Growing Through What You Went Through | Trauma, Faith, and Healing with Dr. Crystal Hulbert

Trauma has a way of changing how we see ourselves, other people, and even God. In this episode of Skills & Pills, Dr. Mo and Dr. Jo sit down with Dr. Crystal Rae Hulbert for an honest conversation about trauma, healing, faith, and what it really means to grow through life's hardest experiences.

Together, they explore the intersection of trauma and spirituality, including the often-discussed topic of church hurt. Is church hurt always trauma? How can faith communities better support people who are struggling? And what role should clinicians play alongside pastors and spiritual leaders?

Dr. Crystal shares her own journey of discovering God's presence in the middle of painful experiences and explains why healing is not about becoming the person you were before the trauma. Instead, true growth comes from learning how to embrace who you are today and move forward with wisdom, resilience, and hope.

If you've ever wondered whether healing is possible, struggled to move beyond a painful chapter, or wrestled with how trauma has affected your faith, this episode offers practical insight and encouragement for the journey ahead.

With over a decade of experience in the mental health field, Dr. Crystal Rae Hulbert has worked with clients from diverse backgrounds, addressing a wide range of issues including suicidal ideations, anxiety, depression, relational conflict, career changes, organizational pitfalls, leadership development and personal growth. 

At Anchored Counseling and Wellness Center LLC, Crystal believes in creating a safe, non-judgmental space where clients can explore their feelings, failures and experiences. Whether you’re facing a personal failure, organizational leadership challenges or looking to improve your overall well-being, Crystal is committed to helping you on your journey to a healthier, more fulfilling life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Those who have experienced trauma are trying to get back to the version of themselves that they were before the traumatic event happened. And that person doesn't always show up. You're not going to get back to who you were before that traumatic event happened. But what we are able to do is help you to walk through where you are right now. How do you grow through what you went through? When we go through things that are so traumatic that we try to erase them out of our brain, we do ourselves a disservice because now you're stuck in that event and the Lord wants to set us free.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

We're excited today to sit and have an in-depth discussion about what it looks like to grow through and grow past traumatic experiences. Get yourself something to drink, settle in, and remember always to join us in the comments with your questions, concerns, your comments, and anything that you think will bring value to this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I'm super excited about this. So I'm excited to introduce Dr. Crystal Holbert. Can you tell the people a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah. Well, first, thank you all for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation. I think our communities need it to talk about trauma and how to grow through trauma. But before we get there, I'm Crystal Hobart and I'm a mental health professional. I've been in the counseling field and crisis and trauma field for about eight to nine years now. So I started off here in Virginia working as a crisis counselor and a community counselor. So I started off doing community-based and then I moved into crisis and trauma, so suicide and homicide. And now I am leading multidisciplinary teams across Chicago, Indiana, and Tennessee. And we're we're still doing the work of trauma and trauma resilience, trauma growth. And I work with adults, children, but I'm more so supervised teams. So clinicians and physicians and paramedics and the whole multidisciplinary team that it takes to walk someone through a traumatic event.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And that is me. We've got a lot of experience. And I was excited about this when I told her that you were coming on because she's um always, she's my mom, but also as a therapist, like she's always focused specifically on trauma. So I was like, I'm sitting in a trauma expert space. So I'm excited for today because I'm hoping I get to learn a little bit from the two of you guys and the wisdom that you have. So um I we've been actually doing a series recently where we were talking about kind of like the myths of mental health or things that people hear, um, especially when they grew up from a Christian background about trauma and things like that. And something that's very commonly that I heard growing up a lot, growing up more of like a conservative Christian or from that background was church hurt or the concept of church hurt. Um, but as I went into mental health for myself, um, I began to kind of pick up some things when I would be listening to people and I'd be like, that that church hurt sounds a little bit like trauma. Like it sounds like all of the key features of trauma are present. Um, and so what's your experience on um managing trauma from like a faith-based perspective? Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Um, I will say I think the church is now starting to adapt to mental health. I I think um in previous years, uh, mental health was just like taboo or it was not really talked about even within the local context of Christianity. Um, and so my experience working with those who have gone through a traumatic event and they're faith-based is they're in a wrestle with themselves, right? Like I trust God, but also I've experienced this. So I'm like smack dab in the middle. And so I love working with those groups of people because you're able to talk to them about how faith intersects with like how they work together. So Holy Spirit, uh, the word of God and therapy. So it's not just one or the other, but they work in tandem. And I believe that um God gave us gifts and skills to therapists, clinicians, anyone in the mental health field to be able to walk people through um, you know, you may be struggling in your faith, but that doesn't mean that you're not saved or that something is wrong with you, right? I think sometimes um the church, we get a lot of this kind of wrong in the aspect of mental health. And it takes skilled clinicians to come in and to say, you know, yes, church hurt, but also let's talk a little bit about um how this impacted you as a child and now how you're bringing that into how you view yourself or how you view God, right? There's a lot of folks that I talk to, and I'm like, you you're you're not going through an identity crisis, you're more so like, but you're taking your experiences and you're um allowing that to shape who God is, and that's not right, that's not him, you know. I hope that makes sense. But um, what I'm trying to put into like layman's terms is a lot of times when we go through traumatic events, we think that um even myself, I'll use myself as an example. Um, I went through something traumatic and I was like, God, you're angry with me. Like, why did you allow that to happen? You know, you were able to intervene. You you could have stepped in, you could have, you know, stopped this and you know, all the things. And I had to realize that God is so loving and he is so merciful that even in that traumatic event, he was still there. Right. And so my work in the church, outside of the church, is to help people to see that God is still with you right in the middle. So he's with you in the middle of the traumatic event, he's with you in the the growth. Like once you go through the traumatic event and you're becoming more resilient and more aware, he's still with you there. Um, and so yeah, I know I gave a really long explanation, but I hope that that makes sense. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

