Hello Beautiful People!
How are you doing today?
Take a few moments today to pause and prayerfully reflect on the prompts in the image above.
It might help you to journal your responses and prayers as you do this. Or it might help you to talk through this with a soul friend, spiritual director, or coach who can listen and minister God’s love, empathy, and grace to you.
1. A common mistake people make is to deny fear and other emotions.
We do that when we cheerlead people to “have faith,” “be strong,” and “love other people.”
It’s not caring or helpful if someone tells you, “Don’t be afraid—have faith in God!”
However well-intentioned this kind of encouragement is, it usually leaves people feeling judged, invalidated, and like they need to put on a happy face.
If these statements are not preceded by and based in empathetic validation of people’s real fears, anxieties, vulnerabilities, and other emotions then it is not loving or wise. Instead, it just reinforces people to deny their emotions.
Jesus and the Bible are never on the side of denying or negating emotion. (But you might miss this if you don’t read carefully.)
“Fear not” (e.g., Matt. 14:27) and “Do not be anxious” (e.g., Phil. 4:6-7) need to be taken in context of their passage and the whole counsel of God’s word.
The point the Lord is making is, “WHEN you feel afraid or anxious, pray honestly about your experience, ask for what you need, love one another with listening and compassion, and take courage from being with Jesus in the spiritual reality of the Kingdom of God.”
Perhaps the most helpful examples of this kind of authentic faith that validates real emotions and puts confidence in the nearness and goodness of God in all things are the Psalms.
With a tender heart and insecure feelings the Psalmist pleads to the Lord, “Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge” (Ps. 16:1).
To articulate our experience in prayer to God who’s always listening and always has open arms to us and to a safe friend who will listen and care is always a helpful, validating, and strengthening posture to get into.
And actually, it’s what enables us to move forward with God in healthy faith and with real courage when we’re hurting or struggling with our mental health.
You might think of anxiety as a negative thing. Many people do.
We don’t like to feel anxious. We don’t want to be controlled by it. We judge ourselves for being anxious, feel shame, and/or try to distract ourselves.
But, it’s natural to feel anxious from time to time.
Of course, it doesn’t feel good to be anxious, but anxiety itself isn’t bad. It’s actually a natural way that our body reacts when we’ve been holding onto fear and stress.
Anxiety is how our body indicates that there’s something going on under the surface that needs our attention. Usually it means we need to slow down and pay attention to what we feel and need.
Often times when we experience anxiety we’re perpetuating the problem without realizing it.
We don’t like how the anxiety makes us feel so we fight against it and try to make the feeling go away. But when we try to make our uncomfortable emotions go away we’re repressing them. They don’t really go away. They go into our unconscious mind, which plays out in our bodies.
So we end up with all this fear trapped in our body and eventually we come undone and break down with an anxiety attack.
But one surprisingly effective strategy to deal with an anxiety attack is to give in to it. That’s right, just let yourself have it! Instead of fighting the feeling, welcome it.
We call this “befriending our emotions.”
One way to do this is to talk to yourself, God, a friend — or even to the emotion itself! — while you’re feeling the emotion.
Ride it out and tell yourself, “I’ve felt extremely anxious before and it won’t kill me. God has helped me survive this before. I won’t suffocate. I’m just anxious because I have a lot of feelings I need to talk and pray through.”
Then start breathing and praying. Or imagine being in a beautiful peaceful scene. Better yet, fix your thoughts to a comforting Bible passage, like Psalm 23.
As we become aware of our personal emotions and needs, receive the empathy from an ambassador of Jesus that calms us down, and learn to rely on God’s presence and grace we’ll experience freedom from anxiety ❤️
Sadly, in our years of ministry as Christian therapists Kristi and I have talked to many people who have been spiritually harmed by the Bible.
They picked up a toxic faith from their family, church, an author, or a speaker or they were abused by a Christian parent or leader. Others just didn’t study the Bible carefully.
It saddens me greatly when the Bible I love damages people.
One common “Biblical blunder” that we’ve encountered uses Paul’s teaching in Philippians 4:6 to shame people for their anxiety.
We use this verse to tell ourselves or others not to feel worry. But this just causes us to deny our emotions.
Ironically, repressing feelings like fear, anger, or sadness just puts these stress responses into our bodies and causes more anxiety.
Denial of emotion is spiritually unhealthy. It drains our energy and hinders our ability to have empathy for others.
When Paul says “do not be anxious about anything” he’s not shaming us for our anxiety or fearful emotions. He’s helping us to admit to our anxious emotions and seek God’s empathy and help.
In effect, Paul is saying, “In every circumstance that you feel anxious go to God in prayer— abandon the outcomes of those situations to him, ask him for what you need (from him and other people), and thank him for his many blessings and then in time the peace of God will come out of nowhere to settle your soul” (Phil. 4:6-7 paraphrased).
