WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN GROWING YOUR FAITH-BASED PRACTICE: LIVE CONSULTATION WITH LINDSEY PACE, LCSW | EP 56

[DAWN GABRIEL]
Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, your host of Faith Fringes podcast, recording live from Castle Rock, Colorado. I am a licensed professional counselor, owner of a counseling center and a sacred space holder for fellow therapists. This podcast is for those who want to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. I create intentional space to explore your own spiritual path, a space that allows doubt, questions and curiosity without the judgment or shame, a place to hear another story and dive deeper into how to have a genuine connection with God.

For my fellow therapist, listening, I will often pull back the curtain of our layered inner world that comes with our profession. I bring an authentic and experienced way to engage your spiritual journey in order to connect you with your deepest values for true renewal and soul care. But really this podcast is for anyone listening who’s desiring a deeper and genuine connection with God. For those of you wanting to engage your spirituality in new ways, Faith Fringes is for you. Welcome to the podcast.

Hello, welcome back to Faith Fringes, Dawn Gabriel here. Today I hope you’re having a great day and I am bringing to you another one of my life consulting episodes, where we talk with a group practice owner who has some questions on integrating spirituality into her practice and how that impacts and affects how she does set up her practice, how she does her business. I am just loving these series of these live consulting calls. If it’s something that perks your interest, as you hear it, reach out to me. I am going to be starting a sacred space mastermind, which integrates soul care and consulting into a mastermind group. I’ve just had so much fun doing these consulting and doing some guided meditations during them. I just love the hybrid approach that I’m doing. I’ve just seen so many people really respond to it and really feel like they’re able to integrate their spirituality more. If it’s something that you’re interested in, please send me an email, dawn@faithfringes.com.
[DAWN]
Listen in today. I’m going to be talking with Lindsey Pace. She’s an LCSW and she began her solo private practice in August, 2021. Before that, though, she was in hospice for 10 years and working very part-time as a contractor for a different group practice. She is married to her husband who is a pastor for 15 years, and they have two daughters ages 11 and eight. Her group practice is now in Virginia and she is fully virtual. She focuses on treating anxiety disorders and OCD. Today we are going to talk about things she should consider. She’s actually in the interviewing process to hiring her first few people for her group practice. We talk about all the things. So listen in and help me welcome Lindsey. Lindsey, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for spending time with me today.
[LINDSEY PACE]
Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
[DAWN]
I’d love for my listeners to just know a little bit about you, like who you are and what’s your practice like?
[LINDSEY]
I’m an LCSW. I’m a solo practice right now, but I’m currently working through the process of trying to hire some clinicians and expand a little bit because there’s just a lot of need. I’m in Virginia and my practice is fully online. I don’t have intentions of getting a physical office space at this point because I just really love the remote work and my clients seem to love it too. I specialize and focus on individuals with anxiety disorders and OCD. I’m also a pastor’s wife, been married for 15 years, we have two girls, 11 and eight. So of course, faith is a huge part of our life and looking to see how I can incorporate it without it being the most forward part of the work that I do, because I want to be able to work with individuals of all walks of life and experiences.
[DAWN]
I love that because that’s very similar to how I run my practice. When you told me that’s what you ended to talk about, I was like, yes, because I’ve taken years to think through this and consult on it myself, I mean get consultation myself because I wanted it to be authentic to who I was, but also cast a wide enough net that we weren’t niching as just Christian therapist. So I think it’s important to talk through that. So when you hear that, what comes to your mind of Christian therapists versus not so much that? What do you think of?
[LINDSEY]
Well, you mean as far as my practice goes or just in general, like maybe even as like a consumer of services?
[DAWN]
Both, I would say both questions are good to look at.
[LINDSEY]
I think that in some church settings people are guided towards biblical counseling so that might or might not be like with clinical specialties or training. I want to make sure that what we are doing is totally focused on excellent clinical care, evidence-based practices but has the ability to integrate faith as clients want that. There’s a lot of groups in the area here that are marketed as Christian group practices and I’ve actually been a client of one of them, so I don’t know, I’m on the fence, I like it, but I also know that there’s a lot of people that are really turned off by it or uncomfortable by it.
