EP008: Ben Stapley & Communicating via Church Online

Welcome back to another episode of From Text to Testimony. That was my game show announcer voice. Welcome, I'm Andy, I'm one of the hosts here. I'm going to be joined by the awesome and wonderful Megan Carter in just a few minutes, and this is episode eight. Like I said, we are right on the kind of edge, the precipice maybe, of jumping fully into a new year. It's technically 2024. I'm sure you've gotten all of your happy New Years out of the way, but here it from Text to Testimony from my family to yours: Happy New Year.

Hey, we are really going to have an interesting talk today. One of the things that, kind of as we've been on this journey through being a Glue responder, helping explorers, but also branching out into different paths of digital ministry, we've come up against the topic of anxiety a lot. I went back in, part of my homework as I was kind of prepping for the new year for a number of different shows, but also for this one in particular. I went back and listened to a lot of our episodes and I went back and read the transcripts and kind of looked at some of the word cloud things that kept happening, and some things kept popping up. Obviously connection and ministry and all of the normal things there, but one big thing kept popping up, and that was this term anxiety. And we had never really dove into what actually anxiety was and how to actually help with it. And that's not just, you know, helping explorers, but that's also this idea of helping the responders as well. Because if you are a responder on Glue or even if you are a digital minister or anybody who is responding to somebody that has anxiety or is professing to be anxious about things, you're going to have anxiety as well. You want to make sure you're saying the right things, you're recommending the right things, that you're forwarding people on to counselors or medication when needed, and all of those other things. And so we're going to talk about that.

A quick kind of caveat before we move into that conversation, and I'm going to give this caveat later as well, but we are not—Megan and I are not mental health counselors. She is a mental health coach. She is certified. But I am only a pastor. She is only a pastor. We are not qualified to write prescriptions. We are not qualified to make diagnoses and anything like that. So view this podcast through that lens and view this podcast through the lens of we are people that are trying to help you on the front lines, literally be, you know, emergency responders, how to route people, when to route people, and oh by the way, how to also help take care of yourself because self-care is such a huge thing as well.

So without further ado, we're jumping into episode eight of From Text to Testimony.

Well, the podcast police are going to visit me if I don't say these words right here: Happy New Year. Welcome to episode eight of From Text to Testimony. Happy New Year, Megan Carter. How's it been so far in this 2024? How has life been treating you on the eve of even years?

Man, it has been just going like a train left the station, and I'm hanging on for your life, I think. So okay, are you experiencing any sort of like nervousness or anxiety as we're going to be talking about today? Has anything, you know, has is everything going up and to the right, or are you feeling like you're kind of trying to hold on to things for dear life here?

Yes, all the things. No. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this a little bit, but I deal with anxiety, so that is a daily thing. So yeah, but no more good than negative things, so just a lot and figuring it out as we go along.

Fair enough. That's how it is. Now, the interesting thing is coming out of the holidays. On one of our previous episodes, we talked about anxiety from people anxiety and depression kind of creeping up in the December area. And you being trained and knowledgeable, way more knowledgeable than I ever will be in all of these things, is there even more of a bump in January in terms of the general population, or does it kind of even off? Does it go down? Like, what is the general mental health trend in January and February?

Yeah, most of the time January and February are kind of like those down months. You just come off this Christmas season, which sometimes are surrounded by people, even if you still feel alone amongst everyone. But January really starts to be like, okay, either you have a bunch of bills that come in from the Christmas season, yeah, or just from last year, like medical bills, all that, like it adds up real quick, and so it can take you down a pretty dark path. And then I mean, this morning I woke up and it had snowed outside, not like a crazy amount, but when the snow comes and ice gets on the road, then you're not able to leave your house, you're not able to get out and be amongst other people, so that definitely adds another layer. And then you see that kind of still within February too. So I think there's there can be a big trend of that mental health and anxiety depression still ramping up. Also, the sun's not out, so that doesn't help anybody.

Also, the sun. One of the big things that we need to stay healthy.