This is an emotionally honest and healthy faith, which we see modeled throughout the Bible.
How we respond to our emotions can make a big difference on our mental health.
Each of our emotions have a unique invitation for us. If we become aware of what we’re feeling and listen to what the emotions are communicating about our current situation, we can look to God for comfort and healing for our unmet needs.
2. So friends, what emotions are you feeling today?
Take some time to pray and reflect on what you’re feeling.
Then respond to the invitations that relate to what you’re feeling (see the image above). As you do this, you might also want to reach out to a tender-hearted friend who is good a listening and can give you empathy for your emotions ❤️
If you’re struggling with your mental health, look to Jesus. Share your heart with him. See him empathizing with your feelings and thoughts so you can take on the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16; Heb. 4:15).
Here are two helpful ways to do this:
1️⃣ Look to Jesus in the Gospels. It’s heart-warming and inspiring to see how he cares for the hurting and those on the margins of society. For example, a man talked to the Lord and we read, “Jesus looked at him and loved him (Mark 10:21).
2️⃣ Participate in love-one-another relationships in the body of Christ where you give and receive empathy. This is the safest and healthiest way to get your soul breathing again and to experience the love of Christ where you need it most.
Doing both of these things helps us internalize the tender love and grace of Jesus that grounds us when we’re feeling mentally and emotionally wobbly ❤️
Jesus cares about your mental health. He wants to listen to you share your feelings, thoughts, needs, and desires.
He wants to hear about what’s going on in your life and how it’s affecting you.
Take some time today to prayerfully reflect on the prompts in the image above. As you do, ask Jesus to reveal where he was with you this week.
It might help you to journal your responses and prayers as you do this. Or it might help you to talk to a soul friend or spiritual director who can listen and minister God’s love, empathy, and grace to you.
As you process and share with Jesus, remember that his heart is open to you. He’ll never leave you. Never shame you. Never reject you. His eyes shine with delight in you. He smiles in your presence. He enjoys knowing you and being your friend. And he loves you more than you’ll ever comprehend ❤️
Putting on a happy face for others, masking your pain, and repressing/avoiding your emotions is incredibly exhausting.
Plus, holding in your feelings, isolating from others, or distracting yourself from your pain worsens your mental health in the long run.
These patterns push our thoughts and emotions out of our consciousness and into our bodies where they influence us without our awareness or consent. Eventually this saps our energy, erodes our physical health, foments into unloving emotional eruptions, and leaks out in compulsive behaviors.
…So what’s the alternative?
Normalizing our mental-emotional health struggles, giving words to them, and receiving empathy from safe and loving people.
Here’s what this involves:
👉 Taking ownership or responsibility for our emotions and thoughts (and how they’re affecting us).
👉 Verbalizing our feelings, thoughts, and needs to God and safe people who help us connect to God’s presence.
👉 Receiving emotional validation and empathy by agreeing with it.
When we receive empathy we learn that we don’t have to be embarrassed, closed off, or ignore our mental health.
Instead, we discover that we can share honestly with God and safe people who love us and desire to care for us.
Being able to be emotionally honest in this way facilitates bonding in our relationships and helps us receive the nurture, strength, and encouragement that we need to carry our burdens.
And here’s the best part: the more that we tune into our mental health, learn how to talk about it, and receive empathy from God and others, the better we’ll be able to show up this way for others.
How we communicate and show up for one another is really important. Especially when someone is struggling with their mental health.
Probably most of us at one point or another have felt shamed, belittled, invalidated, judged, or unloved by people’s response to our mental health.
And as a result, many of us have learned to repress our emotions and put on a happy face around others in order to avoid being hurt again. But this ultimately amplifies our mental-emotional pain and leaves us to suffer alone, without the healthy and loving support we need.
Even worse, these damaging relational experiences can cause us to expect this same level of emotional invalidation and judgement from God — leading us to believe that our Heavenly Father is impatient, unloving, and judgmental of our mental health struggles. (Even if we know in our heads this is not true, we might struggle to believe it in our hearts.)
That’s why it’s so important that we learn healthy and loving ways to communicate and support one another in our mental health.
Swipe through the images above for some practical examples of what to say & what not to say to those who are struggling with their mental health.
“Just have more faith and God will cure you!”
“Anxiety is a sin.”
“If you really loved God you wouldn’t be depressed.”
But these messages are not helpful or healthy. Instead, they put a heavy load of shame on us, adding to the already heavy weight of our mental health challenges.
God’s heart is never to shame us, especially when we’re hurting or struggling with our mental-emotional health. The Lord is tender-hearted and compassionate, full of love and understanding (Ps. 145:8-9).
