Do The Work with Harold McGhee Jr.
Ep. 13 Breaking Boundaries: Embracing Therapy and Counseling in the Church
Get ready to embark on a transformative journey! With our brilliant guest Aaron AP3 Porter, we pull back the curtain on mental health and trauma within the church. Aaron, a beacon of wisdom, takes us on a thought-provoking exploration, helping us understand the significance of mental health, soul care, and the urgent need to burst the stigma bubble enveloping these topics in the religious context. We delve deep into the dual facets of mental health - the scientific and spiritual - and discuss our personal experiences with childhood trauma, the impact it has on our self-perception, and the vital essence of breaking free from past traumas.
Together, we visit the realms of forgiveness, and its impact on men's mental health, especially in their relationships with their fathers. We emphasize choosing forgiveness and learning to let go of past hurts as a liberating force. The conversation takes a turn towards the importance of counseling and therapy within the church. We confront the stigmatization that associates seeking mental health help with weakness and underline the necessity of therapy for everyone - not just those living in crisis.
As we tread further, our discussion revolves around the importance of humility, self-awareness, and the ability to acknowledge our limitations in providing effective counseling. We stress on the significance of leaving personal triggers and biases at the door during counseling sessions and relying on a higher power. The episode is brimming with wisdom, peppered with real-life stories and experiences, and packed with transformative insights on mental health and well-being. So join us on this journey of self-discovery and healing. Let's open our hearts to the experience, and who knows - we might just walk out transformed on the other side.
Get ready to embark on a transformative journey! With our brilliant guest Aaron AP3 Porter, we pull back the curtain on mental health and trauma within the church. Aaron, a beacon of wisdom, takes us on a thought-provoking exploration, helping us understand the significance of mental health, soul care, and the urgent need to burst the stigma bubble enveloping these topics in the religious context. We delve deep into the dual facets of mental health - the scientific and spiritual - and discuss our personal experiences with childhood trauma, the impact it has on our self-perception, and the vital essence of breaking free from past traumas.
Together, we visit the realms of forgiveness, and its impact on men's mental health, especially in their relationships with their fathers. We emphasize choosing forgiveness and learning to let go of past hurts as a liberating force. The conversation takes a turn towards the importance of counseling and therapy within the church. We confront the stigmatization that associates seeking mental health help with weakness and underline the necessity of therapy for everyone - not just those living in crisis.
As we tread further, our discussion revolves around the importance of humility, self-awareness, and the ability to acknowledge our limitations in providing effective counseling. We stress on the significance of leaving personal triggers and biases at the door during counseling sessions and relying on a higher power. The episode is brimming with wisdom, peppered with real-life stories and experiences, and packed with transformative insights on mental health and well-being. So join us on this journey of self-discovery and healing. Let's open our hearts to the experience, and who knows - we might just walk out transformed on the other side.
I have the distinct pleasure to introduce to you one of my brothers from another mother, same father, up in heaven. This guy. Look, I'm not exaggerating when I tell you this guy has wisdom and experience that far, that far exceeds his age. When I tell you he is a sage and one of these scribes that the Bible talks about, when it comes to breaking down complex things and to digestible bite size nuggets, he's an expert. When I tell you that the man is one of my aspirations, when it comes to vacation lifestyle. When I tell you that this guy can preach like he was coming out the womb with the word memorized. This man has a word of God in his heart and his soul. He could take anything I don't know if y'all he could take anything around him and give you a word from it. I'm talking from a stop sign to a new edition group.
Speaker 2:Come on with it now.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you telling you that you, if you've never met him, if you've never listened to him, have you never heard him speak, If you've never prayed with him, you're doing yourself, your life, your marriage, disservice, because he has the tools, the spirit, the anointing to unpackage the things that you combat the most and help you live a life that's on purpose, that's intentional and that's life giving. I'm talking about none other than my brother, my friend Aaron AP three.
Speaker 2:Porter. Come on, brother. I appreciate it. Thanks for the invite. Thanks for the invite. And, man, I'm telling you you didn't have to do all that for me man, I love it I love it. I'm just this dude, that's. You know, man. You know, I'm just another dude.
Speaker 1:Come on, man, but I love I was telling everyone I bring on the podcast man that that means a lot. Everybody that I bring on means a lot to me, man, but people that I bring on, I want to introduce them in a way that um exhaust them while they're still living, because too many times we get our flowers and our roses after we've gone away and we've never get a chance to tell the people that deposited so much into our lives how much they mean to us and how much they affected us in a major way. And you are one of those guys for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, man. I thank you for the invite. I know we've been trying to get get this thing started.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, um, but it's, it's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Yes, um and uh, I just want to give a shout out to you, my man, who are, uh, an entrepreneur, a business owner, a father, a husband, past the hair man, you know now, student man, you ready, you know, just a lot of hasp, but last but not least, for serving our country, uh but, indignity.
