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It is not my purpose to make converts of you regarding spirituality, rather than cultivate a sense of awareness, a sense of power that comes from the spiritual freedom that is the birthright of all of us.
As we come to understand universal laws, our place in the universe, we understand more that each of us is part of a marvelous integrated system that nurtures us as we express our own lively and unique individualism.
I would like to divide this lecture into:
* Definition of spirituality
* A history of spirituality
* Spirituality in holistic healing in mental health services
Some of us might get this word mixed up with spiritualism or soul or even karma. Let's clear the air!
The Oxford dictionary defines spirituality as matters concerning with the spirit as opposed to matter. It talks about religious or sacred things, holy divine or inspired. I define spirituality, in the mental health setting, as being the language of feelings, a state of harmony and balance in negotiating and letting these feelings flow from the person.
Spiritualism, however, is defined as the belief in spirits of the dead, that can communicate with the living through mediums etc. So on top of this we have a new word: spirit to contend with. What do we mean by spirit? Answer: the vital animating essence of a person or animal, the intelligent, nonphysical part of the person; the soul.
I have come to believe that all healing begins or ends with the spirit. I regard the Spirit as separate from the soul, per se. Spirit is sometimes called God, or Allah, or Brahman, or Prana, or the Divine Mind, or Universal Principle - that which is the essence of the Universe and is expressed without individualising. The Eight Chakra (in Buddhism & Hinduism) is the spirit lying outside the body moleculed in the universe.
Ah, yet another complication - we mention the word soul and this can be defined as the immaterial part of a human being often regarded as immortal; emotional or intellectual energy or intensity. The soul becomes part of the holistic nature of our individuality (mind, body & soul). I find this definition slightly misleading or inaccurate if we are to look at the 'soul', especially if we are talking about spirituality in mental health. This is why I have further defined soul to be the creator and medium of our balance of feelings (emotions). Our soul's actions are expressed through our physical and mental thoughts and actions.
Another definition we should look at is Karma. The dictionary defines Karma as: relating to Buddhism and Hinduism, "the sum of a person's actions in previous states of existence, viewed as his fate in future existences." To me, this is misunderstanding of the concept of Karma. Invariably, those who have had exposure to eastern philosophies or to metaphysics think that karma is a mystical force of retribution that makes one pay for past deeds. Thus, those who are unhappy feel that it is because of 'bad karma', so now they are paying off their 'karmic debt'. If we begin by identifying God as Primary Cause and the Universe as Evolving Effect, we can define karma as the universal principle that expresses that relationship. Karma is the universal principal out of which all evolves. It is the cause and effect of the universe. Karma is the general tendency or direction of all things. It is the dynamic tension between event and result. (In human beings, stress, both mental and physical represents this tension unresolved).
Within this most pervasive of all energies there is free choice and creative expression of everything in nature. The Eastern world calls this creative choice 'Dharma'. We either use it or ignore it, but it is always there as part of the karmic energy. If we use karma in terms of debt then we should view this as debts to ourselves (our spirit) and we pay them off to ourselves in a time and place to our own choosing. We are creative beings able to erase every debt and reach spiritual solvency, creating a perfect balance, no longer focused on compensation for earlier actions.
The history of spirituality could be equated to a series of power (energy) cultures that roughly lasts about 2000 years, during which time the human consciousness develops in new ways.
During each of these ages, a certain kind of energy was dominant, and it affected people's lives, health and spiritual outlook. Each age has contributed to human knowledge distinct perceptions about the nature of reality and the power of the human spirit - perceptions that still affect our health and souls today.
To help understand the kind of power or energy most characteristic of these ages, I enlist the help of Astrology. The age of Aries ran from around 2000 BC to the birth of Christ, which introduced the Piscean Age. And as anyone familiar with the musical Hair! already knows, we have entered the Age of Aquarius, which should finish around 4000 AD.
