Sometimes, we get so caught up in something that seems important that we miss what IS important. We can’t see the forest through the trees or the trees in the forest.

I graduated from a private college with essentially two majors. One was counseling, and the other was theology. A good share of my core classes were spent with two great professors. Both were intelligent, AND they were vastly different. Dr. C.S. subscribed to a model in which we are comprised of both a soul and a spirit. Dr. J.S. believed we are comprised of a soul. I remember sitting in classes, the lounge in my dorm, the cafeteria, the “Underground Cafe,” and on the soccer bus listening to this debate. This and similar topics, like which English version of the Bible is best, fueled conversations all over campus, but do those questions REALLY matter.

The debate about whether I consist of 3 parts or 2 is just that, a debate. It really doesn’t matter if I am body, soul, and spirit or if I am body and soul. It matters that I am not just a body. Why? Because my brain convinces me to do really stupid things, and my body (the mind/brain is included in this discussion) can hijack everything and do whatever it wants. But my soul (or spirit, whatever)? My soul is always intact. It is the part of me that is pure. It is the part of me that interacts with God. It is the part of me that whispers in support of the things that drive me passionately to be who I am supposed to be.

My therapist sent me a link one morning. I could see it was a Spotify link and assumed it was a podcast. At the time, I was thick in the woods, clearing spider webs across the trails for anyone behind me at Prompton State Park, killing time before my therapy session. When I hopped back into my truck, I clicked on the link and was taken to The Huberman Lab podcast. I didn’t pay much attention to what the podcast was supposed to be about because I already knew the content would be interesting. First, my therapist sent me the link. There is always a good reason for that. Second, Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and has compelling material, at least to me. Anyway, the guest on this particular episode is Dr. James Hollis, a Jungian Psychoanalyst and author. As I listened, I felt as if I was having a conversation with my honorary grandfather. One of the first concepts he addressed was that we are not what has happened to us, nor are we what we think or do. My ears immediately perked up. I’ve heard this before in a session with my therapist. He went on to talk about our souls. He talked about how psychotherapy is designed to guide us to listen to the soul, and it further encourages awareness of our soul’s mission to support the Self. (simplistically). Essentially, our soul is the best part of us – it is us, truly us. Our bodies (action/behavior) and minds (thoughts) are not who we are. Our SOUL is who we are. Our SOUL is what God sees.

I NEED this separation. Without it, I have spent YEARS tearing myself down, isolating myself, hating myself, and punishing myself. I try to beat myself into submission, obedience, and perfection. Instead, I have destroyed myself and ignored my desires. My faith has taught me that I am nothing but a wretched sinner who is in need of a Savior. What I failed to understand, or what was somehow not well articulated by the more legalistic individuals I know, was that I (my soul) am still good. Genesis 1:31 says, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” If, in my faith, I believe in God and what the Bible says, I have no choice but to believe that I am, in fact, very good. My mind and body are the epitome of a decaying disaster, but my soul is something altogether different.

I received an email from a friend from high school the other day. These days, I find myself asking questions that mean something to me, and my response to the email I received was no different. How are you? Like, REALLY? And how is your spiritual life? This friend responded with two things that caught me off guard. First, she has invasive colon cancer. Y’all, we are 42 years old (Well, I am. I don’t remember exactly when her birthday is). This person has always been one of the sweetest people I have ever met, and it’s hard to think that she is someone called to suffer greatly at such a young age. Second, her spiritual life is just as steady as it has always been. Her words exactly? “Spiritual life…I find comfort in this. I hold a lot very loosely, as I most operate in the gray pretty naturally. There’s a lot that I don’t know or don’t believe but honestly I don’t think what I think matters very much. From a very young age I had a really solid foundation that Jesus is love and because of that foundation not much has rocked it. I’m so thankful for this because I think a lot of my peers received the opposite message about God – someone who is very angry with you and you are not good enough…God is Love, for which I am beyond grateful for.”

My friend and I are vastly different in our thinking. I operate in a black-and-white world. There is no continuum for me. Oh no. This world is dichotomous. Ugh, I would love to magically change this with a wand, but I didn’t develop this way of thinking overnight, so I don’t imagine it will magically morph into something different. I am rigid in my thinking, and I am working on that, bit by bit, thought by thought. Although I can say I believe God is Love and loving, I am also one of my friend’s peers. I often feel as though God should be and is angry with me and that I will never be enough (this is not a debate about how I am not enough apart from God or about how forgiving God is – these are things I am sharing that require no response). One of the last things my brother said to me before his death was that God was not some angry parent waiting to punish me for the next bad thing I did. He also told me I needed to stop caring about what other people think. He was trying to give me permission to be human, live my life, and stop beating myself up. I didn’t get it. I still don’t. But I look at this friend of mine and can’t help but think she does get it, and I can learn from her.

I’ve been stuck for a long time, and I’ve been stuck because I have been unable to look at things with curiosity. How can things get better if you have to make sure you hate yourself and every bad decision you’ve ever made?! That stance makes it impossible to take a deeper look at what has happened, why I have made the decisions I have and continue to make the same type of stupid-esque choices, the irrationality of trauma responses/reactions, and more. The shame from that stance makes it impossible to talk through things. The crushing weight of being a hopeless, disgusting failure is all I have ever felt I have as a tool to keep me from doing the same things again. Yet, not being curious keeps me from growing and breaking free from the automaticity of those “bad responses.” The cycle continues: I am a piece of sh*t. I will never do that again. Oh no, a trigger. Don’t be an idiot. Stop, drop, and roll. I am a piece of sh*t…

In “How to Change Your Mind,” a book* about psychedelics, the neuroscience discussion on how psilocybin operates on the brain posits, from an fMRI, that those who are in a “trip” experience entropy. Scientists and doctors believed the brain would light up predictably like the Griswold house when the switch was finally flipped, to a daydream-like state, but instead, activity decreased in the Default Mode Network of the brain (much like the first attempt to get the “25,000 imported Italian twinkling lights” to shine). In theory of mind, the DMN is considered highly active among individuals with depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. Those diagnoses, according to pretty straightforward discussion and observation, are associated with an ego that is ruminative, and the ruminations are, you guessed it, extremely negative. Entropy, as discussed in the book, is associated with expansion. Do you know which population of people is known to have an expansive capacity in the brain? Children. Children are still developing a sense of who they are, so the majority of their time and energy tends to be exploration and observation. “‘The child’s brain is extremely plastic, good for learning, not accomplishing” – better for ‘exploring rather than exploiting.'” Children are curious – unless they are left unprotected in the woods of confusion, fear, and shame.

I want to be more curious as a child would be, but part of what makes this so difficult is the childlike fear I have. I was left unprotected in the woods of confusion, fear, and shame. Somewhere in the woods, I lost my innocence, my Self, the idea that my soul is very good, and that I am a genuinely incredible being who just wants to be led “out of the woods.”

I’m struggling with that. And I am trying to stay open to the idea that my Self (soul), at the core, is a genuinely incredible being that just wants to be “let out of the woods,’ so to speak.

* The Podcast mentioned was The Huberman Lab Podcast with Dr. James Hollis.
* Michael Pollan. (2018). How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Penguin Press. Pages 327-328.