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So tonight we're going to talk about mental health, and it's a huge topic, as you can

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imagine.

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We could spend weeks just doing a seminar every week on some aspect of mental health.

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And I think that even though we're on the way to the kingdom, we are marching along

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and our sanctification is in process as we go, I think all of us could use a little bit

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of mental health treatment now and then, just because life is hard.

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We live in a fallen world and life is hard.

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Relationships are hard.

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And so it's important for us to understand what we can do and how we can live better

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lives, more fulfilled relationships.

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And so I was really glad to see that this is your text that you are, is the cornerstone,

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the hinge for this series.

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And my area of interest is your mind.

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What do you do with your mind?

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Do you know your mind?

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And how does that impact you on a daily basis?

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So tonight, instead of doing a presentation on depression or anxiety, which I understand

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you've already had at some point, I wanted to get a little more specific and focus on

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your mind, maybe in a little bit of a different way than you might expect.

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But first, I think we need to define terms.

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What is mental health?

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Does anybody want to venture a guess?

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I tend to wonder, because I used to teach.

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I don't tap people and say you, but I do tend to wonder.

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And if I look at you, I don't really mean for you to answer.

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But what is mental health?

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When you hear the term, and we hear it a lot nowadays, what is mental health?

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So two important words, mental, your mind, and health.

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But when we say somebody has a mental health issue, we usually mean that there's something

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wrong with them.

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So let's see if we can understand what mental health is.

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Mental health covers the idea of emotional, psychological, and social well-being.

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So your emotions, your thoughts, and your interaction with people, how we think, how

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we feel, how we act, helps us.

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It helps us to determine how to handle stress and how to handle relationships and then how

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to make choices.

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So when somebody has a mental health issue, very often they are somehow they have some

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negative consequences around these ideas of how to handle stress.

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They're anxious.

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How to relate to people.

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They feel inferior or they feel superior or they feel angry.

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How to make good choices.

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People that have mental health issues in how their mind works, they don't make very good

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choices.

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People spend money.

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People do dangerous things.

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People withdraw.

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So it impacts how we function.

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It's important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

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Those of you who have worked in or work in places where there are children, whether it's

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school or some other place, know that kids have a tremendous amount of pressure on them

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these days.

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Social media puts an amazing amount of pressure on kids who are unable to distinguish between

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reality and fantasy or somebody else's reality and their reality.

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Pressure of being liked and not liked.

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Somebody unliked me and it's a crisis.

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And so kids have a tremendous amount of pressure.

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And adolescents, those of you who work with high school kids, you know the kinds of incredible

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pressures that they are under to conform.

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And it used to be before social media that it was just people in your peer group.

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Now it's the world.

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Now you have to compete with the world.

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And so that adds a tremendous amount of stress.

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Over the course of your life, you experience mental health problems, your thinking, your

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mood, your behavior could be affected.

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Nobody in this room is immune.

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Over the course of your life, all of us have been impacted by our mental health being compromised,

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just like your physical health is sometimes compromised.

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COVID was a huge impact, annual flu, whatever it might be, maybe you went to the doctor

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and you got a bad diagnosis.

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It's the same thing with mental health.

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There used to be, it's not so much anymore, but there used to be this idea that if you're

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a Christian, you don't have mental health problems.

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Or if you're a Christian, you don't have problems.

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Well the reality is when you are a Christian, as a Christian is an invitation for the evil

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one to bring more calamity, to pressure you more in the areas of your mental health, how

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your mind works and so forth and so on.

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So there are contributing factors to mental health.

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Your biology, your genes, your brain chemistry, sometimes brain chemistry is not quite right.

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Life experiences, childhood trauma, so many of us, so many people that we know, their

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parents parented the way they were parented.

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And that hasn't changed very much in the last 100 years except maybe in the last 30 or 40

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years when we got a lot of research about how to be better parents.

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But people would parent the way they were parented.

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My father and my mother were products of the 30s, very difficult times.

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And they parented the way they were parented.

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Their parents had no skills on parenting.

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Kids were to be seen and not heard.

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And maybe some of you can relate to that.

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And so abuse can be born out of that kind of an environment.

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Family history of mental health problems.

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If you know somebody who has a serious mental health problem, chances are there's somebody

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in their family tree that has problems as well.

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So the point of this is to say mental health and mental health issues affects us all.

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We are not immune to that.

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It's just to the degree.

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So I was, I spoke to Sarah and said, what is it that you really want me to focus on?

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And she gave some suggestions about maybe some skills of how to deal with relationships,

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how to deal with mental health struggles.

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And I thought one thing that we might do is because I want to focus on how the mind works,

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is I want to give you a list of 10 what we call cognitive distortions that we all use.

