What's up people? I'm your host Jay Will. This is Inspire Guys, people to podcast where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. Welcome to episode 194, man.
Good therapy for Christians. I have a guest today. It's gonna be a good one. Selena Deal, who is a licensed counselor.
We're gonna talk about just the idea of therapy. I know that a lot of Christians struggle with whether we should be into it or not. Like mental health is such a trending topic and things like that, but what we like to do, you know what I'm saying? Is bringing it in as believers and find out like how should we be thinking about this topic as believers?
And kind of leading away with it. A lot of times we find ourselves as as Christians following the world's perspective on things and in. So we live in these extremes of like either I'm all for it the way the world does it and it draws me away from God. We're like, no, I don't mess with this at all and I can't do it.
So we're gonna try to be level headed deal with some nuance here today. And I'm excited to explore Selena Deal's, you know, her story and her journey through faith and business. Y'all know to go here with these interviews. It's for us to find ourselves in this story.
So starting with me, I like to find myself in the story and listen to her journey and find out like, man, am I her? Am I, you know, some person she met along the way? But regardless of who you are in the story, the goal is to be inspired and draw you closer to your purpose in Christ Jesus. So today we're gonna talk about good therapy for Christians.
Again, Selena Deal is the guest and you know, Selena has an impressive background. She comes from a fairly large family, not quite as large as mine. She's probably not used to hearing that. So we'll talk about her family and her background.
She got her undergrad in interpersonal communications. It also has her masters, man. And what was it in clinical mental health from Moody, theological seminary? So we'll talk about her educational background as well and find out as much as we can about that.
And y'all know how it is. Look, today, this is not mental health advice. If you are a person that is looking for personal advice, I advise you to reach out to a licensed counselor in your area. If Selena happens to be in your area, which I think is what River West Chicago area didn't hear her up.
Otherwise, we are just sharing and talking through some steps and talking about her education. But by all means, this is a serious and important topic. So it was a related to your personal situation. We're not here to diagnose you or anything like that.
But we're gonna talk about some things that hopefully you can relate to. And hopefully, again, draw you closer to God. Episode 194, good therapy for Christians. Y'all know what time it is.
What you said. When you opened up, I knew what you read. You felt the deep in your soul. The promise did not expire.
Be inspired. I can see beyond the tears you cry. And the pain you feel. I saw every year you had to clench.
Just a minute here. When you say you ain't afraid to die. It's a fucking fear. Yo, guys, people, we are back with my guests today.
Selena, deal. How you doing today, Selena? I am doing well. That intro was crazy.
I felt like it was in a movie. That's what's up. Thank you. Thank you.
I'm excited to have you today. You know, it's a situation where I was telling you backstage, like virtually backstage, that I'm a fan of your social media, to be honest. Like, I'll follow you on Instagram. And I'm going to tell you how crazy Instagram is for me, Selena.
I literally don't know that I just start following you. How about them following you? You just started making videos again, but the algorithm brought you up recently. And I was reading your blog and following your content.
And I'm excited to have you today. And thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Cool.
For sure. So we talked a little bit. You know, I hopefully did a good job. Intruling you from a bio perspective.
So I definitely want to learn about just the education and your degrees and your experience through that. But I like to start these conversations off, finding out who you were before we get to who you are. So tell us a little bit about like your childhood, your upbringing. And I leave this as an open-ended question, however you want to answer, you know, what was your reputation growing up, your family life, whatever you want to share.
Can we start there? Absolutely. Yeah. And to be honest, I when you told me that this was going to be a question, I was thinking, okay, how am I going to answer this?
So I have a very complex childhood, but all in all, God's grace was seen in it throughout the whole childhood. But long story short, so I was born and raised in church and God of Christ. I don't know if you're familiar with that denomination. I'm familiar with every denomination.
We got it all. Y'all got it all. Oh, absolutely. Because you have the Clark family down there and everything.
So I was born and raised in that denomination. And I come from a lineage of pastors and missionaries, the mandas, all the churchy names and all of that and all of their high positions. And so growing up is very interesting being a pastor's kid and a granddaughter of a pastor as well. And me and my four brothers, my four brothers at the time, and then 15 years after my life has started, when I was 15, my baby sister was born.
And so for 15 years, I felt like I had to fight physically and mentally and emotionally to be with four brothers. But growing up with them was interesting. It was fun, all in all. But I did go through some trauma trauma within my family at a young age.
And I didn't say anything until four years after the traumatic event happened. And it kind of turned everything around on its head. And so in the part of Maryland that I'm from, our family's name is very important, whatever that means. A lot of people know it.
And it's a small town. So that's probably part of the week. I got you. And so that felt like our name kind of was tarnished because of something that happened within my family, something that I said.
But I find God's grace because what I do, what I have read, what I have processed through my own counselors and whatnot is that I did the right thing so that somebody else could get through a pittance. And I think for someone who's a victim of something, it's very important to know that holding someone accountable is actually the Christian thing to do. I feel like sometimes when we hear about anything happening in the church, it's like we want to shelter them and hide them from scrutiny and give them grace and everything. But grace can be found in accountability.
