May 1, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello Stronger Together Group,
I know when things don’t go my way I can start ruminating about them, and it can be challenging get out of that place even if I know I am doing it. The short video below is about all of that. We will have to get past the short advertising by the presenter for her other products and we are not endorsing them here:)
Here is the link to the video: Two Things You Can Do To Stop Ruminating
Idea for a warmup question: What is your favorite time of the day, and why?
See you all tomorrow, Thursday, at 7pm. Stay cool!
Dee
Apr 3, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
There’s a good chance you’ve already come across an article or interview about a new book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He offers a compelling thesis, which is that the introduction of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s has caused a cascade of mental health issues revolving around mood disorders.
In this week’s conversation we’ll listen to an 8-minute selection of an interview the author did for NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast (starting at 33:33 if you want to listen ahead of time, but I encourage you to listen to the whole podcast episode if you have time, or at least speed read the transcript).
While the impact the author traces is felt most profoundly by youth, particularly adolescent girls, I’m pretty sure you’ll find many of these “phone effects” relatable in one way or another. I look forward to the conversation!
Our warm-up question for this week:
If you could invent a smartphone app to do ANYTHING imaginable, what would it do and why?
See you soon,
Alex
Dec 19, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Over the past few weeks we’ve watched and discussed some really inspiring videos about how people have turned their personal struggles with mental illness into profound acts of courage and generosity. It’s not your typical Christmas content, I suppose, but Christmas is a celebration of hope and these stories are nothing if not hopeful.
This week we’ll watch one more from Carson Daly (if you grew up on MTV he needs no introduction), who speaks candidly about his struggles with anxiety and panic disorder. One of my hopes is that, in just a few years’ time, we hear even more of these personal testimonies…not just from those affected by depression and anxiety, but also from people affected by types of mental illness such as schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder that are still considered taboo.
Our warm-up is a Christmas-themed guessing game!
Name two Christmas carols, and see if everyone else can guess whether you love one and despise the other, love them both, or give them both a “bah humbug.”
See you soon,
Alex
Dec 13, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
We have some really creative and artistic people in this discussion group. There’s also people like me, who perhaps aren’t naturally artistic but strive to be more creative and appreciative of the art we encounter. This week we’re going to explore a few different ways in which mental health and art can intersect, from giving us a language to express complex feelings to connecting us with people and ideas that can bring healing.
Our warm-up question for this week:
Check out this website of Texas Mental Health Creative Arts Contest winners. Which image stands out to you, and why?
See you soon,
Alex
Dec 6, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
One of my favorite things about our group discussions is that we get to go pretty deep into mental health topics that don’t come up in conversation often enough. It’s good also to step back on occasion to “see the forest through the trees,” as the saying goes. All the topics we discuss are about people, after all. It’s not about illnesses, or treatment paradigms, or biases, or strategies; it’s about the people in our lives, and about ourselves.
We’re going to watch a beautifully composed 7-minute video to bring this point into focus on Thursday. It’s the story of Kevin Love, who you may or may not be familiar with as a longtime star player in the NBA. His story is both extraordinary because of who he is and how he has shaped his life in response to mental health challenges, while also being entirely ordinary and relatable because of the honesty with which he talks about these challenges. He sums up his approach as “putting all my cards on the table.” Deal!
Our warm-up question for this week:
What is your favorite game to play, whether a sport, a card game, or anything else?
See you soon,
Alex
