 Okay, welcome back and we had to stop halfway, but before we get going, are there any questions or is this any thoughts, any questions? Is it clear on what we've been talking about so far? Okay, I take it that it is clear. All right. So we started off with understanding if we need to live effectively, if we need to live fulfilled lives, we need to fulfill some needs our personal needs and we categorize the needs under three headings, which is casual, crucial and critical. Okay, so we said the casual needs are those that don't make much of a difference to us. The crucial needs definitely bring about some kind of a discomfort, some kind of pain. The last one is the critical needs. Sorry, the critical needs and we're talking about the crucial needs now. Okay, so the crucial needs are what we had spoken about. Okay, they are the most basic and profound needs of our heart. The most basic and profound needs of our heart that those kinds of needs that must be met if we need to live. Okay, and nothing in our lives can fill that core except what we are designed to experience. So the very fact that that is there in us is something that God put in our hearts. And what is that? We spoke about it. We said the need is our security, our self-worth and our significance. These three things are the most profound and the greatest need that we have. Our self-worth or feeling that we are loved, we are accepted, our security feeling that we belong somewhere and significance. The knowing and the need that we, there is something, a purpose for us to do. Okay, so nothing can satisfy these needs except the kind of relationship that God offers. Right, so remember these were your inherent attributes before the fall. I said, right, Adam and Eve felt absolutely loved, absolutely secure and they knew what their significance was. But after the fall, it became needs. So this is the most crucial need that every one of us have, every human being has. And this is what motivates us to do, act, feel, think in certain ways. Right, the need to be loved. In a classroom, suppose everyone told you that they hated you, think of a time, think of something like that. Right, or they said you don't belong to APC anymore. You know, just get out. APC is better off without you. Imagine that. What does it, what do you think it brings? A sense of death, isn't it? Significant death that you don't belong or you are not loved or maybe your organization, the place you're working or maybe as you know, in your home, they say we have no need for you. I don't need you as a mother or I don't need you as a father. I don't need you as a child. Can you imagine the pain that goes through. So that becomes are the most crucial needs of every man. The need to feel, have the sense of self worth need to be secure to belong and the need to have a purpose or significance. All right. So we, we realize that in, in no, in nothing that the world offers, we can feel this incomplete except when we are in a relationship with God. Okay. So when we, if we need to live effectively, we saw these category of needs. These crucial, most core needs is something that we need to have satisfied. If not, we, we see that when these crucial needs aren't met, it leads to psychological problems, emotional problems, spiritual problems, physical problems. It leads to problems when you don't experience these crucial needs, these yearnings of the heart. And that's what, that's what brings people to problems because these core needs aren't met and they are manifested through some form of a problem. Okay. So let's look at, let's look at an example. Okay. Miss S is a young woman. Sorry. Miss S is a young woman striving for excellence in all that she does. As a child, her parents always rewarded her for being first in class. They showed their displeasure at any failure on her part. As she grew up, her primary goal in everything was to be ahead. In her workplace, she began to face competition and soon began to question her adequacy and importance. What are her needs? A feeling of acceptance? What, what do you think she did? You see that her primary goal was to be ahead. And so when someone else was better than her, what did she begin to feel? Insecure and inadequate and unimportant. Because as a child, her parents probably always accepted her or gave her love, gave her affection whenever she came first or whenever she did well and always rewarded her for that. So in her mind, she felt being loved is equivalent to getting good marks or being ahead. But the minute when in a workplace, she began to see there were other people better than her, she began to feel that sense of unfulfillment because that crucial need of, okay, I am worth it. I have some self-worth because of my work. So you see that inadequacy and unimportance has grown on her. So those are her needs. So it's just an example for you to understand how do these needs manifest. And we will look at much more examples going forward. Okay. So when you look at crucial needs, when we're looking at our crucial needs, like we said, these needs become strong motivators. We said, right, unmet needs become strong motivators in the previous slide we had spoken about. So the fact is that everyone longs for this, for something to be loved. Do you long to be loved? Yeah? Do you long to be accepted? Do you long to want to belong to someplace? Do you want to know that, you know, what, what can I do? How can I make use of it, right? So everyone longs for something like it says in scripture as the deer