Katie Bailey on Starting and Growing a Faith-based Practice | FP 20

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Katie Bailey on Starting and Growing a Faith-based Practice | FP 20

How do you market a private practice? What are some challenges with being a group practice owner? How can faith be incorporated into your private practice?

In this podcast episode, Whitney Owens speaks with Katie Bailey about growing a faith-based practice.

Meet Katie Bailey

Katie BaileyKatie Bailey is the owner of Lime Tree Counseling, LLC in Ambler, PA. As a Licensed Professional Counselor since 2007, she focuses on helping people recover from trauma, especially emotional and narcissistic abuse. Having started her own practice, Katie strives to create a wonderful place to work and learn for other therapists as well, so we can improve our world together. When Katie is not working, you will most likely find her with her three kids & husband, knitting, and drinking chai.

Visit Katie’s website, and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Marketing a private practice
  • Why go from a solo to group practice
  • Challenges with being a group practice owner
  • Incorporating faith into your practice
  • What every Christian counselor should know

Marketing a private practice

  • SEO and making sure you are showing up on Google
  • Create a website
  • Visiting local churches
  • Hosting open house events
  • Create relationships within the community
  • Gain referrals

Why go from a solo to group practice

Katie was getting more calls than she could handle herself and needed a bigger circle of people to refer to, as people who went to church with her enquired about consultations.

Challenges with being a group practice owner

There’s not necessarily one right way to do it.

Katie was struggling with whether she should take on W2’s or 1099’s and after consulting with an attorney, she decided that the best thing would be to have W2’s.

How to incorporate faith into your practice

All the clinicians at Limetree are Christian so things are being looked at from a biblical view, whether they are speaking openly about it or not. When it comes to dealing with clients it is dependent on where they are spiritually, so they just follow the client’s lead.

What every Christian counselor should know

Its okay to let your clients struggle in their faith, support and educate them through the process. Allow your clients to feel those emotions, that’s where healing starts.

Useful Links:

Meet Whitney Owens

Whitney Ownens | Build a faith-based practiceWhitney is a licensed professional counselor and owns a growing group practice in Savannah, Georgia. Along with a wealth of experience managing a practice, she also has an extensive history working in a variety of clinical and religious settings, allowing her to specialize in consulting for faith-based practices and those wanting to connect with religious organizations.

