Tag: counseling

How going to bible college or seminary can make your porn problem worse.


  

The Bible tells the story of Abram, being chosen by God, to set off on journey to a far country. 

The season before starting college or seminary can be similar: an exhilarating time with a sense of clarity about God’s calling and purpose for your life, a start of a new chapter, a new adventure. 

It can be a time of growing faith and a strong sense of God’s presence and purpose for your life. 

It can also be a time of hidden danger. 

Like Abram dealing with pharoah, lying about his wife Sarah to save his skin in Genesis 12 , along the way to where God wants you to be, there can be unexpected challenges at key moments, that can threaten To compromise your character, destroy your integrity and inflame any hidden shadows or addiction in your life.  Particularly porn. 

For about the past 11 years I’ve been meeting with seminary and bible college students about porn.  Tragically, it’s something that threatens to derail their dreams and goals of serving God in ministry before they’ve even really had a chance to start.  

Starting at a new college or seminary may include moving to a new town, a new living situation, new roommates. 

It may involve a new job, new relationships, social groups. 

There will probably be new shiny, attractive people for you to flirt with or connect with/stalk on social media.

New churches to try, small groups or ministries to be involved with and serve with.   

Putting your best foot forward or even the desire for a fresh start, a clean break from the past, can make you vulnerable to putting on a mask again (or maybe you’ve never taken the one your wearing off) but now there’s more at stake in your new role as someone who is devoting the next few years of your life to being essentially a “professional” christian. 

There can be this assumption that because you’re a youth pastor intern or a counseling student counseling people about porn, that you are doing fine in this area.  Being in leadership, or being a “bible college student” or a “seminary student”, can be a trap.

There’s more at stake when you’re not just one of the guys in youth group who’s struggled with porn.  What happens when you’re the youth pastor who people are now looking up to as the example of sexual purity?

It may have been something that you’ve worked hard to overcome, something you been authentic and honest about back home.  The temptation with new relationships is Why go through all that again? What if these new people aren’t as gracious and understanding as my friends and family back home? What if my past is a deal breaker with the cute girl I’m just starting to know in class? 

In seminary and bible college, there’s regularly scheduled come-to-Jesus moments, aka chapels, that also can be life-changing and grow your faith. Your professor may even start classes with prayer. 

There’s also the danger of becoming complacent, taking it for granted, or even becoming numb to these opportunities to worship and meet with God.  

There will be new teachers and leaders to look up to, new books to read, new subjects to learn and explore which is exciting and what you’re paying lots of money for. 

But you may find yourself studying and reading (very likely) much more than you have in your life and feel like your head is going to explode. 

You may struggle with feeling stretched, challenged, maybe even overwhelmedacademically  for the first time. Feeling incompetent or doubting whether you’ll be able to handle the workload might be a shock.

You may even have to drop a class, or fail, the first time.

You might start a new student ministry, which may be awesome.  
But sometimes, it’s not. 
Sometimes, you may end up with a poor fit for your skills and strengths, who you are. 
You may not click, for different reasons, with your supervisor or mentor. 

New rhythms, a new room and bed, new gym or CrossFit box. 
You have to find new self-care spots and times. 

Depending on how you deal with change, if you struggle with social anxiety or introversion, this may or may not go smoothly. 

You may even lose some sleep in the transition. 

Your sense of self, your confidence, can be shaken.

For these reasons, and more, even as your committing your life to learn more about God and serve Him with your life you can become more vulnerable to a problem with porn (or other addiction) either getting worse or resurfacing.

Addendum: Even if it’s a problem you’ve had victory in, sometimes a problem that been dormant can flare up again because often porn can be “managed” with rigid boundaries, filters, computers in public places, accountability, busyness – a host of strategies and outward restrictions – back home.  But if the root causes of the addiction aren’t addressed, without those usual safeguards in place, the beast of porn easily can be unleashed and come back just as strong, once the lid is taken off. 

So, here’s a few suggestions. 