And so that's what I experienced for most of my childhood. And then after that, I went to college and I dealt with that trauma in a way that a 19-year-old would. And it was very subconscious. So it was nothing that I was fully aware of until I actually went to counseling.
But I spent a lot of time by myself, my last year of undergrad. I studied abroad in Costa Rica for about three months. And that's when I decided to give my life back to God. And I spent a lot of time alone first because I didn't know the language, so first of all, who am I talking to?
Right, right. And then second, it kind of felt like I needed to do that. And so I was reading a lot and I was journaling every day, which is something I was needed to. And I just see through my journal entries and everything how God was kind of drawing me close to him during that time.
And amazingly so after that, I was considering what the heck to do with my life after undergrad. And so I just happened to look up Christian counseling and I went to media, and I got my degree there. And I haven't looked back. And it was really off of a fluke from my perspective.
Just because I was not really interested in counseling, I just knew I wanted to talk to people about God in a constructive way that felt productive and empathic. But it didn't start making sense until my second or third year that I was actually there for. And so. And what helped me with that?
Like, while you were there, what happened to me? Like, realize I'm here for a reason. The people that saw me, the things that I didn't see, the things that I didn't see myself, my professor and now my boss. She took a liking to me.
And again, I do not know why. And so she took me under her wing and she just developed me in a way and saw me and kind of like mentored me in a way as well. I don't know if that's what she would call it, but she saw me. And so that kind of made me feel like, okay, this actually makes sense.
And then once the faith integration and the psychology came together, I was like, oh, actually really like this. And it actually really does align the Bible and psychology align. Those concepts align very well because God said a lot of these things first anyway. And so that kind of gave me some courage to like, oh, okay, all of this is making sense.
And it just was very interesting to me, I guess. I think the idea too of you saying she saw you. Like how important is that to you? Like just the idea of someone seeing you because clearly to say that, like right at that stage in your life, you couldn't necessarily see yourself or didn't see yourself going down that path.
How impactful is it? Like just for somebody to see you. Like when you say that, it's just like, man, like that's super important. Yeah, absolutely.
To put it, I can say how she physically saw me and how it all kind of developed. So we have to do like these mock counseling sessions to pass our classes. And I was complaining about one of my jobs that I had at the time in my master's. I was like working two or three jobs at the time and I was just complaining.
I'm tired of doing this in my master's. And so since she has to watch the videos because she grazes us. And I'm just being a lot client for one of my other peers. And so she watched it and then she emailed me and was like, let's have coffee.
And I was like, oh, God, what did I do? And I wasn't like that. I was kind of a client. So I was like, am I in trouble because I had a client calling class.
So she took me to coffee and she was like, do you want to be my faculty assistant? And I was like, I mean, I don't know. Because at the time I was a waitress in Chicago and I made kind of like really good money. And so I was like, well, I don't really know because I know I'm not going to get paid as much as I'm making now.
And she's like, OK, think about it. And the way she said, OK, think about it. It's like the Holy Spirit already told her. And so I thought about it.
And I was like, I can survive off of it. It's just it felt better and more sustainable for me to be a waitress at the time. And so I took it. And I feel like if I did not take that opportunity, that would be in the position that I was in for her to see me.
Because I could have allowed my financial stress to overtake my this actually reasonable decision, where I would be less stressed out. I could actually get all of my work done and in on time. And so I kind of weighed the two. And I was like, actually makes sense.
So I have a lighter and bold to even get into my second. Actually read the books that was supposed to be reading instead of standing on the China past the classes. You know what? I feel that like it's crazy.
Like just to hear you say that. The importance of being able to see ourselves in a long term. And I think it's very easy, right? When especially like you said, when you can when you making the amount of money that you need, that is sustaining you in the short term.
But it's crazy that sometimes we got to take a step back to go forward and realize that the short term best decision is not always the best long term. And look how life changing it was for you because you said that's your boss now. So y'all have gone through like these different stages of student faculty assistant boss. Who knows where to develop?
You know, quasi-mensor however you describe it. I just think it's important like for me when I hear you say that, it's just a reminder to me to always try to see not just the short term, but try to make decisions based on like where it's going to lead what path is going to lead you down eventually. Yeah, absolutely. That's dope.
Um, so I guess like we know kind of how you got into therapy and I think it's cool. The fact that you have this professor that you ended up becoming an assistant for and I'm working for. Just now that you've been in the business or the industry as a believer, like why do you think Christians are skeptical about therapy? Like can we start there just as we kind of dig into this part of the conversation of like I know that in some ways this is maybe a in the church is like a taboo topic maybe.
I do think it's important like for me when I saw you, I'm like I want to talk to a believer about this. I mean I talked to someone who's not a part of the church and then they kind of bash the church. So what do you think though? Like why do Christians struggle with the idea of therapy?
I think because it is first maybe they're viewing it as something that is combative. With the spiritual element and not supporting supportive of the spiritual element. There has been a lot of talk about like you just need to pray and so sometimes getting help outside of God especially mentally because we don't do that physically with doctors. You don't if we're sick like we're quick to go to the doctor.
