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123. Three Reasons You Don’t Prioritize Self-Care with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Podcast Episode. No Comments on 123. Three Reasons You Don’t Prioritize Self-Care with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

 In this episode, Carrie delves into the importance of self-care amidst life’s challenges. She explores three common obstacles that often hinder us from prioritizing self-care.

Episode Highlights:

  • The importance of prioritizing self-care, especially in managing mental health conditions like OCD.
  • Why we often neglect self-care as Christians.
  • Distinguishing between genuine self-care activities that rejuvenate you and “numbing out” behaviors,
  • How self-care can actually enhance productivity,

Carrie also shares a sneak peek into the podcast’s upcoming rebranding, unveiling a fresh look and renewed clarity on the podcast’s mission!

Episode Summary:

I’m Carrie Bock, your host and a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Today, let’s explore why you might not be prioritizing self-care.

Self-care is such a buzzword, but it’s crucial, especially when stress levels rise and symptoms spike. I’ve noticed that many people don’t fully grasp what self-care means or how to implement it effectively.

Productivity Concerns: We fear self-care will reduce productivity, but it actually boosts efficiency by lowering stress and enhancing focus.

Difficulty Asking for Help: Seeking support can be hard, but it’s a key part of self-care. Lean on loved ones and professionals; it’s a sign of strength.

Lack of Planning: Without planning, self-care can be overlooked. Schedule time for activities that rejuvenate you and explore new interests to recharge.

At its core, self-care includes basic needs like sleep, nutrition, and attending medical appointments. For us as Christians, it also means nurturing our souls through prayer, reflection, and reading the Word of God. Beyond these basics, self-care involves engaging in activities that rejuvenate and refresh you, whether that’s exercising, pursuing hobbies, or simply spending quality time with loved ones.

If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who might benefit. And don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review—it helps us reach more people and continue providing valuable content. Until next time, take care and prioritize yourself!

Explore related episode:

38. What is Self-Care all About? With Monica McLaurine

Transcript

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 123. I am your host, Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Today, we’re talking about three reasons you don’t prioritize self care, but before we get into that, I wanted to share an update on episode 122, our last episode where I was talking about dealing with uncertainty, the process of “Are we going to find a house in time by the time we move out of ours?”

I’m very happy to update you and let you know that the box are moving this month. We are super excited to be moving relatively close to where we actually are moving to Smyrna in a great area where we will have a one-storey for Steve with a little bit of bonus space upstairs where I will be getting to record podcast episodes and working from home some.

Super excited about that. God blessed us and caused several different things to come together to make that happen. There were different little spiritual pieces that he showed us along the way and gave us peace that this was the direction we were supposed to be moving in. We are so incredibly blessed and thankful to God for his provision in that area for us so I’m excited. 

As some of you know, there have been some changes happening on the podcast if you’ve been following along for a little while. Back in April, we decided to go back to weekly episodes. It seemed like maybe we had been losing some folks because we were only producing an episode every other week.

We’re back to weekly episodes, and I’m also excited to share a sneak peek that there are going to be some rebranding changes coming up. There is going to be some new podcast art, a new name. Some other things coming down the pike. We’re not totally ready to release all of that yet, but I’m excited to be able to share it with you.

It’s the new and improved version of this podcast. It has been going on for three years now, and it’s just time. It’s time for a change. It’s time for a fresh look and rebrand and really to develop more clarity on my calling towards this podcast and clarity on what we’re about. Some people have gotten a little confused at different points, so we’re wanting to work on this rebrand in order to provide just greater clarity about what the podcast is here for and who it is here to serve. Now, if you want to be an insider, the people who find out about this type of information first are on our email list. And to get on our email list, all you have to do is go to hopeforanxietyandocd.com/free. There are some free downloads there. Make sure that when you get the download in your email, that you click the link. Otherwise, you will not be subscribed to our email list.  I consider those our insiders, our first to know about new things that are going on with the podcast. They were the first to know about our OCD Summer Learning Sessions that are coming up this summer in 2024.

Let’s dive into three reasons that you don’t prioritize self care. I know self care is a hot topic for people and when your stress goes up, your symptoms go up. This is true for any mental health condition, but I’ve seen it very strongly in terms of working with OCD that when clients first come in for treatment for OCD, a lot of times they’re in stressful life experiences.

They may be experiencing some major life changes, whether that’s change of a job, whether that’s having a child, or moving. Even if there are things that we want that are positive things, they can still be stressful for us. I’m always looking when people start therapy, what can we do to help lower their stress level or help them manage it better?

What I see is that even though we’re talking about self care is kind of a buzzword. People are not prioritizing it or don’t know what that even means. What does self-care even mean or what does that look like for us now? I know we did a previous episode on the show on self-care. We will link in the show notes for you, but at a very basic level self-care is doing things like sleeping, eating, showering, making sure you go to your health appointments, getting to the doctor at least once a year, getting your blood work done and checked out.

As Christians, we need time to care for our soul, to pray, to sit in the presence of God, to open ourselves up to hear from Him what He might have to say, to open up and read the Word of God because that is God’s Word spoken to us. Regardless of whether we’re hearing or sensing something in our spirit or not, we can go back to the Word of God and see what God has to say.

Another level of self-care would, if you got some of those other basics down, would be to make sure that you’re doing things that you enjoy or things that rejuvenate you. They might look different for different people. In order to be able to engage in self-care and have it work for you, you have to look at what kind of things help you decompress from stress, help your body feel calmer, and what types of things rejuvenate and refresh you.