[DAWN]
It sounds like your heart is more wanting to be able to serve more than just the Christian community or are you wanting just to serve people with faith?
[LINDSEY]
Definitely wanting to serve more than the Christian community and wanting to serve the Christian community in a way that provides additional education around mental health issues and how we can use our faith and our Christian practices sometimes to misdirect people in their healing process with mental health issues and how we can better respond because so many people in our congregations are suffering and looking for help and often don’t get it because they feel like they should be able to get everything they need in the church, which is partially true. But there are excellent resources outside of the church that God wants us to.
[DAWN]
Yes. It’s like, yes, it always makes me wonder and question, like if someone had a broken arm or needed surgery, they wouldn’t go to the church for that. I mean they would go to church for support and care and love and people would bring them meals and pray for them. But it’s like with mental health, all of a sudden, the church is supposed to take care of that too. I just feel like, well, they’re not trained a hundred percent in mental health, but they are trained in theology and spirituality. Yes, so it is very hard because I see that a lot too in our churches where, and I feel bad, the pastors can’t even take that on. They have so much else they’re doing and it’s hard to be there in the mental health capacity that certain clients need, they need to be with clinically trained staff.

So yes, that’s one of my pet peeves too, actually. So I think a lot of it Lindsey is in the way you market and also just first of all, staying true to what you want to do and it’s to hold that space in between. And it is gray and some people are going to think you’re not Christian enough. Some people are going to think you’re too spiritual and Christian and you’re going to have to be okay with that and just know where you are and where you want your team to be and surround yourself with like-minded therapists or group practice owners who think that way too, because there are a lot of people in that middle ground. I think that once that I think it is how you market it and so, like the people who have group practices in your town that have Christian, they are Christian therapists, how do you know that? Does it say it on their website or how do you know
[LINDSEY]
I’m trying to think of how I knew that initially. I believe most of them do say it on their website. Of course, when you hear the name Genesis counseling or things like that, it gives it away. So yes, they are marketed as Christian practices and it’s just known in the community, go, go to this place.
[DAWN]
Yes. Have you named your practice yet?
[LINDSEY]
Yes, Evecare Counseling.
[DAWN]
Okay, so it’s not necessarily a Christian counseling term?
[LINDSEY]
Right.
[DAWN]
But yes, mine’s Authentic Connection, so again, it’s more generic. Because you don’t have a name like that when you market on your website, I actually haven’t looked at your website but does, like you can say things, it’s funny people, when they look at our website, they can see things and it’s clinical, but at the bottom, it says, if you’re wanting faith integrated into your sessions, let us know. We specialize in that. We’ve been trained and specialized, but we also offer space for no faith or any faith. We just say, we say it direct. Some people that I know run that they don’t say that at all. They just talk about how they do counseling and people, but then they market to pastors and churches and they let the pastors know our team is trained clinically and in spirituality or theology and integrating. So like there’s different ways you can do it. Again, I think it’s more how you let people know.
[LINDSEY]
Right. So the only way I’m letting people know right now is, well, of course, just word of mouth, people that might know me from or the community. But also on my website, it’s not on my homepage, but I have a service page for Christian counseling.
[DAWN]
There you go.
[LINDSEY]
Now that you mentioned that language, I really want to go in and make some updates to it. But on a couple of my blog posts, I will reference things about prayer or certain individuals that are resourceful for whatever topic I’m blogging about that are also integrating faith. So that’s how it’s displayed right now. I actually, I don’t know, if I get a lot of clients that are not faith oriented so I’m not sure how noticeable it is to people when they’re coming to me.
[DAWN]
So I think with, I mean, that’s how you want it. You want them to know if they search for it, but it’s not a big deterrent if they don’t want that. But I think it’s interesting, I don’t know how long you’ve been doing counseling, but when I sit with people, I find that a lot of times the people who say they have no faith, there are times they want to talk about it. They want to talk about God. They do want to talk about it later, once they trust you and there in pain, they need, I feel like God comes up anyway or spirituality comes up anyway, when people are in pain. So I find it interesting it, but you just are creating a safe place for them to do that, especially if they’ve been hurt by people, religion, or people in the church.
