The Profile of Fear: When Fear Keeps Christian Clinicians from Moving Forward

Camille McDaniel, LPC (00:28)
Welcome back to another episode of Christ in Private Practice. Actually, episode 99. I’m glad to have you with me for another episode as we count our way through the summer and as we are in our almost last episode for this skill set. We have the episode 100 coming up, but this will be the last official skill episode.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (00:56)
Podcast for this summer series, and it is going to be called The Profile of Fear. We’re going to be talking about when fear keeps Christian clinicians from moving forward. So as we move forward with this, fear is actually a pretty significant topic, I’d like to say, because I think that it definitely keeps us from doing a lot of things that we may

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:24)
believe we should be doing or we may feel led to do. And it and sometimes causes us to do other things that are really not the direction that we should be taking. So let me ask you a question for this episode to think about. What would you do if you were not afraid?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:52)
And I really want I do want you to really think about and maybe even if you’re able to and you’re not in the car, write it down, whether it be your journal, if you have notes in an electronic device, what would you actually do if you weren’t afraid?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (02:15)
Think about what you would do professionally if fear was a never part of the equation. And what would you maybe finally say out loud that you have kind of been sitting on? And I’m sure there’s so many different answers, but you know, would you say publicly that you offer Christian integrated counseling? Or maybe write that book that you’ve been sitting on?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (02:42)
And you may have even notes of of what you would write in this book. Maybe it’s all in your head for right now and you haven’t actually written the notes, but it’s been going on for years. And still, not that there’s just no book, but maybe that there’s not even the first couple of paragraphs in the first chapter. Would you start that group that you

Camille McDaniel, LPC (03:10)
knew was needed in your community, or would you maybe develop a training and move in that direction? Might you even decide to start to plant roots and form a private practice of your own? Would you leave the position that you happen to be working in right now that you know you have outgrown? Doesn’t have to be anything negative about the position, but you just know that it is time to continue

Camille McDaniel, LPC (03:40)
to use your gifts and talents in another area.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (03:46)
How about even applying? You know, talking about moving from a position you’ve outgrown. How about even applying for a position that it makes you nervous to think about even getting, but you’re really excited about the possibilities? You may feel like you’re not qualified, quite qualified, right? But

Camille McDaniel, LPC (04:15)
In looking at all of the skills that you bring to the table and the number of years and training and all of that, it’s well within your path to feel like this could be your position. How about this for those who actually are interested in this?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (04:44)
This would you speak up about something happening in our profession that you believe needs to be addressed? Would you allow yourself to become a bit more visible instead of taking a back seat? Or maybe your answer goes in a whole other direction? Maybe if you weren’t afraid, it wouldn’t be about starting something, it wouldn’t be about doing more.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (05:13)
What if for you who are listening to this episode, if you weren’t afraid, you would do less? Maybe you would happen to reduce the number of clients on your caseload, or maybe you would stop trying to build up your social media presence so much and stop accepting every speaking invitation that you’re given.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (05:40)
Or maybe if you don’t accept every speaking invitation, you would be a lot more discerning about which invitations you said yes to. And maybe you would let go of some of the professional roles that you currently hold. And you’d spend more time with your loved ones, more time with your spouse, more time with your children, more time with your parents, or

Camille McDaniel, LPC (06:05)
That favorite cousin or your siblings, maybe if they’re not close by, you would do a little less. You would work out how you needed to make it work, but you would go visit. You would take more time off. You would figure out how to design your work so that you could take more time off. And you would stop, maybe if you were not afraid.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (06:33)
Stop trying to keep pace with what every other clinician appears to be accomplishing. Maybe you believe that the Lord has actually been telling you to slow down and you’re afraid to do it because you’re wondering, well, what if everyone passes me by? And what if my referrals dry up and people forget about me? What if I become irrelevant and if I step away?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (07:02)
And then I can’t get back to where I was before. What am I going to do? So when I ask, you know, what would you do if you weren’t afraid? I don’t necessarily mean what big thing you would build. Sometimes the question is, what would you finally be willing to put down, to let go of, to step away from? Right? So let’s talk about that today. We’re going to

Camille McDaniel, LPC (07:32)
look at fear. we’re gonna kind of approach it a little differently because I wanna examine what would be the profile of fear. Because fear doesn’t always look like, you know, shaking and biting your teeth and a shaky voice and panic and saying, I’m scared. You know, sometimes fear is really sophisticated. You know, it is like

