. That’s very interesting when you’re helping somebody understand their feelings, they don’t realize they can have a feeling about a different feeling. I feel guilty about my anger.

And so they could become very complex. There’s times when we believe that we’re supposed to feel a certain way because the way that we would feel would make a statement about who we are. I shouldn’t feel angry because that means I’m a mean person or I’m ungrateful or whatever meaning we’ve constructed that goes with that feeling.

And we miss the importance of the feelings that we have. We’re kind of not addressing the reason why we have the feeling we have. We’re just wishing we had a different one, but our feelings are so important to us because they reveal what’s going on in us in the moment we feel. I call them a temporal truth.

It’s not an absolute truth like gravity. Gravity is gravity. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it or what time of day it is. My feelings are more like rain. It’s raining when it’s raining, but when it’s not raining, it’s not raining. It’s a truth that can come and go. So my feelings telling me what’s happening inside of me in the moment I feel it. The reason I know I’m hurt or feel angry, I feel hurt, or I feel angry.

It’s telling me, hey, this is going on right now inside of me and it needs to be attended to, or it needs me to lead it or comfort it or express it or do something. So, whether it should be there or not is kind of immaterial, the fact is it’s happening right now and we have to do something with that because we’re called to lead ourselves.

Scripture talks a lot about discipline and directing ourselves. I have a thing about that, but this idea of I’m supposed to manage my experience. And I’m supposed to know how to submit myself to someone else to be cared for after all God asks for us to ask him for what we need, even though he already knows what we need, he wants us to disclose because that’s part of the vulnerable part of relationship will be shared what’s going on in our hearts with one another and not just expecting someone else to know it. But on the other hand, I can’t just prioritize my own experience. I have to be able to put my experience aside. Scripture says to consider others’ needs as important as mine, you know, not just looking at my own interests, but the interests of others.

And in balancing that out, but feelings they need to be attended to, and it’s helping me know what’s happening. We would be burned or hurt all the time. If we can’t feel what’s going on inside. I have a father-in-law who has diabetes. He’s older and a couple of years ago he had to have a toe amputated because he broke it and had no idea. And by the time they saw it, it was completely black. It was your feelings help you know this is happening so we can care for it. So that’s an important thing. We just don’t worry about whether you should or shouldn’t have a feeling when you have a feeling, then it helps you know yourself and kind of what to do.

Carrie: I like the rain analogy that you use because there’s some language in church sometimes that I hear about, “you just need to fight your feelings with faith.” And I take issue with that statement because you wouldn’t fight the rain. You know, you might get an umbrella or put on stand galoshes, but you wouldn’t have a war with that. Like you said, if the feeling is here, it’s like, okay, well it’s here. So now what do we do.

Aron: Pastors are humans like everybody else. They have the same models of managing their feelings that other people have. They don’t have more access to those things than others. And I don’t know many seminaries that spend a lot of time talking about feelings.

They talk about liturgy and they talk about exegesis and all these kinds of bigger concepts. And so I’m with you. I was getting irritated when I hear a pastor say that if you believe in God enough, you won’t feel anxious. And I’m like, that’s ridiculous. Anxious is a very important feeling that helps you be prepared when you’re not anxious enough.

Sometimes then you make mistakes because you weren’t paying attention to it because anxiety is a feeling that says, hey, get ready for this. It’s when we try to be ready for things, we can’t get ready for that. We get stuck. We’re preparing for things that aren’t prepared, no something I can’t know.

And then it goes sideways, but a regular feeling is you’re going to have a test and you should feel anxious about that because it’s going to make sure you study harder. And so there’s appropriate ways of managing those things. But when we give a message that if you have enough faith, you won’t have any what we call negative feelings. That’s kind of really disabusing people and leading them down a straight path of how to attend to their experience and lead their own experience and know that all of those feelings have healthy expressions and unhealthy expression.

Anger is not bad. God’s angry all the time. Apparently, there’s a good way to be angry or hurt or sad or any of those things. Those are things that God does. And so it’s more important to understand the healthy expressions and how we do that well than just telling people to have more faith, pretend like those feelings don’t exist. 

Carrie: I think you hit upon on a point where in church circles, at least the ones that I grew up in, I know there’s many different streams of Christianity. There was a lot of focus on knowing about God, a lot of focus on learning about God and less focus on really the experience of interacting with God.

Aron: I remember there was a period of time when church culture was very worried about manipulating the congregation through emotion. And the emotion was manipulative and not authentic. It’s important not just to make an emotional decision about anything. You need a whole body to experience. You need your emotions and you need your intellect. Sometimes you need to trust your gut and your intuition and your body. And so having a whole-body experience in how we make decisions is important, but to negate the role of emotions is to misunderstand the context of who God is. God created emotions to be powerful for a reason because I think he feels them powerfully. He invented things that have you foric feelings. He made those feelings and made it that way. And so I think that understanding the fullness of balance and reason and the experiential, and not just knowing about who he is, but knowing who he is. Those are the best protectors in our faith and especially when it comes to sin, breaking the boundaries of relationship. To me, sin is a break of relationships. Sin is when we turn away from the relationship to do something that’s solely for ourselves. We neglect him or we forsake him to do something just for myself. And it doesn’t include him as part of the relationship.

And that hurts. So that’s outside the bounds of what he longs for in a relationship. And so understanding who God is and wanting. It’s kind of when you know your spouse really well, you know the things that hurt them. And so you try not to do those things because you love them. You don’t want to hurt them. But it’s not about checking boxes of legalism and rules, it’s about understanding the context of the one that you love and maintaining an as close and intimate and healthy relationship as you can. And that’s almost intuitive. It’s very easy. That’s why Jesus said if you love me, you obey my commands.

Not like, come on, baby. If you love me, you would. Or if you obey my commands, you don’t love me. You just say, it’s almost like when you love me, then it’s easy because it’s about the relationship.

Carrie: That whole like my burden is light verse.

Aron: That verse to me is about ownership. Come to me, you were weary and burdened. I always ask clients what’s the burden you’re giving God? And what burden is he giving you? Because he says he gives you a yoke. It’s just lighter than the one you carry. So what are you giving him and what are you receiving in return for me? The one we give him as the burden of ownership, where I take on the burden of owning my own sin or my own guilt or my own shame or trying to control my future and all of those things.

It’s the ownership I’m giving him. I’m giving them ownership of all of those things in my life. And the burden he gives us in return is the burden of faithfulness. That my job is to just be faithful to what he’s called me to do. To do the best I can, and to trust him to carry all the things I can’t because there’s only so many things I can manage. Everything I can’t manage is his job because it’s too much for me. And so I don’t need to be him or take over his role in the relationship. I can let him be strong where he’s strong and then I can be faithful to do the things that I’m called to do. Now that he’s called me to do and trusts me to do those things. 

Carrie: What would you say to someone who finds their emotions intolerable?

I know that’s a really big question, but let’s say there that they’re trying to have a healthier relationship with themselves, their emotions, and God in that interaction. What encouragement would you provide to them or maybe a starting place? 

Aron: People who find feelings and intolerable have had experiences that have been overwhelming that they did not have someone assist them or care for them through the process.

So in those experiences, their self, who they are, their soul was unable to manage the context of the totality of their experience. And so their self kind of collapses. The feeling is uncontained. It’s out of control. And that feeling begins to persist. And it’s a lot of what we describe as trauma is parts of us that remember in re-experience the intolerable illness. The overwhelming sense of helplessness or fear and they can’t be contained. And then my feelings don’t trust myself to lead it because when they reformed, myself couldn’t do it either. I was too young or somebody literally took away my power because I was being assaulted or I was in a car crash where literally I was helpless.

There’s a feeling of helplessness and the feeling has no sense of containment at all. And that happens. Even those times occur to us, that doesn’t have to be a persistent experience because our feelings are still looking for the same things they were looking for when they originated, which is to be led, to be held, to be understood, to be comforted, to be directed in a way that’s productive and helpful.

And oftentimes when we don’t know how to do that with our feelings, and we don’t know how to manage those feelings. So often others are fearful to engage with us in a way that feels safe to us then we stay trapped in these patterns of feeling overwhelmed, having maybe some other side coping ways we try to do with it.

We’ll do it through. Some kind of maladaptive ways. We’ll gamble, be promiscuous or we’ll do drugs or we’ll do something right to help manage these overwhelming feelings. And so, finding healthy relationships, finding a therapist that can help assist that process who’s trained to not be overwhelmed by your feelings and help engage you and help you lead your feelings and help rebuild. One of the principles of the modality I developed an attuned systemic repair is restructuring the leadership of self over our distressed emotions and repairing that relationship so that the parts of us within us can trust ourselves to lead that process.

And the therapist can model that and guide, direct that and restructure how that works in type the individual in helping them know how to do that with others. So there’s ways that we can learn how to manage those intolerable feelings just because they have never been contained or led doesn’t mean that they can’t be.

And in fact, they are still crying out for those experiences, which is why they’re so big. The only way that those feelings know to get cared for is to increase their volume until someone hears and responds. And so that’s what they do. They cry out for help. And when we learned that that’s what people’s feelings do, I can stop feeling attacked by the overwhelming feelings of others. I can hear the distress inherent in what’s going on. And that allows me to be more like a firefighter that runs into the fire to put it out rather than just being like, well, I guess I’ll just let that thing burn to the ground.

Carrie: Good. So if we have some therapists or students or others that might be interested in attuned, systemic repair, where can they find out more information at the moment?

Aron: So I’m developing a lot of training materials. I’m hoping to have some training videos out later this year. We’ll walk people through that. So I’m still in the process of writing. I’m an approved supervisor. So if they want some they’re pre-licensed that can get supervision hours. If we can get enough people interested, I’d love to start some supervision groups for ASR. I don’t know, maybe about a dozen people that are practicing it right now. So it’s not out there a lot, but have a lot of writing and we’re looking for ways to kind of communicate that.

So I’m still starting to let the cat out of the bag a little bit through this podcast and saying it’s out there and letting people know. 

Carrie: Well, that’s very exciting. We can put the link to your counseling practice on there and they can contact you through there. I’m sure that’d be great if they’re interested.

Aron: Yeah. Awesome. 

Carrie: Because this podcast is called hope for anxiety and OCD. I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time where you received hope from God or another person. 

Aron: Yeah. So I’ll mention that time shortly before I moved to Tennessee the church I was working at wasn’t as healthy as we had thought it was and could see that things weren’t going well.

And I had never expected to be out of ministry. I had never been as, I don’t know, I was just terrified. When you’re a pastor you have no marketable skills. I don’t know if you write a resume and say, I worked for a church and I’ve led hundreds of people in teams and volunteer teams and they say, “oh, in retail.” And you’re like, “no.”. And you’re like, “managed six-figure budgets.” And they’re like, “oh, in a warehouse.” And you’re like, “wow. no.” And so finding a job was really hard. And so there was a season of time when, um, I didn’t know what was next. I hadn’t come across therapy yet. I just needed a job.

And that fear of not knowing, I felt like I lost my purpose. I’d always felt called to ministry, felt scared. I’d moved my family across the country and then didn’t have a job to support them. I had some friends that were very encouraging and supportive that stayed with me through that process.

And it didn’t make it less difficult.  All of the journey to find just a job and kind of get through that. Just the beginning of that job, knowing that job was not going to be the rest of my life and figuring out grad school and all of that was still difficult, but having people around me, expressed concern, expressed care, offered encouragement was such a lifeline through that period. It helped me get through some very difficult seasons and it made in some ways survivable or helpful. And so I guess what I want people to know is that the relationships are the key to life. We are not made to function outside of relationships. I’m trying to find the source for this and I can’t find it, but I know I read it somewhere that it said that it takes 60% more glucose in your brain to comfort yourself than if someone helps you with it.

In social baseline theory, it’s a body of research that shows that we are not made to manage things alone. Our perception of difficulty, our experience of physical pain, our resources to engage difficulty are greatly increased by the access of social relationships. So social baseline theory says, add our baseline. We are designed to be social. We are designed for relationship. And I would say that if you have a lack of relationships in your life, you feel isolated, you feel alone. Oftentimes we try to solve that by being more alone, because if we feel like I get to choose my abandonment, then it feels less painful than if someone else has abandoned me. But then I’m still stuck alone and I’ve encouraged you that relationships are the key to life. And if you don’t have them, they’re accessible to you.

Start with therapy, find a small group, find a support group, find a place of people who know what it is to be like you, or have gone through similar experiences. Allow that to find hope that it’s survivable to know that you’re not in it alone, that people know how you feel. Everyone knows how you feel. Maybe not your context, but the feelings are universal. And when we share those feelings with each other, then suddenly, you know, we have on our wall, in our waiting room, we have a little chalkboard and we write little things there. And right now we are saying, “pain shared is pain divided, joy shared is joy multiplied.”

That’s the context of relationships and what they do. You’re made for relationship. And even if there’s not a human near you at the moment that feels safe, God loves you. He is for you. He created you. He sacrificed for you, and he wants to lead you to fullness to the person he’s created you to be that you have yet to fully realize because of the obstacles in your life. But God’s promises that he worked all those things for good, not the bad things are good. He’s a Redeemer and a restorer, and he can lead us through that. So there is hope because the God of the universe loves you and wants the best for you. We also have to be willing to participate in that process and take those risks.

And that’s hard and scary, but there’s always hope. 

Carrie: Good. Thank you for sharing all of that with us today. I think this is a really great thing for people to think about and process what are some ways that they can have healthier relationships with their feelings with God, with other people. It’s all interconnected together.

Aron: There’s a way that we’re called to live. There’s a way that life is designed to work. And when we’re outside of that, everything is really, really hard. But when we do it the way that God designed it to be, it feels easy. When couples or individuals end therapy, I’m like, who wants to go back to the old way?

And they’re just like, oh no, not at all. How much easier is this week? Oh, it’s so much easier, but it’s so hard to get to the easier way because it’s scary and risky and it takes a lot of hard work. But when you get to the other side, that journey is so worth the effort. The rewards are good.

And probably even greater because of the effort required to get there in the first place. 

Carrie: Absolutely. 

__________________________

There are so many different ideas being circulated around about our feelings and how to deal with them. Some of those are healthy and some of them are unhealthy things that we’ve picked up maybe from our environment or family of origin. So it’s nice to have this conversation in the context of biblical Christianity. By the time this episode airs, I will have been on a recording blitz in the month of May. Recording all kinds of episodes to take us through the summer. I know that we’re going to be diving into things like emotional eating, body image, learning to see ourselves the way that God sees us in dealing with doubt, just to name a few. There are so many more interview topics that I have that I’m working tirelessly on finding guests for all the time. And if you have any suggestions for me, whether they be guest suggestions or topics suggestions that I can find guests for, I would love to hear from you.

And you can reach me via the contact page of our website any time www.hopeforanxietyandocd.com. 

Thank you for listening. Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of by the world counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam.

Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

28. Play Therapy for School-Aged Children with Anxiety with Brittany Dyer, LPC-MHSP

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 28. Play Therapy for School-Aged Children with Anxiety with Brittany Dyer, LPC-MHSP

Today’s special is my good friend, Brittany Dyer, a  Licensed Professional Counselor.  Brittany shares her knowledge and expertise in play therapy.  

  • How does anxiety present in school-aged children? 
  • How does childhood anxiety present differently from adult anxiety?
  • Behaviors that may indicate a child has anxiety
  • Anxious parents with anxious children.
  • Things parents can do to help their child with anxiety.
  • What is play therapy? How does it work?
  • How to introduce therapy to your kids
  • How does play therapy reduce anxiety in children and even in adults?
  • Signs that your child may need a therapist 


Brittany Dyer, LPC-MHSP

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Transcript of Episode 28

Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 28. Today on the show, I got to talk with a good friend, Brittany Dyer about play therapy. If you remember from one of our original episodes back in the beginning, we talked with Anika Mullen about PCIT and how anxiety shows up in young preschool-age children. Today with Brittany, we’re going to be talking about how anxiety shows up in school-age children, and how play therapy is able to help with that and develop kids’ confidence.

Carrie: Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Brittany: My name is Brittney and I am a licensed professional counselor and I am working towards getting my registered play therapy certification. I have an amazing supervisor, Jamie Langley. She is the president of the Tennessee Association for Play Therapy. We have an awesome supervision group that we meet once a month.

So I’m really excited about that. And I have a private practice in Smyrna, Tennessee, and I’m just across the street from Carrie.

Carrie: Which is fun. 

Brittany: Yeah. I have been back in private practice for a little over three years now. I took a little sabbatical. My husband and I lived overseas. We were missionaries in Haiti and in Thailand for a couple of years. And before that, I had been in private practice probably three or four years before that too. So we really enjoyed our time learning about other cultures. I feel like that really helps me in the counseling field as well, knowing about other cultures. Glad to be back here now and doing what I love, counseling and especially working with kids.

Carrie: There’s a wide variety, I guess of training that people can get in play therapy. Some people may say that they use play therapy and some people may say, “I’m in the process of becoming a registered play therapist” and that takes a while. Can you tell people a little bit about what that process is like?

Brittany: Yeah. So they actually have just changed the rules and I’m not a hundred percent up on them as I’m still working towards it. I just keep trying to knock things out. To become a registered play therapist, you do have to have a mixture of play therapy training. Like education we call them CEUs. You have to get a large amount of those. They have just increased those. You have to have a certain amount of hours of supervision with a registered play therapist who has the supervision certification as well. And then you have to get quite a bit of client hours as well.

Carrie: So people know this is on top of what you’ve already done to become a licensed professional counselor. So it’s like it’s another certification process of all, after graduate school, after licensure stuff. It’s quite a process, but it’s good. It sounds like a good process for people who know that they really, really want to do play therapy.

And that’s kind of like their niche and I think it’s interesting when people are looking for therapists to kind of know some of these differences, because they may see certain letters after people’s names and not necessarily know what all of that means. Or some counselors may say, I have training in this area, but they haven’t done the further study or the further continuing education to get certified or so forth. That’s a good process. 

We’re going to talk today a little bit about anxiety in school-based children. I had a guest on the show in one of the pretty early episodes who talked about anxiety in toddler preschool type ages. And so since anxiety looks different, a little bit different at different ages.

Tell us kind of how it presents in school-aged children.

Brittany: Anxiety looks different than it does with adults. Just a few things I guess to look for children that would be different than adults would maybe be like a clinginess to their parents or to another adult, to their teacher or anything like that because they’re looking for that security.

So clinginess would be one. Another thing would be irritability, a high level of irritability. So tantrums, throwing fits those sorts of things that parents really get irritated with. It’s not just a fit that they’re throwing it if they’re having a high level of irritability because maybe they’re feeling anxious about something.

And another thing would be lots of unexplained stomachaches or trying to avoid going to school. Those sorts of things would be signs to look for in children that would be different than adults. 

Carrie: Right and I think it’s easy for people to mistake defiant behavior just as my child’s having behavior problems versus really trying to dig in there and understand why they are refusing to do things. What’s underneath that? What’s driving that behavior?

So that’s a good thing for their parents to kind of be aware of. And also I’m sure that you find a lot of times that children who are more anxious have a tendency or a greater proclivity to having an anxious parent possibly. So the parent is dealing with some of their own anxiety and then the child’s dealing with their anxiety. And sometimes those two things can interact with each other in a healthy or unhealthy way.

Brittany: Yeah, absolutely, definitely. Not only is it biologically related, that maybe a child can have anxiety because their parents could have anxiety, but it could also be a learned behavior and environmental behavior because they’ve seen their parents acting in an anxious way.

And so then they begin to kind of display those symptoms as well. And they may be acting out in an anxious way as well, but again it can look different in the parent and the child. 

Carrie: I’ve noticed just from my work in the past, I don’t work with that many children now, but I did in the past.

This tendency for there’s great empathy for that child who’s anxious if a parent has experienced anxiety and there may be a tendency to kind of want to give in a little bit more to the avoidance, or just allow them to not do things that would be healthy or good for them to do. 

Brittany: Yeah. That can absolutely happen. Not that that’s necessarily a helpful thing but it can happen. 

Carrie: Yeah. How do you work with parents who maybe are experiencing some of that and having a hard time? Maybe encouraging their kids to do what we call brave behaviors? 

Brittany: Well, one of the things that I work with parents with is number one, recognizing if you have anxiety and the way that you portray your anxiety in front of your child.

So if you have anxiety and you’re acting out your anxiety in front of them, they’re going to pick up on that like we were talking about and they’re going to begin to exhibit those symptoms as well. That’s one thing is making them aware, but also kind of helping them learn how to not show those maybe in front of their kids so that they aren’t picking up on that. And that’s not something that they’re doing. Another thing that I would say would be to kind of teach them how to encourage their children to have those brave behaviors like you’re talking about. Encourage them to try things even when they’re hard. Kind of taking on that sort of a language like, “yeah, you can still do it. It might be hard. You can try. You don’t have to succeed. It’s okay to fail.” 

So again, talking with parents about those perfectionistic tendencies that a lot of these kids pick up on. Because that’s what we are as parents. A lot of times we portray them too. So talking a lot about those perfectionistic tendencies and helping them to kind of let’s reel those back a little bit and not project those onto our children so that they can just do the things that are normal for them to do and not expecting behaviors that aren’t normal for them to do.

Carrie: Right, because they’re not going to get it right all the time. We don’t get it right all the time either. Let’s talk a little bit about play therapy. How does that work? 

Brittany: The way that we in the play therapy field kind of describe it is that play is a child’s language. They may not have the language to verbally tell us everything that they’re experiencing. So we use play to be their language. Play provides them a safe place to express themselves because they may not have the language. Sometimes we as adults don’t have the language either because it’s hard to get down in that deep stuff that we’re going through but play is a safe way to be able to do that.

We can play out our emotions in a positive way. A child doesn’t necessarily come in and pick up a doll and say, “this is me.” And these are all the things that I’m experiencing. It doesn’t happen that way. They can choose different kinds of toys that symbolize what they’re going through and play that out in a more positive way, not necessarily in a way that we would sit down and talk about it as adults. It also helps them to work through their emotions and to learn how to regulate their emotions themselves, which also helps to boost their self-esteem. So if they’re working through their issues on their own, they’re figuring out how to do them, which again builds their self-esteem to say things like, “Hey, I can do this. I can handle this. I’ve done this on my own.”

And then it gives them a place to practice the skills that they learn while they’re in play therapy. We practice those skills over and over again as they’re playing. We do those in a fun way. We may use bubbles to do breathing exercises so that they can learn how to blow bubbles. Because if you blow a bubble quick and fast, you’re either going to get little ones or you’re not going to get one at all, but if you take a slow, deep breath like we teach people to do to help them to calm down then they are going to be able to blow a really big bubble, which is always fun. Then pop the bubbles, which is a release too. You’re having fun and you’re doing these things. There’s a lot of different skills that you can use while having fun but also teaching them different coping skills and things like that. Basically, play helps us to learn how to express what we’re feeling.

