Stress, Anxiety, Depression, and Faith | Panel

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

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There we go.

There we go.

I am so so glad that everyone is here with us today.

Whether you're joining us here in person, maybe you're checking us out online, maybe you're in our family lounge, or maybe you're going to check us out on a podcast later.

However, you find yourself here.

We're so so glad that you're here, and I pray that you feel welcomed and loved and valued while you are here.

Today I'm excited because as you can see by our new setup right here, that today we're going to have an amazing panel where we're going to be discussing some things that I think are very relevant for us, particularly as individuals, but also collectively what it means for us as a church.

Let me back up a little bit and unpack where we're going.

Um, and hopefully it'll be some encouragement for you.

Um you guys know that Megan and I have been on this journey of really trying to figure out what does it look like to be individuals who are pursuing the things of God while simultaneously understanding the importance of having a holistic approach to ministry, looking at our mental health, our emotional health, and making sure that we live lives that are honoring to God, that are whole and complete.

So we've been on this journey for over a year now.

Actually, we're closing out very soon.

Praise the Lord to that.

Um but we've been on this journey of growing and learning and being stretched, but truly having our minds expanded in a way of how we can we can presence the reality of our pain and our grief and our suffering and just all the things that we go through emotionally and and and mentally.

But how do we integrate it spiritually?

Because we don't want to get lose balance where we ignore the power of God, but we also don't want to lose balance where we become so obsessed with one side that we lose sight of what's available to us.

So we wanted to have an integrated approach, and that's always been our heart's desire.

So we've been on this journey of really learning how to have a church body that reflects what I believe the kingdom is supposed to look like.

And so today we're gonna have a discussion about those things, but but I want to read a passage of scripture um that connects to the series that we have been in.

Um, if you guys have been with us for the past couple of weeks, um, we've been in this series called Renew.

And the whole heart behind this series is really taking a theological but practical look at Romans 12, 2, where Paul talks to us about the importance of not being conformed to the image of the world, don't be molded into the standards of the world, but be transformed so by the renewing of our minds, having a different way to look at it.

And so our main statement has been if you can change your mind, you can change your life.

That if we truly can look at things through God's ways and begin to integrate God into our lives, it can truly change our lives.

So during the course of this series, we've been unpacking varying things from trauma, the triggers, and how do we incorporate the cross to how do we take thoughts captive.

All of these have been bringing us on a journey of how do we invite God into every area of our lives.

And so today I want to read a passage of scripture that hopes um to frame up where we're going today.

If you have your Bibles, I would love for you to join me in 1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

We're gonna look at verses one through four.

If you don't have your Bibles, that's fine.

It'll come up on the screen in in just a moment.

But to give you some context, we're gonna be looking at the story of a man named Elijah.

Elijah is a very powerful prophet that it was so meaningful for me.

I wanted to do a series on it, but I ended up delaying it.

So you'll see it come up later in the year.

But Elijah is a great example of someone who who trusted God, who's a man of faith, a man who has done incredible things for God, but he also was a man who struggled with some things.

And as we're gonna read here, we're gonna see exactly how.

To give you context on where we're going, um, Elijah just came from what I would say his most successful victory um that he had experienced up until this point.

He's defeated false prophets, and and now all attention is on him.

But let's look at how he responds, even right after he has an amazing victory for God.

Starting here at verse number one, it says this Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, May the gods punish me and do so severely if I do not make your life like one of those by this time tomorrow.

Verse number three.

Then Elijah became afraid and immediately ran for his life.

When he came to Beersheba, that belonged to Judah, he left his servant there, but he went a day's journey into the wilderness.

He sat there under the broom tree and prayed that he might die.

He said, I have seen, I've had enough, Lord.

Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.

What I want you guys to see here is that Elijah is a mighty man of God who does incredible things for God.

He has just great, claimed a great victory for God.

And right after that, we see that Jezebel issued a threat.

And his response to that is not that he dropped down on his knees and began to cry down fire.

We don't see that he begins to quote the Bible.

What we see is him having a very human reaction to his life being in jeopardy.

The scripture tells us that he's filled with such fear that he leaves his community, he goes off into the wilderness, into isolation, he he leaves his servant behind, he goes under a tree, and he literally asks God to take his life.

And what I think often can happen to us in the church is that when we look at stories like Elijah, we can often highlight the parts of the Bible where it talked about him praying and fire came down.

We highlight the parts of Elijah and the incredible things that he's done, but we often ignore the parts where we see that he's having a true, genuine experience of just being a human being.

Just being human, being afraid, being filled with anxiety, having depression to the point that he didn't want to live anymore.

And the reality is I suspect many of us may find ourselves in that isolated place more often than on the top of the mountain.