Camille McDaniel, LPC (08:00)
It sounds responsible depending on what you’re saying and doing, right? But really you’re avoiding something that you should be doing. it might even sound a bit humble and and it also can sound like, you’re just in a cycle of preparation because you’re just that type of professional. And and sometimes it can even mimic wisdom.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (08:27)
Or it pretends to, right? That’s why it’s a mimic. But fear can stop us, slow us down, do a lot of things that prevent others from really receiving the gifts and talents that we have to share. Shucks, fear sometimes can, you know, present itself using spiritual language. So I will let let’s let’s take a look.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (08:57)
at at this topic today both clinically professionally and biblically and look at what it actually does what fear actually does especially when fear creates a pause in our life between something we know we’re being led or we believe we’re being led right to do and our actual willingness to actually act on it to move and do that

Camille McDaniel, LPC (09:27)
So let’s let’s take a look and and talk a bit about you know feeling fear. and that’s really not the same as being controlled by fear. Feeling fear and being controlled or governed by fear are definitely two different things, okay? Experiencing fear now, it’s not it’s not necessarily

Camille McDaniel, LPC (09:55)
evidence that something is spiritually wrong. I want to talk about that because sometimes we do use fear as an indicator that there is something going wrong spiritually as well. And that’s not always the case in in Christian communities, we we can sometimes find ourselves looking at fear as like an indicator of something negative that is surrounding us that’s bringing about the fear. I definitely want to bring in

Camille McDaniel, LPC (10:23)
Second Timothy in chapter one and seven, where it says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of sound mind. So depending on you know the translation that you use, you may it may say fear, it might say timidity, or it might say cowardice. So we can kind of look at that a little bit more.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (10:49)
But in some translations, when you look at the Greek, when you look at other translations now, you’ll see that that is actually being used in the way of talking about a spirit of like not not spirit, but but as in being one who is timid, being one who is not as courageous. So

Camille McDaniel, LPC (11:16)
That’s just something to kind of think about when it’s saying, you know, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. So, so something to think about when you’re saying, you know, hey, am I am I being timid in certain areas? am I feeling very little courage, you know, and in other areas. So

Camille McDaniel, LPC (11:45)
Just kind of keeping that in mind because fear is used differently in the scriptures. We know that like if you look at the the Greek text, if you look at the Hebrew text, you have to pay close attention to words and how they’re used because you know, one word used slightly different can have a totally different meaning. And so we wanna just be

Camille McDaniel, LPC (12:07)
be mindful of that as we move forward. So so this just keep in mind, you know, where have I been timid? Where am I not having a lot of courage or feeling kind of cowardly, you know? So yeah. Something to just be mindful of I I’m not going to be able to break down all of the different nuances of that text. That’s not not necessarily what we’re we’re going to be talking about. But

Camille McDaniel, LPC (12:34)
I just wanted to bring that up because I didn’t want people to think like, this is like yeah, like the you know, the kingdom of darkness is sending that spirit this way, but it’s more so talking about like your own character really, you know, saying that the Lord didn’t give you a character of being timid, of being a coward. So again, not timid as in just someone who’s like a little quiet, a little more introverted, but no, this is this is the kind of characteristic

Camille McDaniel, LPC (13:03)
that causes us to shy away from doing those those bold things that maybe the Lord has asked us to do. And we find ourselves feeling, again, like I said earlier, not so, not so courageous, right? You know, so as we kind of move on, I I wanted to just lay that groundwork, if you will.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (14:18)
So let’s move on and look at creating a profile. If fear walked into our office, your office, my office, right? Our offices as a client, what would we notice? Fear is very interesting. it has

Camille McDaniel, LPC (14:46)
A way of wanting to impact the future. It’s very interested in the future. Right? And so the way that might sound in our own minds might look like: well, what if nobody signs up? What if people don’t buy the book? What if clients don’t want Christian counseling? What if my colleagues judge me?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (15:14)
What if I reduce my caseload and then I can’t rebuild it? If you kind of notice, like when you’re, you know, talking as I’m talking that out, when you think about the self-talk that you have for yourself, then notice how some of these come together. Right? None of it has happened. Usually when we are saying those things, none of this has taken place. These are all just again, what?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (15:41)
Fears about what wrong things could happen. Fear is literally you know, it’s asking us to emotionally experience the future. And and it doesn’t exist, right? Because that is the future. And it’s not only asking us to emotionally experience the future, but it’s emotionally experiencing the future going wrong.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (16:06)
Now, planning for potential consequences or potential things going wrong, you know, we don’t want to do that out of fear. Now, planning for the future, planning wisely for the future, that’s a good thing. It’s not saying that you should never look at the future, but you know what I’m saying. There’s a big difference between planning out of fear and planning out of wisdom.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (16:32)
And fear definitely has us feeling like if we do something, the outcome of it in the future is not going to be great. We we are not left feeling good about it. Instead, it brings up a lot of what? Pausing, hesitation, doubt, all of that.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (16:53)
‘Cause it fear often takes the possibilities that could, you know, occur. And and then all of a sudden convinces us that there’s a high likelihood that this is going to occur. And it fear never is dropping onto us anything positive. So it’s it’s a high likelihood now. Now

