PODCAST | Eliminating the Stigma (Feat. Jennifer Paulson)

Resources:

https://www.vanderbloemen.com/culture-tool

Transcript:

Christa Neidig:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership podcast. I'm your host, Christa, senior marketing coordinator here at Vanderbloemen. Today I get to talk with Jennifer Paulson, our very own VP of strategy. We discuss what mental health looks like in the workplace, specifically in leadership position, Jennifer shares some tangible little tips for those battling mental health and leading others who may be walking through this journey. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Christa Neidig:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is Jennifer Paulson, our VP of strategy. Hi Jennifer.

Jennifer Paulson:
Hi, Christa.

Christa Neidig:
Thank you for joining us today. I am so excited because we're going to talk about this concept of mental health and kind of where we have seen it play as a role in our field, in the workplace for churches and Christian organizations, kind of along with some of our previous experience. But I do want to go ahead and preface and mention just the beginning of this. Since this can be more of a serious conversation that we are by no means experts in this field. This is just based on what we've seen and what we've learned through our field, but also just from prior experiences we've had.

Christa Neidig:
Great. So let's get started. Jennifer, I think you actually came to me with this idea of let's talk about this and I think we've seen it. William talked about it a few weeks ago. He did a video and I think it was something along the means of how I think one out of four pastors went and saw counselor after COVID just because the strain they were under and how honestly, four out of four probably should have gone.

Jennifer Paulson:
Well, that's what I remember from what William said. He said, one out of four did, but he said in his opinion, probably all pastors need it. And pastors, especially since so many people come to pastors with their problems, pastors then need a place to go. Anyone in the church, anyone working in the church and doing this kind of support, needs a place to go for themselves to be able to get someone to understand where they're coming from and kind of help them through their issues.

Christa Neidig:
No, it's a huge burden to bear. And I think COVID brought on a whole nother wave of this. I know personally that's when I first realized was [crosstalk 00:02:12] I feel like I had never struggled with anything mental or anxious thoughts until the pandemic came and everything just seemed so uncertain. You got to think around that time was when I was looking for jobs and I was starting to enter this transition that it can already be stressful, but you throw in a global pandemic where nobody knows what they're doing.

Jennifer Paulson:
And I was actually reading a study last week that said that right now, the group that is in the most need of mental health, mental health issues or the mental health support would be women age 35 and under. So you're right in that demographic, Christa. Really and I'm not exactly sure why it's specifically right now women, but women and younger women in general are needing a lot of support. It makes sense. Based on what you're saying about what's been happening in the world.

Christa Neidig:
No, and I believe that I think a huge part... I was having a conversation just with some of the girls in the office. And I think you and I touched on it, of this idea, the role that social media has played in and just the comparison and all that encompasses. You're far better than I do. You don't have any.

Jennifer Paulson:
I will tell you that I have avoided it for this long and I'm going to continue. I do not do any social media. I don't look at it. I don't think about it. I don't talk about it. And I think my life is much better because of it.

Christa Neidig:
Do it as long as you can. If my job wasn't so involved-

Jennifer Paulson:
You have to, you have to.

Christa Neidig:
No, that's so funny that you mentioned that. My husband doesn't have social media for the longest time.

Jennifer Paulson:
I didn't know that.

Christa Neidig:
He has it. He deleted it for a while.

Jennifer Paulson:
Good for him.

Christa Neidig:
Yes. He's very good at that. But it's funny because he doesn't fully understand. He's like, "Well, why do you put yourself through that?" Why do you... He doesn't understand the benefit. And there are benefits. There's a lot of benefits. But of course there are some negatives that have come along with that.

Jennifer Paulson:
Well, one of the things that I wanted to talk about is in terms of like physical health. Physical health is considered something that people work toward and that they want. And it's kind of like if you're physically healthy, people think, oh wow, that means that she takes really good care of herself and it's a positive thing. But I think that with mental health, I think right now there's still a stigma attached to it, that if you're dealing with mental health issues, there's something wrong with you.