Be mindful and prayerful. Be honest and stay honest about what is really going on in your heart and mind.

If you’re moving away from your usual support and accountability in this area try to connect as soon as you get a bit settled with a supportive community. Find safe people. Don’t give up if it’s hard at first. 

Don’t spend too much time church hopping or trying to find just the right church, try to get plugged in sooner rather than later. 
Finding a community will help you from feeling isolated. 

Pay attention to your relationship with Jesus.  You can spend hours studying and reading about God, about theology and Jesus and at the same time become very distant and disconnected from Jesus.   

Be mindful of self-care, your mood and stress.  Working and going to school, financial pressures, academic workload, full ministry calendar, social events, just being a college kid (aka taco runs at 2am), hours on the computer, can quickly add up to depletion and survival mode which make you vulnerable to rationalizing, minimizing, justifying and compartmentalizing acting out.   

If porn becomes worse, or has never been something you’ve addressed in your life, it might be helpful to start counseling or recovery group to work on it.   Many schools offer student counseling services that can help.

In the end, Abraham isn’t remembered most for his dishonesty with pharoah about Sarah, he’s known for being a man who walked by faith, whose faith was credited to him as righteousness, a man who ultimately God has used to bless the nations. 

If you struggle with porn, this can be true for you too.

I hope this post hasn’t been discouraging or intimidating but has encouraged you if you are starting bible college or seminary soon (or if you work with students) to be wary of this potential pitfall.

And I hope you’ll see God’s plans and purpose for you clearly as you start the school year. 


You loved me once

  

Every few months, three or four times a year,
when driving to or from the counseling office
while thinking or praying for clients,
I write a poem
here’s a recent one
It helps me let go of the outcomes
while still holding on to hope for them
especially when things get really hard
I hope it might encourage you if this is something you’re struggling with
even if you are single and not in a relationship right now.

What is counseling like anyway? On silence and reflection

  

Photo credit: Sam Illic

Most of the people that come to see me for counseling (or call me for health coaching on the phone) wonder “What’s counseling like anyway?  What am I supposed to do? Just start talking?”

I’m going to write about what a typical session with me might look like. But this is about an aspect of counseling that many counselors, regardless of the theoretical approach to counseling, use.

There’s this technique counselors use called “reflection”.
On the surface it seems pretty simple, after listening for a bit (sometimes not very long) your counselor has a turn and responds with what they’ve heard or repeats back the words you’ve said.
Sometimes it’s annoying, just hearing your words parroted back to you. “Uhhh, yes, I just said that.”
But sometimes reflections in the hands of a counselor go beyond what what you’ve said to what’s been unsaid and to the meaning beneath the surface. 
And that my friend, is pretty awesome.

What does it feel like to be listened to in this way?
This can strike you in a least two ways.

Sometimes a reflection in counseling is like the mirrored surface of the pond that you find on an early morning walk when you’ve gotten up before everyone. 
In the stillness, as the fog lifts off pond, the peace and closeness of God is so safe and real, your desire to hold onto that moment overrides the kid in you that wants to skip a rock across it. 
And life and hope seem as beautiful and close as the sky meeting the water.

Sometimes a reflection in counseling is like the reflection of a bathroom mirror at 3am.
When your upward glance this time goes beyond the painted on smile and meets the pain and regret in your eyes.
When the harsh fluorescent light hides nothing, seeing yourself like this brings a moment of clarity of seeing where life and your decisions has brought you. 

The reflection confronts you with the question of do you want this? 
How long will you run and hide?
The pain and how far God seems as ugly as the walls and floor that surrounds you and you are faced with the decision to give into the despair and go back to the numbness or reawaken, come to your senses. And go back home.

We need those moments of peace, or pain, to see where we truly are.
To begin to change.

And one of the worst things we can do as counselors or clients is to miss what needs to seen and heard and known in those moments. 
To interrupt those moments, by being uncomfortable with the silence or trying to rush through.

