The Sound Mind - Coping Skills and Thought Life

Well, I am excited to be here tonight. Are you guys excited to be here? Have you been enjoying the mental? Yeah, we can clap. Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, we're happy to be here. God's been good. We made it in the rain, the whole thing. Yeah. Well, God has been good. We're in the sound mind, mental health, you know, component of Wednesday night services. Uh that's exciting in itself. Um which of course many of you know is a sweet spot for me. So, uh, I'm just excited to be here and I'm excited that I've been asked to come and help and, uh, hopefully teach some strategies and some tools, spiritual and practical, to all of you here tonight.

Um, why don't we before we get started, why don't we go ahead and um, why don't we just pray one more time? I feel like there's still something inside maybe that we just want to bless God a little bit more for because he did wake us up this morning. He did bring us here safely. He did feed us this morning. Jesus, I thank you. Thank you for your goodness to us. There's not enough enough time, nothing, God, that we could just give you all the praise because there's no one else greater than you.

There's no one else more powerful than you. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for what you're going to do tonight. Bless it. And open our ears to hear your word. I pray in the name of Jesus. All right. Y'all may be seated. Did everybody get a hand out? Good. If you did not and you want one, if you don't want, if you just want to raise your hand. Oh, Steve did not get one. Mason, where's Mason? Do you mind grabbing a couple? Oh, Stephen's getting one. Okay, you're coming.

Thank you. If there's anybody else, raise your hand one more time. Okay, we have Sister Dong over there and a couple others. Well, again, pastor asked me to talk about uh the topic of coping. So, today I want to give you some practical tools, some real things you can do when you feel stressed out and when life kind of feels a little bit out of control. Now, I know some of you may be looking at me and thinking, "Well, God, well, Nicole, I'm a a Holy Ghost fil of God and I never get stressed out." Exactly.

You were all laughing like, "Uh-huh." Well, just kidding. Let's be honest. How many of us in here have felt stressed or overwhelmed at one point? Let me see the big hand go up. Absolutely. All of us. Um, probably at several points in our lives. Correct. Okay. So, we're all in good company. So, we'll go ahead and kind of start with this truth. This truth is is that living for God does not eliminate stress. All right. Living for God does not eliminate stress. We still experience pressure.

We still face anxiety. We still deal with emotional exhaustion. And in John 16:33, it says, "In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart because I have overcome the world." So Jesus didn't say well you might have trouble in this life right Crystal there might be some things we go through right no he said you will go through things in this in this life but he also gave us peace and hope in him. So now kind of let's kind of talk a little bit about something that gets misunderstood a lot and that is the word anxiety.

Anxiety is actually a normal human response. It's your brain trying to protect you and not hurt you. And God designed this as a builtin survival response. And maybe some of you have heard of these words, but it's fight, flight, or freeze. So this response, it's automatic. You don't choose it. Just kind of happens. Has anyone ever had a moment like that? Yeah. And it's your brain's way of asking one question and that is, am I safe right now? And depending on how your brain answers it, your body reacts in the three ways.

Fight, which says I need to deal with this. So you might feel irritable, defensive, snappy, quick to anger, or it could be flight and that says, "I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here." So you might avoid situations, overthink them, stay busy, and try to distract yourself, feel restless or anxious, and then of course the last one is freeze. Like I don't know what to do. So you shut down, you feel stuck, you go now you you go numb and you start procrastinating or not responding at all.

I see some non-verbals like that's me. That's me. Um so here's the important thing to remember here and that is these are not personality flaws. Okay? But they are protective responses. Your brain is trying to keep you safe even though it's overreacting. So the problem is sometimes your brain hits the alarm button when there's no real danger. For instance, okay, you're dead asleep, the lights are out. Thank you, Marlene, for showing me. Okay, dead asleep. The lights are out. Everything is quiet. It's 2 am. But but somehow as you're asleep, you feel these eyes in a body standing either like over you or on the side of you or something like that.

And it startles you so bad because you feel like you're being watched. So you scream, you jump. Some of us even start swinging our fists, right? Only to realize it's your sweet little angel love who needs a drink of water. your child, right? Your child who if you're a mom and dad, you know that story all too well and it scares you to death. Now, are you in real danger at that moment? No. But it's your body acting like you're in crisis. So, here's the key difference.

