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Manna Ministry

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

Kryssel Elsen

K'dee Elsen Crews

Truth Prescriptions

If you are with us for the first time, you may be wondering, what is Manna Ministry?

So we're going to give a little context so you could understand where we're from.

So Manna Ministry is a ministry that we first began in person.

Now we've been through a difficult situation, which is COVID, right?

It's affected all of our lives and it's affected this ministry.

So for the past 10 months, we have to have this study, Manna Ministry, this ministry virtually.

And we previously just finished our previous series on what Katie?

It was and what was the title of that study?

So basically going through the different seasons season of singlehood season of relationships, marriage, parenting, etc.

We did not anticipate that it would last 10 months, but it did.

And so now we are that much more excited to begin this new series, which is called truth prescriptions.

We're so thankful to God for being able to allow us to choose a title that we're going to integrate throughout the rest of our episodes.

And we want to just remind you that this new series is going to be on a different day.

Right, Katie, it's going to be on Thursdays.

I know some may be thinking it's on Fridays, but if you are unable to join us on Thursdays, you can join us on Fridays via a recorded session that will be uploaded to YouTube.

So we are excited for truth prescriptions, our new mental health series.

Was there anything else Katie you wanted to add to that?

So with truth prescription, we will be your host.

And so we'll just have a quick introduction.

And I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and we are your host.

So being a mental health professionals, 1 of the things we want to start off as a disclaimer is the purpose and intent of this series.

Because thinking, oh, you're mental health professionals, this means this is a mental health series.

But we want to ensure that the intent of this series is not to provide treatment nor to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, treatment, etc.

Instead, the purpose is coming really from a spiritual approach to provide spiritual guidance of how to utilize the Bible as a practical guide for one's mental well-being.

So we encourage you that for you to please seek out the advice of a mental health professional or other qualified health provider with any questions or concerns you might have in regards to your mental health condition.

Yes and in addition to that if you are in a crisis or you think you may have an emergency, we do encourage you to call your doctor or 911 immediately.

There is a hotline number 1-800-273-8255 in which you can talk to a skilled mental health professional at a crisis center near your area at any time.

So if you are located outside of the United States, we never know who's watching.

Call your local emergency line immediately.

Yeah, so we just like to say, really from our perspective of mental health professionals, it has been just such a joy to see how there is a lot of guidance through the Bible and that's really what we'll be emphasizing throughout the series.

But before we jump into the series, we have a couple other household items, which include, Chris, I'll mention a change to our platform, which we mentioned from YouTube to Zoom, although we will be recording these Zoom sessions and uploading them to our YouTube channel.

And 1 thing that we really appreciate about Zoom is we have the opportunity to participate, all of you have the opportunity to participate through the group chat.

And so we will be eliciting your participation.

And 1 of the key things about mental health and importance of mental health well being is to have connection.

And so in this time of COVID, it's hard to have true connection, but we also want connection through the chat.

We recognize that mental health is a sensitive topic.

And so if for any reason you don't want your name to be a part of that chat, you can also just send directly a message to myself or to Chriselle as your host.

And that you can do it at, Chriselle do you mind just messaging the group so that they pop, the chat can pop up for them so they know where to write.

So you'll see that And then a couple of other things that we just want to mention, because I mentioned already, it's bi-weekly.

And that's the purpose of that is really because there's so much good content that we want to be able to provide as well as give you time to respond.

We'll have some prescriptions for you that you can really work on throughout those 2 weeks until we meet again.

And then another change that we have is man of ministry really came out of the ministry of to reach everyone.

There was a focus at 1 point to just reach Christians, but with mental health being such a needed topic, our audience is really Christian, non-Christian, atheist, agnostic, you know, all the different types of people, because we all have mental health needs.

And so with that in mind, what we really want to encourage you is to subscribe to follow to share with a friend, for some, yes.

And so please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

And if you have not yet watched our relationship series, we encourage you to do so.

It was a blessing and it was such a joy to be able to partake in that.

And so if you have not, go ahead and watch those videos as well as if you are on Instagram.

Instagram is where this ministry post all our flyers, our announcements, etc.

