Shane and Shane on the Father-Daughter Relationship and God (and win their new album here)

August 17, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Pastoral Counseling, Therapy-Psychology with 51 Comments

Your daughter needs God. And she wants you to be the one to show her who He is, what He is like, and what He thinks about her. She wants to believe that there is more to life than what she sees with her eyes and hears with her ears. She wants to know that there exists someone who is smarter, more capable, and more loving than (even) you. If you are a normal, healthy father, you should be glad that she wants to believe in someone larger, because you know all too well that many times you will fail her. You forget her recital, miss games because of business trips, or lose your temper and say painful things to her. You are just a normal, good-enough dad doing the best you can. You need to have someone behind you, someone your daughter can turn to when you’re not there. You both need a bigger, better father on your side. (Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, by Meg Meeker, pp. 176)



When I came across Shane and Shane’s amazing new record and title song The One You Need and watched their video…it left me in a tearful and emotional place.

I’m the father of a four year old girl that I absolutely love and adore with everything that I have and all that I am.

And yet…everything I have to offer her, and everything that I am to her…at the end of the day is just not enough.

There has to be something more for her in this life…and so when I read the lyrics of the song I found myself resonating with it and saying, “Yes, yes, yes.”

Meg Meeker in her amazing book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know — and in her chapter Teach Her Who God Is talks about the importance of fathers teaching daughters about who God is. (By the way, this is the best book on fathers/daughters and one I can’t recommend enough)

Shane and Shane’s lyrics reminded me as well that as a father my most important role is to teach my daughter who God is….end of story.

Hey, hey, sweet daughter
I am so proud to be your father
Each day’s like a gift from God.

Hey hey sweet daughter
There’s no music like your laughter
And your smile is like a rising sun.

You know I love you from the start
So come in close take my hand
While daddy shares his heart.

I wish that I could be your everything
Be the one who give you all the things you need
Sometimes I am gonna let you down
But there is a way if you just believe
He’ll be your hero like He’s always been for me
Daughter Jesus is the one you need.

No matter what you walk through
He will always love you
Just the way you are.

for there’s nothing in this world
There all for my baby girl
Until be happy ever after.

The history at your life still untold
I pray the King of all the universe, will make your heart His home.

(Chorus)

Who will never leave spending it all alone
All in your where you came fight to Lord.

Shane and Shane have been so kind to offer up their new album to 5 commenters on this blog post. Here’s how it will work:

Leave a comment below answering the question:

What do you think is the most important piece of advice that a father needs to know about raising a daughter?

You have till this Friday (August 19, 2011) at 12pm Central time to post your comment and then I will randomly draw five commenter’s names and contact you with the code for a free purchase of their new album. So don’t forget to put your email in the comment section below.

And in the meantime….if you can’t wait to see if you win, check out their new album or connect with the guys online.

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

Marriage: The Two Becoming One Is Not What You Think…

August 16, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Pastoral Counseling, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments


[image by The Welsh Poppy]

Differentiation is a natural process in committed relationships that involves developing more of a self while growing closer to your partner. Men often sacrifice their relationship to hold onto their sense of self. Women often sacrifice their sense of self to stabilize their relationship. Differentiation is about having it both ways: having a stronger sense of self and a stronger relationship. (An Interview with Dr. David Schnarch)

.

Over the last couple of weeks there has been some back and forth online debate about writer Donald Miller’s two blog posts that eventually led to this post by him, How to Delete a Good Love Story — and writer Rachel Held Evans’ response with this blog post My Story Is More Interesting Than That.

It was pretty fascinating watching the online exchange and perusing through all of the online comments. Obviously as a Christian community we are often divided on what relationships and marriages look like. More specifically we tend to be divided on the roles and boundaries between men and women in relationship with one another.

I think that this is a fascinating topic and it’s one that is often at the forefront of my work with couples in counseling — and for that matter the Christian counseling/therapy community is divided as well.

As I was following some of this online conversation I was reminded of the words of two of my favorite poets….The Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the Lebanese American poet "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran">Kahlil Girban.

