I’m Laura Howe and welcome to The Care Ministry Podcast. The show today is a flashback to one of the top viewed sessions in the Church Mental health summit with Regina Chow Trammel
Regina Chow Trammel, Ph.D., LCSW, is an associate professor at Azusa Pacific University and author of the book Counselor’s Guide to Christian Mindfulness: Engaging the Mind, Body and Soul. She is a sought-after speaker having a popular TEDx appearance and featured at both the 2020 and 2021 Church Mental Health Summit.
PODCAST LINKS:
Mental Health Sunday resource pack: MentalHealthSunday.com
Regina’s Book: A Counselor’s Guide to Christian Mindfulness: Engaging the Body, Mind and Soul in Biblical Practices and Therapies
Mindfulness considers the whole person, body, soul and spirit
- Those who struggle with depression and anxiety can be impacted in their body soul and spirit.
- 1 Corinthian 6:19-20
Christian Mindfulness Defined:
“making mental space on purpose to turn our whole attention to God so that we can hear and abide in His voice in our lives instead of our own judgements.”
How can we apply Christian Mindfulness to help those in our church who struggle with Depression and Anxiety?
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- Normalize struggling thoughts. It is common for people to struggle and often times they can’t help their thoughts spiral down because of life’s challenges.
- Often hope and support. Depression and anxiety are treatable with appropriate support.
- Develop and integrate opportunities to practice mindfulness and allow people to have space to be reflective.
- Refer to licences professional therapy.
Benefits of Mindfulness:
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- Calms the nervous system
- Allows people to improve their thoughts (cognitive reappraisal)
- Nurture the soul
Breath is the foundation is mindfulness (Job 33:4) “The breath of the Almighty gives me life”
4 Steps to Practicing Christian Mindfulness
1. Breath deeply while noticing and observing
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- Breath allows you steady your thoughts and it brings the heart rate down this allows space for God to move.
2. Observe the thoughts
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- When the nervous system is calm step back and observes your thoughts more objectively
3. Name Values
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- Identifying and naming the person’s value allows you to contrast the thoughts/behaviour to the held value.
4. Rehearse the values
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- Imagine, or role-play the value to help the person visualize
CONNECT WITH REGINA CHOW TRAMMEL
Website: ReginaChowTrammel.com
Socials: Instagram – LinkedIn
CONNECT WITH HOPE MADE STRONG
Websites: HopeMadeStrong.org
Socials: Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – YouTube
Join the Church Mental Health Facebook Group! In the Facebook group, we chat about how to care for others, what are your challenges as well as share tons of resources. This is a great community of pastors, clinicians, and those with lived experience and we want to get to know you.