I was interviewed by St. Louis’ Gateway to Dreams magazine Be the Change edition (see the digital version here) about a spiritual approach to mental health and healing. You can see the layout above and below, which included some of my paintings. The text of the interview will be easier for you to read here:
1. There are some marvelous therapeutic services to help people with a variety of mental health problems. What place does spirituality and prayer have to help with mental health?
It is a well established fact that spirituality can be a major part of a mental health solution. The effectiveness of spiritual solutions regarding mental health has been proven so powerful that the armed forces now recommend it as a good way to handle PTSD, for example. There are several reasons that this is true.
First, putting ourselves in a context of something greater and more infallibly reliable than ourselves is reassuring. It can relieve feelings of burden, overwhelm, and a false sense of responsibility. Coming to understand that you are an offspring of a greater, benevolent whole, can soothe, comfort, and encourage you. Often when those with mental health challenges get a clear perspective that is beyond their own, the sense of release can be profound.
Secondly, it is not only about getting an understanding of a Supreme Being who is in loving control, but also required, is obtaining a more healthy sense of yourself within that context. Understanding that God made you as God’s image and likeness, as the Bible states in the first chapter of Genesis, replaces the necessity of being self made, or of being a product of your experiences and fears. What you’ve been through is not what you are.
Understanding that you were already made complete and are already approved of by the Creator of the Universe also helps. This is a much stronger premise for understanding yourself, than your feelings of brokenness, confusion, despair, or trepidation. This more spiritual sense of self gives you an identity upon which to build your life, and progress into your future, with peace and dominion.
So the place spirituality has in mental health is in providing a strong, positive foundation for one’s self image, which undergirds one with trustworthiness, security, and acceptance. Made and sustained by a loving God, each one of us is equipped to express all of God’s qualities and attributes. Instead of being lost and floundering, each of God’s offspring can discover their unique purpose and contribution, and feel supported in bringing that to fruition.
2. Have you been contacted by anyone with a mental health problem looking for help? If so, what was the situation? Was there a healing?
Yes, I have. People seeking spiritual help from anxiety is quite common, and I’ve worked with people to get over suicidal tendencies as well. And yes, complete freedom was found through spiritual means, with their joy, gratitude, and stability completely restored.
3. What is the difference between managing mental health and healing this difficulty?
The biggest difference is that when something is healed spiritually, the problem does not reoccur, or require ongoing treatment. Spiritual healing is a paradigm shift, and once that occurs, you do not return to problems outgrown. By comparison, simply managing mental health seems like merely limping along, coping or grappling with it on a human level, with relapse a distinct possibility.
4. What are some ideas that people can use with any mental health situation?
Usually those struggling with mental health troubles, are starting from the problem, identifying with it, and trying to handle it from this vantage point. That doesn’t work. You can’t solve a problem on the same level as the problem.
If your problem is 2+2=5, it is messing up all your efforts, and a better understanding is needed. Getting entrenched in claiming your problem (2+2=5 ) is real and true and using that as your starting point to try to find a solution will inevitably fail. What needs to be understood in this example? Yes, the fact that actually 2+2=4 instead. This new insight will clear up your issues in addition.
Likewise, if your starting point is you are anxious, or depressed, or angry, or you feel you can’t cope anymore, those issues are not best handled by getting entrenched in identifying with them as true about you. I recommend obtaining a higher, more spiritual view of yourself, as you were made and are loved by God. I believe God did not cause or condone our problems, and since God did not make them, we don’t have to suffer from them. They only need to be corrected by what is true, like we did in that math example above.
The Bible promises that, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) This delicious freedom comes from a better understanding of ourselves made in God’s image and likeness, blameless, upheld, cherished, and defended. When you align your self concept with the way God actually made you, mental health is restored and you are free to soar and rejoice.
I am a Christian Science practitioner, which is someone who helps people heal through prayer and a better understanding of God and themselves. Christian Scientists define God as Truth, Life, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, and Principle. These synonyms are other names for God. They are enormously helpful in both understanding God’s nature better, as well as our own as God’s reflection. When you understand God as Life, God is as close as your next breath. That Truth we just talked about, which makes you free, is also God. God is the Principle or law upon which the whole creation harmoniously operates. God’s creation is governed by Love, since God is Love.
Notice too, that one of those synonyms, or names for God, is the divine Mind. If we are made in God’s image and likeness as the Bible assures us (in Genesis 1:27), we reflect all the brilliance, intelligence, calm, and assurance of the divine Mind, which set the planets in their orbits. The Bible asserts that, “To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity: for it is not subject to the law of God.” (Romans 8:6-7)
Spiritual healing of mental health cases stems from identifying with the divine Mind that made you, instead of the carnal mind that is an imposter that goes rogue and is always erroneous. Fortunately that carnal mind is not actually you. When you associate with God’s version of you, instead of your own misconception of yourself or your situation, mental health can very much clear up and no longer thwart you.
Jesus healed mental illness in the Bible, and he left plenty of breadcrumbs to show us how to do it as well. When Jesus healed someone, he saw them and identified them as God– the divine Mind– made them and knows them to be, and not by the overlay of appearances being put forth by the carnal mind. This correct view brought healing, just like 2+2=4 helped your math problems come out right.
So if you are struggling with mental health, I encourage you to turn to God and get a better understanding of yourself from God’s point of view. Trust the supreme God that created butterflies and rainbows, mountains and tides, to not have made any mistake when making you. You are God’s best and highest idea. You are essential, precious, needed, beloved, accepted, and protected. Under God’s wing you are safe, and can shed permanently all that is unlike good.
Polly Castor, CS
The paintings of mine shown were topically chosen to go with the text. Their titles are:
