Effective Coping for Emotional Distress

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Earlier today I offered some reflections on what people-of-faith need to know about depression.  I promised that I’d offer some additional thoughts on effective coping for emotional distress.shutterstock_203291770

Effective coping strategies enable a person to gather their psychological, emotional, spiritual, and relational resources so that they can respond to the problems they are facing.  By contrast, ineffective coping strategies simply allow a person to escape, withdraw, or numb themselves for a time, but when the “break” is over the person using these strategies finds him or herself no better positioned to address the problem-at-hand.  Examples of common, but largely useless and ineffective “coping strategies” include things like isolating, watching TV, drinking/drugging, withdrawing from spiritual support, excessive sleeping or eating, blaming, and other behaviors that attempt to give you distance from the problem but don’t give you any new directions, resources, insights or supports.

Here are some examples of effective coping strategies for dealing with emotional difficulties…

 -Drawing Closer to Others:   It is not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18).  In times of trial, drawing closer to the people who share our life, asking for help, going out with friends (even when we don’t feel like it–especially then) is critically important.  Satan is a “roaring lion” (1 Ptr 5:8) waiting to devour you.  Be like the smart antelope.   When you are dealing with emotional distress, don’t let yourself get separated from the herd.  Instead, ask yourself, “When I feel better, what do I usually do/enjoy doing with others?”  Then do those things whether or not you feel like it right now.  I know you don’t want to be a burden, but talk about your struggles with others.  Give people the gift of letting them use their gifts to bless you.  In the long term, you’ll be glad you did.

-Draw Closer to God:  Ask yourself, “When I feel good, how do I pray? How do I experience God the most?”   Cling to those things now.  No, you may not get the same thing out of it you do when you’re in a better place, but his grace will still flow freely and you will begin gathering important spiritual resources.    People who actively engage in personally meaningful spiritual practices are more resilient than those who do not have or take advantage of spiritual supports.

-Participate in Healing Rituals:  People who are depressed or anxious or dealing with other emotional problems should definitely take advantage of Anointing of the Sick.  It is an important healing sacrament. Confession can also be helpful for banishing both obstacles to grace and the guilt that separates you from God’s love.  Don’t hesitate to ask your pastor to bless you or to ask others to pray over you and for you.  Sacraments have the power to effect the healing the signify, but all spiritual rituals have real power to propel healing.

-Make Meaning:  Research shows that “meaning making” or asking what value you can draw from a difficult time in life is a very powerful coping strategy.  One of the most depressing aspects of emotional distress is the apparent meaningless of it all.  In my book, The Life God Wants You to Have, I discuss many ways we can make meaning out of pain.  When we ask questions like, “How can I respond to this in a way that will make me a better person, glorify God, or, for that matter, make Satan sorry that he ever decided to pick on me?”  we begin to see the significance hidden with the moment.  We discover how to use everything life throws at us as an opportunity for growth.

-Recall Your Past Victories Over Struggle:  Write out a brief description of the last half-dozen or so times you thought you were doomed but things ended up working out somehow.  Focus on how, specifically, God delivered you from these trials.  Is there a pattern?  Do you see that pattern at work now?  How did you respond to those struggles when they were at their worst?  Was all the drama worth it?  Are you creating the same drama now?  Is the drama any more worthwhile this time?

-Gratitude Journaling:  Superficially, this sounds trite, but a large body of research supports the assertion that the simple act of writing down 3-5 things you are sincerely grateful for every day can increase your baseline experience of happiness by about 25%.  One’s happiness set point is very difficult to change.  The fact that this exercise can have this powerful an impact on one’s basic experience of happiness is near miraculous and it should not be overlooked by anyone looking for better ways to cope with emotional distress.

-Exercise:  A very large body of research shows the effectiveness of exercise as a coping strategy.  Exercise changes your body and brain chemistry.  It helps wake you up, focus your mind, engage your creativity, and tolerate pain (both physical and emotional) more effectively.

-Seeking Professional Help:  As I shared earlier, psychotherapy is a very effective means of learning new coping strategies.  Psychotherapy can be best thought of as physical therapy for the brain.  It has been shown to change brain chemistry and function and strengthen under-performing parts of the brain.    By beefing up brain function through cognitive and behavioral exercises as well as therapeutic conversations that support clients in thinking about old problems in new ways, clients learn to handle stress more effectively.