Reflection and silence: tools, not just for counselors, that enable us to experience both grace and truth.

How’s the practice of silence in your life these days?

When was the last time that you were able to be still and really reflect?

What rose to the surface?

Or what would, if you made the time or space for it?

First video blog, a message for newlyweds

Here’s a video blog (in three parts) for newlyweds on some areas to watch for as you start married life.  I’ve included a written summary below (not a transcription).

It was fun to make this but hard to organize.

I might make this a blog series to say more in depth about each area.

“You get what you create and you get what you allow.” – Henry Cloud

Here are a few areas that are worth paying attention to early on in marriage, being aware of them and dealing with them proactively can help you create the marriage and family you’ve dreamed about and prevent unhealthy and destructive behaviors, attitudes and patterns from damaging your marriage. Marriage can be the absolute greatest thing, it can also be the hardest, scariest, stressful thing.  Getting off to a good start can be extremely helpful.

Talking about, exploring and working on these areas will help you flesh out what your marriage will look and sound like on the surface and on a deeper level, help you define what it will be at its core, its heart.

1) Practical matters.  Deciding and sorting out what your marriage and home will look like.  Where will everything go? Where will you live?  Who will pay the bills?  Who will take out the trash?  There are dozens or hundreds of little, mundane, everyday choices to sort out.  This is also related to the issue of…

2) Time.

How will you spend your time?  Together and alone.  How will you balance it?  This is something to work through day-to-day, week-to-week.  Pulling back, there is also the question of what will the rhythm of your year look?  How will you spend the holidays?  How will you balance work and leisure and vacations?  And an even bigger picture question, what will you give your lives to?  How will you invest your life, in terms of work and career?  That touches on the bigger question of…

3) Meaning.

What will all this mean?  What will getting married mean to you? Individually and as a couple?  Often, little issues become big issues because there are underlying issues as stake in conflict and in the process of sorting things out at the start of marriage.  Tim Keller in the book The Meaning of Marriage describes a dynamic that a lot of couples face today: a deep disillusionment about marriage, on one hand, and a deep hope or expectation about marriage at the same time.  We can bring a lot of unspoken, deep rooted fears, hurts and hopes to marriage and a few weeks of pre-marital counseling often just touches the surface of them.  Having doubts, second thoughts, anxiety about marriage can be really For Christians, marriage is a symbol of the relationship of Christ and the church; what will that look like for us?

4) Identity.

Who am I now as a married person?  What will be different now?  What will our marriage be?  Even couples that have been together for years can be shaken by the new realities and identity of being married. Where do I end? and where do we begin?  What issues are mine? What issues are ours?  What does the role of being your husband, or wife look like?  Who will I be to you? Will it be what we saw modeled and defined by our parents or will we create something different?

5) Communication and conflict resolution.

Listening well, expressing empathy, giving honest feedback.  Make it a habit to give honest feedback, even if it’s hard and risks conflict.  The pain of feedback early on is much less than the pain of going along and being less than honest and the whole truth coming out later.  Develop language or a ritual of apology, making amends, forgiving and reconciling.  Learn how to support each other during stress and struggle vs. fixing them.  Learn how to ask for help and what you want.  Be assertive and don’t just give in and comply in order to collaborate and create agreements and solutions that work for both of you.

6) Sex. 

Sexual intimacy ideally is a natural expression of the emotional and spiritual intimacy you experience.  It is also something that develops and grows.  Address early on (get help if necessary) struggles, in order to get off to a good start.  Whether you wait for marriage to be sexually intimate or have been prior to marriage, the transition in to marriage and all the changes mentioned above can make this area difficult.  It can be hard to talk about, something that ought to help you feel closer becoming something that pushes you apart. Hurt, rejection, “failure”, anxiety, tension, avoidance, frustration, impatience, feeling used can all quickly enter in to derail this vital area of marital happiness and satisfaction.

7) Stress.

