Avsnitt

  • When someone is struggling with their mental health, whether that’s dealing with stress, anxiety, or a diagnosed mental health condition, it’s not just them who feel the effects of it — there’s often a flow on effect to the people around them; their partner, children, family, friends, colleagues… The list goes on.

    So what’s it like to be struggling with your mental health, only to feel the added weight—and often, guilt—of knowing that what you’re dealing with is also impacting the people you love? How do you navigate those dynamics when there are seasons of your life when you’re more vulnerable and in-need than you’re comfortable with?

    Today we’re chatting to Erin, a mum of two girls from Tennessee in the US, who has dealt with significant periods of anxiety, depression, and suicide ideation which led to multiple hospitalisations and in-patient therapy stays.

    We’ll hear not only about Erin’s journey and the role of her faith amidst the challenges she’s faced, but also what it’s been like to deal with the added guilt of seeing what her mental illness was doing to her husband and children.

    --

    Erin Mount is a lover of God who writes about faith, suffering, and mental health. If she’s not spending time with her family, watching Gilmore Girls or reading, she’s probably napping. Read more from Erin on our blog in ‘When My Thoughts Lie to Me’, and check out her Substack here.

    --

    Through this podcast and our other resources, our heart here at Anxious Faith is to spark conversation and tackle the taboos around mental health in our churches and faith communities. Will you help us do that?

    We’d be grateful if you would consider supporting us, whether through prayer, sharing our resources in your circles, or contributing towards our ministry costs.

    We’d also love to connect with you on socials, where you can join the community, check out our other resources and see behind the scenes content from our team.

  • CW: Keola’s story covers his struggles with self-harm and suicide ideation, so please be wise as you listen and mindful of who you’re listening with.

    Today we’re hearing the story of Keola, a young guy from Las Vegas in the US who thought he was living the dream — scouted out of high school for Division 1 baseball college, and on his way to making it as an athlete. But moving to that college wasn’t the highlight he was expecting it to be, and instead, it became a time of anxiety, fear, and dread.

    As Keola fought against these newfound mental health challenges, they worsened; leaving him feeling lost and alone. He fought against thoughts of suicide, and turned to unhelpful ways of coping — including trying self-harm, which became addictive.

    Though Keola’s mental health struggles aren’t all over now, his testimony is one of immense hope. Through his darkest periods, Keola has experienced God’s grace and deliverance in incredible ways and, while his struggles have never entirely gone away, he’s able to proclaim the goodness of God in all circumstances.

    In his own words, he shares with us: “I’ve gotten a lot closer to God because of my suffering… because I know He’s going to show up, and I know if I lean on Him, He’s going to make a way.”

    Keola shares his story today with the prayer that it might bring hope to anyone suffering through similar circumstances, and understanding to those who haven’t experienced this.

    When you’re done listening, you can read this piece written by Keola on our blog: To the Christian Who Self-Harms.

    --

    Through this podcast and our other resources, our heart here at Anxious Faith is to spark conversation and tackle the taboos around mental health in our churches and faith communities. Will you help us do that?

    We’d be grateful if you would consider supporting us, whether through prayer, sharing our resources in your circles, or contributing towards our ministry costs.

    We’d also love to connect with you on socials, where you can join the community, check out our other resources and see behind the scenes content from our team.

  • Saknas det avsnitt?

    Klicka här för att uppdatera flödet manuellt.

  • “Nothing is certain except death and taxes,” or so the saying goes. But there’s something else that we’ll all face in our lives, regardless of our background, finances, upbringing or culture: suffering.

    Whether it’s suffering brought on by mental illness, physical illness, financial pressure, issues with relationships or family or any number of other things, at some point in our lives, things are going to be hard. Messy. Painful.

    When we face suffering, it’s easy to wonder where God is. We can feel lonely, isolated … even abandoned by Him. Why is this happening to me?, we ask. How can a good God let me suffer?

    So what do we do, knowing we’ll face suffering?

    Today we’re chatting with Dr Katherine Thompson, who we heard from back in Episode 18 on the topic of Christ-Centred Mindfulness.

    Katherine has written a new book called The Discipline of Suffering, and that’s what we’re going to chat to her about today; the idea of suffering, and how to work our way through it as followers of Jesus.