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And a cognitive distortion, here's the thing.

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I'm ahead of myself.

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I'll be right back.

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So this list is a list of signs and symptoms that you or if you're in a friendship with

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somebody who is exhibiting these signs can be indicators of some kind of mental health

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distress, mental health malfunction.

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So just scan through this list and make a mental note, if you will, of the kinds of

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things that you might see or experience that could be early warning signs, early warning

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signs of some kind of mental health issue.

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Remember, it can be mood, it can be emotion, it can be psychological.

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Mind size does not fit all in mental health.

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Any questions or observations about this list?

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When we see clients, when I see clients, very often clients come in because they have a

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problem that they want to solve or they have a question.

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And that question usually has something to do with I need help in whatever it is, figuring

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something out.

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The question that is asked is very rarely the issue that the person has.

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So it's like opening a can of worms.

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People generally don't come and say, you know, I've got a pride problem.

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I really need some help with, I'm just really proud and I know it's a spiritual issue and

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it's a mental health issue.

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No.

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They usually come with some other issue about relationships or so forth.

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So maybe this will be helpful for you just make a little bit of a mental note about it.

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So your mind is a liar.

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What?

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My mind is a liar?

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Yes.

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Your mind lies to you.

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Your mind tells you to think and feel things that are generally not correct.

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You experience the world in a particular way.

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You relate to people in a particular way.

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But if there were four of us relating to the same person, we'd each have a different experience.

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It's like the old thing about five people saw a car accident, everybody had a different

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story.

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Well, it's the same thing with our minds.

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And I'm going to show you tonight that your mind lies to you and you don't even know it.

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I don't know it.

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Because what we do is we tell ourselves stories about events.

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We tell ourselves stories about relationships, and those stories are not always accurate.

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So let's go through these 10 what we call cognitive distortions.

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In other words, your mind is trying to make sense of the world, and it does it in various

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ways.

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So the first one is called all or nothing thinking.

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And as we go through this list, just make a mental note and see if any of this resonates

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with you.

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So the thinking is, if I can't do it perfectly, I'll not do it at all.

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I ate one cookie, I'm off my diet, I may as well eat the whole batch.

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It's all or nothing.

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All or nothing.

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I'm so far in debt, I'll never get out.

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I may as well buy whatever it is.

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I may as well buy a new iPhone.

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That's thinking.

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And I want to make a distinction between thinking and feeling for us tonight, because this is

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very often at the heart of mental illness, is we feel something because of our cognitive

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distortion.

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We feel a certain way because our thinking is not accurate or our thinking is crooked.

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So when you think these things, you could feel helpless, depressed, or justified in

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giving up.

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So let me just talk about thinking and feeling just a little more.

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And if you have questions about that, please just interrupt me.

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We're all family here.

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When you ask somebody, how are you doing today?

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They might say something like, I think I'm doing okay.

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You asked for a feeling and they gave you a thought.

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So we sometimes confuse the two.

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What you think is different than what you feel.

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And what we believe is an event, an event that leads us to feel something is because

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of the event.

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I lost my wallet.

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I feel desperate.

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I feel afraid.

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I feel frantic.

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Well, it wasn't the fact that I lost, it wasn't the wallet's fault.

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But it's what I told myself about losing the wallet.

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I have to pay for my parking and not be able to get my car out.

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They're going to steal my credit.

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And so we get frantic.

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But the real issue about having lost your wallet didn't create that feeling.

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Somebody might say, who lost their wallet?

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I'll just call a credit card company and it'll be fine.

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Somebody else is panicked.

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Why?

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It's the same event.

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It's what you tell yourself about that event that leads you to feel the feelings that you

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feel.

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An event doesn't create the feeling.

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Right.

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Right.

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So we need to ask ourselves, where did these thoughts come from?

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Because every feeling that you feel is based on a thought.

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And when I first heard that, I was probably in graduate school, I said, nah, that's not

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true.

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My feelings are real because somebody did something to me and I feel what you feel because

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what you think about that event.

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And so there are some people who have what's called all or nothing thinking.

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It's like, it's either this or it's that.

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But life is lived in the gray.

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Life is all about living in the gray.

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Overgeneralizing.

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So the thinking is, I'm never going to get a good job.

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I'm always messing up.

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This marriage will never get any better than it is now.

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God will never love me because of...

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You ever find yourself overgeneralizing?

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It's like making these big sweeping statements.

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Generalizing, it's all going to be bad.

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Or on the other side, it's all fantastic all the time.

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Well overgeneralizing, that kind of thinking can leave you feeling sad or depressed or

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hopeless, things are never going to change, anxious, maybe even frustrated and angry.

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So can you see that this thinking pattern here contributes to that feeling?

