
Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
335. Beyond the Stigma: Faith and Mental Health Reimagined
Dorcas Cheng-Tozun joins us to discuss her new Bible study, "Mental Health: Experiencing God's Care for Our Mind, Body, and Spirit," and shares her personal journey through burnout, depression, and healing. We explore how faith communities can better respond to mental health needs with compassion rather than judgment, while discovering how scripture reveals God's deep understanding of our struggles.
• Made for Pax creates resources for millennials and Gen Z that incorporate art, justice, and contemplative practices
• The harmful myth that "faith is all I need" equates mental health struggles with spiritual failure
• Jesus himself experienced trauma throughout his life, giving him a profound understanding of our suffering
• Caring for our mental health is a sacred practice that increases our capacity to care for others
• Beauty and brokenness coexist in our stories, making space for both healing and struggle
• Contemplative practices like loving-kindness meditation can ground us in challenging times
Find "Mental Health: A Six-Week Interactive Bible Study" by Dorcas Chang-Tozin, published by IVY Press, available soon wherever books are sold.
Learn more about Made for Pax
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
- Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online coaching center and meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
- Download the "Overcoming Hurtful Words" Study Guide PDF: BECOMING EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
- Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon
- Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
- Learn more about my books and work: Janell Rardon
- Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme, here on today's Heartlift.
Speaker 1:I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time. Heartlifters, pull up your chair close, close, close, or perhaps turn up your headphones. However, you're listening with that cup of something delicious, your journal and a pen pencil colored pencils, whatever you use Because today, as I have already told you, we have the beautiful Dorcas Chang Tozin with us and her brand new coming out very soon Mental Health, a six-week interactive Bible study experiencing God's care for our Mind, our Body and Our Spirit by, you know, my favorite press, ivy Press, and Dorcas welcome. Thank you for being here, for putting up with my crazy schedule and being flexible, so thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Of course, janelle, I'm so happy to be here. Of course, chanel, I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:As I said before we hit record, there are just layers and layers to this work, to your work and to your story. So I'm going to try and be as succinct as possible. And I am so curious because, prior to getting your information and your new Bible study, I did not know about Made for Pax. And I need to know about Made for Pax and I am sure that all of my listeners need to know. Could you tell us where, why, when, all the things around your involvement and what that center does?
Speaker 2:So Madeair Packs is a nonprofit that started oh, I want to say maybe about seven years ago now, and it has a beautiful mission of focusing on trying to reach the next generation millennials, gen Zs and now Gen Alpha.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's another one.
Speaker 2:Gen Zs and now Gen Alpha, especially young adults of color who oftentimes do not see their perspective represented well in churches and faith materials, and so our goal was to produce experiences, materials, resources that would really speak to that demographic, that would draw them close to God in ways that felt really meaningful to them. So speaking to topics that are particularly relevant to their lived experience, but also incorporating art justice, contemplation, incorporating art justice, contemplation. I think these are all aspects of what healthy spirituality looks like.
Speaker 2:And I think it's particularly appealing for today's young adults who are not just wanting the really heady intellectual stuff which has its place and I love that stuff, I'm all about it, yes. But art and poetry, personal stories, those have all been interwoven into the story of faith for millennia right, and that is part of the human experience and that is part of what our soul and our spirit are often looking for right. In terms of what does true holistic spirituality and faith and connection with the divine and our fellow human beings look like?
Speaker 1:look like yeah, how would you? I'm curious. You mentioned the topics of what they would be interested in, and I've got to know all about Gen Alpha because I've just now heard that. So Gen Alpha would be referring to what age group?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe Gen Alpha starts around 2010. Yeah, I believe Gen Alpha starts around 2010. So they're still fairly young at this point, but like entering high school soon to be, you know, college students and beyond.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you, dorcas, define healthy spirituality, like, is that synonymous for authentic spirituality? I'm very curious. Today, I love your mind, your brain and your work, so I want you to help raise our intellectual standard.
Speaker 2:You know, I would have to say this is just from my perspective. I am not a theologian, but I am certainly a thinker, and a deep feeler, and so I have come to appreciate spirituality. Yes for sure that is authentic, but that is actively seeking. Questioning is okay with not understanding and not knowing everything. I think you know I grew up in a church context where everything was black and white and everything had an answer, and if there wasn't an answer you just couldn't talk about it.
