Restoring the Body, Soul & Spirit - YLAM240015

SPEAKER A This programme presents ways to optimise health and wellbeing when considering lifestyle changes. Please consult with your health care provider to ensure they are suitable for you. SPEAKER B Hello and welcome. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Early 20th century spiritual author Oswald Chambers once noted, it is the unseen and the spiritual in people that determines the outward and the actual. Indeed, our spiritual wellbeing often impacts our lives more than we realise. Stay with us as we look at how spiritual health influences us. SPEAKER A This is your lifestyle as medicine, a production of 3ABN Australia television. SPEAKER B On this programme we. We explore ways that you can shape your lifestyle as medicine. Today we are going to learn more about how to restore the connection between body, soul and spirit when there is a disconnection. I'm so glad you've joined us because we are once again speaking with health psychologist Jenifer Skues. Welcome, Jenifer. It's so good to have you with us again. SPEAKER C It's good to be here again. SPEAKER B Very good. And Jenifer, we've been talking about the. The mind, the body, the spirit, the soul, all of these things. And we've really, really seen how totally integrated and connected they are in our beings. Tell us a bit more about what happens when we have disconnection, where there should be connection. SPEAKER C Okay, there's two terms or processes I'm going to focus on, because there's really only two aspects. We either disconnect or we connect, and when we disconnect, we actually degenerate. We're going down the hill to connect. We've got to regenerate and we can look at it in relationship to the body, soul and spirit and how they actually work together, which we have been looking at. But as you can see, there is a connection and we know that they're all connected. You can't separate them. They're one whole package. But there are things that can degenerate or cause damage and then we want to regenerate and have healing. Okay. One aspect of that that we all know of in our life is to do with the stress factor. When we get stressed, we find that what we do is we are degenerating. But mind you, there's two types of stress. Is good stress. So what might good stress be? SPEAKER B I guess good stress, like if you have something that's making you perform well, rise to the occasion, so to speak, that's going to be good, or going. SPEAKER C On a holiday or catching up with an old friend you haven't seen for ages. And so we have hormones at work, but when it's good stress, the hormones are particularly endorphins pick us up, lift the spirit, help to connect the spirit. So that's important. But when it's bad stress, we get this degeneration or decline in health. And when we have bad stress, we have a lot of adrenaline, cortisol. And there's hundreds of different stress cancers, chemicals that surge through the body. And it connects to the autonomic nervous system. That puts the foot on the accelerator instead of the brake. So we are then revving the engine and we get several things happening. You would have heard of the fight flight response, okay? So when the brain thinks that there's a threat or danger and it doesn't have to know what it is because it's unconscious, it just immediately hits that button. Getting you ready to fight the stressor or flight it. Now, often we don't even know what the stressor is, right? Or we have. It's out of our control. If we're in a work environment, we have to earn money. And it's a stressful environment, what do we do? We stay and put up with stress. Okay? This means we're not fighting, we're not flying. And it puts us in a state of what we call freeze. And it's a bit like with the car, you can't. You put the foot on the accelerator, but you've now put the car up on blocks and you've got full throttle and you're not going anywhere. And you're spinning the wheels and burning rubber. That's the analogy. And so when we do that fight flight for too long, we freeze. And that's where we have burnout breakdown, mental, emotional health problems. Physical health problems. That's degeneration. So when you look at in relationship to that circle we looked at with the body, soul and spirit, once you add stress into the body, that means the soul's going to not function well. Can't make good decisions, isn't self preserving, doesn't look after itself. You know, it doesn't look after the body. It pushes to the limit. And how often do you people, oh, I can't stop. I have to keep going. Yes, but they're doing it to their detriment because they're not putting the brake on. And what does that really mean? And that's when we're going to look at the regeneration. But once you get stressed, the body stressed, the soul is now showing deterioration. And you've disconnected. On the spiritual level, the spirit is going downhill because you actually disconnect from God. You cannot focus on self and focus on God at the same time, we become very self