Ep. 43 - Challenging Stigmas and Breaking Down Mental Health Barriers in Churches

Discover how faith and mental health intersect in our latest episode, where we tackle the challenging issue of depression within Christian communities. We'll explore the duality of depression, inspired by the life of Robin Williams, and question whether mental health struggles reflect weak faith. By delving into biblical figures' own battles with despair, we promise to challenge misconceptions and reduce the stigma surrounding depression among believers. 

We'll also navigate the evolving relationship between churches and mental health practices, highlighting how many congregations are increasingly advocating for a blend of professional counseling and spiritual guidance. Our discussion addresses the isolation faced by pastors and the need for balanced support systems within church settings. Through real-life stories, we emphasize the importance of creating environments where clergy and congregants can thrive without judgment or fear.

To round off our conversation, we provide practical tools for coping with depression while fostering spiritual growth. From practicing gratitude to setting realistic goals, we share strategies to nurture a positive mindset. We also recommend insightful reads like "Learn Hopefulness" by Dr. Dan Tomasulo and "Feeling Good" by David Burns to aid listeners in their mental health journey. Join us to find hope and redemption through faith and to support one another along the way.

Chapters

• 0:02 Understanding Depression in a Christian Context
• 10:37 Addressing Mental Health Stigma in Churches
• 19:55 Coping With Depression and Spiritual Growth
• 27:38 Navigating Stigma and Isolation in Christianity
• 38:41 Finding Hope and Redemption Through Faith

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

All right, everyone, welcome to the Psych and Theo podcast. Sam and Tim here on a somewhat of a series on anxiety, depression and forgiveness, and today we're doing a topic on depression and what that looks like in a Christian context and how believers can learn to manage it and do so still in a biblical way and also understand just the clinical component to it. So, yeah, we're going to talk about that today. As always, follow us on Instagram, psych underscore and underscore Theo, and you can also email us any questions, any topics that you would like for us to cover at psychandtheo, at gmailcom, and, again, you can find us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We're really excited to be seeing the level of involvement and engagement you guys have with these topics. And, yeah, we have a bunch more topics to look forward to, and Tim here is going to start us off with a couple of questions and, as always, as I've learned from him, we need to find our terms Right, tim. So we're going to find what depression is here.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Yeah, so let's get into what is depression and how does it manifest in individuals.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Yeah, so depression is a common feeling or persistent feeling of sadness, hopelessness, lack of interest and even withdrawal from social circles. Lack of interest and even withdrawal from social circles so that's typically kind of what you see. People describe it, as you know, this constant feeling of I'm alone, no one wants me very isolated they don't seek to be in community with other people just a lack of interest in general with things, activities and people that they're usually would be comfortable with. And again, when it becomes a clinical component at least when we talk about this topic, it's how much does it actually impact or limit the person's daily activities, right? So if someone is feeling really depressed, they're probably not going to be very productive at work, they're probably going to be very less engaging in relationships, not as conversational. They're not going to seek out any social settings, anything like that. So those are the things that you'll probably see with someone who's struggling with depression. But at the same time and we've seen this with a lot of movie stars, actors, artists and so on is that they may seem fine on the outside.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Right, some people often that have depression. The way to compensate for that is being overly happy and overly joyful, and usually it comes in the form of making other people happy. So they're very self-sacrificial in being there for other people because they know what it feels like to be either ignored or unwanted. So a common theme for those who are struggling with depression is that they are constantly for other people because they know what it feels like to be either ignored or unwanted. So a common theme for those who are struggling with depression is that they are constantly doing for others, and it doesn't always manifest itself in the same way, but that is one common characteristic that we started to see a lot with these people who are very successful or who were struggling with depression and you wouldn't have known right Until you start digging a little bit deeper into their story. You know, I think of Robin Williams, classic example of that.

Speaker 2: 3:09

So okay, so those are some characteristics of depression. Tell me if this is wrong. I've heard depression described as the inability to perceive a positive future.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a really good description of that as well is that they can't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Hopelessness, basically, is another characteristic. They don't see any hope for the future. They haven't had any experiences presently that are demonstrating that there could be a hope, and they have not experienced that in the past either. Or it's so far away, so far, or so early on in their life that they don't even they forgot what it looks like. I'm going to recommend the book a little bit later that talks about that, but yeah, in general, I think that's a good description of that. There's no perceived hope in the future.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Okay, so let's talk about normalization, and normalization doesn't mean we're condoning it or calling it a good thing, but what we mean is by normalized we mean recognize its prevalence and commonality among people. So what would be the benefits of doing that with Christians and what would be the downsides of normalizing depression?