Stress is a response to a real present demand. Anxiety is the anticipation of a possible threat. All right. I really like this diagram, by the way. I think that's on your sheet. Is it? Yes. Okay. Well, no. Um, so anxiety says, "What if? What if this happens? What if this goes wrong?" And that's where worry comes in. Worry is the thinking part of anxiety. You see where I'm going? So it's the mental loops that won't shut off. Okay, that's what worry is. And so now anxiety becomes a problem when it's constant, when it's overwhelming, and when it's interfere interfering with your daily life.

So let's take this and connect it to what happens in your body. I like to say it this way is that God created an alarm system, a built-in alarm system in your body. So when that alarm goes off, your heart rate increases, your breathing becomes shallow, your muscles tense, and your brain actually shifts into survival mode and not logical mode, right? Which means you're not thinking clearly anymore, but you're what? Anybody know? you're reacting. Okay? And that can feel like restless, frozen, irritable, overwhelmed. And the alarm system is helpful in real emergencies, right?

But harmful when it never turns off. And that's when it starts to look like your mind constantly running, agitated every day, difficulty sleeping, tired, but wired, and always on edge. So many of us have heard of serotonin. It's something that God designed in your body to help you regulate moods, sleep, and peace. But chronic stress and anxiety can throw the serotonin and that balance off. All right. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, it says our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So taking care of your mind, your body, your soul, your emotion, that's not weakness. That's stewardship. All right. So, I'm building you up for something. So, let's look at some biblical examples of stress. So, we have Elijah, the burnout after victory. All right. In chapter 18 of First Kings, Elijah stands out on mount Carmel and challenges um the people of Israel who had been divided between serving God and Ba Baal. I get it right. Baal. And he asked them a powerful question. How long will you waver between the two opinions?

If the Lord is your God, follow him. But if Baal is God, then follow him. Then Elijah sets up a challenge. He goes, "Now, here we go. Here's what we're going to do." This is what he tells him. He says, "We're going to build two altars." So two sacrifices are placed, but no fire is added. And the rule is simple. The God who answers by fire is the one true and living God. So the prophets of Baal go first all day long. They go out, they shout, they cry, they dance, they even harm themselves, acting like fools over here doing their thing, right?

They're they're doing all day long. No voice, no response, no fire, crickets, nothing happens. All right. Then Elijah steps forward. He rebuilds the altar of the Lord. In fact, he's like, "Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get water. Not just one time, not two times, but multiple times and I'm just going to drench the altar, right? And he says at that point, he prays a prayer. And after he prays that prayer, immediately firefall from heaven. I'm just making this. It was a loud roar like boom, the fire's crashing down.

I can imagine like big fireball. I don't know. Like that's just me making that up. But like it's it's huge. The fire comes up. It it it dries up the water, consumes the wood, all of it. And there's no question who God is, right? And when the people see it, they fall to the ground and declare, "The Lord, he's God. The Lord, he's God." Right? It's great moment. It was a mountaintop moment. And in that moment, God proves his power and the false prophets are defeated.

Powerful victory. Clear move of God. Correct? However, we jump to the next chapter. Elijah then runs for his life. Now, now he just saw what happened here, right? Everybody just saw what happened back here. But he goes and takes off. King Ahab because now this is why because King Ahab told Jezebel what happened. Jezebel then sends a message to Elijah and says, "Hey, look, I'm gonna kill you." Elijah gets scared. Afraid. I mean, I would be afraid too. Although, but still, we just have the mountaintop experience back here.

But Elijah in the next chapter is like, I'm afraid. So, he runs away and tells God he even wants to die. That's how difficult it was for him. Has anybody ever been on a spiritual high and then all of a sudden it's followed by an emotional crash? Yeah. Yeah. But if you notice, God sends an angel, right? God didn't look at Elijah and go, "Where is your faith? Where is your faith?" He didn't do that, did he? No. He simply let him sleep. He fed him and then he let him rest again, right?

You see where I'm going? It's okay to rest, guys. It's okay. And God Oh, side note. And God will take you back to where he wanted you after the rest. You know what I'm saying? Okay, that was a commercial break. You're going to get a couple of those. So, but God responded to Elijah's breakdown with compassion and not condemnation. All right, now let's move on. I thought brother Carton was going to start preaching and I was like, well, I might as well just let him talk about it because he was talking about David.

He's one of our favorite people. Come. Is David one of your favorite people? Like, he is so real and raw, honest emotion. Um, there. But let's talk about David. He had a lot of emotions up, up, down, all around. I mean, all the time hiding in caves where people are going to kill him. He doesn't really know what's going on most time, but he does know one thing, and that's that God is his hope. Right? So, here we have it. Psalms 42:11. David states, "Why am I discouraged?