    --

    Through this podcast and our other resources, our heart here at Anxious Faith is to spark conversation and tackle the taboos around mental health in our churches and faith communities. Will you help us do that?

    We’d be grateful if you would consider supporting us, whether through prayer, sharing our resources in your circles, or contributing towards our ministry costs.

    We’d also love to connect with you on socials, where you can join the community, check out our other resources and see behind the scenes content from our team.

  • Video games can be a contentious topic. There are the people who love them, and those that don’t — or simply can’t understand the appeal. And then there are the stories we hear in the media about gaming addiction, social isolation, and a growing concern for the way gaming seems to lead to a whole range of mental health challenges.

    So, what do we think? Does gaming affect our mental health?

    Perhaps it’s not quite so black and white.

    Today we’re chatting with Jacob, a life-long gamer, who shares how gaming has affected his mental health — both negatively and for the better. Jacob now runs a ministry seeking to reach one of the groups least represented in the church—gamers—and build off their existing hobbies and interests, providing positive opportunities for social interaction and inviting gamers into spaces where they might also encounter Jesus.

    We’ll hear Jacob’s journey and discuss the bigger picture of gaming, as well as what we might need to watch out for in this space as Christians. We’ll also be joined by a familiar voice, Maddy from our team—who’s an outsider to the world of gaming—to give our conversation a range of different experiences.

    Jacob started a non-profit called The Big LAN for gamers in Australia to come together, meet like-minded people, and form long-term friendships. The Big LAN is a Melbourne-based community and currently the largest LAN event in Australia. To check it out, click here.

    --

    Through this podcast and our other resources, our heart here at Anxious Faith is to spark conversation and tackle the taboos around mental health in our churches and faith communities. Will you help us do that?

    We’d be grateful if you would consider supporting us, whether through prayer, sharing our resources in your circles, or contributing towards our ministry costs.

    We’d also love to connect with you on socials, where you can join the community, check out our other resources and see behind the scenes content from our team.

  • When we think of non-physical problems that affect people, we’re pretty immediately drawn to the common ones — anxiety, depression, and the realm of mental illness. But there’s something just as insidious that can cause significant issues to our mental wellbeing, quality of life, and faith.

    It’s loneliness.

    There are some mind-boggling statistics around loneliness. One in four adults around the world report feeling lonely. Our ministry recently did a study of 18-35 year olds here in Australia, and 44% of the overall respondents reported struggling with loneliness and a lack of connection.

    But why is loneliness a growing issue? What are its impacts? And, more importantly, what can we as individuals—and the broader church—do to combat loneliness?

    Today we’re diving into it with Kimberly Smith, a pastor, speaker, and author of a book on singleness in the church who is passionate about this topic.

    To get in touch with Kimberly, read her blog, check out her book ‘What We Cannot Be Alone: Understanding Singleness in God’s Family’ or see where she’ll be speaking next, you can visit her website.

    --

    Through this podcast and our other resources, our heart here at Anxious Faith is to spark conversation and tackle the taboos around mental health in our churches and faith communities. Will you help us do that?

    We’d be grateful if you would consider supporting us, whether through prayer, sharing our resources in your circles, or contributing towards our ministry costs.

    We’d also love to connect with you on socials, where you can join the community, check out our other resources and see behind the scenes content from our team.

  • You think of a CEO and you probably picture someone who has it all together. They’re out there speaking in front of audiences, resolving high-level disputes, and running companies.

    But what’s happening behind the scenes? Is it possible that even CEOs can wrestle with mental illness?

    Dr Matt Lucas is the President and Global CEO of Our Daily Bread Ministries, whom Anxious Faith is a part of — yep, we’ve got the big boss on today. From being thrust into leadership roles to tasting career success at an early age, Dr Matt looked like he had it all together. But inside, his reality was a little different. Despite the face he put on for work, he wrestled with high levels of stress, anxiety and depression, which grew harder and harder to hide.

    In this episode, Dr Matt shares vulnerably about how his mental health struggles caught up with him and caused some significant issues. We’ll hear what led to that point, how he faced and worked through these struggles, and how they’ve impacted him as a leader today.

