Joyce Meyer - What the Bible Says About Mental Health - Part 2
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Ginger Stache: Hey, everyone. Glad you’re with us today. Caring for our mental health is such an important conversation to have. After all, the mind is the battlefield. That’s where satan loves to fight us the most, and he has managed to put a stigma on mental health struggles. But God has put in his word many truths that can help us and that apply to this issue. So, let’s continue our talk today with Joyce, Dr. Henry Cloud, and Erin Cluley on what the Bible says about mental health.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Sometimes, your thinking doesn’t start with your thinking.
Ginger Stache: Where’s it start?
Dr. Henry Cloud: Sometimes it starts in your body. See, these are two-way streets that God wired us in. You got two sides of the brain. The brain that has a freeway that goes between them. Sometimes trauma that is stored in our bodies and stored in the limbic system. Abuse, that can create the thoughts. Now, we’ve gotta battle the thoughts, but also we gotta sometimes like you said, when you start to tell your story. It’s so fascinating. You know, the Bible tells us, «Weep with those who weep». All right, get this. When you talk about pain, and if I were talking with you, you’re gonna weep with me when I’m weeping, right? And you’re empathizing with me and you’re sitting there, and you truly connect.
Erin Cluley: Yeah.
Dr. Henry Cloud: We have mirror neurons that are hooked up that sense that. You can hook somebody’s brain up and as I am expressing my pain and you’re empathizing with it, all of a sudden, the other regions of the brain light up that, that pain begins for the first time, get unhooked…
Erin Cluley: Oh wow.
Dr. Henry Cloud: In the stained hippocampus where that memory got sealed and lives without time and repeats it in patterns.
Joyce Meyer: That’s great.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Now it starts to flow through, and other parts of the brain take it, integrate it into your value system, into today, this is today, not yesterday, being able to have judgment and understand it and meaning. And that’s when it can actually become a memory instead of a post trauma syndrome, that’s not a memory, you’re living in it every day.
Erin Cluley: Is that why it feels, since I didn’t know all that. Is that why it feels good when you…?
Dr. Henry Cloud: Yeah, you did.
Erin Cluley: I did. I just didn’t want to tell you. You can feel the difference when you share something that you have never shared before. So, like, I can imagine the first time you shared your story was probably terrifying, but there’s some sort of relief that you can feel. Is that what it is that I’m experiencing? Is my brain…?
Dr. Henry Cloud: It goes through the loop.
Joyce Meyer: The first time I shared my story, I shook so bad and it lasted for like two or three hours after.
Erin Cluley: I’ll bet.
Joyce Meyer: It was like, I was so riddled with fear from what, you know, all the years around my dad and probably God giving me the boldness to tell my story was as much for me as it was for the people.
Erin Cluley: Yeah.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Well, absolutely. And what does James 5:16 say? It says, «Confess your faults to one another…» Now, listen, to this next phrase, so that you may be forgiven? That’s not what it says. «So that you may be healed». We’ve already been forgiven, but now we gotta talk out of our forgiveness in the safe place of knowing, «I’m not bad for this stuff: I gotta get it out».
Erin Cluley: Yeah.
Dr. Henry Cloud: And we gotta grieve it and we gotta be comforted. People can get well and integrated when these biblical processes are happening in their lives.
Ginger Stache: You know, there’s also something beautiful that happens to that listener as well, to that person who’s empathizing. When you share your story, it’ll bring tears to my eyes because you’re almost living that pain together and it’s bearing one another’s burdens, like you said, but there’s also something that God put a need in us with that deep connection for one another that we can share in the pain a little bit. And of course, it’s painful and it’s not what you want to go through. And yet, there’s a satisfaction and a bond that comes out of that, that changes both people who are involved, which is so beautiful the way God created us.
Dr. Henry Cloud: He did, and it starts with a mother and an infant. Those are your mirror neurons. And you’ve got oxytocin, which is a bonding chemical that happens when we experience each other’s feelings. That drug is released in your brain that creates a bond. As the New Testament says, «It knits your hearts together». That’s Neuroscience.
Joyce Meyer: Now, did I read accurately, in your book, that as a psychologist, you also get counseling?
