The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Exploring the Power of Religion, Spirituality and Faith | KEV Talks #3

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

For episode 3.Gotta Have Faith I dig into the differences between faith, religion and spirituality and we’ll review 4 ways the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) says faith can help our mental health.In this episode:What is religion?What is spirituality?What is faith?How are the three intertwined?Mental Health benefits of faith (of any kind)Prayer as mindfulness or meditationFaith based or other interest groups foster a feeling of togethernessFaith, addiction and other groups provide a sense of common understandingA focus on helping others helps usResources:https://www.britannica.com/topic/faith https://chopra.com/articles/religion-vs-spirituality-the-difference-between-them  https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/  https://www.nami.org/Your-Journey/Individuals-with-Mental-Illness/Faith-Spirituality  https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858#:~:text=Meditation%20can%20give%20you%20a,centered%20and%20keep%20inner%20peace.  Have a plan, stay informed and get involved,KevinKevin Pannell, PMP | Creator & Host ‘KEV Talks’ Podcast

Welcome back to the KevTalks podcast, listeners, and thank you for being here for episode three, Gotta Have Faith. In today's episode, I'll dig into the differences between faith, religion, and spirituality, and we'll review four ways the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, says faith can help our mental health. But first, a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of KevTalks is sponsored by, well, you, the listener. Thank you for clicking play and for tuning into the show.

KevTalks is the show that provides compelling interviews and value-added perspectives on topics primarily in the healthcare, wellness, technology, and public safety spaces. So enjoy your commute. Do we still do that? Coffee or morning walk. And let's fly into the KevTalks podcast in three, two, one. My faith has waxed and waned over my life. My faith in myself when I haven't done well at work or on the home front.

Or when I've had some anxieties and self-doubts. And my faith as it's tied to religion and belief of a higher power has certainly been strong, been non-existent. I've had angst and anger when you lose folks or know folks that are young and they die of things like cancer or they're killed in an accident, or you have to take care of folks that die that you don't feel that they should, it's hard to explain that. It's hard to just keep believing. One thing for me that I've admired of folks that have faith of various religions are the folks that truly believe. And so that belief gives them the strength to accept some of this horribleness that's happened in the world, the, a renewable faith in myself and in something bigger than me

has made a huge difference in my life and those around me. So I hope by providing some helpful definitions or differences between religion, spirituality, and faith, sharing the importance of faith and some of the tangible benefits of having faith on our mental health, which then by default helps

our physical health, that help each of you, if you're having a tough time or just interested in this information, to reignite your faith, to re-explore your faith, to give it another chance. It's been hard times these past few years. And whether we had COVID or the civil unrest we had in our country for various reasons or across the world or the disasters, we'll all face things in our lives at some point. And having faith can give us the drive to push through when we think we can't. So thank you for pushing through and hitting play. And let's get into this. So let's differentiate some things or try to if we can. So I did some research, looked up definitions to help me understand and hopefully help you understand. So what is religion? So we're going to use a definition provided by Adam Brady,

who's a yoga teacher, author, and martial artist at the Chopra Center, Deepak Chopra. He's been there for 20 years and he also wrote Religion versus Spirituality, the difference between them, how convenient, on Chopra.com, and I'll link to that article in the show notes. But Adam Brady says, religion is a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices, the service and worship of God or the supernatural. So institutionalized attitudes, beliefs, practices, particularly and practices, the service and worship of God or the supernatural, right? So institutionalize, you know, attitudes, beliefs, practices, particularly that practices, right? It's a different, it's how do you carry out your belief? How do you carry out your faith, your religion?

You know, and it's probably, I know for me, it was what I'm most familiar with. In fact, billions of people are familiar with religion, right? That's, I think, what's a lot equated to faith. And let me just, I found this really interesting. This is from the Pew Center. This is how many people believe different religions. And this isn't every religion out there. It's the big ones, of course, with the most. This is from more than 2,500 census surveys and population registers that finds 2.2 billion

Christians, which is 32% of the world's population. 1.6 billion Muslims, which is 23% of the population. 1 billion Hindus, which is 15% of the population. Nearly 500 million Buddhists, which is 7%. 14 million Jews, 0.2% around the world as of 2010, in addition to kind of those bigger buckets that most folks know about, there's 400 million people, about 6% of the population that practice various folk or traditional religions. For me, I live in America, this is like the American Indians, right? Very nature focused in the spirit world. And so if you can think of that, if you're from another country,

somewhere around the world, think of a similar folk kind of focused religion. And that's what they're talking about there. So billions and billions of people believe they practice these things. They follow these institutions. And, of course, all these institutions have various histories. Right. right but that's the religion piece of it is i ascribe or i prescribe or i believe in this way in this god in these practices in these belief systems that fall under this and billions and billions of people do that right and this isn't a an episode to debate what you believe or what