[LINDSEY]
Yes, definitely. I’ve had a couple people come to me saying they felt well, with OCD, for example one of the things in OCD is scrupulosity where it’s like obsession with religion and rituals and traditions and so wonderful, beautiful practices are then overtaken by OCD to create this really nasty mental health issue. When people have gone to therapists for that, Christian therapists who market themselves as Christian therapists they are not always trained in OCD and how to treat that. So they’re often said to pray harder. This is a sin. We need to address your pride. And so I’m thankful when I have clients that I can rewrite that narrative for them that no, I share the faith, but I know a different way that we can address this. This is not a faith problem for you. This is an OCD problem.
[DAWN]
Yes, and that sounds so freeing. Like when you put the spiritual shame and the faith shame in there, it’s so hard. Yes, I was just listening to, I don’t know if you know Richard Grow, I was listening to a podcast with him and Brené Brown and he said, —
[LINDSEY]
I know, I was, I only listened to like half. It’s like two parts, so I’m only like a fourth of the way through it. You got to listen to it. What a good combination?
[DAWN]
I know. He said that when the people who he knows that are the most spiritually attuned to God, that, who you would think of, when they go searching for, they find a lover, not a dictator. And there’s no shame there. It’s like love. It’s no shame. It’s like this welcoming invitation. That’s what I’m hearing you want to do with your practice. And we need that, we need that so much. So let’s talk about how that plays out. Tell me more about what you’re thinking. So if we’re looking at marketing, you mentioned blogs as well as what’s on your website. Blogs are a great way to put it out there and have your voice be heard and show people how you integrate it, where it’s not like a dictatorship or a religious should-do list. It’s this welcome inviting space to have curiosity lead and love lead. So you can show that with your blogging, for sure.
[LINDSEY]
I have a love-hate with blogging, I’m sure like many people. Wonderful idea but I have to sit down and like write it all out?
[DAWN]
So you would need to hire someone to write your blog. You can find someone where you literally give them the outline and they will do it. That’s their job. Find someone who aligns with your view of spirituality. You can find someone
[LINDSEY]
Where do I find those people?
[DAWN]
I will give you some links afterwards. Or sometimes, I don’t know, if you have like grad students near you in a grad school program, masters in counseling that you really respect the program, they would love. I mean, they would love to write. Even if you’re paying like 40 bucks a blog, it’s worth it in my opinion.
[LINDSEY]
Compared to not blogging at all.
[DAWN]
Absolutely. And you give, and if they align with you, like interview them first, obviously but if they align with you, I hated blogging because I need creative space to do it. Sometimes you’re just in to-do list mode when you’re starting or running a group practice, you don’t have the time. Like I would do maybe once every six months. You need it every week so if you come up with the ideas, have somebody else write it. It’s totally worth the money.
[LINDSEY]
Okay, I need to do that because I even thought of one today and recorded a voice memo and I’m like, what am I going to with this? I’m not going to do anything with this.
[DAWN]
I use Google Docs a lot. I have everything in Google Doc, start a document or like a Notes on your phone and just start like saying it into your phone. Then you just send that to someone. Seriously, don’t make it hard just, but your ideas, you are the passion and the values for your company. Just start writing it down.
[LINDSEY]
Okay. I can do that. I’ll do that.
[DAWN]
I’ve hired copywriters before. Like when I launched Faith Fringes, it was all my ideas, but they put it into magical words that sounded like me. I was like, this is the best thing ever.
[LINDSEY]
Yes.
[LINDSEY]
I have a question.
[DAWN]
Like moving in, we were talking about blogging marketing. How else does this impact? What else do you need to think through as we’re going through it?
