Category: Family (Page 1 of 2)

Marriage counseling at Integrity Counseling Services

What does the Bible say about Marriage?

By Cindy Dowling, M.A., L.M.F.T. — As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I am always exploring different modalities and therapeutic techniques to apply in sessions with couples. As a Catholic Marriage and Family Therapist, the foundation of how I look at a marriage is based on biblical Truth. When I see Catholic and/or Christian clients, I can apply that Truth to whatever therapeutic approach I am using. I decided on this topic for an article to dive deeper and learn more about biblical Truths regarding marriage. Join me in my exploration.

It is important to understand what the Bible says about marriage and how we should treat our spouse, and it helps me to think about how I can apply the knowledge therapeutically. The first reference to marriage in the Bible is in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” When you look at where this passage appears in the Bible, it is directly before the serpent deceives Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. An outside party — “the serpent” — coerced Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. As a couple, if they had come together and had a conversation and made the decision together, who knows what the end of the story might be? When it comes to big decisions in a marriage, it is so important for a couple to unite and decide based on their Truth, what is best for them as “one flesh.” We also see from this passage that Eve put her personal desires over her faith and marriage. She knew that God had told Adam in Genesis 17 not to eat fruit from the tree, yet she trusted the serpent over God and Adam. This passage dovetails perfectly with something that I was taught: In a marriage, faith should come first, then the married couple, next would be the children, and finally family and friends.

Biblical reference to Faith being first can be found in Matthew 22:37-38: “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” I always remember the saying “a couple that prays together stays together.” A study by Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist, found that statistics show those who regularly attend religious services are 47% less likely to divorce. With the staggering rate of divorce in America, this is an important thing to consider.

There are many references in the Bible about how we should treat others. What does it say about how a husband should treat his wife? (Ephesians 5:25-26) “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.” My interpretation of this is Christ laid down his life for His Church. Jesus said his Church was not a building but made of a body of people. So, then it is important to explore how Jesus loved and treated the Church and His believers. We know He gave His life for the Church; the other question is how did He treat the Apostles, and other people mentioned in the Bible? Through Scripture, we know Jesus washed the Apostles’ feet, broke bread with them, attended weddings with them, and healed them. He forgave them, loved them, and cast out demons. Jesus had righteous anger when He saw the Pharisees had (Mark 3:5 ) “Hardness of their Hearts” when He healed a withered hand on the Sabbath, and when people defiled his Father’s house selling in the Temple. In John 11:35, “Jesus wept,” out of compassion for Martha, Mary and the others mourning Lazarus’ death. He lead by example, and He taught others how to be better people through His Word. He taught them how to grow closer to God. He remained quiet when He was falsely accused. When He was lashed, crowned with thorns, made to carry a cross, yelled at, mocked, and crucified, He remained stoic. He did not yell. He did not act out. (Luke 23:3) “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do.” WOW! That is powerful. We are not perfect, but as a Christians, our goal is to be Christ-like and do our best to live like Him. Did you know that it is said in the Bible that if husbands are not considerate and respectful to their wives, their prayers can be hindered? (1 Peter 3:7) “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel; and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.” I wonder how many prayers of husbands are being hindered because they are not honoring their wives or treating them the way the Bible teaches.

How should wives treat their husbands? It is written in Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the Savior of the body.” This line of the Bible causes so much controversy. Some men try to use this to say they should be a dictator and control their wife/family. However, as we read above that is NOT how Christ treated people. In fact, in the same verse in Ephesians 5:28-29, it is said: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” This all makes sense since husband and wife become joined as one flesh when they are married. So, women are meant to respect their husbands and, when a wife is loved the way Christ loves His Church, that respect comes easily. When they ran out of wine at the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus’ mother said to the servants (John 2:5) “Whatever He says to you, do it.” I feel that how Mary acted in this moment, trusting Jesus to make the right decision is a great example of letting a man you love know you trust and respect their decision making. (1 Corinthians 11:11-12) “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.” This passage can confirm a mutual dependence and equal worth, showing God made each gender in unity and love to complement each other.

