Latest / Therapy and Theology / S11 E3 | "What Does It Mean To Be Emotionally Healthy?" With Counselor Rebecca Maxwell
Transcript
- Shae Hill: Welcome to today's episode of Therapy and Theology, where we help you work through what you walk through. I'm your host, Shae Hill, and I'm so glad you're here for our third episode in this Health Check series. Today, we have Counselor Rebecca Maxwell joining us. And while she isn't a part of our usual trio, you may remember her from Season 10, Episode 6, where she talked about the tools that we can have to fight anxiety and better our mental health. Y'all loved that episode so much that we just had to bring Rebecca back to cover a brand new topic on emotional health. As you listen to this season on Health Check, it's really for adults, but one of the biggest concerns I hear from youth pastors, teachers, and especially parents is this, how do I really help the young people in my life who are struggling emotionally and mentally? If that's you, you are not alone. That's why I want to tell you about the Youth Mental Health Coach Program from the American Association of Christian Counselors, and Light University. It's a biblically based, clinically excellent training that equips you with practical, real world tools to support youth and their families. You'll learn how to recognize 15 of the most common mental health challenges that young people are facing today, including anxiety, depression, digital addiction, and emotional regulation. You'll also learn how to respond with care and when to step in and when to refer to a professional. Right now, you can receive a full tuition scholarship and get started for just a one-time $54 technology fee. If you're in ministry, education, counseling, or simply feel called to help, this training gives you the confidence to make a real difference. Learn more and apply at mentalhealthcoach.org, or you can visit the link in our show notes below. And before we jump in, here are a few reminders. Number one, subscribe and receive episodes straight to your inbox by clicking on the link in our show notes below. Secondly, we are launching a brand new podcast exclusive segment in 2026 called Listener Mail, and it's brought to you by our friends at Compassion International. These segments will include a question pulled from one of our listeners, just like you, and an answer from either Lysa, Jim or Dr. Joel. Tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and make sure you listen all the way through to the end so you don't miss it. And lastly, we want to know how Therapy in Theology is helping you work through what you walk through. So leave us a review or a comment on YouTube and tell us all about it. Okay, now on to today's conversation. Rebecca, I'm so glad to have you back on Therapy and Theology. The last episode that you were on, we really dove deep into anxiety and mental health. And so I knew when we were planning this health check series that I wanted to bring you back to tackle kind of a new topic, but related, which we'll get into, and that's emotional health. Like how can we be an emotionally healthy person? So welcome back to Therapy and Theology. We're so glad to have you. Yeah. When you think about either in your practice or just your personal life, how would you define what it means to be an emotionally healthy person in 2026? What does emotional health look like? Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah, this is such a great topic. And so many people are talking about emotional health more. And so I think it is important to define it. To me, and even some things I see in the word, emotional health looks like living with some emotional awareness rather than emotional avoidance. right? Not pushing those emotions down, but also having a good awareness of what to do with them. Understanding that our emotions are God given signals and data. They're not sin. They're not spiritual failure, but they're important information that God has made our body to give us these emotional signals because emotion lives in the body. It's not just in the mind, right? I think an emotionally healthy person also has their identity firmly rooted in Christ. So they're not being hijacked by their emotions that come from circumstances, situations, relationships, performance, etc. And I think when we're emotionally healthy, we engage in relationships with good boundaries, with honesty, with humility. We don't live in fear and self-protection, but we live in reality and truth. And I think overall... Emotionally healthy people are integrated or working towards integration of heart, soul, mind and body, working together under God's leadership and recognizing that we're interconnected. Like we can't just pull apart our emotions and deal with them separately than our whole self. Shae Hill: Yeah, that's so good. As I was thinking about this episode, it's tempting, I think, when you hear emotional health to picture maybe the person or maybe a version of yourself that just allows their emotions to just kind of run ahead. I'll call them hyperactive emotions, you know, like they just... feel everything and their emotions are the boss of them and they're taking them everywhere and how that could be probably a really easy version of emotional health to be like, there might be some things to work on there. But I think as I was thinking about myself, I also realized that suppressed emotions may be a whole other version of emotional unhealth. And so I'm glad that you pointed that out, that it's not just emotions in our mind, but emotions in our body. As you kind of consider like this spectrum of suppressions. Right. Rebecca Maxwell: tend to be more hyper aroused where our emotions are big and sometimes, you know, they run away with our behavior. And other times we can be more of an avoidant or suppression of our emotions. And that's not good either. Like God wants us to live in this reality. where we're fully experiencing our emotions, but they don't dictate our behavior, right? Because they're not facts, they're feelings. So we feel them as a way to experience