One of the things that has drawn me to these two poets, especially when they write on love and marriage is the way in which they speak of relational boundaries, specifically what we talk of in marriage therapy as differentiation (paraphrasing David Schnarch: knowing where one begins, and one ends. Or the balance between one’s desire for belonging/relationship, and the desire for freedom/independence). This has always been intriguing to me, but even more so as I work with couples in therapy.

Knowing where one begins, and one ends in a relationship/marriage, as well as the balance between one’s desire for belonging and independence is something that I think Rilke and Gibran capture beautifully:

Rilke on Marriage…

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”

……….

“To love is good, too: love being difficult.

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it.

With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love.

But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is–solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves.

Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate–?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself for another’s sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”

Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

“THEN Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

When the Two Become One
One of the biggest issues for Christian couples who come into counseling is their conflict over the role expectations of one another in the marriage. These missed expectations often lead to lots of relational boundary issues and conflict over one’s sense of self in marriage. I think in many communities there is a belief that when “the two become one” (Mark 10:8/Genesis 2:24) that means that they are to lose each other and their sense of self in their marriage.

More commonly in the Christian community it has been expected that the woman is to give up her sense of self for her husband. In my experience as a pastor and therapist and husband…expecting a spouse to give up themselves for the marriage tends to only lead to resentment and anger and conflict. A withdrawing from the marriage, rather than an engagement with one another. It is also very common in some more traditional Christian marriages that a spouse’s dissatisfaction with the marriage will be less likely to find a voice, but instead remains silent. Only leading to more and more missed expectations that are not communicated.

And often we have assumed that when “the two become one” the are to totally be dependent upon one another for each other’s needs and satisfaction in the marriage and in life. That is a tall order that not even the most well adjusted spouse can fulfill.

In reflecting on all of this I have really just come to appreciate the work of Terry Hargrave and Shawn Stoever in their book Five Days to a New Marriage. This is the model that was developed at The Hideaway where I am on staff, and it is a model that I have seen help create more healthy marriages than any others.

I like that in this model marriage is not solely dependent upon our partner. Too many spouses are sitting around waiting and expecting for their spouse to meet and fulfill every need. Sure, our partner has a role to play and there is a mutual interdependency that occurs. But ultimately, as Christians our marriage and our sense of self is dependent upon God, and not on others. We must learn to take responsibility for our own selves in marriage and not wait for our partner to meet every need. A truly healthy marriage is two people in a relationship taking responsibility for themselves in order that they are better able to be in a position to respond to their spouses.

So ultimately, we live a great love story when our life is anchored and dependent in Christ, not solely dependent on others for our wants and needs. And when we are in the position of dependency upon Christ, then we are truly freed to respond out of a place of love and trust in a relationship of mutuality and reciprocity with our spouses. (Ephesians 5:21).

One Woman’s Journey to Help Others Share Their Stories

August 9, 2011 in Transitioning, Writing with 1 Comment

A few months ago, a friend of mine pointed me towards the blog and online shop of Katie Clemons. My friend knew that I love to journal and thought I would like her stuff and her story.

And he was right. I love the story of how Katie came into journaling and how that passion for story and writing fueled her endeavor to develop her own line of journals.

Keeping a journal has been one of the most important ways that I have been able to thoughtfully reflect on my life. That reflection has been really important as I have made decisions and transitioned through different stages of life.

So I decided to ask Katie a few questions about journaling and life. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you find her story inspiring.

  1. Katie, I love the story about how your journals came to fruition. Can you share what the catalyst was behind you launching Gadanke?

A couple of years ago, NPR’s StoryCorp was in town. It was also my grandma’s 90th birthday.

The two of us decided to hop into the recording studio to capture some pieces of her story. I had all sorts of prompts to help her with her story telling. (I was always the listener, the one who asked question after question.)

The only problem?

My grandma couldn’t remember. Too much time had passed.

Later, my dad turned to me and said, “Katie, I need you to write down your story.” I knew he wished he had his mom’s stories. So I started writing. I started wondering about all of the other women who have stories deep inside of them, and I started thinking about how my tendency to just listen and ask could help put those stories onto paper. Gadanke was born with fabulous writing prompts and recycled papers. I feel so lucky to be living my dream.