Speaker 1:Or you just said Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, that's kind of how I said to my children. You know every answer, jesus. But as I've gotten older, I've come to recognize that part of faith is recognizing that there is a lot that is beyond our ability to understand. But that's also what makes it so amazing, right. That's why we can sit in awe of nature and how it operates just on its own. You know that we can be stunned into silence by the beauty. You know that we see, even if somebody else has created it, it could be so beautiful that we just have to take it in, and we can't, you know. And so so I think spirituality is a lot about knowing ourselves, our place in the world, who we are called to be, but also who, what we are working toward.
Speaker 2:You, know, while also knowing we may never fully get there, but that's okay. And in our imperfections, in our failures, in our weaknesses, there is still something really beautiful and wonderful happening. And so that's where I try to, you know, hang my hope, even when it feels like life is hard, when there are a lot of difficult things going on in the world, but to look for the goodness and the beauty and the hope, because that's always there.
Speaker 1:Always I'm looking out my window again at my beautiful goldfinches who are just at the Goldfinch Hotel outside my window and they're just so bright yellow and I'm just like I love you all so much because they do give me hope and joy. They're just beautiful. So beauty is all along our path. I love that you said being stunned into silence in all the right ways. I've heard so many people say that you know, no one's lived through the world like it is today and I'm like, no, I don't really think that's really true. I think the principles of evil and war and all of those things. Certainly my mom lived through the depression. I've not done that. I mean so many things. But what is not common to the other decades in history is our access. Oh, absolutely Right. So that access brings us a different kind of overwhelm, for sure. So I loved when you said stunned into silence in all the right ways. When was the last time you were stunned into silence In a beautiful way?
Speaker 2:Well, this may sound small, but I think you know the small things can be wonderful. I have a seven-year-old who has been, yes, so fun, so much energy, so much energy. Boy or girl, he has been pestering me for months about wanting a fish tank. I was really busy for the last few months, but I don't know why. I said wait for the summer. When the summer comes, we can do it. And so we did it. First week of summer vacation we went to the pet store. We bought all the equipment.
Speaker 1:Oh, bless you.
Speaker 2:Then caught a few fish and I had fish when I was growing up, but it's probably been a good, you know, 25 years at least. A lot of work. I had fish, and so it just. I mean, they're, on the one hand, they're very simple creatures and these are like tiny little tropical fish you know barely an inch long and yet they're gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:And they're beautiful Painted and their and they're beautiful Painted they're really simple, and yet I could just sit there and watch them for a while. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, the power of watching fish is one of the highest ways to reduce your stress level, like when my son is just. I have twins, they're turning 35 on Sunday, and so when we were homeschooling moons ago, moons moons ago I'd say he's a little older than seven, I think I can't remember but he wanted an aquarium and so, being the homeschool mom that I was at that time, I'm like okay, we'll write a report on all the benefits of having an aquarium, and so I remember that being one of the benefits, even those many moons ago about how it can lower your blood pressure. So in many doctor's offices and hospitals and places there are fish tanks. Now it can raise a mother's blood pressure when they're not taking care of it. But other than that, it is a beautiful, beautiful thing and I love that your son wanted that and that you had one as a child. So many blessings on the wee fish that they will bring much joy.
Speaker 1:I think the first time I saw a clownfish I was snorkeling in Hawaii and I was kind of like I love Lucy, I was breathing in water, but I saw it and that's when I went home. And you don't do that when you're snorkeling in Hawaii and I was kind of like I love Lucy, I was breathing in water but I saw it and that's when I went home. And you don't do that when you're snorkeling. It was just like God and his paintbrush. How can anyone not believe when you see the beauty? So I love that.
Speaker 1:So that would be your fish tank, would be your stunned into silence. So, heartlifter, you know I'm going to lean in and ask you, take a moment and just think about the last time you were stunned into silence in all the right beautiful God ways. Because that really is the crux, I think, of your work inside of this book, this Bible study small group however you want to say it, it is called a Bible study small group. However you want to say it, it is called a Bible study. That beauty heals. And so tell me why, right now, you wanted to bring this written work into being Now, knowing that a book takes two to three years. You were probably working on this a couple of years ago, I don't know. I don't know. Some come faster, some come slower.
Speaker 2:No, it has been a journey. Okay. So this started coming together when I was on staff with Made for Pax. I served as the editorial director for a few years, and we at the time had an online publication in which we would incorporate art, poetry, essays, personal stories, contemplative practices, all centered on a topic that felt particularly relevant to Gen Z. So, as an organization, pax had really done their research. They had surveyed a whole bunch of young adults prior to launching this publication, and so came up with a list of these are all topics that young adults today really feel like they have questions around.
