24. Persevering in Marriage: A Christian Perspective of Depression with Josh Canning

In this week's episode, we pay tribute to the military and their families, all the holy souls we have lost to war, on this Rememberance Day in Canada and Veterans' Day in the United States.

We are joined by Josh Canning @catholicjosh , Catholic entrepreneur, content creator mental health advocate, and Catholic father of 10 children. Josh talks about the cross of depression and navigating mental illness in his marriage with wife, Lisa Canning, The Possibility Mom, former interior designer on HGTV Canada, and Catholic business coach.

How do you navigate the turbulent waters of mental illness in marriage while staying anchored in faith and hope? Join us as we sit down with Josh Canning, co-founder of "Persevere Together," who courageously shares his personal battle with depression and anxiety. Alongside insightful discussions on Remembrance Day and the sacrifices of soldiers, Josh's story opens up avenues of understanding, showing how vulnerability and seeking help can pave the way for healing and strength. This episode promises a heartfelt exploration of balancing love, mental health, and the powerful role of community support.

The journey of supporting a spouse through mental illness is both challenging and rewarding. As we recount personal stories, the focus shifts to the essential role of mutual support and communication within relationships. We delve into the inspiring work of "Persevere Together," a ministry dedicated to empowering spouses in caregiving roles. Our conversation also highlights our participation in the Bell Let's Talk campaign, emphasizing the importance of breaking the stigma surrounding mental health. By sharing these experiences, we aim to offer hope and guidance to those navigating similar paths, reminding them they're never alone.

In our final chapter, we turn to the holistic approach of nurturing mental health through lifestyle changes. From traditional practices like cooking with beef tallow and making bone broth, to the grounding effects of nature, we explore how these simple choices can profoundly impact well-being. We also discuss the pitfalls of technology and the importance of mindful presence during family meals. Josh and Lisa Canning's journey with "Persevere Together" becomes a testament to finding holiness in suffering, ultimately inspiring others to embrace their own paths of growth and transformation. Tune in for a conversation rich in faith, insight, and the courage to persevere together.

To reach Josh and Lisa via "Persevere Together," and to support their work: please visit:

https://www.youtube.com/@perseveretogether

Chapters

• 0:04 Navigating Mental Illness in Marriage
• 11:46 Supporting Spouses Through Mental Illness
• 23:43 Finding Light in Mental Illness
• 29:44 Nurturing Mental Health Through Lifestyle
• 40:06 Finding Holiness in Mental Illness

Transcript

Sheila Nonato: 0:04

Hello and welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast. This is your host, Sheila Nonato. I'm a stay-at-home mom and a freelance Catholic journalist, Seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the inspiration of Our Lady. I strive to tell stories that inspire, illuminate and enrich the lives of Catholic women, to help them in living out our vocation of raising the next generation of leaders and saints.

Co-Host: 0:27

Please join us every week on the Veil and Armour podcast, where stories come alive through a journalist's lens and mother's heart.

Sheila Nonato: 0:36

Hello and welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast On this Remembrance Day. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we remember all soldiers, all veterans and their families, and also those who made the ultimate sacrifice. We remember you, we pray for you and your families and we thank you for your service. And from St. John, Chapter 15, Verses 12 to 13, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends and my son has something to say. "Thank you, Daddy, and all soldiers, for your service.

Sheila Nonato: 1:22

Thank you, and I thank my husband for his service to God, family and country. He has been on three deployments and is always ready to teach the message of servant leadership which we Christians know very well and which our Lord modelled for us. In today's podcast, we have Josh Canning to talk about the cross of depression and mental illness that he and his wife, lisa have carried during their marriage and also how they're using this experience to help other couples navigate depression and mental illness in their marriage. Josh has worked in chaplaincy at York University and the Newman Centre at the University of Toronto. Lisa is known as "he Possibility Mom, who has been an interior designer at HGTV Canada and is now a Catholic women's business coach. They have 10 children and have created a new ministry for couples navigating depression and mental illness. It's available on YouTube Locals, a new website, an upcoming website and an upcoming ebook resource, and this ministry is called Persevere Together.

Sheila Nonato: 2:35

Let's listen to our conversation with Josh Canning. Thank you and God bless. Welcome back, Josh Canning, founder, with your wife, Lisa, of Persevere Together on Locals and your new YouTube channel to help Catholic couples navigate mental illness in their marriage. Welcome back, Josh Canning, founder, with your wife, Lisa, of Persevere Together on Locals and your new YouTube channel to help Catholic couples navigate mental illness in their marriage and family.

