Your Support Helped a Regent Alumna Shed New Light
On The Role of Emotions in Healing Mind, Body and Soul
As a graduate student, Dr. Anita Phillips (SPC ’08) took a neuroscience class as part of her studies at Regent University when she received a revelation from God.
“I saw a neuron, which is a nerve cell. It’s the building block of our thoughts, and it looked like a seedling. I was so struck by that,” she remembers. “I just went diving into scriptures about how we are like trees planted by rivers of water, and he’ll make us a water garden.”
While growing up as a pastor’s kid and pastor’s grandkid, Dr. Phillips watched an older sister suffer with serious mental illness: “At the time, we didn’t understand it, but it was in my heart to find an answer.”
Through her studies at Regent, the bestselling author and licensed trauma counselor seeks to help people who find themselves at war with their emotions. Dr. Phillips insists this “enemy” has been misunderstood for too long, and she offers hope in her new book, The Garden Within.
“We must get in touch with where we are emotionally if we want to renew our minds,” Dr. Phillips shared with the 700 Club audience. “When we look at the Parable of the Sower, Jesus explains that the soil is the heart. And so the plant, which is our mind, is rooted in the soil of our hearts, which is where our emotional space is.”
Thanks to support from friends like you, Dr. Phillips received a scholarship to attend Regent, which provided her with the training she needed to help countless people around the world.
“That was very special to me to have gotten that scholarship,” she told IMPACT. “It was a relief because I would have done anything to pursue my calling, but I’m so grateful that I didn’t have to have the addition of student-loan debt to do it.”
Today, she teaches others how to cultivate a state of emotional well-being that strengthens their bodies, reverses the effects of trauma and enables them to live their most powerful life.
“When we give scholarship funds that support students who need it,” Phillips says, “that clears a path for people to pursue Christian leadership. You have the opportunity to change the world through them.”