Speaker 2:They're huge topics and most people in the church are not talking about it. There's not enough resources around it, and so mental health is just one of several that we covered is just one of several that we covered. So in the original publication, we had mental health professionals contributing their essays, articles. We had artists contributing visual work, poetry, and so we took the best of those and turned it into this curriculum. So the curriculum walks you through six weeks of meditating on beautiful artwork, reflecting personally as well as within a group if you are doing this with a group as well as there are scriptures that we look at, various passages and I think what was really helpful for me, even in putting this together, was the sense that once you start reading scripture with that lens of thinking about mental health, you see it everywhere. It is in so many of the stories of our most beloved, most admired individuals in Scripture. They were, as we all know, not perfect people.
Speaker 2:They really weren't, they struggled with a lot, and a number of them, very prominent people in the Bible, struggled with mental health, and so there is some encouragement in that, I think, just the fact that it's included in.
Speaker 1:Scripture is remarkable, right? Oh, yes, misery loves company. We want to know we're not alone.
Speaker 2:Yes, it humanizes them as well as gives us the chance to connect with their stories, and what we consistently see in scripture is God's enduring, holistic compassion and loving presence, gentleness, patience, which is so different, I think, from how many of us experience the church when we share our own mental health struggles, right, and so I found that incredibly encouraging to be like no, when we go back to scripture, this is what we see a God of deep, abiding love and compassion.
Speaker 2:There is not condemnation if you are feeling anxious or depressed or wrestling with trauma or any other number of mental health conditions. It's just love and it's acceptance, and it's also this sense of it doesn't mean that God dismisses you or less of you.
Speaker 2:It's part of who you are, it's part of your journey, it's part of how God walks with you, and these are the very same people, both then and now, that God can use really powerfully to do incredible things. So I think in all of those messages, that was a lot of what we were trying to communicate through the initial publication, through this. A lot of what we were trying to communicate through the initial publication through this Bible study. What we really hope that people will walk away with is the sense of no matter where you are in your own mental health journey, you are deeply loved. Jesus is with you every step of the way there is no shame.
Speaker 2:There is no condemnation in Christ. It is just acceptance and encouragement and love. And then, secondly, we really hope that this is a resource for faith communities. I think we are very poorly equipped, generally speaking, to know how to respond to the mental health needs of our congregation, and there have been a lot of harmful messages perpetuated by people of faith about mental health for centuries now, and it continues on despite all of the great knowledge and understanding and research we have access to now, and so we really need to change the conversation. What do we say to individuals and families who are struggling, who are in need? Can we practice that same level of compassion and hospitality and acceptance that we see God doing in Scripture?
Speaker 1:Oh yes, I had a recent beautiful pastor on Naeem Fazel I think it's Fazel Fazel, sorry, naeem, if I said your name wrong again, it's so challenging who said just simply, god just likes to watch things grow. And I was like that's so good, that's just so simple. Good, that's just so simple, he loves to watch things grow. It really had an effect in my neural pathways to kind of reframe shame right in my life, to reframe self-condemnation, and invited me into more self-compassion and more grace for myself, because so many of us are so hard on ourselves, especially if we've been or are leaders within the community of faith. Right, I've been one for years and decades and I have lots of those comments that you're talking about in my head. You know it's sin. You have headaches. That means you have sin in your life. I mean it could fill a book, and so it just comes down to really understanding your picture of God and seeing God and how he loves you and that he just loves to watch things grow. So he doesn't get upset if we make mistakes, as long as we continue to move forward with him and have a heart towards him, and I love that message.
Speaker 1:You have your own mental health story. Could you just give us a glimpse because it's not easy to do that glimpses into our mental health history? But why is this important to you? Like I feel like as an author, I pound the table over the things I'm going to write, what I most need and what I'm most passionate about. So obviously you're sharing that. I can see it in your face. Why is this mental health bridging the gap between mental health and faith important to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a very personal topic for me. Yeah, this is a very personal topic for me. So I think and the reason why I say I think is because so many families don't talk about this, but I'm quite certain there is a level of anxiety and it's interesting because when you always have it, you just think that's the way everybody is and that's the way yeah, it's your atmosphere, right, it's what you're breathing, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And it's very surprising to them, like, oh wait, other people don't get it. Wow, but that became. I think anxiety is a funny thing, right, because sometimes it can work in your favor. As a child, especially as a student, anxiety caused me to be an excellent student because I studied really hard. I was always scared about failing tests and homework assignments, so I worked really, really hard, tried my best to be a perfectionist in every possible way, tried to please everyone around me, and so, of course, you know everyone liked me and you get you get a lot of affirmation for that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, but then when I became an adult, in my mid-20s, it really started to get a little bit out of control. You know, I was working full time. I had gone into the nonprofit sector, felt very passionate about justice issues, and I think the challenge with justice issues is the work never ends, right. I mean, I think you could say that about a lot of jobs. Certainly, mental health is another one where it just there is this sense of I can't stop, because there is always somebody suffering, there's always someone in need, and so I just kept going, kept going, kept going, and at the ripe old age of 26, actually at the time I was working for my church, so anyone who has worked in ministry knows that boundaries are very, very difficult I burned out like so badly, so devastatingly, that I was pretty much just in bed for the next four months. I couldn't do anything except cry, sometimes eat and sleep, and so the anxiety led to burnout, which led to very severe depression, very severe depression which led to thoughts of suicide.
