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 toÂ
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.
Apr 13, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
We’re back to our regular day and time (Thursdays at 7pm) this week for Stronger Together, and I’m excited for this conversation because we’re going to focus on a very compelling and evocative survivor testimony.
We’ll start by watching a 10-minuteÂ
video from Sharon Wise, who recounts her experiences with mental illness, addiction, homelessness, loss, and ultimately recovery. Her story is quite moving, so we’ll take time after the video to process as a group and reflect on what we heard and how it affected us. This topic is all the more important to discuss asÂ
our nation faces new and even deadlier challenges in the addiction crisis. As always we will approach the conversation with empathy, humility, and compassion.
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about a time when you saw someone do something incredible…something you thought wasn’t possible, or couldn’t imagine being able to yourself.
Apr 5, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
We have another wonderful installment this week in our series healthy relationships. But we get to that, however, please remember that we’re meeting Wednesday evening at 7 pm since it’s Holy Week!
We’ll be talking about friendships: how they differ from other types of relationships, how powerful they can be in keeping us well, and whether or not there’s a “friendship recession” affecting our communities today.
To understand the issue a bit better, we’ll watch a brief video featuring Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied this topic extensively. It’s the perfect video and topic to share with friends!
Our warm-up question for this week:
Did you have a “best friend” as a child? What was your favorite memory with this friend?
Mar 30, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
We’re continuing on the theme of healthy relationships this week, this time focusing on trust. While trust in relationships is a very relevant topic for all of us, it can take on new meaning when you are living with mental illness.
To get the conversation started we’ll watch a 10-minute video on the foundations of trust by social scientist and author/speaker Brene Brown. She introduces the acronym “BRAVING” to describe the essential elements of building and maintaining trust in relationships. We’ll discuss how these themes have played out in our own lives, and in particular the challenges we’ve faced when mental illness is involved.
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about a time you laughed uncontrollably. What (or who) made it so funny?