Related to #5.  As a couple, it will help to communicate about health and unhealthy ways to cope and manage stress (and busyness).  Stress often impairs or kills empathy.  Be vigilant at deal with it and other gremlins, like unfair fighting, selfishness, dishonesty.  One of the couples I worked with said it well in describing their struggles: “We had lost our ability to console each other.” Protect that, it’s one of the best things about being married, having someone who can console and support and be there for you.  If not, the person who you turned to for support and comfort can easily become the one who causes hurt and stress.

What do you think?  Is there another area that you would add for newly married couples to pay attention to?

 

Smart People Anxiety

  One of the great things about working and living in Portlandia is the people.

I’ve found Portland is kind of a mecca for some of my favorite types of people: creatives and artists.

I enjoy meeting with folks who are insightful, thoughtful, compassionate, those who sometimes are slow to speak outside the counseling office because they want their words to be well-considered. Often they are introverted but not all. Many are grad school students at the seminary, involved in leadership or ministry. They care deeply about people, often very empathetic and authentic. They inspire me because they see things beyond the surface. Their everyday walking around, thoughts are art. I’d love to read their memoirs or journals. They fascinate me.

The downside though is often creatives and artists because of the way they see the world and the depths to which they think and process things can really struggle with anxiety and depression.

They have high highs and low lows. They quickly can go from “Everything is awesome to everything has gone to hell”. (They’d describe this much better)

They get paralyzed by their introspection

Overwhelmed by the intensity or the changes of their emotions

They can feel isolated and misunderstood.

And frustrated at feeling out of control.

If you add, for many of my clients and grad students, being devote in their faith; they can be vulnerable to another layer of anxiety around believing they are not doing enough for God or for others.

For example, they may feel overwhelmed at the enormity of a social justice issue, at how big the problem is or how much work and changes needs to be done in that area. And they can have a hard time turn off or turning down how concerned or troubled they are about the issue.

When I see this, one thing I tell them is they are suffering from what I call “Smart people anxiety”.

It’s not the simple, garden-variety anxiety or depression – it’s complicated!

Strong thinkers are strong feelers.

There’s levels and layers to their anxiety!

Their anxiety doesn’t just get triggered and then follow one railroad track to a catastrophic ending.

Their anxiety branches off in multiple and elaborate permutations that quickly can overwhelm them.

It becomes a huge suffocating mess to untangle.

Because of how creative and thoughtful and imaginative they are.

Another phrase I use as way of talking and exploring this other than “smart people anxiety” is “Inception level anxiety” or “Inceptionesque anxiety”.

Inception being the movie directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCarprio.

Inception is about a team of people that get hired to create dreams and implant new realities and memories into their targets. A young member of their team played by Ellen Paige has a talent for creating very realistic elaborate dreams. The more realistic the dream world and images she creates, the greater the chances at their deception, their inception, will work.

In the movie, with a challenging target, they attempt to plant a dream, within a dream, within a dream. The problem is the deeper they go the harder it is to distinguish the dreams from reality.

For artists and creative, I think this is a part of what makes their anxiety or depression harder to untangle and treat. They can quickly build elaborate constructs, metaphors, inner worlds and word pictures for what they are going through. We all do this when we go through struggles and experiences, we try to make meaning, to make sense of things. Creatives can overdo this. They can attach so much meaning and attach so many different things to their stressors and triggers; they don’t just catastrophize, they globalize. What might be, what it might mean, quickly becomes reality.

Thing is, it often isn’t completely true, or true at all. Because it might mean something doesn’t mean that is the best or truest interpretation to hold. Just because it feels, or seems real, doesn’t mean it is.