Hopefully, we experience this at some level when we take some time off from work or we go on vacation. I took a day off during my daughter’s spring break and we all went to the botanical gardens. It was a great opportunity – beautiful weather, just be outside and have a family day where we could engage intentionally as a family and not worry about anything else. Not worry about work, not worry about house stuff, just be together and enjoy each other’s company. My daughter since she got to run around outside, she really loved it. 

Self-care, maybe going to the gym or doing workouts at home, maybe engaging in a craft project. I love paint by numbers. I don’t do it as much as I wish I’d prioritized it, but I enjoy those types of things because it helps me calm down.

If I feel really revved up, it’s slow, it’s methodical and there’s a result at the end. There’s some kind of finished result where I feel like, “Oh, I did something good it looks beautiful. The beautiful thing about it is I’m not having to freehand paint because my talent level is not there. 

Self-care may be spending intentional time with friends, family, just sitting outside, getting some sunshine, some vitamin D, but breathing deeply, really enjoying a hot beverage or a cold beverage, depending on your weather at the time. 

What is not self-care that I would say is numbing out activities, numbing out on social media. That doesn’t count as self-care.

Social media is very stimulating to our brains. Things are constantly changing, constantly moving on there. We’re trying to keep up with all of the information, what’s going on, social media can trigger all types of emotional experiences. Maybe we see something like, “Oh, well, look at my friend who is on vacation. I wish I was on the beach right now.”

Maybe you’re seeing somebody else. They just graduated and they are doing so well and successful in their life. “What am I doing with myself?” Social media just triggers up all kinds of stuff and there’s nothing wrong with being on it. I’m not picking on social media.

Some of you may have found out about this podcast through social media. I have no idea. What I will say is that if we are getting in a state of just blah. We are not refreshing. We are not decompressing. We’re just chilling. Just status quo. If you’re watching too much TV or engaging in other activities to just numb out and not experience, not be present.

Essentially, a lot of times that’s what we’re doing when we engage in these activities. It’s not horrible, but I’m not going to call that self-care because self-care is intentional and self-care is to care for our mind, body, and spirit in a very present and intentional way. Not just like, “Let me just do this and feel blah” 

When we don’t get our self-care time. What happens? We get irritable. We get more frustrated. We maybe get resentful of others because we feel like they are not helping enough for us to be able to get that time. It could be that you are irritated at a spouse or co workers. You don’t feel like are pulling their load. The number one reason people don’t engage in these types of activities that we talked about is because they say, “I don’t have time for that. You don’t understand. I mean, I work a full time job and then I have the kids and then I have this responsibility and my mom wants me to run over here and do this for her.” We just say, “Well, I’m not important. I don’t have time for that. Well, we have to prioritize what’s most important to us and what is in line with our values.”

We always say, if you want to know like what’s most important to somebody, we look at their time and their money. If you are not spending time, just having that time for yourself or for rejuvenating time with those you love. If you’re not spending any kind of money on those types of things. I’m not talking about major dollars like you have to go on the thousands of dollars vacation or being a luxury resort, that’s not what I’m talking about, but if you don’t take time to even just get a coffee with your spouse,or just do something small and simple, drive to the park and walk outside. There are things where you don’t have to spend a lot of money to take care of yourself. You don’t have to get a gym membership. You can get a 15 yoga mat, roll it out, and find some free videos on YouTube where you can do yoga Pilates, strength training, whatever you want to do. I’m sure you can pick up something heavy around your house if you don’t have weights. You don’t always have to spend money for self-care, but if you find yourself feeling guilty about spending any money on yourself, then I would encourage you to question that and see. Where does that come from? What is that about? 

Three reasons you don’t prioritize self-care. 

One, you think that you have too much to do and self-care will take away from your productivity. We place a lot of value and emphasis, especially in American culture, on being productive, on getting things done. We got our list. We’re checking it twice. We’re crossing things off, and that’s a lot of times where we get our value and our worth from. That’s a problem because your worth is based on who you are, not on what you do. You are a beautiful creation in Christ. He has a plan and purpose for your life, and regardless of how much you get done today, He still values you. 

We have to be careful about this connection between our productivity and our worth. It’s very interesting, this concept of productivity. I was listening to a podcast recently that talked about how she added exercise back into her routine. This was something that this podcaster had been wanting to do, and she had this concern. “How do I have time to exercise? I know it’s important for me. I know I will feel better physically and emotionally if I do it. How do I get back to this thing that’s important to me?” What she found was that when she added exercise back in, she felt like that she was more productive. She noticed that she was more intentional about how she spent her work time, making sure that she wasn’t getting distracted from the things that she needed to get done.

She was sleeping better, she was feeling better, and felt like, “Okay, even though I added exercise into my routine, this is going to take away from some time of other things. She felt like it didn’t, that she really felt better as a result of it. One thing I will say, too, is that there’s a cost in our brain for switching tasks on a regular basis. Unless you’re in a business world, a lot of times people are in entrepreneurial space. People don’t usually talk about this, but what I will tell you is that every time you switch gears in your brain, going from doing one thing to doing another thing, There’s a cost to that, and a lot of times we’re distracted all the time because we have all these pinging notifications, this person is texting you about this, hey I need to know like can we get together Saturday, somebody else is texting you about something else, and then some random email pops up from your boss, oh hey did you get this task done.

If we’re not careful, our brains are constantly switching whether we want them to or not. Then we’re opening up social media, scrolling, and all of a sudden there’s all this other extra information that we’re taking in. And if your mind is clear, because you have spent some intentional time to unpack things, to clear it, you will be more productive.