And if we don't learn how to integrate God into those moments, we're gonna find ourselves living in a place of despair and hopelessness.

So today, uh I know that we don't have enough time to exhaustively hit on all of it, but today I do want us to look at the framework of scripture and the human experience and learning how we can invite God into this process.

So would you guys mind helping me welcome my esteemed family and friends of Dr.

Jones and Dr.

Lawson and Megan as we come up to continue in this discussion to talk about depression, to talk about um trauma, to talk about grief and all the things that I think is gonna be so transformative for us.

So thank you guys so much for being here.

We're glad you're here, we're glad you're here.

And you each have your own mics.

So we're gonna see where this goes today.

We had a lot of fun in our in our in our first service.

So let's let's continue, let's continue the discussion.

Yeah, so um Dr.

Lawson and Dr.

Jones have been so instrumental to Keith and I.

I've learned so much under their leadership.

I've learned how to process my emotions better.

Even my kids are like, Mom, who are you?

Like you're a different person in the way that you respond to things.

It's true.

She's very it's it's good.

We're grateful.

Blame it on my Jamaican side.

That's what I can do.

That's what she always like.

I'm Jamaican, I'm spicy.

I'm like, I didn't ask for any heat though.

So my mom's gonna be making you that jerk, and it does have that heat.

So I get it.

Um but um I wanna uh dive into you know mental health and everything, and you know, what inspired the both of you to want to get into mental health and how long have you been doing it?

I went first last time.

Fine, fine.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Um, so I back in my late twenties um was actually on staff at a church.

And um at the time I had been in a really abusive one-year marriage, and that came to an end.

And uh I felt like being on staff at a church, being part of a church, that that should have been the safest place for me to be, that it would have been a place I could go to for help, for comfort, for people to walk with me through the journey.

And instead it became the most harmful and hurting hurtful place that I have ever experienced.

Um, many staff members wanted to know what I had done to be such a bad wife without knowing any of the context of what had actually taken place in the marriage.

Um, I had a lot of people tell me things I should and shouldn't do, and it was just very, very hurtful.

I've never felt more alone in my life.

And so through my own journey of kind of getting to that place at being 30 years old and wondering, okay, now what?

Um, I ended up in counseling myself and through the process of working with a counselor, really kind of getting to the place of recognizing that we all need a place where we can be honest about what we're going through, that we're not scared to say what we're going through, that we're not afraid to talk about it.

And so for me, it led me to becoming a counselor, um, to going back to school in my 30s to become a counselor because I wanted to be in a in a place myself where I could offer that to others so that people would not have to feel alone like I did, that people would know they had a safe place, that they could come, they could talk, they could be honest, they could talk about anything, and that we could walk through the healing process together.

And so I've been a counselor for about 13 years now, and I get to now also teach people how to become counselors.

Um, and so it's been a really cool, a really cool journey for me.

Well, uh there we go.

Okay, well, I just wanted to say that that hair picture of me with my hair sticking straight up, that's pretty much me pretty regularly.

My hair sticks straight up in pictures all the time.

So I looked at it, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe but that's my picture all the time.

So anyway, uh I you know, I I grew up in a Christian family and we were part of a Southern gospel group.

And so we toured the southeastern part of the United States from the time I was very young.

I was in church way too many times, sometimes eight to ten times a week.

It was a lot, and you hear lots of messages, some of them good, some of them bad, some of them just awful.

And and I mean it's it can be traumatic.

I mean, you hear over and over and over again that you're you suck and life is awful and you're going to hell.

And at some point that that really impacts you.

And I think the other thing that was very interesting was, and I'm gonna hit it on two points.

I'm not gonna go three because I don't want to do my preaching thing of three, but I think two things that really stood out to me.

One, we would come in and we would sing and everybody would get excited in the service, and it was like, yes, and all of this stuff, and they would leave the service and they were sad and depressed and hurt and anxious, and it didn't seem like what was going on there seemed to stick outside of that service.

What's going on that's not going out with them?

And and and God says that He wants to give us an abundant life.

So there is this moment where it's like, what are we doing that's not helping people living that abundant life?

And there were two key things that I saw growing up in the church in these processes that really negatively impacted people's lives.

One was these short little pithy Christian, Christianese statements where they would say, you know, you know, uh God's gonna make it all good, everything's gonna be okay, all of these things.

And they may not be wrong, but I think when you're hurting and someone says something like that, it just pushes you away because it's like you're in pain.

You need someone to invite you in.

It doesn't matter whether they're saying, hey, you know, God is great, everything is wonderful, they want you to just sit with them and go, hey, I know it's it's awful.

You're in a really, really tough spot.

They just want your presence.

Just like Job's friends, you know, when Job is literally going through all of the things that he's going through, he needs his friends to sit with him in the pain.

And that's what the Bible says.

