April 3, 2024
Cultura Crossing: Interview with Leslie Lamb on Mental Health Coaching
Leslie Lamb is a licensed counselor who shares her wisdom and insights on her podcast. She talks about her journey to becoming a mental health coach and the importance of incorporating the Holy Spirit in therapy sessions.Highlights
- Leslie’s passion...
Leslie Lamb is a licensed counselor who shares her wisdom and insights on her podcast. She talks about her journey to becoming a mental health coach and the importance of incorporating the Holy Spirit in therapy sessions.
Highlights
- Leslie’s passion is to bring healing to hurting women and people in the world.
- She went back to school at 36 to get a degree in mental health counseling.
- Leslie works in a faith-based facility that believes in the Holy Spirit’s guidance in therapy.
- Sessions start with prayer and the Holy Spirit reveals insights and truths.
- Guided imagery is used to create a safe space for healing.
- Leslie emphasizes the difference between Deliverance Ministry and therapeutic engagement with the Holy Spirit.
- The need for mental health coaches has increased, with 50% of adults and 12-17 year olds in desperate need of help.
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Transcript
Music] welcome to today's episode on Cultura Crossing we have a special guest with us we have Leslie lamb who is a licensed counselor in the vibrant Landscapes of Northeast Louisiana and today she's going to bring us some wealth of wisdom her experience not only on the professional background but also from her own heart Leslie is an inspiring voice behind the shifted week podcast where she is entwining her personal uh profound insights of counseling as well as her own reflections with God and so join us
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today on this journey and without further Ado let's bring Leslie on hi Iris it's so nice to see you in person yes how are you I'm good I'm excited for today me too I know we've waited for like two months for the schedule yes so I'm sure that this is g to be great well I do have a few questions that we'll Dialogue on and I know from our conversations I kind of just held some questions from that time that we conversated so that we can poke on those things okay but I guess the first thing
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we should start off with is let's talk a little bit about yourselves okay what what specifically do you want to know because that's a lot we could unpack all right so I'll ask some questions so let's talk a little bit about the um the journey that brought you to becoming a licensed um mental health coach okay so um actually I was kind of in the the blog world and um was writing books and things like that and had opportunities to do some public speaking and I realized that my favorite part of that
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was not signing books my favorite part was talking to the women that would come up to the table and share how the books were relating to their mental health issues and I just it started to really bring a deep desire in me and I started praying like God I don't want to just be signing books I don't want to just be a relatable point I want to be a point of healing and so I just kept praying that Lord how can I bring healing because there's so many hurting women there's so many hurting people in the world and
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eventually as I continue to pray that prayer the Lord revealed to me like okay if this is what you want you're going to have to go back to school and you're going to have to go get an education and you're going to have to get certified so that you can do what I'm calling you to do and so at 36 went to grad school got my degree in mental health counseling and I've been doing it ever since and it's just been a beautiful beautiful journey and a beautiful answered prayer that's awesome and you actually
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work at a facility where it's residential correct it was residential but in 2020 when the world changed we changed the world and we started an outpatient program so ever since 2020 we've been outpatient and that what does that look like because I know that they're Faith faith-based obviously they're Christian right right and so it just looks like you know we believe that the holy spirit is the one that reveals the truth truth to us you know that's one of the roles Jesus said that he guides us into all truth he doesn't
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speak anything except that which is relayed by the father right and so I remember being in grad school and we were going through the whole you know psychodynamics and you know how we can only know so much and everything's kind of surfaced and it takes years and decades to get down to those root systems and I remember seeing this played out on a screen in college and being like but the Holy Spirit can do that and I in my passion and boisterousness I like raised my hand and I was like that is so cool because we
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don't have to take years like the Holy Spirit can do that and of course my teacher was offended and I left the classroom but but for me it was eye openening to see like wow science can do this but it takes years and years and years and years but the Holy Spirit can do it in an instant and so that's kind of what we do we just allow the holy spirit to guide and use those therapeutic components that we've learned right help with that process because I think that there's a difference between just like Deliverance
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Ministry and true mental health therapeutic engagement with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and that's what we're doing so because you know we've we've had you know been introduced to this field should I say um let's talk about briefly what a session would look like because I know that we've had Council sessions with actual you know c Christian counselors but they're not all the same and so when we incorporate the Holy Spirit without getting into like details or maybe if God allows you to want to
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share an experience um what would a session look like on this level well first of all you know it looks like well one I can't do with any client what they're not willing to do right so if client came in and said I'm not open to the Holy Spirit well that would limit what I would be able to do with them and I would have to refer them just because of where my specialty is but I do want to just say that up front like I'm not forcing this on anybody someone comes in and they're like I really want Holy Spirit Le counsel then
