Faith: The Power of Prayer in Mental Health

Good afternoon everyone, this is Dr. Niger again, our next episode of Psychology Unplugged. Many thanks to everyone who has reached out to appreciate all the positive comments, the feedback. A lot of the suggestions you guys have given me autism, overcoming trauma, dealing with parents who have a personality disorder, a variety of topics. And again, very humbled by how many people come from various parts of the globe for me to do neurosurgery and then I'm just a person on the podcast or the radio or whatever platform this is on a weekly basis. So I really appreciate it and thank you for all the followers that we have. As you know I do this program organically. Julie, I've said this at Nazim. Julie is constantly, will you please think of a topic during the week? I was like, "Yeah, how may mind work?" So I always set up with the kitchen island and I sit here for 15, 20 minutes until something pops in my head and I go with it. So today's topic, I'm going to talk about, I did an episode on this and a lot of people really resonated with a lot of positivity and I think in the current climate of what is going on in the world, especially in Ukraine, the atrocities that are happening. The crime, the all that we have a movement for everything in the United States and it's getting beyond ridiculous I think, but we are so polarized and disconnected as individuals that we're living I think almost an age of animosity, of egocentrism that my belief system is right, your belief system is wrong, your skin color is bad, my skin color is good, your ideologies are incorrect, my ideologies are right. So this topic I wanted to focus on the whole notion of faith and it may seem ironic, why would a neuropsychologist who does diagnostics for living and train and cognitive with every talk about faith? I think at the outside of the program, when I did the first introductory episode, I mentioned that spirituality would be a part of these episodes and over the last few weeks since the whole invasion of Ukraine, there is a lot of anxiety and fear and apprehension and uncertainty that people have. I don't know if we're still in a pandemic or what it is, some people wear the mask, some people don't, don't really know what's going on, some people are told they have to get vaccinations, other people are told whatever, so there's so much misinformation. I think the advent of technology has really deconstructed a mainstream flow of valid information and I think a lot of us are left to our own methodologies or vices of what we choose to believe, what we don't choose to believe. But I picked this topic of faith because as I've said before, it's born and raised Catholic. I mentioned breast-franksting and put it best once you're Catholic, there's no getting out, but I have definitely become more spiritual as I've gotten older and I think faith and spirituality plays a significant role in the field in the world of mental health. When you have nothing, you still have a higher power. I'll be, you know, I'm not even describing a name. I mean, for me, I use God, other people may use Yahweh, other people may use the Allah, may use Buddha. I think it's independent and my personal perspective, I think God manifests Himself differently different people. I still think of, you know, my childhood version of God as being this old man with a white beard and, you know, my drive to work, which is not very far at all, is my quiet time. I shut the radio off and I pray as for guidance, as for peace, as for wisdom and always use gratitude. But I think in the world of mental health, it's really important in the throngs of mental health of having what I would call faith for the middle. And what I mean the middle, this is when, you know, psychiatric disorders and, and sit in the middle of the mental health, mental health. I think it's the best of the most, the most important is the mental health, the most important is the mental health, the most important is the mental health. And I think that's the most important thing to do about mental health is to be able to do that. And I think it's the most important thing to do about mental health is to be able to do that. We're going to stop having these racing thoughts. And I think, you know, we live in a world in, in Western society of being an autopilot. We are in Amazon cultures, I said many times before. It's like I wanted it. I wanted it now. I wanted immediate relief. I want my SSRIs to work right away. I want my benzodiazepines to work right away. You know, we look for the quick fixes. But I think if we can get to a place of reorienting, reorienting ourselves to some grounding in spirituality and connectedness to something bigger than ourselves. And you know, great. I've used Bruce Prinks in a lot. I'm a huge admirer of you guys who follow this program. And interwold and throughout, much of his music is the presence and the power of God and the power of prayer and the power of faith. And you know, faith has really tried in the fires of affliction. I think, I think the apostle Paul said that. And it's okay to be what I would consider imperfectly perfect. You know, if you look at, if you look at individuals in the Bible, many of them had flaws. You know, Abraham, who's like the founder of Christianity, he had sex with his wife's made. David, man