There are many Bible verses that are clear about treating others the way we want to be treated. In Ephesians 5:21, it is written: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” That said, what I have taken away from my research and reading is simply this: Husbands and wives should both treat each other with respect. As John 15:12 states, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” We also know the second greatest commandment is to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Thank you for joining me in my deep dive into some of the many verses in the Bible that discuss marriage and family. Please understand this is my own interpretation of The Word, and how it resonates with me. I am not a biblical scholar. If you have a different understanding or view, I respect it fully. I am a therapist and have been married for 19 years. No marriage is perfect. I believe the Bible is the Truth we all need to learn to teach us how to show up in relationships, how to treat others, and how to be more Christ-like every day. As said in John 8:31-32: “Jesus the said to those Jews who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Finding Freedom in Suffering

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Cor 3:17)

By Jennifer Lindner, MA, Certified Spiritual Director — Suffering is inevitable, but sometimes it can be made worse by another pervasive feeling: stuckness. The source of our suffering can cause us to feel heavy or worried or scared. But feeling stuck can lead us to feel even more anxiety or sadness. We might even feel emotionally or spiritually paralyzed. Suffering, it seems, steals our freedom; we cannot extricate ourselves from our circumstances, nor do we feel like we can choose how to think or move forward. What if, however, we could look at our suffering in a different way? What if we could encounter God in the stuckness? We know that wherever God is, so also is there freedom, and He wants us to find it.

What does it feel like when we’re stuck in our suffering? Maybe we ask, “How can this be happening?” Or we demand, “Why, Lord?” The Psalms reflect the hopelessness we feel. “I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart” (Ps 38:8). Fatigue and grief rob us of our ability to think and move freely. “My heart throbs, my strength fails me; and the light of my eyes — it also has gone from me” (Ps 38:10).

Turning to the Lord, though, even just enough to obtain a little space from our pain, we remember He is with us. “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Ps 94:19). In crying out to God, we trust He will help us. Like the Canaanite woman, we cry, “Lord, help me” (Matt 15:25), and we wait in hope for His answer, “[G]reat is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire” (15:28).

God’s closeness strengthens us, and our trust in Him loosens our spiritual paralysis. We might not feel entirely free, but we no longer feel alone. The Lord unlocks the doors to our hearts. “I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears” (Ps 34:4). He descends into our spiritual prisons and liberates us. “The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them” (Ps 34:7).

Ultimately, God seeks to encounter us in the midst of our suffering so He can set us free. Sometimes we cry out to Jesus like the blind men: “Have mercy on us, Son of David” (Matt 9:27). Other times, Jesus finds us, as when he confronts the long-suffering man at the Sheep Gate: “Do you want to be healed?” (Jn 5:6). God repeatedly invites us to understand how we are most free not apart from suffering, but rather when we discover He is our refuge in the storm of our pain. It is there, during our times of need, that God calls us closest to Himself. As Paul tells us, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” because God is Truth, and wherever there is Truth, there too will we find freedom.

Where might you be feeling stuck or paralyzed today? What is pressing on your heart right now? Where, with God’s help, could you notice the freedom He is inviting you to experience? Where is He asking you to look for it? Prayer? Quiet? Beauty? Laughter? Rest? Follow Him. He will meet you there.

New Year’s Resolution S.M.A.R.T. Goals

By Anna Pecoraro, Ph.D. — If you are reading this, chances are that you have a New Year’s Resolution. Unfortunately — as we all know — many of these resolutions end up not happening. But when they do, great things can occur.

It is best to start small and use a S.M.A.R.T. Goal framework, to be successful. Here are some practical steps:

There are a number of areas in which you could set a goal for yourself. Some of these include: personal, emotional, financial, social, physical/exercise, job and educational.
Ask yourself: What do I need to do the most? And, what am I most likely to actually do? (The answers may not be the same!)
It’s OK to choose the goal that you are most likely to do. (However, if you really want to address a ‘big’ goal that you are not likely to do, break it up into small steps. Start with a step that you think that you would actually do.)
Make your goal into a S.M.A.R.T. Goal:

Specific: Be very specific and precise. Here is an example for the domain of exercise: Improve my core and back by doing sit-ups every day for the next 30 days starting today.

Measurable: How would I measure this? I could say that I am going to do 10 sit-ups per day, every day of the week before getting into bed at night. I could keep track of it on a calendar.

Achievable/Attainable: 10 sit-ups per day are very attainable for most people.

Relevant: Sit-ups are very relevant to having a healthy core and a healthy back.

Time-Bound: The goal is bound by time in two ways: every day, for 30 days. When the 30 days are up, I can set another goal with sit-ups, etc.