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it would start with prayer like opening up that space you know Holy Spirit Guide this session reveal truth reveal light bring healing all of the things that he's responsible to do and then he will reveal something you know um whether it's in the midst of conversation and the Holy Spirit will like point out that's an insecurity or um ask where that's rooted or ask the first time that she remembers having that kind of an emotional reaction or response to something and then just from there like
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he builds and one of the things that I really like is guided imagery where we create a safe space and we allow Holy Spirit to reveal what does Jesus want you to know about this what what where was God in that moment what would he have you know about this moment and it's really interesting because sometimes women will try to use their thoughts to guide it and you can tell because it won't be congruent with truth like for instance I had a client a while back and she had gone through extreme sexual trauma and um like what does God want
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you to know about that experience and in the session she was just talking about how well you know he's like guarding the door wow that doesn't sound like something that God would do like keep people from coming in to help her and so we just processed that like okay that feels like your imagination so can we just invite Holy Spirit what what is the truth about this situation and then he was able to reveal the truth to her and and and show it to her in a way that she understood like as the counselor I might
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not always understand the verbage and the language and even the the analogies that Jesus uses with these women but it means something to them because he speaks their language and so she can be communicating that to me and I be like okay that's cool that's cool and and it's Wrecking her because it has significant value to her identity and it's deeply reaching into a soul wound like only he can do and then she'll come out of that and she'll be like oh my gosh like I don't even have language to
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Express what I feel and then maybe the next session will be like how has what you did in the last session been evident in your life this week and she'll be able to say well I was able to spend time with my mom and and I didn't feel angry or I was able to talk to my husband and not be fearful of of his response and so you know that's that's something that I didn't do right that's something that the Holy Spirit did because he went in and he healed that Soul wound so it's really it's really
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beautiful and such rewarding work yeah um it's so interesting how when you know when we come into this place of healing you know and um I really always say that God has to really Grace you for this because you need patience and you need the voice of the Holy Spirit to bring Clarity on what's happening with the soul because I I like to refer to this as a soul care you know it's Soul Therapy right it's not and you know it's not the the the flesh it's not for the outer but it's really getting
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into the deep of the of of the the place of the core of the Soul right and um often when that protector comes up you know because we've done with you know dealt with you know doing therapy sessions with people who are maybe did quote unquote or multiple personalities and a lot of it stems from a fracture of the Soul um and when we see that protector come up we know you know that part of this person had to be that person to guard the door right and um you know some might refer to it as you know to break it down and simplify it to
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tell them that it's your imagination but the reality is is that they've built this personality to keep them from being exposed to the trauma again right you know and reliving that moment and so it's so important that these therapy sessions as Christians are being led or allowed to be led by the Holy Spirit and not just you know the knowledge of what you've learned in your course we need to implement you know both the scientific factor of how the anomy works the Body Works and how God works with the body
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because he created it right and that's one of the things that I've learned that in this in this um study should I say because we study we study to see how the brain works we study to see how the functions of the soul is working we study to see how the spirit works and then we come into the understanding of Revelation of how God works with those things right and interesting is that when we start to look at this as a whole and I'm talking about just the counseling part of life you will start to see that even in the
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Bible you know our organs are connected to all these different traumas and it and people might disregard that and say well that just sounds like it's way out there it's not because the kidney in the Bible is referred to as the mind and I find that interesting as I went even deeper that even our nerves that are connected in our spinal cord there's a there's a particular area in the back of our spinal cord that's called the gate and when God began to reveal that the pain is locked in or has to travel
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through that nerve system in the back I I remembered the scripture the rear guard came up and it revealed how God is the rear guard and he's constantly back there making sure that we're not you know not seeing the things we can't see right right and the second part of that the revelation of behold I stand at the door and knock became a different perception when I began to see that Jesus is back there knocking at that gate yes and he's saying I'm knocking here and I and I'm constantly here trying to enter in so
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that I can deliver you from all this pain yeah and when there is a pain in your nerve your whole body reacts because it was designed that way by God right you know when I looked into okay this scripture where it says you know he was talking about the Kenny I said what does the Kenny have to do with the Bible right you look into that and you realize that the Kenny holds a cap it wears a hat that actually sends out signal to the whole body so that they would know hey I'm suffering and I need you to send out a signal and then the signal goes