you don't that's that's your freedom but that's that's religion that's how it's defined at least by adam brady i thought it was a pretty good one from the Pew Center's data. Apparently, a lot of people think religion is pretty important. So then what's spirituality? Again, from Brady in the same article, he says, spirituality connotes an experience of connection to something larger than you, living everyday life in a reverent and sacred manner. So you can have

spirituality, you can be spiritual and not necessarily believe in a God or the supernatural, right? You can be spiritual and loving nature and walking around and being pleasant to others. And you know, it's an interesting combination that spirituality like that you can believe in crystals, right? You can, you know, there's so many different avenues spirituality like that. You can believe in crystals, right? You can, you know, there's so many different avenues of belief and how you can be spiritual or actions you can take. I think Brady captures that pretty good. But notice there's no mention of God or a pantheon of gods or a deity, right? With spirituality.

So what about faith? What about the focus of this episode? Well, I used Encyclopedia Britannica for this. It was hard to find all three of these together. And maybe that's my weak research, but I did find faith in the Encyclopedia Britannica that says it's, quote, inner attitude, conviction, or trust relating human beings to a supreme God or ultimate salvation. No definition allows for identification of faith with religion. Some inner attitude has its part in all religious traditions, but it is not always

essential significance. So I thought that's interesting because, you know, again, they mention a God, but they also say that inner attitude is a big part of it. This is one reason I love listening to Joyce Myers, who is Christian, but I feel like she's more of a motivational speaker because she, yes, mentions different verses of the Bible and uses references, but a lot of the advice she gives has to do with, we may get from and hers is Christian God, but let's say for whatever gods you believe in, advice and guidance and be saved by them, but we have to for whatever gods you believe in advice and guidance and, you know, be saved by them. But we have to do things here on this planet, right? Our gods, what we believe in our pantheon or deities, you know, whatever you want to call them, aren't going to fold the laundry

for us. They're not going to feed our kids. They're not going to do our jobs for us. And that, that is the kind of practical messages that I find very faithful and less religious and more practical. Just an aside there, but it really, I think that central, that inner attitude is a huge part of faith, a huge part of my faith, and I think should be a huge part of everybody else's. So what's the difference then between the three, between faith, religion, and spirituality? And this is from Reza Aslan from the Huffington Post from an article in 2016. And you'll find, so, you know, faith and religion are here, but he doesn't mention spirituality, but I'll read it anyway. It's a pretty good quote. So, faith is a personal and mysterious and individualistic and inexpressible and indefinable.

Religion is merely the language that you use or can use to express what is fundamentally inexpressible to define what is undefinable. Quote, I thought that was a really good way to basically say it's hard to define faith. I agree. It's super hard to find a definition that didn't immediately tie it to religion or something else. And religion, like the definition that was provided from Adam Brady earlier, I think Reza's is similar where it's, you know,

it's a language to express what we do. So it's practices, it's kind of institutionalized, those kinds of things, or help us define what's undefinable, right? Like, how did we all get here? What happens when we die? Like, you know, what's gonna make us a better person? And I don't think that's always tied to religion,

but so Reza Aslan doesn't mention all three of them together either. So here's my two cents. I agree. And I think faith is an inner and individualistic thing, right? That's often closely related to religion. Our spirituality is how we connect with whatever higher power we subscribe to, whether it be a pantheon of deities, one God above all, nature, or even with nothing. So how can we connect

spiritually with nothing or have faith in nothing? Well, I think that atheists and agnostics, they have to have some level of faith, faith in something. It could be faith in the Big Bang theory, faith in science, over religion, or faith that they can lift a certain weight, right, or accomplish a certain goal. But there's a faith there that isn't 100% tied or at all, if you're agnostic or atheist, right, to a God or to gods or, you know, whatever, to something spiritual. So why then do I think we got to have faith? I think we have to have faith because believing in ourselves is the cornerstone of accomplishing anything in life, right? We need to have faith that we can drive a car on the road, that we can

give the speech in front of others. We can perform as an EMT on the street once we've completed our training. But how does faith really help our minds and our mental health? So I'm going to use a list from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, N-A-M-I. And it has four things listed there, and there's way more than this, I'm sure. So again, let me know on the feedback form on the kevtalkspod.com website. But the first thing they talk about is meditation. And so their comparison is kind of meditation to prayer, or prayer to meditation. Meditation is in so many books about mental health, treating anxiety, mindfulness. I talked about it on The Body Keeps the Score.

I talked about it in Mindfulness for Warriors. And we'll talk to Kim Colgrove on a podcast interview in the future who wrote that book. It's such a huge tool that helps us learn how to center our mind, how to address ourselves, which we don't always want to do, right? We're sad. We're mad. We're scared. We're angry.

