Good vs. Bad Counselors: How To Identify & Find The Right Help

Transcript

welcome to the Shameless podcast where I help Christian men kill shame stand strong and live on Mission I'm your host Ken play and I'm bringing you real stories practical insights and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin shame and live a life of purpose let's step out of the Shadows together and Into the Light of Christ greetings and welcome to another episode of the Shameless podcast where our mission is to help you kill shame stand strong and be on Mission I'm your host Ken FR and today we're diving into one of the most important questions for anyone seeking healing and growth and that's this how do you know if a counselor is actually good for you today we're breaking down the difference between a bad counselor and a good counselor side by side and if you're thinking about finding a counselor for the sins that either you've committed or the sins that have been committed upon you this will help you make an informed choice so you can avoid the harm and find real lasting growth through biblical guidance and I to start with a story about my counseling experience now if you haven't heard of my personal experience and how I came to Christ and all the struggles that I face I didn't encourage you to check out the episode feeling abandoned by God that's where I go through my my story of abuse and I allude to the counseling that I experienced but today I'm going to dive deeper into it now if you listen to that story part of my story is that I wanted to end my life and a big reason was because I went to a counselor and this was the first time I ever had gone to a counselor and in fact this was the first time I had ever shared all my sin that I've committed and all the sin that was committed on me to anyone and I thought that if I went to a counselor because at that time people told me counselors are to be trusted they are the ones who are have all the wisdom they can guide you they can walk you through it and I was like surely this counselor can help me and I went to this counselor because they were part of my church and I thought well they must be a Christian so that must be good too right like I I started to think through all of the reasons that it might be beneficial for me to go see this counselor the problem happened is that when I went to the counselor there's a lot of Dynamics right first I didn't know the counselor really well I was young I was 16 at the time I didn't know you know how to communicate with the counselor I didn't know how to communicate my feelings and all the things that were going on in my own heart and mind but uh I remember being in such a dark place thinking that if I don't share what's going on in my heart and in my mind I'm going to end my life now I don't know if you've ever been in this situation where you feel like you want to confess sin or confess things that have happened to you before and you are so scared you got like the butterflies you're super nervous it's so hard to look someone in the eye because of how worried you are this is exactly how I felt now if you've ever been to a counseling meeting the counselor is going to try to warm you up right he started asking me questions like the real softball things like how are you doing what's going on today right like what's your favorite sport just trying to get me to open up and I remember thinking okay I feel relaxed and finally we started digging deep and he asked me like what brought me here today and I could barely look him in the eye I was so ashamed of everything and have you ever been in those moments where you feel so shameful you just feel completely naked completely vulnerable that's how I felt I couldn't look up to him I couldn't stare him in the eye I couldn't do anything I just kind of looked down at my feet the whole time while I was sitting there and finally I mustered up the courage to share all my thoughts and just see how how he could help me and I remember when I was done just feeling completely vulnerable and I didn't know how to act I didn't know how to feel but I did muster up the courage to finally look up at him and I remember if as if it was yesterday the things that he said to me he said Ken you know I'm listening to your story and first of all that's sounds like you've been through a lot um but I want to give you some like a lens to look at your life and I was like I yes this is the first time I felt like someone could give me wisdom to what was going on through all these Eternal struggles that I've been facing and I thought surely someone's finally going to give me an answer and I remember him telling me that you know all these experiences that had I encountered of abuse primarily were happy happening because some individuals were bored and you guys were experimenting and you guys were just trying to figure yourselves out as you are growing up in your childhood and I remember thinking to myself like bored like I remember being a a child and me with my cousins putting ourselves in a box and taping up the box and pushing it down the stairs CU we were bored we would do stuff like that when we were bored we wouldn't abuse one another and it was in that moment that I remember thinking if this is the best that Christianity and God has to offer and this is the good counselors out there I walked away and that's when I was going to end my life fast forward again you should go listen to that episode about how I feel like God by his Providence and Grace saved me through that but I felt like the lord gave me a second chance at life and a few years later I decided to move from New York City to Texas where God started to do an amazing work in my heart and I moved to Texas to start working or start doing an internship there a leadership and discipleship program and it was amazing I was growing so much in my relationship with God there were still a lot of