The Power of Promptings

Transcript

Hello, I'm Dr. Tracy Hogan. As a licensed counselor, it's been my privilege to help people climb the ladder of happiness for more than 25 years.

How does this podcast shine new light on your problems? I'll help you find that sweet spot between the best of psychology and the best of spirituality. Are you ready? Let's climb this happiness ladder. 

The Happiness Ladder is six areas, six strengths that happy people have in common. For this first podcast I’m going to give you an example of how the Happiness Ladder works.

As a licensed professional counselor, I protect the identity of my clients. So just the important parts of this story are true.

When I first moved to Texas, I was shopping in what they call the Piggly Wiggly. No, that's not a type of bacon gummy worm. It's actually the name of a grocery store. I got a call from a leader in our church. She had a referral for me, and as she described this woman that needed help, uh, a feeling of dread came over me. I remember thinking, as I stared at the noodles, “Wow. I don't think I've had anyone this depressed.” This woman was physically ill as well. She was on 14 different medications. Her family of origin was a nightmare. The family she lived in was a nightmare.

This woman had been so desperate, she had attempted suicide.

        And in my inside voice, I said, " I don't know if I can help someone this damaged. This desperate. This depressed."

But a little while later, the woman came in for her first appointment, and she had grown up in Texas. She had big hair, perfect makeup, bling on her fingers, and a really pretty face. You couldn't help but notice she was five feet tall and about 300 pounds. As she talked, it became abundantly clear that a lot of her problems stemmed from her childhood, she had a very mean, abusive, alcoholic dad.

About a year previous, she had attempted suicide. That was her low point. And then she started on her way up. She prayed about how to better her life. And she felt impressed to go off of her medications. I warn you: this is not what I'm recommending. She was lucky it didn't kill her. She should have done her titrating with the help of her doctor.

        After she felt so much better going off for medications, she felt impressed to get counseling and she came to see me.

        I said to her, “There are six areas that matter most. These areas are strengths that happy people have in common. You've already done a pre-session change. Good for you. You've prayed about what you need to do, and you felt impressed to go off your medications. The six areas are health, growth, God, gratitude, connections, and charity.”

          I told her, "We're going to discuss each area.  And then I want you to rate how you're doing in that area from zero to 10, with 10 high. Let's start with connection. Tell me about your close personal relationships."

        She said, "Well, my relationship with my son, he's 16. He's just a joy and a light in my life, that's a nine."

        I said, "Oh, good. How about your parents?"

        She said, "Well, that's why I'm here. My mom, I would have to give her a three out of 10. Daddy took up so much of the attention in the family.  She had to do a lot to keep from getting hit. She really didn't have the mental bandwidth to give attention to the children."

        I said, "Ok, what score would you give your dad?"

        “Oh,” she said, "It was terrible. I would go to him, say, daddy, I need lunch money. And he would say, 'Why do you even bother to go to school? You're dumber than a sack of rocks. You'll never amount to nothing.’ Can you do negative numbers on this rating scale?" She said, "I'd have to give him a negative one.”

        I said, "Well, that sounds so painful. How could your dad be so critical? So emotionally abusive. You are just a little girl. I'm sure the things he said were life changing."

        She said, "You're right. And how I handled it was I didn't talk back. I'd sweep all my feelings and my anger and my pain under the rug. And I became a people pleaser. I didn't make waves. I just tried to keep the peace."

        She said that people pleasing was her thing and her way in marriage as well. Her husband had kind of removed himself from the family. because there was so much contention and fighting. He spent a lot of time on the weekends with his friends at work. She was pretty sure he was going to parties where there was alcohol. And they've made promises as a couple, not to drink alcohol. 

        But she never complained about his behavior. Because she felt so bad about herself.

        She thought, “Well, why would he even love me or want to spend time with me?” We kind of replicate our relationship with our parents in our marriage.

        She had a daughter in college, who'd come home every weekend and demand money. And if it wasn't forthcoming, she'd be screaming and slapping her mom and pushing her. And my poor client, her husband, refused to come help. Everyone in the family was afraid of this daughter. And no one stepped in to support mom.

        In her personal growth area, my client gave herself a pretty good score. She'd enjoyed being a homemaker. But lately she started worrying about the future.

        She'd said, "Since my youngest is graduating I've always had this dream. To go back to school and become a hairdresser. Women in Texas are still back combing their hair. Because in Texas, the higher the hair, the closer to God."

        So, as we looked at her scores, My heart kind of fell. Four of her six scores were only two out of 10. 

        Honestly, I had never seen such low scores in all my years of counseling.

        So, I said to her, "The way the happiness ladder works, I ask this question. And I don't want you to feel overwhelmed.” I said, “where do you feel impressed to work? Pick just one area." Then I shut my mouth.

