Liz talks with Kenza Haddock, LPCS, BCPC, clinical trauma specialist with expertise in treating complex mental health conditions through both clinical and biblical methods. A former Muslim, she has spoken at conferences and churches and has been featured in numerous media outlets regarding the intersection of Christianity and mental health counseling. Haddock and her husband own Oceanic Counseling Group LLC, an outpatient mental health agency headquartered in South Carolina. They discuss her new book titled, “Secure, How to Discern God’s Will for Your Life.”
00:00:00 Introduction to Kenza Haddock and Her New Book
This is Liz Franzel with Crawford Media Group, and today our guest is Kenza Haddock, who is a licensed professional counselor supervisor and a clinical trauma specialist with expertise in treating complex mental health conditions through both clinical and biblical methods. We’ll be talking about her new book titled Secure, How to Have a Healthy Attachment with God. Welcome back to our program, Kenza.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited.
SPEAKER 01 :
Me too. Kenzo, before we get started, you have a great testimony before becoming a Christian, which I think is a great tie-in for the title of your new book. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I grew up in an Islamic household. And growing up, I thought I was born Muslim, I was going to die Muslim, and that’s what was drilled into me. And as a Muslim, I believed that I could earn salvation. And so my whole life, my whole purpose in life was about works. I needed to earn it, and I needed to work for it. And my perspective of God, Liz, was that he was like a spiritual pharaoh. You know, the way we see pharaoh, pharaoh from Exodus, that’s how… Yeah, that’s how I viewed God. Like, he was very distant and very mean. And, I mean, he was just looking out just for me to mess up. And so I lived with fear, with anxiety. I didn’t know what peace was. Anxiety was just the norm for me. And so throughout my life, I struggled with it. And when I got to my, I would say, around 30, late teens, early twenties, the Lord started sending me dreams and I wasn’t catching on to those dreams. And eventually he sent me a dream that, that rocked my world. And in the dream I had seen a, I mean, I fell asleep and in my dream it was the end time. And I looked out of the window in my dream and I saw the sky open and And I saw a man in a white robe coming down from heaven. And that man was Jesus. It’s like in my spirit, I knew he was Jesus.
SPEAKER 01 :
So you didn’t know him yet at this point?
SPEAKER 02 :
No. Okay. No. I just knew that was him. And he was coming down. And I remember feeling this peace that I had never felt in my life. It was like all of a sudden, all the anxiety I had just, went away. And so that was, that captured my attention because who is this man who can make all of my anxiety go away? And I mean, he was coming down with authority and he had his arms wide open and I just, I woke up and I wish I could tell you, I gave my life to Jesus right away. And, but no, I went my own way, dove into the you know, new age, tried to find other alternative methods, but none of them gave me that peace. And really, it goes back to my misunderstanding of God. You know, even Scripture says, my people fail for lack of knowledge, right? They’re destroyed because they don’t know me. And I didn’t know God, and so I was being destroyed, really, from the inside out, and I wasn’t saved. And it wasn’t until I gave my life to Jesus and started walking with him daily that I realized just how loving he is. Yes, he is holy. He’s also merciful.
SPEAKER 01 :
What a story. And I know you’ve written several books, and now we’re talking about your new book titled Secure, How to Have a Healthy Attachment with God. So what was your reason for writing that book?
SPEAKER 02 :
What’s interesting is as I started… After I gave my life to Jesus, the Lord called me into the field of counseling. And as I started treating brothers and sisters in the faith, both clinically and biblically, I noticed just how many brothers and sisters in the faith had misperceptions of God. And because of those misperceptions, they created anxiety and depression and fear. They didn’t realize that our relationship with God does impact our mental health in a great way.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s good. And you’re right. I have a similar story as far as relating to God as someone pointing his finger at me, anything I did wrong, he was going to send me to hell. I mean, I grew up in fear of God, too. And it took a while for me to get that mentality reworked. And it was… It was reading the Bible. It was doing Bible studies, but it really was having those personal encounters with God. So what do you want to talk about? You said, how do we develop? One of the questions was how to develop a healthy attachment with God is the first step to reducing anxiety. How do you explain that or would like to go about that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so developing a healthy attachment with God is really the first step to decreasing anxiety and depression. And this is what I have found. My specialty is trauma, and that’s under the umbrella of anxiety disorders. And anxiety is the number one clinical mental health diagnosis in the United States. And so we have to understand that we as human beings were literally made for a relationship with God. So what happens is because we have a misunderstanding of God, we try to meet that need through relationships with other people, which we were made for relationships with other people, but that’s secondary to God. And so when we put people as primary and they fail us, then we fall into depression and anxiety. And so we have to understand that that’s out of alignment. And that’s, you know, when our relationship with God changes, in our relationship with people or our alignment with each other, it affects everything, especially our peace. And honestly, like one of the biggest spiritual questions people come to me with in counseling, hands down, is how do I know God’s will for my life?