    --

    Through this podcast and our other resources, our heart here at Anxious Faith is to spark conversation and tackle the taboos around mental health in our churches and faith communities. Will you help us do that?

    We’d be grateful if you would consider supporting us, whether through prayer, sharing our resources in your circles, or contributing towards our ministry costs.

    We’d also love to connect with you on socials, where you can join the community, check out our other resources and see behind the scenes content from our team.

  • This episode, we’re chatting with Josh, a young Aussie guy who was first exposed to pornography at the age of eight. For years, Josh’s addiction to porn grew and had a hold on his life, affecting his mental health, sense of worth, relationships with others, and faith.

    Over the years, Josh tried everything to break his addiction. He sought accountability from parents, friends and pastors, met with counsellors, restricted his phone and computer access, read books and paid for addiction courses… To no avail. Despite trying his hardest to beat the addiction, it persisted — for more than 15 years.

    So what changed? How did Josh eventually find freedom from the grip of a porn addiction? Join us to find out.

    Note: For the sake of time we’ve had to cut out parts of Josh’s story to fit into this episode, so if you want to hear his full interview, you can check it out on our YouTube channel below.

    Finally, we’ll be taking a short podcast break while we work on more episodes, but we’ll have new things coming out on our website and socials in the meantime, so make sure you’re following us on socials and subscribed to our mailing list to stay up to date!

    --

    If you’re struggling with addiction yourself—whether that’s to pornography or something else—please reach out to someone for help. That could be a friend, family member, your pastor, doctor or counsellor. If you’re not sure who you can talk to, please visit our helplines page for a list of organisations you can contact. Otherwise, a quick google search for addiction support in your area should help.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries

  • Self-harm is something we’ve touched on a few times through different people’s stories, but today, it’s our main focus.

    What leads someone to self-harm? Does it really feel ‘good’ at the time? And how does someone who’s been addicted to self-harm stop?

    In this episode, Gabby Wilkinson from Dear God I’m Sad shares about her journey with depression, which led her to trying self-harm. Soon after, she found the urges to hurt herself were difficult to suppress, and the more she continued down that path, the fiercer the addiction to it became.

    So what changed for Gabby? How was she able to stop, and what has she learned through it all—about self-harm, her mental health, and ultimately, her faith? What would she say to someone who’s currently wrestling with self-harm, or to the person supporting a loved one through the struggle?

    Find out with us.

    Content Warning: We’re not discussing the act of self-harm in any detail, but you will be hearing Gabby’s lived experience of wrestling with it. Please use your discretion and be wise about who may be around as you listen.

    --

    If you found this episode helpful, you might like to check out Episode 12 - Was God There During My Depression, Self-Harm and Suicidal Thoughts? and Episode 16 - Surviving Being Suicidal.

    You may also be encouraged by these stories on our blog, To The Christian Who Self-Harms and My Healing From Depression Came Slowly.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • We're exploring how different approaches to counselling and psychology line up with what we’re taught in the Bible. To do that, we’re chatting with Noni Potter, the Head of Undergraduate Counselling at Tabor, a Christian college in Australia.

    Not only is Noni a lecturer in counselling, but she’s also practised privately and has been involved in church ministry for many years. She’s passionate about combining her faith with evidence-based psychological methods which, she believes, echo God’s truths.

    Through our chat with Noni, we’ll learn about some of the common approaches to therapy, such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), ACT (acceptance-commitment therapy), EFT (emotion-focused therapy), and SFBT (solution-focused brief therapy), and hear how many of these are “rediscoveries” of what God has already shown us through His Word.

    --

    Noni has written a book called ‘Living Your Best Life: Keys to Freedom and Wholeness’, which integrates the restorative power of a relationship with God with evidence-based psychological tools. You can find her book here.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • A common thread through many of the stories we share is our guests’ experiences of being told that their anxiety or other mental health struggles are a faith issue, not a mental one. Today we’re chatting with Lara d’Entremont, a young woman who grappled with being told that her anxiety disorder meant she was living in sin; refusing to trust in God.