Dr. Henry Cloud: In the beginning I had to, I didn’t have a choice. And then, in my training, it was required to. And I used to think, «Well, that’s interesting, the school required it». And then, what I learned was exactly what the Bible says, «Until we get the log out of our own eye, we can’t see clearly to help somebody else». 'cause we’re just gonna tell them our own defense mechanisms, «Well, you should do this». «Why»? «'cause that’s what I do to stay out of my pain,» right? Well, that may not be good. And so, you go through that. But then, and as I talk about my book choice, it didn’t end with my training therapy. I continued for a long time. It’s one of the most healing and meaningful aspects I talk about in the book. In 2008, I had been floating along fine for a long time. 2008, I’m speaking for women of faith, the nationwide tour arena events. I get up… No, it’s 2009. I get up on the stage. About five minutes into my talk, the coliseum starts spinning and I started hyperventilating. And now, I’m still giving my talk somehow, but I’m like over here, kinda internally having a meltdown. And then, another person, over here, is a psychologist. I realized this is a panic attack. I never had a panic attack. And I knew, «Okay, I can’t leave the stage. 'cause if I do, I’ll never get back on one». You can’t do that. You gotta go through this. Somehow made it through. Nobody could tell. But I thought, «Well, I did an all-nighter 'cause my plane got delayed. I didn’t eat, it’s blood sugar,» blew it off. Next week, I got on the next stage, same thing happened. And then it happened again, the third week. Now, I’ve been speaking for years. Never happened before. And finally, I realized I got a problem. And I was petrified. And I was signed up for a whole year’s tour. So, «Do you see someone»? Yeah. So, I called a good shrink. And I went in. I said, «I don’t exactly know what’s happening. I know I went through some things last year». So, in '08, my mother died, my father died, my brother-in-law, who was a navy seal, was killed in Iraq. And with all that happened around that and the financial meltdown of '08, I worked with CEOs. I was working around the clock for a year. We had all this family pain and trauma. I never stopped. Basically, I never dealt with it. So, it was the next spring, it all started happening.
Ginger Stache: And it came out in that time that you least expected it.
Dr. Henry Cloud: I thought it was fine. But I’d buried it. Right? And…
Joyce Meyer: I wonder how many of us think we’re fine and we’re not.
Erin Cluley: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Usually the people closest to us can tell. So, yeah, I had to do it then. And then I got through it and I went back to work. But then, in about, what was it? It was a couple of years before COVID. You know, I was so busy, and I would recommend this to people. I was fine. I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t anything. But I didn’t have a space where I could listen to my thoughts and really, and find out, you know, have a place to process. So, I went back and hired somebody again just to have a space where I could process life. And it was very, very helpful. And then COVID happened, and, you know, there we were. But gosh, I don’t have any qualms with telling everybody. But here’s the thing. «Should I go to therapy»? The word therapy means heal. Right? Yeah, you should. We ought to all. Sometimes it’s professional, but sometimes it’s in a small group. Sometimes it’s in good couple of friends to get together. Sometimes you could have a couples' group where you’re healing your marriage.
Joyce Meyer: A good spiritually mature friend.
Dr. Henry Cloud: That’s right. But we all have to be healing. The word «Save» means: heal. That’s God’s salvation, not just for our insurance. He’s healing our lives.
Joyce Meyer: So, in other words, everybody needs somebody that they can trust to talk to.
Dr. Henry Cloud: That brings something to the party. Because a lot of times people go talk to job’s friends. Those guys are still living.
Erin Cluley: They are.
Dr. Henry Cloud: They are. Some of them are in pulpits.
Joyce Meyer: Well, and some people, if you try to share with them what you’re going through, they just can’t wait to try to tell you what to do. And so they really didn’t even listen to what you said. They’re just getting this big kick out of telling you what to do.
Ginger Stache: That’s such an important point.
Joyce Meyer: I know.
Ginger Stache: Be very prayerful and careful who you share your deepest heart with.
Dr. Henry Cloud: That’s right.
Ginger Stache: And yet pray that God brings you people that you can because that is where he brings the healing so often.
Dr. Henry Cloud: That’s right. And, you know, to your point, you’ve talked about how you grow up in certain dysfunctional relationships. You’ll find yourselves in those again. A lot of people, the people that they’re gonna choose are not safe people. You know, it just happens. If you don’t have somebody like that and you can’t get somebody like that, then go somewhere where they’re hanging out a sign and saying, «This is a safe place». Go to a celebrate recovery group. Go to one of the, you know, a church’s group for, you know, this is a group where people are struggling with this or that because there’s some structure and protection and confidentiality and boundaries around that. And instead of talking to an idiot, who’s gonna make it worse?
Erin Cluley: My husband and i, we went through some stuff a couple of years ago. And so, we started seeing a counselor for us. And so, what we went in for was not the great benefit that we received from that counselor. What we found in it was my husband was able to talk through some things that he had experienced growing up that he didn’t even remember. And so, not only did that impact him, it kinda goes back to what we were saying about the empathy. For me to hear what he had experienced totally changed my view of him, helped me understand, «This is why you respond that way in those situations». And now, it’s so cool. It even happened yesterday. I’ll see him just share his story with somebody else, and he would have never done that before.
