What If Care Lived Where Community Gathers

We sit down with Amanda Rigby to trace how The Well Mental and Spiritual Care grows from a late-night COVID-season burden into a real, local pathway toward healing and wholeness. We break down what The Well actually offers, how to choose between therapy, spiritual direction, and life coaching, and why lowering stigma often starts with a simple first step.  
• The midnight phone call that sparks The Well’s founding vision during COVID lockdown isolation  
• Barriers to mental health care even in privileged spaces, from insurance issues to full therapist caseloads  
• The Well’s mission of accessible and affordable mental and spiritual care for church and community  
• A “constellation of care” model, combining clinical therapy with relational supports  
• Community classes that lower stigma, including couples enrichment, aging as spiritual practice, yoga nidra, and support groups  
• Clear distinctions between therapy and counseling, spiritual direction as companionship, and life coaching for calling and purpose  
• Big dreams to replicate the model in other churches while honoring what each community already has  
• Practical ways to connect, share the story, and help others find support in the Raleigh area  

You can check that out at mycreateharmony.com if you want more information on how to do that.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome back to the Create Harmony Podcast. Let me tell you what you're gonna find here. In this space, we settle into an intentional rhythm, and it's one that helps us savor life's blessings and ground ourselves in gratitude. And today we get to expand that space a little wider. I'm gonna be joined by a guest whose work and presence reflect much of what we value here at Create Harmony. Connection, intention, and a deep respect for the rhythms that shape our lives. So wherever you are, settle in, take a breath, and join us for this conversation. Welcome, welcome back to the Create Harmony Podcast. I am your host, Sally Burlington, and this is episode 172. And we are excited to welcome Amanda Rigby, who is the executive director of the Well, Mental and Spiritual Care, and she also happens to be a pastor in our church. And welcome, Amanda.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Thank you, Sally. I'm super honored to be here and be a part of the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Thank you. And we are just excited. We want to hear all about the well. Um,

The Late Night Origin Story

SPEAKER_01 1:15

I, because I go to our church, I know some about the well, but I want you to give us the backstory of sort of how the idea came together and where it started for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

So the well first started in the middle of the night in a conversation with my best friend from college. We were um on the phone after I had texted Elizabeth uh to say I had an epiphany and I wonder if maybe you'd have time to talk about it tomorrow. And Elizabeth said back to me, Well, I'm awake too. Maybe we could talk about it now. So approaching one in the morning, we hopped on the phone together and had this conversation because I had been sitting with this reality that as a pastor to young people, there were lots of barriers to getting my church members, my community members, the mental health care that they needed. This was at the height of the COVID lockdown. I was uh working with youth and with their parents and uh with families, with kids, and all of those folks were, I think, especially hard hit by the isolation, by the um, the challenges that that arose during that time. And nobody's mental health was great. Wellness was great. And so that was a burden on my heart, on my spirit during that season, because I felt like as a pastor, I obviously knew that I couldn't care for the mental wellness of these people God had entrusted to me because I wasn't qualified for that. And it felt like part of my job was to help them get the care that they needed. And even in a really privileged place like I was serving at the time, it was still really hard to help people find care, whether that was because of health insurance or, you know, there's so many amazing therapists and counselors out there. They were all booked up. If you talk to any one of them about that time, they all had waiting lists and all of these things. And so that was the, that was the weight that I was sitting with that late evening that prompted me to reach out to my friend who is a therapist. And so we that night in the middle of the night had this uh, I think it was about three hours of conversation about how to envision a practice of mental health and spiritual care that was housed inside of a church for the sake of serving both the church and the larger community. So we kind of dreamed up this whole plan that evening. And we actually did come up with the name The Well that evening, because um, as a Christian pastor, obviously the well itself is such a powerful image of healing. That story of Jesus and the woman at the well in John chapter four, where she is seen and offered dignity and offered the knowledge of living water and eternal life in this one amazing moment. And then she's empowered to go and tell her story to her community. Um and is sort of one of the one of the earliest preachers of the gospel. And so that story means so much to me. It's a story of healing and and the imagery of water for both of us is just a powerful source of life and healing, and um, and wells are such places of community where they exist today still, but also throughout human history. And so for a lot of reasons, that was the imagery that came to us that night. And so that was in 2021. We had about three years of planning and conversation to get it started, and then we were lucky enough to be able to partner with Edenton Street United Methodist Church and uh really get rooted in um a church that was already rooted in the community. So there were we were starting to put our roots in the church, and the church has these deep, deep roots in the community. And so that's um that's been a huge gift to us. So we're two and a half years in, uh, past our formal launch in January of 2024. And now we're, I mean, we've hit the ground running, we've got a staff of therapists, spiritual directors, life coaches, um, and all of those folks offer our services for individuals and in group settings. And so we're still figuring out building the plane as we fly it.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

But yeah, but it's that's always fun.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, always fun. I'm learning a lot, you know. As someone who went to seminary, I don't have uh a ton of, you know, business training. So I'm learning and yeah, and and it's it's been a a gift and a blessing to to be a part of it this far.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Well, you spoke a little bit to the scope of, you know, we have therapists, spiritual directors, life coaches, but I love love it if you could say just a little bit more about some of the offerings that the well had to offer.

