Latest / Finding New Waters / Exploring the Intersections of Spirituality and Therapy with Amanda Cumbo

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Exploring the Intersections of Spirituality and Therapy with Amanda Cumbo · Finding New Waters

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First of all, from, like, a clinical perspective, shame, we
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know, leads to really negative outcomes.
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So shame. I am a bad person.
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I am horrible. I am awful.
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That is a space that is is highly correlated with
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depression and anxiety, even suicidality.
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So that is just, like, unhealthy for everybody.
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Like, it's just not good for you right now.
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Guilt. The gut's good, right?
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Guilt is I did something wrong. I've done something wrong and I
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need to change right. It's allows us to move to a
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space of change. So one of the first places that
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I will challenge them is in that shame gilt space.
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Right is how do we we move from like a shame space that you are
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so bad and you are awful to. Oh, like I did something wrong
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and then a lot of times I'll just bring in like just small.
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It's kind of like, you know, like watering something a little
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bit at a time. Right.
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Well, like, oh, so that's what Jesus said.
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He came in and he told them how horrible they were.
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Definitely when they caught that woman in adultery, he picked up
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all the stunts and he threw a matter, right?
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I mean, let's do it too. And then they go, right?
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They just sort of pause and they're like, no, no, no, he
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didn't actually. He told everybody to put them
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down. Good afternoon.
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My name is Graham Durgey, and I'm the founder and CEO of New
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Waters Recovery in Raleigh, NC Welcome to our weekly podcast,
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Finding New Waters. Our goal in creating Finding New
1:48
Waters is to provide a resource for families to help navigate
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the complexities of supporting a loved one struggling with
1:54
substance use or mental health. When we find ourselves in crisis
1:58
due to one of these issues, most people have no idea where to
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turn. We hope to shed some light onto
2:02
what is often the darkest hour for many families.
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People say what kind of therapy do you do?
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Pretty much everything but addiction.
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Although I am trained in brain spotting, which I love, and I
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have been trained in the addiction setup for brain
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spotting. So what I will often do with
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addictions counselors is say if you want to come, if you want to
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bring, if you would like for us to work together and have your
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person come and just do brainspotting with me.
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I do that sometimes. But recap.
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I am a licensed clinical mental health counselor.
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That's a mouthful. Formerly LPC in North Carolina.
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I've been in practice about 10 years, but I've been with the
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practice as a whole for a very long time because my parents are
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Bev and Tom Rogers, who found the practice and they've been in
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Charlotte for about 40 years. They have a marital model that
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they created, or it's actually a model of therapy.
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I shouldn't say just marital because we do have an individual
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healing the soul track and then the soul healing love track
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which is for couples and it is based in a Mogga, relationship
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theory, family systems theory, as well as some cognitive
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behavioral principles. And I do host our podcast called
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the Sole Healing Love Podcast which is why I'm in studio
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today, which was much easier than me worrying about my Chrome
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at home. I was like I don't know, my Mac
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is old so, so I do host a podcast as well and I work with
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people of all ages. So I see kids, I see teens, I
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see individuals. Sole Healing love is a heavy
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trauma focused therapy. I was like looking at somebody
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else podcast and like that trauma is a big focus.
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So we talk a lot about what happens in the brain and what
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happens when we get triggered. We call it an old brainer.
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I am very heavily into learning more and more about body based
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regulation because I think when we you know more and more what
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we are understanding about the brain is that to come at it from
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a thinking standpoint is just pointless right.
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It's not like the majority of what's happening isn't coming
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from our thinking brain. So how am I going to think it
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into a better state? So I love learning about brain
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spotting, which is more body based, which has led me down a
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trail into a program I'm training called Mates Brain
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regulation, which has to do with it's much like polyvagal theory
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and kind of how to bring regulation, how to get us back
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to that window of tolerance. But that's something that I love
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because, you know, it's really in our body.
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So we have to, you know, move into that very.
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Cool. That's a little bit about me,
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yeah. So yeah, I just have and I guess
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some of this will come up in the podcast, but but it does seem
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there's a a big theme with spirituality and it seems like
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that's a very centric part of your approach to therapy.
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Is that correct? Yes.
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Well, and we are, I always tell people we are all licensed.
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So I think that's really important because, you know,
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sometimes you want to have the, the biblical underpinning and a
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Christian worldview with someone who is very, you know,
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understands psychology and understands trauma.
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But yes, you know, looking at, you know, when we are in states
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of dysregulation, when we're stuck in depression, we aren't
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living in a space to be the, you know, as the people that God
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created us to be right, that we could actually move into our
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best states when we're stuck there.
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So we use psychological principles, biblical principles,
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whatever it takes. And it's also meeting people
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where they are because some people are really comfortable
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with that, some people have had some religious trauma and so we
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have to be very sensitive to what's going on.
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Absolutely, couldn't agree more. What?
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Hey, man, I'm just. I'm Doctor Hong go by Harold.
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But people, you should insist on calling me Doctor Hong or some
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variation of that. But let's see, I'm the medical
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director here. Lived in North Carolina for like
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close to 20 years, but born and raised in Ohio.
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Spirituality and faith has been a big part of my life growing
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up. And like, we don't really talk a
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lot about it explicitly here, which, you know, it's like
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there's there's this, you know, is it a boundary issue?
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Like, you know, how personal do we get?
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Like how how quickly do we get into that topic?
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But it is also like front and center on the 12 step model,
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right? Are you guys 12 step base
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because it's like like front and center is are we submitting to a
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higher power to realize that we can't do this on our own?
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Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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So we're and we're not necessarily 12 step based.
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However, you know the nature of what we do, I mean 12 steps and
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other, you know, kind of approaches to recovery or
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interwoven into everything that we do.
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And we do bring in some outside community support groups.
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Which are very heavily 12 step base, but we also do like some
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refuge recovery and things like that as well.
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Yeah, I mean, I'm also coming from a background of ways in
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which spirituality was used probably like in an unhealthy
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way, in ways that led to people feeling overwhelmed and like and
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and really. In very damaging ways actually.
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So it's something that's like deeply personal, like completely
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core and foundational, but also something that I just talked
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about with extreme sense of respect and safety.
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And I approach it very carefully, very cautiously, with
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a lot of sense of like permission to pass or to, you
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know, disengage from the conversation, probably because
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of my personal experience with spirituality being used like out
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of hand or. In in some ways which I think
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are just not functional or healthy.
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So love to talk about that because I think that's that's a
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lot of what a lot of our clients are facing is the idea that
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they're being like forced into a certain model of spirituality.
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Like they're like if they're not Christian, if they're not if
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they're atheists, then they can't engage in recovery or
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engage at in higher power and. You know, these are deep waters,
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but just kind of setting the table versus being new waters,
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not deep waters. Yeah, but you know, sometimes
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new waters are deep waters. Well, so for like I from the
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Christians perspective, there was a podcast that came out.
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I can't remember if it was last year or the year before, but
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it's called the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
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Mars Hill was a very large. Totally keyed into that big
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time. Yeah, it was.
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So it was a bit triggering for me.
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That only got about halfway through because there's also
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currently on Hulu, a four part docu series about the Duggar
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family and the organization that they came from.
