Therapy and Theology

Lysa TerKeurst:
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Therapy and Theology, and how we can move forward within the hurts that we're all experiencing in everyday life. Welcome to my fellow podcaster comrades.

Jim Cress:
Yes, indeed.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. This is Jim Cress. He's an amazing counselor, my personal counselor. And I very much appreciate you. And then of course, Joel Muddamalle, who's on staff with us here at Proverbs 31 Ministries, and in some sense, I guess my personal theologian.

Joel Muddamalle:
I guess so.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah.

Jim Cress:
Impressive.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's awesome. I know.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Thank you. Thank you both for joining me. Today's topic is something that I personally wrestle with. And so I'm eager to get some free counseling in this.

Jim Cress:
Absolutely.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I'm excited about this session.

Joel Muddamalle:
I'm going to leverage that too.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I have a combined session with Jim and Joel, and I don't have to pay for it. This is amazing. Right?

Joel Muddamalle:
Awesome.

Jim Cress:
We’ll be your Aaron and Hur, and hold your arms up [crosstalk 00:03:02].

Joel Muddamalle:
And hold your arms up. You’re Moses. And we'll hold your arms up.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Today's topic is depression and anxiety. And of course, we could do a whole series on both of those words. I specifically want to focus in on the anxiety because I feel like sometimes the anxiety is the right now situation; emotional feeling and depression is more of an overall foundational angst within my heart. And for me, I've never dealt with either of these to any long extent in my life to quite the degree that I have to deal with them now. And mine has been induced by walking through some pretty traumatic events in my life.

Some could say PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, because of experiencing something, and then there's lingering effects that come off of that. But how it often plays out in my life is through feelings of anxiety. And if those feelings of anxiety linger too many days strung together, then this overall feeling of depression can emerge. I'm not say that's the way it happens with everyone, but that is the way it has happened with me. So regardless of the source of the anxiety, when those feelings are present, it is complicated. It's very complicated because the reality is your life does not hit the pause button when feeling of anxiety emerge.

Jim Cress:
That's true.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
And so my phone still has a steady stream of text messages coming in, people who are depending on me actually expect me to still work. My family still expects me to show up. Emails still need to be returned. Speaking engagements are still on the calendar, or for whatever your job is, there are still demands and expectations that are placed on you. And it can be hard to navigate feelings of anxiety in the midst of also trying to do everyday life. For me, I am wanting to know, and maybe you are wanting to know. Where does anxiety even come from? Why is my body having this response to triggers — for me, triggers of past hurts? What is happening when I feel anxiety?

Jim Cress:
Well, that question, we could go in a couple different directions. One, I'll just touch on lightly and move off of. One of the things goes back as far as we can get, and that's when you were in the womb, any of us. If there is screaming, yelling, other things going on, sometimes even a pregnancy that was unexpected and almost like a mother could gasp like, "Ah," and gasp in, cortisol levels can be released, and usually are in the body. So clear back in utero there are things that can go on, and often do, in a mother's body of tension. When I do work with clients, I often say, "Let's try to find out what the milieu was you were born in." What do you mean? Well, were you born into trauma, cord around your neck, anything like that? Were you born into feuding and fighting with your parents, or a divorce about to be? Because the body keeps the score.

Jim Cress:
It can go that far back that there can be anxiety that's already being kind of bred in, wired in, those neurotransmitters we say that fire together, wire together. That's going far back. It can be other things that then begin to happen along the way. And your sister or brother may have responded differently. But you go into what we've talked about on these podcasts of flight, fight or freeze. So something happens, and I'm in a place, especially a fight place, or a flight place, like just get me out of here. And so with anxiety, there can be claustrophobia. There's a whole spectrum of things.

Part of what goes on, that's kind of more of a historical thing. And then I think just the adaptation along the way of, you've alluded to this, a word we've often used is catastrophic thinking. Sometimes in trauma or pain, discovery, what happens, or what have you, I can be there. And all of a sudden in that moment, thinking literally the sky is falling. And again, this can become habitual. It can become just such a norm. I think that what happens with anxiety, because I have had anxiety in my own life, and at times severe anxiety, is that it is ... this is my own view of it. That is my body and maybe God's way of saying something's out of alignment in your life. So had to shift in my healing that anxiety was no longer my enemy. It was a friend saying, "Tap, tap, tap, Jim. Something's out of alignment." And it feels real.

