{"id":40308,"date":"2025-01-30T11:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T19:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40308"},"modified":"2025-01-30T11:24:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T19:24:44","slug":"integrity-comes-from-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/integrity-comes-from-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"Integrity comes from Integration"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was four, I hid under the table to avoid being told off and found the tiniest book with a pretty pink and blue watercolour image on the front of it that I can still picture. It was the book of Matthew, and so I read the Bible out loud for the first time whilst remaining under the wooden kitchen table. I turned to the last page, where I read a sentence that defined my life; \u2018Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

Tom Camacho\u2019s book is a tool to facilitate discipleship. Exploring the theology of suffering, identity, giftings or design, vision, and purpose alongside the centrality of relationships are the central themes of this book and most discipleship programmes. Reflecting on these subjects should facilitate them becoming who God made them to be and lay the foundation for growth and maturity for all who seek to put Jesus first. Those without faith also find value in wrestling with those themes, which can help them build confidence in their identity and future plans. It is unclear to me why these themes are considered components of a leadership coaching curriculum, as they appear to be foundational principles rather than leadership concepts.<\/p>\n

I was told I couldn\u2019t be a vicar like my father due to my gender, so I started a church at age 18 at University. No one told me I wasn\u2019t meant to and that I should be part of some collective of churches. Slightly awkwardly, I sadly chose not to spend much time studying because I wanted to focus on making disciples and writing books. I now feel embarrassed and slightly sad that I missed out on the study and the joy of learning with others, although I did gain my degree. However, we saw over four hundred people give their lives to Jesus, and they followed my discipleship programme, which was printed at no cost in the reprographics department. My programme was written for new followers of Jesus and explored similar areas of identity, gifts, vision and purpose, suffering and refining, relationships, basic theology around salvation, repentance, reading the Bible and prayer.<\/p>\n

During this time of not really studying for my theology degree and leading a church, I also completed a Diploma in Life Coaching and began my psychotherapy training. I decided to work hard to be the best pastor I could be, so I focused on studying the human soul and the Bible to see how we could combine the miracles that Jesus did with the lessons from those who had researched about the complexity of humanity. I found that Christians tended to quote verses such as [1]<\/a>: \u201cTherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things become new<\/em>.\u201d And [2]<\/a> \u201cForget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!<\/em>\u201d As a psychotherapist and trainer, I teach other therapists and those in my church, which I lead, how to facilitate the exploration of the present whilst considering the past to make sense of behaviour, emotions, body experiences, relationships, identity and future dreams. Conversely, coaching [3]<\/a> \u2018looks at the present to refine, define and help someone move further into the present<\/em>\u2019. Research shows that [4]<\/a>more than 2 out of 3 children and adolescents in the United States experience trauma by the age of 16 years and they become adults who often have few conscious memories of their abuse. My concern about coaching is that it seems to offer support and mentoring, but the depth is limited due to the lack of training that enables the subtle signs and symptoms of trauma to be recognised. The subconscious adaptive coping mechanisms and defensive are not recognised, and instead, the focus is on the future as if that is not limited and hindered by the past.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had business coaches who have helped me identify structural and governance weaknesses and enabled me to use precision to strengthen such details of some of the organisations I lead. I have to fulfil my clinical license obligation to have clinical supervision monthly, and that role is prescribed as [5]<\/a>normative, formative and restorative and has been valuable for my work.<\/p>\n

I have written in many books that I fully and passionately believe that integrity comes from integration, which is the foundation for deep discipleship. Gold comes from the furnace of suffering and trial that has been acknowledged. For a person to be able to have integrity, which could also be defined as holiness or wholeness, it is not something to just \u2018try and work to do\u2019 but using the words in my latest book, [6]<\/a>\u2018…integrity comes from integration. For a person to be able to have integrity, they need to become integrated in their conscious and subconscious as the trauma is processed, and there are no secrets left in the darkness of their soul. Trauma causes a person to keep secrets from themselves due to the nature of the terror, powerlessness and overwhelm. When trauma recovery is complete, they are less likely to demonstrate conflicting values and behaviours and are able to feel a sense of wholeness<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> 2 Corinthians 5:17.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Isaiah 43:18.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Luciana Paulise. The Differences Between A Coach and a Therapist. Forbes. 2022.<\/p>\n

[4] <\/a>D. Lawrence-Sidebottom et al., \u201cRates of Trauma Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress in a Pediatric Digital Mental Health Intervention: Retrospective Analysis of Associations With Anxiety and Depressive Symptom Improvement Over Time,\u201d JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting<\/i> 7 (February 27, 2024): e55560, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2196\/55560.<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> \u00a0Lane DA, Corrie S. The modern scientist-practitioner.\u00a0Hove: Routledge; 2006.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Betsy de Thierry.\u00a0 The Trauma Recovery Handbook. A Guide to Professionals, Parents and Carers. Jessica Kingsley Publishing. London. 2025. 228.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

#DLGP04, #Camacho<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was four, I hid under the table to avoid being told off and found the tiniest book with a pretty pink and blue watercolour image on the front of it that I can still picture. It was the book of Matthew, and so I read the Bible out loud for the first time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3418],"class_list":["post-40308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-camacho-dlpg04","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40331,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40308\/revisions\/40331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}