Speaker 1: 4:20

Yeah, you know, and this goes the same for anxiety as it does with depression, which is this aspect of reducing the stigma around it, because, again, christians shouldn't feel sad, they shouldn't feel depressed, they shouldn't be isolating themselves, they should be seeking community, right, all of those things that you're supposed to do as a Christian for the person who's experiencing depression. They're not doing that. So there's this added level of shame and I know what I'm supposed to be doing as a Christian, but I'm just not motivated to do those things. And I'm going to talk about motivation a little bit here. But there is this aspect of because I'm depressed and that means that maybe my faith is weak, that I'm not doing something right, I'm doing something wrong. But again, if we look at scripture, we could look at the Psalms, we could look at different people in the Bible that experience levels of depression, right, we just want to describe it in that way Like with time, the definition for a lot of these experiences changes, you know.

Speaker 1: 5:20

So you have major depressive disorder, you have other types of disorders. That kind of just limits the amount of time that you experience sadness. So grief can often look like depression, right, if you just lost someone you know, grieving them could look like depression because you're isolating yourself, you're not wanting any social interactions, you're not feeling motivated to do anything. So the benefits are you normalize the idea that, hey, we've all experienced depression. This is not saying your depression is less or more, it's just we've all been there. So understand, there's commonality there.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Secondly is that it can also help with not making it or not associating it to a lack of faith. Just because you experienced depression, it could be justifiable based on your situation, right. If you lose someone and you stay in that state for such a long time, you grieve and then that could turn into depression. Like we people, I think, understand that like man, I'd be depressed too, right? So there's something there where, as a counselor, when I have someone who is experiencing depression, if I can share with them like I would feel that way too, like there's nothing wrong with how you're feeling it. If I can share with them like I would feel that way too, like there's nothing wrong with how you're feeling, it's a feeling right. So there is that aspect. And then, lastly, I think a benefit of it is that it could increase the willingness of others to help you, meaning that those who are experiencing depression.

Speaker 1: 6:36

They often don't share about it. You can see it, you can probably. They show some signs, but when you ask them about it, everything's fine. You know it's not really a big deal until it is. So. Depression is dangerous because it could lead to thoughts of suicide, it could lead to further isolation and so on. But when you're sharing about that depression, normalizing it, could mean that you also normalize people wanting to help and wanting to be there for you. Depressed people usually suffer alone, so that's why it's so important to have that strong social circle right. So without the appropriate context, the downside could be that it's just a complacency in addressing the issue, meaning that, well, everyone experiences depression and the people if you don't have good people around you, they may just think that it's not that big of a deal, which could push you further into a depressive state.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Depression is less common than anxiety, because I think anxiety is a normal human emotion, but depression seems to be a little bit worse, something that maybe develops from anxiety and some other things.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Yeah, yeah, Usually they're hand in hand. That's the other interesting part of this. But working with the college population, what you see in a lot of this is, across the country, what you see each year. It's either anxiety is number one a mental health issue or depression. And I think I want to say last year and this year has been anxiety, and after COVID, which again would make sense was depression, right, Lack of social circles. You have to be by yourself like that. Depression rates went sky high after that. So, yeah, it varies with college students, but those typically are at the top anxiety and depression.

Speaker 2: 8:12

So if those alternate, then what causes people to struggle with depression? What are some key causes?

Speaker 1: 8:18

Yeah, a lot of the key factors are this expectation to, especially in Christian circles, this expectation to be happy. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Right, there's this emphasis on being joyful and happy and serviceful and pleasant. So for those who are depressed, often because they don't feel that way, it could push them further into that aspect of depression. They don't feel like they're good enough. Again, that's another thing too, for those who are depressed is that they don't feel like they're good enough Christian because they're not happy all the time. So they're not choosing, or they're not seeking out social connection with other people.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Another thing is isolation, and isolation doesn't necessarily have to be that they're choosing it. It could actually just be friends are growing out of the relationship and everyone's doing their own thing, so there's this increased level of isolation. This is something that students experience when they first come to college is that they leave their hometown, right, they leave their family, they leave their core group of friends. So when they come to college, it's this newness of oh man, I'm alone again. How am I going to do this? Some adapt very well and some not so much.