Josh Canning: 2:55

Before we start, can you please lead us in a prayer? Yeah, I'd be happy to. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen, Loving God, we thank you for this moment of encounter, Lord and just, we lift our eyes to you, knowing, Lord, that you are always present with us, Lord, that you always are knocking at the door and inviting us into communion with you. So, Lord, we just give you our thoughts in this moment. Invite your presence and plan for this conversation, Lord. Pray that people will be blessed by it. Pray for Sheila's audience, Lord, and that anyone who this might resonate with might just speak a word of comfort and hope to them. We desire, Lord, that you be glorified in all things that we do, and we pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen, In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sheila Nonato: 3:42

Thank you so much for that, and so we're picking up where we left off. Unfortunately we ran out of time, but a very important conversation on mental health and I've had a couple of guests already Rachel Wong, who had a podcast called the Feminine Genius, and Father Rob Gallia of Australia, who had talked about their struggles and how they were able to overcome, talked about their struggles and how they were able to overcome, to seek help and also to find God in all of their struggles. And I was listening to your story on Halo app, a powerful, powerful story that I highly encourage listeners to listen to. It was entitled the Cross. Can you tell us? In your telling of the story you were saying that you sort of noticed that things were not quite as they were or should be when you both had two children and the third on the way. Can you tell us what were the signs? How did you know you needed to seek help?

Josh Canning: 4:44

Yeah, it started with me thinking that I just needed a bit of time off from work because I was experiencing a high degree of stress and it began to manifest in difficulty sleeping and essentially racing thoughts. It was really tough but I thought that was just perhaps a high degree of work stress and just being overdue for a vacation. But what I would experience is I would be feeling negative and fighting negative thoughts a lot during the day and then when I would go to sleep I would wake up and immediately be worrying and thinking about work and thinking about problems that I couldn't solve and feeling very challenged and eventually feeling like I was essentially trapped and there wasn't a way to win at life anymore. A friend, when I was going out with a couple of buddies mentioned to me, noticed that I didn't seem as happy as I was in my previous job and made me think, hey, there's something actually visible to people in the way that I'm acting or the way that I'm talking about things.

Josh Canning: 5:43

And then it got to a point where I think it was the next morning or next evening I was changing my daughter's diaper and I became incredibly overwhelmed through the task.

Josh Canning: 5:55

She was just being a normal, you know rambunctious kid, you know fighting as best as she could against having her diaper changed. And I got to a point where I was saying please just stop moving, please stop moving. And my voice took on such an intensity that my wife came and kind of interjected and took over the rest of the diaper change and I went into the bedroom and closed my door and sat on my bed and just broke down and wept and I just remember feeling like I can't even change it, I can't even change a diaper, like I can't do anything right in my life, you know. And that was when I realized that it wasn't just normal work stress. I was really feeling truly defeated in life and there was not a normal sort of release or cadence of, you know, joy and sadness in life. It was just I was kind of being overcome by sadness and it was at that point that I decided to go and speak to a counselor.

Sheila Nonato: 6:50

And so you were saying you were not doing what you used to do normally. That you felt, was it paralyzed? What did you feel? How do we notice signs in our spouse that there's maybe something not quite right and they need our help or they need somebody else's help?

Josh Canning: 7:08

Yeah, it can be elusive. And I'll just say as, with a caveat, I've learned that there's a thing called smiling depression, where people seem to act normal and it's not apparent what's happening with them. They're able to put on a good, perhaps a good show, a good face, and so it's really can be very hard to detect in some cases. In my case, I think what was would have been visible is that I slowly became less joyful. I was not in terms of like my normal personality. I wasn't making quips or jokes or being playful quips or jokes or being playful, I was more sort of consumed with problems. I would have just seemed more preoccupied and then eventually much lower energy, eventually, when this is, one of the symptoms of depression was even just having trouble concentrating or focusing on things. So it was both just a lack of the normal enjoyment in life and there's a word for that. I forget what the word is. I have it in this book over here "The Catholic Guide to Depression.

Josh Canning: 8:11

But essentially you lose the things that normally bring you joy, no longer bring you joy. But then there are other symptoms. Can be, you know, the racing thoughts, the difficulty sleeping, the weight changes, the persistent sadness and me eventually, even a lack of focus. So, if you can imagine, sort of reading or prayer becomes difficult because it's just hard to um have the same mental focus they used to have. So those are some of the things my wife also would notice in me anxiety, where I would start to kind of, you know, rub my head or scratch my head, or I might put my hands down on the on the table in front of me and kind of move them apart and back together, that type of thing. So a little bit fidgety. But as I said, you know people can manifest some of these symptoms or none of them, and that's one of the challenging things about mental illness.