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And so there's an, you know, my personal opinion is that
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Christians need to sit back and realize that now we can look at
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both of those situations and realize that there was a very
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strong narcissist at the helm and a lot of principles that
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were really unhealthy. And we can look at it now and
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say that, but the problem is what we're not looking at and
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what the last episode of that docu series Shiny Happy People
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talks about is the the very insidious and subtle
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infiltration that those extreme principles from, you know, not
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just those two, but those are two that we have documented now
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right from Bill Gothard and his organization and Mark Driscoll
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at Mars Hill that have been interwoven into mainstream
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Christianity that then become much more power oriented and
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less Jesus like now that is some of my opinion, but.
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And he looked at the other thing on hill songs, which is like
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another. Yes.
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I haven't watched that one yet because they're all very like,
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you know, it's like I I was like I had to have friends talk me
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into the shiny happy people one because I was like, I'm gonna
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watch that I'm not doing. And they're like, no, you're
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really. I'm.
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I'm not. No, I couldn't.
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And then it was only four parts and I'm glad I did.
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But yeah, it's just where you see abuse of power over and over
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and over again. Yep.
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So I think that's, you know, to kind of say what you're saying.
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I don't I yeah, that it. You have to be very sensitive to
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where people are and to their story, which I think goes back
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to the trauma because religion and spirituality can be
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traumatizing just like anything else.
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And so being exceptionally aware that before I wade into
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anything, your brain has an old brain story that's not up here
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in your conscious brain. It's it's back in your amygdala,
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it's back in your limbic system that is going to hijack your
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body as well around anything. And that can include religion
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and spirituality. Absolutely, totally.
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So I guess I should introduce myself too, right.
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So I'm Justin McClendon. I'm so I'm the Executive
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Director here at New Waters. I am also a licensed clinical
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Mental health counselor and have had been doing clinical work for
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what feels like a lifetime now. You know, especially since we're
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on the subject of spirituality, so I I'll just share a little
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bit of that story. So I was raised, actually grew
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up in Alabama and Georgia, very Southern Baptist kind of
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upbringing. And you know, I think it was
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just kind of what we did, right. I mean, I, you know, I grew up
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kind of, you know, believing in the faith and things like that,
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and then had my own experiences with active addiction in my, my,
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you know, late adolescence, early. 20s and really had this
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interesting kind of thing where I just kind of walked away from
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it. I had a lot of confusion, was
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trying to just figure out kind of what it meant for me.
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I look back on that period as kind of like the lost, the years
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of my life when it comes to connection and, you know,
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spiritual connection and things like that.
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But through my own personal recovery, like, I was able to,
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you know, find that again for myself and then also had the
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opportunity to kind of redefine what that meant for me and what
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was. What was important for me when
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it came to that and and I think because of some of those
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experiences, a lot of my clinical work and just interests
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and research that I've really dived into has been very centric
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to spirituality and like the importance of developing
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connection, healthy connections with ourselves and the world
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around us and identifying what a higher power means to us and
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those types of things. So, So I'm really excited about
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this being able to have the opportunity to chat with you.
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And Dr. Hong and I actually have another podcast we're doing
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later today, just the two of us that's on spirituality.
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So it's just gonna be, yeah, I think, right.
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So it'll be like that's a theme. When it's a theme, you know,
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it's important. I talked to my friend the other
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day and I said I just learned about this one thing and she
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goes that person I talked to right before you just said that
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thing. Well, it means that God's
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bringing it to you. Like you gotta do it, obviously.
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I love it. I love it.
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All right. So should we get?
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Yeah, so you're going to ask me then to give myself, give an
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introduction of myself, Is that right?
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Okay. Just make sure I sound sound
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proficient. I'm sure you'll get it
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effortlessly, no problem. Hopefully.
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All right. Is it do you go by Amanda Rogers
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combo or is it any combo is the yeah, like gumbo.
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I know. It's gumbo combo.
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OK. All right.
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OK. All right.
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Well, today we're going to welcome Amanda Rogers Come Sorry
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Combo. Amanda.
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Today we're welcoming Amanda Rogers.
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Combo. Amanda, thanks so much for
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joining the new Waters podcast today.
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It's great to have you here. Thank you so much for having me.
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It's just I feel exceptionally honored and have an immense
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amount of gratitude just to both of you, to all of new waters to
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be here. So thank you.
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Great. It's our pleasure.
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Well, just so that everyone can get to know you, can you tell us
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a little bit about yourself and your practice?
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Absolutely. My name, as you said, Amanda
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Rogers combo. I work with Rogers Christian
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Counseling. It is a Christian counseling
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practice here in Charlotte that has been here for about 40
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years. My mom started it and then my
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dad joined her. My mom is a Maryland family
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therapist. My dad is a licensed clinical
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mental health counselor. And it's just grown from there.
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I grew up here in Charlotte. I am one of the few that is born
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and raised here, and then actually planned on being a
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medical doctor. So I was three years into my
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biology degree in Chapel Hill and decided I don't really think
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this is my path. And, you know, mom and dad do
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this. And I think that might be more
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what I'm interested in. But it's actually been so
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beautiful because I am. I nerd out on neuroscience, so
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having that biology background is really beautiful with how
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neuroscience and psychology have grown.
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So I have my Master's in Christian counseling from Gordon
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Conwell Theological Seminary, which was a nice marriage of all
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everything for state licensure, which I think is really
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important on top of a good bit of theology and spirituality
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training. So our goal at Rogers Christian
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Counseling is to bring all of the psychological healthy
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principles. I think it's, you know, we are
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all licensed either as licensed marital family therapists or
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licensed clinical mental health counselors, but we all also have
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some biblical training and have a biblical worldview
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underpinning. So, you know, for people who
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that is important to them, they have a safe space to do really
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healthy psychological work with a space for a shared marriage of
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what's going on with their spirituality as well.
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I've been in practice about 10 years and one of my great loves
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is brain spotting, which kind of is began as more of a trauma
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therapy, but truly you can use it with so many people.
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So I work with kids, I work with teens, I work with individuals
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and couples. One thing that makes our
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practice very unique is my parents did develop a model of
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therapy called Soul Healing Love, which has foundations in
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Amago, relationship theory, family systems theory, along
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with a good bit of cognitive behavioral work as well.
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Because we have a motto this is nothing changes, nothing
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changes. We can bring awareness to these
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cycles and these patterns, but if you're not actually doing
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something different, then we're just going to stay where we are.
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And within that, I do host our podcast, which is the sole
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Healing Love podcast, and we had done workshops for many years,
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couples workshops. When COVID hit, we're like, what
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are we going to do? Are we going to have in person
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workshops now? So we actually have two courses
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that we developed online, one for couples which is the sole
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healing love couples workshop online.
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And we have a track for individuals as well called
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Healing the Soul. So in my everyday life I am
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either chasing my two boys who are quite loud, or I am working
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with people, you know, sitting, talking with them, hopefully
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helpful, helping them find healing.
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Great. Well, I think your background is
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so interesting because many of the people we love working with
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are dealing with. Lots of emotional pain on a
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daily basis and their connection to God or their own spirituality
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is a huge part of how they take care of themselves on a daily
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basis. Very common story.
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People will drink heavily Friday night, Saturday night.
