psychology

Feel Better With a Stronger Focus on Spirituality, Not Psychology

/ Clay D. / Leave a comment

If you were to take an informal survey, you’d probably find that the majority of people would like to have better mental and emotional health. 

No one wants to live their lives dealing with depression, anxiety, guilt, and other negative feelings. 

The question is, what is the best approach to achieving a healthier state of mind? How do we go about bettering ourselves so that we can live our best life? 

There is certainly no shortage of self-help gurus out there, waiting to give you their advice on how to improve your life (and usually at a price). They promise the latest and greatest, newly-discovered secrets to a better, more fulfilling life.

While people like this may indeed offer us some valuable psychological insights on managing our emotions and putting ourselves on a better track for life, we have to be careful. 

We can easily wade in too deep to the psychological approach and completely neglect the spiritual aspect of our lives.

I’ve always had the mindset that there’s nothing inherently wrong with using psychology to improve our thought processes and better ourselves.

The Bible gives us a number of psychological insights, around which most of the modern day approaches to positive thinking, cognitive therapy, etc., have been tailored (either knowingly or unknowingly).

I see it much like the field of medicine.

Even though the Bible doesn’t offer a wealth of information about treating physical ailments, God gave humans the ability to research, discover, and learn. That’s how we’ve developed our knowledge of treatments and medications over thousands of years. 

The same is true with psychology. We can take the principles God gives us in scripture about how to face mental challenges, refining and enhancing our approach to give the best results. 

Psychology should work with biblical principles, not against them.

That’s why when we get too far into the realm of modern pop psychology, we can find ourselves on the wrong track. 

Too many people today focus on “I” when trying to climb out of depression or eliminate anxiety in their lives. 

God tells us in Philippians 4:4-7:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This is the basis for how we should approach mental healing. The answer is not about us — empowering ourselves, feeling better about ourselves, being proud of who we are. 

While it’s fine to take pride in our accomplishments, our true worth and purpose come from God. Committing our time and energy to His purposes is where we’ll find fulfillment in life. 

When we’re feeling down and depressed, looking to God will take our focus off ourselves and help align us with His thoughts and His will. Giving all our fears and anxieties to Him relieves us of the burden of dealing with them on our own.

Another way to help renew our minds (Romans 12:2), is to serve others.

Recently, I heard pastor Rick Warren speak on this subject. In a nutshell, he said that we should look outside ourselves and seek to serve God by serving others. 

We’ll never be happy or content, he said, as long as we’re consumed in our own affairs and wondering what’s wrong with us. By looking for ways to help others, we’ll find true joy and happiness in life.

Psychology would tell us to look inward and focus on what’s wrong inside of us. 

There’s nothing wrong with introspection, as many people deal with deep trauma in their past, but becoming too focused on ourselves can make us feel even more despondent.

The point is to balance the psychological approach to self-improvement and healing with a firm understanding and application of biblical principles. 

Using modern psychology can certainly be beneficial, but it should never overshadow God’s word and the wisdom He has imparted to us through it.

If we take time to search the Bible and look for the nuggets of truth God has left for us there, we can then meditate on them and let these words sink down deep into our soul.

These treasures will be in our heart when we need them most — during that next season of depression or anxiety, or simply when we’re facing a stressful day. 

Paint Your Face How You Want to Feel

/ Clay D. / 1 Comment

Have you ever heard the saying, “Fake it till you make it”?

Simply put, it refers to acting a certain way until you actually begin to feel that way. Motivational speakers often explain the power of this life hack to crowds of business or sales professionals.

However, you can use it in your everyday life as well. If you want to feel more confident when you’re at a party or get-together, for example, just act like you are a confident, relaxed person. Walk into the room with your head held high and a walk that says you know what you want out of life.

One of the most important parts of this technique is your facial expression.

Did you know that you can actually trick your mind into thinking you feel a certain way? Normally, we look at things the other way around—whatever emotion we feel or think about (joy, sadness, anger, etc.) is consequently displayed on our face (using our eyes and mouth).

But, the opposite is also true. If we put a big smile on our face, we can’t help but feel better. That’s right, smile really big and see if you don’t feel happier. You can actually change your mood instantly just by changing your facial expression.

That’s what I like to call “Paint Your Face How You Want to Feel,” or PYFHYWTF. If you want to feel joyful, put a big grin on your face. If you want to feel calm and relaxed, smile serenely and narrow your eyes a bit like you’re basking in the breeze on a warm beach and almost ready to doze off.

The effect is even more powerful if you do this while looking in a mirror.