I’m fascinated by the various transitions in our lives and I’m wondering how journaling one’s story can better help them navigate these transitions? Have they helped you navigate your own transitions in life? How for example?

When you journal, you are not audience-focused. Blogs, facebook, and conversations with friends have added so much to our lives. But we tend to share what we want other people to know or what we think will get the biggest response.

Journaling is about connecting with your heart or God.

I often think of a dear customer of mine. She has been struggling with infertility. Not too long ago, her sister announced her own pregnancy, and in all this joy for the sister, the woman also felt so much pain and sadness. She couldn’t talk about this pain on something like Facebook or her blog. She wanted to be happy for her sister!

So she journaled.

She let out that pain by writing about it.

These are transitions in life that are obvious and that we can feel. I want to help people draw those stories out.

I also want to draw out the stories that we don’t even realize are something that matter. We don’t realize that our normal right now will be totally different in 20 years. So often, we don’t even realize the transformations growing in our hearts. But they show up on paper. In 20 years, wouldn’t it be awesome to read about? Wouldn’t it be awesome to read that about our parents and grandparents?

What advice would you give someone who really wants to write more about their life, but feels like they have nothing to say….or feels like they don’t know how to organize their thoughts?

First – your story DOES MATTER. It matters to the people who know you. It matters to the people who will know you in the future. It’ll matter to the people who will never get to meet you but will hear about you. And it matters for you.

My entire mission with Gadanke is to create prompts that capture the stories for you. I love creating quotations that will have you thinking about favorite foods in childhood, where you dream of going, and what a typical today is like for you.

Katie, there are lots of journals out there in the marketplace, but I was wondering if you could tell us why you believe yours are best designed for people who want to “celebrate their story.”

I cannot claim to be better because our stories are all so different. So I focus on making something that can be most adaptable to anyone. Here are two things customers embrace in my products:

1. Gadanke journals have loose rings that you can pop open. Add more pages; reorganize the pages; hole punch and add letters, postcards, and memorabilia. It becomes a scrapbook with your story if you want it to be.

2. Gadanke journals have lots of extra bits. Library cards, tags, pockets, stickers, and Italian patterned papers give your stories a visual dimension. Plus they’re so fun to vary your writing on!

You can connect more with Katie online at:

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Openness and Authenticity Are Not Enough

July 27, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Therapy-Psychology with 14 Comments

I’m currently reading a really great book, Restoration Therapy: Understanding and Guiding Healing in Marriage and Family Therapy by Terry D. Hargrave and Franz Pfitzer. In fact, I can’t recommend it enough.

But as I was reading last night this section of the book jumped off the page at me. It jumped off the page at me because they finally said what I have been thinking before regarding the role and risk of openness and authenticity, but have been unable to formulate myself.

There is a culture (Millennials, certain church environments, etc.) that highly values openness and authenticity, but it is often just about being those things…rather than what those things can lead to. So for example you hear people say, “This is just who I am…either you accept me or you don’t.” Or “I’m just being real.” Or, “I’m just being honest with you…that’s how God created me.”

We like talking about our flaws and imperfections in an authentic way with others. But the purpose of being authentic is not just about sharing our flaws and imperfections…nor is just about being open in order to be accepted for who we are. Rather, true openness and authenticity reflect back to us ways in which we need to grow as people. But too many of us stop short from allowing that reflection to transform who we are…we seem to just be content frolicking in our flaws and imperfections, demanding that others just accept who we are…because after all we tell ourselves, “Hey, this is just me…this is just who I am…God made me this way.”

But God wants more from us…He wants us to grow and to be transformed not only individually but in our relationships with others.

Glad I came across this passage that really brought some clarity to this issue for me.

“A person is only being human and worthy of respect and admiration when open about flaws and imperfections so he or she can deal with them honestly.

