[DAWN GABRIEL]
Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, host of Faith Fringes Podcast, recording live from Castle Rock Colorado, not only where I love to live, but I also work as the owner of a counseling center in the historic downtown. This podcast is a place to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. For those desiring deeper connection with God and engaging their spirituality in new ways, this will be a safe place to allow doubt, questions and curiosity, without judgment. We will be creating intentional space to listen in on other’s faith journeys, whether that is deconstruction or reconstruction, with the hope of traveling alongside you on your own spiritual path. If you’re interested in getting even more out of this podcast, grab my free email course Spiritual Reflections on my websitefaithfringes.com. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello and welcome to episode 37 of Faith Fringes podcast. This is Dawn Gabriel, your host. Today is going to be a great conversation between me and a new friend, Emily. I met her through one of the Facebook groups I’m a part of that helps encourage one another as we run group practices. As I talked with Emily, I just really connected with her and I am excited to have you guys listen in. We are going to talk about her background as she grew up in a different country as a missionary and when she moved back to America, what happened to her faith and what her beliefs were about church. She’s just a real authentic person and I would love to have you guys just listen in and hear our conversation. It was just natural, easy way to talk about it and I just really enjoyed her heart.

So let me tell you a little bit about her. Emily is the founder and executive director at Redemption Counseling Center. She is a mother, wife, therapist, writer and forest wanderer. Emily finds incredible solace in prayer and loves to integrate faith and spirituality into the professional counseling work she does. When she’s not at work Emily can often be found hiking the mountains and looking for and finding God in the overlooked places. Yes, and just hearing that bio just draws me into her even more. It sounds very similar to what I love to do and kind of some of my passions.
[DAWN]
Welcome to the podcast, Emily.
[EMILY BAUERLE]
Thanks for having me. I’m so happy to be here today.
[DAWN]
I was so interested when we connected over email. I just think you have a really interesting story and I would love for my listeners to kind of hear more about it and to kind of dive in on your own faith deconstruction and reconstruction. So maybe start by telling us a little bit of about yourself and your background. We’ll start there.
[EMILY]
Okay. Well, yes, we have hours, right?
[DAWN]
We’ll make it two episodes.
[EMILY]
So I spent most of my growing up in central Asia. My parents did humanitarian aid and worked with a local church in central Asia. I say most of my childhood, I feel it’s the formative years. So it was from age 10 to 17 kind of is when we were moving around and living kind of this more nomadic life than I had the first 10 years of my life which, I was born in Los Angeles. Then when I was 10, we moved and started this kind of journey. So and then when I was 17, we moved back to the United States. My parents moved with us because, I say us, there’s four of us kids, they moved with us kids back as we were kind of getting ready to go to college.

My brother is two years older than me, my sister, two years younger. Then I have a little brother. They had kind of seen these kids come back home from living abroad and they had seen their lives kind of not thrive. So they said, okay, we want to help with the transition back into the culture that’s yours, but it’s not. So I didn’t know any pop culture references. We lived in this village in the middle of nowhere. Our house was made out of mud. It was just, I was not your typical American teenager.
[DAWN]
I would say not.
[EMILY]
Which was really hard coming back into the US and being, I don’t fit in with anyone.
[DAWN]
You said you were 17 when you moved back?
[EMILY]
17.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh.
[EMILY]
So different. So last year of high school, trying to find how to be a teen girl in the US, it just was wrong.
[DAWN]
I’m sure. Where did you back to, what state?
[EMILY]
Arizona. We had never lived in Arizona before, so we didn’t have family here. We didn’t have anything. So it was just kind of starting over, all over again. Yes, it was a huge transition. It was a huge transition for us kind of on a cultural level, but also for our family on a faith level too. So I grew up from day one as a Christian, non-denominational church. My parents are amazing human beings and have always had kind of this core thing of the most important thing is just Jesus and we’ll figure it out. So they’ve kind of gone through all these different variations of church and whatnot.

