GYC Conference 2022: Break Forth

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Burning or Burnt Out?

K'dee Elsen Crews

01 Don’t Let Satan Blow It Out

I know some people are still trickling in.

I tend to talk a lot and I tend to put too much content into my presentations.

What that means is then I tend to go a little bit faster so that you can get more content.

And we're already running a few minutes behind schedule, so we'll get started in a moment, but I always encourage people to buckle their seatbelts because it's a fast ride.

And we have 5 of these all together But let's start off with a word of prayer power heads Dearest Heavenly Father God we thank you so much for the blessing it is to be here to be here to learn to want to grow and God especially for the blessing of talking about mental health, we're talking about it because it's important to you.

You care about us and you want us to be well.

And so God, we just pray that as we go through this series together that you may keep us open-minded with hearts ready to receive whatever you have for us as individuals.

Tailor each of these things to the people here present and those who will listen later we pray in Jesus name Amen all right come on in everyone so the title for the series is burning or burnt out my name is dr.

Katie Elson I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and before we begin I'm gonna just introduce myself a little bit more so you know who I am.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the series.

And then, most importantly, why this is relevant to you.

Many times we come to conferences and we come to breakout sessions and we're taking notes for other people.

We're thinking about that friend that needs help, especially when it comes to mental health.

It's a really good avoidance strategy, right, because We don't often like conviction.

But I hope that this is all relevant to you personally.

I'm a licensed clinical psychologist working at Beautiful Minds Medical.

How many of you here have heard of Beautiful Minds before.

It's an Adventist mental health holistic clinic.

I've been working there for about 2 years now.

But I'd like to say that my PhD that I got at Loma Linda actually started, I started getting that PhD in psychology as a pastor's kid.

That was a lot of my training as a pastor's kid.

Maybe some of you are like this, I don't want to admit it.

As a pastor's kid, I saw a lot of brokenness in the world, we all do.

That's why a lot of pastor's kids end up leaving the church.

They see a lot of hypocrisy, they see a lot of brokenness.

But that actually motivated me to go into the field because I realized that With Adventism we've often been like psychology.

When I first started studying it, I would tell people, they'd go, oh, what are you studying?

Some people would say, oh, I'm going to pray for you.

Because there is this kind of demonized view of psychology.

And rightfully so, there are many dangers in psychology.

And what I realized in the church of not addressing mental health, the church is struggling in ways that are either similar to the world or even more so.

And as I recognized that, I felt called, like as you look in Acts chapter 1 when Jesus you know before he ascends he says to start in Judea start with your people and then go out And many of us are going out, but we ourselves are struggling.

We have many, many sermons on let your light shine.

We sing the song, this little light of mine.

But we are struggling with our own lights.

Can anyone relate to that, feeling burnt out?

And so we keep on kind of doing the same thing over and over again, just telling people, just go, right?

But how do I do that when I'm struggling with depression how do I do that if I'm struggling with anxiety and anxiety is crippling me how do I do that when I'm burnt out And that's really what the series is going to be about, is how do we learn to overcome the depression, anxiety, the burnout, in order to let our light shine.

Because the first word there, let, It needs to be automatic and natural.

And not just to overcome depression and anxiety, but also to re-experience joy.

Sometimes it's like, oh, let your light shine.

And we're kind of walking around as gloomy Christians.

Can we let our light shine when we're struggling that way?

But God wants us to have a different experience.

So that's gonna be our topic for this series, Burning or Burnt Out.

And our verse for this conference says, then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward We read this and we think about it from a spiritual perspective, but how many of you want this experience?

Mentally and emotionally right I want to be able to let my light break forth Now today specifically right now this first part will be entitled don't let Satan blow it out, right?

So let's just sing the song together because that's going to be a song I want you to be thinking about as we go through the seminar, but thinking about it from a practical perspective.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

What comes next Don't let Satan blow it out.

I'm gonna let it shine Don't let Satan blow it out.

Let it shine So we'll pause there because the next part will be on, don't hide it under a bushel.

All right, so don't let Satan blow it out.

How does Satan try to blow out our lights?

Now, we're going to be using these 3 P's throughout the series.

When we're struggling, we go to the doctor, we have a physician, God will be our truth prescriber.

The Bible will be our truth prescriptions.

We go to someone, and they give us a prescription for how to get better.

But you need to be a truthful patient, meaning you need to be open-minded.

Now, if you look at the world today, you see a lot in the news, right?

You see things about the war in Ukraine, you see things about mass shootings, you see things, you're from California, a lot of fires, You see things about flooding.

I was impacted by the Southwest craziness that's happening right now.

Something that you think is so secure, yet in a day or so can be completely in shambles.

