Mental Health Conversations for Disciples of Jesus Christ

Have you ever wondered why it's possible to know all the right doctrine and still feel disconnected — from yourself, from others, even from God? What if the very thing you've been taught to push away — your struggles, your wounds, your "natural" self — is actually the place where Christ wants to meet you most?

Connect with a growing community of followers of Jesus Christ who seek to share His love by first building a deep relationship with Him. Through Christ's transformative love, we allow our natural tendencies to be transformed, so that love can flow into our families, friends, and communities.

This community is facilitated by Patricia Ogden, an IFS Level 3 Practitioner. For more information about her training see the About -Patricia Ogden page in the navigation menu.

What does mental health have to do with my discipleship?

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we believe this life is the perfect school for refinement — designed so we would experience both the bitter and the sweet. These experiences shape who we become.

The bitter experiences are often the ones we wish we could leave in the past. For many of us, they began in childhood — neglect, emotional, physical, sexual, or spiritual abuse from caregivers, the death of a loved one, family upheaval, health crises, or simply growing up in a mortal world among imperfect people. When these experiences accumulate without enough support to process them, something happens that psychology calls trauma.

What is trauma? Dr. Gabor Maté — a physician, author, and internationally renowned expert on trauma, addiction, and childhood development — defines it not as the external event itself, but as the internal wound left behind when we feel overwhelmed, unsupported, or unable to process what happened to us. As he puts it, "Trauma is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you." I'd add this: trauma doesn't just wound us in the moment — it often reshapes how we see ourselves, how we relate to others, and how we experience our relationship with God. And that shapes how we respond and feel about many things.

“The natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever unless he yields to the enticings of the holy spirit and becometh a saint through the atonement of Jesus Christ and becometh as a little child; meek submissive, full of love, patient, willing to submit to all things the Father seeth…”

Mosiah 3:14

Meet your guide

Hello! My name is Patricia Ogden.

When God opened my eyes to see the above scripture differently, it changed my perception of my discipleship with Jesus Christ forever. My witness of and faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ guided me to see God’s creation, our physical frame, as good, and God-given. To me that means that everything about our natural frame was created for Good! For his glory.

This also means that the mind and heart inherent to my natural frame—the natural woman—are from God and are good, created by our perfect Father and Savior. It has been my delight to discover that our natural mind or our internal world’s desires to yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit as our eternal spiritual self learns to love tenderly those parts of us and lead them to Christ, the true Physician and Healer for us all.

I have found this to be true for my own discipleship journey; and now see my internal world (my parts) as a stewardship from God to lead and love my natural self to Christ.

You might ask, how is what you are offering help in my quest for putting off the natural man?

In simple terms, when our Eternal Spirit comes down and receives a body, with our body comes the natural tendencies of being human; hurt, fear, anger, grief, loss, regret, abuse, betrayal, vulnerability, anxiety, coping strategies that aren’t so great, etc.

Internal Family Systems offers a framework for helping us help these parts of us trust the Savior more and “yield (more) to the enticings of the holy Spirit”. Which is one of the main reasons I believe we have a body; for our eternal Spirit to learn and have leadership of our whole Self, including our internal world. When we practice Self Leadership and we learn to strengthen those muscles of leading our natural man/woman self to Christ and submit to all the Father sees is needful for our journey here in mortality.

My experiences have taught me that fighting or shutting down these natural man or woman tendencies actually makes discipleship more challenging than it has to be. Christ has taught me to befriend these different parts and as I have done that they are more willing to surrender to his influence and will. It is no longer a sum zero game. It is all about building connection with Christ, my parts and my Self. And getting the results I desire; more calm, connection, peace, clarity, direction and closeness with God.

My Vision for this Community

I deeply desire to create a community in which disciples of Jesus are able to come together, learn more about the connection between mental health and our discipleship with God our Father and his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.

I have felt for several years that mental health and spiritual health are deeply connected. Our mental health and well being deeply impact our spiritual well being and vice versa.

What I hope truly makes this community unique is not simply the methods we employ, but the profound and deliberate intention that guides each step of our journey: that we are committed to understanding, exploration, and creation that are deeply rooted in our spiritual foundation. We view ourselves and every other person as cherished children of God, each endowed with unique capacities and divine gifts—our "Divine DNA"—that beautifully reflect the boundless love of our Heavenly Father and Mother.

Rather than seeing the natural self as an enemy, we embrace this creation as a willing ally to God, yielding to His love and His invitation for continuous growth, transformation, and enduring joy. Furthermore, we recognize ourselves as faithful stewards of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, actively embracing the invitation to pursue deeper spiritual maturity. I invite myself and all within this community to surrender to Christ's call, inviting our natural selves and all our inner parts to place their trust in Jesus, ultimately becoming like little children through His transformative at-one-ment.

Possible Structure

This community has a profound and enduring intention to collaboratively cultivate a life in which our Savior Jesus Christ serves as the guiding force for our inner worlds, fostering a deep sense of authenticity and alignment. To bring this transformative vision to life—

We actively engage in regular group meetings that serve as a sanctuary to renew our collective commitment, rekindle our excitement, and strengthen our shared dedication to this essential inner work.
Complementing these gatherings, we strive to participate in regular self-examination, courageously exploring our own contributions to our experiences to uncover hidden patterns and foster personal growth.
Furthermore, we fully surrender all to the guidance of God by integrating our own emotional, mental and spiritual health practices into our daily lives, while remaining open to seeking outside help (professional, pastoral, mentor) whenever deeper support is needed to navigate complex emotional landscapes, preferably someone with a background in Internal Family Systems therapy or coaching.
As part of our regular meetings, I will be offering group led psycho-education on IFS and how IFS can benefit our mental health and discipleship journey.