Camille McDaniel, LPC (17:19)
Now, fear has convinced us that we have a high likelihood of something happening in the future that is not going to be favorable. And we have this whole discussion in our minds. And we haven’t even gotten to the first step of creating anything yet, of doing anything, of putting anything together. It literally stops you at the door before you even get to open the door to creating the group.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (17:48)
It’s like if you put, you know, the thought is if you put all this work into this group and then try to advertise it and market it and nobody signs up, what are you gonna do? Or you’re putting all this work into creating this group and you don’t even know enough people to fill this group up. Who’s gonna come to it? How are you gonna even get anybody in there? So now do you see what I’m saying? How it takes that fear and and you

Camille McDaniel, LPC (18:16)
you start having this self-talk that really has already convinced you that the likelihood, the probability of you having success in the future is going to be very low, right? Close to none. It doesn’t even allow you to appreciate the the small beginnings. Like it especially if it’s something you’ve never done before. Let’s say you’ve never written a book before, but your book gets sold 20 times.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (18:44)
Hey, for somebody who might have never done a book before, maybe you don’t have a large you know, budget for a marketing campaign and for individuals who generally share this with other people and you know, you don’t have anyone maybe connecting you to different podcasters so that you can go on their podcast show and and share your book and on and on and on and all the different things that come with having a good sized budget.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (19:12)
And now because you don’t have that, you’ve convinced yourself that not only is it not gonna go well, but you may find that even if it does go well, well as in, hey, you got 20 people who purchased from you, that you may find yourself dismissing that, not even celebrating the small beginnings, but feeling as though that was a waste or that was no big deal or that what that wasn’t even anything significant.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (19:40)
That’s nothing to tell anybody about. Yeah. All of that before we even get to the first couple of paragraphs.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (19:55)
Fear catastrophizes things. We know this, we know this because we talk to our clients about this. We talk to them about these types of ways of coping. usually catastrophizing is a part of the cognitive behavior therapy model and one of the ways that people negatively cope. And that is the profile of fear. You know, fear doesn’t

Camille McDaniel, LPC (20:24)
just predict the future, but it predicts it in ways that are just catastrophically horrible. So suppose that you decide to move forward because the Lord is just maybe, you know, working on your heart to be able to offer more Christian integration within your counseling practice. And you may still see

Camille McDaniel, LPC (20:53)
a number of people, some who may not have your faith at all, but you just feel led to start to start being more open about and start preparing for offering Christian integrated counseling services. But fear is not going to just say, you know, some clinicians might disagree with that.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (21:21)
Fear’s not gonna just keep it keep it that plain. It’s gonna keep on going. Fear’s gonna keep on talking to you and say, they’ll think that you’re not a legitimate clinician. they’re not gonna refer any clients to you. And then people will start talking about you, and then you’re gonna be known for being a therapist who excludes other people.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (21:49)
Someone might even report you to the licensing board and this will possibly damage everything that you have built. Do you see? Do you see how fear goes so hard to stop you? Again, doesn’t doesn’t come up with just something plain and simple to say.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (22:15)
no, it’s gonna go in and it’s gonna drill it deeper and deeper and deeper until you are darn near convinced. if you have not made a final decision, but really convinced that, this is gonna be this is not gonna be good at all. This is a bad idea. I I can’t do this. I can’t, I can’t do that. I can’t risk all of those things happening. So fear speaks to you.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (22:42)
In ways that now make it a a real possibility in your mind that these things could happen and you don’t want to take the risk.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (22:54)
Someone may disagree with you. So to a catastrophizing kind of mindset, if you will, these are then sentences that kind of link together like chains. And they literally chain your brain, your thoughts, right?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (23:22)
your your heart and cause there to be causes there to be a blockage. And before you know it, you are not using your gifts and your talents in that way.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (23:40)
And when you think about all the links in a chain, all those sentences, all those thoughts that I just spoke, each one being a link to a chain. I want you to envision that and how that grips you, grips your emotions, grips your future to try to leave you stagnant and immobilized. Can you see the plan? Can you see how fear forms a plan?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (24:10)
And starts real simple. And then we find ourselves paused, not able to move forward in that. And every time we even allow a tiny thought to come forward, it immediately evokes all those chains of fear to tighten up, to grip you even harder.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (24:35)
Something else that would be a part of the profile of fear is that fear demands certainty. You know, and that’s interesting because as humans, we do tend to like certainty. Certainty is kind of on the opposite end of instability, right? You know, and we don’t really like things to be unknown. Unknown feels unstable. And so certainty is something that we