It helps us to learn those physical skills like coping skills. It also helps us, helps kids through touch, which is also a big thing with kids, 

Carrie: Sensory issues or things like that. 

Brittany: Yeah and then also emotionally just helping them to work through whatever issue it is that they’re dealing with.

Carrie: Do you find that some kids that are anxious maybe it’s almost like they don’t know how to play? They’re so serious or afraid of getting something wrong or anxious about engaging, maybe with different materials or trying new things that play process does kind of help loosen them up a little bit or be more open.

Brittany: Yeah, so sometimes it happens when I first come into the room. It takes them a while to kind of get used to the room and get used to what they can do and what they can’t do and can not be messy, those sorts of things. But as time goes on and they begin to see that they’re kind of in charge of how things go with boundaries obviously. I don’t want anybody to get hurt, but, but they’re kind of in control that they can. They begin to relax and they begin to play.  And then they begin to work through the things that they need to work through, which is part of that anxiety, and whether it’s perfectionism or just being worried about what other people think of them or whatever it is they begin to. We’ll work through those things.

Carrie: Socialization, I think can be a big aspect of those kids that are anxious about being in social settings that can help them too as they are interacting with you. I think it’s important for parents who are really thinking about bringing their kids in for therapy to recognize that it is going to look a lot different than if the parent went to therapy themselves. I think sometimes parents may unintentionally put this pressure on their child like, “you need to go in there and you didn’t tell Miss Brittany everything that’s going on with you, everything that’s bothering you.” And that they’re not able to do that as an unrealistic expectation a lot of times.

Brittany: Yeah, it’s definitely a learning curve when I explain to parents what we do in here. And I tell parents a lot of times, I’ll say you’re Tom may leave here and be like, “Oh, we did that. It was play.” And I’m like, “I promise that’s not all we did experience, but we worked on some things too while we’re in here.”

If you’re engaging with a child where they’re in control and you’re reflecting what they’re doing and you’re listening to them, change is going to happen because again, they’re able to just work through whatever issues that they’re dealing with.

Carrie: And I would hope that it should be an enjoyable experience for them because otherwise, they won’t want to come back. Right. There’ll be like kicking and screaming like, “Oh, I don’t want to go there.” Also, don’t tell your kid that they’re going to a doctor because that really sometimes can freak them out or make them think that they’re going to get a shot or have other kind of nervous expectations about what to expect.

Brittany: Yeah, I think that’s a good thing. As best as you can explain what they’re going to be experiencing while they’re there, but I try to do that when I meet with them to explain to them. And when they come in and they see the toys and you can tell they’re kind of shy and they’re like, “Can I play with the toys?”

I’m like “of course.” So again, trying to explain that. In my room obviously looks different than if you go to a doctor’s office and you sit there. On the table, there’s nothing to play with in there. It is a lot different, but I always encourage parents. I have this question sometimes, do I tell them that they’re coming to see you? How much do I tell them? And I say, tell them as much as you can so that again, they’re not anxious about coming in and worried about what the experience is going to be like. 

Carrie: Yeah. I think anytime we can prepare kids and let them know what’s coming and help them set up for success, I think that’s going to be really awesome.

So tell us a little bit about the ages maybe that play therapy is typically utilized for and what an initial first session might look like. 

Brittany: Play therapy can be used for all ages. Like I said, sometimes we have difficulty as adults expressing everything that’s going on. So play therapy can be used with adults, but play therapy is most appropriate for children ages three to 12.

I use aspects of play therapy with kids up to 18. And sometimes we use art therapy with adults too. And that would be kind of considered in the play therapy realm as well. But it’s mostly used with children ages 3 to 12 and that just allows for that age group where they’re more willing to play a lot of times. When you get 13, 14 and those teenage years are kind of like, you think that you shouldn’t, that’s kind of like the societal perception and so they don’t as much. They’re like, “I don’t really want to do that,” but it still can work for them too. 

Carrie: I know that I’ve also had adults in the office that had maybe very rigid childhoods where they didn’t get that opportunity to play or didn’t get the opportunity to express themselves and doing things like playing with Play-Doh or blowing bubbles.

Sometimes it’s a little uncomfortable for them, but it allows them to relax and be a little bit more free. So that’s true. There are elements certainly that can be used with all ages. What is the first session of play therapy usually like?

Brittany: Typically during a first session of play therapy, my initial session I asked parents to come in so that I can get that background information from them [00:18:44] and I can explain what play therapy is kind of what they should expect. And then I discuss with the parents what their reasons are for bringing the child in. What symptoms they’re experiencing and have been noticing.Things that exacerbate their symptoms and things that might help with their symptoms as well.

And what the things are that they’re noticing. So we discuss all of those things, as well as a medical history, family history, the development of the child just so I can get all of that background information to know, are there reasons why the child may be acting this way? What’s going on in the child’s life that may be kind of causing them to exhibit these symptoms, but also to know. When they’re playing, they’re not going to tell me exactly what’s going on. So I kind of need a background to know. If they’re playing with animals in a certain way, why are they kind of playing with them in that way?

So just getting all of that background information is for me to kind of know how to proceed and know what’s going on. And I typically like to meet the child during this first session if the parents want to talk to me individually without their child being there. That’s perfectly fine. But if I can meet the child on that session then that kind of gives us a leg up where they can come in.

They’ve already met me. They’ve seen the room and they know what to expect. When a child comes in for the first time, they come into the room, and most of the time they just kind of look around and kind of see what all’s in here and figure out what they can do. What their boundaries are I guess you can say, which are very limited unless they’re going to get hurt.

There aren’t very many boundaries because again, I want them to feel in control so that they can work through the issues that they’re dealing with themselves. So they come in usually and kind of figure out what they’re supposed to be doing because it is a little different. I mean, you don’t go into a doctor’s office and just sit down and play, that’s different.

So they kind of try to figure out what they do while their parents are waiting in the waiting room. If they want their parents to come back with them the first time or the first couple of times and that’s fine, they can do that. Usually what happens is the parents will come in and the parents will try to retreat out the door throughout the session.

Just so that, I mean, if a parent brings their child to counseling or to play therapy, then that there’s a reason and they want them to be able to be there. And then usually by the end of the first session, not always, but usually they become more acquainted with the room. They become more comfortable.

They become more comfortable with me and they begin to play. Again, not always, but they may begin to play and just figure out what I am supposed to do while I’m here. So even in the first session, you can kind of see that the anxiety decreases a little bit, just because “Okay, I can choose what I want to do. I figured out what I can do in here.” 

Carrie: Good. How have you seen play therapy be helpful for children with anxiety? 

Brittany: Just allowing a child to make their own decisions in the playroom really gives them a sense of power and control over things. Children don’t often get control over things in their lives because there’s always somebody telling them what to do. You have parents and you have teachers and those are good things. Children need people telling them what to do for an hour or 30 minutes to an hour. They get to come in here and they get to be in control and they get to decide what they want to do.

So that just helps them to just kind of take on that sense of power for themselves and be able to make things go the way that they want themselves to go. And that in and of itself reduces anxiety.

Carrie: That builds a level of self-confidence and mastery. 

Brittany: Yeah. And there’s also no judgment in my room if whatever they do is okay. And so that also builds that sense of self-confidence that, you know, if I do something bad, no one’s going to reprimand me for it. Now, if you’re going to do something that’s going to get you hurt. Then I’m going to set a boundary for you, but I’m not going to reprimand you for it.

You’re not going to get in trouble for it, but you’re going to see that that’s not inappropriate behavior. So even that just gives them that sense of self-esteem that’s building within them just to come to a place where they’re not being judged. And then that allows them to see themselves as good.

“I am a good person.” And so when we have that nonjudgmental attitude and we have lack of reprimand but teaching opportunities then children don’t really need to worry because they don’t have those things to worry about. I’m not worried if I’m going to get in trouble, I’m not worried about what this person’s going to think of me.

So those things help to reduce that anxiety with them too. 

Carrie: Right. Just a difference between if you are in a play therapy session and they grab the toy gun and start shooting all the stuffed animals. Probably most parents would be horrified. Whereas the play therapist is really thinking about what is this child trying to communicate to me by shooting all the stuffed animals.

You know, it’s just a random example.

Brittany: It’s not necessarily about the child shooting. And we would think about it. Maybe he’s trying to kill the animals.  There’s lots of different interpretations. It could be going on but it’s not quite as literal as we typically think about it.

Carrie: Yeah. Sure. Just finding different ways to kind of like, I’m sure as you’ve gone through your training too, the emotions that are coming out and the scenarios that are playing out, a lot of times kids will act out things that are going on in their families or at school with other children. If they have bullying issues or things like that.

And it’s, it’s been really interesting to see and sometimes you may walk away and not totally know that they worked through something, but not totally understand what it’s about until the parent comes back to you the next time. And they say, “oh, they seemed more comfortable on the playground when I took them to the park or they’re sleeping in their own bed now.”

So it’s a little bit harder, I think, maybe to measure some of the results, but you’re really just looking at what’s going on in their day-to-day interactions. 

Brittany: Yeah. Sometimes it definitely is hard to measure. And it’s not really our job as play therapists to understand everything that’s going on in their life, because again, it’s about them working through it. We don’t have to know exactly everything that they’re working through, but knowing that the space that’s provided for them to work through it, they’re going to do that. And I guess the results would be the parents come back later and say, “Hey, so-and-so has been really behaving well at school, which is really different than in the past.”

And you may not know exactly what happened to help them do that but the result is that their behavior has changed. 

Carrie: Yeah. That’s pretty awesome. I know that we’re talking specifically about anxiety but play therapy can actually be used for a wide variety of issues and behaviors that may result in children. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? And just kind of like expand out the window a little bit.

Brittany: Play therapy can be used for a number of different issues that children are experiencing. It can be helpful for children with depression. It can be helpful with children who are experiencing sexual abuse or physical abuse. It can be helpful for children who have been neglected, children who have been removed from their homes. It helps children with autism. It helps children who have low self-esteem. It really is beneficial across the board for any psychiatric problem that children are experiencing, ADHD as well. 

Carrie: Good. I think that’s helpful for parents to know.

Is there anything that you want to talk about in terms of, if there’s a parent that’s kind of on defense, maybe like, I’m not really sure if my child needs therapy or not, how would you help them know? When is a good time to bring their child in?

Brittany: So typically a good rule of thumb to go by is if their typical daily life is being altered by anything, whether that be anxiety, again, stomach aches, they don’t want to go to school headaches, things like that. If their daily life is being altered, then I would suggest contacting a professional.  And even just calling it professional, most of them are very helpful. And if you just have a question, should I bring my child in or should I not?

I say that anything is affecting them. Maybe they’re not sleeping well. Maybe their grades have dropped. Just different factors like that. Those things seem to be different than the way that they typically have been in the past. 

Carrie: Good. And I don’t think it hurts to potentially establish care with a provider and have them maybe evaluate your child for a few sessions, and then they can make a recommendation about whether or not they feel like further therapy would be helpful, or if it seems like the child is doing well in spite of maybe circumstances or changes that have happened in their life.

Sometimes parents when they go through things like divorce or major family changes or death, sometimes the kids bounce back and are very resilient and do well. But the parents were just a little bit more concerned maybe about, “I don’t know how this is going to affect them.” So I think looking at their day-to-day functioning level is a really good gauge.

As we’re winding down to the end of the episode here, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time where you received hope from God or another person. 

Brittany: My story actually kind of relates to what we’ve been talking about today and why I wanted to become a counselor. I lost my parents when I was in elementary school. They died suddenly. And I had a school counselor who was amazing, her name’s Jana Chambers. Thankfully, I can still be in contact with her. My husband and her son are really good friends. So I still get to see her sometimes which is amazing. She was my hope during that time. She really helped me. I don’t remember anything that we did, to be honest. I don’t remember. I remember we played, but I don’t remember anything specific. The only thing I remember is one time we had puppets out and that’s all I remember, but just going to see her and having that space where I felt comfortable and she was just such a comforting person and caring and listening.

I just remember feeling so light when I would come back from her office. That’s the only way I know how to put it. I felt light. She helped me so much and gave me so much hope for my future in such a hard time for me. So I am just so thankful for her and all the children that she influenced and helped throughout the years.

So I’m thankful that she inspired me to be a counselor and that I just get to pass along that hope to many other kids too. 

Carrie: That’s really awesome. That was something I didn’t know about you. And that’s a great story. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us about kids and anxiety and play therapy. I think this is a great conversation for people to learn from. 

Brittany: Yeah, of course. Thanks so much for having me. 

________________________________

Just a reminder that this Saturday, the 15th at 10:00 AM Central time, I will be hosting a free webinar called Lightening the load, Reducing Shame for Christians. We’re going to be talking about the differences between guilt and shame, condemnation.  How to get out of shame and condemnation and get into a healthier relationship with God. It’s going to be about an hour. And I really hope that you’ll be able to join us. For more information please go to www.hopeforanxietyandOCD/webinar to sign up. 

I received a very sweet message from Will the other day who said that the podcast gives him hope.

That really meant a lot to me because I can look at the download numbers for the podcast. I can look at where people are listening from, but it’s always so nice to be reminded that you are each individual with unique needs and desires and experiences that you’re having. And so to hear from you on an individual level really means a lot, and it helps encourage me to keep going and keep doing what I’m doing.

Thank you so much for all of your feedback, love and support in this process.

Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam.

 Until next time may be comforted by God’s great love for you.

27. Sending Hope and Love to the Not Yet Mothers

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 27. Sending Hope and Love to the Not Yet Mothers

This episode is for all the women out there who are hoping and praying for a child, for couples who are experiencing fertility issues and for those who are healing from heartbreak over childlessness. 

This is a compilation of stories of hope of my friends and different amazing women whom  I interviewed in the podcast:

(4:04) Story of  motherhood journey of my best friend, Christin Jasmin Wilson  

  • Christin’s dating experience. Giving her heart to the wrong man.
  • Feeling distant from God and coming back to him. 
  • Receiving God’s kindness.  A  God-chosen partner and her baby, Ellis.

Stories of Hope from previous podcast episodes:

  • (20:32) Summer McKinney being happy with her blended family while waiting for God’s perfect timing 
  •  (24:12) Holley Gerth and her husband are now grandparents to the kids of their adoptive daughter.
  •  (25:03) God brought Dr. Kraegel a beautiful child after multiple pregnancy losses
  • (35:40 ) Lindsey Castleman and her husband’s amazing story of adoption. 

(25:30)  My dear friend Michelle’s testimony and her infertility, foster care and adoption journey 

  • Going through deep, dark depression after 3 years of unsuccessful fertility treatment.
  • Staying the course with the Lord who blessed her and her husband with children through adoption process. 

(30:48) My own personal journey and God’s statement for me about having children.

Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hopeforanxiety)

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 27

Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode  27. This episode is going to be a little bit different because it’s not a solo episode and it’s not exactly an interview episode. It’s really a compilation of some different stories of hope. Some that we’ve heard before and some that we haven’t yet. For those who have been following along with my story or listened to our first episode know that while I have a history of being a foster parent and had hoped to adopt, I myself am not a mother. As I started to do these podcasts interviews, there was a string of a period of time where we were getting a lot of stories about people’s process in terms of becoming a family, whether that was praying, and then having a biological child, whether that was adding to their family through adoption or other means there was a lot of discussion about timing. And it really got me to thinking God are those stories for me or are those stories for my listeners? As so many times, I believe it’s both that as we minister to other people that God finds a way to turn around and minister back to us.

In this episode, I want to send love to the other women out there who may be are waiting or praying or hoping for a family who are not yet mothers. So I compiled some stories of hope from different women that have been on the podcast and discussed this journey. I also compiled some stories from just other women in my personal life who I know who God brought them on that similar journey.

Before we get into those stories of hope though, there are two moms that I do want to take time to say thank you to. One of those is my mom who’s a big supporter of the podcast. I know that she listens every week. She looks for the episodes to come out and she’ll send me emails if she sees Christian articles or hears of people who are talking about mental health and she’ll say, “Hey, have you heard of this person? It might be somebody that’s good for you to interview.” My mom was flying a couple of weeks ago. She asked a woman on the plane, “Hey, do you listen to a podcast?” And a woman said, “Yes, I do. So then my mom says, “Hey, would you be interested in a podcast about anxiety and OCD?” And the woman says, “Yes, I would.” My mom gives her a little podcast promo card that I had made up. That’s some amazing grassroots marketing right there. And so, thank you mom for all of your love and support in this podcasting journey. And the other mom, I want to think is who I call mom Bock, which is my mother-in-law. Mom Bock is also a supporter of the podcast and she listens to the episodes and oftentimes God will put people on her heart who need that encouragement or support from a particular episode.

And she will send it to them and has received some positive feedback about episodes that she’s shared. So I appreciate her supporting and sharing the podcast with other people as well. I joke with Steve that our moms are brand ambassadors for the show.

And now you know why our first story of hope for the not yet mothers comes from my best friend, Kristin.

How did I become a mother? That’s a loaded question. Hi, my name is Kristin Jasmine Wilson. And this is my story to motherhood. I am 39 years old. This is important because maybe like some of you, I wasn’t sure I would ever become a mother. I can remember from the earliest time always loving and being around kids around babies.

I grew up babysitting started at a very young age, probably too young if you asked me, but I started babysitting as early as 11 for my next-door neighbor. She had two beautiful kids that I used to watch on occasion. And I can even remember Connie and my mother serving with me at the nursery during the second service at church just because I loved kids that much.

You can say that this might be a God-given desire. I would say that I had this idea in my mind that I would always be a mom, but in my mind, by age 25, I have met the love of my life in college, fallen madly deeply in love, become a psychologist. I even found a letter that I wrote to Ms. Love in high school. I wanted to be a psychologist and have three kids of my own by 2011 or something crazy like that. However, sometimes life just takes you on a journey and that’s not necessarily how things go for me. I went to high school and had two boyfriends maybe, and all of which lasted two weeks. My singleness was a really, really hard thing.

I struggled being single for a very long time. I went to college. While I was in college, I decided to get involved in the church that was right across the street from our school. I again loved kids so much that I started volunteering as a college student in the middle school ministry. Yes, working with middle schoolers.

I know I’m a rare breed but I loved the naivety and the gullibility and just the welcoming nature of that age. In working in the middle school ministry though, remember college, I always thought I would meet the love of my life in college. I never did. And in fact, after college I started working for a ministry and for a nonprofit that really just worked with middle school kids all the while, knowing that I wanted kids of my own all the while, really wanting to be married and not ever wanting to have kids without a partner in life. I know I have had a lot of friends that have adopted or wanting to foster, and they’ve done that single handedly and by themselves and my hat goes off to them. However, I knew for me, this was not a journey I wanted to enter alone. Just knowing my own personality. I knew I would need a partner and a friend.

And so I prayed to God many nights that he would bring me not only a man of God but somebody who I could have children with and that we could raise children together. And I will say that came, but it came not without tears and not without many, many years of doubting God of asking hard questions of crying out to the Lord have yet one more guy who I was attracted to and had feelings for.

Not return those feelings, not return that love. I can remember during college and a little after I spent some years, are those college times in west Palm beach. And one of my places that I would really kind of have heart-to-heart conversations with Jesus was on the beach. And I can remember there was this one guy, and I really just had fallen head over heels in love with him. And he had no clue and I was good friends with his sister and I knew she could tell that. I just remember like really asking the Lord. Why just, why, why? I just remember asking, am I oblivious to guys? What is it that allowed me to not be seen by guys?

And really, I look back now and I see that had those guys looked at me and seen me, I would have fallen head over heels with the wrong guy. And really my heart is so honestly flip it and I fall in love at the drop of a hat. So it’s only the Lord’s grace and mercy that has allowed me in this that really kept me for my husband of today.

So, again, college thought I would be married by 25. That was my cutoff date in my head, that did not happen. In fact, I remember at 25 I actually freaked out and was like, “Oh my gosh” I remember my mom had me at 25 and I’m really like far behind the timeline here because I wanted to have kids and I thought by that time I would have them.

However, that was not always in the cards for me. And in fact, it took me a long time to even work through what it looked like to actually be in a relationship and what it looked like to actually start to date, which then led to motherhood. All the while though, working with kids, all the while though, taking care of other people’s kids. All the while, knowing that I wanted to be a mother. I remember turning 30 and still being single.

Actually, 29 going almost 30, grieving that year of the journey of being single and turning 30. And I almost wish that whole year of 30 away, I think it was 32 or 33. When I was 32 or 33, I finally was like, if I ever want to have kids, that I need to actually seriously start dating, started dating some guys on, through a few apps.

And at first, had really a hard time even wrapping my mind around if that was acceptable, how would I believe? And so, again, just really challenged my own thinking, but kind of came to the conclusion that if I was ever going to get married, I needed to be around guys and talk to them and have conversations.

And so I went on a journey of just having dates and chronically and all of those dates, some were really fun and some are really, really bad. And I could probably tell you stories, but I don’t want to embarrass any of the guys that I went on dates with, but let’s just say there’s a few that really still have me kind of chuckling today.

Fast forward to 2016, I was talking to a guy who happened to live in California and actually had a daughter. I knew that was going to be a little tricky, but I had been laid off from the organization I was working for. It closed down and I didn’t have anything keeping me at my current location.

So I decided to move to California and see if things would work out. I honestly remember really just sacrificing a lot of my ethics and a lot of my morals for something that was only temporary and somebody that wasn’t real on something, and for somebody that wasn’t authentic. And I really think in some of those, in that particular instance, I had really become so sick of being single and just was trying to do things my own way and in my own timing. Honestly, at 35, I was feeling like I was the only 35-year-old woman who had never been married. I was feeling it was the only 35-year-old woman who didn’t have kids. By this time I had high school friends that have had babies.

I’ve had college friends get married and have babies. I had friends adopting babies. And I was just for a long time, felt like my life was on this pause track, where I just had no control. And so many people kept saying, well, why aren’t you married? Or you’re a catch, why are you still single? When are you going to start having babies of your own?

And I really hated those questions because I felt like it was my own fault that I was unable to be a mother at that time. So at 35, I got in this relationship and I just decided to try to make things happen of my own accord and was completely devastated when this guy really only wanted to use me for certain things and then spit me back out. So with that, I packed up my bags and I moved back to my home in Chicago and kind of worded off dating for a while. Actually, it was like, I’m done. This guy is stupid. And really my heart was broken into a million pieces and it was really partially my own fault for giving it to him without putting up boundaries to really safeguard my own heart.

