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What rights do I have to ‘my time’ if I am practicing taking up my cross? This question reflects a struggle that I’ve heard often in my psychotherapy office from people who value their Christian spirituality. They frequently add, I don’t want to be selfish. By this they mean they do not want to focus on themselves or on their desires. It’s a difficult spot because often the problem is the opposite of selfishness. They are not too focused on themselves, but rather they know themselves too little and would do well to consider more carefully what they want. Here’s another famous C.S. Lewis quote that identifies the deeper problem from The Weight of Glory,
If you asked twenty good [people] today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, they would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self- denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Identifying our desires and our hopes for how we spend our time is part of the faithful practice of Christianity. Rather than repressing them, we need to uncover them and consider them in the light of Love Himself. More on this to come.

SPIRITUAL BYPASS: CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR SPIRITUALLY ACTIVE CLIENTS

1226 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA by Gwen M. White, Psy.D.

We’re pausing our discussion of desires and the small self for a week. Look for more next week.  This seminar focuses on more in-depth training for therapists on addressing the impasse of spiritual bypass with spiritually active Christian clients.

For the clinician working with spiritually active clients, faith can be a great benefit and paradoxically can also become a block to the client’s growth. This seminar explores the current research on this impasse and offers clinical implications, interventions, and an invitation to further dialogue with case materials for discussion.

Regular readers of this blog, will remember the series on spiritual bypass ( January 25, February 1, 8, & 15 of this year). We’ll have space for dialog, questions, and lots of application to case material.  I hope you will consider attending if you’re able. Tickets and additional information are available here: Hallowood Institute Presents – Spiritual Bypass. Continental Breakfast included. APA Continuing Education credits available.

I will present along with my colleague Akua Opoku-Boateng, PhD, LPC. (pictures below)

Follow our Page here on Facebook. Connect with us and the wider community of like-minded professionals in mental health and wellness. There has never been a better time to engage this topic than in the anxiety- and depression-laden world of today!

In Christian spirituality much has been made of self-denial based in passages from the Bible like Luke 9:23 (NRSV), “Then [Jesus} said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’” In a culture like ours in the U.S. where individual rights are heralded as supremely healthy these words could seem foreign or simply crazy. They have certainly been misunderstood often. Some people come to my therapy offices struggling with too much emphasis on their rights and how others violate them and others suffer with too little understanding of themselves as free agents within God’s grace. The latter have been unconsciously focused on choosing to follow what others (not necessarily God) want/demand them to do while thinking they are ‘taking up their cross.’ This becomes a kind of self-annihilation that often results in depression.  This is far from Jesus’ intended application of his message. There is an inherent choice that must be consciously embraced in Jesus’ command to follow.  Both sorts of people I describe here have missed this crucial step.

In C.S. Lewis’ classic exploration of Christian misunderstandings, The Screwtape Letters,  Lewis has his protagonist, a devil named Screwtape, training a new devil in how to tempt a new Christian:

Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient [new Christian] can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered. Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend’s talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tête-à-tête with the friend), that throw him out of gear. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’.

Lewis puts his finger on the dilemma we face as 21st Century Christians. What rights do I have to ‘my time’ if I am practicing taking up my cross? We’ll explore this question for the next few weeks.  I hope you’ll join in.

Follow our Page here on Facebook. Connect with us and the wider community of like-minded professionals in mental health and wellness. There has never been a better time to engage this topic than in the anxiety- and depression-laden world of today!

Last week I wrote about neuroplasticity and how our brains respond to our experiences. This is a strong argument for incorporating spiritual practices into our daily lives. The more we create space for quiet reflection in our schedules, the more opportunity we offer our brains to change and to enlarge our capacity to experience peace and contentment. But practices like centering prayer and contemplation are foreign to many in the U.S. In our busy, consumer culture, pausing isn’t the norm. I’m suggesting that it is wise to do so.

In practices like these, we allow our faith to change our brains. People who practice centering prayer report that it isn’t the moments of silence in prayer alone that draw them to continue, but that the practice also impacts the rest of their day and how they continue to encounter God’s Presence with them. Andrew Newberg, a brain researcher, conducted brain scans on a group of Franciscan nuns who regularly practice contemplative prayer and noted that these practices, “enhance the neural functioning of the brain in ways that improve physical and emotional health.” (see his book, How God Changes Your Brain from Ballantine).

In tumultuous times like ours, we often don’t notice how our brains are being changed and how anxiety increases slowly, but surely in our experience. This is the negative result of neuroplasticity. We are not helpless against this drift toward anxiety. We can help our brains build new neuropathways that are grounded in faith.