Camille McDaniel, LPC (25:01)
Like to lean toward so that we can have some answers. But fear will take that and twist it. Okay. Psychology has an established concept called intolerance of uncertainty. And it essentially describes difficulty tolerating the unknown. And uncertainty is everywhere.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (25:29)
In our professional lives, because we cannot tell the future. We definitely can listen, we can discern here and now in the moment, we can make plans, but we do not know the events that will unfold as we are moving forward with those plans, as we are moving forward to follow the Lord and to use our gifts and talents as He asks us to.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (26:00)
There’s no way to know with certainty whether someone’s private practice is going to be the type of successful that they envisioned. There is no way to know how many people will indeed buy your book.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (26:17)
There’s no guarantees out there that the training that you spend so much time creating will totally fill up whether you have a certain number of people that you envisioned joining you online or joining you in person. There’s no guarantee of it. And how does that feel for most of us, right? Yeah, it’s.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (26:48)
It’s very uncomfortable. Causes a again a lot of instability for us internally. If you believe that you are supposed to be moving on from a job that you’re at that you feel you’ve outgrown, like I talked about in the beginning of this episode, there is no certainty that leaving your job will produce something better.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (27:16)
And if you decide to step back and do less instead of try to do more, again, there is no guarantee that stepping back professionally won’t cost you something. I mean, there’s no guarantee that it won’t cost you anything.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (27:33)
Research increasingly recognizes intolerance of uncertainty is a process that is associated with worry and anxiety. Think about how this can intersect with like Christian discernment.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (27:55)
Because sometimes our desire for certainty all of a sudden becomes spiritualized. Like we can say, you know, I’m waiting for confirmation from the Lord. And sometimes we absolutely should be waiting. But there may also be points in time where we need to really ask what exactly would constitute enough confirmation?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (28:26)
So, so, you know, it’s like we’re waiting for confirmation. Nothing wrong with that. That’s that’s biblical to, you know, to have confirmation. But then what if we get confirmation that doesn’t necessarily align with what we are expecting, what we are wanting to hear, wanting to know.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (28:48)
Because if every confirmation creates a need for another confirmation, then we will no longer be discerning anything. We’re just kind of waiting for more and more confirmations, almost like a jackpot, until we get the confirmation that we want. So we have to just be very mindful of that. Mindful of how fear can create a desire for certainty, where faith requires trust.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (29:18)
And not always being certain of how the path is going to unfold, but being very certain that the Lord will always keep you in the palm of his hand while you are traveling that path, no matter how many highs or lows are on it.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (29:42)
Something else that fear does. Interestingly enough, fear will move the goalpost. So it’s, you know, it’s like you told yourself, well, when I finish graduate school, then I will start that that project. When then I’ll start writing memos to put together for the book. And

Camille McDaniel, LPC (30:10)
That changes. It’s it’s then it’s going to be, well, you know, I can’t really do that after graduate school because I have so many other things that I really need to do so I can get licensed. I I’ll do it when I’m when I’m fully licensed. And then you get fully licensed and you’re like, but I goodness, along the way I’ve just learned so much with regards to the people that I met in the clinical supervision and some of the trainings and

Camille McDaniel, LPC (30:35)
I don’t I don’t know if I am qualified to really do that book right now. You know what? When I have about five years of experience under my belt, then I’ll then I’ll be able to write a book. And then then it’s like, you know what? But there’s this certification coming up, and I really want to get that. I think that’s gonna really help me as I put this together. So I’m gonna start writing the book. I’m really gonna start focusing and buckling down.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (31:03)
once I get this certification.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (31:08)
And then it’s something else. And then it’s something else, right? And and before you know it, I mean it just kind of snowballs into never getting done. Cause there’s just so many things that you’re putting in front of it.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (31:27)
you know, once I save up money. I gotta get a website. I heard that you have you need to have a website if you’re going to actually do this well. So I’ll just I’m just gonna wait until my website you know, comes out. And, you know, I feel like I need an audience. I mean, they’re telling me about social media. Social media, you need to kind of have a following because how am I going to promote a book and I don’t even have a following? Okay, well I’ll I’m gonna get my website done and then I’m just gonna start creating a couple of social media accounts and I’m gonna just build up this following.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (31:56)
And somehow getting started just never happens. It just never happened. It just never happens. And and it’s not to say that getting the training so that you obviously can write the book if that’s what you need. then I’m not saying, just forego the training.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (32:20)
But do you need all of these different things? Do you really need the the training or the fully licensed status? And then do you need to get this extra certification? Like, is all of this absolutely necessary for you to get started? There’s no way that you could get started without it. You know, I mean, because yes, training and competence as a professional is important. It’s ethical.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (32:50)
being prepared, all of that, prepared financially prepared with the proper thoughts and ideas, prepared as far as being able to network and network and market so that you really could actually let people know about it. But here’s another question to ask yourself, have all of the requirements for me to really feel ready to do this thing, this project, whatever the project may be, I was just using a book as an example, but

