Multitude of Counselors

Loneliness

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jennifer Jill Schwirzer Robert Davidson (Host), David Guerro, Paul Coneff, Christina Cecotto

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Series Code: MOC

Program Code: MOC000001A


00:27 Welcome to A Multitude of Counselors.
00:30 We're so glad you came,
00:31 this is a show dedicated to understanding
00:34 how we can have better mental health,
00:36 rooted and grounded in timeless biblical principles.
00:40 I'm so glad to have my treatment team
00:42 here with me today.
00:44 I wanna introduce them one by one.
00:45 This is Christina Cecotto, she's from Georgia.
00:49 She is a Masters in Social of License,
00:53 Masters in Social Work
00:55 and she works at Wildwood Lifestyle Center.
00:59 She likes to treat,
01:00 as a mental health counselor and she likes to treat anxiety,
01:04 mood disorders and she also kind of specializes in phobias
01:08 which is so special
01:09 because that's one of the most common
01:11 anxiety diagnosis, isn't it?
01:13 So glad to have you here.
01:15 And we have David Guerro.
01:18 David is from Wisconsin.
01:20 He is so many things, I can hardly count them all.
01:22 He's a pastor, a chaplain, a life coach.
01:24 He is a certified biblical counselor
01:27 and he runs a ministry called Rekindle the Flame
01:30 through which he gives seminars.
01:32 So like what don't you do David,
01:33 you're just a busy man
01:35 and so I'm excited to have you here as well.
01:38 This is Paul Coneff.
01:40 Paul is from Texas, the great state of Texas.
01:43 He is a marriage and family therapist.
01:45 He runs a prayer and discipleship ministry
01:49 called Straight 2 The Heart
01:51 through which he helps people through loss,
01:54 recovery from abuse
01:56 and addiction utilizing a method
01:59 that he is developed that puts people in contact
02:03 with a crucified Christ in an effort
02:06 to dignify their suffering
02:07 and make sense of their suffering.
02:08 Beautiful program.
02:10 And my co-host Robert Davidson, he's from the DC area.
02:15 He's a private practice counselor
02:17 and he works with me in abide counseling
02:19 and that work.
02:21 He is also a private practice counselor
02:23 and he has a specialty, he does families
02:26 and individuals and couples
02:28 but he has kind of a specialty in helping men
02:33 develop biblical manhood
02:35 and develop into servant leaders
02:37 helping them develop integrity which is,
02:39 there is such a need for that now
02:40 because we've got this pandemic of pornography addiction
02:45 and so forth and so I'm so glad you're doing that,
02:47 I'm so glad each and everyone of you
02:49 are here with us today.
02:50 Our topic today is " Loneliness."
02:53 We're gonna be talking about a human problem
02:55 at every show
02:57 and today's human problem is loneliness.
03:00 I mean to give you some facts about loneliness upfront here.
03:03 First of all, a definition of loneliness,
03:05 very simple, insufficient social connection
03:08 and closed bonds for optimal well being.
03:12 The prevalence of loneliness is hard to track
03:14 because it's not an official diagnosis.
03:16 However, there is a clinician in,
03:20 from the University of Chicago named John Cacioppo,
03:23 who is considered the dawn of loneliness
03:26 in the mental health field.
03:28 And he says that loneliness is on the rise.
03:32 Up from 20 % in the 80s to now 40 % today
03:37 and he specializes in loneliness
03:39 and really develops that,
03:40 so apparently loneliness is pandemic as well.
03:44 What is the cause of loneliness?
03:45 Well, I've mowed this over,
03:47 it's not a whole lot of research on it
03:49 but what I believe is that people have trouble bonding
03:53 and developing relationships when they grow up in homes,
03:56 where they are not taught that from the time they're born
04:00 because you see God has organized
04:02 human development such that we have opportunity
04:05 after opportunity to develop relationship
04:07 first with mother and child
04:09 and the brain is literally formatted
04:11 through that relationship and then father and child
04:14 and then often siblings and then friends
04:17 and at every phase we learn better how to trust,
04:21 how to love and be loved
04:23 and that's how God set up human life.
04:24 Well, the tragedy is that sometimes homes,
04:28 they're designed by God to be the place
04:29 where we learn how to love and be loved
04:31 are so compromised that people really
04:33 either don't learn that or learn the opposite.
