The most important indicator of good mental health

I’m going to say it right up front.  The most important indicator of good mental health is IN-SIGHT—that ability to see TRULY, as all of life actually is, i.e., ourselves, others, situations, etc, and to live out of this truth.

First and foremost, it’s seeing that you’re beloved and second, and just as important, it’s seeing that you’re fallible.

If we can’t see the first state—that we’re beloved—we end up with horrendous self-image and are prone forever more to spiritual attack.

If we can’t see the second state—that we’re fallible—we end up hurting others.

If we can’t see either, we’re a danger to ourselves AND others.  The saddest thing about this, apart from the threat we pose to others, is we stand far apart from the true blossoming potential every human being possesses.

But with insight—that ability to truly see what truth there is to see—we can accept ourselves for who we are, and we can accept it when we fail.  With the capacity to endure the moment’s shame and guilt for what they are, we’re not crushed by the circumstance of acute embarrassment for falling short.  Paradoxically, when shame and guilt are faced in those moments of getting it wrong, they’re processed quickly; they don’t stick, meaning they only stick when we’re acutely ashamed of our shame and resentful we feel guilty.

With insight, we’re not crushed, because our fate does not lie in our performance.

Our fate is not in what we do or don’t do, it’s in WHO we are.  Not that this is any excuse to do what is inconceivably wrong—nobody with insight would wilfully harm others or themselves.

Yet, because we’ve all had times lacking in insight—when our mental health was askew for instance—we’ve engaged in harmful activities.

The greatest gift on earth is what those in the Old Testament called “the fear of the LORD,” which is a much-unexplained concept.  The fear of the LORD is true sight.

But you and I might have the wrong perceptions for what this truly is.

True sight is picking ourselves up in our BIAS.  Who does this routinely?  No, we typically live in bias—a cacophony of unconscious bias a lot of the time.  And it doesn’t matter who we are.  Insight is the humility to see when we fall for the lie of a false perception.  My typical personal default is picking myself up in my bias AFTER the event or overcompensating for it BEFORE the event.  Of course, it’s better to see your wrong ‘better late than ever’ but it’s still a fallibility.

Insight helps us to know that “the heart is deceptive.”  (Jeremiah 17:9)  Yes, the fact of unconscious biases proves this concept.  But insight helps.  Insight helps us have a healthy distrust of our first perceptions, enough in fact to fact-check them.

The prayers of Psalm 139:23-24 and John 4:24 say, “God, help me SEE,” for seeing is worshipping in Spirit and in TRUTH.  A person with insight cannot live in perpetuating a lie.

The best contributions we make in life is to see ourselves, others, circumstances, and things AS THEY ACTUALLY ARE.  Nobody is due the disdain of violence, not even those who are violent.  When we kill others with our thoughts, we kill the very idea in ourselves that we’re beloved.

Everyone is both beloved and fallible.  The blessed can see this both about themselves and others at the same time.

This is the mental health we need to nurture in ourselves and others—the capacity for true sight of IN-SIGHT.

Photo by Nathan Maduta on Unsplash

The descent of spiritual attack when panic overcomes reason

It’s happened countless times to me, and it still strikes bewilderment in me how quickly the descent can occur.  Whether you believe in spiritual forces or not, there is without doubt something that happens within our psyches when plummeting or triggering occurs.

It can be circumstantial, in that something happens to bring you undone in an instant, it can be a slow build up that carries you over the cusp, and just as much it can happen for any inexplicable reason, leaving you more confused and dazed than you’ve ever been.

We fear these moments where we’re at the complete mercy of whatever darkness prevails.  The only good thing about these descents is that they force a response out of us a lot of the time, and unless they completely disable us, we normally can claw our way out or endure it.

Another positive that comes from such an event is the fact that denial is no longer an option.  When your hand is forced behind your back, you have no choice but to wince, and the same thing occurs when mental wellbeing descends at a rate of knots.

First, it’s to refuge, but ultimately there’s some response to fight your way back.

This is not just a panic attack, although panic attacks fit the realm.  It’s every variety of mental and emotional descent, whether it can be explained or not, and so often it’s not.

