WW Podcast Ep 5- Final

The Wisdom Workshop podcast, hosted by Stephanie Oliver, offers timeless truths for everyday life from God's Word. They discuss topics like cultural confusion, financial pressure, and relationship challenges. Wisdom from Proverbs is highlighted, emphasizing the importance of knowledge and wisdom for a bright future. Guest Nicole Turner, a licensed professional counselor, shares insights on addressing anxiety and the role of the nervous system in mental health. Stephanie shares a personal experience of identifying underlying worries affecting her sleep and emphasizes the integration of spiritual and mental health for overall well-being. They stress the importance of recognizing and addressing both spiritual and biological aspects in mental health counseling. Welcome to the Wisdom Workshop, the show that brings you timeless truth you need for everyday life. Join our host, Stephanie Oliver, for a fresh perspective from God's Word on the topics that matter. Whether you're facing cultural confusion, financial pressure, relationship challenges, or just trying to grow in your faith, you're in the right place. Proverbs 24 says, the wise are mightier than the strong, and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger. In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, you will have a bright future, and your hopes will not be cut short. So grab your journal, your coffee, or just a quiet moment, because in a world full of noise, wisdom wins every time. Hello, my name is Stephanie Oliver. I am an author, speaker, pastor, pastoral counselor, and your host today for the Wisdom Workshop podcast. I am so glad that you are joining me today. Today I'm super excited that I get to share our time together with one of our team members. Her name is Nicole Turner. She is a licensed professional counselor and mental health service provider here in the state of Tennessee, and an amazing part of our Wisdom Workshop team. I would love for you to just greet our listeners and tell them anything else you want them to know about yourself. I was the workshop podcast. My name is Nicole Turner, like Dr. Oliver just said. I am a licensed professional counselor, a mom of two-year-old twins, and a wife of a youth pastor. So I have a lot of different things going on, but I'm super excited to be here and just share a little bit of wisdom with you guys. Oh, absolutely. I'm so grateful that you're here. So today we are going to be talking about some really incredible topics as a professional counselor. I know that there are things that you see come up repeatedly in client sessions, and we're not going to talk about any particular client sessions, but we're just going to talk about things that come up. I know I see things as a coach, and also in pastoral counseling, we see things that come up quite often, and I think this is just a great platform for us to address it, shed a little wisdom from the word of God on it, and just offer what we have. So tell us a little bit about your professional practice, and what's your favorite thing about being a professional counselor? You know, I feel like that's a little bit of a hard question, because as a professional counselor, as you know, you hear a lot, and it can be really difficult to sit across from somebody who's grieving or who is having a really dysregulating moment, but I do actually enjoy the moment that things seem to just click for them, and you get this light bulb or aha moment. I actually had one of those this evening in one of my sessions, and it was really beautiful to get to be a small portion of a revelation or an insight that these people gain just simply from talking, and I think that's just a really big gift. My practice specifically is kind of all over the place. I don't really have much of a specialty, so to speak. I do find that that's one of the unique aspects of the mental health counseling field is that you don't really have specialties necessarily. Especially in private practice, which I'm in, you get to see a wide variety of different things. I see anyone from 13 years old all the way up to, I've seen 70-year-olds before, and ironically enough, they're some of my favorite clients, because they're so pure. So yeah, I mean, we see anxiety, depression, trauma, kind of all over the ballpark there. Yeah, that's great, though. I love that you have a diverse experience in counseling, and I think that's important to recognize, and that's kind of a sweet spot that you can handle lots of different things and helping people in many different ways. Well, we're not going to eat around the bush too much. Yeah, let's dive right in. Yes, let's just dive right in. I'm just going to share a little bit of, as a coach, some of the things that I'm seeing in areas that I think our listeners would just love to hear your perspective and what you thought, and just so you guys know, this is not rehearsed. This is authentic and as real as it gets. I did not know what we were going to talk about until this very moment, so this is real and authentic. Yes, I actually love that, though, because it just brings us to a place of authenticity. I think that, yeah, that's my word for today. So one of the things that I'm seeing a lot of in my own circle is there is just a lot of anxiety that people are having trouble really pinpointing what's causing it or where it's coming from. And of course, when you meet people and they're talking about their experience with anxious feelings and things like that, my first go-to is always the word of God. So we bring up Philippians 4, 6-8 and we pray and we practice those things. But many times people come back and they're saying, I'm still struggling with these feelings. I don't know what's causing them. I just know that I wake up and I have this sense of panic and I'm not sure why. And so my first question is, what would you tell someone who is maybe dealing with that and realizing this might