A lot of times I see this with people’s emotional experiences when they’re coming into counseling. There’s a huge like bag of emotions of past experiences or present stressors that they have not unpacked. As a result, they will sit being trying to do their day-to-day task and they are unable to because these emotions keep popping up. Past memories keep popping up. Obviously, it could be an obsession that keeps popping back up, popping back up, popping back up, and can really distract you from what you’re trying to do. 

When you take time to clear some of that stuff out to where you’re not having to focus on it, or you take the self-care time to work on some skills in managing your OCD, that is self-care. Therapy is self-care. We have some great programs and courses through the website on mindfulness that really can help you be in the present moment with a level of awareness and acceptance, something that I teach my clients quite a bit that helps with the emotional regulation piece. It helps us be able to process what’s actually happening in the here and now usually is not as distressing as what we’re adding to it by the meaning that we’re making of it.

Past experiences are worries about the future. Usually if we able to isolate down to the here and now, that’s usually a much more manageable process. 

Second reason that you’re not prioritizing self care is you feel uncomfortable in asking for what you need in order to take care of yourself. “Man, I am so preaching to the choir because I have been very guilty of this in my own life.”

I think that, okay, here I am, I’m the strong, independent woman that society has told me that I need to be, or I’m supposed to be. I’m running my own business. I have a family. I’m doing the things then the lie that I believe I’ve told myself is I should be able to handle this. I mean, I could ask for help, but I don’t really need to ask for help. I can handle this. It’s okay. What I’ve realized is that if I’m going to have self-care time, that means a lot of times I have to ask somebody else to help me. It may mean I have to ask somebody if they can pick up my daughter from her program. It may mean that I have to ask my spouse, Hey, can I just have some time to myself right now?

It may mean that I have to ask my spouse like, Hey, can you watch our daughter so that I can go do this thing? Is that all right with you? And if I don’t ask, I know that that need is not going to be met. It may be asking or hiring services, it may be, okay, like you look at all the things that you have to do saying, is this really manageable?

I think that would be your first step and I’ve done this in my own life. Okay, what are all the things that I’m doing? Do I need to actually be doing all of those things? or do I need to hire somebody else to do it? Can I mow my own lawn? Yes, I can. I don’t think that I’m the greatest at lawn mowing, but I can do it.

Let’s be theoretical. It’s actually not the lawn, it’s the weed eating that I always get a little tripped up on. But the point is, can I do it? Sure. But I have a lot of other things on my plate as well. Does it make sense for me to pay someone to do it? In my scenario, it does. You may not have that opportunity.

I pay for a grocery subscription service to deliver groceries. I am not ashamed of that. I’ve been doing it for about a year. I am the only one that drives in my family. My husband is not able to drive because of his disability. So there are ways that we have to move, maybe that are a little bit different than other people.

Are you telling yourself that you have to be, whatever that is, the strong one of the family? The one that doesn’t need time for themselves, the one that has to focus on everyone else’s problems and your suffering. I can definitely look back on times in my life where I should have involved other people, or I should have asked for help more than I did, and as a result of not asking for help, my mental health majorly suffered during those periods because even though other people theoretically knew what I had going on I don’t think they realized how challenging it was for me. I think I was waiting for everyone else to kind of figure it out. Don’t do that because there’s a chance they may not ever figure it out and you will still be there It takes a lot of humility for us to ask for help, but we are told in the scripture to bear one another’s burdens.

It is okay for you to ask somebody else for help. It’s also okay for that person to say no, but you can ask someone else for help. Keep asking until you are able to get the help and the support that you need. 

All right, number three reason that you are not prioritizing self care, telling yourself you have no time for it, is that you’re not planning it.

This kind of similarly goes with number two. You are not being intentional about putting it on your schedule. You’re not saying like, hey, When’s our date night going to be this month? Okay, what does that look like? What would you like to go do together so that we can connect as a couple? What kind of things do I enjoy?

There are some people that maybe listening to this, maybe you don’t even know what you would do for self-care. Maybe you don’t even know what you like because you’ve always been so focused on taking care of everyone else. Hey, here’s a clue, it might be time to try to explore some different things.

That’s a beautiful thing. Go out and try something new. Maybe you are not sure if you’ll like it or not, or you’re not sure if you’ll be good at it. Honestly, who cares if you’re good at it? If you enjoy it, if it helps you decompress. If it helps you rejuvenate internally, then good, go for it. You don’t have to be good at something in order for it to be a hobby.

I think that’s a misnomer that a lot of people believe, like, “Oh, well, I’m not really good at anything so therefore I’m not going to do any type of sports or crafts or hobbies. I’m not going to whittle with some wood or try to build something because I don’t think I’ll be very good at that.” It doesn’t matter. Do what you enjoy and allow God to use those things in your life to be able to just rejuvenate you. I hope that this episode was helpful for you as you’re thinking about self-care and what are some reasons maybe that you don’t prioritize it or that you feel like you have no time for it. Remember, we have time for what we make time for.

We just have to be intentional about it. Ask for help. When we need to and recognize that self-care is not going to make us a less productive person. In fact, it may make us a more productive person. If you enjoyed this episode today, I hope that you will share it with someone else that you know. Please feel free to hop on over to iTunes and leave us a review, or if you’re on YouTube, like and subscribe.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Opinions given by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or By the Well Counseling.

