How Capstone Wellness Helps Renew Hope & Faith

Talk about more. You know, at Capstone, you guys work closely with people carrying deep emotional pain. And so when they're feeling hopelessness and it's feeling overwhelming, how do you help people anchor themselves and rediscovered a re a renewed sense of hope and faith? So we kind of talked about the two roads. What other strategies, tools, approaches do you take?

Yeah, well, first thing I would say is hopelessness is always overwhelming. And I don't care how strong a person you are in whatever realm you're talking about, strength existing in hopelessness is overwhelming. I mean, it's so that to me is a first step, you know, kind of issue. And the first thing I think in answering your question question, Ashley, is I always tell my students the first day of the first class and then therapists that I train at Capstone that were not my students, you can't take your clients further than you've taken yourself. And the most important thing in the room as far as change is you, not what you know and your degree and the fancy one liner that you can say that you read in somebody's book or a training you have, or it's who you are. And who you are is honestly about doing your own work. So the first part of that answer is you, you better have yourself right. And that doesn't mean that you're perfect, it means that you're growing. Lots of our therapists have already been through intensives doing their work, going to therapy to do their own work. And when I interview a possibility for a therapist, if they come in and say, yeah, well, I just had such a wonderful growing up and my life has just been all kind of peaches and ice cream and I just want to help some of those people who struggle. I'm like, yeah, this interview is not going to last long because. And so I would say that to answer your question more specifically first, instead of how to get them away from helplessness or hopelessness, I would say, how did we get them to be hopeless to begin with? Yes, preventing hopelessness would be the best answer to that question. And I always use that phrase, you guys have heard me say it. How you see it is how you treat it. How you see something is how you treat it. So if you are working from the paradigm that you have a chronic brain disease, you have a genetic defect that has caused this, that's the most hopeless producing paradigm that there can be. Because it truly means, and I know this sounds funny, but it's like I say, you know, my wife is 1/8 Cherokee and she gets a dark tan And I want to get one too. Well, that ain't possible. I'm just going to get sunburned sitting under the tent, my tilly hat on. And it's like that's the same thing. If my struggle is that kind of genetic, biological based, you know, disease that's hopeless. But the other way and how you see it is how you treat it is. Was this thing that you're doing originally an attempt at finding a solution to a problem that you saw as unsolvable, then it was right or smart or good, but that, that's what was under it. And I think secondly, I would say that the way to cause people to be hopeless is to use a symptom relief paradigm. That that's the whole thing is just symptom relief. Yeah, it focuses on labels, quick fixes, temporary, you know, relief. And the biomedical paradigm and the DSM does that. It does exactly that. And there's a plethora of meds that they use. None of those are about the causes. None of them. You know, they've, they've looked for biomedical markers on any mental illness for over 50 years with a strong bias to want it to be there. And they've never found one. And so if you are a person being treated that way, that causes hopelessness. And second thing I would say causes spiritual bypass. And we see this as you all do in churches all the time, that somebody's got one of these big time addictions or trauma or affairs or whatever, and the church leaders want to just pray it away. You know, they say the, the scripture about if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell this mind to go jump in the river or the ocean and it will. I've only seen that happen twice in my entire life. I believe it can happen, but I've seen thousands of mountains go into the ocean 1 teaspoon at a time. If you're thinking that your faith has got to be strong enough for that mountain to take a flying leap into the ocean, you're going to get hopeless real quick because it's probably not going to happen that way. So you know, the other thing, and you guys have heard me talk about avoidance patterns in relationships. People say time heals all things. Well, that's the biggest lie that's ever hit the streets. When it comes to therapy, Tom doesn't heal anything. When it comes to trauma or addiction, it is like you have to do the work to do it. So I would say you engender hope with the truth in, you know, it's in red letters in the New Testament, the truth to set you free. Now in invisible ink, it may say, and it'll kick your butt in the process, but it is the only thing that's going to set you free. And to me, it's helping people understand what's going on with them.

Yeah.