This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of coping strategies, but its a great start.  Do you have other ideas?  Share them in the comments box!  And if you would like to learn more about how the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s Catholic Tele-counseling practice can help you experience a more abundant marriage, family and personal life, visit us online or call 740-266-6461 to make an appointment.

 

Dealing With Depression: Getting the Right Kind of Help Matters

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The news of Robin Williams’ suicide has brought the insidious nature of depression front and center.  
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I know too many Christians who believe that they should be immune from depression because they are Christian.   While research shows that some believers can be more resistant to depression and have a somewhat easier time bouncing back when they do get depression, it is also true that some approaches to religion can be associated with higher rates of depression and emotional problems.  When evaluating the power of belief to protect against emotional problems, the research seems to show that the question isn’t “do you believe?”  but rather what do you believe, how, and why?

The bottom line is that, by and large,  Christians experience depression at rates that are similar to the general population.  Twenty-Six percent of adults in the US have depression.  The World Health Organization estimates that by 2020 depression will be the second leading cause of disability after heart disease.

Does Treatment Work?

The good news is that depression is very treatable.  Sadly, many comments I am reading on the internet seem to suggest that seeking help must be pointless because if Robin Williams, who arguably had every resource in the world available to him, couldn’t get adequate care who can?  First, we don’t know all the details of Robin Williams situations and we never will.  Secondly, what we do know points to a much more complicated clinical picture than what most people experience.  Robin Williams’ history was not with depression but with Bi-Polar Disorder, which can be characterized by dramatic mood swings and is somewhat more difficult to treat than depression.  This, combined with his long struggle with substance abuse and the unique pressure a person in his position faces,  should remind everyone to resist the temptation to draw broader conclusions about the effectiveness of depression treatment based on the tragic outcome of William’s particular story.

What’s the Best Treatment?

As I mentioned, depression is very treatable.  80% of people who seek help report that they experience significant or even total relief from their depressive symptoms.  That’s a tremendous success rate.

What is the best treatment for depression?  Studies of evidenced-based approaches to treatment show that psychotherapy alone should be the primary method of treatment.  This approach has the highest success rate, the longest-term recovery rates,  the lowest negative effects and the lowest drop-out rate.  For patients who need additional support, adding medication to psychotherapy is the best approach.

Interestingly, despite what all the TV commercials tell you, research seems to show that the least effective approach is medication alone because of the relatively lower rate of effectiveness (about 50%), lower rate of symptom relief (about 30%), higher side-effect profile, greater likelihood of post-treatment relapse, and greater treatment drop-out rate.  Bottom line?  If you have been diagnosed with depression and are not in ongoing psychotherapy, you are not undergoing the best course of treatment. Period.

How Do You Know If It’s Time to Seek Help?

Everyone experiences sadness, but its important not to dismiss depression as mere sadness.  If you are experiencing a period of sustained sadness that lasts for at least 2 weeks and is accompanied by any of the following: a change in eating habits (either eating more or less), sleeping habits (either more or less), withdrawing from social engagements, decreased enjoyment of previously enjoyable activities, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, or especially, thoughts of dying, death, or harming oneself, it’s time to seek help.

How Do We Cope?

Our ability to resist depression or recover efficiently from it tends to depend a great deal on the coping strategies we use to deal with stress in general.  In my next post, I’ll look at healthy versus unhealthy coping styles and offer specific suggestions for coping more effectively with all the challenges in your life.  For now, just know that if you or a loved one is struggling with feelings of sadness or despair that you think might be depression,  getting help early is key.  If you aren’t sure if it’s depression, that’s a good enough reason to get an evaluation (i.e., If you have to ask…). Talk to your doctor or contact a licensed psychotherapist who can help you clarify the nature of the problem you are facing and the best means of resolving it.  Getting help early is the best way to increase both the likelihood of a full recovery and your ability to experience the life God has given you as the gift that it is–even when that gift gets complicated.