The descent of spiritual attack when panic overcomes reason seems illogical to those who’ve never suffered it.  But I’ve also known plenty of people—myself included—who once held to the belief that reason could always control such moments.

The fact is reason might add up, but in these moments, you cannot access the solidity in reason, and you descend into panic anyway.

Strategies that have helped me at these times:

1.             Get yourself safe first and foremost, even if that means departing from public places in a relative hurry.  Especially if you’re prone right now, have yourself an out planned and prepared for the moment of acute social anxiety.  You have no apologies to make to anyone when you’re all at sea.

2.             Connecting with safe people who can be present with you or pray with you or for you.  Prayer really does help on a lot of occasions.

3.             Deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation can help, because they’re physical interventions.  Meditation can help for some.

4.             Remind yourself that “this, too, shall pass,” especially if you consider how previous episodes have run.

5.             Be mindful that every experience puts you closer to effective strategies that will work for future.  Despite the pain, nothing’s wasted.

6.             Where you can, nurture relationships where those you rely on understand your mental health status and situation.  You don’t need an impossible relationship or two to manage when you’re already battling huge spiritual attacks within mental health disequilibrium.

7.             Where you can, speak your way through attacks of guilt and shame in ways of affirming your intent is for good and not for harm, that you’re doing your best and that always needs to be good enough, because it’s all you’ve got.

Photo by Alec Douglas on Unsplash

Embrace your depression, your hardship, your truth – don’t fear it

There is a lot to fear in living out the traumas in real life.  It can seem that there’s so much to lose and so little to gain.  You pick up the pieces of your life at any given point—you reflect—and you hope as you pray.  Then you read this:

“... we have two fundamental needs.  One need that’s with us in infancy and it’s absolute and it’s non-negotiable is attachment.  And so the other need then is authenticity.  Authenticity therefore is the connection to ourselves.  Without authenticity and without a gut connection with ourselves, how long do you survive out there in nature?”
—Dr. Gabor Maté

We exile our own pain when we refuse to face it.  When we refuse to face it, we cannot overcome it, and it simply stays there as the dormant (or not-so-dormant) trigger that springs up to create a relapse.

The gift we can give ourselves at any time is authenticity.  If we can be authentic with ourselves, we can be authentic with others, even as we have confidence within ourselves to confidently face the world we walk out into.

As we embrace our maladies of being—our depression, our sense of being at odds with our world, our hardships, the truth we face and attest to being our reality—we liberate what we cannot escape from.  In other words, there are states of being we all experience that are inescapable—if we can’t escape then why don’t we learn to courageously embrace them?

We don’t embrace these hideous realities because we’re scared, we’ll plummet further, but if we can embrace them, we reverse our default attitude.

Instead of fearing things will get worse, we focus our energy on just being mindful and the fear dissipates.  Then we can connect with ourselves, and authenticity comes into view, and we feel better attached to ourselves.

Insisting on controlling what we cannot control is not a sensible strategy.  When mental health is down, rather than fight our reality, we’re better to move through it by moving WITH it.  It’s about being gentler with ourselves.

As we accept what we cannot in that moment change, we take the pressure down, and peace comes closer to our grasp.

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash

Your scars are beauty for others

There is a purpose in trauma, but it’s not about glorifying anything that should not have happened in the first place.  It’s so sad that trauma that every single one of us bears some level of trauma.  We’ll all bear trauma in this life, so the purpose in trauma is to face the shame because it ought not be feared.

“Easy for you to say,” and I hear you.

Before we face our trauma, our scars look grotesque, and they make us feel nauseous.  They disable us.  They cause us to look for peace in substances and harmful practices—these only make our trauma worse.

There is one thing, and one thing only, that stands in our way, sorry two.  We, ourselves, need the boldness to enter the arena of our own suffering—but know this, FACING our pain is easier than we think—if the second dynamic is in play.

The second dynamic is another person who will hold you as they listen to you and validate your experience.  You certainly know the experience of those who did not hold you, who did not listen to you, who did not validate your experience—because they were the source of further trauma for you.