things in my own heart that I'd never dealt with before I had never dealt with the abuse I had never dealt with the struggling of pornography I had never dealt with any of my trauma throughout my life I just kind of like held that in right I wasn't going to share that with anyone because the last time I shared that with someone it ended really badly so I thought to myself you know what that's going to go to my grave well about 8 months into my internship I remember just praying and I sense God was just asking me to uh start to open up and share the things that are in my heart and actually deal with my trauma deal with my sin issues and I was just like okay sure let's go to prayer let's go handle this by ourselves and I remember God was like no no no no I want you to actually go see the counselor on campus that I was at the time and I thought to myself and I was praying and I was I was way rougher around the edges back then but I was like God are you smoking crack like are you serious do you remember the last time I went to a counselor and what happened that was horrific I don't ever want to go through that experience again and I kid you not I felt like God just shut the door on me and he was just like you are not going to sense me you are not going to hear from me like I I did not feel closeness to him cuz I felt like he was like you're not going to see growth into you go see that counselor so I thought to myself fine all frustrated and angry about this whole situation I was like I'll go see the counselor cuz all I felt like I I thought the Lord told me was go see the counselor right but he never said I actually had to talk to the counselor so I ended up setting up a meeting with the counselor and the counselor was like trying to like you know warm me up and use these little small talk questions and he was like how's your day going and I'm like oh all these counselors were trained by the same book there is no way I'm sharing anything with this guy right and I just remember thinking to myself you know what I'm just going to be here for 45 minutes I'm not going to say a word I'm going to leave and I would have fulfilled my promise to God I went and saw The Counselor done deal I crushed it right um 45 minutes were up and lo and behold I walked out I didn't say a word and I said God I held on my bargain and I just remember God was like no no no you know what you need to do and I was like God there is no way I'm going to share anything with this guy I've already told you it went bad the first time why should I go see another counselor I know they're all going to be the same right I was generalizing of course but that's not true but that's how I felt at the time so then I went and saw him again and again I didn't say anything to him for 45 minutes did not talk this lasted about four sessions where I would go to him and I would just mean mug him I would look him dead in the eye and I would not say a word right and he would just be like he sat there and just patiently waited well I think it was around the fourth or fifth meeting I can't really remember now but the last meeting I don't know what happened I don't know if I just came in angry that day but I remember he went about the same way Ken how's your day going is there anything that you want to talk about today and for some reason I was just so upset that day I just unloaded on him I started to unload about how much I hate people in his profession and how I hate people who are conniving and manipulative and all he wants to do is just make me feel like crap and I mean I don't remember all the things I'd said but what I do remember is this was the first time that I started to let my anger out and unleash it to someone that they rightfully didn't deserve it but the side effects of that anger is that a lot of that anger was tied to a lot of the abuse and Trauma that I was feeling that little by little I started to share all of the struggles that I have been facing all the sin that I had committed and all the sin that was committed unto me and the whole time I was talking I was trying to tell myself to shut my mouth have you ever been there in that situation where you are like verbally vomiting and you want to shut your mouth but you can't that was the moment that I was in and I was just like Ken shut your freaking pie hole you know what happened last time you know that the last time you spoke like this how devastating it was to you it's going to happen again but I couldn't stop I just unloaded everything and throughout that whole time I just remember thinking to myself this guy is going to give me some BS excuse he's going to put this sin on all this trauma on me like it's my fault and when I was done I had that same feeling that same moment that I had when I was 16 years old I sat there thinking to myself I feel vulnerable I feel naked I feel ashamed I'm worried what he's going to say and I felt so alone in that very moment just crying to myself and I could not bear to look up and after like 5 10 minutes of I just remember like him not saying anything I looked up and he did something that no one had ever done before and quite frankly there was only one other person that I ever shared all this stuff with and it didn't go well the first time so the second time I ever shared someone shared something with I look up to him and I just see him crying he was crying and I wonder to myself why is he crying like what's going on and I realized that he was crying for me he was empathizing with my pain he was genuinely there and I remember he came next to me and he said Ken I am so sorry that this happened to you you it's not your fault and I remember he's like do you mind if I just give you a hug and I was just like yes and when he hugged me it was like the first time I felt seen and heard kind of like the moment when I was uh in my bedroom at at 16 and I thought to myself what is going on and for the next 40 minutes I don't know how long it took honestly like time just kind of froze at this moment but I was crying so heavily like this is you know the like like nasty snot I mean I was like drooling all over his shoulder it was a hot embarrassing moment to say the least but I just remember feeling for the first time someone else beside God heard my pain and what he did he didn't say a word after that he just hugged me for however long and then by the time I was done I do remember saying this I remember uh we were're done I kind of like wiped my face a little bit and I was like dude that has got to have been the most awkward moment you've ever had with a a client and he just kind of laughed it off and he's like Ken I know that you have been through tremendous amount of pain and I'm willing to listen I'm willing to be here for you and I'm willing to walk you through your pain if you want me to and that's it that's all he said right and he just let it up to me and I said you know what I'm willing why walk me through this and uh I'll share a lot of the stuff that he did with me over the next several episodes we'll talk about my healing from abuse and also from pornography but what I want to talk about is the things that he did right and what other counselors in uh subsequent to that have done well for me as well however the reason why I share both of these stories is because God used a man who I thought I would have never been able to redeem a Prof before but because of this one man he was able to help me through it now sadly I have heard so many stories that are very common to my first experience with a counselor where it was a very bad experience and it wasn't helpful and it actually was more detrimental and now if anything one of my big soap boxes if you get to know me well enough is like that you find a really good counselor right like someone that I know that will be solid that's going to help you that's going to walk you through your pain in a Biblical god- centered empathetic manner okay so how do you do that how do you find those types of people and that's what we're going to talk about for the rest of this episode is what makes a bad counselor versus a good counselor and then some questions to ask yourselves okay now if you are just listening to this in the car and you want to know there is a video there is a slide deck there's some stuff that you can look at so finish listening to it but when you get a chance check out the video either on YouTube or on Spotify or apple podcast all of them have now a video component to it but I emplore you to check it out now let's walk you through the traits that I think there five there's a lot of traits that we could walk through but these are the main traits that I just want us to address okay so the first one the first trait uh is the approach what type of approach does the counsel have a bad counselor jumps to quick fixes without understanding the Deep issues versus a good counselor takes time to understand they want to listen they want to uncover the root issues you see here's what I found bad counselors often try to fix a problem right away without fully understanding what's going on they may ask questions it might actually take two or three sessions right because they're saying Hey I want to dig deep into it but con they're just trying to fix the surface level problem never the root issue right Proverbs 18:13 says it this way and it warns us if one gives an answer before he hears it is his folly and shame see Rush advice might solve the surface issue but leaves the deeper problem unnoticed versus a good counselor on the other hand doesn't Rush the issue they take time to dig deep to ask questions and to help you uncover the real issues they know that true healing takes time and they're patient with the process and that's the thing that you want to make sure is that the approach that someone has a good counselor that they would have what some people call a Ministry of presence that they're willing to sit with you walk you through it cry with you hug you if you need to right like someone that's just going to be there for you in your pain same thing with if there's sin that you're struggling with addictions that you're dealing with you want someone that is not just going to be like oh you're addicted well let's just do 12 steps and let's just move on right or hey just go to Alcoholics Anonymous or hey just do this no no no right sometimes you're going to need a band like a a a Band-Aid or some boundaries right something quick but like that should not be the end all be all you want someone to truly be there with you which leads to the next approach okay or next trait a bad counselor when it comes to empathy okay a bad counselor actually lacks empathy while a good counselor reflects Christ's compassion here's what I mean by this most counselors you have to be careful because at the end of the day most counselors are human and if you think about their schedule right if they're not careful they're packing out their schedule four or five sessions a day they're listening to a lot of people problems and they have their own problems at home and if they're not taking care of themselves they can lack a lot of empathy right and here's a way that I have noticed that they lack empathy when you feel like you have been unheard or dismissed right kind of like they're just nodding their head and they're like yep yep I hear your problem okay cool but they don't ever ask deeper questions to really uncover what's going on they may offer advice without fully connecting with your struggles but Hebrews 4:15 reminds us that we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses you see a lack of empathy leaves a gap in the counseling relationship where there's no sympathy you feel like you're talking to a wall I'll give you a great example of this I recently uh went to a doctor uh a holistic doctor who was just