        There was a long pause. A very long pause. Pretty soon, I saw tears trickling down her face and I thought, oh boy. Those are tears of failure. Two years of trying so many things to make her life better with such limited successes.

        Finally, when she spoke, she said, "Well, I feel impressed to work on my health."

        And I thought to myself, "Oh no, not that one."

        Oh boy, that's just the hardest one. Lots of my clients pick that one and fail. And as they say in Texas, that's “pert near impossible.” But I said all those things in my inside voice.

        I said, "Well, how would you do that? What are your ideas?”

        She was quiet for a long time. She said, "I felt impressedI should go start walking at the track. It's right near my house."

        So that week, she put on her sweats, and she started walking the track. Unfortunately, there were some high schoolers warming up.

        And one of them said very loudly to his companion. "Oh my gosh. Look at that cow. Have you ever seen a woman so fat?"

        I said to her, "You must have felt so embarrassed."

        I was sure that she would stop going, but she didn't. She was determined to follow that prompting from God. And as the months went by. She showed how strong she was. She started working on her self-defeating thoughts.

        She worked on her inaccurate beliefs about herself, and her new beliefs started to make a difference in her behaviors. In the best of psychology, there's a strategy called motivational interviewing. And the idea is to make a list of why.

        Why do you want to change your behavior? Why do you want to lose weight?

          So, she put up a list of her whys on her bathroom mirror, so she could read it every morning. She wanted her husband to be proud of her. She wanted him to take her on dates. She wanted her 16-year-old son not to be embarrassed when she would show up to his high school to pick him up. After one month she had lost 10 pounds which was amazing to me.

        And I said, "Well, what do you feel impressed to do next?"

        She said, " I feel impressed, eat more veggies."

        I said, "Oh, that's a good one. "

        She said, "No, let me explain how we eat in Texas. This is the food pyramid in Texas." And she took out a pen and paper.

        She said, “At the top of the pyramid is steak."

        And I thought, "Well, in the old pyramid, It said, to eat meat sparingly. "

        But she said, "Oh no, in Texas we say, "Eat all you can get. On the second level of the pyramid is chicken fried steak and barbecue. On the third level of the pyramid, she drew in her carbs, which was Mexican food and burgers. And on the bottom level of the pyramid, she said, "I guess this is our fruits and veggies because. I eat my Blue Bell ice cream with strawberries and pecan pie.”

        I said, "Oh, dear."

        And she said, "Don't forget the fries. That's a veggie because it's fried in vegetable oil."

        I said, "Oh, no wonder Texas is in the top 10 obesity rates for the whole nation."

        She said, "Do you see my problem? She'd grown up her entire life, eating from the Texas food pyramid, and it was difficult to eat more veggies and help her get motivated. We went to our church's website. And in the search bar she typed in, "encouraging scriptures."

        I said, "Read off this list until you find something that fits for you."

        And she eventually found Moroni chapter 10, verse 23. It says, “If you can have faith, you can do all things."

        She was really doing everything she could. She was so persistent about coming to counseling every week and she prayed about her problems.  She was really getting good at getting answers from God and acting upon them.

        And in talking about the best of psychology, I explained to my client that I'm an attachment therapist. I use attachment theory. And that involves secure attachment and insecure attachment. Secure attachment happens when about two thirds of people’s parents give children appropriate attention and meet their physical, spiritual, social, mental, and emotional needs.

        I said, “Do you feel that the amount of attention you received from your dad was enough to develop secure attachment?”

        "Oh no.". She said, “Do you have double insecure attachment?”

        I said, "Well you're not alone, about one third of all people have insecure attachment. They're unable to bond with their parents. Unfortunately, we carry this same attachment style into our marriage.”

        I said, "For you, secure attachment didn't happen at home, and it's not happening in your home now. Your mom neglected you. Your dad was so critical and emotionally abusive. You couldn't bond to either your mom or your dad, and you don't feel bonded to your husband."

        I said, "This is what we're trying to do here in therapy. We're trying to make up for the lack. I'm acting as a substitute attachment figure. I'm trying to give you an infusion of appropriate attention. I hang on every word you say. I remember it. I bring it up later. We're unpacking the pain. I'm listening as carefully as I professionally can. I feel righteous indignation about what happened to you as we go over your trauma. I feel it as we go over your trauma now. The therapists actually call this processing, which is bringing up past events or habits into present consciousness and analyzing them using current tools and knowledge, resulting in a fresh insight for you. And I would add to that, we plan for your growth and change.” And all that just felt like love to my client.

        I said, "I wrote a paper on attachment, and actually there's hope. There are four ways that I found that people can overcome insecure attachment and actually bond to other people, even if they weren't able to bond to their parents. Let's talk about two of the ways. One of them is to use God as a substitute attachment figure."

        I asked her, "How do you think you're doing in developing your relationship with God and bonding to him?"