Follow our Page here on Facebook. Connect with us and the wider community of like-minded professionals in mental health and wellness. There has never been a better time to engage this topic than in the anxiety- and depression-laden world of today!

Neuroplasticity is a term that has gotten a lot of validation in psychological research. It refers to the brain’s ability to change and form new neural connections throughout life. Here’s a link to a short YouTube video that helpfully summarizes Neuroplasticity in clear language. In the past we believed the brain formed in childhood and remained fairly static, but we now know that isn’t true. Neural pathways develop in early life and are used repeatedly unless there are new situations (injury, disease, or environmental changes) that require alternative pathways to be created. What happens in our lives (environmental changes) can impact our neural connections. This means that within the brain’s design there’s a mechanism for change based in our new experiences. Our spiritual practices are in this category of experience that alters our neural network. The challenge to changing our neuropathways is that lots of repetition is required before the old ways of thinking diminish and the new pathways are strengthened. The lesson of neuroplasticity is that we must not give up too soon.

Spiritual Bypass, as we’ve been thinking about it the last several weeks, occurs when the old neuropathways based in our early life experience are not challenged effectively (repeatedly) by our current experiences with God. We unconsciously carry expectations of others rooted in the past and react accordingly which may cause us to miss many moments of genuine and intimate encounter with God and others because we perceive what’s going on around us based in the old ways of thinking or in the language of neuroplasticity, based in neuropathways remaining connected in old ways. This way of thinking adds new light to famous passages in the Bible like 2 Corinthians 5:17, noting that in Christ old things pass away and Ephesians 4:20-24, teaching that our former or ‘old self’ is set aside. The famous story of Nicodemus coming to Jesus (John 3) and hearing that to be a follower of Jesus, he must be born again takes on new meaning as well. True spirituality that escapes Spiritual Bypass is full of surprise encounters within and with others as our neural pathways change from old repeated connections to continually renewing ones, based in current experience. God meets us in the present and frees us from our former hurts, fears, and old neural pathways that lead us to erroneous conclusions and often unconscious limiting of our joy.

Continuing our conversation about Spiritual Bypass…A quick review. Spiritual Bypass is the very common, but unconscious use of spiritual disciplines/practices/beliefs to avoid the difficult process of addressing internal conflicts or anxieties that threaten to press into our conscious experience and disrupt our sense of calm. They may challenge our view of ourselves as a devout person or defy our sense of acceptable doctrine. If these thoughts and feelings become conscious, we fear our faith will be destroyed and so ward them off. We pray harder, longer, better…but inadvertently we’ve taken charge of our belief system in a way that prevents a genuine encounter with God. We’re stuck being someone we aren’t, perpetually producing an image of ourselves to others and even to ourselves by believing correctly. This often leads to a rigidity in ability to adapt to life’s challenges and we end up cut off from ourselves, others and particularly from God. It’s hard to detect on our own because so much of the process is unconscious.

Research scientists have compiled a strong body of evidence that spiritual techniques are associated with stress relief and declines in depression and anxiety. (Here’s a link to a short summary piece on this from HuffPost: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/prayer-improves-health_b_9…). The relationship between prayer and spiritual health has been measured and participants’ feel closer to God and report a stronger sense of identity which may explain the symptom relief related to depression and anxiety; however, if a person is unconsciously repeating old patterns of thoughts and feelings as s/he relates to God (which is often the case when practices and beliefs are held over longer periods of time), the benefits may disappear. What’s happening within at more unconscious levels is that the person has shifted from an earlier openness about genuine feelings of need, fault or anxiety and is bypassing these negative feelings by shaping their prayer to meet expected demands that reflect their past experience with early caregivers more than a present and genuine encounter with divine Love.

So prayer must be practiced with a ruthless openness. We must pause and assess what we actually feel, think and believe in the moment and wonder what hidden yearnings may be active just under the surface of our awareness. I believe, but help my unbelief (Mark 9:24) is a needed and curative prayer for us all. More on this next week.

Last week, in writing about Spiritual Bypass, I stated, when we numb out negative thoughts and feelings, even if our conscious intent is to be faithful to God by doing so, we numb out all feeling and thwart genuine growth. The unavoidable psychological reality is that when our unconscious fears lead us to block instead of welcome our genuine thoughts and feelings, we inevitable block our growth as well. Our practices of prayer can thus, either hinder our growth if we slide unconsciously into Spiritual Bypass or they can offer us much needed space, psychological safety and comfort to process unconscious material within us that needs attention.