And of course, during that time, my relationship with the Lord was non-existent because at that point, I felt like I didn’t trust him and I was angry. I didn’t want anything to do with it. That he didn’t love me enough to give me a husband and children. By the time I was 35, knowing that most women go through menopause and are unable to bear children in their forties.

So, that was hard. Sometimes, the life that I’ve lived is great. I’ve gotten to do so many things as a single woman. I’ve gotten to explore. I had gotten to travel and have had so many different experiences that I would not have had if I had been married and had kids. Maybe I would have, I don’t know. But at that point, I was just done with being a good girl and following the rules and thinking that, you know, God blesses you and honors you. I think if I were to put it into different words, I was trying to make myself follow this God in order to get the blessing. And so, in other words, it wasn’t really about knowing God or trusting him.

It was about I’m going to do this. So in the end I get this and ultimately that work. So for a small little time, I said I’m not dating anyone else. At the time I did have a dating coach, just because I was like, if I’m going to be dating and dating on an app, I might need some extra advice.

I was actually visiting her at the time and staying with her that weekend and this guy popped up on my app and I was super wary and super kind of, not even sure I wanted to talk to him. She encouraged me. I showed him, you showed him, showed her like our conversation and, and she encouraged me just to start a conversation.

And so we did, and he was actually from Chicago. I was already planning to move back there after having my heartbroken. Wasn’t about to stay in California. And from there fell in love and met my husband, my current husband. We dated, that was in 2017. We dated for a couple of years, got engaged February 22nd, 2019.

We’re married by June 22nd, 2019. I have also had a lot of friends that have gotten late married later on in life as well. So I’ve had a lot of friends, but like some of the ones that have gotten married, like late in their late thirties, they really struggled with infertility and struggled with having babies.

And I was not even sure that I would be able to conceive right away without some sort of help. And so we decided that when we got married and went on our honeymoon, we would not prevent, but not also not like put a lot of pressure, not try. And behold, we got pregnant within the first couple of months without even trying.

And I remember laying in bed after finding out and after like looking at the pregnancy test and really coming to terms with it and just hearing the song In Christ Alone play through my head. As like my song of coming really back to Christ and back to a relationship with Jesus like that was what had sealed and kind of redeemed and, you know, kind of brought me back and brought forgiveness to who’ve had was I think. I was slowly coming back there with just the introduction of meeting my husband. And there’s a lot of emotions and hurt that had happened. Because of my own decisions and my own choices that I think with me becoming pregnant.

That was my aha moment. It’s been a journey too. I’ll tell you that. Becoming a mom, especially at this age was not easy, at 38. When I got pregnant with him at 38. It was probably a lot harder than most people. I dunno. I can’t say I was never married at 25. But I did have a cousin who got pregnant around the same time and she was in her twenties.

And there’s a drastic difference of energy between a 20-year-old mom and an almost 40-year-old soon-to-be mom, but the gratefulness and the humility that I feel like the Lord offered actually allowed us to name our son Ellis Jason, which just means the kindness of God.

Ellis means kindness. I just really felt the Lord was kind and allowing me after all these years of struggling, I wanted to become a mom and just to have his kindness and giving us a son is truly a gift. So if you were like me, maybe you have dreams of becoming a mom and having children. I would say it’s not too late.

I would say that the Lord is good. He is kind. He gives life and brings us through things that only teach us lessons to then share and bring hope to others that might be in those same situations. We are not without hope. We are not without life. 

Carrie: It was really sweet to have Kristin share because I’ve seen her through this whole journey and the spiritual growth process that she’s been on.

I know her story is going to be encouraging for those of you maybe who are still single or have been through a long period of singleness.

Summer McKinney story from episode 15 also ties in with the same theme of waiting to be married. 

Summer: I have to look at my own marriage. I was single until 28, got married at 29, I came from a very large family and always wanted many children.

And of course, the older I got, I mean, I could do the math in my head. Okay, Lord, you know, this is it. It’s going to happen. Of course, that was before like, you know, people in their forties started having kids and stuff, but there’s like, “Okay, wait.” My large families are going to happen, but God was in the details. My husband and I knew each other from way back but just went our own separate ways and whatnot but we reconnected and I inherited three amazing children in our marriage. And one of my deal breakers was I wanted a child. And so my husband, we’re going to get married and he would have to agree that we could have a child together.

And he said, “okay.” So again, “Okay, Lord.” I have three children and I want that comradery. I want them to grow up with a younger sibling. And so my timing was shortly after. Let’s settle into married life and blended family life, but few years were going by and it’s like, “Okay, Lord. Is this going to happen?”

You know, just a lot of questions. And my husband kinda gave up like, okay, it’s just not going to happen. And it took us a few years. God knew. Again, being in the details and perfect timing. The bonding that I was worried about. The boys were in high school whenever we had our son and through college, one of the boys stayed home and commuted, and then the bonding was just amazing.

And it was just all of those fears and all of those concerns or those questions. It wasn’t my timing but the timing was just perfect. You know, it wasn’t always my way but it was God, God knew what he was doing and just being in the details. And so that to me was just the hope of a large family, the hope of the bonding and that unity among the family. And God just blessed it. And so when those doubts or fears or things come into play, whether you’re single or whether you’re in an empty marriage, or divorced, and you still have that desire, I think that God is in the details and his timing is amazing. It’s not always our time. That’s kind of, when I think about, big thing in my life where desire and hope and blessing come together. I would say it’s definitely my family unit. 

Carrie: Yeah, it’s amazing how God will give us those desires like for you, it was for to have a large family. And God totally filled that in a way that you couldn’t have imagined at that point in time like you were thinking that all of those children would be completely biologically yours and you ended up with a beautiful family picture and it’s amazing how God’s dreams are much better than things that we could dream on our own. And when we try to do it our ways or in our timing, it just never quite shakes out and we can become disappointed.

________

While Summer’s story didn’t look how she had envisioned, Holley Gerth’s story from episode 19 didn’t turn out how she anticipated either. 

Holley: My story of hope is my family story. I went through about a decade of infertility. My husband and I couldn’t have our own kiddos. So we ended up adopting a 20-year old who basically aged out of the foster system. And so she’s now 27. She got married and we are nanna and poppy to Eula and Clement.

And so I literally wore a ring on my finger that said hope for all those years. And the ending to our story is not at all what I would have imagined.

__________________ 

Our last few stories are stories about infertility. On episode 16, Dr. Irene Kraegel shared about her pregnancy losses. 

Dr. Kraegel: They were years for example where I had multiple pregnancy losses. I write about this in my book as well, too. And not really knowing how that would resolve and God brought us a child. And we have this beautiful nine-year-old boy that we love. And that’s something that brings me hope. 

_________

The next story is from a dear friend of mine that I have known since about 2014.

Michelle: Hi guys. My name is Michelle. I’m here with you today to share my testimony as well as my infertility foster care and adoption journey.

So I was married and divorced at a young age to my first husband. We did not have children together. And that was not something we had really tried to do, but when I met what would eventually be my second husband, I knew that I did want to have children. We were a little bit older when we got married, my second husband and I. I was 35. And so immediately after we got married, we did start trying to have our own child. Unfortunately, that was not happening for us. So we went to a fertility doctor and over the course of I’d say about a three-year span, we had approximately non-procedures done and close to $12,000 spent. That did not bear any fruit at the end of that three years, I think we were both emotionally, I was physically spent and both somewhat spiritually spent as well because we both prayed and prayed over this journey. And really, desperately wanted to have our own child. And at that time, we could not understand why the Lord was not providing that for us.

The way I was looking at it is there are so many people that have children that don’t even want them, but God, why are you not providing us with a baby of our own? And it made me feel unworthy of having a child. I was looking at it is God, if you could let this person who is abusive to their child or neglectful or abandoned their child if you can let them have one, what does that say about me? What does that say about the parenting you think that I would do God? And I really went into a deep, dark depression at the end of that three years. I began to resent my husband because I felt that I was the only one going through the emotional struggle, the physical, especially the physical struggle because all these procedures were happening to me.

And some of them were very painful and I felt like he was doing a small fraction of the work. And over time through scripture and prayer, I did grow to see that that was very unfair of me to think that way, but I’m human. And I felt that I had been abandoned by the Lord during that period of time. I was also very resentful of other women who during this phase were discovering they were pregnant and having healthy pregnancies and having these beautiful children. And what makes it probably even worse is my career was in early childhood education. So my career was children and especially babies and toddlers and those early stages of life.

That was my career. So day in and day out, I was seeing and working with these babies. It really brought me to a low place. So my husband and I eventually decided that we would go through the foster care program through the path classes, but I told him that he would have to do all the legwork of getting a set up for the classes that basically he would just tell me the time and place and I would just show up. And so that’s what he did. We went through the path classes. In three of those classes, I met other women who were in a very similar situation who felt almost identical to how I felt. They felt worthless and useless. And the way I felt during that period of time during that dark period is that I basically had one job to do.

The Lord made me a female, which meant I was supposed to have children and I couldn’t do the one job that God had given me to do. And I just felt just so inadequate and so useless that some days I didn’t want to get out of bed. Luckily, through prayer, through scripture, through family and friends who rallied around me, around us, my husband and I both and supported us and a God who never gives up.

He never fails us. I began seeing how, even though those were the things that I wanted, I wanted to have my own child, my own biological child. I wanted to know the joys of being able to tell family and friends that were expecting a child, to feel a life growing inside of me and seeing this beautiful baby when it was first born and caressing them against my chest, having all those moments through time and through prayer God very gently showed me that he had a different plan for me. Even though I kept questioning God, what is this? What plan is this do you have for me? I don’t understand. I don’t see it yet, God. He was just really patient with me and just showed me that I need to stay the course. So we finished the path classes.

We sold our small house and bought a bigger house so that we could accommodate children. And we knew we probably wanted to have multiple. It was 2015, we got our first sibling set. It was a brother and a sister and we actually got them on my daughter’s sixth birthday and my son Larry, he was seven about to turn eight. So we went from zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds. We had no kids and then we had two kids and it was the youngest child’s sixth birthday. So we scrambled to throw a little party. And our lives changed from that day like we could have never imagined.

We have been blessed beyond measure. Even in the rough times, we have been blessed because the Lord has stretched us. He has grown us. My husband and I have grown closer together. We have grown closer to the Lord and God revealed to me pretty quickly into the foster care process that his plan for us was to adopt children who needed a family. It took us three and a half years to be able to legally adopt our children. Then finally on January 30th, 2019, we were able to legally adopt Kimberly and Larry. And now our journey has not always been an easy one. There has been days where I have wanted to pull my hair out and say, God, what have I done? And then immediately I’m filled with all the love and joy that the Lord has put into our heart when he brought us these kids. They are amazing and we knew pretty instantly that we were meant to be their parents, that these kids were going to be with us forever. And it has been such a journey. It is such a blessing.

And my husband and I both feel that we just stayed the course with the Lord. He’s always sovereign. He’s always faithful to us. He never leaves a season. He never abandons us. He shows us what we need eventually in his time and not our own. So I just hope this fills you with some peace and some hope and knowing you’re not alone.

If you’ve been in a similar situation and that God does have a plan for you you may not see it at this moment, but he will reveal it to you. Just be faithful. I hope you have a wonderful day and I just push blessings upon you. God bless you all.

_______

Carrie: I really appreciated the vulnerability and the spiritual wrestling that Michelle shared in her story, because I believe that someone who’s listening is really going to be able to relate to those thoughts and questionings that she had and rustled with God.

On episode 22, Lindsey Castleman shared her amazing story of adoption with us.

Lindsey: During this time and being in this community group, my husband and I found out that we were not able to have children. And then there were six couples, four out of the six couples found out that they could not have children, which was crazy. I didn’t know it before we came. We weren’t like, “Hey, let’s do an infertility community group.” It just happened. And then we all discovered these things. Hopefully, it wasn’t something we all drank. So we were in this together. We started going through this adoption process for us, my husband and I. One day, one of the girls in the community group texted me and she was like, “Lindsey, my mom is in a Bible study with this woman who’s asking the whole Bible study to pray for an adoptive family for her nephew’s son like it’s kind of a big goal. And she was like, “My mom remembered you guys and community group, and would you be interested?” And I’m like, “What?!” It was kind of wild because I was actually at this church.

When I got the text message, I was literally in church and they were about to do this worship and they do this forever long worship. So I’m like, all right, some do I’m worshiping and I’m asking God, I’m like, God, is this our son? Is this what we’re supposed to do? And I heard a very clear yes.

And I don’t hear that kind of stuff all the time. A very clear yes. And so I said, all right, God, well, you’re going to have to tell my husband that you said yes. He’s a little bit more of my risk-averse kind of guy. I’m a little bit more of a risk-taker. So anyways, I called my husband because I was on a trip.

So he was back at home and I was in California and I called my husband and I said, “Hey, in our community group said that.. What do you think? And he was like, “I’m open.” And I was like, “oh my gosh.” That’s not usually the response I get. I usually get all the worry questions. And if you’re in the Enneagram world, he’s an Enneagram six.

So that makes a lot of sense. To make a long story short, even though I’ve already made it long we ended up meeting with that family. And then on a Tuesday, they told us that they chose us. And then we brought our son home that Saturday. We kind of look back and we go, “oh my goodness.”

Even just us being kind of obedient to want to serve, and not obedient and like little begrudging, but just like, “Hey, we really would like to serve.” Just how God placed us with all of these people that then placed us with our son who could not have been a better fit. And if I go into the emotion of it, I will cry right now but I’m not going to be staying in my head about it.

But just in that sense of we couldn’t imagine our lives without them. And so in this place of feeling so hopeless and infertility, God was already working behind the scenes and bringing us hope just through these things, we could have never orchestrated for us to be able to be parents to our son.

So that for us is like any time it’s like, “Oh, is God working on us? Heck, yes. He is. He is and he’s working today, like working today not just in biblical times. He’s working today. He is a God of hope and he is a relational God that loves us and wants to be so close to us. And that’s beautiful in that way.

_______

Carrie: I started out this episode by talking with you about how I am not yet a mother, either. I wanted to share with you where I am on my own personal journey in case that provides any extra support or encouragement to you. Steve and I pray about having a family. We’re very open to what does that look like for us since we are older. The most amazing thing though, is that one of the times I was praying about this, I feel like the Lord spoke to me, “Carrie, I’ve already given you many children.” I have to say I didn’t receive that in a sense of God’s not going to give me children. However, it made me actually so grateful and thankful because that statement is true.

I was looking back at some old pictures that I had under the bed before we were in the digital era. So they’re actual physical pictures that I have from times where I did VBS with children. Times where I worked at an afterschool program with children in the inner city. Times where I was involved in helping with youth ministry and middle school ministry.

Many of those kids obviously are not kids anymore. They’re grown up and some of them have children of their own. But when I received that word to my spirit and prayer, it gave me so much joy and encouragement that I’ve worked with children almost my whole life in some capacity. I know that God has used me to minister to the next generation even though that may not look like having children in a nuclear family.

So if that’s you, if you’re that person that’s maybe single and serving in the children’s ministry church, or you’re in college working at the afterschool program and investing in kids know that even though they’re not your kids they’re God’s kids and you are providing just a valuable service by loving on them, encouraging them, supporting them in their growth journey process, physically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever that looks like for you. 

Sometimes mother’s day can be a hard day or an emotional day for women who aren’t mothers. I’ve had people tell me that they don’t attend church on mother’s day due to this. If that’s you and you’re hurting on that day, I would encourage you to find something that you do enjoy doing and plan to do it on that day. Definitely take good care of yourself and you know what you can handle emotionally. Whenever your journey is whether you’re a mother, whether you’re not a mother, whether you’re not a mother yet, know that God loves you very much, that he has an amazing plan for your life, and things never work out exactly how we plan them out in our mind. However, we know that God is good. We know that God is loving. We know that God is pro-family and whatever that looks like for you. I just pray that this podcast encourages you in your journey wherever you are right now. 

Some of you may have listened to this episode because you’re in this season. For those of you who listened to this episode, and you’re not in this season, maybe you already have children and you’re just a regular listener to the podcast, there’s a good chance that God has put someone in your circle who is either struggling with fertility or questioning how can they be single for so long and have children, or they can relate to some of these other stories. Will you please just share this episode and allow it to be a vehicle of encouragement to the people that you know who may need to hear this. And if this episode has impacted you positively, please let me know. You can always reach out at www.hopeforanxietyandocd.com. Head on over to the contact page as always.

Thank you so much for listening. Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of by the wall counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam. 

Until next time. Maybe comforted by God’s great love for you.

24. Reducing Anxiety with Secret Keeping Horses, Bailee Teter, LPC-MHSP (temp)

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, OCD, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 24. Reducing Anxiety with Secret Keeping Horses, Bailee Teter, LPC-MHSP (temp)

Bailee is a local therapist who talks with us about using Equine Assisted Therapy to help with anxiety. We joke about how horses are HIPAA compliant, and I share my story of overcoming my fear of horses.   

  • Bailee’s story about how she became an Equine Assisted Therapist without being a “horse person.” 
  • What is Equine Assisted Therapy?
  • Different models of Equine Assisted Therapy.
  • How does equine therapy help with anxiety and other mental issues?
  • Human-animal emotional connection. God says take care of the animals.
  • Horses read and respond to human emotions like anxiety.
  • Stories about how equine therapy helps people with anxiety

Resources and Links:

Unbridled Changes Website
Bailee Teter
Book: Hope Rising-Stories from the Ranch of Rescued Dreams

Support the show 

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 24

Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 24. Today on the show, Bailee Teter comes on to discuss Equine Assisted Therapy. You even get to hear a little story about how I overcame my own horse phobia that I had developed from a bad horseback riding experience as an adolescent. Without further ado, here is our interview.

Carrie: : Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Bailee: I’m originally from Texas and moved to Nashville in 2014. I came here to go to Lipscomb to complete my master’s in clinical counseling and ended up meeting my husband here, and so I stayed. We really love where we are and our church community has been such a blessing to us. So we really love it. 

Carrie: That’s awesome. 

Bailee: Fun fact, aside from equine counseling or equine-assisted counseling, I also direct a Christian dance program. So when people ask me what my job is I’m like, “I work with horses and I teach dance classes.”

Carrie:  Those were two pretty unique interests. 

Bailee: Yeah. They’re not anything I would have ever planned for myself. If somebody would have told me like in 2016, in the future, you’ll be directing a dance program and doing equine-assisted counseling, I would have been really stressed out about how to make it happen and really confused because I’ve danced my whole life but I did not grow up with horses. And so before I started working as an equine assisted counselor, I didn’t really have much background with horses. So that’s been a really cool story in and of itself. 

Carrie: Tell us how you got on that track because when people go to graduate school for counseling. Obviously, there’s a lot of different places that they can take that. And so how did you get into the equine-assisted route?

Bailee: Well, I didn’t go to school for equine. I actually have a really big heart for using creativity to help people heal and help people grow. Someday, a long-term dream of mine is to have my own organization that helps people connect to God through creative outlets. And through that comes healing. And so in the counseling program, I did my specialization in play therapy.

We did toys and sand tray and creative arts and music and all of these things were my electives in the counseling program. After school, I worked for a community mental health organization for a year and a half. I was really burned out. It was hard for me to be in an office. It was hard for me to be sitting still.

I felt really isolated. I didn’t feel like I had a lot of support just where I was. I was contracted into a school. And so I was at the school, but not part of the school. I learned a lot. I worked with a lot of different ages of kids and teens, and a lot of different things about case management too, but it was not the place for me.

I am not an office person, which you can see that now by the jobs that I have. So I had contact with a professor from Lipscomb and he knew for probably about six months that I was just really unhappy and I was searching and I was praying a lot like, “Lord, what are my options? Where do I go from here?”

I don’t even know if I like counseling. I just did this degree and now I’m confused and really burned out. And after about six months, one day, he was just like, “You know what? You need to go meet my friend. She’s interested in art and she does something with horses.” I was like, “okay.” So I went out to Unbridle Changes is where we are in Goodlettsville.

And I observed two sessions, two days of sessions. And she, at the end, Don, who’s the other therapist out there was like, “well, if your professor trusts you. I’m really good friends with him. I trust you. You want to join us?” That was that.

Carrie: That’s amazing networking right there. I love it when that works out.

Bailee: Yeah. And I feel like I’m not a good networker. So that was all God. 

Carrie: Yeah. I know for me, like when I’ve been in certain environments, whether it’s counseling or other things. Maybe you’re not this intuitive, but was there a feeling or a sense like when you went to Unbridled Changes, you’re like “Oh almost like I can breathe. This is where my soul is meant to be.”

Bailee: Yeah. Definitely. Every time I drive over the hill, when you get there, we’re at the end of a hill, we’re not long off of long hollow pike, but every time I drive over that hill and you just see, we think there’s about 50 acres of fields and horses. it’s just like I’m here. It’s a peaceful place. All of the staff members are believers. And so there’s just this connection. We all have that fundamental similarity. Even though we’ll see clients that are not necessarily Christian and we respect where they’re coming from and their stories, but just having that as the core. There’s peace for sure on the property and the horses add a big part to that for sure.

Carrie: That’s awesome. So tell us for, those who don’t know, which is probably a lot of our listeners haven’t had interactions with equine-assisted therapy. What does that look like? 

Bailee: Part of the story where I got involved too. I did not have to be a horse person to do this type of therapy. There’s different models. I am trained in EAGALA, which is Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. There are a few different models. I think one is called Path where they do therapeutic riding or the people ride the horses. And there’s some just different versions out there, but through EAGALA you have an equine specialist and you have a mental health person. And I am the mental health certified person. I did my training with another girl who is an equine specialist.  And to do that she had to have over 6,000 hours of working with horses and the horse background and all. Knowing their personalities and their behavior. We worked together and all of our sessions and clients keep their feet on the ground.

And very rarely do we teach them any kind of horsemanship. Sometimes in our program or for me, we’ll step outside of the EAGALA model and teach us a little bit of horsemanship so the kids or the adults will feel a bit more comfortable. But usually, we keep our feet on the ground and let the horses have free rein to interact with the clients, whoever they want to.

There’s actually some research that has come out, I think probably in the last 10 years. The most recent article I saw was 2017. There’s some preliminary research about something called coupling where horse heart rates and human heart rates will start to mirror each other when they’re in close proximity.

And so there was one research that had three different scenarios in this situation where the horse’s heart rate was closest to the human was when the horse had free reign in this situation. They weren’t being restrained. They weren’t behind the bar. They had free rein and they could choose to come and interact with the person.

