Emotional Maturity Grows When Faith Leads

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Hallelujah One Think again for Halloween think again for joining me in another episode of the Dorceros show. Today our guest is Dr. Tokelson. He's a clinical psychologist psychologist with more than four decades of experience helping individuals, families, and leaders navigate emotional health, stress, and personal growth. His work focuses on the connection between emotional well-being, discernment, and spiritual formation, offering practical ground insight for living with greater clarity and peace. Dr. Corkus and thank you so much for coming on the show today. My first question is why do so many people feel emotionally overwhelmed even when life looks fine on the outside?

The Masks We Wear

Yeah, that that's a good question. And uh I think the answer is really because what it looks like is is really not the reality. It's it's kind of deceptive. We all put on our best showing, our best Sunday clothes, so to speak. We all put on there's plenty of books out there about the masks that we wear. So so we all kind of walk around with this appearance, or most people walk around with appearance that everything is is kind of rosy. But the reality is life is not that way. Life is messy, life is challenging, life is difficult for every single one of us. And even as a faith believer, a faith walker, the Lord has made it very clear to us throughout his word that in this world we will know trial, we will know tribulation, we will know troubles, and and the rain falls on the good and the bad. And and so, regardless of our lifestyle, regardless of our faith, regardless of of our walk in life, uh, we're going to face the tribulations of life. Now we don't reveal that to most people, but life itself will present these challenges, and so often we need help in navigating through life storms as they come our way.

Yeah. You mentioned about, you know, book out there about wearing mask and everything. Why do you think it is that we wear, you know, a mask in a book?

Emotional Maturity And Faith

Yeah, yeah. Another good question. Yeah, and we do, and the the answer is really simply self-preservation, right? You know, we we have something within us that we don't want to be made a fool, we don't want to be embarrassed, we don't want to look bad, you know. We and when we reveal weaknesses or we reveal things about ourselves that aren't, you know, necessarily in order, we interpret that as a weakness or as a deficit. And then we also interpret that other people will look at it in the same way. So if they see our stuff, that lessens who we are in their eyes. And so we have this self-protectiveness. And now that in itself, however, I find to be a fallacy in most cases, because most people don't think about us that way. Actually, most people would be willing to help and support if they knew more the real us. But we have this thing in us where we're we're it's that embarrassment, it's that self-pride, it's that, again, that need for self-preservation that we're afraid that we could be rejected or thought less of.

How are emotional maturity and spiritual formation closely connected? And why are they connected?

Yeah, it's all interrelated. God has made us wonderfully and beautifully, and and each one of us unique. But he put within us a spirit, he put within us a you know a soul or a mind, and and of course all the operations for for existence to be able to live and breathe and so forth from a biological standpoint. But our emotions are are connected to, you know, the thought, the brain. You know, you've heard it said we are what we eat, while we also kind of are what we think. And so our emotions follow our thought process, and then our spiritual man kind of gets intertwined in there, and it depends on whether we're feeding it or not feeding it, whether it's growing or not growing in regard to how our emotional outlook is going to look. When we have that spiritual aspect in our life, then that adds a dimension where we can bring about emotional maturity at a much better pace and to a much, I think, uh higher level. Because outside of the Lord, we lose a lot of context. If we're not looking at biblical truths, we're looking losing a lot of context in terms of who we are, what our value is, what our worth is. And it can really only be based on accomplishment if you remove the God scenario, because we evaluate people from what job they have, what they've accomplished, how they look, and everything else. Whereas in the Lord, we bring about something that says we are unconditionally loved by the Father, and we are loved so much that He put someone in our place, Jesus, to actually die in our place for for our shortcomings, for our failures, and for our sins. And so God demonstrates to us something where we're loved as we are because we're created in his image and we're we're a chosen, uniquely made vessel of him. And so taking that out of the equation, people are afraid. People are, you know, their their mask is always up. They're they're they're they're very vulnerable to criticism and and they're very vulnerable to attack. And and it isn't that we aren't as Christians, but we have that reliance on the Lord who says we are valuable and worthwhile because he made us and he loves us. End of story.

A Childhood Rescue And Calling

Amen. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. Tell us about a little bit more about your background and you know what you do and everything.

