Episode 54 - How To Stay Sane In Troubled Times

SHOW NOTES

The pandemic has changed many things for each of our lives, yet our “real life” is still happening - children are graduating from HS, weddings continue to take place, and so on. How do we balance “Real Life” with everything happening around us?

Jeremy talks to Joel Roberts about how the pandemic is affecting us and how to stay sane and centered. They discuss some practices to engage in and put in place to stay grounded or centered during these times.

Suggestions

Union & Harmony W/God

• Meditate  
• Pray- Healthcare Workers, Leaders, etc. Scripture  

Union & Harmony with Others

• Attending to family
• Call or text single friends-2 or 3/day Meals together with your family if possible  
• Do a Zoom dinner with friends

Union & harmony with Nature

• Barefoot in Grass, Touch a tree or Rock. Grounding in Nature and Beauty. Feel Rain, or Breeze or Sun. Look closely @something natural
• Short walks, Alone or with Someone in your immediate family.

Naming → speaking truth

• Grief
• Fear
• Loneliness
• Despair
• Joy
• Closeness
• Reduced "Busyness" / Restoration of slowing Down.

A Contemplative Question: What practices are you engaging in during this time that help you find union and harmony with God? Others? Nature?

What are some things that you need to name concerning how you are feeling, good, bad or otherwise in the midst of this pandemic? Are there things that you have been unwilling to name? Why?

About JOEL A. ROBERTS, MA, LPC, NCC

Joel is a counselor and life coach dedicated to inviting people to discover their truest self, cultivate their hopes and dreams, and enter into their deeper story.

He received a Master of Arts in Counseling from Denver Seminary and specializes in men's issues, couples, trauma, military life, spiritual abuse, and the complex intersection of faith and sexuality.

Learn more about Joel at Deeper Stories

Mentioned in the Podcast

• Moment to Breathe - Salvation Oracles on Reading Isaiah 43:1-5

There is a long list of threats around us:

    terror,

    cancer,

    falling markets,

    killing,

    others unlike us in all their variety,

    loneliness,

    shame,

    death--

    the list goes on and we know it well.

And in the midst of threat of every kind,

    you appear among us in your full power,

         in your deep fidelity,

         in your amazing compassion.

    You speak among us the one word that could matter:

              "Do not fear."

And we, in our several fearfulnesses, are jarred by your utterance.

    On a good day, we know that your sovereign word is true.

    So give us good days by your rule,

         free enough to rejoice,

         open enough to change,

         trusting enough to move out of new obedience,

         grace enough to be forgiven and then to forgive.

We live by your word.  Speak it to us through the night,

    that we may have many good days through your gift.

~Walter Brueggemann

    from Prayers for a Privileged People

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