Mental Health and our Faith

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Sarah. I have grown up on a farm, in a Christian home, with 2 brothers and a mum and dad that never stop showing how much they love me. All my life my family has been dedicated and faithful in their faith and I have often heard that typical phrase “trust God.”

However now, as I write this blog, actually I’m sitting drinking a cup of tea behind a laptop, admiring the view out the back of my home having completed a Bachelor in Counselling and holding a desire for people to live their best lives as the best version of themselves. This puts me in an interesting spot between the mentality of “just trust God” and the knowledge that there’s more to it than that. Both my faith and my training guides me in the way I work with and treat people.

In the text; Counselling the Culturally Diverse Theory and Practice (2016), mentions “it appears that people require faith as well as reason to be healthy and that psychology may profit from allowing the spirit to re-join matters of the mind and body.” It seems that society is seeing the importance of the Spirit as well.

 So “trusting God” is absolutely something we can do. We have a God who is bigger than anything we will face in life and He helps us overcome things that don’t seem humanly possible. I just know that sometimes we forget what God has provided for us here. Let me give you some examples.

When I have sickness in my body, and I’m not talking about the “common cold,” but something more serious, something that concerns me or causes me to feel stressed, I can trust God to heal me. But He has also placed people around me that have a passion and knowledge for making people healthy, so I will take practical steps and trust that God will give the doctors the wisdom and understanding to help me be healthy again.

I have also struggled with anxiety that was stopping me from being able to live my best life, I tried praying and distracting myself but often couldn’t find any relief. God said in Genesis 2:18 that it’s not good for us to be alone, and I totally agree with this, because the only times I was able to bring myself down from those moments of anxiety were when I called a friend I knew I could trust and spent some time with them.

Furthermore, my father died when I was 15 years old, and in that instance hearing the phrase “trust God” almost added salt to the wound. I had trusted God to heal my dad and in the end I guess He did, just not in the way I wanted. But in all of that, I did end up trusting God, I trusted that He would surround me with people that would listen to me, cry with me, pray with me, encourage me. It’s not that I didn’t trust God, it’s just that I needed the people/supports He had given me.

I think it’s important to note that our mental health is impacted through so many different aspects of our lives. The mental health struggles we have can be due to many different things: chemical imbalances in our brain; learnt behaviours; irrational thinking patterns; life experiences including traumas, grief, stress and more.

Developing balance in our lives can definitely help minimise the impacts of mental health issues and so I want to speak to this. It’s often through developing our knowledge of the things God has provided for us that we can find the balance for our lives and be the best version of ourselves.

The Spiritual aspect is good for us to acknowledge and consider. For us, as Christians, this is when we read our bibles, pray, and worship, volunteering, singing, dancing and meeting together with other Christians.

In my first year of studies I was surprised and excited to see how much we are taught to allow space for the spiritual aspect of peoples lives. In one of my textbooks it says “The relationship between spirituality and health is highly positive. Those with higher levels of spirituality have lower disease risk, fewer physical health problems, and higher levels of psychosocial functioning” (Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. Counselling the Culturally Diverse Theory and Practice, 2016).

 The Physical – is your health, including eating habits, sleep, housing situation and your overall physical state.

 The Intellectual – we weren’t designed to be idle, consider how you are challenging yourself, trying new things and developing skills such as cooking, sport, career, study, theology, music and so on.

 The Emotional – now, I know this isn’t something that Western culture has been particularly keen on talking about or even acknowledging, we often hear “toughen up,” “don’t be a princess” or “just get over it”. I’m sure you could think of some others to add to that list, so let’s talk about it.

This isn’t about being “emotional” and “soft”, this area includes things like: affirmation; self-compassion; do you get involved with things that you are passionate about; watch funny movies; buy yourself a present; encourage yourself; cuddle with your pet and practice forgiveness. As you can see, the emotional aspect is so much more than smiles and tears, so how are you looking after this part of you?

 The Relational – taking time to spend with family and friends. Do you invest in your family relationships by going to family events, or if you live a long distance from one another? Do you have a family chat where you can share your lives and random moments? Do you invest in your friendships? And how do you do this?

 I’m gonna skip one and come back to it here because I believe that Relational and Recreational sort of run into each other a little. Do you take vacations? Your recreational aspect may also include your hobbies: painting; sport; music etc. How much time in your life do you allow for this?

 The Occupational (+ time and money) – we all know that, sadly, without money things in our lives can become pretty stressful, but it isn’t the “be all and end all”, it is just one aspect of our lives and it doesn’t need to be the main aspect. Something to consider is: does your job cause you more stress than it does help you?

Let’s be realistic here, we can’t always have a job we love, or we won’t absolutely love EVERY DAY that we work, there will be stresses, but is it a job that allows you to respect the other areas of your life or does it overcome them? Does your job challenge you? Does it allow you to be involved in an area you are passionate in?

For me, my job allows me to speak to a passion of mine, to helping others, is your passion helping farmers do the best they can by fixing their machinery, or is your passion giving back to the community by serving it as an honest sales person, or is your passion looking after your children so that they can grow to be healthy and contributing members of society? How is your occupation, your job helping you be the person you desire to be?

 As you can see, all of the different aspects of our lives play into one another and will at times help or hinder other aspects. Finding the balance is the important thing and so making sure that we are:

1.      Looking after our physical body, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

2.      That we build up our network of people, our support systems of family, friends and professionals, Jesus even surrounded himself with people.

3.      That we take time for ourselves, even Jesus took time away from the crowd.

4.      That we limit the practical stresses of money issues by working, from the beginning God designed us to work to have purpose, Genesis 2:15, Adam was placed in the garden “to work it and keep it”.

5.       Making sure our spiritual aspect is fed and living in the freedom this gives.

 I know for myself that maintaining a balance in all these areas can be tough. However, as I am mindful of it and when I make time for the different aspects, I know I am much better off and much more able to give my best in my work, and overall, in my life.

So, as Christians, I encourage you to challenge the “trust God” mentality we hold and how we portray that to others. Not that we can’t trust God, but how do we do this? Mental health is a real and legitimate fact of life, so how do we, as Christians, speak life into this, acknowledging the difficulties it holds and supporting one another along the journey?

Sarah Johnson

Bachelor of Counselling (AIPC 2017)