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When we overgeneralize, we see things in a certain way and that can lead to mental health

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issues.

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Which way am I going?

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Black and white thinking.

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I've had many, many clients who come in and they tend to overgeneralize but they also

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have black and white thinking.

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Where there is no gray area.

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And they come in feeling angry and mistreated and victimized or very discouraged.

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I'm a complete failure.

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My spouse is such an idiot.

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This belongs to another one as well that we will come to.

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I'm the only one who gets things done around here.

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If you've ever been in a marriage or if you lived in the dorm with somebody who didn't

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pull their weight or a co-worker and you were the one who was always doing the stuff, so

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you thought.

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Black and white thinking.

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I love my mother-in-law.

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She's a wonderful person and she lives with us and she's lived with us now for five years

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and she's just turned 89.

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But she's a mind reader.

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It's an incredible skill.

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It's not accurate but it's an incredible skill.

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We'll be eating breakfast sometime and there'll be one little link left and I've had my two

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and so my wife passes it to her and she said, oh, Stanley wants this.

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And she's doing it out of generosity and she's doing it out of love.

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She's reading my mind.

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She will often say, well, you want to do this, don't you?

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And if you're ever married to somebody who reads your mind, it can be frustrating.

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I used to think it was a skill.

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When I was in graduate school, I just longed to sit with somebody and stroke my...

244
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:08,480
I didn't have a beard but I wanted to stroke my beard and be very thoughtful and say, yes,

245
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:13,320
you're thinking this and you're feeling that and all the rest of it.

246
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:19,400
And I learned very, very quickly from my professors that I was engaging in an activity that was

247
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:22,940
not appropriate because we don't know what you're thinking.

248
00:20:22,940 --> 00:20:25,480
We don't know what you want.

249
00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:32,200
But we make assumptions about each other and that interferes with a genuine relationship.

250
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:44,360
It can lead to the feeling of being sometimes angry or vindictive or upset or even insecure,

251
00:20:44,360 --> 00:20:48,040
anxious and fearful, assuming that people don't like me.

252
00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:51,480
Oh, I know she doesn't like me.

253
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:53,520
See how she looked at me?

254
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:55,800
She doesn't like me.

255
00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:59,320
Somebody disliked me on Facebook.

256
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:08,240
I feel insecure about that or I'm going to get him or I'm going to get her because I

257
00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:12,240
know what's going on in their mind.

258
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:14,440
My kids must think I'm such a jerk.

259
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:18,640
Well, you don't know that.

260
00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:20,440
I know exactly how you feel.

261
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:22,640
Have you ever had somebody say that to you?

262
00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:25,320
Oh, I know exactly how you feel.

263
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:29,920
That happened to me one time and all of a sudden it's about them.

264
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:33,160
All of a sudden you were sharing something about your life and now they're telling you

265
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:35,160
their life story.

266
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:44,360
So that can lead to the sense of being upset or even angry.

267
00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:49,680
I was telling you my story and you hijacked my story and started telling me how you feel

268
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:51,860
exactly the same way.

269
00:21:51,860 --> 00:22:01,600
So the thinking, the mind reading can lead to some negative feelings.

270
00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:03,600
Yes?

271
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:11,880
It could be, yes.

272
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:19,880
So the mind reading is what we'll call the wounded well.

273
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:20,880
That's us.

274
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:21,880
Right?

275
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,080
So it's on a continuum.

276
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:30,640
So if you go this way far enough, then it can become paranoia.

277
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:31,640
Absolutely.

278
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:35,440
Then everybody doesn't like me.

279
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:38,920
I know what people, I know what you're thinking about.

280
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:43,920
It becomes very intrusive.

281
00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:47,440
So yes, exactly right.

282
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:55,160
But for the wounded well, some of us tend to just assume we know what people think,

283
00:22:55,160 --> 00:23:00,560
assume we know what people want.

284
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:05,480
And that can be frustrating.

285
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:07,800
Catastrophizing.

286
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:13,400
So this is a cognitive dissonance where everything is bad or everything's fantastic.

287
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:14,880
Catastrophizing.

288
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:17,040
This relationship is never going to work out.

289
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:18,760
I'm going to fail for sure.

290
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,480
You just know it's the worst case scenario always.

291
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:23,120
Have you ever met somebody like that?

292
00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:24,120
We call them negative.

293
00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:31,180
Well, they're negative because the way they see the world is everything's a catastrophe.

294
00:23:31,180 --> 00:23:35,120
Everything bad's going to, I'm going to make a complete fool of myself when I sing special

295
00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:36,120
music.

296
00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:37,120
I just know it.

297
00:23:37,120 --> 00:23:39,120
I just know what's going to happen.

298
00:23:39,120 --> 00:23:40,120
Wow.