Aries, a fire sign, represents the first ignition, of initial creation, of the beginning of the zodiac itself and, as I see it, revving up many cultures and civilisations. A unity of Tribal culture, thought and law began in the Arien age, which superseded the more primitive Tribalism of the preceding age of Taurus, which dealt with a much cruder form of Tribal identity. Aries was an era of dominating the physical environment, of laws from Hammurabi to Moses, of laying the social and cultural foundations on which we have based the emotional, psychological, and spiritual development of the next era. Under Aries, Tribal consciousness became more sophisticated not only for the Jews, but also for the Greeks and the Romans, Egyptians and other cultures of that time. Tribal identity and belonging to a single nation became prominent.
Tribal laws during this age sought to control people's behaviour to facilitate physical survival. The laws given to Moses defined appropriate Tribal responsibilities from diet to sexual behaviour to responsibilty for one's family. The personality of God was an extension of human nature. If we are loving then God must be all loving. If we are people of honour and justice then God must be the ultimate just Being. Many people still believe - not rationally, but in their tribal 'gut' feeling that God rewards good behaviour financially and punishes bad behaviour the same way.
As humanity has become more conscious of our spiritual capacities, we have elevated our spiritual perception of God. However some of us still think Tribal. Jealousy, greed, the desire for vengeance remains among leading emotional factors making people and nations unwell. The process of spiritual development challenges us to retain the Tribal influences that are positive and to discard those that are not. The positives include loyalty, ethics, and a code of honour, and we see a danger to our society when those are lacking; so many children today are completely dysfunctional because their family has no ethical strength and no honour. They don't know where to turn, so they turn, so they join gangs in some cases, because at least offer ritual and an honour code of some sorts. The danger in tribal loyalty is that it has to be attached to the tribe at all times. There is no room for individuality or loyalty to oneself. No matter how much we like to think we have evolved beyond Tribal consciousness, strong elements of it are still at work within all of us.
The Piscean Age was a time of dualism, when human consciousness divided in a powerful way into polarities, such as those between Eastern and Western culture, church and state, body and spirit, the science of Magnetics, even political polarities of right and left. Pisces is a water sign, also associated with emotion and introspection. This age also has to do with emotional and intuitive thought. The two fish in Pisces swim away from each other and represents more sophisticated choices and more complicated thought processes. Under tribal consciousness, individuals allowed - and still allow - the Tribe to make important decisions for them, from marriage partner to occupations. The emergence of individual choice during Pisces signalled an entirely new paradigm and, with it, a new perceptual system: Individual Power.
The long journey out of the Tribal mind and toward development of the self - allowing individuals to form a separate identity whilst still to some extent remaining under tribal influence. Piscean culture also encourages the growth of all that the self could discover, notably science and medicine. This emphasis on the development of human intelligence became the leading weapon against the superstitious core of tribal perception and ultimately lead to the human reasoning abilities and emotional energy given a much greater licence to develop. Western romance was also born under Pisces, from courtly love to the notion that people should be free to marry the partner they love rather than submit to the will of tribalism of arranged marriages.
The Renaissance allowed a quantum leap for the Piscean Age, allowing the progress of Individual Power, especially when the artist began signing their names on paintings, rather than the name of the school or leave it unsigned as a mark of submersion in the Tribal talent pool. The self as artist, author, or musician - all three was born.
The coming of the Christian era has been referred to as the opening of the heart of humanity. Toward the end, Jesus of Nazareth provided a new emotional vocabulary, speaking about love, brotherhood, kindness and forgiveness - lessons of the heart that each individual must experience. Jesus revolutionised God and humanity as being parent/child. In Tribal culture, it was unheard of to call God "Father". In assuming that God took a loving interest in every area of one's personal life, Jesus initiated the parent-child relationship between humanity and heaven and gave individuals the means to establish a closer union with the Divine. The crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ introduced two major themes of the Piscean Age: compassion for all, including those outside the Tribe and forgiveness. One of the greatest struggles of the healing process is to forgive both yourself and others.