Knowing the pains and difficulties surrounding building a private practice, she started this podcast to help clinicians start, grow, and scale a faith-based practice. She has learned how to start and grow a successful practice that adheres to her own faith and values. And as a private practice consultant, she has helped many clinicians do the same.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[WHITNEY OWENS]: The Faith in Practice podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice podcast network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you start, grow, and scale your practice. To hear other episodes like the Imperfect Thriving podcast, Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com\network.
Welcome to the Faith in Practice podcast. I’m your host, Whitney Owens, recording live from Savannah, Georgia. Each week through this podcast through amazing interviews, I’m going to help you learn how to start, grow and scale your private practice with a faith-based perspective. You are listening today to episode 20, my interview with Katie Bailey on starting and growing a faith-based practice. I love the way in this interview, Katie just brings faith into every aspect of what she’s doing in her practice, not only from just seeing clients and investing in them, but the way that she runs her business. Katie and I met last October, 2019 out at Killin’It Camp. And for those of you maybe you haven’t heard of Killin’It Camp, it’s an awesome conference hosted by Practice of the Practice where we learn how to kill it, right?
So, taking people either from the beginning of starting a private practice or maybe they’re growing their practice or trying to move into a group practice. This conference brings wonderful consultants and business owners together to give you tons of information. It’s a three-day conference jam packed with fun and info. It’s wonderful. So, tickets are on sale for Killin’It Camp. If it’s something that you’re interested in going to, you should very much consider it. It’s October 4th through the 7th. What I love most about the Practice of the Practice is the community that we create with one another.
And so, we can create community through listening to this podcast, through Facebook pages, through consulting, but going on a retreat just takes it to a whole new level. And when I went to Killin’It Camp last year, I connected with lots of business owners and really got a lot of encouragement and there were even people that maybe I knew through a mastermind course but I had never actually met in person. And it was so cool to sit down with people that I’ve heard their names or I’ve heard their stories and get encouragement. And I remember last year, so specifically, a friend that I met in a mastermind group, has really spoken to my life in a way that I really needed at that moment.
So what I encourage you to think about not only going to Killin’It Camp, because boy it’s awesome with all the information, but considering the community that’s created and friends that will last a long time because we as business owners, especially as faith-based practice owners, we’re in a little niche and we need people that understand that we can help one another. So, once you think about going to Killin’It Camp, like I said, October 4th through the 7th and that’s at the YMCA of the Rockies, which is in Estes Park. And if you’ve never been to Estes Park, Colorado, it needs to be on your bucket list. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the country. I just love it, love it, love being there. So anyway, that’s Killin’It Camp for you and that’s where I met Katie Bailey. So, let’s get started in the show.
[WHITNEY]: Hello and welcome back to the Faith in Practice podcast. Excited for my interview today. I’m going to be interviewing Katie Bailey. Katie and I met back in October of 2019 at the Killin’It Camp conference. So maybe we’ll talk a little bit about that in the episode, but it was such a pleasure to meet her and she’s got a great practice. So, wanted to interview her on the show. So, let me give you some background on Katie. She is the owner of Lime Tree Counseling in Ambler, Pennsylvania, and as a licensed professional counselor since 2007 she focuses on helping people recover from trauma, especially emotional and narcissistic abuse. Having started her own practice, Katie stressed to create a wonderful place to work and learn from other therapists as well so we can improve our world together. When Katie is not working, you will find her with her three children and her husband knitting or drinking a chai. Welcome to the show, Katie.
[KAITIE BAILEY]: Thanks Whitney. I’m so excited to be here.
[WHITNEY]: Yes. Yeah. So, tell us, did I say the name of your town correctly?
[KAITIE]: Ambler, Pennsylvania.
[WHITNEY]: Ambler.
[KAITIE]: It’s a funny thing about Pennsylvania. I’m not from here originally, but there’s so many towns all clustered right together. But basically, I’m in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
[WHITNEY]: Ah, yes. Ambler’s kind of a fun thing to say. Ambler.
[KAITIE]: Yeah, it is.
[WHITNEY]: So where are you actually from?
[KAITIE]: I grew up in Richmond, Virginia and I even went to college at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. And then life has taken me many different places, but I landed here in Philadelphia which is where my husband’s from.
[WHITNEY]: Oh, that’s great. Well, I like that you’ve got the Southern roots in you.
[KAITIE]: That’s right.
[WHITNEY]: That’s right. So, tell us about how you kind of got into the private practice world.
[KAITIE]: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, after I finished grad school, well, I had done internships and everything in crisis work. So, I was going into hospitals and doing level of care evaluations on people and that kind of thing, which I think was invaluable learning experience. And then I spent about two years doing mobile counseling for a community health center and so then after all that time I decided it was time to do something a little different. And I liked being in the office and seeing clients in there. And I had been a part of a group practice for a number of years while we were having our family and then about, I guess it’s been close to two years now, I decided to go out on my own. I just wanted that autonomy to kind of do my own thing and do it the way I wanted to do it and just work for myself. So, it’s been really great.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah, that’s awesome. And I think that’s the story of so many of us that we do crisis work or hospitals or community mental health centers and it kind of gets, I don’t know, rundown old and where it’s on us or we want our autonomy and yeah, we go into private practice. So, you were working at a group practice when you made the transition, is that right?
