1 Soul Matters Podcast
Where Faith, Community, and Transformation Meet
Fostering spiritual growth, emotional well-being, and authentic connection through candid conversations rooted in faith and mental health.
1 Soul Matters Podcast
Refuel, Retool, Recharge: Where Faith Meets Mental Health
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Paula C. Dobbs-Wiggins who shares how faith communities can address mental health challenges by integrating spiritual resources with mental health services and community support. She explores the importance of education, connection to resources, and collaborative action as we navigate troubled times together.
The podcast also delves into the need for communities to shift from stigmatizing mental health to supporting it through education and resource connection.
The podcast also highlights The 10th Mental Health Symposium on July 19th offers space for caregivers, family members, ministry leaders, mental health professionals, educators, mental health advocates, and more to refuel, retool, and recharge.
"REGISTER" today https://tinyurl.com/yc6ytajd
Healthy minds, hearts, and leaders build a healthy Christ community!
Day-at-a-Glance:
https://slcumc.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2997368
If you encounter challenges with registering or have any questions, please contact us at mentalhealth@slcumc.org.
Hello everybody, welcome to Soul Matters. I am your guest host, Reverend Jermine Alberty, and today we are presenting an episode around church matters, where faith meets the challenges of everyday life and where we believe your soul matters. And today we're going to dive into a conversation that blends faith, mental wellness and why the church matters. And at the center of it all is the 10th annual Mental Health Symposium happening on Friday, July 19th, and this is an opportunity for faith communities and others to refuel, retool and recharge. Today we're joined by a special guest, Dr. Paula C Dobbs Wiggins, who is a board-certified psychiatrist, ordained clergywoman, renowned speaker on the intersection of faith and mental health and a retired professor of the practice of pastoral care at SMU's Perkins School of Theology. Dr Dobbs-Wiggin brings with her decades of experience in clinical practice and pastoral ministry, and she also brings a holistic perspective to healing, addressing both the soul and the psyche, and her work has empowered churches nationwide to engage in meaningful mental health ministry. She also is a member of St Luke Community United Methodist Church, where she is a member and have been actually the founder one of the founding members, if you would of their mental health ministry, which is where I met Dr Dobbin Wiggins, actually, when we awarded her the Mental Health Champion Award when I was Executive Director of a nonprofit called Pathways to Promise, and then I've had the honor to work alongside her and the members of St Luke in their mental health ministry. So we are so honored to have her here.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:And this is the inaugural podcast of Soul Matters. Listen, I tell you that the St Luke Mental Health Ministry is so excited about this podcast launching in the community and I'm excited to be the first guest host of this podcast. So we've heard so many faith leaders say I'm tired but I can't stop. And yet they continue and it's important that we acknowledge that burnout is real, that trauma lingers and silence in our sanctuaries has lasted too long.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:But for 10 years St Luke Community and I guess a major word Community UMC has hosted an annual mental health symposium and the theme this year is Navigating Troubled Times. Navigating Troubled Times again. That's intentional Again. And that's intentional because what we want to do is do our best and I say we because I'm an honorary member of St Luke, and so we really want to encourage caregivers, ministry leaders, mental health professionals or someone quality holding heavy burdens. This is going to be the space for you on July 19th Saturday, July 19th this year from 8 am to 1 30 pm. This is the place for you where we're going to have renowned keynote speakers, expert-led workshops, honest conversations, solo practice like prayer, music and mindfulness. This is all going to be available for you all, and we're going to have a link for you to register for this symposium soon, and so I want to begin by asking Dr. Wiggins this question, and that is why is this mental health symposium necessary? Now more than ever?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:Well, first let me begin by saying that I am delighted to be sharing in this inaugural podcast of ministry. Yes, just delighted to. It's just another reflection of how our ministry has grown over the years, and you may see me moving to a better spot because I was starting to get some lag in our connection here, so I wanted to come someplace that I thought we would not be interrupted, because this is critical information that we are considering and sharing on this day. Why is it so important?