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out to all the organs and the organs begin to talk and say hey being I'm suffering you're not just sick there's connect there's a connection to all of this yeah what a beautiful orchestration of God's creation that goes way past our own ability to comprehend and everything comes together and if we limit God in these moments of life and think he's this small you know if we don't think that God is incorporated into science God created the planets he created the Stars he created the Earth he's he made those
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atmospheres to level up yeah then we we're we're limiting him in places that we have no idea that God can come in and recreate and redesign something hence the reason why he says New Creation right and so when I talk about this I of course am passionate because I desire to see people set free and if I desire it imagine how much more God is Desiring yes and I think that this moment in time of Eternity was orchestrated for this God is saying he is looking for more laborers who are willing to do this right who have been
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Grace but have been presented with something else for example that Ministry can only be done on a platform right if I'm not up there speaking I'm not doing the will of God or that that's just all I've been called to it's not true I think that yes we tend to focus on a specialty but our speal the specialty actually goes broad yes right and so when you're talking about that and I'm gonna get into this next part that we talked about on the phone um when we talk about that we talk about this with
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passion because there is a need for labor in this field yes and I actually went back to look at the statistics right I'm sorry but well I'll end on this from 2019 from the exposure of the covid okay God I I I ask God Holy Spirit what is happening he says I'm exposing the hearts of men okay yeah and so in 2019 we have increased so much in need for mental health coaches that we're at least at 50% yeah and they they have lost track between 12 and 17 wow they've like they can't even pin it but they're saying it's 50 adults and
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50% in the 12 to 17 bracket that is in desperate need of mental health coaching yeah think about that how long have we put aside in the church the Soul Care Ministry yeah I think about that every day because there is too much like even in in in the place that I work we cannot keep up with the numbers we cannot keep up with the numbers and I was just we were having a conversation at work the other day and you know one of our co-workers was just like we got to do something different we got to do something different and she's not even a
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therapist and we're like if you feel the weight of that imagine how much weight we feel but at the same time like there's nothing we can do all we can do is meet with the person who's in front of us and do our best to bring healing to them so that when they go out they can bring healing to others because what we do know is that when people heal and really heal then they take that healing with them and it doesn't just heal them and their soul and their lives but then it pours into Generations it starts to
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heal their family and it starts to heal their children and it even starts to go back to parental relationships and friendships so not just one soul is healed through this intervention but potentially a whole Community can be healed if we will just do the work but you're right and and Jesus said pray to the Lord of the Harvest for the workers and we're praying for more work that's not what he said right he said we need more workers but we're trying to amass Ministries and platforms and all these kind of things and hold on to them
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as if they were ours to begin with right instead of being like Hey sister you got a podcast let let's get together you've got this topic that's a wonderful topic let me promote you you know you do this that's great let's do this together but instead we like eat our own and we disc spre it oh you go to a health coach well that's not the same as therapy you should be going to therapy oh you go to a therapist you should be in the church seeing a pastoral counselor everybody has their role why are we trying to
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claim things as our own that's why it doesn't work because pride and the spirit of God and the gospel do not go hand in hand oh [Laughter] boy um yeah because you know that that fires us up too when you're a person of the mindset of a kingdom knowing that there's more than enough work for everyone the discrediting just it burns me because you know Jesus never said I want you guys to eat yourselves no he never said any of that he actually said that you by loving one another yes that's how people would know that
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you're my disciple right I get it there is a lot of false a lot of error of Doctrine going on I get it and I also believe that there's moments in time where God gives you that moment of truth to approach that error right but it does not limit or should not put a judgment on the fact that this person could have most likely and often times started off well see because it's God who calls them right right and so th this is you know John 17 Jesus says it you have given them to me you have called them by their
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name right you have given them to me and if people show up in God it doesn't mean it's not like oh everyone is sent demonically it's the world has fallen right I believe that there is demonic I believe all these things yes we know it's a part of our spiritual warfare but at the end of the day there is a core being that has a soul that could not have been released if it wasn't by the Creator himself right and I believe that there is purpose in everything God sends forth yes right and so if he's called us by
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name then he has already written The Book of Life right everyone has their opinions everybody has their you know perceptions of whatever but at the end the only thing that remains is his word and what is true right and I love the fact that you're doing a series now on love let's talk about that because once we start talking about the scriptures on love one okay it may have been a topic that was maybe overemphasize on hyper Grace fine we get that part but when you start to study it out you start to question yourself am I actually walking