120. Are You Overly Responsible for Others’ Choices? 3 Ways to Know. with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 120. Are You Overly Responsible for Others’ Choices? 3 Ways to Know. with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

In this episode, Carrie explores feeling overly responsible for others’ feelings and actions. She explains how this can cause stress and shares some helpful ways to ease that burden for greater peace and acceptance.

Episode Highlights:

  • The signs of being overly responsible for others’ behavior and emotions.
  • How trying to control others can lead to internal stress and anxiety.
  • Why taking responsibility for others’ emotional experiences can be detrimental to your well-being.
  • Strategies for developing distress tolerance and finding peace amidst challenging relationships.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to episode 120 of Christian Faith and OCD! I’m Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor based in Tennessee. If you’re outside Tennessee and need help connecting with anxiety or OCD resources in your area, I’m here to assist.

Today, we’re exploring the anxiety that comes from feeling overly responsible for other people’s emotions and behaviors. You might be overstepping if you’re trying to control or prevent someone’s actions, especially in relationships marked by codependency or addiction. Remember, the ultimate responsibility for their behavior lies with them.

Another sign is taking on others’ emotional experiences. If you avoid speaking your truth or setting boundaries out of fear of upsetting someone, you’re likely taking on too much. It’s important to communicate with kindness while allowing others to handle their own reactions.

Lastly, if you constantly try to change someone’s behavior or convince them to do something differently, it’s a sign of excessive responsibility. Accepting what you cannot control and focusing on your own well-being can help alleviate this stress. For support, check out my mindfulness course to develop distress tolerance.

Feel free to share your thoughts through our contact form at carriebock.com. Thank you for joining me, and may you find comfort in God’s great love for you.

Explore related episode:

64. How We Unintentionally Increase Our Own Suffering with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Transcript

Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 120. I am your host, Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. I also provide consultations to those outside of the state of Tennessee who are looking for finding and getting connected with specific resources for anxiety or OCD in their area, or what might be the next step that would be helpful for them.

Today on the show, we’re talking about being responsible or feeling this sense of responsibility for other people’s feelings and behaviors. Even though you’re not responsible for others in that way, that may be new news to you. It creates a lot of anxiety when we strive to try to control other people or try to manage their behavior that can cause us a lot of internal stress. I want you to have peace, enjoy, and be relieved for some of that. 

We’re going to talk about three ways that you know that you’re overly responsible for someone else. 

Number one, you find yourself trying to prevent certain behaviors in that other person. This happens a lot in terms of codependency with people who have addiction.

Let’s say, for example, you’re trying to reduce the addict’s stress so that they won’t use. You go around, you clean up the house. Maybe even do things like throw away the alcohol, put out the pamphlets or the information on the local AA meetings. There are all these little things that you’re doing to try to influence or control that person’s behavior, trying to make sure that there isn’t conflict so that they don’t get upset.

This also happens frequently if you’re connected with someone that’s angry, and you may know certain things that trigger that anger, certain things that are a tipping point, and so you hold back. On saying things that may need to be said, you hold back on setting boundaries because you don’t want to upset that other person and you don’t want to have that anger unleashed on you.

Here’s the problem: People are unpredictable human beings. So, even though we may tiptoe around the attic in hopes that they won’t use or try to create the perfect scenario for their sobriety, ultimately, like, they have to be the ones to take that responsibility on to be able to surrender to God, surrender to, I’m powerless over this addiction.

They have to take that responsibility in order to move forward. You can’t make them or take that responsibility on for them. People who have difficulty with anger or fly off the handle, as you know, you can tiptoe around them, but there’s still going to be something that sets them off. It’s unexpected, something that’s completely outside of your control, like people who are just stressed about work, they’re mad, and they come home and unleash on other people.

You cannot prevent that. That person has to recognize their own issues, the other things that are leading to their anger. They are responsible for managing their stress. You’re not responsible for managing their stress. We take that step back and say, “I cannot change this other person.” That is a hard acknowledgement.

It’s an important acknowledgment for you to have. It may bring up a lot of sadness that you’re avoiding dealing with. It may bring up other emotions that are hard to sit with, feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy, and it’s much easier to get into doing mode, tiptoeing around, and trying to prevent those people from falling into behavior patterns. We cannot change other people. Only God can do that. 

Number two, similar to number one, you may be overly responsible for others if you take responsibility for others emotional experiences. What this looks like? We are called in scripture to have the fruit of the Spirit. When we are connected with God, we experience love, joy, peace, and patience. We are told to speak the truth in love. We also have to balance this with times where God calls people to be bold and to be brave, to prophesy at times and say hard truths. All that means is speaking the truth of the gospel or of Scripture. We’re called to do that in love. But a lot of times what happens is we tell ourselves, I can’t say what I need to say to this other person, or I cannot speak the truth to them because they’re going to be upset or they’re going to be angry at me and this can even happen in our closest, most intimate relationships with our spouse. Sometimes we need our spouse to call us out. And it’s a beautiful thing because that lets us know, hey, you have a blind spot here. 

My husband called me out not too long ago and said, “You have unforgiveness towards these people in your life.” I was like, “Oh! Ouch!” It did. It hurt my feelings, but I’m so thankful that he said that because that was a blind spot for me. I wasn’t in awareness that I was still holding on to so much anger and bitterness that in my perception I thought I had let go of, but what he was able to see from the outside view was “No, you haven’t let go of that.”

By allowing me to have that hard emotional experience, it drove me back to God. It drove me to prayer to say, “Okay, God, am I in unforgiveness?” Yes, I do believe, that I’ve been convicted and I’m in unforgiveness and allow me to pray through that and say, I don’t want to hold on to this anger towards these individuals any longer.