Integrity Counseling Services - A.I. Article

We are Irreplaceable

By Michael Kastelnik, Psy.D. — We are in the midst of large technological changes in our society. In the past, I have remarked about the ubiquity of electronics in our lives, and suggested ways to limit exposure to such technology for the sake of mental health. While the suggestion stands to aim for incorporating electronics in our lives in a healthy and balanced way, taking such steps may not prevent what is about to happen in our society and impact many aspects of our lives.

We have already been witnessing the smart phone becoming a one-stop shop for facilitating the provision of human needs short of actually feeding, clothing and sheltering people. As prevalent as this current so-called smart technology is, the next generation will most assuredly be more ubiquitous — and even invasive — such as through wearable or implanted devices. This will no doubt have implications for our attention span, health and relationships.

There is a buzz these days about the glories of artificial intelligence, or A.I. Generative A.I. will be involved in the creation of much content. As a consequence, some people may begin to accept a blending of real and imaginary images, sounds and even concepts in a sort of hyperreality, while others may become skeptical of most or everything they have come to know and believe. Assuredly, many will take for granted the access to quick answers for simple straightforward questions. But not all questions in life are simple. “How is my relationship with God these days?” or “Am I called to priesthood or marriage?” or “What is the significance of this particular suffering that God is allowing in my life?” This is where we need to remember our humanity and the gift of reason rather than depending solely on data.

Some are saying that A.I. in conjunction with robotics will take over many of the tasks that people normally do. In the best-case scenario, we are being promised a world where we don’t have to worry about the necessities of life such as manual labor but we can rather focus on activities such as leisure. As appealing as this scenario may sound, the issue of automation raises the concern about the elimination of jobs and the displacement laborers in the workforce. This could devastate many people who place a lot of significance in their work that they enjoy, by which they feed their households, in which they excel, or in which they find meaning for their lives. I am aware of St. Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians that those who don’t work shall not eat. We must bring our Christian values to bear on a situation where many people may become unemployed or underemployed as a consequence of technological developments in society.

As human beings with infinite dignity, we all have intrinsic value that cannot be diminished regardless of our job status. That being said, while more jobs are threatened with automation and therefore elimination, there are things we can do to help ourselves. We can attempt to demonstrate our value to our bosses or to our customers by “selling ourselves” just a little better and showing just how necessary our work is and how indispensable we are. We may learn a few more skills to make our case even stronger. The adage “You get what you pay for” comes to mind, as cost efficiency is one of the selling points of A.I. and robotics. In the event that our jobs go away, we can rely on internal resources like our relationship with the Lord and tap into our own resilience such as by creatively brainstorming all of our resources, human connections and opportunities. This is your right and responsibility- — you cannot be replaced.

The Difference Between Excuses and Explanations

By Gian Milles, M.S. — I sometimes have people come into my office saying they “don’t like excuses.” “This is great! Me neither,” I usually retort. However, it can be a problem when people conflate “excuses” with “explanations.” I see this when people respond to my questions of “why?” (e.g., Why did you use alcohol for years despite the harm that it caused you and your family?) by stating that they “don’t like excuses.”

I respond by telling them that the difference between excuses and explanations may be subtle, but in reality, they are completely different. Put simply, excuses are used to avoid taking personal responsibility for a wrong action. They may include truthful information, but they always misuse it. The subtext is usually “it wasn’t my fault.” For example, someone might say, “I used alcohol because my wife was not intimate with me as often as I wanted.” It may be true that your wife was not intimate with you as much as you’d like, but it is not her fault that you used alcohol. We can be influenced by circumstances and other people, but we cannot be controlled by them. Of course, there are certain exceptions, such as if a person is threatened or coerced into a certain action, in which case they bear little to no culpability for their action.

On the contrary, explanations are thoroughly rooted in facts, context or circumstances. They admit guilt while still telling the full picture of what happened. An example here is: “When I am away on business, I often wind up drinking.” This presents the fact of using in the context of a situation where the person likely feels lonely while refraining from blaming someone or something for their actions.

Excuses keep us stuck. They put the blame on someone or something we cannot control. They do not offer freedom and hope for a way forward with a better outcome. Conversely, explanations help us grow in self-understanding and self-awareness. They help us develop insight as to how we got to a certain place in our lives where we did something that caused ourselves and our loved ones significant harm. Excuses make things less clear, while explanations make them clearer.