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in the love of Christ right let's talk about that well the thing is recognizing the order right because Jesus was very specific about the order and God was too and even you know today I was talking about we Jes God said in the Old Testament Worship the Lord your God only right right and and Jesus said love the Lord your God and we wonder like well is that the same yes it is the same because worship is a heart position and love is a heart position and we don't truly worship what we don't love and so recognizing okay
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when I love God first and I allow that to be the source of my love then I will love others very healthily and I will love them well because it will not be about what they want it'll be about what's best for them and I think that that is what we need to focus on because we we've lost sight of that because we back to that Soul wound right if I'm afraid of being rejected then I'm gonna people please and if I people please then I'm GNA be in bondage to another person's will but we're not going to call it bondage we're
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going to call it Freedom right but just because we call it Freedom doesn't mean anything like I I don't have anybody come and talk to me about they struggling because um they have a a strong sense of identity of who God created them to be and they don't get along with people I I don't hear that story but what I do hear is I've lost my identity I don't know who I was created to be and so I Look to others to give me my identity and that hurts me right okay can we touch on that yeah okay that right there the leaning to
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others to find your own worth yes yeah and and it's going to hurt us because people are not perfect and so their love cannot be perfect towards us because and we say this a lot you know when we're talking about people who have soul wounds from their from their parents especially right they did the best they could with what they had right but you have to put both of those things in play they did the best they could means that I will hold them to an expectation that is you know the best that any parent could do but
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you have to keep that other part with what they had because what they had was insecurity and what they had was fear and what they had was addiction so with all of those things they did the best that they could but it still wasn't good because they had all these other things right so it limited their ability to parent well it limits their ability to be a good spouse it limits their ability to be a good friend or to be a good leader because they don't operate in their truest identity right so let's let I'm still poking on
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this one so for example because this happens a lot how can someone identify in their own life that they are using someone else to help create their own identity because remember these are people that most likely don't know they're doing it yeah and are often disappointed with life yes because they are constantly being failed in love right and do not understand that they're placing their whole being in the success of this person which it should be facing it on the one person right so when um how can a person
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identify that this is happening to them I would say if you have a sense that if something happened to that person you would die or your life would be irreparable you have probably put too much power on the way to that person if if you're not having a good day because they're not happy with you then you have probably loved them before God if you feel like you can't say no to them because they might reject you and if they reject you you're going to be devastated you have loved this person more than you've loved God and you
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haven't loved that's another thing is like we we talk about selflove and we talk but and Jesus said love others as you love yourself there has to be this Mutual component of recognizing my value so that I recognize the values of other in their proper context if we don't have value for ourselves we will overvalue people and undervalue ourselves which means that we will set ourselves up to be abused we will set ourselves up to be manipulated to be controlled because I don't have any internal value I've given
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it to this person but if I do recognize I have value God loves me and and he wants what's best for me and he has a plan for me then I don't just recognize that for myself I recognize that for the other person too because if God values me and God is unconditional then he values you too and so I'm gonna love you better because I recognize that God loves me first so let's let's break a a constant scripture that people will use to remove the value in their own life just on what we spoke about so Romans chapter
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1210 it states that love one another deeply and honor others more than yourself but it doesn't say love others more than yourself it says honor and there's a difference because honor and respect don't necessarily equate with love right so and and also contextually what is he talking about he's talking about not being a lover of yourself where you're seeking to please yourself and where you're elevating yourself above others that's never GNA work right so that's what he's talking about don't
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Elevate yourself above people but recognize their value and honor them first and then recognize your value and your honor too it's not mutually exclusive but we do make those statements because we don't read those things in context and I'm G be honest the church runs a little bit like a business and I need servants so let me emphasize all those verses that make people accessible to me in all the ways that need them to be accessible to me because now I've moved out of the love of God and the worship
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of God into an entity that is actually businesslike just being honest oh and I love honesty because I am very transparent too and so that's why I'm poking at certain things and that is a constant scripture that is used to get people to be servants and technically we are called to be servant leaders and that changes everything yes and um um just thinking about that part um if that scripture was not used outside of its contents what would you think the church would look like if it wasn't used out or if it was
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if we put error right if it was not used in error so like if no one was preaching or teaching this in error what would like a so-called perfect Church would look like oh my gosh it would look like the first church it would look like those who had yes gave to those who had not but here's the thing it wasn't to the point of depletion of the people who had they still had it was that it was distributed to those who didn't have and so you would have a church that works in community like the Trinity right is