Speaker 1: 9:31

But for those who are experiencing depression, yeah, they're going to feel isolated. Who do I connect with? I lost every foundation that I had, and now I'm here in this new setting working with or trying to get to know new people. Another piece could be an attachment style, right, an attachment style of avoidance or anxiety, Like I'm not going to be good enough to make good friends, or I'd rather not. I've been doing things by myself, so let me just finish my degree and move on. So those are some of the factors, and again, I'm mainly associated to students, because that's the population that I work with, but again you could see this with adults too. Changes life stage change Every seven years. This seems to be a physical, but also a mental, shift in how people adjust to their surroundings, and that can be depressing, because you thought that you were always going to be the same, or that the plans that you had were going to remain the same, and sometimes they don't. They change, so that could put you into a depressive state too.

Speaker 2: 10:21

So you mentioned with Christians there's this expectation to be happy. So do you think that there's a stigma if someone is depressed or going to counseling, like, don't talk about it because it'll be seen as there's something wrong with you and there's something spiritually wrong with you?

Speaker 1: 10:37

Yeah, I think that's changed a lot in the last couple of years, and you'll see this too because we've talked about this where a lot of churches are now emphasizing a lot of mental health practices and addressing issues from the pulpit, so they're almost like, in a way, trying to normalize it. I mean, I've heard numerous sermons where the pastors from the pulpit are saying go get professional help, go get counseling right, when 20, 30 years ago the church would have seen that as their responsibility, like, hey, come see us as the pastors, ministers, we'll be there for you, we'll give you scripture, right. That was their way of dealing with that. And I don't know if I've seen that as much today and you know, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about that is that there is this push and emphasis in our church culture to seek professional mental health services and seek us as the pastors or the leaders of the church to help with any spiritual issues that you may have are struggling with. Do you see the same thing, tim?

Speaker 2: 11:36

I think there's an increasing acceptance of the role of mental health counselors and even medication and things like that, but I still think that among evangelical circles, if someone is in counseling for something, if someone is on a medication for something that they are somehow spiritually deficient, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:54

I do still see that stigma. It's maybe not said explicitly but it's certainly implicit. Speaking from someone who walks in seminary ministry circles, I can tell you firsthand that is definitely a stigma among the ministry circles, with pastors and full-time church workers and things like that is that it's maybe okay to if you have some sort of traumatic life event, like a death in the family or something like that. Okay, I go to counseling for a little bit. You know something like grief counseling, but the thought of struggling with depression or or struggling with anxiety and going on medication for a bit, those things are definitely stigmas that get attached to the person because others gossip or they get passed over for promotion in their church or they don't get hired by a church or something like that. You know it's. I definitely think that still is a thing within.

Speaker 2: 12:56

I know of someone personally who it wasn't even a serious thing, they just mentioned. They're like hey, something came up and I decided to just go to counseling. We talked about this and that this person was about to start the ordination process. You know receive their ordination from the church and the staff that was considering ordination. They said, well, let's just pause ordination for now, and then it was never revisited, so the person never got ordained by that church because they disclosed hey, this something came up and I'm going to go to, I'm going to disclose it to a close confidant friend and that friend just happened to be on staff at the church and talked about it and then, yeah, so it came back on the person and then they were really like hurt by that.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Yeah, Well, I think a lot of people are scared of that too, tim, because remember I don't know if you heard about this story, but out in California, actually this is one of the pastors that I followed a lot growing up Pastor Greg Laurie, harvest Christian Fellowship one of his pastors kind of had shared and he was very open about it I'm struggling with depression, but I'm seeking professional help and so on. It got so bad that he actually committed suicide and left behind his family and so on. So it was a really sad story and I think that's what pastors, or people who are hiring pastors, are paying attention to. They're like do we want to have someone on staff that is struggling with mental health issues and how severe is it? Again, depression is tricky, because depression the way that is compensated by people who are experiencing it is to be on the opposite end, overly joyful, overly happy, overly serviceful, to hide the feelings of sadness and mental wise. It makes sense for them because they're saying well, this will help me not to focus on myself and I'm focusing on other people. So that's the solution. I'm thinking too much of myself, I need to focus on other people, and the thing is that there's a level of truth to that.