They sat with him in the pain.

And the moment they opened their mouth, they messed it up because they did.

They they open their mouth, they start trying to explain.

Well, God, maybe God's doing this because you did this.

Maybe God's doing these things.

And the truth was, there is no understanding of this.

We can't make sense of it.

So giving these very short, concise statements to people not only doesn't help them, but it often pushes them away and it shuts them down.

And so now you've got all of this emotional stuff that's literally just stuck on the inside of them that they won't share with other Christians because they know the answer they're gonna get is it's okay.

Everything's good.

Don't worry about it.

And that doesn't help.

I think the second thing is, and I I said this the last time, I I think one of our challenges is we do not in the Christian community understand lament psalms, the laments, the lamentations.

We are in a place where we talk constantly about the great things of God and it's wonderful.

Thank God we can talk about the great things of God.

And simultaneously, there are moments where it's just awful.

And it's okay.

Everybody goes through that.

Jeremiah goes through it.

You know, uh all of the prophets ultimately go through it.

I I was thinking, you know, Jerry in this piece that you were talking about, it's funny because he goes to a tree and sits down.

Uh Jonah goes to a tree and sits down.

Everybody seems to, the prophets seem to go to a tree when they're upset and they sit down.

It's like, oh my gosh, I'm I'm giving up, God.

I'm just gonna sit under this tree.

And you know, Jonah's like, and and then God, the the worm came and ate the tree and died, and it's like, well, God, what did what happened?

I had a great tree.

You you took it from me.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Um but I think one of our challenges is it's okay to be sad.

It's okay to hurt, it's okay not to be okay.

And far too often in our Christian communities, we are uncomfortable when someone is not okay.

Because guess what?

We don't have words often, but it's not the words, it's presence.

It's the presence.

You know, God came despite the fact that we had the Old Testament.

We had words.

God came.

God came incarnate in the flesh with Jesus.

Why?

Because we needed presence.

It's not just words.

We need someone there with us, walking with us, being with us, not giving us really simple answers, just being present with us and walking with us.

And that's all it takes.

And far too often, I think, in the Christian community, we don't understand it's just being present with people.

Amen.

So, how long you've been doing counseling?

Oh, dear Jesus.

Um I saw my first client in 1989.

So, how long how long ago is that?

Is that 33, 36?

Oh, dear Jesus, 35 years.

Oh, I'm old.

Anyway, 35 years ago, I saw my first client.

So that's you you've you've hit on a lot of things that I think is incredibly helpful.

You know, Megan and I, we came up in a in a church tradition that was very much like a Holy Spirit-infused knowledge of the word of God.

And and I don't I don't regret that at all.

Like we learned who God is, we learned what it meant to reverence God, we learned what the way that God thought of us, and we learned the power of God.

But I remember when we when we shifted and moved to Jacksonville and we started going to um the celebration church in Jacksonville, and we were um experiencing this kind version of God, this God that actually smiles, this God that is full of joy.

And then when we went to counseling for the first time, I like I honestly didn't think anything was wrong because every time I had feelings, I'm like, well, no, the Bible says this, the Bible says that.

And you just kind of like you just kind of stuff it down because you're trying to declare God's word over your life.

And I certainly think that has value.

But I still remember when we sat down with the counselor for the first time, and and and they were like, hey, so what do you guys want to talk about?

I'm generally sitting there with my legs crossed, like, man, we're good.

They made me come.

And then it's and like because they were like, hey, we want all the executives to go, we got really want you to go.

He had given it up to everybody else.

Like we said no, so other people need it, we're good, and all that.

We got in the chair when he started asking questions.

So, what do you do?

And what happens when he he spends all that time in the word?

I'm like, I'm lonely.

I'm like, busting my pride.

And I was like, who is this woman?

What are you talking about?

I'm an amazing husband.

But it opened my eyes.

It's Wednesday, by the way.

That's Wednesday.

That's why we have you guys put on Wednesday.

But my point is, especially in a faith community, we do a really good job at compartmentalizing and just kind of declaring God's word, and there's there's room for that, but also not creating space for us to process through some of the things we're walking through, specifically in the area of like grief, stress, anxiety, depression, these are all terms that we can throw out.

So, just for the sake of all of us, because we do hear these terms on a regular basis, can you guys unpack just what depression and anxiety are?

Because I do think that sometimes it becomes such a common phrase that we've kind of lost sight of what it really is and how it can truly impact people.

Sure.

So what we talk about in the mental health field and the world of mental health is clinical versus non-clinical.

So when we talk about sort of the generic, oh, I'm so stressed today, oh my gosh, I feel so anxious, right?

Um, there can be the non-clinical side of that where life is stressful.

Let's be honest.