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Got to make it to church on Sunday and rinse and repeat for
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the week's forgiveness. I'll just go out and do it
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again. And.
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So spirituality and emotional pain and addiction, all the
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following attending processes are huge part of everyone's
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life. But very few people have your
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background where they can speak to both parts of that.
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And a lot of them are completely unaware that there's anything
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unhealthy about their rhythm of using self medicating and then
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going to church and trying to have an act of spiritual life at
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the same time. Can you tell me your experience,
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like what that looks like from your side, as someone who's
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deeply, you know, trained in both sides of this story?
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And for anyone who's wondering, is this okay or do I need help?
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How would you talk to them about that?
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Well, you know, kind of approaching everything as, like
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helping them get to their own awareness.
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But, you know, it's interesting because that actually sounds
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like part of an addiction cycle to me, right?
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Where like, part of the addiction itself is actually the
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relief that they're attempting to feel by going to church.
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And is that even actually part of the cycle itself?
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But then there is the piece of, like, OK, well, is this a
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problem? Well, usually once we start
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asking that question then that's our first clue that it's a
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problem. On top of the fact of, you know,
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this recognition of are they sitting in a space of action
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oriented faith, which really is not the grace space that we want
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them to be in or that I want them to be in from a faith
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perspective? You know, just listening to you
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explain that, a thought came up for me is that and I think just
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in something that we face here in my own clinical practice,
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even in my own personal life, I think you know.
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You mentioned that part of that addiction cycle is that they are
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seeking that relief completely agree with that.
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And I think, you know, when we're trying to work with a
19:49
client to get them to kind of see that for their self to
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develop that awareness. You know, I'm sure you
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experienced this too, Amanda, that a lot of times there's that
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resistance there, right? And especially when the
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conversations start to drift in any kind of a spiritual kind of
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context, there seems to be not all the time, right?
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But sometimes maybe a lot of the time.
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That resistance kind of putting the brakes on and and just
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curious as to what your thoughts are.
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I know for me it seems like it seems like a lot of times there
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could be some spiritual trauma there some preconceived notions
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about what that may be, fear for different for a variety of
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different reasons. But just kind of interested,
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what's been your experience with that?
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Yes. Well, you know, one thing that's
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a little bit different is, you know, we are branded as a
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Christian counseling practice. So two people are going to come
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in knowing that that's going to be a part of it.
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But then it's very important to begin to unpack like what is
20:43
their church history, What has been their experience?
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Because some of it has been good, some of it's been really
20:49
positive, and then some have been through an immense amount
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of trauma or they went to a church because they were forced
20:56
to go growing up. Or again, they were.
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There were a lot of. Receive notions when they were
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younger, of what was told and taught that maybe they don't
21:06
resonate with or they don't understand or they didn't even
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really. It wasn't an option, right?
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It's like this is just what we did.
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So when you really unpack of like, you know, the goal of of
21:16
Christianity as I see it, and then if we really look at the
21:19
person of Jesus is to develop, to develop a relationship with
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him. When you're in relationship with
21:23
somebody, you're not going to do everything perfectly.
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They're going to be ruptures, They're going to be needs for
21:28
repair, kind of looking at it from an attachment perspective.
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And you know, how do we do that? But if you have been taught that
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to be a Christian means to follow a bunch of rules.
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Or to you have some type of shame based theology where
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everything is good, bad, black, white, right?
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Wrong. Then there's going to be a lot
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of guilt and shame. There's probably going to be a
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lot of trauma. Like we said, you know, with
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trauma, I think one of the things that's so critical is
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that trauma creates an unconscious story that I tell
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myself all the time. You know, you're you are
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unconsciously running that narrative all the time and it is
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consistently informing your behavior.
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And if part of your story of church is that, you know, people
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who go to church are really mean, or you know the pastor is
22:21
going to yell at me or it's exceptionally authoritarian.
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And there's, you know, like I don't like I have to submit and
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I don't have a will and I, you know, can't do anything for
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myself, you know, or or I'm so, so, so bad.
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There are certain I I'm more nondenominational.
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My dad was a pastor when I was young.
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He went to a lot of different churches of different
22:45
denominations. And I think there are I I just
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tease that I pick on all of them in therapy because they all have
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a little bit of a theology I think is right and potentially
22:55
wrong because. You know, someone can look at
22:58
the Bible and they can be like, okay, Here's this.
23:00
Exactly what it is like, yeah, but okay.
23:02
The Southern Baptists think that, and the Presbyterians
23:04
think that, and the Methodists think that, but they're all
23:06
basing it on the same Bible. So, like, maybe we like my
23:09
perspective is perhaps we should zoom out and see.
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Like, what are themes? So context and theme, and in my
23:16
opinion, person of Jesus is absolutely critical when
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challenging those old stories. But just like with any type of
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trauma, we have to approach those stories very delicately
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because they're not being informed by our prefrontal
23:29
cortex, they're being informed by our limbic system.
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And our limbic system is much more powerful in that moment.
23:36
As one of my mentors says they then your prefrontal cortex and
23:40
your limbic system become at war.
23:42
So instead of being integrated and helping you make healthy
23:45
decisions about what you want your spirituality to look like,
23:48
when I'm being triggered, those two parts are at war.
23:51
I actually had a client recently.
23:53
It was the most beautiful thing in the entire world where we
23:56
were talking about parts and we were talking about different
23:59
messages of these parts. And she pulled back and said, Oh
24:03
my gosh, I just had a vision in my head of the office.
24:06
And that's that episode where they're all pointing guns at
24:09
each other. And it was this immediate
24:11
awareness that there are all of these younger parts inside when
24:15
something happens that are now at war with each other.
24:20
And I was like, well, of course we can like, how are you gonna
24:22
move? Cuz this one is saying this and
24:23
this one is saying this. And they're completely at odds
24:25
with each other. And both are in survival mode.
24:28
So both are telling you, I have to do this thing or we'll die.
24:32
And then you're stuck. Absolutely, Yeah.
24:37
So when you're talking about the work you're doing with clients.
24:40
What I have in mind is their their life is going one way,
24:45
their spirituality is going it's its own way.
24:50
And that's how they are like in their present state.
24:53
But as their some people will think about things as I'm just
24:57
going to go to my therapist and work on my therapy stuff and
25:01
then go to church man do my church thing.
25:05
But my read from what you're saying is that no, they're
25:07
actually like much more connected.
25:10
I mean, I think that, yeah. Yeah, I.
25:13
Mean. I think it speaks to all of us,
25:14
right? Everything is so interconnected,
25:16
like body, mind, soul, spirit is so interconnected.
25:18
How do you tease one out from the other?
25:22
So when you see people progress clinically, so to speak, how do
25:26
you see their spirituality evolve along with it?
25:30
Well, you know, hopefully I think it goes back to those
25:33
stories. So one of the things that we use
25:36
in soul healing love that is kind of really beautiful, we
25:38
have something called a soul heligram and it looks a lot like
25:41
a genogram and it's kind of a combination of genogram tools
25:46
and imago tools because imago relationship theory, you
25:48
actually you look at what's called my imago and in the
25:52
theory with imago relationship theory is that we all have this
25:55
subconscious image of that's what imago.
