Episode #230 - Faith and Fear

Faith can be a troubling subject when you suffer with mental illness.  It is important to understand what faith is, what fear is and how we can work through the difficulties we face.

Transcript

Episode #230 – Faith & Fear.  I am your host Damon Socha.  Today we are going to talk about faith in a different sense than you will be used to hearing it.  And I am going to jump right into it. Most members are familiar with the next two scriptures when we talk about faith.  

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Alma 32:21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

Faith is a unique substance within the church.  I don’t think that most members understand it.  Faith is a motivating force, rooted in knowledge and experience.  Faith can be a gift but most often it is hard won fight through trials and testing.  Faith grows under extreme pressures and weights.  When it is subjected to gentle breezes, warm days and easy paths it tends to wain and diminish.  When the Savior spoke of houses upon rocks and sand, he noted that “when” the rains come and the storms descend.  Faith must be tested to endure.

When we talk about faith from a perspective of practical application, what does that look like and more importantly what does that feel like?  How do I know if I have faith?  How do I know if I feel faith?  What does it feel like when it increases or diminishes?  

I have struggled many times in my life to understand faith in a way that makes sense to me.  I have by nature a more practical mind at times and so for me I need to understand it at the doctrinal level or the “why” of faith and then I need to understand it from the ”how” of faith.  As we work through the “how” and “why” there are some important points about faith that are critical to understand.

First, it is important that we define faith to be faith in God and a Savior.  Meaning that our motivational feelings are motivated by truth and virtue and the doctrines of salvation taught by the Savior and the apostles.  A good example of this is the Word of Wisdom in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants.  Let’s say two individuals have been somewhat negligent with their health and have started vaping.  They recognize the health concerns or vaping and know that it is likely to shorten their life.  With knowledge comes opportunity to change.  We know through study and science that if we quit vaping right now, we are likely to improve our health and our long-term mortality. The first individual takes the initiative and makes the changes due to scientific understanding.  The second individual is also aware of the harmful nature of vaping but also understands that the Savior has forbidden it.  This person not only understands the scientific rational but the spiritual nature of a healthy body.  They recognize the harm and the sin.  Each individual has a motivation to change.  Each has a faith in science.  However, only one individual has faith in the Savior and his commandments.  Each will receive the reward he desires.  The first wants improved health and that is what they receive.  The second wants improved health but recognizes the spiritual nature of the command to avoid addictive substances.  This person is likely to receive health both physical and spiritual.  Faith that leads to exaltation and salvation is based in the Savior and living his gospel.  It is incredibly important that we understand and separate faith in science from faith in God.  There exists nothing wrong with having faith in both science and the doctrines and principles of the gospel except when one type of faith must be chosen over another.  Faith in God must always trump other types of faith.  The Savior explicitly notes that faith in the arm of the flesh is particularly harmful at times in our lives.  So the first thing we note about faith is that we must have knowledge and that correct knowledge about the Savior and the Father leads to true motivating faith.

Second, we must have as far as faith is concerned is experience and evidence.  Knowledge and understanding are wonderful but if we never do anything with them we have no real faith.  We need to act upon the knowledge and then we must see evidence of our actions.  Meaning we need to live gospel principles and doctrines and then see the fruits of those labors for our faith to grow.  It is noted that faith is evidence of things not seen.  Evidence comes in many forms.  Some of the various forms of confirmation come in miracles small and large, a feeling of joy, feelings of light and understanding and always with a witness of their truth by the Spirit of the Lord.  We see this vividly between Laman and Lemuel and Nephi and Sam.  Laman and Lemuel had not applied the knowledge they received from their Father Lehi over the years he taught them and yet Nephi and Sam did.  The difference in their development of faith became very obvious when an angel of the Lord stopped Laman and Lemuel from abusing their brothers and told them to return to Jerusalem and the Lord would provide a path to obtain the plates.  Immediately once the angel left, Laman and Lemuel began to complain that it was not possible to obtain the plates, Laban had far more resources and had already tried to kill them twice and the Lord had not intervened why would he do so now.  Nephi and Sam however were ready to return on the word of the angel.  What was the difference in faith in the angel’s words?  Nephi and Sam had experience with the Lord’s commands, they had seen the evidence previously in their life and due to those experiences they knew that the Lord would provide.  Laman and Lemuel lacked those spiritually defining moments and so when the angel appeared their foundations melted under the sand where they built them.  The Lord will give us ample evidence that he lives and that his gospel is true if we pursue it when those opportunities arise.  Faith is not a blind belief but lasting and enduring experiences with God.

