New Life LIVE: August 20, 2026

Brian Perez: Welcome to New Life LIVE. I'm your host, Brian Perez, and here we are once again ready to help you with whatever situation you might find yourself in. You can find out more about us at newlife.com. Make sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter and our daily devotions. There is so much going on on our social media, too. I'm here today with licensed marriage and family therapist, Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris. How are you doing, Jackie?
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: I'm doing well. How are you?
Brian Perez: Wonderful. And clinical psychologist Dr. Alice Benton joins us, too. What's going on, Alice? What's on your mind to start us off?
Dr. Alice Benton: Frozen peas. Because the other night, I was rocking a bag of frozen peas back and forth over my daughter's forehead and eyes. It was not because she was hurt physically, but because she was anxious. There is something called the mammalian dive reflex, and I did not know about this not very long ago. It turns out that there is a design within us that when our face is submerged in cold water or cold temperature in order to survive, our heart rate slows down. When we are anxious or in a panic attack or plagued by suicidal thinking, our body goes into hyperarousal, meaning usually heart rate goes up, breathing is fast and shallow, and those physical symptoms exacerbate the feelings that we are having. So I want to share with you my four favorite interventions that really can be applied to any state of emotional dysregulation, but they are particularly powerful with anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal thinking. This mammalian dive reflex can be done in a variety of ways. You can just take an ice cube and rub it around your face, a cold pack, or a bag of frozen peas, which is what we had at the ready. It is pretty difficult to stay in the same mood state with that cold temperature being rubbed across your face, and there is a release of endorphins with that extreme cold temperature that also improves the mood state. My second go-to—you know I am the number one fan of the comfort circle from the book *How We Love*—is because the comfort circle helps us to put in practice a couple of different Bible verses. One being that we are to take every thought captive, and the other that we are to confess to one another so we can pray for each other and be healed. By drawing my daughter's anxiety out, I was able to understand she was worried about the shots she is going to have to get before going back to school. Medical procedures are really frightening for her. I did not know what was going on on the inside; all I could see was that she was upset on the outside. It looked like she was irritated. It actually was that she was anxious. My third go-to is prayer. When you think back to the story of Saul and David, David often would intervene when Saul became dysregulated to the point of being murderous. The Bible says there were spirits involved in Saul's dysregulation. By praying, "Lord, we need your help. I am feeling anxious, panicking, I am having suicidal thoughts. If there is anything demonic involved in this, I pray to rebuke it away in the name of Jesus." And the last step, the fourth step, is distraction. For us, it has got to be simple, and it has got to be quick and accessible. So it might just be a walk around the block, reading a book, or listening to music. All three of those things are a simple way to change the dysregulated emotional and physical state.
Brian Perez: My turn. Sorry, I was buying stock in frozen peas because I think after everybody listened to what Alice just said, they are going to rush to the supermarket and stock up on those frozen peas. Frozen carrots, do those work too?
Dr. Alice Benton: Not as well as the peas.
Brian Perez: Really? Interesting. I wonder why. Great conversation today on how to ease that anxiety, which I think we all have moments like that. We will continue talking about this when we return here on New Life LIVE. Thanks so much for watching and listening today.
Brian Perez: If you missed yesterday's show with Dr. Alison Cook, you have got to look for it on newlife.com/radio or on our YouTube channel. She was on to discuss her latest book called *The Secure Soul*. I see it over there on the bookshelf. I forgot to bring it with me so I could hold it up, so pretend that I am holding it up. Jack to the rescue; he just put the graphic up. Wonderful, Jack. Thank you so much. But that was a great episode and a great book. It is a great read. You can find that at newlife.com in the store. Right before the break, we started the show with Dr. Alice talking about anxiety and different ways that we can help when we are going through something. Dr. Jackie, what did you want to chime in on?
