Christian Pastoral Therapist – William Hemphill

Episode 32.
William brings heart, head and soul together in his work as a pastoral therapist.  The combination means being attuned to the spiritual values, history and trauma, along with where therapeutic techniques should be used. While he is Christian and works mostly with other Christians, he is open to helping anyone.

Highlights:
·       We have more in common than we think.
·       Praying together as a couple is a part of your communication.
·       Listen to understand not to respond. 
·       LEARN: Listen, Empathize, Act, Resist, and Never quit.
·       Conflicting views of the Bible and how to live those precepts create challenges to be sorted out in pastoral therapy.
·       Understanding the pain, trauma and source of a value are important steps in therapy. 

Quotes:
“With my theological training, I can also listen to your story of faith and see how we can blend that in therapeutically to help you or to help bring healing.”

“Whatever it is, a lot of times there's pain that drives us. And so one of the things I like to say about therapeutic work is helping people understand the pain that's going on with them.”

“How do we treat people who are different from us, whatever that difference may be?”

“A lot of my work is also helping people be intentional about their decisions.”

“I believe that God designed us with a choice.”

“Some of the work I have sometimes is helping people to calm their triggers down, some so they can listen clearly and listen to understand.”

Social Media links for William:
Website – https://www.faithandfamilyempowerment.com
Book – Praying with Your Spouse: A Secret to Building Intimacy in Your Marriage (Amazon)

Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project –  https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/

Transcript:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851013/episodes/12203160-32-william-hemphill-christian-pastoral-therapist/edit

Follow the podcast!
The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 

Comments?  Questions?  Email  Méli -
         info@talkingwithgodproject.org

The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project.

Transcript

William Hemphill transcript

Christian Pastoral Therapist

[Music]

INTRODUCTION:

Méli:  Hello and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life – at work, at home, in the community, in good times and in bad.  There is no one-size-fits-all ‘right’ answer, just a way to move forward for you, for here, for now.  I am your host Méli Solomon.  So glad you could join us.  

[Music]

Méli:  This is episode thirty-two and my guest today is Rev. William Hemphill II. William is a pastoral therapist with a master’s degree in theology and mental health counseling. In his experience as a chaplain, pastor, and couple’s counselor, he has assisted hundreds of people in navigating issues dealing with life, marriage, and family. His practice, Faith and Family Empowerment, is in the Atlanta Georgia area. He helps couples and individuals to deal with anxiety, depression, and spiritual crisis, as well as the challenges of being adoptive parents. William also hosts the Faith and Family Matters Podcast, where he talks about ways to build faith and strengthen marriages and families. He has been married to his wife for over twenty-five years and has three “grownish” children with one grandchild on the way.  William lives in the Atlanta Georgia area with his family. A link to William’s social media handles are listed in the show notes. 

Méli:  Hello William, welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I'm so happy that you've joined me today. 

William:  Thank you so much, Meli. It's good to be here. 

Méli:  Great. So I'd like to begin with my usual first question. What is your religious and other identity?

IDENTITY + FAITH PATH:

William:  I would characterize myself as a Christian African-American male. As far as Christian, I would say transitioning from Baptist to Methodist and that's a journey in and of itself, so. 

Méli:  I do want to ask you straight off about this religious denominational transition. Could you say a bit about that? 

William:  When I say I identify myself with Christian, I won't say I'm necessarily, for lack of a better term, this subscribe totally to one denomination, but. I am a preacher's kid or Pastor child and ordained Baptist. As a matter of fact, my father is a Baptist pastor in Los Angeles, CA and so I was raised in the Baptist Church when we moved here to Georgia with my mother and stepfather actually attended a Methodist Church for a while. Then I went to college and when I started exploring faith of my own, I actually identified with non-denominational/charismatic Pentecostal for a while. And then as I journey into ministry and different things like that and started working and chaplaincy and even as a pastor for a period of time. I started identifying more with Methodist theology. So on and so forth. 

