BP71
It’s not a secret. Being mentally healthy is not some esoteric mystery. Much of it is common sense. Of course, common sense is not so common in our current world. Increasingly, it feels uncommon.
Listed below are some universal truths I have been taught over 37 years of psycho-spiritual spelunking in human hearts that are necessary to be as mentally healthy as possible. Many of the recommendations listed below involve doing, and I don’t want to raise doing above being, but let’s face it, if we aim at nothing, we’re bound to hit it. We need goals. Besides, doing is a means to being.
Some of the rules for good mental health listed here may not seem relevant to you. You may even resist some of them. If that is your experience, I ask you to remember them nonetheless and see if they become more applicable to your life in a month, a year, a decade, maybe even thirty years from now.
My only caution is not to let some of these things become more important than they should be. The highest mountain men and women can climb toward mental health is the one called Presence. Presence supersedes all others. What is Presence? So much has been said about Presence in previous blog posts so all I’m going to say here is that Presence is about relationship and relationship is the most important commodity on this planet because it comes from the heart of God.
One scripture passage that conveys the importance of Presence is Matthew 20:34ff: But when the Pharisees heard that he [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
As a triune being, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit represent the epitome of relationship. Being triune automatically means that at the heart of God is intimacy and a desire for relationship. If our God was only one personality, e.g., just the Father, He would have been alone until other beings were created and so relationship most likely would not have been central to Him. As it is, the triune God loves Presence. At the core of the three divine personalities (as seen in scripture) are themes of intimacy, reconciliation, redemption, pursuit, and love. All of these are about relationship, Presence, and love.
Christianity is nothing if we miss the core theme of loving relationship flowing out of the character of God. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Doing and achieving and performing and knowing theology inside out is worthless if we do not have love, relationship, and Presence as the highest priority in our lives. Of course, so many things oppose intimacy and love as DTFL has documented over and over. So, don’t be discouraged. Every day on this planet is a battle. It is the Great Adventure to pursue and practice and deliver Presence.
The following is not an exhaustive list although it might be exhausting. Ha. Pick one of these each week or every month and fold it into your daily walk through this world. Don’t delay. Life has a way of flying by. You will notice that these are certainly not in order of priority. I will comment on some of these universal rules for healthy living more than others.
Exercise: Bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come ~ 1 Timothy 4:8. Moving your body to the point that you get your heart rate up for an extended time is healthy in so many ways. I don’t know about you, but I simply feel better after a thirty-minute cardio workout. Also, if you exercise regularly, you will probably live longer so you will have more years to grow your mental health.
Eat well. Food and food obsessions can be consuming. Forgive the pun. I’m not just talking about gluttony, starvation, and other disordered eating practices. I’m also talking about obsessing over everything you eat, spending hours planning the perfectly healthy, balanced, carb-conscious, low calorie meal plan, making food the centerpiece of your daily life. I’m not thinking of legitimate food allergies here, but everything less than those that can eat up a lot of our time. FTP.
Food is an easy focus. It is available on demand and is readily controlled on one extreme or the other. Filling our stomachs can be a powerful physical comfort, almost a sense of presence. Yes, food planning, prep, and consumption can be a wonderful family-centered practice. I recommend it. However, for some, it can become the primary focus of their day, of their lives. Know when food becomes a distraction or a counterfeit way to fill you and comfort you emotionally that takes you away from Presence/relationships.
Alcohol. Personally, I lean to the careful end of the spectrum when it comes to alcohol. People in my extended family have died due to their addictive misuse and abuse of it.
I sat in an ICU for ten days and watched an intubated family member slowly die from hepatorenal syndrome due to alcohol addiction and abuse.
My uncle died suddenly at a relatively young age when he went to bed drunk and suffocated during the night due to aspirating his own vomit.
A friend died in her thirties from liver failure due to chronic alcohol abuse.
As a clinical psychologist, I have seen countless families ravaged by alcohol abuse that led to rage, abuse, financial difficulties, a culture of lying, and physical/emotional absence.
