After three and a half decades of marriage Ben and Judy were stuck. Having been to four different marriage counselors in the last eighteen months, nobody had been able to help them get unstuck from the gridlock that…..

We work with clients who are hurting and hopeless. In some cases, clients are experiencing marriage issues related to infidelity or betrayal, lack of intimacy, patterns of conflict and contempt.

Regardless of the issues, nearly one thousand clients have discovered how our Intensive Counseling Process is different than anything they’ve experienced.

Discover the five ways that nearly one thousand couples have ignited change and breakthrough in their life and marriage.

#3 – Our 360º Assessment Gives You Rapid Clarity

Once we make contact with you 

# 3– Our Heart Emphasis Addresses Your Root Issues 

In some instances, even when Christian counseling is available, sincere and well-meaning counselors may lack the necessary expertise and training for a given situation. We often hear from clients that “the counselor back home is caring and supportive.” Then, the client expresses they’ve gone as far as they can with limited impact. When this happens, it only makes sense to look at other options.During this time, David’s wife learned from a friend about Restoring the Soul. Less than a month later David began a two-week counseling intensive where together we identified significant unaddressed childhood trauma. To say that the intensive was life changing would be an understatement.  “I got my heart back, and I didn’t even realize I had lost it,” he later told me.

The Brain Changing Benefits of Exercise

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https://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_feldman_barrett_you_aren_t_at_the_mercy_of_your_emotions_your_brain_creates_them

How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across A Lifetime

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 https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime

Listening To Shame

Brene Brown

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame

The Power of Vulnerability

Brene Brown

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong

Johann Hari

https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong

Art Can Heal The Invisible Wounds of PTSD

Melissa Walker

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Flaven Flavenoid Carraba Matchebnnnnn

Dan Siegel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7wEr8AnHw

Of course, I’d be less lying if I told you every person or couple who left our intensive counseling program lived happily ever after. Yet the reason I’ve specialized for nearly two decades in offering intensives is because of the life-changing potential inherent to intensive counseling.

One of the most important things I’ve learned over the years is the ability to identify the type of people who are most likely to experience extraordinary gains.  For simplicity, I’ve divided these into five categories.

Those Willing to Make A Sacrifice
Committing to an intensive is never easy. Whether it’s finding the financial resources, arranging for childcare or time off from work, or mustering the emotional and physical strength to make it happen, making the decision to attend an intensive always requires sacrifice. It’s at this point that many people give up hope.

Some people look for counseling resources closer to home. Some look for less expensive options. And some elect to keep doing more of what they’ve been doing all along (usually with the knowledge that what they are doing is not helpful). However, in every instance where intensive counseling clients experienced life-changing breakthrough, they were willing to make a significant sacrifice.

I’ll never forget the couple I worked with who chose to sacrifice money they saved for an anniversary vacation to afford their intensive. They didn’t feel it was a sacrifice because they were investing in their marriage in a way that ultimately paid huge dividends.

Those Willing to Invest In Themselves or Their Marriage
It never ceases to amaze me how some people will invest in the pursuit of physical health or a personal hobby or passion, then hesitate to invest in their own soul or marriage. Why? Because the need to invest into counseling often feels like a sign of weakness.

One client, a private pilot, put it to me this way: “When I wanted to become a licensed pilot I knew I needed to invest in the arduous and costly process of taking flying lessons. It took me a long time. Investing in my marriage is no more a sign of weakness than not knowing how to fly a plane.”

Making the investment in intensive counseling can certainly result in monumental gain. Whether it’s a breakthrough from addiction, accelerated growth and healing, a rescued marriage or deepened intimacy with God, yourself or your spouse, the greatest reward is restoration.

Those Willing to Face Inner Brokenness
Virtually everyone who comes to an intensive is suffering from some type of broken world experience. Whether it’s a broken relationship, an unwanted struggle or difficult circumstances, something is not right in their world. Those who make the greatest gains during intensive counseling are the ones who take an inside look.

Deep in our soul we know something isn’t right. Beneath our broken world there is a broken soul, and facing our inner world takes great courage. Doing so makes us feel vulnerable, powerless, even ashamed. But when we humble ourselves we are given grace.

The very things we once thought to be a barrier to the life we desired becomes the very bridge to all that we were created for. The power of intensives is the ability to quickly identify brokenness.  As Richard Rohr has written, “It is through the holes in our soul that God breaks in and we break out.”

Those Willing to “Do Life Differently”
Years ago one of the Restoring the Soul board members commented that when someone comes to an intensive they are usually ready to “do life differently.” What they meant is that by the time someone arrives at our doors they realize that what they’ve been doing has not been working. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives a description of doing life differently:

 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly”  (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message).

The way of Jesus is not about more religious effort or trying harder to be a better Christian. Doing life differently never involves anything heavy or ill fitting.

Those Willing to Trust In God’s Larger Story
In telling us that Jesus is “the author of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), the writer of Hebrews makes it clear that God is writing a story. Moreso, he includes us in how the story gets written. We make choices all the time. We chose whether to trust Him, that He will finish what is started, that He has good planned for us.

