I'm just going to parse out a few of the topics I've learned about these past few years. They seem like simple ideas, but I have to admit they are new to me when they are broken down into components. They have been so helpful on my journey to better health and healing (and joy and peace too!) Read on...
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Grief vs complaining vs venting vs gossip~
Grief is the active process of letting go of what or who was lost. It is an emotional, physical, spiritual healing. It involves the vulnerability of the heart (emotions) not just the mind letting go. Remember that grief must be shared to be healing, and so it requires an audience. Grief is the gap between what we expected and what actually is, in any sense. Our audience however; does not get to decide how long we should hurt for, how much we should hurt or not, nor how we *should* (or shouldn't) to express that hurt. Pick people who help you heal, not hinder you. They must be able to handle your pain without taking it on as their own. (more on codependency below)
Complaining is often venting. We all do it, and it can be good (processing life's challenges) or bad (avoiding grief). It feels good, makes us feel validated and most often comes from our brain/ego (thoughts) not our heart (emotions), although they are of course closely linked. It doesn't let us grieve properly and is only temporary relief as we vent. There often is no healing in complaining, just prolonging the process. This prolongs our suffering too, and sometimes we want that (it justifies our victimhood and draws attention to us). If we never access our heart, complaining will become a way of life and we'll never see healing of the deeper issues. (Often still lurking from childhood when we were too young to know how to express them if we never learned to do so.) Sometimes we revel in our suffering too, or have learned the message that "life is suffering" and believe that is the only way to be. If our "cross to bear" is heavy, we must be doing something right!
What's the difference between venting and gossiping then? These can be tricky too.
- You're venting if you're letting off steam about someone or a situation, complaining often doesn't want it solved but is a voicing of dissatisfaction
- You're gossiping if you're trying to change someone's opinion about a person (common enemy alliances form many unhealthy bonds between people)
- You're gossiping if you share personal details without permission (source)
When we cling to our suffering, we are also likely getting something out of it. Is it a way to avoid something else? Are we ignoring other things we don't want to admit or face? Does endless rumination or speculation ever benefit us? Sometimes it feels like life is a game of whack a mole, and we spend most of our energy putting out fires in our minds and lives. It doesn't have to be like this! We can have joy and peace in our relationships, homes and hearts. We should emanate the joy of the Lord!! Counseling with an outside source can help us determine all of this and heal those areas where we struggle that we often aren't even aware of. "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." Learning new skills can be essential to healing and to growth. None of us wants to stay stagnant, but growth can be daunting too.
The biggest takeaway from defining these words (I'm barely scratching the surface here, as Greg and I were discussing it later, there are way more differences and similarities between the words), is to check yourself as you speak to others and to ask things like, Am I looking for healing? To let off steam? Is this a recurrent complaint that I do or don't want to solve? Am I playing the victim or am I in charge of my own choices and life? And as a listener, asking the same sorts of questions...Do you want me to offer some suggestions or for me to just listen? How can I support you most? Assuming someone is complaining when they're grieving isn't helpful, or assuming someone needs help when they just need comfort isn't helpful either. Putting a name to what we're feeling is so helpful as we communicate with others and what we expect of them and of ourselves. I'd say a huge part of communication goes south because these kind of things are assumed and not clarified.
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Counseling benefits~
Counseling is for growth. If we think it's so someone will sympathize with our pain and just be a place to unload; we're wrong. Their job is to understand our perspective, but not necessarily endorse it. We'll need to be accountable and vulnerable. Their job is to help people see themselves in a mirror clearly, so they can grow and heal on their own. They do not provide answers, solve problems nor take sides. The amount we can heal depends on how willing we are to sit in our own discomfort and learn and grow from there. They can teach us to be less depressed or anxious, less defensive and less reactive, less judgmental and more compassionate (to ourselves and others). "Most things worth doing are difficult" is the long term goal. Short term discomfort is necessary to get there. It causes us to see ourselves as we normally would not choose to or have never been able to. The client can then take a look at that reflection and say "now what do I do?" or choose to turn away in denial as they've done in the past. Typically, most success comes in the first 15 sessions or so. People shouldn't need counseling endlessly. After the first year on a 2 week visit schedule, you should have addressed the major issues and be able to carry on successfully. If you haven't come to a point where you don't need them anymore after the first year (on a 2 week schedule), they aren't helping you. They may be pandering to you, but are not helping you grow. You need to do the homework in order to succeed. Of course, new life challenges will come up and you may need to go back and get refreshers on how to handle new situations, but overall these are the statistics.