Rather than amend the pain, they increased the pain, and your biggest challenge is to trust again.  The worst thing is to trust someone who looks trustworthy, who then betrays that trust all over again, and actually destroys your agency for vulnerability.  You can feel beyond trusting anyone ever again.

But no matter what betrayals you’ve suffered, there is sufficient hope of resilience in you to trust one particular kind of person; that person is the wounded healer.

Wait for them to arrive on your doorstep; do not seek them out.  Many will promise to be this person, and they many come with an agenda.

It’s those who arrive in your life that have no agenda who are trustworthy.

The reason the wounded healer will be a source of life to you is that they’ve been there right where you’re at now.  They’ll never betray your trust, because a wounded healer helped them, and once you’ve been helped by a wounded healer you know the pattern of the holy work wounded healers do.

They ‘travel with’ you in your journey of sharing the shame within your pain.  Their empathy is implicit and somehow in the simple act of listening, holding, and caring presence, they demonstrate to you—perhaps for the first time you’ve experienced—that they’re safe.  It’s as if magic happens.  You process your pain as you’re met by their presence.

The most beautiful part is what comes next.  You see what they did, you note how much it helped you, you feel healed beyond where you ever thought you’d get to.  Suddenly you’re living a life you always dreamed was possible, yet didn’t dare to hope for.

Then you want to pay it forward, because, at that very moment, you come to realise the holy calling on YOUR life—you, too, have become a wounded healer.

You see, your scars are beauty for others.  Only the scarred can see this gift that you carry—the capacity to hold, to listen, to validate, and to offer answers without speaking many words, other than sharing your own story.

Your experiences no matter how painful are life to others, and in sharing all this, there’s even more healing, for them and for you.

We learn in all this that scars can be beautiful, but only when we de-shame ourselves through sharing our pain in the presence of caring others.

 Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

 

Spiritual freedom is closer than most of us know

Much of the reason there’s so much anger in the world is there’s so much projected hatred.  Projected, because what isn’t faced comes from within a person and the person projects that anger as hatred onto anyone or anything that doesn’t agree with their biases.

Anger is always a sign of something deeper—unreconciled frustration, sadness, fear, intense and primal dissatisfaction, disappointment, disheartenment.

I’ve learned long ago now to not listen to, and to especially distrust, voices that always seem mad.  There’s too much oxygen given to angry voices today, and it’s a great pity that the algorithms prefer antagonism.

The spiritual life is closer than we think.  But the angrier we are, the further it is from our grasp.  The saddest thing is there are people who literally exist for antagonism who stand as so-called spiritual paragons—leaders—but they lead us into an abyss away from the hope of joy.

The spiritual life that we all deep down crave is found in the inquiry into our anger.  To simply ask a curious, non-judgmental why?  Could it be that the very things I’m angry about remind me of the things I don’t like about myself—or, that reveal my weakness?  Am I livid because, secretly, and deep down inside, I’m ashamed of how I didn’t act when I could have?  Am I afraid that justice won’t ultimately be done?  Does this cause me to take justice into my own hands?

The moment we’re settled within ourselves about the things of life we cannot change, that’s the moment we’re spiritually free—nothing materially is holding us to ransom.

Spiritual freedom comes when we’re materially free.

This is not about not caring.  It’s about caring for the things that really can be impacted for good.  It’s about being wise enough to carve out time, energy, and resources to make a difference, however tiny it is, in this world.  It’s being satisfied with small wins.

It’s about caring for the right things in the right way, because, let’s face it, there are a million and more issues that will capture our attention and divide us from all effectiveness.

We’re nothing if we can’t come from a spiritual base of stillness, appreciating the simple things, grateful for the mercy extended to us, and committed to working for good.  That goodness must come from a heart that feeds on goodness.

The spiritual freedom in life that is so much closer than we think is hidden, like the Kingdom of God, in our own hearts—it’s that close, it’s IN us.  It’s within reach and it’s within our capability.

The key is going within, being honest, learning to stay honest, resisting all self-judgment.

We need to turn from pointing the finger at others in criticism to seeing the beauty that resides in ourselves.

When we view ourselves as lovely and acceptable, we see the good in others.