    Lara tells her story of struggling through unhelpful teachings about her anxiety, and of the damage it ended up causing to both her mental health and her faith. Ultimately, Lara shares how she discovered that God’s truth does allow us to seek medical treatment for mental illness, and how it enabled her to blend her faith and mental health journeys together.

    From the outset, we want to note that this episode talks about Biblical Counselling, because that’s what Lara was studying at the time. But ‘biblical counselling’ is a bit of a catch-all term that can refer to a whole range of different approaches, and while Lara has personally experienced harmful teaching in the name of biblical counselling, those teachings aren’t what most of us would consider biblical counselling to represent.

    In a future episode, we’re going to be interviewing a biblical counsellor directly to hear more about what they practise, and how they approach using God’s Word to counsel and encourage people who may be struggling. But for now, it’s important to remember that Lara’s story in this episode is just one person’s experience, and isn’t demonstrative of biblical counselling as a whole.

    --

    You can also check out more of Lara’s story in her two pieces on our blog, called ‘I’m Haunted by Intrusive Thoughts’ and ‘When Unruly Thoughts Refuse to Be Taken Captive’.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • Together we’ve been exploring different diagnoses such as anxiety, depression, OCD and bipolar, and seeking to learn more and find encouragement for how those struggles don’t have to keep us from God. But what about other conditions that might impact our faith—other struggles and diagnoses Christians can wrestle with, including forms of disability or other differences like neurodivergence?

    And so, with today being the International Day of Autism Awareness, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to broaden our scope and speak to someone who’s autistic and learn a little about how autism and other neurodivergent conditions can impact someone’s engagement with church.

    Maddy is our team’s Writer & Editor, but you may also recognise her from earlier episodes of the podcast, where she’s shared on her journey with depression and self-harm, and navigating anxiety in a relationship.

    Maddy was diagnosed autistic several years ago, and has since been on a mission to explore how that diagnosis interplays with her faith, and the ways in which her brain can be an asset—but also a barrier—when it comes to engaging in church.

    In this episode, Maddy leads the conversation with Dr Katy Unwin, a Lecturer in Psychology at La Trobe University. Katy has a PhD in Autism, and has done a lot of research in this area — including a study she’s recently conducted into how autistic people’s sensory differences impact their experiences of church.

    Through their conversation, Maddy and Katy hope to help us all learn a bit more about autism, the impact it can have on people’s engagement in church, and how we can work towards becoming churches and communities that are more accommodating for everyone — whether they’re autistic or not.

    Maddy has also written two pieces about autism on the blog, titled ‘Navigating Church as an Autistic Person’ and ‘3 Ways the Church Can Love an Autistic Person Like Me’.

    --

    Dr Katy explains what Autism is (video)

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • Most of the people we’ve interviewed on Anxious Faith so far are between the ages of 20 and 40. It seems a natural place to look for stories of mental health challenges; after all, we’re the age group that seem to be dealing with them—or at least, talking about them—most.

    But would it surprise you to know that some of the biggest sufferers of mental health challenges are people aged over 65? Conversations around rising mental health challenges usually focus on the statistics around working age adults, and leave out a huge percentage of our population. Older people, it turns out, can struggle with their mental health just as much—if not more—than younger generations.

    So today we’re talking with Ben, an Aged-Care Chaplain here in Australia, who meets with people in care homes every day and sees the shockingly high number of those who are dealing with a mental health condition. Most of us would know someone in the later stage of their life, whether that’s a parent, grandparent, or even one of those nice old people from church.

    Through today’s chat with Ben, we want to learn more of what mental ill-health looks like for the older members of our society, and what we—as individuals, and the broader church—can be doing to better love, care, and support them.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • We’ve shared lots of stories of people who have dealt with anxiety, and for many of them, the reality is they may always deal with anxiety. But what if you went and sought help, brought it all to God, went to regular therapy sessions and even tried medication,only for anxiety to come back, and come back stronger?

    What would it be like to do all the right things, to think you had beaten anxiety, only for the anxiety to return later on?

    This episode we’re chatting with Tiffany, a teacher and writer in California in the US who lived this experience. She shares what it’s like to have the anxiety come back even after doing everything right, but also the difference she experienced when she chose to allow her church community into what she struggled with, and the difference that made in her faith.