Speaker 1: 14:52

And there's also this other piece that can be very dangerous, which is what happened with this pastor, where I think he got so involved in being there for other people that it makes you feel more lonely and, to your point, one of the I think maybe it was two, three years ago that I read this, but one of the common struggles among lead pastors was depression because of loneliness, which makes a lot of sense, right, when you're the one who's leading the church, people are questioning People don't know if they, you know, if they agree with you. For these people who are on social media and they're, you know, creating waves like what other people perceive them as right. It isolates you. Sometimes people from the church hurt you. So you'll hear a lot of stories from pastors.

Speaker 1: 15:35

Like you know, I felt like I couldn't trust anyone, so I couldn't share that with anyone, couldn't even share with my wife, or couldn't share this or that. So, again, depression is tricky because the way to compensate for that is to do the opposite. So that's why people don't really catch it or even if they become aware of it, they don't really know what to do with it. Like this guy, this pastor, he was open about it. But again, people ultimately make a decision and I think the pressure was so much that he felt that that was a better option at the time.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Was it that when he revealed his depression, did he not take a break from ministry, like when you said it got so bad, what? What was the? What happened after he disclosed that he had depression? Did the church cut him off?

Speaker 1: 16:20

Like no, no, they were. They were actually real supportive of him. So they were very supportive of him. They saw that he was going to counseling and so on. But again, even for us as counselors, one of the hard things to do I think I learned this early on is that you can't feel responsible or you have to avoid feeling responsible for decisions that people make.

Speaker 1: 16:39

So with depression, it creates a little sense of anxiety and fear sometimes, because if a person is really depressed, you have to figure out are they telling me the whole truth? And if they're not, how do I get there? And a big part of it is how you're responding to their depressive state in session. Right, because if they don't feel safe, they're not going to tell you everything, and even then they're still trying to appear like a good client, which means that they don't want to come into every session sad. And there's always something negative to talk about because it does take a toll on the counselor.

Speaker 1: 17:13

It's hard working with people who are depressed, but for them the solution is having a safe, secure place. But they also need that outside of session too, and I don't know what they're sharing with other people. They may be saying yeah, well, my mom knows I'm coming to counseling, my dad knows, my leader knows I'm coming to counseling, my dad knows, my leader knows and all this stuff. But internally, unless we dig deep to find out what's actually causing it, yeah, it becomes very, very difficult to determine what the core issue is. But these other things that we'll talk about soon that can help with that are often neglected Sleep, diet, exercise. The tricky word that people use is I'm not motivated. But what we learn is that, well, we don't need the motivation piece, we need the discipline piece. The thing is, we need to start really small so that they don't feel like it's this mountain that they have to overcome. So little steps with each of these other factors sleep, diet, physical activity.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Okay. So, at the risk of beating a dead horse here, I think for a lot of people, if they're going through depression, I think depression is a tricky one because if you've experienced depression, you understand people who struggle with it. If you're the type of personality that has not really experienced depression, like depression is different than sadness and some people when they say well, I've been sad before, it's like, oh man, you don't get it Right. Yeah, you know, it might be hard for them to understand what depression is. I think for those who struggle with it, I think maybe there's a focus on what's the root cause, like how did I get here? Like what's causing the depression?

Speaker 2: 18:55

I understand maybe isolation is contributing to it, or this, that or the other. Or is it a combination of things where it's like a mounting series of disappointments that lead them to this conclusion that the future has no hope, that lead them to this conclusion that the future has no hope? Or is it anxiety, where I've read this before where someone who's anxious, they'll take on avoidant behaviors because they're anxious about social settings, they're anxious about relationships or this, that or the other, and so that the anxiety starts to sabotage all of their future plans and desires that they have, and so, then, that leads to a series of failures, which then leads to despair and hope for the future.