after God's own heart, he killed a person. Noah was a drunk, Peter swore. You know, some of the apostles were tax collectors. And you know, even if you look at Jesus as just the human being in the Garden of Gesemini, he asked God if you could take this cup from me and let it pass. I mean, and he fell three times with a cross and needed to help. So I mean, I think if Jesus gets to that point where he needed help, who are we to say that we can't turn to someone else. Now, we can't go to a therapist. We can't go to a prescriber. We can't go to a neuropsychologist and get an evaluation. But faith has a really important role in mental health because it's, I think, our one saving grace to be able to put it on the altar. To be able to place our things and have the patience and the tenacity and the fortitude and the belief and the hope. You know, blind faith, I think, is dangerous. Blind faith in anything is very dangerous. I mentioned this in one of the episodes that is something my mother raised myself and my brother's with is blind is to question everything. But I think in times of despair, in times of uncertainty, in times of ambiguity, I think that's a lot of times when people turn to faith and they turn to whatever type of religion. And I think sometimes people back away from it when things are going well. And I think, you know, my perspective to think God loves us no matter what. And again, this is not a conversion lesson. I'm just simply saying that, you know, can you have faith that your loved one or yourself will get better? Absolutely. Can you have faith? So if you look at it, I really kind of parsing out faith in multiple things. Can you have faith in God? Yes. Can you have faith in a higher power? Absolutely. Can you have faith in your provider? You have faith in your psychotropic medication. I do not even absolutely. But again, blind faith is very dangerous. That's why I always encourage people to ask questions. It doesn't mean you have to have the answers. But I think ambiguity, uncertainty, those that you know, of youth that turn to those those are the those are the night, cultures, those those that you know, the darkness is when the thoughts come, the darkness and the aloneness. When you're you're talking with somebody who's struggling with mental health or you're looking in the mirror and wondering is is my life situation ever going to get any better. I don't see any harm in putting it on the altar and asking whatever higher being that you ascribe to for guidance. And I could tell you for myself and you know, even just walking out of the grocery store or they may go on Sundays. Hopefully, thank you God for allowing us to be able to forward nice groceries and it's been translated. formative in my life in acknowledging, but you know, Catholic guilt sets. And when I drive past the church and I don't, I used to go to church every time my father was in town, I would go to church as a young kid, you know, with my parents, Catholic grammar school, all boys, Catholic high school in Chicago. You know, but I think that guilt sets in when, you know, I drive past the church, which is some of the way to my office. And I don't go, but I realize, you know, from a Christian perspective, Jesus didn't come to start a religion. And I think people confuse religion with God. And they confuse religion with rules and ordinances and theology when it's a simple conversation that you can have with a higher power. And I think that was, it's probably one of the best ways I, I can describe of what prayer is. You know, there's people who can say all the incantations and there's people that can say all the prayers and recite Bible, Bible verses verbatim. And that's great. But I don't think that that's what you need to have in order to find solace or peace in something bigger and greater than ourselves. What harm is there? You know, but again, if there's, if there's the expectation, and then you know, you get, you look at the world as it is right now, it's like, how, why, you know, why did I lose my mom? Why did I lose my dad? Why are, why are people in, you know, why are these people in Ukraine being terrorized? Why are, why is there poverty? Why do good things, bad things happen to good people? I think these are all reasonable questions. And it could, it could certainly taint and reorient somebody away from whatever spiritual upbringing that they have. But, you know, hope, I think, is a really important part of mental health and the whole mental health field and, and, and, and experience to be able to have faith in again, from, you can look at again, from a religious perspective or, or spirituality perspective and look at it also from a scientific perspective. What, what, what I find fascinating is we get on airplanes. And with several hundred other other people. And we don't know who the pilot is. We don't know what, what stressors they have. We don't know if they're an alcoholic, if they're having a marital trouble, but we place our lives in their, their hands. And we trust that they're going to give us from destination A to destination B. But then at the same time, people say, I, I have a hard time believing in God. That logic to me seems very flawed. You're going to put your life in someone else's hand that you don't see. And trust that they're going to get you there. But you won't put something on the altar. You don't see the pilot. You also don't see God. So I think there's a lot of irony in that. And again, not a conversion lesson is just a perspective to help people in the world of mental health. To, you know, besides your therapist, your prescriber, whatever other professionals that you're working with, that there is something bigger or there has to be something bigger than what we have. When you think of the concept of the universe as being having no beginning and no end, and there's multiple universes that is almost incomprehensible. You know, I think we have a very myopic view of what life is. You know, just because we walk and talk, it doesn't mean there's life in the planets. I'm not getting into like conspiracy theories or getting into off the wall kind of stuff. I'm just simply, you know, that that faith for the middle. And that middle is when mental health is rearing its most ugly head. Is when symptoms are at full exacerbation. And whether that's suicide or thought, that self-injuries behaviors, that's hallucinations, delusions, psychiatric hospitalizations, dissociation, depersonalization, derealization, substance abuse, trauma, rape, verbal abuse, mental abuse, and the throngs of it, I completely understand how it's hard to find any meaning and justification of like, why is this happening? And you know, if you're angry towards some higher power, you're entitled to that. You are. But I think if we can reorient ourselves and look at those times as being, this is where maybe I could find peace. This is maybe where I could find some solace, some some some gratitude. You know, out of chaos comes order. And we're not always, we don't always have the full picture of what that order will look like. Is it isn't the depression goes away? The anxiety helps the or the anxiety goes down. The suicidal ideations dissipate the self-injurious behaviors reduced. We don't know. It's that faith for the middle that, you know, everything, you know, Julie always talks about that cloud metaphor that there's the clouds like there's a beginning, a middle and an end. We like the beginning and we like the end. None of us like the middle. The middle sucks. And the middle is when the emotions come and the thoughts come. And the, but my thoughts, I mean, not the thoughts that we want to have, not the ones that give us euphoria or happiness or peace or solitude or or just calmness and, you know, a quiet mind. And my mind is never quiet. I constantly thinking, Julie's always like, "Dude, is your mind ever shut off? Do you ever stop thinking?" And the answer is no. But that's just how my mind works. But I do, I do from experience. I know we have a great colleague and our friend Kathleen who's at our house right now. She is an incredibly strong faith. And she's a family nurse practitioner. And she works with the geriatric population. We'll have her around the show at some point. And, you know, her perspective just to talk with her earlier is the people that have the strongest faith tend to have the better outcomes, tend to have the better prognosis. But I think, you know, in a very tangible world, it's sometimes very hard for us to put our finger on something that we've never seen, that we've never talked to, that we've never seen something very tangible. Now, just in the side, my own mind is like, "Why was God talking to all these people in the Bible?" He's telling Noah to use the Moses to strike a rock and water would come out. He's talking to everybody else in the Bible. It's like, so my own question is, "Why isn't God talking to everybody right now?" You know, so that so you can see the own contradiction in my own philosophy is, "I have a strong faith, but I have questions." And that's okay. But at the end of the day, I love this quote. And I use this in the spiritual episode. I did several months ago is, again, some anonymous, "I'd rather spend my life believing in God and die and find out that he does not exist that to spend my life not believing in God and die and find out that he does." Again, it's a very powerful and cathartic, it's how it got through my father's death, which I never imagined I would be able to get through. You know, Julie was a huge part of it, but it was also my father had unshakable faith. So did my mother. And I guess, you know, resonated with me and I don't feel I have to be indoctrinated into a formal religion, even though I still hear some of the Catholic practices that I don't need me down Fridays during Lent. You know, Julie and I live very healthy lifestyles, but I think it's, then, having faith in something bigger, more powerful than ourselves can be transformative. And I think if we can just suspend the immediate two-day response that we're used to with Amazon Prime and trust the process and put it on the altar, you know, again, I am not a biblical scholar, but in the Bible says, "Once as soon as you pray, the angels are dispatched." And it doesn't mean God answers prayers in the way that we want him to. I look back my own life, you know, and somethings I pray for, you know, sometimes you're thankful for your closed doors. Certainly in my life, I am. And I think if you guys look back here, life is things that we prayed for the person they wanted me with or the job we wanted to have or whatever situation it was and that