trying to figure out some of the stuff going on in my life and uh I remember sharing my my struggles and my pains and all these medical things and one the person never shook my hand they stood they sat like 10 ft apart from me they like never really looked at me and they were just kind of like Stone Cold the whole time and I'm like dude what is this guy's deal I'm like just trying to get better right like there's not a major issue I'm trying to you know deal with I'm just trying to connect and he did not want to connect at all and I was just like wow you lack so much sympathy for your clients and I could feel it and I was just like I'm out I don't want to deal with this guy and I went and found a different doctor but when you find people like this right it happens in the counseling office as well that they sometimes just are a little bit more cold to you right what you want to find is someone who reflects Christ's compassion who's willing to walk with your pain and sit there and empathize and sympathize with you in the midst of everything that's going on the next one this is actually the opposite of lacking empathy this is when someone is how they handle your feelings they end up being too empathetic so here's what I mean by this a bad counselor prioritizes feelings over truth while a good counselor balances empathy with truth you see a bad counselor might validate your feelings so much that they never help you confront difficult truths and this can feel comforting at some point but it keeps you from growing Proverbs 276 says this faithful are the wounds of a friend see real growth requires hard truth not just feeling good in the moment see in contrast a good counsel listens with empathy and they also speak truth into your life even when it's un uncomfortable now there's an appropriate time to when to do this okay they're not just going to be like just speaking hard truth and just letting you walk like there are times when they need to sit with you there are also times when they need to just call you out on your junk see I remember and maybe this is a great Lous test what I use when I counsel people and when people have celed me is that when I am talking about the sin that people have committed to me typically I need someone who is going to help me with Ministry of presence just empathize and just be there with me be there with my pain help me see that Jesus Christ is a god of comfort that's what I need but when I come to someone and I tell them my sin and how I may have a lot of excuses for that sin and why I've committed it or I try to not fully take ownership of the sin that I committed those are perfect times when I need someone to confront me that is going to be extremely important in these situations so good counselors understand that sometimes the truth may sting but it's also where real freedom and growth begins all right this is going to be really important especially because I I believe that for some of you who are listening to this the reason that you are still stuck in some of your sin with lust and pornography is that you have been hurt people have truly truly hurt you and that has affected you but you have taken that on and become a victim and everything now is Under the Umbrella of victim and yes when you are in pain and someone has truly hurt you I want you to have someone that can walk you through that pain at the same time we have to be careful that we don't take that card and blame everything towards the sin that we've committed I'll give you a a really good example for myself one of the moments that I remember uh going through uh with my good counselor is that I remember struggling I would have lustful thoughts and I would struggle primarily at at night time with masturbating and different things like that and I just remember thinking to myself like you know what I wouldn't struggle with this if this person had never abused me and yes in some ways the person did introduce me to pornography and at the same time I kept walking into it and I allowed it to become an addiction and I went to it as a coping mechanism so somewhere down the line it was my choice to start walking into this lustful desire and make myself enslaved to it and I I just remember my counselor was like Ken you're right this person hurt you this person introduced you but when when are you going to take ownership for what you've done and I remember like being a little bit offended I'm not going to lie I remember thinking like what what are you talking about this is all their fault but like no no at some point I made the choice at some point I made the choice to manipulate women at some point I made the choice to take advantage of people at some point I made the choice to masturbate and all those choices right were things that I was brushing off to other people and I just needed someone to kind of call me out and granted I want you to hear this very carefully he didn't do that in the first session this was like 12 sessions in okay so like there was time there there was like relationship built where he was able to speak into my life and I I listened and I was like oh man you're right so keep that in mind but you want to make sure that they do not just prioritize your feelings over truth they balance empathy with truth guiding you towards growth this is going to be really important all right next one is that they scripturedaily centered a bad counselor relies on their own wisdom versus a good counselor uses scripture as the foundation for every session now this one is probably going to be the most controversial out of all the ones that I've talked about so far but here's why I think a bad counselor even though well-intended might give you advice based on their personal views or what they've read read outside of scripture and while they mean well human wisdom and sometimes what we will call like psychology or secular psychology can't actually bring about the