[LINDSEY]
I think that, so right now I’m full in my practice, which is great. Most my referrals are coming from Psychology Today but, of course, I’m wanting to expand and hire staff so I want to make sure that I have more than enough referrals. So looking at other referral sources, I have some just within the therapist community here, which is great, but looking at contacting churches, how can I be available to you guys? What mental health support would you need? I haven’t really had the time to do that yet, but that’s really on my to-do list, high-ish, wanting to just connect with some churches that I know would utilize mental health services. I just haven’t done it yet.
[DAWN]
I’ve heard of a few different ways and I know some of the stuff we’ve done. We had a lunch for like youth pastors and invited, I mean, first of all, youth pastors will come for food. That’s how they get their kids to come. so just offering maybe a luncheon where they come, I don’t know, is there like a place close by you could do that.
[LINDSEY]
Yes, we have like an association that oversees some of the church in our denominations, so could totally do that.
[DAWN]
So cater a luncheon, I mean Chick-fil-A or whatever, or Panera, something you bring luncheon and you let them know who you are and then also just ask what mental health needs are you seeing? I’m sure they’re going to unload because, especially the last couple years, I know that’s been significant. Especially in the youth, at least when we’re working with the youth pastors, there’s so much mental health. We’ve also partnered with churches on doing suicide awareness for the staff. We’ve done one for congregation wide where they’ve invited anyone who knew anyone. It was like a hundred people showed up and we just trained on mental health awareness and suicide and reducing the stigma, mental health and basically saying what you said earlier, like because you have OCD and anxiety it doesn’t mean you’re a sin, this is not a sin issue; and just educating. So those are some ways. Yes, for sure, and yes, so just offering them to bring in breakfast. We brought in coffee before. I think it’s more about relational building with the pastors and letting them know your resource there because, and letting them know you don’t, maybe even telling them these are the things when it’s too much for just pastoral counseling, maybe giving them a sheet of here’s pastoral counseling versus when it’s clinical and needs to go to us.
[LINDSEY]
Yes.
[DAWN]
Again, more education around it. And just building relationship with them. So every three to six months they’re seeing you or getting a touch point from you, an email, a card, handwritten card. Drop off a gift basket, stuff like that. Running a group, when you get people on your team, having them run a group there at the church. We’ve seen a lot of divorce care, grief care, parents support for teens, any psychoeducation thing, but then plus groups you could run there. Sometimes the churches partner with you and offset some of the costs. You could talk to them about that. Sometimes you can reduce your rate $10 to $20 a session if they, but I would recommend having the client or the parishioner pay something because I don’t know if you know but when you research it, people who don’t pay anything aren’t as engaged in therapy, so the church pays some, the client pays some and you reduce it. Especially if they’re a big referral source you could.
[LINDSEY]
Okay. Also I’ve got this well, I’m currently paneled with two insurance companies but I also use Headway, which is paneled with a couple more. I’m looking strategically getting off of my insurance panels. So that is also going to change the, what’s the word, the demographic, I guess, of the clients that I’m working with and make this even more of a need that I have, more of these relationships and connections because currently I’m taking insurance and we’ll be moving to private pay. That’s a whole thing, isn’t it?
[DAWN]
Yes, I did that actually, when I started my group. I was on all the insurance panels. It’s funny, I started my group with nobody taking insurance except me. Then I slowly got off of it, but I was building everyone else up private pay and then finally was done. Not that I’d recommend that, but I ended up dropping the ones that paid the least or had the most paperwork.
[LINDSEY]
That’s interesting because I was thinking, well, when I hire clinicians, I could credential them with Headway because it only takes like a month so they could have a flow of clients coming in pretty quickly. But I could then be, I would be private pay only and I would be creating more of a private pay to feed to the clinicians too. What do you think of something like that?