Dr. Henry Cloud: That’s so cool.
Erin Cluley: But he’s seen the power of not keeping your secrets a secret anymore. And somebody else needs to hear that «You’re not alone. It’s okay». There’s so much power in that sharing.
Joyce Meyer: That’s good.
Dr. Henry Cloud: And you know what people do… Is the goofiest stuff you hear come out of pulpits sometimes. You’ll start talking about doing this, something that happened to him or your trauma that you had to talk about. And they’ll say, «That’s unbiblical. The Bible says, 'forgetting the past, I press on.'» are you kidding me? Read the passage. Paul spends all those verses telling the story about his past and how he used to. And the whole thing is about how he used to achieve «Righteousness» by doing the works of God. That’s what he’s forgetting. It’s not about, not healing your trauma. Think about this. Forgiveness, just a couple of things the New Testament says. Forgiveness, for example, I think that pretty much has to do with the past. If you’re gonna forgive somebody, we’re dealing with the past. We’re not covered up. Brokenheartedness healed the brokenhearted. That didn’t happen tomorrow. That’s something that’s already happened. God is eternal. Your soul is eternal. And it lives outside of time. And the wounds that you experienced 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago are just as real as when a near-death experience person sees their life in a moment. And if they’re still in pain and have never been touched, God lives outside of time. And when you start to bring them into a spiritual reality with him and somebody else, that child is getting the comfort, that eternal part of them, and now becomes a healed child inside this adult’s body. You can’t go back in time, but the past lives in its state until it’s healed, and then it’s a healed past.
Ginger Stache: So why is it as Christians then so often we feel like, «I should be over this by now». You know, «I should be beyond this. I shouldn’t need this extra help». You know, «I’ve been studying. I’ve been praying». Whatever it may be. But we often feel weak if we haven’t completely surpassed everything from our past.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Well, God bless your weakness. See, the problem is we see weakness as bad. «Blessed are,» who? The strong? No.
Ginger Stache: The weak.
Dr. Henry Cloud: «The poor in spirit».
Ginger Stache: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Paul says to this directly, «Help the weak».
Joyce Meyer: Right.
Dr. Henry Cloud: «Heal the brokenhearted». Paul says, «I will glory in my weakness». But what we’ve done in our pharisaical narcissism is, for narcissistic reasons, to look good for others, we’ve made strength, and looking perfect, and all of this, the very idol that Jesus, it’s one of the only things he got mad at. He got mad at this more than anything else. These people that tried to put themselves above the suffering and above that, and he said, «You’re not entering in yourself, and you’re not allowing others to enter in under you». And that’s that teaching.
Ginger Stache: Yeah.
Dr. Henry Cloud: And so, the best thing we got going for us is our brokenness and our weakness because it leads us to healing, which makes us strong.
Ginger Stache: That is so freeing. I mean, really, you think about the freedom.
Joyce Meyer: Way back when I was walking through my healing, I felt like I had to be strong all the time. And that was just an issue that I had.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Well, you did when you were a child. You had to hold it together. Nobody was helping you.
Joyce Meyer: But I remember one day God just said to me, «Joyce, I give you permission to have weaknesses». I was like, «Oh, I don’t have to be strong in everything».
Erin Cluley: That’s life-changing.
Joyce Meyer: «I don’t have to be perfect in everything». And the Bible tells you that, but I needed God to speak it to me because I always, even in the family, growing up, and even after my parents got older, I took care of my mom, my dad, my widowed aunt, and my brother. And my brother and my mother both had some schizophrenia. And my brother was in the marines when he was 17, and trust me, he had PTSD. And I was just like so tired of taking care of all these people that never really cared anything about me. But it ended up being probably one of the greatest things I ever did that broke the enemy’s power, was just to be good to these people that had mistreated me. And I remember my mother saying, «Well, you should take care of me. I’m your mother». And I thought, «Well, where were you when my father was abusing me? And you knew he was doing it». But, a big part of healing is blessing your enemies.
Dr. Henry Cloud: It sure is because it just releases so many bondages.
Joyce Meyer: It’s even like when you forgive, it’s really for you. It’s not for the other person. It’s like you’re…
Dr. Henry Cloud: You’re free.
Joyce Meyer: You’re free from it.
Erin Cluley: I love when you talk about that. I think you told us once that when, you know, we need to pray for our enemies, and that feels like I’d really rather not pray that God blesses them. But I think you told us that what he’s gonna give them is not going to be the first thing…
Joyce Meyer: Not necessarily a new house or a new car.
Erin Cluley: Right. But it’s maybe truth of who he is in their life and conviction.
Joyce Meyer: Or even truth about what they did.
