The Emotional Impact of 2020 with Dr. Anita Phillips
Today you’re getting to hear another sneak peek from IF:Lead 2020! This episode is an interview I did with my new friend, Dr. Anita Phillips, on the emotional impact of 2020. You can also head over to iflead2020.com and check out the rest of the talks from IF:Lead 2020, including a breakout Dr. Phillips did on the emotional highs and lows of leadership.
We are fighting inward battles in a bigger way than we ever have been. I got to meet Dr. Anita not that long ago and we were on the phone together for about an hour. We were just talking about this interview and somehow I ended up with an hour of free counseling because what I find as a leader right now is that there are things that I'm fighting that I can't describe. I can't name. I have an anxiety on a regular basis, and yet none of my family members have gotten COVID yet. My finances are still enough for us to survive the year. I haven’t had to let anybody go on my team. So I’m sitting here trying to figure out what this anxiety is, when pragmatically, everything is okay. Let's talk a little bit about your view of the season and what it's costing us.
It's costing all of us an experience in our bodies. It really is a trauma. This pandemic, 2020 overall, has been a mass trauma, and we're responding to it physically, regardless of what we're actually going through. It's so important for us as leaders to recognize that we don't have to earn the right to feel badly. We don't have to suffer something specific for our emotions to be valid. Your body is trying to tell you that it's under pressure, that it needs something. That something is going on. We have to listen to what our bodies are telling us and respond.
I think that's freeing for me because as leaders, we can feel a little bit guilty. Other people have it worse. You actually use the word trauma, that all of us collectively in the world right now are experiencing trauma. So discuss that just a little bit, because that feels like a dramatic word, but you don't think that's too dramatic.
I don't think it's too dramatic at all. When you're in the moment, sometimes it's hard to see, but when we look back over history, when we look at past pandemics and massive incidents that we've lived through like 9/11, we all recognize that those are traumatic experiences. We don't have to wait until this is over to recognize what is happening. We are experiencing trauma. There is a disease loose among us that we've never heard of before. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying. We are dealing with racial tensions. We are dealing with financial tensions. There's so much unknown that this is a bonafide trauma. Our nervous systems, as a result, are activated in the presence of this anxiety and uncertainty and fear. When our nervous system is activated in that way, it begins to kind of pull on our body. So people may not only be feeling emotions like anxiety, fear, sadness, but also physical fatigue, digestive problems, racing heart, shortness of breath, even when they're not exerting themselves. You might think, “what is wrong with me?” Your body is perfectly aware of what's going on. Even if in your mind, you're trying to tell yourself that it's nothing,
This is your expertise. I want you to just to tell everybody a little bit about what you do and what you're so passionate about.
So I'm a licensed mental health therapist and I specialize in trauma recovery. I am also a woman of faith. So I do my work at the intersection of faith and mental health. Specifically, I translate from what the word of God says to what we're trying to say in the field of psychology. I want everyone to know that as Christians, we are spirit, soul, and body, and we have to attend to every single part in order for us to be well overall. This is more important for leaders than anyone, especially right now, because we aren't leading people through something that we've already been through and recovered from. We are going through it at the same time as the people who are following us. That's very unique as ministry leaders, especially when we're used to giving our testimonies and being transparent about what we've come through, but it's a little disconcerting to have to talk about what you're going through while you're trying to lead other people through it. We're having a Moses kind of moment right now. We're going step by step. He was right with the children of Israel in those plagues, as they went through the wilderness, as they stood at the edge of the Red Sea. That's a very specific type of stature in leadership. We have to embrace that right now because you know what, it's a little scary.
I remember the first time I realized this, we were actually together on a call with a lot of leaders that care about the church and are servants to the church in different ways. We were all meeting to pray. I remember everybody starting, these heroes in the faith, starting to share their fears. I mean, with boldness, right? No one was consumed by it, but I just realized, these are top level leaders and we are all scared. We're all going through this together. I think you're right. I think there's something sacred in that though. What does it look like then as leaders to do that well? How do we not push aside our own feelings? Because I think if we push those aside, they just kind of grow.