Yeah, it's nowhere. It's nowhere to be found. Even in Florida. Our—oh yeah, well, we don't—well, that's not true, I guess we do kind of have gray down here. We had actually had school cancelled yesterday because there was a monster storm that ended up almost being like a tropical storm. Mind you, it's, it was January ninth. As a well, it's January tenth now. It was January ninth when this happened. They cancelled school because the winds were so high and the sun hasn't been out for like three days, and all that. So like, what's the deal with that? Like, can we just figure that out, please?

So that led to some anxiety in our household as well. Last question from me: we were talking pre-show about probably one of the greatest television shows ever created, Gilmore Girls. And we were talking about it's true, and you can add us in the comments or reach out on our socials if you are also part of the Gilmore Girls brigade. They called it the Stars Hollow brigade, right? That was the band?

Yeah, I think there was multiple different things, but yeah, yeah, that sounds familiar.

So the big question that is on everyone's hearts right now is: are you team Logan or are you team Jess?

Yeah, um, well, I have changed. Okay, not team Dean because he's the worst. Yeah, he was not great. I was team Logan for a long time until probably this past time I watched it, which was like in the last year and a half. I think I watch it every year. I think it's like it just starts. Yeah, yeah, because I can put it on and do anything and I know exactly where I'm at and what I've seen, so I don't miss anything. But I am definitely leaning in towards team Jess, and it might play into like, I love This Is Us too, and same actor plays—yes. And so that may have swayed me a little bit as well because I still saw like Jess as an older person. It just, yeah, but I'm definitely leaning into team Jess anymore.

Okay, so he is awesome. Yeah, This Is Us is also awesome. And actually, when my wife and I were watching This Is Us, she anytime I would turn on the crockpot, she would say like, you, are you, should probably just stay in the kitchen just in case. I was like, well, it's not going to happen, but okay, I understand your point here. Spoilers, spoilers for anyone that has watched This Is Us, but a crockpot catches.

Yeah, as I think the statute of limitations is up, that's a ten-year-old show or whatever.

Yeah.

All right, so today on this episode, this rousing rendition, we're going to talk TV, and then what we're going to do is actually we're going to get to the baseline of something that has really, we've touched on, we've kind of danced around in a number of our episodes, but ideally we're going to be talking about how to navigate anxiety. So we've talked about anxiety kind of coming in from our explorers into Glue. We've talked about anxiety in terms of overall just like seasonal wellbeing, like we just talked about, right? But we've never actually given you know practical advice on how to actually deal with it. And we're not talking obviously medication—that is a definite route, and we're going to get there eventually. But it needs to be understood that neither Megan nor I are doctors. Megan is way more certified and way more licensed than any of us, correct? Anything, but she still cannot prescribe anything, correct?

So we're not necessarily going to talk about the medications you use or should be using or even if you should be. That is going to be a conversation between you and your therapist and your psychologist. However, we are going to talk about the practical things that we can do, both on the explorer side and on the responder side.

So Megan, I guess the best place to start is we need to define what anxiety actually is. We need to understand it. So from your general holistic training, when you hear the word anxiety—not give me the emotions that arise, but give me the definitions that you've been taught.

Yeah, so I might throw you for a loop a little bit because I think a lot of people view anxiety just as negative, which don't get me wrong, it can be. But I have a really good friend who is a mental health professional, and she said this definition one time, and it has stuck with me ever since. And she says it is your god-given gift. And I was like, what? Like, how is anxiety my god-given gift? But it's because it is a signal. So God designed us intricately, and it is a signal. So like, if you're standing in the middle of the road and a car is coming, you're going to jump out of the way. That is part of your anxiety telling you jump out of the way, there's a car coming, don't get hit. So it's a crazy way to think about it, and most people that I tell are like, uh, no, anxiety is only like made me go into a corner in the fetal position, and I'm like, yes, it can do that too. But when you can actually—and something we can talk about later—but grab those tools to help manage it, it can become a positive thing and can propel you forward. It's just the way that you take it. So overall, anxiety is a signal. It allows us to know like what perceived danger is in front of us. And sometimes that perceived danger is real danger, and we should do something about it. And sometimes it can be a danger that we've almost created this narrative in our head. And so can we manage that? How can we work through that? So it's kind of a little bit different maybe than a textbook definition, but it's probably one of my favorites that I've come through.

