Where emotional health meets spiritual health

Simply put, spiritual health is anything that relates to the wellbeing of a person’s spirit, and their connection with something greater than him- or herself. Spiritual wellness relates to a person’s sense of beliefs, convictions, and values that come together to help them find meaning and purpose in life. This is incredibly important, and as I’ve sat with clients in my therapy practice, I’ve come to realize just how vital it truly is. In fact, that’s where the name of my practice—Rooted Way Counseling—came from. In order for us to live fulfilled, satisfying lives, each of us needs to have a deeply rooted sense of our purpose, meaning, and identity. We need to know who we are, what’s important to us, and why it’s important for us to keep meeting all the challenges and unknowns that each day brings. Without answers to these questions, we might be fine for a while…especially if we happen to be in a particularly happy or successful chapter or time in our life. But this cannot last forever. It’s when we hit challenges and low points of life that it becomes clear why we need answers to these questions, to define our purpose, meaning, and values in the midst of suffering and adversity. When the going gets rough and we don’t have the answers to these questions, our spiritual health declines—and so too does our emotional health. For example, often I notice that when I begin to work with clients who don’t have those answers to the who, what, and why questions mentioned earlier, this is an example of a time when we can expect to see issues like depression arise. In fact, one of the most important questions I ask when I’m assessing risk of suicide in my clients is, “What gets you out of bed each morning?” Essentially, what I’m asking is “in light of how difficult and painful things have been for you lately, what keeps you going? What do you find meaningful? Where do you find your purpose to keep meeting challenges day after day?” Spiritual wellness is, therefore, inseparable from emotional wellness. 

Here’s a little self-disclosure from me that might be helpful: I’m a Christian, and for me, a deep and personal relationship with God is where I draw my meaning, purpose, and identity in life. This is how spirituality is interwoven into my personal life. Now of course, I have had the honor and privilege of working with diverse clients from many different faith and spiritual backgrounds, as well as some with no desire to incorporate faith into our therapy work whatsoever. And this is perfectly okay! It’s an honor for me to walk with each of my clients as they take the lead in discovering their individual paths to becoming deeply rooted in their own meaning, purpose, and identity, regardless of whether or not this involves faith or religion of any kind. With that said, however, one of my specialties—and passions—is working with clients who do come from a faith background and wish to integrate faith and grace/Gospel-based concepts into our clinical work.

It’s no secret or surprise, though, that a person can engage with faith, church, and religion in general without actually experiencing emotional or spiritual health. As I’ve worked with Christian or “faith-based” clients that have come to my practice, these clients have taught me important lessons about the link between emotional and spiritual health. Many of these individuals have sustained deep emotional wounds from others around them, often in a church setting or childhood upbringing in a faith-based family. Of course, that’s not always the case…some who identify as Christian have not experienced this, and have participated in communities of faith where these wounds are not frequently inflicted. Others who follow the Christian faith don’t necessarily trace their wounds to a harmful church or family experience, but simply carry within themselves harmful, shame-based, and false beliefs about themselves, God, or others around them. They hold these beliefs as true and continue wounding themselves with these beliefs and causing further suffering and pain, even when there are not others around inflicting pain in that moment. The specific words, actions, thoughts, and beliefs that can wreak havoc on our emotional and mental health are too numerous to capture completely here. For example, it can be memories of a parent that used religion to justify abuse. It can be an instance where we are told by a well-meaning friend that our struggle with anxiety, worry, depression, or grief means we “aren’t trusting God enough,” or that we are somehow “less spiritual,” or “a bad Christian.” We are often not comfortable with continued suffering because of false beliefs that Christians should be happy and upbeat. There is, therefore, often an unspoken belief among many Christians that to struggle is shameful. This can lead to invalidating pain within ourselves or the pain of those who are experiencing continued heartache. This might be done through twisting Bible verses into platitudes that are unhelpful at best and downright harmful at worst, or even outright blaming the sufferer for the pain that they’re in. The concept of “sin” has far too often been twisted from its correct definition, and used for centuries to shame, control, and justify oppression. These are examples of a lack of spiritual health that can have crippling effects on the mental and emotional health of many of us who have been impacted by experiences like these. 

As Christians, we long to follow the way of Jesus. The thing is, there is quite a juxtaposition between this way of Jesus, and the examples of unhealthy spirituality we see all too often in our faith or Christian communities. It is this lack of spiritual health that results in the emotional wounds and trauma to which I bear witness in my office. And yet we know that Jesus came to bring healing, wholeness, and comfort. He was called the “Prince of Peace,” and the “Wonderful Counselor.” We see examples of him spending time with outcasts of society, exposing and challenging those who oppressed the marginalized, and compassionately engaging with people who were suffering. To walk in the way of Jesus is to walk in the way of spiritual health and emotional and mental health. This doesn’t mean not experiencing emotional or mental struggles. After all, we are told in Luke 22:44 that before His crucifixion, Jesus was so distressed that his sweat fell to the ground “like drops of blood.” Whether this is meant in a metaphorical sense, to illustrate that Jesus was in such emotional agony that he was profusely sweating, or in a literal sense describing a documented medical condition in which blood vessels near the sweat glands burst due to extreme emotional distress and then stain the sweat with blood, one thing is clear: Jesus was experiencing anxiety! We see examples of him weeping in the Gospels. And when we zoom out and look at other examples throughout Scripture, we see people throughout the Bible experiencing a myriad of emotional struggles: the prophet Jeremiah, for example, would probably have been diagnosed with clinical depression were he alive today. He was known as the “weeping prophet.” David wrote psalms of intense emotional agony along with psalms of joy, gratitude, and exuberance…and the psalms of agony are just as much worship as the rest of the psalms.  

With these examples in mind, and as I reflect on the clients I’ve had the honor of working with while they explore the connection between spiritual and emotional health, one thing is clear: there must be room in our belief systems for messy suffering. Our faith must accompany us as we wrestle with hard questions, grief and trauma. Unhealthy spirituality will prove harmful. Bible verses whittled down into platitudes or clichés will not do. Versions of Christianity that are based mostly on a moral code will not bring healing. If we consider ourselves followers of Jesus, when we are in the “dark night of the soul” we need a God who will crawl into that messy darkness with us to bring us out. We need the raw person of Jesus, the Son of God who became a man and put human skin on to join us in our suffering and trauma, so that he could take on our sins, die in our place, and destroy the curse of sin and death forever. It is this Jesus that I love inviting into the counseling process for my clients who desire faith-integrative counseling. The Jesus who knows about trauma and suffering because He experienced it. The Jesus who will not condemn, shame, offer clichés, or victim-blame, but desires for us to draw close to Him so that He can bring us healing and wholeness. If you live in the Burlington, Vermont area and you’re interested in or curious about psychotherapy that incorporates both clinical skills and evidence-based modalities, along with a spiritual component involving Jesus in your healing journey, I would love to hear from you. If you don’t consider yourself a Christian, but are still interested in local therapy right here in Chittenden County that places a focus on the health and wellbeing of your spirit, and on your holistic body-mind-and-soul wellness, I’d love to join you in your journey. Contact me today, and we can speak more about how therapy with a focus on spirituality can be helpful for you.