For more information on faithful approaches to treating depression and other emotional problems, check out the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s Catholic Tele-Counseling Practice by visiting us online or calling 740-266-6461 to make an appointment to speak with a professional Catholic counselor.  Let us help you integrate the wisdom of our faith with contemporary insights from counseling psychology to help you develop the most comprehensive response to the challenges in your life.

 

 

“This Book Changed My Life”

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Every once in a while the Holy Spirit allows me a glance at how he’s using my work to touch the hearts of his people.  It’s always humbling and I’m always truly grateful for the experience.  Earlier today, I came across a post by Molly Milroy of Ignitum Today titled, “Five Books That Changed My Life”  I was genuinely blessed to find my book, The Life God Wants You To Have:  Discovering the Divine Plan When Human Plans Fail listed among the titles that significantly impacted her life for the better.

When I was going through yet another episode of ‘What am I supposed to do with my life?’ a dear friend recommended Dr. Popcak. I looked him up, researched his material and stumbled upon this book. There are probably thousands of books out there designed to discover your purpose in life. I’ve probably read a dozen or more of them. But this is the number one that I recommend. And it’s not a guide as to jotting down your passions and finding work that collides with said passions. It’s more of a journey into your own heart, your past, your childhood loves to unveil what is probably right before your eyes.  Read More

I’m especially touched by her recommendation since this is the second time in about a month that someone shared what a blessing this book was to them.  Depressed & Catholic had this to say about The Life God Wants You to Have

Does God care at all? What am I doing?   …You get the picture. I’m sure you’ve had the same kind of questions about the same or different things.

The Life God Wants You to Have addresses all of these questions and more with scripture, practical psychology, case examples representative of a wide variety of life situations, and ample humor. It is also very easy to read, no hifalutin theology or display of psychological prowess. There isn’t even a polka dot of professional patronizing. This guy is real.

I’m truly grateful for these brave bloggers for their willingness to share their struggles and I’m deeply touched that God has used my work in at least some small way to help them discover his path forward.  I’m thankful for their witness.  I’ll be keeping them–and other good folks like them–in my prayers as they continue on their journey.    I hope you will too.

The Secret of Forgiving Yourself

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We’re heading into Lent and, as I noted on the show today, it’s a time where lots of us will end up facing some degree of temptation to beat up on ourselves for failing in our efforts to fulfill our Lenten penances.  Beyond this, though, forgiving oneself for one’s failings and struggles is a constant struggle.  It can be hard to know what forgiving yourself means much less how to do it.

As I’ve shared before, St Augustine said that  forgiveness is what happens when we “surrender our natural desire for revenge.”  In other words, at the point we stop wanting to hurt someone for having hurt us, we have forgiven them.  (Reconciliation is a separate issue, but that’s another post). So how does this apply to forgiving oneself?

To forgive ourselves doesn’t mean letting ourselves off the hook.  It means refusing to give into the temptation to heap coals on ourselves for having failed.  St Francis de Sales, in his Introduction to the Devout Life, reveals the folly of this approach when he notes that our sins tend to be a flawed attempt to make ourselves feel better.  Therefore, the worse we make ourselves feel about our sins and failings the more likely we’ll be to sin again in that same pathetic attempt to make ourselves feel better for having sinned!  It truly is a vicious spiritual cycle. If we were to apply Augustine’s formula for forgiveness to ourselves, we’d have to say that forgiving ourselves means surrendering our natural desire to hurt ourselves… for having hurt ourselves.   Think about that a minute.  How quick are we to heap pain on ourselves for having hurt ourselves?  Does that even make sense?  How is that supposed to help?

Let’s take this a step further.  Research on effective apologies has some application to this process of forgiving ourselves.  If someone makes a good apology, it will usually have  three components (at least for a serious problem.  Lesser offenses can be healed by apologies with fewer components). First, the person expresses empathy–they make some expression that says they understand how much and how deeply they hurt us.  Secondly, they propose a plan of restitution, that is,  they say what they want to do to heal the hurt or make things right again.  Third, there is the recognition of an objective standard; this is, the person apologizing doesn’t try to pawn it off by saying “you’re too sensitive”  or “you expect too much.”   Instead, the person making the apology admits that the offended party has a right to have expected more from the offender.