Rev. Jermine Alberty:Why is it so important? So, first of all, let me begin by saying welcome, welcome to Vegas, and I know that, with this being the inaugural podcast, so many tell us what you think about that. What do you think about this being the first podcast?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:I think it is just wonderful you know, by the grace of God, I've been able to watch the St Luke Community United Methodist Church mental health ministry grow from its inception and with each year the ministry has taken on the challenge of expanding and ever better equipping itself to be an equipping agent for the community that we serve. Taking on having a podcast is just another way, another step that we're taking to be able to provide sound information, sound resources and encouragement to the communities that we serve. So I'm delighted. I'm delighted and very, very proud of the ministry and how it continues to grow and expand.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:Well, I was excited when they told me I was going to be interviewing you for the first inaugural podcast. I was excited about that, and in the introduction I talked about the symposium 10th annual symposium, and the theme. These keywords refuel, retool, recharge and so I want to ask my second question, that is to recharge. And so I want to ask my second question. That is, why is this mental health symposium necessary? Now more than ever?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:Since the beginning of the year, members of our church, like people all across the nation, have been just challenged with feelings of anxiety, have been just challenged with feelings of anxiety, fear. You know what's going to happen to us. There are several that see the direction of the new administration and the resources that are being pulled back from our community and, frankly, many, many people are just in a panic. Many, many people are just in a panic and it's, to a degree, considered what we wanted to do for this 10th symposium. We came up with the thing navigating troubled times. That's how it started.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:Yes.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:But then we added that word navigating troubled times again because we wanted to remind ourselves and those who come in attendance. You know, we have seen hard times before, we have navigated hard times before and, yes, it is tragic that, having gained so much over the years that it seems like there is a concerted effort to dismantle some of the gains that have occurred. But we have been through this before and therefore that's why we came up with those words refueling, retooling and recharging our ability to face challenging times. We want to think back to, you know, what has gotten us over these troubled waters before?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:And how do we need to refine them and reshape them and retool them to meet the current challenges of the day? So, yes, we are a resilient people and we want to be able to equip ourselves to move forward, even in the face of the troubling times that we have going on right now.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:Those anchoring words refuel, retool, recharge as you said, emphasize. We've been here before and we can come through this again, and I think about spiritual renewal, I think about updating the tools that we need to use in this time. I think about recharging as the emotional and community energy that we need to have during this time, and so what we know is that these three words refueling, retooling, recharging this is offering a lifeline to the community to say listen, we can do this, we can do this, and the church matters, because the church can either be a place of healing or a source of harm for some, and so we need to ask ourselves some real questions that I hope you can help provide some light on. And the first question I want to ask you is how can the church shift from the stigma of mental illness to support communities when addressing mental health within the congregation and the community at large?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:I think the key word is education and elevation. Historically there have been efforts to kind of separate spirituality and mental health concerns, you know, and often a kind of a tension between the two communities. You know what is the right approach? Is it a theological perspective or a psychological perspective? And throughout our ministry, part of the work that we have been most serious about is moving out of a conflictual stance into a collaborative stance and kind of recognizing that if we are about wanting people to be whole and wanting people to be able to reach their full God-given potential, we've got to be concerned about their spiritual health, their psychological health and their physical health. We want to equip people to bring the best of all those dimensions to the problems that they are facing in life. So how does the church get into a better position? One just through education position. One just through education understanding. You know what are the aspects of psychological health and treatment that at one time we thought was opposed to faith development but actually can be seen as enhancing and supporting and integrating with faith teachings and faith ministry to make an even stronger person.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:So at St Luke Church, when our mental health ministry began, we started with a small symposium but we realized that we needed to do a lot more about education.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:So every month on the third Sunday excuse me, the third Saturday of every month we have an educational forum in which there is a guest speaker to provide education and teaching around a mental health related topic and that's followed by a support group where persons can take that information, apply it to their lives, with a resource person available to help guide them in understanding how that information.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:Apply it to their lives, with a resource person available to help guide them in understanding how that information applies in their life and how having that information may equip them to move forward in different ways in the community. And we also so education connection to resources. Our ministry always maintains a list of mental health resources in the community so that when we identify issues and we explore issues, we also have a place where persons can go forward to get additional treatment and support around those issues. So your question and of course you are speaking to my heart, I mean this is what my life work has been about is finding ways to be able to integrate the church and the mental health community, as well as other community resources, to work together so that we can have the best responses that we can.