By the way, you probably know this. You talk to a person who's never struggled with depression and you do, the other person go, "I just don't get it." Talk to a person who says, "I really don't struggle with anxiety," and you do, it's hard for them to understand because all of that, both anxiety and depression are felt in the body.

Lysa TerKeurst:
When someone is feeling anxious, sometimes it's situational.

Jim Cress:
That's right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Like I'm about to get on a roller coaster; I'm afraid of roller coasters. Or I'm about to step on a plane, and I've seen one too many movies about plane crashes. And so that to me seems more situational.

Jim Cress:
That's right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
A fear is introduced, but once you get through that flight, then the anxiety seems to subside until you have to take another flight.

Jim Cress:
That's right. Very situational, right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
But then there's other types of anxiety, where I'll just be going around my normal day. And all of a sudden, somebody, and it usually comes for me, somebody makes a demand of me. Like I'll get a text message, "Hey. Don't forget you have such and such due today." I don't get anxious about the due date or the task at hand. It's something about somebody coming at me, and it's not expected, that all of a sudden I find myself getting anxious, not just about what the request is, but about everything. And all of a sudden this small little request, it seems to open up a door called anxiety in my heart. And all of a sudden, I'll just feel panicked over my whole life. And it seems so out of place. And I hear you say it's usually tap, tap, tap, like Lysa, something's out of alignment. I'm like, "Well, what? What is alignment?" I got up this morning. I did my quiet time. I'm doing my Bible study. I am exercising. I'm eating right. What is out of alignment?

Jim Cress:
Let's think about it. Okay. Let's think about that for a moment in real time. We've talked about this off the set here. We're not faking it. We've sat down, the three of us, really no real script. They're watching, you're watching real conversations. Let's have a real conversation here. We say often, "If it's hysterical, that just means I've got energy. If it's hysterical, it's historical." I'll walk with people and say, "Can you think of one event ever, and you can hypothesize, in your life that would be?"

You already listed one. If you go there, and there could be something on the plane, and what did you say? Because back here I had watched a movie. So you're already going to some level of a historical context. Anything at all in your story, because I can think some in mine, that you can point to, to say, somebody says, "Hey. I need this by the due date"? Where's the earliest time you can ever remember that coming up in your life? Not maybe the earliest, but what's an earlier memory of, uh-oh, I better perform, or I better get this done? Can you think of one?

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. I mean, I would say probably in recent years, it's having to press through getting tasks done, even in the midst of emotional trauma that made me not want to do anything. And everything felt overwhelming.

Jim Cress:
I notice you didn't ... Your counselor's actually saying this. You didn't have to go all the way back to your childhood. So I say when common sense makes good sense, seek no other sense. You go, "That's enough." Then I go, well, see… And just deal with that at that level. In recent years, when you have maybe felt overwhelmed for very good reason, then something lands. If my cup is full, I'm fine. But if I add one more thing, it spills over. That's where we call it, and you know the term, getting flooded. You're in a different milieu and a different real life context, like used to not bother me. Why does it now? Well, you've given the backstory narrative because of what you've been through in the last three years. Right? Let alone, as you've said very clearly, and I've walked with you through that too, the physical trauma that you literally were on the very face of death.

And see, anxiety, if you study it, always mimics death because the ultimate anxiety is death phobic across all cultures. We're afraid to die, even though Paul says, "Grave, where's your sting? Death, where's the victory?" There's a sense though, anxiety will feel for a flash moment like I'm dying. Well, you were facing death. Right?

Lysa TerKeurst:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jim Cress:
I mean, even physically in your body. So we take just the last three years, it's like any anxiety you would have somehow to me would make sense.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Okay, if the cup is full, it's as much as I can take. Then how do I reduce the cup so that another drop doesn't tip me over? And it's not that my cup is full of too many tasks. It's probably that my cup is full of too much what? Immediate emotion, or it's like I've exhausted all my emotional reserves.

Jim Cress:
Usually without knowing it. But I just use a common term there called bandwidth. I don't usually know it. But my bandwidth, until I know it, I can come home sometime and go, "I know right now that probably my bandwidth is going to be about that good." If I get into ... If I'm hangry. I'm not trying to be funny. But if I'm like, "I haven't eaten," there's research that shows tons of couples fight, and the only thing they're fighting over is A, nothing at all, that's in the research. The number one thing couples fight over is nothing at all. But their blood sugar levels are low. They need to eat. So that's an example of bandwidth. But if I'm there, and trauma and all this kind of control, ALT, delete, on the old PC, it's all playing in the background. I'm not thinking of it 24/7, the trauma, your last three years, whatever. And then something lands and I go into this, I'm overreacting a little bit here. Yeah. Probably congruent with what's going on. Somehow, I don't have the bandwidth right now to deal with it.