04:36 So I think the major problem with loneliness
04:40 or the contributor to it is people have insufficient
04:42 relational and bonding skills
04:44 and they have not developed them
04:46 so far in life and they come into adulthood
04:48 basically as children
04:50 but really kind of almost were soft
04:51 because they've developed bad habits of relating.
04:55 But the prognosis is still good
04:58 and what we're gonna find on the show
04:59 is whenever I talk about the prognosis
05:01 which simply means how is this gonna pan out,
05:03 is it curable or fixable.
05:06 I'm always gonna say that the prognosis is good
05:08 because Jesus is a living savior
05:11 and he's powerful and able to heal us.
05:14 And it says and I think it's Psalm 131,
05:17 correct me if I'm wrong,
05:18 he heals all our diseases
05:20 including our relational and mental diseases.
05:22 So loneliness is very curable
05:25 and people can learn how to love and be loved.
05:28 What is the best treatment for loneliness?
05:32 I think from my research that one of the best things
05:34 that we can do is encourage a person
05:37 or if it's ourselves, go to church.
05:40 There's lots of research on the benefits of church
05:44 to people socially and in terms of mental health
05:47 and even physical health as it attaches to those things.
05:50 Now I know that there are extremely toxic churches
05:53 and some of them would have the opposite effect
05:55 but by and large,
05:56 even factoring in those toxic churches,
05:58 church is good for people, it's a great place to connect
06:01 and you know, if you think about it,
06:03 you are really, if you've had a bad family life,
06:06 you're really part of the family of God
06:07 when you come to Church.
06:08 So what have you guys used with your clients
06:11 and what has worked for you in your search
06:15 to connect with others?
06:16 Do you wanna give me some input at this point?
06:20 You know, Jennifer.
06:22 Just listening to what you're saying is so true
06:25 and one thing that I often try to do is,
06:26 try to help the person make decisions concerning
06:31 people that they know that they could bond with
06:34 and connecting with individuals is very, very important.
06:38 Secondly, is trying to find
06:42 what is the cause of the disconnect,
06:43 what is the cause of the loneliness
06:45 and perhaps maybe certain events
06:48 that are causing this feeling of our not,
06:52 of not having anyone around
06:54 or feeling lonely and then connecting,
06:58 connecting with Christ and connecting with others,
07:01 are those things I think are very important.
07:02 Don't you find that when people have had broken trust,
07:05 a lot of times they're very reluctant to trust again?
07:08 And it's because when they first trusted,
07:10 they were children, very naive, very vulnerable
07:13 and they reason in their child mind,
07:15 will I trust it, it was disastrous,
07:17 I'll never trust again.
07:19 But what I do is I try to bring them from that
07:21 to wait a minute,
07:22 you don't have to trust like you trusted as a child again.
07:25 You can learn to trust more intelligently
07:27 because now you're an adult and so let's work on that,
07:30 how can you trust again
07:31 'cause not trusting anyone in and of itself
07:33 is dangerous.
07:34 We have to have trust bonds to be healthy.
07:36 What I would say too is when trust is broken,
07:38 it's easy to learn
07:40 that the world isn't safe and I can't trust.
07:42 So I think healing some of that brokenness
07:44 would be important for me,
07:46 you know, if their belief system is I'm alone,
07:47 I can't trust.
07:49 I would wanna bring him into Jesus story
07:50 where he fulfilled prophecy
07:52 in very intentional specific ways.
07:54 Like Isaiah 63 says,
07:55 he would try the one put us alone,
07:57 of the people they are be none with Him.
07:59 He experienced loneliness in the biggest way.
08:02 And so he told His disciples in the book of John,
08:04 you're all gonna leave me alone.
08:05 No, we won't.
08:07 Yeah, you're going to, it's a fulfillment of prophecy
08:08 and then in the Garden of Gethsemane,
08:10 you know, here He is alone.
08:12 He asked those closest two and to be there for Him.
08:14 He's invested all of His time and energy
08:15 and they're not there for him.
08:17 So I find if I begin connecting that person's story,
08:20 a brokenness where they learned not to trust
08:22 which is a story and then we begin praying
08:25 and bringing their story to Jesus story
08:27 together in prayer,
08:28 the Holy Spirit starts doing some healing.
08:30 What happens there, do they just see
08:32 that God knows how they feel?
08:34 Is that a big part of the therapeutic
08:37 effect of that, it's just knowing...
08:38 Yeah, there is this connect where they tend...