Méli:  Well, that’s quite a journey. You've covered a lot of ground. What is it about the Methodist – what belief system, or is it structure or practice that attracts you and has caused you to not go back to Baptist? 

William:  I would say what I like about the Methodist Church is an emphasis on grace, God's grace, love, and forgiveness. One of the things that I would say was in some of my Baptist experience, but definitely probably more Pentecostal and charismatic, with this – there was an emphasis, for lack of a better term, on rules, so I would like to say there was more of a view of God as judge, even though we talked about God being loving, there is more of a view of God as love judge. So it's like: don't do this, don't do that. Don't go out here. Don't do all of these different things. And what I found, especially as I matured as a person and started doing a lot of ministry work, chaplaincy work, therapy work and even pastoral work. In walking with people, I like to say God wasn't in a box, but even when I was doing chaplaincy training. I was in the hospital. Somebody wanted to be baptized. So now Baptist theology talks about immersing people in baptism and stuff like that. You're not gonna immerse anybody in a hospital when they're in the bed. Just, you know, it's not going to happen. So I actually went and I was at the time it was a chaplaincy training with another lead minister and he actually did baptize this person per their request. They actually did, you know, I think in their case they poured water over their head or sprinkled, I can't remember which one, but one of the things I remember most about that was it allowed this in person to have an encounter with God, that was very sacred and important to them. That went way beyond somebody's rules. And so for me, I always try to keep that in mind and working with people, how can people experience more of God's grace and love? 

Méli:  Beautiful story and and a point well taken. Two things, though, about rules versus content or experience. 

William:  Experience. 

Méli:  OK, rules versus experience. One is that some Pentecostals I had on on my podcast didn't talk about rules at all, so I'm a little surprised to hear you speak that way about the Pentecostals. They spoke about Pentecostalism much more in terms of a connection, a kind of a a spiritual connection with God and hearing the voice and it was a completely different stress. Did I misunderstand your point about Pentecostalism? 

William:  I don't think you misunderstood what I said, but one of the things maybe to even qualify. I like to say different churches operate things differently. And we all have our different experiences. So I would imagine, like with your previous guests and they talked about Pentecostalism, it does have to do with, you know, hearing the voice of God. The Holy Spirit may be talking about the spiritual gifts, different things like that. And a lot of churches do do that. But in my experience and experience of people that I do know, some churches will lean towards a rule set. Now when I say a rule set that could happen in a Baptist Church, that could happen in the Methodist Church, that could happen in that could say a Catholic Church or whatever else. It just depends on how the leadership of that church interprets scriptures and following the Lord. And so that's why I say where you might see some of that flavor. And you might even say in our case, see the difference between what I was saying and what your previous guests were saying. It might depend on how their church or how the church I was at interpreted things. 

Méli:  I want to ask you about your work in pastoral therapy. So can you talk about that therapeutic work? 

William:  So yes, I have a masters in Divinity, actually from Chandler School theology and a masters in mental health counseling from Georgia State University. When people ask me, I like to identify myself as a pastoral therapist. Because it's a blend of theology and psychology. And here's what I mean by that because I am a licensed mental health counselor. I will use psychological backgrounds or techniques or different things like that in order to walk people through therapeutic treatment. Where I say the pastoral part comes in is in two ways. One, I can listen to your story of faith. And that's important because that's either very empowering for a lot of people or some in some cases can be very limiting or traumatic. And so with my theological training, I can also listen to your story of faith and see how we can blend that in therapeutically to help you or to help bring healing. And so I like to say I bring both of those aspects to the work that I do. 

Méli:  Fascinating. I've never heard of somebody working in this way. Is it very common? 

William:  Some more than others. I would say I probably know a few more people because I was actually in chaplaincy training before I left my masters of Divinity degree. And so there's some things that we do in chaplaincy. We learn how to interact with people of other faiths. We learn how to sit. With people in the midst of pain and suffering and different things like that. And so that skill set I actually bring with me into the therapeutic room. 