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: Something that stood out for me in what you shared, Dr. Alice, was that your daughter looked irritated, but internally she was feeling anxiety. I think that is important for our listeners to hold on to because so often we make a judgment on what a person is feeling or thinking based on what we are experiencing inside. You see her body language and her facial expression and you think, "What do you have to be irritated about?" Rather than attack her irritation, you got curious. You were interested in what she was feeling and what was going on. In doing that and becoming curious instead of getting furious about this child having an attitude and being irritated, you were able to help her regulate. You were able to help her put language to what was going on inside of her body. She is concerned about a very real thing that is coming up in her life. Just because she is a child doesn't mean she shouldn't have space for that. I often hear people say, "You're a child, what do you have to be anxious about?" Well, she has to get shots before she goes back to school. That is going to cause some anxiety. We know adults that would be anxious about that. We really don't like to make room for children to have uncomfortable emotions. I really enjoyed that you shared that and that you took the time to slow down and to use the comfort circle to get underneath what was going on with your daughter. For parents who could use that tool, there is a book called *How We Love Our Kids*. I highly recommend it because being curious instead of furious can go a long way toward keeping the child from creating some patterns that are going to interrupt life for them later on.
Dr. Alice Benton: Anytime I look at my kids and think, "What are you getting all riled up about? You have a great life," if I am being critical and judgmental, I probably am not inquisitive enough. If I start asking why they are acting that way—and not in a "Why are you acting that way?" but "Hey, what's going on? Something seems to be off, and I really want to know what's happening on the inside"—I am almost always off in my initial judgment. It is usually something very real and very significant for my child or my husband or my coworkers. They have got something going on and I just didn't have enough information.
Brian Perez: Get more information. That is so key. We say the shorthand is to be curious, not furious. Ask questions and seek to understand rather than to be right. One last question for you guys. What happens if you do sense something and you do want to get more information? With a child or spouse, it might be a little bit easier, but if it is a coworker or somebody who closes up and doesn't want to share anything? They say, "Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I'm okay." They don't really want to get it out.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: Sometimes people don't trust that they can get it out with you. I think most of us want to get it out, but it is not safe. Some of us have been taught not to ask for help because people will ridicule you or use it against you. What I generally do is I will say, "I see you. I'm here if you want to talk." If they lean into that, then I will stop and stay and ask what is going on. If they say, "No, I'm fine," I'll say, "Well, you might want to pick up a feelings word list and check that out and look a little deeper, but I'll be down the hall if you change your mind." I am going to give the offer and let them know that I am there, but part of being safe for me is not going past their boundary. When they say no, I leave it, but I have let them know I see them and it is okay to talk to me.
Dr. Alice Benton: We might add the question, "Is there anything I could pray for you about, even if you don't want to talk much about it?" I actually do get that response you initially said, Brian, with "Nothing" or "I don't want to talk about it" from my spouse and my children. Then I might use leverage. I'll probably give space, too, but I might say, "I'm really feeling like there's a tension. I could be wrong, but until you're ready to talk about it, I won't be able to share my screens with you," or "I might have to back away from you until you're ready to talk about it because it feels like there's an edginess coming at me from you." It is also okay to protect ourselves when a person is unwilling to talk about something that is obviously happening, even if we don't quite know what it is.
Brian Perez: Great conversation to start us off today on New Life LIVE. Let's continue great conversations, this time with Sarah in Seattle, who watches us on YouTube. Hi there, Sarah. Thanks for calling into New Life LIVE.
Sarah: Hi. I am so excited to be on with two of my three favorite hosts. Brian, of course, you're so funny, but Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris is also my favorite and Dr. Alice Benton, the expert with kids and technology especially. I listen every weekday on YouTube. I love that you're on YouTube. I am embarking on this transition in life. I'm a 51-year-old single mom of two teens. I also homeschool, and I also work from home full time. Due to financial struggles, I am going to have my mom move here from South Dakota and we are going to rent a house together. To give you a little bit of background on my mom, she's a very strong Christian. I think that there are some challenges in that I need to know how to set boundaries with her. Especially when confronted, it seems like she often just breaks down and cries about a situation rather than actually just dealing with it on a level where you can just have a normal conversation. Do you have any tips for me if she always becomes emotional at everything?