Here’s a few things that the team from Inception did that might help you if you struggle with this type of anxiety:

  • They set limits. When one of their team went down into the psyche, into the dream state, of their target they set alarms to pull them out of the dream. This prevents them from getting trapped in the dream and disconnected from reality forever. If you struggle with rumination and worry you can set limits too. You can literally set an alarm, a time limit, just like the Inception team to remind you to get out of your head and go do something else. You set limits by having a designated space to worry. You can journal. The thoughts can seem a while lot smaller on a page, and you can literally close the book on them when you write them down. Journalling also slows you’re racing thoughts down because we usually can’t write as fast our thoughts. You can also set limits by having boundaries on the types of conten, and how negative it is, that you allow as input or what you create and dwell on. For example, what types of music, media, news, people – and how much and how long – you expose yourself to.
  • They had a totem. Each member of the team had a something to hold, something with someone weight, that they could “carry” with them down into the dream to root them to reality and help them distinguish what was real and what was a dream. DiCaprio’s character had a top that he kept in his pocket and held onto. For folks struggling with the anxiety of quitting tobacco, they often use a totem of their own, a “worry stone” to help them focus on the present and work through a period of craving. For folks with this type of anxiety, focusing on what’s present, being mindful, focusing on things external to them instead of their thoughts (diaphragmatic breathing and exercise help), focusing on their core beliefs, what’s most important, what they know to be true, instead of thinking too far ahead or focusing on their ruminations and visualizations can be very helpful. These are a few ways of grounding themselves and reconnecting with reality.
  • They didn’t do the work alone. DiCaprio’s character, because of his past, lost objectivity. He started to struggle with what was real. It made him vulnerable to making selfish, poor choices that comprised the team’s mission. His past was haunting him. He needed the others on his team, especially Paige, to keep him on track.

If you’re a creative or introvert, struggling with how powerful your anxiety or depression can be, I hope this post will encourage you to use your powers of insight and imagination “for good”.
Watch here on the blog for more posts on anxiety and depression.

In the meantime, what do you think? If you’ve seen the movie, anything you’d add?

And, most importantly, anything you’ll do with this?

 

 

 

Starting in the face of fear and perfectionism

Here’s a post mostly for my counselor friends who are building their practice or platform. But it’ll apply to anyone wanting to start something, like my blogging and writing friends, and my friends who are on the verge of making a change or procrastinating.

Here’s a pic of my blog stats for the past few months.
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Didn’t really know what to expect. I said a little bit about what I’ve learned in the audio blog this past week.
The first month I had 155 visitors. In June, 293. And so far in July, 613. So doubling each month. I’m not sure that’ll continue but it’s encouraging.

One thing that surprised me: in the six years I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve never had anything I’ve written or posted be shared more than 4-5 times. And I post a lot! But in the past three months I’ve blogged about 25 times and half of those posts have been shared at least 10 times. A few have even been shared more than 40 times. What I blog about isn’t much different than what those FB posts were but I guess blogging and blog reading is different. My daughter says one reason is FB readers are just quickly scrolling through their feed at different places and times of the day where they may not have the time to read, engage or share. That makes sense.

I’ve also learned this since starting:
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You can’t grow, learn, improve, achieve what you want, get to where you want to go unless or until you start.
So you might as well begin.

Just start.

Starting before you’re ready is a great antidote to perfectionism because it exposes the lies perfectionism fills your mind with.
The lies that something bad will happen, that you’ll be rejected, criticized, embarrasses.
Maybe you will feel that little but what I’ve learned is that you’ll survive; the flaws and mistakes, imperfections, won’t kill you.
And people are more encouraging and supportive than you imagined.

Thanks for reading my blog so far.
If you are a baby counselor or aspiring writer like me, I hope you are building your platform and encourage you to start your own blog.
I’m also drawing inspiration from this workbook and am thinking about forming a monthly Google Hangout group to work through it together. Let me know if you are interested in joining.

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How do you know if counseling will help? Read this to your husband if you aren’t sure.

One way to decide if counseling would be helpful vs going out for coffee or a date night is when the way you talk (or don’t talk) about your problems becomes the problem, when trying to talk drives you further apart, not closer.

When communication breaks down it can be so frustrating for both husbands and wives. I wrote this too for guys who aren’t sure if counseling would help or be worth it.  