Camille McDaniel, LPC (33:19)
For you, it might be a training or starting clinical supervision, you know, or doing something else, a consultation group, whatever it may be, have the requirements for you to actually get started constantly changed.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (33:35)
Because fear has a way, it really has a way of moving the finish line. Something else fear will do. And as you’re putting this profile together, this this profile of fear is is looking quite dark, right? fear compares. This one is is really relevant, I believe, in our

Camille McDaniel, LPC (34:04)
professional environment. You know, you open up social media or you go on to a social media platform and another clinician has launched a practice and they’ve published a book and now they have a hundred thousand followers and they’re doing a retreat or they’re doing a retreat in another country. They became certified in something that, you know, you’re either very interested in or maybe something new that you’ve never heard of.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (34:34)
Someone has another set of credentials that they’ve obtained, and you’re you’re feeling like, this is, you know, this is something that’s going to really allow them to move forward, right? And then before you know it, what happens? The life that you were totally content with, literally 10 minutes ago, all of a sudden that life feels very inadequate.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (35:00)
And clinicians themselves describe

Camille McDaniel, LPC (35:04)
This phenomenon in professional online communities, actually. Like seeing other therapists’ content and experiencing what feels like imposter syndrome, because they don’t feel as though they have done enough, they don’t feel as though they have learned enough, they don’t think that they are are putting all of it to use in the way that a lot of therapists are doing. They they’re really generalizing. They might not even know a ton of therapists who are doing what they just saw online, but

Camille McDaniel, LPC (35:34)
They see one or two people who seem to be advancing in the way that they are getting trained and providing trainings or or growing their practices. And then all of a sudden that individual feels like they’re not doing enough.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (35:49)
And they feel as though they’re an imposter, and they feel as though they’re not as much of a professional. They start comparing themselves, and you know, comparison can actually create even more fear. A couple of different types of fear, like like the first, the first type says, I’m behind and I need to do more. And the second type says,

Camille McDaniel, LPC (36:18)
Well, they’re so far ahead. Why should I even try? So one one thing that the fear will bring up is that you have to hurry and you have to create and you have to do and you have to climb and you have to do all these things in order to keep up, you know.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (36:36)
not get left behind. But then on the other hand, there’s then, as I just explained, one that actually dissuades you really from even trying. And it’s more like, you know what, I’m never going to catch up. So I might as well not even try. Interesting. But either way, whether you’re talking about the first one that I just mentioned or the second one, they they both move us away from discernment.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (37:06)
They both get us far, far, far away from discernment. And we want to be very careful about that. Because fear definitely will take over your ability to discern correctly, clearly. So let’s now turn our attention to the pause, right? Okay.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (37:31)
Because fear doesn’t always make people run away. Sometimes it literally will just make us pause. It’ll immobilize us. And sometimes that pause lasts for a long time. Like, have you had anything that you found when you if you’re honest, you really think about how long you’ve been pausing, you’ve been putting off doing something that you know you were being led to do? How long?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (38:00)
How long have you been paused without starting it, without doing it, without finishing it? Months, years, years, a lot of years? Let’s look at some of the places where this all shows up for Christian clinicians. The first pause is offering Christian integrated counseling services.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (38:30)
Maybe you believe that there are clients who specifically want competent mental health treatment that also integrates their Christian faith. And

Camille McDaniel, LPC (38:45)
doesn’t really leave their worldview at the door, right? You know, but maybe you’re already doing this work a little kind of informally. Like you haven’t really mentioned anything, you know, you just bring your worldview to the table as we all do, and your worldview also aligns with this person as a Christian worldview. Maybe you have even trained for it.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (39:14)
And clients are asking for it, but you feel hesitant to really put it on your website. So you’re more like, I don’t really you know, I don’t I don’t say anything about it, but if the client happens to mention it, then I’ll share. Well, why do you think that is? Why is that?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (39:39)
Maybe you’re concerned about what colleagues will say. Maybe you are worried that people will assume that you impose your Christian faith on everyone and that you don’t respect client autonomy.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (39:57)
You might even be worried that some non-Christian clients won’t call you. They’ll they’ll just stop calling you. They will feel as though you’re not going to be for them. You’re not going to be able to actually serve them. You might even be