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: One thing I am going to recommend is that you become okay with her becoming emotional. She may get overwhelmed. She may have thoughts in her mind. Some people, if you disagree with them or you give them feedback that they weren't expecting, believe something negative about themselves or about the relationship. She may instantly go to some negative self-concept. You just hold space and you hold your boundary, but you allow her to be upset. Sometimes we don't like the way that feels, so then we avoid conflict to avoid that reaction. You're not responsible for or in charge of her reaction. You're going to go to her with love and respect. You're going to set boundaries at the outset so that when something happens and you say, "Mom, we talked about that, that's not something that I'm okay with," and she gets upset, it is okay that she is upset. She didn't like being called out. She didn't like having the thing she did wrong pointed out, so she is going to react to it. You have to get used to that and get comfortable with her disappointment, her sadness, or her negative emotion and how she expresses it. If she is getting emotional and crying, that is her needing to process her emotions. You can sit with her and say, "Mom, I'm happy to talk this through with you. Tell me more about how you're feeling," but also the boundaries can still be the boundaries. You can have the hard conversation, she can not like it, and you can still hold it. The question about what boundaries you should set really depends on what your needs are, what your children's needs are, and what your mom's needs are. My parents lived with us. My mom still does, but my mom and dad moved in with us a decade before I thought they would move in with us. We just set boundaries of what was okay and what wasn't okay. They had boundaries and we had boundaries. Anytime a boundary was crossed, we talked about it. It actually turned out to be a really beautiful arrangement, so I'm really hopeful for you and your mom and your kids. To all be multiple generations under one roof is a beautiful thing, but also that puts you in the sandwich generation. I would also recommend you getting into your own therapy so you have a place outside of your kids and outside of your mom to go and process some of the things that may come up in this multi-generational home.
Sarah: That's excellent.
Dr. Alice Benton: Sarah, it is really wise that you're preparing for this ahead of time and are aware that this becomes problematic between you and your mom. I feel for your mom because whenever, still to this day, if anybody says, "I need to talk with you, Alice," I feel like I am being called to the principal's office. I wasn't even called to the principal's office back in school, but I get that feeling. It is hard for your mom to take what can feel like critiquing information. What do you know about her history that maybe a setup for her to struggle with receiving tough truth?
Sarah: Yes, it's a very painful background of childhood sexual abuse and she attempted suicide. I've done my healing in finding safe groups. I've been to a lot of safe groups and a lot of safe workshops. I went to one of your workshops years ago, the Take Your Life Back workshop, and Healing is a Choice. That was so good, but I don't think she's really allowed herself to have that safe place, and I've encouraged her in her own healing. I appreciate what you're sharing because I know that feeling that we're in trouble. I know that feeling. That is a hard feeling to have.
Dr. Alice Benton: And has your mom done little to perhaps no professional recovery work for the horrible things she went through?
Sarah: She did. She was a nurse and so she was forced to go through psychiatric treatment. She did that for a while, but I think though that that was sort of in the situation where she was forced. She did not open up to the family about her feelings. She did not talk about the suicide ever with the family after it happened, so it was sort of one of those hush-hush things to not talk about. But I'm different with my kids; we talk about a lot, pretty much everything with my kids.
Dr. Alice Benton: You have really broken a cycle of avoidance to being proactive. How old were you when she attempted suicide?
Sarah: Oh, that was very hard. I was 17 years old, so I was a junior in high school. That was very devastating. But on the other side of it, I was able to then get that healing. I went and I did my own healing, and I was never the same after that because it really allowed me to understand that I had a responsibility. Like Dr. Jackie said the other day, I loved what Dr. Jackie said about how we have the responsibility to heal. We just can't put that responsibility on others to change, but we have to change. So even as a junior in high school, I realized I had to change. I changed, but I feel like my family didn't change like I did or heal.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: There is going to be a change in the system by Mom coming to live with you. I think Mom is going to have a new experience just being in this system where you have done things differently with your children. She is going to be living in that environment now. You're not going to stop being direct when it comes to things and not avoiding issues. She is going to take some of that in and be in the presence of that. I'm sure she has been over all these years, but now she will be living under the same roof. I just believe if anything changes in the system, it impacts the entire system. Her coming into the system certainly is going to bring some things, and that is why you're talking about boundaries. Her coming into the system is going to benefit her in some ways as well because you've been doing the work. She is going to get some collateral benefit from that.
Dr. Alice Benton: You might have a conversation with her ahead of time, maybe even a family therapy session, to say, "Mom, we're of course going to run into disagreements when we live together. Let's figure out what's a safe way for us to share those disagreements—in writing, by a text, in a counseling session? What would work best for you, Mom? And I'm going to share with you what would work best for me."
Sarah: Okay, thank you. I really appreciate that advice. I think it's going to really help me.
Brian Perez: Awesome. Well, thank you for calling into New Life LIVE and for being a long-time listener and viewer there on our YouTube channel. We will be back with more great insights from Doctors Alice Benton and Jackie Mack-Harris.
