Mar 27, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
We’re going to do a brief 30-min check-in for Stronger Together this week since it’s a holiday, and we’re shifting the date to Wednesday. Please join us at the usual time, 7:00pm, for a casual chat with supportive friends. Maybe we can also watch the video I shared last week:”How to help someone struggling with their mental health“, which is a delightful and inspiring reminder of why we come together. See you soon!
Our warm-up question for this week:
What’s the best gift you ever gave someone?
See you soon,
Alex
Mar 19, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
I searched my email just to be sure: our first Stronger Together discussion was held nearly four years ago on April 16th, 2020. At the time we envisioned it as a “three-part series” to address the social isolation we were experiencing during pandemic lockdown. So much has changed since then. Our conversations on mental health are wider-ranging, many new people have joined in to share ideas and experiences, and we kick things off with a “warm-up question” rather than “two words to describe how you are feeling today.” Many other things have stayed the same; we show up to support each other, we listen with empathy and share honestly, and we congregate via Zoom at the same day and time each week.
I wonder what the next four years will look like for Stronger Together, don’t you? Let’s talk about it. Occasionally we discuss as a group how we want Stronger Together to continue and evolve, and now is a good time to check back in. How might we evolve the program so that more people are involved? What roles can each of us play in sustaining it?
Please take a few minutes ahead of the discussion to reflect on what you love most about Stronger Together. Please also spend a few minutes thinking of a time when something in church (or work, social clubs, etc.) changed over time… but in a good way. This will be the warm-up question for Thursday as you’ll see below.
And don’t think that I’ve forgotten to share a neat video with you! I came across a touching and thoughtful video from BBC called “How to help someone struggling with their mental health“, and to my delight I found that it’s part of a robust series called Headroom: Your Mental Health Toolkit. Why this video this week? It reminded me of you, and what makes Stronger Together a special experience.
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about a time when something significant changed at church, work, or a social club… and the change ended up being really positive.
See you soon,
Alex
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
Jan 25, 2024 | Mental Health Ministry, Stronger Together Support Group
Hello friends,
Oxford Languages defines stigma as, “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” It defines stigmatization as, “the action of describing or regarding someone or something as worthy of disgrace or great disapproval.” Even the definitions make me cringe.
This week we’re going to watch a quick video about the stigmatization of mental illness: Ending the Stigma of Mental Illness (youtube.com). We can discuss personal or witnessed stigmatization of people with fragilities, especially mental illness, and even the stigmatization of families and loved ones of people with mental illness. This video is made by an organization co-founded by Glenn Close, “Bring Change to Mind” which is working to destigmatize mental illness.
Here is a link to an article that discusses mental health stigma
Mental Health Stigma and The Pandemic | Newport Academy
Our warm-up question for this week:
Tell us about a time when you felt stigmatized or witnessed it, for anything, i.e. age, gender, personality quirks… .
Alex asked me to fill in for him this week, and we all know those are big shoes to fill. Here is the link, and it is the long kind as I don’t know how to make it short like Alex does. Please be patient with mistakes and hiccups. Hope to see you Thursday.
Deatley
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
