Whole Self Podcast

Relationships and the associated conflict of relationships can have behavioral reactions that have nothing to do with the person with whom we have strife.  Many of us learned trauma coping skills at a very early age.  If attachment patterns form during 0-3 years and our world view forms during 0-12 years, then much of how we interpret our world occurs before we have adult relationships. HOWEVER, we can heal our brain patterns as we discover the truth and start thinking about our formative memories differently.  Cait Beiler and Sharon Wegman discuss common trauma coping responses that people have in relationships based on their past in this episode.  You don’t have to keep repeating cycles in your relationships if you choose to do the work of understanding your personal story.

Shame is the most significant behind the scenes motivator of a lot of the counseling topics that come through our office. It is the enemy of your being. It drives addictions, self-image problems, marriage struggles, depression, anxiety, etc. Whatever problem you name, there is an element of shame that may not have caused the root of the problem, but now exists.

In 1944 there was a famous movie released by the name “Gaslight.”  The film is the story of a man who marries a woman after a whirlwind relationship to manipulate her for financial gain.  Throughout the movie, the husband proceeds to do a variety of deceptive things to convince his wife that she is insane to gain control over her and her wealth.  The movie’s theme slowly created the term gaslighting, to describe a type of manipulative behavior that a person uses to try to deceive another out of truth.  Examples of gaslighting actions might include;  Blatant lying, frequent use of denial, projecting, manipulation of things dear to you, flattery, and a plethora of other manipulation tactics.  The individual who is the victim of gaslighting will often find themselves confused sometimes to the point of developing extreme depression and anxiety.  In the following podcast, Sharon Wegman and Ina Gould describe gaslighting, its effects, and strategies to deal with gaslighting.

Gaslighting 101

Self Harm is a growing trend amongst pre-teen and teens, and it is a topic that frequently comes up in the world of counseling. Parents, concerned friends, and even the person doing self-harm, often feel confused regarding the behavior. Self-harm touches all people groups, but it manifests itself in different expressions. Unfortunately, many people learn this behavior from their friends or from websites in which there is a pro-injury theme, and yet many parents feel ill-equipped to handle the discovery when they learn of their child’s self-harm. Below are the statistics of self-harm from 2019

Each year, 1 in 7 seven males and 1-5 females engage in self-harm/injury.Ninety percent of the people who engage in self-harm begin in their teen or pre-teen years. The average of a teen to begin to self-harm is 13 years old.Close to 50 percent of the people who engage in self-harm have experienced abuse in some way.Sixty percent of those that self-harm is female.

Self-half harm has become a normalized behavior amongst young adults and teens; however, it is a foreign concept to their parents and grandparents. In this podcast, Cait Beiler and Sharon Wegman explain how self-harm often starts and how it continues and experience healing.

*2019 APA statistics

Co-dependency was a word that was coined by people working in the field of addictions to describe the behavior of members of an addict’s family that enabled the addict to continue with addict choices.  However, in the world of counseling, we have taken over the term to describe the behaviors of individuals who carry things for others that are not their responsibility. This could look like several things.  Sometimes people can have an unhealthy need for people to make them feel better. For example, if someone struggles with anxiety, they might be dependent on another individual to make them feel peaceful. This relationship struggle can cause people to control others so they don’t feel upset or it could cause people to become “people pleasers” to keep themselves or others from feeling off emotionally.  People tell me all the time that they feel like they have to carry the problems or tasks of others so that they don’t feel anxious. The crux of all co-dependency is that I carry something for someone so that I don’t have to feel _________(fill in the blank) or so that the other person doesn’t have to feel __________(fill in the blank). However, what we all need to understand is that feeling uncomfortable feelings is part of our emotional growth to wholeness; for self and others.  Whether it is our children, friends, co-workers or other family members, if we don’t feel the uncomfortable feelings of our choices, we are likely to not change. In this podcast, Cait Beiler and Sharon Wegman discuss what codependency can look like in our everyday life.