A lot going on in our world, and then of course, COVID, that was a big thing, and a lot of people were freaking out about the state of the world.

What's interesting is if you look at, oops, there we go.

If you look at the statistics of shootings in this year alone, so this was taken a little bit couple of months ago, but it says within 156 days into 2022, there were at least 240 mass shootings.

That puts a nation on track for 1 of the deadliest years on record since the archive began tracking gun deaths.

So mass shootings, a number of mass shootings are also going up.

You see a lot of things about suicide, you see things about transgender, and a lot of confusion behind a lot of social issues, but also individual issues.

And Essentially, what you can see is that the world is in darkness.

02 Fuel to the Fire

All right, if you're joining for the first time and just missed our last 1, Burning or Burnt Out is our series, and then our part 2 is Hide It Under a Bushel.

So, we don't have to sing it again, but hide it under a bushel, no, I'm going to let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel, what does that mean practically?

We know what the hand motion looks like, but what does that mean?

Okay, still some people are trying to find their seats.

All right, let's say 1 more quick word of prayer and then we'll get started with hide it under a bushel.

Dear only Father God, we ask for your continual presence and your spirit to be with us now.

Amen All right, so last Seminar which was 10 minutes ago We talked about cognitive behavioral therapy, Right?

And there are these 3 main components, our behaviors, our emotions, and our thoughts.

And we saw that that comes from the Bible, this relationship.

And so we know that if we change these 3 components, we can change how we feel.

We can change, can improve our mental health.

Now we're going to start with behaviors first, but in the course of this series, we're going to be focusing on each 1.

What are some common behaviors that negatively impact our mental health and our mind?

Taking on too many responsibilities, yes, definitely.

This is not a comprehensive list, but poor diet, poor sleep, substance use, gambling, and it also includes shopping, social media, chronic stress, TV, entertainment, refined sugar, caffeine, pornography, just to name a few.

It's not a comprehensive list, but there are many behaviors, things that we do that negatively impact our mind.

Now, it's easy to look at this and immediately start saying, don't struggle with that, don't struggle with that.

But find the ones that you struggle with specifically.

So you might say, for me right now, man, I am struggling with my sleep and having a sleep schedule, right?

And you might say, okay, I need to address that.

With social media, and I liked how someone said unhealthy, right, Use of social media.

Social media is not bad, but how do we use it?

If you notice yourself, if you're feeling a little anxious and you pull out your phone, that's probably a sign of an addiction, right?

We'll talk about a couple of these, but Adventists often are like, I don't eat meat.

So what is it that you personally struggle with?

Now, what do these behaviors have in common?

So 1 of the things that they have in common is that they negatively impact the frontal lobe of our brains.

So does anyone know what the frontal lobe is responsible for?

Decision making, I heard morality, what else?

So this is a brain scan of a 38 year old, so pretty young, 17 years of only weekend use of alcohol.

Now I love this because a lot of times the world will talk about, oh you know just moderate use, that's fine.

But this is just weekend use and you can see the impact on the brain.

So what this is showing is that the brain is atrophying, it's shrinking and that there's different areas but especially in the frontal lobe.

So you see here that the frontal lobe is atrophied.

There's shrinkage in volume and density in the brain.

And you might say, Oh, well, Katie, we don't really struggle with alcohol, okay?

Well, here's another example, marijuana use.

Again, weekend, 28-year-old, and some are like, oh, is marijuana actually good for you?

I have some clients who say, well, it helps me reduce my anxiety.

Satan, what he sells are things that are temporary with long-term negative effects.

So what happens is, yeah, their anxiety is reduced.

I tell them, yep, it works, but it works temporarily and there's actually a rebound anxiety effect and a significant problem and impact on our brain.

So you see here that casual marijuana use is linked to change in volume, shape, and density of gray matter, and affects decision making.

Because you see atrophy in the frontal lobe as well.

So different substances, and I like this kind of summary graphic.

And then it kind of shows marijuana, smoking, opiates, cocaine, alcohol.

What's surprising is we often demonize meth, right?

But there are also other behavioral addictions that can impact.

Now you might say, okay, Katie, I don't struggle with that.

And we think, oh, that's substances, things I put into my body.

But there are things we call behavioral addictions, things we do like pornography.

You're On the left side is a healthy brain, in the middle is heroin use, and on the right is porn.

What do you notice about the porn versus heroin brain scan?

And I can do a whole presentation on porn and the impact on the brain, but we don't realize how what we're doing is negatively impacting our brain.

So from a great controversy perspective, Satan knows that he's attacking the brain.

And we can answer that by looking at the frontal lobes function, which some of you already mentioned a couple of these things.

Some people call it the CEO of the brain.