Méli:  And you do this clearly from a Christian perspective. Your website is very clear about working with Christian families. Do you work with a variety of denominations or is it quite focused on Baptists or Methodists? 

CLIENTS + THEORY:

William:  Well, I like to say I work with anybody who comes. And so I've had people, you know, Catholic people who've been a coastal, different things. People come and work with me. I've even had a couple of instances where people of the Islamic faith have come to me. And so I have no challenge, like I say, working with people even of different faiths and stuff like that. Now my website actually says that because it's just part of the business stuff we do. People search and they look for Christian counselor or something like that. So it helps people find me. 

Méli:  Right. But you're open to anyone interested in that particular combination? 

William:  Yeah, definitely. I actually – there's a blog on my website that I just wrote: Navigating Different Faiths During the Holidays. And so I wrote that specifically because even in my marital work sometimes or with couples, you might have people of different faiths or even the same faith but different expressions of it and so I used that to like give some tips how can you come to know each other a little better without saying: this is my faith and it's going to go this way. Because when we do that, that's when we find ourselves in trouble, when we're unable to listen and learn from each other. 

Méli:  Yeah, Amen to that. Listening and learning. And in fact that that brings up something I heard on one of your podcast episodes about bridging racial differences. You had an acronym that I was interested in – LEARN – and I understood that to be Listen, Empathize, Act, Resist, and Never quit. So I was interested in hearing more about that. 

William:  So you might have seen the blog of the article. I think we talked about Ahmaud Arbery and race. So it was during that particular time. We’re in the pandemic first of all, and I like to say we were in two pandemics, we had the COVID pandemic, but that pandemic also stirred up a lot of the best stuff and worst stuff of us, I feel as a people, as a country. And part of it was dealing with race and different things like that. So it came from a discussion that I actually had with an Anglo Christian who actually, when I saw the situation with Ahmaud Arbery before they started the case – and of course did the legal proceedings – I talked about how race was involved with that. And this person, for lack of a better term, disagreed with me. But not only did they disagree me, they started calling me names, you know, I won't even mention all those. They started little insults and different things like that. And it even got to the point where people from his own church started correcting him and said: look, he is just trying to tell you his point of view and what he sees. You need to stop. And so of course that person got offended and left. But one of the things I was so interested in is that a lot of times we will have different views on race, for example, from our different contexts. As I said earlier, I'm an African-American male. I'm going to see some things differently than someone who might be an Anglo-American male might see. I would also identify myself as middle class. I might see some things differently than someone who might be poorer or who might be extremely wealthy might see. We have our own different lenses and different biases, but what I find is if we actually can talk to one another and listen, learn, empathize, act when they talk about resist, never giving up the fight for that, never quitting those things, when we can do those things, I find we can make connections. And here's the other thing I found [in] some some discussions. In some ways, we're not that much different. There is a story I saw and this this story impacted me to this day. I think it was a political gathering while President Obama was president. And it was a Tea Party rally somewhere in Washington. And so some protesters from Black Lives Matter were there. And of course, you know, people start throwing comments at each other unfortunately. Well, the leader of the Tea Party movement who was speaking invited the leader of the Black Lives Matter movement up there and said: OK, we're going to have a discussion. Here's the funny thing that happened when they finished discussing. They found out: hey, we both want good schools in our neighborhoods. We both want good jobs. We both want safe neighborhoods. We both want to love our families. They had all these things in common and one of the funny things they started discussing each other. It's like, why are we fighting? We just care about people. And so that's why I think discussions are so important. It's just something simple as that. 

Méli:  Another beautiful story. Why are we fighting indeed? And do you have an answer to that? 

WHY ARE WE FIGHTING?