Speaker 2: 19:34

Yeah, I don't know you want to talk about any of that. I guess I just unloaded all that, no, no, that was good, that was good man.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Yeah, One of the and this I think I shared with you maybe a year or two ago where people think that talking about their depression is what helps, and that's not actually what helps. What helps is when you share even a little bit, is how the other person responds who you're sharing with. So one of the complaints maybe that people who are depressed have is that no one cares about me, no one listens to me. So the undertone to that is I've shared with people just a little bit of my depression and the response was oh go, do this. It wasn't just being in that moment as they're experiencing that level of sadness and lack of motivation. It was solution focused. But you can't give a solution to someone who's just not motivated or in that space to be able to do that, so they feel unheard. So if I'm feeling unheard, I'm not going to share anymore with people. So how do I cope with this? Right? So the only thing I can do is, I guess, only share what I want to share and not the real issue. So when you do that for so long, it almost becomes confusing even for them to know what to actually share and what's actually helping, but it's always a combination of multiple things, but one that I think I need to highlight here is that, for those of you who are listening, if you have experienced depression, one of the things that will keep it going is continuously talking about it. If you continue to talk about it, what you're doing is you're training your mind to only think in the negative, because everything is in that space of negative. Now you might say, well, how do I share with people if I'm going to try to cope with this better? Right, I need to share something about it. Yeah, but we're not just talking about when you share with people. It's when you go home, when you're driving, like the narrative in your mind that you've created is everything is always going wrong, and that just puts you in that constant cycle of depression. You say, well, what do I do about that?

Speaker 1: 21:34

So one common technique that is helpful and this has actually a lot of good research support behind it is this aspect of gratefulness Biblical, but also research-founded. What things are you grateful for? And that's hard to transition from everything's wrong to what am I grateful for right? But again, these are practices that you need to work through, to do for a certain amount of time to change that mindset. Again, it depends how long you've been in the state. It takes work. It takes a lot of work. That's why the role of the counselor is so important.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Can I make you feel safe and unjudged? What you're experiencing doesn't scare me regarding the feelings that you have. It doesn't mean that you're a bad Christian, right. So we're rearranging and changing some beliefs as well. But also, you know what You're still here, what's kept you here? What's kept you from not getting to that place of you know what. I want to take my life, and I want to. I just don't need to be here anymore.

Speaker 1: 22:35

And there is a lot of support behind this aspect of gratefulness. Okay, Can you pick one thing that you are grateful for and can that be your new narrative? I am thankful for X, for this person, for my parents, for this job, for my relationship with Christ, whatever it is, and just building on that right. And then you can find other things. What else am I grateful for? And again, I always harp on the basics, but they're so important and it's often overlooked sleep, diet, physical activity, Like I can't say that enough, because those are natural producers of happy hormones. So, getting good sleep, eating well and exercise. It's going to produce good happy hormones for you to feel good, Epinephrine, adrenaline and so on.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Good, all right. So you talked about sleep, sleep, diet. You know, I I've I've read this before somewhere that physical activity, specifically weight lifting, is a really good remedy for depression even if it's a temporary one, because obviously it's not going to cure.

Speaker 2: 23:38

If you have some deep depression about something, it's not going to cure everything. Like you know, going to the gym and lifting weights isn't gonna do everything but the act of I in that. I think researchers kind of said that they came to the conclusion that it's the process of when you lift weights. You have this feeling of accomplishment that you're pushing through and you're literally pushing through and overcoming an obstacle of some sort, that it actually is like a little bitty mental victory in your life. And so not that you shouldn't look at exercise as like this is my cure for depression, because then you won't enjoy exercising, you'll look at it like the pill. You know that somebody looks at a pill and they either become dependent on it or they resent it. So you have to enjoy exercise for what it is, but it actually does help you a lot. I've read that before. You know which is weightlifting in particular.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Yeah, no, no, you're right. And again, there's a lot that you can go into with all that the physical activity piece. But another thing I think this is really important. Actually, if you're feeling depressed, you know, usually we do a rating, a scaling right. How depressed do you feel? So, zero being, I don't feel depressed at all. 10 feeling I feel miserable and I want to die. So that's number 10, right. So let's say, someone feels at an eight.

Speaker 1: 24:57

The goal and I think this is the misconception that people have is not to get to zero, so to go from eight to zero. First of all, you don't want to have zero as a goal, you just want to have less than what you currently are experiencing. So we work down a little bit in scale. So, okay, you're feeling at an eight right now. That's pretty high, it's significant. How do you want to feel at the end of our five, six, seven sessions? Like what would be ideal for you? And you say, well, I want to be zero. Well, let's try to pick something a little bit more realistic. How about a five or six? Does that sound doable? You say, well, yeah, it's still not what I want, but it's better, but it's better, okay. So you start working towards that. It's a realistic goal, it's doable and you can gauge that every week leading up to that being the final goal.