08:40 we tend to think of Jesus,
08:41 He died for our sins, rose again,
08:42 He'll forgive us and that's true. Yeah.
08:44 All of a sudden they see that He was human like us
08:46 and the big, the big teaching moment
08:49 sort of speak the connection is wow!
08:51 He knows what it's like to be alone.
08:54 He can identify with me,
08:56 He can relate to me and when that happens,
08:59 something in their heart starts to go, Oh, you understand,
09:02 I can begin to trust you.
09:04 And it's that something also that they intended to interpret
09:08 the betrayal of their trust as a statement about them
09:12 and when they see that Jesus himself,
09:15 God experienced betrayal of trust,
09:17 they realized, well, good people get betrayed.
09:20 I don't have to feel stigmatized
09:21 by the fact that I was betrayed.
09:22 You think that might be part of it?
09:24 Exactly.
09:25 'Cause He's got abandonment there,
09:26 He's got betrayal, He's got all these things happening
09:29 and if it's a family member, there He's on the cross,
09:31 "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
09:33 He's being tempted to believe His Father's left Him.
09:37 And so for me, I found it just creates
09:39 a heart to heart connection with God
09:41 and of course, we're as counselors,
09:43 we're part of that and then as they get healing
09:45 then they can begin making those decisions
09:47 like you brought out, Jennifer, who can we trust,
09:49 who is not trust worthy.
09:51 Have you ever had this experience
09:52 where you tried to share things like that with people
09:55 and it draws a blank and they can't really relate
10:01 even though it might be moving you
10:02 and at times I've been moved to tears talking about Jesus
10:05 and His sufferings and how it really
10:07 dignifies their sufferings
10:08 and so forth and I... and I just see it drawing a blank.
10:11 Do you have a way that you get through to people like that?
10:15 Well, what I do with them as I'm talking with them,
10:18 I'll often have His story on a piece of paper
10:20 where they can look at it,
10:21 step by step from Gethsemane to Calvary,
10:23 so they've got something tangible in front of them
10:25 and then I invite them
10:26 if we could take that information
10:28 and turn it into a prayer because Jesus said,
10:30 if you don't believe what I say,
10:32 then do it and apply and see what happens.
10:34 So I'll invite them
10:35 to pray Jesus's story into their prayer,
10:38 a simple prayer like, "Dear God,
10:39 thank you that Jesus suffered being alone
10:41 and abandoned in the garden
10:42 and betrayed and tempted not to trust
10:45 and connected with you so He could take into His death
10:48 on the cross, all the ways I'm alone
10:51 and I've learned I can't trust others
10:53 and then rise again to heal me
10:55 and set me free and as we do that over and over,
10:57 what I find is, they get a mind heart connection
10:59 or if we're gonna use a scripture,
11:01 it's that new covenant of mind and heart.
11:02 But I wonder if part of their ability
11:05 to finally grasp it is
11:06 that they develop a relationship with you
11:09 and that's, you know, one of the things
11:11 that counseling really has going forward,
11:12 is that there's this delivery system
11:15 and counseling like a person can need a blood transfusion
11:18 and you can have the blood but they don't get it
11:20 if you don't have a good delivery system, a counseling,
11:22 if you know how to develop a really strong
11:25 or we call therapeutic alliance with your client,
11:27 that's the delivery system
11:28 and sometimes people will respond to you
11:31 in a way that they can't yet respond to God
11:34 because it never had a relationship yet.
11:36 They've never really...
11:37 and to try to relate to someone invisible for someone
11:39 who's never had a relationship, they just...
11:41 so maybe developing a relationship with you
11:44 has been helpful in helping them
11:45 understand what you're trying to convey to them.
11:46 I'm glad you bring it, this is a critical part,
11:48 you know, we're talking before how...
11:51 off screen where that human relationship,
11:54 David is bringing out is a critical part of the process
11:57 'cause as they learn to trust you,
11:58 then they can learn to trust God
12:00 or trust somebody else.
12:01 So God is using us, we're not the healers
12:03 but yet God wants to use relation.
12:05 We're broken in relationship
12:07 and He wants to rebuild us in healthy relationship.
12:09 So could our first step be,
12:11 when you're counseling this individual
12:13 is somehow communicating to them in the room
12:17 that I'm here for you
12:19 and then connecting with them on that personal level
12:23 and perhaps the blank you see in their face
12:24 is because they're wondering, "Are you with me.
