counseling

Good Monday Morning: Sept. 26

/ Carol Underhill / Leave a comment

This is the last Monday in September. This month went by so fast.

Summer is over and fall is here. That turning of the season was a difficult time for me when my kids were in school. It was as hard for me to shift from lazy summer mornings to bustling everyone out the door in time to catch the bus or drive to school. In fact, many years during this change of season, I suffered from increased anxiety.

It feels like I still experience the aftershock of those hectic days when this time of year rolls around. My mood shifted a few days ago. A little bit of depression is creeping in, stealing my motivation and my joy. That affects my mindset and my thoughts turn inward. I self-reflect and pick out the negatives instead of focusing on the positive.

It’s time for another appointment with my counselor. I can get through this, but I need a little help to sort through my emotions.

Three years ago I was on top of my game. I was in great health and my first novella was about to be released.

Two years ago, I had good lab results and felt physically stronger than I ever had, but I struggled to find a job. Finances became a hardship. I learned how to cook dry beans and make up my own soups, as well as portion out the meat that I ate so that it stretched farther.

Last year, I’d already started to let down my guard, not paying attention to what I ate and not exercising regularly. I had some disappointments that I couldn’t seem to get over.

In November last year, I began working with children’s church. Like I often do, I came up with my own ideas for curriculum. For the next few months, I focused on preparing lessons weekly with Bible stories, games and crafts. It didn’t matter to me that we only had 1-3 kids most Sundays. It was a lot of fun for me to get back into the area of children’s ministry that I enjoyed when my kids were little.

I decided that last year, in 2021, I chased after things that weren’t important. I decided that in 2022, I would focus on what God had planned for me.

I spend a lot of time working on curriculum to use in our local church and in preparation for future publishing.

Although I have several ideas for Christian fiction, I haven’t written anything this year. I keep thinking I want to get something going, but I don’t have the drive.

I can’t tell if it’s because the church curriculum consumes all of my creative energy or if it’s wrter’s block that’s lasted for several months.

Maybe a little bit of both?

As any of you who follow my blog can tell, I’ve been lax this summer in writing new posts. One thing I have continued is the Pet Tails Series. I’ve requested photos and stories of pets who are available for adoption from our local animal rescue coalition. The last one named Hash brown almost tempted me to seek adoption.

My “baby,” my Black Lab named Rosie, turns thirteen next month and is slowing down. I think she may have a tumor and plan to call the vet this week and get her an appointment. I don’t really want another dog to replace her, but after my husband died, she was the only reason I went outside the house. She’s been a good companion in spite of her stubbornness and occasional digging into the trash. I don’t know when but we will be saying goodbye to her sooner rather than later.

I don’t think I will get another dog, however. We have several cats. Adding a puppy or even an older dog to the household will be more work for me. I’d like to do some traveling in a couple of years and I don’t want the responsibility of a dog that I’d have to ask someone else to take care of while I’m gone.

Then there is the expense: Vet visits, spaying or neutering, shots, as well as food. My kids have been paying for all of that over this past year as I have struggled financially. I can’t afford another dog until my finances get sqared away. I’m working on budgeting but there isn’t much left over after bills to budget.

I have to believe that will all change one day, hopefully sooner rather than later. I made some poor decisions in the past that have put me in this situation. I am unable to work full time due to mental health issues. But I’ve missed a lot of part time hours this summer due to illness or said issues.

The Passport Journey curriculum has gone amazingly well and is still a fun project for me. I’m also working on a series called Hall of Faith, based on Hebrews 11 and am making trading cards to go along with the stories. I’m also working on New Testament stories that we can begin in January if God directs us to.

So there are some positive things in my life, I just have to look a little harder for them right now. I’m also making the commitment to eating healthier and exercising more often, but we all know how hard it is to stick with those good habits.

I hope you all have a good week and I’ll see you back here soon!

Oh, and I’ve lined up some author interviews and book features for the next few months so I can introduce you to some great Christian fiction.

From the Archives: Get Up and Try Again

/ Carol Underhill / Leave a comment

Week 4 of my Journey out of the Pit

During the process of healing from my depression, I found that maintaining change was hard work. After just a few weeks of counseling sessions, I was already failing in my attempts to get out of the pit.

I felt like I was in a downward cycle. I felt overwhelmed. I couldn’t maintain the house or remind myself of the truths I’d memorized.

I couldn’t find my way back out of the pit.

