You know, I've been with doctors that, you know, feel quite well use the holier than thou feel I know so much more than you. Let me impart my wisdom to you. And really, rather than being able to having that posture, that attitude, it's really I want to partner with you, and I want to figure this out alongside you. And I'm going to be with you and we're going to do this together. This isn't going to be a US to them kind of a situation.
Brian Beatty:Hello, and welcome to restoring the soul, a podcast dedicated to helping you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. I'm your producer Brian Beatty. Thank you for listening. The heartbeat of the Ministry of restoring the soul is intensive counseling, which allows you to experience a deep change in half day blocks over the course of one or two weeks, rather than an hour here or an hour there with your counselor. The intensive program is focused and challenges both client and counselor to be all in with the hopes of seeing breakthrough in a shorter amount of time. Every once in a while. We love introducing you to one of our team members. Today. We welcome back Vance Crowe to the podcast to see how his experience has been after joining the restoring the soul team 18 months ago. Vance is well versed in Emotionally Focused Therapy, and has received extensive training in treating addiction, working with couples going through infidelity, and helping couples that have experienced betrayal. He's also passionate about seeing couples and individuals thrive, rather than just survive in their marriage. Veinz enjoys canoeing, hiking, and mountain biking, and he and his wife are the proud parents of six children. So Now without any further delay, here's your host, Michael JOHN CUSICK.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Vince, welcome back to the podcast. And I'm so glad that we're talking again, you've been at restoring the soul a year and a half, you made a big move from Arkansas to Colorado, what's it been like for you and your family to be here in Colorado,
Vance Crow:it's been a lot of fun. We've we've gotten outside and enjoyed all that Colorado has to offer. It's been really exciting moving from the week to week, our sessions to the intensives. I've been on my heart for a long time to be able to get into the intensives. Really, since my undergrad.
MICHAEL CUSICK:What's it been like to do the intensive counseling where you went from an hour a week, where you met with many clients week after week after week. And I did that. And that can be very powerful. And sometimes you meet with clients for three sessions and sometimes long term. But now the intensives are three hours a day for one or two weeks. And that's a big transition as well.
Vance Crow:It is and you know, I think the ability for me to be able to be so much more focused on that particular client for that two week period really allows my brain to be able to be more focused than I've ever felt like I've been able to be I've been able to be more on par and really be able to make lots of movement that. Yeah, it's just been lots of fun for me. And I feel like it's been really able to help clients move from where they feel really stuck to where they've got clarity and, and movement forward.
MICHAEL CUSICK:I love that idea. And the word of focus that you brought up. People often don't realize this until after the fact. But some people have said to me, I didn't realize before it came to do an intensive that I would be the sole object of focus, right as counselor for two weeks, right. And very few of us have been the sole object to focus with anyone at any time in our life. And if we have, you know, it's been negative, maybe not been so great. So you and I and our other therapists, like you spend all week for two weeks thinking about that person, right? Who they are making the image of God, who they are in light of the brokenness and the pain in their lives and the places where we're stuck. But especially this idea of what does it mean for them to be able to move forward? Tell me about just what that's like for you to go from giving it focus one hour at a time to three hours and then every day,
Vance Crow:right? making so many transitions with the hour to hour week to week, you know, keep in so many different stories straight not that I don't or didn't care about each individual story. But there's so much more. Right like You're like we're talking about, you know, my my sole focus is on this particular client for this particular couple and They get all of my attention for that time. And I think one thing that's been really amazing to me is to be able to just notice on that, that second Friday, just how much really I kind of grieve. You know, I feel like I've gotten to know someone so well, so holistically, right? Like you're saying it from made in the image of God, who they who they are, and the beauty of who they are. And really to be able to see where they've come. You know, it's just been really powerful, really exciting for me, to be quite honest.
MICHAEL CUSICK:What I'm hearing you say is that you really connect with people and care from an authentic, deep place, and that after the time together, there's a relationship that's formed as such that though it's professional, you grief when people leave? Yeah,
Vance Crow:absolutely. Yeah. And I don't know that that's something I necessarily expected to be able to find in in such a short amount of time. But it really has been, it's been really beautiful.
MICHAEL CUSICK:You know, sometimes, there are new therapists blogs, and with COVID, there's been a proliferation of therapists that are doing more podcasts, it seems like everybody has a podcast, I've listened to some podcasts, from therapists for therapists. And so there's kind of more of an insider's view, sometimes about what happened in the therapists chair. And I don't think that clients realize how much joy it can bring us because this is what we've trained to do. In the case of you and I were kind of wired as helpers and caregivers, but how it brings us joy and fulfillment, and how there's a genuine sadness when people leave. And I love the fact that that's our orientation here.
