All Christians

A year ago, I put together a list of goals that I would have loved to see for myself. But who could have predicted all the events that happened this year and put a wreck to anybody and everybody’s plans for the future. Some of it I accomplished, others I had to pivot because of the circumstances and set aside what I had hoped for.

This year has been a struggle for sure. Pandemic, racial tensions, uncontrolled fires in Australia, and an election in the United States that has caused deep divides. In the midst of this, many people are struggling with motivation.

One way we previously recommended dealing with this frustration was to reframe 2020 and not resent it. But what if you just do not have the motivation?

This year we have talked to churches, Christian counselors, and individuals with mental illness or other disorders on how they can find wholeness and restoration through faith and mental health. But there is one category of people we do not want to overlook who are a huge part of the lives of those with mental illness: the caregiver. We put all of our focus on those with mental illness but need to be supporting and caring for the caregiver too. So this article is for you.

Mental health is making a turn towards people actually seeking help and wholeness which started first by building awareness. But to maintain this progress of people restoring their health, awareness needs to keep building. One way to do so is with national international awareness events that dedicate days, weeks, or a month to building awareness. Below is a list of all the types of awareness being promoted.

If you are wanting more resources to not only build awareness to topics of mental health, but incorporate prayer, Scripture, and involvement in Church, check out our mental health awareness cards.

We know that the holidays for mental health can be a very tough time, even more so with COVID in the holidays. So my church has decided that this year we are going to talk about it for the holidays with a series titled Christmas Feels. This is not the first time my church has used the pulpit to address faith and mental health, last year dedicating a whole month during May with mental health awareness month.

Brett Ullman is a person with lived experience with mental illness and being a Christian, talking about what this looks like for his own spiritual and emotional walk. Honestly, the video below doesn’t say anything new with what we already talk about on here, but it’s powerful because it’s from his own lived experience and so I urge you to take the 8 minutes to watch how your church can become a safe place for those with mental illness. If you want to see more about what he has to say about mental health, check out his website here.

We are in the final month of the year that was like any other year in our lifetime. Phrases like “the new normal” have defined many people’s experience, others regularly are posting satire like “I want a refund on 2020.” But I’m going to do a technique counselors use in a session when someone is suffering called reframing and incorporate some of God’s Word into it.

Our friends over at Hope Made Strong who put on the Mental Health Summit that we spoke at. They recently posted a great video talking about why people during the holidays “flip their lid” and how to prevent that for yourself next time you are getting upset.

The Gottman Institute is the leading research in improving relationships for marriages and couples across the world, looking at what the research says instead of taking an idea and trying it out. We actually previously talked about the emotional bank to improve your relationship and the video below takes it one step further in practically how you can apply this. We also share some worksheets you could use today from their The Marriage Clinic book.

The holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years offers for many a time of remembrance for the year, solidarity with our family and friends, and aspirations of a new year as we continue to grow and develop within our abilities and abilities with God. For many with mental illness or mental health problems, the holidays have the opposite effects, reminding them how disjointed they are from loved ones, memories they wish they could forget entirely, and a belief that another year is another failure. And that’s all before COVID hit.