pants for the water. So you see the deer is also it's panting for something, a longing there is. So that is there that everyone desires or longs for something. Okay. Everyone is controlled by what they long for. When you long to feel love, you won't just sit there and say, okay, it's okay. Nobody loves me. You will go after it. Okay. It is something that you will go after because that is there that need is there just like how when you're hungry, you will go and find food because that need becomes so, so strong. So similarly, in this way and any crucial longing that is not satisfied will lead to spiritual and psychological problems. Okay. So our crucial needs becomes very, very strong motivators for us and that's what we tend to get or we tend to go after when our crucial needs are in met. Okay. I'll put forth one more example. Okay. So this is the same example. All right. Miss S comes to the counselor for help to be more confident in her job. So the same, same lady we're talking about Miss S, right? What does she think is the problem? That is her crucial need. But I don't, many people don't realize that, right? But what does she think is her problem? She's not confident in her job, right? Or that the fact that she's not able to do well, right? So that's what she's coming to the counselor for. She comes to the counselor to be more confident in her job because that's what she thinks is the problem. That if I gain confidence, I will feel better about myself. Her mental state reveals that she has feelings of sadness and a discontentment to life. So you notice that she, when she's come in, it's not just about this, but there has been a general sense of dissatisfaction. Her history reveals two broken relationships. Her childhood had been difficult with her trying to cope with a father who was addicted to alcohol, which led to severe discord in her parents. Her work was affected due to her mental state. She's due for a new job interview and wants to give it her best shot. So what all do you think are the needs that she has over here? What do you sense are the needs that she has? You see, what all has she given? Her emotional state is, look at the five functioning. Look at the five functioning. Physically, she seems to be okay. There isn't anything in the case example. Emotionally, she's sad, she's discontented, she's dissatisfied, maybe she's anxious. In her relationships, how is she? Yes, she has a broken, unstable family and relationship. You also see that that there is a, yeah, so her parents, I mean her father is in alcohol, so there is a huge discord in the family itself. So when you look at the crucial needs, self-worth, does she feel I mean a good self-worth? No. Security, does she feel secure? No, she doesn't have a home that she can belong to. Third, does she feel significant? No. So all these three needs have gone unmet and that's how she's coming to you for help. Right? So how do we understand a person's problem deeper than just that, okay, I have a problem with my job, my parents are not in good terms. If we don't have a proper understanding of a person, we'll probably give poor advice and poor direction by saying, okay, you know, go for some better job learning skills or, you know, don't talk to your parents. Will that meet her, her inner needs? No. Right? So that's why it's important to, and I always say, when you meet a counselling, look at them like an onion. What does that mean? You have to peel layer by layer by layer by layer. You cannot see right in the inside by just looking at the onion, whether it's a good one or a bad one, right? It's only when you peel layer by layer do you understand? And so these five areas are functioning. The physical cover is what will initially manifest with the problem. Like for example, someone like this may come to you saying, you know, I have a lot of headache. I have stomach pain. I have palpitations. These are all the physical part of what is internal, right? Emotionally, you have seen this, maybe her thoughts are all very negative, right? And then you come to the place of that spiritual part where you see there is no self-worth, there's no security, there's no significance. And she thinks that a new job will change all this for her. But we understand that her need is to experience this independence with God. Okay, clear? All right, right. So to understand these crucial needs, the needs that we have, this need of self-worth, security and significance, as a counselor, as a Christian counselor, we know that God has designed us in such a way that we can function effectively only if we stand on the security, self-worth and significance He gives. We can function well only if we feel that this comes from God. So as I said, all people are spiritual beings and everyone has these deep crucial needs of security, self-worth, significance, which we are all strongly motivated to meet. So when it goes unmet, what did we say? It leads to problems, it leads to emotional, it leads to psychological, it leads to spiritual problems and issues. Okay, now I want to quickly just again go through those five areas. Okay, these are some examples. Imagine a scenario where you are a victim of an earthquake, where you have lost everything you owned. Oh, sorry, have I missed something? Okay. Yeah, where you have lost everything you owned, your house, your bank balance, even the closest people you call your own. What do you think you have lost? What do you think you've lost? Yeah, among the three needs, self-worth, security, significance. Okay, so