How would we apply this to ourselves?  We know that we are truly sorry for our sins and failings, not if we never do it again (which is the ideal, but also a long process) but rather  if we a) can articulate how deeply our sinful actions have and are hurting us  b) can describe a concrete plan by which we would like to make a real change in our lives and c) can admit that we have a right to expect more and better from ourselves and that God’s grace makes achieving that standard possible.

If we can include these three components in our “apology to ourselves” if you will, we can know that we are truly sorry for what we have done to hurt ourselves which will make letting go of the desire to hurt ourselves for having hurt ourselves that much easier.  IF we are having problems forgiving ourselves, chances are, one of these three things is missing.  Just like it would be if we were having a hard time forgiving someone else.

This Lent, if you would like to experience more peace in your heart, I would encourage you to give up…beating up on yourself.

If you’d like to learn more about what it takes to forgive yourself and start cooperating with God’s plan of healing for your life, check out The Life God Wants You To Have:  Discovering the Divine Plan when Human Plans Fail.

Antidepressants Have More Side Effects than Previously Thought

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A University of Liverpool researcher has shown that thoughts of suicide, sexual difficulties and emotional numbness as a result of anti-depressants may be more widespread than previously thought.In a survey of 1,829 people who had been prescribed anti-depressants, the researchers found large numbers of people — over half in some cases — reporting on psychological problems due to their medication, which has led to growing concerns about the scale of the problem of over-prescription of these drugs.

Psychologist and lead researcher, Professor John Read from the University’s Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, said: “The medicalization of sadness and distress has reached bizarre levels. One in ten people in some countries are now prescribed antidepressants each year.

“While the biological side-effects of antidepressants, such as weight gain and nausea, are well documented, the psychological and interpersonal effects have been largely ignored or denied. They appear to be alarmingly common.”

Over half of people aged 18 to 25 in the study reported suicidal feelings and in the total sample there were large percentages of people suffering from ‘sexual difficulties’ (62%) and ‘feeling emotionally numb’ (60%). Percentages for other effects included: ‘feeling not like myself’ (52%), ‘reduction in positive feelings’ (42%), ‘caring less about others’ (39%) and ‘withdrawal effects’ (55%). However, 82% reported that the drugs had helped alleviate their depression….

Professor Read concluded: “While the biological side-effects of antidepressants, such as weight gain and nausea, are well documented, psychological and interpersonal issues have been largely ignored or denied. They appear to be alarmingly common.”

“Effects such as feeling emotionally numb and caring less about other people are of major concern. Our study also found that people are not being told about this when prescribed the drugs.

“Our finding that over a third of respondents reported suicidality ‘as a result of taking the antidepressants’ suggests that earlier studies may have underestimated the problem.”

But there is good news for those suffering with depression, therapy is a VERY effective treatment for depression with no side effects.  Often, combined medication/psychotherapy treatment is recommended for severe depression, but for mild to moderate depression and other emotional problems, psychotherapy remains the most effective  treatment of choice.

If you would like to learn more about telephone-based,  Catholic-integrated counseling services for emotional and relational problems, visit the Pastoral Solutions Institute at www.CatholicCounselors.com or call 740-266-6461 to make an appointment.

A Screwtape Letter to An Unappreciated Mom

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The original Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis reveals a series of fictitious letters between Screwtape, a senior demon, and his nephew, Wormwood, a demon-in-training, about the tricks of the demonic trade of tempting a “patient” (i.e., Christian) away from “the Enemy” (i.e., God).    In this tremendous adaptation, a blogger reveals a previously undiscovered letter from Screwtape to Wormwood about how to undermine the faith, marriage, and confidence of  “an unappreciated mom.”  It’s powerful stuff, and if you’re a mom whose feeling a little demoralized these days (or know someone who is) it’s essential reading. Here’s a sample…

My Dear Wormwood,

I was thrilled to hear you have been making progress with the mother.  You have a good lead, from what I hear.  She’s feels over-worked, unappreciated, and discouraged?  I’m so glad to hear it.  If you tread carefully, this can be a great opportunity.  With the kids waking her up every hour last night, we already have an advantage.  A tired Mom makes for a more emotional Mom, and an emotional Mom is a vulnerable one.