door didn't open, if you look, you, I think, you will become more aware of whatever spiritual power is around you. And again, my own personal perspective, I don't think it requires you going to a formal building, although for some people, that is what they believe is important, that's fine. I think it's your own personal relationship and in the world of mental health because it's also very ambiguous. You can't touch bipolar, you can't touch depression, you can't touch anxiety, you can't touch schizophrenia, you can't touch OCD, you can't touch borderline, you can experience it, but you can't touch it. The same thing is I'm trying to hold concept of faith, is it, I think it takes practice, it takes work, it takes trust, it takes commitment, and what do you have to lose? Give everything to gain and really nothing to lose as a part of reaching out to something bigger and more powerful than ourselves. And again, I think in the world that we are in right now, peace is something that I think most rational people are striving for, are craving, and we are so divided. And I try my best to demystify mental health to give you the best education I have in terms of what it is, what it's not, to instill a sense of hope, encourage a sense of resiliency, but there I really believe there's something bigger than ourselves. And I talked to my God as being an attachment figure, much as like we attach to our parents biological adoptive foster, whatever we attach to other people. You want to say something? Oh, you want to say something? Oh, good I? Oh. Hi guys, I wanted to just shed a little bit of light about looking at somebody from maybe the spiritual part of our existence, our method of hope and being able to endure difficulty, whatever that may be, and then also have kind of blind faith. I think after the last few weeks I've been kind of exploring a couple of people I've mentioned probably one, at least one of them before. The two people that I'm kind of like I ordered their books actually offline. One is the holistic psychologist. She's quite popular. I think she's got like five million followers on just psychologists. She's licensed psychologist, whatever, but she's I like what she's doing in terms of kind of decontinent through that of me. Kind of like de labeling a person's experience. She talks a lot about trauma. I believe herself is a trauma survivor. Again, I haven't read the book, but I have looked at her Instagram and she has a real large community of healers. But I think what she talks about a lot is how unique it is for people who have a trauma history. To look at a person like a human being, which is something I try to do all the time versus like putting someone in a diagnostic category, and I think that that's also part of what kind of causes a lot of the stigma. I had a client recently who had testing done and she was kind of devastated that she was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. I might have touched upon this before, but to us in the field, that doesn't really mean anything to kind of mind-blowing, but for someone who isn't in the field and they hear something, then why is it major? What's wrong with me? That kind of thing. I like the way this person, Dr. Nicole LaPara, I'm not sure what your name is, sorry, Nicole. But anyway, I like what she does in terms of giving the perspective of someone has a unique experience. She talks a lot about the inner child. We all are inner children. We of all not all of us have grown up with picture-perfect childhoods. We all have been exposed to certain things, some more than others that have been pretty scary or just kind of helped shape us into these people that we are now. And I want to loop this in too with another woman out there, Gabrielle Bernstein, who wrote a book. I think she, I don't know what her credentials are per se, but she is really very well known out there in the self-help world. And she wrote a book called Happy Days. She talks a lot about her recovery. Again, I'm like in the middle of reading it, but I was very intrigued by these two women because they really talk about, especially Gabrielle, having a strong face. And coming back to who am I supposed to be on this earth, teasing out all the stuff that we've collected along the way. Who are we really at the end of the day? Who were we born to be? Who, if you believe in God, I do, but who were you born into this world to be? Because that's really what I think spirituality is all about, too, is coming back and having that spiritual face and the trust in a higher power to know that they're either walking beside us, they're holding us while we're going to a difficult time, which always invariably I, in the first one to admit, I noticed these things in hindsight. I don't always notice things that, you know, begging God, make, please make this, you know, relationship work or please make this job work out or please I need this, oh my God, and, you know, you pray to the ends of the earth, but like nothing happens and then lo and behold, years later, you know, depending on the situation, you look back and say, oh my God, thank God that didn't work out, you know, I think we can all probably relate to that. And I like the fact that when you're talking about getting back to who we are and talking about like revisiting who that person is that was born to