I mean, you have tests, you have quizzes, you have school, you have jobs, you have election years.

I mean, come on, it's stressful.

Um, and so there's that space where just in general, life can have stress and anxiety.

We can feel sad, we can have days that are harder where you might feel a little blue.

Um, we talk about anxiety and depression in a clinical way, we're then switching gears and saying, okay, it becomes clinical, it becomes something that needs attention when it is impacting your daily functioning.

So when you can no longer do the daily tasks that you could do before without having any issues, that's when we want to start talking about the clinical side of it.

And so, you know, again, for depression, things like a lot of deep sadness where you feel sad all the time, um, where you struggle with energy, where it might be hard to get out of bed or to take care of yourself or to do, excuse me, to do just the general tasks that you normally could do without any issues.

I can't talk anymore.

Um anyway.

And similarly, so just again, clinically, when it when you cannot function in your day-to-day life like you normally could, and when the symptoms are overwhelming and all of your energy is kind of going to try to just manage those, that's where we start looking at the clinical side of depression and anxiety versus just sort of the day-to-day stressors of life.

I think it it's it's interesting because everyone will experience sadness, everyone will experience stress, everyone will experience depression, everyone will experience anxiety.

We all do.

No one, no one is without that.

Uh Jesus also experienced these things.

These are these are normal things and normal processes of life.

I think it becomes more significant, and we're not living the life that God has created for us when we we struggle.

It's like life has become rough.

It's tough to get up, it's tough to go to work, it's tough.

You know, at that point, it's like, you know what?

Maybe it's time to go get some counseling.

Maybe it's time to go get some additional help.

Maybe it's time to talk to someone, maybe it's time to find a support group.

Because uh, these are the things that in essence are normal and they will block us from ultimately becoming the amazing person that God created you to be.

You are created uniquely in the image of God.

You represent something unique about the image of God that no one else represents.

And so, you know, when we think about the the essence of evil, we we tend to think of evil as Satan, demons, and this and that and the other.

What if it's what if evil is blocking you from becoming the great person, part of the image of God that God created you to be?

Like you are stuck not living the full life that God created for you.

That's evil.

And and how many things are literally coming into your life to block that?

So if we literally want to fight evil, often we're just going and getting the help we need to become the great people that we are.

Awareness is the first step in knowing like where you are as far as you know, if you're depressed or not.

We have so many different assessments in the counseling world that will tell us where we are on those levels.

For instance, if you have depression or anxiety, are you on the low scale of it?

Are you moderate or are you severe?

Severe, you may need medicine, you may need to see a psychiatrist or that.

If you're in a moderate, maybe you do counseling.

Sometimes you need to do counseling and have the meds together to help you with the root of the issue that you're going on that's going on in your life.

And so, with awareness being the first step, um, what are the common symptoms of depression first and then um anxiety?

Depression.

Uh depression.

Okay.

Common symptoms.

Well, I it there there are so many symptoms, and it it really does depend upon the person.

It's not like there is a universal list of things.

So, for example, struggle getting out of bed in the morning.

That can be, you know, listen, I grew up, I struggled getting out of bed, I never slept well.

So, but there are things like that where you struggle getting out getting out of bed, where you're actually not eating well, where you're not exercising, you can't exercise.

Any significant change, any significant shift that's impacting you is a sign that something's changed.

You're not living as well as you were.

And so one of the things we often talk about is if you start noticing, I'm not sleeping as well, I'm not eating as well, I'm not, you know, whatever it happens to be, my relationship is just sort of blah, then maybe there's actually depression that's actually setting in.

And so anything that you're noticing that you're like, wow, the world doesn't seem as bright.

The world, you know, and maybe you come in here and it's like, oh my gosh, I feel it, and then you walk out again and it's like the world isn't as bright.

Well, there may be something that we need we can work on together where it's like, hey, we can help the world be that bright place that it has been in your life.

And then for anxiety, I really love word pictures, so I'm gonna give you guys a word picture of anxiety.

Um, if you imagine like a water trough, and so the level of water inside of the trough represents your level of anxiety that you have.

So on a scale of one to ten, if one is low anxiety and ten is off the charts anxiety, I would say average in our world, just with life that's going on, we probably function at about a four, sometimes a five as a society.

The pandemic raised our general level of anxiety as a society, election years make it worse, like things that are going on in the world, conflicts, things that are outside of our control.

So in your water trough, kind of where's your level at?

And again, I think most people.

Stay at about a four or five.

Um, and so if you're at a four or five, then when something stressful happens, when something hard is going on, when you're having a tough time, then let's say the water level goes to a seven.

So in our water trough, we have space for that, right?

It might feel a little uncomfortable because it's raising, but we have space to hold that.

