Stages of Life, Stages of Faith, Stages of Change!

The Virtual Couch

Tony Overbay LMFT

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.9 • 668 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2020

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 1980s James Fowler, Professor of Theology and Human Development at Emory University and director of both the Center for Research on Faith and Moral Development and the Center for Ethics wrote a book called Stages of Faith. Fowler’s work compared the stages that one may go on in their faith journey, transition, or crisis with the stages of cognitive and moral development proposed by noted Psychologists Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Fowler’s work has resonated with many people who find themselves feeling lost, abandoned, or angry at their faith communities as they begin to develop their own sense of self as they gradually mature into adulthood.

Tony began working with Fowler’s stages of faith over a decade ago in helping people with their own faith journeys and quickly found himself seeing one client a week going through the process to several a week to now several each day. In this episode, Tony shares his thoughts on how Fowler’s stages of faith can easily be applied as “stages of life,” ultimately helping people recognize that there truly isn’t anything broken, or wrong with them because of their beliefs, and the sooner one can recognize where their own belief system, values, and goals come from the sooner these same beliefs, values, and goals can become embraced and life can truly be lived from a more authentic, empowered state!

Tony's FREE parenting course, “Tips For Parenting Positively Even In the Not So Positive Times” is available NOW. Just go to http://tonyoverbay.com/courses/ and sign up today. This course will help you understand why it can be so difficult to communicate with and understand your children. You’ll learn how to keep your buttons hidden, how to genuinely give praise that will truly build inner wealth in your child, teen, or even in your adult children, and you’ll learn how to move from being “the punisher” to being someone your children will want to go to when they need help. And Tony is so confident that this program will work, that he's offering a money-back guarantee!

This episode of The Virtual Couch is sponsored by Betterhelp.com/virtualcouch With the continuing “sheltering” rules that are spreading across the country PLEASE do not think that you can’t continue or begin therapy now. Betterhelp.com/virtualcouch can put you quickly in touch with licensed mental health professionals who can meet through text, email, or videoconference often as soon as 24-48 hours. And if you use the link http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch you will receive 10% off your first month of services. Please make your own mental health a priority, http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch offers affordable counseling, and they even have sliding scale options if your budget is tight.

Tony's new best selling book "He's a Porn Addict...Now What? An Expert and a Former Addict Answer Your Questions" is now available on Kindle. https://amzn.to/38mauBo

Tony Overbay, is the co-author of "He's a Porn Addict...Now What? An Expert and a Former Addict Answer Your Questions" now available on Amazon https://amzn.to/33fk0U4. The book debuted in the number 1 spot in the Sexual Health Recovery category and remains there as the time of this record. The book has received numerous positive reviews from professionals in the mental health and recovery fields.

You can learn more about Tony's pornography recovery program The Path Back by visiting http://pathbackrecovery.com And visit http://tonyoverbay.com and sign up to receive updates on upcoming programs, and podcasts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Coming up on today's episode of the virtual couch, I just finished recording it. I know, I just want you to listen to this one. I don't even know what I'm going to title it. I think it's going to be something like stages of life, stages of faith, stages of change. But this is something I've wanted to talk about for so long. I take James Fowler's Stages of Faith and I throw in there how that applies to stages of life. And it leads stages of change. Helping you become, I know this sounds so cheesy, but the person that you always wanted to be based on your values. Imagine what if in a world you're okay. You're not broken. You have all the thoughts and feelings and emotions you have because you're a human being. You're not a robot. You're not a
0:37.5	psychopath, but you are human. And the only one of you that has ever walked the face of this
0:41.6	earth. So that is why you feel the way you do. And that is going to lead to talking about these
0:46.1	stages of faith, stages of life. I can do another hour here in this intro. So trust me,
0:51.2	listen to this message, listen to this episode, that and so much more coming up on this episode of The Virtual Couch.
1:05.8	Hey, everybody, this is a very quick advertisement, and I know I'm a podcast listener.
1:10.5	You can hit the little fast forward button probably on your podcast player, 15 seconds, 30 seconds.
1:15.9	But bear with me.
1:16.7	I'll try to make this quick.
1:17.8	As a therapist myself, I obviously recommend that everybody give therapy a try because when people ask me, do I need therapy?
1:24.6	I don't even have to talk to you.
1:25.6	The answer is, yes, I need therapy.
1:27.6	Everyone could use a sounding board. Everybody could use an objective third party. Everybody
1:33.6	could kind of dig deep a little bit and find out what are things that they've been holding back
1:37.5	on. What are the things that they feel like they should be able to get over or shouldn't be
1:42.4	worrying about? Shouldn't, shouldn't. Nobody wants to be should on. But we're all hanging on to things that would be helpful to get over or shouldn't be worrying about. Shouldn't, shouldn't. Nobody wants to be should on.
1:45.5	But we're all hanging on to things that would be helpful to process.
1:49.1	And there's even things that we thought we'd achieve by now or things that we really want to achieve
1:53.5	so that we won't have these regrets in life.
1:56.4	And so if there are people listening right now that might be noticing that their anxiety
2:00.5	or their depression might even getting a tiny bit worse, especially with what's going on in the world right now, let's get to it. Let's not leave that untreated. You owe it to yourself, to those around you, your spouse, your kids. You, I mean, you owe it to you at the very least to give therapy a try. So if you're nervous about finding the right
2:17.6	fit, if you're worried about bumping into somebody in the therapy waiting room, if you have any
	...

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