[DAWN]
Well, I’ve heard both, I’ve seen people do it a bunch of different ways. I’ve heard some people say like the bricks to building the wall versus the mortar inside the bricks that you need both but I think the problem that I run ran into and I’ve seen is how do you say to the people, no, I’m on your insurance, but I want you to pay private pay. That’s where you get into the, it’s hard when you’re marketing to clients and they call in. Whoever’s taking your phone calls has to navigate through a lot of muddy waters because, or you could say we’re no longer taking that insurance as of in two months. I would have a hard date where, because usually most insurance companies you need 60-to-90-day notice so pick that date for you and know when you’re done taking clients for that. I would map it out, have a plan, for sure. I don’t know if that helps or makes sense, but it’s —
[DAWN]
If you’re a therapist and you are feeling burned out or just needing a break and being around other therapists who really understand what you’re going through or if you are feeling like you just need some space to connect with God and get grounded back into what really matters to you and your spirituality, I would like to invite you to come to a soul care retreat for therapist, exclusively for therapist. I host sole care retreats for therapist and I just love holding sacred space for you to just reconnect with yourself, reconnect with God and connect with others who are in the same profession and have probably experienced similar things as you have. So I’m inviting you. My next retreat is September 23rd through the 25th, 2022 in Colorado.

We will have about 10 rooms to ourselves in this little beautiful retreat center in the black Hills Forest. We have three hot tubs, there’s trails around there, we can see the mountains. It’s so peaceful there and I just want to invite you to come, come and just experience what it’s like to have soul care. We do some guided exercises as a group. We also do guided exercises as individuals. I have a workbook that can help walk you through what do I do with all this downtime because I know, even though we are longing for the downtime, sometimes it’s hard to get there.

Sometimes we get anxious when we’re there or sometimes we get scared. So I will have a workbook that helps you walk through that, that gives you exercises to connect with God and figure out what’s really going on inside you. We also have there’s great food here. We have great conversations and there’s plenty of time to connect with one another and we have a lot of fun. So if you’re interested, send me an email, dawn@faithfringes.com. I only have 10 spots available for this retreat. We like to keep it small and intimate. Again, it’s September 23rd, 25th. That will be in Colorado. Reach out to me, dawn@faithfringes.com to find out more information today.
[LINDSEY]
So in terms of marketing to clinicians and wanting to attract clinicians that are of a similar mindset that I am in terms of serving the faith community, do you think it’s really important that they also share the faith or I don’t know, what do you think about that?
[DAWN]
Are you hiring 1099s or W2s?
[LINDSEY]
W2.
[DAWN]
Okay, so you just have to be a little careful when you’re interviewing on how you say it because of that. I do think it’s important because, well, it depends like who do you want your team to be and how closely do you want to work with them and is that important to you? I know for our team, it’s very important and not only that they have a deep faith, but like what faith. I don’t mean like Christian versus Islamic. I don’t mean that, but I mean, even if they are of the Christian faith, I don’t want them to be the conservative evangelical Christian faith. I want them to have a little more open mind on certain topics.
[LINDSEY]
Yes, that’s what I would wanting as well.
[DAWN]
So a lot of times how I say it is, I don’t know if you notice, but on our website we do have a faith integration. We work a lot with churches. How do you feel about that? Or what do you think? That’s how I start in with it and then depending on what they say, and then I say, how comfortable are you integrating faith or where do you stand with that? I really just want to get to know them. This I do on the phone screening. I have like a three-stage interview process, so phone screen, and then the in-person interview. I don’t know if you’ll be doing in-person because you’re doing all virtual
[LINDSEY]
What I’m going to do, so my potential hire that I have right now, I’ve done a phone screening, she lives not far from me, so we call in-person, but because I’m a remote practice, I want to interview her over to really get that dynamic and understand how she would do there.
[DAWN]
Yes, for sure. That would be good. The second time you want to dive in and ask more about their spiritual journey and hear how they do it. Another way I’ve done it is I also ask, okay, we work with a lot of teens and we have a parent calling in to set the appointment for the teen. The mom says, I just found out my daughter’s gay but we’re of Christian faith. I want you to talk to her. Then you ask them, what would you say?
[LINDSEY]
Oh my gosh, what would you say?