When we know how much mercy has been extended to us, we extend mercy to others.

Photo by Michael Fenton on Unsplash

Honesty transforms hurt into healing

Honesty never hurt anything.  But the truth can certainly hurt.  Our pride.  Or, when the truth is a hurtful reality, like a betrayal.  Or, when it’s communicated without love.  But ordinarily, honesty is salt.  It cleanses, it purifies, it clarifies, it highlights what’s real.

Honesty from the start means there is no betrayal.  From the start, and throughout, what you see is what you get.  You’re under no false apprehension and assumptions don’t have ground to fester upon.  Yes, honesty requires moral courage.

Yet, we think it’s easier to save ourselves and/or the other person the pain of the truth.

A sad reality for us all is we can’t handle truth all the time in all circumstances.

Why?  It’s fear.  Of missing out.  Of not getting what we want.  Of someone getting what we want, and us feeling jealous.  Of our worst nightmares coming true.  Of getting what we don’t want, which is often just as hard to contemplate than missing out on what we do want.

But the truth can’t hurt us if we’re ready to embrace it.  The acceptance of truth will immediately deliver joy.  Yet, an acceptance that we do not yet accept the truth—that we’re still struggling to accept it—is just as much a thing to take us past our hurt into healing.

Grounding this topic in something hard but altogether healing, we all struggle with truths of others and ourselves.

In the blink of an eye, we’d have others and ourselves changed.  But we can impact only one of these—ourselves.

Others we cannot change, not our children, not our parents, not our friends, not our enemies, not even our employees or those we have direct influence over.  It’s folly to think we can.

When we accept this truth—I mean REALLY accept it, by our behaviour aligning with our attitude—we stop insisting on doing the impossible.  Then, with the impetus for hurt removed, as we decide to get out of the way, we and others begin to heal.

This is not about accepting what everyone does.  Sometimes it means that if people make decisions that affect us adversely, that reality forces us into making consequential decisions called boundaries or discipline or tough-loving action for the betterment of the other and ourselves.

We can’t shift what they do, but we can shift what we can do.

When the truth as it stands is accepted, more hopeful possibilities come into view.

But I know that for so many—all of us in fact—accepting truth is a journey, sometimes, in some situations, without destination.  Some truths are impossible to unknow or undo or redo.  Some truths are just very hard.  So there are exceptions to every rule.

Still, for most of life this truth remains: honesty will heal more than it hurts, and where it hurts it proves the straighter line to healing every time than deception ever could.

Truth is infinitely better than a lie.  Honesty heals, lies hurt.

Honesty transforms hurt into healing.

Photo by Madara Parma on Unsplash

The thankful funeral

I’ve had the privilege of conducting several funerals, memorial services, and interments, along with many palliative care visitations, and journeying with those close to death.  When you think about it—this is something I think about at EVERY funeral—it’s only a matter of time before each of us is the only one not alive in the body at our own funeral!

Sobering.  I guess.

And certainly, as I reflect, especially at tragic funerals, some leave you impacted deeply.

But what makes a funeral remarkable in the best of ways?

I think of it as a thankful funeral—like the dear loved one who said to me recently, in the context of her own eventual death, “I’m not actually a sad person.”

It’s actually my mother that said that—a person who approaches life with joy despite the challenges, like many have.  I’m so thankful to be able to have some of these precious conversations now, before the time passes for such opportunities—none of us is guaranteed passage into tomorrow.

Each day is an exquisite gift.  Nobody knows the time, day, hour, or second where the grant for their life in this world is revoked.

It kind of hit home that some people would hate for people to feel overwhelming sorrow rather than be thankful for what their life stood for, and how they lived it—joy, gratitude, humour, thankfulness, and the like.

Sure, everyone has their right to grieve exactly as they do and will.  Nobody has the right to question a person, or judge them, for how they experience loss and express grief.

So, it’s wonderful when the thankful funeral occurs when the person’s life is celebrated.  Within thankfulness there’s still room for sorrow, sadness for the fact that they’re no longer to fill their space in our lives.

One thing I love about planning funerals is the thought that many put in through their own planning, to exercise control that only they can—usually by saying, “Make it a celebration of my life, the way I lived it, the impact I was able to make... for the good purposes of life.”