The trend and comfort of going to counseling has only developed popularity within the past decade or so. This is a good thing, but as a therapist, I still encounter the negative views or “cliches” people see in counseling. As a culture, we are just now starting to come out of the perspective that going to counseling somehow means “you’re crazy” or “there’s something wrong with you.” In reality, we all go through hard things, and the point is we need support and safe places to process these experiences to stay healthy and receive healing. In this podcast, Sharon and I discuss the different reasons why someone might want to go to counseling and how counseling can aide and support that person in their process of healing. It is possible that as you have gotten older, you have become more increasingly aware of negative patterns you have picked up over time from your childhood. Going to counseling can help you unravel some of these patterns and find new ways to think and see things rather than being stuck in our childhood self. Another reason people might come to counseling is to find help and a safe space to process various types of trauma that have happened to them. Such trauma might include; multiple types of abuse, divorce, poverty, domestic violence, etc. Talking to a counselor can free up some of the weight and struggle you carry from these memories, as well as helping you find healthy ways to cope with your past. Lastly, you might find yourself needing to go to counseling because you have experienced the death of someone close to you. Grief counseling is a massive piece of working through a loss and the grief cycle in a very vulnerable time. All in all, counseling is helpful for any season of life, sometimes as people, we need someone to sit and process with us in a place that feels safe and gives us permission to explore and experience our emotions. A therapist is simply a person whose job is to support and help you work out your feelings and your needs. Therapists are not afraid of the ugly feelings, so you have permission in a counseling office to be your authentic self. A counseling office is a place concerning no judgments or expectations over us, and for most of us, that in itself can be a very healing process.

Anxiety rates are on the rise in the western world. In fact, in 2018 study on anxiety, it was determined that “1 in 5 five individuals deal with some form of anxiety and would be considered the highest prevalent form of mental illness in the United States”. Most people feel a lot of shame about not being able to control their anxiety or the fact that they have anxiety, however as research on this topic evolves we are coming to understand that changes in our culture have strong influences on the development of anxiety in our culture. For example, researchers have determined that 90% of the serotonin receptors are located in the gut. Therefore, the adage that “ you are what you eat” is quite right when it comes to an understanding some of the roots of anxiety in a modern culture which eats many genetically modified and processed foods. Additionally, many therapists would agree that the use of electronics increases social isolation and increases more self-comparison and negative perceptions of self and the world. In this podcast, Cait Beiler, MS and Sharon Wegman, MA, LPC, discuss causes of anxiety and strategies to deal with anxiety.

Newman, Tim (2018, May 5) Anxiety in the West: Is it on the rise? Retrieved from URLNaidoo, Uma (2019, March 27) Gut feelings: How food affects your mood. Retrieved from URL

School summer vacation has an immense undercurrent to it these days.  Below the surface of the joy that the children feel about summer vacation from school, there exists a hint of angst when parents think about children being home in summer.  It is rare though when a parent openly shares their negative feelings of shame and guilt associated with children being home. There is less structure, less mom time, and less money available because food, entertainment, camp, and vacation expenses go up. Moms, in particular, feel more guilt and shame over not being able to be the fantastic mom portrayed in social media. Therefore, they find it difficult to focus on the positive aspects of connecting with their children and find summer to be a struggle. Two conflicting emotions are colliding! However, God desires to empower us in all the losses and negative feelings we experience during this season.  We love our children; however, we may need some assistance in processing our feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy, and powerlessness that get stirred by the summer break. Join host Sharon Wegman and her guest host Jesukah Beachy (mom of four girls) as they discuss how to bring empowerment to the negative feelings tied to summer break.

How do you relate with others?  Are you secure? Do you struggle with social anxiety?   Sometimes understanding the truth of how we relate to people is the first step to beginning to make the necessary changes in how we relate to people.  Most people fail to understand that attachment takes place in the first three years of a person’s life, and the individual’s world view is primarily established in the first twelve years of a person’s life.  We have very little control over how we learned to attach to and relate to people, but we do have power over how we change to relate to people. In this podcast, Sharon Wegman and Cait Beiler discuss the basics of Attachment theory which was originated by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth and consider how the therapeutic process can bring change to how we relate to people.

It’s common for people sitting across from me in the counseling office to talk about their inability to feel safe or connected to God.  Their walk with God seems very distant or is plagued with feels of guilt and shame. Some people are pretty clear that they want no part of God because of how God was presented to them by authority figures.  They are clear that God represents pain and they want no part of him because of the way he has been described to them. An essential piece of developing an excellent spiritual walk involves understanding how our childhood attachment issues with authority figures impact our current spiritual struggles.  In the attached podcast, Sharon Wegman and Cait Beiler discuss how childhood issues can affect our spiritual walk.