170 : Can the Church Become Trauma-Informed? | Dr. Sabrina Gunn Pt 2
Mental Health, Trauma, and Emotionally Healthy Leadership
What if instead of asking, “What's wrong with you?” we became curious enough to ask, “What happened to you?”
In Part Two, Megan Babcock and Dr. Sabrina Gunn explore how churches can better support people navigating trauma, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and mental health challenges without excusing unhealthy behavior or trying to replace professional care.
They discuss why trauma-informed ministry begins with emotionally healthy leaders, how unresolved wounds can affect the way we lead and respond to others, and practical ways churches can create environments where people feel safe enough to be honest, receive support, and heal.
Because when we understand what's happening beneath someone's behavior, we can respond with greater truth, wisdom, compassion, and appropriate support.
Key Takeaways
- Shift from “What's wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” Understanding someone's story helps us become curious about what may be underneath the behavior.
- Trauma-informed doesn't mean excusing harmful behavior. Compassion, accountability, healthy boundaries, and safety can—and should—exist together.
- Not every struggle is purely spiritual. Trauma, mental health, physical health, sleep, hormones, attachment, and other factors can influence how someone thinks, feels, and responds.
- Churches can provide meaningful support without replacing therapy. Education, workshops, trained support teams, community resources, and relationships with qualified professionals can help churches respond more effectively.
- Healthy churches begin with healthy leaders. Understanding our own attachment patterns, emotional histories, trauma responses, and relational patterns changes how we lead others.
- Regulation helps us create safety. Whether we're pastors, parents, coaches, teachers, healthcare professionals, or organizational leaders, our ability to regulate ourselves affects our capacity to support someone else.
- Getting to the root creates the opportunity for lasting change. Instead of focusing only on behavior modification, we can become curious about what is driving the pattern and learn how to respond differently.
From Self-Leadership to Impact
We cannot consistently help other people find calm if we don't know how to find it ourselves.
When we learn to recognize activation, regulate our nervous systems, understand our patterns, and intentionally choose how we respond, we increase our capacity to be present with someone else's pain without immediately judging it, fixing it, fearing it, or becoming overwhelmed ourselves.
This matters whether you're leading a congregation, raising children, coaching a client, caring for a patient, managing a team, or simply trying to love the people God has placed around you well.
Healing isn't about becoming less spiritual.
It's about becoming more integrated, more mature, and more fully aligned with the person God created us to be.
Bring This Conversation to Your Church or Organization
Connect with Dr. Sabrina Gunn
Dr. Sabrina Gunn is a faith-based psychiatrist, founder of Exusia Psychiatry, and author of The Regulated Church: Trauma, Attachment, and Kingdom Alignment.
Dr. Sabrina Gunn is a board-certified psychiatrist, author, speaker, and founder of Exousia Psychiatry. Her life’s mission is to help people heal emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and relationally by combining evidence-based psychiatric care with the transformative power of Jesus Christ. After surviving stage III colon cancer, she developed an even deeper passion for helping others experience hope, restoration, and lasting healing while raising awareness of colon cancer in young adults. Dr. Gunn is the author of The Regulated Church: Trauma, Attachment, and Kingdom Alignment, where she explores the intersection of trauma, attachment, nervous system regulation, and biblical discipleship. Whether she is caring for patients, teaching internationally, or equipping churches, Dr. Gunn’s heart is to see people become whole so they can fully walk in the purpose God has for their lives..
If your church, ministry, organization, or leadership team would benefit from training on trauma, attachment, emotional regulation, mental health, and creating healthier environments for the people you serve, consider inviting Dr. Gunn to speak or facilitate a training.
Connect, Invite Dr. Sabrina Gunn to train your church or organization and get her Dr. book, The Regulated Church: Trauma, Attachment, and Kingdom Alignment
https://linktr.ee/dr_sabrina
About the Podcast
It's Your Story to Tell is a podcast where courageous people share the hardest parts of their stories and how they found hope, healing, and transformation.
Through honest conversations rooted in faith, neuroscience, and trauma-informed principles, we explore what it means to overcome adversity, build healthier relationships, strengthen emotional resilience, and discover that your past does not have to define your future.
Every story shared is an invitation to believe that healing is possible and that your story matters.
About the Host
Megan Babcock is a Board Certified Holistic Nurse Coach, Certified Trauma and Crisis Mental Health Coach, Certified Brain Health Coach, Certified Flourishing Coach, speaker, bestselling author, and founder of It's Your Story to Tell, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping individuals heal from life's hardest seasons and discover hope, purpose, and transformation.
Drawing from more than two decades of experience in healthcare, neuroscience-informed coaching, and her own journey of overcoming childhood trauma, abuse, unhealthy relationship patterns, perfectionism, and people-pleasing, Megan helps individuals understand the connection between the brain, nervous system, emotions, relationships, and faith.
She is the creator of The Unstuck Key™, a practical framework that helps people move from overwhelm and reactivity to calm, clarity, and confident communication.
Learn more and get free personal development resources at www.itsyourstorytotell.com
