Transcript:
JONATHAN:
Hey YOKE family, Jonathan here. I’m here with our friend, Eric Minton. Eric, for those in the audience who might not know who you are, take a few minutes and introduce yourself.
ERIC:
Yeah. Hey, y’all. I’m Eric. I’m a marriage and family therapist, and I am also an ordained Baptist minister. It’s a fun combo at parties. I have a private practice that I share with my wife, who’s also a marriage and family therapist. It’s called Minton Family Therapy. I usually work there a couple of days a week in my private practice. And then I spend the other four days working at the home of the Bobcats at Central High School here in Fountain City, where I do individual and family therapy with students there.
JONATHAN:
And how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work?
ERIC:
Well, all of it’s in this format, I only meet with people over the phone or my computer and so that has created its own difficulties. For myself personally, when I’m not doing this job. I’m also parenting my son and expected to give him a smattering of educational and enriching activities in a 1600 square foot house. So, you know that’s what I’m experiencing. And then hanging out with all the people that I work with. That’s a significant thing that’s happening to us. So naturally, even the medium itself is different right now.
JONATHAN:
Well, I know you’re a fan of YOKE. You’re a fan of what we do. And we had you come and speak at our leadership summit back in January. So all of our leaders who were there are now fans of Eric Minton as well. We had you on YOKE Live a couple weeks ago now. You and I have been having this conversation about the mental and emotional health aspects related to the anxiety of the COVID-19 pandemic – worried about our health, worried about our economy. And all at the same time kind of being isolated and not being able to interact as much with the people that we love. So we wanted to just get your thoughts for our viewers just to talk about how we can take care of ourselves and take care of others during this time.
ERIC:
Yeah, and those are really good questions that, I think right now, they’re great for us to ask. Because we do have both more and less free time than we’re used to. So this is a great time for a lot of us to kind of spend some time thinking through what we’re doing. How is it impacting us regularly? And are there some things that we might tweak or change in light of the COVID-19 restrictions that are keeping us in our homes? Are there some things that we want to hold on to that we’ve picked up along the way? So for me when I’m thinking about how to be most helpful right now with folks that I’m seeing for individual or family work, or people that I’m just interacting with their friends and family, the first thing I think that’s most important is to notice what you are experiencing. I think typically what happens with a lot of the things that get labeled depression, anxiety, any other kind of psychological diagnostic criteria that you Google on yourself in the middle of the night when your chest hurts. Dr. Google is great at answering all your questions. If the answer you’re seeking is you’re going to die. And so that only ramps up after midnight, but speaking personally, what I like to do instead of that is…
JONATHAN:
You have a therapist nearby though.
ERIC:
Yeah, I do, I do. She won’t see me though, I keep asking. But one of the most important things that I think a lot of us do is that we bring that kind of diagnostic language into the room where even people that I’m seeing sometimes for the first time are giving me a battery of symptoms and diagnostic criteria that they’ve assigned to themselves. And then my first thought is, yeah, but what is that like for you to experience that? How does that impact what you’re going through? So for us, sometimes right now, it’s just important to ask what are the feelings that I have? I know I call it anxiety, but what is that? What am I anxious about? I would say the first thing is just kind of paying attention to it for that.
It’s a little bit like my son right now, who’s five. And if I don’t initially respond to the first 13, Dad, Dad, Dad, it just gets louder. At a certain point, I’m like, “Why are you shouting at me?” And then I realized, Oh, I should have just asked and responded the first time you said this, I’m really sorry, son.
Our bodies kind of work the same way. Right now the idea that you would be totally yourself in the midst of a global pandemic, where you are trapped in your house, is ludicrous that you’d be living your best life right now. That doesn’t make any sense. So first thing we have to do is just notice what we’re experiencing. Maybe it is anxiety. Maybe it is depression, I don’t know. But we have to know what it is and what it’s doing to us physiologically and what it’s doing to us psychologically. So just studying it for a bit, I think is the first step.
And then the next thing I would tell people is empathize with it. Notice what it’s asking of you, because for a lot of us, we hear words like anxiety and depression and we get really scared, like, something’s wrong with us that we have like a loose hose in our brain. Oftentimes, in our culture, we’re taught to immediately suppress this, or deny it or not give it any kind of air or oxygen or listen to it at all. It’s lying to us, or we need to immediately medicate it because there’s something biologically wrong with us. And for me, I just haven’t found that to be very helpful.
JONATHAN:
I think that for those of us who are people of faith, sometimes it’s even worse because we think that’s a lack of faith or it’s doubt and we shouldn’t be experiencing that. We just tend to try to suppress it, push it aside.
ERIC:
And it’s not altogether Christianity’s fault. I think that a lot of us are taking the ways in which our faith understands that we’re not supposed to fear or that we’re supposed to be courageous or strong willed or that we’re supposed to operate with the power of the resurrection in light of Easter. And these things are accurate. But at the same time, I think we have to keep in mind that we’re operating from a culture that is interested in the anxious pursuit of happiness at all costs. And so sometimes what ends up happening to us is that in that pursuit, we’re very often minimizing our bodies check engine light. Several mentors of mine have been very instructive in my own work as a therapist, have taught me that depression is less of a clinical diagnosis, and more of a body’s noticing that what you’re currently experiencing and trying to live through is not entirely humane, that you’re trying to survive in an uninhabitable landscape. Depression is kind of the first sign that your body can’t do it anymore. It’s uninterested in it. And that if you don’t pay attention to it, the engine is going to start smoking, it’s going to ask you to pull over to the side of the road. Right? That’s the first the first thing is just noticing what’s going on with you. Don’t label it; just pay attention to it. Second thing empathize with it, what does it want for you? And then very often with depression and anxiety, they’re not these, you know, like, like Boogie men and women (I’m equal opportunity. They can be Boogie women.) But there are these things. Anxiety is a tool. And Gosh, it’s really helpful if you’re in the middle of the street, and there’s a garbage truck coming at you. I love anxiety for that, right? It’s terrible at solving complex problems right now. It’s not very helpful at that. It can’t even grocery shop effectively. But it’s good for keeping you alive. The first thing we have to notice with all these things, is that they want humans to stay alive, these experiences that are happening, and they’re just going about them in a way that’s chaotic and fragmented and scared. And so the worst thing we can do is ignore them. I think paying attention to them for a second and asking, how are these things trying to be helpful for us is a good kind of second step. Does that make sense so far? Sometimes I don’t make sense. So I just like to check in.
JONATHAN:
Yeah, what’s next?
ERIC:
So then once you’ve got those two things, I think then really spending some time with what’s actually true. Like, what’s true with me right now, in this very moment, not like what’s going to be true five years from now? Or what’s going to be true five days from now? Or when’s this shelter at home going to be lifted or all these things that are far outside of our purview or control? What’s true for me? Who am I connected to? What am I doing now? What am I doing with my hands? How much time have I spent outside? How much time I’ve spent looking at a screen? How much time have I spent talking with loved ones whether on the phone or FaceTime or via Zoom? What have I been doing for my community? What’s been taken away from me that I miss – a full accounting. What’s actually going on with you right now? What’s true about you? Because the truth might be, and I think this is where therapy sometimes get a bad rap is that sometimes people think when they go see a therapist that a therapist is going to tell them, oh, just tell yourself everything is going to be. It’s not very helpful. It’s not terribly true, people don’t believe it. But I do think that oftentimes when we feel or experience the symptoms of depression and anxiety, what we find is that the things that depression and anxiety tell us about who we are as people are about our sense of safety in the world. Some of that is accurate, that we’re undergoing a global pandemic, and we’re trapped at home. That’s true and pretending it’s not is a lie. But that we’re completely alone and cut off from people that no one cares for us. That we’re unloved, that we’re ignored, that we don’t have any value that we’re completely out of control. Those things are inaccurate. But if we don’t first listen and notice what’s happening to ourselves, we don’t know what to speak truth to. First off you don’t know what you’re afraid of. It’s difficult to determine why it’s irrational. And so that’s what I usually like to tell people. The third step is just paying attention to what’s actually true about you right now. Who are you connected to? What’s real about your situation, even if it’s hard?
And I think that, then that leads us to the fourth step, which is, what’s the next right thing? I think sometimes it can be this experience for so many of us that we get overwhelmed by the big problem. When I spent time working with a codependency support group, one of my first internship placements in graduate school, one of the things that they taught us when we’re working with people that are coming out of addiction is that sometimes people would get overwhelmed by the bigness of the problems that they had kind of awaiting them from years of being addicted to substances. So then the bigness of the problem and their inability to immediately fix it send them right back in whatever addiction that they were experiencing before. I think that the problems right now kind of have a similar role, right? And so what we want to do is spend our time not what’s the next right thing five days from now, or five weeks from now, when things may or may not open back up or five months from now, when things may or may not open back up? We don’t know what’s going to happen. But I think it’s what’s the next thing five minutes from now? Is there someone we need to call? Is there someone we need to be connected to when the anxiety is noticing that like, I feel trapped, I feel like I can’t get outside. I feel like I can’t get enough air. I feel like I can’t get my head around what’s going on. That’s when it’s time to go for a walk. Because the next thing is to take a walk, or when we’re feeling alone and isolated and ignored. And we’re getting really down and we look at the screen and the screen sucks our souls out. And then we think to ourselves, gosh, I’m really depressed right now. It’s like what is what is your depression want for you? How’s it trying to be helpful to God wants me to be connected to people? I feel really alone. It’s like, Oh, well then that’s when we actually have to use our screens for good. So I think spending some time first of all, noticing what’s happening to yourself, noticing what it wants for you, noticing what’s true about who you are as a person and what’s going on in your actual life and not on the news. And then noticing what’s the next right thing for me. And I think sometimes it’s nice to have that kind of grounding element for us, if that makes sense. You know, that’s great.