03 Hide It Under a Bushel

By show of hands, who attended the first 2 parts of the talk?

If you missed it, I'm sorry, I don't have time to review those topics.

But for those of you also asking, the recordings will be on audio-verse, so that's always a blessing.

And then at the end of the presentation, part 4, which is after this 1, I'll also provide resources, other talks I've given that you can also access that.

You'll be able to access the content at a later time.

We'll start with a word of prayer and then we'll continue with our series.

Dearly Father God, we thank you so much for all the blessings of GYC thus far, of the, yes, the series and the plenaries, but also God for connection and being able to meet people and talk with people.

And we thank you also that in all of this, we're getting to know you better.

And we know that true fulfillment, true satisfaction in life is found in you.

As we continue, God, in this series, we pray for ongoing open hearts and open minds to receive what you have for us as individuals.

And God, just give us your spirit, your spirit of wisdom and truth.

All right, so our series is entitled Burning or Burnt Out.

And today we have part 2 that we just completed and then now we have part 3 and part 4.

We're going to be talking about something that a misconception that we often have about a component of mental health actually can cause fuel to the fire, fuel to our mental health difficulties.

Now we're using a cognitive behavioral therapy approach, which looks at these 3 main components.

Which of these 3 have we covered thus far?

And we know that this is found in God's word of the importance of changing.

We talk about changing, putting off our old self.

But we're gonna continue on in this sequence and now we're gonna cover emotions.

Okay I'm hearing some mixed feedback and some people are saying both.

So now we're going to answer that more thoroughly.

And the reason why we need to answer this is our perception of emotions, what we believe about emotions, will directly impact how we cope with our emotions.

Okay, so let's start off with a view of emotions that emotions are bad.

Now I think older generations were especially aligned with this, emotions are bad, and then our younger generations are like, emotions are good.

But a lot of times when we talk about emotions being bad, we quote this verse, Jeremiah 17 9, the heart is deceitful above all things, right, and desperately wicked who can know it.

The heart is deceitful, not just deceitful, above all things.

Have you heard this ever quoted in the context of emotions?

So is the Bible saying that motions are bad?

So what oftentimes we do is scripture, either we just read it and we don't actually take a mental health application, or if we do, we misquote it or use it in an application in which it's not meant to be used.

So the question here becomes, what is the heart?

And if you even look at different translations or interpretations, it's very clear that the heart here, what it's talking about is the mind.

And this is actually talking about thoughts.

So but that's the main argument, that emotions are bad, it's deceitful.

Now most of you would probably follow along the lines of this belief.

What are some good emotions that you would think?

Yeah, that 1 we're like, oh, that's a bad 1.

Oh, that, yeah, you get a hundred points for that 1.

So we often, when it comes to emotions, we believe that some are good, some are bad.

Some of the ones you've already mentioned, others on there, peace, hope, bad anger, anxiety, depression, grief, guilt, hopelessness.

Now some of you are taking pictures of this.

You can reference this later, but this is what we believe about motions.

Now, I'm going to share with you probably something you haven't heard before.

Now, don't start throwing stones at me quite yet, okay?

And the reason why I say this, we need to be very diligent in how we understand emotions in order to come at that view.

And if you just say, okay, emotions are good, and you run with emotions, you know, don't go there quite yet.

Let's explain why are emotions always good.

Ecclesiastes 3, verses 4 to 6, says that there's a time for everything.

And then it describes different emotions.

It says there's a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance, right?

It's basically reflecting that there are different emotions based off of different experiences.

Now, I'm gonna give you some different points of why emotions are always good.

The first point is they're always good because they have a function and 2 specifically main functions.

This is something that I really want you all to really keep in mind.

They communicate to us and they motivate us.

So emotions are always good because they communicate to us and they motivate us.

04 Feel the Burn

So we're going to be talking about thoughts.

And the reason why we're talking about feel the burn is this is probably 1 of the most challenging skills to implement.

And it's something that we don't like, this is kind of like what I mentioned about conviction.

We can be convicted and we wanna stop our ears from listening to the conviction.

But also just doing the skill, it takes a lot of hard work.

So I'm just prepping you all that if this is something, if you want to have your life change, if you want to have a good mental health, this is necessary and it won't be necessarily easy in the beginning.

It's kind of, we mentioned with Satan it's easy now, hard later.

A lot of times with God it's hard now, but it's investment so that it's easier later.

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Series

Burning or Burnt Out?

05 Burn Your Bridges

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

01 Don’t Let Satan Blow It Out

59m

02 Fuel to the Fire

1h 3m

03 Hide It Under a Bushel

53m

04 Feel the Burn

59m

05 Burn Your Bridges

59m

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