If you get to: What do you do about that? Which is what you have done with it, is to explore. That's where counseling, walking with a good friend, is keep walking and processing my story. And being able to say, "Hey. How are you doing today? What's really going on?" Name your emotions. You've only got five, which are mad, sad, glad, bad, or afraid. Bad is guilt or shame. Check in and say, "How are you doing today?" Remember the iPhones. Others come up with these emojis. Everybody's doing it. They just send an emoji now, so we all do it. It's to go, "What am I ... " Now that you mention it, I've been feeling kind of down. David, right? Psalm 42 and 43. Why are you ... Self-talk. Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Oh, look. He's looking down into his crud, his emotions. And then he looks up. And he says, "Hope thou in God. I will hope in God."

Lysa TerKeurst:
Then if you identify ... Name those emotions one more time. Bad, sad.

Jim Cress:
I just do mad, that's angry, mad, sad, glad, bad, guilt or shame, or afraid. And every emotion you can find comes under these. Tired is not an emotion. It's a state of being. People will talk about how you do. These are the emotions that'll cover everything. That's pretty perfect.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Those are the emotions, so I identify my emotion. And then what? Let's say, "Okay. I'm mad." So now what do I do?

Jim Cress:
Well, to me it's very simple. I don't mean that sarcastically. If you're mad about something, whether you're doing this as kind of a teaching thing now, or real. Just give me an idea. Give me 30,000 feet of what you're mad about. And I try to get people to stay away from, "I don't know." They come into my office and say, "I don't know." I'll go, "Well, okay. Let's see if we can figure it out." If someone says, "What are you mad about?" Any person I've ever talked with, if they'll take some time, same margins, say, "Well, let's just look at it." I don't know if I'm ... What? And they'll come and say, "I think I just in my life right now, this requires too much. It's a theme of mine. This requires too much of me to fill this in, or to get this report done, or meet with this person." So why am I upset. I'm often, Jim has been upset about bandwidth. I'm honest. We're going to get to boundaries later in this series. And I'm sitting there. Stress is when your gut says no but your mouth says yes.

Lysa TerKeurst:
That's so good.

Jim Cress:
Yeah. That's one of the things. I've done it to myself. I'm going, "I know I didn't." You've heard me say the line. Do you have this to give? Say it to your spouse. I'd like this. Do you have it to give? Oh, I get to respond. Actually, I don't. And children explain, adults inform. The adult wants to say, "Hey. You know what, Joel. I'm not able to have lunch with you this week." Can you give me a reason? No, I really don't owe you a reason. Thanks for asking, and I don't have that to give.

Joel Muddamalle:
Did I do something wrong?

Jim Cress:
No.

Joel Muddamalle:
What just happened here?

Jim Cress:
See, and you can go to that.

Lysa TerKeurst:
And then Joel has to go, "Am I mad, sad, glad, bad?"

Jim Cress:
I would be kind enough to Joel to say, "Look. My schedule's so swamped. And can we raincheck it?" It gets a little dicey if you're there and someone says, "Can I get lunch with you?" For the fourth time, and you know inside, imagine you in all that God uses you in, and people would want to get to you, and to say, "You know, I really don't have that to give to have lunch with you. Thanks for ... " Always kindness. Thanks for asking, and I'm not going to, versus, we'll get to you. My assistant will get to you. It's like, no, my boundary is I'm not going to do that. We've got to get honest.

Lysa TerKeurst:
That's really good. In my book, The Best Yes, I wrote about this because I struggle with it. And there's a chapter in The Best Yes called “The Power of the Small No.” And so we'll unpack this a little bit more during the next episode on boundaries. But “The Power of the Small No” is if I know immediately I don't have the bandwidth for this, it's better for me to go ahead and say no, let them down, because I'm only letting them down this much.

Jim Cress:
That's right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
But if I say, "You know what, let me get back to you. Let me see what I can work out on my schedule," every moment that goes by, their expectations increase.

Jim Cress:
And what are expectations we know? Expectations are premeditated resentments. When I know I'm delaying and I'm building a person up, this is building, and that's their issue. But they're going to have resentments. And so I like the small no. I'm going to use that. That's good to go, "No."

