Mental Self Care

Mental Self Care

What insights can experts and survivors share about addiction? In this Pathway talk from Broadway UMC, Wendell digs into how mental self-care starts with the way you think, long before it shows up in what you do. He breaks thinking down into four kinds of "thinkers" – philosophical, pragmatic, relational and responsible – and points out that most people carry a mix, with one style usually taking the lead.

From there, he explains how early ideas form "presuppositions" that act like lenses over your eyes. Those lenses shape how you see everything, from a simple play in the town square to your entire recovery journey. For anyone bruised by addiction, toxic relationships, loss, chronic pain or abuse, this talk offers a gentle challenge: some of the lenses you picked up just to survive might now be distorting reality.

Recovery, Wendell says, means being willing to change those lenses because "if nothing changes, nothing changes." Mental self-care here looks surprisingly practical. You’ll hear how staying in a diverse recovery group, listening to other viewpoints and reading or watching material that doesn’t just agree with you can widen your perspective. Wendell shares his own experience moving from a rigid political and theological stance to a more centred place, simply by taking seriously the ideas from "the other side".

He urges you to keep asking "why" – why you think the way you do, why certain ideas feel non-negotiable, and why opposing views feel so threatening. At the heart of it all is your picture of God: "If you've got a mean, ugly God, you're going to probably live a mean, ugly life. But if you have a loving God... that's what you're going to be. Ideas have consequences.

Huge, huge consequences." His closing challenge sums it up beautifully: "Don't settle for knowledge that enables you to do a better job. Rather, seek wisdom that invites you to be a better you." So which lenses might be ready for an update in your own recovery story?