12:28 Do you understand what I'm going through?"
12:30 And so you take in the time to listen,
12:33 listening is very important.
12:35 In this world today,
12:37 we often have people who crave someone to be there,
12:41 crave someone to just listen to them
12:44 and if we can just take moments in our counseling sessions
12:47 to just really listen to people, I believe it,
12:49 you know, it draws them to us
12:51 and them we can draw them to Christ.
12:52 Have you've ever had the experience
12:54 where you're like
12:55 talking as there is someone is talking to you
12:56 and maybe they're just basically monologuing
12:59 and you're just listening
13:00 and they say that you've helped them so much
13:02 and you can't for the life of you figure out
13:04 what you said to them or did or anything
13:07 but it was just so helpful 'cause you just listened.
13:09 They were able to share their story with you.
13:10 And the greatest compliment in a counseling session
13:12 at least from, you know, from my experience,
13:14 in this of my opinion is when someone says,
13:17 "Thank you for listening to me."
13:18 Yeah. All right.
13:20 And there have been times
13:21 when at the end of the session the person will say,
13:25 " This is been fantastic,
13:27 I feel so much better because you're here just,
13:30 just to listen to me."
13:32 And sometimes I have to tell the client
13:35 that I want to hear your story and I'm really interested.
13:41 And that active listening part is so vital
13:44 in the very beginning to develop that report,
13:46 so that they can continue to go from trust to trust to trust.
13:50 I just wanna say one thing, Jenn,
13:51 you said that going to church in and of itself,
13:54 is therapeutic.
13:55 Not always.
13:56 That was my experience...
13:58 Oh, it was.
13:59 Because I came from a situation
14:00 where when I started going to church
14:02 for the first time in my adulthood,
14:04 I found acceptance that the Lord know
14:07 that I needed to have.
14:08 Now it wasn't perfect
14:10 but it was a new feeling for me
14:12 and I would go home feeling like,
14:13 I want to go back there
14:15 because I felt like I was accepted
14:17 and then I got hooked into a small group
14:19 and that small group was even better
14:21 than the bigger Church at large.
14:22 So I can't say enough about small groups
14:24 when it comes to people who are lonely,
14:26 who need to have connection.
14:28 Amen and I tell people look go to church
14:30 if you have a bad experience, go to another church,
14:32 sometimes there's a toxic church,
14:34 go somewhere else, there are many churches
14:36 and if you have a bad experience there,
14:38 go to another church and if you have a bad experience there,
14:40 we need to talk,
14:42 you probably are carrying something with you
14:44 to each situation but that's fantastic, yeah.
14:47 What I've noticed is that
14:48 when people come to Wildwood Lifestyle Center
14:51 where I work is that their relationship of being
14:53 within that group,
14:55 I think it's about 20 people sometimes,
14:59 they really find healing just by being in a group of people
15:03 who are there for the same reason.
15:05 Yeah, don't they go through it like a course or something,
15:07 that they are kind of a team, it's kind of like...
15:09 Well, they attend all the program together...
15:12 Like being on a cruise, you know,
15:14 you're with the same group of people
15:15 that you just met.
15:17 Yeah.
15:18 And you're saying they develop a real bond.
15:19 Right and so just simply from being...
15:21 developing those friendships in the program
15:23 they find healing and sometimes they've even overcome
15:26 whatever they're going through,
15:27 just simply because they had friends
15:29 even within the program and maybe many of them
15:31 didn't even attend counseling.
15:33 But they have voiced that they find healing simply
15:36 from being in that type of groups.
15:37 That's fantastic.
15:39 My aunt says too that
15:40 as they're eating meals together,
15:41 going to that program together,
15:43 that they're sharing their stories,
15:44 why are they there, what's the brokenness
15:46 that brought there and they go ah,
15:47 and maybe same a brokenness maybe different
15:49 but what they find is, I talk to you,
15:51 I hear your story, I share my story,
15:54 there's a connection and there's I think bonding.
15:55 Right, yeah.
15:57 What do you guys do to, what have you done in your life
16:00 to help yourself live in relationship
16:04 and come out of loneliness?
16:05 Does anybody have a testimony about,
16:07 that you just kind of shared
16:08 but does anybody else have a personal experience
16:12 in being isolated and feeling lonely
16:15 and then finding fellowships?
16:17 Anybody have that?