Reincarnation for Western culture was developed in this age by Justin Martyr, around 200 AD. He was the founder of the first Christian school in Rome Around this time, Origen, a Greek theologian born about 185 AD, taught that Jesus had existed in human form before he was born of Mary, that Jesus, the Christ personified, represented the culmination of many lives filled with love and self-sacrifice. He also taught that the scriptures should be interpreted figuratively rather than literally, and that souls continue their learning process after letting go of the physical body
For the first four centuries of the Christian era, the doctrine of reincarnation was an integral part of the theology of the Church. Then reactionary forces began to point out to the Church hierarchy the personal responsibility that is the hallmark of this belief. Where would the Church fit into a person's life if they could work out his or her own salvation? Two dates stand out in the ensuing erasing by the Church of Reincarnation (pre-existence) doctrine: 325 AD The Council of Nicea met to adopt the present form of the Bible. The Council reject any of the passages of the Gospel that made reference to reincarnation. In 553 AD, the 5th Ecumenical Council declared that the doctrine expounded by Origen and his followers to be cursed. This put an end to reincarnation among Christians until the present age.
Whilst reincarnation was being suppressed in the Western cultures, it flourished in the Eastern cultures (being developed early in the Arien Age). Hinduism and Buddhism both extolled the cyclic nature of human lifetimes. It also flourished with the Druids in Ireland, Herodotus, Plato, and Plutarch all referred to the existence of reincarnation in Egyptian culture. The Zoroastrians in Persian culture and the Qabalists in Judaism and lastly the Sufis in Islam have kept the doctrine of reincarnation alive.
All versions of reincarnation pre-suppose the existence of a non-physical component in human beings; this generally being referred to as the Soul. Now, however, the disciplines of astronomy, theology, metaphysics, medicine, psychology and others are converging towards the realisation that human beings are multi-dimensional, finely-tuned organisms that could be understood as constellations of energy fields operating on various frequencies (which we denote as Body, Mind, Soul and Spirit). The concept of law evolved from tribal codes to the rights of the individual as embodied in the Magna Carta, the US Constitution, and more recent laws aimed at loosening social and religious restrictions.
As we now enter the Age of Aquarius, we are moving from astrological eras symbolised by fish and animals into one by a human being: the Water Bearer. If division was the theme of Pisces, then wholeness is the theme of Aquarius, in which we are striving to discover a spiritual unity. The religions of the world have begun to try to accommodate each other in unprecedented ways, and we appear to have developed a global marketplace, global technology, and global awareness of social justice and the need for environmental preservation despite obvious breaches of both.
The Aquarian age is involved with Symbolism. Symbolic power is by far the most potent form of insight available to us. Happenings out of the Self can be viewed as Divine opportunities to evolve our consciousness. This involves bringing to the surface our subconscious. Symbolic sight perceives a dimension that mystics have described as more real than the physical, more powerful than the tangible. Symbolic consciousness encounters the Divine mind with less interference than Individual consciousness. It perceives the higher vibratory level know as eternity and can manifest as a rich, internal sensation, a spiritual encounter, or some kind of psychic experience. It can also take the form of a deeply personal relationship with nature, a creative expression, or an extraordinary creative insight, breakthrough, or solution. Aquarian consciousness is holistic by design. The holistic health movement seeks to heal illness by addressing not just symptoms but the whole organism though diet, exercise and a wide range of complimentary therapies. These have begun to enter the mainstream of medical practices.
Aquarian energy drives us to change every part of our lives, especially where we have become too dependent on the familiar, and to investigate every unknown place we can find, particularly those within ourselves. In the 60's, it inspired the social revolution of the individual: feminism, civil rights, antiwar, drug culture, sexual revolution and the psycho-spiritual revolution.
We are in the Information Age or more possibly witnessing the start of it. Power (Energy) of which Aquarius is the ruler of electricity, shows a rapid shift from a physical force to one of thought and energy: the essence of a computerised society.