Speaker 1: 25:45

But I think where people get mixed up with is they want a zero and you can't have that because we all experience it at different levels, and different situations may cause you to move up to an eight or a nine, and other times you'll be at a two or three and that's okay, kind of this normalizing process, like it's okay for you to be at a two or a three. That, yeah, that's okay. The goal in counseling is can I get it to feel less than less than what I'm currently experiencing? And that provides a sense of healing too. Like, yeah, I'm not feeling it. Five is still not ideal, but I feel better. Right, and that could be your new narrative, your new story, that I'm feeling better. And to your point you add exercise, you add changing certain beliefs about it, like all those things contribute to you continuing to feel better or to live with it. And that's okay too, to be able to live with something, but it's at a lesser scale, you know, not as painful as it used to be.

Speaker 2: 26:41

All right. So just to wrap it up with maybe one more question what are some ways that a Christian can grow spiritually even when experiencing depression? Maybe minimal level? Severe depression is one thing, but maybe just a minimum level of depression. What are some ways a Christian can still grow in the midst of that?

Speaker 1: 27:01

Yeah, well, you heard me mention earlier about serving others. Right, and again, that's a fine line because, on one hand, it's you're serving others and if that becomes your goal or your identity, right, I'm going to serve others. I'm not focusing on myself. There's a danger there because you still want to think about your own healing and you want to balance that out with also, hey, you know what, I can also still focus on other people. So there's a balance Need to learn how to okay, I'm going to serve others and also need to tend to how I'm feeling. I'm feeling depressed. Do I need something?

Speaker 1: 27:38

If you can be around other people, not who are necessarily always positive, but who are realistic in their view of what depression can look like, again, people who can just hear you out. They're not going to give you solutions, they're not going to ignore you, but they're willing to listen, right. So it's finding those people and that's the challenge. But you can do that when you're serving other people, because you start to see different parts of their personality and who they are and you get to know them in different ways. Right, but don't overdo it on the service part, because it could be to your own detriment, where all the focus is on the people, so much so that when you are by yourself, it's just this doom and gloom just laying over you and that becomes your whole focus again. So don't use serving people as a distraction. Just make it a spiritual discipline. I guess a practice in your life where, okay, I can serve here in this ministry or I can go help this couple over here, whatever the case is.

Speaker 1: 28:34

But I think there's there's something important to be said that God can minister to you in both ways when you're serving others and also after that. Okay, what does this mean for me as a believer? Obviously, prayer is a big thing, because when you're, it's not that your friends don't want to be there with you, right, you might have some really good friends, maybe even one best friend. And when you're really struggling at night and it's not because your friend wouldn't want to be there, they just can't physically, right, you're sleeping, or it's really late at night, or they have something going on and you do too, but prayer becomes a big part of that. That's your way of keeping that open dialogue with God, sharing what those struggles are, reinforcing your faith and growing in that. But with that, what would you recommend, tim, as people who do struggle with depression. Maybe there's some characters in scripture or people in scripture that, yeah, I mean they went through some pretty tough depressive episodes and what kept them moving forward. You know how did they grow in their faith?

Speaker 2: 29:29

Well, I so I'm a little different in this regard. I tend to, I think, personally not to not to squash your question, but I tend to be very careful about just pointing to a character in scripture. Job is the obvious example that people will point to. I think Job is not a great example because he went through a huge traumatic event.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Oh, yeah, Losing everything you know, that's very different than someone who struggles with, like a chronic depression for years and years on end. That's a good point. I just I just don't know if there's a character in scripture that isn't as a good example of of someone who struggles with prolonged depression. So I don't want to just like put a bandaid on the situation to say, well, like this person in the Bible struggled with depression. Are there biblical principles? Yeah, so if we understand depression as the ability or the inability to perceive a positive future, I think in general the principle in scripture is to we fix our eyes on the hope of a future life. I want to be careful because if someone has suicidal ideations or something like that, that can be kind of tempting to say, well, look, why don't I just take myself out of this life and into the next? So I want to caution against that. But our myself out of this life and into the next, so I want to caution against that. But a lot of times, like we can become sad and depressed even in this life, when our expectations are fixed on something here and those expectations aren't met and then we begin to despair because we begin to conclude that this life will never deliver that expectation that I've had, and so I've become very sad and depressed because of that.

Speaker 2: 31:18

I think I like what you said a few minutes ago about well, you're still here, you know, you're still kicking, you're still drawing breath and there is some sort of purpose that God has for you still on this planet.