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s a big one.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. And I mean, that question alone can keep us up at night, right? Like, I mean, it taps into… our innate need to find our purpose in life because that can create anxiety because we’re scared of missing our purpose and messing up. And so we wrestle with that question because life is crazy busy and, you know, I’m running around from one thing to the next, work, family, responsibilities, without even realizing it, we’re slipping into autopilots. And we start going through the motions of just checking the boxes, but deep down we’re feeling more and more disconnected emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually. And so eventually we just hit a wall. Like we feel like something is off and we feel drained. We feel frustrated and confused, but it’s in those moments when all of our efforts stop producing those results that we finally look up and turn back to God. Now, And I think we talked about this yesterday, you and I, like in his mercy, sometimes God will immediately give us like direction or open a door because he is kind like that. Right. Other times he will hold back, not because he’s being mean or anything, but because he’s inviting us. He’s saying, I want more than your checklist. I want your heart.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
He actually uses that frustration not to punish us, but to reveal how much we need to depend on his daily voice, not just those big picture plans. Like it says in John 15, apart from him, we can do nothing. Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
And, you know, with that, too, he doesn’t want us to be robots. And so he’s never going to force himself on us and he’s never going to force us to do something. But he uses those times in our lives where you mentioned earlier, you know, hitting rock bottom before we turn to God. He uses everything. Nothing is lost and he’s not doing it to punish us. You know, the enemy is the one that comes to comes in and tries to ruin everything for us. But God turns those things around for us, which I love. And, you know, what is that verse in the Genesis? Joseph was saying, you know, you meant this for harm, but the Lord meant it for good. When he was talking to his brothers, that’s exactly what happens, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, absolutely. Yes. I do believe that, and maybe it’s just our society now, we’re in a point where we’re always looking for the next big thing, whereas God just wants us to get used to hearing His voice daily, like trusting Him daily, surrendering daily. Because, listen, I’ll surrender to God at like 8 a.m., and sometimes I need to remind myself at 9 a.m. Right. Because it’s that easy for our flesh to try to kick back in and to try to take over, right? And so we, instead of just asking God, or when we hit rock bottom or when we’re frustrated, instead of just saying, you know what, God, what is my will? What’s your, I mean, what is your will? What’s your purpose for my life? You know, we want to, we want to just hone in and build that daily relationship with him. where we actually know his voice, because it comes down to discerning his voice versus the enemy’s voice, which is the voice of condemnation.
SPEAKER 01 :
So what are some ways that we could discern God’s purpose in our lives?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so one of the ways is when we feel pulled into a particular direction, sometimes it literally makes no sense. But we just feel pulled toward it and not toward wanting us to go there. Another way is because he is the Prince of Peace, he will give us peace about a decision we want to go toward. And James 1.5 says if we need wisdom to ask him, he’s not going to rebuke us for asking. And so whether it’s small or big decisions, ask God to give you wisdom, and he will give you that wisdom. And don’t doubt when he gives it to you. And I’ve made it a habit in my life practically to say, Lord, if I’m about to step into something that’s not your will for me, don’t give me peace about it. Make me feel uneasy about it so that I know not to go toward it. Because I will drive off a cliff so fast. I need the Lord’s grace. And so I have, you know, we have to be aware of our personality. If you’re an A-type, Make sure you don’t make a decision without asking and inquiring of the Lord. If you’re a B-type, sometimes you’re more likely to need God to push you toward making that decision because you’re more likely to overthink. when God is wanting you to take action.
SPEAKER 01 :
And, you know, that doesn’t mean that there’s not fear behind that. I mean, I’ve done things where I know the Lord has led me and, you know, you do it through fear because it’s something new. It’s out of your comfort zone. It doesn’t mean that there’s not fear behind it. But, you know, God’s right there. I know so many times God was right there when I took that step. And then he was there. And then I’d take the next step and then he’d meet me there too.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. That’s how, that is literally how he developed your neuro pathways in your brain. Because if he showed you that it’s going to be okay before you took the step, how is he going to expand your faith? But if you took it with that fear, right? and you saw that God met you there, your brain, your neural pathways are going to build a cause and effect. You know what? When I obey God, God meets me there. So it becomes a cause and effect in your brain. And so when the enemy, next time God asks you to do something, when the enemy meets you with that fear, it’s not going to have any hold over you. God knows how he made you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s so good. We’re visiting with Kenza Haddock. She’s a licensed professional counselor, supervisor and clinical trauma specialist with expertise in treating complex mental health conditions through both clinical and biblical methods. And we’ve been talking about our new book titled Secure How to Have a Healthy Attachment with God. Kenza, where can our listeners go to find your book? Obviously, we could talk forever. And unfortunately, we ran out of time. But I know our listeners would love to get a hold of this and so that they can start their relationship with God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. They can find it on Amazon, anywhere books are sold. Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, even Walmart.com. So anywhere books are sold.
SPEAKER 01 :
Kenza, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re going to have to do another show just to continue.