With each astrological age, spiritual consciousness has matured to include a greater awareness of ourselves, of the spirit inherent in life, and of greater power around us. We need to examine the role that each of these eras has played so we can understand how we have absorbed their attitudes and beliefs and how and where they are hampering our efforts to heal ourselves individually, physically and spiritually. As the astrological ages progressed, they encompassed a succession of different mindsets and different kinds of physical and spiritual power.
When we wish to define spirituality for consumers in mental health I think we have to consider a few moderating factors: How do we define and suggest a doctrine for people who have an illness that makes them vulnerable to suggestion?
In recent surveys of consumers (in the U.S.), 85% of consumers in the service wanted to develop their spirituality. What are they seeking? Given the virtual supermarket of spiritual options, how can the service download information that is conducive to recovery?
Are there any spiritual models that complement orthodox medicine? There seems to be spiritual confusion today as religion has seen to be literally unattractive. There is also a blending or merging of Eastern and Western religions. We are making way for a new 'rationalism' which in some aspects are creating a void away from the norm. We have lost a large part of the moral and spiritual resources organised religion provided. Where there was once 'faith' in a higher power, 'certainty' about life's meaning and sacredness, and a strong belief in the power of love to overcome problems in the world, there is a growing secularism and something of a spiritual vacuum.
Increasingly this void is leading to a growing interest in alternative spiritual paths including Eastern religions, ecologically based alternative philosophies, and a burgeoning Spiritual Supermarket running the gamut from 'born again' Christianity, tele-evangelism, spiritualism, to New Age philosophies, and 'mind powers'.
I feel that we need to address spirituality in this context for 'planet earth' only for consumers. Given the perplexities of mental illness, I would venture to say that the consumer is looking for HOPE for a cure to their illness. They could also be looking for an answer to the meaning of life, or they could be attempting to change former patterns of behaviour or thinking, and are searching for new possibilities.
The trap for the consumer in discovering and developing spirituality in their recovery pathway could be viewed by some clinicians that the consumer is 'unwell', that they are 'hearing voices' or in a psychotic phase of their unwellness. This could be true for certain consumers, as part of their illness could be psychotic delusions or ritualistic behaviours. They also may have exaggerated sense of guilt and are unable to accept forgiveness. They may have some bizarre religious ideas. In this situation people may have more difficulty evaluating their concerns because of their mental illness. This is challenging for the consumer and would create an environment of confusion and disordered thinking. We all know that recovery is ventured by taking risks and this is one of the most important risks the consumer will have to decide to take.
I have mentioned in my recovery model that I do not think it wise for a consumer to initiate spirituality in the Primary Phase of their illness, rather start the grieving process, alleviate symptomology and get a medication strategy working (if needed) that includes coping with side-effects of that medication, and the eventual placement of support mechanisms including a treatment plan. If however the consumer has presented in the Primary Phase with a supportive spiritual model then this should be encouraged and nurtured, possible with the help of the Chaplain or Kamatua.
I guess at this stage I should qualify what I believe spirituality means for a consumer undergoing the journey of recovery. I hope you will understand as I explain what I feel, that you will notice I don't like the word 'recovery' applying to consumers of mental health services. I prefer 'personal growth' through understanding, acceptance, liking, then loving and releasing. This is negotiating one's own self-empowerment. By obtaining self-empowerment it allows the consumer to become strong and independent.
My definition of spirituality differentiates between religion, which asks you to learn from the experience of others, and spirituality, which urges you to seek your own experiences through personal growth. It all has to do with your own life's experience, unconditional sharing and eventually the 'getting of wisdom'.
It seems to me that the most important things in life are indeed those which we cannot see or physically hold. Feelings; of love, care, compassion and faith, weave individuals and societies together and shape a sense of intrinsic worth. The origin of spirituality lies within the heart of us - our soul - and the part we play in the universe. For consumers, the language of spirituality, of the soul, is the language of our feelings; our emotions. Healthy spirituality infers a sense of wholeness, wellbeing, being comfortable with life and having love for others and ourselves.