[KAITIE]: That’s right. I had been there about nine years. I was just working one day a week because I was busy having our family but then when my youngest one was about to start kindergarten, I sort of saw this light of more free time and decided that it was time just to go for it.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah. So, what was it like having to, I guess I’m curious about this as I’ve had counselors leave my group a couple of times and go do private practice? So, what was that like putting in your notice and leaving the group and were you able to take the clients with you? How did that work?
[KAITIE]: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, it was actually pretty easy. This group was a really very large group practice. I think there were probably 25 of us or so and to be honest Whitney, it wasn’t real, there wasn’t a real connection there. Like there were plenty of people that work there that I never even saw and I think that was one thing that got me restless; was feeling lonely and sort of disconnected from people and certainly not really invested in that particular group. So, leaving the actual practice wasn’t that difficult. Telling clients was really hard because some of those people I had worked with for a very long time. And to make it more complicated, when I was at that group, I took insurance and now when I switched to my own private practice, I was going to be strictly private pay.
So, I gave clients an option. I kind of explained to them and educated them, here are all the options, you know, we can transfer you to someone here, you can come with me but I won’t be, you know, I’ll be private pay. And I would say I think three people chose to make the switch to come over with me, which I think was probably in their best interest but you know, it was good for the other people and their situation to transfer and stay within that other group as well.
[WHITNEY]: How many clients would you say you were seeing at the time, at the group when you left?
[KAITIE]: That’s hard because you know, not everybody comes in every week. I would see five people in one day and I was only working that one day a week, but I probably had anywhere between 10 and 15 clients total because people would come in at different intervals.
[WHITNEY]: So, sounds like anywhere from 15 to 30% of your clients followed you to private pay practice?
[KAITIE]: Yes.
[WHITNEY]: I think a lot of people do get worried about that transition when they’re wanting to start their own practice. And a lot of people do want to start doing cash pay when they start out, see how it goes, and so they think that people won’t leave for that reason. So yeah, that’s tough. But how have you been able to kind of get a practice going as a cash pay practice?
[KAITIE]: Well to be honest, I did try to take one insurance when I first started on my own, but it was a nightmare. You know, I didn’t have any experience doing the admin part of it because at the group practice, they had people that did that for us. But doing it all on my own, I just realized how difficult that is and also, I wasn’t getting paid. Well, you know, it would be months and months later before I actually would see any money. And so, I just decided for me that wasn’t sustainable and just really made that effort then to focus on the marketing and learn everything I could about that and get my name out there and make connections with people. And I think, you know, it is really hard and we do get scared about where’s the money going to come from. But the reality is when you’re a good clinician and you know what you’re doing and people feel connected to you, like they’re willing to pay for it. So that’s been a great thing.
[WHITNEY]: That is so true. And depending on the size of your town, if you offer good therapy your name gets around fast,
[KAITIE]: It gets around really fast. And you know, that’s what we all want to be. I want people to come in my office because they feel comfortable and trust me and know that I’m going to be able to help them. And I, you know, I always tell people at the end of every intake session that I think therapists are like shoes, some fit and some don’t and it doesn’t bother me if they don’t think I fit because I want them to get the best health possible. I’ve never had anyone tell me that I’m not a good fit. So, but I like to give people that understanding that, you know, if I’m not in, I’m going to help you find the right one.
[WHITNEY]: Oh, I love that. What a great analogy because we all know what it’s like to go to the shoe store and try to find a good pair of shoes.
[KAITIE]: That’s right.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah. So, tell me, how do you get clients into your office paying cash? I mean obviously you do good work and you get your name out there, but what are some of the other techniques that have worked?
[KAITIE]: I think hands down, the most important thing was working on my SEO. And I did do, I worked for three months with Jessica Tappana, am I saying her last name right, Tappana?
[WHITNEY]: I think it’s, it could be Tappana, Tappana. I’m sure she’ll weigh in after she hears this and let me know how to spell her name correctly.
[KAITIE]: Sorry Jessica. I’ve known you all this time and I can’t pronounce your last name, but anyway, that was absolutely the best business money I think that I spent. I was working with her and learning all about Google and how to do SEO on my own. I’ve been blogging either every week or every other week for the whole time. So, about a year and a half and learning to research keywords and you know, learning what are people in my area actually typing into Google. And I track that, I might even be a little crazy about it, but I track that a lot and I have, my VA, she tracks all the referral sources for me when people call in. And the vast majority are definitely from Google searches. So that’s been the number one thing.