Some funerals, it must be said, can be no other than anguished requiems, however.  No disputing that.  I’ve conducted a few of those, where the people who attend to mourn come in that confused state of the deepest, most perplexing, confounding grief.  There are no apologies needed or given, and it is just as much an honour serving at those funerals and meeting the aggrieved the best I can.  The rawness of grief leaves airs and graces at the door, and there is great capacity for honesty, which I love.

Then there are the oft-common funerals in this day when hardly anyone’s allowed to attend.  I don’t think any of us has ever anticipated such a day where so few would be able to attend, except the epidemiologists.  I empathise for your pain if you’ve been blindsided like this.

It’s a great honour to attend a thankful funeral, where the person is celebrated, and there is joy for their memory, to remember them with fondness for the positive impact they made in our lives.

This is also an opportunity to reflect on the legacy we, ourselves, are leaving.  Like the Stephen Covey ‘Seven Habits for Highly Effective People’ training I did 15 years ago—what will people say about you are your funeral.  Leaves us always with something to ponder.

Restoring empathy in compassion fatigue

It’s normal for caring people, when their care is extended too far for too long, to experience fatigue, and most disconcertingly, it’s encountered through waning empathy.

And it’s a shock.  Anyone who prides themselves on the capacity to empathise, when that empathy ebbs away, it can feel like one of the deepest crises of self possible.

Yet here is a paradox; we can’t go further on in our empathy of caring without having come to one of these precipices.

Like I was reminded today—thanks SH—we don’t feel resilient amid the battle, we only feel it post battle.  But resilience comes in the struggle, even though we hate every part of it.

Restoring empathy in compassion fatigue is pretty simple in theory, but much harder in practice, though are not impossible, especially when we understand and embrace the theory.

The thing that has always reconnected me with my empathy, to ward against compassion fatigue, has been to get in touch with how much empathy I NEED.

For me—within the realm of faith—this is about FEELING God’s empathy for me; the depth of divine love for a sojourner who’s lost his way temporarily, not through misadventure as much as through burnout, not flippantly or carelessly but through hyperdiligence.

Compassion fatigue is a style of burnout that leaves our spirit withered, dry, and vulnerable to all kinds of attacks.  It is the customary default to judge ourselves for an apparent hardness of heart.  But the questioning person will always ask why.

Why did I become so jaded?  And why does it bother me.  (If it didn’t bother you, that would be the real problem.)

Another question: why doesn’t this person or situation seem as important as it once would have been?

These are crucial questions.  Questions like these are curious questions, not judging questions.

The moment we hear someone tell us that it was good intent and not bad intent that got us into this situation, we should begin to judge ourselves less, and then receive a portion of empathy towards ourselves.

What is it like to receive this empathy toward ourselves?

It’s seeing how much we’re worthy of it.  It’s seeing how much of ourselves we’ve poured out in love for others.  That’s got to mean something, right?  It’s accepting what we did for the best was our best, and nobody could’ve asked anything more of us.

Do you get the picture?  It’s seeing all the things of truth that testify in our defence.

I can tell you, that God is for you and not against you, and even if you are against yourself, I can tell you that God is for you.  Especially if you’ve poured out your life as a libation, there’s nothing more deserved than a recovery.  To heal.

And in the mode of recovery, we find that we learn something about empathy for ourselves that we get to take away.  None of that knowledge of the negative power of compassion fatigue is wasted.  The very experience of compassion fatigue is itself a life experience, and once we’ve experienced it, we are less likely to repeat the dose.

So restoring empathy in compassion fatigue is a journey, and it can be a blessed one at that.

Just because you don’t feel the empathy at present doesn’t mean it’s gone forever.  It’s likely that you’re about to learn a deeper empathy than you’ve ever had.  That’s a gift, but not without pain, so receive empathy for yourself.

Photo by Gabrielle Claro on Unsplash

The impact of those 8 amnioreduction procedures

Most people who follow what I write are well aware of the season of our lives that begin 7 years ago today, when we got the results of an ultrasound scan, and the doctor gave us the devastating news that we were in for a long journey that would not end well.