Deep transformative healing that we need see Psalms 119 105 tells us this your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path without God's word their guidance is just a shot in the dark and what I have found with several counselors now is that they are saying that they're Christians they're saying that they Infuse scripture but really they kind of just take a passage here and there but most of their training is from secular psychology and not founded on the word of God and I am telling you that is one of the biggest red flags they may have good coping mechanisms and trust me I know that some of those things can help but in the long run they are not actually pointing you to the person who can transform you at the end of the day is just behavior modification not heart transformation I've seen it time and time again where people have gone through counseling for severe issues and they're like oh man I went to this secular or this Christian um psychologist or therapist and they're using these secular methods and they're like oh man it worked for the short term but then all of a sudden longterm they come back and they're like why am I still struggling with this issue it's because God has never transformed your heart he's never actually done the Deep work that needed to be done right and I know this is a very simplistic version of what I'm talking about there might be some counselors who are listening to this and they're like Ken you're painting this in a bad brush I would love to go into this topic deeper at a later time and have other counselors come in and speak about this topic but I can tell you a couple things things that is super important to me here is that a good counselor what I have found uses scripture as the foundation for everything they believe that God's word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword they will open up the Bible with you point you to the truths as the ultimate source of wisdom and healing and here's one I know push back that I tend to see and get sometimes people are like well K the Bible doesn't talk about these specific traumas it's not exhaustive for the issues that we face today because God didn't know about all these intricate issues that we are struggling with today and we have psychology and we have the DSM 4 and five and I don't remember what one we're at now but we have all these new studies that are revealing new things and I'm like whoa whoa whoa time out are you saying that the god of the Universe the Alpha and the Omega the the god who's outside of time who look through eternity past could not see all the sin all the pain all the struggle that we would go through and give us sufficient wisdom on how to deal with it there's passages that he says he gives us everything that pertains to life and godliness the word of God is God breathed and it's there for instruction and reprove and for righteousness the passages of scripture if we dig deep into it can truly give us life like I cannot tell you how much my life has been completely transformed and healed because I didn't go to secular counselors It's because I went deeper into the word of God and sometimes people are like well the scriptures can't handle certain truths I'm like no no it's just cuz you just have look deep enough God has put it in there think about it Tamar she was abused by her brother her step brother right there there's like countless of stories King David he took his uh B Sheba he murdered B sheba's husband took her as his wife the stories that you hear or like it talks about in Corinthians where this man this uh man is sleeping with his mother-in-law like there's the stories that are grimy that are disgusting and grotesque and filled with sin and yet God knows how to speak to those stories if God can speak to those stories he can speak to your problems your pain your trauma your sin don't ever discount the P scriptures that is going to be a huge thing of how do you find someone who's actually going to walk you through it and I tell you this because I've talked to so many people who when they go through counseling and they're like oh I went through this secular counselor it was fantastic and I'm like but has your heart felt more in love and transformed by Jesus which leads me to my last point it's your dependency a bad counselor makes you either be dependent on them or on yourself if you walk away thinking you got this in the bag and it's all on you now that is bad counseling that's bad advice it's humanism at its core and it's destructive for your soul right there's a lot of self-help books out there that they're going to tell you you know what you can be a better you you don't need to be a better you you need to be a transformed you and if you've been through abuse and pain you know this really well because deep down inside you might have been just like me there is nothing in this world that can make you feel better you don't want to be better you want the pain to stop you want the pain to change you need transformation and this is where a good counselor equips you to depend on Christ to see Christ as your source to see Christ as your savior to see Christ as your lord to see Christ as your big brother see because a bad counselor might give you the impression that you can't move forward without them they become your crutch the person you turn to for every solution and this dependency feels comforting at times right because it keeps you from standing strong it keeps you from standing strong in your faith right cuz you're leaning on someone else but you're leaning on the wrong person ultimately you are supposed to be leaning on Christ as the Firm Foundation there is a passage get that gets taken out of context like crazy but this is hopefully the first time you might hear it in good context see cuz a good counselor when they point you back to Christ you should be able to say something like this I can do all things