That's really good. The idea that God gave you anxiety almost as like an evolutionary protection, I think, is an interesting thing. We don't have time to get into evolution and all that other stuff. It's a thing, and like it's macro versus micro and all that, but would you say within the past, you know, the idea is that humans started as this sort of hunter-gatherer type of species or whatever, and then we ultimately evolved into more on the whole metropolitan beings? And yet given that definition of anxiety, it's almost like we needed that to make sure we weren't going to be eaten by lions or bears or, you know, killed by tigers or anything.

Yeah, I mean, it goes into that whole like you take it further into that whole fight or flight response, right? And I think our anxiety does that a lot, but that's literally a way that our body is telling us like to survive or to, you know, get out of the space, right? So why then are we hearing and seeing all of these reports, even though we don't necessarily need to worry in the Western world? We don't worry about being eaten by lions or bears or anything like that. Why are we seeing such high rates of anxiety?

Food scarcity as much, we don't have to worry about tigers killing us and all those other things. Why do we hear reports and see it literally on in explorers and responders and literally in our own life? Why is anxiety higher than it probably was even a hundred years ago?

Yeah, um, you know, I think let me go back to this. I think we all have some level of anxiety. Um, you know, like I said, that's a God-given gift and so we all have that. Like, even people I know that don't really deal with anxious thoughts or things that debilitate them, there's still like there's a healthy level of anxiety I think in some people. Um, but I think we've just, especially probably in the last five to seven years, I feel like just mental health has been talked about more. So it's not that it didn't exist or wasn't there. Um, I think it was a big shame factor. Um, if you felt a certain way or thought certain things, um, it was very shameful and so no one would talk about it, no one would share. And I think now that we've been able to open up more about it, and I love, especially in the church setting, open up about that, it helps take that shame because shame is, you know, for who I am, it's almost an identity piece. And so yeah, anxiety is a part of your life, but it doesn't have to take over your whole identity. And so I think that's a big piece of it is that it's always been here. We're just talking about it now, so we see a lot more.

That's fascinating. I'm thinking about my own life. Um, so I'm an Enneagram one and an Enneagram three as well. But like, okay, I don't know, and maybe you've experienced this. Like my three and my one fight with each other a whole lot. And because if you know anything about Enneagram, the three is the performer. It is the one that, uh, wants to, that we'll wear a mask to make sure they fit in with everybody, that knows the right thing to say and all occasions, but ultimately doesn't know themselves. Like, that's the three. So there's a good and a bad, but the one is very justice-oriented, is very baseline-oriented, needs to know that there is a failsafe upon failsafe. Which is, I mean, I'm looking as you were talking, I'm looking around my office going, well, I have a failsafe monitor. I do have a failsafe camera right there. I have a failsafe microphone. Like, I have the failsafes. As I've gotten older, I have noticed that my one part, the one, the Enneagram one, the anxiety that goes with that, kicks into high gear without me really being able to regulate it. You know what I mean? Like, it's like I just turned forty, and yet I feel like I'm way, and I'm, and I take medication daily. I take a medication called Lexapro of a decently high dose a day, and I still go zero to sixty on my anxiety. Why is that? Not just for me, but like, what about people that are like me? As they get older, why does it do that? Is it hormonal? Is it because I have more to lose? Like, what's the deal there?

There is a lot of factors. Um, that's a hard thing. It's a hard diagnosis. Me, diagnose me, tell me. Um, we can sit in an hour session and I can walk through it. No, I'm just kidding. But no, it really is. There's so many factors. Like I said, God made us so intricate. Like, if you've ever studied the brain, it is hard for me to think anybody studies the brain and can't be like, there's a Creator out there.

Yeah, because the way that everything works together and fires and all these different things, and how, yeah, it just blows my mind how these things work. And so yeah, I don't know. I, there are so many different pieces. And as you, you know, even if you're like a younger kid and going through puberty and getting older, or like getting to, you know, your teenage phase into like your frontal lobe, which is up here, your decision-making, um, that doesn't even fully develop till you're twenty-five, which was mind-blowing to me.