“Trauma blocks love.
Love heals trauma.”

Frank Andersen

Topics we will address

Anxiety is one of the most misunderstood experiences in the life of a disciple. It is not weakness and it’s not a lack of faith. Anxiety is a part of you that has learned that to keep you safe, it must scan for danger, brace, prepare and anticipate what might happen or go wrong. I’d like to invite us to turn towards those feelings and experiences and get curious about why it’s there, how long, who it’s protecting and what it needs to relax and trust God more. I’ve seen many anxious parts soften as it meets our True Self; calm, grounded and held by God, who is not anxious about the future.
Depression can often feel like we are disappearing, from ourselves, others or God. It can make joy, clarity and connection feel just out of reach. But. in the language of parts, depression is not who you are. It is a part of you that has found a way to keep you safe, often from overwhelming pain, it has the power to shut down parts of the body and soul. I invite you to get curious with me about what’s really under the shut down, and discover for yourself that even in the darkest inner rooms, your True Self and the Light of Christ are there waiting and ready to set you free.
Addiction or compulsive behaviors are not a moral failure. It is a message from your inner world that you are protecting something deeply vulnerable. It might be a substance, a behavior, an escape, or a distraction that has worked. For a time, it soothed something real, unbearable, painful, overwhelming, or filled a space that felt impossibly empty.
Healing isn’t about whit knuckling your way to will power. It’s about changing the conversation inside and outside. It’s about getting curious about what these parts have been doing for you. Perhaps we will find, for the first time, that your True Self and God are enough to meet what is hiding underneath.
When someone you love is caught in addiction, the pain is complex and relentless; fear, grief, anger, helplessness, and love all tangled together. You may have parts of you that want to fix, rescue, control, or disappear entirely. This conversation is for you, not just them. You’re healing matters too. And learning to understand your own inner world, may be one of the most powerful things you can do for the relationship and for yourself.
Grief is a whole lot of emotions wrapped up in a package so complicated it may seem that is it impossible to unravel. Grief can feel shameful at time with how it can suddenly take over without a moments notice. Shouldn’t we feel peace? Shouldn’t we trust the plan? The truth is, grieving part of us need to be witnessed not bypassed. Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus, even knowing what was about to happen. He makes room for grief, and so can we.
Big emotions such as rage, terror, panic, shame, despair, are not a sign something is wrong with you, they. are signs that a part of you is calling out for help. That you are carrying something heavy. When we learn to pause and make room for pratices that strengthen our ability to lead and get curious about our emotions, we find something happening. We begin to develop something profound; the ability to feel and hold differing emotions without being swept up by them. That is self leadership. This is what the scriptures called, “slow to anger” and “of a calm mind.”
Every relationship is a place where inner worlds meet. When we understand our own parts, the ones that shut down, over-function, and the ones desperate to be loved, we are able to begin to show up differently with the people we love. This conversation explores how IFS transforms not just our relationship with ourselves, but with our partners, families and God.
Navigating life with autism, whether yourself or a loved one, asks something profound of a family or community system. It asks for flexibility, creativity, deep attunement, and often the ability to grieve the expectations you didn’t know you were carrying. This conversation hold space for all of that; the beauty, the exhaustion, the parts of you that are doing their best, and invites the compassion and grace of Jesus into every corner of the experience.
Chronic pain changes everything — how you move through the world, how you see yourself, how you relate to God. And the parts of us that carry chronic pain often also carry grief, frustration, shame, and a deep longing to be believed and understood. This conversation explores the relationship between our inner world and our physical experience — and how healing, even when it isn't cure, is always possible.
Marriage is one of the most sacred — and most revealing — relationships we enter. It has a way of surfacing every unhealed part of us, every old wound, every pattern we thought we'd outgrown. This conversation explores what happens when two inner worlds collide, how to stop fighting your partner and start getting curious about what's really happening inside you, and how inviting Christ into your inner world changes the way you love.
Nothing activates our parts quite like our children. They can bring us to our knees with love — and to the edge of our resources with frustration — sometimes in the same five minutes. This conversation is for the parents who want to show up with more presence, more patience, and more Self-leadership — not by trying harder, but by understanding what gets triggered inside them, and why.
Betrayal is one of the deepest wounds the human heart can carry — whether it came from a spouse, a parent, a friend, or an institution you trusted. The parts that form around betrayal — the ones that wall off, rage, grieve, or never quite trust again — make complete sense. This conversation honors the wound, gets curious about what it's protecting, and gently explores what healing from betrayal actually looks like — not forgetting, not pretending, but genuinely coming home to yourself again.
Balance is not a destination. It is a conversation — an ongoing, ever-shifting negotiation between the different parts of us that each have real needs and legitimate claims on our time and energy. This conversation explores what it looks like to live from your True Self rather than from whichever part is loudest — and how that inner alignment creates the outer rhythm and peace we're all searching for.