This insight is a necessary ingredient for change. When we do not understand how something happened, we cannot take the required steps to make sure those circumstances do not happen again. Excuses rob us of the ability to change for the better, while explanations are tools that allow us to forge a new way marked by integrity, wholeness and love. They allow us to repair the harm we have caused and prevent it from happening again. They are our ticket to a better future.

We have a God of second chances. No matter what we have done, the opportunity for change and reconciliation is available to us. We only need the courage to take it.

Grieving During the Holidays

By Neal Niznan, MSW, LCSW — The grief process is challenging any time of the year. Grieving the loss of a loved one around the holidays provides its own challenges that can magnify the intensity of grief you feel. As we move towards the end of the year, two short months and four major holidays, Halloween to New Year’s can be extremely hard to navigate. Planning in advance what you want to do during the holidays is one way to maintain a sense of management of the grief process.

The holidays embody an inherent sense of joy, happiness and peace. You, however, may not experience any of those feelings, and feel completely out of step with everyone else. It is hard to put on your happy face and make the holiday joyous when you do not feel that way at all. You may think it will just be easier not to do the holidays this year as a way of coping.

I would suggest avoid isolating yourself during the holidays. There may be a way to manage the emotional demands of the holidays and not throw yourself into a tailspin trying to navigate the demands on one’s time and wellbeing. Consider what you need for yourself and what parts of the holidays are important for you to participate in. This may be a year where you do not include all the family traditions. Review what you normally do to celebrate and select the most essential elements. Think about what the most meaningful parts of your traditions and see if you can incorporate them into your revised holiday plans. You may not have the energy to decorate the whole house or prepare all the family’s favorite dishes like you always did. Do what you have the energy for.

The grief process should be embraced not avoided. It is impossible to get together with others and not mention the deceased, or their absence. Try not to make it the elephant in the room. Include your loved one in the celebration by setting a place for them at the table, playing their favorite music, cooking their favorite dish, or including them in a prayer before the meal to honor them. Be proactive about how you would like to celebrate and include the deceased in the festivities.

It is important to have a plan for stepping away from, or even not attending, a holiday gathering. Despite your best efforts and intentions, give yourself the option, at the last minute, not to participate in family gatherings or parties if you are just not up for it. Give yourself space to participate in the way you can. Let others know that you may leave early or not join in certain activities. Others will understand this is a challenging time and you need space to be by yourself.

It may seem easier to avoid the holidays this year and hide until they are over. With a bit of reflection and planning, you can create for yourself a safe space to grieve, honor your loved one, and celebrate the holidays with family and friends. Everyone is grieving and missing the deceased loved one. We provide support to one another through our presence, our words and our touch. A message of love and support is expressed through an embrace with someone who understands our loss. Allow yourself to be the recipient of support from others and provide comfort in their grieving.

Marital Life: Share Your Expectations

Genesis 2: For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

By Cindy Dowling, MS, LMFT — Marriage is a process full of growth and change. In a Christian marriage, each spouse’s role is to help the other get to Heaven. One important way to keep your marriage healthy is to share your expectations. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I am blessed to see clients at all stages of marriage: Couples who are dating and/or engaged who want to make sure they begin their Covenant on the right foot; couples recently married who want to anchor in healthy communication skills before children; couples who need support connecting and parenting young children; couples going through parenting transitions from pre-teens to teens or from high school to college; couples becoming empty nesters; and even retired couples. These couples could be in crisis. They could notice they are heading down a negative path and want to get ahead of a crisis in the future, or they could be just looking to strengthen their relationship.

When a couple gets married, each spouse brings with them their morals, values and traditions from their family of origin. They also bring with them their wounded past, possibly from their family of origin, past relationships or friendships. All these experiences help individuals create expectations of how they think their spouse, parenting and life will play out. When spouses don’t share these expectations with each other, it can lead to resentment and frustration because their needs or milestones they haven’t shared with their spouse have not been met. It is so important for couples to be open and honest, and share with each other the expectations they have for their life.

Here are some examples of expectations that people might forget to share:

• What a marriage should look like, chores, roles, who should work
• Communication
• Intimacy, affection, kind words
• Retirement
• Parenting
• Living close or far from family
• Cleanliness standards
• Sleeping habits (early risers/night owls)
• Need for personal space and need for time together
• Spending vs. saving
• Financial transparency
• Who pays for what
• Parenting styles
• When to have children and how many

This is a list of just some of the expectations I see couples struggle with in my practice. According to Dr. John Gottman, founder of the Gottman Institute, the normal couple waits an average of over six years of being unhappy before they seek marital therapy. If you are feeling unhappy in your marriage, don’t wait for help. Find a therapist who you connect with that you can have for the life of your marriage.

