May 24, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
One of the best parts about the return of springtime is all the songbirds that once again find their way to the feeders we have placed around our back porch. Just this weekend my oldest son even remarked at how loud the birds were, which was both funny and delightful!
So what do birds and mental health have to do with each other? That’s part of what we’re going to explore together in our conversation this week, but really we’re talking about something much bigger than birds. It’s more about crisis, mental well-being, and ultimately love. Please take a few minutes to read this opinion piece in WaPo to learn more.
At the same time, we are talking about birds this week. In fact, we’ll spend a few minutes listening together to the sounds of birds as we reflect on the impact these sounds have on our mental state. You’ll surely enjoy reading the entire interactive article on the subject, again from WaPo.
Our warm-up question for this week:<
What is your favorite songbird? What does it make you think about and why?
See you soon,
Alex
May 18, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Whether you call it “overwhelmed” or “anxious,” we all know what it feels like: your mind becomes preoccupied with worrying thoughts, you probably tense up a bit, minutes begin to feel like hours, and so on. It’s not a pleasant state, but it’s also a normal part of the human experience. Of course there’s also a point at which these feelings become so persistent and intense that we classify it as a form of mental illness.
So how can we respond in healthy, effective ways when we feel overwhelmed? And what should we not do? In our conversation this week we’ll go through “5 Mistakes We Make When We’re Overwhelmed,” which also gives us insight into what we can do instead to prevent overwhelming feelings from not becoming so…overwhelming.
We’ll also watch a brief personal testimony from Florence Mukangenzi, a medical student who describes in wonderful clarity how she has developed strategies and tactics to manage her chronic anxiety.
Our warm-up question for this week:
What activities allow your mind to wander in healthy ways?
See you soon,
Alex
May 11, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
You probably already know May is Mental Health Awareness Month. I’ve been delighted to see how many different companies, civic groups, and other organizations are now using this occasion to talk openly about mental illness and well-being.
It’s also a good opportunity for each of us to strike up a conversation with friends and loved ones about mental health. One great way to get things started is by sharing a tip for how to “check in” with yourself to become more aware of your mental health status.
In this week’s discussion we’ll watch one of the best videos I’ve come across yet on how to building awareness of your mental health status:
https://youtu.be/RUrpw8RLEDI These are the types of self-screening questions we should be asking ourselves at least once a month, not just in May!
Our warm-up question for this week:
What’s an activity you do that is all-but-guaranteed to bring you joy and stress relief?
May 4, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
I’m sure you’ve pondered the age-old question “what is the meaning of life?” In all likelihood your views on the answer to this question, or the relevancy of the question itself, have evolved over time. In this week’s discussion we’re going to approach it from a different angle: what would it be like if we got rid of the idea of “a purposeful life” altogether?
For many people, feeling like their life is “worthless” or that they aren’t living up to expectations has a major impact on their mental health. For some, mental illness itself can cause these feelings to occur and persist. It makes good sense then to explore what we even mean by “purpose” when the concept can be so closely tied to our well-being.
Our warm-up question for this week:
If you had to spend a year either living in solitude with no human contact (including phone/video/texting/etc.), or living in constant presence of others with no real time to yourself, which would you choose and why?
Apr 27, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
It turns out that being intelligent doesn’t help much in achieving well-being, and that’s a good thing because it means there are better ways to be happy and successful in life than trying to be “smart” (in the conventional sense, at least). Of course, this also means that people we know who are super intelligent may not be doing as well as we might assume they are.
…a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to think rationally in a goal-orientated fashion and a disposition to use those skills when appropriate. Critical thinkers are amiable skeptics. They are flexible thinkers who require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize fallacious attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking means overcoming all kinds of cognitive biases (for instance, hindsight bias or confirmation bias).
Our warm-up question for this week:
Describe a piece of visual art that you are really drawn to. How did you first encounter it, and what does it mean to you?
Apr 20, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
We all know what it feels like to hang on to objects longer than we should. Maybe the guest room in our house has become a storage unit instead of a place for guests to stay, or maybe we have a stack of boxes in the basement that haven’t been opened in over a decade. Why do we decide to keep some things and not others, and how do we learn to part with things we no longer need or can sustain?
In this week’s conversation we’ll dive into this topic by listening to
an episode of a VeryWellMind podcast (you can also read the transcript via the link). We’ll explore what makes an item sentimental, what it says about us, and how we can more easily make choices to keep or let go of sentimental items over time.
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about an item with little or no monetary value, but that you value deeply, that you’ve held onto for a really long time.