I do have a few tips.  First, aim your best efforts at her marriage.

As you know, we cannot do much with a unified marriage.  Luckily for us, a cranky and exhausted wife can do wonders to change that.  We must convince her that her husband is no longer the friend and ally she first married.  Instead, we must reveal every sin and selfish habit, especially drawing attention to his thoughtless actions (mal-intended or not) against her.

Sometimes it’s the less obvious things, things the husband doesn’t even realize, that we can use to offend her the most.  When he comes home from work and dumps his things on the counter nearest the door (instead of hanging his coat or putting away his keys), let her think of it as a direct assault on her work as a homekeeper.  When he treks mud in with his shoes, let her think it is because he does not love her.  Such extremes of thought may seem ridiculous to you or I, but to the exhausted mortal woman, it can seem possible.  Your goal is to make her think the husband does not notice, or even better, that he does not care about her efforts at home.

Secondly, do what you can to keep her focused on  her troubles and pains.  Remind her how much her back aches, how draining the children were all day, and how many undone tasks still beckon her.  Do not let her wonder what difficulties her husband faced that day or whether his back might also be aching.  Valuing others above oneself is one of those silly, though strangely effective, tactics of the Enemy.  If she stops to make him a cup of coffee, the next thing you know she’ll be rubbing his shoulders and flirting with him on the couch.  It can progress out of your control if you’re not careful.

Along those lines, be sure the Mother starts to value productivity above everything else.  Have her wake up early and work non-stop until bedtime.  If the husband relaxes in the evening with an hour of computer gaming, be sure the wife notices the pile of unfolded laundry or unswept floors.  Do not let her grab a book and relax alongside her husband.  Diligence, often one of the Enemy’s virtues, when overdone can be used to our advantage as well.  Convince her that as long as there is a shred of work to be done (and there always is), no one should be resting.  Then, as she folds and sweeps and he sits, you can introduce the sweet bitterness of resentment.

A word of caution here.  Remember, the love of a husband can be dangerous to our cause.  If he senses her unhappiness, he may begin to help or (even worse) show her affection.  This is where previously planted seeds of resentment can be guided into full bloom.  Make her think that his displays of affection are because he “only wants one thing”.  Do not let her view his help with the dishes (or kisses or cuddling) as having pure motives.  If he shows his desire for her, convince her that she is being used…READ THE REST HERE.

We discussed this letter on the radio program today as part of a wider discussion of the lies Satan tells us and how to fight back against those lies with the truths that will set us free.  For those of you who would like to learn how you can discover the lies that are undermining your ability to receive the abundant life God wants to give you, check out my book,  God Help Me, This Stress Is Driving Me Crazy.  It’s a powerful look at everything you need to know to break free from the falsehoods holding you back and start living the life God has in store for you.

Study Says,Casual Sex Can Cause Depression

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“There’s always been a question about which one is the cause  and which is the effect.  This study  provides evidence that poor mental health can lead to casual sex, but also that  casual sex leads to additional declines in mental health.” Sandberg-Thoma conducted the study with Claire Kamp Dush,  assistant professor of human sciences at Ohio State.  The research was published online recently in  the Journal of Sex Research and will  appear in a future print edition. One surprising finding was that the link between casual sex  and mental health was the same for both men and women.   “That was unexpected because there is still this sexual  double standard in society that says it is OK for men to have casual sexual  relationships, but it is not OK for women,” Kamp Dush said.   “But these results suggest that poor mental health and casual  sex are linked, whether you’re a man or a woman.”  Read More

I need to give a hat tip to Elizabeth Scalia for pointing my attention to this piece.

You’ll recall I asserted this exact same thing in my interview with drive time shock jock Tracy Jones on WKRP WLW  in Cincinnati several months ago.  The researchers seem mystified as to why it is that casual sex causes depression and why this is true for both women and men.