25:59
Is, you know, and I it's a great biblical executive.
26:01
So you know like Imago Day image of God.
26:03
This is the, you know, one of the key principles theologically
26:06
of creation. We are created in the image of
26:07
God. Well, you will fall into
26:10
relationships with people that have the positive and negative
26:13
correlation, a high correlation of the positive and negative
26:17
characteristics of your primary caregivers.
26:19
With that, then we developed something called the Sol
26:22
Heligram, which looks at not just you and your partner or
26:25
people that you tend to date. If it's somebody that is single
26:28
and where we go, OK, look at like the last three partners and
26:31
see what they were like. And then you go back several
26:34
generations, we have them go to their great grandparents and
26:37
with great grandparents they usually don't remember a lot.
26:40
Then we have that's part one where they do this grid of all
26:42
the positive and negative characteristics of their family
26:45
members and then Part 2. Is a list of questions and we
26:48
want to get to the old brain. So kind of like Freud with the
26:52
free association is like do not think about this very long.
26:55
Fill out this part and then we have a list of questions as Sole
26:59
Healing Love Part 2 or the Sole Healogram Part 2.
27:02
And it says, so it's like look at the you did you just did all
27:05
this work cognitively to put it on paper.
27:07
Now don't go to the cognitive part of your brain.
27:08
Just answer these questions after bringing some of that into
27:12
into your awareness. So some of the subconscious to
27:14
pre to actual conscious. And it's questions like women in
27:18
my family are men in my family are, conflict in my family is.
27:22
But a big, big, big one is. You know, faith in my family is
27:26
religion in my family is, spirituality in my family is.
27:30
So there's some that we have actually in our workbook.
27:32
But if I know that's if I have a sense that a client has had some
27:36
religious trauma or that spirituality has been somewhat
27:39
damaging for them, then I will throw in a few other questions.
27:43
Like let's just say like religion, let's say church.
27:46
Let's say Bible study. So what is Bible study like in
27:49
your family? Oh my gosh.
27:49
It's like this hours long thing where like I have to confess to
27:52
my elders and then, you know, they're telling me what to do.
27:54
It's like, ooh, those are some stories in there, right?
27:57
So when we do the Part 2, it's getting to those stories.
28:01
It's getting to those trauma, you know, beliefs again, that
28:06
are consistently informing us whether we're aware of it or
28:10
not. And so hopefully as we progress
28:14
in therapy, what not only what we're seeing is we're seeing
28:17
just an integration and healthier thinking overall.
28:22
I love, I don't know if you guys have heard of Father Richard
28:25
Rohr. So he's a big Inneagram teacher,
28:27
but he also does a lot on mysticism and spirituality and
28:31
think he's fantastic. But one of the things that he
28:34
talks about, and as I heard him talking, I think I was reading
28:37
one of his books or listening to a couple of podcasts.
28:40
He said that in spirituality, a lot of times we we keep people
28:46
in a very black and white state. And it reminded me of Lawrence
28:49
Kohlberg and the stages of moral development.
28:52
So with moral development, you know, Kohlberg had these stages
28:56
where initially it's like good, it's like black, white, right,
28:59
wrong, good, bad, good girl, bad girl.
29:01
And that. I think it's 4 levels.
29:03
I'm drawn on my memory now, but. That the ultimate level is this
29:06
integration where we take in a lot of information and then go
29:11
based on all of this, based on holding many, many things in in
29:16
in space. Now I make these decisions and
29:18
my morality. But what Colbert found is that
29:21
many, many people stay in that black and white good girl, bad
29:24
girl, State, good boy, good girl.
29:28
And that's what I as I was listening to to Richard Warre, I
29:31
thought, Oh my goodness, this is kind of what it seems like with
29:33
spirituality is that we teach people, we promise them heaven
29:37
for fear of hell. So it can be very fear based, it
29:41
can be very shame based. It's something where they look
29:45
at like I did this so I'm being punished versus like if if the
29:50
whole point like Jesus had 12 disciples.
29:54
Not 12 convicts that he was punishing, right.
29:57
He was teaching them, like that's the whole point, which
29:59
also, I mean this pulls back to a real big like soapbox of mine
30:02
these days is parenting styles where, you know, like you get
30:05
older people who will push back at the gentle parenting styles.
30:07
And I'm like, yes, but when we're punishing people, they're
30:10
not actually learning. If if we're disciplining our
30:13
children so that they're we're teaching them, that's really
30:16
different than being punitive and also allows their brain to
30:20
integrate. So that they're making decisions
30:23
based on many, many, many factors.
30:25
They love dialect while behavioral therapy with that
30:27
right, it's not the black or white or the right and wrong.
30:30
It's it's like the black and the white and every single shade of
30:33
Gray in between. So, you know, as I'm working
30:37
with clients, I'm hoping that they're finding that in all
30:39
areas of their life and really able to ask good, healthy,
30:41
critical thinking strategies. You know, even of pastors, I
30:45
think a healthy pastor allows for that.
30:48
Right. Unfortunately.
30:49
And there are a couple of books on narcissism in the church and
30:53
many examples that we could, you know, talk about right here, but
30:56
that that narcissistic culture doesn't allow for those
30:59
challenges. And that's not healthy either.
31:02
What I find challenging is some people don't know what healthy
31:07
spirituality looks like or they disagree, right?
31:10
I would say probably when I was, if you talked to me when I was
31:14
18 or 17 and you told me. You know, maybe we don't know
31:19
what hell looks like. Like there's a really famous
31:22
author, Rob Bell and he's. And he got, basically.
31:26
He got a lot of Flack. For that he.
31:29
Got a lot of Flack for that, but I was wrong for.
31:31
That real, right? And yeah, so some people would
31:34
say a healthy spirituality has hell and heaven, and if you
31:40
don't live right, then you go to hell.
31:41
And like that is like a true spirituality.
31:44
And if it's not a true spirituality, it's not a healthy
31:46
one. But we can also see as
31:49
therapists how like those types of spiritualities do lead to a
31:53
lot of emotional pain and shame and breakdowns in their life.
31:59
It just seems such a personal issue though.
32:02
And like how do you approach that topic of spirituality with
32:05
patients that view things differently than you in terms of
32:09
like what is true and versus what is healthy?
32:12
Very, very sensitively because everyone is in the space that
32:15
they're in and the time that they're in for a reason.
32:18
And so allowing like my my job, I mean ethically as well.
32:26
Number one is typically like I do have a biblical perspective.
32:29
So there's a lot more aligned with what a lot of my clients
32:32
are going to think than not. And I believe that any, like, to
32:37
me, shame is just about the worst thing ever.
32:40
So if you grew up like if if, if somebody grew up in a shame
32:43
space, which there are a lot, especially in the South.
32:48
Yeah a lot of shame based theology.
32:50
I I am like real big on challenging it because first of
32:54
all from like a clinical perspective shame we know leads
32:58
to really negative outcomes. So shame.
33:01
I am a bad person. I am horrible.
33:04
I am awful. That is a space that is is
33:09
highly correlated with depression and anxiety, even
33:11
suicidality. So that is just like unhealthy
33:15
for everybody. Like it's just not good for you
33:17
right now. Guilt, that's good, right?