life, as a way to connect with others, but but they don't rule us and we don't deny them as if they're not valuable at all. It's range kind of in, I like to call it the middle, the middle ground. Shae Hill: Right. Okay. So where we're feeling our emotions, we're aware of them, we're in tune with them. We're working towards that integration. Like you mentioned, um, But like you said, under God's leadership, we are moving forward in that place, kind of letting the, I think you said, letting your emotions be data or be information. I really like that. And I'm definitely on the spectrum of the like suppress avoidance side. And as we're talking about two ends of the spectrum, I'm kind of laughing because I'm like, chances are there's two people on opposite ends of the spectrum that probably end up in one marriage together. At least that's true. My life. My husband is definitely more of like the external processing. If he's trying to work a problem, he's definitely got to kind of go all the way down the track before he can work himself, you know, back to like, okay, this is what I need to do. And I'm more of the like, freeze, avoidant internal processor. And so navigating like those conversations is funny. But I think it's important to identify both ends of that spectrum. Because like I said, I think it would be tempting to see the person that, you know, it feels like their emotions are hyperactive, or honestly, a little bit on fire or running the show. But like you said, with it being data, I think it's just as important that we are in tune with our emotions. So let's camp out for a second. in the camp of the person that is a little bit more avoidant or emotions that are suppressing them. What are some things that they need to be aware of if they find themselves kind of in a place where they're numb or they're having trouble engaging with their emotions? How can they pull themselves out of kind of this rut? Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think that getting a little more in touch with what's going on in your body is a great place to start. So just even sitting with what makes sense for this situation, like I, you know, maybe you start with logic, you know, people that suppress their emotions tend to be higher on logic. Yeah. So but maybe you start don't work so hard against it, but start with the place of logic and go, what makes sense for me right now? You know, I was sharing with you that we just lost a family friend. Like it would make sense, even if I'm numb and not feeling sadness, it would actually make sense that I would feel some sadness. And so allowing yourself to go, okay, what does sadness feel like? Allowing yourself to, and encouraging yourself to kind of come out of that numb place and go, okay, in general, what does sadness feel like? And kind of sitting with sadness. making yourself sometimes sit with those sad thoughts and sad feelings in your body just to start feeling that again. It's difficult to teach someone who is numb and suppressed to teach them to feel again. But Yeah. I'm not going to be crushed by this. I can sit and feel this for a minute and give it a little bit of space. Shae Hill: Yeah, that's so good. That's interesting that you say logic because something my counselor has pointed out to me is that I'm very quick to be solutions oriented, which sometimes means I think I bypass the emotion that I'm feeling or even spiritually bypass to quickly jump to the solution or even just like to action. And so I think that that logic piece would be really key for me as far as like thinking through, okay, what like should I be feeling? What is like, what are kind of the facts and trying to engage with our emotions? I also have found that people maybe that struggle with, maybe they're on the avoid it or like emotional kind of suppressing tendency side, that that can really translate to their relationship with the Lord. Because I feel like when we are kind of numb, that trickles out into other areas. How do we combat the shame of maybe feeling like God feels like quiet or silent even, or just that we're having trouble engaging with our own emotional selves. And now we're having trouble engaging in our relationship with the Lord. How can we overcome shame in that way? Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah, I want to make sure we have a good definition of shame. Okay. And shame is different than guilt. Right. Right. Guilt is very much like I've done something wrong. I've done something against God's will. And shame is there's something wrong with me. And God doesn't want us to feel that way because he calls us his children. He created us and he formed us. There's nothing wrong with us. At times we do things that are wrong, right? And that's sin. And we're convicted by the Holy Spirit, but we're not condemned. So how do we combat shame? I think we come back to shame. who we are in Christ. And I think that that's really, really important that God made us exactly how we are. And we may be more, he may have given us a bigger dose of like logic and reason, and he may not have given us the gift of, um, strong empathy and feeling what other people feel. Now we can still find ourselves in a middle ground. We can learn to feel more, but that just may not be our strong gifting and that's okay. So coming back to how God has created us, who we are in Christ, and then if we're trying to get better at like feeling those things and not bypassing, I would say park yourself in the Psalms. You know, David was a feeler. David knew how to express in seasons of life, what he was feeling. I think Ecclesiastes is another one. There's, you know, time, you know, time to weep and a time to dance. And so really going to God's word to see how we can engage our emotion, that it's, it's a healthy thing for us to do. And the Bible talks so much about it and staying out of shame by grounding ourselves in who God is, who we are, how we were created by him. Shae Hill: That's so good. Okay. Now let's shift gears to talking about the person that maybe has these like hyperactive emotions or whatever