Reality (as a dimension of time), is today, not yesterday, nor tomorrow. Reality is the medium in which our spirituality blossoms and also the healing process for consumers in their personal growth voyage. Given our new sense of spiritual awareness, we can look at healing. To assume that everyone wants to heal is both misleading and dangerous. Illness can, for instance, become a powerful way to get attention you might not otherwise receive - as a form of leverage; illness can almost seem attractive. Illness may also convey the message that you have to change your life quite drastically. Because change is among the most frightening aspects of life, you may fear change more intensely than illness and enter into a pattern of postponing the changes you need to make.
A central misconception of today's holistic culture is the belief that an illness results from personal negativity, either from tragic past experiences, from negative attitudes that contaminate our minds and bodies, or from bad past life karma. Yet negativity is not the only source of illness. It can also emerge as an answer to a prayer. It can physically guide us onto a path of insight and learning upon which we otherwise would not have acted. It may be a catalyst for expanding personal consciousness as well as for understanding the greater meaning of life. While illness can help you find your essential sacredness, your oneness with God, humanity and all living creatures, you don't have to become ill in order to begin to understand your spirit, get in touch with your soul and heal your life.
The Aquarian Age is the age of holistic focus, challenging the medical model and the emergence of partnerships in health care. But how can a partnership be established when one part of the agreement fails to even take on board spirituality in the clinical pathway?
Psychiatry is marked by its almost total disregard of spirituality, in considering the mental health f individuals. For example, do clinicians carry out a spiritual assessment and do you often see the Chaplain as part of the Treatment Plan? My opinion of spirituality and the reason it so often emerges when a consumer becomes unwell is that it is the consumer throwing a spanner into their psyche, applying the brakes because there is something drastically wrong with the 'self'. The consumer is surrounded by an immmense fog, which clouds their ability to think rationally. The soul sees this as an opportunity to give the person a 'wake-up call' and it is for this reason I think that consumers are much more in touch with themselves than most people are aware. They have been given an opportunity of changing their lives for the better. In the reality of the spiritual world, I venture to say that consumers are the 'chosen ones', being able to alter the direction of their lives dramatically.
This 'wake-up call' normally triggers a pattern of survival techniques (which I call running on automatic pilot). These are often negotiated without realising what is unfolding and many times this is the subconscious taking over from the conscious. One could interpret this as "divine intervention" but I am not that romantic. I feel it is the ability of the soul, inherent in each of us, to sometimes overrule will and logic, to steer us off those rocks and put us out on the voyage again. It is our choice. Your journey of self-discovery may have begun without you even knowing it. The signs are not difficult to recognise. Here are the most common ones:
- A growing discomfort with your familiar environment, which can manifest as feelings that you are no longer satisfied with your occupation or even with your primary relationship.
- The inability to identify why you are saturated with depression or exhaustion.
- A penetrating sense of loneliness, often accompanied by anxiety that your isolation will never end.
- An absolute awareness that something in your life has changed and that, although you may not be certain what the future holds, you definitely cannot turn back and live as you had before.
- A growing curiousity about your personal needs and a passion to discover what they are and to have them validated by someone who understands what you are experiencing.
- The emergence of skills you never knew you possessed, such as the ability to heal or counsel others, and a shift in your perception of reality.
- A shift in your relationship to time. You begin to think that age has nothing to do with creativity, love or the enjoyment of life.
- A growing curiosity about the areas related to self development, either by choice or necessity.
- An emerging sense of a new identity, which may include discovering new ambitions or desiring to live an entirely new lifestyle.
- Sensations of liberation unlike you have ever known before.
- A need for more contact with nature or more time alone.
- A growing dissatisfaction with organised religion and a need to seek out spiritual experience, e.g. meditation, a call to a new path in life.
- Endless boredom and a loss of appetite for everything that once brought you satisfaction.