Yep, twenty-five.

So let's just put that out there. So not until after you pretty much got a bachelor's degree, and now you're starting to be able to make decisions. Um, so yeah, it just changes. And then as you get older, there's a lot of changes, hormonal changes, different things. So that's really an almost an individualized piece. Um, I think overall we all go through different transitions, and not only like the physical ones, but we have transitions of like empty nest, you know, being an empty nester, um, going through different areas, or if you've been through like divorce, or there's so many factors that flow into each of these. So it's kind of hard to be like, "and this is why," but there's a lot of different pieces. And I think if you really, um, if you've been able to manage your anxiety before and had the tools to do that, and then it starts to kind of go off the rails, then it's kind of time to look back and be like, okay, what changed? Like, was there an environmental factor? Was there a, I moved to a different state? Was there, you know, just different, like different pieces? And then you can kind of start to gauge with like a health professional or a mental health professional to find out ways that'll help you better to just manage that.

Okay, so that's all great advice. Uh, I, I think I feel like we need to tailor the direction or the conversation just a little bit in terms of two competing parties. So in a platform like Glue, for example, but this is really any other digital ministry, you have the people that are calling in, texting in, emailing in, DMing in, whatever, that are exploring their faith, that are exploring their mental health, that have an issue. You know, this is not people calling into something like BetterHelp. These are people that are questioning certain things, but also have like a crust built up of anxiety, of depression, of any sort of mental health. So you have the person relaying in, and then you have the actual, in Glue it's called a responder, that's the person that is responding back with text, responding back with content. You have all of those other things, and there's anxiety on both sides, I would imagine. So let's start with, let's start with actually the responder piece. So if you as a responder are listening, or you as a mental health professional are listening right now, Megan, is there an anxiety there? Not only personally, but like that you're going to say the bad, the wrong thing? Like, how does all of that work?

Yeah, uh, that is definitely, I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I agree to everything you just said. There are so many things that you start to play out different scenarios, right? You're like, well, if I say this to this person, then this could happen, and then this could happen, but then if I say this, this could happen, and so on and so forth. Um, those are narratives that we create in our head. Um, anxiety plays into those, usually. That's when you start to go down a spiral. Um, that can be in either situation, but especially as a responder, you hopefully feel the need and the want to help people and help them as effectively as you can. So it's not a bad thing that you feel that because you do want to help them the best way you can. Um, but it's also you do have to respond in some way. Like, you can't just sit there and think on it forever because at some point the explorer is just kind of gonna, they're going to see the text come through and be like, well, this has been days, so I don't know that this person really cares, or they didn't have enough time to respond before, so they won't respond back. So it's kind of like a double-edged sword. Like, you want to make sure you're saying things that you're not like saying things that would be harmful, but you also need to say something so that the person receiving something means more than you making sure every word is perfect. Which I get it, I'm a perfectionist. I want it all to be just as it should be and to be the best it can be. Like, failure is not an option, right? That's the way my brain works. But I've learned that like, even if I don't get it right all the time, even if maybe what I said could have come, you know, offensive to a person on the other side, um, usually they're pretty gracious. Not always, we've had some rough conversations, but usually they are. If you can come back and say, I'm, you know, I didn't mean it exactly like that, but let's talk through this piece. Um, so yeah, there's a lot of anxiety that comes with that, but I think it's more of, if you're wanting and your goal is to help the other person, got to go out there and do it.