Through intensive counseling, men and women gain greater clarity about their life story and how it intersects with The Larger Story God is telling. That larger perspective is invaluable but especially for those that see God’s work throughout their story.

I count it a privilege to work with individuals and couples who long for more.

Question: Which one of the five traits can you most relate to?

For nearly fourteen years I followed Jesus–clueless that my struggles with lust, masturbation, and porn were symptoms of much deeper issues which explained why I couldn’t “just say no.”

Jesus taught that adultery and sexual immorality come out of the heart (Matt. 15:19). But what does this mean?

In his classic book Inside Out, Larry Crabb compares our inner world to an iceberg. The visible tip of the iceberg represents our behaviors, conscious thoughts, and feelings—things people see and feel. The iceberg mass below the waterline represents those things that cannot be readily identified. These include motives, purposes, and attitudes of the heart, as well as painful memories and hidden emotions.

It doesn’t take much to realize that a person can appear morally obedient, spiritually mature, and emotionally whole, yet below the waterline remain self-centered and immature. It is below the waterline, however, in the place of our inmost being, where the gospel is meant to transform us.

In the waters of our soul, something more deeply rooted must be addressed. But what is it? When Jesus taught that adultery and sexual immorality came out of the heart, He was not giving an anatomy lesson.

In a heated conversation with the religious professionals of the day, Jesus had been discussing what makes a person clean or unclean. The popular teaching was that a person was unclean for not having followed certain ceremonial steps.

But Jesus turned this teaching upside down. “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’” Jesus said, “but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean’” (Matt. 15:11).

Jesus’ point was that no matter how many acts of obedience we perform, our problems are internal, not external. Our actions and behavior—what comes out of us—are just the tip of the iceberg.

As if Jesus’ impassioned discussion with the religious rule- keepers were not enough, He went on to utter His harshest words yet, to those who believed that God should be impressed with their moral performances.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. . . . First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean” (Matt. 23:25–26).

What this means for a man caught in the chains of porn and lust is crucial. If you could somehow magically stop looking at porn and exercise self-control in place of lust, you still wouldn’t be dealing with the problem below the waterline.

You’ve only cleaned the outside of the cup and dish.

“The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters,” wrote Solomon (Proverbs 20:5).

Our hearts hold deep reasons for why we do what we do, which explains why our sinful actions and self-sufficient behaviors can make sense—at least internally.

We are thirsty, but we often move in the wrong directions to satisfy our thirst. “This only have I found,” wrote the author of Ecclesiastes. “God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes” (7:29).

Beneath the waterline we are driven by hidden agendas, unconscious goals, and ungodly passions—schemes to slake the thirst that God alone can quench.

Connecting these deep passions and purposes below the water- line to the behaviors, struggles, and issues above the waterline helps us recognize the cause of our confusing behavior.

Understanding ourselves at this level is not about the “what” of our sin (I can’t stop looking), but the “why” of sin (porn promises to meet some legitimate need in me).

Question:  If a struggle with porn is the tip of the iceberg, then what might be lurking beneath the surface that contributes to a struggle with porn?

Excerpted from Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle by Michael Cusick. Copyright ©2012. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc. www.thomasnelsoncorporate.com.

Dr. Dallas Willard, for several decades taught Philosophy at the University of Southern California, and was the author of several books including The Spirit of the Disciplines, Hearing God, and The Divine Conspiracy. This conversation was Originally recorded in Los Angeles in 2008, before Dallas’s passing in May 2013.

A conversation with William Paul Young, author of international bestseller and soon to be movie, The Shack.

As Vice Chair and co-author with Truefaced-Leadership Catalyst since 1995, Bill’s genuine desire to see relational health in those he works with, has been vital in setting the tone of the organization. His eloquence and integrity have given him opportunities to teach Truefaced’s principles internationally. His wisdom has been penned throughout the entire series of The Ascent of a Leader, Beyond Your Best, and The Cure.Prior to joining Truefaced, Bill founded and pastored the influential church, Open Door Fellowship, for over 20 years. While there, he developed an effective character development training program that nurtured visionaries such as Kit Danley, founder of Neighborhood Ministries in Phoenix, AZ.

Part 2 of a conversation with Bill Thrall, Vice Chair and co-author with Truefaced-Leadership Catalyst.

Pete Scazzero is the Founder of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, NYC, a large, multiracial, international church with seventy-three countries represented. After serving as Senior Pastor for twenty-six years, Pete now serves as a Teaching Pastor/Pastor at Large. He is the author of two best-selling books: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and The Emotionally Healthy Church and most recently released The Emotionally Healthy Leader. Pete and his wife Geri are the founders of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, a groundbreaking ministry that equips churches in a deep, beneath-the-surface spiritual formation paradigm that integrates emotional health and contemplative spirituality. They have four lovely daughters.

Part 2 of a conversation with Pete Scazzero, author and founder of New Life Fellowship Church in NYC.