Speaker 2:Man in honor, man. So that means a lot to me. So I look at that, you know, and, uh, I like to see brothers doing things. Yeah, you know, yeah, you remember in the hood where we just you know the cat that you would always have it all together. You know what I'm saying. He's like man, he got it. He got it going on, but it was a different kind of going on back then when I was running the streets.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like, yeah, but uh, I appreciate you, man, come on what you bring into the table. Yes, um, uh, bring it to the world, man, because we need this.
Speaker 1:We need this. Yes, we do, we do, we and um, you know, I. I thank you for saying that because, um, when God put this on my heart to do this, I think it was the best platform for me. Personally, I love talking, yeah, I love interacting with people and um, and God just put me on a crash course to mental health, soul care and trauma all in one, and I never thought that would be the direction that I will go. I saw my life as the digital marketing, entrepreneurial, laptop lifestyle guy who could just sell you anything, but God has completely flipped that. Man and um, I'm seeing how it's all coming together, uh, with, with ministry, with pastoring, with counseling, with coaching and, um, even with teaching, yeah, yeah and um, I'm grateful for it. So, man, um, one of the main reasons I wanted to have you on is, man, we're like, uh, uh, credentialed, um, um, in the area of mental health, coaching and um, do the work Like a do all bro, like a come on, come on.
Speaker 2:I don't know what to expect.
Speaker 1:Come listen, I can do. Well, we um, and the crazy part is we. We found ourselves in that same path, but different ways.
Speaker 2:And that's God.
Speaker 1:Yeah and um, you know, I just I knew, I knew the Holy spirit was real and I knew mental health was real, but I didn't know how much of a um mental block I had with churchifying mental health.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, oh yeah, and all I knew like schizophrenia and bipolarism and and depression and all that I knew that was a real thing. But because I grew up in church and we churchify everything, that was just a demon that needs to be casted out. It wasn't a real psychological, neural imbalance that can be scientifically proven, that there's something going on in your head, in your emotions, and so, getting into this field, man, um, I still believe there's a spiritual component to everything, but I also believe that God is a God of everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, god of everything. I mean I like how you put that, because, uh, I felt like for years mental health and uh, in the church was like a I'm just like a stigma, like it was like, yeah, nobody really talked about it, you know, nobody really talked about it. Um, they spiritualized everything. Everything was was so spiritualized and instead of learning the person, we kind of learned the symptom.
Speaker 1:Come on, come on, yes, and.
Speaker 2:I'm like symptoms. There's a reason for that symptom Come on, you know what I'm saying. So we learned the symptoms, man, and that's just. That's just the church way to do things. You know, and, um, everywhere, everybody have their way of doing things. But I think we got to take a step back, uh, and we think about, you know, life and where you've been, you know, and whether or not you had trauma in your life, you had some some issues just growing up, family, family dynamics, all that play into mental health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of it, yeah, do something. That, um, really connected the dots for me was the verse Uh, it's not a versus, a combination of versus, but when it says there's a, there's a fruit, but we don't deal with the fruit, we deal with the root. And so in mental health, you have the symptoms that are the fruit, yeah, and we think the fruit is just a behavior problem, we think the fruit is a discipline problem, we think the fruit is a sanctification problem, but the root, yeah, of that thing is usually trauma. Oh, yeah, the root of that thing is usually mental health. The root of that thing is usually an environment that has been so stressed and so traumatic that the only way that you survived it was to to adapt a mentally unstable way of living. And, depending on how you look at it, it can make you or break you.
Speaker 2:It can, uh, it can, you know, it can, it can, um, it can determine what life really going to look like for you, you know, depending on how you deal with trauma and how you deal with, um, uh, some unbalances in your life. Yeah, you know for me, you know I, I mean, just when I think back as a little shorty for me, uh, five years old, I saw uh, my mother being domestically, just uh, my mother being domestically, just beat you know, by my stepdad and at five years old, seeing that, it really kind of put a root of fear in you at five years old.
Speaker 1:This is five years old.
Speaker 2:Yes, mother had me at 14, my mom's 14, which is yes and grandmother raised me. She gets out of the house, get into a relationship that was not fruitful, was not the ideal relationship and it caused some domestic violence. So as I grew up as a young man, I just, you know, I there was things in my life that will, that will trigger me and I'm like ooh and then fear and anxiety and things start just kind of kind of going on and um. So I walked through a lot of that and it, but it all started at five years old bro.