be more than just a faith issue? Yeah, I think that's super important, right? Because the Lord is so good and his word is so good. And at the same time, sometimes we have to look to all different facets of our being. And what I would say to that is sometimes it's not a spiritual issue. Sometimes it's a biological issue. And I think as mental health professionals, we oftentimes don't look at the biological side of things and that reality, because we have a lot of people walking around with this regulated nervous system. And a lot of the times it's that dysregulated nervous system that is causing these undue sense of panic and stress and not really pinpointing where it comes from because there wasn't like an event or a situation that caused that feeling. You mentioned people waking up in the middle of the night. I would automatically look at that nervous system and go, just start questioning, why is the nervous system so dysregulated? Because our nervous system is constantly scanning for cues of security and safety. So when we have a dysregulated one, when it's on guard, when fight or flight is kicked on, what's making us feel unsafe and what is going into that? That's where I would look first if all of the other things still seem to be working. Yeah, that's really good. It just reminds me of a time when I had a similar situation. I could not figure out why I was having so much trouble sleeping and resting. And it just turned out and nothing was really wrong in my life. I mean, it was after my husband had passed, but nothing was really wrong. We were okay. It seemed financially we were okay. Everybody was in their respective grief counseling environment. And it seemed like on the surface, it looked like we were in a good place. But I was just having this hard time. I had actually gone through a period where I was just resting well. And then all of a sudden, I just couldn't rest. Like I was just feeling a sense of anxiety and dealing with panic. And I remember unpacking that a little bit with my counselor at the time. And one of the things that she encouraged me to do was just to reflect on what else has changed. Like what else had changed in my life outside of the big thing that we thought we were okay behind. And I realized that I was really concerned about what was going to happen with our health, our health insurance of all things. And it was really latent. Like it wasn't something if you had asked me, well, Stephanie, what's wrong? I would have been like, I don't know. Everything's going great. We had good health insurance at the time. We were going to have it for another couple of years. But I didn't realize that it was like just residing in the back of my mind. And every time I thought about the health insurance, I could think about it earlier in the day. And I started like logging what was going on in my mind throughout the day, just kind of journaling throughout the day. And I noticed this pattern. Like every time that subject came up earlier in the day, I was struggling with it later at night. And it was just the strangest thing. And once I recognized that I was able to pray about it, process through it with my counselor. We even put a little plan together what I needed to do in a couple years. I think it just freaked me out. What were we going to do about health insurance when our health insurance was over? And the fact that it was something I had never had to think about before. And so I think you're right. We have to pay attention to like the cues that are coming from our nervous system and recognize it's not always a spiritual issue. I mean, I do recognize the enemy likes to exploit things like we can have points of pain and the enemy will try and take advantage of them. But in that particular moment, it really wasn't a spiritual issue. It was a matter of me having subconscious. It was like a subconscious experience of worry about something that wasn't really present. And so working with someone... It was like undercutting. Yes. Everything in your life. And then it became, you brought in the spiritual aspect of it when you recognize what it was and laid it down at the feet of the cross and got a plan or all the things. But it's this and that's what the nervous system is, right? It's undercutting this our life where we don't feel bad. You didn't feel bad, but you could tell that something was just slightly off. Yeah, that's so true. You bring up a good point too. And maybe you can speak to this. That there is this integration at some point, though, of our spiritual health and our mental health, right? Maybe you can talk a little bit about that for our listeners. Yeah. So that's a really, it's kind of a broad thing. But there is this integration there. I think one of the best examples that I could give is when you go through... And Dr. Oliver, you're kind of experiencing this right now with the Townsend Institute. But as you go through these theory classes, you begin to take a step back and realize that a lot of the theories of practice are aligned biblically. One of the best examples that I could give is one of the biggest theories that we use in counseling is cognitive behavioral therapy. It's this idea that our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions are all intertwined. What we think, we feel, then we act. And you brought up Philippians. Let's just go there for a second. Philippians 4, what does it tell us to do? It tells us to think of things that are true and honorable and noble and praiseworthy. That's cognitive behavioral therapy right there. That is what we do in office when we say, let's reframe this negative thought with a positive one. What does this look like? And understanding that things aren't always positive. Things aren't going to be positive. You're in counseling for a reason sometimes. But what can we take from this and learn from? John Maxwell, I believe it is, has this theory called failing forward. And I absolutely love that theory too because it brings in that spiritual component of you're not going to fail. You cannot fail what the Lord has already won. He has already overcome. So you're not failing. You're just learning how to do it differently, if that makes sense. You're just learning how to fail forward. It might not be right right now, but it will be right eventually. So I think there's a lot of intersections when it comes to spirituality and prayer and the Holy Spirit guiding us and helping us discern what is good and the mental and emotional side of it. Oh, that's so good. Well, we're going to take a short break and go into our wisdom win for the day. And we will see you all on the other side. Hi, I'm Carolyn. I'm here with your wisdom win for the day. We're in Matthew 11, 28 through 30. We're in the message version. Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. We live in a culture that treats burnout like a badge of honor. We're experts at doing, but we're often dangerously bad at being. In this passage from the message, Jesus addresses the soul deep exhaustion that comes from carrying burdens that were never sized for our shoulders. Are you navigating the crushing feeling that you are responsible for holding the world together? We've been sold a version of success and sometimes even a version of faith. That feels like a heavy, ill-fitting coat. We're tired of performing, tired of the hustle, and if we're being honest, burned out on trying to be enough. Wisdom is realizing that your value isn't tied to your output. When the scripture says, watch how I do it, it's an invitation to a different pace. An ill-fitting life is one where you're carrying expectations that weren't sized for you. Someone else's career path. Someone else's parenting style. Or a rigid religious checklist. Jesus invites you to take on his yoke, which is lighter. He has a specific life designed just for you, based on the way he has created you. True wisdom is letting go of the heavy things to make room for the light things. If you're exhausted today, stop trying to do better and just keep company. The rhythm of grace doesn't require a sprint, it just requires your presence. Thanks for joining us for today's Wisdom Wins. Now let's hop back into the episode. All right, well, welcome back. Again, if you're just getting to this part of the podcast, I am here with licensed professional counselor and mental health service provider, an amazing member of the Wisdom Workshop team, Nicole Turner, and she is just giving us some clinical insight on some very real challenges that we all face. And we've been talking a little bit about anxiety. I want to shift a little bit for the second half of our discussion to depression. Maybe we can talk a little bit about how to recognize the difference between being sad versus depressed, and what to do if you think you are dealing with depression. And if you have any personal testimony of your experience with that, either clinically or personally, feel free to share it, Nicole. But of course, you're not obligated to. But I just want our listeners to really get a grasp and an understanding of, you know, am I depressed or am I just sad? Am I, how do I know the difference? And what do I do if I think I am? Yeah, I feel like that it's become a buzzword specifically around our culture today. I think with the integration of social media, TikTok, all the things, right? Like all of these clinical words, clinical languages become a big thing. And depression, I've actually seen as one of them. And I'll have people all the time say, well, I'm just depressed. And I have to stop and ask them, are you actually depressed? Because here's what I was seeing, and it doesn't look like it. Same thing with gaslighting, but that's a whole other topic for a whole other day. But depression, when we look at clinically, keyword, I have to say this because it bugs me a little bit. This is a pet peeve of mine as a clinician. There really is no such thing as clinical depression. In the DSM-5, so listeners out there, there is not a clinical depression diagnosis. It is just major depression disorder. That's the diagnosis. It's a pet peeve of mine. But what we're looking at is specifically, is there joy? Are you going out and doing things and finding joy in it? If you're not, then you might be depressed. Might be is the keyword there, might. Are you isolating, right? Are you just hanging back and not really interested in engaging with friends and family and loved ones in the way that you normally have? Is there just, it feels like this cloud, this cloud over a rainy day where everyone else around you is having a good day, but for some reason, you just can't seem to pull yourself out of it and find the joy. There's no motivation to do absolutely anything. Oftentimes, people who are depressed are really living in filth. So that's really what we're looking at for the clinical standard of depression. What I will say, though, and it's something that I have to manage myself on a day-to-day or week-to-week or month-to-month basis is, this isn't really a diagnosis, but I like to call it this. It's functional depression, right? It's this, I'm walking around. I'm doing the things because I have to do the things, right? I'm a mom. I can't just sit up in bed all day. I have clients on my schedule. I can't just hold up in bed all day, so I have to do the things, but finding joy in that is really, really hard. So that's something that I deal with from time to time, and it takes a minute to pull me out of it, but it's still really the key here is there's no motivation, no joy, no interest, and a lot of isolation, and that's kind of the difference between depression and sadness. Depression is a little bit longer lasting than a bout of sadness is. Oh, that's really insightful. I love the idea that you express of being functionally skirting the line of depression. I think so many mothers deal with