So when you look back and you reflect back in your own journey, what have you learned about mental health? And what do you share with others?

I think that I learned really a lot about functioning depression and trying to achieve to cure depression.

I just, there are so many pockets of my life that I feel like I don't remember because I was in such a fog of depression.

that they're just memories that I can't easily pull from.

But what I have learned is whether we acknowledge where we are, especially when we're having harder emotions, whether we acknowledge it or not, it doesn't mean that it's not showing up in our actions in our life in some way.

And I think giving myself permission to feel because i think when i first got pregnant and i realized by everyone else's response that this is something bad has happened this is something that's wrong i think i immediately shut down and just went into survival mode and oftentimes when we're in survival mode even in a physical experience if we're having a car accident or something traumatic has happened to our bodies physically Sometimes we don't feel the pain because there's so much adrenaline you're in the moment that you can't tell that you're bleeding.

And I feel like mental health is very similar to that.

I want to know what helped you finally break that pattern.

You're tuned into the Potter's House podcast where we are encouraged by powerful testimonies and life-changing truth.

Let's go.

Grab your Bibles and go with me to John chapter 4, verses 27 through 34.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

Mm-hmm.

And people would judge, especially in more expressive churches, the way that we dance or move, not realizing that in many ways that was somatic therapy, the type of therapy that gets trauma trapped out of your body.

And as life has evolved and knowledge has evolved and wisdom has evolved, I don't know that spaces of faith have always known how to deal with mental illness and trauma and the processing of trauma.

And yet I do want to acknowledge that Suicide Prevention Month is not just a worldly issue.

That pastors and worship leaders and people who go to church their whole lives have dealt with moments of ideation and wondering whether or not their life is worthy, whether or not they should continue living on.

And so I wanted you to know, as the servant of this house, that Suicide Prevention Month is our way of acknowledging that the ideas and the thoughts, they do come, but they don't have to have the final say.

And if you are in a position where you have felt not just the idea of not wanting to be here, which is devastating within itself.

shall complete it until the days of Jesus Christ I think there's something else you should know that no weapon formed against you will prosper I think there's something else that you should know that where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom I think there's something else that you should know that he will dispatch angels on your behalf that he will go ahead of you and make your crooked path straight I think you ought to know that he causes all things to work together for your good.

We're here to keep you filled with the Spirit and guided by the Scriptures.

God's been speaking to me about identity.

And I knew last week when God gave me the word that there was going to be some things that I would be unpacking with you all for a few weeks as it relates to identity.

And I think part of the reason why God has me focusing on identity is because many of us have gone through circumstances, changes, transitions, and we're having to ask ourselves, who am I again? Who am I now? Who do I have the potential to become? And so if you didn't hear last week's message, it's called Take Another Look, and I would encourage you to listen to it in some of your spare time.

Because the message really, in my estimation, was foundational about how our identity was formed and why our identity was necessary in the earth.

And if you would allow me to, I want to spend some time talking about some of the barriers that keep us from reflecting God's image.

I am in 2 Kings 6, verses 16 through 22.

[gentle music]

Welcome to the Potter's House podcast.

You are home away from home.

Stay a while as the Word of God restores your hope and transforms your life.

I'm in Genesis chapter 3, verses 5 through 7.

I have to tell you, I gave them a different text this morning at 7 AM.

Then at 8:30 AM, God gave me something different.

Yes, Lord.

Look for the Jesus Calling app in both the Apple and Google Play stores.

[gentle music] Strength is not our tolerance for whatever comes our way.

It is our ability to stay focused regardless of what comes our way.

Let's start by speaking with Sarah Jakes Roberts.

[gentle music] My name is Sarah Jakes Roberts.

I am a woman, a wife, a mother who has the incredible privilege of helping other women to discover how to integrate their faith into their everyday existence through a movement called Woman Evolve.

And through Woman Evolve, we've got events and podcasts and experiences that serve as companions to women who are on a journey of evolving.

When I think back over my life where I had moments of high visibility, moments of pressure, I really felt like strength was being able to just take whatever opinions and thoughts came my way.

Did I, did I hear you right?

That's right.

I mean, I think, so I had the accident the week after just crazy travel.

New York, Chicago, Philly all in one week.

It was like six-day span and I was in New York, Chicago, Philly, and that's, like, normal.

Like, that's not a big deal for us to...