Humility is our superpower right now. Humility is about acknowledging both your strengths and your weaknesses and not allowing your weaknesses to be something that you use to value or devalue yourself. So often as leaders, we're holding ourselves to a high standard and we should, but we don't need to hold ourselves to a super human standard. So in that space of humility, we can all say, 2 Corinthians 4:7, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of him and not of us.” We are feeling extra “earthen” right now. We can rest in that and be honest about that, but can still be able to speak to God's goodness, and declare what we believe about God and his goodness and his assurance of our future. That is where we really show people what it means to lead in this moment, not by being superheroes, but by being earthen vessels, by being human beings who absolutely trust God.
But that's hard because of our pride? Because it is hard.
Pride is definitely a part of it, but you know what else, we all struggle with wanting to not be in the presence of emotional pain. Nobody wants to hurt. So when emotional pain comes, how we deal with it individually in our personal lives is really the thing. Because if we're trying to hurry up and not be in pain, then we will rush those we lead to be out of pain as well. We’ll tell them ,”you're going to be okay!” and throw some scriptures on top of it and go for it and run away. We think we're spiritually leading them. What we're really trying to do is escape what it feels like to hurt. So we're going to have to be willing to be in the presence of pain a little bit more than maybe we have in the past because we're in such an uncertain time. We have to recognize that it is not a judgment on us spiritually. So often as Christians, we feel like if I'm not at peace and if I'm not full of joy every moment, then I'm not bearing the fruit of the spirit and we start condemning ourselves. But it's Satan who accuses the saints. Don't allow his voice to take on your voice to accuse you. You are still a human being. We saw Jesus Christ experience every emotion. The Bible says we have not a high priest who cannot be touched by what? The feelings of our infirmities. Not the thoughts of our infirmities, the feelings. Jesus actually took on flesh, so he would know how we feel. That's how much he loved us. Now he's interceding for us from a place of knowledge about where we are in our feelings. The Bible goes on to say that if we want to lead other people, then we too are going to be turned out of the way. That means we're going to have to feel some stuff too. In walking through that, we are able to lead others through that as well. But we have to make sure that we allow the Bible to divide between soul and spirit. Because when we start blaming our spirit for what's happening in our soul, and that's where our emotions live, we are off balance at that point. We're not giving credence to the fact that somehow we're carrying this treasure in our bodies, which are fallen and imperfect, and which produce feelings, because emotions happen in our hearts, metaphorically, but they also happen in our bodies. We know that our bodies are imperfect, they're corruptible. So they're going to do stuff, but that doesn't mean that I don't know who Jesus is and that I'm not following him because I'm living in this human body.
Anxiety. It’s everywhere. You said that you have been seeing it everywhere as well. Let's talk about it. It's the fear of the unknown and we've got a lot of that. So talk about that feeling and what we need to pay attention to. What does it look like for us to walk through this in a better way than we have the last couple of months? Because realistically, this might be a long road. I think we're all coming to terms with that right now. You know, as we head into the fall and it’s not over yet. So what does it look like to struggle well with anxiety specifically?
Anxiety is a normal human emotion. It comes up particularly when we have something in front of us that we are unsure about, whether it's we’re about to take a test or have a job interview. That's everyday anxiety. But many of us are beginning to experience this lasting, underlying anxiety, where we are facing the unknown in a way that we never have before. So it gets into our bodies and it gets into our thoughts. It's important for us to absolutely engage in those thoughts, bring thoughts into captivity, and not allow them to run wild with all the what-ifs. But after you do that, I also want you to pay attention to your bodies. The signs that your body is anxious means that you might need to slow down and actually take care of your body. We try to fight it with our minds, but our bodies are, doing something too. In Romans chapter seven, Paul talks about us having this wrestling match with our flesh. He says there's a law in my members, warring against the law in my mind. Paul was sin free in terms of actions, but he had a fallen body just like the rest of us. So when your body is acting up, when your heart is racing, when your chest feels tight, when your sleep is being disrupted, stomach aches, headaches, these are all signs of anxiety in our bodies. Recognize that's the law in member. It's a fallen part of us. It's our bodies. You can actually take care of your body. Slow down, do some deep breathing, engage in some meditation where you're breathing and thinking about the word of God.Go for a run, eat something that you like, snuggle in a cozy blanket. Anything you can do to stimulate your senses positively. So sight, sound, taste, touch, anything you can do to see something beautiful here. Touching something comforting will help to deactivate your nervous system in a way that brings your body back into balance. So in short, we need to be really extra good to ourselves right now in order to counteract that constantly heightened state.