Speaker 2:Man Five, five, five you know, so it'll stick with you if you don't deal with it. Yes, it will. It will stick with you, you know man.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. That reminds me of, uh, when I was in in therapy with a lady, um from um, when I was dealing with some stuff in my own life. Um, she asked me there was two questions that like revolutionized how I dealt with my trauma and how I saw myself. Yeah, and one question she asked me is, she said, who are you Without telling me what you do? Wow, she said tell me who you are without telling me what you do, because what you do does not matter to God as far as how he sees you. So tell me who you are without telling me what you do.
Speaker 1:Because she saw, she saw in me a performance based identity that if I, if I, if, if certain people saw me a certain way, I will, I will live up to that image. So it was based off what I did, or where I worked, or who I, and so that that really made me dig. And at the end of the, at the end of the, the, the sessions, at the end of the day, it was like no matter what I do, I'm a son.
Speaker 2:I'm a son, before anything.
Speaker 1:I'm a son. And if I can't rest in my sonship to my heavenly father, then no matter what else I, nothing else matters. I could make all the money, I could impact all the people, but if I don't see myself as a son, then I will always try to earn my way into God's good graces. And then she asked me. She said, when she didn't ask me, she told me.
Speaker 1:Once I told her my life story and the traumatizing things that I saw growing up, and she said she says, harold, what you did, god did not condemn because you were surviving. She said. But now she said, as a little boy, as a teenager, you were surviving. She said. But now you are a man, you are a husband, you are a father. You can't keep surviving. Yeah, it's time for you to grow up and start thriving. And you can't do that if you still are have a bit to mentality. You can't do that if it's everybody else fought, not yours. You can't do that if you don't see the part you played in repeating the trauma you experienced. And so I was just like OK, old lady, you coming on a little hard.
Speaker 2:That was me, that was me that was some heat, but those things were.
Speaker 1:Those things stuck with me so much. It reminds me of my dad's favorite scripture. My dad's favorite scripture was when I was a child. I thought it was a child, I lived as a child, you know. I understood as a child, but when? And I could be misquoted. But this the essence is.
Speaker 1:But Paul said, when I became a man, I put away my childish things and I always thought, growing up, my dad would always quote that and I thought, ok, I need to man up. Yeah, I need to man up, I need to. I need to stop crying so much, I need to stop, you know, complaining so much. I thought it meant that, ok, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, get it together and be a man. But coming into this mental health space, bro, god has changed my view on that scripture. When I was a child, I understood through my trauma. Mm. Hmm, I responded through my trauma. I lived a life through the lens of trauma, yeah, but when I become a man, the only way I could become a man is if I do the work to get to deal with the trauma, yeah, and not allow the trauma to keep dealing with me. Oh, yeah, that's good, and so I have to put away my childish things.
Speaker 1:The Holy Spirit said what does your childhood represent? It's like being a kid. No, no, no, no, no. What does your childhood when I, when my word, says, put away your childish things, mm hmm. What does your childhood represent? And that hit hall? Yeah, loneliness. Mm hmm. Misunderstanding, yeah, awkwardness, but most importantly, trauma, mm hmm. So the Holy Spirit was like when you put away those things, not hide them, not ignore them, but when you deal with them in a healthy way and no longer have them on the forefront of who you are. This is who I am, mm hmm, I'm the misunderstood one. I'm the traumatized one. I'm the one who didn't nobody like. I'm the one that nobody listened to. He said no, no, put that away, yeah, and be the man that I've called you to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's like whoa that's that's, that's heat, man.
Speaker 2:That's. That's a lot of some heat to that. Um, there's a scripture that I always like to um kind of express it's. It reads like this it says so a man thinketh so was he. Yeah, and I think, as, as men, we sometimes can think, we think we're thinking like a man, but we're thinking like that little five year old boy- Come on, come on. Like a five year boy up until uh shucks all the way through high school, I feel like because I had fear, I had anxiety, I had worry.
Speaker 2:It was all that stuff was just but, but. But what you're saying? I disguised it, you know, with some kind of uh, uh, uh. My thought was healthy and parents were running around with all the women or hanging out with all these relationships. They didn't really mean much, so I was hiding it, but I was still thinking like a little boy, a five year boy Yep. And I had to um express to all of our clients like so a man thinketh. So was he. So what are you thinking on Come?
Speaker 1:on.
Speaker 2:And, and and. How do you go about your day? Are you thinking like that person that was abused or hurt, or are you thinking about where you going? Yes, and and, and what God has put inside of you, man? Because I'm telling you, man, as men, we, we have a lot to be thankful for, as men of God, um, especially as, as, as husbands, as fathers man and we take a lot for granted, I feel like as men you know, and we're so worried about the pain and the struggle and we forget about what's in front of us.
Speaker 2:man, and and I had to, I had to later on in life, understand that it's more to it than that five little boy, five year old boy, that that experience all of that in his life.
Speaker 1:So I had to make a change. Yeah, yeah, man, that's had to make change.