Retirement That Sparked Awaken

Sure, sure. My journey began long ago. I've had some some remarkable interventions by the Lord. I grew up in a broken home. Mom raised five kids on her own. She did not have an education. I had my first encounter with the Lord when I was 10. I was in the backseat of a vehicle. I talk about this in my book, Awaken, which came out in December, Awaken, exposing the web of deception, threatening her faith, family, and freedom. I talk about it in chapter one called My Story, where I was in the back of my dad's vehicle. He was in the bar drinking as he usually did, and it was in the winter in Minnesota, and uh it was quite cold. Long story short, I started feeling the numbness setting in because it was late, early morning hours. And I had a an intervention, I had a visitation, and I call it in my book, A 10-year-old boy heard angels sing. And there was this light that came into the vehicle, and my body became warm, and the car became warm, and I heard this singing, and and I knew it was God saying, My son, I love you, and I will protect you and I will care for you. Time elapsed, and and you know, I kind of put that encounter aside, went through my rebellion years and all that. All of us brothers had to join the military to have any chance of an education due to being quite poverty financially. Uh so about three months before I was to be discharged from Europe and complete my tour as a just about 20-year-old young man, walking back and forth to town, there was this little army chapel, and of course I know this now, I didn't know it then, but a revival had was broke had broken out. And every time I'd walk by, this place was lit up and there was all this music, and it was like it was glowing in the place of in a desert. And anyway, one day on the way back from town, the Lord stopped me dead in my tracks, and and I couldn't go forward to the barracks, continue to my barracks. My body turned, my legs turned, and I started walking towards that chapel. I walked up the steps, a guy, his name was Tom, opened the doors, and he just he asked me this question. He said, Do you know Jesus? And I said, No, but I want to. Destiny changed in my life. I accepted the Lord, the Lord forgave my sins, he cleaned my body and my the temple of the Holy Spirit up. I grew in in the uh grace and knowledge of the Lord throughout the last couple of months I was there in that chapel and have been walking with the Lord since that time. Not foolproof, made plenty of mistakes. I'm flawed and sinful like everyone else, but I know a Savior that loves me and has forgiven me and continues to do so. And so I I then from there knew the Lord wanted to put me into some kind of position to help people, to have my people purpose on the planet established. And I thought about medicine, took one semester, dropped out immediately when I could not handle the cadaper and everything that came with it, and I knew I couldn't do medicine. So through a process of praying and waiting on the Lord, he brought me into the abundance of counselors that there are there is victory and other verses, and said, go into behavioral health. And so I pursued my undergrad and all my graduate work and got my doctorate in educational psychology and counseling, and have been serving in various roles, inpatient, outpatient, private, public institutions, academics, five years on a Native American reservation. I mean, you name it, I've done about everything in behavioral health. All of my work then, we talked about connecting that emotional maturity with spiritual maturity and truth. It's all been based on Bible, though I couldn't label it so. You know, in in working in a secular, your voice is compromised to some extent. Your faith isn't, but your voice might be because you're not allowed to say and do some things. But what I have found through my career and in my life, and I talk about this both on my podcast, the Dr. T show, but also in my book, is that the the Bible is a health book and it makes sense and it's logical and it's practical. So even behavioral health, I've been able to find the source of just about, if not everything we talk about and teach that's good and healthy in behavioral health is sourced back to the Bible. You know, if we talk about, you know, you gotta stay positive and think positive, and we do this behavioral health, well, the Bible makes it clear a merry heart's like a medicine. If we tell someone, well, you need to think about good things and don't think on negative thoughts and da-da-da. Well, we know Philippians 4.8 says whatever is good, honorable, true, and you know, and and so the the biblical realities can be found in the demonstration of behavioral health professional postulates and and interventions. They call it something different. Okay, so I could function in that by doing good things, and then the things where they go too far from a humanistic standpoint that were contrary to the word of God, I just chose not to work in those areas so that I didn't compromise that. But you what was exciting then, I retired from a large behavioral health network in 2020 and uh thought I was going to retire more to the golf course, although I did maintain an online presence, providing some consultation and a little bit of clinical work, Christian-based, but that was just kind of just here and there. But the old Peggy Lady song kept coming to mind, is that all there is? And I'd look at the gentleman I would golf with, and it was just not a fulfilled life. And I knew I was supposed to do more. And my daughter, who's in ministry, has has told me forever I'm supposed to write and and talk and get my voice out. So I I kept that always stirred in me. Well, one morning, February 20th, a year ago, God woke me up. I looked at the clock, it was three in the morning, he said, get up and write, and I did. And and that's when my book, Awaken, was birthed. Awaken, exposing the web of deception, threatening our faith, family, and freedom. And I wrote it five weeks later. It was on paper in a hard draft, rough draft, and I edited it a few times and sent it on. And I won't go into all the details on how it got published, but and it got published, and I've done and I've now had some book signings and promotions, and it's it's everywhere where you can find it. What happened in that is that everything that was in me, and I think that's built up for all these years, and seeing the attack on our faith and our freedom and our family, you know, it was all just kind of welling up, and I knew I needed to speak to it. Well, it all came out in this book, and and I it almost felt like I gave childbirth. I mean, it was it came out and it was birthed, and now I'm doing everything I can to spread this message. I just connected with somebody that's bringing a number of copies over to Israel. I just spoke at a conference in Chicago about it. So this message is is going out everywhere. So that was just part of it. Then the Lord said, Teach. Also teach graduate courses at a Christian university. And then now a month ago I started a podcast called The Dr. T Show, where I'm really called to activate and equip believers and those that want to continue to expand their not just their presence, but their their expand their sphere of influence for the kingdom of God.