be here for the time that they're on the earth and what is it that matters the most? What is it that's relevant? What are what are we supposed to do? And I think so many people are searching for that. I think some people don't even know that that's an option. I know that's a lot of people I think, you know, the Nicole Lepara, she refers to it as like an awakening, I think Gabrielle Bernstein does too as well in her book. And it's about like not even just getting it the first time. It's all about like healing and the journey of healing because if you really kind of want to come back to that person that you were born to be, you know, if you think about being born in this world, you know, biologically, we're born through parents, whether they're involved or not, whether we're adopted or not, whether we're fostered or not. Children are born through us and I believe that as a mom and I've learned that myself and you know, and my journey as a mother. But I also, you know, I'm on my own journey myself too with, you know, stuff that's happened to me in my lifetime and you know how we make our way through the world by our habit, energy, our patterns, what are our patterns really. And I think, you know, right now, I want to put that out there because anybody who's really struggling, think about how you're going through the world and maybe it's not working because you're not in touch with your true self. And that takes a lot of work and that takes a lot of face. Again, I just, the holistic psychologist, her book is called How to Do the Work. She does a lot of hands-on physical. She really, really focuses on the body's reaction to trauma and the mind's association to it. Really gives a lot of hands-on activities you can do, you know, daily postings that are really, really, really interesting and I believe very helpful. And also like the Depression project, that's another one out there that I've spoken about before. It talks about like walking around in the world and how often we're like kind of not inert but we're just existing and we're not feeling joy. I think being alive is about feeling as much joy as you possibly can. And that takes, in my opinion, that takes some connection to a higher power, especially within just to give an example. I know that when I'm with my children, I feel joy. I know that when my husband and I are going for a walk or my best friend who's here tonight, we're going for a beautiful walk on the beach. I mean, so lucky. I don't live on the water. I live a drive away from the water. But just the experience of having the beautiful sun and hearing the waves and the life, the animal life. You can't, it's almost undeniable. So for me, I think, and I always recommend to my clients, my patients, is get in touch with nature. Anything that is not necessarily materialistic. And if you can do that, watch wildlife, the birds, something that will reconnect you with nature, the mystery of it all, the unequivocable, if that's a word, unequivocable, you can't even compare to the universe, what? And a lot of people believe in universal energy. And I do that too, but I do believe it's God energy. I think if you tap into that, that gets you there. But a lot of it is a lot of work, and it's certainly not going to be explained in a podcast, of course. But just to give you some resources out there, a lot of people believe, and I do believe this too, is that when you feel joy, it's human nature to attach to that. And that's what the Buddhist believe. And again, I could be here for days, talking about just that. And I'm by no means an official Buddhist. But I do believe that connection to when we have joy in our lives, and we're truly happy, and we have profound peace. Sometimes when we try to cling onto that, we don't want to let go, we want more of it. And that's when the suffering happens. If you do anything, pay attention to that part. It's try to tap into some joy, because it's there. I quote Albert Einstein all the time, because Albert Einstein, with all that he did, with all that he did, all he wanted to know really was how God thought. He just wanted to know how God thought. And for someone as a genius that he was, he also said, the most important question you can ask yourself, is do we live in a hostile or a kind universe among the hostility, and there are really no words for what's going on in Ukraine and Russia. I have lots of expletives to share, but I can't on this program. But just a deep, a deep rattledness and despair in a helpless feeling, like we're all feeling. I definitely feel like that's been a universal sending love to Ukraine, doing what everybody's kind of stepping up and doing what they can. But just I think it's pretty unanimous that everyone is feeling similarly about this situation. In the midst of all of that, you see kindness. That's the thing. It's knowing yes, we do live in a hostile universe right now, especially in this particular area. But there's also an enormous amount of kindness. See the kindness, try to touch, try to tap into the kindness and be part of that kindness. And lastly, I'm being queued over here by his nibs. But prayer, I used to get so caught up in that, just like the meditation. I used to get so tweaked up that I missed the whole point. And you're all smart people out there. You know what to do. But I'm just offering my two