And so you can find us man and ministry and you can follow us on Instagram.

But we do ask, please subscribe, follow, and share with a friend.

As Katie was saying, mental health is on a hype right now.

And so we are taking advantage of that and we are wanting to connect with as many people as possible.

And I know sometimes it's a little, I don't know if awkward is the right word, but it's a little hard sometimes to share and to encourage a friend.

But as Chriselle just mentioned, mental health is something we all need.

So it's whether you yourself are in need, whether a friend, a family member, a stranger.

We didn't emphasize this as much last last series, but and this is no way to say, hey, we want more followers, hey, we want more subscribers.

This is truly for the importance of sharing mental health resources.

And it's really hard to find good quality mental health resources on the truth.

It's not that difficult, whether on social media, with a friend via email or text.

It's something that's very, very much so.

Yes, and I have noticed that several have begun sharing.

Dear Lord in heaven, we want to thank you for the opportunity to be able to continue maintaining connection, even though we are not in person altogether, we are here on a virtual platform.

We thank you for allowing this connection to happen.

And most importantly, we ask that you guide us in all understanding and all truth, Lord, We're here because we're seeking the truth.

There is so much out there that can get so confusing of where the truth lies.

And so we're here asking that the truth be revealed to each and every 1 of us.

So as Crystal mentioned before, this will be a different format.

So if you joined us in our last series, it's going to actually be quite different.

And we used to have a time for song, for testimonies, prayer requests, etc.

STOP in the Name of the Love

Here we are for another episode on our series, Mental Health, Truth Prescriptions.

We are so excited because we are getting close to ending our section on behaviors, and eventually going into thoughts and emotions.

So we're getting progress, we're getting there.

I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and joining along with me is...

So thank you for joining us on our series, our mental health series.

We do want to remind you just a brief disclaimer that the intent of the series is not to provide nor to substitute any professional advice, diagnosis, and or treatment.

So instead, what we're doing is we're utilizing the Bible as a spiritual guidance of how to utilize the Bible for our mental health well-being.

So we do encourage you that if there's any event that you need help, please always seek the advice of your mental health professional or any other qualified health provider with any questions that you may have regarding your condition.

Yes, and to just quickly add to that if you are in a crisis or having an emergency, we also encourage you to call your doctor, 911, as well as you see the number on the screen there for the suicide hotline number.

And if you're outside of the US, to call your local emergency line.

So why don't we go ahead and begin with the word of prayer?

Katie, would you mind praying for us, please?

Dear gracious heavenly father, God, we want to thank you so much for another episode and we Thank you so much, especially because in these episodes, you provide us practical truth that we can apply for our lives in order to improve our lives.

Your word says that you wanna give us life and life abundant.

And so Let me just pray that as we learn today that you may guide our words as the host, as well as those who are watching or listening, God, that they may be able to have open hearts to receive the things that they need to change in their life and the tools that they can have to make those changes.

God, we're not always great at making changes.

And so Lord, we ask for your strength and your strength alone.

So let's introduce the topic of the day of the episode, right?

So what is the title that we have for our episode today, Katie?

And as always, we like our catchy titles.

Stop has more meaning than just what you think.

But before we jump into our episode for today, we do always want to review our truth prescription from last episode.

Now, Cursel, what was the topic that we covered last episode?

I remember because I've been working with my patients on this, on this topic, no to say no.

But at the same time, there's also consequences, right?

I think we even myself sitting here and having the episode, I I was enlightened with a lot of information.

And so our truth prescription from last episode was, of course, to first identify the areas in which you struggle setting boundaries.

Whether it's work, whether it's your relationships, your friendships, romantic relationships, and so forth.

You first have to identify in order to know, well, where should I implement these boundaries?

And most likely if you struggle with setting boundaries, it's probably in multiple areas of your life, but identify the areas and then number 2, choose 1 boundary you want to begin sitting, setting and maintaining.

Now we always like to start small because we often get so overwhelmed.

Oh my gosh, I'm not setting boundaries and I need to set them in every different relationship I have.

With 1 area and 1 boundary and the more consistent that you are in setting boundaries, the more you get used to it, practice makes perfect.