through him who strengthens me Philippians 4:13 right I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me right this is a man who was in prison who was jailed who was beaten who was Shipwrecked right like he has gone through the mud he's gone through hell and back and he's still saying you know what I can do all things through Christ to things strengthens me he doesn't say I can do all things through humanism or I can do all things through My Own Strength who strengthens me no no he says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me see so a good counselor what they want you to do is grow in your dependence on Jesus not on them their ultimate goal is to equip you to rely on God so you're stronger in him when your counseling ends great counselors don't want you to see them on a weekly basis they want to help you they want to grow you and they want you to be connected back to a body of Believers and then if you ever need to check in great check in right but they are not the end all be all for you so as you think about this bad counselors and good counselors okay remember the traits that you want to look for the approach the empathy the handling of their feelings the scriptural foundation and your dependency on on either them or on Christ as you think about this and as we wrap up I want you to have some questions to ask right because now that you know what a good counselor and bad counselor should be like well if you ever go look for one I would encourage you to ask some questions to them okay so if you're ready to start your search there are certain organizations that I would encourage you to check out for example there's ABC this is the association of biblical counselors led by the president believer at this moment is Jeremy Leck I personally have enjoyed this uh group this is when I was looking for certifications and I went through the certification it was with them uh I did not finish my certification that's a whole different story but everything that I've done with them has been top-notch has been amazing so you could check out some of their counselors uh ccef is another one acbc is a great one Heath Lambert used to be uh the president for that one now I believe is Dale Johnson and then the other one is the biblical counseling Coalition these are all great networks and organizations that have people within the biblical Counseling World some of them are are more strict in certain areas and different things and emphasize a couple other things but even then right as an organization they may all be phenomenal but you still got to interview your people the counselors okay don't ever take it for a grain of salt just because I said it or someone's like oh yeah they have this credential you still want to ask several questions okay so here are five simple questions that you want to ask and you want to see how they answer the questions okay so question number one what is your ultimate goal in counseling you want to ask them that like what are they trying to do here right I remember one counselor I I talked to and they're like Ken we're going to probably have six to eight sessions and I want to figure out the root issue I want to point you to Christ and I want to get you out of my door not because I don't love you but because as a brother in Christ I don't want you to depend on me and I remember thinking to myself like wow this guy's really blunt and kind of straightforward but I kind of liked it at the time you know it's what I needed and the other thing he said I remember was like Ken right now you're my counsel but I hope we could be brothers after this and we could be friends and I was just like kind of shocked I was like wait a minute doesn't that break like every kind of boundary of like counseling ethics or whatever that I've learned in the past but what he was trying to get to is like the ultimate goal is for you not to be in a crutch right is that you find healing and that you get to a place where you're so healed that like you could start doing Ministry with other people and I just thought wow this guy's amazing okay so what is your ultimate goal in counseling the second question is how do you incorporate scripture into your counseling this one's going to be really important right because you want to be like hey is this something like it's a tag on to everything else right that you're doing on like all your credentials do they mainly focus on all their other credentials and then they were like oh yeah I think there's this proverb somewhere here right no no like you want to if you're going to a counselor like I always look where's their Bible at like I want to be able to see a physical Bible now granted they might use a digital one and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for that but if they don't like I want to see one that has been worn has been used or like they got stuff highlighted like it's their thing they're go to okay that's just my personal opinion of the people that I like to pursue the next question is what's your view on sin Grace and repentance this is such a good question and any counselor is going to be like whoa you asked this question they're it's going to be like a that's a dissertation for a lot of them that's good you want to see where they're at you want to see how do they handle sin in their old life how do they handle sin when you confess sin how do they talk about Grace are they someone who's Grace filled or are they legalistic you want to make sure that they are walking you through the grace of God I cannot tell you how much all these counselors the good ones that have helped me and mentors and coaches the ones who were the best for me the ones who were so Grace filled who were the people who just constantly were showing me the grace of God over my life because I quite frankly I am someone who can constantly see my sin all day long every moment of the day I I sense my thoughts