Early on in my training to become a counsellor, I came across the work of Dr Carl Rogers and learned about the Core Conditions of his approach called Person Centred Therapy. The Core Conditions are Empathy, Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) and Congruence. I was a fairly new Christian, and these values sat well with me. Easy to brush off as nice ideas, they are, if given some deeper reflection, profound and fundamental and they remain so in my life and practice to this day.
Empathy: the experience of seeing the world through another’s eyes with compassion.
UPR: a sincere valuing of the intrinsic worth of the other, simply because they are, regardless of how I feel about what they have done or what they believe, think or say.
Congruence: a commitment to honesty, to not withhold anything that is within my awareness that may be of therapeutic value to the other.
As I have lived with these values, practiced them, even taught them to trainee counsellors, I have found them to be entirely compatible with the character of Jesus, and in the way he dealt with people he engaged with. The result of this is that these values have bedded down, and they now act as a kind of radar for when something does not sit well with me regarding the way people are treated.
Those early years of church impacted me in many positive ways – an understanding of the bible, the joy of worship and communal singing, the power of people gathered together to serve communities in charitable ways. I also started to learn about denominations, Protestant or Catholic, Evangelical, Baptist or Anglican. One Jesus, different ways to express and gather around faith.
In my counselling work, I was gaining a deepening understanding of human development. How early attachments impact how we develop and grow, how trauma stays with us in our body, heart and mind and what humans need to live well.
Over time, I started to notice my ‘core conditions radar’ beingincreasingly activated in and around some of the keys theological themes of that time, and I started to have questions – does a loving God really send unbelievers to hell? Are people in committed same sex relationships really in sin? How much of the patriarchal past is still around today in church and what perpetuates it? What about those who feel rejected, unwelcomed or outside the church? I had questioning friends but found it increasingly difficult to sustain connection with groups that were satisfied that the answer to the questions was ‘yes’. My faith was changing.
I think I was well into this process of my faith changing when I realised I was suffering with something called ‘cognitive dissonance’ an increasingly uncomfortable experience when we hold attitudes and have beliefs and behaviours are in conflict with other beliefs and behaviours.
I wouldn’t have chosen to go through a faith change but in grappling with this dissonance, I felt compelled to go through it in a way I would describe much like a calling.
The dissonance is not just cognitive though, it places stress on our whole beings – emotionally, physically, spiritually and interpersonally. People feel isolated or lost and confused and afraid. For people to whom their faith has been central to them, it can impact them at their core as their identity and sense of themselves becomes in flux. There is often loneliness as those we once stood alongside in worship or joined with in prayer may not be able to relate to what’s going on. Each of us has to follow our own path, each having our own stumbling points, questions and treasures.
I have heard it described as like being in a choppy sea, with the land we have left now too far behind and the new shore also out of sight. A liminal space, with no quick answers about where you will end up.
What seems vital for many is having some anchors in that choppy sea. A friend, a community even a virtual one like Nomad or a counsellor who can listen, support and come alongside you on the way.
Carl Rogers believed that if people had the right conditions, (he called it fertile ‘soil’) then they would grow towards the light like the potato plants he observed in his parent’s back yard. The Core Conditions are part of what creates that fertile soil. Coming into a therapeutic space that is non-judgemental, honest and compassionately caring can be transformative at a time when there seems to be so much loss.
Some people continue to journey with faith, learn to keep good company with their doubts and questions. Faith in this space is often described as expansive, mystical with much of what was certain falling into mystery. For me this is a beautifully expansive space that can hold me eternally, and all the sorrows of the world, and every being in it.
Others decide to step away from church and find freedom and peace in that.
It takes courage to question something familiar and safe, but often this comes from a place of integrity and of wanting to live honestly with oneself. I have no preconceived ideas of the unique path that each person weaves, only that usually, the path leads them not to nowhere as it may have seemed at the start or even in the middle, but to somewhere else true and meaningful.
– Amanda