Experience Emerge (ExEm) with musician-turned-mental health therapist, Matt Knabe, uncovers the various ways people find rest and live free amidst the crazy challenges life brings. With a zoned-in focus, Matt carefully probes into the broken places of people’s lives, bringing the listener into the experience, all the while adding life tools and insights.
Episode 16: Austin Hopkins
Suicide Survivor • September 9, 2020
One of the most difficult things we can face in this lifetime is losing a friend or family member to suicide. With September being Suicide Prevention Awareness month, this episode explores a story that has the entire medical field at a loss.
Austin Hopkins has a miraculous story of getting a second chance at life after attempting suicide and a history full of trauma. Austin opens up his life to us to show how fragile life can be, but also how grateful he is that God delivered him from a near-death experience.
For more resources on suicide prevention, visit emerge.org/suicideprevention.
Episode 15: Preparing Kids & Parents for Back-to-School
Breanna Geib, MAEd, LPC • August 25, 2020
There are so many valid questions being raised around kids returning to school this fall. Every family has different issues that need to be addressed and questions to be answered.
On this episode, Breanna (Bre) Geib, a licensed professional counselor at Emerge Counseling, discusses a few points for parents and students to be thinking about when returning to school physically or virtually this fall.
Episode 14: Ben & Rebecca McLennan
Miracle Adoption Story/Back-to-School/Covid-19 • August 11, 2020
We welcome back our guest from episode 5, Ben McLennan, with his wife, Rebecca, to share their story of how God used infertility to His glory by moving their hearts into fostering, and then adoption. Listen to this wonderfully redemptive story of keeping a family together against the odds. See how God was moving in the lives of these children — and you would never have believed it until you heard their story.
Episode 13: Returning to School During Covid-19
Mark & Jackie Loomis • July 28, 2020
In this episode, we discuss how kids and parents will navigate this back-to-school process that is quickly approaching. This is a great resource for parents who have questions and concerns about how kids will be safe and able to continue their education during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mark Loomis, MA, LPCC and his wife Jackie are leading a four-part Parenting Workshop at Emerge Counseling Ministries to provide support for parents as they navigate the changing landscape of public, private, and homeschooling. The workshop will be over four consecutive Thursdays starting September 10th through October 1st. Mark and Jackie will be hosting the event alongside several guest speakers from different occupations in the educational system.
Episode 12: Zach Prosser
Life Coaching • July 14, 2020
Emerge Counseling Ministries is offering a life coaching program that begins this August 20. On today’s episode we discuss what life coaching is, the program being offered, and spend sometime with a certified leadership coach facilitator and trainer. Our guest, Zach Prosser, PCC, is a highly decorated and awarded life coach that shares about his ministry and the coaching event that you can sign up for emerge.org/coaching. Also visit zachprosser.com for further info about our guest today.
Episode 11: Calm Space Exercise
Matt Knabe • July 1, 2020
In this episode, host Matthew Knabe, MA, LPC focuses on an exercise that is utilized often in the therapeutic process. Calm Space is a technique used to assist us in being grounded, being moved into the here-and-now, and opening up the creativity we possess in our brain. You may notice a slow bilateral stimulation in the track (a pulsating beep that travels from the left side to the right side of the recording). This is something in EMDR (when we are resourcing and reprocessing) we use to reinforce or strengthen the resource by activating the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Through this exercise, we also tap into aspects of Terry Wardle’s creation called formulation prayer.
Episode 10: Pastor Bryndon Glass
Racial Reconciliation • June 16, 2020
Racial issues have been at the forefront of our nation’s attention over the past few weeks, and have needed to be a focus sooner and longer than that. To explain the divide we have been experiencing in our country, Matt Knabe talks with Pastor Bryndon Glass about the ways in which the church has an opportunity to be a part of the movement, and not just the moment, as Pastor Glass explains. Listen to this episode and think about how you might be an agent of change.
Episode 9: Dr. Donald Lichi
Legacy • May 27, 2020
Throughout the month of June, we are honoring fathers. In this episode we have a conversation with one of the longest standing members of Emerge Counseling Ministries’ clinical and leadership teams. Donald A. Lichi, PhD, discusses his seven touch-points regarding legacy including leading, listening, learning, laboring, limiting, loving, and leaving. Dr. Lichi is a cancer survivor, veteran, loving husband, father, and grandfather.