Jennifer Paulson:
Whereas if you're dealing with physical issues, there's nothing wrong with you. It's out of your control. But if you're dealing with mental health issues, it's like, why didn't you try harder? Why don't you do this, this and this and people are still a little bit less supportive that's an actual issue.

Christa Neidig:
It's true. I think there's a huge stigma of that. And I think we talked about, for me, mine was mental and physical. Where I struggled is the effects of my mental health and the decline of my mental health led straight into my physical effects. My exhaustion levels, my tiredness, my energy, even my work at that point is what was affected from that. It took over almost every part of my life. And so that's when I remember at a point losing weight was a huge effect of mine. And I remember people being like, "Wow, you've lost so much weight. Good for you." And I was like, "I didn't mean to. I did not mean to do this."

Jennifer Paulson:
Well and I think that's a good point, Christa, that people can't see necessarily what's going on inside your mind. They don't know. So they just saw the physical effects of it, but it really started in your mind. And I think that, I mean, schools might be doing a better job than when we were in school. I'm not exactly sure, but young children need to learn emotional coping mechanisms. They need to learn about emotions. They need to learn about interacting with people. They need to learn all of these things so that when they get to be our age, they have a way to handle it.

Jennifer Paulson:
Because for me, and it sounds like for you too, when situations came and maybe put us into this head space that we weren't familiar with, We didn't know how to get out of it because we hadn't ever been given the tools to do so. Whereas with physical health, you can go work out, you can go for a walk, but with mental health, that's a lot more challenging. You're trapped in your mind. Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
That's a good point. I think you mentioned mental health kind of being this in your head. It can be this very alone thing. And I think that's a huge part we talked about of bringing things into light, kind of hitting on the tangibles of bringing things out, getting help, reaching out to your church. I mean, we've talked about like there's a huge role that the church can play in this and Christian education can play in this with their students because it really is affecting almost everyone at this point.

Jennifer Paulson:
It really is. It really is. I think that's a great point. I think we can speak as women. As women, we definitely need community. And a lot of times when people are going through mental health struggles, they pull back because they don't want to be a burden to their friends or their family. And they're afraid to, not necessarily even afraid, but we just like taking care of ourselves and we don't want to ask someone else to help us. But for women, especially I know community is really important. Church is a great provider of that, friends and family, but make sure that you take advantage of the people around you when you're going through struggles.

Christa Neidig:
You bring up a great point. I've actually recently read or I'm doing reading right now with a group of friends, a book by Jenny Allen called Find Your People. And she emphasizes this whole concept of biblical community and the importance of it, the reasons we were made for community, how God made us this way. But she talks about the American culture and I mean we're in Houston, so the Western culture is very individualistic. We're independent. We don't want to rely on anyone for help. And she talks about how that's changed over years and how the rise of mental health we've seen along with that.

Christa Neidig:
So it used to be... She uses this example. We used to go and knock on our neighbor's door when we needed something. If we needed an egg, we would go and borrow one. And now we don't. We go to the store, we send your husband to the store or whatnot, and we just have this, we don't want to burden anyone. We don't want to ask for anything. For me, it's a prideful thing, if I'm being completely honest. I don't want anyone to have to think I need anything or I rely on anyone. And so it's just so crazy to me how we used to be more village-like. We needed each other more. And now we have these individual homes.

Jennifer Paulson:
I live in an apartment complex, a big apartment, high rise building. And I know the girl across the hall from me, but that's it. You don't know the people around you and then that makes it harder for you to find a community when people are just really not talking to each other as much . They're talking over social media or they're talking over texting. Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
I actually met our neighbor yesterday for the first time. We happened to be walking in at the same time and introduced ourself. But I mean, it's easy to just turn your head down in the elevator and not talk to anyone, right.