JONATHAN:
I love that. That advice, just doing the next right thing and, like you said that that might be getting out of bed. It might be something simple, like, I’m going to take a shower and get dressed today. You know, because so many so many of us are just kind of stuck in the house, but making a phone call, checking on a friend check or family member. That’s all such great practical advice.
I know you’re obviously doing a lot of teletherapy. What advice do you have or resources that you know of, for people who might be struggling and need somebody to talk to in these times?
ERIC:
Yeah, and I think I’ve mentioned this the first time when we did our live stream, there’s a couple of really great options. Right now, almost everyone – if they’re seeing people in person right now you need to report them to the authorities. That’s a joke, but really, they shouldn’t be seeing anyone in person. If you go to the Psychology Today website, there’s a classified section, and for whatever reason, it’s become a pretty straightforward go to source in our area for therapists just listing themselves – they’ll list specialties, they’ll list insurances, they’ll list rates, they’ll list their approaches, they’ll give a brief blurb about what’s going on for them, they’ll usually have a picture of them and their office space. And all of it’s a way for people to easily and non-invasively interact with those in my community who are offering these kinds of services. What kinds of services they offer, and who might be a good fit for me. There’s a really straight-forward way of either sending an email directly through that site or you can even call them in the Psychology Today listing. Just click the tab that says “Call this person” and that will connect them to a secure line that will reach out to that therapist. You’ll probably leave a message. That’s a great place to start.
If you don’t have friends or family members that you know of that have seen a therapist that they like or trust, I usually tell people fit is the most important thing. A good fit is somebody who calls you back. That’s a good sign. The second thing is somebody who’s willing to be flexible with what you’re asking for. So if you call therapists and you ask for certain things, and they say, this is what I do, and they attempt to kind of take what you’re asking for and cram it into what they do, that’s not necessarily all that helpful for people. So what ends up being helpful for folks is an experience where a therapist pays attention to and listens to what you’re asking him or her to do and not do. And then they collaborate with you on finding a good solution together. And then they regularly check in with you about what can and cannot be helpful moving forward. And so I would tell you, just like I tell anybody else, when you first meet a therapist, gosh, the most important thing is to just get a good feel for how the conversation goes. Do you like their energy? Do you appreciate what’s going on? Do you feel heard and valued? Those are kind of like those basic life skills that you have developed for years of meeting friends and family members. That’s very helpful for choosing therapists. So it’s not this weird kind of difficult experience. Does it make sense to you when you read their materials and you talk with them on the phone or via email, does it seem like this person is a good fit?
The second step is that if I can be helpful, you know, I have other sources of information that I consult if you are interested in having someone to just ask questions about therapy or about how it works or about how to go about getting a referral or how like, you know, how do I build my health – if you have questions about that, it’s kind of a weird time. So please just feel free to send me an email. If you go to my website, it’s www.mintonfamilytherapy.com, there’s a “contact us” thing at the bottom of every page, and you can just send us an email right through that. I’ll get back to you in a timely manner. If your question is, gosh, I’m new to this and I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for or I don’t know how this works. You know, I consider myself part of the extended YOKE family, like a weird uncle. You know, I went to your leadership retreat. It was very fun, I played basketball at like one o’clock in the morning and have been sore since then. So I want to just kind of extend that offer again…
JONATHAN:
We consider you part of the YOKE family.
ERIC:
Thank you. So if I can be helpful in that way, I’d love to be. Either start with Psych Today, they’ve got a good list. But also if that doesn’t elicit any anything you’re looking for or you feel concerned or confused about something, just shoot me an email through my website.
JONATHAN:
Awesome. Well, Eric, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your ministry in the community. And thank you for your partnership with us. We’re glad to have you.
ERIC:
Oh, yeah, I’m glad to be helpful. Everybody stay well as much as you can, or at least change your pants every so often.
JONATHAN:
Thanks, buddy.
ERIC:
All right. See ya, man.