So when we came back to the United States we all were kind of whoa, people think about God differently here than these small communities of Christians that we had been a part of, kind of in our nomadic life. We had kind of found people and communities versus churches, so to speak denominations. So it was this really, really jarring thing of we don’t fit in culturally and we don’t fit in with people who share our faith either. I don’t want to speak for the rest of my family, but that was definitely my experience as yes, a teen girl trying to be, okay, wow.
[DAWN]
I’d like to dive in a little bit more to that, but first I’m curious where in central Asia were you?
[EMILY]
We were in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, primarily, but mostly Uzbekistan.
[DAWN]
Okay. Wow. So what was community and church there? Can you describe that first?
[EMILY]
Yes. So very different than here. At the time churches weren’t, you couldn’t have a church in Uzbekistan. So when people believed in Jesus, they just met together in little groups in homes or in one on one meetings at a tea house or something like that. There wasn’t a place that you went to go to church.
[DAWN]
So like the actual church?
[EMILY]
Yes, very much. So even though when I was little and we lived in the US we had gone to a formal church that wasn’t my experience from age 10 to 17, which are really formative years as we know. So it was a very, very different experience coming back to the US and finding, oh, church is the huge groups of people and this big performance and you don’t talk to anyone when you go and no one says hi to you. Yes, it was so disorienting for me.
[DAWN]
I bet. I was just imagining walking into megachurch or even a small church. It’s still what you described and what you were used to in Uzbekistan was more connection, community relationship, real talk, authentic connection and then the here you’re coming back to US and you’re like what’s happening? There’s a huge band. It’s a show. Wow, that’s fascinating. So it’s interesting, when I’ve been talking about my own deconstruction, as I look back, well, it was deconstruction before. It was called deconstruction back when I was 20 something. I realized I was more deconstructing the church and I realized I had to separate those. I’m curious if that was your experience or what happened as you’re processing.
[EMILY]
It was really interesting. So when I went to college as a social worker people would always say, “What’s your religion? What’s your faith?” That was often talked about in school and how that affects like what we believe in and stuff. I would always feel I’m somebody who believes in Jesus. It was always kind of that lots of pauses, like I don’t know if I can take Christian, label, because what you guys do here is not what I feel for myself, what resonates with me as far as my faith and belief system. Then I realized that that really offended people on both sides, like people who were like, “How, are you in some cult?” I’m, “None of all these things.” So yes, it was a really interesting process of feeling, wow, I don’t know where to land. Facebook was just coming out at that time and it was like put your religion and I was, I’m just going to put Jesus. Then all my friends were like why did you just put Jesus?
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh, you can’t win. Forget your heart. You can’t win. The couple I was telling you about who work with a lot of missionaries, they have five kids and they go to a church, but they’re used to dealing with other cultures and churches in different countries and they were at a more conservative church, a small church here. One of the youth workers pulled them aside and said we’re really concerned about your kids. They’re like, why? We asked if they said the prayer and they didn’t know what we were talking about. They’re, “Well, yes, because we don’t call it saying the prayer, but they have a great relationship with Jesus. We talk about Jesus.” So it’s kind of what you said like really, if you boil Christianity down, it is about Jesus. But for you to say that people were offended is shocking to me when, to me, I’d rather people say I’m a Jesus follower than a Christian, because I feel Christian brings up so much for people who’ve been hurt by that word. I’d rather say I follow Jesus. So I’m with you. I would’ve loved if you said that to me.
[EMILY]
Well, and it’s so interesting because where we lived, where we lived in central Asia, Christianity also had this connotation of tied to being an American. Like if you were an American, you were a Christian. So, it was interesting, even then feeling, oh, these things are separate in a lot of people’s eyes. Like in following Jesus is different than being a Christian. When you say that, it feels like that seems a really bizarre thing to say.
[DAWN]
I know because Christianity sometimes sounds political. Sometimes it sounds more agenda-driven than I follow Jesus. It’s very different. I’m with you. So do you still say that now, like when some, it’s been how many years, what do you say now? I’m curious.
[EMILY]
It’s been an interesting evolution. I feel over the last 16, 17 years of trying to figure out where I fit in all of this, in all of faith. I was talking to a friend the other day about the label of Christian and we were just talking about our different stances on whether we use that word. I actually feel more comfortable saying it now than I used to, which is shocking to me because I do feel I am more deconstructed than I used to be, but it’s kind of this, I don’t give a shit what people think. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t say so on the podcast.
[DAWN]
No, we have sworn on my podcast. You’re not the first. It’s ok.
[EMILY]
I don’t care what people think, I mean as much anymore. They can think whatever they want. This is about my experience versus their thoughts because anything I say, people are going to have their own thoughts as I learned on day one of going to college. But I do feel I resonate more with Jesus versus good Christianity label. Like if you were just to ask me on a personal level, but I think I use the word Christian to connect with and say like, hey, there is this shared theme or shared thread that we have and it’s under this umbrella that’s pretty big in my opinion. Yes,
[DAWN]
No, that’s true. Then it really is. If you’re engaging in deeper conversation, it’ll come out. How you do Christian, it’s going to look different in everyone. I love that. I feel like I did jump ahead. Let’s go back. You’re in college, so you’re in your 18, 20s. What happened with your faith? Tell me more about that part.
[EMILY]
So a couple things happen. I mean, there’s been a couple things in my life, I think like many people where you have these moments where you’re, what do I believe? Is what I believe true? Is it meaningful? What does it say about who I am? All these things. So I had a couple experiences early on in college. One was, I did this internship with an inner city ministry and they were pretty edgy at the time, maybe not so much now. I don’t know, but they just really had this mindset of grace, grace, grace, upon grace for everyone who walks through our doors.