Guys,

What if I told you there was a place you could take your wife and you could talk calmly and efficiently and come to agreements about your conflicts.  

A place where your need to think things through inside before replying outloud would be honored and uninterrupted. 

 A place where you would listen to each to other and find the words to understand each other and feel validated and heard.  

You wouldn’t have to numb or shut off your emotions but could express them because you’d learn to contain them and not be overwhelmed.  

A place where the stress of the present doesn’t steal away the joys of the past or the hope for the future. 

There might be some crying involved but it would only take an hour and you’d leave as friends or at least with the hope that you might be again someday?

That it may seem like weakness but to your spouse it’d be the most courageous thing you could do for her.

And really not just for her but for the both of you. 

What if I told you it could make all the difference. 

Would you go?

Portland and Vancouver area Christian Counseling resources

I get questions about counseling in my inbox sometimes.

Here are some local Christian counseling recommendations and resources.

First of all, I recommend my friends at A New Day Counseling Center which is on the campus of Western  Seminary. We have a team of counselors and psychologists that work with a variety of concerns and also accept different types of insurance.

We also have student interns that receive excellent supervision and can see folks for $20 a session.

Here are a few counselors and counseling clinics I recommend.

Feel free to recommend others below. Apologies to anyone I’ve left off.

For marriage counseling:

Jason Wilkinson at Wellspace Counseling. This is an interview I did with Jason.

Alan Rutherford sees individuals and couples. My wife and I enjoyed and benefited from a Marriage class Alan did for Imago Dei Community.

Roxie Sprick at Gresham Family Counseling.

In town, Nate Bagley and Bridge City Counseling

In Sandy/Gresham Dave and Hollis at River Ridge Counseling

On the west side, Aaron at Discover Counseling

In Clackamas, Cornerstone Clinical and Connie at Partners in Hope

In Springfield, Scott Waters at Veritas Community Counseling.  Here is an interview on marriage counseling with Scott.

In Vancouver, Charis Counseling and Fir Crest Behavioral Health.

Julia Garrison at Garrison Counseling Services. This is an interview I did with Julia.

In Battleground, Parkway Counseling. 

When looking for a counselor, I recommend reading the info and bios at the counseling center’s website for the areas they specialize in, their experience, their description of their approach to counseling, and see if it resonates with you.  You can also call their office usually to ask questions to help you decide.

These days many counselors do telehealth (online video) sessions so you can meet with counselors who are not in your immediate area or city. You will need to schedule with a counselor who is licensed in the state you live in.

Some folks ask me if there are counselors I recommend at Kaiser. Since I don’t work in the mental health department there I recommend folks with KP insurance make an intake appointment and ask to be assigned to a Christian counselor.  Sometimes, KP members are able to get an external referral to clinics outside the KP offices. I think clinics like Western Psychological Services may take these referrals and you might be able to find a Christian provider there.

Briefly, I’ll say here, if you are a Christian you don’t always have to have a Christian counselor to benefit from counseling. I’ll probably blog more about why that’s true here. If you’ve found that to be true for you, I invite you to comment about your experience in the comments.

I often recommend support groups, they can be extremely helpful in recovery, healing, and making difficult changes.

Divorce Care has a website with good information and several support groups locally and nationally. It is also helpful for couples and families that are going through a separation.

Celebrate Recovery also has several groups that meet at churches in the area. It is helpful for a variety of issues.

Refuge at Imago Dei Community in Portland meets on Mon evenings. Their website also has a list of Christian counselors.

Pure Life Alliance has groups for men and women struggling with porn and sexual addiction. They also offer groups for spouses and significant others that have been hurt by their partner’s struggle.

Here’s a website I recommend frequently as well

Cloudtownsend.com – I recommend their books on Boundaries all the time, their video advice channels cover many topics related to relationships, emotional health, etc. They also have Q&A replies to many questions related to mental health. I really appreciate their perspectives on integrating faith and psychology.