Something is broken. You're going to go to the doctor. So what about when our trauma in our past is breaking us and yes prayer is absolutely essential. But what about that added support?
And so I think that is the thing I also think that with especially in the Black community that it's just not it wasn't a thing. And I think within the past like maybe five years or so it's really become a hot topic within the Black community like that we need to go to therapy. We need to heal but I know you don't want to talk to my pop up today who I love dearly. Homeboy don't get it.
He's on here. He ain't trying to hear it. He ain't trying to hear nothing I'm talking about. It's funny.
It's so I think from that generation to my parents generation and now to me that it's just we're having conversations about it that is like no both can dwell in the same place like we can come back spiritually and emotionally like it's all a thing. I hope I answer that. Yeah for sure and I think it's a nuance like the question is like kind of open-ended right because there's so many layers and you touch on some of the layers of like you have the older generation that just genuinely don't understand it. And I think you know I'd be curious to see what you think about this but for me I think it's because their generation was just they were just surviving.
When I really look at like my grandparents generation they were surviving from where they worked at they would work a horrible job for 46 years. They were literally just trying to get food on the table. They didn't have necessarily the educational opportunities that we have or the opportunities to enter into the workplace. So I think they were just surviving and so for them the idea of something that doesn't feel like survival mode can almost feel like a weakness to get help.
Do you think that's accurate or am I off with that? I think you are spot on mental health wasn't a priority and like you said like putting food on the table wasn't a priority like surviving and so in their context it does make sense. And so I think it's a blessing that that now we can actually take time to breathe and think about okay I am feeling anxious about things like my path is affecting me. I am feeling you know the presence of symptoms and I think you're absolutely right spot on.
You know you might have a little a critical eye in there. Oh man don't tell me you see me because you will get me so hyped. I almost when I went to college my first year of course like most a lot of people I was undecided and it was it was actually between psychology and fashion. I really like fashion and I don't think I would have did good in that industry long term.
I ended up having a fashion brand at one point and fashion is just a little too out there for me. I don't have a I'm not like a runway fashion person. I just like addressing like nice stuff but yeah and I'm creative but psychology was my first choice for my major and what happened was I had psychology 101 and unfortunately the professor I had was just like I don't know a better way to say it. He was just like overly sexual I guess so it was like he made psychology seem like that and that really threw me off.
I was like yo if this is what it is I can't rock with it but yeah I read a lot of psychology books I love psychology so that's also another reason you are so selfishly against on this show. We talked to a professional so thank you for saying that but you know like so that's their generation right they were just surviving. How do you view our generation you know assuming we're at least somewhere near the same age but like how do you how do you view that next generation of like why are we now starting to seek out therapy and talk about therapy? I think because if we are as you said in the same age range and there's this theory by a guy named Erickson that between the ages of 18 and 40 you're in a stage called intimacy versus isolation and so first of all that's the longest stage that any of us have because other ones are shorter and so as you can see this one's about 22 years of your life and so I think our generation we're all in that stage and we're now seeing like relationships are being affected by me not seeking out the healing that I need.
Now I don't know if it's preface with the healing that I need or like people just don't understand me I need to talk to somebody and so kind of having to dissect what it is I've had a lot of Black women from the therapy I have no idea they're like yeah my friends are there be like I don't know I'll say okay well then that's a good start why did your friends say that and so I think because of that stage and we're saying that okay I don't want to totally isolate myself when I feel misunderstood but someone hurts my feelings well someone told me accountable and I don't really know how to take it when I feel like someone has shamed me or whatever it is I think that they we're in a generation that wants to get closer after ruptures and repair relationship rather than just be alone of course there's some outliers but that's what I'm saying. Okay no I think that makes sense in you know for me what's been interesting as it's become more of a topic is like okay what is how should I be viewing this as a believer right and that was why I love your content that you put out on your blog which we'll take we'll talk about tasting seaguttherapy.com and also what you put out on Instagram because it got my attention because it's like it's it's professional it's licensed you know you're licensed like you have the credentials but then you also have the faith and that was it's all faith is always a big deal to me like no don't give me wrong the credentials have to be there like but if you can add faith to the credentials I am like my dentist I go to a christened dental office like they will pray for you before oh come on now anything like it's the most amazing place I've ever been I believe in the dentist feeling like I was just in worship like this this the vibe in here is just like all got so but my point is like as we like as we are starting to explore it more I think it's so important for it to be founded on the word of God and you said something earlier you said that as you started studying psychology more and more you realize that like God said this first and there's a biblical implication to this can you just talk a little more about that like for the christians out there who see it as something that is not of God like this is actually biblical principle um at its finest in some ways yeah absolutely one of the first things that I noticed is that for one of the studies that I was doing or a paper whatever it was that to ease anxiety um we had to implement gratitude and I was like isn't that in like Philippians or Ephesians whatever