33:20
Guilt is I did something wrong. I've done something wrong and I
33:24
need to change, right. It's allows us to move to a
33:27
space of change. So one of the first places that
33:29
I will challenge them is in that shame guilt space.
33:34
Right. Is how do we we move from like a
33:36
shame space that you are so bad and you are awful to oh, like I
33:41
did something wrong. And then a lot of times I'll
33:44
just bring in like just small as it's kind of like you know like
33:46
watering something a little bit at a time.
33:49
Right. Well like, oh, so that's what
33:50
Jesus said. He came in and he told them how
33:52
horrible they were. Definitely when they caught that
33:55
woman in adultery, he picked up all the stones and he threw a
33:57
matter, right. I mean let's do it too.
33:59
And then they go, right. They just sort of pause and
34:02
they're like. No, no, no, he didn't actually.
34:06
He told everybody to put them down.
34:08
And so when you really begin to confront those stories with the
34:13
person of Jesus, they are, it's. But again, you know, it's a slow
34:16
process, right? It's that.
34:18
Oh, and and, and with that of course, in my opinion has to
34:23
come a lot of bodybased regulation because from a
34:26
bodybased perspective, if I grew up in a space.
34:29
With a lot of shame based theology, where am I probably
34:32
living most of the time that I'm in church.
34:34
We're probably in fight or flight consistently and I'm
34:37
hyper vigilant, hyper vigilantly walking through my life,
34:41
categorizing everything that I do.
34:43
Terrify that. I'm going to make a mistake.
34:46
I think what? What is the personal?
34:49
This is personal, but a personal irritation of mine is the.
34:57
What is the word I'm looking for?
34:59
Just the double standard. Or like you know what?
35:02
We say one thing and we do another.
35:04
It's like, so we will say from the pulpit very regularly that,
35:08
like, you are not perfect and God knows that you are not
35:11
perfect and that is why Jesus died for you.
35:12
And that is why he is here. Because you are not perfect and
35:16
you don't have to be perfect and there is grace.
35:19
And no judgment. It's like my favorite, right.
35:21
And then he you walk to, you know out to the parking lot and
35:25
they're like condemning you for whatever just happened.
35:29
And so it's sort of I guess 2 faced.
35:31
And and to be fair to those people, they're not even seeing
35:35
it. But then for us all to just pull
35:38
back and have this awareness of like we are, we are saying one
35:41
thing and we're doing a lot of times a complete other thing.
35:45
And so I can't change. A large church on its own,
35:50
necessarily. But what I can do is I can sit
35:52
with that person and say is that really, is that actually true?
35:57
And you know, is that accurate? Does that do those things line
36:00
up? Oh, OK Kind of like back to what
36:03
you were saying earlier Doctor Hong about like does it line up
36:06
with the LG? Because another piece of it is
36:08
if I want to live a healthy Christian life like Jesus did,
36:11
then no, I'm not perfect. And I can recognize that I'm
36:13
perfectly imperfect and. I am going to strive to do
36:18
better. So if I am partying all weekend
36:21
long and I am hung over in church, that feels like a little
36:26
bit of incongruence. There.
36:28
Those were those psychological principles.
36:29
Come in again like, OK, well, help help me understand that.
36:32
That's one of my favorite. Help me understand.
36:34
And I do this a lot, as you can see in the video, like I do the
36:37
comparing hints. You've got this on one side, you
36:39
got this on the other. Help me understand how those two
36:42
meet. Because I don't know.
36:43
Logically in my brain they don't.
36:44
They don't meet really well. Totally.
36:48
But it's totally normal to live this totally disconnected life.
36:51
Like, yes, I think more people live disconnected lives than
36:54
live integrated lives. I think that that is, that's a
36:58
whole other piece of something that I have really been, you
37:01
know, noticing lately. So with brain spotting, which is
37:04
one of my great loves, the way that they look at trauma.
37:07
So brain spotting, the quintessential piece of it, is
37:10
where you look affects how you feel.
37:13
And there's a specific then eye position that we're looking for
37:17
that's associated with a physical, with a memory or a
37:20
feeling. And the way they look at it is
37:23
that our brain kind of encapsulates trauma.
37:27
So that's that dissociative piece of trauma.
37:29
So it's in a capsule. As we look at that spot, it
37:33
helps our limbic system open up and unwind that capsule.
37:38
And then I think about I've thought about this a lot lately
37:41
with a DHD. Because so much ADHD and I mean
37:46
my understanding too like significant amount of ADHD and
37:49
addiction because of the impulsivity and seeking for
37:52
something to bring brain regulation but so much ADHD and
37:57
certainly there is a genetic component which can also be
38:00
transgenerational trauma informed which we know with
38:02
epigenetics. But I've begun to look at like
38:07
that, you know, if a DHD is these many little moments of
38:10
dissociation constantly, then there are 1,000,000 and one of
38:15
these capsules in our in our brains and in our nervous system
38:19
that are locked off and they're not integrated.
38:23
So they're so then our brain is not talking to itself.
38:27
And so, like you're saying is we spend then the vast majority of
38:31
our time completely dissociated and disconnected.
38:35
And and I've even seen it happen in session with people where
38:38
we're talking about something like let's talk about this thing
38:40
that happened with your family and this is and they'll be
38:42
sitting there and you know, they usually are some 80 and it'll, I
38:46
don't know, I forgot. I don't even know.
38:49
It's like oh, that there, right there.
38:51
That was the moment that you dissociated because your brain
38:53
had a story that came from one of those trauma capsules that
38:56
said that is too hard to talk about.
39:02
And so all of these methods and modalities, I think it's so
39:05
critical to find things that bring integration.
39:07
It's one of the reasons that I'm a huge proponent of meditation
39:10
because when you look at the neuroscience behind meditation,
39:13
it is showing that it actually brings integration.
39:16
You know Jo Despenza has his. Four day workshops and they do
39:19
Fmri's of people and by the 4th day you actually see the
39:23
integration in the whole brain. The whole brain is lit up.
39:26
So it's like we can't even argue with this at this point.
39:28
Like we're watching the scan of of this is where the brain was
39:32
before and this is where it is now and it looks amazing.
39:34
So we're bringing that integration where we can make
39:37
informed decisions about all of these things.
39:42
Absolutely. Yeah, I I would butcher the
39:45
research, but I was recently listening to another podcast and
39:49
they were basically talking about the same thing.
39:51
They were talking about you know the brain activity in brain
39:55
scans of individuals that are, you know just kind of the the
39:58
non meditating individual or maybe the novice if you will
40:01
versus individuals that are you know, highly skilled meditators
40:04
or also found very similar brain activity individuals that were
40:09
like spiritual leaders. And just I didn't see the scans
40:13
myself, but just listening how they were talking about it
40:15
basically the same to what you were saying, just dramatic
40:17
differences in in the the activity across the brain,
40:21
certain areas that were active, more active with those
40:24
individuals than others that were either, you know, not
40:27
meditating or just novel novely meditating.
40:30
Very interesting stuff for sure. Yeah, I think it's fascinating.
40:34
And it's like really cool research.
40:36
It is. It's very cool.
40:38
I think the idea, one idea that brings all these things together
40:40
is this idea of a soul healing love.