Openness is essential for us to be able to trust in relationships because it allows us to deal constructively with these elements of imperfection. If I know that I am imperfect, am unreliable in the way I perform my responsibilities, or irresponsible toward justice in relationships, then deep down I know that everyone copes with the same problem. When one is open about these flaws, the person is openly acknowledging that areas of deficiency; this makes it much more likely that the person will use the openness as an opportunity to correct shortcomings and to grow. Openness alone about flaws without addressing the shortcoming is unfortunate in relationships because it demands that the other relational partner simply adjust to the shortcoming and live as if a problem cannot be corrected or is actually no problem. While we agree acceptance in relationships is important (Jacobson & Christensen, 1998), we do feel that untrustworthy and unloving behavior in relationships is unacceptable….Openness is not about saying, ‘This is the way I am, and to be in a relationship with me means that you take me as I am.’ Rather, it means, ‘This is what I see in myself, and I believe that I can be better.’ When openness points towards growth, our imperfections and flaws and those of our relational partners actually pull us together more clearly in an intimate bond.” (pp. 27)

Do Churches Try and Protect Their Congregants from Anxiety?

July 12, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine shared an article with me on my Facebook profile called, How to Land Your Kid in Therapy.

It is a fascinating read for sure, and well worth your time.

But I was especially taken by this passage:

Paul Bohn, a psychiatrist at UCLA who came to speak at my clinic, says the answer may be yes. Based on what he sees in his practice, Bohn believes many parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.

Consider a toddler who’s running in the park and trips on a rock, Bohn says. Some parents swoop in immediately, pick up the toddler, and comfort her in that moment of shock, before she even starts crying. But, Bohn explains, this actually prevents her from feeling secure—not just on the playground, but in life. If you don’t let her experience that momentary confusion, give her the space to figure out what just happened (Oh, I tripped), and then briefly let her grapple with the frustration of having fallen and perhaps even try to pick herself up, she has no idea what discomfort feels like, and will have no framework for how to recover when she feels discomfort later in life. These toddlers become the college kids who text their parents with an SOS if the slightest thing goes wrong, instead of attempting to figure out how to deal with it themselves. If, on the other hand, the child trips on the rock, and the parents let her try to reorient for a second before going over to comfort her, the child learns: That was scary for a second, but I’m okay now. If something unpleasant happens, I can get through it. In many cases, Bohn says, the child recovers fine on her own—but parents never learn this, because they’re too busy protecting their kid when she doesn’t need protection.

I think that we often do the same thing in the church as well.

Take this quote:

“parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.”

And re-write it like this:

“churches will do anything to avoid having their congregants experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment-’anything less than pleasant.’”

I just see too often instances where pastors will swoop in and try and rescue a congregant from having anxiety as they wrestle with scripture or with God. They somehow believe that any anxiety is wrong and the person should have a solid certainty about God’s truth. So much for the dark night of the soul.

Or a youth pastor tries to keep a youth kid from asking too many tough questions that promote some anxiety in the group, and uncomfort with the youth pastor themself.

Or a worship planning meeting will spend endless hours managing every detail of a service so that nothing unplanned happens, or no mistakes are made. Sometimes I wonder if they are just trying to stave off any anxiety that may arise during the service in congregants or themselves if something were to not go off as perfect.

Much of church life is geared around trying to protect people from the frustrations of life and from experiencing any discomfort during church or their spiritual lives.

I say this from experience in my own work as a pastor for many years, and from what is conveyed to me by clients who come in for counseling.

But if anxiety is unpermitted in the church pew, then where else can they go to freely express it than the counseling office?

An Experience and a Book to Radically Transform Your Marriage

June 21, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Pastoral Counseling, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

If you find me talking about something a lot then that means I’m a huge believer in it.

And you would be hard pressed to find me talking more about something this last year than The Hideaway Marriage Experience and 5 Days to a New Marriage.

I blogged about my first experience at The Hideaway in November of last year. Since that first trip last year I have returned 3 more times as a co-therapist and have now gone on staff as one of the therapists. On top of that, their new book 5 Days to a New Marriage has been released (this month).

No experience has more fundamentally changed my marriage than my time at The Hideaway (and I haven’t even gone with my wife yet since I’m always doing therapy). That’s how powerful the experience is. Heather and I have been working through the book together and we have come to a new place in our marriage where it’s not just about having a good marriage, but a great marriage that is continually growing and thriving. But it’s the model developed at The Hideaway (by Shawn Stoever and Terry Hargrave) and presented in the book that has helped Heather and I understand each other in new ways.