William:  I have my theories. Personally, I'll just say this. This is like theological, political, whatever else. I think unfortunately, there are people who are vested in keeping us fighting. I think there are people. who profit off of us fighting. I heard – might have been Denzel Washington talked about – he used this phrase one time called we don't have news. We have opin-news or opinion news. And so what happens is, for instance, if you're watching a lot of your channels, no matter where they'd be, a lot of times instead of reporting the news and allowing you to interpret it, they're reporting opinions and trying to shape opinions. It's not just like the news cycle, though it could be on social media. It can be in so many other places where people are trying to shape our opinion and having us have this narrow world view of things when the world is so much greater than our limited experience. 

Méli:  Yeah, no, I think those are important points and completely relevant. The thing that popped into my head straight away, is: what's the source of the pain? I think it's relevant. So, when I read about White Nationalism. The pain that that crowd is feeling of vested – you talked about vested interest – but also assumed privilege. If you think: oh, well, of course I'm going to be at this station in life, I'm going to have these benefits, and you see them being taken away, of course you're going to lash out, you're going to be very angry. And I think that that's an aspect in that particular dynamic. I wanna talk a little more about your therapeutic work. Do you find that there are issues that differ depending on what denomination or what race your clients are? 

William:  In some ways. I'll say theological interpretations or views of God sometimes, depending on race and denomination. So as I talked about a moment earlier, for instance, in my journey to the Methodist Church and I talked about more emphasis on grace and love and different things like that. So I might find if someone who comes into my office maybe has a Methodist background, may have more views on grace, different things like that. Someone, and I would say, who might be more fundamentalist. Well, you know, more literal or strict interpretation of the Bible scriptures, would have a different view of God and so for instance that might show up in the instance like: OK. I am the husband. I am the head of the household. I'm supposed to tell you his wife what to do, and you're supposed to accept that. And you have no free will in this. And so that comes up at times as issues in therapeutic work that I do. And so sometimes trying to help people navigate those things, especially when you have a more literal view, is a challenge. You actually said something earlier about what's the pain on the inside. A lot of times that's the thing I'm trying to figure out, because when we hold on to something so strongly, I like to say it's a wall that protects us from the pain. So whether it's the pain society-wise of White Nationalism and not having any idea how to deal with economic changes and feeling like you won't be as valued because others are getting privileges and opportunities, or whether that's in a marriage when you say: I have to be the head of the household because that is my authority piece, and using this as an example, but maybe I'm insecure about my financial piece because my spouse is actually making more money than me. Whatever it is, a lot of times there's pain that drives us. And so one of the things I like to say about therapeutic work is helping people understand the pain that's going on with them, making them aware of it so they can learn how they care for that pain and then act constructively instead of react more destructively. 

Méli:  We each need a sense of pride and to be valued. It does seem that when that is threatened or injured or attacked. Well, to put it mildly, that's really problematic. I sense that this is also part of what you're talking about in terms of, say, the gender roles in marriages. And I'm guessing you really deal with straight marriages. You're not having too many gay relationships. 

William:  Only like one or two have come through, but then that's a whole other thing, OK? Am I going to be valued by someone who's a Christian? It's like, am I going to be respected by someone who's a Christian? Am I going to be devalued and it's not safe for me emotionally, or I have a lot of trauma, then I may not want to go there. And that is of course another space that needs a lot of healing. Thinking about Christianity and sexuality and how we treat, I'd like to say, our gay brothers and sisters, you know. How do we treat people who are different from us, whatever that difference may be? One of the things that I struggle with and don't like what I see, is there's a natural tendency to fear what's different. So whether it is someone who is in a gay relationship, a gay marriage or something like that. And because they're different from you fearing that. Or whether it's someone who is of a different religion and they practice worship different from you and we're fearing that. Or whether it's someone who's of a different ethnicity than you may be, and we're fearing that. We have a habit of fearing what's different. And a lot of times our fear can keep us from – I want to say knowing people better than, receiving the blessing of God that someone is in and has for us. 