So that’s kind of how a lot of our situations go. We’ll bring a horse into the arena. We’ll have a client create something out of props or toys. Kind of a very common one early on, it shows me what it feels like to be you. So they’ll build something out of toys or props or different things. And then we’ll kind of watch the horse.

And a lot of times that horse will approach like as they’re building and show curiosity and show like their sensitivity to what’s going on with the person. The reason horses are so effective is because they’re naturally prey animals in the wild. So like a dog, if it gets scared or if it gets hurt, it’ll fight back.

A horse usually won’t. It’ll run. They are so sensitive to their environment. They’re so sensitive to whatever is going on that when they look at a human they expect the human to kind of be quote unquote, “the predator.” And so they’re sensitive to what’s going on with people. And so if you come in showing a lot of anxiety, you’re carrying a lot of anxiety.

Even if another person could look at you and not tell, the horse can tell, and the horse will respond to you differently whether you’ve got anxiety, depression, trauma, they can pick up on some of those things. 

Carrie: That creeps me out a little bit. So if you go in there and you’re anxious, the horse runs from you, or is the horse kind of like a little more empathetic than that?

Bailee: I would say it depends on the horse. It wouldn’t necessarily run. Usually what we’ve noticed is it will kind of put its head up or it’ll be on alert a little bit. But in coordination with the counseling, we’ll say, “can you go help that horse be calm?” And so as the person is trying to help the horse calm down, they essentially calm themselves down as well.

And just that connection with the horse to the human. It’s like an externalization of whatever’s going on inside your heart. The horse will kind of act on it. Some of them are just really empathetic and can tell, especially the ones we’ve used a long time for therapy though, they’ll be gentle. 

Carrie: I’m sure there’s a selection process that goes into which horses would be good therapeutic leave versus not that’s already been done by the organization.

Bailee: Yes. EAGALA’s model is that any kind of horse could be used for therapy. The horses that we use most of them are all-natural Tennessee walking horses because the farm is also like a breeding farm. We have 25 to 30 horses, but also the equine specialist, that’s kind of their job to be able to know horse personality. Which ones are sensitive to the weather. Which ones are sensitive to kids versus adults. We choose which one we think would work best. 

Carrie: Do people usually work with the same horse over time, or do they work with different horses? Kind of, depending on what their needs are?

Bailee: That depends on the person too, and the situation. I have one client, she is really, really connected with a specific horse. Every time she comes, she at least has a little bit of time to spend with that horse. She just feels really comforted by this horse, really safe with this horse. So even if we have her doing something, and it didn’t feel do we have her doing something in the arena, she’ll always at least get a few minutes with this one particular horse.

And a few weeks ago she came and that horse, I actually got a little nervous cause the horse was just like laying on the ground. And I was like, “oh no, was the horse okay?” But it was just kind of a calm day. And usually if you approach a horse that’s laying down, it’ll get up.  Kind of that prey instinct as well.

But this woman was having kind of a rough week. She was feeling overwhelmed. She was feeling like there was a lot going on, but she’s so connected to this horse. She walked over there. The horse looked at her and then laid its head back down. And so she crouched down next to the horse and it was heading it and stroking it. And when she came back she was like, “oh, I feel so much better. I feel so much calmer here.”

Carrie: Wow. That’s awesome. I think what’s interesting too because I’ve looked into other kinds of therapy that use animals like animal-assisted therapy with dogs or things of that nature. And sometimes people talk to their animals and I have cats and I talk to my cat.

Sometimes I like to think we have little conversations. But there’s something about this sense of being in the presence of an animal. And now that I’m doing more telehealth therapy, there’s something about people having their animals in session too. [00:13:08] That’s really powerful. That certain level of comfort or draw that they can get from that. And I wonder if that’s a part of this equation too. A lot of times people who have challenges in their relationships, they feel like they can connect to animals more easily than the other people around them.

Bailee: Yeah. I can definitely see that. Because animals don’t judge us and they hold secrets very well. We’ve told clients multiple times if you feel like you can’t tell us something, you can go tell the horse cause they keep secrets really well. I definitely think there’s something to that relationship between human and animals. I mean, God created it that way. Even in the beginning, he said, take care of the animals. There’s a special connection there. 

Carrie: Your horses are fully HIPAA compliant. 

Baillee: Yes, definitely. They don’t tell the secrets. They keep them. 

Carrie: What are some of the issues that you see people coming in with? Obviously this is a show focused on anxiety and OCD, so feel free to speak to that, but I’m sure there are a variety of issues that people seek equine-assisted therapy for.

Bailee: Anxiety is a big one for sure. Just the nature of being outside in creation without the constant barrage of information and technology and in a new environment. I think the environment in itself helps reduce anxiety and then along with the horses. So we do get quite a bit of anxiety, trauma, depression.

I’ve been there for about two years. In the past two years, we’ve had kids that come with sensory issues that are also just looking for ways to cope with a lot of that and getting to touch the horses and feel the ground and smell the smells. That is just really beneficial for them.

Relationship things, family conflict, adjustment, a big variety, anything you would see a regular therapist for equine would work for as well. 

Carrie: I’ve always thought for myself that I should, at some point or another, pursue equine therapy because I don’t have a positive relationship with horses.

And I thought maybe I should try to improve my horse relationships at some level. I was scared. Absolutely somewhat terrified of horses for many years. Not that I had to be around them. It didn’t cause problems in my life enough to go to therapy over it, but I had a traumatic horseback riding experience when I was 16 years old and basically was just kind of thrown on a horse.

And it was like, “Hey, pull the reins this way to go right, pull this way to go left, pull back and say whoa if you need to stop.” And that was pretty much my horse instruction. There was no, let’s walk around the corral a little bit or anything of that nature. And the horse took off just running because there was a break in between us and the next trail horse.

And they were kind of trained to fill in the gaps. So that’s what the horse was doing. Just filling in the gap. And I was so nervous. I was of course very anxious and screaming because that was the only thing I was taught. And I’m bouncing on the horse and I get off of there and I was like, “I don’t like this. I’m never riding a horse again. This was an awful experience, blah, blah, blah.” And so I wish tried to push myself a little bit to do things because I feel like I’m always asking my clients to be brave and to try new things and to step outside of their comfort zone.  

About a couple of years ago, I was taking a day off and I decided to go to Land Between the Lakes. Have you ever been to Land Between the Lakes? It is a big area to fall. So for those who don’t know is this just this big like park area on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. And they have all kinds of things. They have a place where you can drive through and see buffalo. And that was super cool. And they have a planetarium and tons of hiking trails.

I saw that they had this little sign that said horseback riding, and I had absolutely no plans to go horseback riding, but I thought, here’s your opportunity to get over your fear horses. And you should just go in here. Don’t give yourself time to talk out of it. Just get over there and, and talk to the people.

So I explained to them, I said, “Look, this was my experience. I had a very traumatic horse experience but I’d like to go horseback riding.” And they said, “This horse is so old. It will not run. It’s not even going to down upon you.” It just walks through the woods. It’s very relaxing. And I was the only person, I guess because it was a weekday and I was the only person on the trail ride with the trail guide. And so I worked through. I made friends with the horse before I got on and I worked through my fear of horses. So now I guess I don’t need to go.

I’ve always had a curiosity or an interest in it. And I think a lot of people don’t really realize that this is an opportunity for them. I would say, especially if someone has been through a lot of talk therapy where they have a hard time maybe articulating or opening up about things. Do you feel like pursuing these more creative approaches to therapy like a good avenue or a good route to try?

Bailee: Yeah, absolutely. I remember in grad school, I don’t even remember exactly which project it was. It was in research class and as a dancer, I’ve always been interested in the way that creativity impacts our brains and our emotional wellbeing. And I feel like we are more like God when we are creating than any other time. And so I did some research on just research articles and looking up things. And there were some studies, I think they came out of somewhere in Europe that said our brains connection when we are doing experiential therapy is so different than when we do talk therapy. Especially because we have learned how to build up barriers and convince ourselves how to answer and respond to things in very structured and safe ways when we use our words. But when we use art, when we use toys, when you do sand tray, when we’re moving, even being active, like with the horses, experientially, our bodies are processing things. Our minds are processing things that bypass the language part of our brain.

And so I definitely think that any kind of experiential therapy is helpful when people kind of get to a stuck place in therapy, or if they just want to try something different. I think that equine therapy is really helpful in combination with talk therapy. I kind of do a mix of both in my sessions, and I know that we’ve had therapists bring their clients out to the farm to do one or two off sessions with us just to gather more information or to gain more awareness for the client.

Carrie: That’s an interesting route too. I hadn’t really thought of that. So, if someone is looking for equine-assisted therapy, what do they need to look for? What kind of training would you recommend that they searched for?

Bailee: I think I mentioned earlier, I know of at least two different types of equine-assisted therapy. One is EAGALA, which is what I’m trained in. The other one is Path. They’re both therapeutic. Path is therapeutic riding, so you get on the horse. You’re engaging the horse a little bit, probably what you did when you went to land between the lakes, building that bond, that relationship with the horse.

There’s a really cool book that I read a couple of years ago. I think it’s called Hope Rising. And it’s just stories about kids somewhere in the Northwest who came out of a traumatic situation and they were paired with a horse who came out of a traumatic situation. And they learned and they became friends with each other and they grew and it was horsemanship.

So that was a very unique thing in that situation. There’s a lot of benefit to therapeutic horsemanship I think, like learning how to walk a horse, how to ride a horse, how to train a horse. But what I do is not horsemanship. Like I said earlier, we let the horses just be free and interact on their own accord.

So I think you would want to determine what you’re looking for in equine-assisted therapy. Primarily, if you’re looking for counseling, you want to make sure that you have a credentialed counselor. Somebody that knows what they’re doing and what they’re talking about. I would say somebody that aligns with your beliefs.

If you want a Christian therapist, you can find Christian equine therapists. You can find people that are marriage specific. There’s a variety around Nashville. There’s really quite a few. But then make sure that the people that you’re working with are also credentialed or trained with a specific program because you wouldn’t want to just show up to somebody’s house and they brush their horse and they call it therapy.

And it’s not really therapy. So you want to just check their background, their resources. And I would say too, making sure that the horses are treated ethically. Because if you’ve got a location, that’s got one or two horses and they’re seeing 20 clients a week, that’s not going to be good for the horse’s wellbeing.

They get burned out too. They give a lot in a session. We have quite a few that they have been so involved deeply in sessions that when we are finished with them, we have to tell the other therapists. “This horse needs a break. They’re done for the day.” So having like a variety of horses or just a plan in place for the horses get burned out. That’s part of the equine specialist job is to look out for the wellbeing of the horses. 

Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s really neat. It’s cool that they have that emotional connection and they get worn out as well. And then they need a rest. 

Bailee: They sure do. We’ve had some really, really cool sessions of just the horses feeling so much of what’s going on inside these people. I’m thinking of one specific incident.

We had a kid whose family was going through a lot of changes, a lot of chaos. There was some addiction involved and the kid kept telling me, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” And we were just like, “There’s no way you’re fine” like to that language, setting up that barrier. And we brought in the specific course, and typically we don’t tell clients the horse’s names because we don’t want them to have preconceived notions, we let them pick names themselves.

But I’ll tell you the horse’s name to make this story easier to understand. We brought in John Henry. It’s because if you have a best friend it’s named something and then we tell you that that horse has your best friend’s name it might change the way you view the horse.

And we want them to be as blank of a canvas as they can be, at least in the beginning, so that we can put our own expectations and our own projections onto the horse and deal with it that way. We’ve had people call a horse, that horse has called math. That one is English. That one is social studies. It worked out that way because they’re struggling in one of those subjects.

So there’s so many different ways that you can do it. This specific incident, this kid kept telling us he was fine and his mom was like, “I’m just not sure he’s fine like there’s so much going on.” And we brought John Henry into the arena and something happened, but John Henry started running circles. Running in circles, he started bucking, throwing his head around, just huffing and puffing and snorting. And this is a big horse, when he stands up on his hind legs he is tall. After he kind of calmed down and we looked at that kid and then we said, “well, what do you think about that?”And he was like, he had his arms crossed and he kind of had his brow frown and he was like, “Nothing. I don’t feel anything.”

And we’re like, but you reacted like your body reacted. We can see that you reacted and so that was a place where we were able to start getting some of those. We specifically noticed this happened, or he reacted this way even though his words didn’t want to tell us something was going on in his heart. And eventually it came to that. The way that horse was acting, represented how he felt inside.

Carrie:  Wow. That’s so neat. That’s really cool. Yeah. It’s almost like the horse gave him a language that he didn’t have, 

Bailee: Yeah. That’s definitely a big part of it, for sure. 

Carrie: Are there any other stories or things that you wanted to share about how you’ve seen equine-assisted therapy be helpful for people with anxiety?

Bailee: I had a couple that kind of came to mind when I thought of this question. Another John Henry story is he’s a really good therapy horse. He’s actually had some traumatic experiences, so he is very in tune with people. I think they say that horses will either go to the extreme where they’re really not interested in people, not interested in anything, or they will become really gentle and really sensitive. He’s a really sensitive horse.

So one of my very first sessions was actually with the kid who was experiencing a lot of anxiety and irritability, but he was non-verbal. And so his parents brought him. They were just hoping that something more hands-on and something more natural would be helpful for him. And so my equine specialist at the time, she gets John Henry because we know he’s a pretty good horse, like with kids. And she had him on a rope because she was a little nervous about how the kid would respond. So usually we let them go free, but she kind of had him. She was sort of controlling the situation and we were trying to get the kid, “Hey, come pet the horse.”

The horse can see that like no response from him at all. He completely ignored us, sat down on the ground, and started building piles of dirt. And we were like, “okay, this is not going how we expected it to go.” And John Henry is pulling at the rope and acting kind of irritable, kind of crazy.

There was like a few cats around and they were just like meowing like there was just a lot of chaos in the situation. And I told my equine specialist, I said, how about just let him off the rope and see what happens. She was like, well, are you sure? I’m like, yeah, let’s just let them off. And so she let him off and he made a beeline for the kid kind of quick.

And then he slowed down until he got to a really gentle last step right up behind the kid and put his mouth down to the kid’s head. And when he touched a kid on the head the little kid turned around and looked right at John Henry. And that was the first interaction of anything in his environment

we had seen him do besides the dirt. So for the rest of the session, that kid would play in the dirt a little bit and then turn around and look at the horse. And if he moved, John Henry would move and he would stay right there with him. And at one point the kid became really fascinated with this horse, his feet, which most horse professionals be like, “Don’t get near the feet. Don’t get near the feet.”

So my equine specialist got a little nervous, but then she noticed that horse wasn’t moving a single muscle. He was so aware that this kid was by his feet. He was so aware of what was going on with the kid that he was totally still. Just after that, the kids started opening up more, started interacting with us more. We got more eye contact. His parents said he realized he was less anxious at home. So that was a really sweet one just because it’s kind of unique in that he wasn’t verbal. He couldn’t do talk therapy.

And so using the horses and using the environment was really cool. And then I had another.. These are a little shorter. That first one was a little long. So I know, remember one, this client, she was in her mid twenties. She came from a really chaotic home environment, had a lot of trauma, anxiety, and depression including some suicidal ideation and she had tried talk therapy. She really didn’t connect with her therapist. It was not a good situation. So she came out to see us. And so we invited her to spend a few minutes outside with the horses.

Just a lot of times we’ll say, go make friends with the horses or go, just figure out what it means to be still with horses. Depending on what the people bring we’ll give them a prompt and send them out into the field with horses. And this time we just said, “What does it mean for you for your heart to be at rest? “What does it mean for that anxiety to come down and that depression to release?” And she stayed out there for, I don’t know, 10 to 15 minutes. She came back and her face looked completely different. And she had spent a lot of time with a specific horse. And I was like, “so what did you learn?” She was like, “Well, you know, I realized I don’t have to work so hard. I don’t have to fight all the time. These horses, I enjoy their company just because they’re here and they enjoy mine just because I’m here. I have value because I exist.” And that was just like such a light bulb moment for her and just totally shifted her perspective of herself and of her value in the world.

And then another one was a woman who is about 40 and she had walked through a season with miscarriage and just had a lot going on grief, anxiety in relation to like what would happen in the future. Just a lot of baggage that comes with that as well. And so we gave her the prompt to just go see where she feels like she can actually connect, which horse she feels connected to. And she ended up really spending a lot of time with one of my favorites and her name is Gypsy. The woman came back and she was telling us about why she felt like she connected with Gypsy. And she just felt so much calmer when she was with her like the horse could really understand her. And she spent some time talking to the horse. We don’t know what she said but you know, Gypsy HIPAA compliant, she keeps her secrets that she was just out there for a while. And she was telling us all these things and telling us about her season of the miscarriage.

And I was actually able to share in that moment that Gypsy had also had a miscarriage. And it’s that, like the client, she just started crying and she was like, “I just knew. I knew there was something she understands me.” So after that, each time she came back, she would just feel really connected to Gypsy and did a lot of work with that horse.

Carrie:  That’s so cool. Towards the end of every podcast, I like to ask the guests to share a story of hope, which is a time that you received hope from God or another person. 

Bailee: We could talk about this all day. 

Carrie: It’s a good topic. 

Bailee: It really is. And especially for the time that we’re in right now, we feel like hope is elusive to some people.

For me, I feel like it has been such an anchor. And I hope it’s definitely in the Lord, but in the dance program, I teach, I get to write a spiritual curriculum each year. And I felt like this year, the Lord put on my heart the theme to be the promises of God and just took that scripture from Hebrews 6 where God makes a promise to Abraham and he’s like, “I will bless you and I’ll give you many descendants.”

And it says that God had nothing bigger to swear by. So he made an oath on his own name and it says, when God makes a promise, he cannot break it. He cannot lie. And because of that, it gives us strength because we can trust that he is who he says he is. That hope is an anchor for our soul. I picture that as like putting my heart on something that’s stable rather than on like the world around me. I felt like that was so important for me in this past year because it’s the story of everything in 2020. Everything has shown to be shakable. The world has been completely shaken. Everything has been ripped out from underneath us.

Things have changed. People have died. There’s so much I want my students to know. I want my students to know that God is so firm. And that’s where I’ve really found my hope. When he says he will bring all things under his rule and he will renew heaven and earth.

He’s not joking. He’s not playing games. His word is secured. I’ve seen God do many things, transform lives, speak identity, serve on a prayer team at my church too, and just seeing him work in that. As I was thinking about this, I thought of just this cool concept. I had my first garden this past year.

And it was a total experiment. I was like, I don’t know if this is going to work. I don’t think I have enough sunshine, but here we go. And it was abundant. I had so many cucumbers that I didn’t even eat them. It was amazing. And so I’m planning for my next year. And last week I was doing some garden prep. So, do you know what one of the best fertilizers for a garden is? 

Carrie: Is it horse manure?

Bailee: It is. It is because they eat so well. All the grass. So last a couple of weekends ago, I got it from a place in town in Nashville, and I went over and got buckets full of manure. Buckets full of manure to transport in my car.

I don’t have a truck. And I came and I was like spreading it out all over my garden and just in preparation for this next season. And then it was just, God was just teaching me more through this. I work with horses all the time and we get the good parts of them. We see the way that they interact, we see their hearts, we see their compassion, but the manure is kind of gross. The poop is gross. The clients don’t like to walk around like, “Oh, it’s horse poop.” And I’m like, “well, it’s part of having a horse.” There’s some gross parts. And then planting my garden, what I wanted was those gross parts because that’s what eventually will break down and out of that becomes beautiful things.

And so just like the Lord takes our broken stuff and he brings redemption and beauty out of broken things is just the way the garden works. Come this fall or come this spring and summer out of that horsemen, there will be grown seeds of nourishment and beauty and that’s just been really hopeful for me.

If nothing, I feel like God is a God of redemption. He brings beauty out of brokenness. So just thinking like using horseman manure to bring beauty and a garden, that’s just given me some hope recently. 

Carrie: I love that. That’s really what the show’s all about is giving people hope and seeing that God can take the hard parts of our story and the painful things and make something beautiful out of it. Thank you for coming on and sharing all that. This has been Inspirational but also so informative. There were so many just different little nuggets that you got to share with us. 

Bailee: Thank you for having me. It’s so fun to get to talk about it. I love what I do, and I know a lot of people don’t really understand it. So it’s fun to get to explain a little bit more in detail. 

Carrie: Awesome. 

____________________

I love having these types of interviews on the show because we’re all about increasing hope here. And if you’ve found that one particular type of counseling didn’t work for you, or you feel like I don’t know that I could do the whole talking thing, or that’s not a good fit for my child, this might be something to look into as an option. 

We have some exciting interviews coming up on the podcast, as well as a very special mother’s day edition. Next week, I will be discussing a giveaway in honor of our 25th episode. So make sure that you stay tuned for that as well. I’m also asking you to save the date of May 15th. We are going to have our very first webinar on reducing shame. So what I’m hoping to do through these webinars is have a little bit more of a time for me to present some information, as well as have follow-up questions and answers. Or if you have questions about shame that you would like me to address during the webinar, I certainly can do that.

Please feel free to send those questions through our website contact form wwwdothopeforanxietyandocd.com. And we will see you on the webinar at 10:00 AM central time on May 15th. As always, thank you so much for listening. 

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing completed by Benjamin Bynam. Until next time it may be comforted by God’s great love for you.

22. Welcoming the Parts We Don’t Like (IFS) with Lindsey Castleman, LMFT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 22. Welcoming the Parts We Don’t Like (IFS) with Lindsey Castleman, LMFT

Lindsey Castleman, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist trained in IFS therapy holds the belief that we were all designed for relationship and connection with God, ourselves and others.

  • What is IFS (Internal Family System) Therapy
  • How did Lindsey get into Christian counseling
  • How did she incorporate Christian faith principles into her practice
  • Looking at the core of self through attachment and faith-based lens
  • Some parts of self want attention come in different forms like anxiety and OCD
  • Bringing all parts of yourself connected as God is three in one

Resource and Links:

Lindsey Castleman, LMFT
Dr Richard Scwartz- Founder of IFS

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Transcript of Episode 22

Hope for anxiety and OCD episode 22. One of the things that I really love about this podcast is that I have the opportunity to meet new people and learn new things, which is super fun for me. So just know that as you’re learning along today that I was learning this information for the first time too.

I got to interview a local therapist, Lindsey Castleman. She is going to talk with us today about a specific form of therapy called Internal Family Systems or IFS for short. The cool part is that Lindsey is going to incorporate Christian faith principles in her explanation. So without further ado here is Lindsey Castleman.

Carrie: Lindsey, tell us a little bit about yourself. 

Lindsey: Hi, Carrie. Thanks for having me. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and I have been practicing since 2014. Right now, I’m certified in emotionally focused therapy and then I’m also trained in internal family systems, which is IFS and then brain spotting. 

