Latest / Mental Health and the Mission of the Church / COVID 19 Pt 2

Transcript

COVID 19 Pt 2 · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning everybody.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you're uh hanging in there in your uh ho hotel slash home tent, whatever you want to call it.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just continuing to uh talk about things in reference to the COVID-19 situation, just so that we uh you know we don't totally ignore it.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh maybe even as uh the description for today said, that we learn how to how to use events to uh to help us.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk to you a little bit about following up from last week.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked about a couple of cool scriptures.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the one in Romans chapter 8 that says all things work together for good.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Again, just stressing that doesn't mean all things are good.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it says that God is able to make all things work together for good.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe God necessarily causes all things, but I think no matter what is thrown in the salad bowl, God can bring good out of it, and we can uh cooperate with that, we can be intentional about that.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I want to do today is give you some practical things that you can do right now.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And some of this is mental health, uh just coaching, you might say.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, you know, none of us are used to this.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're not used to the the concentrated time we have with uh the people we love the most in the whole world, uh, but also possibly the people with whom we have uh some of the most significant um you know challenges, just learning to live and honor and respect and all that good stuff.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just give you a couple of practical things real quickly.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've been sharing these with our staff and some other people, and uh I hope it's been helpful.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But uh most of us are either out of work, and uh, you know, bless you.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I really trust God to work with you and help you, and or you're either out of work or we're working from home.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then of course there's some that are working crazy hours, uh, medical people, restaurant people, or uh my son happens to be in that line of work, and he's working as hard as ever.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but if you're at home more than normal, let me just give you some thoughts on how you, as uh uh you know, a single parent, uh definitely tricky.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, I cannot imagine.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh couple, but uh let me just give you some thoughts on how you can possibly uh get through this in a in a in a way that's better, healthier.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, maintain a routine.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't have to punch in, you don't have to, you know, whatever, uh show up and dress up and make up up and all that good stuff.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But uh don't don't let yourself just completely fall apart.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh even if you just do it, say four days a week, have some kind of a routine that you follow where you get go to bed at a certain time, get up at a certain time, and uh maybe you don't ever do that, but uh if you don't, I would encourage you to give it a shot.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Your your soul, your mind, your emotions, your your body, even like structure.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now, I don't mean we all like it to the same degree.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us love structure, some of us like it, and some of us tolerate it, hate it, fight it.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't matter.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: You still need some of it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So have a routine of some kind and and build into the routine um things that that edify you, challenge you, encourage you.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just figure that out.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, where you're taking care of yourself, your spirit, your soul, and your body, your relationships.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have uh have a routine.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, one of the things I've I've found with couples, and I would say with my own marriage, uh, one of the richest things we've rediscovered that you know you look at and you think, you know, why haven't we always been doing this?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is uh we go on long walks and talks, long walks and talks.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's you know, you know, God's bless us with some decent weather, and um it's just been awesome.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, long, unhurried walks and talks.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So have a routine of some kind.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing I would encourage you do, and this is sort of feeding off of the first, I don't know if you've ever heard of the concept of time blocks.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I used to call it compartmentalization, where I would block off certain parts of my week to do certain types of work.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, like, you know, the the the the piddly kind, you know, emails and whatever.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, hang loose, excuse me, I'm gonna cough.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um imagine taking, you know, again, you maybe can't do it up seven days, but I I don't know why, but I like the number four because it's more than half.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: But what if four days a week you had blocked off time that you were allowed to go hide somewhere or whatever and work on certain things?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what if uh if you're navigating this with someone else, your husband, wife, kids, what if you had a way that you honored each other's time block?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, another thought would be uh what I would call tag team, and again, they all kind of flow together.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, what do I mean by tag team?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, you're you're in the house, you you both have work situations you're dealing with, you have maybe you have kids you're dealing with.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what if you figure out a way, you know, I don't know if you remember tag team wrestling, you know, that you'd have pairs wrestling against each other, and allegedly, theoretically, only one from each side was in the ring fighting.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, for entertainment value, it'd get a little crazy.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what they would do is they would kind of wrestle for a bit, and then one of them could tag out and the other one come in.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you and I are teammates, and I'm in there wrestling, and I reach over and tag you, and you jump in and I jump out.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it's pretty obvious what the purpose of that is.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what if you figured out a way to tag team parenting uh house things?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe you uh maybe you refresh differently.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: One of you is an extrovert, one of you is an introvert.