That's, uh, that's good. All right, so I'm going to tell you real quick, and then I haven't, I didn't prep you on this, so okay, good luck. Uh, are you anxious? Um, so I was, I, uh, part of what I do on the side, I edit podcasts. I produce and I do a whole bunch of YouTube videos and a whole bunch of other stuff, but I also edit other people's podcasts. And I was actually editing the Church Digital podcast with our friend Jeff Reed. Uh, he had one of my favorite people on, uh, Ken, this guy Kenny Jang, who is the godfather of AI in the church right now. Uh, he's just one of my favorite guys ever to talk to, to listen to, to just sit and hang out with. And so Jeff was talking about AI in the church and kind of different things, large language models going into 2024, and Kenny actually took the conversation in a different way as I was editing it. And so normally I'm listening to a podcast on two and four times speed just to kind of get through, make my quick edits, and then go back through and trim it. But for this entire sort of ten-minute section, Kenny, I slowed it down and listened at one X. And Kenny was talking about the use of AI in pastoral care, but also kind of in mental health care. And he said, you know, you can't expect AI tools like Bard and ChatGPT and Jasper and all these other ones. You can't expect them to give you the right answers. You can expect them to get you about seventy to eighty percent of the way there. Uh, and so yes, yes, and amen. Like, I don't want to trust any of my pastoral care, any of my responder care, or any of my explorer care to an AI tool. But he did say one of the best things that these tools can do is they can actually roleplay for you. And so you can set the tool up to say, you know, hey, uh, my friend Megan here, she is struggling. She just, she's going through a divorce, she lost her job. Uh, and so hey, ChatGPT, pretend you're Megan, and let me talk with you. And then you can actually roleplay out this conversation on some of the best ways to go about doing things. Again, it'll get you like seventy or eighty percent of the way there. As a mental health therapist, coach, counselor, whatever you want to classify yourself as, in this case, do you see a use of AI in this venue? I also know Glue is going that way as well. And so this might be a relevant conversation for them. Can you or have you ever used AI tools in this way?

Um, I have actually, really, I have. Um, not in the like roleplay, which I think is really interesting, and I might have to try that out, yeah. Um, usually those are the ones that I just start playing out in my head, and then you don't actually know how the other person is going to respond. But um, I like the idea behind that. Um, that can help somebody who has a lot of anxiety kind of see how it plays out, um, which could be helpful for them starting that conversation. I have had a couple instances that I've had a responder come through with this whole long thing, and I'm like, I don't even know where to begin. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to say. And so I have taken it and taken it into ChatGPT and said, help me respond. Um, I wouldn't recommend this for everything, but I took that response and

Then I put it in my own words. Um, so it gave me a kind of a guide of how to take that conversation, but then I was able to put it more in the way that it would come for me because again, we don't want it to look like a robot sent this message, which it's crazy how like sophisticated it's becoming because it doesn't seem like a robot, right? Um, but I think if you can put it in your own words and you know, let the other person know that how you are caring for them, it can help a lot. And sometimes just by things you say can help guide the conversation to where it really needs to be because a lot of times when explorers come in with things, it's not necessarily the thing that they need help with. That's cool. So there you go. I gave you a tip for your own.

I'll take it. Yeah, yeah. What? That was for free. Uh, actually I'll link the episode of the Church Sched episode 278 in the description below. So we've talked about the responders themselves and kind of how they can manage expectations, manage their own anxiety. What about just the generalized explorer that's coming in? What's, you know, if there is an explorer coming in or even if you are struggling with your own mental health, like let's start with a baseline. What are some baseline things you can do? And then let's kind of build upon that until we get to the point where it's like, hey, you need to go see somebody. So first, first and foremost, like what can you do to navigate that?

The very first thing is let them know, uh, the explorer know that this is a safe space, okay? That is first and foremost. People need to know that they have a space that they can talk. Um, because there's a lot of heavy things, there's a lot of things, and there's a lot of things that they wouldn't necessarily share, like even with their friends and family. Again, it goes back to that shame piece. There's a lot of shame that is on people. And so that would be, I think, number one is to make sure they know like this is a safe space. You're a listening ear. Um, again, you're not here to diagnose them. You're not here to give them medicine. Like all those things, but you are here to listen and to help guide them in whatever way like you can until you find that there's a next step they need to take, okay?

That's good. So listening is good. What's, uh, after that? So let's say cool, you've established that baseline as a responder, and then the explorer is still saying, whatever. That, not whatever, because that minimizes the whole thing. That sounded really callous on my part.

Yeah, sorry, dude. Sucks to be you.

Uh, so like, what's the next step then? On both sides?