And even though I had had this really unique childhood experience it was this kind of moment of kind of realizing, oh, some of the rules around what I believe maybe don’t need to be there in quite the strict way that I thought that they needed to be. So that was kind of a transformative experience. I think being in college as a social worker at a school that was like we don’t really love people who follow Jesus.
[DAWN]
Was it a Christian school or a secular school?
[EMILY]
No, it wasn’t a Christian school. It was a state school. So just hearing really different perspectives about faith. I had had that a lot growing up because we traveled so much and we lived in different places where people didn’t share our faith, but it I was in a really formative time. So it was this experience of kind of getting to know other people more, I guess, more relationally and around their faith and what it means for them and what it doesn’t mean for them. It’s so interesting, like I think about back to that time and all these, I had like groups of friends like my Christian friends and then my other friends. My Christian friends would always be trying to invite me to college ministry groups and all these things and I would go and I’d be, I just can’t. It doesn’t feel, it just didn’t resonate with me. I was like, I don’t feel like I’m meeting God here. I feel I’m meeting potential people to a date, which is really weird. People were like, you are so bizarre. I felt that was kind of the purpose and I just was, not, Jesus did not die with me.
[EMILY]
It was like a dual purpose. I totally get that, especially at that age.
[EMILY]
Yes. It was like all this expectation and I was just this awkward third culture kid who was, we’re closer to some other countries and listen to music and my voicemail is in a different language.
[DAWN]
I love it.
[EMILY]
Really weird kid. I’m getting off track, but, so I had kind of these two groups of friends and I felt they were kind of, we kind of had to kind of run circles around each other, as far as groups of like these people aren’t going to like these people and these people aren’t going to approve of these people. Then I had that internship experience, which was really transformative. I had some things personally that happened with some people, had somebody very close to me who died. It was pretty jarring on a very personal level of like is God really good? Does God really meet us when we suffer? I didn’t know if I had an answer to those things. I was in social work and I started my first job after college. I was working in a juvenile detention center working with kids. I just was like the world is an ugly, ugly place. There is, I don’t know if God can be good. I don’t know if the things that I’ve believed about God can, like I can continue to say are true and are good.
[DAWN]
I think pain does, I think grief, pain and working in a detention center, I all also worked in a detention center, when you’re up against the bad choices and evil choices in the world and then you also have death, it’s like you’re kind of blinded by earth, earthly, evil. It’s so hard and you do question, I think it’s a natural thing to question God and faith in that moment. Like I need to know. I think we all should question like God, are you good? We need to ask those questions.
[EMILY]
Yes. When I worked there, I felt, especially in my twenties, I would say it was definitely one of the darkest periods in my twenties, probably the darkest period in my twenties. I’m just feeling, whew. You know, seeing firsthand what children go through and they’re considered like misfits of society and these are people who are the problem and all these things. I’m, yes, well, this kid was sexually assaulted from age two to 15. I probably would be a little shook too [crosstalk]
[DAWN]
I agree. Yes, totally.
[EMILY]
So I felt like, yes, I had a lot of questions about God at the time and when I think back to that time, I just think about how, I was really angry in that time of, why? Why is the world this? It’s not like I hadn’t been exposed to a lot of really hard things in my life. We lived in a very impoverished community where people died because they didn’t have health, didn’t have access to even any kind of healthcare. They would die of totally preventable things. They didn’t have a chance to be immunized from things that kill people regularly. Sorry, vaccinations, probably not something we should talk about. But just, yes, so many things. I had seen how ugly the world was, but I think it was different somehow as an adult like kind of seeing it and really sitting with people in this field. We sit with people in their hardest moments and that’s different than just observing it.
[DAWN]
And you were child observing it under the protection of your parents and your family, where now you’re an adult and you’re in a responsible role as a social worker. It’s totally different. And you have adult thoughts and adult interactions. It’s totally different.
[EMILY]
Yes. That’s a good distinction. That’s a really good distinction. My parents did a really good job of exposing and protecting at the same time. So that makes sense. So that was a rough time and I had an experience, kind of coming out of that, I had this experience where God met me in a way that I didn’t know was possible through, it’s a long story, but essentially, I had this experience where I did something, I don’t know if you are familiar with imaginative prayer or kind of inner healing work. So I kind of accidentally had that experience because I was, I’m not doing any of this church stuff. God is terrible God and all things. My sister was, no, just come with me to this thing, just come with me to this thing.