16:18 That's willing to admit it.
16:20 Well, I grew up in a home with eight kids.
16:22 There is a lot of a surround but...
16:23 No loneliness there.
16:25 ..but there is a lot of brokenness,
16:26 a lot of separations,
16:27 my parents divorced so I grew up in a big house
16:30 so but I thought very lonely,
16:31 I thought very disconnected
16:33 and so, you know, then somebody led me to Christ
16:36 and then when I joined a church
16:37 and got baptized and I have a good experiences
16:39 and not so good experiences in churches
16:41 but when I... first church I joined,
16:43 I had this strong sense of belonging
16:45 that I had this family system...
16:47 Beautiful.
16:48 ..that really helped me and now I have a prayer partner
16:50 so I have another guy in my life that I share with,
16:52 he knows what I'm doing
16:54 and how things are going in life
16:56 and ministry and I know how he is doing,
16:58 so that's been very, very valuable for me
17:00 to be intentional
17:02 'cause I learned how to disconnect.
17:03 Yeah.
17:05 I'm one of those people who said life isn't...
17:06 I don't trust anybody. That's right, that's right.
17:08 So we're talking about me when we're talking about,
17:10 you know, learning to taking time to learn
17:14 how to trust.
17:15 Well, Rob, do you wanna read our presenting problem,
17:17 every show we're gonna have a case study so to speak
17:20 and we're gonna discuss what we would do as counselors
17:23 to treat the individual, so go ahead,
17:25 Rob, why don't you read that?
17:27 Okay, Adelina, a 33 year old woman from Scandinavia,
17:31 working as a nanny comes to counseling complaining
17:34 about of symptoms of depression.
17:36 She has been in the US for three months
17:39 and spends most of her free time with the children
17:41 that she nannies whom she loves very much.
17:44 She regularly attends church
17:45 and even takes some college classes
17:47 but because of her shy temperament
17:50 has trouble with engaging in conversation.
17:52 Adelina doesn't quite feel homesick though
17:55 because her mother is an alcoholic
17:57 and she lost contact with her father
18:00 when he left when she was only four years old.
18:03 She has no siblings,
18:05 her mother's sister lives in Adelina's town
18:08 and is in fact the one who found her the nanny job.
18:11 Adelina wonders if she needs treatment for depression.
18:14 So what would you guys do?
18:16 To help Adelina...
18:19 First of all, would you diagnose her with depression?
18:22 I do wanna know more about her story
18:23 and what the symptoms are and what she's going through.
18:27 Let's just briefly touch on the diagnostic manual
18:31 and how we feel about that.
18:34 You know, it's a system
18:35 of labeling mental health issues
18:39 as they fall into somewhat similar patterns
18:42 or to a definable patterns but it's really in existence,
18:46 mostly for the purpose of counselors getting paid
18:50 for their services through insurance.
18:52 So while it's a reality
18:54 and it's one way of working at reality,
18:56 it is not the ultimate transgender reality, is it?
19:00 So I don't mind these terms and so forth
19:03 and loneliness is not a diagnosis by the way
19:05 but depression is.
19:07 And I think we have to be careful
19:08 not to throw around too many labels,
19:09 you know, because people will be inclined
19:11 to identify with them.
19:13 And I personally think in this case,
19:15 she's not really, necessarily suffering from depression
19:18 because there are actual reasons
19:19 why she's feeling so sad,
19:21 she's disconnected and people can't be happy
19:24 outside of connection.
19:25 So what would you do to try to help her get connected?
19:29 Or do you guys feel the same way about it too?
19:31 Do you think that it's probably just a case of,
19:34 you know... thousands miles from home.
19:35 You know, I think it's such...
19:36 you know, I think as a guideline for us
19:40 but like Paul was saying and others have said,
19:43 I really think it's important to get to know the person
19:46 and see what they are needing individually
19:50 and that can only happen in a room
19:52 when two people are talking and the person sense
19:56 that you're journeying with them,
19:57 that you're their companion in what they're going through.
20:00 And you want them to feel like
20:02 you're connected to them as a person
20:03 and you're not seeing them every time you look at them
20:05 through the lens of depression,
20:07 you know, whatever diagnosis you're using.
20:08 Yeah.
20:10 And there are assessments too for depression and we can,
20:12 we can use a simple assessment to see
20:14 if a lot of these symptoms are present,
20:15 for how long they've been present.