that, especially mothers of young children, because you know these people are completely dependent on you, and you can't just not feed them or not clothe them, but I definitely can relate to having had those moments where you're like, oh my gosh, I have to get up and do this again. Yeah, and it's literally like pulling yourself out of bed, and it's really, really hard sometimes, but how do you get through it? Yeah, I was just thinking about some ways that I've gotten through moments like that. I'm just reflecting back. Of course, you all know my kids are not kids. Everybody's an adult in my household, but just thinking back 25 years or so, there were often moments where I couldn't pull myself out. I had people that were checking on me. Yeah, and I think about, you know, if you know that you're kind of dealing with that kind of a feeling or circumstance, let your community know what you're going through so they can check on you, and they can be a part of your journey, and there's a lot of healing in that. I can remember people coming by, and one lady, we had just moved to Tennessee, and my youngest was six months old. I had a three and a half, almost four year old, and I had a six year old, and we had just moved to a new state. We moved into a brand new home. We had to wait two months staying in an apartment that wasn't ours and with somebody else's furniture, and then staying in a Marriott two-room hotel for two weeks while we waited to move in, and so we finally got moved into the house, and then my husband was sent overseas as part of his job, and so I'm here in a new city. I didn't necessarily want to move from where we were, and I had these three kids that are completely dependent on me. There's no family around. Mama's all of it, and I remember just feeling overwhelmed and wanting to shut down, like the temptation to shut down was real, and I started going down this spiral of like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I don't know how I'm going to do this. I was also having some physical challenges with my mobility. I was in a back brace. I had brought a cane to learn to use. It was really a difficult season, and I remember so many days the first couple weeks, like I can't do this. I can't do this, and a neighbor from across the street came over. Wonderful Christian lady came over, rang the doorbell, and said, hey, we wanted to give you a little time to get settled, but I want you to know that I have three small kids too, and I homeschool too, and it was just the Lord that placed me there, and she came over, and I had to just be vulnerable and honest and say, I'm so glad you came. My house is a mess. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. My husband's out of town, and it was such a relief to have somebody in it with me. She began, like we had so much connection. Her husband traveled all the time, and it was like, oh my goodness, I'm in the right place. It became so much of a resource for me to develop that kind of community, so I just thinking about what you were saying, and felt really strongly to remind, especially mothers who are in the thick of it. Sometimes we deal with like we're going to, we feel ashamed, or we don't want people to know how bad it really is, but having that neighbor come in and see my dirty laundry and see my dirty kitchen and love on me in spite of was exactly what I needed to come out of that season, and we began to work together, and we became like our own mom brigade. We would help each other clean. We'd help watch kids while the other one cleaned. If I cooked lunch, I'd say, hey, I've got hot dogs and chips. Your kids want lunch today, and if she made pancakes, she'd call and say, I made pancakes this morning. Your kids want breakfast. It was just such a blessing, and so I think I say all that to just encourage people that are in that, especially women and especially mothers. If you are in that place, community is powerful. Go ahead. I was just going to say like that's so important because as moms, we're in the trenches a lot, and it seems like nobody notices, and that's ideal. When you have that type of community that you can cultivate, and I think that's also kind of where spirituality and mental health intersect is the development of the community, right? People who can pray for you, people who can look at you sometimes and say, girl, get your act together. Get up out of this and let's go. Pack the kids up. Let's go to the park, but also moms who are like, send the kids over to my house. You go clean for a little bit or do whatever you need to do. Like that's so important, and it really does pull us out. Oh, that's so good. Well, this has been an incredible conversation, and our time is up for today, but we're going to try to have Nicole back once a month to give us clinical perspective on things and just let us know, you know, and however the Lord wants to use her gifting in our conversations. If there are questions that you have that you've always wanted to ask a counselor, and maybe you don't have a chance to, we want you to email us those questions. You can email us at info at wisdomworkshop.net, and we would love to take those on the next time we get together with professional counselor, Nicole Turner. This has been a wonderful opportunity to talk. Thank you so much, Nicole, for joining us, and we're so glad that you could join us today. I just want you to remember that it doesn't matter what you're going through. You're not alone. God is with you, and I want you to remember that wisdom wins every time. God bless you. We'll connect with you next time. Thanks for joining us today on the Wisdom Workshop. Remember, as Proverbs 24 reminds us, victory comes through wise counsel, and strength is found in wisdom. So whatever you're facing this week, seek God's insight, approach it with faith, and walk in truth. Until next time, stay grounded, stay growing, and never forget, wisdom wins every time.