[DAWN]
Well again, well, or even adults, like you have to know where do you, and I don’t, well here’s, and we haven’t talked about this, but my belief is it’s not our job to tell people where they land, in what camp they stand in, but what is our job? So I educate on what our job is. Our job is to create space, to talk about whatever they need to talk about. We’re not going to push them one way or the other. We’re going to see what’s going on. Is it causing distress with that person? Like we’re here to provide an unconditional positive regard. So if the parent then pushes like, well, I heard you’re a Christian counselor or, even then saying we don’t pull out the Bible and beat it over the head, like, people really need a safe space to discuss this. And there’s so much more going on. We want to offer them the safest space to talk about it. So we just keep putting it back on that but if you have a clinician who goes off on their viewpoint about it, that’s going to be a flag, right?
[LINDSEY]
Right.
[DAWN]
So what do you think, as I say all that, your eyes are big.
[LINDSEY]
Honestly, I just dread those kinds of questions from people because I do know that there would be a lot of active practicing Christians that would want to do homework on what faith they’re going to be getting, coming to a Christian practice because there’s such a variety.
[DAWN]
Yes.
[LINDSEY]
It almost feels like you’ve got to put your statement of belief in your scripture to back it up on the website, just to say, here it is. But again, thankfully I’m not a church and so I don’t have to do that, but it does feel really tricky to navigate some of the expectations that Christians would have coming into a practice wanting to see a Christian therapist.
[DAWN]
Lindsey, I agree. I think it’s an ongoing discussion with you, your team, with God. I think it’s an ongoing thing and to keep talking about it, we need to be talking about this because even, I mean, where we are in Colorado, we have all sorts of beliefs and views. We even had someone coming in saying, I need a gender dysphoria diagnosis because I want my daughter to transition. So we need the diagnosis for the surgery. So we’re like, okay, we have to navigate this and so we had to navigate, and so yes, I have hired people or not hired, but I’ve brought people in to help us through these discussion and training with our team because some of it is out of my wheelhouse and we just have to keep up on this discussion. The difference, but yes, it’s hard, but your team needs a safe place to discuss it too, before you’re presenting safe place for your clients. So it is a lot to hold. Of course, I picked one of the hardest ones. I jump off on in here, but it will come up because right now —
[LINDSEY]
But I think that’s good too, because regardless of what the question is like my child is gay, I want you to talk to them about this, whether the therapist is affirming and welcoming or not —
[DAWN]
You need to know that
[LINDSEY]
We want both of those therapists to respond to that parent the same way. Because again, it’s not about our beliefs and where we stand. It’s not about meeting the mom with her beliefs and expectations, but like you’re saying, offering the child the opportunity to explore what’s going on and to feel cared about and supported no matter what.
[DAWN]
Some of that Lindsey is hard because you do have to jump into your therapist and, I actually love, I don’t know if you sat in on Latoya’s talk at the conference that we were at.
[LINDSEY]
No, but I actually have a meeting with her right now after this.
[DAWN]
Oh, so good.
[LINDSEY]
She’s my consultant for my group practice.
[DAWN]
Oh, master, I love it. She did a great presentation. I’m going to have her do it for my team. She talked about implicit bias, like even without meaning to, we have implicit bias and I’ve had to really lean into that with my team on stuff like racism and gay, LGTBQ community. We have to talk about it. As the leader, I’ll admit, I’ve been afraid and there are times I’ve backed off, but then I’ve realized, I feel convicted like, no, we have to talk about these things and jumping in and I need help with that. I don’t know everything and I need education, I need support, I need someone who specializes in that. So I’ve slowly been bringing all those people around me, but you’re going to have to, that’s what I’m saying, so when you ask, like how important is it to hire somebody, you need to know, are you comfortable? How does that person respond when you’re talking through difficult issues? Because that’s what you’re going to have to be talking about. I’m making this sound really amazing, aren’t I? But seriously —
[LINDSEY]
No, it’s very nuanced. We need people that can be nuanced, not black and white.