Méli:  Yeah, totally agree. I'd say you're right with the caveat that some of us, and I would count myself among them, are very curious and going towards what we don't know. I think we're the minority. I think that the more natural inclination is to fear what is different. And therefore the question is how do we overcome it? I would think that those differences also come up in the couples and the families that you work with. Are there common challenges that you see them having and are they about difference or are the differences within the family – is is not the biggest thing? 

COMMUNICATION:

William:  I would say the common challenge, and ironically almost every couple that comes to my practice when they fill out the sheet, they say we want to learn how to communicate better. No matter what the issue may be, communication is always there. Which actually says that we don't have the ability to talk and listen to one another. And part of that I like to say is because of what I call the conflict cycle. The short version what I call the conflict cycle is, let's say – I don't know – we have a discussion about parenting. I always pick that one because that's me, and my wife's favorite spin cycle is the parenting. So let's say one of our children does something or needs something or whatever else. My wife and I start having a discussion about this inevitably, she says: In order to help our child with this problem, it needs to go this way. I think it needs to go another way. The next thing that happens if we can't hear each other clearly, we're having a discussion or a debate or an argument about which way it should go and who is right, not understanding that both my spouse and me might do parenting a little differently because of our family backgrounds and how we grew up and also sometimes some of our different triggers and trauma. And then the fact that we experience the world differently. And so sometimes that conflict happens because we don't know what's behind the conflict. Like for instance, one of the things that being my wife do conflict about is sometimes I might be more of a listener. Ironically, I'm a therapist. It it works well. My my wife does project management, so she's more directive. It works well for her ironically. And so we might get in that conflict on how we direct our children versus giving them the free will to make mistakes. But that comes from our values. And so when we're able to get out of that conflict cycle and sit back and say: OK, dear, when I look at, let's say, my son doing this, I value him learning from his mistakes because that's going to allow him to get independence per se. And then when she can hear that clearly she can hear that I care about my child. It's just a different way of learning. Where she might say: well, I value given some wisdom to my child because they don't see this pitfall right here. And so it's important for me to share that. And I can hear she's a good parent, she cares for our child. But she views it differently and we can talk about that and maybe how to resolve that or how to work it. But see, a lot of times things come because just like all the other things we've talked about, whether it's religion, whether it's ethnic groups, whether it's straight gay relationships, whether it's political parties, we have triggers inside of us that often cause us to react, like what you said, from the pain we have earlier. And so for me it's fascinating as we talk about this and, because I see the work I do at this micro level, sometimes when I see societal stuff, it's a macro level, the same thing. People reacting to pain instead of listening to one another and learning from one another. 

Méli:  It is really interesting to hear you say that the communication piece is what everybody brings in. In a way I'm not terribly surprised, but it's a wonderful reminder that we all could use some improved skills around listening and speaking more clearly. When we sit down and say: what the heck happened there, you know? Well, this was my experience. What was your experience? What where did we, where did the train go off the rails and get it back on track? That, in my experience, has been such a critical piece of communication. I'm guessing that's a piece of what you work with. 

William: It's definitely there. But one thing as you were talking – because I think it's really key – that I don't think we do enough. I think a lot of times we listen to respond instead of listening to understand. And so when someone's communicating with us, we're already thinking about: OK, how am I going to rebut point a, point B, Point C, point D? Listening to truly hear and understand somebody is a completely different response. It does require that we care about the person, but it also requires that we are in a space where we can listen calmly and aren't triggered ourselves. And so some of the work I have sometimes is helping people to calm their triggers down, some so they can listen clearly and listen to understand. 

Méli:  No easy feat there to calm the triggers, right? 

CALMING TRIGGERS:

William:  That is very difficult, I say, not even just with my clients. Within my own personal life. First of all, we got to be aware that we're triggered and I find a lot of couples folks aren't even aware they're trigger. You know, I joke. I use my own marriage as an example. I have a booming voice anyway. But sometimes I get in discussions with my wife into conflict and she's like: stop yelling. And I'm like: I'm not yelling. What are you talking about? 