However, if you struggle with anxiety and your day-to-day is that you're at about an eight or a nine, and that's just normal for you, you stay highly, highly stressed and anxious, uh, then when something happens, guess what?

The water doesn't fit in the trough anymore.

Now we're going over, it's overflowing.

And here's the thing when anxiety overflows and it's sort of just floating about, as humans, we are not good with feeling anxious and not understanding why we feel anxious.

And so when it's flowing out, what we start doing is we take that anxiety and we start attaching it to various irrational fears.

People can have one irrational fear, people can have hundreds of irrational fears.

Depends on the person.

But a lot of times what will happen is like, for example, you know, oh my gosh, I have a head cold, I must have cancer, or, you know, my dog is walking funny, so he must be dying.

Like all kinds of irrational fears.

And the thing with irrational fears is there's some small part of them that could technically occur.

And so our brain cannot say, this is irrational, the likelihood of this is almost zero.

Instead, our brain goes, Oh, but there's a possibility, and so it's gonna happen.

And so we get stuck on those irrational fears.

And what happens a lot of times is people come into counseling and they want to focus on the irrational fears, and that's fine.

We can help people kind of calm down some irrational fears, but here's the thing: if your anxiety is still overflowing, if you if you take care of one irrational fear, another one will just take its place.

So the challenge for us in anxiety always is to actually realize anxiety is driven by fear, always.

So we have to go back to the water trough and figure out what's the actual root of the of the symptoms, right?

What's the source of the water?

If we work on that, then over time the water level will start going down and so it's no longer overflowing.

So we have to help our clients and help ourselves understand what's the root of my fear?

What am I really afraid of?

What's really going on with the anxiety?

And so that's kind of some of what we do with anxiety and trying to help us understand how do we figure out what we're really afraid of?

Because that's the basis of anxiety.

And there are some basic ones, both for sadness, depression, anxiety, that we can sort of like point to all the time, like abandonment, fear of abandonment.

Uh people are terrified of being abandoned.

Being alone.

And being alone.

And you know what's interesting?

You know, often we we think theologically about so many things, we don't realize that, you know, what is one of the last things that Jesus said as he's ascending into heaven?

I'm gonna send you a comforter.

You're not gonna be alone.

Why would he do that?

And I think the answer is because he knows the anxiety, he knows the fear that is there in all of us.

Every person in this room has it and has the potential for that.

And so his last set of comments to us are about trying to reduce the anxiety.

I'm leaving you, but you're not going to be alone.

I'm not abandoning you.

Yeah, what an amazing thing that God's like, I understand your psychological makeup so well that I'm going to make sure that when I leave, you're not going to feel alone.

Ever.

Amen.

That's good.

And on the day of Pentecost, nonetheless, well done, sir.

Oh, yes, today is Pentecost.

Hallelujah.

Come on, man.

There you go.

Well done.

Hold on, put that in there.

We're feeling it today.

Yes, we're doing it.

So, one of the things that I that I heard mentioned after um the nine o'clock service was people like, man, this is a much needed conversation.

Um, and they seem to be very thankful for it.

And and I think generally that we're finding that people are more open to discussions about mental health, but still trying to figure out how do I support someone in the event that they ever say that they're struggling with something?

And I think that this is something that exists, whether you're Christian or not.

But I do want to speak specifically to our community.

How do we come alongside and support somebody who does allow themselves to be vulnerable and is like, hey man, I struggle with depression or I struggle with PTSD.

It is a real thing.

Um, I struggle with anxiety, these are things that I'm wrestling with.

How do we come alongside to create a safe space and support them without doing the spiritual bypass, which is the hey, let me quote a scripture on there.

The Bible says be anxious about nothing, so stop.

Like, how how do we how do we actually do that well?

That's my favorite skit ever.

Stop it.

Um Yeah, so I think one of the things that I would say is first of all, everybody deals with this, right?

No one is exempt, everyone struggles.

Um, I think sometimes as Christians, there's this weird space for us where we feel like we have to be perfect and that we have to present ourselves as these perfect people that have no issues.

And that's just silly.

Um and here's the thing people that look like they have perfect lives, honestly, you guys, are generally the ones that are struggling the most.

So we have to just, I think, first of all, realize to to recognize that we're all in the same boat.

And here's the thing that I love about Jesus is guess what?

So is he.

If you look at the scripture in the New Testament, when he was in the gar waiting in the Garden of Gethsemane, waiting for the people to come and arrest him to crucify him, he's a he's a hot mess.

Uh, if you look at the scripture, you look at the descriptions, basically it describes Jesus as having a panic attack.

He is sweating so much as if he's bleeding.

That is literally the definition panic attack, right?

So here is Jesus, knowing all things, being God, and he is so anxious about what's to come that he's panicking.

And in that space, he does reach out to God.