[DAWN]
Exactly. I say all the time, I feel like I live in the gray so much that sometimes I forget what my opinion is because I want to present as like I know, but then knowing your own stuff. But I think with hiring clinicians, you want someone who’s going to be flexible, open minded, curious, and ask questions around that and give them specific situations. How would they respond? Do they get triggered in that interview? Or can they handle it with grace? Even if they fumble that’s okay, but how do they handle it? How do you feel with them? Does that make sense?
[LINDSEY]
Absolutely. Got a question that I’m going to be asking my new hire.
[DAWN]
For sure.
[LINDSEY]
Potential hire.
[DAWN]
What else is on your mind? We have a few minutes left, but what are you thinking? What else comes up when you’re looking at this, starting the practice?
[LINDSEY]
So many things. I worked for a group practice for three years just seeing three clients a week because my background before private practice is hospice. So coming into private practice on my own that I stepped into it last August, so it’s just been a couple months, so there’s been a lot of learning and figuring out who I am and how I want to present. My faith is center for me and wanting to, I want to put that in there as much as I can, without it being the barrier or the thing that turns people away. So this conversation just overall is just helping me get some of that stuff out of my head and get some better language and ideas around how to do that.
[DAWN]
I had to do that when I was working with Faith Fringes and creating this podcast. My first season, which I think you listened to, some of it is a lot of deconstruction stuff. My guests were more centered around that and then I realized this season, the second season, I wanted to be more reconstruction focused, like spiritual formation and spiritual direction. But even then, I had to wrestle with, I had one of my listeners email and say it’s like Goldilocks and the three bears. The one porridge is too hot, one’s too cold, one’s just right and she was like, I found your podcast to be just right. We’re not going to be just right for everyone. We’ll be too hot, too cold. It’s learning again to go with where you are at and your values.

You’re the group practice owner, where are you feeling that you are with God and where do you want your team to be? It could change and it’s okay. But to just be really true to you and your values is huge because you’re going to, don’t hire someone because you want to make money. I’ve done that the first three years. This is my seventh year. The first three years, I hired a lot of people just to fill the spots and my gut was off and I hired them anyway, and it didn’t work out for different reasons. So I just want to encourage you to really thoughtfully and prayerfully enter into that space as you’re interviewing. I think the interview is huge.
[LINDSEY]
Yes, absolutely.
[DAWN]
And sharing your heart and vision. Like I say we’re not overtly Christian. It’s more important for the team, but we sit with any clients and that’s how we market and people know that. Then when I have relationship with the community, then I talk, I do, I bring in God but I’m not like overly talking about God. It’s like an invitational talk
[LINDSEY]
Yes, right. I love that. An invitation, a warm invitation, that’s it? Take it or leave it.
[DAWN]
So in closing, I thought it might be good to do like a guided meditation because I think some of the things, at least I know that I miss sometimes is I do not quiet myself down enough to be in the presence of God and there’s so much that he wants to, I feel like he wants to say, hey, by the way you keep saying this, but let me tell you what I’m thinking. So I thought we could do a little bit of a guided meditation where you could just take some time now to enter before him with me and just put the thought of your practice there and see what happens. What do you think?
[LINDSEY]
Yes, love it.
[DAWN]
So just take a moment to take some breaths and feel yourself in the chair. Just notice thoughts and feelings and body sensations that are going around. You don’t need to judge them, just allow them to float, start floating away, just notice. I’m going to read a prayer and just enter into that with like an invitation, like God, what do you have for me? I’m bringing my business, my group practice that I’m starting, I’m bringing that in there and just notice what comes up as you enter into that space. This prayer’s by Henry. Dear God, speak gently in my silence. When the loud, outer noise of my surroundings and the loud inner noises of my fears keep pulling me away from you help me to trust that you are still there.

Even when I am unable to hear you, give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying, come to me you who are overburdened and I will give you rest, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Let that loving voice be my guide. Dear God speak gently in my silence. When the loud outer noise of my surroundings and loud inner noises of my fears, keep pulling me away from you help me to trust that you are still there. Even when I’m unable to hear you, give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying, come to me. You who are overburdened and I will give you rest, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Let that loving voice be my guide. Just take some time to notice what he’s saying to you.