Speaker 1:I was 26. I was newly married. I had my whole life in front of me.
Speaker 2:I was going to say were you married at the time? Yes, okay, do you?
Speaker 1:write more about this, because choosing the book today was hard, because I see your other social justice for the sensitive soul and I'm like, I'm a sensitive soul, I'm involved and very passionate about social justice and mental health, and so that just always seems to lead me to trauma. Trauma, overwhelm is the right word for that. What you had, you know. But I've since learned I haven't had this guest on yet, but I've had the interview with an astounding woman who wrote the book Healthy Calling and she said that you can have vocational burnout, of course, and I think when it's a vocation, like you you would say you're on a church staff that's more vocational, although it's a business, but you went there and you became that person because you really care, right.
Speaker 1:So all of us who have real empathic souls, caring, you know, tend to find our ways into burnout at some point. I'm sorry it was so early. I was right there at 28 with you. So talk about that. You're newly married, because someone might be there right now. And how did you make your way through that dark, dark, dark valley of the shadow of death?
Speaker 2:Yeah, looking back, Well, it helped to quit my job.
Speaker 1:Certainly.
Speaker 2:I actually was at the point where I physically, emotionally, psychologically could not work. Every time I tried. There were a few days where I kept trying to work and every time I showed up to work I would sit at my desk and I couldn't move. I couldn't even turn on my computer, couldn't do anything.
Speaker 2:And then if anybody spoke to me I would just burst into tears. So I was at that stage where working became impossible for me. Even though I was relatively young, work had become a very central part of my identity, and so it was difficult to set that aside and to acknowledge I cannot do this as much as I want to work, as much as it gives me meaning and purpose, and I feel like this is what I was called to do. I can't, I literally cannot, and for an overachiever, people pleaser, kind of person to say I cannot is really hard right.
Speaker 1:Harder than hard, harder than hard. I think you're smiling now, but I know you were not smiling then, and there are people that are not smiling now, that might be sitting at their desk and can't turn their computer on. It's brutal.
Speaker 2:It is so brutal. And I do appreciate that. The colleagues I worked with obviously I worked with a number of pastors, so they were very kind. I think they didn't fully understand in the moment how serious it was, but they recognized enough to give me a month of leave. The leave was helpful but it actually wasn't enough. So I ended up quitting after the one month and then got myself I mean, probably within a few days after I burst into tears at my desk, I got myself into a therapist's office, fortunately, found a really wonderful therapist who kind of helped me break down what was happening, because that I think it was part of the maybe sense of overwhelm was I don't know what's happening to me, just know, just two days ago I was doing everything and now I can do nothing and I don't understand.
Speaker 2:And so she helped me work through so much and that was extraordinarily helpful and, I think, for me. I mean, my husband is incredibly empathetic, loving, so he did his best, but I think any of us who have walked through someone who's in that place it's really hard.
Speaker 2:You don't necessarily know what to do, right, and I also remember, you know, there were a couple of key people him, my sister, I would call her when I was really really struggling, and uh, she's, she's in Southern California, so she lives a little ways away from me, but, um, she materials, um, and so I, as you might guess, I I lean more toward, uh, writing than toward, you know, visual, um, creating visual art, but it was still incredibly healing for me to just doodle. What a beautiful gift. I don't even know what, you know I wasn't, but just those sorts of practices were really helpful in just helping me to reconnect with myself. I, you know, I think it was this weird thing where I had so identified with the work I was doing that I kind of forgot who I was in the midst of it all, and certainly I intentionally laid aside anything that gave me joy, anything that filled me because I felt like, if I'm going to be serving those who are suffering, that I must also suffer.