He does say, you know, Father, please, like if this is your will, take this away from me.

And guess what?

He also asks his friends to be with him.

And so there's that space, I think, for us of yes, God is there as a resource for us to reach out to, and we need each other.

We need people.

So, how do we together as people say, Hey, how are you doing?

And actually mean it.

I had a band director when I was in high school who he was like, Don't ever ask me how I'm doing unless you really want to know.

Because there's that common space of, hey, how are you?

And it's this very casual thing, and everyone's like, Oh, I'm fine.

No, you're not.

How are you really?

And so when you ask, how are you, mean it and ask for people?

Also being willing to be that space of just that presence.

Jesus did not need people to fix things for him in that space.

He just didn't want to feel alone.

So, what can we do to offer that space to one another, to offer that support, to say, hey, I'm with you.

I might, I might not.

I say to my clients, I've done this, I'm trained in this, all the things.

There are times where I literally say to my folks, I don't have words.

There are no words for the situation, there's no words for this moment.

All I can do is tell you you're not alone.

I will be with you in this space.

And you guys, that is powerful because we just need to know that somebody sees us in the midst of the struggle.

And if you can offer that to your friends and coworkers and family members and your community, man, think about how we can change the world.

I I really do think.

Sorry, I interrupt.

Okay.

I I think the the answer is not words or information or data.

And I think far too often we try to have the right thing to say.

Back to perfectionism.

You know, we we have these moments where it's like, you have to say the right thing.

No, you don't.

You just have to be present with people.

It's about presence.

It's never been about words, it's about presence.

The the most significant, when we do research on counseling, when we've done sort of evaluation of ourselves, 80% of the six success of therapy is about presence.

20% is about the words.

It's just being present with people, and we don't realize that.

They the she triggered a thought, and it it's the same thing this morning.

I I'm I'm often reminded how often in in Christianity, you know, people will take passages out of context.

So it's like uh be be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect, and that's Matthew 5, 48.

Don't tell me, don't ask me why I know that, because I was told it so many times that I learned it actually.

And and the truth is that's not what the passage actually means.

The passage there is talking, the whole passage is about love.

The whole passage is about love.

It's actually not trying to say be perfect in every way.

It's actually saying, develop a loving process just as your father is loving to you.

Mature in love.

Mature in love.

That's what that passage is actually saying.

And we throw it out of context because we don't realize that the whole passage is about loving each other well.

I I would say, you know, when I thought about that when you were guys were talking about us being fixers, we're we're taught in society to be fixers.

We have the right advice because we're doing well.

So let me offer advice that worked well for me.

And it's not what the person needs in that moment.

It's like, what do they need?

Do they need a listening ear?

Do they want you to give them advice?

Actually, finding out what that is for them is is so important much more important than you feeling like you have the knowledge to be able to help them out of their situation.

What do you need in this moment right now?

That's that's often that one of the best questions you can ask.

What do you need in this moment right now?

Because it's often just nothing.

A hug.

You know?

I mean, it's just sometimes a presence, a touch.

You know?

Yeah.

And so for our community, uh, you know, we're talking we have to talk about emotions and being um dysregulated.

What does that actually mean?

And and how is that implement?

Like, how does that impact our lives today?

Like if we're dysregulated, what happens in that moment?

Imagine a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum, and that's dysregulation.

That's what it looks like.

And as we get older, we might not throw temper tantrums in the same way, but you still do.

Um, but seriously, that's like the best visual image that I have when I think about what it looks like to be dysregulated, is uh is when a child gets emotionally overwhelmed, they don't have words at that age to say, hey, I'm not doing well, I'm struggling.

They just have the timber tantrum.

And so there's that space of when we get dysregulated, often we kind of dissociate from our bodies, we will um kind of have meltdowns, we will just not be doing well.

And so the the challenge always is how do we kind of come back to center and learn to regulate ourselves?

But that's the best word picture I have.

I think it too, when we think of dysregulation, you have to think.

I I'm gonna give a more technical sense because I sometimes I will do that.

But um when your beats per minute, your heart rate actually gets up to about 90 beats per minute, your prefrontal cortex starts kicking off, just does.

Um we've done enough research to know that.

When your prefrontal cortex kicks off, which is where you're sort of like regulated in in this sort of a peaceful state, which is really for me what regulation is, is sort of a peaceful state.

Um, what happens is the only thing that's left is your midbrain, which is your emotions, and your hind brain, hindbrain, fight, flight, freeze, fawn.

So you literally are just reacting when your prefrontal cortex kicks off.

And so when we talk about dysregulation, and anybody can be dysregulated, you can do it really fast and then calm yourself down.

You these are normal things that people go through in life.

And so the challenge is often how do what's what's what's the process for me to calm myself down so my prefrontal cortex kicks back on, so I don't do things that harm me, harm others.