Speaker 2: 31:31

If you are a Christian, your eternal hope is secure in Christ. But again, we're talking about people who maybe struggle to understand that or struggle to feel that God loves them. But if you can say, look, you're still breathing, you're still drawing breath and God has some sort of purpose for you here and understanding like or finding what that purpose is is going to be valuable and going to be life giving to you. So trying to reorient them to be future oriented again, instead of fixating on the present moment of grief or other disappointment, sadness, moment of grief or other disappointment, sadness trying to fix on some sort of new mission, new goal, sort of new, almost new chapter in life and finding the purpose that God would maybe have for them here I know that's a vague answer because I'm not slapping. You know some Bible verses on that, but you know there's lots of Psalms where thesalmist is struggling with lots of sadness and things like that, but again, like we don't know if that's depression.

Speaker 2: 32:38

We know it's sadness but we don't know if it's depression, because depression is a very we're talking about very something very specific where the brain sort of gets locked into fixating on the negative. You know, I found even hearing the testimonies of people who they take up some sort of new thing in the kingdom. They take up some sort of new, like you mentioned, serving other people or something like that, and it gives them just a new sense of purpose in life. So I think that's on the positive side, trying to do something like that. On the negative side and this goes for christians we've got to do I hate saying the word do better. We've got to figure out a way to stop stigmatizing people who are in different stages of life. I think that's where a lot of depression comes from with people is that feeling of isolation.

Speaker 2: 33:31

I I've said this before that there's this implicit formula in evangelicalism, like there's this formulaic life within evangelicalism and if your individual life doesn't fit that formula, it's almost like the church doesn't know what to do with you. Like churches don't know what to do with it. They don't have, they don't know what to do with older singles, they don't know a lot of times what to do with divorcees, or they'll have like a little class, like oh, I'll put all the divorce people in this class, like, oh yeah, that's not awkward, they. They just, let's say, someone who's whose children all walk away from the Lord, or like it's an elderly person who shut in in their home and the church does a better job, I think, with elderly shut-ins than they do with maybe older singles or divorced people or something. But there's just these different pockets of individuals who go through life and life is harder for them and they can be more, they can be easily depressed because of that.

Speaker 2: 34:29

Because in the Christian circles again, if your life doesn't match that formula married with kids, live in the suburban lifestyle, whatever that is you can easily feel socially isolated and that's, I think, the kicker, is the social isolation that comes from your life not matching with the majority of evangelical Christians experience, and that feeling can can be really really detrimental and I just think that a lot of uh for evangelicals out there, they. I think we really just got to step back and kind of think about what, like how we were even programming our churches, like I'll be programming our churches to satisfy, to meet the formula, rather than recognizing that the church is full of a lot of broken people uh, that all come from all walks of life. I think for the christian who's maybe struggling in those circles, like find a ministry where you don't feel like you're isolated or that you're kind of like segmented off from the church, like this is the thing with, like, divorcees and single people, as I've mentioned. They don't want to be in classes that are for divorcees and singles Right, like that's.

Speaker 2: 35:39

I mean, that's like giving them an ugly Christmas sweater and telling them to wear it every Sunday. Right, that's not. That's not my joke. That's Doug Wilson's joke, okay, but yeah, that's now. That's not my joke. That's doug wilson's joke, okay, but yeah, it's like that. It's like, man, I'm really struggling with singleness, or I'm really struggling with the regret from divorce. Hey, here's an idea we got this class for people just like you, and so when you go to that class, everyone's gonna know that you have the same problem too, it's just horrible.

Speaker 2: 36:07

It's just a horrible thing like that's such a good um and it's only, it's just only something that awkward evangelicals can come up with. I would say just just avoid that stuff, don't, don't, don't give into the expectations that you have to. You have to do that, you know, um, and some ways stand up for yourself in church, yeah, but anyway. Okay, I'm going on for a long time about that, but no, that's good, that's good.

Speaker 1: 36:33

Yeah, I like the point that you made just about not using people in scripture to try to define something. That's an ongoing problem here in the present modern church. But still, even as you mentioned the Psalms, just we have a sense of connection with that, because we understand those feelings of sadness or broken, or feeling alone or sought after right For, maybe not necessarily for being killed, but just the aspect of having all those very difficult emotions that people have, emotions that people have. And I do just want to refer back to this aspect of journaling and being grateful, seeking things that you can be grateful for, because that puts you in the present and it makes you just become very aware okay, what's happening right now that I can be grateful and you will find something is just getting through that initial block of, well, there's nothing, okay, let's just sit here with it and maybe something will come up. And I really do encourage the client to just sit there with even in that silence of, okay, we'll find something, but letting them come up with something that they're grateful for. I could suggest things, but it's always best for them to come up with those things Like what pops into your mind when you think about something that you're grateful for and really journaling and that becomes your new narrative, you start building on that Along with okay, I talked about lack of motivation.