language you would put behind that. What, What is your wisdom to them as far as how they can in the same way that the person that suppresses their emotions needs help engaging with those emotions? How can the person who feels everything and feels everything, maybe even all at once? What is your wisdom to them to kind of coming back to that middle, like you said? Rebecca Maxwell: I mean, first of all, submit it to Christ. Take what you're feeling, stop, recognize it, name it, and lay it before the Lord. And I've told clients before, hey, like take this anxiety and say, Lord, what do you want me to see in this? I'm feeling this thing. You've given me the ability to feel this emotion. What do you want to show me? Because remember, if emotions are signals on a dashboard, if they're information, if they're data, then we need to pay attention to them. We don't need to run away with them, but we need to take them and pay attention. And I really think, ask God, what do you want me to see? Is there something you want me to do? Something you want me to know, right? Or do I just need to come to you for comfort? Right. You can be the God of comfort that we know you to be. That's where I would start with those runaway emotions. Shae Hill: I'm not a parent yet, but as you were just talking about that practice of really submitting your feelings and emotions before the Lord and asking, what do you want me to see? Or what do you want me to know? What do you want me to gain from this feeling experience? I can only imagine... How challenging, but yet a healthy practice that would be as a parent. Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah. Oh, for sure. Because our kids are so tuned into us. Right. That's how they're supposed to be. Right. We have to model that. We have to model that middle ground living where I have emotion, right? Our kids can see us have those, but they can also see us submit them to the Lord and keep them in a healthy range. If we don't do that, if we're not emotionally healthy as parents, it is going to impact our kids. And again, I'm not, I do not want anyone to feel shame. When they hear that, but it will impact our children. And we often don't think about how our emotional health impacts them. So this is a practical way to begin to bring your emotion and submit it to the Lord so that he can give you direction in it, which will absolutely trickle down to your kids. And they will, you know, they will see you. Maybe mom needs a timeout. Maybe mom and listen, my kids are old now, but when they were little, little, I needed a timeout. Yeah. Put myself in timeout, take a deep breath and submit my emotions to the Lord so that I could come back. more grounded and steady for them. Shae Hill: Yeah, more regulated. That's such a good practice and just a good reminder. I wanted to pause there because I was just thinking about all the parents that are listening or just the parents in my life and just thinking about how having children can unlock a whole new wave of feelings that you didn't even know that you had access to. Probably a lot of fears, a lot of worry, a lot of you know, anxieties that you didn't know you had. And so I just, I think it really is such a beautiful practice and, and it could sound super spiritual, but I really can picture myself actually pausing when I'm wrestling with an emotion and saying, okay, Lord, what do you want me to see from this? So that's such a good thing. Early on, you were talking about at the very beginning of our conversation, you mentioned boundaries. And so a lack of boundaries, I would say, would be kind of one of those symptoms of, OK, there might be something in our emotional health that we need to tend to. A few other things that maybe come to mind for me is like a dashboard light would be just that numbness, like having trouble engaging or responding to emotions in conversations that would seem kind of normal. Like for example, someone sharing really good news and me not really feeling the gravity of that or someone sharing really hard news. Like you mentioned losing a family friend and not being able to really go there like with empathy or compassion on that side. So just kind of like an underlying numbness. I would also add just... feeling very reactionary, kind of frazzled or reactionary. Those are some things that kind of come up. And if you're saying, Oh, Shae, where did you get that list? Oh, I'm just thinking about myself and things that I do when I know that I need to tend to something. So do you want to respond to any of those? Or do you have a few others that I missed of kind of like, these are some symptoms that it's time to kind of like, you know, come back to the middle and engage with what's going on here? Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah, absolutely. Those are great ones. Those are all signs and signals that we may not be kind of living in that healthy range. You mentioned spiritual bypassing. If we are avoiding emotion and just kind of throwing scripture, you know, well, you know, even, I mean, going to a memorial service is a great example. There's a lot of people that are going to spiritually bypass and say, well, she's in a better place and she knew the Lord and she's dancing with Jesus. And that's all true. But also what we're going through right now is really, really difficult and you can't speed by, um, Those emotions, chronic busyness, and being overproductive can numb our emotions. So that's a, that's a boundary issue and something that we can look at if we find ourselves just, you know, chronically busy and not able to be kind of present. Shae Hill: Right. Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah. Sometimes some of these things that you're mentioning, the avoidance and the numbness, they can indicate that we have some unprocessed trauma or we have some even wounds of our early attachment relationships with our caregivers that we haven't processed, whether it's neglect or abuse. Sometimes that can cause us to, you know, numbness is like a protective response, right? It's a protective kind of survival mechanism. And so people that are healthy aren't living in protection and survival. They're living in this healthy middle ground. Where maybe we're not overly expressing our emotion, but we're also not like dangerously kind of numbed out and checked out. Yeah, those are so good. And I think you really people mentioned sleep a lot. And we really have to mention it here, too. If you are ignoring stress or sleep, your nervous system will be overloaded. And when it's overloaded, you're either going to be hyper aroused and overly emotional or you're going to be numb. And so those are the things we have to make sure we look at too, because our body will respond to our emotions being overloaded. under-regulated or over-regulated. Shae Hill: Right. Yeah. That's so good. I know you mentioned kind of living in like an integrated body, mind, soul space. Would you say like something like sleep, like you just mentioned is kind of part of that? Rebecca Maxwell: Oh, yes. Okay. Shae Hill: What are some other ways that we can begin to live integrated just as we want to live as whole people. You know, I feel like that's something so worth asking in this series as we're talking about areas of health. And I really, my goal is not that we would hone in on one specific area, but that the Lord would help us take something from each episode to help us live more healthy, healed, whole, and yielded to Jesus, like Lysa would say. So what are some of your tips or words of wisdom of how we can live as those whole integrated people? Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah. So living integrated, I think means being intentional about the health of each area. Right. So, you know, here at the beginning of the year, we are, a lot of people are getting healthy in their body. Right. And what I love about what you guys are doing is you are, you know, talking about being healthy in every avenue, but recognizing that when we are working on health in our body, whether it's good sleep, eating well, moving our body, that is going to impact all the other areas. It's going to impact our mind. It's going to impact our heart, our relationships. And it's going to impact our soul. And being healthy in our soul and our spirit and our connection with God is going to help our mind. Right. And it's going to help our body, but definitely going to help our mind. Moving our body helps our mind. So see, everything is interconnected. And so my suggestion here at the beginning of the year is listen to all of these episodes and pick one thing, one area that you want to be intentional about heart, soul, mind and strength. to be intentional about loving God well with each of those areas, right? We're talking about emotional health. So where am I on the spectrum? Am I more, you know, emotionally driven? Am I emotionally suppressing? And how do I get healthy there? How do, what do I need to do to be more healthy in my body? What practice, what one practice do I need to put on to be more healthy in my relationship with the Lord? And what, what, One practice, do I need to be more healthy in my relationship with others? So just being intentional about each thing. That helps the overall picture. Shae Hill: Yeah, that's so good. Okay, you mentioned others. And I feel like it would be a miss as we're talking about emotional health to not touch on relationships slightly, because I feel like I could picture people listening today that would feel like and Lysa wrote a whole book on this called unglued of just talking about like reactions in relationships. And I think depending on the relationship that we have, we're at a current moment, it can bring up some different emotions in us. And so what do you have for us? What words of wisdom do you have for us in regards to staying emotionally regulated in maybe some of those relationships that that are a little bit harder for us. They just don't come as easy. They challenge us a little bit more. They are a threat for us to get a little bit more emotionally driven or emotionally suppressant. How do we navigate those situations well? Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah, well, there's no... There's no perfect emotion regulation. Like I want to dispel a myth that you have to be emotionally regulated and calm all the time. Yeah. That's not what we're aiming for. What we're aiming for is being, like you said, non-reactionary, being able to respond and not react. Shae Hill: Yeah, that's good. Rebecca Maxwell: And In order to do that, you know, boundaries is an important thing. Knowing where your triggers are, knowing what you were just talking about different people, you know, knowing what people are going to be, it's going to be more difficult either for you to stay regulated or stay honest. Right. and, you know, putting some boundaries there. I think we all have people in our lives that we don't talk to every day for a reason. Right. You know, we don't see all the time, or we don't spend more than a couple days together for a reason. And I think that that's very healthy. What I tell my clients, a good kind of frame of reference here is to look at the relationships that Jesus had as concentric circles. At the very middle, a small concentric circle would be Jesus, Peter, James, and John. He was very close to those disciples. Next concentric circle would be the 12 disciples, right? But you can really only be really close to a few people. And then you have that next group that for Jesus is the 12 disciples. Right. And he walked with them and talked with them, but was really close to Peter, James and John. Right. And then you have the 12 and then you have the rest of the disciples and then you have everybody else. And so I think that's a great framework for us. Right. Like. We've got those couple people that are right at the core, probably our spouse, hopefully, and maybe one or two other people. They know us the best. We can be the most vulnerable with them. We spend the most time together. And then that next circle out, we're going to spend time with them, but we might not be as close or as vulnerable as those people