Sheila Nonato: 8:57

And so I yeah. So I'm just wondering for those couples who might be struggling with this and, like you were saying, a smiling sort of depression how do you, how would we pick up on the signs? Is there in that book that you have, you have, is there some sort of guide, a checklist that we could sort of confer or refer to?

Josh Canning: 9:20

Yeah, there is, there is. So, for example, once you go out and see a psychiatrist, they'll give you a diagnosis, basically, and it's essentially a survey, and they're asking you of these different symptoms. How often do you experience them from? Like you know, sometimes never to most of the time or all of the time, and they range from a number of different things. The most severe might be like thinking, like thoughts of death or have you ever had thoughts of ending your life, and essentially you go through them. And if you have I believe there's in the one that we do in Canada, I believe it's nine symptoms, and if you have five or more for a period of two weeks or longer, then that may be considered a depression.

Josh Canning: 10:04

If you again there's Again there's normal kind of institutes of life. So if you have some bad days one week and less the next week and that type of thing, then it might be simple. You know different life challenges and things that we might learn to cope with better. But it's when it kind of takes on this sort of persistence over a period of time that we might say it's actually settling into a condition which we may call depression, but it does require the help of a. So I would say the diagnosis you could do on your own or with your spouse, but then it would need you would need to seek the help of a healthcare professional to then sort of formalize that and figure out what's a plan to work with them. But it can be very helpful because sometimes it's hard to know in ourselves. Like I said, I used to think it was just work, stress or I just needed a vacation. But it can help to have something objective to say hmm, this is a bit more serious, I should take it to the next level.

Sheila Nonato: 10:54

So you, when I guess, at around this time that you were experiencing this, you both have, you know, public sort of personas. Your wife was on TV in interior design and you were working in campus ministry and then you decided when did you decide to write the blog to share your experience?

Josh Canning: 11:13

Yeah, it took a while. So it started with me taking time off work, I think, as we spoke about in the last one in the last discussion, and when I came back from work, so for the students that I was close with the people that I was serving, I didn't tell them why I was gone and people really didn't. I mean, people are very curious. There was only one I ended up kind of speaking to in specifics, but it was hard for me to speak about, even with my boss and colleagues at the time, as I mentioned, even with my close friends or even my spouse. So it was about the anniversary of the time that I took time off that I published a blog post, and at the time it was called "my Dark Secret, because even then, still, it felt like something really vulnerable. It wasn't something that I was necessarily comfortable with, but I could think back to that time of how isolating it felt and how hearing stories that I could relate to was so helpful, and so that motivated me to write a blog post basically describing it, describing the feeling, the thoughts, what it felt like, the shame, and publishing it. And I remember I wrote it fairly quickly and I hesitated a long time before I hit the publish button.

Josh Canning: 12:24

I wrote it fairly quickly and I hesitated a long time before I hit the publish button and then, after I did, I felt very uncomfortable or vulnerable for a little while because it was out there and I don't know Still. I mean, I know we do a lot to sort of reduce the sort of stigma of mental illness, but I still thought like how is this going to impact the way people think about me, you know, perhaps my future employment possibilities, all these things. But I felt like it's kind of, you know, sunlight might be the best place to put this. So, yeah, so that was, that was. That was a big, I guess, step in my process of acceptance of, I guess, who I am and and this reality of my life. And it definitely gets easier talking about it after that once it's kind of out in the open.

Sheila Nonato: 13:04

It definitely gets a lot easier so you mentioned about the stigma, about mental illness. So bell you, you and lisa were part of the campaign. It's a bell, let's talk campaign. Well, let's talk yes yeah, and and why did you join?

Josh Canning: 13:19

yeah, yeah, they reached out to us. Um, they they tend to hit on different um focuses with regards to, um, the reality of mental illness. And this one year they reached out to us. They tend to hit on different focuses with regards to the reality of mental illness. And this one year they reached out to us because they wanted, just like, stories of regular people. You know they had had stories of Olympians and actors and comedians and whatnot. And they said, well, we just want to hear from you know regular, you know regular people, moms and dads, and you know truck drivers and you know whatnot.

