Do You Lead with Intuitive Knowing?

#discernment #intuitive #limbicsystem #prefrontalcortex #transcendent #churchleadership #seekinggodswill #godscalling

For over 30 years I’ve taught pastors and churches how to put prayer and discernment at the center of church leadership. Discernment’s been my calling, but teaching it has been my passion. When I started emphasizing church discernment in the 1990s, very few church pastors or churches even whispered the term. Now, many embrace the idea, but is what we’re doing really discernment?

Denominations today regularly talk about discernment, yet they still make decisions largely the same way they did before adopting the language of discernment. Discernment involves more than just adopting the language. It requires something I call intuitive knowing.

Intuitive Knowing is the convergence of transcendence, cognition, and emotion. It's the sense that a decision is right because our thoughts and emotions align with something beyond us in a way that leads to a sense that what we’re doing is “right” for us and everyone around us. Most pastors knew intuitively that their decision to go to seminary or ministry was right. There were many reasons to say no, but they said yes because intuitively they knew that it was the right thing to do. So we’re familiar with Intuitive Knowing, but we often don’t spread it into comprehensive church leadership and life.

Intuitive knowing is foundational to discernment. Recognizing how requires understanding how our brains work. The brain is incredibly complex, yet its complexity can be simplified into three levels of consciousness:

1.     Animal Consciousness: This is our limbic system, our emotional center, which responds impulsively to our surroundings. It continually scans for what might be dangerous, boring, energy draining, tasty, satisfying, pleasing, and more. It’s the part of us that social media, video games, television shows, advertisements, and addictive substances and activities target. It’s both the center of pleasure and the source of many of our struggles. If we only follow our limbic system’s impulses, we become plagued with all sorts of life problems that come with living a mostly reactive life.

2.     Human Consciousness: This is our prefrontal cortex, our rational center, where cognitive thinking occurs. We prize this part of our brains, always wanting to be rational thinkers who reason everything out, but it’s also the part of the brain that requires the most energy to maintain. It’s impossible to live only in our rationality because our brains aren’t built to. The rational can guide the animal, but the animal is more pervasive. It often tricks the rational brain by fooling it into mistaking an impulse for a conscious, rational thought. That’s why we never win a Facebook argument. We’re fighting with rational words arguments rooted in reactivity limbic.

3.     Transcendent Consciousness: This is an awareness and receptivity to guidance from something beyond us. It speaks through our thinking and our emotions, which is why we sometimes struggle to distinguish, “Is this God or just me speaking?” The answer can be yes to both, since the transcendent guides through thoughts and emotions when we’re awake, aware, and available to it.

So, what is Intuitive Knowing? It’s the foundation of discernment. True discernment happens when all three levels of consciousness become aligned—the transcendent guides the rational, and the rational guides the emotional, yet all three align harmoniously because they seek what’s most deeply right. Spiritual practices can nurture this integration, but only when that’s their focus. It’s easy to functionalize practices so that they themselves become the goal, not the transcendence they nurture. For example, journaling is only helpful if it opens us to God’s guidance. If we’re journaling because we’re told that’s what spiritual people do, then it becomes functional.

Unfortunately, functionality and emotionality stalk discernment. Functionality is following rules, order, obligations, traditional structures, and anything that emphasizes putting decision making under human control. Most church decision-making structures are built on functionality, which sometimes can be hijacked by emotionality. Emotionality influences functional processes as leaders who are change-afraid and risk-anxious use these processes to make protective decisions and avoid real discernment. A great example is voting with “All in favor say yes” and calling it discernment. In my leadership I’ve always invited people to pray and seek God’s will first, and then ask, “All who sense this may be God’s will say yes.” That’s the difference between a functional practice and one that leads to collective intuitive knowing.

I’ve written about how to discern individually and in churches in my book, Becoming a Blessed Church. To summarize it, churches that truly discern cultivate intuitive knowing within and among church leaders. They create structures that push people toward intuitive knowing, not just by designing meetings to encourage discernment, but by nurturing intuitive knowing throughout the church.  

Ultimately, we’re talking about how we create churches that thrive because they’re awake, aware, and attentive to how God speaks to us and leads us through our emotions, thoughts, and transcendence.