whatever scripture is like being just for nothing but instead say thank you like with supplication and so I was like yes and I was like okay so okay God said that first like okay through Paul and so then um other concepts just like um my series that I just came out of so that's probably what's fresh in my mind but the all or nothing series that I'm kind of completing right now is that from the beginning I see that we were in spiritual warfare with shame and pride from the beginning because of how the enemy tempted Adam and Eve he said that you know you can be like God if you eat this fruit which is all mentality like I want to have it off and that's of course I don't know what Eve is thinking but there was nothing else she was interested and he didn't talk about the taste of the fruit or anything like that this would be the best fruit that you ever had in your life but no instead it was like you will be like God and he's like no you won't die so maybe she's like okay I'm not gonna die and I'll be like that sounds like a good tradeoff to me take the bite of the fruit total opposite thing happens now they are hiding hiding in shame and I was like and then all or nothing thinking is a cognitive distortion that we struggle with as a society and that's another mental health concept but it's something if we like you said having being a believer I look through mental health things as a faith centered lens first and so when I when I see that I'm like this is actually crazy that this is a cognitive distortion and yet we were struggling with that from the beginning and I would rather us kind of learn from what we see in the Bible we don't have to be in act every like we really don't like we're not supposed to perfect so those those two things really stick out to me right now when I'm thinking about it I'm pretty sure there's more even with something like in Matthew when God is talking about get the spec get the log out of your eye before you try to get the spec out of someone else's yeah that's accountability and so we talk about doing that as well and then we also talk about having conversations and the Bible also gives you a whole transcript on how to handle conflict and that's the same kind of transcript we use for mediation with people's like you go to them privately if that doesn't work then bring somebody else in there if that doesn't work bring somebody from the church if that doesn't work then you've done what you can you have permission to cut this person off and so it was just crazy me those are the three yeah no no that's good stuff and what's dope about that to me is like I went through the same thing in business right so you know as a person that works in business and reads a lot of business books talks a lot about finances and money honestly no lie like the thing that got me like right financially and like taking care of my credit and stuff it was the Bible it was because I was reading these scriptures like work hard and become a leader be lazy and become a slave the the parable of the talents Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 through 30 I'm reading all this stuff and I'm like wait a minute so the Bible is literally telling me to do stuff and then I go reading thinking grow rich or you know the shark tank book or some Damon John book and I'm like all these are are reinforcing biblical principles and unfortunately there are so many times that the world is actually becoming successful by using biblical principles even though they don't even read the Bible or believe in God and then you have people who believe in God and go to church every week and say they love God and shout and scream and don't actually apply the principles because I think there is something within us that wants to just follow our emotions and I don't know how you would feel about that but like when I was reading your blog this all or nothing series and you talked about nuance and I really like anyone who listens to the show knows that nuance that's one of my favorite words and concepts and ideas is the fact that like you cannot be an extremist and you can touch on it but I want to hear you like if we can unpack it a little more like why it's not healthy for us to live in the extreme and I think it's because I at least think the reason we want to is emotional because we just want to do what we feel like whether it's right or wrong and we think just acting out those feelings like is we gonna get off on that and feel better but it doesn't really help us but can you unpack that that extremist mentality a little more and maybe why we should consider dealing in nuance? Yeah like I said Adam and Eve they were in the extreme from the beginning and so what I believe it is is exactly what you touched on emotions and going off of how we feel and the Bible touches on that too and there again there's another thing called dialectical behavioral therapy where we want to slow down the person and to actually evaluate what do you see okay how can you feel about that instead of what we see a lot of times today is how do you feel go with that and it's like wait no no no because I feel so many things in one day it's not been funny like I just started with a trainer maybe three months I never ever feel like eating healthy I can I don't want to eat cauliflower rice I don't want to eat greens in the morning I never feel like right I always feel like pancakes and bacon I can tell you I will never not feel that way and yet if we want to get somewhere that is going to be sustainable and helpful and nourishing to us then we can't always go based off how we feel but instead what is in front of us what is the goal what's the outcome that I want to have okay let me go with that instead but it really does take work to pause and consider what is in front of me but we we have to work on that that's like a muscle that we constantly constantly have to build on you know what I could not agree more with the fact that we need to slow it down sometimes and all right so I'll be a little transparent like last year so I am you know I'm pretty much a I'm a pretty men pretty much mentally strong type person I'm usually the person kind of helping people get out of situations and last year man it was just last year I hit a wall maybe mid-year that I had never hit before at least as an adult like I had never remembered feeling like this and the crazy thing about it was I was having a successful year so this was a really weird like kind of thing but I think part of it for me was you got the you know the pandemic came and you know I did like in my corporate role I changed jobs like three times I was blessed with some promotions I did some laterals but took on some big assignments and really like for three years I was kind of just going but going in a new environment