Méli:  You have this preacher background. You're, you know, you're trying to reach the back row, right? I'd like to touch a little more on something you just mentioned, which is the trauma. So I know this is an area of particular interest for you. 

William:  Ironically. I'd say my interest in dealing with trauma has grown more and more from a lot of my couples’ work. As I've worked with couples at times, and you start to delve into some of the triggers, you know, maybe feeling controlled misunderstood, not valued or something like that. And you dig into stories, you find out stories have happened. Maybe from families of origin. Maybe they're not feeling valued because they were never valued at home. Or maybe they're feeling controlled because they never had a voice. And so part of what happens with that is – why we look at history – is because we end up reacting in a lot of ways, unknowingly. The second piece of that that's so important is we talk about this a lot of times in emotion focused therapy or even attachment theory, is our marriages or our relationships with our significant other is often the chance where our issues start to show up and we get a chance for repair. Using somebody, for example, when home felt unsafe, they would go into a turtle shell and hide. They related to life, OK, but then they got married. And once they got married, what happened? Conflict came. They went into a turtle shell and I didn't say anything unknowingly. They were reacting in ways that they reacted when they were a child. Here's the thing about it. As a child, it might have served them because they didn't have a voice to tell their parents to calm down or whatever else. It's served to keep them safe. But what happened was an action of a child became a reaction that was automatically done as a grown up. And so it – I want to say enhances conflict instead of reduces conflict. So sometimes understanding how those traumatic events and how they work can allow person to begin to make a perspective and change in that. And so I would say that's one of the areas that talk about in dealing with trauma, another area that I'm probably going to do some more exploring with is spiritual trauma. Because another thing that I've seen in my office is a lot of times people have been harmed by their communities of faith. And so, because of the harm they've experienced, sometimes it's not safe to go back to the mosque or to the synagogue or to the church or somewhere else. Sometimes the view of God is considered harmful because of the trauma they've experienced. A lot of times we act out of our pain and our trauma. Trauma is a huge subject. 

Méli:  I know, I know a bunch of people who've had that experience. And they've had different reactions. Some have shifted to a different denomination. A lot have simply left religion altogether. I am an observant Jew. This is important to me. But what I feel is most important is that whatever somebody's doing in terms of faith, in terms of family structure, in terms of work or where they live or any of that, is that it supports them. That's my only measure. 

William:  Yeah. And I would just even just adding to that, and I love the fact that you said that. Because I think a lot of my work is also helping people being intentional about their decisions. Because of our pain and our trauma, we often make a lot of decisions unaware. A lot of times people come to my office: We might be getting divorced. We might not be getting divorced. Can you tell us, should we get divorced? I'm like: I'm not going to tell you that. I'm just going to help you understand what's going on behind the decision. You're two grown people. You can make your choices, and I'm not gonna be responsible for your choice. So a lot of times I just like to bring things up so that people can make their own decisions. Whether it's about faith, whether it's about marriage, whether it's about life, career, whatever it is, if we can make decisions with clarity. And own our decisions. I think that makes a huge difference and that can be a real challenge. 

Méli:  You know, in a lot of ways, whatever pain comes out of it, it's so much easier to walk around sleepwalking, unreflective of what's happened in your past, how your behavior is affecting other people. The work to become more aware is a lot of work. 

William:  There's a lot of work. And like to use the term sleepwalking. I think a lot of people would rather sleepwalk because it's easier to do, or I'll find this even in a faith perspective as a Christian – go to church and let the pastor say what they're going to say and I never open up my scripture to understand whether the pastor’s telling me the truth based on the scriptures or the pastor is just making something up. I would rather have somebody else be responsible for my life. Just speaking from a perspective, I don't think God designed this like that. I believe that God designed us with a choice. And even in the Genesis story, I still look at that as the power of choice, you know? You could choose to go to that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, choose not to go to that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. You can choose to wake up in the morning and love somebody, or you choose not to love somebody. We have the power of choice. But I think the most important thing is intentional choice with understanding, because I believe that's the best way to respond to that gift of free will that God gives us. 