What The Well Offers

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Absolutely. So our mission is to create pathways toward healing and wholeness in the community by offering accessible and affordable mental and spiritual care. So we're definitely a mental well-being kind of place. And um, for us, that looks like a multifaceted approach. We sort of think that every person um is gonna thrive best in their life when they have a constellation of care around them, right? A um a network of caregivers who are both, you know, friends and family and and you know, supportive community members, but also people who maybe have some training or some wisdom to offer for the sake of healing and wholeness. And so our hope is to offer, um, and and it is what we are doing, uh a multiplicity of ways to engage in healing and wholeness work. So um probably most obviously is therapy and counseling. So we have people with different kinds of qualifications. Um, they're all licensed in the state of North Carolina in their respective fields, and they offer evidence-based care. So this is more of the clinical side of what we do. And so for some people, that is a that is the only thing they need. It's just that clinical approach. Um, and for some people, they need that and maybe something a little extra, um, something that's more focused on the spirit rather than the mind, um, more focused on on faith rather than um than just what is mental, right? And so uh that's where the spiritual direction and the life coaching pieces come in. So our spiritual directors are are trained as are the life coaches, they are certified. Um, and so what those folks do is offer more relational care as opposed to clinical care. And that is done like like just like therapy and counseling, primarily on an individual basis, although we also offer like couples counseling um and therapy for families. And um, and so there's there's things for the individual, things for the family. And then our community classes are where we sort of get creative and imagine different um different modes of connecting with different groups of people. It's also, I mean, this is this is sort of the the unspoken secret of our community classes. It's our attempt to um maybe lower some of the stigma that comes along with seeking mental wellness, um, that that comes along with admitting need and admitting that you can't do it all by yourself, right? So whatever, whatever that looks like, we try to just lower the lower the threshold, lower the bar so that people can step into a space, receive maybe tools or ideas or um conversations that they may not otherwise have gotten. And then to see, oh, this actually can be a safe space or even a brave space for me to seek healing and wholeness. And so some of the things that we've offered that have been really successful, um, we've done some really small intimate couple enrichment offerings where, you know, couples sign up together to try to strengthen their relationship with a licensed couple and family therapist. And so that that's been really fruitful. Um, one of our spiritual directors has taught a series of aging classes, aging as a spiritual. And that's been super popular. Um, and I think probably that's been the most successful series of classes that we've done. Um, just because I think, you know, suddenly you're you're retiring and your whole life is different and you're trying to figure out all the things, including, uh, but not limited to a spiritual life. What does it look like to be a spiritual person, to be a person of faith in in a season of retirement and rest? And that's very different than what it looks like to be a spiritual person in a time of work. And so that's been really great. Um, we've had um one of our social work interns is a yoga practitioner. And so she's offered some yoga classes, um, restful yoga or yoga nidra. And um we've also done, we had a um one of the therapists offer a sort of post-election support group just for people who are feeling high anxiety and despair. Um, and that was that was online. That was fully online. So we try to just experiment. It's all a big experiment of what works for people, what doesn't, what feels accessible, what doesn't. Um, but you know, we've had pretty good success. I'd say maybe like 75% of what we tried to do has been successful. Um, and then the other 25% were like, huh, must not have been the good details. Let's try again some other time. So yeah, we're just trying to figure out how to how to offer tools and support for people um in ways that success.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

