Blog #Transformation

Samuel Johnson

Counselor, Coach, and Consultant 4C LTD

These are Samuel's favorite scriptures...

Samuel, you wanted to share the meaning of your name. 

Yeah, I was sharing this anecdote with Dawn-Marie earlier that I didn’t grow up a Samuel. I was a Sam in my childhood, and I grew up in a small town in the mid-1970s; Sam was not a popular name back then. There were more Samanthas than Samuels. I was speaking with a colleague a few years ago, and I asked him if he preferred Josh or Joshua. And he was describing how he would much rather be called Joshua than be a joke, as in “Josh” or “joshing around,” and it got me thinking about my name, which is incredibly powerful. It’s such a powerful name, and I’m glad my parents chose it for me instead of my brother’s. My brother’s name is Darin, and my parents named him after Bobby Darin, the singer of Splish Splash; I was taking a bath. So I got the biblical name, and he got the musical name. However, this connection to the name is that God hears Samuel, and I didn’t just want to be heard. Throughout my life, I struggled, believing that no one was listening to me. This struggle, rooted in my childhood experiences, has significantly shaped my identity and my journey of faith. So, this was a transformation for me, transitioning to the name Samuel. This was confusing for some of my friends, and even my wife would emphasize my name by saying ‘SamUEL,’ but I much prefer that God hear me and I am heard by Him. The name Samuel resonates with me in several ways, as he was the last of the judges before the time of the kings, and he anointed kings. What Samuel did was anoint not just one king but two. And he anointed the greatest king of the kingdom of Israel, King David. The few times that I’ve heard God’s voice, one time He said, “Get up. You are a king and a kingmaker.” God speaks to us; our identity is in Him, and it says in Revelation 2:17 that He will give us a new name.

When you were in fourth or fifth grade, you went through a hard season because of your parents’ struggling marriage. How did this season shape you and lead your path today? 

Yeah, there was a time when my parents were struggling in their marriage, and because I became a Christian as a child, I asked them if they would continue taking me to church because they weren’t going. I just wanted to be there, and they took me, and I went by myself. At the time, my older brother was not as connected to faith. There was this gentleman that I knew who lived in my small town, a community of around 4,000 people. Everybody knew everybody, so I knew this man, but he was my parents’ age, and when you’re in fourth and fifth grade, you’re intimidated by them. One day, he asked me to sit down and talk to him. He told me that I was so brave, and I had no idea what he meant by that. It was normal for me to be there, and it reminds me of Samuel in the Bible because he was raised in God’s house, and I wanted to be in His house, too. Today, my practice is even in the church that I attend. I have always felt very comfortable in God’s house. So it’s like my living room. 

You shared with me that, at one point, you wanted to be a technical writer. However, it was during your time as a resident advisor in college that something began to happen, which became a clear indication of your calling and gift. 

Yeah. So, first, for those who don’t know what a technical writer is, it’s like getting those manuals, and now, sadly, most of them you can’t understand because they’re written in a language other than English. A technical writer writes for scientists. I have a very scientific mind. My family gets tired of me talking about it because I won the biology, chemistry, and physics awards, and I’m this touchy-feely dude in therapy, too, so I can bridge these two worlds pretty well. I have an undergraduate degree in English and a master’s degree in counseling. I had planned to work in technical writing, but I became a resident assistant at the college I attended instead. My roommate was also a resident assistant, so we split up the hall and would have meetings like all the other RAs. At the meetings, we would gather and go around, and many of the guys would talk about winning their basketball games and their intramural competitions. Another would say that it was a great meeting because they had to work on different programs. The other RA would ask me, “Okay, Sam, so how are things with you?” And I’d say, “Well, this week, this one guy attempted suicide. I have one guy who’s strung out on pot, and he hasn’t gone to a class in four weeks. Another guy went to walk on the railroad tracks downtown, considering leaving school and just taking a train, you know, and then there was another gentleman who has a deep, affectionate place in my heart because he has a personality disorder and would pick up whatever personality or identity that suited him in the needs of the situation he was in. What became very clear to me was that God was leading me toward a profession in therapy where I could help people. I had those pieces in my background. In high school, I was part of a group called Peer Helpers. I was always doing things that helped my friends. In college, I was an English major, and I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?” I’ve wasted four years?" No offense to English majors out there, but I had packed my schedule, so my senior year, I was going to blow it off entirely. I had available time in my calendar. It was God’s gift because I started calling schools and said, “What do I need to do if I want to get in?” And they said, “Take this, this, this, this, and this class.” And all of them fit into my schedule. It was meant to be. So, I took all these introductory psychology classes as a senior with freshmen. Lastly, my roommate, remember, was an RA as well, and one of the things that solidified my decision about my giftedness and calling was when he said, “Sam, when the guys are looking to have fun, they’ll come and find me, but when they need help, they will wait for you."

