by ​Louise Osborn, LMHC

I have talked before about the dangers of leaving a mask on too long. Today I would like to talk about the many different masks survivors wear, the reasons we wear them and the danger of becoming too attached to the mask.

There are many different reasons events that could make a person adopt a mask, but the underlying reason is the same.  “Fear”!  Fear of appearing to be a failure, fear of someone finding out your past, fear of looking weak or emotional.  But fear is a dangerous bedfellow and can easily make you lose yourself altogether.

Those very things in our past, the hurts and insecurities are begging for release and releasing them leads to freedom. The first step to removing the mask is realizing what mask you wear most.  The people pleaser? I have to do everything for everyone or they won’t like me.  I will put him first and he will love me. Or maybe its the perfectionist? I must stay in control and do everything right. I crave help but I am afraid to ask or accept it.  The I must be attractive all the time mask? If I must be beautiful to be worthy of love. There are of course others. The approval mask or the performer, and many wear different masks at different times or even multiple masks. Doesn’t it get tiring?

To begin to take off the masks though, we must face our past hurts, traumas and experiences and discover how they came to be.  Maybe it goes back to winning a parents approval as a child,  a negative relationship or a traumatic experience.  I will acknowledge that for me this exercise helped me to realize how many masks I wear and how they have led to more negative experiences that in turn created new masks. It has been eye opening to realize how many I still wear and how they have piled up.

I have also realized how much of my true self and beauty is hidden and how revealing it can lead to true contentment.  To not be afraid to speak up about something you feel is unfair, to allow someone to see your weaknesses, to accept help from someone or actually trust another person.  In order to accomplish any of these we must learn to remove the mask and trust that everything will be ok.  That the people that truly love us can handle it and those that don’t we don’t need in our lives anyway.  That God does have a plan for us but by wearing the mask we are hiding our potential to live out his plan.

So how do we learn to take off the mask?  Although everyone is different, my suggestion is that you first identify your masks and the events that caused it.  Then, as hard as it sounds, you face your negative experiences, fears and traumas and you forgive and continually forgive anyone that harmed you.  Lastly you put your faith fully in Gods plan for you.  Lean on him and his words for comfort and strength.  And if you still struggle, reach out to someone.  A therapist, friend or family member and let them know what you are struggling with, what masks you wear and why.  Voicing your story is difficult but cleansing at the same time, and it may help someone else you know take off their mask.

Recently, I was contacted by a marketing company inviting me to host my own radio show to reach a global audience. What ensued was a well-designed invitation for me to make a small investment of $7,000 into my own training and marketing of the first pilot season of the radio show. They would even train me and help produce the show! 

This was my Facebook post that day: ​

by ​Louise Osborn, LMHC

I woke up one morning recently with that odd mix of irritation, sadness and confusion. Nothing had happened, so why was I in such a funk? More importantly, how was I going to break it. I started with exploring the obvious. We traveled for Thanksgiving and came straight back to the grind of the week so the house wasn’t in order. That tends to make me feel out of sorts so I organized the kids room and front porch, threw out some things, took others to charity. Doing for others always makes you feel better right? And it did……but not like it usually does…..I was still off.

I decided to begin the Christmas season by doing some decorating. Maybe that would help, but first I had to go get some new things. It was the music in Lowe’s, honestly, that did it. It brought everything flying back into my mind so clearly that I was shocked I hadn’t realized it when I first woke up that day.  It was almost December. Friday would be December 1st, in fact.

I’ve had 6 miscarriages. All but 2 have been in December. The last two were the furthest along. The last one was by far, the most traumatic which was in late December and thus mentally, it is intrinsically linked to Christmas music. 

I am learning that its not just the music. Its the season.

During the last miscarriage, I was under so much pressure to perform as if nothing was wrong. We had three other children that I wanted to provide a good Christmas for (one a one year old) and my in laws were going to be in town staying with us. Unfortunately, due to the other miscarriages, we elected to keep this pregnancy a secret planning to reveal it at Christmas, which put me over 12 weeks and in the safety zone.

We were pregnant with twins!

The week prior to Christmas, at my 13 week mark, I went for my check up and my doctor failed to find one of the heartbeats. I was devastated. The week before we had two heartbeats. He consoled me, prayed with me and told me to come back the day before my in-laws landed. I did and learned we lost the other child. I endured the week of their visit in a blur of hiding, crying in my room and probably more alcohol than is healthy. I had surgery the day after they left on New Years Eve. The hospital played Christmas music  and my in-laws never even knew I was pregnant.

I have since more than made my peace with God.  Now I understand why I went through what I went through and I love my son Matthew (our youngest, born the day before Thanksgiving the following year) so much that I can’t even contemplate him not being in our family.