Speaker 1:That that reminds me of that reminds me of a song by my favorite rap artist, kb Kevin Burgess. Kb, his song, daddy. I pulled up the lyrics. I'm going to read them here.
Speaker 1:He says the scars you left behind with me left me so messed up I don't know how to be free. Hmm. But the part I wanted to say was he said Daddy, uh no, he says I can't trust enough to. He says, even if she shows me she trusts me, I can't trust enough to know that she won't hurt me like you did. Hmm, His relationship with his dad affected his relationship with his own woman, because that's where we get that security and that you know that, the foundational things. But what really messed me up is he said Daddy, did you know I've been a therapy. Then he says Abandonments, the words she used for me. But at least I've named the thing that hinders me. Now I can finally find a way to live in peace. So no more excuses here for me.
Speaker 1:But another verse that that messed me up, because I bear witness with this whole thing, but this one. He says um, did you know I remember the day, remember the year in my age? Did you know I remembers mom's face, the way she cried will never be erased from my head and I'm like dude, as man. We carry so much trauma but we can't. We feel like we can't express it, because if we do that, then we being weak. If we do that, then we being, you know, emotional. If we do that, then we're not. We're not being there for the people we need to be there with. But what I like at the end of the song is he says daddy, did you know, um, that I prayed and how much I miss you? I still do. He says, but I'll let go. Oh, here it is. Here it is, here it is. He says we are on a journey, daddy, and he said are you ever proud of me? Do you ever smile at me? My boys, they won't ever feel this pain. I could not replace you, even though I prayed to daddy, did you know I still do? No, how much I missed you and I still do. He said, but, daddy, I'll let you go. He says I'll let you go, I'm fine, I'm a man now I forgive. I forgive you, daddy. He, what I love about that song was what you, what we're talking about, is he equated manhood to forgiveness. How many little boys are walking around because they whole known the things that they won't forgive people love, and so they act very immature, is very childish, very, you know, adolescent, because they haven't learned to walk in continual forgiveness.
Speaker 1:I was talking to a guy the other day. He says, man, I really can't get over this person. And I say why? He says I forgiven them, but I keep getting triggered by what they did to me. And I said, well, they forgive him again. He said but I already tried that forgiveness thing. That don't work, so I'm gonna just have to hold on to this and just like move differently. And so what that said to me was a lot, and this was a Christian guy. What I told him was man, forgiveness isn't a one time act. Forgiveness is like the onion man.
Speaker 2:Boy, you got to be like, you peel a layer and you get you wipe your eyes, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But by the time you get to another layer, it's new tears, New tears, bro. And so you got to keep wiping your eyes in the symbolism of forgiveness. So when you peel that onion and you get it to another label that that stings, you choose forgiveness. That forgiveness then wipes your eyes. You're like, okay, I feel a little better on placing this at Jesus feet. And then you some time go around and you get triggered again and there's more tears because there's another layer and so we have to continually walk. Oh yeah, I think about the scripture when the disciple said man, how many times we got to forget this guy You're like getting 70 times seven or whatever you know, that's a lot.
Speaker 1:That's a lot bro and we as men, we physically we can carry, you know, and emotionally and psychologically we can carry a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, man, I look at it like this man. It's a lot of grown men walking around like toddlers. Yes, like we, I mean like the toddler syndrome. Man, I mean this, mind you can't have this Yep.
Speaker 2:You know, ready to fight it at the drop of a hat this is mine, you know, yep, instead of growing up growing through it. So, but forgiveness is the key, though. It opens up the door, yes, to a whole lot of freedom. Yeah, and you know, we've walked through some stuff with individuals like, okay, it goes back to forgiving, we're gonna walk you through this process, because a lot of times you gotta go back and deal with it, yep, okay, and once you walk through that process, but the ultimate goal is to forgive.
Speaker 1:It's not to hold on.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's not to keep it in your pocket it's not to quote unquote, just say no, this is mine, because I've carried it so long. You know what I'm saying. And some folk, man, they carry stuff so long that it just begins to be just like it's just them. Yep, it's like, you know, we got five senses, they got that six.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like it's just that sixth thing, that's them right, because they never just say you know what I gotta get, let this thing go. They don't know who they are without it. That's good.
Speaker 1:Man, that's so good man. I am so appreciative for Inspire Hope Counseling man. Inspire Hope Counseling is a much needed ministry for people who don't know what to do, but they know they need to do something. Yeah, it's like I don't know what to do but I know what I'm doing ain't right and I can't fix it myself. I need some help. And I'm so appreciative for you and your wife's ministry. I'm so appreciative with the things that you guys do for families, that's, lost children with the AP3 Foundation.