Camille McDaniel, LPC (40:13)
A bit fearful that another clinician will decide that you’re, you know, one of those therapists, feeling like that you’re not well trained and you are extremely biased, and that you’re not going to be good for anybody else except for just people who are Christians. And so there is research showing that clinicians have identified fear.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (40:43)
lack of training and perceptions of like religion and spirituality as taboo amongst like some of or are some of the barriers to integrating clients religion and

Camille McDaniel, LPC (41:17)
But notice the response that fear can produce. Silence. Literally. And this is where we have to distinguish fear from ethics as well. If you don’t know how to integrate your faith ethically, then get the training. Get the training. I have I have talked

Camille McDaniel, LPC (41:44)
For almost a hundred episodes now, and many episodes talk about ethical and professional integration of Christian faith. There are resources out here. This podcast is one of them. There are also other trainings available out there for CE Credit. There are ways to get fully informed and very clear.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (42:13)
So that you don’t have to feel any hesitation. And if you’re concerned about imposing your values, you can absolutely develop greater self-awareness by getting the training. It’ll develop the clinical competence as well. So these are these are concerns that have solutions. There are there are definitely solutions, professional solutions.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (42:43)
Because see, fear will ask us to hide. But we’re we’re operating ethically, professionally, and and with those ethics and that professionalism, ethics and professionalism ask us to just be properly prepared. We don’t have to hide. We have to get prepared. We have to gain knowledge. We have to know how to use it and integrate it well.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (43:13)
And that is a big difference.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (43:19)
The next thing that we want to look at that sometimes we pause on. So that was pause number one. Pause number two is sometimes writing a book. Like you

Camille McDaniel, LPC (43:31)
You may be listening to this podcast now and you have a book on your heart in your mind, and maybe in a journal or or on an electronic device. You’ve been talking about this or thinking about this or talking to yourself about this for years. You may have notes.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (43:54)
you know, like I said in the journal or an electronic device, and you may have actually written some of those chapters out. Maybe other people have kind of confirmed it for you by saying, you really need to, you need to write about this. This is a topic that people need to hear about. And what do you find yourself doing? Well, you find yourself saying, yeah, I’m gonna finish it.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (44:22)
Or or I have to finish it. I gotta I gotta get around to that.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (44:28)
What exactly is stopping you? What exactly is stopping you? Are you afraid that there are already books out there on what you’re going to be talking about?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (44:42)
Or that you’re not an expert or you’re wondering like who’s gonna buy it and what if people criticize it, or you know, what if another clinician actually knows more about this than I do? So now what do we find ourselves doing? We have moved into that whole kind of imposter syndrome kind of territory, kind of perfectionism kind of territory, right? Feeling like, we can’t compete with other people who already know this.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (45:12)
stuff and and then feeling like okay but I have to wait until this particular time this particular thing lines up you know until everything’s perfect everything’s right okay so we wanna we wanna be careful again we want to just be thinking about this so ask yourself this is there actually a competent way to address this

Camille McDaniel, LPC (45:40)
a comp an ethical, professional, competent way to address this. I mean you want to start to be solution focused about it. Also, I want you to ask yourself,

Camille McDaniel, LPC (45:54)
What does the Lord tell me about this?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (45:56)
Am I requiring myself to possess a level of certainty and expertise that I would never require of another competent professional?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (46:14)
Okay. Remember, competence is like having the idea in your mind of, let me make sure that I know what I’m talking about. That’s that is competence 101, right? Know what you are talking about. But when you notice yourself going down the road of trying, well, not trying to be, but you’re going down the road of perfectionism.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (46:41)
Then your internal talk, maybe even your external talk, starts to sound like, I shouldn’t speak on this. because you know what? Someone else probably knows way more about this than I do. Yeah.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (47:06)
So I really I should only find topics that really almost nobody knows anything about, and I can speak on that. But as long as there’s someone who knows about this, I’m not sure if I can compete with their knowledge. Okay. And then something else that causes us to pause is just the idea of being visible at all.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (47:32)
So maybe it’s not the training. The training is not the problem. Maybe it is being seen teaching the training. Maybe that’s the problem. Or even the book. Maybe the book might not be a problem, but putting yourself out there to say that you have a book for people to purchase, maybe that’s the problem, right? Being seen. Because if nobody knows what you do.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (47:58)
What you believe, then nobody can disagree with you. And that is actually a comfort for a lot of people. Path of least resistance. Okay. So if nobody hears your ideas, nobody can critique your ideas. Okay. All right. So if you don’t go and do that workshop, well, no one can question how you’ve done the workshop.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (48:28)
And you know, it goes on and on and on and on. If you don’t, you know, go out for that new position, that new job or career that you would wanted to really advance to, then no one has to evaluate your performance. No one has to evaluate your professionalism, your ethics, your leadership ability, invisibility.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (48:55)
Invisibility feels very safe. And and that’s where I was referencing earlier, talking about sometimes fear may seem even humble. I think I mentioned that, or well, it was a couple of things I was mentioning, but sometimes fear does seem humble. Yeah, it’s it’s being invisible though.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (49:21)
And being humble and being invisible are not the same things. You can be humble and you can be visible. You can be humble and write a book. You can be humble and teach. You can be humble and do that workshop or that training, right? So you can say, hey, this is an area that I have developed expertise in, and I have something worthwhile to contribute, to share.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (49:50)
You know, you can you can say that.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (49:54)
And it is okay to get feedback because they’re not talking about who you are personally. They may just be giving you some feedback, totally enjoying what you have brought, but just have some ideas of one or two things that can make it even better.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (50:11)
Let’s look at this last one as far as things that can make us pause. this is number four, and that’s starting something. Just starting something.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (50:24)
can give us pause. The idea of starting something can feel overwhelming. Isn’t that wild? Just how thoughts can just have as much weight as a physical object that is very heavy, right? You know, but yeah, starting something like maybe it’s the group practice that you wanted to start. Maybe it happens to be