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Unified rather than what we have where we're jockeying for position and we're rallying for platforms and Jesus is like what's going on guys but even the disciples did it because it's the kingdom of man that we haven't fully submitted to the kingdom of God right and Jesus was constantly having to tell them hey guys you're still looking for an Earthly Kingdom I'm not an Earthly Kingdom leader you're still looking for those accolades in an Earthly government but this isn't an Earthly government so
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man if he had to say it to them and he met with them every day every meal he still has to say it to us but he's still saying it and that's the point and I love the prayer of Jesus when he said I pray that they would be unified as we are unified yes and I love that and I'm always like God I want to answer your prayer I want to answer your pray I want to be unified I don't want to be divided but from the very beginning that has been what the enemy is set out to do to divide Eve to divide God and Adam and
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Eve to divide Cain and Abel like it's nothing new he's not super creative He's Just sh right which I would say that this reveals the necessity that is needed in the church when it comes to your soul the mental health coaching of the Soul it needs help because if we had taken this seriously years ago then we would have had a more cleaned up Church a more cleaned up body right that was literally operating out of what scripture says and not something we've created right so um okay let's get into the part where we talked about like
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when people say the re the relying on the counselor for their breakthrough okay yeah yeah um you can't I tell people all the time the role of this relationship is not to make you dependent on me right relationship is to make you dependent on your Eternal counselor which is the Holy Spirit and there's a vast difference between that because as good of a counselor as I am I can't bring breakthrough because too you've got a partner with me I can only do what my client allows right and and this happens a lot where people are
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like that like the holy spirit is pointing out something maybe it's a relationship maybe it's it's it's an identity and but but God lets us choose he does let us choose and people will choose like that's too deep that's too much I can't relinquish that even if God says that what he has to replace is is so much better I don't trust that and so I'm gonna walk away with my vices instead of release my vices and walk away with freedom we see it all the time wow because I can't force it and I don't
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want to force it first of all because that is antithetical to the gospel but also and and sometimes it crushes you because you're like oh my God they're just right there and the Holy Spirit like but we can't force it you know because he doesn't force it on us it is and so you're right I mean it's it's not the responsibility of the person working with you and if that is if they've come in and they've said that I'm going to be the one that fixes run run as far as you can as wide as you can
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because that's an unsafe counselor that's an unsafe Mentor that is an unsafe leader so okay so this is a good one okay so what do we do with clients that we have worked for years and we're not seeing any drastic change when is enough enough I mean or is there even a place for enough like what what is too long you know for a person and there still isn't a shift let's say there's minor shifts but not not the shifts that could have taken place over the course of three years I would refer them yeah because at
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that point like what are you do I mean if you're just there because you want to you you just want to keep showing up in my office to vent about life but like there's not been any evidence of any change then I'm not the right counselor for you or you're just not ready to be counseled at all you just need a space to vent and guess what there are a million places to vent and there is too many people that actually need and are seeking mental health freedom for you to fill that spot I I'm I I have strong boundaries in that area
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and I and I do short-term goals and if there's not movement I will refer them and not think twice about it because I'm not the right fit for them and if they're just there because they like me that's not the right reason for you to be in counseling and so actually I think that it's unethical for me to keep a client if it's not producing any fruit if it's not bringing forth any results in their life if they are the same from the time they walk in three years later no ma'am she's like no
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ma'am what is the um what do you what is your preferred set BR three for what is their goal what would you set a timeline that would be healthy because I know too and people don't because if you haven't been in this field then you wouldn't know but there can be an emotional attachment that happens if you go too long absolutely yeah I six months to a year really a year would be a maximum I mean it would depend on their level of trauma right I mean some people have significant trauma that they're having
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to work through and it may take a little bit longer but any longer than a year you are looking at a dependency and that's not going to be healthy now there will be other counselors that would disagree with me because they've seen the same person for three years but I think if you've move if you haven't moved to maintenance like there's one thing like are they your every week counsel are are they they're your clients every week or every two weeks or are you talking about maintenance counseling where you might
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go months and then they come back because of something that's different and and continue that for as long as they need it but if I'm seeing you once a week or once every two weeks and you are not seeing progress then I'll refer you out but there should be some kind of short-term goals and long-term goals that can be met within six months to a year okay so when you say refer out what would this refer will look like you know I would I would have references available for them that could do maybe more of that long-term care
