Can I be honest for a second? I’ve been to counseling. Yep, me - bubbly and joyful Kristin. Does that seem surprising? Is that something that can make you think differently about me?
I’ve noticed that when counseling gets brought up in conversation, there’s this weird "shift" that happens. People feel the need to defend their own mental health as “not that bad” or think of extreme cases of other people where counseling is needed in more obvious ways.
Can we start to normalize counseling, especially among Christians? Instead of seeing someone seeking help as weak, what if we started to celebrate their strength and courage in asking for help?
After all, aren’t we all in need of Jesus’s grace? Aren’t we all being made new day by day?
In an effort to help “normalize counseling,” here’s a snapshot of a chapter in my story.
In my early 20’s at my first “big girl job” with my brand new husband and my new life of “adulting” I found myself more anxious than I’d ever been. On paper I was living the dream.
Yet, I found myself being easily triggered by work email notifications and people’s Facebook posts causing me to spiral into anxious and self-deprecating thoughts. In the worst moments, my heart would feel like it was pounding out of my chest.
So, I decided to ask for help.
I realized that the negative thoughts that were filling my head, the unhealthy desire to please people, and the physical toll it was having on my body just wasn’t how I wanted to live. I had way too much life ahead of me to be stuck in this negative pattern.
But here’s the thing -- on my own, I didn’t know how to stop being anxious about work emails. I didn’t know how to enjoy a peaceful night with my husband. I didn’t know how to stop my brain from betraying my joy.
I realized that half of what I was telling myself in my head were things I’d never tell my friend about herself… so why would I treat my own self that way?
So I enlisted some help. I spoke with a counselor.
And you know what? The counselor showed me that I wasn’t crazy, I was just going through a lot of change. He showed me I didn’t have to be stuck, but instead gave me helpful tools to create new patterns for my mind with God’s help.
With his help and a lot of self-reflection and prayer, THINGS CHANGED. My anxious thoughts didn’t rule me so much anymore. My work became a source of joy again rather than just a trigger.
Here’s the point: Let’s normalize asking for help.
Let’s stop choosing to stay in our negative thought patterns and DO something about it.
Let’s admit that we are ALL broken people in need of grace… and in need of help. We can’t do this life alone.
Like kintsugi (the Japanese art form of putting broken pottery back together with gold… look it up, it’s really cool), let’s embrace our brokenness, not hide it, and seek healing in beautiful ways.
Let’s normalize counseling.
Joyfully in Jesus,
Kristin Harman
St. Paul's Lutheran Church
P.S. If you struggle with negative self-talk and anxiety like me, in addition to speaking with one of our amazing counselors at Charis Center for Christian Counseling, I highly recommend the book Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts by Jennie Allen.
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