Josh Canning: 13:45

And so they reached out to us and invited us and so we were part of a campaign that ran commercials in Canada, was even run during the Super Bowl, which was pretty cool, although our commercials for the Super Bowl aren't as good in Canada. But that's neither here nor there. But essentially, yeah, it was a way of going even more public and simply just being well willing be featured that particular year as well. They were putting a bit of emphasis on the supporting spouse, just recognizing that those who care for people struggling with depression or other mental illnesses also carry a load, and we want to celebrate them and support them as well.

Sheila Nonato: 14:21

So part of your ministry with Persevere Together, which is available on locals, and you also created a new YouTube Channel is to help um spouses to be able to help their spouse who is dealing with this? How, how do? How do spouses who are supporting in a supportive capacity? How do we, how do we help?

Josh Canning: 14:39

Yeah. So this is one thing we noticed with, um, you know with. So, as I mentioned my blog, Lisa's blog, Lisa's youtube channel, we noticed a huge response. You know with. So, as I mentioned my blog, lisa's blog, Lisa's YouTube channel, we noticed a huge response, uh, of people. Basically, those were the most.

Josh Canning: 14:49

It's funny that the channel wasn't really about depression and marriage, but those videos, uh, just sort of took off. They went viral and what we learned through the comments is a lot of the people searching for those videos weren't actually the person struggling with depression. It was the spouse who's trying to figure out what's going on, and we found that for them hearing from the person in my shoes so the person who can now talk about mental illness and what it felt like, and the person who was in the supporting role, who didn't know what to do at first and has learned over time how to be a supporting spouse, and the communication that needs to take place between both we found that they needed to hear both of those sides of the story and that that brought a lot of hope and an ability to re-engage their spouse, who's suffering, in a new way, with a new hopefulness. So I guess I would say with "Persevere Together. We just recognize that is that it's the person who's experienced mental illness might not even at times have the what do we say?

Josh Canning: 15:55

The motivation to search for answers. They may everyone's different, but the spouse who is feeling isolated by the illness that they don't have is probably also searching for answers and we want to try and find a way to speak to that person. The reality is also like in our communities a lot of the resources that are built up are to support the person who is experiencing mental illness, more so than the person who's supporting. So we just really felt that that was perhaps a gap we were being called to step into and we want to lend our experiences that we want to support both because again a married couple, the two become one flesh. But we recognize just that there is a real need to speak to the supporting spouse.

Sheila Nonato: 16:41

And when you're saying that the caregiver in this instance also needs support, how crucial was that for your wife to also be able to have somebody to, I guess, have to get some ideas on how to help you. How crucial was that, and how crucial is that for spouses who are supporting?

Josh Canning: 17:01

It is very crucial. The reality is is it can be so. Okay, let's just even step back for a step. Communication in marriage can be challenging period, right? You know, like I think of G. K.'s yesterday and said you know, if you're looking for somebody you're compatible with, don't look for someone of the opposite sex. Men and women are inherently incompatible. Right, it's already challenging.

Josh Canning: 17:20

You throw in a challenge like mental illness into the equation. There's different fault lines that you might not be aware of, you might not know. Like just thinking of a specific situation, like when I had to go away from that situation changing the diaper of my daughter. Lisa didn't know what was going on and I wasn't able to articulate what was going on. All she could see is somebody is really overwhelmed and I don't know why. So for the supporting spouse, I would say that I think Lisa would say that both parties need to do a bit of a dive into understanding what is happening, what is mental illness and how is it manifesting? Because there's times when I can articulate what I'm experiencing, what I'm going through, and maybe I'm not in the best season and I'm having a bad day or week through, and maybe I'm not in the best season and I'm having a bad day or week or whatever. And there are other times where, if Lisa understands how depression works and how it manifests in me, she can say hey, I don't think you're quite yourself right now. I don't know if you realize, I've noticed some things. Have you noticed this? And so, in a sense, both of you are becoming experts in the situation and both of you are learning to communicate in a way about it, in a way that doesn't bring conflict.

Josh Canning: 18:37

If there's, if there's ignorance on either side, it can be more challenging. And so, as an example, when I withdrew during that period, as I mentioned, I took time off work, I sought counseling, I decided to try to start exercising again and start to do what I could to give myself the best possible mental outlook. Part of that meant not saying yes to all of the social invitations we might experience, and at first that was really hard for Lisa, because she's a very social person and has a certain vision of how our marriage should go. I think probably every married couple can relate to this, and in the very beginning she struggled as well, in the same way that I struggled to talk about it, and maybe in part because I was in public about it. She struggled to attend things without me, without explaining why, why, and also perhaps feeling at the time the same sort of you know, slight level of embarrassment or shame of I don't know how to talk about.