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:One thing, if you'll allow me you know it is interesting for this our 10th symposium. It is one in which we are trying our best to integrate various aspects of community and work, because the things that are happening in our community right now is touching everybody. We will have spiritual resources there.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:We will have behavioral health resources there, community resources, sociological resources to kind of analyze you know what is happening in our society and why is it touching people in all the ways that it is and then kind of thinking together okay, given all this information that will be shared, how can we integrate this and do some meaningful, concrete things to make a difference in terms of people's ability to cope? The 10 years of the importance of integrating and working together and collaboratively in order to come up with meaningful solutions to problems.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:I love. So it's not just good enough to educate folks about mental health, but we must provide them resources then to take that education and put it into practice, literally, from theory to practice. That's amazing. So I want you to take us into the classroom. Okay, take us into the classroom. And I want for you because not every pastor or faith leader can take a class that you taught. Take us into the classroom. And what tips would you provide faith leaders in providing pastoral care and spiritual practice and integrating mental health? If you would give one, two, three tips, whatever, what would you give them to take back and put into practice? Integrating mental health? If you would give, like, one, two, three tips, whatever?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:What would you give them to take back and put into practice? Well, two things, okay, I would have to start One. You know, again, I think it's important for clergy to understand basic mental health principles. You know what are the major illnesses that impact our community, including your church community, so that you can understand and recognize. You know, if someone is coming in and they're speaking of suddenly losing all of their energy, they don't have interests in things that they used to have interest in and they're just feeling, you know, like a failure, they're feeling like everything is falling apart, that perhaps they're not even worthy to have things going well, I want every clergy person to be thinking there may be some clinical depression going on here, there may be something medically going on that may be causing this person to view themselves in even more negative ways than perhaps is justified.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:They may be experiencing exaggerated guilt or exaggerated feelings of helplessness that are related to a medical, psychological, medical issue, more than what's actually happening in their lives. I want them to have that, to click it, and the other thing, though, is I used to say that it used to be repeated to me all the time that I would say that our God has called clergy to be shepherds not veterinarians.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:And what I mean by that is, a good shepherd guides the sheep, guides the sheep to the resources that the sheep need to live, you know, be it food or shelter, or mental health consultation. A good shepherd guides the sheep. A good shepherd is not called upon to be a veterinarian to fix the sheep. It's not called upon to be a veterinarian to fix the sheep.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:So I would say to clergy you don't have to be an expert in everything, but you be able to gather the resources and help guide your congregants to those resources to get the help that they need. That's the role of a good shepherd. So I would say both of those and again that education piece that we keep talking about.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:It helps to decrease any sense of stigma or embarrassment that people feel about experiencing mental health symptoms or treatment Because, as you understand them more, you know that there's nothing to be ashamed of. You know having those symptoms is not a sign of spiritual weakness or lack of fortitude or, you know, just not being strong enough. It's just a symptom of a condition, just as you would experience diabetes or heart disease or any other condition that may be impacting the body veterinary.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:I love it because I think so many times faith leaders, faith members feel so pressured to try to fix things and the reality is we don't have to do it by ourselves. We can lean on those mental health professionals, and I love the idea that you said also that it could be both a physical health matter or a mental health matter. But it's not our job to discern what it is. Our role is to say, hey, it seems like you need some help, Talk to your doctor about that. Or don't be ashamed to talk to a psychiatrist, psychologist or mental health professional about what you are experiencing.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:That's right. That's right, and take all the resources that you get from all those conversations, because it is God's desire that you be the best you you can be, and we can use all the tools and all the resources to enable you to do just that to be your best self and reach your full God-given potential.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:As we encourage folks at this symposium to refuel, to retool, to recharge. There's a lot of grief and trauma and burnout going on right now with what people are experiencing are experiencing, and what would you say that faith communities can do even now to help deal with that trauma and that grief and that burnout that folks are experiencing. Just can you provide them just a tip or so how they can manage that now, because we want them to come to the symposium to get information. But while people are listening to this podcast, I want to give them a few nuggets, a couple of nuggets of what they can do to deal with the trauma and the grief and the burnout.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:And well, and certainly they're going to hear a whole lot more when they come to that yeah, they will yes. They'll get this. But you know, I think step one is to acknowledge the reality of the grief of the burnout. You know there are things happening in society today, be it sudden, unexpected, undeserved layoffs, and firings that occur that are impacting families and cause people to feel insecure, and so those things that are happening right now may well trigger and rekindle past traumas and efforts and past struggles that people have gone through and therefore it feels even more overwhelming because it's sort of like, yeah, this is happening now, but it's happened before and I couldn't get past it before.