Amen. Well, first of all, thank you for your your service.

And thank you.

When did you serve and in what plant could a military did you serve in?

Well, my brother Dave went in 68 to 70, he was in Quang Tree, Vietnam. My brother Ted went in 70 to 72, he was in Cameron Bay, Vietnam. I went in in 72 and put in NAM to follow my brothers, but they sent me to Europe. So I was in Mannheim in in an armor unit, 568 armor in Mannheim, Germany, from 72 to 74.

Okay. Now, besides besides the experience when you were a child and then, you know, going to the service and getting saved, have you had any other spiritual encounters?

Why We Slide Back After Help

Well, yes, they're ongoing. You know, uh the one I just most recent I shared in terms of of kind of a divine encounter was the waking up in the Lord's stern and making it very clear I needed to get up and write. But prior to and since then, I've had numerous things happen. I remember one time I was going through a real, real hard time. This was probably early, early to mid-90s, and really seeking the Lord and really asking God for for guidance. I was at a transition in my life and wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing, and and uh really, really was struggling just emotionally and and just was crying out to the Lord and I was on the back deck and and I felt this wind and I felt this breeze, and I look back and and all of a sudden I see this group of leaves just kind of come up in the air, and I see it kind of float right towards me, almost like a small tornado. And and then I'm just kind of feeling this, hearing this wind and feeling this kind of soft tone. And then right above me, these leaves drop and fall right all over me. And I could just feel the Holy Spirit ascending, descending upon me, and and the Lord just put his arms around me and wrapped his arms around me and said, I have a plan and a purpose. You just need to seek me, you need to trust me, I love you, and I'm here today to tell you that. And I've had a number of those kinds of things where you know we get in those desperation kind of places in life and something goes wrong or something fails or a relationship fails or whatever, and and and it becomes a critical event for us. No one else really sees it, and and most people don't don't think that much about it, but for us, those are dramatic. But the Lord is always there. And then even in the smaller things, he's there. I've discovered so much in this season about faith and about God's promises that it's it's just you know beyond me. I mean, I I just I just can't even quite comprehend all that the Lord is putting on my heart and affirming his reality, affirming his truth and his promises. He never breaks one. He's not a man that he should lie. He always shows up and he always answers prayer. We we fall into challenge where we think it has to happen in our small, little minute timeline, right? So if we look at God's infinite timeline, his eternal timeline, and we put our little lifespan on there, it doesn't even show up. But yet we're looking for everything to manifest here. But what God made so clear to me recently is when he said, Son, I'm at work for eternal purposes. I will work in your life, I will answer your prayers, and I will be there with you, and I will walk with you daily. But also keep in mind everything I do has eternal ramifications. I'm at work for eternal purposes. So don't look for everything to manifest in your timeline the way you think it should, because I'm doing something beyond that and bigger than that for you and for everyone that I have created in my image. And so it brought about a new sense of peace and calmness. Like at this conference I was at, you know, I was praying with uh one of the one of the leaders who was becoming a a little bit not disoriented, but just a little concerned because things weren't playing quite out the way they should. And I prayed with him and I said, you know, you just need to know that this isn't going unnoticed. That that even things that happen, even if we cause it, even if we're the flaw, it matters not if our commit if our life and our ways have been committed unto the unto the Lord, his promise says what? He will work things, all things out for the good of those that love him. So even it matters not. Our only focus needs to be not on the disorder, but on the walk. So just continue to commit it unto him. And even if we did something to cause this, he's gonna take and turn that and still cause it for good for his kingdom and for us. So it's a win-win, it's a no-lose. It's our faith that gets in the way, our lack thereof. And so this is a huge season of me really understanding God's divine purposes and ways.