        And she said, "Oh, he's always been there for me. He saved my life. That's what kept me going."

        I said, “Well, in my paper, the second way to improve attachment style is to bond to your therapist."

        She said, "Oh, that's what we're trying to do."

          She was diligent about it. She worked hard. She did her journaling. She came every week. Three months later, she had lost 30 pounds. She came in one day. She said, "I've been feeling some impressions from the Holy Ghost."

        I said, "Oh, I can't wait to hear this."

        She said, “Well, when I used to make cookies, I would eat 10. But now I just eat two.” After four months, she had lost 40 pounds. 

        I asked her once because I was really interested, like 93% of women would like to lose some weight.  “How are you doing this?  Are you going to WW or Jenny Craig?”

        “Oh, no. I just looked up some information online and developed my own healthy eating plan. Most important, if I get an idea of how to be better, I listen, and I do it. I think those ideas are good, and you know all good comes from God.”

        And I thought, dang If I want to solve my problems.  I’ve got to get better at listening to and obeying the inspiration I get.

She was so obedient to those promptings, she started feeling confident about her ability to change. Her confidence was spilling into other areas of her life. She started to believe that God saw her as lovable and capable. And she started to feel impressed to tackle her family issues. About nine months into our counseling, she had lost a staggering 80 pounds.

        People at church were coming up to her and saying, “Oh my goodness, you look great!”

        She said, “I wish they could understand. The change that's happened on the inside is more important than the change that's happened on the outside.”

        Finally, one Wednesday, my client told me, “You know, I don't deserve to be treated as badly as my daughter treats me.”

        I said, “Wow. I think you're right. Think about Jesus Christ in the New Testament. If you're going to make some changes, let's use him as an example. The money changers were cheating people when they sold them animals. It was a big desecration of the temple.” I said, “Do you remember what Jesus did? He took small cords. He braided them together. And he used them as a whip. To drive out the ox and the sheep.” I said, “How does that scripture passage apply to you?” 

She thought for a moment. And then she said, “Well, you’re always telling me that I have different parts of my personality, and I believe there's a part of me that's tough because it's Texan.”

        So, the next week she showed up with a black eye and I said, “Are you safe? Are you safe at home?” 

And she said, “Yes, I'm safe. But let me tell you the story. My college daughter came home with the rent bill. And I said, ‘I've already paid that bill.’

        “And she said, ‘No, you haven't.  “&^!@#$, I want my money right now.’”

        And of course, Dad was watching You tube with his headphones on, pretending he couldn't hear. And my client said, “Well, you can take that rent bill and stick it where the sun don't shine.” And her drug addict daughter then became very aggressive.

        She slapped her mom and gave her the shiner. Then my client stood with her face, beet red and hurting. Angry tears were welling up in her eyes.

        She said to herself, “Am I just going to take this? I do everything to help this girl. I don't deserve this.” 

        And what she said next. Well, if you ever hear a Texan woman say this it's already too late.

        My client said, “Oh, no. Oh, hell no.”

        She had really channeled that tough, Texas personality. I knew it was in there. She called the cops. The daughter went to jail. My client took out a restraining order. Then there was court ordered detox and then court ordered drug treatment.

        Later, when we were talking about how the relationship with her daughter had improved, she said, “Yeah. My relationship with my daughter was so low. It was hard to be firm. It was hard to give her that night in jail, but it's what she deserved. It was the best thing I ever did. Now my relationship with her is a five.” And her daughter actually had a job. 

She said “Also, my relationship with my health has gone from a two to a 10.”

        And she was right. She had lost a hundred pounds. She excitedly wanted me to look at her tag in the back of her. T-shirt she said, “Do you see how there's one X? That's for extra-large.”

        She said, “I used to wear clothes that were triple X.” She said, “It's so fun to shop at Target instead of the fat woman shops.”

        At the end of our year, we were looking at all of her scores. Most of them had gone up. Her average score had been at three. She had made so much improvement in her life. She had climbed so many rungs on the ladder of happiness, that her average score was a seven.

        In the area of growth and development, she said, “If I can lose a hundred pounds. What else can I do? You know, I had that goal to work in a salon, doing hair. But maybe that's not enough anymore.  I want to make more of a difference.”

        She said that she'd like to go out and get her bachelor's and then her master's degree so she could be a counselor and help other people.

        I'd like to say to you, my friends of faith. I suspect that you are thinking of a good idea, an inspiration you’ve been given about a change you need to make to tackle your biggest problems. 

And I want to encourage you. Be like this Texan. Channel your tough side. Obey that inspiration. Let the power of promptings work for you.

        Though I'm currently working as a therapist in Jacksonville, Florida on a service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I hope this happiness ladder podcast decreases depression and anxiety for anyone anywhere. So, if you know of someone who can benefit from these podcasts, please press that share button.

          Until next time. Live like His Son. Help others on their way.