We love that's awesome. You have some fabulous offerings. Love

Spiritual Direction Versus Life Coaching

SPEAKER_01 10:48

that. I want to circle back to you, we talked about the fact that you have spiritual directors and life coaches. And I have just finished my training as a spiritual director. I know that you are also a spiritual director. And what I feel like I'm learning and discovering, one of the many, many things that I feel like I'm learning and discovering is that a lot of people don't know what spiritual directors are or what the difference between that and a life coach. So I'd love for you to speak to that a little.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Um, I spend a lot of my time as the executive director of the well distinguishing between therapy and counseling, spiritual direction and life coaching. And I do think that first thing that I said about, you know, therapy and counseling is definitely a more clinical approach. And spiritual direction and life coaching are definitely more relational. So those two kind of exist in the same category, but they are distinct because a spiritual director really is um the job of the spiritual director is to help draw the focus of both the director, the directee, and also the spirit, the divine spirit, to what is happening within the spirit of this individual person. And so um I always joke that spiritual director is actually a misnomer. Yeah. For sure. You know that for yourself. Yeah. Um, but really it is the spirit that that is the the true director. And and I like and prefer the term spiritual companion much better. That my job as a spiritual director is to journey with someone, to reflect back to them what I'm witnessing, to ask, you know, pointed questions to um not to lead or to to influence, but just to wonder really profoundly with one another about what is happening within them and around them. And um, and so yeah, I I I would say a spiritual director is much more like a companion. And then I would say a life coach is I I'm I don't want to diminish the work of life coaching because I think it's so important. I would say a life coach is almost like a skilled cheerleader, like a very gifted encourager, someone who can help um an individual maybe connect with their own gifts and figure out how those gifts empower them to do good work in the world, right? So you might say that um a life coach helps with the work of calling and purpose, whereas a spiritual director helps more with the journey of life in general as a spiritual being.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

So there's overlap for sure. I think probably life coaches and spiritual directors have a Venn diagram that's that's not all that distinct. But I do think I would recommend for people who are in transition, who are um maybe like thinking about their career and what that means for their life and their sense of purpose, like all of that kind of stuff, I would say life coaching is the way to go. Um but if someone is trying to grow in their spiritual journey, if they're trying to maybe go deeper within themselves or um deeper within their practice of faith, um, spiritual direction is a great, great tool. Um, and life coaching, I think, can be longer term, but in my experience, it tends to be shorter. Like maybe it would be life coaching for a year or for six months. Um, but spiritual direction I found is typically sort of a longer process.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, agreed. All right.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

I have a spiritual director myself, and I I intend to have a spiritual director myself for my whole life.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

So yeah, me too. Me too. I love I love my spiritual director and the process. I I always feel like the word listening needs to be in there somewhere, and I'm not sure exactly. Spiritual listener seems a bit odd, I guess, but it it feels like so much of the spiritual direction process is about listening and helping the other person listen to what the spirit has to say, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I think that's exactly right. And so a lot of times I'll have directees come to me and say, like, this is so amazing. Like, thank you so much for everything you're doing. And I just have to tell them, you know, hey, thank you. That's really kind. I'm just witnessing Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

I'm just here. I'm not I'm not doing anything other than listening.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

That's right. And I'm I'm creating space. And I think that is actually the metric. I think in a world that doesn't allow us often to stop and pause and consider and feel and all of that at the same time with a particular lens of spirituality. Like we just don't have many spaces like that. So it's not even really me or what I bring to the table, although I hope that that can be helpful too, but it's it really is the the container, the space that is very sacred, that is very embodied, but also deeply spiritual and that's that someone can consistently plan for in their life. That's the magic. It's not necessarily anything that I bring to the table.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Absolutely. Well, I love that clarification because I'm just surprised at how often people are not familiar with what that means, what those words mean, particularly the fact that it's not really even direction, it's more companionship. So I think that's that's a helpful distinction.

Big Dreams And Replicating The Model

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Um, okay, I want to know what your plans for the future, your big dreams, your plans for the future, things that you see out on the horizon for the well.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

It's so fun. We just had our first big fundraiser about two weeks ago, and I'm so glad it's over. And so good to plan. It was really good. We have um these amazing groups of people. We have the people who are on staff with us as practitioners. We have a wonderful team of volunteers who will make up our community engagement and fundraising team. We have a board of directors, and all of those groups of people came together to kind of help us make this event happen. And we um filmed a little video to kind of try to tell the story of the well a little more briefly, because as you know, I tend to be a little long-winded. Um, and so we we filmed this video and we had all of these people telling the story of the well from their perspective. And someone asked this question like, What is the future of the well? And so it was really, really wonderful to hear all of those people sort of dream big with us about what the well can be in the future. And one of the threads that was so easy to pull through all of those stories was um, we just hope the well can be in more than one place, that that we can find ways to replicate this model in other churches and in other communities for the sake of doing that same mission of creating these pathways toward healing and wholeness in other places and to contextualize that work in those communities. And so one of the things that's been really important for me and for my business partner, Elizabeth, is um we never want to sort of insert ourselves into a community and say, hey, we know what you need to be mentally well. Here's all the things. Good luck. I mean, I can't we'll fix you real quick. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of you know, savior complex in that that is super unhealthy. And we um we have, you know, this sort of basis for our work is that communities have what they need uh within them. It's just about finding those gifts and graces and then elevating them to be used in the right way. Um and so we we would never imagine that we would be coming into a church or coming into a community and and being the people with all the answers or, you know, gonna we're gonna fix everything or anything like that, but just um wanting, longing to partner with communities of faith and and um the places where those communities of faith are rooted uh to really elevate what's already there. So that's the dream is multiple wells around the area. And we've had some really exciting conversations this year that that may lead to a replication um even before the end of this calendar year as possible. So um yeah, we that's that's the dream. And I think uh we would love to continue to see it change and grow and um and become something that's even bigger than what Elizabeth and I could have dreamed about, you know, five years ago when we had the middle of the night phone call. So lots of big dreams for the well. I think the, you know, um the it's that mission that keeps us grounded. We really want to create these pathways toward healing and wholeness in the community. We have just one community right now, but hopefully it'll be more.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, maybe the community will get bigger and bigger and bigger. So I love that. And so the best way to engage with the well is lots of