absorbed, self sacrificing, trying to take control instead of letting God control. So when we do that, that's when that degeneration occurs. If you want to regenerate, then we have to go the opposite way. But what do you know, the indicators are for when we're out of balance? Do you recognise when you're out of balance? SPEAKER B Yeah, it's a good question, because as you're talking about stress and everything, of course, naturally, when we're having stress, especially if it's chronic stress, we start to have signs and symptoms of that. The health might crack here and there, some symptoms are coming up or you might just feel tired all the time, or, you know, various things can pop up. But I guess I was wondering, can you get some symptoms that things are out of balance without realising it or without noticing that there's like a stress thing happening or some other disconnect happening? SPEAKER C Yes. And people will say, oh, I've got a headache. Yeah, yeah, well, I've got a headache. I don't get headaches. And then they go and go and get a pill from somewhere, maybe the pharmacy or whatever, and get some. Something to take the headache away. But they're not, they're only treating the symptom, not the cause. Okay? And the cause is that they're too stressed, because when you're stressed, you don't sleep well, you end up with insomnia, so that means that you're not sleeping well, then you appetite changes, so you're not eating properly. They're all indicators. I find if I'm suddenly my sleep's disturbed, I go, no, because I do now sleep well. I go, there's something wrong, what am I worrying about? And then I'll do a bit of an inventory, because that's an indicator, because if I don't sleep well, things get worse, I go downhill, I get tired, my brain can't focus, I can't do the work I do. And then, of course, if we keep going, we're impacting the immune system and we end up with physical health problems and people put up with it. I can't believe how people put up with, oh, I've always had digestive problems, it's just me, they don't go well, hang on, maybe there's something I'm doing that is causing it, or it's my genes that genetically I'm programmed that way. I mean, they're the big. What I call the lies that we believe, because that's what we're told, one to keep us quiet, or that's what the media's told us, or maybe people we know who don't know any better. So. And then you congregate with other people and share your woes, so that does not help. SPEAKER B Yeah. And it's so easy just to get onto. I guess it's kind of like a vicious cycle or a spiralling. You know, one thing happens which leads to another, those symptoms exacerbate another whole plethora of things, and before you know it, you're in a complete mess. And then people convince themselves that this is normal or, you know, that this is how I am to it or something like that. And I guess this is how we can so easily get into a place of utter disconnection and or health. SPEAKER C Yes. And it's not until we're right at the bottom of that pit that we know we're in trouble. But this is where my experience with people I help who are really going down that hill or down that hill, is they don't do it deliberately. They do it sometimes. I needed to keep going because my family needed, my kids need the income, this, that, and maybe they've set themselves up for it and they've got to modify their lifestyle, but at the time, they don't see it. I don't go, oh, I'm just going to wear myself into the ground. I don't know many people who do that. If you, you know, so it comes back to awareness, and that's part of that turning point where we become aware of either body, soul or spirit, that it isn't doing so well. So at what point do you know you're in trouble or at what point do you see a sign? Now I can see a subtle sign and, like, starting to go to bed a bit too late. And then I'm not getting quite enough sleep, and I go, it's okay, I can manage. But then in the end, after a week of that, I'm starting to feel it. If I don't go, no, I've got to make myself go to bed earlier and work at it. It will get worse. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER C So it's just a simple example. But before I wouldn't, I just lived in this lack of sleep insomnia cycle and I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't want to take medication. So what do you do? So that's where I did a journey with what I teach, and I had to apply it to me, not just think, they all need to do this, I had to learn to do it. So this is where we can all do it. It's about knowledge and information and the will. We talked about the will and the conscience. So one that's looking for the signs. If there's anything wrong, if you're not feeling well at all or something keeps happening or, you know, your lifestyle habits are not being healthy, then you need to review and have a look and go, right, where am I going wrong? What am I doing? What can I change? That is the turning point and the regeneration is when we choose to change. And some people, well, I get so stressed by the time I finish work, I want to go to the gym on the way home and do some exercise or go for a big walk, go out into nature, do a big walk, go and get in the garden. That's what I do. If I get in the garden and do something physical, being in nature and the plants, I find that dissipates that stress and I can go in and enjoy a meal and have a good night's sleep. So it's not difficult, it's just being willing to recognise it and do something about it. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER C Now, if you. Yeah. If your degeneration has gone right down the hill, you can end up in hospital, either physically, mentally or emotionally, or you come and see someone like myself, then it's a retraining process and you have to be willing. Some people aren't willing till they get to the bottom of that process. It's like, no, because they're taught to be tough. They're taught our beliefs. I grew up with, no, you do it yourself, empowering beliefs, you should be able to do it all and just a thankless life. I was given all the wrong messages. So then we've got to achieve high, work hard, do all those things. You end up. So I've had to learn to self care. No, I'm worth more than that. And that's where my relationship with God has taught me that. So I find connecting spirit is often an initial regeneration. SPEAKER B Yeah, that's so interesting, because what you just touched on there is, I think, something really important, and that is that expectations, whether that we have of ourselves or that society places on us and we buy into that and believe it, they can be so difficult to go against because we feel like we need to conform. And what you said there about needing to have a spiritual connection as the first point of change that to me would give, I guess. Would you say spiritual strength or just the courageous to go against some of those expectations based on a belief and a connection with God? Would you say that would be what happens. Yes. SPEAKER C Handing over, asking for help. And if we go, unfortunately, people can help us to the bottom of that pathway. Sometimes by the messages they give, we get downing messages or expectations. I know in work environments now, they're sacking staff because of technology, and those staff that are left are getting double shifts and overloaded, so they're burning out and then they're dispensable because there's so many people waiting in line for that job. So this is where our society can actually set up stress. So we then have to make decisions around that. Is it worth doing that job and burning out? What other ways can I do it? And getting professional help can be a turning point to make sense of it all and have a look at what can I change that will make a positive difference? SPEAKER B Yeah, sorry, I was going to say, the scenarios you're just describing there are quite challenging for people because when you're in the midst of, like a situation like that, where you're stretched, you're overworked, you're in a position of huge stress, and you have to make a decision to do something about that. That can be very difficult. Like, how do you even get into the right mindset to make a good decision when you're in the midst of that stressful, pressured circumstance? SPEAKER C Often they can't. But that's when I do get people coming to me saying, my life's a mess, I don't want to get worse. I don't know what to do about it. Nobody's there to help me or my family just put more pressure on me. And then they isolate and they don't have the friends and support. So it's that downhill run, basically. But this is where we can change anything at any point. And I find when I'm struggling that I now turn to God and pray and ask for help. And amazingly, that's what I get. And it might be someone rings me up or something happens, or what I needed miraculously appears, or someone gives it to me or I get a reading or something that uplifts me in the spirit. So I find the more you do that, the more God works in your life to help you back on track. And that means the soul is starting to feel more confident, not in yourself, but in what God can do, which is important. And then, of course, then we can actually allow the body to heal because we're not putting all that stress and pressure on it. It's a personal journey. Nobody can do it for you. SPEAKER B Yeah, this is true because everyone's situation is different. Isn't it? SPEAKER C Absolutely. SPEAKER B Yeah. So this is, yeah. SPEAKER C Interestingly, there's, I've got a quote here, or just some research, and this was with an interview with a doctor, Andrew Newberg, who's a Christian and a scientist, and that was on faith in the brain. This was in 2009, and he reported that meditation improves memory. And by meditation, he's talking about christian meditation, where your meditation is on the word or on God, on Christ. So it's a conscious one of where we actually focus the mind, and that improves memory and reduces stress. So just by that action, even if we're busy and we're in stressful