this is an example to show you the need for security, right? Here, suppose if you're a victim of an earthquake, you lose everything that belonged to you, right? So your sense of security is what gets lost here. Okay, this is an example to show you what is lost. Okay, now to really talk about some of these crucial needs, okay, about the spiritual need. The security that we're talking about is the sense of being unconditionally loved and the sense of belonging, a place where you belong, right? So if you don't know who, you won't know who you are until you know who's you are, right? You don't know who you are until you know who's you are. Who are, who's are we or who do we, you are God's child, right? So until you know that you are God's child, you don't know who you are. So people who do not have God do not know who they are and that's that crucial need. Just when I know, when I know that I belong to God and because I belong to God, nothing can happen to me that will break me, right? That in itself keeps me from having a problem, right? So this is what we look at at security. Okay, need for self-worth. So imagine a scenario where you were an indispensable part of the organization you worked for. Soon one came smarter and better than you and your organization says they are in need of you no more. What have you lost? Your self-worth. It's your self-worth or you're married to somebody, the next day they get up and say, I don't need you anymore. I found another wife or I found another husband. What gets lost? Self-worth, right? You get that? Okay, so what is a self-worth? Self-worth is a sense of value. So these are and our self-worth comes only from our identity in God, our identity in Christ. Okay, it says, I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. When parents do not think highly of us, we don't think highly of ourselves. So basically your sense of value generally comes from what you think others think of you, right? But in actuality, our self-worth comes only from knowing who God is and what we mean to God. Okay, next one. Imagine a scenario where you as an aged parent have been asked by your child to leave the home and live in an old age home since you're too old to be of use to your grandchildren. What have you lost? Your significance, that people don't need you anymore because you're not good for anything, right? That's a sense of security or a sense of significance. So what is sense of significance? A sense of meaning that I'm useful or I have some purpose in my life. So imagine when we don't have purpose, we can tend to have problems. So God has designed us in such a way that we can effectively function only when we have these three things, the security, the self-worth and the significance he gives. Okay, now quickly, I just want to take you all through those five areas of functioning just to build that up and help to understand that a bit more. Okay, so in order to, now when a person comes to you, like I said, I said, feeling a person like an onion. So when a person comes to you, the first thing that you need to do is, what do you say, examine these areas of functioning. And the first thing that is presented to you is your the physical health, right? We need to know that there are many internal, emotional, psychological problems that can manifest on the physical. Okay, so if you talk to a doctor, when you've gone to a doctor and you say, doctor, I have a headache, what may he say? You're too stressed, take it easy, right? Or you say, I have significant joint pains. Too much of tension, go take it easy. You must have heard this, right? Yes or no? Hello, students. Francis, come back, come back, come back, all getting lost in the he's thinking about the pain. Okay, so like we said, all people, we are physical beings and this body is prone to disease. Anything that affects your emotion can affect your body. You had a fight with somebody. Do you feel hungry the next day? No. Francis, you're yet to experience all of this. So don't look so quizzical. Okay, or you lose your job. You lose your appetite, right? So the body has a big role to play in what you're experiencing. Like I said, if when you're going to treat someone with only a problem in the body without looking deeper, your work is ineffective. We have not done enough. Okay, so if someone comes in and says to you, and you will see this very often, I went to five doctors, I took all the scans, I took all the x-rays, I took all the blood tests, the doctor says, I'm perfectly okay. There's nothing wrong with me physically, but they've asked me to come and meet you, the counselor. I don't know why. Okay, what does it give you that the problem is much poorer than what you can see in the body? But does that mean you do not pay enough attention to the body? No. And that's why important things like good food, good rest, good exercise are important to keep our mind and our body in shape. Right? So it is important to keep, because when you exercise, you feel good. When you eat well, you experience joy. Right? When you sleep, you're not irritable the next morning. Right? So these are important things to take care of your body. So counseling also matters of how the person conducts themselves physically and what you need to take care of. Like for example, you know, things like depression. Depression can, one of the reasons of depression could also be because your vitamin D is not optimum or because your thyroid is not in place. Right? So you may be talking about