Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
In a particularly difficult time in my life, before I became a therapist, I remember feeling deep frustration and confusion when I tried to seek help from those around me. As I shared how I was feeling, I was told it’s “just” the “blues”, it’s a condition of your heart, you need to pray more, or was given actions to take without truly feeling heard or understood. At times the action was clear, but something kept me stuck… I was unable to move forward. In fact, part of the problem was that I didn’t know what was going on inside me – all I knew, was that I was becoming increasingly depressed and angry, and I didn’t know how to release or understand the pain that was trapped in my body.
When I entered therapy as part of my graduate degree’s requirements, the tears started flowing… for almost a year and a half my husband and my therapist listened. Validated my pain. Heard my story and my struggles. Helped me see unhealthy patterns that I was living in and out of, that at times I was completely unaware of … because that is all I had known.
Fast forward to present day…. A decade has passed, I now have a graduate degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, a new profession in the world of Counseling, and a new identity filled with Purpose and Meaning. I share that to say that I have now gained a perspective of what it means to not just be outwardly “successful” and “happy,” but being inwardly WHOLE and HEALTHY.
In the field of mental health, neuropsychology specifically, there has been growing awareness and acceptance that coping with distress and healing from trauma is not simply about changing thoughts and behavior. Peter Levine’s SIBAM model conceptualizes our consciousness as having five elements: sensation, images, behavior, affect, and meaning (SIBAM). Albert Wong connects these graphically using a pentagon which helps draw attention to the interconnectedness of these elements. When certain connections become over-emphasized in the brain, the result can outwardly present as PTSD, OCD, panic attacks/anxiety, and hallucinations. Consider then, that the path and methodology for lasting healing and emotional health, should perhaps consider all these different aspects of a person’s awareness and the connection between them.
The familiar verse in Mark 12:28-34 echoes this idea that WHOLENESS entails an integration of parts that are worth drawing attention to. The command to love begins with loving God with our WHOLE BEING; the verse illustrates it in this way:
“…you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
As a therapist, the relationship and distinction of who and how to love in this verse is very thought-provoking next to Levine’s SIBAM model. While the topic of wholeness and the Mind/Soul/Body connection has fueled centuries of literature and debate, most can at least agree that a lack of wholeness and lack of balance can be a result of many, some, or all facets of our overall health.
In the therapy office, I am seeing an increasing number of individuals that are discovering that they have struggled with mental health disorders and/or disabilities that have limited their ability to not only thrive, but to even just function or survive. ADD/ADHD and Autism are examples of disabilities that are at times not outwardly visible, but can be tremendously debilitating (Christianity Today). Without an understanding of how their bodies (specifically their brains and autonomic nervous system) operate, their ability to function in the day to day can be akin to “swimming through concrete”, while they watch everyone else glide effortlessly across the water. This conundrum of an internal “can’t” verses a perceived “won’t” by outsiders can lead to low self-esteem and narratives (beliefs about ourselves) that are harsh and unforgiving, but more tragically, extreme anxiety and a deep depression or burn out that can last for years or decades.
As we consider topics of growth in the church, another facet of wholeness we can consider is -what does it mean to have an “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality”? Why is it that some people can spend their entire lives in church, be the most moral upright active contributors in society, and yet still be unhappy or treat others so harshly and thoughtlessly. Through his personal experience, Pastor Peter Scazzero posits that it is “impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature.” In his book, he draws attention to ten symptoms indicative of unhealthy spirituality:
Using God to run from God
Ignoring the Emotions of Anger, Sadness, and Fear
Dying to the Wrong Things
Denying the Past’s Impact on the Present
Dividing Our Lives into “Secular” and “Sacred” Compartments
Doing for God Instead of Being with God
Spiritualizing Away Conflict
Covering Over Brokenness, Weakness, and Failure
Living Without Limits
Judging Other People’s Spiritual Journey
His antidote to these? Joining together “Emotional Health” with “Contemplative Spirituality”, which he details practically by following the pathway of Knowing Yourself, Breaking the Power of the Past by “Going Back in Order to Go Forward”, Letting Go of Power and Control, Surrendering your Limits, learning to Stop and Breathe, before moving outwards to learning new skills to Love Well.
In his book, Scazzero quotes Irenaeus, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”
In a moving discussion about their journeys of grief, Stephen Colbert (who lost his father and two brothers tragically at the age of 11) baffles Anderson Cooper with a realization that he had learned to "Love the thing that I most wish had not happened"… Colbert explains, “…It's a gift to exist. And with existence comes suffering. There is no escaping that. …I don't want to have happened I want it to not have happened. But if you are grateful for your life, which I think is a positive thing to do, not everybody is and I'm not always. But it is the most positive thing to do. Then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can't pick and choose what you're grateful for.”
He continues,
“…what do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people's loss which allows you connection with that other person which allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it is like to be a human being if it is true that all humans suffer.
And so at a young age, I suffered something so that by the time I was in serious relationships in my life, with friends or with my wife or with my children, is that I understand that everybody is suffering. And however imperfectly, acknowledge their suffering and to connect with them and to love them in a deep way that not only accepts that all of us suffer but also then makes you grateful for the fact that you have suffered so that you can know that about other people. And that's what I mean.
… It's about the fullness of your humanity. What's the point of being here and being human? If you can’t be the most human you can be ... I want to be the most human I can be and that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things that I wish didn't happen, because they gave me a gift.”
In a period of time where we witness unspeakable tragedy and trauma in the news, on social media, and even in our immediate circles of friendship and family… How do you deal with feelings inside you? How do you cope after witnessing those uncomfortable feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, and shame? Do you feel like you have a strong spiritual life, but still find yourself stuck?
Proverbs 19:8 states, “The one who gets wisdom loves life; the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper.” If you think back to the hardest part of your life, could you also claim to be thankful and cherish that difficult time or situation, and continue to welcome the “fullness” of being alive?
At Watershed Group, our therapists are trained to approach every client with an awareness that we are embodied dimensional beings living in a social-cultural context. Collaboratively, we come alongside you in the process of healing, by bringing awareness to these different aspects of mind (ex. thoughts/cognitions/narratives/meaning), body (ex. brain and autonomic nervous system relationship to images/sensations/feelings/behavior), and spirit/soul. You can begin your journey of growth and/or healing by connecting with our therapists, or with our church and community partners and learn to live life more fully and wholly.