Speaker 2:And I think it came from not necessarily a bad place. You know that sense of really wanting to mourn with those who mourn right and be truly be with those who are struggling. And yet, as human beings, we can't survive without joy, without things that that make us smile and fill our spirits and souls. And I didn't understand that because I was still really young. So, if you can believe it though, that was actually just my first episode of burnout. There was another one when I was 2930. Other one when I was around 29, 30, um. So I did the four.
Speaker 2:I think it was about four to six months and then I went back to work at a different place, had a little bit more balance, um, in my, in my job, but it still was not an easy job. And then, um, when I was 29, my husband and I moved overseas. We went to live in an industrial city in mainland China called Shenzhen. Oh my gosh. He had started a social enterprise that made solar-powered products, starting with solar-powered lights, for families without electricity in developing countries, and they were manufacturing in China families without electricity in developing countries, and they were manufacturing in China, and so he and I relocated there to oversee the office that would, you know, do the manufacturing, the development, the you know, shipping, all of that, and that was extraordinarily challenging One. It was my first experience in a startup, and I've since learned I am not a startup kind of startup. And then, secondly, it was in a completely different culture. So I am ethnically Chinese but I was born in the US.
Speaker 2:And to some degree, being ethnically Chinese made it a harder experience for me. So my husband is not, and so there were no expectations placed on him in terms of his competency language abilities. Everyone just assumed, yeah, you're not going to know anything, and that's totally fine, right, whereas I should know, and I do think it's been getting better. But at that time, you know, china was still kind of coming out of their long period of isolation, and so the vast majority of people you met in China at that time had had very, very little interaction with people outside the country, and so their only idea was either you're Chinese or you're not. And the fact that I was both and right Chinese, but also American, did not make sense. Like I would have these round and round conversations with the locals trying to explain because I'm Chinese, my parents are Chinese, but I grew up in the US, I speak English and it just it wasn't. Computing, no ability to comprehend.
Speaker 1:No comparison chart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it was always assumed you used to be able to speak fluent Mandarin. I grew up speaking Cantonese, which is a different dialect, so didn't know Mandarin, didn't know the ins and outs of you know cultural norms in China. My parents came from Hong Kong, which is very different from mainland China, and so people there got incredibly frustrated with me, and if you know anything about Chinese culture, people can be extraordinarily blunt. So it was day in day out of just strangers.
Speaker 2:Honestly, the people who knew me tended or the restaurant, or the taxi driver, or just the random person on the street who would just lay into me.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Being a failure of a Chinese person. Wow. But, you, you know Sure. You really missed it. I was an idiot, I was dumber than dumb. You know who are you to even exist if you can't speak Chinese sort of thing? And it was really really difficult. As a sensitive soul, as a deep feeler, and so it broke me. In less than a year, I again found myself in that place of in bed, weeping all the time sleeping and unable to work. I was scared.
Speaker 1:It wasn't that long after the other one you know.
Speaker 2:It wasn't.
Speaker 1:But being scared to leave your apartment. You know, I feel like this is very relatable, even for anyone who perhaps is moving to a different place and, like both of my twins now live in the Midwest, and who perhaps is moving to a different place and, like both of my twins now live in the Midwest and even traveling to Kansas, to a small city, is there's a true like impact. It's different. It's not like you like going into a foreign country, because I have that with my oldest in Belgium and Uruguay, but there are cultural differences and so I think it's very relatable. Sometimes we can even be afraid to go outside of our own doors, you know. So what helped you? If you can remember and I don't want to, you do not have to talk about it If you do not want to, we can move right into talking about these beautiful path points in your book, but what was helpful in that moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the time I you know our pastor here in the Bay Area. We actually sort of sent up some you know smoke signals for help and he flew all the way to China to be with us. Oh God chills. It was an incredible act of friendship and kindness and shepherding.
Speaker 1:I don't know anyone that would have done that. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he and another leader from our church. They came together and they stayed with us for about a week and we had fun too.
Speaker 2:We didn't just, you know, make them, you know counsel me the whole time. We did go around and do fun things around the city, and it was his first time visiting China, so I think he enjoyed that. But that was incredibly meaningful to have somebody make that kind of effort. That's an effort, yes, to be with me. There were two other really critical people during that time. One was a dear friend here in the States who so you know, this is a while ago the only thing that existed was Skype for international calling, and so we had a standing weekly call on Skype and she was just the most faithful friend. I think that went on for maybe two years.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:She was there, every most faithful friend. I think that went on for maybe two years. There you go. She was there every week and she would just let me share and listen and ask really thoughtful questions. There's so much to be said right about someone who is just willing to sit with you in your sorrow, in your grief, in your hardship, it's everything. It's everything as you're saying it's everything.