8 years later, Christmas music still makes me cry.
​
The body always remembers grief and makes you acknowledge it, no matter how hard you try to move on. Outside of the mother who loses her baby, no one else really acknowledges a lost pregnancy. It really is a lonely grief, especially years out. I have learned, though, that taking a few minutes to look at those old sonogram pictures tends to keep the grief at bay for another year.

If you are in need of some grief counseling, Louise Osborn is available to take appointments in both the Julington Creek area or in our Elbow Tree office located in Saint Augustine. Her email is louise@elbowtreecooperative.com. 

One of the things I enjoy most in the world is writing. It's a space where I am able to sit in quiet and pay some attention to what's going on within me and around me. As an extrovert, writing invites me to do things my head, heart and soul need most in order to recover from being so fragmented and begin to slowly reintegrate.

​Writing is a catalyst for restoring my integrity, allowing me to move into these fragmented places and pay attention long enough to bring language around my inner and outer experiences and do some much needed listening. 

Recent;y I have been scouring opportunities online to do more writing professionally so I've been scouring LinkedIn and a handful of other professional sites designed to connect professionals to writing opportunities. I've never had to do much of this before so it's both captivating and overwhelming to read though hundreds of job descriptions..  

A couple options caught my eye, so I sent my resume and curriculum vitae off to a couple of the companies and foundations looking for staff writers. One foundation has brought me on as one of a handful of staff writers tasked with curating meaningful content to serve mental health needs of psychologically wounded veterans. I sent my first piece off today for their review. 

As I've hunted through the online haystack looking for writing opportunities, I also stumbled across a website that caught my attention. The hook read, "Do you want to make $6000-7000 per month and eventually per day out of the convenience of your own home?" 

Moments later I was on the phone listening to this brash vague circular pitch with everything in me screaming, "run away!" Without getting into the particulars, I found myself on this phone conversation with a rather aggressive and manipulative salesman. 

Right away a number of large red flags went up and I started making my exit plan. I shared my resistance with this salesman to do any business with complete strangers. Historically I have helped grow a business or a non-profit from a posture of well established relationship and trust. 

Then the salesman made a comment that pinched a nerve. In a condescending tone he said, "Oh, I know your type. You are the kind of guy who wants something for nothing." 

The next words that came out of my mouth were, "You don't even know me. You don't know my story, which is precisely why I have no interest in continuing this conversation, which is your loss. Good night." 

This smarmy stranger of a salesman thought his clever well time shaming comments would pierce my armor and sink a hook to reel me in for the big sale. Nothing could have been further from the truth. 

Since that phone call, it has been a very helpful exercise to spend some time reflecting on the friendships where I am deeply known. I could help but think of Ruth Ann, Heath, Brittany, Luke, Ray, Tony, Greg, Russell, Keith, David, Justin, and Chris...men and women who have known me over decades.

A few minutes after I hung up the phone from that call and one of my most trusted friends. (who had no way of knowing what had just transpired over the phone) sent me a personal and professional endorsement for me to post on my counseling websites. 

Through tears I read, "We all want real conversations with people, like the ones you have where you're not editing what you say. Hayne Steen provides this type of conversation, and my life is more full and alive because of it.  So if you are a person searching, questioning, struggling, and wandering please know your heart will be met with a radical hospitality if you are fortunate enough to be a recipient of Hayne’s care."

Then I made a list if those courageous people who have trusted me deeply, allowing me to really know them as a friend, counselor or spiritual companion. As I capture the names of these dear people, it hits me. I am a known man. 

Despite the lies and manipulation schemes of a world full of fork tongued salesman, I am known. Fully. 

There is no more satisfying way to live than to be known. 

So you made your first counseling appointment. First, let me congratulate you on overcoming all the internal (and maybe even external) resistance that could have stood in your way. You've taken a brave and necessary step. 

As a client, it is very common and normal for you to leave your first session or two wondering, "so, what's next?" The first few counseling sessions really allow you and your therapist to develop a sense of trust and rapport together. 

Don't get me wrong. Lots of very powerful and helpful progress can begin to occur in that first session. At the same time though, don't underestimate the power of change that is happening at a pace much slower than our micro-waved society would prefer. 

The algorithm for change (according to my friend Chip Dodd) is "willingness + patience + work + time." The more of these assets we possess, the more change we can anticipate experiencing. As another friend likes to say, "It takes a whole lot of slow to grow." 

So, back to the end of your first session You've just wrapped up an hour with someone you sense could be of some good help to you. And you are walking to your car wondering, "now what?"