Jennifer Paulson:
It is. It completely, is it completely is. Well, Christa, you shared a little bit about what you've gone through. I'm almost twice your age and I've gone through quite a bit of issues, kind of similar to what you're talking about. But I think something that's important is that there are coping strategies. There are things that you can do to help. So I think we should probably talk about a couple of those things.

Jennifer Paulson:
I would say something as a Christian woman, that's helped me, one of the top things is pastor Joel Ostein says, "Erase and replace." So if you have a negative thought in your mind, if you have a racing thought or an anxious thought, a depressing thought, try to erase that and replace it with God's word. So I brought my Bible verse pack here.

Christa Neidig:
I love it [crosstalk 00:09:12] I love that you keep this on your desk.

Jennifer Paulson:
I do. And so these are just Bible verses that kind of speak to different things that I've gone through. And so I can erase the thought and I can speak the Bible verse. So like this one is John 14, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." So if you're speaking those things over, then there's not as much place for the negative. And for those kind of the devil to come and attack you because you were speaking out the word of God.

Jennifer Paulson:
So in terms of something that has helped me, I would say that this book of Bible versus is pretty helpful.

Christa Neidig:
I love how colorful it is too. So fun. Yeah, no, that's very similar. One thing I got and actually this was from a Christian counselor that I go to that was recommended from our pastor, which is such a great resource. But one thing she helped me with was finding those pinpoint moments for me. So for me, it's in the morning. Right when I get up in the morning is when I'm the most anxious, because I immediately get up, I'm getting ready and I start thinking about everything that I have to do that day, the to-do list, the schedule, the meetings, making sure I get everything done and how I'm going to conquer that.

Christa Neidig:
And so in the bathroom in the morning is one of those moments. And for me, what I've had to do is just stop my brain and just repeat something over and over and over again. For me, it's Psalms 56:3. I just repeat it over. "When I'm afraid, I'll trust in you" time and time until I can reset my brain.

Jennifer Paulson:
Oh, I love that too, Christa. So that's something that I kind of learned when I was in college was thought stopping. So I think what you did there is you took that thought and then you just started repeating a positive thought to replace it. But another thing that might work is thought stop and work. You're thinking those negative things like literally imagine a stop sign in your brain and just be like stop. And you're telling your mind, you're telling your body that thought is not allowed to continue in your mind.

Christa Neidig:
I love that. It is. It's so helpful. And it's these little things. And for me, I had to learn them either through friends that had gone through things or people like you that have been able to share your wisdom. But at the time I was early twenties and had no idea how to stop these things. And for me it was Christian counseling that was the most helpful and beneficial. And while it's not for everyone, for me, it was a great gift. I think that the Lord gave to my counselor to be able to help in those ways and just how he uses people to speak through.

Jennifer Paulson:
That's a really good point. And we're really lucky that we have those people and that's more kind of common than it was a long time ago. When I was going through these things in college, there really... I mean, I'm 44. So that would've been like, 24 years ago. There may have been Christian counselors. I went to a secular college. And so I went to a counselor on the campus, which was very helpful. It didn't bring my Christianity into play and I think leaning on your faith during this time is super helpful. It was still very helpful.

Christa Neidig:
Yeah. But no, that's so critical.

Christa Neidig:
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Jennifer Paulson:
Another thing I wanted to talk about, Christa, was something... So I used, to worry quite a lot. Now I'm way past. [crosstalk 00:12:26]. You've never seen me worry about this. But something that was kind of poignant for me was I was listening to a Joyce Meyer sermon and she said that worrying is actually sin because we're not giving it to God. And that really convicted me, because it made me feel like, oh my gosh, it's a little self-indulgent to worry.

Jennifer Paulson:
And that's not the point that I want to get across. But if you think about the fact that God didn't make us to worry and when we're worrying, we're actually saying that we don't trust Him. And that's just a good reminder of not worrying because we are Christians. And as Christians, we trust that God is going to bring us through this. We may not understand why or how, but He wants us to be thinking on positive things. He doesn't want us to be worrying and not trusting. He's going to take care of us.

