Some issues, challenges, relationships and situations can’t be easily solved today, or even this month or this year.
But what you can do, right now, is be open to changing your perception of them? You can feel better right now, even as you read this, in spite of any emotional or mental distress you are facing today.
A pause to stop, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and shut out the world can rescue you. Let’s call this the Spiritual Time-Out.
How the Spiritual Time-Out Works
This quick connection to spirit can influence your improved mental health and joy of life –– because as you might guess, there is a deep relationship between the two.
On a basic level, mental illness is often a frame of mind, a view, whether caused by adverse experiences, physiological inputs, trauma, chronic disease, addictions, loneliness, or other causes. Mental illness can manifest as a way of thinking, or a way of feeling in the moment.
You may not necessarily have the power to fully transform it, but you are experiencing the world in a certain light, in that state of mental turmoil.
Connection to spirit can, slowly but surely, start to reframe that worldview into one that is more holistic and nourishing for your life.
For example, if you are experiencing anxiety, and it is recurring and showing up in different parts of your life, there are medical interventions that can certainly help.
But the one thing you can do from the very start, as soon as you notice that it’s happening, and you decide you are ready to change it, is put a focus on making time to connect with yourself and connect with your spirit.
When you do this, it can support transformation of the painful worldview.
Instead of crushing anxiety that feels stressful and restrictive and suffocating, your worldview can start to open up and allow for more space to breathe and be in the moment, feeling safer and less overwhelmed.
The physical symptoms may still linger, so connection to spirit needs to be practiced over time. Things like conscious breathing, meditation, being still, being in nature, going for walks –– these are the simple actions to take that really can help you improve your mental state.
Spirituality is a Foundation to Vibrant Mental Well-being
It may not fully eliminate your mental health challenges if you have them, but it will greatly reduce the burden that they may have on you.
If you have a spiritual practice, you may be less prone to developing them in the first place.
If you love the science, here is a taste of the evidence that spirituality can lower the impact of mental illness on your life:
- National Alliance on Mental Illness, “The Mental Health Benefits of Religion & Spirituality.” (2016)
- Australasian Psychiatry, “Spiritually augmented cognitive behavioural therapy.” (2016)
- Indian Journal of Psychiatry, “Spirituality and mental health.” (2008)
- Royal College of Psychiatrists UK, “Spirituality and Psychiatry.” (2009)
There is no question that meditation and acceptance of my illness through regular journalling eventually freed me of my panic with the loss of career and energy many years ago. My brain wasn’t functioning, and I certainly couldn’t trust it to sort out my problems. What I could trust is that when I sank into deeper breathing, I immediately felt better.
Benefits of A Spiritual Practice
So in short, here are the three main ways that spirituality can contribute to your improved mental health:
- It allows you space to reframe your perspective of the world around you, and opens or widens the possibilities and potential that you see in every moment. You can see different options for your way out of the distress.
- Second, having a spiritual practice can be a foundation that may reduce your chance of encountering mental health challenges.
- And third, if you do have challenges in your life related to mental health, a spiritual practice can greatly reduce the burden that they put on you every day.
Try spiritual practice, more often. It can pull back the heavy curtain that can feel so hard to see through when you’re struggling with mental health challenges like anxiety or depression.
Instead, it makes the curtain lighter and more transparent, and in quiet moments, you can pull it all the way to the side or see right through it, so that you have a fresh perspective of what you’re experiencing in your life.
This pause helps you focus on what you want to experience instead, so that you can make it happen!
