Healing Out Loud: How to Embrace God's Love When You Don't Like Yourself

by Sandi Brown, Dr. Michelle Caulk

Overview

In this unique look at a one-year journey through counseling told from both sides of the couch, Sandi Brown—the founder of St. Louis’s largest Christian radio ministry, JOY FM—and her counselor, Dr. Michelle Caulk, walk through Sandi’s therapy journey, answering the question, “What do I do when I know God loves me, but I don’t like myself?”

Shame, embarrassment, negativity. The struggle to love ourselves as the joyfully-made women we are has never been more difficult. When Sandi began her journey towards healing and freedom, she thought she was alone in her struggles. By working with Michelle, the two found that scores of women experience a disconnect between how they see themselves and God’s image.

Healing Out Loud captures many of the insecurities the modern woman faces in her walk with Christ. Written in conversational prose, Brown and Caulk’s combined voice creates an accessible path for readers to face their vulnerabilities with biblical insight. In these pages you’ll find:

• A Healing Map that helpfully outlines the journey from processing inner pain to liking oneself, loving God, and restoring relationships
• Sandi’s personal journal entries about processing the past and making that first step towards healing
• Guided questions and reflections centered around issues such as shame, grief, and fractured relationships

At the intersection of faith and humanness, Healing Out Loud provides a guiding hand to overcome the negative thoughts that keep you from living fully in God’s light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947297333
Publisher:	Dexterity
Publication date:	01/04/2022
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	1,047,773
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

SANDI BROWN is the founder and President of Gateway Creative Broadcasting in St. Louis. She leads two radio stations, 99.1 JOY FM and BOOST Radio, with a combined weekly reach of over 500,000. Sandi’s devotional collection, Choose Joy, was published in 2020. Sandi currently serves as chairperson for Christian Music Broadcasters. Previously, she worked as a writer and producer for Focus on the Family.

DR. MICHELLE CAULK, LPC, is a graduate of Argosy University with an M.A. in Mental Health Counseling. Michelle also obtained her doctorate of philosophy in Counselor Education and Supervision, and is currently an Assistant Professor and Director of Clinical Experiences at Huntington University in Indiana. Michelle currently lives in Chesterfield, Missouri, with her husband Jason. Healing Out Loud is her first book.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 Warning Lights 1

Chapter 2 What Shame? 21

Chapter 3 Hiding Place 36

Chapter 4 Secret Keeper 54

Chapter 5 Memory Bag 68

Chapter 6 Lost And Found 88

Chapter 7 At a Boil 106

Chapter 8 Perception is Reality 123

Chapter 9 Naked in the Street 144

Chapter 10 Less Yuck 165

Chapter 11 Healing Out Loud 184

Epilogue 205

Acknowledgments 211

Further Reading 213

Web Resources 217

About the Authors 219

Editorial Reviews

2022-05-25
A guide offers a Christian plan for increasing self-esteem.

In this work that combines Christianity and psychology, Brown chronicles her yearlong journey with mental health counselor Caulk and aims the bulk of the resulting discussion at readers who feel like a negative view of themselves is their “default mode.” For these readers, the authors lay out a multistep path (for example, “Recognize Your Emotions” leads to “Uncover and Confront Your Shame” and “Identify the Impact of Your Pain”). This road will take readers from that default mode to a greater state of self-acceptance, a process Brown and Caulk call “healing out loud.” The feel of a prolonged dialogue is sustained by excerpts from messages between the authors. Excerpts from Brown’s own contemporaneous journal entries add an element of personal confession: “It is one thing to know your past. Quite another to see how the dominoes have fallen and impacted every area of your life today.” Each of the book’s sections ends with a “reflection” in a shaded text box, some discussion question prompts, a selection of relevant quotations from Scripture, and an original prayer centered on the personal issue discussed in that part. Through steps dealing with elements ranging from self-respect to shame and anger, Brown and Caulk deftly lead readers from a place of low self-esteem to a perch of greater contentment in their faith. Many of the views the authors relate here would fit neatly into more secular self-help manuals. These sentiments are skillfully connected to tenets of Christian faith. “We react to our shame by turning it outward on others,” the authors write, linking it to a famous passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Many Christian readers will find this combination of sympathetic self-help and guided Bible study very effective.

A well-designed and winningly encouraging manual on self-healing through faith.

Kirkus Reviews