- The development of an illness that cannot be treated by allopathic medical procedures.
Now I will return to my opening questions and the first one was:
Q: How do we define and suggest suggest a doctrine for people who have an illness that makes them vulnerable to suggestion?
A: There are three scenarios here:
The first is a consumer who already has a spiritual support model operating either on admission or entry into the service. This model should be identified in the assessment procedure and allowance made both as a support mechanism and part of the Treatment Plan. I feel that Chaplains would be only too willing to participate in any plan. For Maori, the early intervention of the whanau or cultural support is imperative.
The second is the consumer who is unwell and is desperately seeking or seeing God (whoever). This is ideally a task for clinical intervention and I leave it up to the experts to handle this one, and
Lastly is the consumer who has insight and has recognised those signals of self-discovery mentioned earlier. The recovery pathway is quite a lengthy process and a great degree of insight and self-awareness is required for in-depth spiritual development. This is not to say the clinician should not stop the education process of the 'self' from being initiated. My advice is that the consumer needs to e made aware that there are certain stages that need to be negotiated before the consumer can successfully start the spiritual process in depth. The consumer should have help (clinical rehabilitation) in learning about emotions and balancing them out. This is best done in the Secondary or Tertiary stage of Recovery.
The spiritual model best suited to the consumer is I feel emotional education, as I call it, the language of feelings. If the consumer is pointed towards this doorway, then whatever happens after they pass through is surely of their own choosing. Reading (self-education) and spiritual mentors will provide the ultimate model for the consumer. I do not consider it the duty of the service to define absolute, the spiritual model for the consumer (e.g. institutionalised religion)
Q: In recent surveys of consumers (in the U.S.), 85% of consumers in the service wanted to develop their spirituality. What are they seeking?
A: This survey was carried out in the community setting. It involved a middle-class management, with consumers with Axis 1 diagnosis. Given the fact that there was a lack of effective community support (social and physical needs not being met), it seemed apparent that the spiritual needs were not being met due to isolation, lack of friends, stigma, and psychotic symptoms prevalent. In plain English, the consumers were trying to address their lack of holism. It also identifies a gap in services not provided by mental health service as a whole.
I feel the service has a responsibility to honestly take on board a more aggressive attitude towards holism and the responsibility of the individual consumer to look at the 'Self' as being the true healer.
Q: Given the virtual supermarket of spiritual options, how can the service download information that is conducive to recovery?
A: I feel it all has to do with personal responsibility that should be highlighted to the consumers from their assisting clinicians. Unfortunately, traditional medicine has come to depend on drugs and on surgery to heal the body. While some remarkable success has been achieved in this way, there is an insidious side-effect of this emphasis that is beginning to be recognised. Bot types of treatment encourage passivity in the patient. No personal responsibility for healing is vested with the consumer, where it properly belongs; symptoms may be relieved, but this treatment deals with effect and fails to get at the cause. As a result, healing is often temporary, and the consumer may develop both physical and psychological dependencies. In choosing traditional remedies, we often trade off valuable learning experiences for temporary relief, and are soon facing the same challenges when the illness strikes again.
True healing is an active process, requiring the combined focus of our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energies. The entire Self must be involved if healing is to take place. The emotions are amongst the most creative of tools at our disposal, and no healing process can occur without complete emotional involvement. To be active healers of ourselves, we must be at least as emotionally involved in the cure as we are in creating the condition for the illness.
No one can heal us; we can only heal ourselves.
Health professionals can help us in the process, but we are ultimately responsible for doing the healing - whether it be an unexpected cold, migraine or even chronic depression.
Bringing all our positive energies together is far more efficacious than any external agent can be; this has been dramatically illustrated by the 'placebo effect'. Belief and personal responsibilites are the cornerstones of healing.
So much emphasis has been placed on the treatment of mental illness that little time has been spent on trying to prevent it. If we would pay more attention to early warning signs - some of which are evident in what the consumer is trying to say - like "I am going to kill myself", clinicians would be able to concentrate on the negative energies that produced this statement.