Vance Crow:When I think to so much of the there often is just such a sacred space that we ended up getting into that. There's times that I think, wow, you know, just feel like, this is holy ground, you know, in the midst of the session. And so when you experience something like that with a couple or individual, yeah, it's a really special moment that you don't forget lightly,
MICHAEL CUSICK:say more about the sacred space, because for people that haven't done a lot of counseling, they might think, Well, wait a minute, when I go to my doctor, and I'm in the examining room, getting that blood pressure taken, that doesn't feel like sacred. Yeah, yeah. What do you mean by that?
Vance Crow:Yeah, just to be able to share the room to share that experience with someone when they're seen maybe for the first time and in a particular part of their own heart and their own soul. And to be able to share that, that experience of, Wow, this is, maybe they didn't know about that part of themselves. And now they're able to integrate that into their life in a more holistic way, you know, and be able to take that forward, and have a brand new experience of themselves, brand new experience of God, brand new experience of their spouse, those kinds of things, they just feel very, very sacred to me, you know, the room is just different. And it just really is a beautiful moment, and very different than getting your blood pressure checked.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Yeah, it's almost the idea of the curtains pulled back, right. And you're entering into a way of relating in a way of being that's just very different from the outside, you know, it's not cocktail party talk, and it's not solving a problem. It's more about being with
Vance Crow:that's the phrase that I was going to use. Yeah, just the presence of being able to be with someone in those moments. And just the power of those those moments is just incredible.
MICHAEL CUSICK:This phrase holding space that used to be kind of a therapeutic word that has made its way into our culture common been, and I hear it everywhere now. You know, I was holding space for my dog while they were learning to fetch the ball and that kind of thing. But there is something about holding space, which is that it's a very sacred way of being with clients. What does it mean for you to hold space in the counseling room with a couple or with an individual that you're working with?
Vance Crow:Yeah, I think I would just expand on some of what you're talking about there, the not in a hurry. But not lazy or slow, either. There's just that sense of, like, wow, when something is profound, it's like, oh, man, I don't want to hurry past this. I want to really let this be a part of the room be a part of our experience together. You know, and pay attention, I think of Kurt Thompson's, pay attention to what you're paying attention to, like, whoa, we miss those moments all the time. Or even at a cocktail party, somebody makes a pass for vulnerability, and yet we just kind of glance over it as if it's, Oh, that's too much, or, whoa, that's like, well, we can't do that. But it's just this ability to be able to be with people in those ways that ordinarily they don't get cared for. Yeah, and the day to day life or through their story. into their history.
MICHAEL CUSICK:We were talking about this very subject in staff meeting yesterday as a team, as we meet every week to review cases and just grow professionally. But this idea of being patient, and how the work we do in intensive counseling allows us to be patient, because the clock is not ticking at 45 or 50 minutes, it's gonna stop, and that we're taking people somewhere, but we're not in a rush to get there,
Vance Crow:which I find often I get there faster than if I'm in too big of a hurry anyway, you know, firstly, you know, hurry too much or or get into, whenever I find myself more anxious about getting to whatever the destination is, I find that I miss more or make more mistakes. I'm more prone to do that. Whereas, yeah, the ability to, again, just sit with whatever it is that that clients just brought up. And well, we should spend some some time with this right here.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Yeah, ours is a field where if we try too hard, we won't be as effective, right, as if I just bring ourselves and show up? Absolutely. Absolutely. Vance, when you sit with a client, and again, you work with a fair amount of couples, most of your work is probably with couples quite a bit, and some individuals, but when you sit with people, what is it that lights your fire? What is it that makes you come alive in this work?
Vance Crow:Yeah, I think, you know, the ability to see people making sense of their own story in a way that they hadn't before. You know, the integration of noticing how their own nervous system helps them operate and how it's trying to keep them safe. And sometimes how it's perhaps in the way, how the relational dynamics are at play, and putting those together so that they're able to move forward, rather than it feeling as if perhaps there's a war going on inside them, and they're not able to move forward, and they're not there, they're feeling so stuck and unable to figure out. How do I be in the world with all of that that's gone on for me. So to see them make the progress to see them come alive, I think is one of the things that really, I just find, it's very satisfying for me, you know, seeing them make the progress that they're, they're longing for the past desiring.
MICHAEL CUSICK:And we talk a lot around here about old story, new story that when people come in, when people's first start to sit with you, their old story may be very disconnected, or their parts of it that are dominating, or keeping them really, really stuck. But not knowing how to bring those pieces together. And certainly not knowing how to create a new story, correct. But there, there really is this arc of change that happens within a session where people can get a taste of that new story.