What do you why do Krech and Burnow keep returning even after people try therapy, self-help, or faith, practical?

It's a great question, Dorsey. Three words, four words, regression to the mean. And what regression to the mean is, it's a statistical framework where that if you can you can flip a coin, for example, and it can come up heads ten times. But if you flip it long enough, it's going to go back to even distribution. It'll regress to the mean. Human behavior is like that. We can get on a new track, get inspired by a word, get inspired by a teaching, a training, and walk out of there all fired up. And we'll do that for a little bit, but we will regress to the mean. We'll go back to where we were unless there's some long-term permanent interventions along the way. And so that's why every training I do and everything that I offer, I offer continual follow-up to combat regression to the mean. And so when we take stressors and all that kind of stuff, even the though you resolve one or someone helps you through one, it doesn't necessarily create a shield from it happening again unless we create new skill sets. The other part of that is our thought process. I have a free ebook on my website, drtconsulting.org. It's free for download. You just put in your email. It's called Peace Pace. And I address this and how we can walk in a peace pace. I define what peace pace is. I actually just did finish a little clip on a reel yesterday on it. But it really are those interventions that we need to implement on an ongoing basis in order to walk there and not let stressors revisit us and not let those have the same impact when we confront them. Because the reality is nothing in and of itself creates the stress. We create the stress from our interpretation, from our response, from our perspective, and from our belief. And so the real key in altering and not being affected by stressors, the things that can cause that can activate it, is the way we then work on our own behavioral aspect, emotional, psychological, spiritual, etc. And so we need to step into the training and the resources that are available to help us alter within us our approach so that we aren't impacted by those things. And then we need to stay in that modality so that we don't regress to the mean, in other words, back to previous state of the way we handled it.

Burnout Defined And Warning Signs

We've we've hear that word a lot, burnout. We hear that, you know, that word a lot. What what is it? Can you define it for and what is what are the things that we can look out for to, you know, not to be burnt out?

Good question, Dorsey. So burnout, I would say the best way to describe it is that we've gone beyond our capacity. Okay? We all have an emotional, psychological, spiritual even capacity. And if we go beyond that capacity, burnout sets in. Take a pastor. He takes on too many speaking engagements, too many counseling sessions, too many sermons he's preaching, too many funerals, too many weddings, too much everything. He goes beyond his spiritual capacity to be able to adequately handle burnout can set in. Emotionally, psychologically, we take too much in. We take on too many events, we take we work too many hours, we do too much physically, we have a physical capacity. So burnout is us going beyond capacity in one or more areas of our life. So symptoms and signs, we start to feel more anxiety, more stress, more worry. We don't sleep as well, eating get disrupted, things that we should be doing that are healthy go on the back burner. We may not start we may not take the time to exercise, we may not take the time for Bible reading, may not take the time for church or prayer. So we begin to those things that are starting to tax our capacity are taking more and more of our time that we use for my emotional and mental health. But again, watch for those symptoms of anxiety, feeling stressed, feel getting upset easy, not sleeping as well, easy to be irritated, emotional regulation challenges, and then losing some of those again routines that were healthy for us that kept us in balance.

Biblical Roots Of Emotional Health

Thank you for that. I appreciate it. What is the connection between emotional health and spiritual growth?

Yeah, I don't I think they go hand in hand. I think that, you know, to have spiritual growth, we need to also be developing emotional health. And emotional health, I think, is necessary for spiritual growth. So I think they they're closely related and correlated. And and what's interesting, though, is that we can ensure emotional health by spiritual growth or by Bible reading and prayer, because that's where the truth of our emotional health is found. The sources for all of our emotional and behavioral health are found biblically. And so can you be emotionally healthy without being a Christian? Somewhat, but you know, it cannot be fully emotionally developed. No, because you're going to be caught in the web of your own mindset. And people's mindsets, people's learning, people's understanding is limited. We are all limited. No one person holds the truth. We all hold pieces of the truth, and we all have variations of the truth. And so we're we're building emotional health, behavioral health, physical practices, you know, on a very limited cognitive brain and mindset. So we're we totally disregard then God's eternal and infinite look and the truth in his word. We can't be fully emotionally healthy without implementing God's word, and we can't have spiritual growth without working on emotional health, which we find it's sourced in God's word.

