Jan 18, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
If I asked you to describe what it means to be in good physical health, I suspect you’d have an easy time starting to answer. Strong, regular heartbeat; breathing easily; able to get around pain-free and with minimal effort; and so on. Now try the same exercise, but with mental health. Sure, it means there’s no mental illness, but that doesn’t really describe what a healthy state “looks like.”
We’ll watch together a wonderful video on what mental health means as a concept, and discuss how we’ve thought about our own health status over time. How do we think about our mental health when things don’t feel optimal? Do we judge ourselves too harshly? Are we as comfortable talking about our mental health in the same ways we talk about our physical health?
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about a fun memory from a time when you were in the snow!
See you soon,
Alex
Jul 20, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Hopefully you’ll forgive my “maybe it’s still too soon” subject line, because this week’s conversation topic is another great one and it even builds on our discussion last week.
That’s right: *emotions* are contagious. I say that’s a “good thing,” but the reality is that emotional contagion can be detrimental to our well-being, too. I guess it’s not really bad or good…it just is.
We’ll watch a brief video (https://youtu.be/TqRYpEDDCrg) on the subject that, while tailored to a business audience, is just as relevant to us outside of work and volunteer roles. It makes you think really hard a out the emotions you pass on to others, as well as what you allow yourself to receive from others. Our warm-up question for this week:
If you could only eat at one restaurant again for the rest of your life, but you could eat there as many times as you wished, what restaurant would it be and why?
See you soon,
Alex
Jul 14, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Have you ever wanted to yell at someone to “stop being so emotional!” Perhaps someone has said something similar to you? Or maybe sometimes you feel overtaken by emotion, and you wonder how other people are able to keep them at bay?
It turns out that a lot of what we think is happening with our emotions is closer to mythology than fact. Worse yet, our own brain will trick us into thinking emotions are something other than what they really are. What should we do about this to support strong mental well-being?
As always, we need to start with awareness and education. This week we’re going to watch a helpful video to get better educated about emotions and debunk some commonly-held myths. This learning can go a long way to helping us not just understand our own emotions better, but also turning them into a tool for personal growth.
Our warm-up question for this week:
Who is the most “emotional” character you can think of from a movie or TV show, and what makes them “emotional”?
See you soon,
Alex
Jun 15, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Don’t worry, experiencing “enlightenment” is not a prerequisite for this week’s conversation! In fact, according to Dr. Andrew Newberg, there are two kinds of enlightenment: enlightenment with a “lowercase e,” which changes our opinions about the world, and Enlightenment with a “capital E,” which changes our essence — that is, how we think about life, death, and God.
This week we’ll watch the video linked above about the neuroscience of enlightenment and engage in a broader conversation about this “slippery concept.” Some questions to ponder:
- Is “enlightenment” just another name for experiencing God?
- Have you ever felt enlightenment as described in the video? Did it change you permanently, or was it a temporary change?
- How should someone feel about their faith or their sense of self if they never have a moment of enlightenment?
Our warm-up question for this week:
What’s your favorite song to sing when nobody else is listening?
See you soon,
Alex
