A couple months ago, I wrote a piece on four erroneous and ultimately, dangerous beliefs about suffering that are common in the secular world. These include: 1. Your body has the innate ability to heal, 2. You are the one who can end your suffering, 3. YOU are the one who can end your suffering, and 4. Emptying your mind can lead to inner peace. The common thread running through these philosophies is complete reliance upon one’s self. More and more and I find these ideas rampant in our society with a pronounced emphasis on self-love, self-care, and self-autonomy. For brevity’s sake, I won’t delve into explicit examples, but lately it seems I cannot go a moment scrolling through social media without reading some severely flawed cliche preaching that loving and accepting oneself is the highest of values.
The last two and half years, I have focused tremendously on myself, and let me tell you-- this path leads to nowhere good. When the pain began to cycle out of control, it was all about me: my employment, my disability leave, my living and financial situation, my health. Now, of course, these are real-world struggles I had to deal with out of necessity. However, while I may not have been acting out of selfishness, this intense concentration on my problems and the panicked reliance upon me to fix them led me to a deep depression. I spent days in bed, watching Netflix. I used the headaches as an excuse-- and don’t get me wrong, the physical pain was real, but the truth is: it was my hatred for my problems and my inability to solve them that kept me housebound during that time. Eventually, the headaches got bad enough that it became easier to blame them for my depression. It’s like I wanted a legitimate reason to isolate myself, and my body said, “Okay! Here you go-- chronic headaches it is!” Now, familiar with Dr. Sarno’s theory of TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome), it’s clear to me how my rage perpetuated my pain, and still does. The ugly truth is: I was, and still am, enraged that I can’t work a job. I am enraged that my friends and family don’t have pain and I do. And most importantly, I am enraged that I seem to have no control over this situation and I have been unable to fix it for the past two and a half years. I simply can’t figure out how to get unstuck.
A modern-day self-love guru would tell me what I need to learn how to love myself. She would say I need to accept myself and where I am in my journey. I would need to practice self-care and self-compassion. And in some small ways, she would be correct. It was my perfectionism, my people-pleasing tendencies, and my vicious inner-critic that prompted my body to produce physical pain. But how does one really feel compassion for oneself? One night, I lied in bed and told myself, “Okay. Try to forgive yourself for your past mistakes.” Several moments went by and I felt utterly ridiculous. My mind went blank; this was a test I didn’t study for. The following day I posted my predicament within a Catholic women’s group on Facebook. I detailed my struggle and asked: How does a Catholic go about forgiving/loving oneself, especially without buying into this narcissistic culture? One woman had what I found to be a very wise reply. She told me that by its very nature, love only exists via gift-form. It is something we either give or receive. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to try to conjure up love for oneself. We can’t be both the sender and the recipient of a gift because that’s simply illogical. The nature of a gift is relational.
In this same thread, I was also referred to the book, Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life, by Bob Schuchts. I have been listening to the audiobook, and thus far, am highly impressed with how it ties into secular and scientifically-based books on the mind-body connection. Books such as, The Mindbody Prescription (Dr. John Sarno), Think Away Your Pain (Dr. David Schecter), and Back in Control (Dr. David Hanscom) powerfully illuminate the connection between mind and body. (Before I continue, allow me to emphasize that these books are relevant for people suffering with physical pain that does not have a structural cause. Of course, these doctors urge anyone in chronic pain to see a doctor to rule out physical causes before accepting the TMS diagnosis.) These medical doctors detail how repressing emotions (e.g. rage, sadness, guilt) can produce real physical pain as a distraction. Many chronic pain sufferers (including yours truly) can point to a specific emotional trauma that sparked the cycle of physical pain. Sarno believed the internalization of emotions causes a process of mild oxygen deprivation, which in turn, leads to real physical pain. Through countless scientific studies and personal testimonials, the mind-body connection simply cannot be disputed. (And as much as I would love to delve into all I’ve learned, I’ll simply hyperlink these books so you can check them out yourselves). In his book, Schuchts adds the final element to this reciprocal relationship: the spirit. While Sarno and others believe that the root of pain is anger (or another strong emotion), Schuchts claims the root cause of pain is often deprivation of love (and of course, the ultimate source of love is God). This finding really struck me as the final, and most crucial piece of the puzzle. There is a whole range of traumas that can lead to physical pain (death of a loved one, rape, assault, divorce, and any other event that produces great emotional distress). While of course these circumstances naturally produce rage, sadness, guilt, etc., the real cause of these emotions is extreme deprivation of love (or God). Pain isn’t produced by merely the mind-body connection, but an affliction plaguiging the mind-body-spirit connection.