On both sides, um, is continuing that conversation. Um, asking questions, open-ended questions, not just yes or nos, because they will answer yes or no. Even open-ended questions sometimes they respond with like one word. Like I had somebody ask, they were talking about like being overwhelmed by everything, and I was like, okay, so let's dive into that a little bit. Like, what do you mean by everything? What's the biggest thing that's in front of you right now? Which a lot of people would probably be able to answer. Uh, this person just said, all of it. And I was like, okay, I'm like, I have nowhere to go. So basically, it just keep asking the same question just in different forms, and then hopefully one time you do get even a snippet of a place to take it. Um, you may find that there is an, you know, maybe an issue with the family and struggles there, or you may find of them dealing with, you know, even to the extreme of suicidal thoughts. And then where do you go from there? Um, so there's a lot of different ways, but keeping that conversation going and getting them talking is probably the hardest thing.

Yeah, sometimes some people really like to talk, and I've gotten books, and I'm like, okay, that's when you, that's when you copy paste, put it into ChatGPT and have it summarized for you.

Yes, there you go.

Yeah, uh, okay. So keeping the conversation going, at what point do you as the responder say, hey, this is beyond what I can do? Let me forward you to some of our counseling resources or let's find you a counselor or something like that? At what point does that happen?

Yeah, um, I think you should be able to tell. Um, if you've been in relationships with any people, like in person, online, digitally, um, you can tell when it's starting to go like above your pay grade, right? Like you can't handle it. Um, there's a lot of things that even just in the day-to-day life we can handle. We can walk through, and you know, you can start to walk through like someone who is struggling with just kind of generalized anxiety. Um, but when it starts going down a path of that anxiety is leading to depression or leading to suicidal thoughts, that is a giant like, let's wave the red flag. Find help now. Um, there's a bunch of different ways you can do that. If you have resources, which is a great reason to have a like just resource library of people you can connect with. Um, if you have more people in your local area, that's really great, uh, because you can connect them with locally. But if not, there's a lot of national resources. A big one there's the crisis hotline and like the Hope hotline. Um, those are huge ones that they can go in and chat with like specialists, and they can help them walk them off a ledge. They can help different areas. So I think we've really, you can notice when people start saying certain things like, well, I just don't know if it'd be better off if I'm not here. Like, if you hear those phrases, that should be a warning of like, get them help as quickly as possible and don't just like dilly dally around of like sending them that. Get them that, and be like, you need to contact this, you know, group. And um, I yeah, it's a big piece, and it's a tough one. It's a tough one to be on the responder side when you get those because it can feel really heavy in your neck of the woods.

Uh, do you, are you a mandatory reporter if you see anything like that?

Um, I am technically because I'm a mental health coach. So that is a big piece of it. I believe as pastors we are too.

Yes, yeah.

Um, so that that's another side. So yeah, it that adds another level um to it as well. It is hard because we respond to people nationwide all over our digital ministry, not just locally. And so that can become really difficult um to connect and make sure that they're getting the help they need. But we've tried to create plans and put them in place. I say that's probably a big thing is getting a plan in place before anything like that ever happens because then you have some steps to take to get you there and to keep that person safe, keep you safe, and just making sure everything's getting covered.

At last question for me. Um, the interesting thing, so you you can type into Google anxiety, symptom, or um, curing, helping, doing, whatever, anxiety, and you'll often get something like, uh, you need to get regular exercise and you need to get a balanced diet, adequate sleep, and all this other stuff. There's one that always sticks out to me that as a mental health coach I would love to query you on. What is the role of meditation and mindfulness inside of, yeah, dealing with anxiety?

