Joyce Meyer - What the Bible Says About Mental Health - Part 2 (06/16/2025)
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In this honest discussion, Joyce Meyer, Dr. Henry Cloud, Erin Cluley, and Ginger Stache explore how the Bible addresses mental health, emphasizing that healing often begins by sharing our stories in safe relationships, processing past trauma through confession and empathy, and allowing God's Word to renew our minds—reminding us that weakness is a doorway to true strength and freedom in Christ.
The Mind as the Battlefield
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.
Thinking Starts in the Body
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.
The Power of Sharing 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.
Healing Through Empathy and Confession
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.
Biblical Healing Through Confession
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.
The Beauty of Bearing Burdens Together
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.
When Trauma Bursts Out
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».
Personal Stories of Panic and Healing
Dr. Henry Cloud: '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. 2009, I get up on the stage. About five minutes into my talk, the coliseum starts spinning and I started hyperventilating.
Everyone Needs a Safe Place to Heal
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.
Choosing Safe People for Sharing
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.
Embracing Weakness as Strength
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».
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».
Joyce Meyer: Right.
Dr. Henry Cloud: Paul says to this directly, «Help the weak». «Heal the brokenhearted». Paul says, «I will glory in my weakness».
God Gives Permission to Be Weak
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.
The Transforming Power of God's Word
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»?
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.
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.
Finding Peace in One Verse
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 I thought of that, and you’re talking about one verse, right? I lied there in bed, and I said, «The Lord is my shepherd». «The Lord is my shepherd». «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».