Bernards Voices

When the challenges of life have gotten your spirit down,
and their is no smile on your face, only a frown,
remember things can happen for the best.
Think positive thoughts and forget the rest.
Believe in the favorable outcome you desire.
It will lift your spirits up and take them higher.
Use the light of hope to illuminate the darkness of your thinking.
Give hope a chance and a good feeling it will be bringing.
Promote hope in what you think and say,
and hope will make for you a better day.

– Gabe Kardos, January 2, 2010,  The New Jersey Mental Health Players

The NJ Mental Health Players performed Tuesday evening the 11th at the Bernards High School.  The did role playing of families living with depression, anxiety, grief.  It was a great performance and interactive discussion between the actors, in character, and the audience moderated by Sharon Curran.

Gabe was one of the performers. He suffers from a bipolar disorder that has had him in and out of hospitals for most of his life. Hope is what keeps him going. Hope, each morning, that today will be a good day.

We had a small turnout for the event.  So I learned that it would best, next time, to have a very targeted topic and a captive audience.  The Mental Health Players perform in schools, churches, in front of police organizations, and at judge conferences.  But they do deserve a stage!

Reverend Greg Miller led a discussion this morning at 11:00 on the role of faith in mental health, and the role of mental health in faith.

Here is Rev. Miller’s handout.

I’m just going to single out 1 or 2 pieces of the discussion–not really indicative of the overall talk.  One is about the science of psychology and psychiatry–is it atheistic?  In the PTSD discussion on Wednesday, Cpl Townsend had made the point that in seminary there wasn’t much talk about psychology because the science itself was perceived to exclude god and religious belief.  So I asked that question again to Rev. Miller.

A couple of points: it is a more relevant to discussion for therapists and psychologists, because on the physical, biological side–the medical side–there is less collisions between medicine and religion.  You just take the pill.  And the pill will work independent of whether you’re a Christian or not.  (This speaks a little to my discomfort … these are my words … not Miller’s.)

But in the sphere of talk therapy, psychology and religion, there are overlapping views of spirit, mind, mental health.  So it is more important to seek a therapist from your own faith, perhaps, then it would be to find a psychiatrist in your own faith.  And Rev. Miller has not had a problem finding local, Christian therapists.

When it came down to seeking hospital care.  That is another story.  He did seek out a extended care facility that was Christian based.  And one of the triggers for this was–a secular doctor perhaps over-reacting, or diagnosing, what to Rev. Miller would have been normal, legitimate expressions of faith (prayer, reading the bible became symptoms of an illness to the secular doctor).

Another lesson from Rev. Miller’s experience is that when “something is off,” when “something doesn’t feel right,” when “something just didn’t seem normal” then you should ask doctors for help.  A family is often in the best position to notice this.  It is hard to diagnose yourself.  The thing, your mind, that is off, is also the same thing that has to decide to ask for help.

Laverne Williams spoke about faith and mental health at noon in the Blue Room. Laverne is with the Mental Health Association–New Jersey.

Prayer and fasting aren’t necessary the only strategies for healing. Whether the disease is diabetes or depression, God made doctors and therapists to help you.

Laverne focuses on the African American community–education both for the Churches (ministers, pastors, congregation) and for the Service Providers (doctors, social workers, hospitals). Many of the issues of stigma and obstacles to seeking care are the same across all communities (Latino, Asian, …) but it is worthwhile seeking help from someone within your community, that is familiar with your culture for example.

The Hawk is outside. What does that mean? One elderly woman was saying that to a doctor, and the doctor thought she was hallucinating birds where there were none. But in her culture, all she was saying was it is getting cold outside.

Who sinned to make this person this way? Is the person possessed by demons? If god can’t heal you, no one can. Sin must be the source of your mental illness.

These are the types of questions, statements, Laverne is tackling in her work of outreach to the church and to service providers.

One way spirituality benefits your mental health, is spirituality takes you outside yourself. It reminded me of John Grund’s mindfulness talk. On being aware of others, and your environment, and its impact on your mind.

What is wellness? It is about the physical, spiritual, social, mental, emotional health. For a person to be healthy, it is more than just physically healthy.

PEWS Program (Promoting Emotional Wellness and Spirituality) educates African American clergy, lay staff and church communities to better recognize mental illness and how to link parishioners to resources, as well as assists church communities in starting PEWS Mental Health Ministries. PEWS also works to address the stigma surrounding mental illness in the African American community and to promote emotional wellness. If your group or church is interested in learning more about the PEWS program, contact Laverne Williams, Director of Pews at lwilliams@mhanj.org or call 973-571-4100.

She has a presentation which I will post here shortly. And also a great video on PEWS. We at HOP have a copy, and it is worthwhile for anyone active in church, particularly the African American church, to see this video.

John talked to us about mindfulness tonight. He started with a raisin for each of us. We held it under our nose. Smelled it for a while. Described what we thought and felt and saw. What memories arose. What emotions arose. He then let us put in our mouth, but not to bite it! not yet! Just roll it around in our mouth. Feel the texture. The wrinkles. The roughness. Feel yourself salivate. What are you tasting so far? And then we were allowed to slowly bite into it.

Pause. Observe. Be aware.

I’ll update this post with links to some of the topics John mentioned, and I’ll try and get a copy of his power point.

But first I’ll quickly give 1 exercise. It is S.T.O.P. When you come to a stop sign, Stop. Then Take a breath. Then Observe. Then Proceed. If you do that for every stop sign you encounter in a day, that is an example of teaching yourself how to be more mindful.

I noticed this morning that Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps posted on mindfulness on her Making Change blog. Leslie will be talking tomorrow (Wednesday morning, 9:30am) on Maintaining Healthy Relationships: Advice for Couples. I hope she talks about raisins and other forms of pleasure.

And other pearls of wisdom.

This is a great Radiolab (WYNC’s Jad & Robert) podcast on insight and computers and limits of knowledge. It is only ten minutes.

Consider the motion of a pendulum–a ball at the end of a string. Swinging. Left to right. Then the double pendulum. Suspend a second ball on a string tied to the first. The motion is chaotic.

Dr. Steve Strogatz wonders if we’ve reached the limits of human scientific understanding, and should soon turn the reins of research over to robots. Cold, calculating robots. Then, Dr. Hod Lipson and Michael Schmidt walk us through the workings of a revolutionary computer program that they developed–a program that can deduce mathematical relationships in nature, through simple observation. The catch? As Dr. Gurol Suel explains, the program gives answers to complex biological questions that we humans have yet to ask, or even to understand

You can listen to the whole hour is you’d like at: //blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2010/04/05/limits

Bill, I think I’ve found the answer to your question regarding Whiskey emulsification.  Check out the Single Cask section on this page. It appears that the “Reduction” process adds traces of oil to the whiskey, which makes it cloudy if/when water is added to the whiskey. However, the Scottish manufacturers filter out the oil. But as a result some of the flavor is lost.   So, if you want the real thing, you’ll have to go to Scotland and get it before it’s bottled for export.   It’s not because they add Glycogen, as you were suggesting, although apparently this has been done by unscrupulous manufacturers.   Here is a short PDF file distributed by a company called “Leco” which makes Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometers.   The PDF details how the mass spectrometer can be used to determine if whiskey has been “adulterated” by the addition of Glycogen and Propylene Glycol (see Figure 3).  Propylene Glycol?!?!? Isn’t that antifreeze? Phooey!!!!!

– Telly