Brian Perez: Ladies, if you have gone through betrayal, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the enormity of the situation. As if the betrayal wasn't bad enough, then there is the legal, financial, social, physical, emotional, and mental toll that it takes on you. You feel pressured to figure everything out while you're still reeling from the pain and confusion you're experiencing. If you can relate, you need to join us at the Restore: Healing After Betrayal workshop. You will receive professional guidance from licensed Christian counselors with deep experience in betrayal trauma. You will discover freedom from feelings of shame, anger, and worthlessness. You will walk away from the weekend with a plan for healing that will change your life for the better. You can find out more about Restore at newlife.com. The next one is coming up in November in Washington, D.C. Now, if finances are an issue, call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE to find out about need-based scholarships. Again, that is called Restore. Right before the break, we were speaking with Sarah who called in to get some advice on her mom moving in with her and her two teenage kids soon. Alice had another piece of advice to give.
Dr. Alice Benton: Sarah, I was thinking about your mom's emotions like a boiling pot that is covered and it may boil over. When you're dealing with a person who has emotions that are stirred up and are at the surface like that, one of the best things you can do is be as emotionally regulated as possible. I had shared those four tips that I use myself, I use with my daughter, and I teach my clients. If we can be the calmest person in the room—and it takes a lot of effort to be that and to stay that way—it is impossible to always be. But both as a parent to your teenage boys and in a multi-generational home, which can be complicated, doing your work to take care of your body and your heart to be the most regulated person in the room will help you maintain a position of compassion and mercy for your mom. She's like a raw nerve walking around, and she hasn't gotten the treatment she needed, but your calm will be such an avenue of grace from God to your mom.
Brian Perez: When it comes to being the calmest person in the room, of course there are benefits to that. But how do you deal with what you're going through? If you're the person who always feels like you've got to come to the rescue and be the calm one, there are times when you are like, "I'm tired of being the calm one. I want to let my emotions out."
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: You do your work. As a recovering emotional avoider, that would be me. I tend to seem like the calmest person in the room. It took a while for me to realize that I did have anxiety. I would say I was never anxious, never nervous, never worried about anything, and everything was going to be okay. I'm fine. But I dealt with chronic pain, and so my anxiety actually shows up as pain. Until I understood that, I thought I was always the calmest person in the room. What I do now to keep from feeling it, living it, and having anxiety turn into pain in my body is I meditate. I go for a walk. I reflect and think on the day and release things. I am very intentional about how I clear my mind at the end of the day. I am very intentional about winding down and very intentional about releasing things that are not mine. Part of my job is to show up and sit in hard places and be the calm force in the room. It doesn't mean that the things that people share don't bother me. It doesn't mean that I'm not upset by things that I hear. Sometimes I'm very upset; I'm very upset for the person that they had to go through that. But they still need me to be stable and regulated, and then I go and I take care of myself after I'm done with them. Some people just take it on and they carry it around with them and they're not doing their own work. They're not in therapy, they're not in groups, and they don't have a process of releasing it. I think that is really important. Otherwise, you're just becoming an emotional avoider and you're stuffing it, and eventually your barrel will bust.
Brian Perez: Was it you that talked about putting it in a box and then putting the box aside? I remember that.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: Compartmentalization. Things I can't deal with in the moment, I put in a box. That box gets a lid and that thing gets slid onto a shelf. In my mind, it's a bookshelf because I love books. I'll put it on the bookshelf and then when I have time in the evening to sit with it and reflect on it, I pull the box out and open it up and go through it and see what I can keep, see what I can get rid of, see what I need help with, and then see what stays.
Dr. Alice Benton: When I can't keep or regain my calm, sometimes I have to leave that room. I got to the end of my fuel tank; I was out the other day. I had been doing therapy all day long, a couple of kids had issues, and my husband was having a stressful day. I had tended to other people all day long. It was a good day, but when somebody still had a problem late at night, I had to say, "I've got to tap out. I'm going to go for a quick walk and then I'll be back." Because I needed to regulate again and I could not continue to help. Also knowing our limits and when we need to say, "I can't be the one to help right now, I can't be the one to fix it." I have a couple of go-to outlets. I can ask my husband for a comfort circle; he's a great listener for me. I attend a women's group on a regular basis, and I have my go-to inner circle when I need to have a therapy session over the phone. I go to some of my best friends who are safe; they will give me grace, but they will give me tough truth, too, and I need that.