of like working from home not traveling as much as I used to and I think I hit this weird spot where I didn't know how I felt and I didn't know how to feel and it was I'm just being honest it was really tough for me to kind of get out of that space but seeing that weakness in myself not okay let me be clear about I have a lot of weaknesses but in this particular way I hadn't even seen myself like this before and I it's something that has made me more empathetic and looking at other people's situations and something that's made me want to explore this topic more and understand this topic more because I think it's so easy like I said about the generation before me like to be survivors and to be a strong person and then go to the other extreme of when you're not doing well to like want to just move fast and what I did was like last year you know I speak at church I used to speak every month last year I kind of like I want to say refuse but I was like I don't want to do it I mean I spoke once at church last year and that was part of me slowing down which is the reason why I went into this long story sorry but it was just a it was like I was telling people like sometimes like when you know you know you and you might just need to chill and that was what I needed but Elena like the people around me didn't necessarily understand that and one thing I've learned is that people will always want to push you into fast forward mode so I think it takes a lot of discipline to actually be able to kind of chill and sit back in and I forgot the medical term that you use for it or the professional term but to slow down is super important. Yeah no absolutely and so when we're thinking about the extreme it's very easy and it sounds like from your situation as well if I don't see what I feel like I should be or where I want to be I feel some type of way about myself and usually that is a what I like to categorize as like a low energy unpleasant emotion and the low energy emotions I feel like it's easy to categorize in that way because we know when we don't feel like doing anything like yeah like I'm sad like we never are energetic when we're sad I've never seen a sad person like oh my gosh I can't wait to like go and run or something but so when we feel that way so if you're looking at what you want or what you want to feel like and you're not there and then the extreme is now like okay well now I'm nothing because I'll measure out to whatever it is but then when you I'm wondering from your situation when you did speak and you get like those endorphins from people saying good job and you feel good about your message now you have the high energy pleasant emotion like joys and like you're like okay awesome like I can go and come to the world and so I want us to have more of a like a centered approach like regardless of if I see something that I'm like I want to get there just know like I can get there if I want to get there and if God has that for me and on the other hand when I do well that's all it means like I did well it doesn't mean I'm better than anyone it doesn't mean I'm the greatest speaker of all time I just did well and so I feel like if we were more balanced and if we if we thought about it a little bit more and took the time then we would live a better life because these extremes are just exhausting after after that's a good way to put it extremes are exhausting and you know like you said when you when you do like it's funny when you live in that in that balance you can handle both situations better because like for people who and that was what I didn't want to do like I didn't the reason I slowed down was like I did not want to be dependent on those feelings of like hey you're doing a good job or whatever we're kind of like what I call being a slave to the stage of like I didn't want to be a slave to the stage or like not have an identity out of not being in front of people and being a person talking it sometimes it's like man I might need to sit down and receive and I knew that I was in a place where I just needed to like kind of chill for a minute and it's funny like there's so many kind of correlations with with business for me because I remember when you know I grew up you know poverty is such a strong word I did poverty is a mindset but you know I grew up in the hood just typical kind of lifestyle you expect east side of Detroit and I remember just wanting things you know when you grew up in poverty like you one of the biggest aspects is you can't get everything everyone else can get you know you look at things and that's why when Christmas comes up parents like spent all their money to prove like I want my kids to have what all the other kids have and the funny thing and I'm not trying to act like look when I talk about success or things like that it's levels to it you know like so I know I try to always balance people one because you'll say you you could talk in a way publicly where people think like they trying to guess where you at but I just say like whatever measure of success that I experienced the more that I got the more I realized what it wasn't and what it was like oh it's just a car like you can't you can't even bring it in a house we think about a car is like it's outside it's in the garage like you can't even it can't come in a house like is you know you don't so so I love the fact that that you pointed that out like when we live in that balance that it allows us to kind of you know take everything you know on both sides in on the good and the bad yeah um so Lena can we talk a little bit about um taste and see good therapy dot com you know this you describe it as a blog for Christians by christian professionals so I love to hear like what what made you start this blog and kind of like the purpose behind it and I advise everyone I should say this that all your information will be in the description of the show for those listening on youtube or apple podcast spotify all of those places really the only place is not in their space book because they don't have like the description section but um you know can you tell us like why'd you start this blog and what people can kind of expect from it I personally I'm endorsing it already I think it's a dope blog I've already started reading it and enjoying everything that I read so far yeah so believe it or not I started this about six months after I graduated and the reason was was because I was feeling after you graduate I feel like any level of school you're exhausted but after you're done it's like wait am I just gonna after work am I just gonna come home it'd be nothing because we're just so used to like doing homework or preparing for a project or whatever and so at lowcase I'm getting depressed I was like wait like I'm sad because I don't