Méli:  Yeah, really interesting pairing you just made about the desire to take the easy road of letting somebody else be responsible, the pastor the whomever, versus taking the reins and making choices, hopefully from an aware point of view. I'd like to ask a little more about this business, about being aware and connecting the communication element which you spoke of a moment ago. I was looking a bit at the book you put out: Praying with Your Spouse, a Secret to Building Marital Intimacy. What do you see as the value of praying together? 

PRAYING TOGETHER:

William:  I would say praying together builds connection. For the number one, I think it connects you and your spouse. Together spiritually, in the sense that first of all, I think our greatest connection is to be with God first of all. So we do that individually, but when we do it collectively, it builds a stronger bond together. It also connects you in life. And here's what I mean by that. For instance, I used the example about me and my wife parenting earlier. Sometimes if we're spinning out beforehand and say: hey, let's stop and pray about this thing for a moment. And we pray about it and a lot of times it can bring the temperature from here to here. And even praying about it: Lord, we may not perfectly agree, but give us wisdom and guidance on how to handle this situation. And that allows us to become more open to hearing and understanding and different things like that. Here are some other things I've found also about praying together. A lot of times when I know when me and my wife do it, but when I have couples do it you might be holding hands together. That's touch. And connectivity. A lot of times when couples are distant, one of the things you found out is they haven't touched one another. They haven't hugged, they haven't kissed, they haven't done any type of connecting. So even praying together, you're holding each other's hands and you're connecting with one another, even physically. And so what I like about it is, is when you're connecting spiritually, you're connecting physically. I also think you're connecting emotionally. Also in the midst of that process. And so that's why I think it's so important and I find that, you know, there are a lot of couples that come to my business and working with therapy, I found out they don't do that even though they might be very faithful people. And so sometimes they'll be bridging the gaps of the differences so they can do that together. 

Méli:  You're reminding me of someone I interviewed for my research for the Talking with God Project. He's a British Christian. He spoke of the practice he and his wife have of praying together at bedtime. And I thought it was, you know, I thought it was a beautiful practice they had of generally, he would begin with just talking about the issues that they were concerned about, and then she would add her own thoughts and then they would pray together. Do you see a difference between praying together as a couple and the conversation? 

William:  I actually think it's part of the conversation, because I like to say when we talk about faith and spirituality, that is in many ways one of the most vulnerable parts of us. And so when we're doing that together, that is part of the conversation with me and my wife and allows us to be more vulnerable with each other. But I also think because a lot of times we're scared of that vulnerability. It might keep us from doing that as much. And so if a couple is scared of being vulnerable with each other, then, it's going to be harder for them to pray together. 

Méli:  And I also wonder about the hierarchical element. Again depending on one social and denominational views. You know, if you have quite a conservative couple in their theology, the husband and wife are praying together and they're both seeing this hierarchy of God and then the husband and then the wife. I guess I'm just wondering how that then affect the conversation say about how to parent a child. 

William:  Yeah, you know, as you mentioned that, I find the hierarchical view can hijack in two ways. So you mentioned kind of one, OK, where the husband is the head and maybe the husband is kind of dictating more what should happen. Here's another way where I've seen it hijacking even hijacked prayer lives. The wife may say: OK, I have this view the husband as the head and as the head. He's supposed to do this. And that husband may not feel like that he should do this pray this way or do something like that. And so conflict will come in and say he's not the head of the home. And so I'm kind of like: Well, let's talk about what's going on there. Because a lot of times – I'm gonna be careful with this term because I'm not gonna choose. For lack of a better term, it's almost like control from the submissive position. I don't know if that even works. The woman might be saying, OK, I'm supposed to be submitted to you, but then me being submitted to you, I'm going to arrange things so you do things this way. In either case, I don't think either one of those are healthy. And so a lot of times when again, when I work with couples, I'm like: Yes, I know your church says this, I might know you're understanding. The scripture says this. There's a reason why you're doing things differently. Let's find out why you're doing things differently, and how can we add meaning to that? I literally know a couple – one time this lady had that type of view. He's not praying for the house every day. He's not doing this. The truth was he was praying for the house every day. He was just taught his religious addressing that you pray silently. So when he's going around the house cutting the weeds, he's praying for his house, which she actually wants. But the views of what that looked like were different. And so we have to work with some of that. 