Lysa TerKeurst:
The power of the small no is like go ahead, and it's easier to disappoint them on this level.

Jim Cress:
True.

Lysa TerKeurst:
So their expectations ... Because if their expectations get up here, then they may, A, not have time by the time I say no, to invite someone else. And now they're having lunch by themselves. And now they're really upset with me. Or B, they have anticipated and looked forward to the lunch so much that the longer time, then when I say no, it's like a huge crash, huge disappointment, where it could've just been a much smaller disappointment. But I want to say something else. My daughter, Hope, is one of my personal assistants here at Proverbs 31 Ministries. And so it's funny because with us being mother, daughter, I probably talk to her in a more comfortable manner than I would someone else who works for me.

In other words, she'll say, "I'm catching the brunt of your other frustrations." And so oftentimes, we just had this conversation yesterday. She was going through the list of things to do. And I just finally said, "I don't know, Hope. I don't know the answer to that question. And I'm frustrated that I even have to try to come up with an answer to that question." And she'll say, "Mom, what are you really angry about? Because you're not really frustrated by this request. You've brought frustration into our situation. So what are you really frustrated about?" It's almost like this exercise seems so elementary, but I can see how it would be so incredibly helpful. Identify the emotion that you're having. And you just gave us all five of them here. And then identify: What is the real source of that emotion? So that the real problem can be attacked, and you won't be attacking everyone else in your sphere of influence because anxiety can make you feel that way.

Jim Cress:
Totally.

Lysa TerKeurst:
It can make you feel like you're just on edge. And whoever comes close is going to get the sharpness of that edge. Here's one of my favorite verses. And Joel, you may want to comment on this because you know I just love to go to a verse, and then it's like say, "Joel."

Joel Muddamalle:
What do you think?

Lysa TerKeurst:
What do you think? Help me. Help me not be dangerous with this verse. Right? But this verse really has helped me understand this practice of introspection, and really the practice of lament and making a turn so that I don't just say, "Well, I'm feeling this way, therefore, I am this way." It is possible for me to feel sad, but not be sad.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's good.

Lysa TerKeurst:
It is possible for me to feel mad, but not be mad. It is possible for me to feel angry and not be angry. It is possible for me to feel this kind of push of resentment, but for me not to walk around as a bitter person. Right?

Jim Cress:
There you go. That's exactly right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
And I think that this verse really hits at that. In Lamentations, chapter three, maybe you haven't been in the Lamentations lately. But let's go here because this really is helpful. Starting in verse 19 of Lamentations three, I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. Now remember on a previous episode I said, "I love deep, therefore I hurt deep." And I've also discovered about myself because I love deep and I hurt deep, I remember big.

Jim Cress:
Wow.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I think some people have these little flashes of memories with not a lot of detail. Other people may see a blip of like a black and white movie. I see high definition, Technicolor.

Jim Cress:
4K. Yeah.

Lysa TerKeurst:
My memories are as if the event is happening simultaneous with this event. I remember the smallest details. I remember sights, smells, sound, touch. I remember the whole situation.

Jim Cress:
Think that could've made you a good writer?

Lysa TerKeurst:
Maybe.

Jim Cress:
Think God may have been up to some there, who knows?

Lysa TerKeurst:
It's what I call a blursing. It is blessing and a curse all wrapped up in one.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's awesome.

Lysa TerKeurst:
But I really relate to this. It says in verse 20, the very next verse, "I well remember them." And because I remember in such detail and such intensity, you see, the intensity of the memory often plays into the intensity of the pain. And it says, "I well remember them. And my soul is downcast within me." I would love to know a little bit more about that word, my soul is downcast, because it doesn't just say, "My mood is downcast. My face is downcast. My feelings are downcast." No. It says, "My very soul, my soul is downcast."

Joel Muddamalle:
In Hebrew that word soul is like, it's the seat of all emotion, is where that's coming from. And so when the author of Lamentations is saying, "My soul is downcast," he's saying exactly what you just said. It's not just this demarcated one part of my being. He's saying, "The entirety of my being is downcast. It feels low. There's this lowliness to it."

Lysa TerKeurst:
My soul is downcast within me. Then verse 21, yet.

Jim Cress:
I love that.