    --

    Tiffany has also written several pieces for us on the blog, including ‘Clinical Anxiety Isn’t What the Church Thinks It Is’ and ‘How to Be Helpful When a Loved One Tells You They’re Anxious’.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • Many of our guests have shared that they’ve experienced some form of anxiety since childhood. But that’s not always the case; for some people, anxiety or any other mental illness might not show up until later in life, seemingly out of nowhere. That was the case for Akos.

    It wasn’t until his 30’s that Akos faced anxiety for the first time, in the form of a panic attack while seated on a small aircraft. That seemingly isolated incident led to a second panic attack, and a third, until his anxiety worsened.

    Despite having a strong faith and a good understanding of mental health—Akos was working in ministry and married to a psychologist, after all—he wrestled with recurring anxious thoughts and couldn’t seem to control his feelings. And that led to a shift in his understanding, as he learned that he was not his anxious feelings — they were separate from him, much like how we can be confronted with sinful temptations that are not a part of our identity.

    By seeing his anxiety as something outside of who he is as a person, Akos has been able to come to terms with the uncontrollable thoughts he sometimes has and yet choose how to respond to them.

    Today, he shares with us how he sees the Bible’s “heroes of the faith” also being confronted with trials and suffering outside of their control, but choosing to remain faithful to God and trust in His promises.

    Akos has written several pieces on our blog, including 10 Surprising Things I’ve Learned About Having Good Mental Health and As a Christian Bloke, Here’s What I’ve Learned About Dealing With Difficult Emotions.

    --

    If you want to see more of how Akos engages with faith, mental health, and culture, you can check out his personal blog here.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • To kick off this year, we’re chatting with Amelie, a university student in Sydney. Amelie’s mental health journey started during high school, with what she thought was anxiety and experiencing a lot of existential dread. Initially she thought that the anxiety was all based around school pressure and performance, but it wasn’t long after she graduated that she realised the feelings hadn’t gone away, which led to a diagnosis of OCD - or obsessive compulsive disorder.

    Amazingly though, it was the beginning of her anxiety and mental health journey that actually led Amelie to finding God in high school, and she has a great story of how the growth of her faith has enabled her, along with a lot of hard work and medication, to be in a much better place where her OCD is now manageable, and to know that God is good, God is just, and God is holy even amidst the struggles of OCD.

    --

    Amelie has also shared part of her story in a blog post for us, called With Trauma Came OCD, but Then Came Jesus.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • Join James, Maddy and Ethan in our final episode of the year to take a look back on where Anxious Faith began and where we’re heading. From small beginnings in January 2023 to almost 25,000 podcast downloads and a growing online community, we’re so grateful for where God has brought us this year.

    Tune in for a quick recap of all 21 episodes, as well as the team’s reflections on some key things we’ve learned through our work this year that have helped us each in our own mental health journeys. We also take a look at some highlights from the blog this year, and chat about our vision for Anxious Faith in 2024.

    Lastly, we want to say thank you to each of you for listening, sharing your stories with us, and helping us pioneer this ministry. We’re excited for what’s ahead, but in the meantime, we hope you’ll join us on this reflection of the year that’s been!

    --

    Fill out the survey and help us shape the future of Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • OCD is made up of intrusive thoughts that you can’t control around a particular issue–that’s the “obsession”–and those thoughts cause an incredible amount of anxiety unless you complete a certain action you feel compelled to do–that’s the “compulsive” part. Within the family of OCD, there are a number of different subtypes.

    But what if your OCD is about your faith?

    This episode we’re chatting to Mary, a young woman in the UK who has religious OCD or “scrupulosity”, a type where the obsession and intrusive thoughts are all focused around religion and faith. Having grown up in a Christian family, this has been a difficult journey for Mary.

    For Mary and others suffering with the religious type of OCD, their intrusive thoughts are focused on questions such as whether God is real, and if the Bible can be trusted. While these are questions that we might all ask during our faith journeys, for those with religious OCD, these thoughts are persistent and inescapable.

    --

    Mary's blog piece: I Wish I'd Known It Was Religious OCD

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • Trauma is a big and complex thing, and a topic we want to unpack in more depth in the future; but in today’s episode, we’re sharing the story of one man’s trauma, and the addiction and mental illness it led to.