Brian Perez: Love that. All right, we've got to take a break. Sally in Sacramento, you will be up next. In fact, let's say hi to Sally really quick. You there, Sally?
Sally: Yes, thank you.
Brian Perez: All right, stay on the phone. We will talk to you when we come back from the break here on New Life LIVE. We just talked about the comfort circle. We always talk about the comfort circle. You can find out more about the comfort circle in a couple of books that we have available in the newlife.com store. They are *How We Love* and *How We Love Our Kids*. Get those books from the newlife.com store; they will benefit you greatly. Keep them on your shelf like Jackie does and refer to them often. They will be a great benefit for you and your family. We will be right back on New Life LIVE.
Brian Perez: When you give to New Life, your generosity allows us to continue providing help and hope to hurting people. Listen to this letter that was sent in from a listener after listening to the New Life LIVE broadcast. He wrote, "I've spent the past two years in the valley of the shadow of death as I watched my wife's affair lead to the destruction of our 16-year marriage. There were many times that I was in the car feeling defeated, blaming myself, when your show would come on and give me hope. By sharing advice for others in similar situations, you provided me comfort and direction. You truly gave me hope for a new life for me and my sons." These are the people that we're helping on a daily basis here at New Life and New Life LIVE. Please give at newlife.com or by texting NLM to 28950. You can also call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE. One-time gifts are great, and monthly gifts can help you become a "99 for the 1" partner. Small gifts, large gifts—they all make a difference. Thank you so much for whatever you can do. Your generosity is truly changing lives. Let's talk to Sally now in Sacramento. Hey there, Sally, thanks for holding. How can we help you today?
Sally: I have a question, thank you. How important is childhood sexual abuse as an adult?
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: Incredibly. It is incredibly important. Can you say a little more about your question and where it's coming from?
Sally: Well, it's for a relative of mine who experienced childhood sexual abuse. As an adult, she has attempted suicide, she has addictions, and she's always in pain. As the longer I've talked to her, the worse it seems to be. She seems to sleep a lot, like during the day she sleeps. She's trying very hard to reverse that schedule so she can at least receive physical therapy and just live a regular life, but she just struggles so much. I am starting to realize that this was not going away.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: It's a good question. People tend to think, "Oh, it happened in the past, we should be over that by now." But when things happen, there is an effect. Just like when I fell double Dutch jump roping as a child, I have a scar on my knee. It happened when I was six years old; I am now 58 and I still have the same scar. Scars are not going to ever go away; that thing happened. Child sexual assault is the same; it leaves a mark. Can we do work, can we heal, can we overcome? Absolutely. But a lot of times that work doesn't get done because we live in a society that tells us to ignore the past and that it happened in the past and so you should just be able to move on. That is just absolutely not true. The effects of what happened still move forward with us. She may have dreams, she may have nightmares, and even if she doesn't have conscious memories, her body still remembers. There is a book called *The Body Keeps the Score*.
Sally: She said that she wakes up every morning angry about it.
Dr. Alice Benton: It is so present on her mind all these years later.
Brian Perez: Was it a family member?
Sally: It took her a long time just to tell me these things. Her other siblings—all the girls in the family—suffered the same abuse from their dad.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: So you know the answer to this. It is incredibly important. The damage done with childhood sexual abuse can last generations because oftentimes people who have been abused abuse others or end up with children who then are abused. These cycles continue, especially if it was a family member and it's not something that is broken open and dealt with out in the open as a family. These are the secrets that continue to follow us for generation after generation. Scripture talks about generational curses, the curse being brought upon the third and fourth generation. So what happens is, not only does it follow the person, it follows the family. It is important for the family to do work, too, to disconnect from that curse, from that trauma. Do your work so that we're passing down generational wellness instead of generational trauma. But in order to do the work, you've got to face it. Do you know if she's done therapy or if she's been a part of groups?
Sally: No, she has not done therapy.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: That is a big part of the healing process—having a safe place, working with someone who deals with trauma, who can help uncover the stuck places. There are some places in our mind that hold on to the memory and the story. There might be parts she doesn't recognize or remember because her brain is protecting her, but she is still waking up every morning angry at this point.