Christa Neidig:
I love that. For me, it was coming to the realization that, wow, I'm not trusting God because I have control issues. I have to control everything in my life and keep things organized. And I like them all tight and neat and pretty and with a bow on top. And that is just not the way life goes sometimes. And so as soon as I felt like I was losing control, there went my trust in God.

Jennifer Paulson:
Well Christa, you and I exactly like in that area because I also am very, very controlling. And I think that it may be harder for people like us who are very controlling to break that and trust God. And that's because in my childhood, there were lots of things that were outside of my control. So now as an adult, I want to try to keep myself safe and protect myself by controlling. But what I have to remind myself is it's not my responsibility to keep myself safe. God will. So we've got to give it over to God and just trust.

Christa Neidig:
Which is way easier said than done.

Jennifer Paulson:
I will say though, in the rare moments that I can do that I will say that it feels like a weight is off my shoulders and you probably felt like that too. I go for long walks and as soon as I am able to fully give it over to God, even if it's just for a few minutes, I just feel like, oh, this is just amazing.

Christa Neidig:
Right. I love that.

Jennifer Paulson:
Now we just have to figure out a way to make it last longer.

Christa Neidig:
Seriously. The few minutes that you get. That's so great. No, I love that we've kind of been able to hit on this topic. One thing I want to talk about is, I mean, for you're in a leadership position and a lot of people that we are talking to are in these leadership positions. They're pastors and educators and y'all are leading while working through some of this stuff. Or you're working with people who are going through this stuff. So I want to hit on both sides of that.

Jennifer Paulson:
Christa, I think that's really important. Something that I've learned, I've been in management for maybe 15 years, maybe 15, 20 years. And something that I've learned is you can't just manage your team with their workload. Like, so frequent one-on-ones, at least once a week have one-on-ones with your team members, but you need to be talking about more than just their work. You need to be asking those questions. How are you doing? How are you feeling? What are your thoughts? You need to be checking in with them. Because as leaders, especially as Christian leaders, it's our responsibility to pour some of that love and support into our employees.

Jennifer Paulson:
And it's like we said at the beginning, physical health being as important or mental health's probably more important, I would say, but equally important. But as a leader, you're responsible for pouring into your employees and making sure that they're emotionally healthy. And I don't think we should be skirting those questions when we're meeting with our employees.

Christa Neidig:
I think that's great. I think our one-on-ones are one of the most beneficial things that we do. And we actually do a meeting with Megan, one of our coworkers and we love Megan. Shout out to Megan if she's listening.

Christa Neidig:
But that's one thing that I love that you touch base with her on is how are you doing Megan? How's this week? Where are you at mentally, physically? Like, how are you doing? Because it's important and it affects so much. And we care about her. We genuinely care about her.

Jennifer Paulson:
It's a hundred percent true. And Christa, I have seen, we've talked with her over the past couple months and we've seen her start exercising. We've seen start being healthy with her smoothies that she's been getting and she's got more energy and she's feeling happier and healthier. And I think that should just become an expected part of being a manager. Is that taking care of your employees?

Christa Neidig:
That's great.

Jennifer Paulson:
But you said there were two parts as the pastor, right?

Christa Neidig:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:16:34] but then also like leading through. So you are in a position probably you don't have many people checking in on you.

Jennifer Paulson:
So true.

Christa Neidig:
And I'm sure a lot of people... So think of a senior pastor, lead pastor where not many people are checking in on that position, in that chair.

Jennifer Paulson:
Christa, that's a really good point. And I will say that my first couple months here at Vanderbloemen, I was going through something pretty stressful. And I was trying to make sure that no one saw that and I was holding that in and that was really challenging. So I think that's a really good point. And that probably goes back to William's advice at the beginning that pastors need to have a counselor or a group of people that they can trust and be open and honest with because as leaders you don't want to appear vulnerable.