I was like, begrudgingly went with her. It was just an incredibly transformative time where, like I felt the presence of God in a way that I had never felt it in my life. I was, whoa, I know beyond knowing that God is real and that He cares for us, that He loves us, that He’s with us. I think that was the biggest thing, was that He is with us. That kind of is what came from that inner healing experience of just God being with me in really, really hard moments.
[DAWN]
I’m so glad you’re saying this, because I feel that is a similar experience. It’s how I started even this podcast of really diving into this more experiential realm of with God versus head knowledge. Like I have degrees in Theology and blah, blah, blah, but then there were times over the last few years where I’ve experienced God in a real way that I was, wait, I have not experienced this in 40 years. What is happening right now? So I’m wondering if you could go a little bit into, what was that for you? The imaginative prayer, how was different that you can feel God versus how you’ve never felt him before? Is there, if you can, I know it’s hard to describe, but —
[EMILY]
It’s hard to explain. Let me think about that for a second. So in the experience that I had kind of, I was led by someone kind of, imagine that Jesus is here with you in a memory or in an experience and kind of imagine what Jesus is doing or saying. For me, I kind of alluded to this. Jesus has always been kind of my go-to within the Trinity of I feel really connected and, I can relate, maybe not the right word, but I feel I can connect right to Jesus. So when I was actually imagining Jesus in the flesh like being with me in tragedy it was, my whole body felt it was released almost.