I encourage you to reflect on all this and consider how you might guide yourself and your church leaders to a greater sense of knowing intuitively what God’s call is.

Blessings to you,

The Rev. Dr. Graham Standish, PhD, MDiv, MA, MSW

What Happens when Racial and Cultural Differences Arise during Therapy?

In this article, we explore how racial and cultural differences come into play between a therapist and client in a counseling session, and how those differences are bridged. Samaritan’s African American therapists, Jennifer Edmonds, Lynda Bradley, and Kesha Brake, share their insights and experiences on this topic.

#blackhistorymonth #blacktherapists #racialstereotypes

What experiences have you had where race and cultural differences played a role in counseling a client?

Jennifer: I have counseled numerous individuals of many different races and ethnicities. For the most part, clients are respectful of racial and cultural differences and have not shown that my race was a barrier. However, I have done therapy with individuals who were known to have racial prejudices. One example: I had a client who, in the past, had brutally assaulted individuals of non-Caucasian race, but I treated the therapeutic experience as a place to identify and address prejudice in overcoming racial stereotypes. I pride myself on creating an emotionally safe place for these conversations. As a seasoned therapist, I can confidently approach these difficult, uncomfortable conversations, allowing the client to move past their preconceived belief systems. I have also been recommended to clients seeking an African American therapist because of the comfort of sharing a common cultural background and race.

Lynda: Being an African American woman has provided opportunities throughout my life to educate individuals from predominate US culture through my life experiences. Many of these opportunities created understanding that resulted in better relationships.

Culture influences how people express emotions, describe symptoms, and understand mental health. Being culturally aware helps professionals communicate effectively, minimizing misunderstandings. Clients are more likely to open up and feel understood when their cultural values, beliefs, and practices are acknowledged and respected. This builds a strong therapeutic alliance.

Effective treatment often requires tailoring interventions to align with a client's cultural background. A culturally aware professional can incorporate culturally appropriate strategies and resources.

Kesha: Throughout my career, racial and cultural differences have played a major role with clients. As an African American and a woman, I am able to connect with others not only when it comes to my race but also feeling marginalized. Being an African American woman helps me to have a deeper connection with my clients because it helps me to, ‘see the other side,’ of certain societal norms. However, every person and his or her experiences are different even if they appear similar. For example, I would have a higher chance of sharing a similar perspective or experience with a client who is also an African American woman. However, there could and/or would be differences in our shared experiences.

What insights do you have on bridging racial and cultural differences?

Jennifer: Some African American clients feel that a Caucasian therapist who has had training in cultural diversity and/or multi-cultural therapy still may not have the level of understanding that an African American therapist has, as they do not have the same history or have not faced the same personal challenges. I believe this has a lot to do with our race being leery of the counseling profession and the world of medicine as a whole. Medical professionals have taken advantage of and used black people throughout our history.

I try to bring insight by modeling an open-mindedness to these discussions, a sensitivity to their perspective, and a willingness to clarify and break through these prejudices together.  We all have biases and prejudices.  It is our professional responsibility to question where they originate and address them accordingly for the betterment of our clients.

Lynda: Listen, ask questions, and don’t evaluate someone else’s experiences by comparing them to yours.

Kesha: I often remind myself not to jump to conclusions or assume I know a client's story or experience. It is important to have this understanding with all clients. However, when I am able to connect to a client by race or cultural difference, I have to be more mindful to take a step back and listen and see their world from their experience.

Resolve to Have a Healthier Mind and Spirit for 2025

#newyearsresolutions #holistichealth #mentalhealth #spiritualhealth #mindbodyspirit

What are the most common New Year’s resolutions? To lose weight? Get more fit? Drink less? Something else that has to do with our bodies? Most people don’t commit to being healthier mentally and spiritually. Why? Because committing to a healthier mind and spirit is SO BIG that we don’t know where to start. Still, in the spirit of resolutions I thought I’d share some tips that can help you have a healthier mind and spirt throughout 2025:

1) Become More Balanced: During Thanksgiving, my uncle asked me, “What are you doing to make sure you age well?” I muttered something about exercise. He responded, “All that exercise is good, but you need to do yoga or something like it to strengthen your balance.”

