Barb Hill // Keeping a Soft Heart
(A therapy story from mid-2020)
It’s been a bit of a wild time these days. It seems like there’s a breaking news story every hour. We’ve settled into a new rhythm of life as we adjust to social distancing, masking, taking precautions around traveling and family members. We cling to Zoom calls and neighborhood walks to breathe in community and life. As I’ve found, my tendency to be in my own head often causes a spike in chronic anxiety, just as I find myself truly longing for rest. I sat down with my friend Barb Hill to talk about her own experiences as a therapist in a time of navigating a new normal, what it means for her and her clients, and how to keep a soft heart in a time of chaos.
Hey Barb! So Morgan and I have been talking a lot about just the idea of mental health in this season. It’s just such a strange time to be trying to figure out things about your job or your relationship or your family and it’s all been very, I think, magnified in this season. I was super curious to talk to you about what you’ve been able to do in this time. My first question is: how long have you been a therapist and like what actually got you into wanting to do something like this?
Barb: I’ve been practicing since 2017, so almost four years. And my journey of becoming a therapist was not very traditional. I didn’t really have an idea that I would pursue this until much later in life. I had a lot of different experiences and I pursued a lot of different career paths before I became a counselor. There was a moment in 2012, when I was reading something, and I just had this moment with God where this idea of pursuing counseling as an actual career kind of just dropped into my mind and heart. And when it did it just, it was kind of like a round peg in a round hole type of moment it just fit and it just made so much sense to me. I think when I started going through the program, I was reflecting and kind of looking back on my life and my relationships and experiences and just saw how that kind of role or that passion was woven throughout so much of my life up until that point. But just kind of like further confirmed and solidified that this was what I was supposed to do long term. So, yeah, so in 2012, I started a biblical counseling program and then graduated from that program in 2016, and then pursued a clinical mental health counseling program so that I could work with trauma, because I discovered that was where my passions were.
So tell me what exactly you’re doing now! I know it’s changed a little bit over time. But you now have your own private practice, yeah?
Barb: Yes. Yep. So, I moved to Nashville in 2018, I worked for a counseling agency for that first year and then I was here. It was really amazing to work for the counseling agency I was at, because I think it helped me clarify the population that I wanted to work with, the specific issues that I was passionate about, and then by the time I got into private practice in 2019 — so like a year and a half or so ago — I really had such a clear picture of the clients that I knew I wanted to work with. I felt like I really played to my strengths as a therapist too, because I think for myself as a therapist when you first start out, you’re just like, I want to see everybody! And then you realize that the reality is: I’m not going to be the best therapist for everyone, and so I want to get a really clear picture of the best client for me.
What drew you to your specialization in trauma?
Barb: Oh, that’s a good question. I think part of it is because I’m really passionate about peeling back the layers and getting to the root cause of something. It’s important to practically figure out how to manage the symptoms that show up on the surface. I think to me I’ve always been interested in what’s what’s causing the stuff that you see — you know, so things like anxiety or depression or eating disorders or whatever behavior is kind of existing at the surface. There’s a root cause. There’s something a few layers deeper. The thing below the thing. And I think that’s where I’ve always been. That’s where my passions have always lived. It’s really interesting: if we can get to the root of something, then I feel like the change and the transformation that we can experience is more long term. And you can really walk in the freedom of living the life you want to live.
In such a tumultuous time, have you seen certain things rise up more than others?
Barb: Yeah. I would say that two things I’ve seen a lot are anxiety and grief.
This year has been full of conflicting information — full of different things that have been happening in our world that have triggered a lot of anxiety for people. I think whenever there’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unknowns, there’s always going to be a lot of fear and anxiety that rises up in us. I think because life has looked so different over the past 7–8 months, I think people have been in a kind of ever-evolving journey of grief. When things first started with COVID and quarantine, we thought it was going to last for like three weeks. And then, as it continued and people’s lives continued to have to pivot with what was going on in the world, people weren’t believing what life used to look like and what it normally looks like. And then, you know, on top of it, people’s lives were still happening. They were still dealing with stuff before this happened. It becomes more of a complex thing, I think.
What would you say to somebody that hasn’t experienced something like therapy?
Barb: The way that I’ve explained therapy that just seems to normalize the whole thing or maybe demystify it is: it’s just another relationship in your life and it just happens to be a really unique one. One where this person is very neutral — they’re able to bring this objectivity and this perspective. They’re able to ask you really insightful questions to help take you a little deeper and to explore things. It’s non-judgmental. It’s all the things that bring safety to a relationship. Hopefully that exists in your relationship with your therapist. I would say that I mean all of us can benefit from sitting with somebody that can offer that type of relationship. A space to process without judgment, a space that you feel really safe, where you can get to know yourself better, where you can kind of unpack stuff in how you grew up. I think just what makes it feel so normal is that it’s just another relationship that’s in your life. It’s a unique one that provides things that maybe won’t be able to get in your other relationships.
What are you hopeful for in this next season?
Barb: Two words that come to mind are restoration and redemption. Because I feel like, especially thinking of the racial issues that were coming to the surface. I think, personally I believe that God is very interested in restoration and redemption, and reconciliation too. So I’m really hopeful that even though on the surface this year has looked and felt very messy and very painful that the thing that we kind of exit this year with is a sense of restoration and redemption, in our own lives and then in like the larger scale of things. I just think, you know, when these things happen, it seems to threaten so much. It seems like it’s taking more than it’s giving. I’m hopeful that all of us, in some way shape or form, can leave this year with really some sense of restoration or redemption in some area of our lives. And I don’t know what that will look like for other people’s lives, but that’s kind of been my prayer for my own life and even in the lives of the clients that I am working with — that they would feel empowered to wrestle with the things that are happening in their lives so that they don’t feel like a victim to their circumstance or to their pain but that they can wrestle with their pain and that they can come out on top.
Where have you seen some redemption and restoration in your own life this year?
Barb: I feel like a lot of it is internal. A lot of it isn’t necessarily rooted in a change of circumstance. I think a lot of it is more in a change of perspective, around the same issue. I think I’ve had to work probably harder than I ever have to keep my heart soft, and I think I’ve been able to get there. Not because my circumstances changed. But because I just, I wrestled it out yet again, you know? I think keeping my heart soft towards God, keeping my heart soft towards hoping and believing that God can still do anything at any time, and sometimes there are seasons where we have to fight for that. More than others. I would say that I’ve seen that in my own life just by partnering with God around the things that have challenged me, and really wanting a different and more hopeful perspective. It’s been a lot of internal work, I haven’t necessarily seen a lot of shifts in my circumstances as much as I’m seeing shifts like in my mindset and in my heart and perspective. I feel like it’s the short game when our circumstances change, it’s the long game when those internal shifts happen. It’s worthwhile to fight for those internal shifts and then when the circumstances change, it’s like a cherry on top.
What does it mean to keep your heart soft in a time like this?
Barb: Well, it seems like there are so many things that can make us feel super justified in hardening our hearts, especially disappointment. I think disappointment comes and it makes all kinds of suggestions about how justified you would be in hardening your heart. Because we are as human beings so hardwired to self protect. And so, it seems very rational and very justified to harden our hearts to self protect from any continued disappointment or pain or whatever it may be. So I think it’s really challenging our kind of instinctual response to self protect, I think part of it for me, at least, has been recognizing that I can keep my heart soft towards God because he’s trustworthy. Because I think if I harden my heart, specifically towards God, then I’m kind of agreeing with this idea that God isn’t wise, is not trustworthy or not good or not safe. So I think keeping my heart soft is recognizing that there is a lot of really a lot of things that would make a lot of sense to justify to harden my heart and to make the mindful, conscious, difficult choice to say — I’m going to keep my heart soft and tender towards God because I believe that that he’s trustworthy. And believe that he is working, even though I can’t necessarily see what he’s doing. I think the first piece of it is just recognizing that I would want to harden my heart out of self protection, and it would be really easy to justify doing that because whenever we’re in pain or we’re disappointed, that’s going to be our default thing to do. But then it’s kind of like going to, you know, making a mindful choice to be like, okay like, even though I would feel really justified in that and it would make a lot of sense like ultimately like I believe that God is worthy of my trust. And if that’s true, if I really believe that, if that’s not just lip service, if I really believe that God is trustworthy and he loves me and he has my best interest in mind, then I can keep my heart soft towards him. So I think for me it’s been a lot about wrestling with how I see God. And if I see him as good and trustworthy, then I feel like I can take the risk of keeping my heart soft.
Barb Hill is the founder of Holding Space Counseling in Franklin, TN. She lives with her dog, Nash, and you can find her writing about her own process @barbs_hill on Instagram.