My counselor shared with me these Bible verses from Job:

Job 23:8-10

8 “But if I go to the east, he is not there;
    if I go to the west, I do not find him.
9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
    when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.
10 But he knows the way that I take;
    when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

My counselor said that even though I couldn’t find God in my life, He knew where I was.

He was with me in the pit even though I couldn’t see Him.

My feelings were all over the place. My counselor reminded me that feelings are not facts. That’s why I needed to latch onto the truths I had learned.

She also said that it’s okay to slip and fall. But I had to make a choice: I could lie in the pit, or I could apply the tools I’d learned and continue to move forward.

It’s okay to pray, “No, I really can’t do this, but God, if You help me, I’ll try.”

In those low moments, we need go back to these verses in Job. God knows where we are. He is with us, even when we don’t feel His presence or see Him.

And we don’t give up hope.

We get back up, and we try again.

It’s now been several years since I began the process of healing from depression. I wish I could say that it’s easy, but it has ups and downs. I slid back into the pit a couple of times, but never as low as I was before I started counseling.

These days, I live above the pit. By the Grace of God, applying what I’ve learned through counseling, and with support of family and friends, I can fight the darkness that drags me to the edge.

I stand strong most of the time, but sometimes a person says things that hit me wrong, I make a mistake that I perceive as dumb, or a circumstance that I can’t avoid happens. (Like when a new job didn’t work out–more than once).

Then my feelings start to get in the way of the truths I have learned about myself. I falter in my steps and slide a little closer to the pit.

When that happens, I do these things:

I attend counseling sessions so my counselor can help me get back on track.

I also read my Bible often, and pray for myself and for others.

I listen to music. With a music app, I can set up a playlist for every mood.

I take care of myself physically through regular exercise, healthy eating choices and getting enough sleep. (Not always, but often enough to make a difference in how I feel).

I do a lot of journaling, as well as other forms of writing.

I have friends and family who offer emotional support.

My counselor said I remind her of the Energizer bunny. Remember those commercials? I slip, I fall sometimes, but I always get back up and try again to move forward.

Proverbs 24:16 says:

” for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again”

It’s by the grace of God and all of the above-mentioned efforts that I am able to keep out of the pit.

Still, one year later and 8.5 years after my first counseling appointment, I need to reset my mind and thoughts often. I don’t handle change very well, and my social anxiety is sometimes off the charts. But the only way to move is forward.

Psalm 46:1 says it all:

God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.

From the Archive: Tools to Change

/ Carol Underhill / Leave a comment

Week 3 of my Journey out of the Pit

I’ve shared in previous posts that 1) the rungs to help us climb out of the pit are the truths about ourselves; and 2) our feelings are not facts.

After the first two sessions, I was still integrating the new thought patterns into my life. One night, I was feeling down and negative about myself. I was in physical pain.

I looked back at my counseling notes and remembered:

One day at a time…THIS is the day that the Lord has made…

I remembered a pastor’s message to “make a joyful noise.”

I started to sing (I don’t remember what song). After a few wobbly notes, I was singing praise songs.

I spent time in my room, with Itunes playing on my laptop, and relaxed for half an hour. Physical pain subsided as I quieted my thoughts.

The next time I met with my counselor, she reminded me of these Bible verses:

James 4:7-8

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8(a) Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

She encouraged me to resist the negative thoughts that had dragged me into depression and to turn and embrace God, who is powerful.

When we say, “Help me,” His Spirit comes in and rescues us.

The journey out of depression is like taking baby steps.

My counselor gave me some tools to help me in my battle with depression:

Get out in the sunlight.

Do something to move. Get my body in motion.

Deep breathing

Muscle relaxing

Picturing a quiet place (which for me was our friend’s cabin on the river)

Thinking of a hymn or song

Remembering helpful Scripture verses

Change is uncomfortable, but without it, we can’t grow. Change isn’t going to happen by accident, but by applying the tools I’ve learned and working on myself.

I thought of myself as damaged goods, but Jesus paid the price for my sins because to God I am worthwhile.

I have value in God’s eyes.

Therefore, I need to take care of myself.

Climbing Out of Depression: Key Steps to Healing

/ Carol Underhill / 1 Comment

I published this post a few years ago. Every now and then I read back over it to remind myself of the steps I took to get out of the pit of depression. God’s eternal truths never change. And by clinging to those truths, we can rise above thoughts that lead us into depression.

I started going to a Christian counselor in October 2013 to help me through the depression I was stuck in.

I’m certain God led me to this counselor, as she and her husband were missionaries in Saltillo, Mexico, in the same year that I studied there. Not only that, but she studied Spanish at the same language institute that I did there in Saltillo, just not at the same exact time. It was enough of a connection to believe that God brought her into my life to help me heal.