The Christians reading this will probably be face-palming right about now because we accept these facts–for the most part anyway (I think the male casual sex/depression link would surprise a lot of my Christian friends infected with the secular culture’s double standard about men)–as biblical truths.  But we have to do a better job of explaining why casual sex is wrong beyond just saying “Jesus said, NO!”  (as if he was “Grumpy Cat” or something)

As I assert in my book Holy Sex!  the brain is wired to view sex as a sign of intimacy and unity.  In fact, the brain responds to break-ups the same way it responds to physical pain.  When two people make love, their brains begin to think of the other as part of each self.  The lovers literally become wired together.  When they break-up, the brain responds to the social wound as if the lovers experienced a physical wound; a broken arm or a broken leg.  Now imagine intentionally setting yourself up to get physically wounded again and again.  You would call that person “mentally ill” right?  Well, that’s what casual sex is–setting your brain up to be wounded again and again.   And setting oneself up to get hurt again and again–especially in the name of fun–is a depressing thought.

Sex is a powerful drug.  In particular, it is a drug that literally bonds two people together–not just metaphysically, but neurologically.   The brain can’t tell the difference between a one night stand and an LTR.  It just knows that it is being bombarded by chemicals that make it start to bond with another person and think of that person as part of oneself.  Losing a part of yourself is depressing.  The brain processes a break-up after sex like it would process an amputation and, to respond to the other question the study asked, the reason that causal sex negatively affects both women and men is because male and female brains are more alike than they are different.  Yes, there are differences between the sexes, but those differences tend to be more qualitative than structural. It isn’t as if women have entire swaths of brain territory that men don’t.  It’s just that some areas of the female brain light up a little differently than other parts.  But both men and women have all the parts of the brain that make them human beings, and the bonding process is a basic human response.    The mental health of both men and women is negatively affected by casual sex because we weren’t physically made to do it, and acting in a manner that is contrary to our design causes us to feel broken down and depressed.

The good news is that the flipside is also true.  People who have fewer sexual partners (for instance, one) and who remain faithful to that partner are happier, and both mentally and physically healthier than people with more sexual partners.

If you’d like to learn more about having a healthy, joyful, life-long love, or how to effectively articulate the truth of the Catholic vision of love, check out Holy Sex!  A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.

 

Overcoming Bitterness: 5 Steps for Healing the Hurt that Won’t Go Away

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Photo by Raychan on Unsplash

No one wants to be bitter.  It sneaks up on us.  Bitterness is unforgiveness fermented.    The more we hold onto past hurts the more we become drunk on our pain and the experience can rob us of the joy we can find in anything.
Bitterness occurs when we feel someone has taken something from us that we are powerless to get back.  We hold on to the hurt in an attempt to remind ourselves and others of the injustice we’ve experienced in the hopes that someone will save us and restore what we’ve lost.  Unfortunately, bitterness only makes our sense of the injustice grow.  It does nothing to heal the wound caused by the injustice.  In fact, it causes the wound to become infected with anger.

Bitterness:  Wrath’s Little Sister

Bitterness is wrath’s little sister.  Where anger can be just and moral if it propels us to seek solutions for the wrongs we have experienced or witness, wrath is a deadly sin because it becomes anger that feeds on itself and adds to wreckage caused by the original wound.  Bitterness does this too, but instead of burning down the house with everything we value still inside, bitterness is quieter, slowly poisoning our life until we lose it one joy at a time.

Here are some things you can do to begin to overcome bitterness.

1.  Forgive

Forgiveness does not mean pretending everything is “OK.”  It doesn’t mean forgetting the hurt either.  According to St. Augustine, forgiveness is simply the act of surrendering our desire for revenge; that is, our desire to hurt someone for having hurt us.   Forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves that enables us to stop picking at the scab and start making a plan for healing.

2. Make a plan

Forgiveness allows you to free up the energy you need to begin healing the wound. If the person who hurt you is willing to work with you, begin mapping out exactly what changes or effort you would need to see from that person to let you know that it is safe to reconcile.  If you are on your own, focus your energy on making a plan for how will you strive to regain as much of what was lost/taken from you as possible.  The more you strive to find alternative ways to recoup your losses, the less bitter you will feel even if the hurt persists.   It can be tempting to give into feelings that “there’s nothing I can do”   but resist the temptation.  In fact, if you feel this way and can’t think of solutions, talk to a professional to check your math before deciding that you just need to grieve your loss.  If, after consultation, you find that there really is nothing you can do to reclaim what was lost or taken from you, focus your energy on developing new goals that will help you reconstruct a compelling future.  The book, The Life God Wants You to Have:  Discovering the Divine Plan When Human Plans Fail can be a tremendous help for figuring out what God is calling you to work toward in the next chapter of your life.