have nothing to do and so I wanted to kind of discern what would be helpful for me and what also it was more so about me it was selfish than in terms of selfish effort I was like I think I want to do like a blog or something because I really enjoyed the writing aspect and I felt like there wasn't a lot of conversation around faith and mental health and that's what my favorite thing is and so I was like you know I just make a blog about faith and mental health and so the ideas I feel like as a whole we swear like ideas just started coming for the name and everything and I heard Tastacy on a song on a magic city song there's like ad libs I was like yo Tastacy is lowkey kind of fired but I was like but what else what else would I call so Tastacy good therapy and the whole point is Tastacy that the Lord is good and guess what therapy can be a part of using his goodness and I want everyone to know that and that was the heart behind that was the heart behind it is that I want everyone to see Tastacy that's dope um so tastacy good therapy dot com y'all make sure y'all check it out so lina I got a question about who should seek therapy and I want to ask it a specific way though I want to go a little deeper I think even even in your story when you when you talk about it right when we think of therapy a lot of times we think of trauma and I want to I guess inquire outside of trauma because I look at trauma is like a car where the engine has blown out right and it's like if you only take the car to the mechanic when the engine is blown out like that's that's a much deeper situation right but you know we get oil changes and tire rotations and their fluid checks there's a lot of things you could do in the meantime when your car you know preventative maintenance if you will so I'm just curious you know who else outside of someone who's going through some trauma should be seeking therapy and who could it benefit um to look into it because I think sometimes we only think about it as this thing you do when life is just at its worst yeah absolutely I think any stages of life that require adjustment which we all go through it and for example you just got into a new relationship and you're finding out it's a little harder than what you expected you can talk to somebody about that if someone if you lost someone that you loved you can talk to someone about that if you bought a new home you can talk to someone about that if you're experiencing anxiety and so I think anxiety is a buzz word but if you're often feeling on edge about most things in life you can talk to somebody about that and if you see that it's affecting your physical health I feel like sometimes what I see is that people go to the doctor and say that they're being affected by stress and anxiety and then they come to therapy like yeah my doctor said something's going on with my stomach or you know this pain in my back and my neck is from stress and anxiety so just wanted to see what you know what I could do to like kind of alleviate that and so it's really about if you feel like hmm maybe I can just talk to somebody about that's literally all it has to be and like you said if we're going with the car analogy and I'll keep going with that it's just like maintenance over time like I don't get an oil change when my breaks start really messing up it's like a routine thing like okay it's about that time um and so I think everybody should experience it and even I see people who aren't christians as well and that's important to like let people know like even though I'm a christian who is a therapist I don't have to implement faith integration into our session if you don't want to even if you are christian you're like kind of don't want to talk about you know the bible and stuff like that I respect everybody's wishes and I don't expect everybody to get saved one day when they talk to me but I do think that everybody could could heal from something and so if you want to break up like it's just all a lot of life adjustments I feel like healing if they're the place in your life that you feel like needs to be healed standing counseling is for you life adjustments I love that because that's a constant right and even for me an example that I gave like that's a lot of what it was it's like there was some life adjustments um that I was going through last year and some of them were like I said a lot of them were positive to be honest but I don't know like I felt myself you ever feel yourself changing yeah like is that weird to say like I can feel myself changing and it's like sometimes change is so weird because even when it's for the better because part of it is leaving something you know what I'm saying it's like you're leaving some piece of you or even getting over what people might think of you because one of the things for me is like I've been through so many stages in life is like probably ridiculous but you know you said you were a clown I was a class clown in high school so you know this may be something you can relate to when I was a class clown in high school it could be five years after I graduated if I run into somebody in a mall literally this is what most people would say to me like hey man you steal funny I'm like I mean yeah but like 23, 28, 18, 18, like 30, I'm not at work in a class I was a fool like I'm not at work like yo no I'm a business professional so one of the things for me was like at different stages Selena I had to allow myself to change where it's like yo it's cool for you not to be like you're not a comedian you don't make money off that so it's cool for you to grow into become a businessman and so I just when you talk about life adjustments I'm saying that because I know there are people out there who go through life adjustments and may not realize like yo you might need to chill and sit back and talk to someone professional so that to help get you through it now you also said something super important that I think is nuanced and it's an idea like you said like hey I'm a christian but even if you're christian and you don't like this doesn't have to be church and I don't know how you feel about this Selena but I do think as believers one of the reasons that we should seek you know education and learning and and growing and literacy is so that it gives us balance even in our faith because I think that extreme that we're talking about some of us could be so extreme with our faith that we don't even know how to be like just a normal person and connect with people at a normal level so I'm curious like do you have you ever had any challenges in your profession as a believer have you ever struggled through anything like that where you're like trying to figure out the balance of being a believer and being a professional or did that come easy for you?