Josh Canning: 19:33

My husband has depression and I don't know if my family knows how to process that.

Josh Canning: 19:38

You know, um, but over time, as we both get more comfortable with understanding what it is and we both become less, um, secretive about it than we can both communicate with each other and others in a much more healthy way.

Josh Canning: 19:55

So I'm not sure if I hit the core of your question there, Sheila, because there's many, many things we could say about it in terms of, like, how Lisa perhaps gets her own support system. That's another, another piece of it that we think is really important and that's part of why Persevere Together is a project that we believe is worth pursuing. Lisa found a private Facebook group for the supporting spouse, so a lot of in this case it was a lot of wives whose husbands had different mental illness and was able to hear and to speak and to put out specific questions or thoughts or words of encouragement at different times, and when she mentioned that in one of her YouTube videos, a lot of people started asking like how do I join a group like that? I need that group because the only thing that I've seen that I can resonate with is this video, but I need more. That's really part of where the idea of Perseververe together is planted in our minds.

Sheila Nonato: 20:53

And I guess the phrase persevere together. I'm also thinking about the family. I know there's still the stigma of mental illness. Do we introduce this to our children, or how do we introduce it? What language? How do we explain this to them?

Josh Canning: 21:10

Yeah, that's a great question and I would say it's very age dependent. So I have a 15 year old and I told him in specific words only recently. I said you know,J john, I don't know if you know this, but you know I struggle with depression and you know I just mentioned a specific time where it was challenging. I didn't go into great depth, but I just says, like you know, I thought you should know that I struggled with depression and he processed it and he was like, well, that must've been really hard. And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's hard. You know, we learned to walk with these things, but it was hard and it is hard.

Josh Canning: 21:47

My younger kids I have not mentioned the word to them. I don't think they would necessarily know what it means and I don't want them to worry. So if it is a challenge, I think you can be honest with them without necessarily worrying them, and so the way that I would do that is I might simply say you know, Daddy needs a bit of a quiet time for a bit. For example, I went off to a small cabin a little while ago and when they were like, why is Daddy going off to the cabin by himself? I just said one thing that was true.

Josh Canning: 22:20

One I'm getting over being sick. Two, Daddy's just been having headaches lately and not sleeping that well, and Daddy could just use a break. So you're not lying to me. You're telling them part of the perhaps symptoms, of what you need relief from, but you don't need to necessarily tell them a word which can have all kinds of meanings which they might not fully understand. So that's my personal philosophy about it is, you don't want the kids to worry, but you also don't want to, you know, create any kind of like you know, false impression. You just tell them what they're able to accept, which when they're really young, doesn't need to be a lot, and when they're older, you can unpack it with them authentically when you know they're ready.

Sheila Nonato: 23:09

Yes, that's good advice. Yeah, absolutely Age appropriate. And yeah, I guess kids just want to feel secure and you, being honest and open with your oldest, I think that probably helped kind of anchor his security because he knows that both of you are in this together. As you know, your YouTube channel name is "Persevere Together, you're, you're in this, in this for the long haul, so, and you are rooted in Christ. And I am curious also, your hallow in hallow, the hallow app you have. Your talk was titled the cross. How did you get through the cross of mental illness and how did this help you grow in holiness together?

Josh Canning: 23:59

Well, there was a period of needing to learn acceptance and this is one of the things I think we mentioned in the meditation is that we would like to choose our crosses. We would like to choose very little crosses, right? I don't know if other people struggle with this, I would imagine so, but I struggle with wanting to plan my life to go a certain way, and the reality is it involves comfort. It's hard for me to say I would embrace any specific sickness or discomfort or trial. I am in my fallenness. I would choose the smallest possible cross, but at the time that I was experiencing my illness, I could get to the place where I didn't understand it. But I understood enough through the understanding that God asks us to pick up our cross daily and follow him. Pick up our cross daily and follow him. And it just occurred to me that the particular cross God was asking me to carry was this reality of depression. This reality of depression and, with that being the case, if it's like, if I can understand that I don't fully understand this, but I understand that it's God's will then I can do this and, I think, anybody who might be in a similar boat. Why is X happening to me. Why is Y happening to me? Well, it's happening, and God's asking us to pick it up and to follow him. And if God's asking us to do this, then it's ultimately for our good and we will not be left alone to do it.