So those are kind of the specialties that I’m in, but I really have just enjoyed this journey. I’m in private practice here in Brentwood, Tennessee, and have been here for several years, but I’ve also practiced in a church. And then right now, I am the counseling director at a church here in Brentwood, Tennessee. I’ve got a fun group of people that I get to practice with out here, so I really enjoyed it. 

Carrie: That’s really neat. It’s kind of unique being in a church environment. There aren’t that many churches in our area that have counseling services within the church building. 

Lindsey: It has honestly been something one that I didn’t expect to have happened. I’ve actually at this place, I have experienced counseling here myself before and then just through a series of kind of pretty cool God moments that it just ended up to where we were able to partner and I was able to bring in a lot of my therapist friends, which is nice, but also some new therapists I didn’t know before. Just everybody that kind of sees clientele through just an attachment and faith-based lens, which is really where I lean in a lot of the ways that I work. 

Carrie: That’s really neat. It’s always good to have a positive jelling work environment. If you’re working with people that you’re friends with that’s a good thing. 

Lindsey: Oh, for sure and I know for me, and being in private practice on my own, not with the group, how lonely it can be.And so when I get to step outside my door and there’s people I know, and people I like, it lights the fire. It makes it more exciting to come do what we do, because then I’m like, “Oh my goodness. I’m not alone in these places.” Somebody else is in the next room going through the same thing I’m going through. So that’s really nice to just know and have that felt sense of somebody in the same building with you. 

Carrie: So we had another licensed marriage and family therapist on. We talked a little bit about that bent of counseling and that license. Tell us how you decided between becoming a licensed counselor or licensed marriage and family therapist.

There’s lots of different avenues that therapists can go down. How did you get into this realm of attachment and Christian counseling?

Lindsey: Part of it is personal, part of it is professional in the sense that for myself, I’ve been married to my high school sweetheart. I think this coming up this year, it’ll be 17 years. As we all know, in any kind of relationship, you will have friction, you’ll have disconnection. Things will go awry because it’s two humans, not perfect humans in relationship together, and that’s really what marriage is supposed to be designed to is to hold up that marriage to say, “We’ve got some stuff we got to look at.”

So going into marriage counseling ourselves for us as a couple was really, really great, really helpful. And then also I used to work for a ministry. I did their marketing, I did public relations, just things like that, even training. It was a small group ministry, I would get to sit in small groups. I would even lead small groups. 

The funny thing too is I would look at those small groups and I would be like, “Oh my gosh, all these people have so many problems like why can’t they just stop it?” Why can’t they just stop it like Bob Newhart like you got anxiety, whatever. Just stop it.

That was a little bit of my mentality. But as I started sitting in these groups and hearing these people’s stories, I started to see things from a bigger perspective. Nobody’s choosing this in that sense of like these are places that they turn to cope. These are places that they turned to because, in their family, there wasn’t a safe place to turn to. 

I’m fortunate that for me, growing up, I had safe places to turn to. So I think also why it was so foreign to me, but then I start to hear other people’s experiences and I was like, “Oh my gosh, they, they didn’t get what I got.” It was vastly different, which makes sense as to why they show up the way they do. 

You start to see things are connected. It’s going into systems. It’s systemic in that, just looking into LPC or LMFT, just everything within the LMFT track for me it felt like, it’s not just the one person, it’s the relationship with parent, the relationship with self, the relationship with other, the relationship with God. It all had to do with that sort of connection. That to me felt just really right. It felt like it fit even how I believe that God relates with us and how he wants to be our safe base, how he wants to be our safe haven. How he shows his care for us. How he’s available to us. How we can trust him. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. All of these things felt like attachment. It kind of magnifies and really says in a way like, Hey, here’s how God designed us and I feel like a lot of people that study human behavior, the more they study it, the more they see that we are created for connection. It’s almost like it points back to our creator, that to me just felt really beautiful and I’m going “okay I can align with that.” 

Carrie: Yeah, that’s great. There’s a lot of people that have done research regarding attachment related to spirituality in terms of attachment to God and attachment styles related to how you interacted with your parents, affecting how you view God and how you connect with him, which makes a ton of sense.

Lindsey: Oh, yeah. That’s very common. Anytime we do an attachment history and we go through, there’s a lot of times where you’ll start to go, I see how you’re related to mom or I see how you’re related to dad and then when we start to move into how did you view God? How do you feel like God viewed you? A lot of times you’ll see those similarities based on maybe how they felt like dad viewed you or you viewed dad, or how mom viewed you or you viewed mom. There can be a lot of similarities in that, but then there’s also those instances where parents weren’t safe, but somebody modeled the love of God to them so they were able to see “God is different than what I got at home” if home was unsafe. So I’ve also had those two which have been beautiful in those ways. 

Carrie: Yes, that’s good. I wanted to have you on the show because I liked to talk with people and educate them that therapy is not a one size fits all approach.

And so there are many different models and theories regarding therapy. And so one of the ones that you shared a little while ago that you use is internal family systems and this is actually one that I’m not as familiar with, but I’m curious about it and would love to hear just kind of, like a brief overview, even just how you would explain it to clients.

Lindsey: Sure. Internal family systems for me, I honestly, truly didn’t know much about it until some therapists here in Nashville who I respect and admire were like, “Have you heard about this? This is pretty incredible” and for me, truthfully, I mean, truth be told, I usually work with couples. Couples are kind of a little bit more my jam and working with individuals was a little boring to me. There’s not as much energy. There’s not as much excitement. You’re not holding as much. Sometimes I catch myself yawning in session. I mean, there was just something where I was like I feel like I’m not getting as much traction as you do when you’ve got the other person there is that stimuli to really get things moving and going, and also to be kind of truth-tellers about what really is happening in the other person. 

When I started to learn more about IFS, I started to go, “Oh, Whoa.” I get like excited to do this. This is something where I feel like we’ve got movement going and it feels like it lines up with even what I’m trying to do with couples in the room.

It’s almost like what you’re trying to do within your client and themselves, it’s like to have a good relationship with himself, just like I try to do with couples. It’s like, “Oh, I get this.” This is like self to whatever’s happening within you and relating to it, because what you’ve probably seen, Carrie, even in your practices is like people show up that are very disconnected to themselves.

Carrie: Yes. Very true. 

Lindsey: Maybe they’re only in their head. Maybe they’ve got something in them that just comes and takes over and it like floods them. So there’s no relationship. It’s almost like it pushes them out of the way and says, I got this or the anger is going to come out in this way. It just started to make so much sense to me. So that’s kind of why I was like, Ooh, I like this, this kind of jives with what I like to see in couples therapy, just that relationship piece. But I’m going to back up to say, okay, so what is it? 

So what internal family systems is, is that there’s this idea, the theory, which I believe is more than an idea or a theory because I’ve watched it happen live and in myself is that at the core of us, we have ourselves in IFS terms. They call it the self for me, just a way that I look at it through the lens of faith, I find it as the image of God because I believe scripture says in all of us, we are all image-bearers of Christ. We’re all image-bearers of God. There is something that says, there are times when the self or for me, the way I view it, that’s not IFS that’s Lindsey lingo for it. That’s just me kind of putting it into my face frame. It says, there are times when, based on things that have happened in life, relationships that we’ve had where we have got more limited access to the image of God, to self because things have threatened it and we’ve needed to in some way protect that in us even thinking about like protecting our heart really, and we’ve needed to do that. And there are different ways that we protect those more vulnerable places in us. With IFS, they say, we protect with what’s called managers and we protect with firefighters and what we’re actually protecting are called exiles. I know this can all sound confusing, but you think of exiles, exiles are usually in some way they’re younger parts of us that were scared, that needed a safe place, that needed a safe haven and it didn’t happen. We didn’t get it in some way. What’s happening here is that we have developed ways to protect that from being hurt in that way, again, from being affected in that way again. 

The manager is going to be something more that says, “Hey, we’re going to come up and try to manage whatever pain is happening. We’re going to try to manage it.”

Maybe what we do to manage it is we keep you up in your head and we keep you always just analyzing. You’re never actually like feeling anything. You’re just analyzing everything. 

Carrie: That happens with OCD quite frequently actually that people with OCD live in their head. 

Lindsey: Yeah, totally and that makes sense. Then there’s also managers that will say, Hey, let’s just stay busy. Let’s just make sure everything is tidy in the house, or let’s make sure that we get all of these projects done. I mean, managers can come up in so many different forms.  

And then you’ve got firefighters. Firefighters are going to say, Oh, there’s the pain there. We’re not going to take time to manage the pain. We’re going to try to put the pain out the fastest way we can do that. We’re going to try to put the pain out. So let’s numb the pain. Let’s maybe even you’ll find alcohol can be in this place, even pornography can be in this place. It usually can feel a little bit more dangerous at times, but it’s doing its job. It’s trying to put the pain out. This is hard, but like even like suicide, suicide alley that can even fall into that category that says this pain is too much, let me tell you how to put this out very, very quickly.

What happens is, is that for a lot of these managers and firefighters, a lot of different modalities will maybe in some way try to push past them. Try to say, let’s just get to the exile or let’s just get to the heart, let’s get to the deeper thing that’s been hiding in there, but IFS says, “No, we need to work with the whole system.” We need to actually move into, befriend and we need to help these managers and these firefighters because when they trust us, when we can start to work with them, and teach our clients how to work with them, then we’re going to start to get access to these exiles that they really need our help and our attention, but we don’t want to get there without working with the whole system to get there if that makes sense. Because what they’ve found and even Richard Swartz who founded IFS, part of his work had to do with eating disorders, what would happen is he would say. “Hey, try to get rid of this eating disorder” like just try to stop it some way.

Carrie: Behavioral management.

Lindsey: Right, I think even if I’m remembering correctly, there was, he was working with a woman that was cutting herself. So he was trying to figure out like how to make that stop happening.

And then every time he kind of gave the client a directive to try to, in some way, get rid of that part of her, it would come back with a vengeance and she would cut herself even more like more harm would be done to the body and so he started to lean in and go “What’s happening here? Why is that happening?”

“And what would happen if I actually like leaned into?” It almost felt like a part of her that was coming in to try to do this to her. What if I leaned into that instead of trying to get rid of it? What if I leaned into that? Even for me, I love that picture of saying, “Hey, there’s all of these parts of us that show up.” What happens if we lean into them and get to know them instead of trying to throw them away, trying to push them aside, but we almost help them. And I’ll tell you to Carrie, the reason why I love that so much is because one, for me, it lines up with my belief of what it is like to actually bring our thoughts captive for me.

I don’t feel like bringing our thoughts captive or something that says, okay, bring them and then ignore them. 

Carrie: Just thought replaced, just think something else, that’s kind of what the church tells you to do a lot of times like “don’t think that.” 

Lindsey: Right, or just give it a scripture message, you know, but it kind of like bring your thoughts captive and captive is not like we’re not trying to strangle it.

We’re not trying to hurt it. It’s really like, bring it, bring it forward captive, like even thinking of captivity it’s like bring it forward and let’s talk to it. Because whatever is happening to it, needs help. Maybe in some way, this part of us has been in some way, it’s been in the dark for so long that it’s only been trained.

And again, this is me looking at it through the faith-based lens. Maybe it’s been the dark so long, which what I look at it is like it’s been trained by the flesh. Maybe it’s doing what it thinks is best, but it’s been trained by the flesh, which is not that healthy. And when we start to take it captive, when we bring it up, we can start to see what it’s doing and start to help it to be trained by the spirit because we’re taking it out of the dark. We’re bringing it to light so that it can start to see. “Oh, my goodness. It’s actually harming” like “this is what I’m trying to actually do, but by doing that, I am actually hurting other parts of the system.” I had no idea because we weren’t connected.” So it’s bringing in trying to make the whole system connected, all parts connected, which again, I love because from my lens when you look at Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, they’re three and one. So in a way, it’s kind of like there are three parts, but they all work together in that. That’s kind of what we’re wanting to have happen within us too, is have all parts of us work together instead of working against each other.

Carrie: What I really like about this is I think there’s a reducing the shame component in terms of accepting all parts of yourself. And as a therapist accepting all parts of the client that’s coming into the room because there’s so much time spent trying to hide ourselves from other people that the things that we don’t like about ourselves. And so many people have tried even before therapy from a self-help standpoint to squash certain behaviors instead of really examining like how was this behavior helpful or purposeful in my life? Like the person with an eating disorder. There was some reason that even though that’s destructive, there was a reason, like you said that developed as a survival skill probably to keep them in connection with other people in their life like if I could only be perfect. If I could only be this perfect size and I can get this acceptance and this love that I’m desperately craving. 

Lindsey: Totally. It goes back to really a big theme of IFS is all parts are welcome because the belief is, is that they’re all trying to show up to do something actually for

you. The thing is you’ve had it even shared to me in several different metaphors or images, which I love. One is like as an orchestra. You’re the conductor but all of these parts of you are the different horns, strings, things like that in the orchestra and you hear like the flute section is going out of tune. It needs your attention. You’re not going to go, “Hey, flute section, get out of here.” You’re going to say, “Hey, flutes, come on over your out of tune.” Let’s kind of see what’s happening. What’s going on? And you’re going to give it attention because it’s like the more that you ignore it, the more you push it aside, the more you push it down, the more you suppress it, dismiss it, all of those kinds of words, the louder and more out of tune it’s going to get.

It goes, you have to actually learn how to interact with yourself in a healthy way that shows compassion. And what I also love about IFS is, you know when you are in self or even when you know, you’re in it within the image of God, you know when you’re in this place because the way you start to feel towards these parts of you that want attention.

You start to feel towards them a sense of compassion, of creativity, of clarity. There’s a whole bunch of wonderful c words in there that you start to feel towards it because you’re starting to see it from this place of, “Oh my goodness. You’re trying to help me.” What happens is you get to conduct the orchestra, instead of then maybe the flute section, in the past could come up and kick you out of being the conductor and saying, “I’m going to conduct it right now.” You get to actually be the conductor. 

The other image that I’ve been given that I love is the same thing of driving the bus. You want to be the one to drive the bus. But then there are moments where you might feel scared, feel vulnerable, feel any of those types of things, and then all of a sudden, a part of you is going to see that and it’s going to say, “don’t worry, I’m going to rescue you. I’m going to take you out of that pain that starts to drive the bus. But you want to start to build such a sense of self that you’re able to go, “Oh, I know something’s happening in me right now” and instead of letting it take over, I’m just going, like, I kind of imagine it, like you’re driving the bus and a part of you is like a little kid on the bus it’s like tugging on your leg and then you’re like, “Hey, what do you need?”

Or it maybe, if you can’t listen to it that moment, “Hey, I’ll get back to you in an hour. Come back in an hour” Because there’s a lot of parts that come up for me, if I’m in session, I’m like, “I can’t tend to you right now.” In that way, because here’s what I know and even with kids because I’ve got my own, is like, if you tell a kid “go away, I’m not going to listen to you.” [00:24:24] It’s going to come back bigger, going to come back stronger, going to pitch a fit or gonna just tuck and go away and might not come back for what it needs. Either way, what you’re kind of imagining is these parts of you that wants your attention. Be it coming in the form of anxiety. Maybe it’s coming in the form of OCD. Maybe it’s coming in these different forms that once your attention that you bring it in and you start to help it. It might not always be like saying what’s true, it could be a fear part that’s showing up that’s scared and you might have to help it. It happens to me all the time, especially in session.

Like for me, there’s a part of me especially if I’m about to go into a session with very like angry, angry, and especially men. I notice that there’s this anxiousness that starts to happen in me and so I kind of bring it forward like you do a child and say, “Hey, what’s wrong? What are we upset with?”

“Scared scared.” Yes, I get it. I get it because they are bigger than me, know their anger is scarier for me and this is what I do, is I imagine God coming in, I’ll invite God in and I’ll invite God to just sit and to hold that scared part of me and to say, “Hey, you’re okay” and, and I know what to do when they get angry.

I know what to do. I’m okay and I know God’s with me. I also know where pepper spray is, just kidding. I can move in to reassure and I can also imagine and allow God to sit with that part of me, even during the session, and to say you’re okay. You’re okay. You know what to do. And you know that within this person that gets so big and gets so angry is also a scared little part of them too. So it helps bring that sense of compassion even towards the person you’re scared of in that way. 

Carrie: Yeah. I want to speak to something that you said about there are these parts that are trying to help because a lot of times when you have something like anxiety or OCD, people will only see the negative like, “I don’t like this. I don’t want to have it. I just want to get rid of it” and sometimes that anxiety is protecting from sadness. Sometimes it’s protecting from anger that they haven’t ever learned how to express in a healthy way. Sometimes it’s protecting from vulnerability like not being able to trust other people.

There are so many purposes a lot of times that or roles that anxiety can play in a person’s life and if you’re able to get work with that and get those needs met in a healthier way rather than worry or going in your head. Sometimes the going in your head protects you from the body sensation that feels really intolerable. I like this a lot. I started doing parts work with my clients in a kind of a different vein through ego state therapy about a year ago and at first, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how you felt when you learned IFS, but when I first learned ego state therapy, they talk about parts being fully adult and parts being children kind of similar to the exiles. And I thought, this is weird like I don’t know if my clients are gonna get behind this. I find it a little weird. So I just tried it with some people and I said, look, I know this is going to sound a little weird, but I learned this new therapy and I think it might be helpful.

Is it okay if we roll with it, you know, and you kind of know your clients that are, that are good with rolling with things. So I tried it on some people and it was so powerful and so transformative that I really started incorporating it with almost everyone. Talking about having different parts of yourself, because whether we are aware of it or not, we go through times in our life where we feel such an internal conflict. And I think that makes sense in terms of what you were saying, it makes sense in terms of our faith, in terms of the flesh versus the spirit in. In terms of I want to do the right thing, or I know what the right thing is, but I can’t seem to make myself do it, that struggle that Paul talked about. I really think that this element of parts of ourselves having these wounds that maybe haven’t been healed and if we can get to that place where we allow God to enter into that space and get that deeper level of healing, it’s just incredible where it can go. 

Lindsey: Oh, for sure and to watch it happen in front of you is fantastic and that’s one thing. But then also to allow yourself to do that same work that you’re asking your clients to do, that’s another thing where you can kind of move into like hair club for men like I’m a client but I’m also the owner, whatever it is. You’re able to move into that place and go, Hey, I know what this is like, I’m not trying this woo woo step on you, in the sense that I have not also tried to work out within myself as well, can be really, really helpful to say, “Oh” because sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll say, “Hey, here’s what it looks like for me” even giving that example of like when the angry man and how I allow myself or kind of invite God into sitting with that fearful part of me that it’s helpful even for my clients to conceptualize it and to go, “okay. Oh, and that’s how you practically use it” then they go, “okay. Okay. You do it” so maybe it’s not just me. It’s not just something wrong with me that I got to do this crazy out there kind of thing, but to be able to normalize it for them is pretty huge as well for sure. 

Carrie: So you teach people actually how to talk, how to maybe identify first of all, these different parts of self and then how to communicate with them in a healthy, healthy way.

Lindsey: Yeah, that’s a big part of IFS. They call it the six F’s and I wish that I knew all of them by heart, but really what you are trying to do is, first, you identify there is this part of you, let’s just for the sake of example, say it’s anxiety. So we know there’s this anxiousness in you.

Sometimes for me, I’ll even have my clients imagine, imagine the last time this anxiousness showed up in you, paint the scene for me, take me to that memory. When did it show up? What was happening? So they’ll start to kind of say, “Oh, it was at school and it was right before I was about to have a test.” Then I say, “Okay, so now, as you’re talking about this, this anxiousness in you, this anxious part of you, where are you even feeling it in your body?”

Like, can you just even know where does it stay in you? Where is it in you? Oh, it’s in my chest. It, yeah. What’s it like in your chest? “It’s flattering, it’s moving. It’s busy.” Could you just maybe just kinda notice it, take a breath, just kind of really like see if you can really get a good sense of it.

 

And then here’s the different part is that you then ask that anxiousness if it will step outside of the body. If it will kind of take a step outside and stand in front why the client is looking at it. 

I’ll usually ask the client either if they’ll be open and closing their eyes, or even if they’ll just find a spot and stare at it kind of like how you do when you daydream. Then they’ll see it. They’ll move it out. I’ve had people call it like, they’re like, Oh, you say, what is it? What does it kind of, what’s it like in front of you kind of what sends to you? I’ll have some people say it’s like just these ping pong balls going everywhere, or even have one person like “this looks like this weird dancing pizza.”

I was like, “okay.” That you just really try to help them see in that way, in that moving it outside of themselves, you’re not trying to get rid of it. You’re not trying to say, get out of here, but you’re trying to say let me see you in a way that I can get to know you. Let me be able to see you so I can know you more fully. As that happens, then you start to notice how does the client feel towards it.

Which I think Carrie, this is a little bit of what you were saying before the way people can start to see OCD or anxiety they’ll have, “Oh, I hate it. I want to get rid of it. I don’t, I wish it was never there.” All of those types of things, which make sense, but conceptually, we as IFS therapists know those are different parts.

That’s not the self. That’s not the core because that’s not compassion. It’s not understanding. It’s not caring. It’s not any of those things. Even curiosity, it’s not that. It’s judgment. It’s wanting to just get rid of it because it makes sense there’s all these parts that are, have developed that have said, when you do this, it takes you away from this. It takes you away from that. It makes sense to these other parts are going to come up because they’re going this isn’t managing well with us. And in a way, it’s not because you’re not, they’re not all connected. They’re not all working together in this place. Just kind of like if you were doing family therapy and you’re trying to talk with a child, but the child keeps looking at the parent so they won’t talk.

And then you asked the parent to move back, move away, move out of the eyesight of the child so they won’t be intimidated. So you can hear more what the child wants to say. That’s a little bit of what you do here with the part. You ask those parts that want to get rid of it that are frustrated with it. You listen to them because all parts are welcome and you make sense of it. Of course, that makes sense that you’d feel that way, but just right now, and these next 20 minutes, 30 minutes, will you step back? Will you just give some space for us to get to know this anxious part and why it shows up? And usually, they will stand back or usually it’s kind of like, they’ll just say like right at the shoulder and it’s kinda wild. Then they’ll step back and then you ask your client again to kind of look at the anxiety. Sometimes when those parts step aside, the anxiety starts to look different. Maybe instead of ping pong balls, it starts to look more calm. It starts to look more solid. Sometimes it starts to turn into looking like a person. Usually, in those moments, you kind of start to know, maybe you’re getting a little closer to maybe an exile, maybe not, but you kind of were still curious. And then you asked your client again, how do you feel towards that anxiety?