But I also have networked with local churches. I made little sort of introduction bags to our practice and drop them off at different local churches. I did that intentionally because I know people in ministry and pastors, they don’t have a lot of time and I didn’t want to ask them for a lot of their time, you know, to go to lunch or whatever right away until they had some knowledge of who I was. So, I purposely just sort of made a bag with some little goodies in it and then a letter sort of explaining what we do and drop that off for them. What else? I’ve held an open house at my office for local women’s ministry leaders. That was really helpful. I’ve done that about twice now. And just inviting them to come and meet me and talk to each other was really helpful.
I got a lot of positive feedback about that because you know, these are people who mostly are planning events and putting things on and they’re not invited to just come and participate in many things. And that’s kind of what I wanted to create for them. So, Google searches, but also just doing my best to create relationships in the community as well.
[WHITNEY]: Yes. I love that. I love that because so much of our work is outside of the room. You know, especially as business owners, it’s about creating community within our city, helping people understand mental health and just, I like how you were like, “Yeah, I’m bringing women together that wouldn’t normally get together and normally have something planned for them. And I’m offering this to them.” That’s beautiful regardless if you get referrals from them or not.
[KAITIE]: Exactly. And that felt really good to sort of also help them connect to one another because you know, sort of like counseling ministry can be a lonely thing, and that was a real benefit and a blessing, just to watch them enjoy connecting to each other to talk about what they do all the time. But then now they also have my name. So, if something comes up in the course of Bible study or something and they’re not sure what to do, you know, they’re going to give me a call and I have that connection.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah. I love that. And you know, I totally agree with you about the website. So, when I had kind of moved myself from solo to group, I really put a lot more into the website and started, I hired somebody to do my SEO. I actually wasn’t very close to Jessica at the time and I had a close friend in town who did SEO. So, she does the SEO on my website. Yeah, and it like way made the difference. I mean I was getting triple the amount of calls once she went through and indexed the pages and did things on the website. So, I totally agree with you. That has been game changer for my practice as well.
[KAITIE]: Yes, absolutely. It’s a must do that, you know, if you want to sustain it, you’ve got to be up there on Google and you’ve got to understand it and know how to keep it up.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah. So, you do have a beautiful website, by the way. I love it. I love it.
[KAITIE]: Thank you.
[WHITNEY]: Yes, Katie’s practice is Lime Tree Counseling, and so could you talk a little bit about how you came up with the name and what it represents?
[KAITIE]: Absolutely. I knew I didn’t want my own name. You know, that just wasn’t my thing. And to be honest, at the time, I didn’t ever think I would have a group practice. I thought it would just always be me, but I still didn’t want to use my name and I wanted something a little quirky that would be memorable but not so weird that you’re like, “What in the world is that?” And so, I was just sort of brainstorming names with my husband and there’s a poet that he and I both like Pablo Neruda and he has a poem that talks about a lemon tree. And so, we were sort of Googling that and believe it or not, there’s already a Lemon Tree Counseling. It’s in Massachusetts. So, I like all things lime. Anything lime-flavored, I’m a big fan. So, I changed it to lime tree to just sort of make it more my thing. But you know, I like it because it’s sort of growth and fresh and yeah. So that’s kind of how we landed on that.
[WHITNEY]: I love it. Limes are wonderful.
[KAITIE]: They are.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah, that’s great. So, I did see on the website, your husband works with you. Could you tell me what does he do and what’s that like having your husband work with you?
[KAITIE]: Oh, it’s fantastic. He is an independent contractor for us, so he sees clients one night a week. He’s also a licensed counselor. His full-time job, he’s a trainer, so he’s the director of training for a behavioral health company here nearby where we live. So, he spends all day teaching other clinicians what they need to be doing. So, he doesn’t get a lot of direct client time. And so really the motivation to have him see clients at Lime Tree was to just give him that opportunity because he likes it so much and he’s really good at it. So, it’s really cool. I love being able to say to people, “Oh, I have the right person for you. You know, it’s Nate and that’s really fun to have him be a part of it. I know that really, I mean I’ve been the driving force between starting, with starting Line Tree Counseling and everything, but he absolutely is a co-helper and you know my consultant and everything but it’s really a project we’ve done together.
[WHITNEY]: Oh, that’s beautiful. So now I’m actually just curious, was he in mental health when you all met or how did you all meet because you’re both in mental health world?
[KAITIE]: Oh, we met in grad school.
[WHITNEY]: Okay cool. Cool. Where’d you go to?
[KAITIE]: We went to Gordon Conwell Seminary on the North Shore of Boston. So, we joke a lot because we, in marriage counseling class we had to role play an unhappy married couple and that was like before we were even dating. So, I always laugh and say he’s a much better husband in real life than he was in the roleplay.