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that that would be more of a you know maybe maybe they just need coaching maybe they just need somebody that has even more of a connection to another maybe they just need mentorship right and so talking that through with them I wouldn't just call them up and say hey we're done I mean we would have a conversation leading up to that right that they would understand like okay I need to look for other resources and I would help them find those resources and referrals but that's kind of what that would look like you know or maybe
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they're dealing with something that I just don't feel like is my expertise and so I would be like hey you know what I feel like you could go deeper in this area but I don't know that I'm the right counselor to take you there so I here's some referrals for people who can because that's a thing too like there are limitations in counseling and if somebody says I can do all things um again you probably need to run because that's none of us can do all things and so just knowing our limitations and then
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providing resources for them to get their needs met and that's a good thing right there what you said um knowing the difference right so we have we'll have an intermingle of you know the there you know the session but then you'll have this moment where you know there'll be that moment of like advice of like as if it was a mentoring program right right so in order to clean that up let's say we're g to talk about that is I guess let's break down what a mental health coaches and then the
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mentoring program which is equivalent to discipleship yeah right okay well and and there's a difference between a counselor a mental health coach and a Mentor so I I have a friend I have a really good friend and right now she's going through certification to do some mental health coaching but she is a counselor and so she's kind of been talking to me about the difference between those things right so a counselor can do therapeutic intervention right where you're going beyond what is just happening to why is
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it happening like what is my belief system that guides this Behavior where did it begin what relationships formed that how can I reframe that and reorient myself to truth so that then that becomes my belief system and then I can live out of that so that would be the work of a counselor a mental health coach would be somebody who would come in with very distinct goals like I am trying to work on such and such relationship maybe it's a co-worker or maybe it's a situation at work or maybe it's a situation with your family they
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would come in with very specific questions so that you could guide your process right so a mental health coach doesn't advise or counsel they simply sit with the person so that they can brainstorm what that person then can do there you go you said they do not advise or counsel they do not they process they yes they don't process right right so they're in the moment of right there they're coming for process right right for a why to a specific thing yes and that kind of just brings that in as a
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narrow gate yes and we need to we need to know the difference because there's many that might feel driven to do this but you have to know where to where you're being led to yes because you can be the counselor that needs to find a why that needs to find a behavior pattern that needs to find out where it started and go through the depth of that right then you have the mental health C that's going to just Target the thing that you see yes this's one thing not all the things that's right that's right
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right so now we have the counselor who does all the things and the mental cach is saying okay we have this one thing let's target that that's why it's specific to six six months to 12 months because it's a thing it's one thing we're focusing to process right right now it could lead up to other things right right yeah it can and even my friend is like when she recognizes okay wait this is not just a Here and Now issue there's something that's underlying that she then can refer well
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this is a counseling issue and so I would refer you to a therapist to kind of work through that and then the third thing that you mentioned though was mentorship right and so I'm a big believer in mentorship and and I encourage my clients like you need to have a mentor on the outside we need to have a sense of support in every day and again a mentor I think some confusion about mentorship too because I think when people think of mentorship they even think it it of it like a business model like this is somebody who goes
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before me and I want to do what they're doing and so I'm going to be mentored by them more of like an apprenticeship but that's not really what mentorship is or they think it's about only negative accountability right so if I'm doing something bad I have to have a mentor so that they help me and keep me from doing things but mentorship should be about relationship that both encourages strengths and calls out inconsistency right but not in a negative way it needs to both and it needs to be someone in my life that I
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trust that I recognize has some wisdom that will pray with me right that's AIG thing and and will meet me where I am and provide a means for me to move forward that that's mentorship and I think all of us all of us need that as yes absolutely absolutely that was good and short we didn't have to write a whole book for that one right right which is good because those who will watch it now can you know discern where where is it God's leading you to to are you the constant person that people go to and just lay everything out and God
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gives you the ability to discern the patterns and where it could be coming from because again this is all holy spirit L right all of these three categories are all holy spirit L holy spirit is just a good helper on the things that I cannot have the ability to do right I only am able because Holy Spirit in just makes us able to do these things for people because God wants to see us free yeah and yeah so this is a great um uh information okay speaking of that breakthrough in part of our discussion we talked about healing didn't happen