And if it feels like they’re more curious, like, “Whoa, it’s changed. What’s going on. I want to know more about it.” Then you start to kind of approach it and you ask the anxiety, right? What is its job? Why is it showing up? What’s it doing to try to help? Because we’re assuming that all of these different parts are trying to help in their own way, even if they’re backwards, even if they feel backwards. Then you move into that place to say what do you feel like your job is? How are you trying to help client? How you’re trying to help and it’s wild because sometimes you will get a sense like that anxiety will start to share a little bit of why it’s there.

Usually it’s like with anxiety, it’s like I’m here because I know that she can be scared about these things, or I know that she can be alarmed about these things and then I need to show up to let her know that this is happening, that these things could be happening again. And then you move into this place too of what does that anxiety feel like would happen if it didn’t show up like that? What would happen if it didn’t show up in that way? Sometimes be more vulnerable to whatever happened last time that they were unaware was even going to happen. Maybe they got blindsided by something. I don’t know. There’s all different.

Carrie: Different places they could go.

Lindsey: Completely. But even as the client starts to hear this from anxiety, they start to get almost a sense of like gratitude like, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize that’s what you were doing for me.” That’s so helpful because then we start to get the client to relate to anxiety in that way. “Oh, it’s trying to just alert me to this.” It’s trying to alarm, say that this is happening and it’s afraid this would happen to me. I need to bring it in and help it know kinda like I did with that. I’m okay. This man’s anger, I’m actually okay with, like I know what to do if he comes at me with it or if he comes at his spouse. I know what to do now because before that fear, when I love, cause I feel like fear is actually good and fear actually helps lead us to wisdom, if it’s in its healthy place. I was like, I’m good because you’ve had me scared about this before. So I went and listened to a lot of podcasts and I watched a lot of people do stuff with anger. So I am equipped now, I know now, that’s what you want. You want for these parts of you to be helpful, to be in the system is helpful.

And not to be in the system as like pushed out. And then there’s a whole other thing which it’ll take a whole other hour to talk about, but even just to then move into what’s underneath. What those parts are protecting and what do we do when we start to get there, because there’s a whole other protocol for there that’s also beautiful. But this kind of, what we’re talking about today is more, how do we start to befriend and work with and help really bring in and appreciate and train those protective parts of us and that’s what we want to start to do. 

Carrie: Yeah. I think this conversation is really helpful even if people don’t pursue IFS therapy, just to understand like how to get to a place of self-acceptance and understanding our acceptance by God of all of us, of our sin, our shame. Everything thing that Jesus took on for us, like we are fully loved and fully cared for. And if we, a lot of times we’re in the way, because we don’t see that, or we don’t acknowledge that, or we don’t live in that beloved space. I love how this helps people get towards that place in their relationship with Christ. I think that’s really neat. 

Lindsey: Yeah, totally and I love to, even with IFS calling right that core of a self and even what we do and how the self then talks to all these parts of us and really helps and can invite God in and things like that, that it does even lean towards one of the fruits of the spirit, which is self-control. That’s even kind of what this is modeling. What this is showing is literally how do we bring self up. And again, control is not the captive like I’m taking you by the throat, but it’s like control in the sense of “Hey, I want for us all to work together.” We’ve all got functions here. Being able to say we’re all working in harmony together and that feels really good.

That’s that place of self control.

Carrie: So I know we’re getting towards the end of the podcast here. I usually ask our guests to share a story of hope with us a time that you received hope from God or another person. So what does that for you that you wanted to share? 

Lindsey: Yeah. Truly, Carrie, there are countless times, which I’ve been super thankful for, and I feel like there was a moment for me where I realized that there was this person in my life and they were always looking for these moments of hope. These moments of where God is showing up and was very much like if you’re not present to see how has God showing up, you’re going to miss it. It’s been kind of neat to slow down and to go, “Whoa, Oh God, was that you. Oh, that was you.” I’ve just missed it or call it happenstance or coincidence, but it was you.

This kind of the memory I’m going to tell you about now is kind of cool because my husband and I, we just decided on a whim we were married, we were young, and we were just like, “Hey, how can we serve at the church? Let’s just go be Sunday school teachers. Let’s just do that.” We went and we were Sunday school teachers and there was this other couple that were Sunday school teachers with us and we hit it off. The four of us hit it off. So we would like go out on double dates, things like that. And then they said, “Hey, our community group just opened up. Would you guys like to join our community group?” We’re kind of like being recruited, which was kind of fun. It felt like reminded me of sorority days. So I was like, “Ooh, we’re being recruited.” We went and we were in this community group.

During this time and being in this community group, we found out my husband and I found out that we were not able to have children. And then there were six couples. Four out of the six couples found out that they could not have children which was crazy and didn’t know it before we became like it.

We weren’t like, “Hey, let’s do an infertility community group.” It just like, it just happened and then we all discovered these things. Hopefully, it wasn’t something we all drank, but so we were in this together. 

We started to go through this adoption process for us, my husband and I, and one day, one of the girls in the community group texted me and she was like, “Lindsey, my mom is in a Bible study with this woman who’s asking the whole Bible study to pray for an adoptive family for her nephew’s son like it’s kind of a big goal. And she was like, “my mom remembered you guys and community group and dah, dah, dah”, like, would you be interested? And I’m like, “what?” Now it was kind of wild because I was actually at this church that was like, when I got the text message, I was literally in church and they were about to do this worship and they do this forever long worship.

So I’m like, all right, some do I’m worshiping and I’m asking God, I’m like, “God, is this our son?” Is this what we’re supposed to do? And I heard a very clear yes and I don’t hear that kind of stuff all the time. Sort of very clear yes, and so I said, ”all right, God, well, you’re going to have to tell my husband that you said yes.”

Because he’s a little bit more of my risk-averse kind of guy. I’m a little bit more the risk-taker. Anyways, I called my husband because I was on a trip so he was back at home and I was in California. I called my husband and I said, “Hey, the girl in our community group said, what do you think?” And he was like, “I’m open.”

And I was like, “Oh my gosh” like, that’s not usually the response I get. I usually get all the worried questions and if you’re in the Enneagram world, he’s an Enneagram six. So that makes a lot of sense. To make a long story short, even though I’ve already made it long, we ended up meeting with that family. And then on a Tuesday, they told us that they chose us and then we brought our son home that Saturday. We kind of look back and we go, “Oh my goodness” like even just us being kind of like obedient to want to serve and not obedient and like little begrudging, but just like, Hey, we really would like to serve.

Just how God placed us with all of these people that then placed us with our son who could not have been a better fit. And if I go into the emotion of it, I will cry right now, but I’m not going to make it stay in my head about it. But just in that sense of like, we couldn’t imagine our lives without them. And so in this place of feeling so hopeless in infertility, like God was already working behind the scenes and bringing us hope. Just through these things, we could have never orchestrated for us to be able to be parents to our son. So that for us is like, anytime it’s like, oh, it’s God working on like, “Heck. Yeah, he is.” He is. And working today, like working today, not just in biblical times. He’s working today and he is a God of hope and he is a relational God that loves us and wants to be so close to us and that’s beautiful in that way. 

Carrie: That’s really beautiful. Yeah, I love that story.

We’ve had a lot of stories on the podcast recently about God bringing members into people’s families and they’re each unique and different, but it all just shows the intimacy like you were saying of God caring about the details and working everything together just right. So, that’s awesome.

Lindsey:  Yeah. He’s a loving father. It’s kind of nice to see and to feel that firsthand. 

Carrie: Thank you so much for coming on the show and not only sharing your IFS wisdom, but also incorporating the spirituality Christianity piece in there. I really enjoyed that, I think it was helpful in conceptualizing.

Lindsey: Sure. Of course, I have to fit that. I have to make sure that that all comes together because it’s very important I feel like in just healing with our hearts.

__________________________

What I really find compelling about this interview and what we talked about today is that God is able to meet us right where we’re at, and he loves you wholly and completely. Just as you are, right now and God also loves you enough not to leave you that way. 

If you can wrap your mind around God loving you just where you are right now in the midst of whatever you’re facing that is absolutely transformative and will be something that will help you break through any shame that you might be holding on to.

Since this is our episode right before Easter, I just wanted to say happy Easter to everyone and He is risen, indeed. 

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam.

Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

21. Is Healing from Childhood Wounds the Key to Unlocking Anxiety? With Laura Mullis, LCSW

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 21. Is Healing from Childhood Wounds the Key to Unlocking Anxiety? With Laura Mullis, LCSW

On this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing one of my mentors, Laura Mullis, LCSW

  • Why Laura switched from weekly therapy to intensive sessions
  • Difference between trauma and attachment wounding
  • How attachment wounding contributes to anxiety
  • How receiving love from God causes us to be able to love ourselves
  • Learning to meet unmet needs as an adult.

Laura’s website: Triumph Center

See more:
Can God Use Your Anxiety for Good?
The Power of EMDR Therapy for Anxiety

Support the show 

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript of Episode 21

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 21. I had the absolute privilege to interview a mentor, Laura Mullis and I brought her on the podcast to talk a little bit about attachment wounds from childhood and how these can contribute to anxiety in adulthood. So let’s get into that interview. 

Carrie: So Laura, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Laura: Hello, my name is Laura Mullis and I am a clinical social worker from Moultrie, Georgia. That’s kind of in the Southwest corner of Georgia. I tell everybody about an hour from Tallahassee because I don’t expect people to know where Moultrie is. I am a therapist who offers a different type of therapy in the sense that I had my own practice and the way I set my practice up was that I offer intensive therapy where people come and they book a few days with me at a time and we really dig into whatever it is they want to change in their life. 

The other way that I am probably different is one of my main focuses is not just on helping people heal from the things that happened to them in their life, but also the things that should have happened that didn’t, and that’s called attachment trauma, which is something I’m sure we’ll get into later on into the podcast. 

About me, I have been working in the field of therapy in some capacity since 2004. So that’s 16 years and I started off in the field of substance abuse because in my own personal history, I’m actually in recovery myself. So of course we’re all wounded healers, right? So I went to go try to help people who were in recovery get the same breakthroughs I got. And as I started working in that field, I realized that majority of the people who I worked with had deep, deep, deep wounds that they were carrying from events that had happened to them in the past and just relationships that had really, really, really hurt them and so that sent me on a quest. I went on a quest and I’m still on my quest, but I don’t think the quest is ever done. My quest to try to figure out how to help people really overcome and heal the wounds that caused them to keep recreating patterns in their life or to keep living below what their full potential is capable of. And so until I’d be on a journey of many, many trainings and many, many learnings, I just tell people that I’m eternally curious. I will go learn about anything.

Carrie:  I love that you’re terminally curious because I think the best therapists are the people who are willing to continue learning and continue growing.

I’ve met people in the field, unfortunately, and you probably have too that feel like they’ve already arrived and you can’t teach them anything and that’s very frustrating. So I love it when people love to learn and grow. The quest is never over. And the cool thing about that is that you always run into clients with different issues that come up and it’s like, “Oh, well, I don’t think I’ve quite dealt with this before. This is a little bit new. What are we going to do here?”

Laura:  Yeah. Interesting thing. There’s always something new. I heard somebody say once before “wisdom is knowing you don’t know” and so I always hold that as my motto, that wisdom. I don’t know and if I think I do know then I’m missing a lot.

Carrie: So, let’s get into talking about attachment trauma and how you would define that.

Laura: Attachment trauma is basically I call it attachment wounding because trauma. When you think of the field, it’s so much about what happened and attachment wounding is more about what did not happen. So all of us were born into this world and are raised by somebody. It might not be your parents or paternal parents, but you are raised by somebody and those people who raised you almost leave an imprint on you based on how they treat you or what they don’t do for you and the imprint or the impression or the impact that they leave on you is that attachment wounding. So if you were raised by caregivers who didn’t see you, didn’t hear, didn’t value and, or raised you in a way where it was confusing, sent mixed messages, or raised you in a way where they didn’t know how to manage their own emotions, so then they couldn’t teach you to manage your emotions. Then you almost internalize all of that and you take that into yourself and then you grow up and you repeat all those patterns in your relationship with yourself and your relationship with others.

And so then when you go to a therapist and the therapist says, “well, tell me what happened.” You’re like, “I don’t know. It’s just my exist. Yeah. My childhood was good. I mean, everybody had problems. They didn’t beat me. I wasn’t hurt.” I wasn’t all the things that you think of when you think of trauma and people don’t really know that there’s was anything different because it’s just like the existence I grew up in. And so it’s really hard for people to share what did not happen or what happened that felt almost like it didn’t match what they knew they were supposed to receive. So that’s attachment wounding and attachment wounding I have found is really driven or kept alive by unmet needs.

So our needs did not get met in childhood and that caused a part of our brain to almost get stuck at the age at which the need wasn’t met. And then we are at times in our life responding out of that age or that sense of absence and what we then grow up and do, we then look outside ourselves for somebody else to meet our needs.

So we have these unmet needs. We grow up and we become adults with unmet needs. And then we want other people in our life to meet those needs and that’s just not going to work because they have unmet needs too and this causes a lot of the dysfunction in relationships and the world. In my opinion, everybody wants somebody else to meet their needs.

And so what I do is I help people learn how to start to identify the unmet needs from their past, and then meet their own needs. And as I meet their own needs, it’s almost like a cup of water that’s empty and it fills up one drop at a time and it just feels relieving and satisfying and the person feels more complete because there’s nobody that can meet our needs, but us.

Carrie: That’s interesting. How would you kind of put a spiritual overlay on that as far as God meeting people’s needs versus people meeting their own needs? 

Laura: So when I do the type of therapy, I’m a turn like curious so I have lots of tools in my tool belt, but the one I’ve found to help attachment trauma is called ego state therapy, which is basically like parts work.

And so part of what I help people tap into is almost a resource part of them who has all of the things that they needed when they were a kid and didn’t get. And one of the parts of them that I help them tap into is almost like a spiritual self if they’re open to that. Some people just are not ready to go theorem and I understand that, but if their spirituality is a cornerstone of their belief system then they have a part of them who is able to receive the love of their spiritual source and that part of them has the capacity to really, almost expand to meet their needs in life today. So I see it as in my own personal experience and going through recovery. I saw that in my life, I had first received the love, the unconditional love of God and out of that unconditional love of God, I could then love myself unconditionally. 

Carrie: Yes, that’s so good. 

Laura: And that was my path, I was doing exactly what I described at the beginning. I was trying to have my friends and my family and everybody else love me unconditionally.

And they’re just not capable of that. So it’s really tapping into that unconditional source of love, which then feeds your unconditional love for yourself and then you will just naturally know who belongs in your life. 

Carrie: That makes a lot of sense. I know that I see this with people where there’s a lot of grief that goes on over these unmet needs like “I don’t understand why my mother couldn’t just love me unconditionally. I don’t understand why she couldn’t love me as much as my sibling,” etc, etc. Do you feel like that’s a long-term ongoing process for people that part of this being able to meet their own needs, relieve some of that.

Laura: Yes. Being able to meet their own needs, relieve some of that but when you describe that to me, that tells me that there’s like a younger part of their mind stuck in a place where they may be in their forties, but part of their brain or mind still feels like they are a kid needing a mom to take care of them.

And so part of what I help people do is help those parts of the mind that are stuck in that almost bortecs of why can’t mom love me, because when you’re four, you need a mom to love you for survival. But now that you’re 40, you don’t really need a mom to love you. It’d be nice but you don’t need it. And continuing to try to go back and have a person who’s not capable of loving you, love you is actually causing you to have unmet needs of the present. So I feel like it’s a part of the mind that’s stuck back in that place of feeling it’s like they’re four or whatever age and feeling unresourced and incapable of taking care of themselves.

So part of the work I do is help those parts of the brain realize this is life today and you have the ability to have this for yourself. There is an element of grief to the work, but there’s a difference between grief and almost like avoiding sad and like avoidance sadness. So, some people will stay in this level of sadness and denial, and that’s actually keeping them from the deep grief that they need to come to a place of acceptance. “I can accept who my mom is, and I can accept that whatever happened to her in her past made it to where she just could not pass that down to me.”

Carrie: Do you think that people, even if they don’t get those from their parental or caregiver relationships like these needs that a lot of times they get them met in other relationships, and that provides that internal resource for them to be able to have that?

Laura: Yes. However, I think that a lot of times because of the unmet needs in the past, people can choose people to be in their life out of their wounds, and unfortunately, it just winds up recreating the wounds. So there is that rare bird who comes, who actually has a healthy marriage or healthy relationship and within that marriage in a relationship, they can almost have their adult life had their needs met, but they still have that unmet needs from the past that will crop up sometimes. It will show up sometimes and will wind up causing them to get in fights with their partner or pull away and avoid or shut down or be too anxious.

And about their person’s love and affection for the like this is all the ways that attachment shows up in life today is how we relate to other people. And so if you have a lot of unmet needs from childhood, emotional safety in a relationship is difficult to maintain. 

Carrie: So feeling like this person might leave me which could show up in a lot of different ways. If this person gets mad at me, they might leave me, or if this person gets too close to me or knows too much about me, they might discover my flaws and might leave. 

Laura: Yes, and so then people respond to that in different ways. They either pursue the person harder

and want the person to meet demands or want the person to check boxes, but those boxes aren’t going to bring the relief they need anyway, or they pull into their own shell and shut down, or they do both. This push-pull dynamic that comes up sometimes and all of it is because there’s not a sense of emotional safety inside the person.

Carrie: Right. What’s manifesting outside is reflective of what’s inside. 

Laura: And so I tell people, build the emotional safety inside and then things outside changed. 

Carrie: That makes a lot of sense and I think that sense of the healthier that you are, the healthier people that you attract into your life. 

Laura: Yes you do.

Carrie: And the opposite is true as well. Unfortunately, yes.

Laura:  I have people come to me and they want their spouse to be different. They want their children to be different and they want their family to be different and always say, listen, if you change your family changes, you can’t do it in reverse order.

If you change and who you are is different than they will just start responding differently to you or you will come to the place where you realize in order to get better, you have to create that distance. 

Carrie: Talk with us a little bit about how this issue of attachment wounding can cause anxiety to develop in people.

Laura: The place that we learn to feel internally safe is through our caregivers. So when a baby is born, it doesn’t have any way to manage the emotions or the feelings going on inside their little body. And so they are dependent on the person who is raising them to do things like pick them up and soothe them and rock them and soothe them for them. As that happens repeatedly over time, that baby will internalize the ability to soothe themselves. So if a person doesn’t have a caregiver who has the ability to soothe themselves then they do not have the ability to help the baby internalize that ability to soothe. So if you have a mom or dad or a grandma or whoever is raising you, who, when a baby cries gets anxious and panics or gets angry and then is trying to soothe baby out of that panic and anger, the baby is going to internalize anxiety, anger, frustration.

So we, in some ways, how we cope with the world at the core is a replication of how our parents coped with the world. 

Carrie: That makes a lot of sense. 

Laura: And in order to really develop your own ability to cope with the world, you have to get rid of, or heal what your parents passed down and it might not even be parents it could be bullying in school, could be different things. And what I’ve found is when it comes to attachment wounding, what happens is when we have an event happen in our life that is overwhelming or shocking, it’s like our brain turns on an internal recorder, literally almost like cutting on a recording system and it records people acting in that way and the message that they were sending us and the message at different times in our life. When we go through something that feels similar, we’ll turn it on and start replaying it in our heads as if that thing from the past is happening now. And so then when we have something in our life that’s upsetting or anxiety-provoking, we’re not just responding to it, we’re also responding to the messages inside our head. 

Carrie: The internal dialogue.

Laura: Yes, and that internal dialogue, if you hear it for so long, it gets hard to separate. Is it mine or was it theirs? Where do they even start? And so a lot of the work I do is helping to figure that out and kind of turn that dialogue that does not belong to the person off.

Carrie: The messages that other people have put towards us that weren’t true, but we adopted them as truth for ourselves.

Laura:  Well, we didn’t have a choice. You know, at times in our life we’re like sponges, we just absorb what’s going on around us and so we didn’t choose it, and then it gets implanted in our mind and we just don’t even realize it’s there. 

Carrie: Working with people that have had also major trauma experiences, besides just the attachment wounding. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that sometimes the worst part of that traumatic memory was the attachment piece, maybe where they told the caregiver and the caregiver didn’t believe them or they told the caregiver and the caregiver just didn’t do anything about the situation or they were put in a situation that was unsafe. Sometimes that’s worse than the experience itself. It seems like. 

Laura: Yeah, I agree with that. Also want to say that one attachment wound that I’ve encountered lately, in past few years, is really hard for people to explain is what I call an invisibility wound. So that’s when a child grows up in a home where they just did not feel seen. It’s almost like they existed within the home and parents carried on separate lives and this can come when parents are in the world we live in today. There’s a lot of demands and so parents can work long hours. Sometimes two jobs. Maybe one parent is out of the home all the time working and then when they are home, they’re taking care of the household and trying to maintain an orderly life and so the child’s needs just are not seen. 

Parents prioritize physical needs over emotional needs. And so when the child’s emotional needs are not tended to, they wind up feeling invisible and that invisibility wound causes a lot of anxiety because they now show up in life today and don’t know how to be seen when they are seen, it feels very foreign and unfamiliar and they want to try to hide. And it shows up as anxiety, panic attacks, overwhelmed, shame, all the things that cause people to own their shrink into themselves. 

Carrie: Social interactions 

Laura: Because they didn’t learn how to socially engage. I think that’s so important. So the invisibility of women is a big one. That’s in the attachment wounding family.

I’ve seen a lot of people who struggle with it, really struggled to try to explain what happened because it’s a lot of what did not happen.

Carrie:  A lot of no one asking me how I felt about a situation or what I’m thinking or what I’m needing. It’s just kind of like we all go through the flow of life and this is how it is.

Laura: Yeah, or go play. They’re playing in their room, so they’re fine. They were always quiet and didn’t ask for much. That’s not a child’s natural behavior. 

Carrie: Do you think that this can happen? A lot of times there’ll be a situation in a family where one child may respond externally. Like they may be throwing fits or rebelling at school or getting in trouble and a lot of times the focus is maybe on that child versus the quiet compliant child that just kind of goes along to get along with everybody. 

Laura: Yes, that’s another way that the attachment wounding can occur and that will increase in visibility wounds and the one that goes internal and the one that goes external while a lot of times learn, the only way that I can be seen is if I have to help. So then they grow up to engage in addiction and other behaviors. Same dysfunctional, but haven’t had a reason. One of the things that I always tell people is whatever you’re doing has a good and perfect reason for existing. it served your needs in some way.

Carrie: That’s good. That’s really good because our behavior isn’t just in some kind of vacuum. There’s a reason that we got to where we are and if we can peel back those layers and understand that process, that’s often a key to healing, but not just the inside of it, the actual working through it, working through the woundedness.