299
00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:41,120
That's quite a skill.

300
00:23:41,120 --> 00:23:44,120
You know what's going to happen.

301
00:23:44,120 --> 00:23:45,120
Right?

302
00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:46,120
She's late.

303
00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:50,320
She's in the car and she's in a ditch somewhere and she's going to die.

304
00:23:50,320 --> 00:24:00,440
Had a client not too long ago say something very similar to that and she really had this

305
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:06,600
thinking process that led her to see everything as a crisis, not only just a crisis but a

306
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:08,600
dangerous crisis.

307
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:15,880
And I'm going to be stuck in this job forever.

308
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:27,520
So that can lead to the feeling of being anxious or fearful about the future or can prevent

309
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:29,360
real helpful action.

310
00:24:29,360 --> 00:24:35,840
When you think in sort of this, in these catastrophic terms, it can immobilize you.

311
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,160
And I don't know if you know anybody like that.

312
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:44,880
It's like they're frozen because everything is so bad that they don't even want to try

313
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:45,880
anything.

314
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:46,880
Right?

315
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:47,880
Any questions so far?

316
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:48,880
I know I'm going really fast through this.

317
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:49,880
Any questions so far?

318
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:50,880
Okay.

319
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:51,880
Emotional reasoning.

320
00:24:51,880 --> 00:25:06,880
If somebody feels, so I flipped these because for this one, sometimes the feeling needs

321
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,880
to be thinking.

322
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:17,160
So emotional reasoning, you feel anxious in social situations, therefore I must be an

323
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:18,920
awkward person.

324
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:27,080
Well, being an awkward person is different than having some anxiety about being with

325
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:28,760
people.

326
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:32,760
Being an awkward person is something completely different.

327
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:41,200
But their reasoning goes from this emotional state to this thinking that says because I'm

328
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:49,760
feeling this emotion, then I must have this deficit.

329
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:55,760
Feeling hopeless about improving your marriage, there's nothing that can be done.

330
00:25:55,760 --> 00:26:08,000
Again, this is that sense of not being able to think rationally and everything is this

331
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:12,120
sense of hopelessness, this emotional state.

332
00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:13,120
Labeling.

333
00:26:13,120 --> 00:26:18,360
I come from a family, and I won't tell you which side of the family, but I come from

334
00:26:18,360 --> 00:26:25,480
a family in which labeling is sport.

335
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:27,960
Everyone's an idiot.

336
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:28,960
Everyone's stupid.

337
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,760
Everyone's a fool.

338
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,680
And that guy cut me off.

339
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:35,680
What a jerk.

340
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:42,240
Now, there probably isn't anybody in the room who hasn't labeled at one time or the other,

341
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:48,280
but there are people for whom this way of thinking is chronic.

342
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:55,160
They cannot engage with anybody without putting some kind of a label on them.

343
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:57,480
Sometimes it's done.

344
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,880
The ulterior motive is to make me feel good about myself.

345
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:07,600
If I can label you, then I feel better about myself.

346
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:13,240
But it can also have the sense of being trapped.

347
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:17,720
So I have to label somebody because I feel trapped.

348
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:19,720
I made a mistake at work today.

349
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,960
I'm a loser.

350
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:24,920
My son made a bad choice.

351
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,960
He's a bad kid.

352
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:35,720
Parents can sometimes fall into that trap, particularly with other people's children,

353
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:45,120
because your kids are always good, but everyone else's kids are, oh, they're just brats.

354
00:27:45,120 --> 00:27:48,720
I messed up in this relationship.

355
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,960
I must be broken.

356
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:56,960
So you messed up in one relationship.

357
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:01,760
I messed up.

358
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:08,400
When there's a possibility that you could learn something from having a broken relationship,

359
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,680
you could learn something about yourself.

360
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:15,880
Maybe there's some things that would be important for you to change.

361
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:22,760
But if you label it, it's easier to discount.

362
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:29,520
So if I label you, it's easy for me to then be really cruel to you because you're no longer

363
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:30,520
you.

364
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,520
You're a label.

365
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:35,520
Yes.

366
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:37,520
Yeah.

367
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:39,520
Yeah.

368
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:51,280
There was somebody in leadership in this country a few years ago that was one of his favorite

369
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:58,200
tactics was to call people names.

370
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:04,760
It's also at a very low developmental age.

371
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,400
It's what happens on playgrounds.

372
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:13,840
It's what happens between three and four-year-olds.

373
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,640
It's an immature way of seeing the world.

374
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:22,160
But if I can label you, then I can feel really pretty good about myself.

375
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,040
That's the strategy.

376
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:34,640
So this is a cognitive dissonance that I see everyone in the world as being some kind of

377
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:35,640
a label.