And now the reason why our topic is on communication today is in order to set those boundaries, you need to know how to communicate, not only for setting boundaries, but also other areas of our life.

And that's what we'll be talking about today.

And so as I mentioned earlier, the beginning of our episode, We are currently focusing on behaviors as it connects to this triangle that you see here.

1 area is thoughts and other feelings and behaviors and this triangle illustrates the interactive role that all 3 of these components have on our overall mental health well-being.

And so we're coming close to ending behaviors, and then eventually we're going to be going into thoughts and feelings.

Yes, but before we do, we want to make sure that we cover boundaries and communication, because not only in the area of marriage and family, but even as a psychologist, I recognize that these behaviors of setting boundaries and communication is key to healthy relationships, right?

And relationships are key to our mental wellbeing.

And so we wanna make sure that we cover the area of communication today.

So I just want to start with the preface of saying that oftentimes people say to themselves, boundaries, okay, I get it.

I understand this is what I got to do, but then they feel stuck because they don't know how to communicate that boundary.

And so that's where we're going to talk about the different types of communication styles that are out there.

It's important to identify which 1 you are currently displaying, but also to recognize that oftentimes they can be flexible or fluid.

I should say, you might notice that you may be more assertive in 1 area, or you may be more passive in another area of your life.

Often I've noticed people are more assertive in their work, but in their personal lives, they're more passive or aggressive.

And just generally, I think that Yes, we may have fluid communication styles, but typically we have a main kind of go-to dominant 1.

So you already mentioned them, but let's just kind of clarify for people.

So we have passive, we have aggressive, we have passive aggressive, and then we have assertive.

And I think it's important for us to kind of break this down.

And the reason why is when I do this with my patients, sometimes I'll go, Oh yeah, I'm not passive.

And it's like, Oh, I think I'm more aggressive than assertive.

So Chriselle, provide us some examples or definitions of each of these communication styles.

We have a lot to get through, both in identifying our communication styles and tips to help us, right, become more assertive.

And so I want to make sure that we're able to get through it all in a short amount of time.

So Priscilla, lead us through the different types of communication styles.

So passive, as the word insinuates, right, it's a person who's more calm, when they communicate, they may not express their needs or their wants.

And often because of this, they do not respond to hurtful situations.

They instead allow themselves to be taken advantage of or to be treated unfairly.

I Know How You Feel: Empathy

We are excited because we are currently in our new series, Truth Prescriptions.

Yes, and it is going to be an exciting mental health series, which both Priscilla and myself are super excited about, something that we're personally passionate about, but also because of how needed the topic of mental health is.

I was just looking at the statistics not too long ago, and I realized with the pandemic, it's increased almost by double since pre-2019, so pre-COVID.

And so we want to encourage you all to please share, share the link with a friend, whether to join us live or we record it and upload it to YouTube and you can watch it later on.

But we really enjoy you being here and, and the interaction that we try to engage you in.

And it's lovely to hear from you all in your own personal perspectives as well.

So please subscribe as well, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel.

And that helps you get the reminders when a video is uploaded to also share.

I mean, on Instagram, Instagram helps with also kind of some of the flyers and knowing kind of some of the announcements of our upcoming episodes as well.

And so I'll go ahead and introduce myself for those who don't know me.

I am Chriselle Olazaran and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and this is my sister.

Katie Elson and I'm a psychologist and together we are your hosts for the Truth Prescriptions YouTube Zoom episodes.

And so As we mentioned last week and we are mentioning today again, we do have a disclaimer.

We just want to remind you that the intent of this series is not to provide nor to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Instead, the purpose is to provide spiritual guidance because we will be utilizing the Bible as a practical guide for one's mental well-being.

So please always seek the advice of your mental health professional or any other qualified health provider with any questions that may arise during our series or that you currently have regarding your condition.

Yes, and we also want to encourage you that if you are in a crisis or you think you may have an emergency to call your doctor, 911 immediately.

So we know that a lot of people are in distress and you may be in distress while you're watching, whether live or later on.