What kind of things can we heal through Christian counseling? Well, paying attention to our dreams can be a start. What do we dream about? Are your dreams peaceful or anxious? In present time or in the past? What are we afraid of?
"We humans are all afraid of hurt, of being humiliated, of failure and of success. We are afraid of being alone and afraid of connection. We are afraid to listen to what our hearts are really telling us. We are afraid of being unhappy and afraid of being too happy. We are afraid of bad health and good fortune. We are afraid of not having our parents' approval and afraid of accepting ourselves as we really are. We are afraid of envy and of having too much. We are afraid of having hope in things we might not get. We are afraid of something happening to our kids and our spouses and our jobs. We are afraid of not having control and afraid of our own power. We are afraid of how briefly we are alive, and afraid of how long we'll be dead. We are afraid that when we die, we won't have mattered. We are afraid of being responsible for our own lives." ~Lori Gottlieb
Proverbs 15:22 Without counsel purposes are disappointed:
But in the multitude of counsellors they are established.
Counseling also addresses our need for drama in our lives. Most unhealed people are sucked into other people's problems and crises, unfair issues and policies and seem to go from one calamity to another. (And we think this is because we care about others so much!) This is done to avoid the chaos in our own hearts and minds, and is a form of self-medication. If we are honest, we really often only care about other people's bad news, not their good news as that has no drama in it. An honest question to clarify this would be- How much time do we spend discussing other people's good news and successes? Compared to bad?
A counselor will also not tell you what to do, because all of us resent this. We all want autonomy and agency over our own lives, and when someone gives out unsolicited advice, it strips us of this. Ask yourself if you had a creative idea, if someone came in and took it from you, "improved" it with their own ideas, would you still want to do it? Would you still think it's your idea anymore? This is what happens with unsolicited advice. When we assume we know better than someone else knows about their very own life, we suck the life (and capability and autonomy) out of them with our advice. There's even words for this which none of us want to admit we are one! Interestingly, now that I'm healing, I have no interest in the drama of others. (I used to!) I don't need to give advice, I don't need to feel obligated to take a side with someone's story. I can empathize, but do it objectively. I still struggle with the empathetic responses instead of fix-it solutions, but it's getting better little by little. But, life can be boring with no other people's drama to have an opinion on, I'll admit!
kibitz: to look on and offer unwanted advice to others
quidnunc: a person eager to learn news and scandal
know-it-all: is a person who imparts the correct way to do something, or other information, with a sense of superiority
How does this happen? Slowly over time there is a 5 step process that our brains take in order to change our mindsets. A counselor cannot make these happen, but they assist in the process.
- Pre-contemplation- often more looks like denial that there is even something that needs changing, people get irritated if you mention a problem, and often the information just needs to be given in general terms and the persuading is done on their own brain in their own time and in their own way.
- Contemplation- is ambivalence, it's resistance to a problem. Willing to talk about the problem but not willing or able to do anything about it yet. (people often start counseling at this point) People often procrastinate or self-sabotage at this point to put off making changes they know need to be made. The loss of the old and the anxiety of the new is daunting.
- Preparation- time to face the battles, being brutally honest with the changes that need to be made. Time to make new habits and commit to new accountabilities.
- Action- doing it and following through. This is the hardest part...getting out of the old habits and into the new. There's often a lot of pushback from those around us who are used to the old.