Episode 8: Relaxation Exercise
Matt Knabe • May 19, 2020
In this episode, host Matthew Knabe, MA, LPC shares a relaxation technique he has been using with clients for years. This is taken from the script developed by Dr. Richard N. Feil, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Mansfield State College in PA. Progressive Relaxation Training is a skill that can learned overtime with practice. Be patient with the experience of relaxing. Feel free to utilize this episode as often as needed to practice quieting the mind and allowing the full body to come to a state of relaxation. (The exercise begins at 2:30 into the podcast if you want to skip the intro.)
Episode 7: Sara Carnes
Honoring Mothers • May 5, 2020
In this Mother’s Day episode, we highlight a mom, wife, and on-air personality who is following her career dreams and still (somehow) has time to make sure she prioritizes her family. Sara Carnes, radio host on 95.5 The Fish and Cleveland Browns In-Game Entertainment Host, shares some of her adversities that brought her to Emerge Counseling Ministries, which then led her on a journey of self-healing through functional medicine. This episode is a great reminder that we should be praying, as we come out of this quarantine, that life will not just go back to being normal, but allows us to become something even greater than we were before.
Episode 6: Tish Granville
Defining Anxiety • April 21, 2020
There are several buzz words being used on a daily basis in our media currently — social distancing, flattening the curve, and pandemic are just a few. In the mental health world, the buzz word is “anxiety.” In this podcast, we spend time with Tish Granville, MA, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor at Emerge Counseling, to better understand what is happening when the entire world is experiencing a heightened level of anxiety.
Episode 5: Ben McLennan
Covid-19/Parenting in a Pandemic • April 16, 2020
In this episode, we discuss the ever-changing world in response to the outbreak of the coronavirus. Ben McLennan, Director of National Accounts at RightNow Media, shares how they as a company are responding to the overwhelming need for resources related to anxiety, the pandemic, and people seeking more information about faith and God. Ben also gives us a personal look into how he is navigating this “quarantine” as a father of six.
Click here to learn more about RightNow Media and its library of faith-based content.
Episode 4: Pastor Jarrod Williams
Coronavirus & the Church/An Adoption Story • April 14, 2020
With the world changing by the second, we have a conversation with Pastor Jarrod Williams from Redemption Chapel in Stow, OH. Pastor Jarrod discusses the state of affairs regarding the church and how it is dealing with the coronavirus. He then shares his story of how he and his wife endured a difficult period of infertility, miscarriage and the ups and downs of adoption. His story reminds us of how God is moving even in our darkest days.
Episode 3: Victoria Gutbrod
Trauma • April 8, 2020
In this episode we sit down with the trauma team leader at Emerge Counseling Ministries, Victoria Gutbrod, MA, LPCC-S. Victoria gives us insight into the integration of spirituality, the brain and trauma. Victoria shares her expertise and passion around understanding human behavior and how trauma impacts us all differently. She then leads us through a very calming technique — that each listener can utilize as a tool to use — to bring us back to homeostasis.
Episode 2: Katie Hickman
Perfectionism/Depression/Suicidal Ideation • March 31, 2020
In this episode we sit down with a former client of Emerge Counseling Center, Katie Hickman. Katie describes her battle with perfectionism during the formative years well into high school that eventually resulted in a panic attack. Her account for the need to be perfect is what opens her up to depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. Katie bravely shares her story and the ability she found in God to overcome some of the darkest emotions any of us can experience.
Episode 1: Greg Robb
Addiction/American Gospel • March 24, 2020
In this episode of Experience Emerge (ExEm), we spend time with one of the financial investors of the documentary American Gospel, Greg Robb. Greg shares his emotional story of addiction and the devastation to his family that proceeded. He recounts the genesis of adversities from growing up with addictive tendencies and then how that impacted his wife and children. Greg gives us an honest look at what it means to follow Christ, but also reveals some truths that are sometimes hard to hear.