Camille McDaniel, LPC (50:48)
you know, going telehealth and and offering services via telehealth that you wanted to start or it might be a consultation program or a podcast, you know, maybe you wanted to do a nonprofit or a training or any other number of things. And you believe that this is something that you’re supposed to be pursuing, but then the questions, the the internal, the mental questions start. Well, what if this doesn’t work?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (51:18)
What if nobody comes? What if I lose a lot of money on this? my goodness. What if it doesn’t go the way I envisioned? that would be so embarrassing. And what if people don’t think I’m knowledgeable at all? Right? What if people think that this is really kind of stupid? So let’s notice something about all these questions. All of these questions.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (51:48)
Do require answers. Okay, when you say, like, gosh, what if I lose money? So you’re you know, you’re asking, okay, can I afford this? Well, that’s an important question. So we don’t want to frame it as, my goodness, what if I lose money on this? Instead, that’s a very valid question that should go into any competent, proper planning, right? So then in planning, how much money do I have to invest in this?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (52:17)
How much money can I afford to lose? What if I, you know, decide to do a workshop and I’m going to actually take time out of a part of the day that I would normally see clients? I’m going to move clients over to a different day. And I’m not sure how many can actually move to that day. What if I lose a few clients and I don’t fill up the training? How much can I afford to lose? That’s actually a good question because that might then inform you that you might need to schedule your training on a different day where you don’t have.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (52:47)
Clients that you have to risk moving, you know. So ask yourself the questions, knowing that you shouldn’t let them linger, right? Just like we talk to our clients about this. Don’t let them linger so that they can turn into some, you know, anxiety avalanche. But actually start to give yourself answers.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (53:10)
How about, you know, depending on what you are forming, you might have questions about your legal responsibilities. So instead of, my goodness, well, what if somebody actually reports me to the board for this? What if somebody says that I’m being discriminatory? Well, great question. You need to then start doing some research. You might need to look at your code of ethics.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (53:34)
You might need to contact your licensing board. You might need to seek legal counsel. These are great questions. We’re going to turn what fear is trying to do, which is trying to pause you, trying to stall you. And we’re going to actually give ourselves answers because that’s important for preparation. Yeah. Even asking yourself, do I have the necessary competency level?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (53:59)
Not not well, my goodness, do I have the same level of competence as Brian or Shannon? No, and we’re not doing that. Do I have the the necessary level of competence in order to be able to form this particular service? Great question. You wanna you wanna give yourself an answer? Absolutely, give yourself an answer.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (54:24)
Even the my goodness, what if I’m embarrassed? What if I get embarrassed? What what if I forget something that I wanted to say? All of that can cause us to again pause and walk away, but that’s not what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna give ourselves questions. I mean, we’re gonna give ourselves answers, not more questions. We’re gonna give ourselves answers. All right. So,

Camille McDaniel, LPC (54:51)
I do wanna talk about one more, because this is an another good pause that sometimes comes up when fear shows up. And that is like the fear of stepping back. And we talked about that, you know, it doesn’t always have to be about creating something. This is where we go in a different direction, right? We kind of turn the conversation a little bit because some of you who are listening, you don’t need courage to actually start anything.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (55:20)
Right. You you don’t want to be timid. you don’t want to lack courage when it comes to stopping something because you need you need the courage to stop. And this is one of the things that we all can see and maybe identify with as clinicians. I know that some of us have been having discussions about that. Therapists do talk all the time about self-care. We talk all the time about burnout and exhaustion.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (55:49)
And, you know, reducing our our clinical work and trying to make sure that we are feeding ourselves with other things that are just as important as our clinical work, you know, or some things, for example, that might be to us even more important, like relationship with our spouse or our

