Video Transcript: Integration Part 2

Welcome back to mental health integration the short course. I once again am  Brandon and Brandon Appelhans Yes, I am Brandon. And I'm happy to see you  here. This time, of course, we're going to do a little bit more about self care just  a little bit. And then we're going to start walking through what integration actually looks like and how it occurs. Okay. So once again, if this is intriguing to you, take the long course, I am cutting out so much material, it's not even funny. So take  the long course, it's gonna be great. We start with physical care, we've talked  about how to take care of ourselves and exercise. We've not really touched on  what kind of exercise you need to do. In general, it's a great idea to do weight  training, and it's a great idea to do some form of cardio, whatever that looks like  for you is great. I like running. I like throwing things around. Like we talked about earlier. We also talked about sleep, and how important it is so continue to work  on sleep. We talked about diet, and how important it is so work on diet. But how  does that affect the questions like who am I? We're talking about mental health  integration, we have to talk about how everything is falling apart. Right, these  concepts of ourselves fall apart, because our capacity shrinks. And in the West,  and especially in the United States, we are people who judge each other by our  capacity. Having a degree from Harvard is a great thing having no degree or an  Associate's from a community college isn't. Why? Because it's a designation of  capacity. This person is clearly really bright, this person's not. So what do we do  in the face of big questions like who am I? Well, if you're dealing with mental  health integration, you're dealing with dis integration as well. You've been  disoriented and now you need to get reoriented. We ask the question how Who  am I because we don't know anymore. For most of our lives, we've worn masks  to cover up who we are, that are made up of things like our job titles, and our  prestige, and the things that we carry, and our titles like husband or father. And  we start peeling those off, because we don't feel like those things anymore. We  often don't know what's underneath, it feels like we peel off the mask, and  there's nothing underneath. Like we're some sort of hollow person. But the truth  is that there are parts about you that God wants to sew into you and desperately and wants to make you whole again. And there's parts of you that never  changed. And the reason that we talked about Genesis 1-3 in the beginning of  this is because Genesis 1-2 outline who we are as human beings in the  beginning, before the fall, we are these beloved, cared for image bearers. In  Genesis 3 cracks, everything. Sin comes into the world. But all sudden, we are  not sinners, who are terrible. We are beloved image bearers who are tainted by  sin. Okay. Then the work of Jesus is to redeem that image bearer, and help  them get adopted back into God's family. And be as they were, even more so.  Because now they have the Spirit of God actually living in them. So, when we  talk about the question of who am I, we have to ask, what about you never  changes. And that identity as a beloved son or daughter never changes? The  hard work about integration is not understanding who I am, because I can 

understand that the hard work about integration is helping someone believe who they are. Because the way that we believe who we are, is we have to slowly  understand this thing, and then have testing come upon us that kind of grinds it  into us. We have to experience hearing who we are from God Himself. We have  to start processing what our masks are, what we're hiding under, and how to  take those off. And slowly, slowly reintegrate. We in some ways have to lose  ourselves to find ourselves. That almost sounds biblical. When we ask the same questions, we can discover that we are beloved sons and daughters of God that  have inherent meaning and purpose, and that that can never be taken from us.  And that's even true when we're in the midst of a mental health crisis, when  someone like me can have bipolar disorder, and cannot know which way is up at times, like my friend who has schizophrenia, but he's a beloved Son of God, like  my friend who went through PTSD, and her life was absolutely shattered. And  she was a beloved daughter of God, when she couldn't do anything. This is the  process of integration. Take the three credit course there's more in there. Who is God? Our ideas of God are often broken when we expect God to treat us certain ways. And then he doesn't. We talked in the previous sections about how there  was this idea that came up. God must not even love me, he must not have good intent towards me. He must even have malintent towards me, because why else would he let me go through all of the things that I've gone through. It's not  enough just to say Jesus loves you. We know that. But Richard Rohr has a way  of understanding and knowing, and he says, you hear something and you  intellectually know it. And then you go through a process of having to  understand it for your life. And that's when you learn everything there is to learn  about this thing you have to go through, you have to break it apart, you have to  tear it down, you have to learn every single facet of it, it gets really, really  complicated. And on the other end of that complication, there's a simplicity that  comes out of it, which is often the same as the thing that you knew before,  except now instead of knowing it, you know it. In that space when we say God is love, or Jesus loves me, that's true. And then we go through trials that break it  apart, and we have to learn everything about it. And we have to discuss who we  are and who God is. And we wrestle with this over and over and over again. And then we come out the other side, and we say, God is love, and I am a beloved  son. Right? This is the process of integration. What am I capable of? When our  capacity shrinks? It changes how we see ourselves, especially when we define  ourselves as valuable and worthy only in light of our capacities, which is the  American dream in some ways. You were nothing, you became something  because of your incredible capacity and your willingness to strive and do it. So I  haven't ever met all this appears, and suddenly, you can't. Are you still  somebody? And are you still capable of anything. One of the big lies that comes  up is I am no longer capable of anything because I'm not capable of the thing I  was before. That's an absolute lie. In the midst of mental illness, I have learned 

empathy and compassion. At levels I never thought existed, I have learned how  to be a good human being to other human beings and how to care for them.  Because I desperately needed that care. There are parts of you that you will  experience in incredible depth of capacity. And there are parts of you that will  experience an incredible lack of capacity. And that is okay. You are no less  valuable and worthy and loved because your capacity has diminished. You're  still good. As a final note, a lot of the time you'll get your capacity back. Later,  you'll work through this mental health issue. My mental health issue was really  14 to 16. And then my capacity came back then in my 20s, I had to mourn all of  the things that are lost in those high school years, I had to discover what it was  to be a beloved Son of God had to learn how to work through my own identity.  And I had actually a lot of capacity during that time that's propelled me forward.  Are you capable? Yeah. Is there a time where you won't feel capable? Yeah. Is  that okay? Yeah. Your job in the middle of a mental health crisis. This seems  really simple, is to stay alive and stay at it. I was considered a massive success.  And it's because I didn't die. That's it. I didn't die for two years. Instead, I was a  really good client. I failed school. I failed most everything else. I didn't die  though. And because of that, I'm capable now. And Gods done all sorts of crazy  stuff. So if you don't feel your capacity now you'll get it later. It's okay. And God  will show you even more newer and cooler ways you couldn't have imagined  without coming to God. I'll see in the next section