There is an abundance of science behind why smiling makes us feel better. When our smile muscles contract to form a smile, they fire a signal back to the brain to stimulate the production of endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin that make us feel happier.

And when we’re happier, we smile more. It’s a positive reward cycle that can be set into motion just by smiling.

Imagine yourself as being happy and the feelings will follow.

Psychology Today has several online articles about the positive aspects of smiling—here and here are just two of them. The British Council even recommends holding a pencil between our teeth to exercise our smile muscles.

Not that you’d necessarily ever want to feel angry, but if you did, you could make yourself feel that emotion just by creating and angry expression.

That’s why when something small bothers you and you start to show it on your face, the emotions involved can quickly escalate. Before you know it, you’re full of rage over something insignificant.

You have much more power over your emotions than you might have realized.

Go on, give it a try. Stand in front of a mirror and give yourself your best smile and see what happens.

To Smile or Not to Smile

/ Clay D. / 1 Comment

Some days life seems really good and then other days it really stinks. I can’t say certainty why I feel differently about life at different times. One interesting thing I have noticed, however, is that in the mornings when I get out of my car to walk into work, the way I feel physically will usually be mirrored by my emotional state.

For example, If I feel well-rested, without too many aches and pains in my middle-aged body, not only will I walk at a brisker pace, I’ll also feel more optimistic about the day. I may even look forward to greeting my coworkers. On the other hand, if I feel like death warmed over, I’ll  sort of stumble across the street toward the door, maybe even in a weary, zigzag manner. The thought of being cheery that early in the morning nauseates me. I just want to be left alone.

So, instead of asking myself, Which came first, the chicken or the egg?, I’m asking myself, Which comes first, physical energy (or the lack thereof) or emotions?. I believe the answer lies somewhere in between. I think one of these can both influence and reinforce the other. How then, do I break the cycle if I’m down in the dumps emotionally, AND feel exhausted and weak physically?

I have learned from various readings and seminars, that it’s possible to lift the emotions by making small physical adjustments. I know from my own personal experience that simply softening my face slightly with the smallest of smiles, causes my outlook on life to brighten immediately; everything seems better. Sitting up a tad straighter in my chair and tilting my head up slightly as if peering into the distance will also positively affect my emotions. If this seems simple, it really is. As superficial as it may appear, complex mechanisms are at work here. There is science behind this to be sure, but the processes taking place when you smile are not clearly understood yet.

In recent years several studies have been conducted that have largely come to the conclusion that your facial expressions can have a significant impact on your emotions. One study in particular that I found very interesting involved individuals whose frown muscles had been weakened or damaged by Botox; they were unable to frown. On the whole, these people reported feeling happier than individuals who had not received Botox. Interestingly, the Botox recipients also reported that they felt no more attractive than they did before Botox, thus helping eliminate the possibility of optimistic feelings based on supposed better looks. The conclusion of the study was that being unable to produce a frown kept these people in a happier mood. Other studies have made similar conclusions.

So, if you find yourself in a dreadful situation and you put on a smile to help your mood and outlook, is this a fake smile – one that denies the awfulness of the situation at hand? Or are you shrewdly altering your emotions through an intentional physical manipulation?

These questions are hotly debated for sure. In the past, I rested firmly in the camp that smiley people were simply stupid. They were ignorant of their environment and the world around them. Obviously they had not made any real attempt to look at the seriousness of life. If they could blindly smile and laugh in the face of so many critical issues and decisions to be made on a daily basis, then I wanted nothing to do with them.

Somewhere along the line, however, my opinion on the smile issue changed. Most likely it was due to numerous self-improvement teachings I encountered as I matured into adulthood. Certainly I have wavered back and forth in my beliefs over the last 20+ years, but deep down my core belief is that the world is as you make it. Smile and the world smiles with you, as the old saying goes. Two people can encounter the same negative situation with polar opposite reactions. The person who is positive and optimistic will be poised to move forward with a solution to the problem. The negative person will remain stuck, either in the present, the past, or both, asking himself, Why me?.

I can make this statement because I’ve spent a lot of time at both poles in my life, though mostly the negative pole. At this moment I’m approaching problems (challenges!) from a positive perspective, putting on a smile and looking at the world around me optimistically. Not long ago, however, I sat daily on my stump of criticism, cursing the “beautiful” people who seemingly had more stuff than I did.

I’m sure I’m not done being negative; the depression I battle often knocks me off the tightrope on which I try to balance my emotions. The only thing I can really do is to keep working on myself on a daily basis. That’s all any of us can do.