Erin Cluley: Yeah.
Joyce Meyer: So many people go around hurting people and they don’t even realize they’re doing it. I was like that. I was harsh and hard from the life I’d had. And I would hurt people and wound people and didn’t even know that I was doing it.
Ginger Stache: That is so important in what we’re talking about is that satan, I think, puts up a lot of barriers that try to keep us from dealing with our mental health. From, you know, sometimes even from taking it to the Lord, because we feel like somehow, we don’t want him to know and he knows everything. But keeping it from…
Dr. Henry Cloud: Or we’re not good enough to go to him.
Ginger Stache: Oh, absolutely. So, we have all these barriers that we put up between us and healing, whether it is between getting the help that we need or keeping our secrets tight so that nobody else knows what’s been going on. But when we begin to share those things, we get that healing. When we don’t, we continue in that cycle of ourselves being hurt, choosing to be in situations where we get hurt more and hurting more people. So, that’s not God’s plan for any of us. He has so much better than what we often think in our hurt state of mind, 'cause we think, «That’s all I’m worthy of,» or, «That’s all I know how to do».
Dr. Henry Cloud: If you think about a surgeon to fix the problem, they don’t go in there and cut some pages out of a surgery book and paste them on top of the skin. You know, that’s what we do a lot of times. Those pages in the Bible tell us he’s gotta cut it open, and get down there, get to the root and fix it. And if we can’t be safe enough to talk with somebody, and I’m going to say this again, that brings something to the party. Don’t just talk to anybody. When you go for surgery, what happens? You’re going in to a germ-free environment. It’s been scrubbed. Nothing in there is gonna hurt you. But the surgeon, before he or she goes in there, what do they do? They scrub. They’re not bringing their own issues into trying to help you.
Ginger Stache: Oh, that’s great.
Dr. Henry Cloud: And things like, «Well, that doesn’t hurt,» or, «You should be…» All that stuff. They’ve gotten the log out of their own eye. Thirdly, they read a few books. They’ve got some wisdom to help you.
Ginger Stache: Hopefully, more than a few.
Dr. Henry Cloud: And they’re not the only one in the room. They got a support team, and they also got some stuff in there for your pain. You can’t go just to anybody. Find friends and find a safe group or find a counselor where they’ve dealt with their own stuff enough, so it doesn’t get in the way, where they bring some wisdom to it. You know, it’s a germ-free environment. You’re not gonna get infected by going to this group or beat up or criticized or whatever. It’s really important.
Erin Cluley: I love that you’re saying that, because I’m thinking, I hear that the Bible has my answers to my mental health, but that jump from those words on the page to helping me in my journey with my mental health, it feels like a gap, like, «Where’s the middle? What’s the bridge to get it»? I love what you said. It’s not taping the pages of the Bible on my brain, but the first step is to go talk to somebody about it. What’s the practical steps that you take from the words on that page to seeing it?
Dr. Henry Cloud: It depends on what the words are, too. There are some, as Joyce talks about a lot, there are some of the words on the page that actually will tweak my brain. Right? That «God’s word is a lamp unto our feet». The transformation of your mind that Romans 12 talks about. You know, Jesus talks about holding to his teachings, and then «You’ll know the truth, and the truth’ll set you free».
Joyce Meyer: A lot of times you just see, «Oh, that’s what it is. Oh».
Dr. Henry Cloud: Have you ever had that experience when…?
Ginger Stache: That’s the Holy Spirit working it. That’s when the Holy Spirit’s the surgeon.
Joyce Meyer: Well, the Bible talks so much about meditating on the word, and it really means to like, chew the word. And so, it’s like when you eat your food, if you don’t chew it well, you don’t get any of the vitamins out of it. And so, you just take one scripture, like, Ephesians 2:8 and 9 in the Amplified Bible, and you look at that for about a week, and you’re gonna get so excited about Jesus, you won’t hardly know what to do with yourself.
Dr. Henry Cloud: That’s right. You know, the other night, I had a particular business problem, and it woke me up in the middle of the night, and it’s gonna take months for this thing to, you know, get all figured out. And I thought of that, and you’re talking about one verse, right? I lied there in bed, and I couldn’t sleep, and I lied there in bed, and I said, «The Lord is my shepherd».
Erin Cluley: Oh, that’s a good one.
Dr. Henry Cloud: «The Lord is my shepherd».
Joyce Meyer: «My shepherd».
Dr. Henry Cloud: «My shepherd». And it says, «He leads me to still waters». And just that one verse, I kept thinking and picturing, «Jesus is my shepherd. This thing isn’t gonna get resolved for a while, but I’m just the sheep. My shepherd is gonna guide me».