Speaker 2:That is one of, again, one of the most precious acts of friendship I have ever received. And then the third person and I'm tearing up just talking about it. The third person was a spiritual director that I got connected with, who was this lovely woman on the East Coast of the US and I think she had never used Skype before. Woman on the East coast of the US and I think she had never used Skype before. She took me on as a client, so it was always a little bit of an adventure connecting with her, but she was so, so wise and she was kind. But she would also challenge me, and I think you have to be a fully wise and experienced person to know how to challenge someone who is?
Speaker 2:in such a vulnerable place. But she did it really well and I think a big part of what she did was well one she encouraged me to dig deeper into the Enneagram to better understand myself. What year was this?
Speaker 1:Oh, 2009, okay, uh, incredible that woman was ahead of her time, so a true enneagram student. Yeah, she didn't get.
Speaker 2:It's not just a cultural fun thing in 2009 no, so I had uh enneagrams, a very popular thing at our church. Now I I had been exposed to it and I had just always assumed I was a two because I was like. That's why I'm in all these like helping ministries, because I'm a helper. Turns out I'm not a two, which is part of the problem. I was trying to be a two and I wasn't, and she pointed out to me that she thought I was a four, which is sometimes called the tragic romantic.
Speaker 2:She thought I was a four, which is sometimes called the tragic, romantic and, of course, which always seems to be the case, it was the one Enneagram type that I did not want to be. No, as soon as she told me that I think, I burst into tears.
Speaker 1:I can see that I get it. I totally understand.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, it helped so much to understand this is who I am. This is why all of what I've been experiencing has been hitting me so hard and hitting me so differently than it would other people. Right, because we were working with other expats who had also relocated to China. Some of them were Chinese American as well. It wasn't just me and and yet like they seemed OK. I mean, it wasn't easy, but they seemed OK and I couldn't understand. Like why? What is wrong with me? You know that?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's the first question what's wrong with me? Can I handle it? That's what we say right away Like it is well, I should be able to handle this Right. And so to me, that's what had to fall apart in my life. It's still falling apart in my life still probably till the day I die. I've had three major breakdowns too. I'm a lot older than you, you know, but it's like I can pivot. I fully understand your first, your second, you know.
Speaker 2:But I'm so.
Speaker 1:Well, that's because you have a lot of passion and you care and you're a sensitive soul. So you know that's just a trifecta for wanting to repetitively. I guess All that to say here's what I'm trying to say Is trying you tell me if this is something that resonates with you Trying to stay embodied, stay in my own care while caring for others. That was something you said initially.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it sounded like your second hurdle with being, you know, in that Chinese culture and being so criticized is a little different than the first you tell me like. Is it something that? Yes? How are you managing that?
Speaker 2:It's interesting, I think. In China I had to learn that there are some things I shouldn't care so much about. Okay, in terms of the opinions of others, what others said, what others thought, especially if it was someone who didn't really know me, someone I didn't have a relationship with, and so there was that. But, yes, very much so in the sense of I always felt guilty for taking care of myself. It seemed like a selfish thing to take time for myself when there was so much need in the world, and I think that is also part of the message of this. Mental health Bible study is you know, one of the.
Speaker 2:We have these four kind of static statements.
Speaker 1:I want you to say these path point statements they are incredible.
Speaker 2:So good get a sense of, is beauty and brokenness coexist in our stories, which I think is a lot of what you and I have already been talking about, that we live with both.
Speaker 2:It's what makes us human, it's also what makes us unique, and I think it ends up being how God can work through us. Right is, in both the beauty and the brokenness there is a myth statement which is something that many believe, whether or not we actually say it out loud, and so we want to acknowledge these false beliefs that we have. And so the myth statement we have is faith is all I need, because there is this belief in a lot of churches and faith communities, where mental health struggles are equated with spiritual failure. Right, it's because you're not praying enough, you're not reading the Bible enough, your faith isn't strong enough. That's why you feel anxious, that's why you're depressed, that's why this is happening. You know in your mind which is completely untrue, so harmful, so hurtful, but that is the reality of, and this belief has been around for hundreds of years and it persists. It persists to such a degree that it remains quite alarming.
Speaker 1:I wondered if you tossed around this. Faith is all I should need. I wonder if you've tossed that around at all. But when I first read it, I went. I think I still adhere to the myth that faith is all I should need. I do think you're prodding me to come before my God that I love you know. That faith is all I need is a true myth. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, how did you come to that? How did that statement come into being for you?
Speaker 2:It was a collective effort.