I’m going to be spending some time over the next couple of months writing more about the experience at The Hideaway as well as talking about the model that is presented in the book. I believe that both have the power to change your marriage in amazing ways.

If you are interested in having me present a marriage workshop based on the 5 Days to a New Marriage book, or you are interested in having me train your staff or lay leaders in the model, then please let me know.

I have used a lot of marriage books, models, and tools during my time as a pastor and therapist, but I have found NOTHING as good as what they have developed here.

So don’t wait to transform your marriage.

Start today by attending a marriage intensive, picking up the book, or having me come out and lead a marriage workshop.

Your marriage is worth it.

Managing Anxiety in the Family System: How Couples Can Do a Better Job of Owning Their Own Anxiety

June 7, 2011 in Marriage-Family with 2 Comments

I would estimate that in about 70%-80% of the situations in which kids are brought into my office for counseling, the presenting problems have less to do with the individual child, and more to do with what is happening in the larger family system, and more particularly in the couple’s marriage (or former marriage). The children have often become the scapegoats or the symptom-bearers for the marital problems.

One of the newer relationships that I have become engaged in is a relationship with the Fuller Youth Institute. I love the work that they do in providing training, research and resources for youth workers, youth and families. In June I wrote an article for their E-Journal called Managing Anxiety in the Family: Strategies for Changing Our Relationship Dance.

Anxiety is a huge issue in the lives of many people, and it is often manifested in the lives of the youth I work with. In this article I wanted to help families understand how anxiety works within the family system, and how when couples avoid relational conflict they often end up placing their anxiety onto the lives of their kids. I hope that you will find some of my recommended strategies helpful, and that you become not only more aware of this issue, but that it will also help you avoid casting your anxiety onto others in the process.

How Ministry Leaders Avoid the Hard Work of Boundary Setting

June 1, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 3 Comments

We talk a lot about boundaries in our culture.

“Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.

Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom.” (Boundaries, Townsend and Cloud, pp. 29)



In fact, boundaries is one of the first things I address most often in my therapeutic work because a lack of clear and defined boundaries often leads to many problems in relationships with people. If people don’t have clear boundaries they often have a confused sense-of-self and identity.

But I feel like I’ve started to notice a trend regarding boundaries, especially in ministry circles.

The trend is this

A pastor/ministry leader/lay leader, et cetera makes a sweeping or non-negotiable statement about the boundaries they are practicing or want to practice.

Usually the statement comes from up front, preferably in front of many people as possible (Sunday worship perhaps) so as to communicate to as many people at one time the established boundary.

It may go something like this

“Because our church is so big, or because I’m so busy, I want you to know that I will NEVER personally return any emails/phone calls that you send to me. And I will NEVER meet you one on one at dinner/lunch/coffee, et cetera. I have a family and it’s a boundary that I have set in order to protect them.”

Though there are situations that this may be appropriate, it often feels like many ministry leaders do this in an attempt to avoid the difficult task of establishing healthy boundaries that can only come about in up and close relationships and interactions with other people.

Sure, it’s easier to just cut people off and avoid them.

Sure it’s easier to tell 6,000 people you will never return their emails than to have a heart to heart conversation with them about why you are setting a boundary with them regarding their emails.

It certainly helps us try and squash our own anxiety…but it certainly doesn’t lead to the relational growth that I think is necessary for not only people…but especially ministry leaders.

We only grow as people when we have to do the day in and day out hard work of being in relationship with people. We don’t grow by avoiding them or cutting them off.

I definitely think ministry leaders can do a better job of setting boundaries, but I just wonder sometimes if they avoid it because it’s such hard, ongoing work. Nothing is easier than getting up front and just delivering a boundary in front of 6,000 people. That way we can avoid the individual relational interaction and just address the big, anonymous crowd before us.

And when we do this, I wonder if we are actually avoiding the task of being a pastor.

How do you go about setting boundaries in your own life and ministry work? Any tips or suggestions?

Our Emotions and Grace

May 23, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

“Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people….We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The Good News of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.”