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:What in the world am I going to do? But it's happened before and I couldn't get past it before. What in the world am I going to do? So the first thing is to acknowledge the reality of the feelings that are there and then to begin that part of again education to say, okay, let's try to look at this holistically, let's try to figure out, okay, what part of this is related to what's happening in our society politically. What's happening, what are the attitudes that are resurfacing in parts of our community that make many feel that it's okay for us to think of in very vertical ways, that there are some who are deserving and better and others who can be discounted and discarded.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:And then let's ask ourselves you know, what are the spiritual lessons that we know from our faith about? Are things in a hierarchical, vertical thing, or is the ground? Even at the foot of the cross, everybody is a person of sacred worth and everybody is entitled to be able to be the best person that they can be and to fulfill their Godiven potential. So, yeah, we need to be able to open our eyes, see what's going on in community and be able to recognize okay, our faith does speak to some of these issues. Our faith does speak to what's going on politically and socially. Our faith does speak to how people are treated and how people are valued. Okay, and then we have to go a step further, okay. So here we are.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:We know what our faith is saying, we can see what's happening and we can be realistic about it. Let me put one more thing in and to be realistic and honest with ourselves about okay, yes, this is happening generally, but what is this stuff triggering in me? Yes, in my history, in my background, that is getting stirred up as I hear about these things going. Okay, so, having taken a real look, having gathered our resources, we want to be able to be aware of other resources that may be of help to us. Are there mental health resources that would be helpful to me as I'm processing these memories that have popped up?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:and that are starting to interfere. Might there also be social resources to help me understand how the differing attitudes that I'm seeing politically happening in the world are actually impacting my local community? Are there opportunities that I might have to make a difference in the local schools?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:you know, at local libraries. Are there some opportunities to serve and to learn in my local community that I can actually get involved with in my local community that I can actually get involved with Politically? Are there people I need to be writing? Are there issues that are so meaningful that we've identified in this workshop setting?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:that I need to write my congresspeople, both statewide and nationally. What can I do? And then, identifying those kinds of things. You feel less powerless, you feel less overwhelmed, you feel less just at the. You're unable to do anything and just vulnerable to what other people are imposing on you.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:I said you do have something to say people are imposing on, you realize that you do have something to say, and those are the very kinds of things that we're hoping that this symposium will help equip people to do. You won't be able to do it all in those few hours on that Saturday. But you come up with a list of some things you're going to pursue, and what piece of this am I going to take on to make a difference?
Rev. Jermine Alberty:amazing, amazing. The way we're going to deal with the trauma and the grief and the burnout is we're going to take action we're not going to let things be done to us, but we're going to be doers. We're going to allow those who says be doers of the word, not just hearers. We are hearing all this stuff happening. What can we do about it?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:and be informed. We're going to be informed, doers, and we're not going to be so afraid or overwhelmed by what's happening that we close our eyes and pretend like it's not there. We're going to look it straight in the face and figure out how to, overwhelmed by what's happening, that we close our eyes and pretend like it's not there.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:We're going to look it straight in the face, yes and figure out how to move from there. We are going to be informed doers. I love this Informed doers but listen, these questions that we've asked have not just been rhetorical questions. They have actually been designed to provide you a roadmap that we'll be exploring at the symposium. And if you want to be a faith community that heals, we need to lead with intention. So if you're feeling hesitant, tired, overwhelmed, unsure, then this symposium is for you, absolutely. If you are weary, this is your invitation to rest. If you are unequipped, this is an opportunity to learn. And if you want to be part of something bigger than yourself, this space was made just for you.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:Absolutely.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:The Mental Health Symposium is not just another event but, as Dr Paula has said, it's going to be a sacred gathering. A sacred gathering where we're going to gather you to refuel, to retool and to recharge both yourself and your ministry, and so we're going to have a link that you can use to register for this symposium. We want you to invite someone and we want you to come ready to be healed and take that healing to others. Absolutely, dr Paula. Do you have anything else you want to say before you wrap up this first inaugural podcast?
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:And only to say that just even our discussion has got me excited about it. Yes, yes, that it's going to be needed and that, leaning together, you know, working together we are also very, very powerful and gain support from each other as we move forward to address these issues that are impacting our community.
Rev. Jermine Alberty:Yes, we are so stronger together. We really truly are. Dr Paula, thank you so much for your leadership and your commitment to bridging faith and mental health, and we hope to see all you all on July the 19th. And you've been listening to so Matters, and until next time, stay grounded, stay encouraged and remember your soul matters.
Dr. Paula Dobbs-Wiggins:Absolutely.