Speaker 2:So I do want to be clear that I am fortunate that my name is in the byline of this book, but this Bible study is really the collective wisdom of all the staff with Made for Pax that I had the privilege of working with, as well as mental health professionals, artists, many who have walked their own journey of mental health, who contributed art, poetry, contemplative practices, their stories, their essays. So that was something that we as a staff sat with, you know, as we were trying to come up with these statements. What is this sort of big overarching myth that we oftentimes hear in the church and many of us, you know this is very personal to us. So it's like, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I have gone to ask for prayer for my anxiety and my depression and I've been asked the question that you mentioned earlier of so where is there sin in your life? Where are you not listening to God? Where have you failed to respond to God's calling? That was seen as the root right as opposed to. Maybe it's trauma, maybe it's a chemical imbalance, maybe it's, you know, hereditary. There's so much going on. It's post-fall stuff right.
Speaker 1:It's just the world is so on fire and imperfect.
Speaker 2:Hello yeah, I wish I'd known this 30 years ago, so I think so many of us have heard that message and experienced it ourselves and, as you said, it's re-traumatizing, it's really painful and it pushes away, ostracizes, marginalizes those who most need to be embraced and accepted and welcomed and fully loved as part of our communities.
Speaker 1:I know so then okay, we could talk about each one of these for 12 hours.
Speaker 2:Yes, you have your manifesto statement, your myth statement material statement. Yes, Material statement the hope in the material statement is really to connect us to the truth of God, and so the material statement we have is that Jesus experiences our mental health journey with us. I just love that you know, serious contrast to what we've been talking about, right.
Speaker 2:Where in the church oftentimes we try to other people who struggle with mental health and be like okay, well, you have messed up in some way, you have failed in some way. Therefore, this is the consequence or the punishment right. But in reality this is the consequence or the punishment.
Speaker 2:But in reality Jesus comes close to us, he's right there with us. And there's this beautiful article in here, written by a theologian, about how you know. Again, if you read this story of Jesus through the lens of mental health, you will see that Jesus experienced a lot of trauma in his life. Right, he was a refugee as a child. There were threats on his life, right, and then, of course, leading all the way up to the end of his life and all of the ways physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually that he suffered. And yet this theologian is making the case that because Jesus went through that, he gets it, he knows it. I mean, how deep and abiding is the love of God that he was willing to go through that kind of experience to fully understand what it is to be human? And so when we say that Jesus is with us, it's not trite, it's not just a you know, I'm just throwing that out there to comfort it's like no, jesus really knows he's in it with you.
Speaker 2:He really really does Understanding and empathy and compassion. It's like what I was sharing earlier about the friends who really showed up for me when I needed a friend. That is what we find in. Jesus, the friend who always shows up even if we're not ready. Right If we're not ready to look for the beauty. If we're not, if it's really hard for us to ask for help, he's still there, Okay, the?
Speaker 2:motion statement Number one I'm a motion girl, yes, the motion statement moves us toward application and kind of practical ideas of what does this look like in our life, and so the motion statement is caring for our mental health is a sacred practice. So that really was meant to counter that idea that I had, that I think a lot of people have, maybe especially within the church, this idea that self-care is selfish but actually caring for ourselves. I have learned, and scientific research has shown, that as we care for ourselves it grows our capacity to care for others.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I know, at least for myself, acknowledging my own weaknesses, acknowledging the things that I cannot do no matter how much I want to, I cannot do these things. No matter how much I want to, I cannot do these things. It has grown my heart for others in whatever they're struggling with. When I was in my perfectionist overachieving stage, it was very easy to judge others for also being overachieving.
Speaker 2:People pleasers right overachieving people pleasers right and yet now I understand that is extremely unhealthy and we all have limitations, we all have areas of weakness, we all have areas of struggle, and it's okay. You are still loved, you are still precious, your life still means so much to God and to this world and the people around you. So to care for yourself is to care for a child of God and that's a sacred practice and it grows your ability to love, to empathize, to be filled with the Spirit of God, which can move really powerfully right. It is oftentimes, you know, some of the most powerful voices and artists and teachers that we learn from are people who have been through the valley of the shadow of death. You know either. Chronic physical illness, chronic mental health challenges, a lot of loss, grief. That comes with so much wisdom. So know, and it's there in Psalm 23 for a reason.
Speaker 1:It exists for a reason. It's probably one of the most quoted Psalms ever and I think do we really read it and do we understand it and do we take it to heart? So I think what I'm really hearing you say in your journey is that you took things to heart. You took correction, course correction. You know I can't do this anymore. Well, that is so hard to say. Bravo, dorcas, bravo, like to all of us.