I don’t want to live in bitterness. Yes, I believe what they did was wrong, and I’ve had my time to be angry about it, and now it’s time to not continue to hold it against them and to let it go so that I can be at peace. These are also people that I want to continue in relationship with, and I want to continue walking side by side.

As a result of that, I need to have a positive, forgiving, and loving, gracious attitude towards these individuals. That was incredibly eye-opening and incredibly loving. But oftentimes what happens, even in Christian circles, is we say, “Oh, I can’t set a boundary because that’s going to hurt that person’s feelings,” or “I can’t speak the truth and let them know that they’re off course because they’re going to get mad at me and they might not want to be my friend anymore.” This is unhealthy in our lives when we take responsibility for other people’s feelings and try to prevent them from having hard feelings, because sometimes we need to have hard feelings. That’s a part of growth. 

If you say something, and even if it’s a kind word, and you know that person is going to be upset, they have to deal with their own feelings. You are only responsible for saying the kind words, for speaking the truth in love, for showing patience with other people and grace. We also don’t just run around calling people out just because we want to have a positive relationship with that person and be careful with our words. But there are times where you’re going to say kind things and people are going to get mad at you. There are going to be times where you say, Hey, I’d encourage you to look at this in your life or to look at that situation and they’re not going to receive that. You have to know that you have done your part of what you’re supposed to do. 

Number three, you may be overly responsible for other people if you believe that you can control or convince that person to change their behavior in some way. If only I say this, then maybe they’ll change.

If only I say that, then maybe they’ll get it finally. If I only tell them for the 50th time that they need to go to therapy, It’s the nagging wife syndrome, right, where you just continue to bring something up, continue to bring something up, continue to bring it up. What happens in these situations, you just get more and more frustrated, more angry. It’s like hitting a brick wall. What happens with the other person is they become more defensive often. “Okay, you’re telling me I need to change and so I’m going to dig in my heels and tell you that everything’s fine and we’re good.: The more that you push people with that type of energy of, “I need you to change so that I can be okay inside.” That’s the energy sometimes that we can bring to these relationships that we don’t even realize we’re bringing that energy. 

So whenever you are trying to change someone and they push back, that’s why, because it doesn’t feel good. And automatically, the knee-jerk reaction is to go into a defensive mode. We need to learn to be okay, even when other people in our life are not okay because you’re going to have them. You’re going to have those people. It doesn’t matter if it’s a family member. It doesn’t matter if it’s a co-worker that you really wish that they would change. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boss. There are going to be people in your life, regardless of what you do and what circles you’re in that you have a hard time relating to people that are just maybe difficult to deal with. 

I heard someone say they’re extra grace required people. I don’t remember who said that, so I apologize. Whenever you have an extra grace-required person in your life, that’s an opportunity for you to connect with the Lord to say, “Okay, God, I want to love this person well.”

What does loving them well look like? Sometimes loving them well means accepting their mess right now. It means saying, “Look, “I see you and I love you and I accept you right where you’re at. I don’t need you to change. I’d love it if you would change because it would help you be a better person. It would help you grow closer to the Lord, but as far as me, I can be okay, even if you’re not okay.” 

Sometimes it means setting healthy boundaries to say, in order for me to remain mentally healthy and love you the absolute best that I can, I’m going to need you to know that this is what I can give to the relationship and then I’m going to have to take a step back in some other areas. I’m going to have to kind of let you fall at times. I’m going to have to. let you make choices and make mistakes. That is really, really hard sometimes for us to do. It’s hard for us to sit with these difficult emotions and knowing that someone is making very poor choices over their life, but if you have already spoken those truths to them and encouraged them towards the right path, then you have done your part.

You have done what you can and it’s time to take a step back and trust God with the rest. As you can see, kind of through this process, there are some reasons that we take responsibility for other people’s stuff. It’s because we have a hard time sitting with the emotions that come up. When they make choices that are either unhealthy or that we disagree with, let me tell you what really helps with dealing with those difficult emotions. It’s developing what we call distress tolerance, which is a big way of handling the hard things that come our way. 

A great way that you can do that is mindfulness. I have a course on mindfulness that’ll walk you through the process. What does it look like to be in the present moment, to be aware of what’s going on and in acceptance?

A lot of what we’re talking about today is accepting other people’s choices that may not be great. That’s a hard thing to do. We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to accept that someone’s inactive addiction right now. We want them to be free and whole, and we don’t want to accept that we have a person in our life that might fly off the handle unexpectedly.

We don’t want to accept that. We want that to change because that would help us feel better internally and not have to sit on the edge of ourseatst with all that energy of what’s going to happen with this person. But once we accept our situation, it leads to a sense of greater peace. We know what our role is.

We know what God’s role is. We know what that other person’s role is. And we’re able to tease some of those things out and a little bit cleaner way. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. You can reach us any time via our contact form, hopeforanxietyandocd.com. 

Thank you so much. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling.Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a licensed therapist.

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

93. Incognito Christian Counselors with Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode.

Join Carrie as she dives into an interesting conversation with Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT on Incognito Christian Counselors and the integration of faith into mental health counseling

Episode Highlights:

  • Why some counselors are hesitant to publicly identify as Christians.
  • How Christian counselors can provide evidence-based therapy while integrating faith and scripture.
  • Challenges of finding specialized treatment for conditions like OCD and navigating treatment outside of one’s faith.
  • Importance of asking questions and advocating for oneself in therapy.