Méli:  Again, such an interesting example. And in terms of the woman's behavior, I would call that passive aggressive. 

William:  Yeah. And that, like I said, that's very unhealthy too. 

Méli:  Right, right. 

William:  And they can do a lot of damage to relationships and the communication and all of that. 

Méli:  Yeah. But again, here we I feel like in a way, we've come full circle in this lovely conversation back to your therapeutic work where you're drawing on both the faith language and the therapeutic language. And I do wonder about times where those two languages conflict. So we talked at the beginning about different denominations having different priorities, whether it's the rules, or God as love, or God as the judge. And whether you see the family relationship in a hierarchical way than how do you meld that whole basket of goods? With the therapeutic approach of helping people to be more aware and take responsibility for their choices and learn tools, techniques of communication, and self-expression. It seems like these two could really be at loggerheads at times. 

William:  Yeah, there are times that it can be as longer here. Just even thinking of a couple cases where you talked about the hierarchical thing, one of the things I normally say is like, for instance, let's say we're talking about a hierarchal marriage and the man feels like he has to be leaders. I try to start exploring with them. Why is that so important to you? And so they might say: Well because the scripture says and God says let's say. That's just OK and so if you were disobedient to that, what could happen? You know I start using sometimes solution focused techniques or you start going down the road to try to get to the fear behind it. If this happened, then what do you think would happen? And if that happened, what do you think? And sometimes that allows a person to get to the root of it. Sometimes now the harder challenge might be when you’re the therapist and you know the history. You see something and you already know what's the driving force, but they don't see it. Then you just have to try to walk with people where they are. And I think that's one of the tools as a therapist when we talk about having unconditional positive regard and being present with people. A lot of times you're just present with people. And I'll say my case, I'm just trusting that God does the work. And sometimes you can get a lot of movement, sometimes you only get a little bit of movement. But even if there's only a little bit of movement, you just hoping that somehow there's been enough of a difference that while I was present with him that there might have been some seeds planted. That the Lord still continues to work way after. Because I'll even say this, there are a lot of times I have worked with people in my office and we've wrestled and we talked about things and processing and they might not agree with what happened. They go out that week, come back the next week or two weeks later and something has happened in life that has shifted the perspective and they became my understanding. So I just like to say I'm really just part of the process. 

Méli:  So you're describing. A bit of a dance. Between the faith aspect and the therapeutic techniques. 

William:  Yeah, it's more back and forth, the dance. Trying to integrate them and then understanding the best you can what's going on. 

CLOSING:

Méli:  Yeah, interesting. Well, William, we have covered a lot of ground in this conversation and it's really been so interesting and enlightening and helpful. Thank you so much for coming on my living our beliefs podcast. I so appreciate your time and your wisdom. And I wish you a good afternoon. 

William:  Thank you so much. It has been an honor to be here and lovely conversation. Anytime you want to talk, just let me know. I'll be glad to. 

Méli:  Thank you so much, William. Take care. Bye, bye.

[Music] 

Méli:  Thank you for listening.  If you’d like to get notified when new episodes are released, hit the SUBSCRIBE button. Questions and comments are welcome and can be directly sent to info@talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Transcripts are available a few weeks after airing. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. For more information about that research, including workshop and presentation options, go to my website – www.talkingwithgodproject.org.  Thank you so much.  Till next time.  Bye bye. 

[Music]