And and that's I think the key is that you know it's it's it's actually staying in a state where you are peaceful enough that you can rationally engage in a way that's meaningful for the other person.

So what when you're you're talking a little bit about like not necessarily uh coping mechanisms, but I think there's aspects of that.

But I think when we talk about like therapy and specifically how therapy helps us to move things from one part of our brain to the other, um last service you guys did a great job at unpacking that.

So can you talk about what regulation looks like and how does like talk therapy help to put things in a proper perspective so it actually can help to heal you?

Yeah, so when you're talking about uh a two-year-old, right, who is dysregulated, how often have we been out in public somewhere and we've seen a child throw a timber tantrum and then the parent just starts yelling at them?

Doesn't help, by the way, because if everyone's dysregulated, then the child has nowhere to come back to.

There's no adult.

There's no adult.

So the challenge, I know this is hard, parents, but the challenge always is when someone's dysregulated, if you can stay calm and centered yourself, it gives them a place to come back to.

And they can actually take on essentially your calmness, they can regulate with you.

This called co-regulation.

So in therapy, that's kind of what we do.

We as therapists function as that calm center so that somebody coming in who's dysregulated, they can actually come in and use us as that calm center to help them regulate and to calm back down.

One of the challenges in our brain, this is what we talked about last service, is in your midbrain, as Dr.

Lawson mentioned a second ago, midbrain is where we store our emotions and our memories.

And there is no time or date stamp in your midbrain.

So anything that's housed in our midbrain can feel very present and very active.

So if you've got trauma or experiences that have gone on in your life that you've never processed, they will still feel very alive and it will feel like that they are they could have happened five minutes ago, even if it was 20 years ago.

So what happens is in the process of counseling and talk therapy, it creates movement.

We're processing through, we're moving those things from our midbrain to our prefrontal cortex.

In our prefrontal cortex, that's where we have reason and analysis, and that's where your time and date stamp is, so that your front brain can say, hey, that was 20 years ago.

It's not right now.

I'm safe, I'm okay.

I might have gotten triggered, but I'm okay.

This is not active, it's not happening right now.

But if you have not dealt with your stuff, it will, it won't do that, it won't work.

And so we want to in therapy help people move all of this stuff through that process so that it can move to the front brain and actually be dealt with to where you can manage and you can regulate yourself to go, oh no, I am safe.

That was a long time ago.

It's not happening right now.

I think emotionally, one of the challenges that we have is we don't have a lot of spaces where you can emotionally sort of release.

And we don't.

Uh we what we do, even in Christianity, we sort of crack the door.

We have healthy, you know, acceptable emotions, like we can celebrate, we can worship, we do all of these things, we have happy emotions, positive emotions.

The more what we would define as maybe negative, they're not negative, but the more negative emotions, sadness, anger, things like that, we often have these like little bitty windows that things sort of eke out of your life.

The problem is that emotional stuff just builds up inside of you.

It just builds up and builds up and builds up.

And when your prefrontal cortex kicks off, that stuff is also going to come flooding out of you too.

So not only are you dealing with just emotional and reactive process, you're dealing with all the years of all the emotional stuff that has been built up.

We need to have spaces and places where we can release that emotional gunk.

We need to be able, it's like breathing.

We need to breathe it in and breathe it out.

Allow that anger, allow that sadness, allow that anxiety, allow that stress to leave us.

Otherwise, we are constipated.

We're literally emotionally constipated adults.

And and what will happen is once every now and then, when I become dysregulated, that constipation turns into expulsion.

So it's explosive.

Explosive.

Yes.

Great images there.

So stuff your emotions, people.

Um this is the last question.

Uh, tell us about Renew Counseling and how it was birthed and what you guys are doing actually in your Sure.

So, yeah, we're part of Renew Counseling, and it was founded uh about 13 years ago under the umbrella of Renew Church.

So we do function as a nonprofit, which is awesome because it allows us to serve a community to serve it well.

It's no one in our organization is lining their pockets through the services that we're offering.

We are trying just to have enough money to keep our doors open and to provide great services.

But the goal behind Renew Counseling all those years ago was to offer excellent services at an affordable rate.

My commitment has always been that we will never turn anyone away who's genuinely seeking help, regardless of what they can afford.

And so we depend on people and places and organizations around town to help us provide scholarships to people who couldn't afford care otherwise.

Um, think about, you know, for there are actually a lot of people in the world who don't have support systems, who don't have people in their lives that they can talk to, and that they really don't have the resources to get the help that they need.

And so we want to be a place where we are serving a community well, and no matter who someone is, whatever they're going through, whatever their walk of life, whatever their issue is, that they have somewhere they can go to get help.

And so um it's a great organization.