Josh Canning: 25:35

God doesn't ask us to pick up the cross and make our own way. It's we're following him, and so we can be at peace about that to some extent. That doesn't mean the cross is ever easy, right. I mean, jesus was accompanied by our Blessed Mother on the root of his passion. No better company. But that doesn't mean it was ever easy, of course. But there's intimacy there, there's a purpose to it all, and we can believe that we will understand it more fully in the next life. So that's my thought on it. I mean, the other piece of it is, I believe now, having just sort of been very open about it is that our crosses can also be sources of light for others, and so we can take comfort in that as well.

Sheila Nonato: 26:23

And the book you mentioned earlier. What was it again, and can you tell us what can we expect in reading this resource?

Josh Canning: 26:31

Yeah. So the book. I'll hold it up right here. It's called "he Catholic Guide to Depression. It's by Dr. Aaron Kheriaty I believe he was at Stanford University, and what's great about that is he brings the insights that come from modern psychiatry blended with our Catholic faith and understanding of the human existence, our anthropology.

Josh Canning: 26:53

And those things together are what I think can make mental illness truly make sense. If you don't understand the cross and the virtue that comes with redemptive suffering, then I think there's always going to be something missing there. You know, the Greek Stoics might find some ability to cope with it, but when you really understand what Christ has revealed about God's love through the cross, then suffering takes on a whole different shape. But he brings in an awareness of what we know through modern science, with also stories of saints who struggle with mental illness, what we can do in terms of the sacraments and prayer, simply like what we can really know when we bring our faith into this picture. So it's a very useful resource in that regard.

Josh Canning: 27:38

I read it, pick it up and put it down frequently. But I'll also mention my wife and I are working on a resource, an ebook that's meant for couples who are in a situation, finding themselves in a situation like we were. So it's a bit more of a book about the Catholic couple who's experiencing depression and what are their next steps and how can they see a light at the end of the tunnel with that experience. So yeah, I mentioned this one a lot, but I also think there's perhaps more resources which could be provided and that's why we're working on an e-book.

Josh Canning: 28:09

I hope you don't mind if I also mention we're fundraising for a video series that a couple could watch at home and spur discussion. As I mentioned, when I was experiencing depression it was very hard to focus, so even a book might be a bit of a challenge when you're in the midst of it. But perhaps a 10-minute book episode of a video series maybe that'll just be perfect to get the discussion going. So that's another sort of thing that's in the works. With "Persevere Together, we're fundraising for that now.

Sheila Nonato: 28:37

Where can the viewers and listeners find you? How do they help out with this?

Josh Canning: 28:43

Yeah, so we do have a web domain. This is still early, but we don't have our page up yet. But perseveretogetherorg is our web domain. Perseveretogetherorg. People can come and learn more about us there. You can also find us on YouTube at youtubecom slash, at perseveretogether or www. perseveretogether. locals. com. Those would be the three places.

Sheila Nonato: 29:07

Okay, awesome, and I'm going to go to social media because I I watch Lisa's instagram and so much activity in your household amazing and I'm very. It's almost like homesteading. I know you guys moved so I feel like, wow, you have organic meat and what is this beef suet? I, I don't know what that is. Can you tell us, like how and how does that help you with, you know, your overall health? Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, I have a dream to actually do farming at some point. We'll see whether that ever?

Josh Canning: 29:32

Can you tell us, and how does that help you with your overall health? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a dream to actually do farming at some point. We'll see whether that ever comes to pass, but no, we live in an area that's a bit rural. It's a city, but it's a little bit more rural. There's a lot of farms around, and so mental health is connected to our physical health, obviously, and I'm reading a lot about nutrition and our metabolic health and how that impacts the symptoms of different mental illnesses.

Josh Canning: 29:57

So what you would have seen on Instagram is we're trying to cook a lot with beef tallow. So essentially, this beef suet is beef fat that you render down and then basically use it like you would use butter or any kind of cooking oil, because that's a lot more healthy for us and good for the gut. You probably also would have seen me making bone broth. This is a very kind of collagen rich drink made from the basically 24 hours of stewing the bones of beef, and then we freeze a lot of it and that's very, very good, for I find it's good for sleep. Collagen is supposed to be good for sleep, but these kinds of habits, as well as preparing more of our own food rather than eating processed or fast food is also, I think, part of the equation of general physical health which impacts our mental health.

