Rev. Barbara Meyers

Rev. Barbara Meyers

Master of Divinity

She/Her/Hers...

Rev. Barbara F. Meyers  is an ordained Unitarian Universalist Community Minister. She earned a Masters of Divinity from Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley in 2004 and launched a community ministry specializing in mental health. She is affiliated with Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Fremont, California. She earned a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from the Chaplaincy Institute in 2011. She is certified by the State of California as a Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist.

In her ministry, Barbara works as assistant manager of a peer support center in Fremont, CA, has created a curriculum for congregations to learn how to be more intentionally supportive to people with mental health problems and their families, produced and hosted a public access TV program called Mental Health Matters, produced videos of people telling their mental health recovery stories, worked as assistant manager at a peer-support mental health center, helped to start a counseling center that respected people’s spiritual lives, been a leader in establishing an Accessibility and Inclusion Ministry for her denomination, has helped to lead trainings in Emotional CPR, and led many worship services focused on mental health issues. In 2017 she started a weekly listening project in the Tenderloin District in San Francisco, as part of the Sidewalk Talk effort to sit in a chair on the sidewalk with a sign that says: “Free Listening Here Today.” She is the author of the book “Held – Showing Up for each Other’s Mental Health” published by Skinner House Books in August 2020.

Her ministry is largely motivated by her own personal experience of being a mental health client, and the supportive role that spirituality and religious community played in her recovery. She was hospitalized in 1978 in a psychiatric ward for post-partum depression. This was a difficult experience for her and left her in an unhappy state for years. In 1986 she began to explore the origin of her unhappiness, and one of the things that she tried was meditation. After practicing meditation, she began to be happy, and had a spiritual experience of seeing halos over the heads of some of the most “insignificant” people. She believed that God was trying to tell her something. She went through an experience where she thought she was dying and was again hospitalized believing she had died. But this time, she was not unhappy with where she was. She began to realize that something in her had died: her old view of what was important in life. The psychosis was true like dreams are true. Engagement with a spiritual community was very helpful for her recovery. It eventually led her to leave her previous career as a software engineer and go to seminary to become a minister.

She has worked with people who have mental health problems, as well as others. Her life has been devoted to bringing hope to people who are struggling. She has led many mental health support groups.