378
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:46,640
But I can feel trapped and hopeless about it because mental filtering.

379
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:52,240
Have you ever gotten a compliment from somebody and immediately dismissed it?

380
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:59,320
You get a compliment and you say something like, well, if they only knew.

381
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:07,560
Or somebody compliments your weight or a dress or a shirt or something like that.

382
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:14,880
But your weight in particular, it's like, I'm not even close to my goal weight.

383
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:20,160
Rather than saying thank you.

384
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:35,520
We tend to filter out the good stuff and people who think this way

385
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:40,280
have a sense of brokenness about them.

386
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:50,240
There's something about them that they just can't take it all in.

387
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:57,240
Have you ever really, you've had a failure and you just keep going over it and over it

388
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:58,240
and over it.

389
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:02,360
You can't let it go.

390
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:09,760
You had that one situation and now that's the only focus that you have.

391
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:16,840
You can't, there's no room for any of the good part of you because you're filtering

392
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:21,760
it out.

393
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:26,160
Personalization.

394
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:37,640
Everything others do is about you so you think if something bad happens it's your fault.

395
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:43,760
Depending on the family that you were raised in, this can really be something that you

396
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:49,280
learn at an early age.

397
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:54,360
And we could talk about birth order and some of those things.

398
00:31:54,360 --> 00:32:06,040
But if you're in a family where you got punished for somebody else's stuff at an early age,

399
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:10,840
it would be easy then to begin to see the world that way.

400
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:24,480
That you blame yourself or for example, my son misbehaved, I must be a bad mother.

401
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:34,560
It's taking on the hurt and the anger and the brokenness because you think it's all

402
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,680
about you.

403
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:45,320
So sometimes people have this way of seeing the world that they kind of are responsible

404
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:46,320
for people's feelings.

405
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:49,120
They're responsible for what's going on.

406
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:54,120
Somebody doesn't like them on Facebook and they take it on personally.

407
00:32:54,120 --> 00:33:03,320
Cashier didn't smile at me and so that comes across as being they just disrespected me.

408
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:08,480
And really the reality is it could be something entirely different.

409
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,080
It's not always about you.

410
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:20,560
I remember when our daughters were young, we have twins, and I was the stepfather and

411
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:29,480
I came in and they were at that stage where they were pretty narcissistic as young children

412
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:31,680
tend to be.

413
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:38,040
And I wasn't a very sophisticated father at that point and I would say, it's not always

414
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,640
about you because they would take on.

415
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:47,680
They would always think it was them, it was their fault or they needed praise all the

416
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:48,680
time.

417
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,680
It's not always about you.

418
00:33:51,680 --> 00:34:00,560
That wasn't a particularly great stellar moment in parenting for myself, but that's the sense

419
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:08,800
is that people, there are some people who feel like the sun rises and sets on them.

420
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:14,640
It's all about them.

421
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:15,640
Unreal ideal.

422
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:26,280
Have you ever had this feeling that everybody else is doing better than me?

423
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:27,280
Yes, sir.

424
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:42,600
So, you would ask them about that reality.

425
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:46,280
I would ask them about that reality.

426
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:57,760
I would say something like, ask questions about, because they were, by the time I came

427
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:05,240
into their life, they were six, five or six, so they had enough cognitive structure that

428
00:35:05,240 --> 00:35:07,720
they could communicate with me.

429
00:35:07,720 --> 00:35:12,800
I would want to know why they felt that way.

430
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:20,400
What was it that led them to feel like they would be responsible for that or that it was

431
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,400
about them?

432
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:29,840
A great line, a great parenting line, a great therapist line is, tell me more about how

433
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:36,040
you feel about that so I can understand.

434
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:47,720
Just becoming curious because there are some people who just have a hard time exiting the

435
00:35:47,720 --> 00:35:54,400
stage and letting somebody else be the focus of attention.

436
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:55,880
So I'd probably do something like that.

437
00:35:55,880 --> 00:36:02,280
I'm not sure that that's even exactly right, but that's what comes to mind now.

438
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:03,280
How about you?

439
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,280
What do you think you might do?

440
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:12,480
Do you have any thoughts about that?

441
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:17,680
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

442
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:25,320
You know, all of these things are, we all reflect some of these things from time to

443
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:26,320
time.

444
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,320
This is all part of the human condition.

445
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:38,160
This, okay, this is confession.

446
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:40,280
I'm the youngest of six boys.

447
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:41,280
Six boys.

448
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,920
And I'm the youngest by a long way.

449
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:57,480
My mom was done having kids and then, now I'm the best of them and she let me know that,

450
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:58,600
right?

451
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:05,200
So the way that was countered by the rest of the family was, he's a show off, stuff

452
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:07,360
showing off.