Speaker 1:Like man, like dude, it's just if you and your wife could just share all the testimonies that you've seen people, there wouldn't be room enough. It's just to go on and on and on, because God is just so good yes, he is, and how he deals with people. Man, I wanna share this man and we'll shift gears. But when we talk about what you said the toddler syndrome and when people don't give, somebody asked me a while ago, harold, why do you forgive so easily? Because they had learned about some stuff that I had experienced. They was like, no, that person would've been dead to me. Like you better not dapped me up, you better not come in for a hug. But we can't even go to the same church after you did what you did, and they was like how in the world do you forgive so easily? And the only thing I could say, man, is that I've been forgiven much.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, it was so easy for the Lord to forgive me. Dare I not extend the same grace to someone else? Come on, those who have been forgiven much can forgive much, but if you feel like ain't nobody really forgiving you for nothing, then you feel like you have a right to hold people to stuff that you like. Come on, man.
Speaker 2:Man, some stuff we done. Just think about it past Harold growing up.
Speaker 1:We've done some stuff that we should've been judged by Come on, our whole lifestyle should be shifted. It should be.
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean I shouldn't be sitting here, right now, come on, I'm like bro, I'm like some stuff we done, walked through Some things that it would have been like, but the Lord said no, no, no, no, no. I got a different path for you. Come on, I got a different path for you and I will allow you to walk through that stuff so you can reach back and grab another brother, another sister like if I made it, you could make it.
Speaker 2:If I grew up in that same hood you grew up in Come on, come on the same hood. So if I can make it, you can make it too. So, but that forgiveness man is so man. It's got so much weight, so much heat to it. Because if we can only forgive and my wife says it like this she's like so if Jesus forgive, how come you can't Come on? She know how to hit you in the gut, I mean. And she'd be like if Jesus forgave you of your sin, how come you can't Come on? It makes sense, you know, and there's some some heavy stuff that people go through and I don't want you to give me you know there's some we don't.
Speaker 2:We don't minimize it, heavy stuff and and I'm not trying to minimize that by no shape or fashion yeah, but at the end of the day, mm-hmm, as Christian believers, as blood wash Christians that say, you know what they're, same grace that you've received, that I received. Come on, it's available for everybody. Yes, it doesn't have a. It doesn't matter what your skin color is, yep, but I'm not what you. You know what the economy is bringing up. Economically, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Grace is sufficient for everybody in his forgiveness and the Bible says that it's new every morning every morning. You wake up and it's a clean slate new grace, new mercies.
Speaker 2:Bra, it's not so. That's so, man, that's so good, dude, you think about that how good that is.
Speaker 1:Jesus is like you acted a plum food last night, bro, but today is a new day. I'll give you new mercies, new grace, new mercies, new grace.
Speaker 2:So I love new mercies, new grace, because it's renewed every morning, every day, yep, you know, and we don't have to Walk through some things that we walk through and just be like okay, it's, there's no, there's no hope. I gotta earn my grace back, because there's individuals that walk like that. Yeah, and as coaches, you know, as mental health coaches, we gotta coach people through that.
Speaker 1:That's right we do, because, because it's our Decision, we have to decide that I'm going to accept and receive that new mercy and a new grace and I'm gonna live accordingly. Because just because it's there don't mean you put it on and walk with it. Come on, you could walk right through it. Yeah, white, right past it. Yeah, man, I heard, I heard Ty tribute say this and it blew my mind. He was speaking at a conference and he said have you ever thought about the tree in the garden? And Every he said. He said Salvation is a free gift, unproved, hmm, meaning you don't have to earn it, you don't have to prove it, you don't have it's unproved, yeah yeah, but.
Speaker 1:If you take, like the, the tree in the garden, every time Adam and Eve walk past the tree and didn't eat, they were proving their Themselves to God, they were acting. And he says every morning new grace, new mercy, to walk past and not purchase. But one day, yeah, you know what, I don't need no more mercy and grace. I'm gonna just ignore the mercy and grace and I'm gonna just be like I wonder what that be like. And so that new mercy, that new grace is, is our decision, man and as as coaches, what I've learned in the mental health space Is that we don't so much as tell people what they need to do, as much as we ask the right questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah and they come to those conclusions on themselves because they see and understand the truth behind it. Yeah, that's deep man.
Speaker 2:I mean that's that's some seriousness behind it because you have to ask the right questions. Yes, because I feel like if we don't ask the right questions, you can wound somebody not even and not even knowing it. You know and I and you gotta think back. What did I really say?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you're not asking the right questions, man, you can be detrimental to some folk yes, some folk and and dude that and that all that all comes back to the forgiveness aspect Is because when we choose forgiveness, we're not so much as choosing to forgive for their sake as we're choosing to forgive for our sake. Oh yeah, because if we choose unforgiveness, I'm not gonna forgive you and so I'm going to live my life in a way that Keeps your own, keeps my unforgiveness towards you front center. Yeah, I can't move in certain ways because that would mean I'm gonna be Too much grace. Yeah, so I gotta keep myself confined so that you know that I don't forgive you. But but when we choose forgiveness, man, that allows us, man, the best way I heard it was when we forgive someone, we release them and to to move Freely.