What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey (quoting counselor David Seamands)

Today We Are Debt Free: $75,000+ Paid Off in 31 Months

May 19, 2011 in Transitioning with 27 Comments

My wife Heather and I will never forget today…May 19, 2011.

As of today we are completely debt free.

We owe no one any money for anything.

We got up this morning and paid off our final debt to Citibank…goodbye graduate school loans. It has been a long, hard process, but one of the most freeing experiences of our lives.

In 2007-2008 my wife and I began to talk more seriously about moving from California to Texas so that we could be closer to family. Our daughter had just been born in July of 2007 and we were feeling overwhelmed living in Los Angeles. Don’t get me wrong…we loved living there, but we had made some unhealthy financial decisions that just left us feeling like we didn’t have any room for error, or any room to step out and take risks.

Like a lot of people in LA we were hoping that the home we had purchased in Pasadena in 2005 was going to pay us back a huge profit after we sold it a few years later. And for a while, that dream looked like it might come true. I would on occasion search comps in our neighborhood and I noticed that our home’s market value was listed about $110,000 more than what we had paid for it two years earlier. But that all came crashing when the housing bubble burst, and the home that we thought was going to make us a huge profit ended up costing us.

So in June of 2008 I quit my job as the college director at Bel Air Presbyterian Church. We sold our house in July of 2008…having to actually come up with $40,000 to pay off the loan (that’s how bad our house price sunk)….wiping out all of our savings that we had stored away in a savings account…$40,000 to be exact. And in August of 2008 we loaded up our cars and drove from Pasadena to Dallas, TX.

We felt overwhelmed.

My wife was continuing to work for her company in LA from our home in Dallas, and I was struggling as a marriage and family therapist associate…often bringing home $-0 after we figured in what I made that month vs. the amount of money I was paying for supervison.

$55,000 in student loans for two graduate degrees.

$20,000 in credit card debt that we racked up in the month leading up to the move and the move itself.

Total: $75,000….it seemed like a mountain we couldn’t overcome and we felt stuck.

So we just decided in October of 2008 that we were “sick and tired of being sick and tired” of all the debt. I had heard that phrase from Dave Ramsey who I had just discovered on the local Dallas affiliate 570AM. I had heard of Dave before, but I just thought he was that crazy guy who told people to cut up their credit cards and pay with cash for things. But the more and more I listened to him the more and more I was drawn in.

I still remember my wife and I purchasing his book The Total Money Makeover Workbook and audio CD’s. We probably actually bought them with credit at the time…sorry Dave. For a couple of nights we sat down and listened through the audio CD’s and we worked through the workbook. We were stunned. Could it really be this easy to get out of debt? No tricks? Just straight forward hard work?

Those couple of nights sitting down at the kitchen table with Heather as our baby daughter was asleep were the turning points for us. We made a promise then to just attack the debt with “gazelle intensity” as Dave talked about.

So for 31 months we drastically changed our lifestyle.

We stopped eating out…except for an occasional inexpensive meal every few weeks.

We stopped buying clothes. I think Heather and I probably have spent a few hundred dollars in the last 31 months on some necessary items.

We drastically cut entertainment. We’ve probably been to less than 10 movies in those 31 months. We cut magazine subscriptions. We didn’t buy new gadgets or spend much money on music.

We stopped buying books and started visiting our local library. (Wow…talk about huge savings there).

We stopped going to coffee and made our coffee at home.

I stopped buying lunch at work and started packing my lunch.

We drew names at Christmas. Heather and I limited our gifts to each other at 1…$25 limit (that drew out our creativity).

Heather and I went away on 1 vacation for 5 days…but that was it.

We drive 8 and 12 year old cars with 136,000+ miles on both of them. And when we buy cars next they will only be bought with cash. No car leases for us moving forward…or as Dave calls it, “car fleecing.”

And those are just some of the things we did.

Even as I talk about the things we did and didn’t do, I heard stories of others who were even more intense. We realize now that there were many things we could have done better, but we have made it. We made mistakes along the way and still kicked ourselves for overspending at times. We did get rid of all of our credit cards, but one….don’t know why…..but that is now on its way out the door.

