by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

Many of my Christian clients feel hopeless to change their anxious thoughts; often citing they have been anxious most of their lives and they do not know any other way of being. Their anxiety keeps them from living the lives they want to live. They are afraid of making change, going out, being with others, getting sick and a myriad of other things.
 
The term neuroplasticity is one that offers hope. It means that the brain has the ability to rewire itself. New pathways and connections can be created; old troublesome patterns of reacting and thinking can be changed. Although the awareness of neuroplasticity has come into being in the latter half of the 20th century, God, the Creator, knew about it from the beginning of time.
 
He knew that our brains would need to be rewired because he tells us in Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
 
The transformation is the rewiring. You may wonder what specifically needs to be rewired? Our thoughts produce feelings and those feelings result in behaviors.
 
Scripture tells us to “test” our thoughts. I will ask my clients to make a list of the things that they worry about and then we will examine each one and ask if the worry is something that is true, or likely to happen. We look at the worst-case scenarios.  If what they are thinking is not true, then we set out to find out what is. Much of the work revolves around what is true about themselves, in light of what God has said, what is true about the nature of God, and what is true about their situation, from God’s perspective.
 
I will ask the client to find a Biblical truth that applies to their distorted thought or worry. Then, to read it over and over. Write it out.  Say it out loud. Pull it apart and meditate on it. Begin to act as though it is true. Turn it into a prayer of thanksgiving.
 
This is no easy task for someone who is used to welcoming anxious or negative thoughts. This vital work leads to a transformed mind that thinks God’s thoughts, resulting in freedom and peace.

by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

You continue to battle the fog with every additional cup of coffee but it never seems to disappear.

​You flit from one thing to the next, without accomplishing much.  There are missed appointments, lost items, sticky notes everywhere reminding you to do things that you have little motivation to do. Your home is such a disorganized mess that an unexpected visitor would bring panic and shame. Your spouse is constantly upset and irritated that you don’t get anything done while he is away at work. He doesn’t understand that drawing and music are the things that bring you joy so you focus there rather than on the mundane tasks of running a household.  More shame.

There is a nagging sense that you were meant for something more; you have somehow greatly underachieved. You are weary; feeling like a failure. You wonder why others accomplish so much more. All of this leaves you anxious and depressed.
 
You have been seeing a counselor for your depression and anxiety. As you share your symptoms, the counselor wonders if you know anything about ADHD. You identify with the symptoms and the more you read and learn the more you realize that this has been your life.
 
There is an “aha” moment of discovery that feels like such relief.

Finally, you can begin to make sense of your lifelong struggles, shame and guilt. You begin to realize maybe you really aren’t stupid and how your difficulty with focus and organization may have been the cause of your poor grades.  Perhaps that “lazy” label your parents and teachers attached to you really isn’t true as you learn more about how your brain is wired and how it is lacking in those neurotransmitters that are related to focus and motivation.

Maybe this isn’t a moral problem (“you need to try harder and have more discipline”) but a neurological problem. There is great relief in this new way of thinking about yourself. Maybe you are not really a scatterbrain. Perhaps you don’t have to be the person who is always late, always interrupting and talking incessantly. The thought that perhaps you could actually get things done is so wonderful!
 
You try medication and in some miraculous way the fog is lifted. You can think clearly. You have motivation. You have arrived at least to the starting line with everyone else.
 
But there is a sadness, a grief over what could have been. What if I you had understood the ADHD while you were in school, maybe you could have achieved more, gone to college, had a better job?  What would it have been like to accomplish what you intended and to actually plan ahead? Could you have kept those friends who left because you never reciprocated?  What would life have been like if your home was well-organized, your children didn’t have to share in the shame of missed appointments or field trip permission slips not turned in? What books have you missed reading and what have you not learned simply because you didn’t have sustained focus?
 
Perhaps you, the reader can in some way identify with this story. A professional counselor can help. If you have ADHD/ADD medication alone is not enough to make changes. Coaching and counseling together with medication can bring about amazing changes so that the grief can pass and a new life emerge. There is hope for you to be all you were intended to be! 

​by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

So much is broken in our world. There is injustice, sickness and job loss. Relationships are broken.  We feel isolated, fearful, angry and even despairing. Listening can be a powerful force for healing these problems.
 
Listening well gives us insight into another’s perspective and can change incorrect assumptions that lead to anger. It can make us more aware of how others are being treated or experiencing life and hopefully bring forth greater empathy and compassion. Having someone listen to our pain somehow makes it feel a little better.

Talking about job loss can stimulate new ideas for work or career change. Listening can help those who are lonely. How life-giving it would be if we asked, “what must life be like for …?”, and then were intentional about asking! Having someone help us name our fears and explore them often makes them seem less powerful and more manageable. When they stay inside, they can become more irrational and terrifying.
 