emotional, spiritual thing, but actually the only problem is maybe there's thyroid or there's a deficiency. So we need to be careful in the way that we help. And that's why I said, be like an onion. First figure out. So a person who comes with multiple, like these physical problems, the first thing I will ask is, have you met with a doctor? Have you checked your blood tests? All of that. So once that is out of the way, then I can move into the next part. I can get into the next layer of the onion. Okay? So what's the next layer of the onion? Is the emotional being, is the emotional part. Okay? We've seen, and I think we spoke about this of how God is also an emotional being and that emotions are important for our lives. It makes it meaningful or it makes it miserable. We said that, right? And there are some emotions that we experience that we call as signal emotions. Signal emotions are like, you know, it's like a thermometer that will tell you that something is wrong. When you're feeling sad, it's telling you that something is going wrong. Some need is not being met. When you're angry, it's showing you that something is not met. And usually these signal emotions are what you would see as anger, resentment, right? These are what we call as negative emotions. What are the positive emotions? Love, joy, peace, happiness, right? But the negative emotions are anger, fear, sorrow, shame, guilt, anxiety, confusion. So in counseling, you as a counselor have to help the counselor face and deal with a lot of negative emotions. That's important. So some important ones are anger and resentment. So when does anger and resentment come? When some goal is not met, right? When a certain goal that you are pursuing that you think is good for you is not met, right? Like, for example, that goal is undermined, which is, you know, maybe you're thinking a certain job will help you. When that doesn't come about, it can make you angry, it can make you resent your situation. Or other goals like guilt or shame or embarrassment, self-pity. Now, these sometimes it can produce a lot of despair. When something goes wrong, it produces a lot of despair. Like for example, when parents put pressure on their children, what does it do? It leads to guilt, it leads to shame when you don't achieve the goal of maybe getting full marks. So these are what's called as signal emotions. And it's important to deal with emotions. So when you are meeting with people, don't look at people as people only with problems. They are not people only with problems. They're people who have, there is a place of emotions in those problems. So you're not, and that's why in counseling, emotional part of dealing with people is very, very, very crucial. You remember Susan last week, Susan? You remember Susan? Who's Susan? The first person we read about. Susan wanted to give up on her marriage. So a lot of times I asked you, how would we respond? And some of you said, I'll ask her, what is your husband's problem? You should be more, what have I done? I have not even for a minute thought about what she is going through or what are her emotions? Immediately, I've jumped into finding an answer. So the emotional part of counseling is extremely important. You must remember that if you are able to connect with them emotionally, a lot gets done. A lot, they are more open to sharing with you. So the emotional, them as emotional beings, a man as emotional being is very, very important. The next one is the rational being. What do we mean by rational being? Like we said, it's the thinking person. What does scripture say? As a man think it in his heart, so is he. So a lot of times people have thoughts about what life is. And that's, many times that in itself is something that needs a change, that needs to be corrected, right? To understand what they are thinking about their situation. For example, suppose you're talking to a believer who knows they are in Christ, okay? But their thoughts are full about nobody loves me, nobody cares for me, I am no good, I am this. Is there a problem there? Yes. The way that they are perceiving their situation, the kind of thoughts they're thinking, their reasoning is definitely not okay or it's out of sync. And if they were helped to have better thoughts or have thoughts that are as per the word, their lives become better, right? So sometimes it's a problem of the way that they think, right? This is the end of the road for me. I have lost everything, but rather a person who's a believer and these are, we're looking and maybe, I mean an unbeliever you probably doesn't have a basic framework that you know all things work together for good, but believers do. So the kind of way that they think and that's something that really also needs to be challenged and needs to be helped, okay? The next one is the volitional part of it, their ability to make choices. So in order to understand this you also need to know that the choices that people make are very important, okay? How, what will, what will, do they think about their consequences? Do they think, do they know what is their rights and wrongs? So helping them making those choices, okay? So those, and the last area as we spoke about is the spiritual being, which is the core part of us, which is being loved, being accepted, being significant in the Lord's eyes, having that met. So when you're, when we are looking at people, we are hoping to, we should be looking at these five areas of functioning, okay? Okay. I'm going to give you an example and