in the middle. And those are just good boundaries. And so you've got to think about... the people in your lives, where do they fit in those concentric circles? How much access do they have to me? And are there people that I'm trying to keep in the middle circle that shouldn't have that kind of access to me for various reasons? for their behavior or their investment in our relationship, those sorts of things. So that may be a good framework to think about, you know, boundaries as it relates to your relationships so that you can stay regulated. You can be a healthy person inside of those relationships. Shae Hill: Yeah, that's so good. I think that you explained that so well and thinking too, just about the different kind of buckets of people that we all have, but also just how good awareness and good boundaries can really set us up well to be able to respond instead of react, which is what we all hope. And when you said you wanted to dispel that, you know, the goal is staying just completely emotionally calm all the time, I felt like a exhale or a relief on the behalf of all of our listeners. So thanks for mentioning that. As we wrap up today, Rebecca, I'm just thinking about, you know, all the people, all the demographics of people represented in our listeners that listen to Therapy and Theology and where they may fall on the spectrum of so many different places with emotional health right now. So as they continue to navigate life in this year of 2026, what is kind of your final charge or just your final encouragement to them as they pursue health in all areas, but specifically in this conversation of emotional health? Rebecca Maxwell: Yeah, absolutely. I want, I want everyone listening to realize that, It emotional health is not a side issue to faith. It's one of the primary places that God does his deepest work. I mentioned David in the Psalms, and we see that we see David express his emotion to the Lord, right, and receive the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And so we need to steward those emotions well. God gave us those. And they're so deeply integrated with our faith, with our spiritual life, with our relational life with our body, you know and so really submitting like we talked about submitting these to the Lord and stewarding them well. Giving back to God what he’s given us so we can be more grounded more present more Christ like right when we do that and we steward well what he has given us in all of these as he is continuing to sanctify us and help us to become more like Christ and there’s no shame in this we are all over the spectrum and how we’re wired emotionally and all of us whether we’re here we’re here we can submit this to the Lord and recognize how important it is to our overall health and how God wants us to steward this as well. Shae Hill: So good! you’re such a gift thank you so much for being on the podcast today And now, it's time for Listener Mail, where we respond to YOUR questions. Today’s Listener Mail is brought to you by Compassion International, which I’m excited to tell you more about. Compassion is fighting child poverty in powerful, practical ways. Through the work of local churches and the generosity of sponsors like you and me, Compassion is releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. We’ve seen the impact of sponsorship firsthand through education, medical care, healthy food, clean water, and the love and hope of the Gospel. And now we want to invite you to join us in sponsoring a child. When you sponsor, you’ll receive a copy of the Proverbs 31 Ministries study guide titled Keep Holding On as our thanks for investing in the life of a child. Go to Compassion.com/lysa to choose a child to sponsor today. Ok friends let’s hear today’s question This listener asks “My wife filed for divorce in February, your recent episode on emotional abuse has opened my eyes and my heart it’s made me see how I inflicted horrible emotional abuse on my wife. I never realized I exhibited these behaviors but listening to your recent episode things just clicked. You’ve given me the explanation my wife never did when she just walked away. Understanding my emotionally abusive behaviors is the first step to genuine change, so what should my next steps be? Thank you for helping me, your resources are invaluable!” Let’s hear what Jim Cress has to say about this question Jim Cress: Well, first thank you for such a beautiful and honest question and I believe you have self-awareness. You say of course, what about my wife just said maybe you would say that’s her boundary and now you have self-awareness of what appears in the questions to be a history of verbal and emotional abuse. Remember verbal and emotional abuse also lands as physical abuse because the body keeps the score. And again wanna honor the question and the humility a lot of people I found is they will do well I’ll go do XYNZ like therapy or do what I need to do as long as my wife pulls the divorce off the table, or it doesn’t change. You wanna now go in a unilateral path and say I’m going to do what I need to do. Because what I don’t work out I’ll act out, in the next relationship should there be one. If you saw me in the airport and got a couple of minutes I’ve got about one minute, good to see ya, could you answer this question that actually happens for me? What I would say first - you have awareness secondly, I would go with this issue and seek out a therapist - you’re gonna have to Google, ChatGPT whatever you need to do go to websites and read to find out someone who really understands verbal and emotional abuse. And the historicity of it all. Remember if it’s Hysterical it’s historical. I want you to find someone who really can explore whose face has my wife worn. It’s like putting a mask there and it’s like where is this coming from within me. Because it’s about your wife until it’s not about her. Do your life story work from birth and work through these things to understand where the verbal emotionally abusive behavior comes from that’s the work you can do control what you can and leave the rest alone.