If you’ve finding yourself bored when you pray or unable to stay focused for very long that can be a clue that change is needed. Something is amiss and your unconscious mind is brewing for change. If you find yourself distressed and angry with God and unable to communicate freely with God that too is a clue that change is needed. If you feel distant from God when you once felt close, there may be feelings that you’ve been afraid to feel lurking in your unconscious mind and creating this sense of distance.

What should we do when we suspect we’ve fallen into an unhelpful practice or set of beliefs? Make space for the negative and wait. Contemplative prayer is a centuries old tradition within Christianity (see https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/ for detailed information). Although these practices began long before we had psychological language for them, they open us up to deeper, unconscious thoughts and feelings that can influence our experiences with others including our experiences with God. Buddhist thought has impacted much of the psychological literature over the last decade with a special emphasis on mindfulness.

These practices have existed within Christian tradition as well. It’s unfortunate that many contemporary Christians have been taught to fear such practices. Since the brain is dramatically and positively influenced by these focusing and soothing routines in prayer, it seems wise and good to become attuned to them and to ways to open ourselves to a deeper experience with God through them. Our brains were made by God and for God. Our awareness continually needs to be reoriented to the reality of our whole experience, conscious and unconscious, if we hope to remain open to grow and remedy our strong tendency to slide into Spiritual Bypass. We’ll keep considering these paths to a deeper psychological and spiritual freedom in the coming weeks.

In 1986 when Bon Jovi had the #1 song, Livin’ on a Prayer, about Tommy and Gina trying to make it by loving each other in desperate economic times, I was learning the profound impact that prayer can have on our well-being. For many Christians in the U.S. prayer is a daily habit according to research from the Pew Research Center (http://www.pewforum.org/religious-land…/frequency-of-prayer/). Back in 1986, I began my own journey with Christian contemplative prayer and began to understand that I could live on prayer and needed to. I had done a lot of talking, pleading and searching via my prayers since I became a Christian in 1969, but I had not learned to listen. The impact of this shift in my praying brought profound peace and sparked a continuing interest in helping myself and others understand how ‘livin’ on a prayer’ was a wise way to live when it included contemplative listening in prayer.

Although for years research on prayer was disregarded by serious scientists that has slowly changed, too. NIH has funded studies on prayer and its effects when previously they refused to review any study with the word prayer in it. The bottom line here is that prayer can be helpful in many ways. Studies and various reports are consistent in suggesting potential health benefits of prayer and spiritual interventions. While these studies cannot, of course, prove God’s existence or God’s interest in relationship with human beings, they do point to significant value derived by people who prayer and by people who are prayed for. Particularly contemplative prayer which has a long tradition in both Protestant and Catholic Christian traditions as well as Eastern religious practices, evokes a relaxation response in the brain and throughout the body that lowers stress and promotes healing. For more on this see: Renovare for protestants https://renovare.org/about/overview, and Centering prayer for Catholics: https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/…/ca…/centering-prayer – although I have benefited and would recommend both of these sites regardless of your religious background or lack of religious experience.

I’ll continue to explore the science of spiritual experience here at Hallowood Institute and to offer insights into the favorable outcomes associated with the integration of Christian spirituality with psychological thought and practice. I hope you’ll stay connected to this blog and other events offered by Hallowood Institute. In coming weeks look for more on prayer and its complexity.

One of the first and continuing gifts of psychological study to the healthy practice of spirituality is the overarching concept of the division of our experience as human beings into conscious and unconscious processes. The ancient writings of the Hebrew scriptures note it this way: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (NIV translation of Nehemiah 17:9). Another paraphrase of this passage expands to “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. But I, GOD, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be” (The Message). This division of our understanding is important to take in. I often consider this reality of my limited knowledge of my own motivations as another sign that things are not as they should be in this world. This isn’t an explanation meant to blame each of us for our pain, but it is a plausible explanation of the realities we all experience. We are separated from ourselves.

In Christian thought, Jesus saves us from all destructive separations and draws us into a healing process that lasts a lifetime. Much of our mental distress results from mistaken notions of when and how this process occurs. One and done? Probably not. The spiritual path that Christian theology suggests is one of continuing change, as the early writings of the New Testament repeatedly underline. Attitudes about all kinds of things change as you read through the history of the early followers of Jesus in the book of Acts. There’s a flexibility that we would do well to imitate more than we do. However, my main point here is that we are divided beings. We know some of what we intend and choose, but we do not know all of our motives. We surprise ourselves with what comes to our minds, our voices and our choices. The unconscious processes occurring within us outside of our awareness are real and potent. The spiritual path requires that we deal with this reality or our spiritual practices will become destructive and unhealthy as well. What is good, can be spoiled. This is where our practices of prayer can be helpful. I’ll have more to say about all this in the coming weeks. I hope you’ll keep reading.