So instead of hiding in shame or judging yourself as a bad Christian, listen to the invitation of Scripture:
“When you feel anxious [or struggle with your mental health] go to God in prayer, tell him how you feel, ask him for what you need, abandon the outcomes of those situations to him, and thank God for the good things he provides. In time, the peace of God will come out of nowhere to settle your soul. You’ll be protected from the destructive effects of continual anxiety [or depression, etc.]” (Phil. 4:5-7 paraphrased).
This is the emotionally honest and healthy faith that we see modeled throughout the Bible, including by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he cried out to God as his Abba because his soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mark 14:34, 36).
The comforting truth is that God is near to us when we’re struggling with our mental health. He is the Sovereign Lord of all things and as we trust him and safe friends in the Body of Christ we will experience more and more of his peace.
3. It doesn’t feel good to be anxious, does it?
That’s why many of us try to fight against it and make the feelings go away.
But anxiety doesn’t really go away when we try to control or repress it. (That only makes it worse.)
You see, anxiety is a sign that we’ve been internalizing stress, fear, or other emotions, pushing ourselves past our limits, and/or not asking for help. Over time these things accumulate in our body, causing us to feel incredibly anxious.
But unfortunately, there isn’t a “quick-fix” or one-size-fits-all solution for resolving feelings of anxiety. It takes time, energy, trust in God, patience, and a lot of grace.
The best way to get free of anxiety and grow in God’s peace is to incorporate a variety of relaxation strategies over time.
This helps you train (or re-train) your body and mind to submit to God and receive His peace.
To help you get started, I’ve listed some suggestions in the video above. (These are all things I did that helped me experience freedom from my anxiety.)
I pray that as you try these things, you’ll experience more and more of God’s peace for your anxious feelings❤️.
PS. My book, "Your Best Life In Jesus’ Easy Yoke" covers all of these suggestions for anxiety in depth and offers many more! It's an inspiring, practical, and powerful approach for dealing with stress, anxiety, and fear. It’s a plan for whole life healing and transformation.
Sometimes we need to go backward in order to go forward in a deeper or healthier way. As therapists we call this “regression in the service of growth.”
For most of us this requires setting limits on work and other commitments and allocating more time to rest and process our emotions with a trusted friend, counselor, or spiritual director.
4. So friend, are you feeling stuck in your mental health struggles?
Don’t try to push through this or distract yourself.
It’s time to stop doing for the Lord and start being with the Lord. Look to Jesus on the cross and see that God has torn down the veil in the temple that kept you at a distance (Matt. 27:51).
Keep verbalizing your struggles, submitting your will to God, and resisting the deceiver. Eventually you will break free and find that God is near (James 4:7–8) ❤️
How you care for your mental health makes a big difference!
If we don’t pay attention to and care for our mental health then problems will build up internally and in our relationships with our family, church, and workplace.
Neglecting our mental health drains our energy, hinders our ability to have empathy for others, and distances us from God. But caring for our needs and weaknesses strengthens us for our faith, relationships, work, and ministry to others!
In the image above we’ve listed some practical ideas to care for your mental health and strengthen you in your intimacy with God, personal well-being, and relationships. I encourage you to give one or more of these a try — not as a “self-help” project, but as a way of joining with Jesus in caring for your soul!
The most common type of prayers in the Bible’s Prayer Book are not celebratory songs of thanksgiving and praise, though based on the songs we sing in church you’d think that to be the case!
It’s actually the Psalms of Lament that are most frequent.
There are 67 Sad Psalms that are themed on complaining and crying to God.
When Jonah was stuck in the belly of a whale he used “Pit Psalms" to help him pray (2:1-7).
We need these distress prayers because in our daily lives we keep finding ourselves in a “valley of the shadow of death” (23:4, KJV) or a “horrible pit” (40:2, KJV).
Like a spiritual psychotherapist, the Psalmist helps us to feel our emotions, own them, and vent them to God.
As we open our heart to God along with the Psalmist we discover that he listens, empathizes, validates, and responds. He comes to our aid to comfort us and strengthen us❤️.
We all want to flourish in our mental and emotional health but at times we deal with anxiety, depression, or compulsive behavior.
Grief, health problems, and trauma can evoke great psychological distress that can make it difficult for us to function.
Many of us have loved ones with mental health challenges.
If you or a loved one are struggling to remain emotionally balanced, mentally sharp, and at your best in your work or relationships please don’t feel ashamed!
It’s not a sin to struggle with your mental health.
You can stabilize and begin the road to improvement by reaching out for help and taking positive steps one day at a time.
You may need to talk to a therapist.
Often a wise, caring, and strong coach, like one of the Sr. Coaches with Soul Shepherding is enough to begin getting healthier emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.
We tell people, “You’ll get help when you and I join God in caring for you."