[WHITNEY]: That is hilarious. Too bad that wasn’t videotaped, right?
[KAITIE]: I think it was because they had to review those tapes in class, but I’m sure they taped over it. It would be great to have it now.
[WHITNEY]: That is so funny. I actually just took a trip to Boston for the [inaudible 00:17:47] and I believe I had never been, in September. And it’s just an amazing city. Like I would put it on my list for once a year travel because there’s just so much wonderful things to do there.
[KAITIE]: Oh, we love it there. Absolutely miss New England. We’re still big Red Sox fans.
[WHITNEY]: Oh yes. We did go to the game. We saw them beat the Yankee, so that was fun.
[KAITIE]: That’s fantastic. I love it.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah. Okay, so you’ve got your husband as a contractor, so you moved from solo to group, so how did you make this decision to go from solo to group? Was that scary? Tell me about that.
[KAITIE]: Sure. So, I think I just was, well I guess it was probably a couple of things. I was realizing I was getting more calls than I could handle myself. I only worked three days a week. I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and I tried really hard to keep everything in those days so that Monday, Friday can be more family, you know, get stuff done kind of days. So, I was getting more calls than I could handle myself. And another thing would be people at church would ask me if they could see me and of course I wasn’t going to do that because there was people to close in my real life. And so, wanting a bigger circle of people to refer to. So, I actually had started a local networking group of Christian counselors in my area; actually, just met with them this morning.
So, we meet every other month and these are people, some of them are in different settings. Some of them have private practices, some of them are in more of a ministry setting and so I kind of threw it out to them. I said, “You guys, I’m looking to add somebody to my group. Do you know anybody?” And one of the girls in the group was like, “Oh, I’m interested.” And so, it just was a really good fit for both of us and so from there it’s just kind of snowballed and I’ve seen the benefit in adding people and I’ve realized like, I really enjoy creating a really fun work environment.
That’s important to me because, like a lot of us, I’ve worked in some hard places, you know, that weren’t the greatest places to go to work. You weren’t excited every day. And I just really liked being able to create that kind of place where we can learn and grow as therapists and encourage each other, get paid a decent amount to do it and have the support of one another. So, I kind of sort of stumbled into the group thing, but once I did, I knew it was the right thing for me and it’s been really fun.
[WHITNEY]: That is wonderful. So how many clinicians are at the practice now?
[KAITIE]: There’s four of us now, and I’m currently looking for another one. So, if anybody in the Philly area wants to work part time with me, let me know.
[WHITNEY]: Oh, that is so great. That’s so great. What would you say are some of the challenges that you run into being a group practice owner?
[KAITIE]: It’s just been a big learning curve with a lot of the business aspects, that kind of thing. Like all last fall I was struggling with the 1099 versus W2 question that a lot of us, I think we even talked about that Whitney in Colorado at Killin’It Camp and I kind of, you know, I got an attorney after Killin’It Camp. That was one of my goals and I sat down and kind of talked it through with him and I decided that for me the best thing was a W2. So, I’ve been switching to that. So just really educating myself on these things and being able to make the best business decisions that are right for me and for my group and realizing there’s not necessarily one right way to do it. That’s definitely been challenging but fun, if that makes sense at the same time.
[WHITNEY]: Oh yeah, I am a huge W2 fan. So, I have —
[KAITIE]: It’s fantastic. I’m really glad I made the switch. I think it’s going to be really good.
[WHITNEY]: Yes. So, when I made that change, I had two contractors. One of them left right before the transition and then the other one was not happy about the idea, which I did offer her to stay as a contractor, but she just realized that the job just overall wasn’t the best fit for her. So, she ended up leaving when I was making that change. So, I kind of started fresh with all W2’s and it’s been so much better for the culture community and for profit. So how have your clinicians reacted to this idea of changing from contractor to employees because you kind of have to change the pay?
[KAITIE]: You do. It’s actually been fine because I think once I started educated them on why it’s good for them and you know, better for the practice as a whole they were fine with it. You know, Nate is the only one, my husband is the only one that’s staying as an independent contractor just because he works so few hours, but everyone else is transitioning to W2 and they all agree with it.
[WHITNEY]: Oh, that’s wonderful. Well, you’ll enjoy that experience and I do think it does bring a special sense of community in a way. At least it did for my practice. So, tell me about how did you make faith a part of the work that you’re doing with your clients or part of like the culture at your practice?
[KAITIE]: Right. So, well that’s a part of all of us that are seeing clients. At large, that’s, you know, who we are. We’re Christians and I think it’s, you can’t really separate that then from how you do your work, whether it’s overt or not because when you, you know, you believe in God, you believe in Jesus, you look at things through a Biblical view, that’s just sort of how you operate out of everything, whether or not you’re speaking overtly about it. So, I think that’s how I’ve always approached clients. And then in terms of how I work with clients, it really depends on sort of where they are spiritually and what they’re dealing with and what’s going on. So, some people we talk more openly about faith issues than others. You know, I just sort of follow the client’s lead on that, I think. But it’s interesting because once people, you know, we were saying before in terms of getting clients in, once that word has gotten out that I’m able to really talk on that level with people about their faith in God, I’m realizing there’s a lot of people out there that are looking for that kind of counseling.