40:43
I love the name of that approach to therapy that the Rogers
40:48
family has created because I feel like it when you talked
40:52
about healthy spirituality, unhealthy spirituality, it it
40:55
kind of labels things right, Like your spirituality is wrong,
40:59
it needs to be fixed and it feels like a very distancing,
41:04
judgy type of conversation to have.
41:06
Whereas I think the idea of like.
41:08
Soul healing love sounds very noncontroversial.
41:12
It sounds like something we would all love to have in our
41:15
lives. So but you know, it all comes
41:18
down the details, right? So what if you were to explain
41:22
to somebody what is soul healing love and and how it's used
41:26
therapeutically? How would you explain this to
41:29
someone who's a novice or you know, like a potential client?
41:33
Yes, Well, so. There's two different tracks, so
41:37
there's the individual piece and then there's the couple's piece,
41:41
where it where it came from initially.
41:44
So healing love is really very heavily.
41:47
So in the 90s it is becoming a growing trend.
41:50
I have met more therapists that are getting trained in Harville,
41:52
Hendricks and Mago, Relationship theory I think for a very long
41:57
time in marital work. John Gottman, John Julie
42:00
Gottman's work has come through and Sue Johnson's emotion
42:04
focused therapy, which are all fantastic.
42:06
But in the in the 90s my parents heard about Imago relationship
42:10
theory and Harville is very heavily Freudian and young Ian,
42:16
he's very psychoanalytic. So one of the underlying
42:19
principles is that we all get pulled into these repetition
42:22
compulsions, which is a Freudian defense mechanism where we are
42:26
compelled to repeat patterns from childhood in.
42:32
The hopes that this time we'll get it better, so we do it to
42:36
meet the needs that were met and then find a way to meet the ones
42:40
that weren't. So this is where that idea of
42:42
the imago comes from, that I am drawn to the image of people who
42:48
have the highest correlate to my my primary caregivers, which is
42:52
great if you have great family. But what if you don't?
42:55
Or I? This is a big, big, big thing.
42:58
And I actually said this to a couple the other day.
42:59
I said I just want to be exceptionally clear about
43:01
something I said. I have never met either of your
43:03
parents, I said, But I have an utmost amount of respect for
43:07
them. I have so much compassion for
43:09
them. I have so much love for them.
43:11
Nothing about this is blaming. That is not the goal at all.
43:16
The goal is to bring awareness and understanding because no
43:20
parent is perfect. Goes back to, like, how do we
43:25
help ourselves not feel shameful about talking about our families
43:29
or also our parents to feel shame if we're bringing things
43:33
to them? My son's been going through some
43:35
things lately and I was talking with a therapist friend about it
43:38
and she said, well, I mean, some of what you're explaining sounds
43:41
like actions of avoidant attachment.
43:44
And I mean, it was like I had to check myself, had to do my own
43:47
deep breathing because I'm like. Like to tell a therapist that
43:51
their child doesn't avoid an attachment is like knife to the
43:54
heart. But I didn't see it that way.
43:56
But I did. I was like, OK, go.
43:58
You're right. It was like the things that he's
44:01
doing are it's like I'm hitting you, but I love you.
44:03
I'm hitting you. But I'm like, yes, you're right.
44:04
That is a little bit of that, you know, ambivalent, avoidant.
44:08
And I said I just don't know what I've done to.
44:14
To do that. And I.
44:15
And it was more reflective. It wasn't like, I don't know
44:18
what I've done. It was like, oh, gosh, well,
44:20
what have I done? And she, it was beautiful.
44:22
She said, you know what I like to really consider it's not what
44:26
you've done. Now, if I had been in the
44:27
therapist chair and someone had said this to me was like, yes, I
44:29
would have gotten there. But as the mom, I'm like, oh,
44:30
gosh, what did I do? But she said it's not what
44:33
parents have done. It's the child's perception.
44:37
So with soul healing love, we look at what we call soul
44:40
wounds. So soul wounds are needs in
44:42
childhood that did not get met. And when they're not met,
44:45
because of the perception of children that like, oh, somehow
44:49
this is about me, I love what Gaboramati says.
44:51
He says children are very narcissistic, not in a
44:55
disordered sense but in an egocentric state.
44:58
So everything that happens, they internalize as what did I do
45:02
that caused this? And it has to do with the way
45:04
the brain develops. You know, the younger we are, we
45:06
don't have that other. As much so with a soul wound, it
45:10
is a need in childhood that does not get met.
45:12
When it does not get met, we internalize it as a basic fear
45:17
that we carry about ourselves, and then we develop an
45:20
adaptation to that. So I think addiction falls in
45:25
light. I I actually my one of my
45:26
working theories of addiction and I don't work specifically
45:30
with addiction but I like to talk with some some gentlemen
45:32
that you guys have actually had on the podcast.
45:33
I've good friends with Patrick Ballsley and Robbie Shaw and
45:36
some of these other addiction counselors in town and I say
45:38
what do you think about this. But I think that the the
45:42
underlying route for most addiction is an initial self
45:45
abandonment, which I think comes from the need for support and
45:49
connection that I didn't get. And so the only way to get it
45:53
was to merge with another and go into that fawn response.
45:56
And so I abandoned myself and I'll do all kinds of things.
45:59
I'll, you know, you know, a lot of in brain spotting.
46:03
Robbie Abels is she has a fantastic model for addiction,
46:07
for brain spotting, and she talks about how you treat the
46:11
substance addiction. But, she says then whenever I've
46:14
treated the substance addiction, I have to get to the underlying
46:17
addiction because these folks have been abandoning themselves
46:20
long before they could find a substance.
46:22
And usually she finds it goes to food or sex.
46:27
So are you at you're an overeater undereater, you know
46:30
something like that because then that was what you were using to
46:33
to medicate. So back with so healing love
46:37
then I I will often use an example of the need for
46:40
unconditional love. So if we all need unconditional
46:44
love and acceptance, which side note sometimes.
46:48
Is thwarted in spiritual circles.
46:51
Because, again, it's that I say one thing, I do another.
46:54
I say no matter what, I love you.
46:56
But when you don't do what I want, I withdraw love, right?
46:59
So it's like this confusion in the brain of like, wait, but is
47:01
it or is it not? But when I have the need for
47:04
unconditional love and acceptance, and I don't receive
47:06
that as a child, then I will internalize I'm I'm not good
47:09
enough. So my basic fear is this fear of
47:12
inadequacy, this fear that I'm not good enough on some level.
47:16
And then I'll find a way to adapt to it, because nobody
47:18
wants to walk around feeling like they're unworthy
47:20
constantly. So we find a way to adapt.
47:23
So I say, same wound, same need, same wound, opposite adaptation.
47:27
One person goes, I will never get anything wrong, ever.
47:31
I will always dot all my eyes and cross all my t's.
47:33
And they Their adaptation is perfectionism.
47:36
So I'm going to make sure I get all the love that I need because
47:38
I'm going to be perfect all the time.
47:40
Another person goes, forget this, that's too hard.
47:44
I'm going to do whatever the heck I want.
47:46
So then they carry that adaptation, which works for a
47:48
long time. It's just like an addiction.
47:51
It works for a while until it doesn't.