Yeah, that is a big one. Um, there are a lot of people, and I'm going to take it to the church level because they don't like that word. Like they don't like the term mindfulness or grounding, but it is so helpful in a lot of situations. Um, people who struggle with like panic attacks, grounding can bring them out of a panic attack. Um, and it's not just a like tell them to go do yoga. Or I mean, that can be great for people. I could not do it because I can't bend in that way. But but there is the um, grounding techniques that anybody can do, and it is super helpful. And this is a great thing that you can share with others as well who are struggling with that. But it's uh, 5-4-3-2-1, really easy to remember. It is uh, five things you can see. I'm like, I gotta make sure I get these right. Five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell. Thank you. And then one you can taste, which I always tell people that's like the weirdest one. Usually it's probably going to be your saliva or if you're eating something. But it does something to trigger your brain to come back down to reality. Like if you've went in this spiral, you've went into this, you know, you're taking yourself down all these paths, and you almost like you're floating up here, you can bring yourself down, and it starts to regulate your system. Uh, which is again, God created that. He created our systems to be able to do that. So whenever people in the church are like, well, I don't do any of that grounding or mindfulness, that's just rubbish. They don't say that. Nobody says that word anymore. They do. In that's it. They say, or Downton Abbey. There you go.

Yeah, I went real like, yeah, proper with that.

Um, there's probably some other words that you would use, but but if you can remind them like God created us with a very intricate system, and by these things it can really take someone from this crazy crisis moment to bringing them back down to start be able to process it and and just to be able to manage it. Because those are things like I've said this before to a lot of people, but you know, we can pray, obviously, that's a great thing to do. But I've prayed a lot, and God never took away my anxiety. Not that he couldn't. Not going to put him in a box. He could be like, all right, it's gone. But he hasn't. And so I've just had to find ways to manage it. And then again, if I can take that and then use it like now, like that used to me today, I can sit here and talk about it because it would be something that I would have been shameful of talking about, that I dealt with anxiety. But now I can actually share it. And you can, the more you share it, like sharing your story of how you found Christ, even you let people know that they're not alone. And I think that's a huge piece. If you can let somebody know that if they're struggling with anxiety, they're struggling with any those things, that they're not alone, they're not the only person who's went through it. Actually, probably everybody has struggled with it at some point in their life. And so it just creates, it takes them away from that isolation, which is where the devil wants to take us, right? And just isolate us from everything, which will start to lead us down that path. But yeah, I I am all for grounding, mindfulness, finding peace. Those are all amazing things we can do. The 5-4-3-2-1 thing, we've talked about on this podcast. I have flight anxiety as well. Again, that's part of like, I got older and everything went up into the or down and the left in terms of gotta anxiety for me. But uh, one of the things that I had to be doing on the last couple of flights I took was uh, one of them was just the worst flight I've ever had in my entire life. Well, one of the worst. I actually flew through a little hurricane. So uh, that was that was that was terrible.

Um, oh yeah, yeah, it was it was awful. And I can, I don't need to tell that story, but um, essentially like we were the last flight out and the hurricane was coming and we flew over the hurricane and I, we flew through it and then we got up through the clouds and I saw the eye of the storm. I was like, oh, we could have died. Like we literally, the plane took, got up, you felt the wings take, you know, take the thing and then hit it, bounced on the ground uh, again, and it was like, ooh, anyway, anyway. Um, but I was coming back from Austin and we were flying over a bunch of really bad storms, and the thing was the plane was rocking all over the place, and I was practicing 5-4-3-2-1, and I was looking off into the distance uh, because they, you know, it always says like, hey, don't look like next to you. Like you need to like go, I, it's like six feet out or...

Whatever, I don't, I don't know what the, maybe it's 15 feet out, maybe I don't know, but like don't look directly in front of you, look out. And I was doing it and I noticed like my heart rate start to come down, everything was slowly coming down. And you know I was still bumping, bouncing all over the place, but for the next two hours it was like we're good, like we are we are good. Like it was like the release valve was there and like that was the most important awesome thing.

I'm going to put some resources in the chat. I'm actually taking notes over here. Um, there's a couple of things that I uh really think. So the uh the practice of the power of presence of God uh by Brother Lawrence is one of the best things I've ever read. Also, this is also going to sound real stupid, the ruthless elimination of hurry by this guy John Mark Comer. Um, it talks about Sabbath, but it also talks about getting rid of anxiety, getting rid of um the hurry that comes with living in this life. Uh, and then two other things that kind of connect. One is an app called Abide. It's an iPhone app, it's also a uh an Android app. It it costs a little bit of money, but if you can afford it, like it's fantastic. Uh, we got it given to us as a as pastors a while ago and I got a like a lifetime subscription. It is awesome. Uh, and then the very last one is an app for this thing called the Examen. And the Examen is not ex E-X-A-M-I-N-E, but Examen, ex, how the heck, A-M-N. Um, it's this thing you're supposed to do at the end of the night and kind of go through the things that happened and then reference them, description, all that. But what it does is it actually at the end of the day when I feel like our anxious levels are at the most high, like we're so tired, we've been over caffeinated, we probably ate really bad, we dealt with the stress, if we allow the the Examen to kind of like see where God was moving throughout the thing, you can see your stress levels come uh way, way, way down.