Vance Crow:And I think something that I really love about the intensives, too, is it allows for more experiential repetition, we get to do it in real time. It takes it out of the theoretical and puts it into the, the here and now moment that we can actively work with, how are we going to embody this new story.
MICHAEL CUSICK:So I think what you mean by that is that people aren't just coming in talking about something that happened last week or a year ago or when I was a kid, but in the session as you provide safety and a what we call attunement, of really tuning into the person and attending to what's happening with them emotionally, very often. That stuff comes up right in the moment of I'm feeling here, what I felt last week, correct. And as you address that, and create a safe place that that new experience is actually part of already in the session, correct beginning to write the new store absolute, like, Oh, I could do this different,
Vance Crow:right? When we get to bring it into the here, and now we're able to say, Wow, you just did different what you told me five minutes ago, you're not able to do you know, so rather than, well, maybe I'll give it a go this next week and try, like we can point out when Wow, you just did the vulnerability that you said there's no way I can talk about that with her or with him? And do it actively different in the moment, right, like we're talking about, and that it really allows your brain to integrate that into their new story. Right, you know, it's an active process in session of doing it differently, rather than hoping I can do it differently in the future.
MICHAEL CUSICK:Yes. And in the case of I don't, I didn't think I could share with him or her if we're talking about a couple that will oftentimes create profound connection or closeness. That hasn't happened in a long time or ever. And therefore that's a breakthrough like, oh, we we've reached for one another and missed each other but it just happened.
Vance Crow:And oftentimes in the places the very places where they thought it'll never happen. Yeah, that's something that's Really, that definitely makes me come alive to?
MICHAEL CUSICK:Well, as we're talking about this, I can see you. There's kind of a light in your eye and you're energized and want to bring something up. I am 58 years old, I've been an LPC for almost 30 years, I started my first intensive, a two week intensive in 1998. So I was in my mid 30s, when I did that. And I remember there would be there would be people coming in that were 2025 years older than me. And it was not uncommon for me to work with people that were significantly older that had more life experience, and even whose problems I didn't necessarily identify with, and you're 35 years old. Right? And you've been you've been a licensed therapist for almost 10 years. 14. Yeah, so almost 10 years, you've got a ton of clinical work from an experience from before that, but how have you navigated that? In what ways has that been an issue for you, when you work with people that are older,
Vance Crow:I actually find that that is has not been an issue for me, it actually kind of is exciting to me, I think immediately have a have a couple that I did have in private practice, but they had been made Michael longer than I had been alive. You know, really, we just brought that into the room. And we talked about it. And it was It wasn't something that I was fearful of, and really helped them to make sense of as well. And, honestly, they are just one of those really, really special clients that I I believe that always remember you. And so really, we ended up having a very profound connection. In my opinion, I think they would agree if they were here talking with this as well. You know, I get to be really curious with them, I get to focus on what I know clinically, rather than what I have or have not lived as well.
MICHAEL CUSICK:And even apart from the clinical, just because I know you, there's an aspect of when you bring yourself and we talked about this earlier in the conversation, that regardless of your age, there's a power of presence. And that presence can be transformational when you as a man, I won't even say young man, but as a 35 year old, and you have almost a teenager and five other kids and you've been married for 14 years. And so you have a lot of life experience. But it's how you do life. And it's how you approach life, that as you bring that into the counseling room, that that's what is also transformational?
Vance Crow:Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a feedback that I get often of just the way that I'm willing and able to bring myself into the session. You know, I've been with doctors that, you know, feel quite well use the holier than thou feel I know so much more than you. Let me impart my wisdom to you. And really, rather than being able to having that posture, that attitude, it's really I want to partner with you, and I want to figure this out alongside you. And I'm going to be with you and we're going to do this together, this isn't going to be a us or them kind of a situation.
MICHAEL CUSICK:I love that. Well, Vince, thank you for taking time today to share your heart talk about what it's been like here restoring the soul. And I personally want to say that I'm thrilled that you're here. And I just want to as anybody listening to this podcast, Vance Crowe is somebody who I've known for probably three years since when I first met you, and that you are someone who, with your clinical expertise with your heart for God and your heart for people, that you're somebody that I would refer to counsel, one of my dearest loved ones, one of my family members, and kind of hold that as a standard, where I wouldn't hire anybody where that's not the case. Sure. And anybody who's listening that this is a man who has much to offer couples and individuals, and I'm just grateful for our talk today. It's great to check in with
Vance Crow:you. Yeah, it was lots of fun. Thanks, Michael.
Brian Beatty:So we've wrapped up another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in, you're in counseling programs in Colorado, allow you to experience deep change in each box box. To learn more, visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com