One Thing I Do to Improve My Mental Health as a Christian Therapist

As with life, highs and lows, tragedies and excitements, trials and redemptions are normal. No one is born with the readiness to handle such things. Though there are several tools, there are no guarantees and no perfect formula for all of life. Here is one thing I do to improve my mental health as a Christian therapist.

Narrowing down the tools I’ve used over the past decades was a struggle, but to keep it simple I wanted to select just one. Keep in mind, this one has many by its side throughout every situation isn’t a cure-all. To select the most effective tool, over the years I’ve decidedly used the Bible as my sieve to week out the tools and pieces of advice that lead to nowhere.

Doesn’t a therapist have the advantage?

You might ask, “Does training to be a therapist make a difference?” The answer is “yes,” and “no.”

There’s an advantage to training for something. In this case, it gives greater exposure to a wide variety of tools. There’s also the requirement to practice putting this wide collection of mechanisms for battling mental health woes to use. Simply put, being a Christian therapist means one is likely to have been doing this longer and know a bit more about tools that do and don’t work than the average person.

There’s also a real chance that there is absolutely no advantage to training as a therapist in the way of knowing how to improve one’s mental health. What training provides is exposure to many different tools and areas of thought about what might help with each struggle. Anyone can gain exposure to as much or even more of these tools in their everyday lives.

That being said, the world cannot offer any better wisdom than God. So simply spending more time studying the Bible can lead one to have a greater advantage over a trained professional. Finally, there’s no end to practicing the tools, they are lifetime assistants for everyone, and many develop the art of them naturally.

The one thing

One thing I do to improve my mental health as a Christian therapist, above all others, is to focus on connection. Every high and low in mental health brings the temptation to disconnect. Whether it be to God or others, connection matters most in improving, balancing, and weathering the ups and downs of our mental health.

Our mental health consists of our thoughts and emotions. Our emotions set off like alarms to tell us something is happening. Our thoughts decide what to make of it and then our behavior follows. I’ll explain more about how to engage the tool of connection, below.

Connection to God

Each time you experience the elated, happier-than-can-be feeling, you may have no thought of trouble. Why bother working on our mental health when everything seems grand? This is where the temptation to disconnect comes in.

The messages of this temptation come with some variation of “I don’t need God right now,” and so we relax our diligence in connecting with God and are vulnerable to the inevitable trial to come. Feeling that mountain high is a great indicator that it is time to connect with God through praise and worship.

Similarly, when you feel the alarm of anxiousness ringing loudly in your ears, this is the time to connect with God through prayer. Use anger as a reminder to wrestle with the Spirit in your own space (Proverbs 4:4). Use the sadness alarm as a reminder to lament.

Connection to others

Connection with others is next in importance. When our emotions and mental health seem to be in the clouds, alerting us that all is well, we can be tempted to disconnect from others just as much as from God. The message comes across within as, “I am having too much fun to connect with them, maybe later.” The emotional alarm of happiness and contentment is helpful if we use it as a reminder to connect with and invest in other people.

If your anxious alarm is going off, use it as a reminder to reach out for prayer. This connection with others is an opportunity to feed the good and helpful thoughts. Try to resist venting or emoting on others which weakens the connection.

If it’s anger that’s sounding the alarm, use connection with others to communicate the need for space. Schedule a time for reunification or for that person to check in with you. Neither isolation nor pursuing a fight will build connection.

As for sadness, this alarm can be helpful when used as a reminder to reach out for prayer. Similar to anxiety, praying with others is an opportunity to develop the good and helpful thoughts that are necessary for improving mental health.

Keep connected

Everyone can benefit from having a space and time to talk things out. Whether it be to gain a new perspective or to find direction. Connecting with God and others is an intentional regular practice for all levels of mental health.

It is one thing I do to improve my mental health as a Christian therapist. It looks like having a time with God through prayer, meditation, and Scripture reading. It also looks like having a person or small group of people to talk with.

If you are looking for or in need of a therapist to be this connection for you, connect with us online. Connection may be just one out of many tools, but it is a powerful one. It is accessible to all with the most basic to the most pressing mental health needs. Keep connected.