453
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:16,880
I was just living in the glow of my mother's love that was so lavish that I did think it

454
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,880
was all about me.

455
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:31,920
I got married and my wife helped me understand that it's not always about me.

456
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:38,880
In fact, it's seldom about me.

457
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:43,960
That's an exaggeration, but you get the point is that sometimes we get into relationships

458
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,760
with people and they put us in our place.

459
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:49,520
Now, we can feel angry about that.

460
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:50,520
We can feel frustrated.

461
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:55,240
It's like, well, my mother, she didn't treat me this way.

462
00:37:55,240 --> 00:38:02,040
I mean, I have to, you know, one of the best things and the worst things my wife ever said

463
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:09,520
to me was when, thank you, we were dating, she said, I don't need you.

464
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:11,800
What?

465
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:13,800
You don't need me?

466
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:14,800
But I'm a rescuer.

467
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:15,800
I'm the sunshine.

468
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:16,800
She said, I want you.

469
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,800
But I don't need you.

470
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:28,600
Wow, that was, my little head just almost exploded because my life had been built around

471
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:34,600
this idea that it's about me.

472
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:41,720
And I have the power, quote unquote, the power to make people feel a certain way, you know,

473
00:38:41,720 --> 00:38:46,080
because it's all about me.

474
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:58,400
So I blessed my wife and at the time I was not very happy.

475
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:06,400
I once had a couple come in to see me and they were concerned about their son.

476
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:14,920
He had some, he was feeling depressed and he was feeling that maybe the world would

477
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,320
be better off without him.

478
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:29,600
And I had the sense that they kind of felt responsible in some kind of a way.

479
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:35,120
And I had to reassure them that they weren't bad parents.

480
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:39,080
They were concerned about their son.

481
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:47,280
But they had the sense that what he was going through was a reflection on them.

482
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:52,320
Now there are some cultures in which the family is the most important thing.

483
00:39:52,320 --> 00:40:00,360
And if you do something inappropriate, it is a reflection on the parents.

484
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:08,680
You remember that story about, you know, the Bible where the disciple says, who sinned

485
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:10,880
that this man was blind?

486
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:15,160
Well, it wasn't that anybody had sinned.

487
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:18,040
It wasn't this kind of a thing.

488
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:22,960
He was blind in order to show the glory of God, but that's a whole another story.

489
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:35,440
But that idea that somehow it's about me is, when you find out it's not, you can have these

490
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,440
feelings, right?

491
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:42,200
Thanks for the question, though.

492
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:46,160
All my friends are married and happy and my life's a mess.

493
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:48,320
No one's been through what I've been through.

494
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,200
Nobody knows what I've been through.

495
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:56,560
So how can I, I'm just never good enough.

496
00:40:56,560 --> 00:41:02,560
You might know people who just have this, everybody's doing better than I am and I'm

497
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:06,320
never going to make it.

498
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:12,280
The idea that everyone else's world is better than, you know, your own.

499
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:18,440
Facebook and YouTube have contributed to that because Facebook and YouTube, you see people

500
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:22,160
on their best day doing their best thing.

501
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:27,720
You don't know that they made 14 cakes before that one turned out perfectly, right?

502
00:41:27,720 --> 00:41:30,720
But you think, oh, they'll be able to make a cake.

503
00:41:30,720 --> 00:41:34,880
Well, did you see how many they had to throw away?

504
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:35,880
No.

505
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:41,440
But that idea that everyone else is doing better than me and so I'm never going to amount

506
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:46,080
to anything and so there must be something wrong with me.

507
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:50,240
So you can see how this kind of thinking leads to that feeling, right?

508
00:41:50,240 --> 00:41:56,340
If you think this way, if you see the world this way, then you're going to have some feelings.

509
00:41:56,340 --> 00:42:03,680
But what we do is we tell ourselves that the feelings are accurate.

510
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,840
The feelings must be true.

511
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:13,320
But the feelings only exist because of how we think.

512
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:18,240
And I know my time is running out, isn't it?

513
00:42:18,240 --> 00:42:19,240
Right?

514
00:42:19,240 --> 00:42:20,240
7.30.

515
00:42:20,240 --> 00:42:21,240
Okay.

516
00:42:21,240 --> 00:42:22,240
Oh, good.

517
00:42:22,240 --> 00:42:27,240
So now what?

518
00:42:27,240 --> 00:42:32,600
So the idea is to begin to notice what you are thinking.

519
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:38,160
What is the pattern based on what you've seen tonight?

520
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:39,160
And I know it's a blur.

521
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:40,160
It's a blur.

522
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:45,920
You can go online to somebody's best day and you can find all of this information.

