Hey, this is Dr Anita Phillips. Welcome back to In the Light. I have to begin this episode by saying thank you for welcoming me to the podcast universe with open arms. In our first episode I honored my older sister Valerie

whose life was so heavily defined and cut short by her mental illness.

I wanted you to know that she is my wise and cut short by her mental illness.

I wanted you to know that she is my why for this work,

but to do that I had to take the risk

of giving you a very private part of my heart

and you made sure I would never regret it. And of course the episode was

extra special because my mother joined me and so vulnerable shared how painful the

journey was for her as Val's mom.

If you haven't listened to the first episode, please do download it because I'm about to pick

up right where I left off.

If you did hear it, you'll definitely remember the moment

when my mom admitted that she desperately wanted to understand why.

Why was this happening to her child? Why was this happening to her family? Why was it happening to her?

Why was it happening to her? She said it. She said, I asked God why. He never answered me, but I never stopped serving him. I couldn't.

I loved him. That moment blew me away. And now I know it blew you away too because in

DMs, Facebook messages, post comments, instant stories, no other words from

episode one were quoted more often than those.

So I think we should talk about it.

Why did it hit us so hard and how can we use that hit to explore our emotional and spiritual health?

So why did those words hit so hard?

Well, because they brought up really important questions.

...