I felt like freedom. Like it’s so interesting to think about it now as somebody who’s a therapist and kind of think back to of that experience and be what was happening on a somatic level? Because when I think back, I think about, it’s one of the most peaceful times I’ve ever had, it’s one of the most freeing moments that I’ve ever had. And what it actually felt on a body level was, I felt this like a wave of, this is going to sound so weird, but, almost honey, like warm honey was dripping off of me. It’s such a weird description.
[DAWN]
No, no, I feel it’s great for people to try to understand. I love it.
[EMILY]
I just felt I was covered in this warm honey. I was just, oh my gosh, I’m going to be be okay. And the world could be okay because people in the world can have this feeling too in their most tragic difficult moments. I would say that was probably one of the moments where I realized, oh, I want to help do this for other people. So I had very angry, kind of role within social work and then that happened. It wasn’t totally, like, I didn’t even know what that looked, but I was, I want to to be able to offer this or lead people, help people walk to this because this feels like something that I want other people to have. And not in an evangelistic kind of way but —
[DAWN]
In a transformative way.
[EMILY]
I just want people to feel this good and feel this comforted. I think that’s the thing. I wanted people to feel that comforted by the presence of the spirit, like spiritual realm.
[DAWN]
Wow. Thank you for diving into that. I feel people need to know, it’s so hard to describe, but I think you did a great job describing it of physically, somatically, emotionally, what you were feeling. Because it is hard. It’s hard, like when you’re trying to explain it to people who have a different faith tradition why it’s different than just saying a prayer. It’s funny, I’ve been processing this in my own life. Like I still need somebody to lead me in those type of prayers where my spiritual director can do it on her own. I’m like, “I still need you to lead me through it.” I’m like, when will I get to that place where I can lead myself through it? It’s so funny. But I first experienced it myself through EMDR, but my therapist wasn’t doing it on purpose. It was just how God showed up during my bilateral stimulations.

And it was so mind blowing that I had to ask her to stop. I was like, “I can’t have anymore right now. I just need to sit with this.” I still, that was years ago, I still can go back to that memory and feel it of I’m not alone and just how God shows up in a nonverbal way in our trauma memories. It’s so impactful. Then when I got trained in EMDR and do it with my clients, the clients who want me to integrate God into EMDR, like I cry every time I try not to. It’s so transformative. There’s something, it is so spiritual and so transformative. So yes, I use it with EMDR, but I feel it’s like in, what did you call it? What prayer?
[EMILY]
Imagine if prayer or healing prayer.
[DAWN]
I use it with EMDR.
[EMILY]
I also use it with EMDR. So I mean, that’s fast forwarding a lot, but similarly I feel like the stories I have of clients who get to experience it because bringing Jesus into the room when we’re doing EMDR for people who want it, and that needs to be really explicit, but, okay, Jesus can sit with me right through this and I can be comforted in a way that feels totally mind-blowing. And it’s different than, I don’t know, other ways, at least in my experience, that’s the case.
[DAWN]
Yes. And for me, I feel like because it is my faith belief of, because we are created by Him, of course it’s going to be the most transformative healing. That’s what I’ve seen with my clients. It doesn’t mean EMDR doesn’t help with healing in other ways I feel like, yes, I’ve seen the most powerful transformation doing that type of experiential spirituality in healing. And I know that’s something you have built with your practice, it sounds like. You’ve gone there.
[EMILY]
Yes. So if we fast forward like lots of years, lots of healing, I went to grad school, got my MSW, did a bunch of different roles within kind of the MSW world of social work world, and then about, how long ago was it now? Probably six years ago. I was attending a church where I live and some folks came to me and said, some pastors at the church came and said, ‘Hey, we want you to maybe work with some clients, like people in the congregation who are feeling they can’t totally be their whole self in their therapy with a secular therapist.” I was like, “That’s not my jam. I’m not going to do that.” Basically over a couple years, they planted this seed where I was, wait, that’s the whole reason that I decided to go down this path. Why wouldn’t I do that?

So kind of one thing led another and I was just, okay, I’ll kind of come on as a contractor with the church and see a couple clients a week. Then kind of what came from there is I was seeing a couple of clients a week while I was working as the trauma social worker in the emergency department. Then, within a couple weeks I had a wait list that was overflowing, people saying, we want to be able to do this. We want to be able to bring our faith to therapy. And we’re talking all kind of different ways that that looked, but, people were just like, what I felt was, people were desperate, like please acknowledge this part of me as in a really important part of me.