Third we need to understand about faith is that it is a motivational feeling.  We obtain motivation from our core experiences through feelings.  Those feelings can be strong but they are feelings nonetheless.  Our body uses the chemistry and nervous system to communicate those feelings into the brain where actions will be determined.  When we talk about feelings and emotions, we must always consider the fragility of those emotions and motivations.  Meaning our feelings are determined by brain chemistry and a host of other factors including our spiritual nature, our human nature and the depth of our mortal learning experience.  Those feelings of motivation can be altered by illness, nutrition, exercise, and a host of other determining factors including our environment.  Basically, when you have a mental and or emotional illness, feelings of faith are likely to be mixed with a number of other feelings.  This has been my experience and it has also been my experience that finding or feeling faith can be difficult to impossible at times in our lives when the illness has far more control that we would like it to.

Fourth we need access to our past positive faith experiences.  We need access to those feelings, miracles, evidences to feel faith and to act upon those feelings.  We need to see the workings of God in our life.  What is most important about this evidence is that we cannot just have the facts and figures about when and where our evidence happened.  We need the spiritual feelings that came with the experience.  Mental and emotional illness tends to block access to the feelings but not necessarily the facts and figures.  The easiest way to understand this is regular church attendance.  Church attendance should provide all the necessary spiritual, physical and environmental conditions to feel the spirit of the Lord and it remind us of our past spiritual experiences.  Meaning when we go to church we should feel our faith and remember it through various manifestations of faith in our lives.  This reinforces our faith and motivation to do good.  However, what happens when we go to church and feel depressed or terribly anxious and these illness symptoms block our access to those feelings of faith.  The facts and figures of faith become detached from the feelings of faith.  We lose access to our spiritual and mortal emotional memory.  This is where many lose faith.  When we expect feelings of faith through the Spirit to occur and we don’t feel that reinforcement we feel desperately lost.  Not only do we not feel our faith but the experience is replaced with a negative one.  Because our brain is wired to avoid negative experiences, science tells us that it takes about 9 good experiences to outweigh a bad one.  Now we have not lost our faith promoting experiences, they are still intact.  But we cannot access them.  This is where faith becomes very trying to those who suffer.  We can feel as though we have no faith when this occurs.  We can also feel that our previous experiences may not have been true experiences.  We can enter what is called a faith crisis.  Where we are unable to access our faith when we need it.

One definition of a faith crisis is an inability to access our spiritual experiences that provide for our faith.  It does not take long for a faith crisis to occur in our lives.  Just a short difficult emotional experience may cause us to doubt our faith

Now let’s talk about the opposing force of fear and then we can talk about the “how” and “why”.  Fear comes of doubt.  Fear is created by acting upon doubt. Doubt itself does not create fear unless acted upon.  Doubt comes when our current experience does not match our past experience.  Our mind is consistently predicting and projecting our future as a means of protection.  When an experience occurs or an event happens that is new to the mind or is contrary to previous experience we are likely to experience questions and doubt.  If we have a great deal of experience with the particular event in our lives, then we are likely to pass it off as a random event but when that experience is new or has occurred enough that our brain begins to question what is happening, a doubt forms.  Doubt comes from knowledge and experience just like faith does and it is an important part of learning.  Doubt is simply the feeling of a question in our minds.  Our mind is questioning that something may not be true in what we believe or have experienced.  Now we have a couple of minds that can recognize questions.  We have our mortal mind and our spirit mind.  Each has a memory and the spirit mind has a significant advantage of history.  No we can’t access any of that history in a fact finding sense but those experiences in the premortal world have made us who we are and our spirit mind can still access those embedded experiences and tell us something is not true or correct.  We call this the light of truth or the Spirit of Christ or our conscience.  So when we feel something telling us this doesn’t feel right it could be our mortal brain, our spirit brain or both.  Although we are going to feel the same feeling whether it is the mortal brain or the spirit brain.  Fear is the motivational force that causes us to act against what we feel to be true.  Fear can come from outsides pressures such as peer social groups, or internal forces such as mental illness.  When we act in fear most often we are choosing what might be termed the easier path.  It is for instance far easier to stop attending church than to continue to attend meetings where we struggle.  If faith were the easier path then I would expect that we would choose faith but this mortal world does not present many easy pathways that lead to faith.

Before I go any further with this idea, I want to distinguish this idea of fear from the mortal bodies fight or flight mode.  These are two different events although they may seem similar in emotions.  When the body senses danger real or not, it engages the adrenal system to prepare for a physical event, either fighting or running.  This is chemical fear.  The chemistry in our body short circuits the brain and prepares for physicality.  The type of fear we are discussing is a feeling of doubt about what we believe and then acting according to the doubt rather than faith.  Often this type of fear may feel freeing at first but the feeling is always short-lived and is a temporary relief upon the mind that eventually collapses into a much larger issue.  The larger issue tends to fall into what we call a faith crisis.  