Why is my heart so sad? I'll put my hope in God. I'll praise him again. My savior, my God." Now, here's the thing. He didn't ignore his emotions. He openly admits, "My soul is down, right?" But then, because there's no pretending there, and there was no masking. That could be another side note, actually. Anyways, no pretending, no masking. He was honest about how he felt. He acknowledged what was happening internally. He noticed the heaviness, the discouragement. He brought it to light instead of pushing it down.

which awareness is the first step to healing. Friends of Bill W know this well. Okay. And if you don't know that then you just don't know. But awareness is the first step to healing. Second thing is he talked back to himself using what he what we would call in the therapy world cognitive behavioral therapy. All right. So he says why are you cast down? Because I will put my hope in God. So he takes that thought, turns it around, says, "I'm not going to think like this.

I know I'm cast down. I know how I feel, but I do know where my hope comes from." And he challenged his own narrative. He did not let his thoughts become unchecked. So David didn't just listen to his thoughts, he was able to lead them as well. All right. Healthy coping is not pretending you're okay. It's bringing your emotions into alignment with the truth. So, we're going to first talk about spiritual ways to cope. The first way, I'm only going to do about three here. Um, but the first way is prayer.

This is an honest, not polished prayer. Okay? It is just God. First of all, God is not looking for perfect words. He's looking for the real ones. Prayer doesn't have to sound impressive. All it has to do is be honest. And there have been times where I know I have been in my car just, you know, uh just crying, being like, "God, I need help. I don't know what to do." And he's always there. It might not be when I want him to be, but he's there in the right time.

But there are those times you have to have those honest prayers like, "God, there's something in my heart that shouldn't be there. open up that door to my heart to stuff that I don't even want to share or talk about, but I want you to open it up because it needs healing. Right? Those are hard prayers to pray because you know why? Sometimes you kind of like whatever that is hidden away in your heart and you don't want to let it go. Okay, so anyways, back to my story.

Uh so prayer is important. Prayer is important and being honest with God. He already knows anyways, right? So we can trust him with it. But sometimes I think we need to acknowledge it and pray about it and get it out there so that we're aware of it. So you can simply say, "God, I'm overwhelmed. I'm tired. I don't know what to do. I need help." And real connection begins with real honesty. Scripture renewing your mind. Right? In Philippians 4 6 and 7 it states don't worry about anything.

Instead pray about what? Everything good. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he's done. Then you will experience God peace which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard you, your hearts, and your mind as you live in Christ Jesus. So scripture helps us do what CBT teaches, cognitive behavioral therapy. It helps us do that because identifying unhealthy thought patterns and replacing them with truth leads to healthier emotions. How many of you have sat down at one point when your mind was just swirling and swirling and you didn't know what to do, but you pulled out the Bible and you start reading, "Oh, God is my refuge and strength.

He's my everpresent help in time of trouble." And then what happens? You're like, "Okay." you start calming down a little bit because it's taking those thoughts and it's changing to what truth is. The Bible is truth. It will renew your thoughts and it will help you. Um the third one is worship. Now I'm going to tell you a little bit I'm going to tell you a story about what happened about two days ago. I don't know why things happen when I'm sleeping but they do. So it was 5:11 in the morning fast asleep.

All of a sudden, God wakes me up. He goes, "Go worship me." I'm like, "What? Go worship me. I It is 511 in the morning. Okay. There's not too much going on. My house is quiet and you want me to get up and worship you?" Well, of course, I'm going to do it because that's what God says, right? So, I get up, go to the dining room. I had this pain in my in my foot for a couple weeks and I don't even know what it was.

All right. Might be from walking too much. I don't know. That's weird. But anyways, so it I had a pain in my foot. So I'm like, "Okay." So I was holling. I was like, "Man, that really hurts today. I just, you know," and so I walk in and walk in my dining room and I just start out kind of how we did when we started. God, thank you for this day. You are an awesome God. You are an amazing God. I thank you, God, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

I thank you, and I literally said this, for the breath I just took. Thank you for the legs that I have to be walking. And I start walking because I do my prayer thing in that dining room. I start walking around my dining room table. All of a sudden, I've t I've taken a couple laps around and I'm like, "Wait a minute. My foot's not hurting anymore." And so, of course, I didn't want to tell this story and it not be true. So, I've waited a couple days to make sure it still doesn't hurt.