- Maintenance- the stage where there's been a significant amount of time after the changes have been made. Often breaking free from old habits of substance abuse, other people's drama, negativity and self-defeating ways of living, and living a life of less reactivity and calmness of body and spirit seems alienlike for a while but then is so freeing and peaceful!
The infographic below is helpful for ideas to be empathetic without giving unsolicited advice.
Here's more info on codependency. I am still navigating getting away from this. It's been a huge part of my identity and life, bending to the alleged needs of others in order to feel worthy, accepted and needed. Breaking free has been super hard, because those roles are firmly established, especially with close family and friends.
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Either/or vs both/and thinking
One of the new-to-me concepts I've also learned in counseling is pretty simple and that is both/and vs either/or thinking. I hope we all do it already, but seeing it laid out, I knew that I was pretty unfamiliar with it in depth. For some reason, our society has come up with the idea that thoughts must be either/or. If I'm right, then you must be wrong. If I am feeling one thing, then I can't be feeling another. If I have a burden, then it must be worse or better than someone else's. This of course leads to a ton of judgement and comparing whose pain is worse and who "deserves" compassion or not. Either/or belief systems are very heavy on my way or your way, without seeing that most topics are 50+ shades of gray, so to speak. Very few things are black and white only. There's room for everyone's ideas, everyone's pain, everyone's feelings. These aren't limited by our inability to see or acknowledge them. This idea was new to me in that if someone else had a belief about something, and I disagreed with them, I felt that I must be wrong in order for them to be right. (Shame, there you are again!) You can see how limiting this can be. We can both be right for our own list of reasons from our own life experiences.
The only *alleged* downside to the both/and belief system is that it will reduce your arguing with others. When we can see many sides of a situation, it takes us off our moral high horse and leads to conversations with understanding for someone else's point of view. It levels the playing field and helps us try to understand one another rather than trying to convince them that either I'm right or you're right. Either/or thinking basically simplifies complex topics, which are full of important nuance and clarifying details. It also makes us more approachable and flexible, and reduces assumptions and blaming. Being unteachable is not a Christian virtue. We are all a work in progress, and God's not done with any of us yet! It's also realizing that none of us has the monopoly on truth.
Things that are both/and at the same time, not either/or (just quickly off the top of my head). These are the dichotomies of a day in the life of a Christian!
Sinner and saint
Deserving and undeserving
Redeemed and fallible
Confident and fearful
Prideful and humble
Earthly and heavenly minded
Needed and needing
Faithful and doubting
Grace filled and judgmental
Hopeful and doubting
Right and wrong
Forgiving and hurt
Obedient and resisting
Joy and grief/sadness
Over spiritualizing and under spiritualizing
Pious and negligent
Also words like bittersweet and spendthrift (someone who has a lot of money by being thrifty) too
In parenting these issues come up too, and they don't have to be one or the other. Both have their own list of pros and cons. One isn't right, so the other must be wrong. This is so divisive to think this way.
Home birth vs hospital birth
Homeschool vs public vs private
Vax vs unvaxx
Cosleep vs not
and on and on ad nauseum...
It's also things like worrying when your teens are out late and still being able to sleep when they aren't home yet.
Here's some infographics that help explain it further:
Another way that it is mentioned is called dialectical thinking (vs linear or binary).
This also then means~
- I don't have to share my opinion, but only if I want to (I can still have one)
- I don't have to take a side (there's often not just 2 sides, there's many)
- I don't need to try fix/change anyone
- I don't need to try to change someone else's opinion
- I don't need to defend my choices (but I will own them)
- I can have my own firm beliefs
- I'm not obligated to engage in an issue (it's my choice)
- I can stand up for myself clearly and concisely
- I have the same value as everyone else
(And the same is true for you!)
Dear Lord, We pray that you will deliver us from anything that binds us. Enable us to see the work of the evil one, and strengthen us against him. Set us free from anything that keeps us from becoming all You made us to be. We know you have a wonderful plan for our lives which includes deliverance, healing and restoration. Help us to never settle for less than all You have for us. We look to You as our healer and restorer. Amen.
Joel 2:25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten...