I want to ask something though, as we talk about it in research. Um, I had an opportunity to be on a research project that I suspended for a little while, but while we were doing the literature review, we began to look at the freezing of church hurt, because when I'm hurt, that means I've taken on offense. Yes. And it leaves, I believe, uh, people who have been actually literally psychologically either rejected or isolated or ostracized or whatever happened to that person to have the responsibility to take does that make sense? To like get healed themselves, and not just that, but to regard and almost of course you forgive, but it leaves no accountability with the person that did the offense or gave the offense.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

I believe we're using them synonymously. And that to change the trajectory to uh it is not your responsibility to to go to God, you know, and throw yourself down as though you've taken on something that you should not when actually this thing happened to you. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So that means when I go to the Lord, I am going to be trying to fix as though something is wrong with me. Why did I take on the offense? Meaning I'm going to repeat those patterns of engagement because I have no no concept in my brain that something has happened to me. Yeah. And that thing that happened to me has changed the way my mind works and the way my brain works. And there's these two schools of thought over mental health practice and trauma, that there's a school of thought that says you can cure trauma. There's a school of thought that says because of the changes in the brain, uh and the changes in the way we just like even see the world that it's it's to be managed. And so I think when we come into the faith-based community, we're like it'll be healed. But Paul said there's a thorn in my side. Yeah. So if that trauma and the um flashbacks of it or the rumination of it, or all the things, what then I'm I I want to propose to you if that is my thorn, which would lead me as a mental health professional, even biblically, to lean to the school of thought that after this thing happened to me, I'm going to manage it.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah. That's so good. And it ooh, that's so good. It reminds me of like when we work with those who have experienced trauma is yes, that happened to you. But now how do we live with what happened to you so that you can move beyond? Because a lot of times when um someone has gone through a traumatic event, they get stuck in that event. So I know you said EMDR, having to take the person back through that event so that they can move beyond there. But I think one of the um benefits of just being trauma trained is being able to identify, hey, this did impact you. It changed your psyche, it changed the way that you process emotions, it changed the way that you engage in your relationships, it changed the way you see yourself. Your brain now, your limbic system is completely thrown off. Everything is different. So, how do we one help you to stabilize, but also realize because another thing is those who have experienced trauma are trying to get back to the version of themselves that they were before the traumatic event happened. And that person doesn't always show up. So now, how do I help you to see? Yes, that person did experience trauma, but now who you are today is what I'm able to work with. Let's get you to a healthier point where you're able to see, I may not be able to be pre- you know, one thing that working as a trauma-informed uh clinician and then actually going through it helped me to realize this. I went through a very traumatic birth. My birth experience was extremely traumatic. And I had to say, you know what? I'm not gonna be the woman that I was pre-birth. You know, and even talking to my own therapist, I said, I'm I'm trying to get back to Crystal, I'm trying to get back to who I was. And she stopped my thought and she said, Hold on, you're not gonna get back to who you were before that traumatic event happened. But what we are able to do is help you to walk through where you are right now. How do you grow through what you went through? So I love that.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Yeah. And go ahead. And then he um then even looking at it from the aspect I'm gonna say something to you as a trauma therapist, and you just take this wherever you take it. Um, I'm dealing with her, she's my daughter, I've had trauma, and I'm trying to, I'm in a full-on dysregulated moment. Uh trying to ground, and the school of thought is that's the past. Get over it. You're living in the past, get over it. How do you handle that uh from a a biblical just give that to God?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