Related links and Resources:

Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT

More Episodes to Listen to:

14. How to Find a Therapist Who is Right for You

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD, Episode 93! I’m Carrie Bock, your host, and I’m so glad you’re here with us today.

Today’s episode features a special guest: Ann Taylor McNiece, a licensed marriage and family therapist and the host of the Soul Grit podcast. Ann and I dive deep into the topic of integrating faith with mental health counseling, something we’re both passionate about.

Ann shares her journey of blending theology and psychology, drawing from her own experiences with depression and her early aspirations to combine faith with counseling. We tackle the challenges some therapists face when incorporating their faith into their practice, including the constraints of legal and ethical guidelines.

We discuss why some counselors may be reluctant to publicly identify as Christian and the fear of potentially alienating clients. We also explore how combining Christian principles with evidence-based therapies can be incredibly beneficial for those struggling with OCD and other mental health issues.

For more insights from Ann, be sure to check out her podcast, Soul Grit, and visit her website at soulgritresources.com. There, you’ll find her free e-course on Cognitive Behavior Therapy with Scripture and other valuable resources.

Thank you for tuning in! I hope this episode inspires and supports you as you integrate your faith with your mental health journey.

Explore Related Episode:

33. What is it Like to be a Counselor? Steve Interviews Carrie

Transcript

Welcome to Christian Faitn and OCD, Episode 93. I am your host, Carrie Bock, and I’m so glad that you are joining us today to listen to this show

Today on the show we have Ann Taylor McNiece, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist and podcast host of Soul Grit. I am happy to have her here to talk with us about the integration of faith and Counseling.

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Carrie: Welcome to the show. I think that we share a similar passion in regards to integration of faith into mental health counseling, and we both went to seminary, different seminaries, but how did this become a passion of yours? 

Ann: I can actually remember the early years of college just kind of dreaming about this marriage of theology and psychology, and I was just starting to learn more about it. I’ve been a Christian my whole life, but I had just recently started to struggle with depression and had my first experience of counseling in my senior year of high school. And just from there, I started having this dream in my heart that more people need to be aware that these two things fit together. God created our minds and God created helpers that understand the mind and wanna help people and just reach their fullness of life to get away from things like anxiety, depression, and other common health problems that we see.

Carrie: This is so prevalent in the church. There’s so many people who are struggling with common mental health issues, anxiety, depression, even things in the church, people who are struggling with ADHD or autism. There’s so much that’s going on that a lot of times we don’t talk about it enough, and so I’m glad that we’re able to talk about it.

Our faith can be fully integrated. I like to say we can have all of Jesus and all of really good psychological teachings because everything points us back to God. 

Ann: If it’s something good and true and it works and it’s healthy, and that’s coming from God. Humans didn’t create that stuff. 

Carrie: Absolutely, and I think there’s so much more that obviously that God knows than we do about these things because he created our brain and our mind and knows all the intricacies of how everything works. Why do you think some counselors are hesitant to publicly say that they’re a Christian?

Ann: I think it depends if you really are a Christ follower because being a Christian can mean a lot of things. You’re in a different area of the country than I am in Southern California. It might mean something different than it means in the Bible Belt or the South, just to say you’re Christian.

It’s not a very good descriptor of what the person’s actually bringing to the table for one thing. And then the other part is that some therapists are unsure about what are the actual legal and ethical guidelines for bringing your faith into the counseling room. So some people might think, “Oh, I went to grad school. I learned how to be a counselor. I got my license. And I’m never supposed to talk about religion or spirituality or Jesus ever again in my professional context,” and I think sometimes we might get that even from public school kinds of mentalities or separation of church and state. The thing is, there’s nothing about State in my private practice of counseling.

I don’t really have those same guidelines, like a teacher or a politician might have to try to keep those things separate. But I think it comes from people not knowing what are the guidelines and how much can I share with all concerned that will it be ethical for me to share. Will this client feel like I’m proselytizing or trying to evangelize them instead of attending with empathy to their concerns that they’re bringing into the counseling room.

There’s another fear that counselors have just if I put out on my website that I’m a Christian counselor or if I have like a little Jesus cross or a fish or something on my business card to identify me as a counselor or maybe like a scripture reference or something like, Christians are going to know that I’m for them, but am I going to alienate all the other people? Then it comes from this mindset of if I don’t advertise or market myself to everybody. I’m not going to be able to fill my practice and then I’m gonna suffer a financial loss because I won’t have enough clients.

Carrie: I think that’s a huge one. Just in terms of how I was trained. Like if you were trained with really great faith integration, but then you’re also trained as a professional to see everyone regardless of what their needs are. You have to put aside what your belief system is in terms of working with the client from their belief system.

For a long time, I think I fell into what I’m titling this episode, the Incognito Christian counselor standpoint. I wasn’t open about my faith, and it’s actually this podcast that has helped me more than anything step into true authenticity of who I am in my marketing as a therapist, because I thought, well, I never really saw myself as a Christian counselor because sometimes when I think of that, I think of some person that’s opening up a Bible and is, Hey, let’s talk about this scripture and how it applies to your life and your situation.

There certainly are opportunities that I may bring certain things up or ask clients, are you familiar with this Bible story? Or that type of thing. Based off of what they’re saying. But it’s not as, I think formal, maybe as I viewed it.  When I came out with this podcast, I thought, this makes no sense. I have a very Christian name if you understand the Bible because my name is By The Well Counseling.  People who are familiar with the John 4 story are like, “Oh, well okay. She gets it. She has a Bible.” I did have that and then I would say a little something about that on my website. I might check that I was Christian on Psychology today, and I might have a verse at the bottom. But I didn’t really go into like, Hey, my faith is a big passion of mine and I really believe that we can integrate really well.