Speaker 1: 37:55

The lack of motivation really is saying that I haven't chosen something to be disciplined with. Now I know that doesn't sound airing in a sense, but really what we're trying to move them to is to take some small action steps, and the more motivated a client is to get out of that depressive state, the more willing they'll be to take those little steps. Again, if it's too big of a step, then that's just going to put them back into that depressive state. But if it's something that they can see themselves doing again, something that they come up with, you can build on that very easily and, with some time, get them out of state at least to lower right. We don't want to zero, but we want less than what you're currently experiencing. Two to three points lower is usually pretty good, but yeah, one thing I I forgot to mention.

Speaker 2: 38:39

And then we need to get to your book recommendation. Um, I would think, I think the concept of redemption might help. But this is just me as a um layman, you know, with theologian talking perhaps like encouraging someone to dream about, to, to dream about how the lord might redeem their situation. So I think if you can get someone to believe that, like, the lord will redeem all things not to put the trite, you know, band-aid on on it, like, oh, you know, all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who call her according to his purpose, it's true. So but get someone to to understand the Lord is going to redeem. When you get to the end of your life, the Lord will redeem, he can redeem everything in your life.

Speaker 2: 39:27

So, if that's true, even though you don't feel it right now, is maybe trying to get them to have the freedom to dream about how the Lord can redeem the disappointments in their past. Because if they haven't, if they're having a hard time imagining a positive future, maybe the the permission to dream about how the Lord might redeem some things in their past and help them put new meaning on the things that they suffered through, like maybe they just don't understand why they lost their parents or just a loved one, lost their child, lost a friend, or they don't understand why they went through major financial collapse or health issues or loneliness or whatever it is, and maybe they're blaming themselves for it. Maybe it's like it didn't happen to me. I did it and I've ruined my life, you know. I think the having the permission to dream about how God might redeem their life can can help.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Yeah, no, that's a great suggestion, tim. I think people who are listening will benefit from that, seeing there's always a redemptive piece to that story, and that's part of looking for that. What am I grateful for? Well, here's the part that's being renewed or that's being changed in me as I go through this stage of life. So, yeah, great recommendation. Along with that, just wanted to give a quick recommendation for a book.

Speaker 1: 40:52

This one's actually a really good, smaller book, but very practical. It's called Learn Hopefulness and it says the Power of Positivity to Overcome Depression, dan Tomasulo, dr Dan Tomasulo, and one of the things that he emphasized, obviously there's this aspect of well, how can I be hopeful in a hopeless situation? Right, a lot of it is just reorienting the mind to this aspect of gratefulness. I think it even talks about in there, about putting down a list of things that you're grateful for, along with the goal being I'm trying to establish a sense of hope even in the midst of a very dark, despairing situation. So there's a lot of practices. It has a lot of good exercises for you to do. It's very strengths-based. So the positivity piece is not just think positive. It's more so focused on what strengths do you have that can contribute to developing a hopeful attitude towards the current situation. Right, we all have strengths and weaknesses, so it's really about exploring what are some strengths that you have in where you currently are and can you build on those things right? So maybe you don't have the strength of, I don't know, planning ahead of time, but you're really good at thinking big picture right and you get people to fill out the details, but focusing on the things that you have that are strengths and how can those strengths help you in this current situation that you're in so very, very helpful book.

Speaker 1: 42:20

So I recommend that and also our very own, brian Funderburg. He said he read a book and he asked me to share this with you guys as well Called Feeling Good by David Burns. It's a CBT book. We've been talking about CBT and how effective that is, so I assumed that it would be a good book to read. If you give it a bad review, I'll let Brian know. And he said this is fine. He told me I could use that as a joke, so keep me posted. Thank you for tuning in. Hopefully this was helpful. We know a lot of people struggle with anxiety, depression. So, yeah, hopefully these couple of episodes have been of help to you. So thanks for tuning in guys. Follow us on Instagram and on our Apple podcast, and we will catch up with you next time.