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You you tag team uh providing space for that so that you can uh not go crazy.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh another thing, and again, all this again is very similar, connected.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I would encourage you that to work it out to where everybody in the house, particularly adults, everybody in the house gets some daily me time.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, every adult in the house, every day gets some me time.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Time where I can go off to myself and do whatever I want, whether it's 30 minutes, if you can do an hour, that's whatever, split it up.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody gets a little bit of time every day to be away, kind of, to themselves.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, you gotta negotiate some of this, and obviously, one of the things that's probably happening is you're realizing that uh maybe we're not so good at negotiating things.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, remember what we talked about last week that uh pressure reveals cracks, and uh tests don't test don't give us new information, they reveal whatever information we currently have, a mastery of, an understanding, an application of.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then another big thing I'd encourage you to do is find a way to be intentional and proactive, in other words, not reactive, about aiming your soul.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I believe uh our brain has what I would call, and most people call a negativity bias, meaning we're better at seeing the negative than the positive, we're better at focusing on what's wrong, what could hurt us.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh fear is easier.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what I would encourage you to do is be intentional and proactive about, in other words, we have this lean toward negativity.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Be intentional, proactive about pushing it back over here.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like what?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can do a gratitude exercise.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Most people would put it something like this: three times a day, you stop and think about three things you're grateful for.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously not the same three all the time.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it can be little things, they can be big things.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you just stop, and what you're doing is intentionally saying, I want to notice something good, I want to notice something positive, I want to intentionally put my attention on something that is worthy of celebration.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, another thing you can do is is is take some of your ants, your automatic negative thoughts.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of this stuff is is is uh aggravating and and and bubbling up issues you had before this ever came along.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some anxiety, some depression.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, be intentional and proactive.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the things I've told encouraged people to do is this take it, take some time to yourself, take a sheet of paper or a journal if you have one, and sit down and say, okay, what's troubling me?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And just write.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Just write anything that comes to mind.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um I mean it could be big stuff, little stuff.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But just write.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the second column, say, okay, uh, you might different ways you could do it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, as you did the what's troubling me, there was probably two or three that came out bigger than the others.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So write them over here and say, okay, what's the worst that could happen?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's the best that could happen?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um what if this didn't happen?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: How would my life be?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, all you're doing is not allowing those thoughts to just gang up on you and just beat you.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And another way to say it is this don't follow your thoughts, lead them.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't follow your thoughts, lead them.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your thoughts aren't you.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: You create your thoughts.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, most of us create our thoughts subconsciously and automatically.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what you've got to do is turn off autopilot.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and and the the frame, the three things I love are capture, question, replace.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Capture, question, replace.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: What what am I what are my troubling thoughts?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, why am I why do I believe that could happen?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: What if, you know, and then just start questioning them.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: As if you were a lawyer and that thought was on the witness stand.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third is replace them.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how do you replace them?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Best thing I know is scripture.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, find some really good scripture that speaks to your heart and just write it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, write it?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean write it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because it involves more of your mind.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to write out a scripture and think about things other than that.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not impossible, but it's hard.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So write it out, then personalize it, and then do it again the next day, do it again throughout the day.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But push your brain intentionally and proactively away from the negative.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean you're denying reality.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: It means you're admitting that you don't fully know reality.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know what the moment holds, you don't know what the next one holds.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So don't base your emotional state on how you think things might work out, especially if you have a tendency toward anxiety and fear.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's ways you can assist your soul to not catastrophize and get into terrible spots.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope some of this has been helpful.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to throw some practical stuff at you.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And please continue to pray for the medical workers, pray for the families that are being affected very, very directly by this, uh, that are experiencing illness, and God help us, even death, unexpected, uh, just not good.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and pray for those that are uh you know at particular risk throughout all this.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh pray for our leaders, both spiritual and natural, in this that in the government realm, that uh that have to make important decisions as we come through this.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys, and uh see you later.