 

3.  Stop Dwelling and Retelling

When we are hurt, we have a tendency to turn the painful events over and over in our head or tell anyone who will listen about our pain–even over and over again.  It is fine to talk to people we think can help us heal the hurt, facilitate reconciliation or help us rebuild our lives, but other than that, we should do what we can to stop dwelling on the story of our injury ourselves and stop speaking of it so freely to others.  When we are tempted to “dwell or retell” the best course of action is to refocus on what we can do–TODAY–to take at least some small step toward refining or actualizing the plan we’ve developed in Step 2.  The more you are focused on solutions, the less you will experience the sense of powerlessness that comes from ruminating on the hurt.

4.  Seek Grace

It can be next to impossible to heal some wounds without God’s grace.  Bitterness causes us to shun God’s grace in favor of obsessing over the wound.  If you are holding on to bitterness I encourage you to take it to confession.  Please don’t be insulted by the suggestion.  I know that you are the victim and you have a right to your pain.  Still, holding on to anything except God’s love, mercy and healing grace separates from God and the life he wants us to have. Confession can open your heart to receive the healing that God wants to give you.   It can help you surrender the pain and powerlessness and begin to discover new options.  Stop hoarding your hurt.  Make your desire for healing official by taking your tendency to dwell in the powerlessness to the confessional and seek the grace to leave it there.

5.  Seek Professional Help

If the bitterness won’t let go even after you’ve tried all of the above, it’s time to seek professional help.  Working with a professional can help you see possibilities that your pain has blinded you to and give you new tools to heal the wounds that are holding you back.   If you have a faithful professional in your area that you have worked with before, it may be time to reconnect.  If not, I would invite you to contact me through the Pastoral Solutions Institute to learn more about our telephone counseling practice.  Healing is possible with the right resources.

Hebrews 12:5 says, “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”  You don’t have to be bitter or consumed by feelings of powerlessness and sadness.  Take action today to cooperate with the grace God is giving you to break free of the bonds of bitterness.  You can discover that with God’s help, there is so much more to life than pain.

 

Faith Helps Clients Get More Out of Therapy

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A study from the Journal of Affective Disorders found some surprising results about faith and therapy…

“Patients who had higher levels of belief in God demonstrated more effects of treatment,” said the study’s lead author, David H. Rosmarin, a psychologist at McLean Hospital and director of the Center for Anxiety in New York. “They seemed to get more bang for their buck, so to speak.”

One possible reason for this, he said, is that “patients who had more faith in God also had more faith in treatment. They were more likely to believe that the treatment would help them, and they were more likely to see it as credible and real.”

Well, that, and the whole “grace” thing.  😉

Click here to read more about the results of the study.

And to learn more about how you can benefit from faithful counseling, contact my associates and me through the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s Catholic Tele-Counseling practice (740) 266-6461 to make an appointment with a Catholic counselor today.

Kids’ Tummy Aches Predict Adult Anxiety/Depression.

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Children who have frequent stomach aches are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression as adults, according to a new study.   Researchers evaluated about 330 children with functional abdominal pain syndrome (FAPS) — abdominal pain with no specific cause — and compared them with 150 children without stomachaches.

Later psychiatric evaluations (conducted an average of nine years later) revealed that the risk of developing an anxiety disorder was about four to five times higher in individuals who suffered from abdominal pain as a child.

The findings also suggest that children with abdominal pain have a greater risk of adult depression. In the study, 40 percent of adults who had abdominal pain as children had depression during their lifetime, compared with 16 percent of adults in the control group.

Approximately 50 percent of those who had FAPS as kids had social anxiety, phobias or other anxiety disorders while growing up or in adulthood, compared with about 20 percent of people without FAPS.

The findings suggest that anxiety should be taken into account when treating children who get frequent stomach aches, the researchers said.  MORE.

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