So talk with me about the people that come in because I probably have them come to see me and you probably have them come to see you that say, “well, I don’t want to blame everything on my parents. They weren’t that bad. I mean, they’re okay. I’m an adult now and I can’t just be going and blaming everything on them.”

Laura: Yeah, and I completely understand. I think that majority of parents are doing the best they can. And I think that this is another topic altogether but wounds are generational. What they didn’t heal, their parents didn’t heal, got passed to them and get passed to the children. You have to look at it from more of a 30,000-foot view sometimes in order to get the understanding you need.

What I tell people is that we’re not here to put your parents on trial. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re just here to know your truth exactly as you felt it and once we know your truth, we heal your truth and what will happen is that will radically shift your relationship with your parents today. It will radically shift your relationship with your parents today so that you can have a more adult-adult relationship with them. If you have a lot of unmet needs, then in some ways you’re staying in a relationship where you’re still the child and they’re still the parent even though you are an adult and you met. The people I work with, they have professional careers functioning, and raising their own kids, but when they go around their parents, they still act in that parent child dynamic and it continues to replicate the unmet needs. So if we can heal the wounds and just learn your truth, and you could be more adult-adult not just in your relationship with your parents, but in your relationships with others.

Carrie: That’s good because what we’re talking about affects people at work. It affects them at home and affects them in their intimate relationships. It affects them with authority, figures, parents, anybody. It’s really huge and once you kind of get down underneath all of those layers, then it have some healing there of these wounded parts, it can be really true formative. 

Laura: It really can. It truly can. 

Carrie: I’m curious how you got through this process of, cause I’m assuming that you were providing weekly therapy in the past, how did you make that shift from like weekly therapy to just doing intensives? 

Laura: So I was doing weekly therapy and one of the things that I do work with, which is, again, another topic altogether is dissociative identity disorder, which is people who have literal such isolated parts and multiple personalities. And in that, I figured out you couldn’t do hour-a-week therapy with them. It just does not really fit the way that their brain is structured and so I started to do intensives with them all starting with two to three-hour sessions and then working my way up. And I realized that I just like it better. I’m a person who believes that you can’t recreate moments. So what that means is if we’re in a session and we get to a big breakthrough and we have to just keep going through it, if all of a sudden we uncover a layer and it’s a new truth or a new understanding or a new trauma or a new attachment wound that we need to work on.

That it’s really hard to say, “okay, let’s stop here and come back next week and we’ll resume at that spot.” The mind doesn’t work like that almost. I believe once you get there, you just have to keep going and heal that piece, and then you can rest and go back in and kind of work on another layer because I realized with my an hour a week with people that we would get to a point like that and then they’d come in the next week and we’d be off on something else. And even though I said, “but that was really, really, really important.” It’s like, “Oh no, but now this is important.” And so we had a lot of places we got to that were never resolved.

Carrie: And that doesn’t feel good. I imagine not feel good to me. 

Laura: I imagine it didn’t feel good to me and it truly didn’t feel good to the people because I would lose sight of what we were even working on half the time.

I would say, well, what, what exactly are we doing here? So, uh, I’m thankful that my, the DOD clients taught me that the mind truly works better when you do it from an intensive approach. And what that means intensive, just so listeners can understand is people book days with me at a time and we do about six hours of therapy a day.

And I look at the mind almost like a ball of yarn, that’s all tangled up and so in that time we just kind of pull on a string and we just follow the stream and let the mind untangle itself and it’s really, really, really, really cool how the mind untangled itself. 

Carrie: Do people tend to just be really exhausted by the end of that day, after doing six hours of therapy?

Laura: Not really, you’ll be surprised that I think it’s more exhausting to open something up and an hour a week and then close have to figure out how to close it down and exist until another week. When they come, it’s almost like they know I’m coming here to work on this issue, whatever it is they want changed in their life, and I’ll provide it in a setting. It’s almost like a retreat, like a setting where people can go, there’s cabins and they stay in a cabin and we meet in the cabin. So the setup works also with the way the mind works, which is compartmentalization. I’m actually leaving my day-to-day life. I’m going to this place where what I do in this place is I work on myself. 

Carrie: Very specific purpose. 

Laura: And they know that this is what I’m doing here and they don’t have to worry about anything else except for healing. So I have found that it really for the people who are ready for it, because not everybody would be ready for it. But for people who are ready for it and want to take the journey, the intensive approach in my opinion is the best way to go.

Carrie: That’s good. That’s what it’s for. Just very interesting and different. And I think a lot of people don’t know that that’s even an option out there for them because so people have a hard time with like you talked about busy-ness of schedules, just even making an hour of therapy a week work for them and trying to deal with things like childcare and transportation issues and so forth and so on. So, it’s really awesome. We’ll put your links and so forth in the show notes for people so they can find you if they want to look you up that way.

Laura: That’d be great. 

Carrie: At the end of every podcast, since our podcast is called hope for anxiety and OCD, I like to ask our guests, what is a time that you have received hope from God or another person?

Laura: I guess I would say that one of my transformative shifts in my life was when I was in treatment for recovery from addiction. I was praying and I was praying for everybody else in my life, “Oh God, I want you to do this for this, I don’t want you to make sure this person remembers me and I want you to do this.”

And I was telling God exactly what I wanted him to do. It was like audibly, I heard God say, “All right, listen up. First, you work on your relationship with me, then you work on your relationship with yourself. Then you can work on your relationship with your family and then I will add who I want into your life.”

And that moment changed everything for me because I realized that that was the order. That was the order for healing. And I was kind of go top-down rather than bottom-up and I’ve lived my life that way for the past 19 years and every bit of it has come true. 

Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s really, really cool. I liked that God told you to listen up because you’re a very direct person and I feel like you would say that to somebody else.

Laura: I was just and all of a sudden I heard God say, “listen up.”

Carrie: I feel like God knows how to meet each one of us where we’re at and how we are and so you’re like this really sweet, gentle, kind person, but you also have like a directness in you too. And so I was like, “that just so fits”. 

Laura: Yeah. It was like, “boom!” I was like, “Oh, okay, I’m listening.” But it changed everything for me when I realized that and I also feel like in my work, it also shapes how I help people on their process. I feel like it helped me see a clearer path for not only how I got the healing I needed, but how people can get the healing they need.

Carrie: Yeah. That’s good. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us about attachment trauma. It’s been really good. Really informative. All right. 

Laura: Thank you, Carrie.

_______________

I think it’s so tempting for us to say, you know what childhood was in the past that doesn’t affect me now. All of that stuff is over and I’m over it. But a lot of how we act today is affected by how we were interacted with by our caregivers and the patterns that developed. And I have seen amazing transformation when people unpack those patterns and heal from those past wounds and allows them to move forward into a more healthy adulthood. So I wish all of that for you who are listening.

I have a very exciting announcement, which is that I am going to be doing Hope for Anxiety and OCD is first giveaway, I’m going to be giving away two copies of my ebook, finding the right therapist, which is about how to find the therapist who is right for you in order to enter, you have to be subscribed to the podcast, wherever you subscribe to your podcasts.

It doesn’t matter. Take a screenshot showing that you’ve subscribed or showing that you’ve written us a review. If you have written us a review, you will get five entries instead of one entry. So one entry for subscribers and five, for people who have written a review, you could take a screenshot and send it to the email address, giveaway@hopeforanxietyandocd.com.

Again, that’s giveaway@hopeforanxietyandocd.com to enter and you will have until the end of March in order to enter and I am so excited to be able to give those away. And I hope that that helps someone out there, but also encourages people to subscribe to our show and to tell other people about it.

Thank you so much for listening. 

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam. Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

19. Thriving as an Introvert in an Extrovert World with Holley Gerth

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 19. Thriving as an Introvert in an Extrovert World with Holley Gerth

On this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing Holley Gerth, author of The Powerful Purpose of Introverts to discuss her own experience of burnout from trying to be an extrovert after becoming a published author.

  • How the introvert brain processes information differently than the extrovert brain
  • Why introverts are more susceptible to anxiety and depression
  • How to communicate to an extrovert who is asking for your opinion on the spot
  • Why you should actually show up early to a party if you are an introvert 
  • Examining the connection between fear and excitement
  • What you might need as an introvert on vacation, during the holidays, or at a conference

Resources and Links:
Book: Quiet
Book: The Introvert Advantage 

Support the show 

See more:

10 Ways to Have a Calmer Mind and Body in 5 Minutes or Less

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 19. Today’s show is all about introversion. And if you’re wondering what in the world does that have to do with anxiety, we’re going to explain that in the show that there’s a connection between introverts being more likely to struggle with anxiety or depression.

Sometime back, I had picked up a book, The Powerful Purpose of Introverts and found this book to be so validating of my own experience and also provided some practical tips on how to thrive as an introvert. So I knew that I wanted to ask Holley to be on the show and she so graciously agreed. So here is my interview with author Holley Gerth.

Carrie: So Holley, I wanted to start by telling you a story that I think will help us dive into this conversation about introverts. I was sitting in my friend’s living room and I’ve known this couple for probably about 10 years now. And we were talking about theme parks and they said, “Oh, Hey, you know, what do you think about going to this theme park?”  And I said, well, I said, do you know, that’s a lot of people to be around and it’s outdoors and it’s hot. And I said, if I have kids it might be a different story because I would suffer through it for the kids, but I said it as an introvert with all that activity going on around me, going to a theme park does not sound very fun. And my friend looks at me, the husband’s super serious and says, “You’re an introvert? “Yes, I’m an introvert” but it was just so funny to me because we have all these misconceptions about what it means to be an introvert. And here’s somebody that knew me for 10 years and wouldn’t have pegged me as an introvert.

Holley: Yeah, I think that’s a great story that happens so often. And the example you gave of a theme park is such a good illustration of the brain differences between introverts and extroverts. So they feel best when there’s a lot coming at them because it releases more dopamine in their system, which is their preferred neurotransmitter. And for us, it’s just a little too much sometimes. 

Carrie: Right. The external stimulation of having to process everything that goes on around you and picking up even on little minute experiences, even conversations, sometimes really good conversations with friends that are maybe more rich and deep, I’ll go home and I’ll be thinking about that for a half an hour to an hour, whereas I think other people just kind of they’re like go home and go to sleep. And Carrie has to have like processing time, which is just different. 

Holley: Yes, we do. Our nervous systems are more sensitive. And so we take in more. They’re like nuts with small holes and that’s why introverts reach, they’re done points pasture. And then we need to do that processing, like you described where we empty our net a little by thinking through things, and then we’re ready for more. 

Carrie: Yeah. I know that in your book, you talk about how introverts are more prone towards anxiety and depression. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Holley: Yeah, it’s actually related. It seems they’re still studying it, but it seems related again to that more sensitive nervous system. So we’re just more impacted by the things that we experience and some of our brain wiring. It’s just a vulnerability and that’s part of my story. And for a long time, I wanted to get rid of that part of me completely. I was like, “God must have messed up” and I want to get rid of it completely. But over time I realized it’s actually tied to my strengths. So if you picture the core characteristics of who you are is like being on a continuum and in the middle would be that nervous system that introverts have. And on the left side of the continuum would be anxiety and that could be labeled struggle.  But on the right side of the continuum, there would be a label that says strength. And that’s where things like you described that perceptiveness and empathy and ability to notice things is. So I think for introverts, when it comes to overcoming anxiety, depression, really saying this is tied to some of my strengths, and it’s not about changing who I am, but moving toward the strength sides of those core parts of who we are that can go in either direction.

Carrie: Yeah. Those strength parts a lot of times are often overlooked in a society maybe that caters a little bit more towards extroverts. 

Holley: Yeah. I think so but it’s surprising that actually about half the population is made up of introverts. We’ve just learned to act like extroverts when we’re in public, because like you said, our culture is more extrovert centric, but I think that introverts and extroverts are actually an intentional, complimentary pairing on God’s part that he made both and we’re better together. So I think that when introverts dare to be who they are and extroverts do the same, then we’re all a lot better off. 

Carrie: I love that because I have had similar experiences I think to what you just shared of I feel awkward in social settings, or maybe I don’t know what to say. I struggled at one period in my young adulthood, really of making conversations with people, not knowing how to do kind of the small talk thing. [00:06:03] I’d love the one-on-one deep conversations but I didn’t know how really to interact in a group of people. I actually went through a period where I made myself talk to strangers which sounds really funny, but it was my way of practicing small talk. And I knew that I wasn’t going to necessarily run into or see these people ever again. [00:06:28] So that made it a little bit easier to kind of like practice some of that stuff. 

One of the things I liked that you said in the book was that you try to bring an extrovert with you to a party but they also appreciate having an introvert, which I thought was really cool too. 

Holley: Yeah. I usually bring, I call them my designated extroverts.

[00:06:52] So if I’m at a conference or somewhere like that, then I look for an extrovert and it does work out well because they want to kind of flip from conversation to conversation and talk to as many people as possible a lot of this times. And then if there’s one person that wants to go really in depth and tell me a long story and talk, maybe and cry for an hour, then they’re like, “you got this one.”

[00:07:16] We both have our strong points. And again, those are stereotypes. Of course, introverts can learn to network, like you said, and extroverts are of course caring people too. I do think that when we come team up and help each other out that that can be really useful. And the reason why we prefer those conversation types for extroverts, they use a brain pathway for processing that shorter, faster, more focused on the present [00:07:46] So they really easily do that quick, small talk. It’s also why they like talking on the phone more than introverts and introverts use a pathway that’s longer, more complex. It takes into account the past, present and future. So we need a bit of time to respond, but often when we do, it adds depth and insight context to what we’re saying in that conversation [00:08:10] So again, it’s something that can be frustrating at times, but it’s also strength. It’s what makes you a great counselor that you have the ability to use that longer pathway and go to those deeper places with your clients. 

Carrie: I absolutely believe that because there will be times where I’m outside of session and I’m thinking about a client and their situation in a little bit more depth, and I’m able to have some mental clarity. [00:08:37] And the nice part about my job is I don’t always have to think on the fly. I can come back and say, “Hey, I was thinking about this thing, and I think it might fall in this area, or I think it might be helpful if we shifted direction over here a little bit.” It’s super frustrating when you’re in a corporate environment or even sometimes in church, you’re in meetings and people are spitting out ideas and sometimes that processing speed is a lot faster.

[00:09:06] And so for the introverts to know, it’s okay I think to come back and say, “I thought about this a little bit more” and to not feel guilty for not being able to think on the fly, like maybe we see other people doing. 

Holley: Yeah, that’s a great tip. One thing that I’ve learned through the process of writing this book is that extroverts just want a response. [00:09:30] They don’t necessarily need the response. And as an introvert, I tend to think I have to have my fully formed as close to perfect as possible response before I say anything at all. But actually extroverts just want to know that we’re engaged in listening. And so I’ve found It’s okay to say I need some time to think about it because it really matters to me [00:09:53] or I want you to know I’m listening to you and I hear you. I just need a little bit of time to work through that. And then let’s set up a time to get back together. And so that was freeing for me. I have a daughter who’s an extrovert. And so I’ve learned to say to her, things like that, “I hear you. I am listening.

[00:10:12] Let me have this a little bit, and then I will get back to you. I promise.” So that is one strategy. Also preparing ahead of time can help us. As little in the moment processing that we have to do that can be helpful. I’m sure you prepare for your sessions with clients. And then, like you said, you think about them afterwards. [00:10:33] That idea of saying especially in a meeting, “Hey, I’m going to get back to you by 8:00 AM tomorrow. I want to dig into this a little more.” So preparation, and then knowing you can just use a response. You don’t have to have the response and then asking for time for followup. Those are three good strategies to help with that.

Carrie: [00:10:51] That’s so good. I like having the practical things to say with other people, and that can help in a variety of different relationships that we’re talking about whether it’s your boss or your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, your child like you named.  This is just applicable in so many different areas.

[00:11:13] I’m curious for you what that process was of really embracing your introversion in a different way other than looking at it as a deficit, going from that to looking at it as a strength or as a God-given blessing. 

Holley: Yeah. Well, I did it by pushing myself into burnout. [00:11:39] So, especially when I first started publishing books, I started getting a lot of speaking invitations and I literally told myself I just have to be more of an extrovert now like that’s the job. And I said yes to everything to everyone without being very strategic about it. And at the end of one year where I traveled like 20 times, I was a keynote at a conference and the next morning in the worship service, I just couldn’t stop crying. [00:12:05] And I felt like God saying, “Go home.” And I knew he meant like go home and taking a nap because you are tired, but also go home to who I created you to be. And I realized that each of us are perfectly designed for God’s purpose for our lives not for anyone else’s, but for ours, we have what we need. And so I went home and I went to counseling. [00:12:29] That was part of my healing journey. I told my close people, “Hey, I’m not okay. I need to make some changes. I spent time with God” and just asking, what have I taken on that you never asked me to. And started saying “no” more strategically and started saying “yes” more strategically and realized that I didn’t have to do all those things in order to fulfill God’s purpose for me that I could be an introvert and still make an impact. [00:12:59] It was more than okay to just say this is who I am and I’m going to build my life around that. So it was a long journey and I wouldn’t recommend anyone do it that way but that’s how it worked for me. 

Carrie: I love that. I love that sense of, yes, I can fulfill God’s call on my life. Whoever’s hearing this, no matter what your personality is, no matter whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, you can still fulfill God’s calling and it’s going to look like

what he intends it to look like for your life instead of trying to follow the pattern of other people. It’s so tempting in the days of social media to look on a profile or a public figure and say that person has it together, or I want to be like them but really we should be striving to be who God created us to be unique and individual. And there’s just everyone, I believe has a gift that they give to the world, that God has given us things to be able to give out to others. And that was just really beautiful how you shared that. 

Holley: Yeah, I agree. And even when we look at those around us, a lot of times we assume they’re extroverts and often they’re not. Some well-known introverts include Oprah, Jerry Seinfeld, Joanna Gaines, Abraham Lincoln, Max Lucado, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps. The list goes on and on. And because we live in a more extrovert centric culture, we do assume, “Oh, they’re in public. They must be an extrovert,” but there are actually a whole lot of introverts doing really remarkable things. And so I think that is something I’ve learned too, that when I see someone that I think, “Oh, they’re an extrovert” to pause and be like, “maybe not”. [00:14:59] Maybe they’re in their zone of what I call brilliance and belonging, where there’s this thing that they do that brings them into a different place but maybe they’re an introvert just like me. 

Carrie: Do you feel at times, like God’s calling on, on you to do specific things has been totally scary?

Holley: Yeah.

Carrie: [00:15:27] I feel like that too. I wanted to ask you that because even like putting out this podcast, it’s terrifying. The only reason I continued doing it is because, well, one, I believe it’s got what God wants me to do. And two, I’m having enormous amounts of fun with it, talking to people and interviewing them, but it is scary to do new things or to put ourselves out there. [00:15:53] And I think sometimes as Christians, we may be have been fed this lie that if I’m doing something for the Lord or if I’m following God’s calling on my life somehow I’m supposed to have a hundred percent confidence in that, and I’m not going to experience anxiety and I’m not going to experience fear. [00:16:14] I just wanted to just dispel that myth because it’s a myth. 

Holley: Yeah. It is. I once looked at all the verses that say, “do not fear” in scripture and there are almost always to someone who’s already afraid. So it’s not like a command don’t ever feel fear, it’s God saying to us in a reassuring way, you don’t have to stay in that fear because I’m with you. [00:16:40] I realized that we are afraid when something matters to us. We don’t get scared about things we don’t care about, you know? I don’t get scared that I’m never going to get to be an accountant or an engineer. And probably folks who love their jobs are like, they’re not scared.

[00:16:58] They’re never going to get to be a writer or a podcaster. It’s the things that matter most to us that scare us most. So in that sense, the fear is never going away or in a way we don’t want it to, because that probably means that the passion is also going away. And so just recognizing that fear as. As proof that we’re doing work that matters. [00:17:23] And then I would say the day I stopped being afraid is the day I should probably walk away because it’s the day I think I can do it on my own without God’s help like fear keeps us dependent and saying, “okay, God, this is bigger than me. I don’t think I can do it, but I’m going to trust you.” He and through me.

[00:17:41] And then we take the next step forward. But I think fear is just with us when we do things that are worth doing. 

Carrie: Right. That connection between fear and passion is so huge because the passion is the thing that God gives you I believe to help you push through the fear. There’s something in your heart that you feel like you have to speak up about, or you have to share, or you have to do. Sometimes that anxiety is something that’s almost a confirmation for me of like, okay, like you said, this is something that God’s put on my heart and put in my life for a reason and a purpose, but I can also, with his help, move through that and move beyond that to the other side and do things that I couldn’t do on my own.

Holley: [00:18:42] Yeah. And it’s really interesting that from a brain perspective, fear and excitement use the same circuitry. It’s just about how we frame it to ourselves. Whether we tell ourselves like if we’re getting ready to speak. If we’re telling ourselves I’m scared out of my mind, or I’m excited. There’ve been studies that show, if you tell yourself I’m excited that it helps, even if you feel like you’re faking it, you may.  You know what am I saying?

[00:19:11] I’m not excited, I’m terrified but if we just learn even to change some of that language and link it more to that passion and excitement, because it is the same kind of circuitry in our minds that can help also. 

Carrie: I think some people should try that next time before going to a party, “I am so excited to be with my friends,” because that is true. [00:19:32] You’re excited to be with people, hopefully that you love and enjoy. Let’s talk about maybe some practical things that if people are struggling with anxiety in social settings or when they meet new people, those types of things. Are there any tips that you’ve found helpful for you or through your research?

Holley:  [00:19:57] Susan Cain wrote a book called “Quiet” about introverts and also one for kids. And she uses the metaphor of extroverts are like helicopters. Introverts are like airplanes. And so extroverts in social settings kind of immediately lift off. They’re just jumped right in and introverts need a runway.

[00:20:17] So to ease into it a bit more and so if you’re an introvert, it can actually help to get to places a little bit early so that you have time to get familiar with your surroundings, to feel comfortable there. See people come in one at a time instead of walking into a crowded room because it’s tempting right as an introvert to come late because we think that will help. But that any kind of preparation you can do ahead of time even if it’s just researching online the restaurant or the venue, or looking at the people’s Facebook profiles not in a stalkery way. I’m getting familiar with these people then that is helping yourself have a runway. [00:21:03] And so I think that’s one thing or even doing research ahead of time, like saying,” okay, what are some questions I want to ask people tonight,” having some things. So when you’re put on the spot, there’s something in your toolkit for using, and then just honoring your done point.  Knowing that because we process deeply and we take in a whole lot that it’s okay if we’re just done before other people that it’s okay If we’re just like “I’ve had enough, I’m ready to go home.” For socializing to be more about quality than quantity, I think is a helpful shift. And then finding ways to make bigger groups feel smaller.