I'd like to recommend (not prescribe) a one very practical thing that will help your therapeutic process. Keep a journal and carry it with you. In moments when you find a few moments alone, take it out and spend some time reflecting. Maybe take an inventory of the "state of your heart." Maybe take 10 minutes to reflect on what still lingers from your first counseling session that you'd like to revisit with your therapist. A journal can be a helpful place to bring up to the surface what's been lurking below. Maybe reflect on something that resisted in you in that first session. 

Take this with to your next counseling session. If it makes sense, share it with your therapist. What is happening in your life in real time is as important as what happened way, way back. It all belongs. 

Then, make your second appointment. Rinse, lather, repeat until you feel like you've moved through what needs to be moved through. 

Don't hesitate to process the "what's next" question with your therapist, either. Any therapist worth their salt won't feel intimidated by your question. They will sense your hunger for change and can meet you in that desire with even greater awareness. 

If you have any questions or thoughts you'd love to share, feel free to leave those below or email Hayne Steen at hayne@elbowtree.com. 

In just a few hours, our new steel sign will be installed out in front of our counseling offices here in Saint Augustine. I imagine just our name alone will cue up a number of questions. 

In Chattanooga, "Elbow Tree Christian Counseling" (or simply Elbow Tree) has become a household brand. Over the last 11 years, our rag tag team of therapists have been serving hundreds of families locally as well as leaders and families all over the planet through a handful of global initiatives we are engaged with. 

One of the questions new clients will ask is, "What is an elbow tree?" For the purpose of this blog today, I'll simply send you to this page of our website. It will give you a little background on who we are. 

Another great question folks have asked is, "Are you a real counselor?" 

​To answer this question well, I think it's worth listening for the question inside the question. When it gets down to brass tacks, people tend to wonder most about the "Christian Counseling" dimension of our name. 

In this blog, I am going to take a couple minutes to pose a couple of the implied questions I can appreciate folks might really be asking.

1. Is "Christian Counseling" different than "normal counseling?" 

Our team is made up of licensed and pre-licensed counselors. Every licensed and pre-licensed mental health counselor in the state of Florida is governed by the same ethical code of conduct and held to an extremely high standard of care. If a counselor identities themselves as a Christian Counselor, it often is simply a way of helping clients find therapists trained to help integrate faith into the therapeutic process. 

At Elbow Tree, we are each deeply committed to the highest level of care. That is why we are each always pushing the envelope getting trained in a wide range research based therapeutic modalities that you will find in any non-Christian Counseling setting.  

Some of us are involved in disaster response work. To do so we are continually being trained by the ICISF, who are the gold standard for training first responders all over the world in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM). 

Others of us are exploring best practices for being trained as trauma therapists, so we are being trained in modalities like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) and (IFS) Internal Family Systems which are validated interventions for serving clients who present with trauma needs. 

The list could go on and on as our team in Chattanooga and in Saint Augustine deliver the highest quality of care to the communities we are fortunate to serve. 

Is Christian Counseling different? No and yes.

NO - because we are committed to providing all clients with nothing less than high quality care using treatment interventions informed by a well of evidence based research. 

YES - because we are creating an intentional space for clients to integrate their Christian faith only if they so desire. We are simply hoping to light a candle in the window for folks looking for something like this in the sea of options being provided.  

2. Is Christian Counseling a glorified Bible study or does actual therapy take place?

We want to walk with you toward the full and meaningful life you are made for. How we go about shepherding the process is very intentional and deeply therapeutic. We see ourselves more as facilitators of your therapeutic process.

Our goal is to get out of the way so you can get into your process, where actual therapy does take place. We do not judge or pressure. Instead we join with you as a curious companion, hoping to demonstrate a holy curiosity, genuine warmth and consistent empathy. 

Primary goals for therapy are 1) to “reframe” uncomfortable, distressing or perplexing situations into opportunities for healing, growth, change and restoration 2) give some real, practical, doable steps to take and 3) orient people towards a much larger story that is unfolding alongside their own.

3. Can you hold my story confidentially?

Sometimes people wonder if Christian Counseling is 100% confidential. Let me tell you that anything you share with a therapist at Elbow Tree will be held in complete confidence. Unless you elect to release information to a pastor, elder, neighbor or family member, everything you share is held in the strictest of confidence. 

And this is not because we are such nice people. It's the law. Your information is thankfully guarded by HIPAA which holds licensed counselors to a very high standard when it comes to any aspect of your file. The only limitations of confidentiality with regard to harming children, the elderly, or yourself. 

So, as our new sign goes up today, and cars begin to pass by our new offices, we can imagine and anticipate that some will wonder if we are real therapists. Yes, we are highly trained men and women who are very protective of the therapeutic space as one that must be inhabited by the highest caliber of skilled licensed clinicians. 