Is emochno health and emochno maturity the same thing, or are they two different things?

First Steps Toward Peace Pace

Well, I think they're the same thing. I don't think you can be emotionally healthy without a level of emotional maturity. And emotional maturity certainly leads to better emotional health. So they're very much the same thing. Now we could talk about emotional health a little different in terms of the things that you do, the things you implement, signs of emotional health, but then much of that would apply to emotional maturity too. You would find those same kinds of characteristics. What does moving maturity look like in everyday life? I think you're looking at someone that is balanced, you're looking at someone that is regulated, you're looking at someone that has healthy outcomes in their life, and someone that is, you know, has that behavioral emotional regulation. You know, I think of, you know, Billy Graham, I think of Mother Teresa, I think of people that that were regulated, that were confident in themselves, had a faith and belief outside of themselves, and their characteristics, you know, demonstrated and manifested calmness and peace. So I think emotional beh emotional maturity is going to look calm, it's going to look peaceful, it's going to look rational, it's you're going to it's going to have actions that do good for others, it's going to have actions that think outside of itself. You look at Jesus, for example, look at his lifestyle. You have a lifestyle of emotional and behavioral health and spiritual maturity.

And now our last question, one of our last questions would be what a practical first step for finding peace and resilience in a demanding world?

First step would be just awareness. If you'd if you recognize that you're lacking, that first step is saying I'm lacking. Second step is to start seeking help for that. I would start with the Lord, I would start with biblical truth, but then I would also find out a caring person that you trust and know that can maybe help mentor or help guide you or help talk with you or provide Christian counsel. You know, it's hard to get there on your own if you haven't been there. And and really none of us were there. We all got there and we're all getting there. None of us have arrived, okay, but we all continue on that journey to grow and become more mature. But we all started somewhere, and all of us really did start in discovering biblical truth and and with the aid of someone else, whether it be a parent, a pastor, a friend, we don't just accomplish that on our own. It's a joint journey of biblical truth and support by by those that care about us.

I always like to ask my guest um to give my listeners a word of encouragement or word of inspiration to my to my listeners.

Yes, yes. Yeah, that I thank you for that. And that's awesome that you do that, Dorsey. My word of encouragement would just be, no, it's not too late. God draws a line from the moment we come to him in prayer and says, This is a new start. This is a fresh start. He remembers our past no more when we come to him and say, Lord, I blew it, forgive me, I love you. It's a fresh new start. So matter where you're at on your journey, whether you haven't answered your call, whether you haven't fulfilled your call, whether you're looking to find your call, whether you're looking just to start to get stable and find that foundation, today's the day to begin that, and it is not too late. I mean, I'm I'm at my age, just started on a brand new journey. I don't know how many years I have, and I don't care. The Lord put on my heart, this is a call for the remainder of days, okay? And so I'm doing that in faithfulness because our lifespan here, no matter how you slice it or dice it, you can't even see it on the eternal timeline, folks. You can't even see it. So start now because that'll carry over into eternity. Eternity, you are investing into the eternal timeline when you start on God's purpose for you today. So let go of the failures, let go of the lapses I have. You can do it. Let's start fresh today and say, Lord, here am I, send me. Now equip me, bring people into my life I need, help me get whole emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, because I want to make a difference for your kingdom in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, Dr. King, thank you for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you.

It's been a pleasure doing this, Dorsey. You've asked great questions, and and I I pray for you and your work and your ministry. And as we jointly join together, we will we will continue to get out on the airways and get out there. People have voices with purpose, but most importantly, God's message. God's message of love, forgiveness, and truth. It is for everyone today. And if they don't discover that, then they're not going to walk fulfilled or complete or whole in the life that God has given them.

Closing And Next Steps

Right. Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for coming on the show and for listening again. Please go and check out Dr. Kings' website. I'll have the link in the show notes. And please go and share and follow this podcast and these episodes. And until next time, God bless. Bye-bye.