We've got great, great therapists on our team, and we're committed to serving Orlando and serving this community as as well as we can.

So Amen.

Amen.

Dr.

Lawson, before we wrap up, um, I I didn't want to miss an opportunity for you to share.

Um, in the last service, um, we talked about the the intersection between mental health and faith.

And you spoke about unconditional love.

Would you mind sharing a little bit about that and then we're gonna wrap up right after that?

Okay.

I I think the bridge often we we try to create bridges between the mental health community, psychology, counseling, and spirituality and faith.

And it's it's hard because there's structures.

And and honestly, for me, at the end of the day, the way that we the way that I understand connecting those two pieces is unconditional love.

And and it's it's the essence of Jesus coming, it's the essence of us connecting with people unconditionally and and doing that.

And the the difficulty is we don't, we really don't know how to love well.

I mean, it's it's it's one of those things where, you know, first John 4, 7 and 8, but says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knoweth God.

Doesn't say about faith, doesn't say about all the other things that we tend to talk about.

It says if you're loving people well, you are doing God's work.

You love God.

And and if you love it, and those who do not love do not love God.

So I think one of our challenges in the integrative sort of piece is how do we unconditionally love each other well?

And and and Paul ultimately says, we don't know.

We we see through a glass dimly, but then we shall see fully.

When we get to heaven, finally, we shall see what love really looks like.

And so the challenge for us as a community is to constantly be building in.

How do we love each other well?

How do we love each other well?

How do I love you well?

How do you love other people well?

And that's so difficult, but it's something that I think we can do and we can continue to do as a community.

Amen.

Ladies and gentlemen, can we put our hands together for Dr.

Lawson and Dr.

Jones?

Thank you guys so much for joining us.

We're so, so grateful that you could be with us today.

As we prepare to wrap up, I want to give us some time that we can go out to the courtyard and and connect with Dr.

Lawson and Dr.

Jones, maybe ask some questions and learn some next steps.

Um, one of those next steps is to get involved in in counseling.

Um, we have a QR code up there that you can go and check out the website and check out the services that are provided at Renew.

In addition to that, maybe you felt moved by the idea of being able to help sponsor a client that may not be able to have the resources.

We're gonna have that QR code available as well that maybe you want to sew into making mental health services available to someone who may not have the resources to do it.

Nonetheless, I think that all of us have a potential next step that we can take here today.

The Bible tells us in Galatians chapter 6 for us to bear one another's burdens.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

And I think that's such a beautiful vision of the church of us walking alongside each other and caring what other people care about and praying about the things that are burdening each other because that's what a healthy community is meant to look like.

You know, when I think a little bit about um the text that we read earlier with Elijah and 1 Kings chapter 19, there's this moment where he wants to give up on all things, he's in a place of despair.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

And then the Holy Spirit comes and begins to do a work in him, and there's something that I think that is posed to him that I want to pose to you.

The Holy Spirit comes to him and ultimately says to him and says, Elijah, what are you doing here?

Elijah was at a place of isolation, he was at a place of despair, he was at a place where he wanted to give up.

But God met him where he was and says, Now that you're here, where are you gonna go from here?

And I believe that that's a question that maybe all of us have a different response to.

Maybe you are at a place of anxiety and stress and depression.

You're here, God's gonna meet you here, but what are we gonna do with it from here?

Maybe you're at a place of wholeness and you're recognizing the needs that's in the community or even those around you.

Now that we're aware of it, what are we gonna do from here?

How do we take it from here?

For Elijah, he was able to receive a word from God, he got an encounter with God, and it activated him to go on to complete his mission.

And I believe the same thing is true of us.

What are you doing here?

Are you filled with anxiety?

Are you filled with stress?

Are you filled with depression?

Are you filled with despair?

God sees you and he wants to meet you exactly where you are.

I want to pray over you and then I want to go ahead and give us um some next steps and some instructions.

But let me just pray over us, just real gently, where we are.

Lord, I thank you so much for your faithfulness.

And God, I'm grateful that we can be a community, that we can have discussions that that can talk about the power of God while at the same time recognizing the human experience and how do we invite God into it so that we can live lives of abundance and wholeness.

Lord, I pray specifically for our community, for people who may be struggling in silence, people who are wrestling with depression and anxiety and stress.

Lord, I just pray, Father, that you just meet them exactly where they are.

I pray for peace that surpasses all understanding to come alongside and comfort them.

I pray that they can use their voice that can invite trusted people into that process, and that you can order their steps for them to get the care and the support that they need.

So, Father, I just ask for supernatural encounter and healing, but I also ask for practical next steps so we can identify the roots so that we can change the fruit.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Church, we put our hands together for the goodness of God.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

Follow us on social media using the handle at celebrationorl or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.