Today we welcome to the mic our good friend, Josh Spurlock. Josh is the founder of My Counselor Online, a platform providing faith-based counseling to individuals and couples around the globe. With a heart for healing and years of clinical experience, Josh brings both compassion and clarity to life’s most difficult struggles.

In this episode, we’re diving into part one of a powerful two-part series: How to Heal Deep Pain. Whether you’re carrying wounds from the past or walking with someone who is, this conversation is for you. Let’s lean in as Josh helps us explore what it really looks like to begin the journey toward healing.

What led you to produce the series on healing deep pain?

• Leaders tend to be good at bearing others’ burdens but poor at allowing others to bear theirs.
• The presence of shame, fear of being judged, or losing respect gets in the way of us activating the process of healing deep pain . . . either in our own lives or of those we help.
• Sharing our pain with someone who is safe and compassionate allows for regulation and a sense of connection.

How does a coach or a counselor or a pastor establish safety?

• Being present with others, particularly in a pastoral or coaching context.
• A responsive and engaged approach.
• Avoid spiritualizing the pain. Don’t go the fake joy route. It is the devil’s trap, and it keeps us stuck.

Describe the activation of painful memories. How do we transform those memories and see the healing process through to completion?

• Understanding the brain processes traumatic experiences by storing them in a timeless space, waiting for a trigger to pop it back into our memory.
• Allowing yourself to fully feel and express the emotions associated with these painful experiences.
• Sharing these experiences with someone who is safe, compassionate, and competent helps regulate the nervous system, and assists with moving through the painful emotions to completion and resolving the trauma.

Your body will tell you when you’ve reached completion of the process.