[00:21:47] So in a group saying, how can I talk to one person at a time or taking on a role or responsibility, like at the holidays saying “I’m gonna wash dishes” because that means I get to stand by at the sink and catch my breath for a few minutes. Or I’m going to take the dog for a walk or I’ll be the one to run to the store often when introverts have a role or responsibility, social settings become more comfortable.

[00:22:15] It’s that unstructured time where it’s just about like the back and forth conversations that aren’t always our favorite, that can be challenging. So give yourself a runway or look for a role or responsibility when you’re in the setting.

Carrie:  One of the things that you mentioned that I’ve found super helpful for me.

[00:22:37] And it seems really silly, but I will become overwhelmed if I don’t look at the menu beforehand. If I’m going to a new restaurant, it’s like there are too many choices and too many options. And I feel like I have to read this whole thing and investigate it. And maybe other people don’t look at menus that way, but when you’re highly sensitive and that’s how you process the information, it’s just easier for me to.

[00:23:05] almost decide before I go to the restaurant, what I’m going to eat, or at least narrow it down to a few choices versus just having to do that all at once. And then usually people are trying to communicate with you as well like “Oh, Hey, how are you doing?” It’s like, okay, I can’t talk and read and think and everything all at the same time.

[00:23:25] I’ve found it helpful at parties. I think I read this in a book a long time ago. I had read a book as part of my process called the Introvert Advantage. I don’t even know if that’s still out but that book really helped me understand myself. And I think one of the things they said was don’t be afraid to sit down and let people come talk to you.

[00:23:48] I had an interesting experience at a networking event one time where everyone was mixing and mingling, and I just needed a break from meeting new people. So I sat down on the sofa and this extrovert woman came over and she started talking to me and I was thinking, Oh gosh, I came over here. So I could like just sit down.

[00:24:08] And she interpreted that as like,” Oh, you’re not having a good time. You’re not mixing and mingling.” And somehow like, “It’s my role in this networking event to come over and rope you back in.” So that was just a little, kind of funny misunderstanding, but I think it’s okay too kind of take a break or observe for a little while. [00:24:30] And sometimes people don’t understand that that that’s what you’re doing. They just think that you’re disengaged or not having a good time. 

Holley: Yeah, and I think that’s a common misconception. I think one reason why is that brain and nervous system wiring differences means that introverts and extroverts experience happiness differently. [00:24:52] And so for extroverts, happiness looks like enthusiasm and excitement and for introverts calm and contentment. And so that extrovert assumed because you were over there being calm and content that you must not be happy at the party. And so our loved ones can do the same.  If you’re in an introvert expert, marriage or friendship, or kids and parents. And so understanding that difference can be helpful. And also as introverts communicating, saying, I’m really enjoying, just watching everyone or just making it overt that we’re in our happy place. It just looks different than it does for extroverts. But a lot of times that’s what’s going on and I love your strategy of menus. [00:25:38] I do the same thing, and I’d never thought about it as an introvert HSP thing, but that makes so much sense. And I think I’m going to do that in broader ways too. Like if I’m going to a conference, I’m going to say this conference is a menu. I don’t have to eat everything on it. What do I most want to consume while I’m here and what will be the right amount for me that I get what I need, but I don’t over indulge in a way that makes me not feel good by the time I’m going home.

[00:26:11] And I think you could do the same with a vacation, with a lot of different things. So I love that strategy. 

Carrie: That’s so true of conferences because they will literally have like, okay, and here’s the breakfast for the new people. And then here’s all of your conference schedule and the special lunch. And then the dinner evening thing. [00:26:32] And I look at that and I’m like, “No, I don’t want to go all all to all of that.” It’s like when you’re having your evening 8:00 PM thing, I want to be in my PJ’s reading and decompressing because I’ve been around people all day long. What are you thinking?” So that’s really funny too, that you mentioned conferences because that’s been my experience of looking at them. [00:26:54] We have way too much stuff on this menu. I’m not going to go to all of that. 

Holley: And so to saying, I’m going to pick and choose. What’s going to add the most value and not worry about the risks. Again, it’s that quality over quantity, such an important strategy, especially for introverts. 

Carrie: I know that things like. [00:27:13] Trips or being around family for long periods, even people that you love and value my spouse. And we have introvert time.  There’s times where we just kind of want to go to a separate space in the house and just read or relax. And we just kind of check in with each other about that. Like, “Hey, are you cool if I go here and read” :Oh yeah.  That’s fine.”

[00:27:37] I just kind of need to decompress. And we don’t always have to be around each other all the time. And there’s a peace and a communication about that. I’ve had vacations with friends where like, I can think my best friend and  we kind of had an understanding of just like, we need time alone at the end of the day, we’re going to be around each other all day, doing fun things, going places and seeing people.

[00:28:05] And then there needs to be some kind of decompression time at the end where we’re not having to be fully engaged or talking to each other or doing an activity every second of the day. I think that’s it. That’s important in terms of when introverts are planning things like vacations, to really take that time and be gentle with themselves. You don’t have to absorb every single moment. You can have some happiness in your peace and contentment and relaxation at the end of the day. 

Holley: Yeah. And I think it can be helpful to ask each other, what will help you enjoy this vacation, the holidays? whatever it is that you’re going into with another person. [00:28:52] And so that gives introverts opportunity to say, “I’m going to need a nap, or I’m going to need an hour to read every day.” And the extroverts will say, “I’m going to need to have a little adventure every day,” whatever it is. And so a lot of times we just assume that other people are wired like us. And so we are afraid to ask for what we need or are we missing what someone else needs. [00:29:16] And so I think just having those conversations can be helpful. 

Carrie: There’s so much about this, as you start to develop an awareness of yourself, your own body even how you feel physically and emotionally, when you’re around other people, how you feel physically and emotionally doing certain tasks. Some may feel more draining to you than others. How you rejuvenate that mental and emotional energy. And if you can develop some awareness over those things, then it allows you to know what you need. And if you know what you need, then you can advocate for what you need. And there’s so many pieces I think that go together with that.

[00:30:06] I hope that some of this conversation helps spark like self reflection in our listeners just of how do I really feel in these situations. With anxiety, there’s a tendency to just avoid and just say, “It makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m not doing it” Party with 20 people and I only know one person, “I’m not going.” And I would just encourage people really to say instead of tapping out and avoiding to say, how can I Set myself up for success in this situation instead like some of the tips that we talked about a little bit earlier. How can I engage socially in a way that’s going to be most comfortable for me understanding that it’s not, it may not necessarily be a hundred percent comfortable.

Holley: [00:31:00] Yeah, that was a big aha for me was my anxiety is realizing that avoidance actually reinforces anxiety because we never learned that will we actually can do it, that we can make it through the party or the speech or whatever it is that’s making us anxious. And so the more we go through things that trigger anxiety and come out, okay [00:31:23] On the other side, that’s what actually decreases it. And so that has been a big aha for me personally, it’s just saying, like he said, okay, this is making me anxious. But I’m going to get some strategies and call for backup if I need it and I’m going to live through it. Usually on the other side, I say “that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” What I come up with in my head is usually so much worse than what actually happens. I think that’s great insight for your listeners that you’re sharing that. Lean into it when it’s tempting to pull away.

Carrie:  Are there things that you tell yourself or to get through some of those situations. What kind of like what the tipping point is? [00:32:12] How do I know that this is too going to be too much for my system or it’s something that I can manage and kind of get through with a little self encouragement?

Holley: Yeah, I think asking, “Am I making this decision out of fear? or out of intentionally taking care of who I am as an introvert?” because those are two different things. [00:32:38] If there’s an event that would probably be beneficial and I know that, but I’m just like, I’m scared. So I’m not going, then I try not to let myself off the hook, but if I’m saying, “I’m exhausted.” And I know the close people in my life need some things for me, and I’ve got to prioritize my energy and this event is just not making the cut because it’s a “want to” not a “need to” then that’s a different thing.

[00:33:09] And just saying it’s okay to prioritize what I spend my emotion and energy on especially as an introvert. And so just asking, where is this coming from? Is it from a fearful place or is it from a proactive place? I think can be helpful. 

Carrie: That’s really, really good. So before we end here at the end of every podcast, I like to ask the guests to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.

Holley: [00:33:41] Okay. So my story of hope is my family story. I went through about a decade of infertility, my husband and I couldn’t have her own kiddos. And so we ended up adopting a 20 year old who basically aged out of the foster system. And so she’s now 27. And so she got married and we are Nana and Papi to Ula and Clement. [00:34:10] And so I literally wore a ring on my finger that said hope for all those years. And the ending to our story is not at all what I would have imagined, but it is now one that I would not trade for anything. So I think about that still when I’m in a situation where I’m waiting or I’m uncertain of the outcome, just knowing that God’s working out something probably better than I could have imagined on my own.

Carrie: [00:34:38] That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. So Holley, tell us a little bit about your book. 

Holley: It’s called the “Powerful Purpose of Introverts. Why The World Needs You to Be You.” I spent years doing the research behind it. It has tons of information, but I also did a survey of my blog subscribers about their biggest challenges as introverts.

[00:35:02] And I used that. I got thousands of responses. And so digging into that, I noticed patterns, patterns of struggles, but also patterns of strengths. And so the book really unpacks, what are the gifts and strengths the world has to receive from introverts and how can you individually recognize those strengths in yourself and maximize them and overcome the struggles that might get in your way. [00:35:30] And so I hope that it’s both encouraging but also very practical. There’s a lot of interactive tools in it. There’s questions for reflection. There’s all kinds of things like that. And if you’re an extrovert, I’ve heard from several extroverts now that reading it has helped their relationships with an introvert in their life. So if you’re married to an introvert or you’re parenting one, or if you just have a lot of friends that you love who are introverts, I think it can be beneficial for extroverts too. It has been a best seller and resonated more than I even imagined. So I hope everyone can get this message because I think it is something I wish I’d had 20 years ago. [00:36:14] It would have changed the trajectory of my life. It would have protected me from going to that place of burnout. And so I want everybody else to have it so that they do not have to go through what I did. You can let me be your warning. 

Carrie: Absolutely. I’ve really enjoyed it. It felt so validating for me to read.

[00:36:38] And I knew some about introverts from reading that I had done in the past and kind of my own journey of self discovery, but reading the book this time with all of the interweaves that you talked about of the research that you did, and the brain science has been like, “Oh, yeah. That makes so much sense.” And there are little checklists and different things and it’s just been, it’s been a good read. So thank you for writing it and sharing that with us and thank you for being on the show today and just sharing your wisdom there. 

Holley: Thanks for having me. 

_____________________________________________________________

I hope you enjoy listening to this interview with Holly. If there’s nothing else that you take away, I hope that you know that you were created uniquely by God with a purpose and intention in mind. He did not make a mistake by making you an introvert. If you are an introvert and he did not make a mistake by making you an extrovert, if you’re an extrovert, so go and embrace and be all that God has called you to be.

[00:37:47] At hope for anxiety and OCD, we talk about how we are here to reduce shame, increase hope, and develop healthier connections with God and others. If you know somebody that needs this message, I would encourage you to share the show with them. You can also share your support for the show by writing us a review on iTunes.

Thanks so much for listening.

Hope For Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and Audio editing is completed by Benjamin Bynam. 

Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s grace.

18. ERP is Not the Only Option for OCD

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, OCD, Podcast Episode. 7 Comments on 18. ERP is Not the Only Option for OCD

Today I am flying solo to discuss my own experience of learning about Exposure and Response Prevention Prevention and why I ultimately went back to using EMDR to treat OCD. 

  • The reason ERP is so widely recommended for OCD treatment
  • The problem with psychological studies: People are complex 
  • Problems I saw firsthand with ERP
  • Benefits of using EMDR to treat OCD

Exposure and response prevention for obsessive-compulsive disorder: A review and new directions:   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6343408/

Studies on EMDR and OCD: https://www.emdria.org/public-resources/emdr-therapy-and-ocd/

One Therapist’s Story of Discovering Her Scrupulosity OCD with Rachel Hammons
Panic Attacks, OCD, and God: A Personal Story with Mitzi VanCleve

Support the show 

See more:

The Power Of EMDR For Anxiety

More Podcast Episodes

Transcript

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 18. On today’s show, it’s a solo episode. So you just get me and I want to continue this conversation that I started with Sarah about EMDR as a treatment option for OCD. I’m really excited to share this with you because I feel like when people start talking about OCD, that the very next thing they start talking about is exposure and response prevention (ERP)

I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with exposure and response prevention, or as we’re going to call it ERP for this episode. What I am saying is that there are more options than just ERP for treating OCD. ERP has helped a lot of people. And so if it’s helped you then more power to you, that’s awesome.

 I’m so thankful and glad but if you feel like you’ve struggled with ERP or you feel like you want to learn about a potential different option then this show is for you. 

The reason that ERP is so most often recommended for OCD is because this treatment option has been researched more than others treatment options. And let me tell you about psychological studies and how those typically work. When someone is studying a condition such as OCD, they’re typically trying to only study OCD. And a lot of times we’ll rule out people who have what we would call dual diagnosis. They have more than one diagnosis on record. [00:02:10] I had a hospital reach out via email several years ago saying, “Hey, we saw that you see people with OCD and we are trying to do this research study. Would you let people know?” And I emailed them right back. And I said, “well, would my clients be ruled out if they also had PTSD.” And they said, “yes, they absolutely would be rolled out.”

At that point, I realized that whatever they were studying ceased to be relevant to the actual clients that I see in my practice. I often see people who are not only dealing with OCD, but they also have a history of childhood trauma. The other thing I want to bring up about psychological studies is that there’s a lot that we don’t know. Psychology is a relatively young science. While we’ve learned many things over the years about how the brain works and how different methods of therapies work and how some therapies are better for certain diagnosis, there’s still a lot that we don’t know. And the types of people that we see in counseling, they don’t fit. Just say standard one size fits all profile. Something that often happens. Whenever I go to a new training, you will learn about something like, “Oh, we have this really great method,” and they’ll show you the success stories. They may even show you video of it working well with a client that they worked with with permission. Obviously, we don’t just videotape people. We ask for their permission for learning and education purposes. But they may have these great examples. And then inevitably you will take that back and you’ll say, “Hey, can I try this new technique with you that I learned?” And it may work on the first person that you try it with and you may try it with a few other people. [00:04:18] And inevitably it doesn’t matter what the psychological technique is, you will run into someone that it just doesn’t work for that you have to revamp or adapt it differently or use something else entirely. And that’s one of the reasons that I want to expose you listeners on the show to a wide variety of mental health treatment options for anxiety and OCD because I don’t think that there is a one size fits all. And a lot of times when people look at counseling. They lump it as one big thing.  I tried counseling and then, you know, that didn’t really work for me but there are many different types of counseling and I hope this show is kind of helping you and exposing you to some of that.

So let’s talk about my background with ERP that I wanted to share with you. I had an experience where I went to a two-day training on exposure and response prevention. The reason that I sought out that training in the first place was because I was seeing a lot of clients with anxiety that was really starting to become a niche of my practice. [00:05:40] So seeing people with trauma and people with anxiety, And I started to see that when certain clients would have peak levels of stress, they would start to engage in some OCD compulsions. And it made me realize that if I was going to see people with anxiety, I was really going to have to understand more about OCD, how it’s approached and try to figure out how to help these people who were experiencing OCD symptoms in peak stress points.

So I went to this training. It was very professional training, excellent information on OCD, excellent information on exposure and response prevention, how to start utilizing it in your practice. It certainly didn’t make me an expert on it or anything, but it was enough to get me started, to start working with some people that, had a diagnosis of OCD, not just had a few symptoms here or there. That point. I started seeing some people who were coming out of inpatient treatment, where they had received treatment for OCD and they needed some follow-up with their ERP. There were some patterns that I was starting to notice and particular patterns that I wasn’t comfortable with. One pattern I noticed with these individuals was that they seem to be carrying a lot of shame. It was either shame related to past trauma, self-esteem issues or even just having the OCD diagnosis in general and having to deal with that on a day-to-day basis. So that was a level of concern for me because I don’t want people to be stuck in shame. I had to ask myself, is it a win if people stop engaging in compulsion? if they’re still carrying around a baggage of shame. That just didn’t seem to jive with me or, or feel good in my practice. I also worried about whether or not ERP could be contributing to some of that shame because part of the process of ERP at times is to track certain behaviors, such as times where you engaged in a compulsion and times where you didn’t. I noticed these clients also had an untreated trauma history as well, which since I was a trauma therapist, that concerned me.

The main issue I had with ERP though seem to be what I call a glorified whack-a-mole process. Really targeting symptoms instead of getting to the root of the issue. This seemed horribly inefficient because one you would target one theme or one compulsive behavior then another obsessional theme with another compulsion would pop up right behind it.

What I’ve learned from trauma therapy is that you can treat symptoms all day long, but if you don’t treat the issue underneath that’s driving the behavioral symptoms, you’re not going to get very far. It’s going to be a lot harder. It’s going to be a struggle like swimming upstream. 

I had one experience where a very skilled and trained ERP therapist told me that she banned prayer for a client that was dealing with scrupulosity. That bothered me as well because I’m not going to ban a behavior that’s crucial and critical to someone’s faith practice. The idea of exposure and response prevention, which we’ve talked a little bit about in previous episodes is that, ultimately your goal is to have a client be able to sit with the obsession without acting on the compulsion. Doing this inside of session with the therapist, as well as outside of the session for practice, for homework.  And the ideas to be able to sit with that until the anxiety level drops. That can be really challenging and very distressing for clients. If they’re able to get through it, then there is a certain level of success and accomplishment that they feel. But sometimes the difficulty level of ERP contributes to the dropout rate. 

One study that I read that I will put in the show notes for you is that ERP has a 20 to 30% dropout rate and ERP has a 50% success rate in terms of symptom remission. So here we have a lot of people promoting ERP as a treatment option for OCD, and there’s a 50% success rate.

I want you to just think about that for a minute. There’s few things that we would recommend that had a 50% success rate. If you’re dealing with obsessions and compulsions that are wrecking your life, 50% sounds like a pretty good gamble of something to bet on that it may work for you. The problem that I have is hearing from other professionals that this is an automatic go-to treatment and this is what’s been studied and you really shouldn’t look into anything else. Sometimes other treatment options are discouraged and I have a problem with that because I think that we all should remain humble as professionals and recognize that different people need different things or different approaches.

I want to tell you a little bit about what I’ve been able to do with EMDR therapy with clients who have OCD. Ultimately, I decided to go back to what I knew and to adapt EMDR for the treatment of OCD. One of the things that I like about it is that it helps reduce the body level internal distress that people experience. A lot of times what I’ve seen is that individuals with OCD are able to go in their head. They’re able to solve problems. They’re able to kind of mentally escape from emotions and difficult distressing physical sensations. So by utilizing EMDR we’re able to work at a body level on reducing that physiological distress that people experience.

In the initial preparation phases, I’m working with people on things like mindfulness, distress tolerance skills to be able to sit with difficult emotional experiences. And often as they’re able to do that, they start to feel a little bit better. We definitely target the shame piece with education about OCD. Sometimes, that’s the first EMDR target is dealing with that shame versus trying to deal with the OCD. What I’ve found is that if people can release the shame first, then that helps them be able to engage in the next part of therapy, dealing with the obsessions and compulsions. EMDR starts with what’s going on in the present and then looks at what past memories may be contributing to the present experience because it approaches things that way. You’re really able to get down to the root of what’s going on instead of just working on various symptoms. 

Sometimes the root has to do with control, either dealing with things that are outside of one’s control or feeling this need to be in control or be perfect in some way. Sometimes it has to do with vulnerability. There can be all kinds of different things underneath that layer. 

So this is a process. There’s a process of dealing with the shame piece and developing self-compassion. There’s a process in learning some skills to manage day-to-day when the OCD arises. And then there’s this deeper layer of really getting to the root of what experiences contributed to this development in the first place. And what I’ve found is when you’re able to do those things with that process, people feel a lot better about themselves and they may still have some OCD symptoms, but it’s more like, “okay, I’m noticing that that’s there and it’s in the background and I’m a lot better able to ignore it than when I started therapy.” And that’s huge. That’s absolutely huge for people. 

Anytime that you can get to a place where you’re managing the obsessions and compulsions and noticing that they’re there but not getting roped into them, that’s an absolute huge win. And however you get there, whether you use ERP or whether you use some people are using ACT, Acceptance and commitment therapy for OCD, or whether you’re using EMDR or another method, just know that there are different options for you. You don’t have to be locked into one treatment option because of your diagnosis, regardless of what that diagnosis is. I’m going to include some information for you in the show notes about exposure and response prevention and the article that I read regarding that, which was a review of the research and then some studies on EMDR and OCD. And you can look for yourself and evaluate. It’s often helpful to incorporate more than one therapeutic technique together.

I believe this is where people, especially who have complex presentations, are able to see the best results. So you certainly could incorporate EMDR with ERP. I’ve done that for clients before, especially more so in phobia situations where they needed kind of like a gradual way to ease into getting over a certain fear.

Today’s story of hope starts with me crying in a parking lot in Target because I couldn’t build a website in 2017. I was in the process of building my business By The Well Counseling, trying to get everything off the ground. There’s a lot that goes into starting a business and I was running on fumes. I was working full time, seeing clients. And then in the evenings, I would be working on stuff to start the business. One of the things I believed I needed to get going was a website. Someone had recommended a certain site for me to build my own website. And I could not figure it out on my own, hence the crying in the Target parking lot. Everything had just reached a boiling point. I was overwhelmed and in tears and just thought I cannot do this anymore. Fast forward, Now I’ve built several websites. I had a former blog website that I’m not using anymore that I built. I built a completely brand new website for my counseling practice on a different platform about a year ago and I partially built the Hope for Anxiety and OCD website. I did get some help from a professional on that one to make it look more snazzy. But what I learned that I thought I couldn’t do, which was build a website, I could actually do. I just didn’t know it yet. So maybe there’s something in your life right now that you feel like, “I can’t do it. There’s no way,” but you may be looking back a few years later and say, “Wow! That very thing that I thought I couldn’t do, I can do it now.”

That’s my story. Do you want to share your story of hope with me? I would love to hear it. You can contact me through our website anytime at hopeforanxietyandocd.com.

Hope for Anxiety And OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling in Smyrna, Tennessee. Our original music is by Brandon Mangrum and audio editing was completed by Benjamin Bynam. 

Until next time. May you be comforted by God’s great love for you.