Looking back we think that we could have knocked off that debt even sooner, but life got crazy at times and emergencies happened and we lost motivation and will at times. One of the most crucial turning points for us is when we saw Dave Ramsey speak live at the Potter’s House in Dallas in March of 2010.

Seeing Dave speak live was just the kick in the pants we needed. You see, we had paid off $20,000 between October 2008 and March of 2010, so we felt pretty good about ourselves. Our friends couldn’t believe how much we paid off. But after seeing Dave live we realized we had to pick up the intensity or it would drag on for us. So from March of 2010 to May 19, 2011 we paid off $57,000…14 months.

As we sent off that payment today we looked at each other and almost couldn’t believe it. For our entire marriage we have always had some kind of debt hanging around our necks like a slowly tightening noose. And now we finally feel free. Without the debt a lot of our decisions don’t hang on finances and we feel the freedom to make choices we wouldn’t have been able to make years ago.

But this is just the beginning for us. If you know anything about Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps, well then you will know we are only now beginning Baby Step 3. We want to buy a house (the only debt the program allows–15yr fixed loan w/20% down on the house/a payment that is less than 25% of your take home pay) so bad, but we don’t want to make the same mistakes we have made before.

So we are going to be patient. And we are going to continue to work hard. We will work on our 6 month emergency fund, and then we will work on a down payment for a house…and we will continue to work the program. It is what has worked for us.

We always believed before that somehow we would be rescued. Some new job…some huge bonus…winning the lottery even though we don’t play.

But waiting around to be rescued by someone or something else got us nowhere and left us feeling powerless. We realized we had to take responsibility for our debt and radically eliminate it.

This makes sense to me.

As a Marriage and Family Therapist I continue to tell couples that their marriages only improve when each individual in the marriage takes responsibility for themselves and stops waiting for, or pointing at their partner to change. Only then, when we own our stuff, and take responsibility for our issues..that is when true change can happen in a marriage.

The same goes for debt. Only when we own our debt and take complete responsibility for it…then we can eliminate it and live in the freedom of not being slave to the lender (Proverbs 22:7).

I was hesitant to share some of the details of our story because money is a touchy issue in our culture. But we have shared our story with friends and family…and we have seen them motivated by what we are doing and they have begun to do the same. Change is happening. I also share my story quite openly with many of the clients that I work with in the therapy setting because finances are quite often the main point of contention within the marriage. And I have seen clients embrace Dave Ramsey’s program and have witnessed them change their lives because of the principles that Dave teaches.

And quite honestly, I don’t think Heather and I would have made it without the countless friends we have who are also working the 7 Baby Steps. They have been constant encouragement for us on this journey. Every Friday Heather and I looked forward to listening to the Dave Ramsey Show because it is “Debt Free Friday” where people call in to scream they are debt free. We have been astounded at the stories that people called in with. Many people paid off less than the $75,000 we have paid off…but I think even more people called in who had paid off way more money than Heather and I have paid off…often in shorter periods of time. That weekly show was the fuel that kept us going for 31 months and it’s going to be a huge source of encouragement for us as we continue to press on.

The work is not done but we feel a huge load of relief as we know that all of our hard work has paid off.

This Friday Heather and I will be celebrating our being debt free by dining at a nice steak house in the DFW area. But do you want to know how we are paying with it? We are paying with the cash we collected from all the coins we put in a milk jug from October 2008 to May of 2011. In fact, we loaded up the whole family last Friday. Heather, our 3 and half year old daughter and 10 month old son…and myself…and we dumped all our change into the Coinstar at Kroger as it counted up the money we had saved. That was our tangible motivation and we wanted my daughter especially to know at such a young age the importance of being debt free. Every week we added more coins just hoping that at the end of this we might have enough money to celebrate at a nice restaurant. We looked forward to this steak dinner for 31 months. And now it is here.

So no matter what your debt situation is, don’t give up hope. You can do this. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people have done this.

Start today.

Our final goal is to drive out to Nashville to the Dave Ramsey headquarters so that we can scream we are debt free from the lobby of the building. I know it sounds crazy…but not anymore crazy than living in debt.

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