So three years ago we actually broke away from the church and incorporated as a nonprofit to say, ok, this is going to be bigger than just a low contract position. And I probably, about four years ago, I got trained in EMDR and kind of had this light bulb of like, this is how healing, prayer, and I imagine good prayer can work with therapy in a really, really powerful way if people want it. I mean, I have the stories of clients who Jesus has shown up for in doing EMDR, like just mind blowing. And I so often after a session, well, just secretly cry before my next client comes, because I’m like this is what it’s about. This is what, like that long time ago, when I had that experience where I was like I want people to be able to experience this kind of freedom and this kind of connection with themselves and with Jesus in a professional safe way that’s not going to do kind of weird shit.
[DAWN]
When you said in a professional way, I was, oh my gosh, I’ve heard so many stories where people get way in over their heads trying to do this without professional help and it’s a mess. So I love that you said that. I know exactly where you’re coming from.
[EMILY]
Because I think over the years, what I’ve seen is, sometimes when I talk about, oh my gosh, this was such a healing moment from me, not everyone has had that experience with inner healing or healing prayer or imaginative prayer. Like some it’s been incredibly spiritually abusive and that also just breaks my heart because I’m this thing that was so, for me, on a personal level for me, was so transformative. To see it kind of be used as a weapon against someone is so upsetting. So kind of through that whole process, one of the things that I now kind of, I don’t know if I’d say specialized, because I don’t know if I would ever say I’m a specialist in anything, but spiritual trauma is something that I do a lot of work with because these experiences can be really used as a way to kind of keep people manipulated or kind of believing the things that others want them to believe and that’s harmful to people.
[DAWN]
Yes. I’m so glad you said that because you’re right, not everyone listening to this is going to have a positive memory. And I would just clarify, and I’m assuming you would too, but clarifying it’s usually who’s moderating. That can be the mode of hurt. Because I do think when God or Jesus or both really show up, that’s where the healing is. I think it’s the person moderating sometimes can be the damaging one. And people get confused with God, because they’ve said this is from God and so yes, people are, it’s so confusing and the spiritual trauma in their. I talk a lot about that. I have a couple episodes on religious trauma or spiritual trauma that I’ve talked about. Man, there’s just so much there.
[EMILY]
So much there. Something really interesting I see a spiritual director and something that she said a couple weeks ago when we were meeting was, you know, because I’ve been doing this for a long time, I don’t know how old she is older than I am. She’s been doing it for a long time and she was 95% of the time when somebody invites Jesus into the room, that imaginative experience that they have is right on with the character of Jesus. She said, like in all the years that I’ve been doing this, she’s like I can name less than fingers on one hand of people who have been, oh, and then Jesus told me this terrible thing about myself. She’s like usually there’s some pretty significant mental illness that’s occurring there.

But she said, Jesus, given the opportunity, shows up as His true self in these experiences. I just was like, oh my gosh, that’s so, like I had to really digest it because I thought, is that true? Can we say that kind of across the board? But I think what you’re saying kind of hits on that like it’s not about that spiritual encounter. It’s about the person who’s trying to make it something else or trying to manipulate it, that kind of gets into that weird territory of, yes, this is messed up.
[DAWN]
Well oh my gosh, I feel we could do a whole nother episode on this. Maybe we will Emily, side note, because I am really passionate about talking to therapists specifically about the difference between therapy and spiritual direction. I just did a presentation on soul care and how it’s different than self-care because, but I want to go back into spiritual direction is different because as a therapist, I’m the expert. I’m still valuing the relationship and valuing the client therapist relationship, but I’ve been trained to bring skills and to bring my expertise. But when I integrate the spiritual world and spiritual direction type of with therapy, there’s a place where I have to step back. When you’re inviting Jesus or God into this space, he’s in charge of that.