47:54
And particularly where it comes out is in relationships.
47:58
So you know, if we're finding this and then what happens is we
48:02
tend to find people that have similar wounds And and because
48:05
of the higher correlation to these characteristics of my
48:08
primary caregivers, the people who are going to trigger me the
48:11
most and send me to that old brain, you know, are going to be
48:15
my parents. And my partner.
48:18
And so one of the things that we do initially when we we mostly
48:22
use it as a couple's model, it was looking at how your soul
48:26
wounds are keeping you from living in healthy harmony.
48:30
Not only initially we did a lot with just like with each other
48:33
because it was a more of a couple's model.
48:35
But then as you begin to look at that, I always tell people now
48:38
they're like, well, so is it that my spouse is supposed to do
48:40
this and they're going to, you know, tell me that I'm good
48:42
enough and and meet my needs. We have various exercises.
48:46
Or is it that I have to do it for myself and I say yes, yes,
48:50
I'm like, it's both, right. Because not only do I need to
48:55
like it's really wonderful to become aware that when me and my
48:59
my spouse have a horrendous argument over how you're
49:02
supposed to fold a tshirt and the correct way to do that, that
49:06
when you peel back all the layers what we're actually most
49:10
likely I mean you know we that we have some core issue that's
49:12
hitting a soloing when there is a high level of reactivity.
49:16
Then you are not talking about the present, right?
49:20
It's kind of like what? You know what you guys were
49:21
saying. If you have someone who comes in
49:22
who's exceptionally resistant to spirituality, they're not
49:25
talking about today. They're not talking what they
49:28
just heard about something spiritual.
49:31
Right now, they're talking about an old story in that old brain.
49:34
So you know, if you're fighting with your spouse over over that,
49:37
it feels really big. But the bigger reaction you
49:41
have, the more emotion that you're giving a situation is a
49:44
much, it's a clue that this is a story that's part of, that's
49:48
comes from a soul wound. And so we use various tools to
49:51
help them get in touch with that from an individual standpoint.
49:55
It's then when we become aware of those, I may not have
49:58
somebody that's there to be that validating.
50:02
Connection for me because you know, maybe the tshirt is about
50:05
I don't feel heard, right? Like I don't feel that my words
50:09
matter to you. I'm telling you how I would like
50:11
this done because it folds this way, it'll fit in the drawer.
50:14
It just makes everything easier and it seems silly, but it's
50:19
actually a deeper need for connection and validation.
50:23
So in relationships we have something called the behavior
50:26
change request. So we say when we help you dig
50:29
deeper, we have the digging deeper exercise.
50:31
So like here you we argued about the tshirt, you threw them
50:34
across the room, You were very angry.
50:37
You know underneath that was actually some inadequacy and
50:40
some fear of not being heard. And then it reminds you of the
50:45
situation with your family growing up and what what do you
50:47
really need? Well, what I really need?
50:50
Is connection and validation okay?
50:52
So then we put it into a behavior change request.
50:54
How can your spouse help you feel heard and validated?
50:58
So then came the question, well, what do we do if we're not in a
51:00
relationship and no one's there? It's like okay.
51:02
Well, you know, the biggest thing, especially for self
51:04
abandoners, is to witness yourself.
51:07
So how can you hear yourself and say, you know what, your your
51:12
method for this tshirt folding, It's great.
51:16
It's not the only way. Not that part.
51:18
The out of the black and white thinking as you both know, takes
51:21
a lot more work in therapy. But the ultimate goal is when we
51:26
are understanding each other and seeing each other at a soul
51:31
level then we are. That is when we are in flow to
51:36
be able to move into the soul healing love of God.
51:39
And on top of that is when we really recognize, like, truly
51:44
how God sees us. That not only are we able to
51:47
offer compassion to our our partners, but we have it for
51:51
ourselves. So, you know, in the New
51:53
Testament there are three words for love.
51:56
So we have just one word for I always say English is just so
51:58
screwed up. We have so many words for so
52:00
many things. But you love a hamburger just
52:03
like you love your children. Like that just doesn't make any
52:06
sense. But in the New Testament,
52:09
there's Eros, which is a life force, life energy.
52:13
There is phileo, which is friendship, love, and there is
52:17
agape, which is that unconditional love.
52:19
Agape is what what God has for us.
52:21
When it talks about the love of God, it's that unconditional
52:23
love. But in true soul healing, you've
52:26
hit a disconnect somewhere. So you're not experiencing all
52:30
of those. And our goal is that as we bring
52:32
this awareness, as we bring some of this healing, as you work on
52:35
your own stories that you're telling yourself for these soul
52:38
and messages, then that frees you up.
52:41
To move into all of those so you have this beautiful picture of
52:45
all of these forms of love, both for yourself and for others.
52:49
And that's where the soul healing comes in.
52:53
So by the experiencing love, people have the wounds of their
52:57
soul healed. Yes, OK, yes, it's beautiful.
53:02
Love. Love from God.
53:03
Love for yourself. Love from others.
53:07
These are critical. That's really cool.
53:11
That's very good. Yeah.
53:13
It's it's nice just hearing you talk through it because I think
53:16
these are things that, you know, maybe we know, you know, but but
53:21
we don't never maybe stop to kind of think about, you know,
53:23
what's what's broken and what it is that we actually need there.
53:27
So that's that's very cool. Yeah.
53:28
Yes. I think it makes it very
53:30
challenging though for for people in recovery.
53:33
One of their biggest things is they don't know how to give love
53:38
or receive love. In a healthy way, I think you
53:43
know a lot of people that know how to blame other people for
53:45
their problems and they know how to create like a power through
53:51
weakness. Like I can't do that.
53:54
You have to do it for me. You don't do it for me, then
53:57
you're harming me in some kind of way.
54:00
And so it's it's like there's a fundamental brokenness about how
54:03
they connect other people. So I could see this being a real
54:07
challenge in in soul loving. Sole healing love like how to
54:12
even access like that type of love in a healthy way that
54:16
brings about the healing. Yes.
54:19
Well, and I think that's something that as you know, as
54:22
time goes on and as psychology continues to develop, we add
54:27
things. And so in our we did actually do
54:29
an in person workshop in April, which was amazing, was like, you
54:32
know, it was the first one in like 4 years and one of the
54:36
pieces that we added was talking about nervous system regulation.
54:40
Because when I hear that Dr. Wong, my first thoughts at this
54:44
point in what my training like five years ago would have been
54:47
different at this point, what I hear is an inability of like a
54:52
lack of window of tolerance. They need to grow the space to
54:58
be able to even experience love. My mentor is fantastic and we
55:03
actually recorded an episode for our podcast This whole Thing
55:06
love podcast that's gonna come out in mid August and her name
55:09
is Selaney Soza and she, along with another psychologist from
55:15
Australia, Dr. Robbie Abels, created something called the
55:18
Mates Brain Regulation Program. And it's it has some
55:22
similarities to Dan Siegel's work and also they did not know
55:26
about polyvagal theory at the time but then learned about it.
55:28
It looks very similar. But they use a metaphor of a
55:31
house and they call that window of tolerance area, our living
55:34
area. And so when we're regulated,
55:37
when we can notice things, then we're in our living area.
