Nov 29, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
A couple of weeks ago we explored how culture can shape our assumptions about mental illness. This week we’ll explore a related topic: how behavior and mannerisms influence our assumptions about mental health and well-being. This is a good time to discuss this topic because as many of us know, the holiday season is a time when people can experience both “high highs” and “low lows” in mental health.
We’ll watch a brief but powerful video about checking in with others, which was developed in partnership with a mental health organization called Samaritans. Hopefully we’ll have a candid and compassionate conversation about our own experiences with mental health symptoms and how they are or are not understood by others.
Our warm-up question for this week:
Describe your favorite dish from Thanksgiving in mouth-watering detail. Bonus points if you also describe an “epic fail” dish!
See you soon,
Alex
Nov 8, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
However many decades ago, post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, was a relatively unknown form of mental illness. There have since been massive public education campaigns on PTSD and how it can affect people who experience significant tragedies, particularly soldiers involved in war. In the however-many-decades since, education efforts have increased awareness to the point that you often hear people jokingly or half-seriously talking about having PTSD, similar to how people often talk about depression and anxiety.
Awareness is good, but it’s a double-edged sword: we throw around mental illness labels like PTSD too frequently and unseriously, and as a result we may think we know what PTSD really entails, but probably we don’t understand it as well as we should. The result is both a tendency to self-diagnose (don’t do this!), as well as dangerous misperceptions about how the illness actually affects people (stereotyping and prejudice… don’t do this either!).
How do we address these risks? First, we actively seek to learn, even when we think we already have the right answers. Second, we actively seek to listen with compassion and curiosity to those whose lives have been directly affected by mental illness. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do in this week’s discussion, starting with a brief but highly informative video on PTSD inspired by a mental health advocate who has lived with the condition. Another great opportunity to become more educated and to expand our capacity to empathize!
Our warm-up question for this week:
Would you rather be good at writing books, or writing songs? What’s one book or song that you wish you could have written?
See you soon,
Alex
Jun 29, 2023 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Our conversation this week is about something we all can relate to: being wronged by someone. More specifically, what we do after we’ve been wronged. You probably know where this is going…forgiveness.
We’ve talked about forgiveness before in Stronger Together, but this week we’re going to focus on a particular science-backed strategy called the “REACH” method, which has been shown to make forgiveness a little easier to implement and live with. Here’s a highlight from the linked article:
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THE REACH FORGIVENESS METHOD
Think about the hardest thing you ever successfully forgave. Remind yourself that you CAN forgive.Rehearse the benefits to yourself of forgiving, and know that forgiveness might help your relationship, if it is safe, prudent, and possible to reconcile.
Work through the five steps to REACH emotional forgiveness.
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- R = Recall the hurt as objectively as you can.
- E = Empathize with the one who hurt you. Try, if possible, to see things from their viewpoint. If you can’t, use sympathy, compassion, or even love (particularly in romantic relationships) to replace the negative unforgiving emotions.
- A = Altruistic gift of forgiveness. No one deserves forgiveness. Forgiveness is your choice. If you choose to give it, it is an altruistic gift.
- C = Commit to the emotional forgiveness you experience.
- H = Hold on to forgiveness when you doubt that you’ve really forgiven.
Seek to make a decision to forgive, which is deciding not to pay the person back but to treat the person as a valuable and valued person. This is about your intention to treat the person differently.
Try to solidify your forgiveness by applying the REACH steps and making a decision to forgive in several other relationships that are not characterized by full forgiveness.
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Our warm-up question for this week:
What’s an instrument you wish you could play?
See you soon,
Alex