Perhaps you don’t have someone in your life who listens well. A good professional counselor will listen well with the intention to understand.
 
The most powerful listening occurs when we listen to the One who created us. He can change our hearts, bring healing to our broken relationships, and set us free from anger and fear. He can provide direction and turn our despair into hope. The Creator desires to use us to facilitate healing. He had a reason for giving us two ears and one mouth.

​by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

Just saw a funny meme that said, “For the second part of this quarantine, do we have to stay with the same family or are they going to relocate us?”

Perhaps some of you have had similar thoughts about your spouse. You wonder how you can make your marriage work so that a second quarantine could be more enjoyable. The quarantine has a way of shining its light on the holes and hurts in your marriage. Problems that have been placed on the back burner when life was busy are now coming to the forefront. The disconnect in your marriage is only adding to your overall anxiety during this pandemic.
 
The quarantine light is revealing lots of new things, many not so good: new views of your spouse at work, maybe working too much or too little. Their messy work space has invaded your peaceful gathering place for dinner. There is an underlying tension and irritability between you and your spouse that goes beyond the current tension of a barking dog or noisy kids during a business call.
 
For those whose work has been deemed “non-essential”, the stress of lost income, fear of not having a job to return to, or the lost hope of reopening a business you have spent years building, all add a new level of stress. You may be fearful, depressed, irritable and anxious; perhaps sleeping too much or too little, eating too much or not enough, wondering if life will ever be the same?
 
But there’s something more going on than the common pandemic stressors.  Just being in your spouse’s presence causes feelings of irritability and sadness. Destructive habits of criticism and withdrawal from each other have become the norm. Apathy has set in. Walls have been erected. What has happened to your early love? Years of neglect, unresolved hurts and unforgiveness cause the heart to grow cold. 
 
What can you do? Is it possible to have this time of quarantine be a life-changer for your marriage? Absolutely!
 
START WITH YOURSELF:
Ask the Lord to show you all the ways you have hurt your spouse. Write them down. Ask Him to help you feel grief for all those hurts. Ask Him to forgive you. Then go to your spouse with your list and ask if there are more ways you have been hurtful. Listen to the hurts. Ask for forgiveness. Encourage your spouse to do the same. Extending grace and forgiveness to each other is key to the healing process.
 
COMMIT TO A NEW START:
Assume the best about each other. Imagine what this time is like for your spouse. Encourage conversation and pour out extra love and patience. It may just return in twofold measure.

Filling up your gas tank lately has been easy on the pocketbook. Filling up your spouse’s love tank will cost you very little and nothing else will yield a higher return of happiness. If you don’t know your spouse’s love language, find out at 5lovelanguages.com. Then, be intentional about expressing love in their love language, even if you don’t feel it at first.
                   
Your marriage may be the one stressor you can control in this crisis, with some humility, forgiveness and effort. A few sessions with a professional counselor may speed the process. Video or phone counseling at this time can be very effective and there is still time before we return to normal. The good news is that your marriage will not just return to the way it was, but can emerge much stronger than ever before.

by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

Many couples remain stuck in the same toxic patterns of interaction, never able to make progress.

Why?
​
Often because there are hurts from the past that have never been communicated, heard, understood and then forgiven. The results are ugly: anger, contempt, partners who are emotionally shut down, hardly able to look at each other, maybe sleeping separately. They cannot move forward until they have taken a few steps backward and for some, years  backward.                        
 
We easily can identify how someone has hurt us. It takes humility and much soul-searching to see and acknowledge how we have hurt someone else. A couple must listen to each other’s hurts, empathize with the hurt, ask questions, listen, ask more questions and reflect until they begin to feel something. Perhaps for the first time, to cry over the pain they have caused. A softening begins, listening improves, and eventually both partners are open to forgive. Tears of joy flow with extending and receiving forgiveness.
 
If the couple are Christ followers, they know they must forgive as the Lord has forgiven them. That’s what love does. We love because He first loved us. We can enter into the wonderful cycle of being loved by our Creator, then loving and forgiving our spouse. We will get stuck again. But if we can articulate the hurt, listen to our spouse’s hurt, then we will be able, by God’s grace, to forgive again and again and again. Perhaps up to something like seventy times seven.

by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

It may be puzzling that your teen who has ADD can play video games for hours but has difficulty cleaning his room or getting his homework done. And why is it that his grades are so inconsistent?

It’s not that those with ADD cannot pay attention but rather they attend to those things their brain finds most stimulating. This brain can hyper focus for long periods of time when interested.  A person with ADD can spend hours on creative endeavors, but when it comes to the mundane things of life they struggle and must have something to motivate them, often a deadline or a way to think about the task more creatively.
 