In addition, I have encountered so many people who believe that they need alcohol in their system to be comfortable in social situations or that it makes them appealing to others. The life of the party, and all that.
Everyone must make up their own minds about alcohol. Just be aware that a liquid you swallow so easily can prevent you from relational growth, from being in touch with your heart, from numbing out all your problems or at least consistently taking the edge off your anxieties about life. Be honest about your alcohol use. If you defend or depend on your consumption, you may have a problem or are on the verge of developing one.
Seek help immediately if you suspect that your alcohol use is killing relationships or your body.
Run to the Light. Don’t hide. Move toward others, not away from them or against them. As mentioned several times in other DTFL posts, use the Well of intimacy (move toward others). Don’t settle for the Leakage of mental illness or the Volcano of rage that comes when you shut down the well shaft that leads to your heart. Hiding is the opposite of Presence. Satan is the warden of that prison. One of his most devious strategies is to steal you away from Jesus and others—even your own heart—and get you all alone. Shun hiding. Hate it. Dismantle it any way possible with God’s help. Come out of your dark dungeon where it is as safe as a coffin.
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God ~ John 3:19-21.
Your reason for hiding may not blatantly be motivated by the practice of evil. Sadly, however, if you make it a practice to remain in the darkness of your own dungeon, you will daily drift farther from the light until one day, you will hate the light, or at least want to avoid it. But on the other hand, hiding may have everything to do with holding on to disobedience or a passion of the flesh. Bring this deadly desire to the light as soon as possible because what you feed gets bigger, stronger, and hungrier until it crowds out all other desires. Here we see the definition of addiction.
Don’t harbor secrets. This admonition is related to running toward the light as opposed to hiding. Keeping secrets is to be distinguished from confidentiality. Its motivation is always (?) to keep something locked away that needs to be confessed to someone we trust. Secreted things mushroom into something that will impact our physical, relational, and spiritual health.
His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords ~Psalm 55:21
Keeping secrets, war, and drawn swords in our hearts will eventually destroy us.
Keep money and material things in perspective and under control. Remember that you are a steward of what God has given you, not an owner. Manage it well and never let it own you. Do not fall into the pit of debt. It may be a long time before you climb out. Stress from debt may cause you to lose hundreds of hours of sleep–if not thousands.
Choose carefully who you marry. If it is God’s plan for you to get married, take your time and know your future spouse well before you marry them. After working with many marriages, I see the persevering pain and depression of choosing wrongly. I am convinced that some people will die 10-20 years early due to the agony of living with their spouse. Always have two people close enough to you that they can freely share their impressions about your potential spouse. Listen to them. Romance blinds the one who is afflicted by it.
Be angry. Don’t swallow your anger. It will not magically go away. Go toward your anger, own it, and work through it with God and another person until it is resolved. Avoid the two extremes of anger, namely, numbing it into submission or letting it own your life through uncontrolled expressions like road rage, sarcasm, irritability, and explosiveness. See Ephesians 4:26,27.
Avoid pride. Pride kills relationships and servanthood. It exalts self. Pride is the exact opposite of God’s love.
Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen ~ 1 Peter 5:5ff
In short, practice humility and please, please differentiate it from people pleasing.
Don’t value appearance or project an image to the world. If you have deep questions about this universal rule for mental health, read the book by Scott Peck, People of the Lie. Make it a practice to be your true self instead of a false self, a poser. Being false will distance you from genuine relationships and true love.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness ~ Matthew 23:25ff
Do not compare yourself to others. Comparing will often lead you to pride because you perceive yourself as better than others or to shame and despair because you can never measure up. Everyone is better than you. Both extremes are recipes for aloneness.
Run from sin, especially sexual sin. Paul says to flee youthful passions ~ 2 Timothy 2:22. Do not rationalize or deny the power of pornography and persistent fantasies. Don’t play with fire is a warning that comes from Scripture, and it is mentioned in the context of sexual sin. Power and sex are infested with pride and idolatry. Root them out not as some moral legalism but to guard your heart for it is the wellspring of your life.
Don’t be nice. Instead, love.