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through the counselor and we talked about us being that connector I think it's highly important for us to emphasize that though we're healing workers we're not the one who brings that healing right right it's exactly right right I say all the time like I am neither responsible for my clients successes nor their failures how can you break that if someone's coming into this field and that's usually one without the proper experience from someone else like a mentor to help you through this they can easily get
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discouraged from not seeing the fruit being you know coming forth from that their clients yeah and I think that maybe right now is a good time to give some wisdom on that experience well I think first of all you have to ask yourself why it's so important for you to see the fruit because that that can be an indication of a heart position that needs to be realigned right good are we abiding in Christ and trusting that he's going to do the work or do I believe that I'm going to do the work because there's a difference right right and and
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if I believe that it's on me to produce I'm gonna get burnout I'm gonna get tired I'm gonna feel overwhelmed but if I trust okay I'm just the vehicle or the vessel through which the holy Holy Spirit produces then that's it just takes the weight off of me right and so I can be struggling with a client but I have that internal knowledge of Holy Spirit you see her you see him you know what they need I trust you to continue to watch over them and sometimes like if I'm going through some serious um maybe some
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trauma work when we end a session I will pray Holy Spirit just as you hovered over the waters in between the days of creation I ask you to hover over this healing experience to hold her or to hold him until you complete the work and he's so faithful to do that and then that conversation with him reminds me I'm not responsible to carry this for her because he's her he's carrying her it's so good to hear those like just was talking about that cuz it is the it's the heart's desire you know
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it's God's heart's desire through us to see the person set free yeah and to Bear much fruit and sometimes through sessions you might have a tough client and um it can literally bring you to tears yeah you know depending on how that session goes because the desire for God through you is um it's a it's a burden carrier right and so I think when we come into this field one of the biggest things is again like you said check your heart posture on what it is you're positioning yourself into and make sure it's aligned with God
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you know that the holy spirit is the one that's going to do this and second of all you are going to cry here and there it is is normal for us to feel compassion and to feel the heart of God for that person yeah and I think um often we lose sight of that and I and again if your heart begins to get hardened while doing the work you need help ASAP yes because the last thing you want to do is lose love yeah for what God has called you to yeah you might have taken on too much like you said maybe you're being burnt
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out or have not released all those things to God and there's something happening but I have noticed that you know if you don't cry in in some point of all of this I it's it's going to be there there could be a hardening because the stories the moments with them it is an entwining it's a beautiful relationship it is right because it's that moment of the scripture where it says confess your sins to one another it's literally that yeah I feel like that moment because it's not all of it
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it's not my life it's just a moment and it's like that moment of confession is setting this person free and so um yeah expect to be to feel the burden of God for people yes yes because you will yeah you will you will you will and there's nothing wrong with that I say this because at some point we um the ministry was um given an app right and they decided to create this app where people can you know text in and set up conversations to have these these moments these sessions over the phone if they preferred or via
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text now at the moment of their desperate need they are sending in a text the text was overwhelming they came in flooding with all the needs of their emotional need that has never been taken care of yeah and some of the the the messages were like you know like like your worker said there's so much what are we G to do how are we going to confront this and it's just like it's too much for just us we have to trust that God is positioning people for this yeah and we can only do what we're called to do
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right here right now and you know we had someone that was overwhelmed and I said there's nothing wrong with that you you know there's nothing wrong with for crying because you see the need of everyone's like their need they're just so in need of emotions yeah um emotional healing I should say and um you know it it's it's still the app is still running on massive messages from people with all these Brokenness all this need of healing and you know I I I'm saying this to say that we can't run from it no and a lot of
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times like part of you know we talk about this too like the trauma embedding in US is less about what happened and more about the response to what happened right and so we'll have you'll have people that have carried soul wounds for years sexual Tri trauma intense sexual trauma and pain and it was dismissed it was ignored it was pushed under the rug like all these things never or they were blamed all of these things and so I think there is an importance to distinguish that you are feeling with them right so with cl because there can
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be and and I and we've had this you know before where when we were residential facility and um one of the counselors had was overwhelmed with with some grief for a client and what she was going through and the client felt like she had to rescue the counselor and so that kind of put her in a difficult situation and the counselor didn't really know how to communicate that she didn't need to rescue her because it was a little bit of uh transference that was happening so you know there's some intervention that
