How Spirituality and Religiosity
Affect Mental Health
Patient Interview with Tina
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Issue #244
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Temple Salt Lake City, Utah
Hello there!
Holistic practitioners believe in healing the mind, body, and soul. However, it's rare to find clear examples of an association between spirituality, religiosity, and physical well-being. Tina's (pseudonym) healing journey clearly illustrates these relationships.
Despite decades of disappointment in her struggle to find the "right" medications, Tina, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, didn't need a long list of supplements to restore her health quickly and effectively.
What helped her instead?
Her powerful transformative process largely depended on a safer and more compassionate relationship with God and her religious community.
Come and learn more about the mysterious, invisible forces within us that often get ignored and dismissed as we rush to heal the physical body. This podcast will turn our assumptions and approaches to healing upside down and inside out!
Enjoy! Have a joyful week!
How Spirituality and Religiosity Affect Mental Health
Patient Interview with Tina
Strangely, after 21 years of applying energy medicine, very few people fail to get an excellent result from their initial attempt to do the meditative technique, Energy Breaths.
It's a simple technique that integrates visualization, intention, and connection to the idea of an infinite source of pure, perfect, life-enhancing energy. By using one's mind to connect to an infinite supply of life energy, the physical body's strength immediately and significantly demonstrates a measurable increase in strength and stamina.
This increase in strength is testable and repeatable. It will occur when the individual intends to be connected to the idea of an infinite supply of pure, perfect life energy and stop when the intention ceases--like a garden hose that you can turn on and off at will. Adding an intention to have the effect last over the next 24 hours will prolong the strengthening effect.
People diagnosed with schizophrenia with active auditory hallucinations get excellent results. Atheists who don't believe in God get excellent results. Even people who are convinced that they can't do the technique properly get excellent results.
However, once in a rare, blue-moon kind of day, I'll encounter an individual who doesn't get a good result. In fact, the person might test even weaker after doing Energy Breaths. Why?
After questioning these individuals to understand why their results differed from others, it was clear that it had nothing to do with a lack of intelligence or desire to heal.
In many instances, it was due to their allegiance to institutional belief systems and presumptions from those systems which blocked their immediate access to free, unlimited, life-saving energy.
Sometimes, the reason was based on a deep-seated hatred of God or feeling ashamed/unworthy of God's grace.
Also, there may be a lack of openness and humility, a rigidity and arrogance, that prevented the individual from embracing new ideas, even if energy testing results showed that Energy Breaths were practical and provable.
Here are some of their fears and assumptions:
God is the only source of life energy, so to call it life energy instead of God's/Christ's energy will offend God/Christ, is sinful, against religious dogma, and warrants God's punishment.
To use life energy is evil, wicked, and comes from the Devil.
Science hasn't proven the existence of life energy. Therefore, it does not exist.
Guilt over past mistakes and believing that those mistakes were unforgivable and had resulted in God's rejection.
Anger at God for neglecting to intervene and eliminate suffering or loss, resulting in a rejection of God.
When strong beliefs or fears interfere with a person's openness to connecting to life energy, sometimes the initial increase in physical resilience (natural outcome) is swiftly quashed by the person's own beliefs. Any further proof becomes impossible, and the offensive, new life-saving paradigm is rejected.
Once, I encountered a woman who did not respond to Energy Breaths. She feared that she would offend God by calling it "Life Energy" rather than "Christ's Energy." So, I told her to call it Christ's Energy if that would help her feel better. She did Energy Breaths using Christ's Energy, and it still didn't work for her. However, her husband, present in the same room, responded with the usual increase in strength.
Another time, I met a woman who also responded poorly to Energy Breaths. She said that instead of using life energy, she had replaced the idea of life energy with the idea of God's energy in her mind. Upon further questioning, she revealed that her idea of God caused her to feel afraid and judged.
When I encouraged her to think of God as unconditionally loving and to feel safe rather than judged by God, her use of Energy Breaths resulted in such an intense increase in strength that it felt as if I was pressing down on granite rather than her extended arm.
After that experience, I realized that the reason the first woman didn't get stronger, even after she changed the name of life energy to Christ's energy, was because her relationship to the idea of infinite, pure, perfect life energy--by whatever name she wished to call it--was fear-based and not rooted in unconditional love and acceptance.
When working with Tina, we discovered how religiosity, the way God was portrayed to her, left her feeling inadequate and unworthy. In addition, her identity, aspirations, opinions, and perspectives had often been dictated through religious filters. Ironically, repeated religious indoctrination resulted in a greater sense of shame, guilt, and separation from God and self. These effects undermined her satisfaction and happiness in life.
Healing required just the opposite for Tina (and what a miraculous healing it was!). She needed to strengthen her spiritual relationship with God, believe that she was unconditionally lovable, and let go of judgments based on an us vs. them attitude. She started living the life she wanted to live, rather than the life she felt that she had to live to gain God's favor.
It took a lot of humility, courage, introspection, and openness for Tina to find greater peace, well-being, and happiness. I learned so much from her healing journey and admired her incredible ability to grow and thrive.
Come join us in this amazing podcast to hear Tina's poignant healing journey in her own words!
How Spirituality and Religiosity Affect Mental Health
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For more about Dr. Alice W. Lee, please visit:
Website: www.holisticpsychiatrist.com
More stories and insights: Holistic Articles
ouTube: The Holistic Psychiatrist
To schedule consultations or appointments, call Dr. Lee's office at 240-437-7600
Dr. Lee is located in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.
The content provided by this podcast is for informational purposes only and has not been approved by the U.S. FDA. This podcast is not intended to provide personal medical advice, which should be obtained from a medical professional.