How To Connect And Support

SPEAKER_01 19:29

ways.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, website is great. It's the well, mentalandspiritual care.org, all spelled out. It's kind of clunky. Um, but uh we also have social media. So we're on Instagram at the well Raleigh, and that's another good way to sort of keep up with all the things that are happening, um, all the offerings and uh practitioners who are available. Um, we also have an email newsletter that goes out about once a month, and so that's a good way to stay connected. You can sign up for that on the website. Um, but yeah, we I I think the the ways to support the well, so if you're someone who values mental well-being and um mental health and spirituality and all those kinds of things, um, you know, we uh we love it when people tell the story of the well because that's that's how the word gets out. And so if you know people in your life who are struggling mentally or maybe you're going through a spiritual wilderness, um, and you think they might benefit from care uh in the in the general rally area, like, wow, we would love for you to tell them about the well. Um, just kind of keep our name in your back pocket just in case. Um, because that's really that we're we're just trying to get the word out and and let people know we're here. We want to serve um and we want to come alongside people to to help them find the healing that they long for. And so um, yeah, telling our story, finding our website, that's all super ways to get connected.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Well, it's um it's an amazing place, and I really think it fits It's nice that you have offering different uh angles and offerings that people can engage in the sense that they can get the clinical help that they need or the spiritual help that they need or you know, the life coaching help and the classes. I do think that the classes go a long way to sort of maybe help people take a baby step in that direction if that's what's most comfortable to them. And I I just love it. I I don't know if you're gonna have any other middle of the night brainstorms anytime soon, but if you do, I think it would be great.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Okay, well, I'll keep you posted.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

No for now. I don't want to say, but my plate is very full with what's happening at the well in the best way. And so I'm I'm grateful to just have this one epiphany for now.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yes, maybe 2027 you could have another one, maybe or 2028, maybe we'll push it out a little bit. Yeah, maybe, maybe not. Well, well, this will do for now. I think this is a great one. And you and you've done a an amazing job of following that thread and not just letting it be an idea that floats out into the universe. but really bringing it into a whole manifest manifestation of it. It's it's beautiful. And I applaud you for that. It's been it's been it's such a great offering. We're so proud of you for doing that, Amanda. Good job.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Thank you. I'm so grateful for your support. Share the story. That's probably like the job number one as executive director is telling a story.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Well thank you. Thank you for coming here and sharing it with us. I'm sure my listeners are going to be wanting to hear more and more about it and they're going to, you know, snatch that information right up and engage with the well. So thank you for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

All right thanks.

Peaceful Pathways Box Closing

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Thanks so much for listening. Hope you got something out of today's conversation. Before we go I want to remind you of one quick thing. We have a peaceful pathways box that is available and it is a wonderful way to welcome more peace into your daily rhythms. It's a partnership with our friends at Petal and Pink Mental Wellness Boutique. And there are several different ways you can engage with this. There's our large box that has five guided meditations and they're all very immersive and makes you feel like you're actually having the experience when you envision it in your head following my voice. So that's a link a card with a link to those five meditations and also a box filled with all sorts of self-care items that align with whatever the meditations are and with that. If you want to try that out but don't want to get the large box you could get the mini meditation box which has one meditation and several smaller items not quite as many self-care items but they align with the meditation as well. And then you can also try just one card just a card with a link on it to one meditation. If you're not ready for any of that but you just want to get a sampling of what our meditations are like we do have individual meditation cards with those on them. You can check that out at mycreateharmony.com if you want more information on how to do that. They can be listened to over and over and over again and it's just a wonderful way to bring more peace and joy into your daily rhythms. Hope you'll check that out and until next time peace