55:40
If we go to fight or flight because of a trigger, we're in
55:42
our attic. If we go to faint or freeze,
55:45
we're in the basement. But one of the things, and
55:47
Gottman points this out, but I think it's.
55:50
For me it's a continued growing awareness like Gottman talks
55:54
about self sooth. So if you are teaching a couple
55:58
of the Gottman method, you're going to say okay, you got a
55:59
self sooth, you got to work on this.
56:01
And so we have some really fantastic and powerful tools,
56:05
one called the gift exercise and one called the Digging deeper
56:08
exercise, which I was actually talking through the Digging
56:10
Deeper without giving it the words a few minutes ago, but.
56:15
Those are cognitive strategies that will get you to a deeper
56:18
level of emotion. So the gift exercise, the whole
56:21
point is that anger is that more secondary reaction.
56:25
Interestingly, I read Renee Brown, Atlas of the Heart
56:28
recently, and she was talking about anger.
56:29
And she's like, OK, I can't exactly come to a consensus on
56:33
people's research of whether anger is secondary or primary,
56:36
but I think we can agree that when we're angry, we're also
56:39
feeling a lot of other emotions and so.
56:42
Our goal with the gift exercise is to get you to the other
56:45
emotions. Because when you're just talking
56:47
in anger, that's all you're talking about.
56:49
It's like, I'm so mad at you and so and sometimes people are just
56:51
in all outrage. So the gift says, what is
56:55
underneath your anger? So when you're angry, are you
56:59
experiencing guilt? So it's an acronym inferiority
57:03
or inadequacy fear. Or trauma.
57:08
Is it reminding you of a past trauma or are you hurting right
57:11
now? Is it pain?
57:12
So guilt, Inferiority, Fear, trauma.
57:15
It's a gift exercise. The one thing about it, though,
57:18
is you can't even talk about that until you found some
57:25
nervous system regulation. And so this is where I go back
57:29
to like a lot of those bodybased stretches.
57:32
Like, you know what? Everybody in this room pause.
57:35
This this couple's interaction is getting real heated right
57:38
now. Even my heart rate is going up
57:39
right now, say let's just stop. We're all going to take deep
57:42
breaths right now because we can't talk about that until we
57:47
move into that healthier space. But one of the things that she
57:50
said as we were recording that would just stuck with me as she
57:54
said, the thing about the living area is people can't, people are
57:59
uncomfortable and they can't handle their discomfort and.
58:04
They can't handle their comfort and that was like this huge
58:08
awareness as as you know, I've known her for years and we she
58:12
said this today and I was like, but it's so true, right, Because
58:17
our nervous systems are we are not only wired to do something
58:21
with our discomfort, but what on earth do we do with our comfort
58:27
That's foreign. So that's where some of those
58:30
self sabotaging parts will come back in.
58:35
Absolutely. Yeah.
58:37
Yeah. I I I think that's so very true.
58:40
I think that very it echoes what you were just saying, Doctor
58:42
Hong. I mean like even when someone's
58:44
trying to provide help for that person that's in crisis or that,
58:47
you know, dysregulated individual that you're trying to
58:49
provide help or support or love or connection.
58:52
And like you said, you know, continuously just kind of
58:54
pushing that away. And I guess the opposite of
58:57
that, you know, rewinding to what you said about, you know,
58:59
these kind of two paths that someone could take, one being
59:01
like perfectionism, if you will, or like overfunctioning and then
59:04
the other be, you know, this kind of other.
59:08
I could see that going the other way because I think the other,
59:11
the other way that we see people, people present an
59:14
addiction is yes, either they're, you know, they're not,
59:17
they're dysregulated, but they're pushing away the
59:19
individuals that are trying to provide help and support or, you
59:23
know, it's the opposite of that, right.
59:25
It's even though they are dysregulated, they don't want
59:29
like, so they just want to do it by their self, right?
59:31
So I don't know the same, but like a different kind of tone to
59:34
it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
59:38
I think everyone's trying to find peace in some form or
59:40
another, absolutely. But at the end, they don't
59:43
really know what peace looks like.
59:46
Like we grew up in a very chaotic, fragile, volatile
59:50
family and system. Peace looks like those moments
59:54
between the storm. And that's not really peace
59:57
actually. And all these efforts to self
1:00:01
soothe are totally foreign to people.
1:00:04
But getting back to the the the core issue of spirituality, I
1:00:08
think it is pretty understood that God wants or how our power
1:00:13
wants us to be at peace with the world that we are living in.
1:00:17
And what that actually looks like is everything fits together
1:00:21
in a sustainable way. But how do we create the
1:00:24
sustainable connections is something we didn't learn
1:00:27
growing up in our chaotic families.
1:00:30
But the spirit longs for us to have it, and it's out there for
1:00:34
us. We work with people who've
1:00:37
who've been down this journey, been down this path, and they
1:00:41
they show us, they coach us on how to do it.
1:00:44
And I think that those are very there's a spiritual moments when
1:00:47
you're connecting with people and putting those pieces back
1:00:50
together. Yeah, I see too.
1:00:52
Something up. And I'm going to borrow this,
1:00:54
this concept from from someone else.
1:00:55
So it's not original to myself. But you know, you were saying
1:01:00
earlier in the conversation about, you know, is your
1:01:02
spirituality healthy or or unhealthy?
1:01:05
So this concept I'm going to borrow is that if we could
1:01:08
reduce even spirituality just a little bit further, that maybe
1:01:13
it's more about how we're living our life, right?
1:01:15
It's how we're engaging with other people.
1:01:16
It's the things that we're doing, The activities that we're
1:01:19
doing, are we? Are we engaging in things that
1:01:21
are fulfilling or are we engaging in things that are
1:01:23
further just regulating us? And I think the question can
1:01:27
become at that point like is our way of life maybe healthy or
1:01:30
unhealthy, right. Then that's just can maybe even
1:01:33
just start with exactly that. Like what are we doing with our
1:01:36
time, you know, what are we directing our attention and our
1:01:38
focus on? And then and then maybe at some
1:01:41
point we can introduce that maybe this is spirituality or
1:01:44
this can come and grow from that point, right?
1:01:46
Yeah, absolutely. Well, these are deep waters here
1:01:50
on the I feel like this is only the beginning.
1:01:54
We've only got into me the 1st 10 feet of where this topic
1:01:58
could actually go. But I'm so happy we had this
1:02:01
time to speak with you, Amanda, because you have a level of
1:02:04
expertise that's so rare in both the therapy side and the
1:02:08
spirituality side. And it's that connection between
1:02:12
those two pieces that's so powerful for people to find
1:02:16
healing in their life and get to this peacefulness that we're all
1:02:20
searching for. So thank you for joining us
1:02:23
today and we, we would love to highlight you as a resource.
1:02:27
We'll put links to the podcast, to the practice, all in the show
1:02:31
nights. So we encourage all of our
1:02:32
listeners to make sure to dig into the show notes and find the
1:02:36
Rogers Family Christian counseling practice links there.
1:02:40
Yes, thank you so much. It's been an immense honor.
1:02:43
So thank you very much. I really enjoyed the
1:02:45
conversation. Likewise, thank you so much,
1:02:47
Amanda.