Sally: You know, when you're busy working or raising children, maybe you don't focus on that too much or you don't have to deal with it. But now that she's older and in pain, these things pop up. Also, as children, the oldest girls did confront the dad because they knew that he would start with the youngest child and they wanted to stop him. He did stop, and later he did kill himself. It's a horrible tragedy and they don't talk about it openly to other people. Only after years of knowing her did she tell me about it.
Dr. Alice Benton: This family lived in an ongoing chronic train wreck, and then they're all walking around with broken bones that no one got the medical attention for. When old trauma comes out in new ways, it can be shocking, like "Why now?" I believe it is almost always God's invitation to us. Triggered by some change in her life like you're talking about, but it's God's invitation to say, "Hey, you've got those broken bones you never took care of before, now is the time." That anger means so much, and it's actually a righteous anger, but it's tragic that rather than processing and working on the anger in a therapeutic way, she's escaping her pain through her addiction and through oversleeping. She's just trying to cope, and she doesn't know better ways to cope or isn't able to use better ways of coping. But the more you tell of the story, the worse we understand it to be. The more complex someone's abuse is, the more difficult it tends to be to overcome it. Add on top of it his suicide and the guilt the girls might have felt for why he took his life—there is just so much to this. If you ever have the chance to tell her about a form of therapy called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, it is one of the best forms of trauma therapy that we know of. It is able to get to some of those subconscious thoughts and feelings that are too difficult to talk about, but the brain still needs to work through them. We have EMDR therapists in our network that her friend could be referred to. Her family member could be referred to because it can break through even that kind of complex pain in a relatively quick period of time.
Brian Perez: Has she given a reason for never doing therapy?
Sally: I don't think that's something that they did. I just don't think it was as common in those days. People didn't receive a lot of therapy.
Brian Perez: But what about now?
Sally: Now she isn't even able to get up to go to doctor appointments. She sleeps all the time during the day and then stays up at night.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: If you talk with her and she's willing to do therapy, New Life can connect her with someone who can work around all of that. We do telehealth therapy, so you can do it virtually. Our team does virtual EMDR, so that can be done.
Sally: Is that the light thing that goes back and forth?
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: That's one version. You can do a light bar, you can use your hand, you can do tappers, or there is a sound version. There are options. I even know therapists who work late nights because they work with people who work shift work. There are options if she would be willing.
Dr. Alice Benton: Sally, you might have her listen to the replay of this beautiful call you're making for her because you're showing love to her. Maybe even you might pay for her first session and offer that to her to help her get started.
Sally: Thank you so much. I didn't realize how bad it was until I actually said it all out loud.
Brian Perez: Thank you for listening and being a listening friend for her. That's a heavy load to bear, we know. We sit with people in these hard places. Thank you for being her friend. Sally, God bless you. Everybody watching and listening, pray for Sally that she will have the strength to continue being that good listener and that her family member will get the help that she needs. We will be back.
Brian Perez: We're back on New Life LIVE. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Remember, you can find out all about us on our website newlife.com. There is so much information there about what we've done for almost 40 years now. We're also on social media, including TikTok and YouTube. We have podcasts and we do so much. I can probably imagine that, in some ways, Christian counseling is maybe a little more accepted now than it was 37 years ago. I can imagine 37 years ago when New Life started that people were probably like, "We don't have to talk about our past." What are some of the common things that maybe people have said about not needing therapy or counseling, especially as Christians, because "All we have to do is read an extra chapter a day in the Bible and pray for an extra hour a day and all your problems will go away"?
Dr. Alice Benton: Therapy is for weak people. It's just for the crazy people. Especially men. Men don't even go see a regular doctor, let alone someone that can help them with mental issues that they might be going through.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: Well, I'll tell you as a Black woman what I heard: "That's white people stuff. We don't need to air our dirty laundry. We don't need to tell them our business. They don't know our life, they can't help us." And church, of course, said, "Where is your faith? Read scripture. It's in scripture. All you need is in this book." What about commentaries and dictionaries? We need understanding of things. There were so many times where I would hear people say, "If it's not in the Bible, then you shouldn't need it. All your instructions are in the Bible," which even in my younger walk, I understood was a cop-out. You don't have an answer, and so you're shooing me away. Really, they were saying just sweep it under the rug and then we all just trust that miraculously everything is going to be better. Unfortunately, that allows for more bad things to happen because now we're just keeping secrets. The other thing was that you can't challenge the leadership. So if the leadership said that this is how it is, then that's how it is. If you did challenge them, then you were bad because you were being evil and going against God because this leader is God's chosen. "Touch not my anointed." Especially if the problem was with leadership and something felt inappropriate, that was a common thing that I would hear: "He can't be wrong, he's the pastor."