You shared that you had trauma. What kind of trauma did you have and go through? 

Yes. Parts of my story I choose respectfully not to share because it also affects some other people, but certainly, I can add the experiences that my parents went through. They did remain married, but there was a lot of ugliness in their marriage. I remember looking into the mirror in fourth grade and saying, “I’m done with them. I’m done with them.” I swore them off and drew a line. Thankfully, that’s not where I stand with them today because I’ve had healing. I can share this bit, too. I also attended a Christian camp. As I mentioned earlier, the only place I wanted to be was in the house of God. If it weren’t for Craig, with whom we are Facebook friends to this day and stay connected, I shared with him and his sons that if it weren’t for their dad, I would not be here—I would have taken my life, as parts of my trauma left me suicidal. Craig, my camp counselor, was very influential and is now a pastor and missionary. We’ll never know the seeds we’re planting in people’s lives this side of heaven.

You specialize in anxiety and OCD, couples work, Internal Family Systems, EMDR, brainspotting, and EFT. Could you explain all of these methods? 

Sure. Part of the reason I specialize in many of those areas, not all of them, but many of them, is that it takes one to know one, right? I have anxiety, and a doctor would probably diagnose me with OCD. My wife certainly would think so, which is obsessive-compulsive disorder. Anxiety looks like being distressed or worried more than you ought to, and some people manage it just fine. Truth be told, a little anxiety is good for you because it helps you perform to the best of your abilities, but it can also incapacitate you if not managed. What I’d like to be clear about is because a lot of people will say, “Well, I don’t have obsessive-compulsive disorder because I don’t check the knobs of the stove when I leave the house, or you should see my desk.” That has nothing to do with what OCD is. You can have different behaviors, and if you have a messy desk or if you have some area in your life that you can’t control, it could be a sign that you do have OCD because what people do is say, “Well, I can’t manage that so I’m not even going to try.” So, my type of OCD is much more about the inability to stop thinking—You can’t shut it off. The obsessions are the thoughts. You can have compulsions of counting and checking, and that is where mine shows up.

For example, I will lie in bed and count, check, and go through mental lists over and over, prepping for the next day. There are a lot of ways you can have obsessive-compulsive disorder. You also asked about some of the ways that I provide treatment. One approach is called the Internal Family Systems. So, if you’ve seen the Disney movie Inside Out, the movie represents various parts of a girl’s brain as animated characters—there’s an angry part, a disgusted part, a happy part, and a sad part of the brain. What we do, in a sense, is anthropomorphize them or give them life. We apply Internal Family Systems to our system, meaning ourselves. In essence, we would engage in therapy with ourselves from a Christian perspective, guided by the Holy Spirit, a process designed to help individuals lead themselves more effectively. There’s also a way to do healing work with it as well that doesn’t look the same but takes you to the same result as EMDR, which is a trauma healing approach, and brainspotting is an offshoot of EMDR. Researchers discovered that EMDR involves eye movement—that’s what EMDR is—so the therapist moves their fingers back and forth. Then, the client watches them, and there’s a lot more that goes on. However, while that’s happening, it allows the brain to heal from what it was previously trying to keep away from or block out. Brainspotting is an offshoot of that. Whereas a gentleman named David Gran discovered that while he was moving his fingers, sometimes people’s eyes would wobble or stick, so instead of moving his hands back and forth, he found the spot where the distress “lives,” and you held it there, and the distress heals, so I use this approach as well. EFT is a couples therapy approach called emotionally focused therapy, and men tend to hate that name because they think they’re going to be required to cry. It’s not true. There are many emotions involved, but it’s one of the most researched and well-documented approaches to couples’ therapy. Couples therapy approaches tend not to have as much research behind them as individual approaches, so I wanted to learn a skill because when I was doing all of this trauma work with people and helping them heal, they would say, “Can you please tell my partner what you’re telling me and explain to them what’s going on?” I also do neurofeedback, which involves placing electrodes on your head. My wife, daughter, and I do it. It’s not therapy, but what it does is shift your brain from a state of distress or fight, flight, or freeze mode to a state of rest, moving it to rest, digest, and relax mode. 

What’s the difference between surviving and truly living? How do you help people reach a point of healing, freeing them from their struggles? 

I love these questions, and they’re so huge, but let’s see if I can encapsulate them. But first of all, the difference between surviving and thriving. And by the way, surviving is necessary. Surviving is a good thing. Surviving is a skill that humans have developed and need to possess. Parts of our brain help us survive. Survival almost always revolves around protection and keeping you safe. Protection is beneficial, but it often hinders healing because protective mechanisms resist addressing the issue. Until you’re ready to heal, protection is a good thing. For a time, surviving is necessary, and it’s perfect. I’m always telling my clients that they need to do what they’re doing. You needed your OCD. You needed your depression. You needed your anxiety to keep you alive. You needed your ADHD, etc. It’s very unshaming, right? Because people come in like they believe they’re bad or wrong for having this mental health concern. And my first line is, “No, it kept you alive.” Literally, in many instances, I’ve experienced my own suicidal experiences. In many cases, this depression, anxiety, etc., kept the person alive until they were ready and able to heal. And healing is literally that. So, let’s use an example. Let’s say you have a broken bone. And what you could do is you could wrap it up in gauze, and you could splint it, take some aspirin, and limp along. You could be okay, and your arm would probably heal, but it would probably heal deformed. However, if you visit a doctor, they can put it in a cast and use it, allowing you to return to your normal state, where it would be as good as new, if not stronger. When bones break, they heal—they’re stronger at the break. By the way, I believe that the same thing happens in these transformative healing approaches that I use. EMDR, brainspotting, and IFS were all accidental discoveries about trauma. All three experts, David Gran, Francine Shapiro, and Richard Schwarz, would say, “Well, I just found this serendipitously,” and it happened to work. I believe all of these serendipity experiences are God’s work. And they brought transformation to people. Other forms of therapy are excellent, necessary, and valuable because you might be in that place where you need to survive, and you’re not ready for healing yet. So, I don’t knock any other form of therapy. EMDR, as well as IFS and brainspotting, are approaches that help a person feel safe enough to allow that wall to come down so it doesn’t feel scary or threatening. It’s an approach that enables the wall to come down just enough, and then it can also go back up. 

How has your faith continued to influence your life and work today? 

I’ll throw in an anecdote about running here. For a season, I was a runner in high school. I’m not an athlete, and I don’t connect with those things. I’m a nerdy scientist type, but I’m currently in training and have just completed a 25K trail run, which is approximately 15.5 miles. Trail running differs from pavement running, and now I’m preparing for a Spartan Ultra, which will be 32 miles and feature 60 obstacles. The metaphor here is that we’re always in training, and when we permit ourselves to do hard things, God honors it and blesses it. God didn’t say things are going to be easy. No. God didn’t say your life is going to be a picnic. No. What God told me is that I experienced some complicated things in my life, and He allowed those things to be used for good. I received my healing. I got healing through EMDR, and after that happened, I said, “I have to bring this to other people.”My life verse is Genesis 50:20. “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” I firmly believe that God wants me to do this work, and He allowed what happened to me. I don’t like saying, “He did it. That’s unfair and unreasonable. He certainly allowed it, and good came out of it. 

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