situation, it still reduces stress, it says. And that the kind of God you worship can affect the structure of your brain. Interesting, interesting. So that means if we worship a God of love versus a God of anger or vengeance, you can see how the brain will be influenced. Yeah, it's important. And he also. Yep. He also says, we've learned that being religious or spiritual has a very profound effect on who we are, has a very profound effect on our biology and our brain. It actually can change your brain and change ourselves over time. SPEAKER B Hmm. SPEAKER C Hmm. SPEAKER B So this spiritual aspect then, is quite a powerful thing in terms of even how our whole mind works. And I guess this is where the spiritual element is connecting now with the soul, which is our identity and our character that we then develop as a result of this spiritual connection. Yes. SPEAKER C And the body responds. It's now in balance. It's now the body can pick up itself, the heart can calm down, the brain can be balanced, we can make better decisions, our conscience and will function a lot more effectively. The brain is more alert. It's more likely to focus in the present and not the past or the future all the time. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER C Right. So you can see how all of that together. But it starts with the spiritual journey. And that was my experience when I was lost in the world. It was when I came back to my spiritual journey and then embraced a healthy lifestyle that I started to get well. That's why I said earlier in one of our sessions, I said, I'm healthier now than I was in my twenties and thirties. SPEAKER B Yeah, yeah. SPEAKER C Because of it, I believe we should be getting healthier and wiser as we get older. Well, yeah, that's good. SPEAKER B I like that. That's a very hopeful perspective of the future for our lives, isn't it? Yeah. SPEAKER C I mean, if we. Physical damage and at least we can get wiser. SPEAKER B Yes, this is true. And look, just sharing your experience is very encouraging because I know many people may have been brought up in a situation where the spiritual aspect of our being is not even talked about. They may not even think about. They've gone through life just thinking that it's all about the physical and the mental and success in life, whatever, and haven't even given the thought to, what about my spirituality? Where is that sitting? And many people probably don't even know where to start with that. And so that's a very. Yeah, very interesting to hear your experience that when you built that into your life, it made such a difference in. I guess it sounds like sorting out the other aspects of your life that weren't quite in the right place. SPEAKER C Definitely. And a lot of testimonies I've heard from people who've been at the bottom of their life and really degradation and horrible life and nothing doing. Well, it's when they were searching for God and they actually found God. But it was because they found God not in the building, not in another person, but by talking, praying, being in nature, asking, God, help me, Lord. So this is where we can ask and receive, and that's where faith comes into it. We can talk about. There's a wonderful Bible verse one, thessalonians five and verse 23 that you can see there, and it says, and the very God of peace sanctify you. Holy see, he's a God of peace, of love. And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is a very good reference that the whole spirit, soul and body can be blameless. In Christ, we can be blameless. So that means if we take the spiritual journey, that's the integration of body, soul and spirit, and it is a very powerful process. I've also got another very good overview that everyone would find helpful, where we look at that relationship between spirit, mind, emotions and body. And it's one that I have developed over time. And some of it was presented in my early history of learning about psychology, and that is about the mind that is programmed with beliefs. This is where sciences come into it. So they find that we have all these programmes. We talked about that in one of the earlier sessions, and it's through the will and the conscience we can programme what they call core beliefs. And the core beliefs are the beliefs that we function from. They're good beliefs, bad beliefs, etcetera. Now, those core beliefs feed the way we think. So if you tell me what you think, I can tell you what youre a core beliefs are. People tell me, oh, I never get it finished. I don't do much. I'm not a very good person. Well, I know that they've been told that they're not good enough. Their core belief is I'm never good enough. So if you get them to orient on not being good enough, what do you do? Well, don't you do something that is well? And they go, oh, yeah, I'm good at that. I said, well, and then we work on doing more things that shows they can do it. So this is where you're reprogramming those beliefs, okay. Because your beliefs and your thoughts trigger feelings. We cannot have