I've been like putting pressure on it, jumping, doing jumping jacks and stuff. My foot still doesn't hurt. Right? Because when you start praising, things start happening. The environment starts shifting and God starts working. Whether it's physical, emotional, whatever that looks like, he's in control. All right? So, worship is another component of what we can do to help our minds spiritually. Okay. Now, we're going to get to the fun part. You ready for this part? You guys are going to help me a little bit, though. This is the mental and emotional coping skills.

And you're going to see this on your handout because I wanted you guys to kind of to kind of keep that so you have that um for for however long you want to keep it. The first one is temperature uh and body reset. So basically this is if you want your body to reset, you will hold something cold like ice, cold water. How many moms have ever said, "Girls go to the bathroom, splash some water in your face." in case, you know, like the whole reset thing.

If you have girls, you kind of understand that a little bit. Um, or kids in general. So, hold something warm like a mug or a blanket, something like that. And you'll notice how your body starts responding. So, sometimes anxiety isn't always in your thoughts, but it's in your body. And your body can do crazy things when you're under stress and anxiety. All right? So instead of trying to think your way out of it, what we're going to do, we're just resetting our body. And that's by, you know, doing something that, oh, that's cold.

And then it makes your body kind of reset. So you hold something cold or even place cold water on your face, your system slows down. What happens? What, since we're all right here, what happens when you hold something warm? What do you think happens there? You're relax. It starts to soften, right? When you put on a a heating blanket or have a hot coffee in your hand, what happens? You kind of just start relaxing a little bit, right? Those weighted blankets are kind of cool, too.

I like that. But um so it's called this is called uh basically a reset. We're sending signals to our brain that we are safe. That is a huge component when we're talking about anxiety. We are safe and we're trying to get our our body and our feelings to recognize that so we're not stuck in the loop. Okay. So, I'm gonna ask someone to help me. Let me think who that might be. Alex, would you mind coming up here, please? He's gonna help me out. But I want y'all to do this, too.

Okay, are you ready for it? Um, you can have a seat. Go ahead. Right there. This is called the progressive muscle relaxation. All right. Now, listen carefully because we're going to do it. We're going to tighten one muscle group. Hold it for five seconds and then slowly release. And then you'll recognize the difference because the tension will start beginning to come out and lessen. Now, I want to preface this. Sometimes they So, I have five different ones. Some may work for others more than they do the other person, vice versa.

You know what I'm saying? like the one the temperature reset. Like that might work better for um some people than others. But here's this one. We're going to do it together, but let me explain it first before you do it. We're all going to clinch our fists really, really tight. Not right now. Just just Some of you are already doing it. Oh, I'm ready to get it out. I'm ready to get out. Okay. So, we're clinch our fist really tight. And then we're going to hold it.

And I'm going to count down um about five seconds. And then we're slowly, it's not going to be like this. We're gonna slowly release. Can we do it together? We're gonna do this together. Okay. So, now here we go. All right, everybody get both your fists. Alex, you got it. He's got it. Okay. Tight them really tight. Hold them really, really tight. Five, four, three, two, one. Now release slowly. Nothing nothing crazy is going to happen. I mean, some of y'all are looking at me like, "It's happening.

It's happening." Okay, here's what we're going to do. We're gonna now we're gonna now tighten up. Just tighten up the the the front of your body. Just kind of tight it really really tight. Okay. Ready? This one's going to be a little You're going to feel this one more than you will the the fifth one. Ready? We're going to tighten up really. Chris, let me see you doing it. You get Okay, here he is. Ready? Here we go. Tighten up. Tighten up. All right. Five 4 3 2 one.

Now release slowly. Sister King, do you feel the difference? She did. Look, I saw her face. I'm like, "Yeah, she did." Like I said, some of this is really going to help some people and some of it you're like, "Hey, I didn't feel that at all." And that's okay. This isn't your thing. All right. But it was hers. So, she worked. it worked. Um, so that's that's one way. All right. Anxiety keeps our body extremely tight. Um, and and so that's kind of the problem. We want to we want to make sure that we can release it.

And I have been in counseling sessions where they're like, "Close your eyes now. Imagine you're somewhere safe. You feel the wind blowing." I'm like, "I'm about to fall asleep." But they walk you through the whole thing and it's really it's really really kind of cool. Um but I about fall asleep and then I'm like, "Oh yes, I am safe. Clearly I'm snoring now." But um but those are the type of thing. It's just releasing all the tension in your body. They're never going to ask me to come up again, are they?