Dr. Alice Benton: One that kept me from therapy, at least from doing real deep therapy, was my denial. I don't have any problems because I'm functioning pretty well in life, so I'm doing just fine. There's a pride mixed into that too and probably a shame or embarrassment. If I'm really anxious on the inside, which I was most of the time, I've got to act like I'm just fine on the outside because the answer to the question "How are you?" is "I'm fine." That's the one acceptable answer. It was foreign to value that it is good to say, "Let me think about how I'm really doing. I'm scared, I'm overwhelmed, I feel inadequate." In being able to admit vulnerability, true strength is actually then achieved through God's help because it's by being real with each other that we can have intimacy in relationships as opposed to faking that I'm fine and everything is fine as long as I'm performing well enough in life.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: I always wondered how we did not see that as lying. That's a great point. That was an acceptable lie for some reason. Go away and lie about how you're doing so that everyone else feels okay. When you come and they say "How are you doing?" and you break down—which I had a literal experience of having a really hard time in my marriage, going to the church, going to a pastor, going to deacons, and having them handle it terribly—me taking a step back in the moment and going, "Oh, they're not okay. Okay." So the one time that I was willing to admit that I wasn't fine, I was literally told, "Well, if your marriage isn't going to work, there's no hope for the rest of us."
Brian Perez: Whoa.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: I knew then that I needed outside help because there was nobody inside the church that was equipped to help me deal with what was going on. I got outside help. I saw a therapist, and then I became a therapist and started to figure some things out. Mostly because in that moment I realized we were doing a disservice to people, and I didn't want to continue to be a part of that.
Dr. Alice Benton: And in your example, Jackie, I think most people would not try to get more help when you made your good attempt and things felt even worse after that initial attempt. When we've been hurt by people, which all of us have, why would we go to people for help? Especially if you've tried and it seemed like it failed. Sometimes we can only build trust with a professional, with a counselor, with a therapist, because the people in our community and our family have hurt us too much and broken that trust.
Dr. Jackie Mack-Harris: And they're scared that you're not okay because that means they're not okay, especially if they rely on you. I'm the strong friend, and so if I didn't have the resources to make everything great, what they were saying was, "Then what are we supposed to do?" Scripture had been helpful. There were so many things in scripture that comforted me and that carried me and kept me, but it hadn't taught me how to live out "Don't be anxious." I get "Don't be anxious," but I am anxious. How am I supposed to stop that? Reading the scripture over and over again didn't stop the anxiety. Let's just be real. The anxiety is still happening, but we will lie to ourselves and convince ourselves because we have to, because somehow we feel like that's the Christian principle. I'm not going to be anxious, that's bad; not going to be angry, that's bad; not going to be emotional, that's bad. None of that is really true. I read scripture where Jesus got emotional multiple times, and we're blessed because He did. There are instructions for how to live life in scripture, but there's not instructions for how to do the steps. What's the intervention to not be anxious? Well, Dr. Alice shared some interventions, and I think those interventions align with that scripture. But without having Dr. Alice to be able to break it down, I might never have gotten to the place where I could actually not be anxious. I just wish more people felt comfortable. We're getting there now. We've spoken at churches now that 30 years ago would have never tolerated talk about psychology. One big Costa Mesa church in particular, we got an invitation to go and talk there about depression. I remember thinking, "Really? Are you sure?" And the pastor stood up and talked about his own experience first and kicked it off and then we all joined in. It was such a blessing to me because I got to see change happening inside because I was fearful that the church was going to get left out because so many people were still being told by their pastors that they needed to come to them if they had a problem and not go to therapy. I just think New Life is such a blessing. It's been such a great find for me, and I'll forever be grateful for being able to join the team and share what we get to share with people.
Brian Perez: It's funny those two words, "I'm fine." IF. "I'm fine" if you knew what I was really going through, you wouldn't want to talk to me. But that's not true. That's why we are here for you. We're going to keep doing this. Thank you so much for praying for us and financially supporting us. We'll talk to you tomorrow on New Life LIVE.