being negative and sinful and I I I feel the condemnation on a daily basis that I have to remind myself Romans 81 that there there's no condemnation in Christ Jesus right like that's a battle that I have to fight constantly but the only way to do that is if I'm underg guarded by grace and that's what you need is someone who can walk you through Grace and then last was like repentance what's their view on repentance right this is a big red flag for me whenever people use language like hey you just have struggles or you've just made mistakes or you just have issues or you just have bad habits those can be all true those are things that happen right you do have bad habits you do have struggles but if they never say you have sin or some of your bad habits are due to sinful sin or there actually sinful habits right there's a lot of even pastors out there who don't like using that language anymore right and that's a big red flag because sometimes the the most healing you can have is through repenting and proper repentance through your sin and I had to do that in my life again I I want to distinguish between sin that was committed towards me right that's not something that I Repent of but how I choose to respond to the sin that I have to be careful of and and man oh man did I choose to respond in a very sinful angry bitter way and had to take ownership of the things that I responded to and how I responded to and bring it to the Lord in Repentance okay two more questions how do you balance empathy with speaking hard truths okay I personally when I ask this question here's what I'm looking for is I I actually would prefer someone who's more empathetic right it's so hard to find the balance of like empathy and Truth telling right but there are people who are like they're going to cut you no matter how much you're hurting and I'm just like even though you're trying to be a Biblical counselor empathy is needed at the moment so I would implore you to make sure that like again if you're going through abuse trauma anything like that you probably need more empathy at the beginning first before you have someone just start like trying to give you hard truths if you don't have abuse in your background it's just kind of like hey man I know this is my sin I know I'm struggling right you may need someone to kind of kick you in the pants a little bit right and that's okay right it just depends on where you're at and you're like dude I don't know what I need in this moment this is where you actually talking to a counselor might be helpful of like hey I actually don't know what I need how do you balance it with someone like this and you don't have to get into the sinful details but you're just like this is my personality this is how I handle when people speak hard truths to me they should get to know you a little bit so that they know how to speak to you a great biblical counselor will get to understand your personality get to understand how they best should speak to you and what type of tone they should be using with you like all those things are going to matter in this situation and then the last question is how do you navigate situations where your personal beliefs might differ from a clients this is going to be kind of goes along with the empathy side of things but man you are going to have as as a counsel several different beliefs that might differ from the biblical counselor so you want to know how do they handle those and then you as a counsel you want to be also open to seeing like maybe the biblical counselor is right maybe they're wrong right like both of you have to have this humility going into this but like how do you navigate those conversations ations are you open-minded are are we willing to have a discussion or is this like my way or the highway all right so those things are going to be really important as you process through this now hopefully this conversation has been helpful to you again the whole time in this topic what I wanted to walk you through is just recognizing what takes a bad counselor versus a good counselor what are the traits of a good counselor and what type of questions should you be asking for those individuals and if this has been helpful or there's a topic you'd like me to cover man I would love for you to shoot me a DM right and see how I can best help you and I get it man if you've had a story with a bad counselor I I totally understand you can shoot me a DM and be like dude I I want to find a good counselor but I don't know how to find one I'm struggling because this has happened to me man please feel free to reach out I know how hard that can be uh you can reach out to me via my personal Instagram or in my podcast handles they're all going to be in the show notes that you can check at any given time and I encourage you if you are at a place where sin has been committed upon you whether it's abuse or any type of trauma like that or the sin that you've committed and you're struggling can I just encourage you go find the help you need if you need to reach out to me be more than happy to point you in the right direction if not go to your pastor go reach out to someone right make sure that you are in a biblically saturated spirit filled gospel centered Christ glorifying Church okay so that you could find people that can help you through it or check out some of those networking organizations that I talked about earlier ABC CCF acbc BCC right I know those are all acronyms you won't remember it's going to be in the show notes but go reach out to someone start getting the help you need until next time still keep killing shame stand strong and be on Mission hope you have a great day and God bless thanks for joining us today if you found this episode helpful make sure to subscribe and leave a review remember killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past it's about walking boldly into the future God has has for you