senses. I talk to God like he's my best friend. I talk to God like he's my father, like a father figure or like something that you are someone who is there to help or to listen. And I don't get caught up in a lot of prairie prayers. I grew up Catholic. I knew all the prayers and all that. It's not that I don't say them I will, but I do, I think to have a real conversation with God so that God knows your heart, even though he already does. And that being said, just talking to the universal source, talking to and communicating that way, in a very real organic way, instead of getting all worked up about what do I say, I don't even know what to say, I give up. That's all. And I think that's about it. All right. Yeah. Thank you for listening guys. I'm just popping. Sorry for just jumping in like that. Yeah, always jumping. No, I didn't. So again, the whole point of this podcast, again, not a religious conversion. Just as mental health professionals, Julian, I both see and value in our own individual lives. What? We're not alone. That's the whole thing. What? We're not alone. You know, we're not alone. And our own individual, no, you messed up my train of thought. And our own, as mental health professionals, we, you know, the vast majority of people that we work with have some kind of spiritual connectedness and try our best to reorient them. And again, I think it's just the, as I say, how I do these programs, you know, off the top of my head, the current climate in the world drove my mind to really approach this. And what Julie was saying is, and I totally espouse this view is, we're not alone. You're not alone. And I would encourage you to reach out to whatever higher power that you described to as you are just individuals, as you are struggling with mental health. If you are in a relationship with somebody with mental health, what? I have one more thing to say. Oh, God. Okay. One thing I have learned, and I think I mentioned it before that I share with a lot of my clients, send love in the presence of hate. I believe that that truly works. If you are in a situation or you're thinking, or you have these negative thoughts, again, talk to your providers, talk to your therapists. I don't want to derail any therapist teaching. Certainly, I'm not a therapist right now being on a podcast. But I think it's a really good exercise to do, and it will make you feel as weird as, absolutely, you want to roll your eyes like, I can't. There are some things, some situations that you just can't, or you're not ready to do that, that's fine. Those are, I'm not talking about those typical situations. But if something is kind of recurring in your brain, the negative thoughts, and even if it's towards yourself, we're all very hard on ourselves. I know I am hard on myself. And I know I think pretty much is going to be little hard on themselves. Sometimes we're our own worst critics. We need to stop that. But when a negative thought or feeling comes into your mind, if you focus on it and meditate, not in a meditative sort of way in lengths, but if you can send love to it, I found this exercise to be continuously helpful for me if I wake up in the middle of the night, and I have a very scary or negative thought that can be very intrusive. That's what I do. I send love to it. And I try to visualize, just love, just embracing it. And it takes me out of my head and into my heart. And it's a very interesting transformation. And I've worked with people and they seem to, you know, some people, not everybody, some people can grasp that and it can be helpful. It's just that was just send love in the presence of hate. And if you could do that as an exercise, it can hopefully heal and liberate you. Are you sure? You can't stay listening to your cell if you say you say good things. So anyhow, more of an existential episode, I head back and forth between that and the clinical. I appreciate everybody who's reached out to me. If I haven't responded back to you, I'll give you the contact information, how to get a hold of me. I try my best to respond to everybody. But again, just in the currency to the fairs, the world is tumultuous. The world is unpredictable. The world is scary at this point in time. As I did at the episode I did several months ago about psychology and spirituality, I'll send this out for anybody who is struggling with mental health, anybody who is in a precarious predicament in their life and for the people of Ukraine and anybody who is afflicted by them. It's an incantation that I was raised with, that I still repeat and I've grown to understand the meaning of it as I've got nolder versus just reciting words. Our father, Lord in heaven, hell be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, just give us this one day. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not to temptation but deliver us, deliver all of us from evil. Amen. Until next week, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, reconnect or strengthen your connection or find a connection to something higher. You can feel free to get hold of me at psychology unpluggedoutlook.com through psychology today and you can contact me directly via text or calling me 617750941 East Coast Standard Time. Until next week, be well, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, find peace, maintain hope. Bye guys.