I think it’s definitely been a big shift in my practice over the last couple of years as to having more Christian clients or clients seek me out because I am a Christian, especially since having the podcast for the last two years. I do think that some people in the community, even other therapists, probably think, oh, well, we’re not going send certain clients to her if they’re not Christian. I have to say, that’s okay how they’re going to view me and I really can’t control that. I think we spend so much time trying to control how other people see us in all contexts, not just in a professional context. 

Ann: I think that the clients I want to see are the ones that are going to want to see me. It’s not so much like you said, bringing out your Bible and telling them what verses are going to apply to their situation, or let’s just sit down and pray about it. All of those things are good things to do.

Those kinds of interventions might find themselves more in a pastoral or biblical counseling setting or where licensed therapists, who, we have a state licensure that’s vetted us. We have done our 3000 hours, we’ve done all the things that we need to be clinical providers, we are going to bring all of that. But what’s gonna underlie all of this as our foundation is a shared value and a shared hope. When it comes down to, I’m doing cognitive behavioral therapy with somebody and they can’t get to that part where they need to create an alternative thought. I’m gonna say, okay, well if you can’t get to it, let’s ask God, what would God say about this? And we’ll find a scripture to that matches what they need to do. And it’s not because I am, well just read the Bible and that’s cover everything that you’re going through. That informs everything that I do as a professional counselor.

Carrie: Another reason I wanted to have this episode too is I think especially for our folks who are struggling with OCD, they have a hard time finding someone who has that training in OCD  evidence-based therapies and treatments, while also having the value systems of Christianity. Part of that is because a lot of the OC D treatment has to do with behaviorism, and that’s not that it’s directly in conflict with Christianity. I think it’s just a little bit different way of looking at the world and we see people as more than just higher evolved animals, is a way to say it, but which is a lot of behaviorism is based on those kind of ideas.

I’m curious, for you as a Christian, do you feel like you would ever see a counselor who wasn’t a Christian? Maybe if you had a certain diagnosis that you needed treating or as you were seeking out a certain type of therapy, and how would you navigate that if you would?

Ann: Well, I certainly want to leave room for. Some of us need really specialized treatment and some of us lived in parts of the country where it’s harder to find providers. Like I said, I’m in Southern California, probably an hour’s drive. I can find a specialist in whatever I wanna be specialized in. Right? But if you live in a different part of the country, especially if you’re seeking in-person therapy versus on a screen like we all did for the pandemic.

Sometimes you want a person that you can be present in the room with and you need them to have a specialization is going to help you break through something and that person may or may not be a believer. There are gonna be times when that is necessary, but for me personally, what I struggle with is depression.

That’s a general thing. Sometimes just figuring out next steps in life, or I might go to marriage counseling or something like those things that I’m dealing with, I’m going to want to have Christian counselor because I know there are people who have faith in God who have similar values and similar understanding worldview that have the training that I need to get through the things that I’m dealing with. I think you have to allow room for both when you can see a Christian counselor and when there’s something that just needs specialists, go ahead and do that, and you just make the best of it.

Carrie: It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to ask your therapist what their value system is. They may or may not want to answer that for you, just kind of depending on how they work, but it’s fully within your right to ask where someone is coming from or what type of treatment methods they use.

Know that you’re in an empowered place regardless of where you find yourself in treatment. I’m thinking that we may have a friends that listen to the show that have had to go to an in-patient treatment, or they’ve had to go to an IOP treatment, and it’s not something that’s covered by their insurance.

It’s probably not going to be a Christian-run facility most likely talking to the counselors about what your values are, these are things that are very important to me and I wanna make sure that we’re utilizing them in counseling in a healthy way, and I wanna make sure that you kind of understand where I’m coming from and what’s important to me. And ethically, whether your counselor is a Christian or not, they have to respect that. 

Ann: Exactly. What I really think that God is faithful in this area, that when you’re in a really bad place with your mental health condition, and you need to have some of these higher level of arrangement is made for you like he’s gonna be faithful.

Just be surprised that there’s going to be another patient there, or there’s going to be a nurse, or a therapist or a behavioral tech or something like that. You’re not going to know at first, but then you’re going to find out that person also loves God. And then God’s going to put those pieces together for you so that you can have an experience of getting the healing that you need with that kind of high level of specialty. He is also going be right there saying, “I see you. I know what you need.” As you move down from the higher level of care back into just regular weekly therapy with your therapist, like maybe that might be an opportunity to say, okay, I learned all these kind of technical skills in my IOP or whatever it might be, but now can you help me figure out how I integrate those things that I learned with what I know to be true in the Bible and what God’s doing in my life. And that’s a really good launching point for the next phase.

Carrie: Absolutely. I really like how you worded that. I do think that God is always with us in walking us through situations and just giving us those little glimpses of like, “Hey, I’m here for you. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be able to make it through. This is one of the reasons that you started your podcast because of your own mental health struggles. 

Ann: I think I got into counseling because of my own mental health struggles. But I started the podcast because I saw this need in my community. And yes, it’s Southern California, but my particular community is a little bit smaller and so I was looking for people that I could refer patients to when they were requesting a Christian counselor and I was either full or didn’t take their insurance or whatever, and I would reach out to people and a couple of times I got emails back that would say something like, yes, I’m personally a Christian, but I don’t offer Christian counseling. Why not? That just didn’t make sense to me.