These exhilarating discoveries have led to intense self-reflection these past 6 months. The mind-body books I’ve mentioned detail how chronic pain sufferers have completely cured their physical ailments by identifying the source of trauma and working on emotional healing. Naturally, this leads to all sorts of questions I ask myself: “What was the trauma that led to my physical pain? Have I healed emotionally? What are the emotions perpetuating physical pain and how do I heal from them?” While I believe this is an extremely healthy and productive path towards healing, perhaps you can already see the same potential trap that has been plaguing me: an overly intense focus on myself. I journal, I see a psychologist, I constantly analyze, but still, I feel so lost and confused. I can put certain pieces together. I can understand how unhealthy beliefs developed during my childhood have led to overly emotional reactions during stressful times as an adult. But still, the truth is: I simply don’t know. I used to have an attitude that if I can find the exact physical cause of my pain, I can heal myself (notice the self-reliant language here). This led to hours and hours on the internet, poring over WebMD pages of potential things that can cause headaches. This led to absolutely nowhere. Now, it feels like I’m doing the exact same thing: trying to pinpoint exactly where my emotions led to physical pain, which feels almost equally impossible.
The secular world tells me I am the answer to my own problems. That if I loved myself more, these deep emotional wounds would heal. But the reality is, the more I look inside myself, the more lost I become. When I look inward, I do see God has given me lots of strength and courage. However, I also see a whole lot of brokenness. I see an abundant amount of pride. Remember when I mentioned how I am enraged that my friends and family don’t have chronic physical pain and I do? That’s just one of many examples of ugly and bitter pettiness I hold in my heart. When honestly confronted with my own sins, I think: “My goodness. There is no possible way that I can be the answer to my own problems.” Do any of us truly want to believe that we can reach fulfilment through total self-reliance? How blinded by pride are we, to believe we can cure our own emotional and physical suffering when we are simultaneously utterly reliant upon God for our each and every breath? Why would anyone even want to believe we can fix our own problems? This idea of complete self-reliance isn’t freeing in the slightest; it is an enormous and overwhelming burden. It often feels like being a Christian is the much more difficult path than just following what the world says. But when it comes to emotional and physical healing, this is one place where Christians can take a deep breath and think, “Thank God that I do not have to rely upon myself because if that was the truth, I would-- quite literally-- be damned. Thank you, Lord, for not expecting me to fully carry the weight of my own sins because I would be absolutely crushed.”
I recognize this is a lot material I’ve thrown at you, and probably not in the most organized or coherent manner. In what is likely a lazy writer move, I’m going to claim the messiness of this blog post reflects the messiness of my mind, heart, and soul. I’ve learned a lot about how emotional pain can lead to physical pain. And most importantly, I’ve learned how spiritual longing is truly the root of my suffering. Every time I feel overly burdened, it’s because my pride is telling me I can and should rely solely on myself. There are still so many questions about my own self and healing process that plague me every day, and I have to make a conscious, sustained effort to remind myself that I don’t even truly need all the answers. That God doesn’t require me to understand everything-- and isn’t that an incredible thing?!" God doesn’t ask me to try to love myself, but instead, to simply open my heart to receive His gift of love. Even if it was possible, why would anyone in their right mind choose to receive the love of one’s flawed and broken self over the love of an infinitely good and loving God?
Despite what the world says, self-reliance is the problem. Utter surrender-- the antithesis of self-reliance-- is the answer. I could say that I know how to do this, but that would just be my pride talking as this is a daily struggle. I’m starting by simply talking to God about my everyday problems more frequently. When I feel troubled, I try to turn my automatic question of, “What am I supposed to do with this burden?” into “God, what do you want me to do with this burden?” When my perfectionist and unreasonable inner-critic bother me about a past mistake, instead of trying to give myself love and compassion, I ask, “God, do you still care about this mistake I made years ago?” And almost always, the answer is no….which then prompts me to ask myself, “Well, if God doesn’t care, then why the heck do I care?”
I’ll end with perhaps a strange, but fitting metaphor. As a novice knitter, sometimes my ball of yarn becomes horribly tangled. I focus all my energy into finding the end and untangling each little part. That is often what it feels like when I analyze my own life, trying to find the root cause of my emotional and physical suffering. I feel like I, myself, am entirely tangled up in a knotted ball of yarn. Self-reliance means undergoing this hopeless task of trying to un-tangle each tiny piece of yarn that contributes to a much larger knot. It means staying stuck and frustrated. Surrender to God means observing all the knots and thinking, “Wow! What a mess I’ve created for myself!” But instead of a stubborn and prideful insistence on fixing the mess, you simply find a hole in the the knot and step out of it entirely. You thank God for not expecting you to untangle every little part yourself because Jesus already took care of that by dying on the cross. And then you simply move forward.
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