then, you know, to make that a little clearer. So this is the story of Mr. M. He's been complaining of repeated headaches for the last year, which has affected his work performance. What do you see here is distorted? Physical, right? Mr. M says his life is all right other than the frequent headaches which he would like to get rid of. He comes with his wife for counseling who felt that his headaches were made up. The couple have been married for a year now. The couple stay along with his parents. There are frequent conflicts at home with the wife and the parents-in-law. Mr. M tries his best to avoid these periods as those conflicts increase his headaches. Mr. M is the youngest of three children and the parents have always treated him as a child incapable of taking responsible decisions. Mrs. M complains that Mr. M tends to procrastinate or avoids making decisions and would rather prefer his parents take the decisions, which Mrs. M wasn't disagreement with often leading to conflicts in the family. So what areas of functioning is distorted? So we said physical, repeated headaches, yeah? All right? Okay. What do you see emotionally? Okay. Okay. But what can you think about his emotional state? He may be unhappy. Generally, there's a lot of discontentment, right? Because there's so much of fights happening. There's a lot of blaming happening, right? So emotionally, okay. What about volitionally? What is the choice he's making? So he's avoiding conflicts, right? He's avoiding conflicts and he's withdrawing from responsibility. There is very poor decision making. He's making a choice not to do that. Okay. Rationally, what do you think may be going on in his thoughts? Okay, or that he's not good enough and right? I'm not good enough. I can't make it. Remember what is the history? His parents never allowed him to take a decision. So probably he doesn't know how to make a decision. So he's always probably looks to his parents to take the decision. So he's making the choice that my parents make the decision, right? What do you suppose is spiritually distorted? Self-worth signal? Which one? Yeah, that my contribution is not valuable. Whatever I say, no one will believe or no one will think. So I'm not good for nothing. I can't do anything. So there is a, so do you see that all of these, it's all hidden. It's not very open. You really have to look deep enough, talk enough, help them to come to that understanding. So the idea is to bring them to an awareness that these areas of functioning are distorted. So the core idea is to help him see that he feels unworthy and because he feels unworthy, it's affecting the way that he thinks, the way that he's making choices, his emotional self and his head, his headaches, right? Okay, is that clear? Okay. So in other words, problems arise in the personality because of unsatisfied longings, unnoticed wrong thinking, because of emotions, because of wrong goals, and because of that deep need that they have. That's what you would see in people. So there are wrong emotions. There may be negative emotions. There may be wrong thinking, the way that they're thinking, there may be wrong choices they're making, and they have that unsatisfied need of love, security, and significance. So how do you proceed through these five circles of functioning? Physically, you determine if there are any physical problems. That's what you would do. Emotionally, you need to tune in with their emotions, help them acknowledge those emotions, and help them to identify those big negative emotions. Volitionally, you need to examine their behavior and find out what goal they would need to change. Rationally, you will need to determine what belief systems they have, what thoughts they have that underlie the problem. And spiritually, you help them to get in touch with those three needs and bring them to the place of understanding that only when you work with God can you restore yourself back to that image. What is the image that we spoke about of being absolutely, perfectly loved, valued, significant, and secure in the love of God? So what you are actually doing through counseling is to restoring them back into that image of God through working through these five areas of functioning. Okay, all right. Okay, now I'm open to hearing your questions. Oh yeah, I think I just would like to also share this one thing with you too. Yeah, so something that while we are helping them to find restoration or to find that place of joy, there are two parts that you may follow. Okay, one is, the first part is going from out to in. And this represents those three needs. Okay, that the pathway in which you are dealing with the outside first and then going into the inside, and that's what you see over here, the crucial, the material and physical pleasures are met first, then the second, the crucial needs and then the most critical needs. But the pathway that we really need to help people to follow is to start from within. Right, the need to pursue God, because when you pursue God, your spiritual needs are met. And after that, when you fellowship with God, your relationship with your others improve. And when that improves, there is a total satisfaction in many other things in your life. Right, so which is the pathway that we need to follow? The pathway to maturity is the second pathway that seems to be the most represents it best, like how in Matthew 633, it says, Seekie first, the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. So part two is more likely a part of