I’ve been in practice for 27 years and have never had a website. (nor a blog for heaven’s sake) So why now? Well, primarily because my practice has extended beyond the walls of my office a great deal more in recent decade. (Brick and mortar is so 20th century!) I’ve done more speaking and teaching than ever before, and I have had a lot of requests for recordings of my conferences, etc. Consequently, I wanted to make those talks available for those who wanted them. (So grab ’em and be transformed!! Don’t be shy!!) Also on this website you’ll find more about my own philosophy of how growth happens…both in individual therapy and in community. I wanted to create a venue in which the means of growth that I deeply believe in are available to interested individuals. I’ll try to be updating this blog accordingly. And by the way, I will typically be dictating my blog for sake of time, so pardon my irreverence for punctuation and run-on sentences. Blame Siri.
So what do I believe about people getting whole? The short version: I believe that God created us to grow not change. What’s the difference? Well, much of our contemporary Christianity (even secular culture) often looks at our lives and our problems, and feels that we ought to just grit our teeth and be different. In other words our willpower ought to be enough to help us become different people. After all God tells us to change, right? I find this creates interesting problems for people, since none of us are very good at just changing (our willpower is as screwed up as the rest of us!)
Sometimes living by the “Just Change” mentality creates Rule Keepers. In other words, one way we try to succeed at willpower is by turning “living well” into something about rules, something that you can do. (Keep thinking positive thoughts, be obedient to God, run around the block when you get angry, get the new self help book) Now, if you’re very disciplined then often you can actually follow these rules…for a while. Great, congratulations….now what do you feel? What you feel is Self-righteous! In other words we start believing we have actually changed successfully and that makes me better than you. (One reasons Jesus is always pointing at the heart was to remind these kind of people of the stuff they COULDN’T do) By the way….even the most “righteous” looking person you know has some area of their life that they cannot control. Trust me.
Another option with living a willpower world is that it can create a feeling of defeated guilt (my personal favorite). Since ultimately our hearts are fallen and our character needs growth and healing in order to transform, people who try to make that kind of transformation simply by “trying harder” often end up feeling very defeated and hopeless. This is the New Year’s resolution phenomena in Christianity. I promise I’m going to do it better from now on, and then fail again in 3 weeks. Now, if you’re like me, you don’t want anyone to know you are struggling. So our lives and our churches are made up of people who feel like they are a big failure, and can’t let anyone know. They hear the sermons on how you should “be doing better,” and they know that they can’t (even though they’ve tried), but they nod their heads in agreement, because they don’t want anyone to know that they are struggling. In other words, they go into hiding. And hiding typically creates lots of problems and symptoms… often the kind we see in our offices. If I struggle with my sin or my wounds or my limitations, and keep it secret I’m going to probably develop worse symptoms. We’ll talk in the future about how depression or addictions or anxiety can come from this kind of false front hiding.
So what is the solution? I believe that since our hearts are fallen and broken because of the separation and alienation that was caused by sin, the only hope for our healing and growth is “reconciliation.” In a relationship with God obviously that means connecting back to him through Christ, but in regard to our day-to-day struggles and symptoms it means that parts of us that are broken need to be known in a relationship with another person. God created us to where broken parts of us will only grow if they are known by someone else. (That’s how therapy works by the way.) Christians call this fellowship. The New Testament calls it “each other.” All those “each other’s” in the New Testament are guidelines for using the most powerful non-supernatural force for change…human relationship. One of the things you will hear in the talks available on this website is that whether it comes to parenting or marriage or your own growth or our relationship with God, being known and living in the light of relational connection is the beginning point of real growth. Secrets never get better!! So be looking for relationships in which the struggling parts of you can get safely known.
In the meantime, enjoy the talks available in the Resources section of this website. Some of these talks are very recent. Some of them are from when I was much younger. Listening to them, I believe I knew things then that I don’t know anymore, so I wanted to include them. (that guy was actually STILL parenting little kids!!) Sometimes I think that he was smarter than me anyway. He certainly had more hair (but also more anxiety!)
Anyway. Welcome to my website, join me on this journey…and tell your friends!!