    Dr Mark McNear is a licensed clinical social worker in New Jersey in the US. As a child, Mark suffered significant trauma and abuse, which he did his best to numb himself from. It wasn’t until Mark was in his 50’s that his doctor noticed he’d been abusing prescription medication and referred him to a rehab centre that could help.

    Mark calls that day the best and worst day of his life. His wife drove him to rehab and checked him in for several months. As he began to get clean from his substance abuse, Mark was left with memories flooding back to him; recollections of the trauma he’d experienced that he’d suppressed his entire adult life and had never told anyone about.

    With no way to run from the trauma, Mark had no choice but to acknowledge it, share it with others, and work towards healing. In this episode, Mark encourages listeners who’ve faced trauma with lessons he’s learned from his own journey, and shares with us how we as people of faith can walk alongside people we know who may be dealing with trauma or substance abuse.

    --

    Mark’s book, Finding My Words: A Ruthless Commitment to Healing Gently After Trauma weaves his own story with powerful gospel truths, and reminds us that God is with us in the messiness of life and wants to see us recovering from trauma. You can contact Mark via his website here.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you’re struggling with trauma or addiction yourself, please talk to someone to seek help. That might be a friend, family member, pastor, or your doctor. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, there’s a list of helplines you can call here.

  • This episode, we’re speaking to Dr Sarah Morris, a clinical psychologist in Melbourne, Australia. Not only is Sarah a specialist who runs her own practice, but she is also a follower of Jesus who walks the road daily in both mental health and faith spaces.

    Have you ever wondered, ‘What exactly does a psychologist do?’ Or maybe you’ve heard about cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and ‘measurement-based practice’ and have no idea what those things involve. Well, Dr Sarah is here to answer all our questions!

    If you’ve never had any firsthand experience of seeing a psychologist, it can sometimes be a bit confusing to know exactly what that looks like. And, if you’re a person of faith, you may have wondered whether the field of psychology is compatible with our faith.

    In this episode, Dr Sarah gives us an overview on what psychology is, how it differs from psychiatry and counselling, and also shares about some of the common types of treatments that psychologists will use with someone. She also shares with us how her Christian faith plays into her profession, and whether faith and psychology are ever at odds. Listen in to find out!

    --

    Here in Australia, you can visit a psychologist by chatting with your GP to get on a ‘mental health care plan’. If you’re wanting to know what that first visit to your GP looks like, check out this short video of Dr Sarah (a different Dr Sarah from this episode!) explaining the process.

    You might also like to read ‘If Jesus Is Enough, Why Would I Need Psychology?’ and ‘Does My Psychologist Need to Be Christian?’ on our blog.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you, or someone you know, are struggling with anxiety or your mental health, we’d really encourage you to speak to a doctor, mental health professional, or reach out to one of the organisations on our Help page.

  • ‘Mindfulness’ is one of the big practices that are often recommended or suggested to people who are struggling with their mental health. But as Christians, is mindfulness something that we should throw ourselves into without question? Do we need to be careful in following these exercises?

    This episode, we’re speaking with Dr Katherine Thompson, a mental health social worker, member of the Centre of Theology and Psychology, and author of Christ-Centred Mindfulness.

    Katherine first unpacks what mindfulness is, where it came from, and how it can help our minds and bodies. She then shares how she’s learned to integrate mindfulness and meditative practices with her faith, and takes us through a couple of ‘Christ-centred’ mindfulness exercises that listeners can follow along with.

    --

    If you’re interested in trying some of your own meditating on God’s Word, we’d love to introduce to you to a podcast produced by our colleagues in the UK office of Our Daily Bread Ministries. Evening Meditations are short, 10-minute daily episodes that encourage us to refocus our hearts on God and to untangle ourselves from the busyness of life.

    --

    Anxious Faith website

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow us on TikTok

    Subscribe on Youtube

    Support Anxious Faith

    --

    Anxious Faith is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries. If you, or someone you know, are struggling with anxiety or your mental health, we’d really encourage you to speak to a doctor, mental health professional, or reach out to one of the organisations on our Help page.