So, you know, ask the question, what makes this make sense? This thing that I'm struggling with, what makes me make sense? And then, then answer it. And by retracing the vine to the roots, to the third generation and beyond. And I love using that volcano metaphor that you have the eruption, but it comes out of the magma chamber and that comes from the core of the earth and in the environment of where that happens determines how big of a blast it's going to be. So if it's under the ocean, not a big deal. If it's next to a city, then it's going to be a big deal. So that's about family connection or disconnection. And when you're like explaining that you don't have eruptions without a magma chamber, and that magma chamber chamber is about your trauma and lack of attachment and your lack of connection to God and lack of agency. And that's why you're reaching for these things that are temporary coping mechanisms that are very unhealthy. People are like, oh, I just thought I was screwed up, or I just thought I was stupid or cursed or whatever. And those that explanation is not. And I really hammer this with the betrayed spouses. It's not a get out of jail free card. It's not an excuse. You do something wrong, you do something wrong, no matter what. The core underlying issues are sins, a sin, but it helps to understand it, you know, with. With what it is. It is a fact, and it is a fact that you cannot deny, no matter what your paradigm is. Trauma and disconnection in relationships underpin addiction. And addiction is always an attempt to handle that loneliness or that isolation or that trauma. And so you have two people go out and drink a few beers or smoke pot, or, you know, even separately, hopefully use pornography, and they both get euphoria and relief from it. But one of them is drawn back to it so strongly. And we tell them, well, that's because you've got the genes. Yeah, Instead of that person is drawn back to it, the other person can take it or leave it. It's like the question is, what kind of relief did this person get? They're carrying in more pain, more toxic shame. They get more relief out of it. It means something different. To them. And that's what, you know, changed it. So, you know, I look at trying to say, you know, trauma is healable, it's realistic. It's not even a question about can you heal? Surely can be. And that, to me, is where people that we work with, both moms and dads and sons, that's when they start seeing hope that they can. Can heal it. Our boys get it easily, really. Parents come in and they've lived with it for so many decades. They're like, well, I can't do anything about it. It's just this thing on my back I've got to carry. And when you can show them this, you know, we have about half of our moms throw their own sexual abuse out. About 40% of our dads start getting those disclosures on the table with moms and dads. And then we're able to do the work, you know, to be able to help them, to build the connection, you know, with it. So to me, understanding what's going on with me is in general the answer to your question. Yeah.

Yeah. I love that, Adrian, because I remember in my own recovery journey, the nature of where my marriage was at. I really felt like I was at a place that if I relapse again, my wife is so tired of this pattern that she's going to be done. And I was terrified because I felt like. And I remember I drew it on a piece of paper. Like, I felt like life would just be going along fine, and then bam, I'd have a relapse and I wouldn't see it coming. And that fear of that hopelessness of I don't know how to prevent this thing because it just happens. Well, you get into group, we understand through pure desires, methodologies, the trauma stuff and the messages. And I begin to understand how. Oh, actually those could be predicted and precipitated a long time in advance. There's a pattern here. There's many, many choices I make along the way. And understanding that whole system was incredibly hope giving because it made me see there are so many things I can do that, yes, involve reaching out in my faith, but also involve a lot of other very practical things or steps like calling group member that I can do to redirect this process much sooner. And I'm not just going to be blindsided by yet another relapse. And that hope and what you said earlier, there's agency of I can do something about this. I'm not just at the will of my addiction or my past behaviors that created momentum and hope and change and growth. But until you see that, I think you do feel hopeless. And I would say at the same time, for some listeners, I would caution that when you hear that, like, if I just understand where it's coming from, then I'll change. Sometimes can sound like a golden key. And I get people in group sometimes that are looking for, like, just give me that one golden key that I have to turn. And if I turn that right key, I'll never struggle again. And it's to remind them that everything Adrian is talking about is. It's really a process. It's a part of being in community. And this understanding comes over time. It's not just like figuring out that one, you know, core message that your daddy said when you were five. And once you understand that, you'll never be an addict or struggle with pornography again. Like, I wish it was that straightforward. It's more of a. There's more layers to it, is what I would try to remind people. But that as that understanding comes, the hope of change and actual transformation comes as well. And thankfully, we get to see that on a daily basis around here.

Yeah, for sure. And that's, you know, you think about the idea of a funnel that you pour oil in your car with and that somebody is born, and it's like they're at the top end of the funnel where they've got the widest. All the options in life are in front of them, all the choices are there, like a full menu of life. And then by the time we get them, and probably by the time that they would come and get involved in pure desire, they've. They've narrowed down their choices to this spout. And how did they get there? Well, people do exactly what you said, Nick. They're looking for. What's that one thing that happened? Like, this domino fell over and knocked that one. And instead that funnel is made out of jigsaw puzzle pieces. And there's dozens, if not hundred, and you've got to look at all that, but from one sense, that's your trauma and your disconnection, you know, piece. Yeah, it's not just that. It is that with figuring out a way to do something that's healthy, to cope, not unhealthy, and make the connection. So it's like a three battlefront war that you got to look at. And then if you want to just get in grad school conversation so we can go deeper. But it's also the pace that you take in doing it, because just figuring it out, it's the work and the pace is, you know, I think I have this thing right here that I brought it out with a kid yesterday was having a major trauma meltdown. And it's this turtle and it's a turtle that a client. I gave her a turtle because I kept. She kept wanting to be a rabbit on 100 yard dash. And I kept saying, no, we've got to be a turtle that looks about like I look jogging on, you know, and it's like. So when we finished our two years of work, she had been raped 11 times in her teenage years. I mean she, heroin, everything else. Now she's a wonderful mother, wife and you know, got a master's education and, and doing wonderful things in, in her job and with her family. But this turtle sits on my desk and I see it and it means something to me every day about myself. The pace of all those three battlefronts is one step at a time, like a turtle, you know. And that's how you get real second order chains change that last. But we are built to be quick fix. And so that biomedical model and that spiritual bypass, love Jesus, trust God to your belly button glows and all this stuff goes away. That's what we want. We tend to want to go do. And then we fail at it and we feel like it's not the way we went at it that failed. I failed because I'm not good. So. Mm.