Lysa TerKeurst:
This is where that turn comes. I can be sad, but not ... I can feel sad, but not be sad. I can feel sad, yet I don't have to be sad. One thing I wrote in my book, Unglued, that has really helped me, it's become just one of these statements I'll preach to myself over and over and over — my feelings are indicators, but not dictators.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's good.

Lysa TerKeurst:
In other words, I can feel something, and it's very much my reality. My feeling is an indicator that something needs to be addressed. But it doesn't have to dictate how I act and react in my life.

Jim Cress:
That's true.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yet, this I call to mind, Lamentations 3:21. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore, I have hope. And that hope seems to be, this is like letting the pressure off, or letting the intensity of the anxiety, attaching it not to the hopelessness of depression, but to the hopefulness of there is something better. I can make a turn here. And it says, "Yet, this I call to mind. And therefore, I have hope." It is an intentional act. Call something into my thinking.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Right?

Joel Muddamalle:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Lysa TerKeurst:
And therefore, I can have hope. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed.

Jim Cress:
What a good word, consumed.

Lysa TerKeurst:
It's such a good word because when I start to feel anxious, I think I could easily say, "I am feeling consumed." I am feeling like I'm not just wading into a river. I'm feeling like the river is overtaking, consuming every part of me, and I cannot breathe, and I'm panicked. And for me, it's not really the fight, flight or-

Jim Cress:
Freeze.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Freeze. For me, it's freak out. It's really the song. Isn't there a song? (singing) Right?

Jim Cress:
Dating yourself a little bit there, but yeah. I like that.

Lysa TerKeurst:
That is seriously what happens to me. I will completely freak out.

Jim Cress:
And it is seriously what's happening in your brain and body. It's not an anomaly. It's like your body is into a freak out mode. Like what the ... Just trying to get an idea of what's really happening here. It's crazy-making.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. And what it feels like to me is all the nerves that are supposed to be inside my body come up to the edge of my skin, and they're raw. And just the very air around me is agitating me to the point where I feel consumed. But this verse seems to say there is a possible thing to call to mind. And it's because of the Lord's great love, we don't have to be consumed, for His compassions never fail. In other words, it seems to be saying, "He's not judging me. He's not coming against me. He's not shaming me. He's reminding me." He's reminding me that His compassions are a perfect match for the anxiety that I feel.

Jim Cress:
And I want to just point to a real quick, joining you, isn't it interesting, and I'm thankful for it, that modern psychology and counseling went there without knowing it? Because God is the God of all wisdom. And we call that mindfulness. And predating Freud and predating all of modern psychology, God the greatest psukhe-ologist, the studier of the soul. God's got it right there. That's pure what we call mindfulness of just everything's flying. I've got to breathe, get grounded, not look just down. I need to more glimpse at my problem and gaze at Jesus instead of glimpsing at Jesus and gazing on my problem. We reverse that. That's what is taught in mindfulness. And whole courses are coming off that verse. They wouldn't admit it. But it's coming off that.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Because mindfulness sounds a little new age or a little-

Jim Cress:
It's very old age. Isn't it?

Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah.

Lysa TerKeurst:
But I love what you just said. It's old age. And it goes on to say, "Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail." They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself,” so I'm calling something to mind, and then I'm preaching it to myself. “I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion.’" You see, I feel anxiety because I feel something's out of control.

Joel Muddamalle:
That's right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
If I can remember that the Lord is my portion, I can feel out of control, but not act out of control, if I remember He is in control. He is my portion, therefore I will wait for Him. And wait means pause. And for me, one of the best things I can do when I feel anxious is to hit the pause button, stop reacting to everything around me. Take some deep breaths. Do this, call to mind, preach to myself out of my mouth. And it really does help. It's amazing.

Joel Muddamalle:
It's so good. That's so good.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I think today's episode is going to be really helpful for people. I really like what we've talked about. I like identifying one of those five emotions. I've never taken it that simple. I've always thought there's a million emotions out there. It's very complicated when you feel everything in Technicolor. But really, bring it back to the basics. There are five. Let's say them one more time.

Jim Cress:
Mad, sad, glad, bad, guilt or shame, or afraid.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Okay. We feel an emotion. We can identify the emotion. And just like I said, we can have that feeling. A feeling is an indicator that something needs to be addressed. But it doesn't have to be a dictator for how we act and react. It's not only true from a therapeutic standpoint, but from a theological standpoint as well.

Joel Muddamalle:
Absolutely.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. Thank you, Joel. Thank you, Jim. Thank you for tuning in.