He's right in more ways than one. Stretching ourselves and building better physical balance is important, but building better emotional, mental, and spiritual balance is even more important. Living in an out-of-balance culture, how do we do balance our lives? The following are practices that can bring more balance to your life:

• Get the right amount of sleep—this usually means choosing an earlier bedtime, even if you feel tired and want more time to yourself… go to bed anyway. When we’ve slept well, we feel less burned out and better able to deal with life. Apps like the “Rise” app, can help, but the key is getting more and better sleep. It’s amazing how much it helps.

• Eat a better, more balanced diet—this is hard to do in a culture of fast, processed food, but the more balanced and healthier our diet is, the better we feel and can deal with life. A good app for this is the Noom app, which is less a diet and more a cognitive behavioral approach to healthy eating. 

• Get a healthy amount of exercise—getting a healthy amount of exercise doesn’t mean becoming incredibly fit. It means boosting our health through walking at a relatively high pace several days a week and doing some sort of resistance training—bands, chair exercises, or weightlifting. Having healthier bodies help us deal with life better.

• Moderate social media—spending inordinate amounts of time in front of screens is draining. Social media is all designed with algorithms that hook into our addictive centers. They’re powerful much in the way nicotine is: they addict us while leading us to think, “I can quit if I want to… I just don’t want to.” There are other options for boredom—puzzles (I like jigsaws, my wife likes crosswords), reading, chatting with others, and more. Look for substitute activities that are healthier and less addictive.

2) Look for What’s Good: To me, this is foundational to becoming healthier in all facets of life. We live in critical and cynical times about everything: government, church, the Steelers, the Penguins, the police, schools, medicine, science, facts, the world, and pretty much everything else in life. All that cynicism and skepticism, all that looking for what’s wrong, has a deeply unhealthy impact on our lives. It’s like breathing in toxic air all day long that creeps into every capillary of our system.

For a long time, I’ve lived by a more positive mantra: “Look for what’s good, not what’s bad. Look for what’s right, not what’s wrong. Focus on what’s possible not what’s impossible. Embrace what gives life, not what takes it away.” How we look at the world is a choice—a choice that has health impact. You know this already. Think of a time when you were caught in a conversation with someone cynical and couldn’t escape. How did that person impact you? Now think of a conversation you had with someone positive and energetic. How did that person impact you? Looking for what’s good doesn’t mean ignoring reality. It means engaging reality in a way that makes it better.

3) Seek Purpose and Meaning: There’s been a tremendous amount of research on the importance of having a sense of meaning and purpose in life. Purpose is the sense that I am alive for this reason. Meaning is felt when we engage in activities that express that purpose. Seeking purpose and meaning helps us live with intention, especially when engaging in activities and actions that make life better for others.

Looking back on my life and those that I’ve known and worked with, the healthiest ones have always been those who sought purpose and meaning. They’ve pursued a life that’s larger than just them. They look for ways to do good for others. Whatever careers they have—investor, teacher, police officer, retail clerk, janitor, and more—they see their lives as unique service to others and the world. T

4) Deal with Anxiety: Most people are much more anxious than they realize, and both general and specific anxiety can accumulate. Pay more attention to your body and mind and ask if you have anxiety. If you do, resolve to deal with it because anxiety can accumulate and lead to worsening relational and physical problems. There are apps to help, practices that help, organizations that help, and of course our therapists are trained to help people deal with anxiety.

5) Create More Time for Quiet: It’s amazing how healing and healthy quiet can be. Whether that’s the quiet of a walk, turning off music/talk in a car, sitting on a back porch, hiking in woods, or more, quiet restores us. We live in a noisy culture, and most of us are uncomfortable with quiet because of the combination of boredom and running thoughts. Still, finding time for quiet brings balance and health to our lives.

6) Pray: Prayer is more than just psychological centering. It connects us with the transcendent, with the “more than,” with God. Praying brings balance to our lives by connecting us with a spiritual realm that wants what’s best for our lives. So, making time for regular prayer and listening is incredibly healing and balancing.

I hope these ideas can help you resolve to live a better 2025! We’re here to help.

Blessings,

The Rev. N. Graham Standish, PhD, MSW, MDiv, MA

Executive Director, Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting