Beyond The Gates Beyond the Gates | Page 34

Faith Lift mind, body and spirit workING in unison BY DR. DEBORAH HELM, PSY.D. M y name is Dr. Deborah Heim, Psy.D., and I am a licensed Christian clinical psychologist who is new to the Bonita Springs/Naples area. I have been a Christian psychologist for approximately 20 years and have extensive training and experience in the integration of biblical truth with psychological theory and techniques. I co-founded and was the clinical director of a Christian counseling center in Naperville, Illinois, where I served 35 to 40 clients a week and supervised 8 to 10 therapists/interns at any given time. We developed a very strong presence and reputation in our community, and we were very successful for almost 15 years. Although I always had a great amount of flexibility in scheduling around my children’s events and appointments as they were growing up, I was very busy. As I am getting older, God has convicted me that it is time to simplify. That is why we have moved to Florida! My goal is to seek and maintain a lifestyle I have been so blessed to journey with so many people who transform spiritually by surrendering what interferes with experiencing a closer walk with Christ. balanced between work and my quality of life outside of work. I wish to help others to attain this as a result. I believe there is no separation between the mind, body and spirit; they all need to work in unison. More importantly, when we strive for this “balance” without the help of God, we fail miserably. I believe that as human beings, we use our own free will to try to make ourselves “happy.” We’ve all set out either consciously or unconsciously to ask ourselves the question: “I’ll be happy if __________,” only to find out that the “happiness” is fleeting and temporary, and many times we find ourselves in even worse situations. From the Fall of Mankind, we have been continually trying to fill up our internal voids with external temptations from the world. Adam and Eve tried to do this by eating the forbidden fruit. The enemy’s tactics have not changed in over 2,000 years. He tempts us all through deception, doubt and distraction, thereby resulting in a world of free will and sin. … Thank you so much, Adam and Eve, right? So what does this look like? Celebrate Recovery, a Christian 12-step support group that is a wonderful, biblically based group, identifies this as our “hurts, hang-ups or habits.” We all have them; no one is exempt, we are all in the 32 November 2016 - March 2017