I think see, there's a lot of things that the church gets right, and then there's some things that the church gets wrong. There are some things that you can't just pray it away, or you can't just just leave it alone, or that's completely done. We have to walk you through what you went through so that one, your mindset starts to shift from what what you went through. A lot of times when we go through something traumatic, um, and we're trying to like just brush it off, or yeah, you went through it, just put it in your back pocket, or just get beyond it. You get stuck there. So arrested development. You get stuck in a state of you may be functioning as a 30-year-old woman, but your mindset is stuck at the eight-year-old little girl that the traumatic event happened. Right. You know, so we have to walk you safely through. And I the way I look at it is going into a cage that a person is in and safely getting them out and locking that door back behind them because trauma is scary. You know, it's there's so much that's gonna come up when you start pulling back layers and talking through different things that I want to go in safely as a clinician and I want to come and I want to get you out safely and turn the lights on and lock the door behind you. So I think that um when we go through things that are so traumatic that we try to erase them out of our brain, we do ourselves a disservice because now you're stuck in that event and the Lord wants to set us free. Not just me as a clinician, like God wants us to be free. He wants us to live the life of freedom and joy and you know, um, but it takes us going back to that moment and really like pulling those layers back gently, like an onion. Let's peel all of those layers back and get down to the middle to see what's really underneath all of this, what's underneath the smile, what's underneath the frustration. When I when I notice someone's irritable or frustrated a little more, it's like, no, what's what's underneath all of that?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

So I feel like that something that you said earlier had me thinking about it because I always used to think about this collaboration between the church and mental health professionals and how much we need that. And you were mentioning earlier how that wasn't a thing, you know, many, many years ago. Like when I grew up in church, that was a thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Right? So hi, did you ever were I was maybe you didn't come that far back, but I I go back to the year two uh 2003 and I remember the last thing I was gonna say, like I'll be a greeter, who are you? I'm her mom, but I was not about to tell you that I was a counselor. Yes, and I was not about to tell you, I was not about to say the words clinical mental health. Right. It was not so I'm so it it is so great that now we at least get in with getting ready to have more open dialogue. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

I think that's something that um when I was thinking about it when you were talking about like the trauma changing the lens of how maybe even you view yourself or even how you view the father. Yes. And I thought about how many people that I've talked to, or even from my own personal experience, that didn't feel like they could be maybe used by the Lord or even used in faith-based spaces because they're still trying to navigate, which they haven't even identified, are probably trauma triggers and things like that, where people are like, There's something wrong with you in this setting. When a lot of times it's about them processing through what they've been through to get to a healthier state of functioning. Yeah. Um, and as they do that, I feel like for a lot of people, um, when I think about like the bride of Christ or how it that we're kind of being made ready and things like that, some for some of us that requires mental health treatment. Does that make sense? Or engagement in therapy services to be able to be healed and work out certain things so that we can be, I like to say, a productive member of our body. Does that make sense? Because I can be in the body, but not able to engage it in a healthy way, or even sometimes we'll notice little things that are maybe normative to church culture because church has its culture, right? But if I have previous trauma or have trauma, religious trauma in the church, being able to engage that can be really difficult.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

And yeah, but forsaken not the assembly of yourself together. So my thought on it often is how do you work through these things in the place where your hurt comes from? Like when you're in that DV situation or you get out of that marriage. When you're in that toxic workplace, you get out of that workplace, but forsaking not the assembly of yourself together. I need to fellowship as part of my vertical commune becomes this horizontal connection that is designed for me to thrive. So how do we, in your opinion, or how do you infuse yourself within your faith-based community? And where is we did some research at um the American Association of Christian Counselors, and we worked on it for about four or five years, and it was a collaboration between clergy and clinicians. And what we talked about is where is that stop and start? Where does pastoral work end? And there's a space where this is deeper pathology.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

And where do I end when it comes to, okay, now you need pastoral care?

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

There's gonna be some discipleship, and how do we live in the both end of that?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

That is such a loaded and good question. That is so good, though. You're making my mind go because I think that um there is a difference, right? There's a line of demarcation that says, okay, hold on a second. This is beyond discipleship. This is beyond pastoral counsel. I think pastoral care and pastoral counsel is we're working with you through your soul. Like let's work through um what does what does the Bible say about depression? What does the Bible say about what you went through? And then um, when it goes beyond, you know, I'm I'm still having trouble, not just in my soul, I'm having trouble in my thinking, my thinking patterns. Um, I'm having trouble in my mind. I'm hearing racing thoughts, I'm hyperventilated. Those things go beyond, okay, let's sit down and let's talk with the therapist about some of these things that you went through and how can we process through. Uh, sorry about that. Yeah, okay. How can we process through that? So the intersection, I think, is great, but it's a it's a deep dive because on one end, I I can imagine that people will say, Oh, you don't need a therapist. I'm I'm your pastor, I'm able to walk you through all of these things. But as clinicians, we go through years of of training and and educational, you know, courses just so that we're able to have healthy and safe conversations. I think that's the key. I like you said safe. Yeah, sometimes um as a clinician, I'm intentionally walking through landmines with the client to make sure that I don't hit a trigger that will cause them to open up where I'm not able to contain it. Pastors don't always know how to do that. We we, you know, pastors know how to walk you through um safely what the word says. But there's a there's a difference in the two. So I'd love to hear your thoughts though. I think that's a it's a loaded question and it's so good.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