Speaker 1:And that forgiveness, oh yeah, meaning when I say I forgive you and I release you To live in that freedom, yeah, meaning you may wound me again, yeah, you may cut me again, like you make. You know it may not be all, but by the act of me doing that I'm not cutting my own self off, yeah, from receiving Relationship and love and forgiveness into. And so, man, that that forgiveness piece is, is important and we can, we could talk all day about Absolutely, because there's so many levels and layers to forgiveness that I mean books upon books upon books have been written about forgiveness, and this is a key factor, absolutely, but Real good.
Speaker 1:I'm pausing, so let's switch gears for a little bit and I just want to ask you just what's some you know From the work that you've been doing and your wife's been doing, and just some things you've been noticing and seeing Spiritually. What's some, what's some things that God's been really highlighting to you as far as you know mental health, our Spiritual warfare. However, it may be that that we can use to to do the work In our, in our daily walk, man, I think, most importantly, I feel like that Counseling has been A stigma.
Speaker 2:I would say to many of us, yes, yes, especially in the African-American man you know community. I feel like man, you know, you say counseling oh. I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 1:You know, community.
Speaker 2:I feel like man, you know. You say counseling.
Speaker 1:Therapist. What are you?
Speaker 2:kidding me. Good, you know what goes in the house, so stays in the house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah mindset.
Speaker 2:well, you know a lot of that is is, but we'll put more focus on cars and shoes, but we won't put no focus on our spiritual health, man, yeah you know, yeah. So I'm finding out when I'm sitting in in a counseling room that Sometimes people think more about the things that the you know like they're the shoes, cars, and they put more value come on, value Bro come on that versus value into their spiritual health and the mental health, and and we literally have to pause a minute and just say look, yeah, do you realize where you are?
Speaker 2:You know, dude, do you realize where you are come?
Speaker 1:on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I Feel like you know, I know we can't put cost on everything. Money is, you know, and something. Well, I can't afford counseling. Well, it ain't about what you can't afford. Yeah, you know, you know. So we, we go, we hear a lot of that man and again it's more the understanding of counseling. I feel like I feel like some of us don't really understand the value of yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know the hope that it brings. Yeah, you know. And on the church side of things, I feel like a Lot of us feel like the pastor, the senior pastor, has to do all the work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they got to be the counselor. They got a barrier. That Mary. Yeah, they do all cut the grass.
Speaker 1:You be on your death bed. I'm all senior pastor that pray for me. No, go get the senior pastor got two minutes to live. Tell him to hurry up.
Speaker 1:You know you know, you know you want that. You want the senior pastor to do premarital. You want the senior pastor to marry you. You want the senior pastor to do post marital counseling, because the premarital that you, he did what you, you didn't listen to. So now you need him to Counsel the stuff that you've got yourself into because you didn't listen the first time. And then you want the pastor that you know they do the the marriage counseling, the family counseling, and and then when you find out what I need, mm-hmm, I need him do that too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's so. God has gifted the body of Christ man. Yeah, just certain individuals with the call, you know as a therapist as a counselor. Yeah, yeah, yeah there's a space for therapy in the church.
Speaker 1:Man man, I think, I think the the church is Starting to catch up, mm-hmm to where the world has already realized. Oh which grieves me in a way. It grieves me in a way, and what I mean by that is that my counterparts in the secular world understand the importance of counsel in therapy a Lot of times greater than.
Speaker 2:People in the church. Well, you know, I had one brother said man, you know, counseling ain't for me. I'm like oh, you know, you're gonna have to elaborate yeah counseling is not for everybody. Yeah, yeah and I had to take a. I said listen. I said um wasn't Jesus the wonderful counselor?
Speaker 1:Come on, say it.
Speaker 2:I said, was Jesus the wonderful counselor? So you mean to tell me that Jesus ain't for everybody? I mean, you gotta talk about this to me. So when I point blank, kinda just sign up, I wasn't trying to be all arrogant about it, but he understood where I was coming from Because he had you know what man? You right, he was the wonderful counselor. He is the wonderful counselor, as a matter of fact, and we can't do what we do without Jesus, dude, we can't.
Speaker 1:I think the greatest stigma to counseling and therapy, and even mental health coaching, is that what people perceive it to look like. Ooh Dog, I ain't trying to lay on no couch and tell you my problems, right? I ain't trying to. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:You know I had this soldier dude. He's in his 50s and he called me up. He got divorced and he was with a new girl who was crazy, you know. She told him you know I've been diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia, but I pretty much got it under control for the most part and so he was like man you gotta watch down.