a feeling without an underlying thought or a thought process. So if you're anxious, I guarantee your thoughts are anxiety provoking. Okay? That then impacts the physiology and our behaviours, and that's our character. But when you look at programming, when we come up that scale again, we've got the brain and the mind, and we talked before about that heart brain connection that we often talk about emotions in relationship to the heart, the matter of the heart. So if you look at that relationship, if we correct the heart, we balance the brain. A simple way of doing that is slow, deep breathing to about five in, five out. I breathe in through, slowly through the nose, out through the mouth, and while I'm doing it, I focus attention on the area of the heart. You're not breathing through the heart, you're doing a big long breath, but you can actually put your hand on your heart. And in science they found that when you put your hand on your heart, it slows it down, it calms it down, it protects it. And when you have a shock, what do you do? You grab that area of the heart. So just doing that simple breathing technique when you know you're out of balance will help bring you back into balance. So now we're working from the body back up to the mind that is now balanced, that we can, we can think with reason and rationally instead of emotionally. So you have to have that brain balance where we have got mind and emotion balancing together. Okay? And that's the left, right brain balance. You can see there. If the brain is stressed, you go in the wrong way. If the brain is relaxed, you're going the right way. Okay, how do you do that? Reach up to God. We've got God, we've got Jesus, we've got the Holy Spirit. Talk to God. And we don't need to do it out loud, we can just ask for help. We can read positive things about God and his love and what he does for us. We can invite the Holy Spirit to be with us, read the Bible, there's some wonderful books where people share their testimonies. A great way to connect with God, because that will now bring in line that relationship of brain programming. It'll reprogram the brain. That means the thinking changes, the feelings change, and your whole physiology and behaviours change. SPEAKER B And so that will bring everything back together, all of those elements, all the connections we've been talking about, the body with the mind, the soul, the spirit, heart, everything in its proper place, working together harmoniously is what we are looking for there. SPEAKER C Absolutely. So we need to be aware from that diagram of where we're at. Is the heart wrong? We're out of balance, we can't think straight. I'm feeling like I'm having a mindless day versus a mindful day. In other words, I put something down, forget where it is and make mistakes and lose time. And, you know, there are indicators that I'm not focused. I've got to stop and go and focus. I do things like make myself a nice hot herbal tea, go and sit outside, breathe in fresh air. Look at. I'm fortunate. I have a rainforest at the back. Look into nature and do that for ten minutes and I get up and I'm right to go again because I've broken that mindless cycle. That's one way of doing it. There are simple things you can do. If your brain is racing and it's going 100 miles an hour with so many thoughts, write them down, get them out of your head. So some people keep a journal. If you wake up at night and your mind's doing a million miles an hour, then write it down. And when you think of it again, no, I've written it down and it helps to declutter. The other thing that helps the mind, particularly at night, is magnesium. So taking, if that's happening, take some magnesium. So now we're working on the body again. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER C And the mind. And pray, you know, I'll pray. I remember Bible verses or focus on something positive that happened, how God answered a prayer, or how nice people have been to me and I soon go to sleep. SPEAKER B Yeah, very good. Those tips are very practical and I can see how you're addressing all the different aspects. In the one situation, you're getting a physical remedy, a mental remedy, a spiritual remedy, bringing it all together to bring back connection and clarity. Yeah, so that's excellent. Thank you so much for sharing with us once again on this topic. Really, really appreciate your time and expertise and experience. And we have been talking with health psychologist Jenifer Skues about restoring the body, soul, and spirit. It's been fascinating to see just how closely each of these aspects work together in our lives. Next time, Jenifer is going to share with us a topic that can have a powerful influence in restoring the body, soul, and spirit. So be sure to watch for those episodes. If you have questions or comments, or if you'd like to contact us, email at [email protected]. And remember to shape your lifestyle as medicine. SPEAKER A You've been listening to Your Lifestyle as Medicine, a production of 3ABN Australia television.