Like, I took a 5:00 AM flight to get back that morning that I had the accident, and it's kinda like you, you build up the type of stamina and the type of focus and intensity that allows you to move at that pace.

And, and so did you have a moment where you were, you know, like, a little timid about getting back into your life, where you had to overcome it and dream again and push again? Like, h- have you had that yet?

You cannot heal while you are still punishing yourself.

Oh, yeah.

And we don't do ourselves any favors by committing to punishing ourselves over and over again for what we did, for what we allowed to happen.

This is what we say, though.

We say to ourselves, "I'm gonna keep this from happening again by constantly living with it right in front of me.

And if I can live with it right in front of me, if I can beat myself up, if I can punish myself, then I will keep this from happening again.

I will prepare myself for further rejection from other people if I constantly remember how unworthy I am, how little value I possess." And so in many ways, we think, "This is me protecting myself by constantly keeping it in front of my face." But if we're honest, we do long for an existence where we wanna believe that I am not just this one moment, but we will never be more than that one moment if we constantly replay that moment in our head.

You guys are not gonna do it? I'm gonna do it." [laughs]

It's a constant reminder

... whether you're at the grocery store or you're at church, people are looking at you trying to do the math.

And so I lived with the belief that you are a bad girl.

People would look at you and there's pity and there's shame, and you begin to believe there's something wrong with me.

And you know, people, you know how babies come, right? So you have sex, you get pregnant, like the math is there.

And so now I'm like, "You're also stupid, because how did you let this happen?" And that's all I ate for years as it relates to identity and self-esteem.

You're dumb, you're stupid, you're nasty, like over and over again, over and over again.

Mm.

Right.

So, um, our friendship was melding together more as I was getting older, and, um, I was learning acceptance.

To me, one of the mostImportant parts of any deep friendship and relationship, whether familial or just in, um, a, a friendship relationship, is acceptance of the other person instead of trying to change them-

Okay.

Um, me and Crystal very much in those family tradition ways with Christmas and the cooking of certain dishes.

Mom was from Guyana, South America, so the Guyanese dishes.

My aunts, you know, we're all sort of around trying to keep that part cultivated.

I come out to California, y'all-

[laughs]

Very few people navigate that kind of stuff very well.

Well, you know, I have to say, I think it's, it's multilayered, um, in that-

Take us through then building that power in that moment where we can really lose our shit and be completely powerless.

I would say that it is okay for this to fail.

I was so afraid of experiencing another failure, another mark on my reputation, that I felt like I have to fight for this like it's life or death.

And I think that I would say to myself in that moment that your pride is keeping you from truly seeing that this is never going to work.

that it's like literally never going to work.

And until you accept that this is never going to work, then you're never going to meet the version of you that does work.

Like this is divinely a mess.

You said, power without accountability

I was gonna say the [laughs].

Yeah.

There were so many layers to, like, why this has damaged me forever, and what I know now is, like, restoration is real.

And restoration is not always that my life goes back to looking like what it was before this happened.

Restoration is when my spirit returns to what it was before this happened.

Sometimes we sell people on restoration, and they're like, "I'm never gonna get the time back.

I'm never gonna get the kid back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

OK, so first of all, I think it's important to say that many of us would not necessarily give ourselves the language of feeling powerless.

We just think about all of the things we want to do but can't do.

So I want to do this, but I can't do this.

I want to do this, but for some reason I can't get it together.

The disconnect between what you want to do and what you can't do is engaged with power.

But we have to first focus on that can't mentality.

how did you maneuver and recognize that that relationship wasn't good for you in order for you to be able to build your power back?

Mm.

So I wanna do this, but I can't do this.

I wanna do this, but for some reason I can't get it together.

The disconnect between what you want to do and what you can't do is engaged with power, but we have to first focus on that can't mentality.

So why can't you do it?And when we start to think about why can- we can't do things, whether it's speaking up in a meeting or making a, a huge lifestyle change, a part of the reason why we can't do it has a lot to do with the effect that it will have on the people outside of us, how it may change the way they see us, how it may change our rhythms and our patterns.

And so we end up staying stagnant and the same because we are afraid of what change can really do in our lives, and that is what keeps us from being powerful.

It's not necessarily that we can't actually do it, it's just that that fear of change has more power than the actual doing required to manifest some of those desires that we have.

So how did you, um, maneuver and recognize that that relationship wasn't good for you in order for you to be able to build your power back?