If The Empty Nest Makes You Depressed

By Teri Love, M.S. — When my son was one-year old, he loved to stand by the open dishwasher and “help” unload the clean dishes. One day, he dropped a glass, and it shattered at his bare feet. I was right beside him and swooped him up before he got cut. Later that day, I told my friend about the incident, and she said, “Our kids don’t realize how many times a day we save their lives.” I laughed because it was a little dramatic but also a little true.

Fast forward 17 years, and my husband and I dropped off that same son for his freshman year of college. How quickly the child we raised and protected since birth grew up and set out to begin his next phase of life. It was beautiful and exciting but also heartbreaking.

It is late August as I write this, and I see evidence of that same heartbreak in posts all over social media. There are college goodbye photos, tear-jerker parenting poems, and terms like “momancholy” in memes about the deep sadness we feel when adult kids move out.

What do we do with that deep sadness? It can be confusing because it often sits side-by-side with joy, relief and pride. It can also be complex if our kids don’t seem to be headed in the direction we hoped and prayed for. Because I’ve reckoned with oodles of these feelings myself, waded through them with friends and family, and addressed them in the therapy office, I would like to offer encouragement along with three ways to manage emotions during this phase of life:

Care for yourself. Recognize this is a colossal change, and practice self-compassion. Self-compassion might include a short break from work or other responsibilities while you grieve the empty room, empty chair at the dining table, or quieter house. It’s okay to cry and not apologize for it or criticize yourself. (“I’m being silly;” “I should be happy;” “Everyone else seems to be getting on with life.”) If there is something nice you would do for a friend going through a rough time — do that nice thing for you!
Talk! First, talk to God. God knows you and loves you and understands the details of your pain. Second, talk to people who’ve “launched” adult children before or are going through it along with you. This is the perfect time to invite another parent you know out to coffee or for a walk. It is surprisingly healing to be reminded you’re not in this alone. Third, if things seem too weighty to manage on your own, talk to a therapist. A good therapist can accompany, validate and help you navigate your way through this giant shift in your life and into the next phase. And speaking of the next phase . . .
Assess your life and dream a little about the next phase. Some parents might start this process well ahead of their adult child’s move-out day; others need a few months or longer to observe how things go and adjust to their “new normal.” When you’re ready, be intentional. Brainstorm things you’d like to do that match your personality, budget and energy. I’ve seen everything from turning a son’s room into an elaborate walk-in closet to taking sailing lessons, selling the house, and preparing for a trip around the world. The point is, life is not over and there are endless ways to invest in yourself, others, and your newly-adult child.

Six years have passed since our oldest son’s freshman drop-off at college. It doesn’t take much effort for me to recall the exact feelings I had as we drove away from him. It was (and still can be) a hollow ache and I don’t like it at all. If you are dealing with that hollow ache, I pray you will feel the consolations of God’s goodness and His promise to bring good things out of difficulties; the awareness that you are not alone; and the strength to talk about your experience with a trusted friend or therapist.

Managing Everything But Time

By Michael Kastelnik, Psy.D. – “Time management” is a funny phrase. To see what I mean, take the concept of management as largely understood in a business context. Companies all over the world spend a lot of time and effort to make sure their laborers can get the job done. Sometimes the mere presence of managers helps to keep people honest and ensure they are actually working and not slacking off or engaging in some other activity that is bad for business. This all makes sense with managing people that you can influence, but it makes less sense with such an invaluable yet intangible resource such as time. Nevertheless, there are other aspects of our lives over which we have more obvious control, albeit some of us more than others. I’m talking about things such as energy, stress and attention.

Like with many aspects of life, managing energy levels is relevant to the conversation. As such, any advice on improving time management will include the usual components of self-care such as proper diet, exercise or comparable activity, adequate sleep, maintaining wholesome relationships and stress management. In fact, stress management is a complex skill in itself and it may be fundamental to time management inasmuch as you need to have just the right amount of arousal to complete a task, according to the Yerkes-Dodson model of productivity. Too little concern for a task will literally get you nowhere, while too much concern can lead to progressively worse outcomes. Mistakes can occur. Burnout is an outcome when people are putting in more effort with no more output in the product. And, of course, health problems occur in the short term and over time when people get too stressed. Physiology is simple enough to regulate with activities such as slow, deep breathing or jumping jacks, while mental stress relief may involve something like journaling about concerns.