Okay, slide three. It's the comfortbased sensory soothing. So this is where um you can wrap yourself in a blanket or sweater, hold a warm drink, take a warm shower, use calming scents, listen to soothing sounds, and touch something soft. Now, what comfort signals signal what comfort signals is safety to your nervous system? All right. These may seem seem um super simple, but they're very powerful. When you're in that moment and you get the weighted blanket and you're sitting there with your hot cup of tea or whatever it is, do you feel safe?

Some of you, yes, you do. It's signaling, okay, you're safe. All right, I'm good. Um warmth, softness, calming sounds. Uh these move your system out of fight or flight mode. This is how we teach the body. once again that we are what? Excellent. You guys are getting it now. Emotional reassurance. And this does work. All right. Emotional reassurance. You guys can kind of do this, too. But think of someone safe. All right. Think, have that thought. Think of someone safe and recall a comforting memory is another way.

Look at photos of loved ones. Write yourself a kind message. hold something meaningful and what's happening here is your connection rather whether it's real or remembered it reduces the anxiety. Okay. So anxiety often says again you're alone so we respond with connection and that's thinking of someone who feels safe. Even remembering connection can kind of calm your body down because your brain is telling you you're not alone. Now here's one of my favorites. This um this works. This is this is again one of my favorites.

So you're going to see it. Okay, here we go. It's the 5 4 3 2 1 method. All right. And this is called mental grounding. So basically when your mind is spiraling, what we're trying to do here is we're trying to interrupt that pattern. Okay? So like you go on an elevator and some of us have a hard time with being claustrophobic or something like that, right? or you get in a panic mode and you're there and you're like, is a store ever going to open in this elevator?

Anybody have that happen to them? All right. So, I start with Thank you, Sister Hamby. Yes. I start with the 5 4 3 2 1. Actually, in reality, I start 400 300 2 I start counting down when I'm in an elevator, but that's a whole different story. But yes, the mental grounding. Here we go. 5 4 3 2 1. And it goes like this. Alex, you ready for it? All right. Five things you can see. the floor, the chair, the door, flags, the ceiling. >> Four things you can feel.

>> Um, my pants, my ring, this chair, and say my belt. >> All right, very good. Name three things you can hear. Uh, kids, uh, laughter and then crumpling of paper. >> All right. Two things that you can smell. I can't wait to hear. >> Uh, the uh, tempora shrimp I had for dinner and the cologne I'm using to mask it. >> Ah, very, very good. All right. And the last thing is is one thing you can taste. Do you have I may have gotten this from the connect center.

>> Okay. So, one thing you can taste. So, this brings it down. Five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. And what that does is is that takes you out of that panic mode. All right? because you're up here with the elevator door not opening or something even, you know, more serious than that and it brings you down. Okay, no wait, I'm safe. Nothing's happening. You know, I'm okay, right?

And it resets us once again. Thank you, Alex. You're the best. So, what happens is our brain shifts from moving from panic, yes, he deserves it, he deserves it, from panic to present. And that's grounding. So here we have all this information. Um so what do we do with it? Right? First of all, we don't ignore our stress. That's the first thing. We don't shame ourselves for being overwhelmed. We understand it because we label it. And that's what we're trying that's what I'm trying to do here is explain to you.

You need to label what it is. And then we respond to whatever that looks like. And we respond to it by using the five um components that I gave you that are practical, the three components that I gave you that are spiritual. Because a sound mind is not an absent of an absence of struggle. It's learning how to navigate it with truth, the word of God, right? We're taking our thoughts that are spiraling that are not true and we're changing them and turning them into something positive that is truth.

The Lord is our helper. It's learning how to navigate that with the help of God. Some days may look like prayer. Some days may look like reading scripture. And some days may look like holding a cube of ice, taking a deep breath, and reminding your body that I am safe. All of it matters because because God cares about your spirit, but he also cares about your mind, your body, and your emotions. all of it. So, you're not weak for needing support. Commercial break number two. Now, guys, we have a Celebrate Recovery on camp here at APC.

All right, a lot of us get confused because we think it's just for addicts or people on drugs. All right, please note that is not the case. It's for anyone that has hurt habits or hang-ups. Now, how many of us have a hurt habit or hang-up? We all have hurt habits and hang-ups. Right now, I expect for Celebrate Recovery to be running a hundred next week. But my point is is that we have a celebrate recovery when we're overwhelmed. When we're not in the right mindset and we need that support from other people, y'all, we have it.