Seek out a mentor. Find someone who has lived more life than you, someone who is trustworthy and loves Jesus. Younger people may have knowledge but older and more mature people who have followed God for many years usually have wisdom. Find someone who has heaven’s wisdom and spend time with them. We become who we spend time with.
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed ~ Proverbs 15:22
Think about eternal life with Jesus. It will help you deal with your repressed anxiety about mortality even if you don’t allow yourself to think about it often or at all. Also, the truth of eternal life with Jesus will be one of your comforts when you are in the valley of the shadow and are tired of living in this world.
Be genuinely humble, not co-dependent. Know the difference between developing the character of Jesus and practicing counterfeit characteristics. Know your fleshly persona and shed it so you can put on Jesus. Grow into your true self created within you by God and take off your false self.
Be thankful. Gratitude places our eyes on the Giver of every good and perfect gift. It cultivates a positive attitude within our hearts. Avoid cultivating the opposite: complaining and grumbling. An attitude of entitlement will soon follow.
Be honest. Honesty is a cornerstone of intimacy. When you are truthful, many will trust you and want to be in relationship with you. You will also have significantly less anxiety and guilt when you’re not worried about lies being unearthed and unexpectedly exposed to the light.
Avoid self-sufficiency. Depending on oneself may not be a prideful choice but it may eventually feed pride. Someone once said, You can be right or you can be married. Similarly, you can be self-sufficient, or you can be in meaningful and loving relationships with others.
Obey God. God’s statutes and instructions, if obeyed, will increase our mental health. Even the Ten Commandments were gifted to humans so that we might be healthy spiritually, physically, relationally, and psychologically.
If you look closely at them, you will notice that they all are ingredients of the two great commandments mentioned above that are all about love. Obedience leads to peace and a clean conscience. I don’t know about you, but I sleep so well when I have obeyed but often find my sleep troubled if I have sinned.
Love. What gets in the way of love? Pride, sin, hatred, bitterness, lust, a critical spirit. Avoid these things and instead practice love. Since God is love, we must pray for and practice love so that we will be more like our Creator. Get out of kindergarten and steadily move up to the higher grades when it comes to loving others.
You are not born knowing how to love, and neither can you create love on your own. It must be generated by Him who is love. If you keep growing, you will one day matriculate in God’s university of love. Some of you may even make it to graduate school. Ha.
Forgive. Someone once said that forgiveness is almost a selfish act because of the great benefit to the one who forgives. I couldn’t agree more. God forgives us and commands us to forgive others. Remember: forgiveness is not forgetting and neither does it mean trusting the other person. Unforgiveness is poison to the body and the soul.
Sleep enough.
Don’t love sleep. You will do what you love. What else needs to be said? Okay, the only additional thing that needs to be said is that you will get plenty of rest after you die.
Distinguish godly guilt from hell’s shame.
Be in nature. But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind ~ Job 12:7ff.
In nature, we see God’s handiwork and the glory of His creation. We also find peace and a solitude where we can get away from life’s cacophony and seek Him with all our hearts.
Always look inside your own heart first. Remove the log from your own eye instead of attempting to take the speck out of someone else’s eye. Always, always look inside first and see your own sin. Confess it, and then pray for those around you who need to grow. Our culture is enslaved to the practice of looking outside first. Be different than the culture around you. Extend God’s message of grace to the world.
Identify and weed out your spirit of condemnation. We are born to project our own badness into others and then condemn them instead of ourselves. It is innate in us. Identify it and seek to root it out through confession and gratitude to God.
Pray for others. Pray for the men and women around you whenever you wish to condemn them or be bitter toward them. You might meet them in heaven one day or win a friend.
Be generous.
Laugh. A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones ~ Proverbs 17:22
Don’t take things personally. This universal rule is so important that it requires its own blogpost. In short, if you are wounded easily, you will be offended by everything and everyone and will die alone. You’ll find descriptions of personalizing all over the book of Proverbs. Deal with hypersensitivity. Now.