Any any practical resources that we can throw into the into the notes for everybody? I'm sure I have probably a whole list, but I thought about when you were saying that because you can literally do that with a notebook. Yeah, um, have it by your bedside and write down the things that worried you, write down the things that stressed stressed you out, even the things that you know you have coming for tomorrow or the next week. Because I know a lot of times like we can have anxieties or worries about the future, it's like the future of the past, like right in the present that worry doesn't happen as much. So if you can start to put those things down and it's almost like you've taken it out of your brain, set it down, and your body can actually relax. And if you can do those things, that's a huge piece of just helping your body regulate and get, because you have to get good sleep. If you don't get good sleep, then again, it's kind of like you were talking about there is the watch, you know, good eating, that does help, exercising, which exercising will also help you burn off cortisol, which is your stress hormone, which will help with your anxiety. So all these things again are tied together.

Um, I know I have uh one of my friends who's health professional. She always says like for anything, she's like just stretch. And I laughed at her, but it's so true. Uh, especially as women, uh, we hold a lot of our stress like in our hip flexors. So stretching that and you can find exercises everywhere on the internet that would do that, but it actually will release and help you just burn off that cortisol, which is you're holding all this stress in. So you've got to find ways to to relax and and it kind of ties in with self-care as well, which is kind of one of those hated terms by a lot of people. It's like oh self-care, like it's just bubble baths, and I'm like okay, I guess it could be. I'm not a big fan, but um, it's really whatever you want to give yourself permission for to be self-care. Like for me, I love to go outside, I love to go on hikes, which that's another way of I ground myself. I take myself out into nature. I don't have a phone like with service, all those things that help get that stress and anxiety away. Uh, for my friend, it's going out working on her farm, which doesn't seem like a self-care thing to me, but for her it is.

Yeah, that sounds awesome. Yeah, so it it really is like finding what works for you and that's going to help just regulate your system. That's going to help your anxiety to be managed. Um, because again, anxiety is something you're going to live with, it's something is a part of you, it doesn't go away. So you probably should find a way to manage it and that can be through many different ways of just different tools that you can gain, going to a counselor, talking to a health professional, talking to your doctor, psychiatrist, like you said, medicine, all those things. You find what's right for you. We were all created unique. God created us so special and unique, and so we're all going to have a unique treatment plan, if you want to call it. Uh, we're all going to have a different way that we're going to deal with that. But as long as you put those things in place, you can live a pretty full and productive life even through your anxiety.

Awesome. Uh, anything else we can add to this conversation? Anything you think might be beneficial for the general public or Glue users as the whole? I I mean, I think that's a big part of it is if you can help yourself, you'll be able to help others a lot. It's the whole idea. Oh, did you see the news of the Alaska airplanes? The Alaska Airlines, the door that got sucked off? Oh yes, yeah. Like first of all, imagine being in that thing. And then there was like uh the the air mask drop and they always tell you to like make sure you put yours on and like if the bag might not inflate and all this other crap. And like so that's happening and like somebody's taking, I watch a TikTok of it and somebody's like just calmly like scanning this TikTok thing and then they get to where this hole is, like there's a giant hole like in the side of an airplane. It's like what is happening here? Uh, my anxiety level just shot through. I'm supposed, I'm supposed to fly next week. I was like I don't know if I can do this. Anyway, no, I'm gonna just practice 5-4-3-2-1 and just listen to Abide the whole flight. It'll be great.

Megan, uh, thanks so much for being on the show. We we really appreciate it.