Should you have any additional questions, feel free to email Hayne Steen at hayne@elbowtree.com. ​

Circa 1997, I met up with a friend Keith in Chattanooga to go longboard skateboarding around downtown. At some point we ended up at the highest point of Georgia Avenue pointing our boards downhill. From where we stood it seemed like a slow and easy grade. My buddy had memorized the timing of the stoplights. To any passerby we must have looked absolutely ridiculous wearing those jumpsuits, knee and elbow pads…in my memory, I seem to recall wearing helmets and goggles too. Like two poser wannabe knock off Evil Kaneevals on skateboards. I can remember feeling tentative so I borrowed (or mimicked) some courage of Keith's.

We pushed off and glanced at one another with a grin, hooted at each each other as we picked up a little speed. Keith seemed so calm and free. I remember feeling terrified and tight. Midway downhill he glanced over and noticed that the adventure in my face had transitioned into terror. My feet were beginning to wobble terribly. 

Keith yelled something at me that I could not hear at first. He yelled it again. “Breathe! Just breathe!” So I did. I somehow had the faculties to trust this high speed wisdom. The momentum was only picking up and my friend's only words to me were to do what comes naturally in every other moment…except when your life is flashing before your eyes. I breathed. I took deep breaths that I had never taken before. Within seconds the calm flowed from my head to my toes, literally. The wobbles went away and soon I was ripping down the remainder of that hill with a newfound calm that I could not access before. 

Just a few weeks ago, my son and I traveled back to Chattanooga for a wedding that I was officiating. Ironically the groom is nothing short of a pro skater traveling the globe sharing of God’s love through the medium of skateboarding. So, at some point on Friday afternoon just before the rehearsal dinner my son called me. He had been staying with a friend on the mountain and while the were coming home from lunch, his buddy decided to test out his penny board on one of the steepest downhills between our old house and the lunch joint. My son recalls watching his friend take off downhill and witnessing his friend get the speed wobbles. Right at the peak of the wobbles his friend took two steps off the board at full speed. Classic rookie move. At first, Sam recalls, his friend seemed like he was going to be ok but they both underestimated what the cost of momentum would be. His friend hit the pavement face first and thankfully walked away to tell the tale with some of gnarliest road rash you’ve ever seen. 

I’ve spoken on the topic of toxic momentum many times but I’ve never translated it through the lens of this memory. Speed wobbles are an image that anyone whose traveled way too fast on a skateboard can very quickly identify with. 

On a retreat several years ago, a friend of mine arrived exhausted from the fray of running a non-profit out in Colorado. Not long after arriving on retreat, one of our facilitators had him on his back in the main meeting space walking him through some exercises in therapeutic breathing. Our facilitator shared with him that he was not actually breathing. She said he was panting. Over the weekend she continued to help him absorb and incorporate therapeutic breathing into his life. 

Breathing is one of the most basic things we can do to settle down and combat the internal momentum that picks up when we feel threatened. Speed wobbles are the lived out expression of anxiety under pressure combined with momentum. Breathing brings oxygen to our extremities beginning with our brain. 

Recently a friend described the experience of receiving the news of a friend’s suicide. My friend has, through the years, developed some high level discipline in crisis moments and easily remembers to “battle breathe” when life throws him a curve ball that spikes his hear rate. Breathing is our way back to ourselves. When our breathing pattern picks up momentum, our heart rate increases signaling to our brain and our body that we are actively being threatened. When we perceive a threat we operate from a space that is devoid of calm, compassion, curiosity, creating and connection. Typically we hear an invitation to kill or be killed…to dominate or be dominated…to become godlike. 

Thankfully, our faith narrative invites us to “be still and know that I am God.” This is an invitation to pause, to take a break, to listen for what’s going on and release ourselves from the tyranny of that momentum and rest in the sovereignty of our benevolent God. That means I can learn to let go. 

My life started with one breath and will end with a final breath. All of creation was formed by the very breath of God. The Palmist reminds us, "By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their host. (PSALM 33:6).

May you, wherever you find yourself getting the speed wobbles, breathe deep the breath of God. May you feel your feet settling underneath you. May God’s spirit fill your lungs and settle your soul. May you find a new pace and rhythm more in tune with the way you were made. You were not made for speed. You were made for relationship and momentum, even in good things, can be a thief to intimacy. As we breathe we reclaim and restore that which has been lost. We slow down and practice the sovereignty of God, releasing our need to be needed and having to be so busy. If we refuse then we starve our brains and bodies of the recourse it needs to stay vital and refreshed. 

Just. Breathe.