I had to go back and think through all of those reasons why a person who had no faith in Jesus wouldn’t want to bring that into their professional setting. Carrie, you and I both had a seminary background. We had classes that specifically taught us, okay, you’ve had bible and theology. You’ve had clinical classes, here’s how you put them together, and here’s how you bring that into your career, into the room with your clients, but a lot of people who were trained either in a secular university or some other kind of program didn’t have that advantage. Maybe they just don’t know how to do it and don’t have the confidence to do that. I started creating resources that would help them learn how to integrate their personal faith into the practice that they already know how to do.

They’ve already licensed counselors or pre-licensed, and they want to be able to do good work clinically, but then there’s this whole part of themselves that they are leaving out. You just said when you started the podcast, you became more authentic in your work because now you’re bringing in this part of you. I wrote an e-course that was my 2020 pandemic project over the summer. 

Carrie: We all had one. 

Ann: Yes, I put out the E-course and then I thought, you know what? People need an easy on-ramp to find out just to get their toes in the water with this idea about integration. My podcast is for people who do this kind of work like you and I do, but also for people who are just interested in mental health and they want to know, “Is this okay that I’m a Christian and I want to do this therapy thing?”

I’ve done different special episodes on things like brain spotting or transcranial magnetic stimulation or different things where I want to get a Christian perspective on all those clinical things that are out there so I can understand more. I can get the help I need and I can pass on this information to other people that I see in my world or in my church that are needing the help as well.

Carrie: That’s awesome. I think there’s a really, a lack of conversation surrounding these things, which is one of the reasons that I started my podcast too. I had a blog for like a hot second and I realized writing’s a lot of work.

Ann: Yes, same .

Carrie: It’s easier for me to talk, so I decided, maybe podcasting route because it was a lot of work to try to get all these blog posts up there, and then I was like, is anybody rating this thing? But I think this is great. I’ve really definitely looked for a lot of resources and people who are bringing to the table really solid clinical skills and good Christian counseling.

I hope that people will check out your podcast, Soul Grit, and you’ve had a wide variety of episodes on there, different topics. It’s awesome. 

Ann: Yes, Carrie’s going to be on the podcast too. 

Carrie: Woohoo! Towards the end of every episode, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time of hope that you have from God or another person.

Ann: God has done a lot of amazing things like actual miracles in our family story. I’ll just share where I am right now. I actually had a stroke two months ago and that was very unexpected cuz I’m only 40. I exercise most days. I eat healthy. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t smoke or drink.

I don’t have any risk factors, and all of a sudden I found myself in the hospital having suffered a stroke just in November. I didn’t know what that meant or what my life would look like, and it turns out it could have been a lot worse. I have all of my faculties available. I can walk, I can talk, I can think I can do cognitive tasks.

In the meantime, God had to remove me from a lot of the things as a professional mom, wife, all the roles in ministry. December could be like, this is the big time, right? , the week before December started this past year. God just said, no, actually your job is to lay on the couch. And I thought, but God, I’m the mom and I’m the podcaster and I’m the therapist and I lead a small group and I have to do holidays for my family and all those things.

God just made me rest and taking me through right now a journey of figuring out what is really important. And what is foundational? Do I have big ideas and big [00:18:00] goals for my practice or my e-course or my podcast or my other things that do in ministry or family, whatever. But come down to take care of yourself, rest, read the Bible, and spend time with the Lord. Be there with your family, work on your marriage, eat the right food. It’s come down to just very foundational basic things, and I’ll say, this is why, this is my story of hope because right now I don’t see what the result of that is gonna be, but I really have this sense that God has me in this place of the lane, a solid foundation.

Not that I wasn’t solid in my belief in God, or that I didn’t have a good marriage or anything before. But it’s like he’s laying this new layer of foundation that I need for whatever that launch is in the next season of life, and I have no idea what that might look like, but I have hope that if he’s asking me to slow down and rest right now and take care of these things, that means he has something for me then that’s gonna be worth it when I follow him in an obedience to that.

Carrie: Yes. It’s so hard for us in our cultural context to slow down and to rest, but it’s definitely so needed and so important, so I’m glad that God’s working with you on that. Have you kind of had a lot of reflections on just the sense of Sabbath in the Bible and what that really means to rest?

Ann: What’s really funny is in October I did a whole series on rest and ceasing from busyness and Sabbath. That was what the whole, the podcast in the fall was about. Then I had just moved into a new series that I was doing about the body and what God has to say about the body and how our body impacts our mental health and things like that.

It was almost like God said, “Well, you’re doing good work. I see the work that you’re doing, but I’m going to make this really real for you in short order. 

Carrie: Yes, He did. It’s like when the pastor has to preach the sermon to themselves before they give it to the congregation. That’s what they say. They’re like, I had to learn this for myself. Awesome. Tell us where people can find you and we’ll put links in the show notes too. 

Ann: My website is soulgritresources.com, and that’s where you can find the e-course. You can get links to the podcast, the blog that I used to write and for your listeners, I’m assuming a lot of people that listen to your podcast are interested in things like those evidence-based practices.

I have a freebie that pops up. It’s called Cognitive Behavior Therapy with scripture, and I’ll walk you through how to use the scripture to replace those thoughts that you’re needing some help with once you identify them, so they can find that there. I’m also on Instagram at Soul Grit Resources. 

Carrie: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here today.