Apr 25, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello good people of God.
Tomorrow evening, we will join together for another session of Stronger Together.
The opening ice-breaker question that we will discuss is, “What is a song that makes you feel like dancing?”
We will then discuss this short article and its implications for our well-being, society’s well-being, and what we are about at church with the Mental Health Ministries:
Prescribing Happiness.
Remember: God loves you and we love you, and we will be delighted to see you tomorrow. You are not alone; we are stronger together.
In Christ,
James
(The Rev. James Isaacs, Assistant Rector)
Feb 15, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
It’s tempting to think of mental illness in terms of diagnoses, and to some extent it makes sense to do so. After all, by necessity there are commonalities in how people experience clinical depression or any other named health outcome. The problem is that there are wide ranges of experiences “within” a diagnosis; how one person experiences and recovers from clinical depression can be dramatically different from the next person.
This is yet another reason why it’s so important to anchor our understanding of mental illness on the perspectives of those whose lives are touched by it. Through this lens we can begin to appreciate how much diversity there is in mental illness experiences and outcomes. We’ll get a chance to do just this as we watch and respond to a video titled, “Mental Health: In Our Own Words” during our conversation this week. I hope to see you there!
Our warm-up question for this week:
Imagine you were going to take a cross-country road trip anywhere in the world…where would you go, and what kind of vehicle would you want to travel in?
See you soon,
Alex
Feb 1, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Are you one of those people with a robust inner monologue? Or maybe you hear an inner voice only occasionally, but when you do it can be particularly helpful (or hurtful). I think we all have an inner voice, but maybe some of us hear it more often or more easily than others.
In our conversation tomorrow we’re going to talk about the conversations we have inside our own heads. We’ll watch a helpful video on overcoming bad inner voices and share our own experiences navigating our inner dialogue. Invite your Jiminy Cricket for what is sure to be an engaging discussion!
Our warm-up question for this week:
If you could record a 10-second audio clip for your 20 year-old self knowing that they would only be able to hear it one time, what would you say?
See you soon,
Alex
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
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