523
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:56,200
But begin to recognize what you think, particularly when there's a crisis, particularly when somebody

524
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,560
says something to you and you have a feeling.

525
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:03,480
Take a deep breath and say, what am I thinking about that?

526
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:08,920
What does that mean that that person looked at me that way?

527
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:15,640
My automatic thought is there's something wrong with me or I did something wrong.

528
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:25,480
And challenge your thinking because your thinking, your mind lies to you.

529
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:28,880
You have what we call automatic thoughts.

530
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:35,000
And they could be any of these thoughts, patterns that we just saw tonight.

531
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:40,200
When you notice your thinking pattern, you can learn to change it.

532
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:43,640
You can change your thinking.

533
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:46,160
You can take a deep breath.

534
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:49,400
And I'm going to show you something here in just a second.

535
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:51,460
Get another perspective from a close friend.

536
00:43:51,460 --> 00:43:55,640
If you see this pattern over and over and over again, you have to be careful.

537
00:43:55,640 --> 00:44:00,360
You have to be able to really trust that this person will give you honest feedback in order

538
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:04,680
to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but somebody who will challenge you.

539
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:06,160
But check with somebody.

540
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:13,400
Check with a therapist who can challenge your thinking.

541
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:15,160
Look for words that you use.

542
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:23,480
For example, if you use words like always and never and forever and I know what he thinks

543
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:31,600
and feels, if those are kind of the words that you are gravitating towards, challenge

544
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:43,360
them because these forever words, these catastrophic words, these words that are global are generally

545
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,360
not accurate.

546
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,360
Yes?

547
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:55,360
Yeah, yeah.

548
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,360
Yeah.

549
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,360
Yeah.

550
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,360
Yeah.

551
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,360
Yeah.

552
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:12,120
So you know, our bodies are so complex.

553
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,840
We have our antenna out all the time.

554
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:22,760
As you are sitting there listening to me, your antenna is out and you are sensing how

555
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:28,280
your body feels and what's going on and what you're thinking and what you're feeling.

556
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:29,280
It's a great question.

557
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:36,400
There are some people who get physically sick before they know what it is that they're feeling.

558
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:42,400
And once they figure out what they're feeling, then they can change their thinking about

559
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:43,400
it.

560
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:47,880
You know, people just want to crawl under the covers and, you know, because it's just

561
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,400
everything is so bad.

562
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:52,880
It's a physiological response.

563
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:56,000
They're tired and they run down.

564
00:45:56,000 --> 00:46:01,160
It's a physiological response to how they're seeing the world or how they are thinking.

565
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:07,040
So the thinking and the physiological and the feelings, it all kind of comes together.

566
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:12,160
But for some people, they are much more sensitive physiologically than others.

567
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:16,160
There are some people who say they don't feel.

568
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,280
Well, we all feel something.

569
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:27,160
We can deny our feelings, but it comes out of our body in a kind of a way.

570
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:33,200
If you have ever been in a relationship breakup, you know how it just feels like somebody is

571
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:41,200
sitting on your chest sometimes, partly because of what you tell yourself about the breakup.

572
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:45,760
This breakup is just crushing me, right?

573
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:50,160
Or this breakup is just taking everything out of me, right?

574
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:55,160
And then your body says, oh yeah, it really has.

575
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:57,200
You feel.

576
00:46:57,200 --> 00:47:00,440
So they are intimately, intimately connected.

577
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:08,520
Because when we work with people who are trauma survivors in particular, we want them to begin

578
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:12,160
to pay attention to how their body feels.

579
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:17,860
Because whatever you deny, your body feels.

580
00:47:17,860 --> 00:47:23,960
If you feel it, allow yourself to feel it, change your thinking about it, you spare your

581
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:30,720
body the agony because all of us, our bodies are like sponges.

582
00:47:30,720 --> 00:47:39,600
But it comes from how you view the world, how you view the event, what you think about.

583
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:43,120
Challenge your thoughts and don't believe everything you think.

584
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:53,280
Now that's not to say that, you know, I'm, that sermon or that person, you don't want

585
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,920
to start writing your thoughts off.

586
00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:04,080
But what you think about relationships, what you think about what happens to you, how you

587
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:09,840
see the world and the story you tell yourself about those events.

588
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:13,520
Because your mind is telling you a story.

589
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:19,720
It's telling you a story even now about this experience.

590
00:48:19,720 --> 00:48:24,320
Maybe some of you are discounting what I've said.

591
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:26,480
It's an automatic thought.

592
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:27,480
That's okay.

593
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,640
But challenge it.

594
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:34,680
See if it's true or not.

595
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:40,600
And if you have a strong feeling, a strong emotional response to something, check out

596
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:42,600
what you're thinking.