Speaker 1:I got another control now. He said man, so he was in a relationship with a girl and they've had a few disagreements and fights and stuff. And his daughter said Dad, I think you now this is his daughter, she's about 20, 1920. And she said Dad, I think you jumped into this prematurely, you ain't really dealt with all the stuff mom did. And he was like what she said. She said cause she was going off to college. She was like dad, I'm leaving the house. She felt like she was keeping him together and she said dad, I'm leaving the house and I want you to promise me that you're gonna go help Cause he told his daughter, he said I'm breaking up with girl, she gotta, she gotta bounce Like this ain't working out. And his daughter was like that's because I think you had some undoubted with stuff from when mom, that just it wasn't gonna work from the beginning.
Speaker 1:And he told his daughter he was like I don't really do that counseling stuff. You know what I'm saying Cause he had, he's like when I got back from war, when I got back from my deployments, we had to go through some mandatory counseling. So he's like you know what I mean, that little, that stuff ain't for me. So he called me. I was, I used to be his commander and he called me. He was like look, he like, look, sir, my daughter said this. He said I see how you move and do things when you were the commander and all the people that was in the office all the time, and I was just kind of sitting there and observing, you know as your right hand man, and he was like so what's your advice on this?
Speaker 1:And so we, we talked for like two months every week, week nine. He was like man, my life is different, man, you know I'm, I'm. I said bro, he's like, see, I told I'm a, I'm a, call my daughter, I'm like, I told you I ain't need counseling, I ain't need no therapy. You know what I'm saying, I'm, I'm good. And I said I said I said, bro, we been in counseling every week, it's not eight weeks Come on.
Speaker 2:Well, see, listen, it looks like this hair. It's counseling is. It looks different for everybody.
Speaker 1:Thank you, that's, that's my point.
Speaker 2:It looks different for everybody.
Speaker 1:We were just having a conversation and he ain't even know we were counseling.
Speaker 2:He didn't know it, and you throw in them nuggets in there, and he's like you know he's getting something out of it, you know, but a lot of it, a lot of it, man, is things that we don't deal with, yes, and we keep it locked in. Yes, we don't talk about it, yeah, and that's what really kind of destroys a person. Yeah, when they don't talk about it, but it's, but it's being rehearsed in a mind every single day. So I'm so thankful that when God puts a person in your life that can speak into your life, we have to make sure that that we listen, yeah, and we understand what they're saying. You know, because it looks different for everybody. Man, counseling, counseling is not just a person sitting on on the sofa and you just giving them some some, some tidbits, some nuggets and things like that, and you walk out the same way. You know, because it's a two way street for the therapist and for the individual counseling.
Speaker 2:you know, because you can come to anybody's room. Come on and sit there. If you're not, you know, navigating through that stuff, dealing with it, man, you leave out the same way.
Speaker 1:And I dude, I've, I know you and Tina probably experienced this, but that stigma of counseling is, it's always going to be there. But I think when people fully give themselves to it, like they don't hold back, they just you know what I'm saying, I'm going to, I'm going to go all in and see if this thing worked and if it don't, then I'm, you know, I'm done. But if you, if you just give it your all for a few sessions, man, like I've, I've talked to people who was withholding information, right, because they didn't fully know how to put themselves out there and receive the help that they needed. The one thing that I love about the Holy Spirit is that when you invite the Holy Spirit, you're not just inviting the counselor, you're not just inviting Tina, you're not just inviting Aaron, our hero, you're not just inviting us and withholding something from us.
Speaker 1:Man, I've been in sessions where the Holy Spirit has revealed some stuff and they're looking at you like I ain't tell you who you're talking to and I'm talking to the Holy Spirit. Man, I'm just praying and I'm just seeing something in my spirit, or the Lord is just showing me something, or I just feel like you know I could be off? You tell me, tell me if I'm off. And I've seen the Holy Spirit just break right through all the resistance, all the the, the stereotypes and just hit it, oh yeah. And when you see that, I love to see that moment where it's like, okay, I get it, oh yeah, I need this Bruh.
Speaker 2:There's been some situations where book knowledge couldn't help some individuals Come on. Come on Some, some, some clinical trials and things like that couldn't help some individual. It literally had to take the Holy Ghost to come into and invade some of these sessions where we be, we, we at all, we'd be like okay, guys, thank you, we needed your presence because we didn't know. Amen. The book, knowledge is there, the clinical stuff is there, but, man, when you invite the Holy Ghost come on, it's a whole another.
Speaker 2:It's a whole another dynamic. It's a whole another shift.