It it it is. I believe that it comes down to the marking of uh the DSM is a spectrum, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Uh we have severity, right? Uh the research says that the church is the first line of defense when people experience life interruption. So I think, or I believe, or I've done enough lit review, right, to say that, okay, pastoral counseling down here, the church, life interruption. I've gone into distress. Think about the adjustment disorder. Got about six months out there, we're gonna be there. I go back to baseline in that pastoral engagement. But when you get past distress and you get into disturbance, yeah, and then you have severity to the point where in the occupational, social, relational uh realms of living, you're not living, loving, and working well, then that at that point, I believe that there is a pass off, if you will. Just like Dr. Ruffy is medication management, and skills don't replace pills. Yeah. Yeah? Uh pills don't replace skills. They live in the space of the and. So where am I as a clinician where I've put in all these interventions and And now there are chemical imbalance in your body that in order to bring you to that baseline and keep you at that dis uh interruption distress and minimize the disturbance, do I then engage? I believe it be saying all that to say this, I believe it is conversations and understanding of where we all within our competencies called and the our our competencies and divine call start and stop.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Yeah. And honor up, honor down, honor all around.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Oh, I love that. I'm still in that. I'm an up, honor down, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Love and hearing that all my life. Yes. I can honor her. You know, I can honor. And I think also honoring that it's not like a one size fits all. Yeah. Like I've had people that I've listened to their testimony and I'll be like, you went through all of that. And you and they're like, I just went to the gym. I felt better, you know, and they and they're functioning and they're not in disturbance. Yeah. And they pray and they and then then they went to their pastor. That was it. And then I know people that needed meds therapy, maybe an inpatient state, you know, all of these things, right? Crisis stabilization. So I feel like I think sometimes we want it to be a certain way too. Or when we are well-meaning and we want to help, we'll say, well, for me, this worked. And so we sometimes discourage people from going to things that they may need. To be like, that might, you might need more than that, or you might need a little bit of all of it. Um, you know, and so I think that's something that we're always trying to encourage here.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Heal from or live with.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

I grapple with that. Both and I grapple with it.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Me too.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Oh, you got my wheels turning. Is heal from me saying or delivered from like the woman that they brought to Jesus and threw her on the ground? Right, right. And he's just drawing, right? Then at a moment he he looks up and says, Where are your accusers? Yes. That was the he delivered her because they wanted to stone her.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Right? So that was the delivering moment, right? But when she got off of that ground, she had to get up and go and do something different, like the woman at the will when he said, Go your way and sin no more. And so they both were kind of in a came in some kind of sticky situation when it came to multiple partners and living just a little bit nefarious, right? So they had, if they went back to those beds or back to those places, they had to change people, places, and things. So go your way and sin no more is a mandate.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Go do something different. And so in my mind, we're in the way. So I tell my clients, I'm just in your way. As he said, go your way, you have to encounter something. Why not encounter therapeutic interventions that can help you to sin no more, that can help you to ruminate no more. The accuser is the trauma. The accuser is the disassociation. The accuser, this is the cure accuser of the trauma victim. That is so good. Don't call me a victim. Okay. Well, once we get all this stuff together, you'll be our thriver. Yeah. Right? But we have to sit in the space of what happened and not do spiritual bypassing.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

We we we done came of time.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

That's so good though. What was I saying? Oh, one thing that I would leave listeners with is um you may have survived the best way you could with the tools that you had. And now it's just time to get new tools. You know, I I think sometimes um we don't realize that we didn't know what we didn't know, you know, and you did the best that you could with the tools that you had. And so now, yes, you may have experienced trauma. Healing is a part of our responsibility too. You know, I I know I went through a traumatic birth. I'm not gonna live in that moment. I'm gonna seek additional therapy. I'm gonna make sure that, you know, I'm not trauma dumping or I'm not ruining relationships that I have because I'm so upset that my birth didn't go the way that I thought it would go. But now it's time to get new tools, right? Like I when we go through traumatic events, we we reach for what we know. Like I don't know, I may not know anything else other than lashing out or being angry, or maybe that's that's the baseline. And so now it's time to get new tools so that when a situation like that comes back around and I may be triggered, I know how to respond well. I know how to respond in a more healthy way. So I'll leave people with that thought. You know, give yourself grace. You you you survive with the tools that you had, but now there's so many publications, literature, clinicians, there's so much out there now that we can reach for that now we have new tools to live better.