Here’s an excerpt from a reflection the day after:

Those doctor’s eyes and the sternness in his resolve and even the humidity in his eyes; the instant of silence spoke like a megaphone of what we were about to hear.

That pressurised burning sensation in the chest, the excruciating mindfulness of the moment, time sort of standing still while the emotions scramble to keep up; the doctor walks into his office and sits down, deliberating, pensive, very considered.

Certain words leave their mark. “Internal structures,” “compression of the lungs,” “herniated diaphragm,” and “enlarged kidneys,” all resound like a resonating gong in the hyperconscious seconds.

That moment was both big and surreal—deep reaching yet large enough as a moment in time that it feels like a myth.

~

Back to the present.

It was last week, when Sarah preached about pain, where she talked about the 8 amnioreduction procedures she had to undergo between August 12 and October 26, 2014, that I realised the gravity of what her pregnancy with Nathanael truly cost her.  I knew, but I didn’t quite know the full extent.

As Sarah spoke, she talked about the pain of her womb swelling so much she was at risk of bursting—both during the procedures where a large needle was inserted in her abdomen to extract 2-litres of amniotic fluid from her uterus each time—and at any other time when her womb might rupture without warning.

Each amnioreduction took place during the late morning or early afternoon, and the procedure would take 1-2 hours, that needle stuck in her belly under ultrasound so the needled would draw from a part of her womb clear of Nathanael.  On one occasion, blood (his blood) was drawn.  Each procedure was tricky.  The science for this procedure was actually pioneered at King Edward Memorial Hospital by Professor Jan Dickinson, our doctor.  After each procedure, Sarah was offered overnight care at the hospital.  Sometimes we did that because she felt ill, but mostly she rested at home.

The risk to Sarah’s immediate medical health with a rupture of her womb within her body was obvious, yet we took this in our stride, a bit cluelessly I should add.  We seemed to have so many other extraneous issues going on at the time.

Some of these issues should have not been issues, but we definitely felt the enemy behind the spiritual attack of multiple prongs of stress all at once.  Not one, but three huge issues in concert.  And though we had support for one issue, the other two we felt alone in the battle—apart from, obviously, God’s help.  We did feel carried in our faith by all the unknown prayers that were being prayed for us, but if only people back then knew what we were really facing.  The longer time’s gone on hasn’t really eased the question, why?

The photo (above or below, depending on your view) was taken when Sarah was 30 weeks pregnant.  She’d looked that big (full term) since about the 25-week mark.  Nathanael’s diagnosis with Pallister-Killian Syndrome and the diaphragmatic hernia meant he was producing a huge amount of amniotic fluid and Sarah’s body couldn’t excrete it fast enough, hence the constant build-up of a litre per week of extra fluid.

In the years since, there have been other losses associated with this style of problematic pregnancy, and it would be fair to say that both Sarah and I have been affected and impacted—Sarah directly, myself more indirectly—and we will continue to be affected and impacted in the longer term, because of the nature of what Sarah’s body went through.

These affects and impacts are physical, relational, intellectual, emotional, and even sexual.  These are things that we’ve adjusted to, but they’re affects and impacts just the same.  I know many women and couples will relate to what I’m saying.

These are issues so many of us are called to adjust to throughout our lives.  They’re very real losses that need to be grieved and that we may continue to grieve.  To grieve is okay.

Only as we grieve together do we appreciate the true value of community.  It deepens our path through life.  This is how we mature, by bearing burdens together.

As I step back 7 years ago today, to our first realisation that, like sliding doors, we were entering uncharted territory, I’m grateful for the emotional and spiritual healing we’ve experienced since.

You the reader may get sick of me rehashing this, year after year, but it’s something for me that will never go away.  I’d do anything to keep Nathanael’s memory alive, especially considering the attention I can still give my four living children.

~

7 years ago today, we faced down for the first time the threat of the death of our baby who would die, just four months later.  Still, at least at that time we had him.  At that time, he was still alive, even if we had to trek a journey of medical procedures to endure.

Image: Ray Brown (Sarah’s father).