So with my education being at Moody we we have the illogical classes that we have to take and everything like that but all of our professors made it known that it is an ethical obligation to not put your own beliefs on your clients and so a lot of people are like oh no I can't do that and so I was like well I had a life prior to this so I kind of know the importance of not doing that and I also know like where I was and I probably didn't need to be preached that every session but instead understood any like an understood period it didn't have to come from a biblical room and so have I found it difficult you know to be honest with you people who are not Christ followers sometimes when they're going through something it breaks my heart that they don't know God and I'm like man just ask me a question because that's when I can open it up but I know that the healing that they're going to receive has a limit because it's not going to involve the spiritual component and so my heart breaks for those clients and so that's where I find it difficult but I know the power of prayer and I know that I'm not I'm not the end all be all for this person they may encounter someone else that knows Jesus that will be able to impart something that I'm not able to and so I just have all of the beliefs in God that he's going to do whatever he wants to do in this person's life regardless of my limitations ethically I love it. Who do therapists go for therapy like who like not I don't mean that literally like tell me who your therapist is but I just mean like generally speaking how do you think through like you know choosing a therapist and then a follow up to that is like I guess is there ever a challenge because you're a person does your profession ever get in your way of receiving that therapy like almost like you want to be your own therapist like oh I know what I'm supposed to say I know what you're supposed to say to this or can you just talk about that dynamic a little bit? Yeah I have a counselor I've been in therapy for about two to about three years now and we the funny thing is that we have to not funny but we need to work through our own things in order to see our clients fully we we only have a limit when we haven't gone through our own healing because what I believe wholeheartedly is that whatever a person is dealing with we cannot be empathetic if we have not gone through a similar process or it's hard to be empathetic because we want our clients to if we say you said you wanted to change why aren't you making these changes and then once you sit in the counseling the client seat you're like oh because it's hard to be committed to change and so it allows us to be more empathetic more patient with our clients I think it's vital for us to have experience counseling in a season or actively while we're saying our own clients because it's just one of the biggest better counselors in general and you know honestly Jermaine I cannot be my therapist because when it comes to my own life I need insight and I need someone else to give me a different perspective because I'm not the end I'll be out of course I know clinically all these things and faith and integration I know all these things but the application sometimes has to come from someone saying it to you you know how like growing up your parents would say something you'd like no I'm not with you but someone else would say you know what that's really good yeah yeah yeah I feel like it's kind of that kind of relationship no I I agree with that is you know this is super random you may not even be able to see where my mind is going with this I'm sorry but it popped in my mind so I'm gonna say it every mind is me like if you ever watch like an action movie like I think of like Fast and Furious let's say like in every action movie the main guy is going to get like grazed or shot or something like that right he's going to end up in a hotel room like doing his own stitches I'm like bro that's not like you know what I'm saying I think that's what I thought of like the fact of like yo I'm not trying to be my own therapist because at the end of the day as cool as it looks you know what I mean I would love to be in a movie like I got this thing where I want to be in a movie so I can see myself as like the the guy the action hero guy because I know they don't it'll be just ridiculous I just want to see myself in that role like in the hotel room like I got shot and I'm like walking for 30 extra minutes it's like hilarious but that's what I pictured when you describe like yo I'm not trying to be my own therapist because we all do need people and it's funny too the other thing you said not funny but like you talked about how you have to heal before you know you can help your clients see themselves fully and that literally makes me think about the scripture that you know kind of alluded to about getting the log out of our own eyes you know is it the log or the beam I always mix up the order but you know before we get the beam out of someone else's and I think that's an important thing to point out is that we are all human right and that's something having to show Selena whenever you are at the forefront or you know if you grow or like again we talk a lot about success and things and I love kind of bringing that down the earth aspect to this show of like we are literally all human so we are all on this journey together regardless of what my profession is it doesn't make me the expert because we are on our God like so I think that's though Selena this has been really amazing I've enjoyed kind of talking to you I want to ask you one more question before we get out of here and that is who or what inspires you and we know how to be God we know God inspires you you know yeah that's a given that's a given um I would say honestly my pop up I know I mentioned him earlier and he doesn't really get the concept of my my profession but man he has walked with God he is the most wise person every time I talk to him he always dropping little nuggets and he's been passing and preaching for at this point he's 76 probably 50 something years because I think he took over his dad's church when he was 20 something because of that pathway and I have a question about the Bible he says you know what without me studying and they like went on this whole of devious right right and so yes a whole sermon and so I would say that my pop up inspires me because I see God's goodness reaching into his generation and mine even though we don't get one another on some levels there is a connection that God just gives us to one another and he really is my best friend my mom passed away about two years ago but yeah but those two men those are my favorite people in the world and so I would say my pop up especially in my baby sister she's just always just she's a old lady at 12 years old but I love her I love it but before I get you out of here one I did want to ask you for someone who is looking to find a therapist and I know you're you know in the area that you're in but where should a person start especially let's say I'm a person I'm like I specifically want to have a Christian therapist I don't know if that's good or not or if that's if someone's able to find that but where can where can someone start regardless of what they're at and looking for a quality therapist yeah so there is a great database on psychology today that you can use it you can filter it to look for a Christian therapist and I would highly suggest getting a consultation also a free consultation prior to meeting with them because when I was looking for a therapist there's some people that do say Christian but once you start asking them some questions it's not that of course I don't know what their faith looks like but certain words you can kind of put them over oh trust me like I'll say this like you know as I'm sometimes I reach out to people to be guest on the show like I reached out to you sometimes people reach out to me and it's like you know it's like there's a there's something specific that I'm looking for and you can tell sometimes when it's like you know like you say you're not trying to judge nobody but it's just kind of like calling a spade a spade and trying to make your