Speaker 1:Man. There's a couple of resources that I lean into because making yourself an expert in your field is necessary. You know you want to have the tools that you need to pull from them. But I mean, one of the guys that really I really lean into is Mark Vickler. He has a book called A Counsel by God, and another couple that's passed away now is John and Paula Sanford. They allege a house prayer. You know interhealing type people and you know reading their material two different spectrums but they both said the same thing that stuck with me. Both said the greatest prayer that you can pray as a counselor or a soul care person Lord help, oh yeah, Lord help.
Speaker 1:He says when I went in, thinking I knew the answers and I knew what I was doing, and he says those was the toughest, hardest grinding out. But when I went in and said, lord, I'm lost, I don't know what to do. You're going to have to show up help. Oh yeah, he says those are the sessions that I was at. I was going at the pace of grace and it was just moving. It was just moving, lord, help yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need the. I was like Lord I need you, I need the you know, because you don't want to get into flesh. You know yourself as a therapist or a counselor Because it's easy.
Speaker 1:It's easy to do. That's when you see so much. Oh yeah, oh, I've seen this before. I've seen this before. That's what you need to do One, two and three because, it worked for the last five people who was dealing with this. So, but my situation? No, no, no, I'll send us no Yep, but that's flesh, that's flesh, bro.
Speaker 2:You know, I've seen ourself where we yield a lot. Come on, we, just we yield to the Holy Spirit, man, and that's the good thing about Christian counseling. See, christian counseling. You know, we allow our help to come on, come, I feel it. You see what? I'm saying we allow our help to come on. And in the secular world it's tough to be able to do that, you know. But when you know what you expected, you come into the. Christian guy.
Speaker 2:You know, in our, in our counseling you're like look you know, this is what you get, you know, and, yes, you're going to get some, some to do, some don'ts and things, some biblical stuff. Yeah, you know you're going to get all that. Yeah, we're going to invite the Holy Ghost, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the Holy.
Speaker 2:Spirit can really do some work and do.
Speaker 1:I don't, I I don't want people to hear this and be like you know what? I'm going to just go out and start counseling some people, because that's just that's not right, but because I I love the fact that we have the head knowledge in the book knowledge to balance the Holy Spirit. Yeah, because something that you're talking about counseling and in the stigma is I've seen a lot of people burn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah With so-called Christian counselors who's just practicing on people? Yeah, and they not really yielded to the Holy Spirit. They just want to make a name for themselves, or they want to feel needed, or they want to feel a part of the situation or the solution. And people get burned and their life is in shambles because they had a person who either one wasn't fully yielded to the Holy Spirit or they didn't have the knowledge to know. Okay, you probably shouldn't have touched that. You probably should have called in some reinforcements. Yeah, come on, you a little over your head with this one, and I'm the type of person who I am never afraid to say I don't know.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm never afraid to say you know what?
Speaker 1:Let me call somebody, oh yeah, or let me connect you with somebody who could take you a little bit further, because this is, this is as far as I can go, you, you, you coming up on some stuff that I entered into yet, absolutely, you know. Or you coming up on some stuff that I ain't really comfortable with, man, me personally, man, just just venture into this space. I've had some people come to me with me some stuff that's been so heavy that it's it's triggered some stuff inside of me and I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, I'm getting triggered. Let me connect you with someone who's more equipped, more seasoned, more experienced to handle this depth of care that you need, because you just you just highlighted some stuff that I might need to go talk to Aaron about, absolutely, and so we, I never want to be in a situation where I feel like, you know, I'm trying to help a person that's triggering stuff in me and then I make them worse off because I'm responding to my own trauma. I get it, you know, you know what?
Speaker 1:No, you shouldn't, you shouldn't forgive none of them. You know, you know, I'm tired of the way people like that always think they can get over them. Let me tell you what you should do. You know and, and, and. They come out of that thing like wow, they feel validated, but now there's no forgiveness, there's no healing, oh yeah, there's just trauma on trauma, trauma comforting trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know one thing, one thing, tina we, what we enjoy doing, we, we pray and we leave our natural thinking at the door. Come on, come on, because if you don't, you know you can, you can kind of come into a session and things can trigger you as individuals, because we human, we're human, you know, and if we allow those triggers to trigger us, we can't be effective the way we say. We'll be effective. That's the point. That's the point. So we, we definitely try to leave self at the door and every counseling session, because I'm telling you, if you don't, man, you you know spirits that just kind of can, can, can grab you and get, oh, but you know you, and pick that scab, and they know the scab, the pick, and when they pick the scab, and then all of a sudden y'all in the same boat together, that's that's that part.
Speaker 2:In the same boat together Together.
Speaker 1:You know what we mean? Yeah, we're in the same boat together, so we ain't trying to be doing that. Yeah.