20:17 So we do have tools to try to figure out
20:20 what's going on here, of course.
20:22 But just at first blush, what do you think?
20:24 Is she depressed necessarily or she's just lonely?
20:27 It sounds like she's probably having difficulty adjusting
20:30 to the new culture and more than likely,
20:32 she's lonely because of that...
20:34 Sorry, sorry. I just interrupted you.
20:36 Okay.
20:38 But you were gonna say
20:39 before you were so rudely interrupted?
20:41 I was just gonna say that simply that
20:43 because of the cultural difference
20:45 and adjusting to a new a environment,
20:47 then more than likely she's having more difficulty
20:50 just simply adjusting
20:52 which is a normal process of immigrating to a country.
20:55 And also look at what was going on in the home of origin.
20:58 Those are your baseline relationships,
21:00 your family, the people that are there,
21:02 no matter how far away you go or how much time passes,
21:04 there is, it's always there for you
21:05 and there is a severe rupture in that foundation
21:10 and so that would effect her functioning.
21:12 Listening to what Christina just said
21:14 and if I was the one that was feeling lonely,
21:16 I would feel like she's journeying with me.
21:19 As she was talking she would,
21:22 what she did was she related to what I was going through
21:25 and then she went ahead and said that's normal.
21:29 I would have breathed the sigh of relief.
21:31 Right, I said, " Phew.
21:33 Thank you for listening
21:34 and thank you for letting me feel
21:35 that everything is okay."
21:37 Do you think that as a society
21:38 we're kind of medicating everything?
21:41 Yes.
21:43 Like everything is pathological,
21:45 were human beings designed
21:47 to be able to carry a lot of emotion
21:50 and a huge spectrum of emotions
21:52 and do we tend to catastrophize the negative emotions
21:56 as if those things in and of themselves
21:58 are destructive.
21:59 I think...
22:00 In Psalms, the majority of it in Psalms,
22:02 the vast majority, think about 70 percent of the Psalms,
22:04 they're Psalms of lament.
22:06 Yeah.
22:07 Like, you know, Psalms of sorrow,
22:08 in grief and Jesus was a man of grief and sorrow,
22:10 so this lady has had a lot of loss.
22:13 A loss of a mother to alcohol,
22:15 a loss of the father who leaves her,
22:16 a loss of country like, you know,
22:18 Christina was saying so, if we can help honor the fact
22:21 that she's experienced a lot of loss,
22:23 there is that God using us
22:25 as human agents connecting with her, normalizing it
22:28 and go on, " Ah, there is a reason for this."
22:29 That's right,
22:31 a lot of what I see in this day and age
22:33 was so many labels falling around
22:35 is what I call secondary disturbance
22:36 for the people are disturbed
22:38 and then they're disturbed about being disturbed
22:39 because now they're diagnosed with an illness
22:41 and the first thing I do with people like that
22:43 is I say, " Hey, you know,
22:45 the fact that you feel really deeply sad,
22:47 it's okay, first of all, it won't kill you.
22:49 Secondly, it doesn't make you a loser,
22:52 thirdly it doesn't mean it's always gonna be that way."
22:54 It's not your identity. That's right, that's right.
22:56 I think it's an opportunity for Adelina
23:00 to draw closer to Christ and depend more on Him.
23:03 Sometimes I think we experience some of those emotions
23:06 for that purpose, to be able to draw close to Him.
23:08 Yes, I think so too, um,
23:10 but what about connecting with people,
23:13 what action steps would you give Adelina
23:16 if she attempts to come out of this loneliness
23:19 phase of her life?
23:21 What pactical steps would you give her?
23:23 She's got an aunt who lives in the same town,
23:25 from the same home country who got her the job,
23:27 so that tells me there's some kind of connection,
23:29 so I'd wanna know what is her relationship
23:32 with her now that she's here
23:34 and what is she doing that can encourage,
23:35 like you mentioned church,
23:37 we know statistically women live longer,
23:40 if they go to church, they're healthier.
23:41 We know the studies that show
23:43 that that connection is important,
23:45 so I would probably wanna know,
23:46 what are some of the natural resources around her
23:48 and that could help her.
23:50 That's cool, that's great.
23:51 You know, something else that I would look for
23:53 and I would ask her is, I would ask her
23:55 what is she needing
23:57 when it comes to connecting with someone
23:59 and getting that answer will help us to know,
24:02 would even help her to know where to turn.