I want to ask you a personal question. What are you anxious about right now? What has this looked like in your life?
I can't say that I'm anxious about anything specific, but I'm definitely anxious about how far this is going to go. How long will this go? The idea of getting sick definitely tries to come and disrupt my thought process a lot. I, like you, have been blessed that none of my immediate family, immediate loved ones, have been sick. I haven't been sick, but it does stress me out going out to that grocery store trip and getting that mask on and touching certain things. So I feel it happening. What I do is I make sure that I talk to myself and say, “Anita, these are the facts. This is what we know is true. These are the actions and steps that you take to keep your family safe.” We always pray. We absolutely do, but we have to make sure that we don't allow our minds to run away with us. That's one of the things I'm really careful about. Exercise is huge for me. I mean, on a day that I don't go for a run, I can feel the difference. On a day when I haven't slept well, I can feel the difference. So I manage my body very carefully so that I can lead, so that I can say, “I feel what you feel, and this is how I'm standing up to it.” That doesn't mean I don't experience it, but this is how I'm standing up to it. That is the number one thing I can do as a leader in the mental health field right now, as a leader in ministry, as a leader in my family is to say, “I'm feeling it, I'm with you, and I am doing the fight that's necessary to prove to you that it’s possible.”
When someone's trying to decide if this anxiety is something that I need to go to a doctor for or that I need to go to a counselor for, how do you advise them to make that decision? Right now, the whole world feels like they could probably use a counselor.
First of all, therapy is always a good idea. Therapy is not for mentally ill people. Therapy is for people, that's it. We don't want to wait to go to a therapist until we feel like we're falling apart. Just like you're not going to wait to go to a doctor until you feel like you're dying. So I think everyone should see a therapist at some point in their life. Just go in there and be say, “hey, let's find out if there's anything that I can do better, any way that I can function better.” But if after you have put into action, some of the everyday things that we can reduce anxiety, like having a regular sleep schedule, getting up at the same time every day, going to bed at the same time every night, getting caffeine out of your life - I know a lot of people just turned us off, but that cup of coffee or two can really escalate anxiety. Whereas six months ago, it may have been no issue, but because underlying anxiety is higher, the caffeine may now be a problem. So people may need to cut back on or take caffeine out of their diet. Cut back on sugar. Do some fun exercise, dance, listen to music. If none of those things are bringing your anxiety down, then I would say, you definitely want to reach out to a counselor to ask for help. Now I want you to go to a mental health professional. I don't want you to just go to your general doctor about it and just get medication without also being in a counseling space, because it really undermines the effectiveness. Nothing is perfect. There's no silver bullet and you are going to have to do some mental work in therapy. We'll teach you those tools. So I'd prefer you go to a therapist who can connect you with a psychiatrist if you end up needing medication. You might not, but if you end up needing it, a therapist can help you make that decision versus just going to your general practitioner. That's not ideal. I really want people in that counseling space.
What I want to say to all of you listening right now is that you are not alone. Mental illness is real and many of you do need to take that step and call a counselor and get medicine. That is not something to be ashamed of. That does not mean you're in extra sin necessarily. That is the brokenness of our bodies. That is the brokenness of our minds. That is a result of the fall. We are broken together and we all at different points in our life will need different help. So to all of you who lead a lot of people, make sure that you're leading yourself, make sure that you have time set aside where you are protecting your mind, that you are protecting your body, and making sure that all of the pieces are working as well as they can. Because there are things we can't control. We all know that now, but there are things that we can control. I don't know how much y'all know about my story, but my husband and I both have struggled and walked through seasons of this where we both at different points, sought counseling and required medicine in our lives for a season. We are fans and we believe that God can use those tools. Thank you so much for being here Dr. Anita!