Jennifer Paulson:
And I do think that's still important. I don't think the right thing to do is to, give all of your problems over to your employees and say, "I'm dealing with this. I'm dealing with that." I really do think that there does need to be a boundary there coming from you as a leader, but that's not to say that you don't need an outlet. And you do need an outlet and a community of people to share what you're going through with so that you can be that strong person that your team needs you to be at work.

Christa Neidig:
No, I think that's great. I love that. I think that's a really good piece of tangible advice in that position.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yes, I agree. I agree.

Christa Neidig:
Was there anything else I'm forgetting? I think there was something else you wanted-

Jennifer Paulson:
We have a bunch of things. I could talk for hours about this, but something that we were talking about, Christa, is that we're saying that we're coming from the women's perspective and we're not sure from necessarily the men's perspective, what it's feeling like, but you were talking about your husband.

Christa Neidig:
Oh yes. The difference. So I've realized... Recently got married not too long ago and just learning more and more about how different the Lord makes male and female. And just the beauty in that, but also the challenge in that. And for us specifically, when I was struggling through engagement, struggled really hard with my anxiety and the stress and my sweet husband... Guys are, what's the word?

Jennifer Paulson:
Problem solvers.

Christa Neidig:
Problem solvers. Yes. He sees a problem and he wants to solve it. He's ready to start fixing things. He's a fixer right away. And I want to feel it. I want to talk about it. I just want to be comforted. And so we had to navigate that of if I was going through something, I would come to him and I just wanted to be hugged or held and told it was going to be okay as a female.

Christa Neidig:
And that's how I naturally comfort those around me. And he was immediately like, "Well, you got to do this. Let's do that." And it was almost harmful or not harmful, but it was hurtful to feel like I thought he was trying to just push past it. But in reality, he's like, "No, I want to fix it for you. I don't want you to go through this." And so communication on that is super important when it comes to you, whether that's a leadership role or male and female working together.

Jennifer Paulson:
I think what you're saying is that sometimes all that's needed is support and validation. Even if the person can't solve it, if you know that someone who cares about you is supporting you and hearing you, that's enough to make you feel like what you're going through is normal.

Jennifer Paulson:
And I think that's something that we also need to make sure that we communicate, which is that struggles with depression or anxiety or any of these type things are normal. It's not abnormal. I would say it probably over 90% of the population deals with these things. So if we can make it more normal and bring it out to light, as I think is happening more and more these days.

Christa Neidig:
I definitely think so. And kind of just a little bit of a plug on Vander Blueman, going back to just the importance of having a culture that encompasses this because it is becoming more and more important. It's becoming more of a factor. I think it's definitely on the rise. And we've seen that and we've talked a lot about and written several blogs about where EQ falls in the workplace. And so if we can help you with that, please just let us know. We would love to continue help. That's part of building a great team is being able to have that healthy culture.

Jennifer Paulson:
I agree. We do culture consulting, which is really helpful. Staff consulting, and even just having Vanderbloemen come in, talk to your staff and see what your staff is thinking and feeling. And maybe what areas you guys could grow as a company. As a church. I'm from the business world.

Christa Neidig:
Which we love about you. Brings a huge perspective. Well, Jennifer, thank you so much.

Jennifer Paulson:
Of course. Did the time already go past Chris? It goes fast.

Christa Neidig:
It goes so fast in here, but we are so thankful for you and your leadership, but also just your insight in this topic. I know that it's a really important one to you and I just think that's really valuable. So we're going to go ahead and cut this one off and end here. But if you need anything, we will be attaching everything in the show notes that you can get on our website. As always feel free to go to Vanderbloemen.com if you need anything. Thanks Jennifer.

Jennifer Paulson:
Thanks, Christa. Bye.

Christa Neidig:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen leadership podcast. At Vanderbloemen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation and diversity consulting services. Visit our website Vandermbloemen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen leadership podcast. Wherever you listen to podcast, keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.