And so we do wanna encourage you to call and to access the resources needed if you're having suicidal thoughts.

And that's, you can talk to a skilled trained counselor.

A lot of people are a little hesitant to call that number, but these are individuals that are talking to people in crisis all the time and they can really help you during that difficult time.

So that's the National Suicide Prevention Hotline or Lifeline number.

And if you are located outside the United States, and we have had viewers outside of the United States, So call your local emergency line immediately.

And so before we begin, why don't we bow our heads in prayer?

Dear Lord in heaven, we want to thank you once again for the opportunity to learn more about ourselves, Lord, in context to You.

You designed us, Lord, with a purpose and intention of living our life in a certain way.

And sometimes life can get confusing and we don't know exactly which direction to go.

And so we turn to you and we thank you so much for your Bible, for your biblical guidance, and learning more about ourselves and how to relate to others.

And we also ask that you open our minds, you open our hearts, and change us forward from the inside out.

Every week, but honestly, today is a very interesting topic.

And I don't know about you, but, Katie's like, really?

I don't know about you, but I have personally heard this very often.

I have been guilty of saying this myself as well, I'm going to be completely honest.

And sometimes it kind of just slips, right.

And we are going to begin with an activity.

And so just a reminder, this is interactive.

So while we are in zoom, and Katie and I are the ones who are speaking, we do have a chat.

And so if you could answer the questions that we have for you through that chat, feel free to do so.

Also, throughout our series, if there's any question you have, but you want to remain anonymous, feel free to send either Katie or I a direct message.

So Katie, can you introduce the activity for this evening?

Yes, we are going to be talking about empathy and a way to get us to start thinking is whether or not we ourselves can be considered as empathic.

So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be having a self-report questionnaire on empathy.

And it's not exactly what you might think.

So what's going to happen is we're going to put the questions on the screen.

And whether you're joining us live or you're watching later, we're going to give you some time to respond to these questions.

And you see here that there's, there's a scale on the bottom.

So for example, number 1, you say my friends emotions don't affect me much.

You said you might say, okay, strongly disagree.

So you're going to go to the bottom there.

And you notice the ones that have the asterisks, you're going to look at the red numbers and you say, okay, that I strongly disagree.

So I'm going to look at the black and say, okay, if I say disagree, I get 2 points.

You might think, oh, I got a total out of all the 20.

We're gonna be looking at different components also of empathy.

So we're gonna give you some, a couple of minutes now to, and don't think too much.

I know when I take myself when I take these questionnaires, I do I really think like, this is to be a diagnosis or just whatever your initial gut feeling, whatever your initial thoughts are, my friends emotions don't affect me much, oh that's completely wrong, right, or completely right.

So we're going to go through this fairly quickly, So we'll give you a couple minutes now to go over these questions and write down your responses.

And you're going to keep these because we'll come back to them during our presentation.

And just to add to that, Katie, I love these activities because a part of enhancing our mental health well-being is enhancing our insight on ourselves and that helps with understanding how to grow and change in our personal lives and so We'll see what the answers are.

You know, I'm thinking, Katie, I'm going to read them out loud, Just in case there's someone who may be just on audio and doesn't have the opportunity to take the time to sit down and read them.

Number 1 is my friend's emotions don't affect me much.

Rethink Your Shrink

And we want to introduce to you, if you haven't joined us before, to our new Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series.

I can't believe it's going by so quickly.

Series

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

The Tempest of Trauma

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

Roots to Fruits

58m

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

GPS: God’s Prescription in Scripture

1h 28m

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

Biblical Case Studies: Suicide

58m

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

Dare to Forgive

1h 10m

The Brain People Podcast 2022

Dealing with Trauma Part 2

15m

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

I Know How You Feel: Empathy

1h 26m

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

Mental Health Biblical Case Study

1h 28m

The Brain People Podcast 2022

Dealing with Trauma Part 1

16m

The Brain People Podcast 2025

Dark Psychology

33m

InVerse 1st Quarter 2025: Renewing the Mind

05 Overcoming the Strongholds

29m

Truth Prescriptions Mental Health Series

Unmask the Lies

50m

Sound Doctrine