[WHITNEY]: Yes. That’s so true. That’s so true. And that’s how we get referrals here to too. They know that. They want that. So, love it. Now we were talking before the show started that you are kind of doing a side hustle here, kind of working beyond sitting in the chair. So, you want to talk a little bit about the work that you’re doing outside of the counseling office?
[KAITIE]: Yeah, absolutely. So, that’s a topic that seems to come up a lot in our circles; is sort of how do you expand your work outside of sitting in your office chair every day with clients? And so, I was giving that some more thought and I am working on creating an online membership site for women who are coming out of emotionally abusive, narcissistic a lot of times relationships. That’s one of my areas that I really focus on and specialize on and I think that this is particularly needed in a faith community, especially more conservative circles because there’s, I think people can misinterpret what relationships should be like or we’re supposed to keep forgiving all the time and that kind of thing. And I think it’s easy for emotional abuse to sort of get twisted up in that.
So anyway, that’s one of my areas of specialty, but this side project is to really help women who are coming out of those relationships support one another and educate them as they sort of move forward and continuing to learn to set boundaries and learn to identify and grow in new relationships and do relationships differently than they had before all according to, you know, how would God want us to live and engage with people at the same time valuing themselves and recognizing that they are valuable and what they feel and what they think and what they say all matters. So yeah, so I’m really excited to get that. That’s my big project for 2020.
[WHITNEY]: Ah, that’s exciting. And there’s such a need. You know, you see a lot, of course you would know this much better than me, but it seems like people who have that abuse history or the narcissistic abuse and stuff like that, it just is hard for them to get into counseling. It’s very scary, they’re not encouraged, or they don’t want to tell anyone anything. So, having a membership community will really probably help with that.
[KAITIE]: Yeah, absolutely. I think you’re really right and, because a lot of times you’ve been in an abusive cycle so long that’s sort of what, your reality is warped honestly. And so yes, I think, you know, with all the technology we have these days, we need to be able to use it and harness it for good to find other ways to bring support and help to people who need it that otherwise probably wouldn’t necessarily get it.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah, that’s awesome. So, I wanted to ask you, and I ask this to everyone that comes on the podcast, if you could tell a Christian counselor anything or that they would know something, what do you want them to know?
[KAITIE]: This is, I really love that you ask this of everyone. I think this is important. I would want all Christian counselors to know and to really be aware of that it’s okay to let your clients struggle in their faith. Like, it’s okay for people to ask questions, to even be mad at God and to sit with them in that process because I think we learn, we talk about these abstract concepts like grace and forgiveness and you know, that kind of thing, and even suffering to a certain extent, and I think we don’t really learn about that at a real level until we experience something difficult, hard, challenging. And a lot of times that comes with this sort of crisis of faith and it’s a beautiful thing because when you work through that with God, you come out on the other side and your faith is much stronger. But I think sometimes Christian counselors can almost panic or just really worry if someone is questioning their belief in God. And so, I guess I just really want to encourage everybody to sit with your clients when they ask life’s hard questions. And that’s all just part of the process.
[WHITNEY]: Yes. I love it. I love it. And it’s so true and yeah, that we don’t just, like a lot of times when we’re sitting in that chair, we can feel uncomfortable or unsure of ourselves. So, then we give these contracts simple answers when really, we just need to be okay with being in the grossness line and it’s okay.
[KAITIE]: It’s okay. Yes, I mean the Psalms is full of David sitting in the grossness and not knowing how he felt. And we need to allow, yeah, we have to allow our clients to feel those emotions and to just wrestle with those hard things. That’s how healing comes. You can’t, someone today at our network meeting used the term spiritual bypass. You can’t just throw a Bible verse on it and bypass those hard feelings. You have to actually feel them and go through it. And I think that’s a really helpful visual as well. So, we got to let people ask those tough questions.
[WHITNEY]: Yeah, I love that you said that spiritual bypass. I’m going put that in my pocket. That’s really, that is really good. Well, it has been such an honor to have you on the show and get to share your story and you’ve had such growth in your practice. So, you know, I think if God’s going to do something, He’s going to do something and He’s got his hand on you and the things that are happening and I just love it.
[KAITIE]: Oh, thanks Whitney. This has been really fun. I appreciate the opportunity.
[WHITNEY]: It’s been a pleasure.
[WHITNEY]: Thank you for listening to the Faith in Practice podcast. If you love this podcast, please rate and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast player. If you liked this episode and want to know more, check out the Practice of the Practice website. Also, there you can learn more about me, options for working together, such as individual and group consulting, or just shoot me an email, [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.
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