Your faith in God may not feel strong. That’s okay. All you need is a mustard seed sized faith in a BIG God who totally loves you (Luke 17:5-6).
The best place to see God is to look at Jesus in the Gospels. It’s heart-warming and inspiring to see how he cares for the hurting and those on the margins of society.
A man talked to the Lord and we read, “Jesus looked at him and loved him” (Mark 10:21).
Can you see Jesus looking at you with a warm smile? This is the beginning of flourishing in your mental health.
There is power in verbalizing your feelings — especially if you experience anxiety and depression.
Here’s what most people don’t understand: feelings of anxiety and depression are often a direct result of repressed emotions.
In other words, we feel anxious and depressed when we deny our fear, hurt, shame, or anger. So it makes sense that we can learn to feel less anxious or depressed when we talk through our underlying feelings with someone we trust.
Sharing our emotions with a good listener is cathartic. It helps relieve tension when we “let go” of what’s troubling us by allowing someone else to feel what we feel and offer empathy.
As we share and receive empathy, the emotional turmoil becomes less intense and more manageable.
When we appreciate that someone cares enough to listen, understand, and pray with us it brings comfort for our hurt and encouragement for getting through our situation. In time we realize that we feel more peace.
In addition to sharing our feelings with a friend, it’s important for us to share our feeling with God in prayer.
In the Psalms of the Bible, David (the author of most of them) gives us a model for sharing our troubles with God.
By writing out or simply praying our own psalms we too can experience more of God’s peace.
Like David, we tell God just what we’re feeling, even if it’s anger at Him, and He listens and is concerned and responsive. David also shows us how to receive God’s care by thanking Him for his provisions, starting with the smallest of blessings.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So to kick things off we thought we’d share some statistics about mental health.
We have been thinking and praying about the realities of mental health in our world, because it’s an area where we have a real concern and calling.
When we went to school to get our Doctorates in Psychology, it was because we had a burden to help people in the church be healthier — emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
So this month we’ll be theming our Instagram content around mental health topics. And specifically, we’ll look at integrating mental and emotional health with faith in Jesus.
Our prayer is that these posts will remove the shame, judgment, and isolation around mental health challenges that many people face.
Together we’ll gain more understanding of mental health issues, how they relate to discipleship to Jesus, and how to treat all people with empathy and dignity.
The opportunity of Jesus’ gospel is to bring all that we are responsible for under the government of God, to submit all that we are, all that we have, all that we do, and how we do what we do to the rule of Christ.
How can you live today in the kingdom of the heavens? How can you keep your peace in stressful situations and love difficult people?
Don’t try — train. Apprentice yourself to Jesus and learn how to live submitted to him in all things as you draw upon the resources being part of his kingdom.
When you have difficulty, get help from someone who can serve as Christ’s ambassador to you (2 Cor. 5:20) and minister the counseling, healing prayer, or spiritual mentoring you need.
5. Why aren’t we experiencing God’s peace?
Often it’s because we want to be in control of our lives.
Perhaps most especially, our emotions.
We don’t want to feel things like sadness… neediness… loneliness… fear… chaos… anger. So we deny or avoid these feelings.
The result of denial is that whenever we slow down and become quiet, the uncomfortable feelings that we’ve been repressing come to the surface. Then we find ourselves overwhelmed with the “secondary emotion” of anxiety (e.g., worry, irritability, jealousy).
The Psalmist models for us the resolution to our restless living: Stop trying to control things and submit to the Lord in all you do.
I love how Paul says this in the New Testament: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart” (Col. 3:15).
To be at peace we need to learn to accept our emotions before God, sharing openly and honestly with him.
Often we do that in community. This is why the Psalms are not just for private devotional use but are primarily meant to be prayed and sung with others.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:20, often people need a “Christ’s Ambassador” to help them be reconciled to God and experience his friendship.
As God’s grace gets inside us, working its way through our painful emotions and unhealthy habits then his grace can flow through us to others❤️.
Intimacy with God is about having an authentic, real, personal, and interactive relationship with him.
As part of this, we need to be emotionally honest with God. Feeling our emotions and expressing our thoughts, needs, and desires in prayer.
God longs to be in conversation with us — listening to what we have to say and responding with love, empathy, grace, wisdom, and blessings.
But we have to be intentional in our relationship with Jesus for it to be intimate.
It takes an ongoing intentionality. Showing up, vulnerability, seeking.
Just like in our relationships with people around us — we have to work at it. It doesn’t maintain itself.
Jesus is (or can be) our first love. But what so often happens to us as disciples of Jesus is that over time we lose that “first love” relationship.
That’s why we need to find ways to “re-enthrall” our minds with the Son of God. (It’s helpful for us to do this in community with other believers.)
As we intentionally cultivate an authentic and intimate relationship with our Lord it makes everything better and everything possible in our lives❤️.