This is where deeply held beliefs have come to the surface with serious questions.  Most often these questions involve the existence of God, the existence of a Savior, the character and nature of God and ultimately the purpose of life.  What is most interesting about these questions is that the answers are not readily available to a mortal world or mortal mind.  They are questions that are only answered when we truly seek them out.  These are not questions that can be answered in a day, a year or even decades.  They are life-long questions that will continue to rise to the surface as we come to know God, our Savior and the nature of who they are and who they want us to be.  The main problem with these questions and mental illness, is that answers are going to be far more difficult to find.  The main sources of understanding is the spirit of the Lord and most often the still small voice comes through our emotions.  It is also often so still and soft that we cannot hear it through the rock concert that is mental illness.

So our problem is quite simple when it comes to our faith.  Faith requires emotional connection to the spirit and mental and emotional illness disrupts that connection.  This doesn’t mean we are set adrift by the Lord.  He does speak in other ways but just like feeling the spirit you have to learn how the Lord speaks to you.  The secondary problem is that depression, bipolar and anxiety disrupt the motivational emotions within the body.  

So the why of faith is fairly easily explained.  Faith in Christ is the motivational source for becoming as the Savior and humbly learning the path of exaltation.  The “how” of faith is more difficult when we suffer from mental and emotional illness.  We must be able to see our illness and understand how we are affected spiritually.  We must learn different ways to listen to the spirit.  We must understand that we are going to have motivational and emotional difficulties feeling our faith on a regular basis.  So here are my personal “Hows”.

First, I expect that feelings of faith will be interrupted regularly.  This is often true for me for extend periods of time.  However, I have noticed that the Lord does provide for spiritual communication, albeit in different methods.  

Second, I ask myself is this feeling my illness or something else.  95% of the time it is my illness specifically when I cannot identify a particular cause.  Mental illness causes elevated and persistent feelings of doubt as part of its symptoms.  It can be difficult to distinguish this induced doubt from our regular doubts as they feel the same.  So it is important to ask yourself if the feeling is your illness talking or something else.  Just as a side note, it is common for the brain to find a problem when none exists except the illness.  I have gone down this road far too many times.  Past sin, not doing enough in my life, and of course questioning my faith.  I have also found that it is important to involve the Lord when asking the question to yourself.  I have found he answers that question regularly for me.

Third, I had to learn that I am not a normal member when it comes to faith and this is true for everyone who suffers.  I cannot approach faith as everyone else does.  The general answer to a waning faith is to engage more fully in the gospel and while that might be helpful it can also cause a cascading emotional failure as I have pushed my emotional capacity far beyond its limits.  I have to remember to not run faster than I have strength, which I do far too often.

Fourth, there will be times many times that I go through the motions.  I read or listen to scriptures, go to church, go to the temple and do what I can to keep my covenants, when I really don’t have the desire.  This might seem counterintuitive but I have personally found that if I make the effort even when my faith is not entirely present the Lord provides aid and blessings.  The Lord seems pleased when I am willing to move forward with very limited emotional capacity.  Again I just have to be careful not to overrun my mortal body.

Fifth, is that I have recognized that the Lord does speak to me on a regular basis even when I suffer.  He just uses other means to do so.  Most often my revelation comes from other people, who for the most part do not know they are providing that revelation.  A word, a phrase, a thought will come forward and the Lord will light up that piece of revelation for a moment.  Yes the feelings of doubt quickly overcome those moments but I know that the Lord is still speaking and communicating with me.  I have had to learn other methods to receive my revelation.  This doesn’t mean that the Lord doesn’t work through my feelings, it simply means that he uses other methods.

Finally, while I have struggled deeply with this idea at times, I have noticed more and more the need to trust the Lord more fully in my life.  Yes this is difficult when our faith is limited.  By turning more of my life over to the Lord, he has blessed me with some understanding and relief.  Giving my emotional difficulties over to the Lord has allowed he and I to develop a deeper relationship more closely yoked together.

Now even living my personal “hows” I still have bad days.  I still have difficult moments of doubt.  I still wonder why regularly but I have found greater peace, and joy working with the Lord rather than doubting or opposing his help.  There exists no easy answer as to how we work with our faith during the trials of mental illness.  And maybe that is because the Lord desires that we come to him.  I hope today that I have been of some help in your journey of faith and I sincerely hope that you find a loving Savior regularly in your life.  Until next week do your part so that the Lord can do his.