Camille McDaniel, LPC (56:08)
our children or our our parents, you know, our friendships, things like that. So we we might notice that we’ve already covered, even in in our us talking to one another, about things that definitely need to be considered.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (56:28)
So clinicians sometimes will talk about a lot of things as it relates to what we’ve already covered with regards to if I step back, then what if life basically my as far as my professional life, what if my professional life just goes on without me and everyone else starts achieving and climbing the ladder and getting new certifications and offering workshops and trainings and they’re doing all the things. And

Camille McDaniel, LPC (56:56)
I’ve slowed down to take more care of my family. You know, and what if what if that kind of costs me as far as being able to have still the same professional power and reach? We need to, again, answer that for ourselves. I mean, think about it. We talk constantly about.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (57:23)
The courage that’s required to build things, but we do not talk a lot about the courage required to just say this season is finished. It’s been wonderful. And now it’s time to pivot. Last episode, last podcast episode, I even said, I feel like I have come with a lot of variety.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (57:52)
In the different podcast episodes. And after episode 100, I will be doing two podcasts a month. I don’t I don’t want to feel the pressure to just produce. I want to be able to bring things that definitely need to be heard, I believe, at this time. And

Camille McDaniel, LPC (58:18)
And I think that I can do that well by stepping back. So as you think about your own situation, your own circumstances.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (58:31)
Maybe you don’t need another certification or not another revenue stream. Maybe you don’t need to grow your practice and add a ton more people or get on additional social media platforms and continue to grow and add more posts, you know, and pictures and sayings and that. Maybe you just don’t need that right now.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (58:57)
And you don’t need another professional goal to reach. Maybe the thing that the Lord is asking you to do is just go home and be with your family. Rest. Reduce your caseload. Take care of your relationships in your life. Whether that’s taking care of your marriage or taking care of and enjoying your children.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (59:25)
or taking care of your aging parents and check on them or anything else. Enjoy going to church without thinking about how many things you can use the sermon for on your social media, how you can write a blog about what you just heard and how you can create something new. Nope. Nope. Nope. None of that. None of that. Just going and being.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (59:54)
In the moment, enjoying yourself, not thinking a thing about how it can be used for something else productive. Just be a person who takes care of home. That is what some of us are called to do. That is, and it might be the season of life that we’re in right now. But see, fear.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:00:23)
Fear comes in and then says, but you know what? Everyone else is growing. Are you sure? Are you sure you’re hearing right? I mean, because everyone else is building and they’re posting. You see all these posts and you’re missing half of it. You’re not going to be able to keep up. You haven’t gotten any new certifications lately lately. You’re not launching anything. you’re gonna really fall behind. Yeah.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:00:53)
And so this right here, see these these things that I’m saying, it’s like that internal talk. And this is where we need to ask ourselves the question who established this race that I feel I need to keep up with? Did the Lord tell me to run the race this way? Feverishly trying to keep up, comparing myself.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:01:20)
devaluing the great things that I might be doing just because they’re not within the office, within the profession.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:01:29)
What exactly are we racing toward if we are racing to keep up? If we are building to keep up, if we don’t want to seem like we’re behind in our profession? What why are we doing all of that? Is that because we feel led to do that, knowing that the Lord is going to lead some of us into productivity and some of us into rest?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:01:53)
And then what you notice is that as time moves forward and we move into different stages and seasons of our life, then some of those who those of us who were called into productivity are called into rest. And some of those who were called into rest are called into productivity. You know, you you want to just keep aware of the message that is relevant for your life. What is the Lord speaking to you? Because

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:02:22)
There are many of us who are hearing a clear message and then looking around at our neighbor to see if they got the same message. And then fear of missing out, that FOMO, right? And because of that, we start to second guess. Did I really hear that message? Did the Lord really tell me that? Because it doesn’t look like the other people got the same message.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:02:53)
This is where we want to really try to lean into what’s most important at this particular time. How does fear set up camp in your mind, in your body?

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:03:11)
Have you been kind of wrestling with some fear? What are the solutions? Ask yourself some real questions, give yourself some real solutions. And let’s kind of move forward so that this doesn’t take over.

Camille McDaniel, LPC (01:03:32)
I hope that this episode has been beneficial and I hope that you pass it on to someone else who can use it. I love to be able to come and talk to you. I thank you so much for being with me on this journey. And until we meet again, God bless you mightily.