597
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:43,600
Stop.

598
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:44,600
Take a breath.

599
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:45,600
Take a walk.

600
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:50,960
If you're really emotionally charged up.

601
00:48:50,960 --> 00:49:00,720
And then ask yourself the questions about what you are thinking.

602
00:49:00,720 --> 00:49:02,240
Challenge the story.

603
00:49:02,240 --> 00:49:05,200
So we'll take just a minute on this.

604
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:07,760
So you ran into Walmart and saw a friend of yours.

605
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:08,760
She was short with you.

606
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:15,580
You're barely, you're barely taking time to speak to you and hurried away.

607
00:49:15,580 --> 00:49:19,600
So your automatic thoughts could be, that was rude.

608
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:21,600
She disrespected me.

609
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:22,600
Angry.

610
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:23,840
She never ignores me.

611
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,560
She always has something to say to me.

612
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:28,560
Worried.

613
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,560
What did I do or say?

614
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,560
Or labeling.

615
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:38,640
What a jerk.

616
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:43,720
So let me do this first.

617
00:49:43,720 --> 00:49:47,480
In challenging your thoughts, create a list.

618
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,280
And it can be the craziest list.

619
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:50,280
It can be anything.

620
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:54,240
But create a list of alternatives of what it could be.

621
00:49:54,240 --> 00:50:03,360
So your automatic thoughts are, could be some of these.

622
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:07,400
Here are some sort of made up things as alternatives.

623
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:13,160
She had a fight with her husband this morning.

624
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:14,160
She's upset.

625
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:19,840
Her dog was in the car and she had to hurry back out.

626
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:22,560
She had something in the oven and had to hurry home.

627
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:28,680
Her husband was waiting in the car, maybe with the dog.

628
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:31,280
Or she had a bad headache.

629
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,120
She just got up on the wrong side of the bed.

630
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:36,200
Hey, it's early onset dementia.

631
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:37,200
Who knows?

632
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:43,120
But it might not be about you.

633
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:45,400
It could be anything.

634
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:47,800
So these are kind of crazy.

635
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:55,800
But the idea is to challenge your thinking if your automatic thought is to blame or to

636
00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:02,760
catastrophize or to personalize or any of these to label.

637
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:04,280
Challenge the thinking.

638
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:11,800
Challenge your automatic responses because those automatic responses come from your life

639
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:16,080
experiences, they come from your personality, they come from your brain chemistry, they

640
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:18,080
come from a lot of places.

641
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:22,440
But they're not always accurate.

642
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:26,120
And you can create what we call neuro pathways.

643
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:30,240
It's like this is the easiest way to think about things.

644
00:51:30,240 --> 00:51:38,040
Rather than looking at the evidence and evaluating it and challenging how you think, it's just

645
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:45,600
sometimes easier just to label somebody and move on or to blame yourself and move on.

646
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:55,960
But mental health, and I use health in the term in the sense that of being well, being

647
00:51:55,960 --> 00:52:05,400
healthy, is we want to have the most accurate perception of our relationships that we can

648
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:09,580
and not just with each other but with ourselves.

649
00:52:09,580 --> 00:52:14,800
So that we're not always one down or we're not always broken or we're not always feeling

650
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:20,100
depressed or we're not always feeling anxious.

651
00:52:20,100 --> 00:52:27,960
In order to not have those feelings, in order to have the wellness that we need, we need

652
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:34,960
to think more accurately and to challenge all of these distortions.

653
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:39,160
And we have distortions because, like I said at the beginning, we're in a broken world,

654
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:41,440
we're broken people.

655
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:47,240
And we're doing the best we can to survive, but sometimes our survival skills hurt us

656
00:52:47,240 --> 00:52:49,920
and we don't even know it.

657
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:57,040
So I know that was a lot of information and I hope some of it resonates.

658
00:52:57,040 --> 00:53:02,320
And if you want more, you can find a way to find it.

659
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,560
Let's have a prayer before we go.

660
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:14,240
Our Father in Heaven, we are so grateful that you are a God who listens and that you hear

661
00:53:14,240 --> 00:53:25,360
us when we cry, even when our cries are inappropriate, even when we need to praise instead of cry.

662
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:27,320
We know that you hear.

663
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:31,880
We know that you have experienced all of these things and been challenged by these things,

664
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:34,040
but you overcame.

665
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:35,040
So that's our prayer.

666
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:43,240
That when God the Father sees us, he will see a loving Jesus who embraces us in spite

667
00:53:43,240 --> 00:53:48,040
of our weaknesses, in spite of the challenges that we have.

668
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:54,520
And I pray that each day our seeking will be for your Kingdom to come in our lives.

669
00:53:54,520 --> 00:54:02,320
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.