The Rev. Laura Michelle Foley and Gretchen V. Miller, "Dear Faith Communities"


Dear Faith Communities,

I have some good and bad news for you. You play a far more instrumental role in an individual's mental health than you may realize. Trauma research has shown, time after time, that when someone experiences a trauma, their relational contexts- their families and church communities- have more of an effect on the person’s resilience than the intensity of the experience itself. Meaning, church communities, like yourself, retain the power to help heal those who have experienced trauma. 


Our recent area of study is on relational, familial, communal, societal, and environmental systems. We are learning that problems in these systems trickle down to the people within them. We are trying to learn how to help manage problems on a systemic level, so that the individuals within them no longer have to suffer the symptoms of dysfunctions within organizations. We believe that mental health is inseparable from social and communal health, and problems are not isolated to the person experiencing them. Said more simply, we believe there is nothing wrong with you but rather, there is something wrong with our society. 


Any one of us can thrive or suffer depending on the health of the physical and relationship environments we’re in. As Western thinkers this idea does not click immediately for us. Our cultural, legal, and medical systems are built on a scientific, analytic model that divides us into parts, rather than seeing us as a whole. We cut and separate everything in an attempt to better understand, specialize, utilize, and capitalize. This “individual parts” approach to everything we touch, including mental health, has and continues to have devastating consequences on our health. 


Without diving too deep into mirror neurons and co-regulation, the good news is that we collectively have tremendous power to heal one another and ourselves. We have the power to be generative instead of destructive. Healing instead of harming. And you, as the church community, play an active role in how this power is incarnated. 


Hopefully as church communities you are asking: How do we do that? How can we be a healthy, generative environment for each other?  It’s as simple as showing up as yourself – bringing your gifts and your needs – and allowing others to show up as themselves – bringing their gifts and their needs. 


This intrinsically creates an environment that holds one another. It sounds simple because it is simple. The church has long known that language is creational not merely representational however, the modern church so easily forgets the creational value of language. We seem to be excellent at remembering the ways life was spoken into existence through creation stories or the way healing was generated through “Stand up, take your mat, and walk”, but we forget all that same power is ours today. 


We, quite literally, can ensure the resilience and healing of one another by locking eyes with each other, saying and hearing, “I’m so glad you’re here.”  The more our entire being reverberates, “I’m so glad you’re here”, the more easily it’s echoed to others, and the more power we have to hold and heal ourselves and our community. 

 

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The Reverend Laura Michelle Foley, Bachelor of Science in Recreation Management with Outdoor Experiential Education Concentration and a Minor in Art Studio - Appalachian State University, Master of Divinity - Wake Forest University, Barkan Level II Yoga Instructor, Current Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy and Addiction Counseling Certificate Graduate Student at Appalachian State University Gretchen V. Miller, Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Minor in Spanish - Colorado State University, Current Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Student at Appalachian State University


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The Clergy and Mental Health Blog is a forum for faith leaders to share insights and observations, sometimes speaking from personal experience, about faith and mental health.  We welcome diversity of thought and perspective.  The view of authors are their own and do not represent the views of the blog as a whole.


Please send comments and questions to: ClergyMHBlog@gmail.com

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