Sheila Nonato: 30:49

And when you were talking about making your own food and helping that, how that helps our physical health.

Josh Canning: 30:59

That obviously will boost our mental health as well, correct, yeah, absolutely, and it's a good communal activity, which is good for us, right? We're social beings and it feels good. It's good for our kids to be taking on and learning new kind of tasks. I love that. Another thing that Lisa does right now is she's joined the whole sourdough revolution. She makes bread for us regularly. The house smells amazing. Kids are learning to do it as well, and no, I think that's all good for us and it's one of those things we've perhaps gotten away from too much in the modern world. It's good for us to work with our hands, prepare our food and be connected to that whole process.

Sheila Nonato: 31:39

That's amazing. Yeah, we tried sourdough and I feel like sourdough has so much it made me realize the gospel, you know, when Jesus says he is the bread of life. Like that's kind of the sourdough you have to constantly be feeding it and it's kind of like our faith life If we don't feed it, nourish it, it kind of dies. So but yeah, yeah it's amazing how sourdough can help us understand the Bible a little bit. But are there other ways? You know you're out in nature? That also helps with mental illness and keeping us healthy. Is that correct as well?

Josh Canning: 32:14

100%, yeah, I mean. So we lived in Florida for a while and it's one of the things that drew us down there was the sunlight. It's really good for us to get sunshine on our skin, on our eyes. It helps regulate our sleep, so that's all very important. We have a little brewery nearby here and we will go there because it has so much outdoor space. It's basically like a farm with a brewery and we go out there and myself and some of the kids we go out there and flip-flops immediately kick them off and get our feet in the grass. And that's another.

Josh Canning: 32:46

Apparently that's interesting but like another health practice called some people call it grounding or earthing connecting you with the magnetism of the earth. It sounds kind of new age, but actually there are studies which talk about it and how it's important for our body to be connected with earth. It's actually kind of unnatural that we're always in rubber shoes. It's better for us to kind of be in the soil, be in the dirt, be in the grass. We're not going to have too much opportunity for that. Pretty soon here in Canada, it's going to be wintertime and we're going to be missing that. So we try to experience that as well and yeah, I do believe that's good for your health and your mental health.

Sheila Nonato: 33:20

Yeah, and I guess connecting with nature I mean not like a woo-woo new age thing, but like God's creation seeing it. You know, I know now kids and adults, you know we're unfortunately addicted to our screens and being out there you realize, wow, I don't need to look at somebody else's life, I can focus on mine and work on mine and connect with my family. Yeah, I think what I was seeing a couple. I think they were together and they were eating, but they were looking at their phones. So it was a little bit of a missed opportunity, I guess, to connect. Maybe they were texting each other, who knows?

Josh Canning: 33:56

It's always tragic, right, because we are relational beings and we should always be open to moments of encounter. And I think that's the worst challenge. I guess these things can be used for good, but if they become an anchor or a distraction, then in a way they artificially remove us from a situation. And what a beautiful moment, when you're having a meal, to have an encounter with people. We can think of that happening so many times in the Bible, where this signifies communion of people, you know, exchanging ideas and relationship and relationship being established. In fact, we think even how it was scandalous that Christ ate with tax collectors because, oh, what are you establishing this sort of equality or connection with these people? Don't you realize that's scandalous? So they could recognize, for positive and for negative, that the meal was really sacred and important.

Josh Canning: 34:52

And so I would say, yeah, I never, I mean personally. I would say my recommendation to anybody would be, as a rule, like never, or very sparingly, use your phone when you're at a meal with somebody. Put it away, you know, and and be open, and and be open to the tastes, you know, and the smells, and the people before you and the voices, and you'll be better off. We have to yeah, we're not disembodied beings. We have to be living incarnate and in communion with each other.

Sheila Nonato: 35:21

And lastly, so I was. Maybe I'm too much into social media but anyway. I saw Lisa's post on Instagram I think it was last week. She was posting about what do you or maybe it was you what do you guys do for Sunday? How do you celebrate the Lord's day and do?

Sheila Nonato: 35:39

You guys have specific activities for that specific day?

Josh Canning: 35:40

Yeah, we have. We have a range of specific activities, so that would be one day that if we are using screens. So let me, let's start. The most important, most important obviously, is Holy mass. That's like the anchor of our Sundays. That's the thing which we build everything else around Beyond that, those are the days where we actually do a little bit more food prep. Kids are home for school, so I think I might have been making, or we're finishing, bone broth. On that day, we'll do cheese boards and we'll do bread. That'll be a day where we're very open to having other families over and having a glass of wine and cheese together.