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we had to provide in that space But I think it's really important that when we are moved moved to emotion that we help the client recognize I am feeling this with you right you don't have I'm not I'm feeling this because the Lord is feeling this because he is because you should have experienced grief from others when these things were told to them and I I hate that you didn't and I'm sorry that you didn't because that's not a good reflection of the heart of God towards you or the the soul of
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humanity in the way that it was created and so there are those spaces but I do think it's really important to communicate to the client I'm not crying because this is too much for me because they already think that right I'm too much no one can help me much they've been told that and so it's important to say like I'm crying because I feel the weight of what you've must have endured all these years that's ating their pain instead of it looking like oh I'm in pain because you shared that with me
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right that's good that is really good um yeah I didn't even there there's been times where we've seen that where you know the client would take on that rescue for the person and um that could be dangerous because then that can yeah that can lead to a lot of different things well as we wrap this up what would you want to share about everything we talked about kind of just wrap it up and give people the last wisdom nuggets well I think the big thing is kind of to go back to what you said in the very beginning you know there there
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is a micro message of the of the gospel and there's a macro message of the gospel and so we can talk about identity problems or or did right where I'm living out of a different identity and I took on that identity because of the pain that I incurred and I just want to encourage people that you can do that without having a diagnosis without it looking like did right right you can have where you are living out of an identity that God did not create you to have because people people have hurt you because things have happened that have
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created a threat response or a sense of fear or a sense of anxiety and I just want to encourage people like sit with the Lord and ask him Lord what is my true identity right because if you really sit with the Lord and ask him that the Lord who is all loving and all knowing you're never going to hear anything about your sexuality you're never going to hear anything about your gender you are going to hear things about about who you were created to be not what you were created to be God is more interested in who you were created
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to be and that is the thing that he wants to illuminate for us so that we are walking in the power of our true identity that Christ came to restore to us that the enemy tried to steal all right so that's I guess that's my encouragement like God has given us an identity we were created with that identity and along the way due to circumstances and people and things that have happened in life we've lost sight of our true identity and the only way the only way to get back to that is to go to the one who created us and created
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that identity in us and ask him father who do you say that I am Holy Spirit reveal to me my true identity and don't second guess it write it down go to a mentor go to somebody in your life and say I feel like God said this to me does that ring true first of all is that something that the Lord would say is there anything in the word that backs up that identity and then two can you help me live out that true identity and if we that man our lives would change our minds would change our hearts would change right well that's will make our our
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lives changed yeah once we change that mental like just the healing of the soul is so important it will help us see things differently for sure and do life better with Christ or I should say in Christ so that's awesome can you tell everyone where to find your podcast you can find me at sifted wheat on Apple and Spotify and you could probably just put it in the search for wherever you listen to podcast and it's probably there I think it's on Amazon too and I think you can Google it it's on you know other
01:00:03
things you know how that works right also they can follow me on Instagram I will post content on there too and then I have a Facebook page lesle lamb um but yeah join the community um I'm excited about what God is doing and we're going to keep talking about love because that is one of the things that we are not doing well and so the next episode is love your parents and then from there we're g to talk about love your children and love your spouse and love your enemies and love your friends and all of
01:00:32
these things the Lord's like Hey we're gonna sit in love because we need to do that better exactly and you know it's funny because God will always bring us back to that yes I tell people if God keeps repeating something it's because you haven't gotten it yeah yeah right he's not a repeating himself great if he's if the if the message is following you it's because he's talking to you yes and so like love is never going to just go away because you know the Bible says God is love yeah and there's so much to
01:01:04
his love yes it's not just oh God is love this is a cupid no there's there's a lot in love that we can digest from so to go like you're doing you know from the parents to the to the children to the spouse there's there's much to go into so this is going to be an exciting Journey on her podcast tune in get in on this and start cleansing out because that's really what it's going to do it's going to begin to get you to think about what you think about love and how are you doing love and if you're doing it
01:01:41
well so I thank everyone for tuning in and for those who are tuning in in the future as a replay make sure you hit the Subscribe find us and we look forward to you joining our journey thank you Leslie for coming on and giving us your time I this was so good it was an honor I enjoyed it so much to do it again we will we will I'm sure the Lord will bring it up again and we'll have something to dive in deeper into I look forward to this was really good thank you for coming on yeah well enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone and we
01:02:15
will see each other soon
Leslie Lamb
Licensed Counselor
Leslie Lamb is a licensed counselor from Northeast Louisiana. She hosts the “Sifted Wheat” podcast, where she weaves her story and counseling experience with the greater picture of God through scripture. Host of Shifted Wheat Podcast
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