We have it right here. So, let's go. Right. And then, of course, again, the help of God. All right. That's free commercial. All right. So, what we're doing here is we are stewarding what God gave us. We're using these tools, right? We're using the tools that he gave us and taking care of our body emotionally, physically, and the same God who gives us peace spiritually, he'll also give us wisdom practically to work through it. So this week, when stress shows up, don't just push through it, but pause, use the tools that God gave you, and turn to him, and he will bring you back to a sound mind.

Thank you very much. >> >> Amen. Thank you, Sister Sister Dr. Dales. We appreciate that uh very much. Now, I have good cause for my Snuggie. I'm like Lionus in his blanket with my Snuggie. Don't take my Snuggie away from me. I I have my Snuggie with me in the dead of summer. Um it makes me comfortable and thank you for that. You've given me perfect justification for my Snuggie now. Amen. I wonder you want to you want to answer any questions that they might have?

Any anybody have any questions about what was uh what was said tonight or any any questions? Sister Cresa, do you have a specific order? I know you have them listed, these tools on the practical side, the temperature regulation, progressive muscle relaxation. Do you suggest doing these in order or can they be done out of order or one at a time? What's your suggestion for best results? >> So, I would say actually you you I would try them all and see what best fits you and your personality because like I said, some people like the grounding method works well for me because I'm like, "Okay, wait.

I don't need to be swirling with all the thoughts." Like, there are some people that have just stuff in their head all the time. And so, for me, it's the pause 5 4 3 2 1. But for other people, it could be like Sister King, the relaxation or the muscle tension. I'm sorry. How do you muscle tension for him? It's his Snuggie. So, he's going to start he's going to automatic. We'll never forget that. Thank you, brother Carden. Why am I imagining this? I Okay. So, so, so anyways, where So, so it could be that.

So, you're going to find which one fits best for you to get you in that safe space. And it could be um different type different uh circumstances cause you to use different methods, right? Okay. Does anybody else have any questions? Yes, Marlene. Okay. So, Celebrate Recovery meets on Tuesday nights. They have dinner. We have dinner at 6:45, right? And then I'm looking at you know what 6:15. Okay, Matt and Kim, would you mind just standing up raising your hands and flap around because they're they're amazing.

They're the ones that that run Celebrate Recovery and are helping with all that and keeping all the things together. So, if you have any questions about that, they are the ones to go to number one. But dinners at 6:15 and it starts at 6:45. Sorry, I was going old school where we had dinner at 6:45. Okay, anybody else? Okay, >> thank you. Thank you very much. Amen. I have lots of questions, but um and and many of these that you talked about, they're um they're ways to flush the anxiety, stress out of your system.

Um, is there anybody besides me here that uh when when you go to bed your brain kicks into high gear? Look, you have any you have any solutions for that? Any any any behavioral modifications or >> um so I think one way you can do that is if you do the boxed breathing. Has anyone ever done that before? So the box breathing is basically you are here. So you're taking big deep breaths. So you're taking it in like you're count you're breathing in like 5 and you're holding it for five seconds.

So it's like and you still hold it for the five seconds, right? I'm trying to talk. But you breathe in for five seconds. You hold it for five seconds. And then when you breathe out, the way that they tell you that that you'll get the best results is when you breathe out, it's like you're breathing through a straw or out through a straw. So you're like, "Thank you, Sister Dawn." Exactly what you're doing. So it's like you're breathing out through a straw. Make sense? So that what that's going to do, that's going to calm your body down and it will help you um to just kind of get those thoughts a little bit diminish as well.

You know, some people it's hard because it I'm just going to be on and I'm not saying this is you, but there are some people that have those thoughts that keep going on and on and on. And that could be something um that you probably need to go and see a counselor about, which going to counseling is a positive thing. Got Yeah, we have some people clapping. Okay, so it's a positive thing and they can help you redirect those thoughts and calm those thoughts down, too.

Uh going to a psychiatrist is okay, too. All right? So, God gave us the tools to use. And so, we use these tools because God created these individuals to help us. They're there to help us. And and and we need to use them. And I think some of us, not this church at all, but being a part of the CAC, the uh uh center for apostolic counseling and being a part of that, I recognize that there are a lot of of people that are afraid to use counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists.

That is not us because we are we welcome that as APC. We want to get the help. We need the help, right? Um so anyways, yeah, I hope