Growing interest in some medical circles in holistic treatment is heartening evidence that we are beginning to take steps in the direction of recognising the true origins of illness and the identity of the true healer, the Self.
Q: Are there any spiritual models that complement orthodox medicine?
A: Once again I must reiterate that I don't think it is the duty of the service to nominate a spiritual model, given that each consumer's template is unique. To suggest a model of "go past the third crystal and shuffle the tarot cards" would perhaps extol the experiences of that said person recommending that model. I humour to say that, that person's nickname would be Gypsy Rose Lee! To promote the religious model to a person suffering schizophrenia could unleash an unhealthy oneness with Joan of Arc (hearing voices from God), if they were viewing the movie for the first time. What I am edging towards is the vulnerability of each consumer, especially in the Acute setting and this must be considered by the mental health service in the application of spirituality in the clinical pathway.
Although if the consumer has a presenting model, which has worked in the past as a good support mechanism, then this should be promoted. Also if Maori and if the tangata whai ora wishes it, this should be forthcoming and be part of the Treatment Plan. Recent American consumer writings have agreed with my philosophy that spirituality is best addressed in either the Secondary or Tertiary stages of recovery. I also maintain that spiritual growth is wisely entered into after the consumer has come to terms with their emotions. I advocate a sense of balance and if this is not negotiated and mastered then surely spiritual growth would be launched into a misguided orbit.
WHEN DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT ORBIT?
Once you have made the transition to empowerment, once you have opened yourself to this form of energy, you soon learn that self-discovery is not a process that ends. On the contrary, self-expression and self-care become the rule rather than the exception. You may feel as if you encounter more challenges than you have ever experienced before. Tjis is because you have unlocked a potential in yourself that had previously been asleep, and you discover that you have abilities, perceptions, and other energy tools that you had not allowed yourself to own earlier.
You have, for example, permission to investigate and sate your personal needs. Although the skill of self-expression is often exceedingly difficult to get the hang of, you can reach out for support to learn it. You can now understand personal boundaries and the need to protect yourself from influences that don't support your growth. You begin to understand the need to love and provide for yourself, be it through self-education or understanding and controlling your emotions.
Why is it we so easily reflect back to our childhood and the love that was so often neglected? To come to terms with this, to forgive and understand and get on with our life surely is a positive step we should all be pursuing now.
We are growing spiritually. Self-love is a relatively new idea, but it has its roots in Christ's teachings in the commandment to "love your neighbour as yourself". Of course, self=love can be problematical. Narcissism and self-indulgence are the simplest forms of straying. These can be challenging as they offer us an opportunity to impose personal boundaries for our growth. Self-indulgence offers us a chance of re-visiting our emotional needs.
At its best, self-love is the ability to take care of ourselves, to make choices (self-empowerment) within our present lifestyles that afford an opportunity for growth and quality of life. For some of us, it may simply mean physical exercise or proper dieting, whilst for others it may signify a period of respite. It could also mean the employment of some of CAM therapies (massage treatment, meditation or aromatherpapy, to name a few). The truth being with self-love is that until you can love yourself, you will not be able to love another. This is most important for relationships that are existing or you are contemplating. But more especially, it is important that you personally look subjectively at yourself, always concentrating on your perceived strengths.
When was the last time you tripped barefoot through a morning grass dew, perhaps with the dog barely keeping up and you laughing to yourself, "I'm free ... My spirit is finally free!"
What a joyous day that would be for us all. And yes, it has happened to me.
- Les Mitchell
I'll probably type more of this at some stage ... (unless I forget) ...
In FACT, it's now complete ... as of June 22 ... :)
Last Update: June 22, 2002
Some Links:
Recovery from mental illness - includes a few articles by Les
SHINE Consumers Realm April 2001
{This article on spirituality by Les appeared in their May 2001 issue}
Some dude's list of some interesting & unorthodox mental health sites