[LINDSEY]
That was really nice.
[DAWN]
What came up for you?
[LINDSEY]
I’m always just wanting to do the right thing. I have this preoccupation with doing the right thing and sometimes doing the right thing, it becomes my whole focus and then I lose maybe the really good, great thing that God wants me to do, but maybe isn’t clearly right if it’s not wrong. I don’t know. So I think I need to take some more time like that to give him the thing that I am thinking is right. Just ask him, is this right? Is this my right, if that makes sense and right in other people’s eyes too, especially other people’s eyes.
[DAWN]
Yes. So that push, like I have to people-please and do what’s right or I have to figure this out rather than yes where’s the trust and the faith? I find so much my personality too, Lindsey is just to run full force ahead and get stuff done. I feel like God’s like, okay, you can do that but I would love to spend some time with you about it. So where do you feel like you can connect to God like that the most? What comes up for you? For me, it’s hiking or taking a walk. Where do you feel like you can connect to God on that level?
[LINDSEY]
Being outside and walking if I am able to wake up before my kids. Sitting on my couch by myself for a few minutes. I can do it then. But it’s one of those things like blogging, I need to create the space for it. It’s hard for me to switch gears and do it.
[DAWN]
Yes.
[LINDSEY]
So yes, but being outside, it always works.
[DAWN]
Yes, I know for me, I can’t do the couch thing. I used to, but the kids, I just have two boys similar ages to your girls and it’s like, there’s no control there. You never know when they’re up. So for me, I’ve had to schedule it into my day where I go on a walk and then there’s times where I should probably leave my phone at home because then I’m going to be answering texts. So it’s just getting away in the nature. Yes, even again, just like God’s inviting you to that place and just seeing where, I mean, because how did you feel when we finished that exercise, the prayer?
[LINDSEY]
When we finish the exercise, I felt calmer. I noticed coming out of the head and getting into the body because my head is just, it gets ahead of itself.
[DAWN]
Yes, so just allowing yourself that space and time to be calm. And it doesn’t have to be 20 minutes. That was only like five minutes, so just encouraging you to —
[LINDSEY]
Yes, no, absolutely love that. I offer that to my clients. I’ve got to offer that to myself too.
[DAWN]
It’s so true. But Lindsey, we don’t do it. We’re better at offering it to other people. I get it. That’s why. Well, thank you Lindsey so much for coming on and doing this live. I so appreciate your vulnerability and letting us talk about it.
[LINDSEY]
Yes. Thank you so much for having me.
[DAWN]
If people want to get ahold of you, do you want to say where your practice is at and what your website is? It’s up to you.
[LINDSEY]
Yes, sure. So I’m in Virginia. My website is evercarecounseling.com. I’m on Instagram. It’s not business related, @Lindsey Pace, although I do talk about mental health issues and you can get to know me there.
[DAWN]
You have some fun videos. I feel like I got to know you a little bit more. I mean, I met you at the conference more. I mean we met on instant messages before, but at the conference and then I saw some of your fun videos. I’m like, oh she’s fun. People can totally get to know you more yes in your stories.
[LINDSEY]
That’s right.
[DAWN]
Again, thank you so much. I am looking forward to this going live so it’ll help other people who are in probably in the same situation you are. So thank you.
[LINDSEY]
Yes. Thank you.
[DAWN]
Thank you for listening today to the faith fringes podcast. For those of you wanting to take a deeper dive into your own faith journey, you can grab my free email course, Spiritual Reflections on my website, faithfringes.com. If you’re a therapist and would want to work with me, I offer sacred space holding for you through my consulting as well as my soul care retreats. To find out more, go to my website or email me, dawn@faithfringes.com.

I live hearing from all my listeners. Drop me an email to tell me what’s on your mind. You can also connect with me on social media. I’m on Facebook and Instagram at Faith Fringes. As always, if you’re enjoying this podcast, I would love it if you could show it by your reviews. Go to Apple Podcasts and leave your review so that others can find this podcast and get curious about their own spiritual journey. Thanks again for listening.

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.

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.