24:04 Now that's interesting
24:05 'cause you're saying don't tell her what she needs,
24:07 we'll have her tell you what she needs.
24:09 What is the...
24:10 And she's got a shy temperament.
24:11 And she's a shy temperament,
24:13 so tell me what the value is in that,
24:14 in her telling you
24:15 what she needs versus you telling her what she needs.
24:18 Well, one,
24:20 because it's coming from her and so...
24:22 Well, what's so why, what does that do?
24:24 Well, because she's the one that knows what she needs
24:26 and two, I believe that it makes
24:29 a person feel very important.
24:32 I want to know what you need.
24:35 Three, often times people have a tendency and...
24:39 you know, I'm a person so I have this tendency
24:41 to, you know, stuff my feelings and the Bible does say,
24:45 "Blessed are ye that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
24:48 And perhaps she may just need to take the time
24:51 to mourn over the transition from one country to the next,
24:56 mourn over, you know, as I look at this,
24:58 you know, it says that her aunt
25:00 or a relative found the job for her,
25:03 who knows, she may surprise
25:04 and she's mourning over this new job
25:06 and she doesn't want this job.
25:08 I don't know that but and so she may tell me,
25:10 what I'm needing is to find a job
25:12 that is much more meaningful.
25:14 Do you think that her having a shy temperament
25:17 and coming from this broken family life
25:20 would be inclined to not think about
25:24 what she needs and would be inclined to feel
25:27 so much shame possibly,
25:29 that even thinking about what she needs
25:32 would be considered like, she never even do,
25:35 I mean, if the person was never nurtured,
25:37 the thing that enables me to care for myself as an adult
25:41 is to some degree the formatting
25:43 my brain received by my mother
25:45 as my mother took care of my needs as a child
25:47 and so if I didn't have the benefit of that
25:49 or if my home life was some how compromised
25:51 and my needs were not met as a child,
25:52 I'll be less inclined to know
25:54 how to meet my needs as an adult
25:56 and this is why people who come
25:57 from compromises functional homes
26:00 often develop addictions,
26:01 'cause addictions are a way of trying to feel better
26:03 when you don't know how to make yourself
26:04 feel better in a healthy way.
26:06 Yeah, and this is the beauty of counseling,
26:08 is that we are an objective, perspective that we can give
26:11 that there she may not have had before.
26:13 I went to David, and I'm struggling
26:15 with loss or loneliness and David says to me,
26:18 "what do you need?"
26:20 and it's not easy for me to speak up
26:21 or think about that,
26:23 the message I'm getting is David has confidence in me
26:26 that I can have confidence in myself to sit there
26:28 and, you know, may be,
26:30 might be a minute or two of awkward silence
26:31 which is a lot of time in our socially connected world,
26:35 where we're connected to media
26:36 but not each other but I might have to think about.
26:39 But what you're doing is you're saying to me,
26:41 I'm confident that you can think about this,
26:43 that the Lord can bring you to what you need
26:45 and what you want and then take the next step forward
26:47 that'll look like step by step.
26:49 So to me, you're encouraging her to have self confidence
26:52 that she can think about her own needs
26:55 and what they would look like for her,
26:56 as a person with a shy temperament
26:58 who is moved to a different country.
27:01 Many times a person who is told what they need,
27:06 sometimes more adopt what you're telling them
27:09 or want to implement what you're telling them
27:10 because they aren't convicted that
27:12 that's what they need
27:14 but if they come up with themselves,
27:16 more than likely then they will actually do
27:18 what's necessary to get what they need.
27:21 People are much more likely to act on what they own,
27:24 you know, isn't that kind of where you're coming from
27:26 like what do you need,
27:28 like if she identifies what she needs,
27:29 she's gonna be much more motivated...
27:31 To work on and like Christiana said,
27:33 you know, you can give me a to-do list
27:37 and my resistance starts coming up.
27:40 So thankful that we've had this conversation
27:43 and I'm really, really excited doing the show
27:46 with these amazing people
27:48 and we've had a really productive,
27:49 I think really productive conversation
27:51 here about loneliness
27:52 and I just want to say in closing
27:54 that there is someone to whom you can bring
27:56 all of your needs and the same is Jesus
27:58 and He will connect you not only to Himself
28:00 but to your brothers and sisters in Christ
28:02 and you can learn how to love and be loved.


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Revised 2016-09-26