• Seven Ways To Become More Mentally Immune And Emotionally Resilient by B. Wiest

Seven Ways To Become More Mentally Immune And Emotionally Resilient by B. Wiest

7 Ways To Become More Mentally Immune And Emotionally Resilient

Snippets from that page by B. Wiest:

Mental immunity is the foundation of emotional resilience.

The same way in which a cold or flu can derail the health of someone who is already ill, a small setback or troubling thought can do the same to someone who is not “mentally immune.”

Mental immunity is what happens when we condition our minds to not only expect fearful thoughts or external challenges, but to tolerate them when they arise. It is shifting one’s objective in life from avoiding pain to building meaning, recognizing that pain will be some part of the journey regardless.

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• The “Five Stages” of Grief Don’t Tell The Whole Story of Dealing With Loss by Nick Haslam

The “Five Stages” of Grief Don’t Tell The Whole Story of Dealing With Loss by Nick Haslam

Based on my personal experience with grief, and talking with others (and I’ve been toying with doing a blog post about this eventually), most Christians are inept or out and out insensitive in ministering to people in grief.

And by being insensitive, I don’t mean to say it’s not always the judgmental things Christians say to those in mourning, but the fact that some of them avoid the one in grief altogether.

Many Christians would rather not spend time with meeting the emotional needs of the person in grief, because, dang nab it, that would actually require putting someone else’s needs before their own, which in turn, means giving that person your time.

And Christians I know don’t want to do that – they just pat you on your head, feed you a Jesus-sounding platitude, and push you out the door, all so they can go back to their comfy recliner and continue watching NetFlix. They cannot be bothered with actually being there for the wounded. But maybe more on that in a future post, if I can get around to it. For now, there’s this….

The “Five Stages” of Grief Don’t Tell The Whole Story of Dealing With Loss by Nick Haslam

Grief can seem desolate for those in the thick of it who often feel unable to imagine a way out of their suffering. But, as time passes, the pain usually dampens or becomes more fleeting.

Understanding the normal trajectory of grief matters for the person experiencing the grief and those treating them. Attempts to provide a map of the bereavement process have typically proposed a sequence of stages. The “five stages” model is the best known, with the stages being denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

While there is some evidence for these stages, the experience of grief is highly individualized and not well captured by their fixed sequence.

• Sexual Assault Victims Who Turn on Sexual Assault Victims by K. Burmeister

Sexual Assault Victims Who Turn on Sexual Assault Victims by K. Burmeister

Sexual Assault Victims Who Turn on Sexual Assault Victims

Snippets:

October 2018

Most sexual assault survivors are supportive of other survivors, but sometimes a sexual assault victim comes along who isn’t supportive. Sometimes these victims are outright hostile toward survivors.

It can be hard to understand why these fellow victims would try to throw other victims under the bus. In my experience, there are a few reasons this might happen, and I believe it’s important for us to be aware of these reasons as we’re having these difficult conversations.

….They Might Actually be a Jerk

Anyone can be the victim of sexual assault. Women. Men. Straight. LGBTQ. Adults. Children. Elders.

And jerks. Jerks can be sexually assaulted too.

• We Shouldn’t Need Multiple Accusers to Stop a Sexual Harasser By Jill Filipovic

We Shouldn’t Need Multiple Accusers to Stop a Sexual Harasser

By Jill Filipovic

September 12, 2018

It took 12 women to push one man from his perch. Leslie Moonves, the chairman and CEO of CBS, departed the company after a total of a dozen sexual-harassment and assault allegations were leveled against him — six over a month ago, then six more on Sept. 9 after weeks of discussions but little action on ousting one of TV’s titans.

This is how these cases seem to go: One person speaks out, or maybe two or three talk to a reporter.

Only after the initial accusations are made public do the floodgates open.

This cascading effect — that it’s tough to get anyone to speak out first, but appears almost inevitable that more voices will then follow — illuminates some of the remaining challenges of combatting sexual harassment across our culture.

….We now seem to expect that a harasser will have a long list of victims, whether he (or she) is famous or not.

But there are consequences to that assumption: It inevitably makes it harder for a single accuser to have her claims heard.

• Only Slim Majority of Americans Believe in God of Bible, Numbers Decline Among Gen X, Millennials (pew study)

Only Slim Majority of Americans Believe in God of Bible, Numbers Decline Among Gen X, Millennials

October 2018

Although some 80 percent of Americans say they believe in God, only a slim majority of the nation’s approximately 327 million people believe in God as described in the Bible, according to results of a new study released by the Pew Research Center.

And among those younger than 50, belief in the God of the Bible drops lower than 50 percent.

…Another significant finding from the study also showed that young adults were far less likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God as described in the Bible.

• Giving Up on Life Can Lead to Actual Death in Less Than A Month

Giving Up on Life Can Lead to Actual Death in Less Than A Month by C. Purdy

Yes, People Can Die From Giving Up on Life

Why losing the will to live can be deadly within three weeks

Trauma can lead to death from ‘give-up-itis’, study finds

People Who Give Up on Life Can Die From “Psychogenic Death,” Say Scientists

Snippets:

By Emma Betuel
on September 28, 2018

…..Segal, eventually termed this syndrome “give-up-itis.” John Leach Ph.D., a visiting senior research fellow at the University of Portsmouth in England and a former military psychologist typically calls it “psychogenic death” but admits that “give-up-itis” is bitingly accurate:

“Basically it’s a horrible term” Leach tells Inverse. “But it’s a descriptive term. There were always those people who just gave up — curled up, laid down and died. In many cases these were otherwise healthy men and women, and the thing that stood out was that their death was basically inexplicable. But it appears that there’s an underlying organic cause for it.”

• An Intolerance of Uncertainty is Linked to Anxiety and Depression. Here’s How to Get Better at Tolerating It by K. Wong

An Intolerance of Uncertainty is Linked to Anxiety and Depression. Here’s How to Get Better at Tolerating It by K. Wong

I find some of what follows applicable to religious thought not just to mental health (anxiety, depression).

Many Christians, those of other faiths, and even many atheists, act completely certain about topics such as religion, salvation, the after-life, or if a deity (or deities) exist.

This following page reminds me a little bit of Pete Enns’ work on the topic of certainty in Christianity:

The Sin of Certainty by Pete Enns

“The controversial evangelical Bible scholar and author of The Bible Tells Me So explains how Christians mistake “certainty” and “correct belief” for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy.”

I’ve become more comfortable with uncertainty over the last few years and find myself rather put-off by people who claim to understand everything perfectly, who act as though they understand why everything happens, to claim to know definitely that a God does not exist, and so forth.

Being at that level of certainty can make a person arrogant or closed-off to considering other views, or to considering that maybe their opinions or understanding of some topic or another may be incorrect.

An Intolerance of Uncertainty is Linked to Anxiety and Depression. Here’s How to Get Better at Tolerating It

Excerpts:

If you’ve ever taken a philosophy class, you’ve probably heard of the Socratic paradox: “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”

It advocates for the benefits of uncertainty, a point of view that happens to be backed by modern psychological science, too. Namely, uncertainty “improves our decisions, promotes empathy, and boosts creativity,” says Jamie Holmes, a Future Tense Fellow at New America and author of the book, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing.

Likewise, a 2014 study suggests that uncertainty can also be motivating. A little uncertainty is good for you.