One of the first things my counselor did was share with me Psalm 40:1-2.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
    out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.

The verses describe what it feels like to live in depression and grief.

My counselor gave me the word picture that there is a pit of depression, but there are rungs to help us climb out of it.

The rungs are truths that we know. For a Christian, those truths are founded in the Word of God.

My late husband had made notes in the margins of his Bible. Icame across these words he’d written in the book of Ephesians:

God loves me.

God accepts me.

God forgives me.

These were three truths that I could count on. They were rungs that I could use to help myself climb out of the pit.

I added a truth of my own:

I am a child of God.

My counselor agreed with these truths. She also added some.

I am who I am by God’s design.

God gave life to dirt. He made us in His image. My value comes from being made in the image of God.

God sees us as His children.

He delights in us.

He loves us for who we are.

Whether we believe it or not, it’s still the truth.

As a person thinks in their heart, so they are.

Those are the rungs of truth that I could use to climb out of the pit of depression.

Before I could grasp hold of a rung, however, I first needed to catch myself thinking negative thoughts.

I had to picture a stop sign.

Once I caught myself thinking a negative thought about myself, I could stop the thought from taking root.

The the next step was to replace the negative thought with a positive rung of truth. After a while, these truths became a part of who I was.

The process of climbing out of the pit did not happen overnight. Sometimes it was two steps forward and three steps back. But I continued to go to counseling and built on that foundation.

Over time and through much prayer and determination, I can say that I am safely out of that pit most of the time. When I start to slip, I try to remember what I’ve learned and keep from falling back in.

God wants me to remember that He is my heavenly Father, that He loves me and accepts me just as I am. I am His child. And I’m so thankful to God for His faithfulness in my life.

The Creator of Light

/ Carol Underhill / Leave a comment

My reading this morning was from Psalm 69.

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold.

I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched.

Psalm 69:1-3

My study Bible says that if David is the author of this Psalm, the occasion is unknown. New Testament authors viewed this cry of a godly sufferer as foreshadowing of the sufferings of Christ.

I’m not a scholar, so I can’t tell you what this means.

What I know is how I feel when I read those 3 verses.

  1. I feel the Psalmist David understood how our emotions can range from the highest mountaintops to the deepest valleys.
  2. Since the words could also be about Christ, I feel that Jesus, too, understands what it is like to have conflicting emotions.

The emotional struggle is real. For a person with bipolar disorder, the ups can be very high and the downs can be very low, much like the Psalmist. Fortunately for me, the pendulum swing is not that extreme. I struggle mostly with depression interspersed with a few moments here and there of manic thoughts and actions.

In the past fifteen months, I’ve often shared how God brought me out of the pit of depression and brought me into the light. A couple of weeks ago, I likened my journey to that of a caterpillar in a cocoon that transforms into a butterfly.

I still feel that to be true, but unlike a butterfly, I wanted to retreat into my cocoon and ride out the mild depression I felt the past few days.

The depression might have been brought on by grief, as I lost an uncle last week. We were not close, but he was a part of my mom’s family. I pictured him as he walked through heaven’s gates, with my grandma, his mom, there to greet him with open arms. Even so, the loss of yet another family member hovered in my mind as the weekend progressed.

Throughout the weekend, I studied what the Bible has to say about creation: how God created light by the Word of His mouth.

Jesus was with God in the beginning. The same God, yet a separate identity.

In the beginning was the Word (Jesus) and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

In Him (Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness…

John 1:1-2; 4, 5a

Jesus confirmed this when he called Himself the Light of the World in John 8:12.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12

Sometimes Christians can experience emotionally dark times, but God is present with us even then. Just because we can’t see the sun on a cloudy day, its presence is still there. So God has promised to never leave us or forsake us.

God also promises one day there will be no more darkness. When we reach our heavenly home and are in the presence of God, Revelation 22:5 says,

There will be no more night. They will not need the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.

Revelation 22:5

I am so thankful that God is the Giver of Light. He is also the God of forgiveness. And the Great Healer. May anyone who is going through a time of darkness lift their eyes toward heaven and cry out as the Psalmist did. And if you need a counselor, or a doctor-prescribed medication, to get you through the lows, don’t be afraid to reach out to a trusted source for help.

God hears our every prayer, even the words we cannot speak. He will be with us and give us light. And someday, there will be no more darkness, and no more night.

Praise the Lord.