Avoid rehearsal. It is so tempting and easy for us humans to focus on negative things that we have done or others have done—or not done. We can even rehearse anger toward God for not doing what we think He should have done. An astounding passage for dealing with the rehearsal of negative/obsessive thoughts is Philippians 4:4ff:
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. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Choose growth. The desire to grow is not naturally in us. You must pray for it and cultivate it. Growth is uphill, against the wind, upstream against the current. You must intentionally pursue it. Be intentional and ask the Holy Spirit for help because if you are a believer, to avoid growth is disobedience. Self-protection is a huge way to avoid growth.
Run toward difficult things like David ran toward Goliath. Be an astronaut, not an astronomer. Don’t just look at things from a distance, move toward them and engage them. Do one thing differently.
Ask for help.
Seek God first. Memorize Matthew 6:33. Begin the day (and the rest of your life) with Jesus.
Be teachable. This universal commandment is even more important than the one about not taking things personally. Teachability is quintessential to growth. Root out defiance and oppositional attitudes in your heart.
Respect authority, especially God’s loving authority. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men ~ Acts 17:10ff.
There are multiple passages in scripture that we could point to concerning a teachable attitude, but I like this one that describes the teachability of the Bereans. Don’t shut your heart to wisdom or God’s truth wherever it may be found. Have ears that are always open to hear God’s voice.
Be as teachable as a young child but not gullible. You will serve a master, an authority. Choose very carefully who you will serve. There is no Switzerland in the realm of authority. No neutrality.
Don’t control. Let go and trust God. Control can be a huge barrier to faith in God and others and can make you unlikable and even obnoxious.
Don’t try to be good. Realize that God is not asking you to be a good person but a holy person. Holiness and right relationship can only be initiated and carried out by God. Make sure you know and live by the truth of 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. . . . For our sake he made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
God does not want us to obey because we should. He wants us to enter into a loving relationship with Him so that we will then obey Him out of love and not out of some obligation to morality.
As needed, seek out counseling. If you sense a need for professional help on your journey toward mental health, find a therapist who loves Jesus. When you open the holy of holies of your heart to someone, research shows that you internalize the presence of your therapist (their care for you, their respectful listening, even their values). Internalize someone who walks with God. People will differ on this view. I get that and respect that. Some of it comes down to how you view the goal of counseling. Is it to get rid of unwanted symptoms like anxiety and depression? Yes. Is it to grow in your relationships with your spouse or roommate or parents or friends? Yes. Is it so you can be less disabled and more able to function? Yes. But I see therapy as more than that. As a believer in Jesus who tries (emphasis on tries) to see everything through the eyes of God’s plan and from an eternal perspective, I view therapy as sanctification for believers. Believers are not meant to simply grow psychologically. We are called by God to practice Presence with Him, others, and even our own hearts. He wants us to remove anything that gets in the way of realizing Presence. See 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. He wants us to learn how to love with His love, not our own limited love.
Counseling can be a classic example of amazing Presence. Seek it out if you need help. Please don’t do life alone. A godly therapist can be a bridge to God Himself, and may even help you remove obstacles between you and Jesus.
Surrender everything to Jesus. Galatians 5:22,23 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
If we humbly open the door of our heart and surrender everything to Jesus, He will grow us to be like Him. We will learn to love, to practice Presence, and to be in healthy relationship with Him and others around us. Why wouldn’t everyone want this to be the objective for their few decades on this planet?
God sent His only Son into this world so we might be saved from our fallen nature, our ongoing sin, the accusations and enslavement of the devil, and the wrath of a holy God against our sin. A natural consequence of this reconciling act by Jesus is a personal relationship with Him, others, and our own hearts. In other words, Jesus came to deliver us from the Great Divorce and bring us into Right Relationship.
Jesus came to make us like Him, in status and in our daily growing maturity. He will continue to invite us toward growth and will even bring things into our lives to move us in the direction of growth. Yes, He came to make us spiritually holy, relationally intimate, physically whole, and mentally healthy.
Mental health comes as we walk more closely with our loving Creator and pursue His universal truth for our lives.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ ~ 1 Corinthians 2:14-16