Josh Canning: 36:14

We also love to do if we are going to use screens that's when we do family movies. So we often watch John Wayne movies or something like that, which has an appeal perhaps to all ages. Maybe it requires some explaining with differences of the 50's and today, but we try to do those things rather than people get locked up in their own more individual activities. We try to think what can we do together as a family and build memories, board games, puzzling, all these things we think is really important, and then if we are taking a quiet moment sometimes it's even just reading in each other's presence can be a positive thing. So those are some thoughts and suggestions for for families. Oh, I'd be remiss to not suggest a Rosary walk. We love doing those as well, connecting nature and prayer. But yeah, those are some of the suggestions I would make. That's what we do.

Sheila Nonato: 37:00

Awesome. And did you have any words of encouragement for a couple who's listening or watching, or a spouse who may think maybe we need to go and explore this situation, that we might need some help? Can you offer them some words of perhaps encouragement or advice?

Josh Canning: 37:20

Yeah, I would say, first and foremost, don't be afraid to ask the question. Is something wrong here? Am I experiencing something like a depression or clinical anxiety or something like that? Don't be afraid to ask the question and don't be afraid to take this first small step, that you need to get an answer to that, so that might be talking about it with your wife or a friend or someone you know who maybe has experienced something similar. For me, the next step after that was to contact Catholic Family Services and get a counselor and to begin to talk about what I was experiencing, and essentially it's one step at a time. If you need to go further than that, if you need to go see a psychiatrist, that's down the line. Just take the first next step. Maybe it's contacting your family doctor, but do something so that you know you're not trapped, you are exerting your own individual creativity in that situation and you are taking the next right step.

Josh Canning: 38:15

If you find yourself in a really rough patch like that, like a clinical depression, what I tell people who are experiencing it is you have to move the goalposts a little bit in a positive way. So maybe before you were able to achieve, you know, this level of productivity and this level of things in a day. You know this level of productivity and this level of things in a day. Well, what if you only focused on achieving three things in a day? What if it's? You're going to move your body and get exercise, you're going to try to find something to laugh about and you're going to be present to your family as much as you can. Well, that might be a win there in itself. So go easy on yourself, don't be afraid, and it's not going to stay like. This is what I would say. There is good things ahead, and just have faith in that.

Sheila Nonato: 39:03

Well, thank you, josh, and your wife, Lisa, for being brave and speaking up and sharing your story so that others can also do the same, and we continue to pray for you and your ministry, and I will have all the information in the show notes and I just look forward to seeing where you go next and how you continue to help others. Thank you so much for your example of being a strong witness for Christ in your family and through your vocation in marriage.

Josh Canning: 39:31

Thank you so much, Sheila. It's always great to talk with you. I appreciate it.

Sheila Nonato: 39:34

Thank you, god bless and say hi to Lisa.

Josh Canning: 39:38

I will Say hi to Joe Okay.

Sheila Nonato: 39:39

I will Take care. Thanks so much. Happy weekend you as well. Okay, bye. Thank you to Josh Canning for this very important conversation on navigating depression in marriage. Thank you for your vulnerability and your honesty, and thank you to you and Lisa for starting this ministry to help couples see depression through the light of faith.

Sheila Nonato: 40:06

In this podcast, we are looking at holiness in everyday life and in family life. How do the struggles of coping with depression lead one to holiness? As Josh has shared, being close to Jesus through the cross of mental illness has helped him and his wife, lisa to see their struggles in a supernatural light, that there is a greater purpose in the suffering, as we have seen in Jesus' redemption after the cross, of his humiliation, torture and death and then his triumph in the resurrection. I will have more info in the show notes if you wanted to reach out to Lisa and Josh and their ministry called "Persevere Together." On

Sheila Nonato: 40:53

our next episode, I'm excited to bring you my long-awaited interview with Mrs . Tammy Peterson and Ms . Queenie Yu. Mrs Peterson was herself at the foot of the cross five years ago when she received her cancer diagnosis of 11 months to live, and Miss Queenie Yu, who was an acquaintance at that time, met her at the cross in the hospital and she introduced Mrs Tammy Peterson to Our Lady. We look forward to bringing you this beautiful story of their friendship. Thank you and God bless. Thank you for listening to the. Veil and God Armour Podcast. bless and be blessed together.