maturity that is in Christ rather than the other way, where everything on the outside is sorted, then you get into the end. But when you're counseling people, yes, you may figure it out this way, but to help them work out is inside out. Okay, all right, any thoughts, any questions, any, if you don't have questions, it is unacceptable, which means something has been wrong in the way that I have taught. Yeah, students, online students, okay, at least seven minutes, at least seven questions. Francis start with you because you just left the meeting. If we start with you, question. So how did God made man in his image? What does that mean? Okay, wonderful. What did this, what did sin take away? What did sin take away? You tell me what you remember. That meaner remembers, you tell me what you remember. Okay, and so what happened, what did we, what did we lose in that, at that, as a result of that? Okay, so what did we lose the relationship with God? How did that affect us? When we lost that relationship with God, how did it affect us? I said those three words a hundred times, significance, self worth, security and significance, right? So self worth all is love, acceptance, security is all about belonging, significance is about purpose. So this is what became our needs. And so as man, we've been running after very many things to experience to fulfill that need. And that's what brings us to a place of problems. So the idea in counseling is to restoring people back to the image where they're able to experience God and know that they are loved or they have self worth, they have significance, they have security. How do we do that? Through those five areas of functioning where we explore into that, help them see that and bring them back to the image of God. Okay, in short in two lines, I said it. Anything else? Anyone else on the online? Do you all have any questions? Come again? Because of sin. It took us away from who God made us to be. What are dependency on God? What did Eve do when she sinned? Yeah, so by disobeying what did she do? She took things in her own hands, right? So it was a selfish, what did Satan tell her? What did the serpent tell her? She will be more like, she will see God, she will be more like God, she will see God, right? That's what, and what did it bring in Eve? Yes. And so what was she pursuing to do things away from God, apart from God, away from the dependency on God, right? So whenever we do things outside the dependency of God, it becomes a self effort. It becomes something that you are doing for yourself because you feel that you are more capable of doing this rather than taking the help of God. So what does he say? Will God really know, right? Did God really tell you, right? So that's the doubt that the enemy puts in. But she bought to that and saying that, okay, I can do this without God. But I, you know, yes, it was disobedience. God had something better for us, right? Better for Adam and Eve. But they chose to live outside of it because they looked upon it as their own, maybe ability or own capacity. So that's exactly what we, in a fallen state, we are pursuing something on our own without being dependent on God. Like when we feel loved, we may be looking for love rather than depending on God to bring the right person or bring the right kind of love. Or when we, when we feel we're not in a job, we're worrying and fretting because we feel that, okay, without this job, I don't feel a sense of purpose. But God's already put that purpose in us. So everything that we pursue, it's your own effort. And that makes you a damaged or a depraved person. Right? But when these three core crucial needs, spiritual needs are met, there isn't anything that we want apart from God. Because all these things will be added to you when you are seeking Him, His face, His relationship with Him. Yeah? Satya? Gentle people, if they wanted to look by themselves, because they think God, they think they have anything to be, because of this. Yes. The distortion is there, that you buy a lie that without your own efforts, you're not going to have that sense of significance or worth or security. So you do all that you can to get yourself into something when you feel that that's not that is lost. Okay? All right, let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for what Jesus has done on the cross to restore us back to that image. Thank you for bestowing on us love, security and significance. Lord, as your children, as your people, we don't have to meet anything, but more than that, we just understand and know that we are perfectly loved by you, perfectly secure in you, and perfectly significant in the purposes of God. Lord, even as we reach out to a hurting world, we pray that our desire would be to bring people back into this image, help them see that their needs can only be met in you and by you. Lord, we ask that you keep us sensitive, you'll help us Lord to, as we work with people, that we will be willing to see them the way that you see them, help them to connect with their emotions, help them to explore their rational minds, help them Lord to make choices that obey you and help them to reach a state where they experience their love, their worth, their significance from you. Thank you once again for this lesson. I pray that it will make deeper meaning for us as we study it, as we understand it, as we go through dealing with people. Thank you Father, we ask all this in your precious name. Amen. All right, thank you everybody, God bless, thank you.