Not that he’s not in charge of the healing, not in charge of everything. I mean, but there’s this, there’s a moment where I, as the therapist and I’ve had to really work on this, is shutting my mouth and shutting my brain off and opening to this spiritual realm. It’s been a really different process as I’ve been trained by my spiritual director. She’s really gotten on me for that. She’s like listen and listen from a different ear. So it really is hard. As therapists, we’re the experts. And I’m not trying to say that in an arrogant way. It’s just, we have to, it’s a different thing when you integrate, I think. I work with my team on that, but it’s very different and we sit and wrestle with that a lot.
[EMILY]
Yes. I mean, I probably would push back on that a little bit, but I think I see what you’re saying. I think as a therapist, we do have a lot of expertise that we bring, the training and knowledge and whatnot. But I think we also, as therapists, it’s really important and valuable to sit back and let some of these things happen in the same way that we might with spiritual direction. And kind of vice versa, I think some of the things that I’ve gotten out of spiritual direction are hearing kind of a little bit different, maybe expertise view on of these theological topics that I’m like I don’t know. And just hearing again, kind of that different perspective that even I seek out in therapy sometimes, like I’m looking for an expert in that area, but I can also do that in spiritual direction. I think it probably depends on what kind of spiritual direction you’re going for but I think there’s definitely merit to both.
[DAWN]
Well, and I guess what I was trying to say and you’re right, I’m glad you pushed back on it because I think, I’m saying in my own head I’ve gotten in my way. Because I feel this pressure to perform room as the expert and bring like, let’s talk about these anxiety skills where, I mean, this spirituality, like there’s this healing that takes with the EMDR. That had nothing to do with me. Yes, I’m moderating the EMDR, but this was the spiritual realm just entered in and it was huge. But my personal preference is integrating both, but I see people, to me, it’s like the perfect world therapy and spiritual direction mix.
[EMILY]
Yes, I agree.
[DAWN]
Separating them too much or not integrating enough, so that yes, I feel like we’re on the same page.
[EMILY]
I think we are. I think we’re just kind of talking around each other, but I think I agree. I think when you can marry the two really well, I mean, that’s why I started this practice because I was like, yes, that’s what if we could do totally holistic work where we said you can do both here? And that’s what I’m really, really passionate about is like, you can bring your whole self to therapy. I was just talking with a client the other day and I actually asked her do you mind if I share this with people? Because they just, it was like so transformative. But we did this thing at the end of therapy where I said, “Hey, why don’t we just take a moment and ask God to show up and just see what’s going to happen?

So she closed her eyes and kind of had this moment where I could tell that something pretty significant was happening. I kind of talked her through a couple things as we were going along and then when we were done, I said, ok, what was that? What happened there? She got, yes, a little bit emotional and she said, well, so a little bit of backstory, she had a mother who was neglectful and abusive and it was a very problematic relationship with her mother. Her mom has some pretty significant mental illness and we’ve really been working on like, what does it look like to be in relationship and have boundaries and all these things.

After we did this exercise of inviting God into that space and saying okay, what would it look like for God, you and your mom to be in the room together? She was like what I imagine was my mom reaching out and holding my hand and I was getting teary because I was I know her story and I’m, oh my gosh, this is a really significant moment. I said, what allowed that to happen? She said, I felt like God met me and said this is what is going to happen in the next life. Your mom is going to be totally restored and you’re going to be restored and that means your relationship’s going to be restored. She’s, “I just felt like I had this vision of what life is going to be like. So I don’t have to stress about my mom being in my life right now. I don’t have to stress about trying to get in her cycle of abusive behavior. I can just say I will get, God is going to give that to me at some point. It doesn’t even have to be in this life.”

It was just this moment for me, where I was like, that’s what happens when we invite this space, the spiritual component can be a part of our journey. Even our trauma journey, we’ve been working, we’ve been doing EMDR for years. It was this moment of no, when God gets to be a part of it, there can be a different kind of transformation that occurs in my opinion.
[DAWN]
I would say, period. No, it’s true. I think for me, my journey as a professional, I got away from that. I worked in a psych hospital, in a jail where we weren’t allowed to talk about God as much. Then when I started private practice, I was confused. I noticed that happens a lot with therapists I work with on my team. When I get them in, I have to kind of retrain them. I’m like, “No, you’re allowed to bring God into it if the client’s requesting it,” and how do you do that ethically? So we talk about that a lot because it is so powerful, especially if the client is saying, this is my belief. I want it in there. But as therapists, we’ve been trained so much to keep it out. So I feel like there needs to be an integration for therapists in our heads. But I love the work you’re doing. I feel like you’re my soul sister at business level.
[EMILY]
Well, I mean, and all of those relate back to that personal experience. Because it was from that, that experience years ago. At the time I didn’t even know, I was like, I’m never going to become a therapist. It was like that experience I where I was, oh my gosh, I want to figure out one how to do this more for myself. I also want to figure out how this can be available to other people and not just people who have their life together but people who have really, really deep suffering. And that was kind of birthed out of that place that I was in this really, really hard place in my life where I was like, I need to find a different way into this. I need to find a different way of connecting with God. I need to know that God actually sits with me when I’m sitting in the room with those kids who are telling me about how they’ve been assaulted, when I’m sitting in the room and I’m sitting with kids who are telling me about how suicidal they are and how this scar is when I did this. This scar is when I wanted to kill myself because of this.

