How to Create Emotional & Spiritual Health in Your Home with Debra Fileta, M.A., LPC
06/21/22 • 30 min
I want to ask you a simple, but hard question - “Are you really okay?” In this episode with licensed professional counselor and author Debra Fileta, we’re focusing on how we as parents can do the hard work of building emotional awareness within ourselves so we can normalize talking about emotions within our homes. Debra also shares how our view of God, others, and self affects our spiritual health and offers a practical exercise you can do with your child to help them explore their emotions and create healthy conversations.
Key points from our conversation:
🩹 Healthy people make healthy relationships. So much of what we learn is modeled, so one of the best things was can do is take care of ourselves.
🌋 It’s crucial that we build emotional awareness. If we don’t release the emotions building under the surface in healthy ways, they will show up in an emotional outburst.
🎨 To help your child unpack their emotions, try the “feeling in my body” activity. Have the child draw an outline of their body and have them color it using different colors to show emotions in the body. The magic of the exercise is in the conversation it creates. It normalizes that it’s good and normal to talk about emotions.
❓ There are over 500 different emotions. Asking questions expands your child’s emotional vocabulary and helps them discover what they’re feeling and why.
✨ Emotions are real, but they are not always true. What makes emotions right or wrong is not feeling them, but what we do with that feeling. Emotional control means lining up what you feel with God’s truth.
✝️ Our view of God, others, and self are a big indicator of spiritual health because we often transfer our hurts to what we think about God. We must know what we truly believe about God. If we believe the wrong things, then our actions are rooted in the wrong things. The why is crucial.
❤️ What you believe about yourself determines the kind of relationship you believe you deserve.
Resources mentioned:
Are You Really OK?: Getting Real About Who You Are, How You’re Doing, and Why It Matters Printable feeling wheel The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
I want to ask you a simple, but hard question - “Are you really okay?” In this episode with licensed professional counselor and author Debra Fileta, we’re focusing on how we as parents can do the hard work of building emotional awareness within ourselves so we can normalize talking about emotions within our homes. Debra also shares how our view of God, others, and self affects our spiritual health and offers a practical exercise you can do with your child to help them explore their emotions and create healthy conversations.
Key points from our conversation:
🩹 Healthy people make healthy relationships. So much of what we learn is modeled, so one of the best things was can do is take care of ourselves.
🌋 It’s crucial that we build emotional awareness. If we don’t release the emotions building under the surface in healthy ways, they will show up in an emotional outburst.
🎨 To help your child unpack their emotions, try the “feeling in my body” activity. Have the child draw an outline of their body and have them color it using different colors to show emotions in the body. The magic of the exercise is in the conversation it creates. It normalizes that it’s good and normal to talk about emotions.
❓ There are over 500 different emotions. Asking questions expands your child’s emotional vocabulary and helps them discover what they’re feeling and why.
✨ Emotions are real, but they are not always true. What makes emotions right or wrong is not feeling them, but what we do with that feeling. Emotional control means lining up what you feel with God’s truth.
✝️ Our view of God, others, and self are a big indicator of spiritual health because we often transfer our hurts to what we think about God. We must know what we truly believe about God. If we believe the wrong things, then our actions are rooted in the wrong things. The why is crucial.
❤️ What you believe about yourself determines the kind of relationship you believe you deserve.
Resources mentioned:
Are You Really OK?: Getting Real About Who You Are, How You’re Doing, and Why It Matters Printable feeling wheel The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Previous Episode
Repairing Damage in Family Relationships with Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT
In our last episode with Marriage & Family Therapist Ann Taylor McNiece we talked about how we can engage in healthy discussion and avoid conflict that destroys. In the second part of our conversation, we’re discussing how we can repair the damage that’s already been caused, specifically in our family relationships.
Key points from our conversation:
🩹 What you consider a repair may not be what the other person considers a repair, but your repair attempts count.
👂 Own any part of the problem you can gets your partner out of the attack cycle. Try reflective listening - reflect what you hear the person say, ask if you heard them right, own what you can.
💍 69% of problems are going to be unsolvable because they have to do with personality and preference. You can have a very happy marriage on the 31% you can work out.
💕 We are called to love and give sometimes more than we receive. You either have rejected the person or you’ve accepted that in your commitment, this isn’t a deal breaker. It’s not a character issue, it’s a preference. It’s not abuse, addiction, or adultery.
🙏 Being intentional about reflecting on what your grateful for about your spouse will create a more positive perspective in your marriage. This can be extremely difficult if you’re experiencing depression.
🤝 Counseling isn’t an effort to “fix” someone, it’s to find out how you can work better together.
🥪 Practice using the sandwich method - give a compliment, submit your request, follow it with the positive it will bring.
🧠 If you want to raise a mentally healthy kid, focus on your mental health first.
Resources Mentioned:
Gottman Bible Guide The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work No More Perfect Marriages: Experience the Freedom of Being Real Together Boundaries in Marriage: Understanding the Choices That Make or Break Loving Relationships
Next Episode
How Our Thoughts Affect Our Physical Health with Debra Fileta, M.A., LPC
The best way to teach our children healthy behaviors is by modeling them, but as parents, we often find ourselves too busy to exercise, eat healthy meals, or get enough sleep. In the second half of my chat with licensed professional counselor and author Debra Fileta, we discuss how faulty perceptions affect our decision-making, why seeking professional help for mental health is taboo in the Christian church, how our emotional health is linked to our physical health, and some practical ways to develop good sleep hygiene.
Key points from our conversation:
🧠What you think impacts how you feel, which impacts what you do. When talking about mental and emotional health, we always want to start by addressing a thought process.
🚫Cognitive distortion is a faulty way of thinking that affects our decision-making. Examples include an all-or-nothing mentality, mindreading (assuming you know what another person is thinking), and catastrophizing.
🕒 It’s important to stay in the present instead of focusing on what happened in the past or what may happen in the future.
✝️ Often Christians are afraid to admit they need help because they believe it indicates a deficit of faith. Struggling with mental health does not reflect a character issue, it reflects a chemical issue.
🙁 It’s important to help our children process through the hard stuff. Trauma doesn’t have to be abuse or abandonment, it can be grief or disappointment. We often try to ignore trauma and hope time will heal, but things can get worse if not addressed.
🏃♀️ Your physical health is linked to your emotional health. We need to be intentional about regular physical activity, balanced nutrition, and adequate sleep and model it for our children. If you notice a pattern of disrupted sleep or a change in appetite, energy levels, or ability to concentrate, it could be a sign of a deeper issue.
💤 Some practical ways to develop good sleep hygiene include limiting screen time, aroma therapy, drinking something warm, limiting caffeine intake, and keeping similar waking and bedtime hours.
Resources mentioned:
Are You Really OK?: Getting Real About Who You Are, How You’re Doing, and Why It Matters
More Than Moody: Recognizing and Treating Adolescent Depression
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