Daily Inspiration: Meet Adam Young

Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Young.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
By the time I was 35 years old, I had tried everything to make my emotional pain decrease: books, conferences, mentors, bible studies, journaling, prayer, counseling. I don’t just mean a few books or a few meetings with mentors. I mean hundreds of books, several years of weekly meetings with mentors, and innumerable pages written in my journal. But more than any of these endeavors, I prayed and read the Bible. I would ask, seek, and knock—pleading with God for help. Over and over and over. Year in and year out for my entire 20’s and well into my 30’s. To say that “I read the Bible” doesn’t really do it justice. I studied the Bible. Searching, searching, searching for the answers to my questions. Why do I feel so empty and worthless one minute, and then anxious and panicky the next? By the time I was 35 I had done everything I knew to answer this simple question: How do I make it hurt less inside? How do I get well?
Around this time, someone gave me a copy of The Wounded Heart by Dan Allender. This was my introduction to story work.
It was my introduction to the idea that I had a story.
This book suggested that my story was not just something in my past, but that it was also profoundly affecting how I experienced the world in the present. Perhaps understanding my story could help me discover why I was in so much pain? 
It did. As I began engaging the trauma and harm from my family of origin story, all the symptoms in my body began to make sense.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, My vocational path has taken a very circuitous route. I graduated from Social Work school in 1999 and immediately moved to New York City to day-trade Nasdaq securities. Why? In large part because I realized that I did not know how to help others or myself with emotional pain. I then joined a couple of start-up companies, did some healthcare consulting, and eventually when to graduate school in Divinity at Emory University. I was a pastor for a couple of years before I realized that the part of pastoring I enjoyed the most was engaging people’s hearts and stories. So I opened up my own counseling practice in 2013 and I’ve been loving it ever since.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a podcaster (The Place We Find Ourselves podcast) and new author (Make Sense of Your Story: Why Engaging Your Past with Kindness Changes Everything, 2025). My podcast has over 10M downloads. I specialize in trauma therapy for individuals and couples. I run Story Work groups in which participants read a story of harm from their past and I engage that story on a very deep level–helping them identify where they are bound and what freedom would require of them. I’m most proud of my deep work with clients which combines interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, and story work–all within a spiritual framework.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Aware
A General Theory of Love
The Body Keeps the Score
The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy
Trauma and the Body
The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy
Mindsight
The Drama of the Gifted Child

The Wounded Heart
Healing the Wounded Heart
Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners

Contact Info:

• Website: https://adamyoungcounseling.com
• Instagram: @adamyoungcounseling
• Youtube: @adamyoungcounseling361