A perfect example of this is a young boy who is asked to go out and wash the family car; not a chore he would normally find interesting. So how does he get the task accomplished? He pulls on his rubber boots, fireman jacket and hat and pretends to put out a fire as he washes the car. He has learned, at a young age, how to make a mundane task interesting and fun enough to get it done!
 
This is one trick, among many that the ADD brain can use to accomplish many of the mundane tasks of life. Playing “beat the clock” with a timer, or setting up a reward system after working at the task for a specified time can help. Finding an ADD counselor/coach who understands your ADD brain is even better!

by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

People often come to counseling because events from their past have damaged how they see themselves.

Past abuse, abandonment, or bullying can result in feelings of worthlessness and unnecessary shame. A Christian counselor can help the client talk through the past events, grieve all that was lost and then examine their thoughts about themselves in light of the Scriptures. Psalm 139: 13 says, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Truly understanding how we have been created, in the image and likeness of God, dispels the false belief that we are worthless. Does this happen overnight? Not usually. It is a process.
 
Psalm 1 says that if we delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate on it day and night, we are blessed. Why blessed? Because when the truth soaks into our minds, and penetrates our hearts, we are changed by the power of God’s Spirit. The truth sets us free from false beliefs and changes the way we feel and behave. Our countenance begins to change as the truth takes hold in our hearts.
 
Romans 12:2 tells us that we are to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. In the Greek, transformation means a metamorphosis or the complete change from the inside out.
 
A Christian counselor would delight in helping you enter this process of transformation, from one degree of glory to another. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us.

We come to the table with mixed emotions and challenging circumstances. Family conflict is seated and the turkey dinner somehow doesn’t taste as good as last year.  Grief is present and tears saturate the beautiful tablecloth. The chair where an adult child usually sits is empty because family is no longer a priority. Physical pain makes another chair almost impossible to sit on. Another chair is full of worry because its occupant has suddenly lost his job.
 
This is life in a broken world. Conflict, grief, physical pain and financial loss are not strangers to any of us. We fear that our pain will reveal itself in those family photos.
 
We may need to seek professional help to learn new coping skills, gain insight into how to navigate conflict, or have someone just listen to our grief and help us find some light.
 
We might not be able to change our circumstances but we can definitely change the way we think about them. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” If we know that God is good, that He is sovereign in our lives, and that He loves us, we can trust that whatever is happening He is with us, and is working for our good and His glory.

That truth can put a smile on your face. At least long enough for that picture!

by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

Navigating the world of friendship begins to feel more overwhelming as our children reach middle school. If your child has ADHD, the journey is even more complicated. Symptoms of ADHD like fidgeting, impulsivity, and distractibility, are not friendly companions to a middle school conversation.

These are symptoms that are not easily controlled. The ability to listen without interrupting may be hindered by the distracted ADHD mind that is going in many different directions. Good conversational skills include a give and take rhythm and the ability to stay on topic.  If a child talks too much without listening, interrupts others, or is not paying attention, they can be viewed as not caring, selfish or rude.
 
What’s a parent to do? It is heartbreaking to have your child report that he is feeling left out of former circles of friends. Invite another child over for an activity; perhaps one who is a bit younger so that they are social equals. Observe from afar the interactions so that you can see what might be going wrong. Role play other ways the interactions could have gone.
 
Children need to know that social skills take time to learn and must be practiced. We are all growing in our ability to communicate, resolve differences and initiate with new people. Your job as a parent is to model healthy friendships, observe your child’s interactions with others, coach, reward progress made, and if necessary, consult with a professional counselor who understands ADHD.

by Deb Toering, LPC, NCC, BCPCC

Deb Toering is a Board Certified Professional Christian Counselor (BCPCC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with a wide range of client populations and presenting issues, Deb is also an engaging public speaker. She has spoken in front of various groups across a range of topics including marriage, bullying, ADHD/ADD, and teen leadership.

Sin. Not a popular topic to discuss at a dinner party or really anywhere else. Not so for the followers of Christ; it is something we should be considering on a daily basis.

Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

How is the discussion of sin relevant in Christian counseling? Our sin affects our mental and spiritual health. Unless it is confessed, our guilt and shame can cause a distance between us and God and others. Harsh words, self-centeredness and anger all take their toll on our relationships. Unconfessed sin causes us to lose our joy and peace. Guilt and shame can cause us to be anxious, angry or depressed. Considering our own sin is essential to our relationship with God and to each other. When we do not turn from it, it can destroy us and those around us. Many have suffered because of the sins of others.

We were designed to be in a right relationship with our Creator, and when we are, other relationships tend to go better; broken relationships can be healed.

The good news about this sin stuff is that when we admit it, He forgives it. Yes, this is certainly a topic that can come up in a Christian counseling session. Oh what joy when it is discovered, confessed and forgiven!