Speaker 2:It's still hard. It's still hard. Well, I was getting there. I was getting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, later I was getting there. Yeah, because I wonder, with the motion statement, and you go into them in depth in each of the sessions. You know, session one is opening, session two is manifesto, then myth, then material, then motion, closing, additional resources, journaling pages. It's amazing, it's brilliant, it's beautiful. I cannot wait to hold it in my hands. How do you care for your mental health as a sacred practice? Is there maybe just something that's giving you life right now that might help us receive some of that joy, beauty, life. You've lived it many times, as you've said, and it will be a constant management. I don't know if management's the right word, stewardship I don't know. But how do you do?
Speaker 1:that, aside from the aquarium, Aside from our beloved aquarium with the beautiful tropical fish.
Speaker 2:I have been finding myself needing grounding, as I imagine a lot of us do these days.
Speaker 2:The world is moving so quickly, there's so much happening around us are a few contemplative practices that I have learned from a couple dear friends of mine that I've been trying to lean into. One is loving, kindness, meditation or prayer. The way that I was taught to do it is you pray it over yourself. You pray it over those close to you, maybe those not as close to you like acquaintances, and over those that you are not particularly feeling charitable toward at the.
Speaker 1:Moment.
Speaker 2:No, it's not easy, but it's. I just I think there is so much anger in the world right now.
Speaker 1:It is in the air we breathe.
Speaker 2:Yes, and to some degree it's understandable, some of it is justifiable, and yet that is not how we move forward. That is not how we come together.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I don't want to get caught up in that anger, and so the loving kindness prayer helps me to at least remind myself whether or not I'm able to do it well. I at least remind myself that I should be trying to love my enemies, that I should be praying for, those I disagree with, even those I see as harming others. How can I be wishing them well, even for the health of my own soul?
Speaker 1:Anything else before I ask you if you would mind reading the benediction that is on page 13. That is stunning. If we're allowed to the last, thing I'll just.
Speaker 2:I'll just mention and this is something getting to what you said earlier, Janelle is that it? It helps me a lot to put things in perspective, cause I think there is there can always be the sense of like. The world is, you know, worse than it's ever been. Everything's happening that's never happened before, Unprecedented right that tends to be like everyone's favorite word these days, and so I've been listening. A friend recommended a history podcast to me. It's called History. That Doesn't Suck.
Speaker 2:I love this. It's an American history podcast. The host of it is a historian, a fantastic storyteller, and just really brings to life the story of American history. I can't wait and what I so appreciate. So I just started listening because I just find history fascinating, but it has fed my soul in a way I wasn't expecting. I love that.
Speaker 2:There is comfort in knowing that you know, this thing that we're seeing today, it actually happened 200 years ago. Or like, yeah, this the country or this people group or whoever. Like, yeah, we've been through this, this, this is. This is not like. It is survivable yeah, that's hopeful yes, it's hopeful, and not only are, you know, all sorts of dramatic and interesting things happening, but there are always people who rise up in support of what is good, and so seeing those kind of rhythms, patterns through history, has been really encouraging to me.
Speaker 2:Somehow it makes the present day less scary and less overwhelming, because humanity is incredibly resilient and creative and strong and God is at work, moving in many ways at every moment of history. So that's another thing that has been really encouraging to me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. I had not heard of that. I love to learn new things and I love Thomas Keating, so I can't wait to find out about the welcome prayer and I think also within that, what is resurging is liturgical prayer Like geez. They're definitely being published a lot where, when you don't have the words, you can borrow the words. So I love borrowed prayer and I think that's what we get from Thomas Keating's welcome prayer. It's like I don't feel like saying this. I don't for me. It's like I don't even have words, god. So I'm just going to sit over here for five minutes and try to just be here, because I'm just kind of out of words, I don't really know what to say. So I think it's nice when we can borrow prayers like that from Thomas Keating. So another one would be this beautiful prayer.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is a prayer from Jesuit priest Pierre Telhard de Charine, and it's called the Slow Work of God. Above all trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually, let them grow, let them shape themselves without undue haste. Don't try to force them on as though you could be today. What time will make you tomorrow? Gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Speaker 1:That is so powerful. Accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. Thank you From the bottom of my heart and all of our hearts who are listening, for your powerful presence. I am sorry you've suffered, and not sorry, of course, because suffering is present. It's part of God's divine plan in our lives, isn't it? So? Thank you, Dorcas.
Speaker 2:Of course. Thank you, Janelle. I really appreciated this conversation.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate you.