I was like all the therapy and social work tools in the world are helpful, but I was like, need something deeper. I need something even for myself to be able to get through this. So talk about that soul care. That was my soul care. I was like, I’m not going to make it through this work if I don’t have a different way to do it.
[DAWN]
It’s true. It’s like, if it doesn’t mean anything, I can’t do this. I’ve had moments like that where I was like, this is not okay. There has to be something I can ground in deeper. That’s why I believe in soul care so. Now I’m going to file this episode, do I file it under soul care for therapists or, because, no, I love it. Love it, love it. Well, I know we’re getting, we do need end. So any final thoughts, if someone is trying to reconstruct or dive deeper into this experiential spirituality, where could they start? What do you recommend? I know I didn’t alert you on that question. Anything that comes to mind.
[EMILY]
I mean, I feel like even where I was 16 years ago, when I had all that experience my answer now is different, but I wouldn’t trade that for anything. So, oh, that’s a really hard question for me to answer. I will say that spiritual direction has been really helpful in the last year, really for me. Let’s back up a little bit. I think finding a community that is about faith. So I think in a lot of context, there’s just this idea of, well, this is what we believe, and we’ve always believed it and this is how we’re going to do it, and this is how we’re going to pray and this is how we’re going to work

For some people that works but I feel like for a lot of people, it doesn’t much. And I think finding a group of people that can be curious with you and can ask hard questions and can be willing to try new things, pray with you in a different way and experience God in a different way than maybe they have, or you have, like, oh, I heard on this podcast or I heard in the sermon, or I heard from this random book or whatever, that they did this thing, like, do you have a community or can you find people, even on online community who are willing to go there with you and try those things and ask those questions. I think that has been really huge for me, is like having people who want to do it with me and feeling I’m not alone in the process of finding this new way with God.
[DAWN]
I love that, like, just finding people who are curious and allowing yourself space to be curious about can we do things differently than we’ve done before? I think that’s great tips, great advice for someone who’s diving into it a little more.
[EMILY]
Yes, absolutely. Yes. I feel like that’s been probably the most helpful thing for me. I mean, there’s a million books and podcasts and all these things that we could get really nerdy about. But I feel like if we boil it down, for me, if you’re going to be finding God in an experiential way, you have to start with experiencing it with people. Because you can read all about it and probably not going to be the same thing.
[DAWN]
Yes. Head knowledge versus actual experiential knowledge. I love it. Well, thank you Emily so much for your time. This has been great.
[EMILY]
Thank you for having me. It’s been fun to chat.
[DAWN]
Yes. I love hearing your story. If people want to get ahold of you, do you want to shout out your email or your website or anything?
[EMILY]
Yes. So you can find me at emilybauerle@rccflagstaff.com, the last name is B-A-U-E-R-L-E. Our website is www.rccflagstaff.com.
[DAWN]
Okay. What does RCC stand for?
[EMILY]
Redemption Counseling Center.
[DAWN]
Love it. Well, thank you again so much. I enjoyed having you.
[EMILY]
Thank you for having me.
[DAWN]
Thank you for listening today at Faith Fringes Podcast. If you want to explore more of your own faith journey, I offer my free eight-week email course called Spiritual Reflections, where you take a deeper dive into your own story included as a journaling workbook that has guided exercises. So if you want to explore more of what you were brought up to believe, or even look at where you may have been disillusioned or hurt, but yet still deep down you desire to authentically connect with God, then this course is for you. Just go to faithfringes.com to sign up.

Also, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can reach me at dawn@faithfringes.com.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.