best decision for yourself so suddenly get that psychology today dot com and try to filter through and look for a therapist that has the qualities that you need this has been a great conversation with Selena deal thank you so much Selena and stay in touch man I say that a lot to people on here I don't want the listeners think I'm just saying after everybody is like but man I get blessed to meet some really cool people so I'm gonna keep in touch with your blog and I think we're IG friends but anything you ever need for me please feel free to reach out and I hope you have an amazing night all right thank you so much for having me do me this been a pleasure all right thanks why ladies and gentlemen I was Selena deal hopefully y'all enjoy that conversation she is a licensed counselor in the river west Chicago area so if you in that area definitely check her out check her out on Instagram and also her blog is taste and see goodtherapy.com like I said I've started to read her blog and I think it is actually amazing hopefully there's a couple things I want to kick it about before we jump out of here hopefully this helped at least as a beginning a starting point for the conversation around you know a Christian and how we should think about therapy and I know it's not necessarily a easy topic for everyone um so hopefully we did it justice at least um to peel back the first layer a couple of key things that I took away is you know and I had already started reading her all or nothing series I advise you to check it out this idea of being an extremist this is something we talked about on this show a hundred times like there's nuance to life there are great areas to life and when you a person that is controlled by your emotions what I'm learning is that it doesn't matter if it's mentally physically financially spiritually when you are controlled by your emotions and acting out of order and out of control and you know thinking that you justify it for whatever reason it never works out for you in the end because life just doesn't work like that you don't actually solve problems by being out of control you know the best example I have for you is think about a president of the United States of America we've had many tragedies throughout the history of this country and the leader of the free world I'm always amazed at this has to get them up and stand at a podium with a microphone and calmly deliver a speech to the rest of the country letting people know to be all right that is amazing to me when a president has that poise because the situation is crazy imagine if the president came up like oh my god oh my god oh it's like you would be like hey bruh if the president did that we would be so scared we I'm running out no it's like American people I know today we lost many of our own and we had a situation and da da da but we're gonna fight through this we're gonna say it again that is not an extremist that is someone who's composed and disciplined in a traumatic situation so I just encourage you to really take heed to that in your own life I'm definitely trying to do that as well and Angie what's up sister thank you I'm glad you enjoyed the segment Lydia thank you for the comments Lola what up appreciate everybody who jumped in there another thing I want to point out that she talked about was kind of this importance like with with Adam and Eve she said something she said it wasn't even a taste of the fruit y'all realize I'm like I never even thought about this I never thought about that in my life the serpent went to Eve right and it's the crazy thing about the devil he didn't go to Adam he went to Eve right so the enemy knows when he's going behind the back and trying to influence and trying to like do think it's like no I'm gonna get the Eve I'm gonna get hurt here and sold her on something like fruit it's about the taste you know I'm saying like you like apples you like oranges it's about the taste and the crazy thing about it was that the enemy didn't even sell her on the taste he sold her on something completely left field that tapped into her emotions he sold her on something spiritual and so my point is when we live in the extreme like that and when we were out of control people the enemy is able to take advantage of us he's able to see that weakness and get you off you know off your post and so I just thought that was interesting like wow Eve like Eve was on something that didn't even have to tell you at least I mean if you don't sell me on some chicken at least let it be that you're telling me the chicken good you know but I think we have this deeper desire sometimes to rebel you feel me Angie I thought that was an amazing point when she made that like but we have a deeper desire sometimes um to to rebel and you know she talked about therapy is something you should seek for you know the adjustment stages in your life any stage in your life that requires adjustment and I know sometimes I tell y'all like this sometimes like we think that oh I don't need I don't need no therapy because you know I got my cousin my cousin talked to me well your cousin I was about to say something crazy you know I got to catch myself sometimes on this show I was about to y'all know me like that's when the class clown is still in there I was about to go in the whole tangent about how your husband how your cousin is a C student I don't know C student therapy advice I need to see your grades the thing about going to professionals listen y'all I'm not saying being a professional always make you better but when I can find a good quality professional I'm sorry I want that over amateur I know we go to our uncles to get our breaks fixed and to do our oil changes but sometimes we got to graduate from just going to uncle uncle John to fix the breaks you need to go to make a or a mitus or one of these break shops that actually went to school to do breaks that's why you can't stop you you slide like his ice and his dry outside anyway all right what else did we talk about what else I want to call out man I thought it was dope that she uh she decided to get serious about God while she was in Costa Rica what that made me think about was there are times in our lives where we just got to get away you know I mean and look wherever you are in your life whoever you are just know that God can use things like therapy things like business financial advisors doctors um God can use professionals and I think some of us struggle with the idea of God using a professional because we have the extreme thinking that we don't need none of that because we just got God what you're not realizing is God is using them if they're a believer and if they have the Holy Spirit unless they have some education then God can use them here's how I'll explain it to you don't want would you prefer a professional race car driver to drive you to the hospital for an emergency or your 16 year old son I'm gonna go with the pro race car driver because they're a professional and they have learned how to drive the thing about professionals is simply that they have learned and experienced and it doesn't mean every professional is a good professional but a good professional to me is better than a average you know amateur so um hopefully you enjoyed today's show this is episode 194 good therapy for christians um I've enjoyed having this conversation thank you again to our guest Selena Dill uh for coming in as a licensed counselor and walking us through this conversation and look man we got more interviews coming uh dropped an interview yesterday with cap chat field so please check out the shows um what's I gonna say subscribe I can talk almost couldn't even I can talk people subscribe on youtube man if you enjoy and if this content has inspired you if this interview has inspired you check out at inspire guys people on youtube or on apple podcast Spotify just type in inspire guys people on google and you will find inspire guys people everywhere that we are because we are everywhere but check out youtube for the daily inspiration videos um that's where I upload the absolute most content and that is the folk you all right it's over podcast over I'm done I'm done I can't talk people listen this has been an amazing amazing amazing