Attention is another resource that may require more discipline to regulate. We all tend to focus on things we find interesting and space out on boring tasks. Becoming your own behavioral therapist and limiting the interesting things to serve as a reward for the more mundane tasks could not only help you get your work done but could also build a resistance to forming unbalanced habits with things that exploit our attention, such as electronic devices.

In addition to short-term tactics to stay on task, it is also necessary to step back and make sure we are balancing efficiency, the ability to do tasks using less time, money or energy, with effectiveness, which is a positive contribution to our goals.

For example, let’s say you have a goal to build a stone wall on the front of your property. If you know you have a lot of large stones in your backyard, you may decide to start by gathering those stones and bringing them to the other side in the most efficient way possible. You could figure out how to reduce the likelihood of injury by lifting the rocks with a certain technique. You might utilize a simple machine, such a wheelbarrow, to do it quickly with simple machines like a wheelbarrow. You may be tempted to feel so proud of your method that you move the rocks to the backyard again because you can. Maybe that last activity sounds far fetched, but the point is that if the emphasis falls too much on efficiency, you may lose sight of other important things such as implementing the rest of the steps needed to complete the wall, maintaining it, and having a rationale why you are building it that you can instill in your children, who could in turn maintain or improve the wall when their time comes. The point of this example is to show how we need the ability to pause from our work periodically or even regularly to make sure we are growing in virtue and working towards worthwhile goals and not simply keeping busy.

So, what can we do if managing our time seems like such a complex task? We can pray that the Holy Ghost enable us to use His gifts such as wisdom. We can ask for counsel from respected elders and mentors on how to grow in prudence regarding particular problems we would like to solve. We can start where we are and acknowledge what we have some control over, such as self-care and attention, as well as those that we don’t control and could therefore benefit from avoiding worrying about, such as the passage of time. This is the Serenity Prayer in action. While we may not control time, there is a lot we all can do to make the most of it.

Hope for Teens with Specific Strategies

By Gian Milles, M.S., L.P.C. — We hear a lot today about the mental health crisis in teenagers. While it is true that teen mental health in America has been declining since the early 2010s, there is also reason for hope. According to research from the CDC, about 3 in 5 children ages 6 to 17 exhibit indicators of flourishing, including showing interest in learning new things, staying calm and in control when faced with a challenge, and working to finish tasks they start. Sometimes, with sensationalistic news and no shortage of geopolitical instability, we can be tempted to focus only on the negative. Depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, you may see the 3/5 figure as comforting (over half of our children are healthy!) or worrisome (nearly half of our children are unhealthy!). Either way, I want to share some good news with you.

If you are one of those people who are happy to hear that 3/5 of children are healthy, I rejoice with you. This is certainly a wonderful thing that so many children are doing so well despite the adversity they are facing in our tumultuous times. On the other hand, if you are concerned about those that are not or if you know a young person who is struggling, there is reason for hope.

Psychologists have defined hope as willpower + waypower. What does this mean? It means that having hope consists of having the mental energy or motivation to achieve clear goals and specific pathways, or mental plans, for being able to make these goals happen. With proper coaching, the 40% of children and teens who are experiencing significant anxiety and/or depression can grow in the virtue of hope, and hopeful people are protected against strong, persistent emotions such as anxiety and depression. Helping teens to stay motivated by offering them incentives (e.g. taking them to a sporting event or a trip to Rita’s Water Ice) can be helpful. If it appears that they are motivated, but are having trouble with follow-through, It can also be helpful to help them problem-solve with specific ways they can achieve their goals. This may involve guiding them through building more effective study habits, improving their diet, or helping them to join a sports team or get a gym membership.

In the context of these strategies, the most powerful force for good in a child’s life is unconditional love. Kobe Bryant advocated for this in one of Bryant’s last interviews. When you tell a child that you love them no matter how they behave, and, what’s more, that God loves them no matter how they behave, this gives teens the freedom to take risks, knowing that failure does not threaten their inherent dignity and lovability.

This combination of unconditional love along with specific goals, motivation, and pathways to success are the resources that allow teens to effectively experience the freedom from anxiety and depression that God and we desire for them.