About Me

My name is John Sloss and I am currently a graduate student at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology in Seattle, Washington.  I am studying to get my Masters in Counseling Psychology and have a deep desire to counsel individuals who are wrestling with a deep sense of shame as a result of past painful experiences and relationships.  I am engaged to marry a wonderful and beautiful woman, my fiancé Collyn, in April of 2013.  I’m blessed to join this journey of life with her and am in wonder at her deep sense of caring for those who have been marginalized and wounded by others.

I worked at a church for nearly twelve years and constantly encountered individuals who were held captive by a shame that hindered their ability to live fully.  John Eldredge sums up this thought well when he talks about living whole heartedly.  Eldredge’s idiom of whole hearted living finds its origins in St. Irenaeus’s quote:  ”The glory of God is man fully alive.”

As I engaged this theme within my own personal story of shame I felt my heart tug around the idea that my past, my unaddressed wounds and brokenness, had been held in chains by a deep sense of shame that was robbing me of beauty in the present.  In a sense, I was not living into freedom, but living with a heart bound by shame.  

I’ve been blessed to have some wonderful and trusted individuals guide and sit with me as I discovered this reality and it is with this realization that the term Aphesis has come to hold such a dear meaning in my life and has served as a catalyst for the areas in which I hope to be able to help others in years to come.