Yeah, that's. I, I mean again, even on the like twofold everything you were saying, I experienced that as a betrayed spous. And, and for my husband that in those months after discovery, I was thinking, how can somebody who has a pornography addiction and history with prostitutes and drugs and all these years has just been swapping addictions never really recovered or healed. How can they ever change? Because in my mind it was a sin problem. It was, okay, well, you know Jesus, you know the word and if you're still struggling after 25 years, like, where's the hope? And I'm not meaning to say that in like there's no hope in Jesus, but when the church kept saying, well why don't you just have more faith? That same verse of like, faith enough to move mountains. And. And then I started feeling like, why am I still stuck as the betrayed spouse? If I just had more faith and could forgive him and trust Jesus with my marriage, I shouldn't feel this way. And then fast forward two months when, when I sat down and and was introduced to pure desire material and saw this is also a brain problem, it just unleashed all this hope in Me. And then, you know, fast forward 10 years, I' say it is all about Jesus. It is all about having your identity in Jesus. But what I learned was I had to go back the whole journey and figure out like if I'm this, if I'm this cake today, like what all ingredients were put into my cake along the way to make me exactly who I am today. And some of those ingredients were not wanted. Some of them were bad ingredients, some of them other people dumped in my cake when I wasn't looking. And you know, that I had to go back and figure out like, what did God originally intend for my life and where along the lines did I stop believing what he originally had planned for me or what shaped my perspective? An abusive sexual situation shaped how I view men in this way or how I view myself. And to go back to all that is a long, long process. But then I'm like, oh, it is all about Jesus. I just had to get there and undo all those pieces, um, and understand how they impact me. But you know, when, when you're told that early on and, and people throw out psychology and they throw out that, yeah, somewhere along the line my perspective of God was changed, my perspective of myself. But then that actually physiological lead physiologically changed my brain as well. And so beliefs do have power. And I think that's something Christians, you know, don't always talk about, that our thoughts can change our brain and so we have to go back to the thoughts and then re change our brain again back to what it was supposed to be.

Yeah, it's. We have a lot of parents that come to Capstone because we're Christian based program. And they're my favorite, you know, parents, they're Christians, they love the Lord, etc. But they almost always come out of a very ingrained spiritual bypass perspective. And so it's very interesting when you watch it. And I've actually been sitting on the front pew of church after I spoke before some people came down for their prayers and, and that kind of thing. And you know, and then I've seen it hundreds of times from my back row seat in the balcony because I'm always a back road Joe guy when I'm not up there speaking. And they've, there's been an adultery in a marriage, there's an addiction to alcohol or drugs. There's a trauma like being raped. And the elders will come up and put hands on them and they'll pray. And I always wondered what they said to them after the prayer. You know, you hear the prayer on the microphone and. Or on the speaker. But I was sitting there one day, and this guy prayed for someone that was in an addiction to alcohol. And when they said amen, they looked at the person and said, hey, you want to get your family and go with my family to KFC for lunch? And it was like, we're done with this. The alcoholism is over. I just prayed that we're good to go. Yeah, we get that kind of thing a lot.

Yeah.

I'm like, let's go read the book of James, because there's something that y' all are leaving out of the scripture. And let's go. It's not really about the psychology and all those things yet. It's about you're not reading part of the scripture. It is. It's like faith and prayer don't change anything. Faith and prayerfully working is what changes things. God, then bless you. And I think you said it so beautifully, Ashley. After all the work that I've done on many different things, yes, it is all about Jesus, but it's all about Jesus opening doors, closing doors, and empowering me to. To do the work that was necessary to get to this place. It's not done without him. And I think there's such a dichotomized thinking paradigm in with a lot of Christian leaders that, you know, if you are going out and doing the work, it means you don't have the faith. And I'm like, well, no, actually, that shows my faith that I believe if I do this work, things can change. Yeah.

Kind of the whole book of James in a nutshell. It's faith and works. Yes. To both, and both are absolutely crucial.