We're depressed. Whatever we're feeling, sometimes we don't want to do, right? We're sad, we're mad, we're scared, we're angry, we're depressed, whatever we're feeling. Sometimes we don't want to look inward. It's easier to look outward, to sleep, to numb things with substances, to watch TV, to be on social media. But practicing meditation helps our minds slow down and disconnect, and we need that. And so by way of a prayer practice that could fall under faith, right? Your faith is taking you to believe in whichever practice, whichever those practices or institutionalized kind of mechanisms that you pray with. And the example Naomi talks about is like Catholics, right? There's prayer beads. It's very ritualized service. I'm familiar with that. I grew up

Catholic, very ritualized services and prayers that you repeat over and over again. And it can create this meditative response. The other example they give is Muslims that also have prayer beads and the daily traditions, the call to prayer, the way people pray together in groups. And we'll talk about that here in a little bit. But meditation and prayer as meditation or meditation as prayer is a huge help. And so that gets into, then who do you pray to if you're agnostic or you're more spiritual than religious? Pray to whatever you believe, right? Pray to the trees, to the sky, to the rocks, to your dog. It doesn't matter, right? Or to science, whatever you're believing in.

But if you pray to something and you believe in it and you can give up a part of your worries to that thing, that's where the faith comes in, right? That's where a leap of faith that I don't have this all alone. I can't do it alone. And it's helped me a whole lot. For me, my choice is mine, but I know when I renewed my faith

after having some hard times, it made a huge difference to be able to hand over a lot of the problems that I kept within me and on my shoulders. And I've done that through prayer and it is meditative at times. And so I can say and will certainly advocate and agree with Naomi's first suggestion about meditation here.

The next item, the next benefit that Naomi mentions for having faith and how it can help your mental health is that it fosters togetherness. The article I referenced mentions the benefit of community as created by Sunday morning church. But to me, I think togetherness is based on a common faith isn't limited to religious gathering. And that's not to dismiss that I go to church, I go to church on Sundays, holidays, do some extra things like that. So there's no doubt when you're with other folks, and they're not always happy. I was at some of my lowest points in the past six months when I went to church, and it helped to talk to somebody afterwards, let them know the troubles I was going through and meet them for lunch a week or so after. I'm forever

grateful for that. And that was because we had a place to go. I had faith and really my wife and the other people there to give it a try again and believe and look up. But it doesn't have to be at a church or a mosque or any other religious building or gathering, I think another good example of fostering togetherness in people that have faith either in themselves or each other in the process are addiction groups, right? So alcohol oxynomous is known for having a very strong religious overturn, but the religious isn't tied to one particular branch. In fact, it's what's your

higher power, right? Is what they say. It doesn't say you have to believe this thing. You know, and I believe that the faith in those groups like AA is that one can show up and be with like-minded people or like suffering people without judgment, right? When you're in a hard time, when you're addicted to alcohol or drugs and you need help, maybe you don't want to get the help, maybe you're desperate and you have to get the help, you're going to walk through doors and not know who's on the other side, not know what it's going to be like, not know if they're going to accept you, but you'll get a sense of togetherness from the group because they will accept you. They get it.

And without having faith in yourself to walk through those doors or in a process you don't know about, you'll never go. So faith in the instance of being able to foster togetherness is critical for healing for many things. A third benefit that Naomi mentions in the article, and I'll expand on, is that faith can provide a common understanding, whether it's faith in religion, faith in spirituality, faith in each other. It's similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous story that I mentioned, or things like that. And the article mentions answering the why me question, not with science, but with religion. Again, they use the term religion. It's so interchangeable in most of the stuff that I've read. But if you have a common understanding of what it's like to

not be able to stop drinking or take drugs or what it's like to be depressed or be anxious or have postpartum depression or to lose someone to cancer or to have cancer. There's so many different support groups out there that you have to have faith to be part of. You have to take that first step. And religion is part of the backbone of some of them. Religion is an option for some of them. But I have also asked the why me question. Why did I get cancer when I was younger? Why did I watch people die in front of me? Why couldn't I save this young woman that died in childbirth? So many different questions that I've had. And you can drive yourself crazy by trying to answer them on your own.

And so whatever you believe, going to a group, whether it's an organized religious group, whether it's a faith-based group of various denominations, talking with other people is therapy, right? When you go to therapy, it's like group therapy. But everybody happens to maybe believe similar things are the same. I don't know that even Christians believe the exact same thing, right? There's so many sects of Christianity and other religions. It's a tough thing, right? There's so many sects of Christianity and other religions. It's a tough one, right? And like I mentioned, it's caused me pause and anger and frustration in my own religion under the umbrella of faith, you know, and my higher power that I believe in because I don't understand it all. But for me in this life, I don't know that we can ever understand it all, right? There's a reason people do research their whole lives and

never get all the answers. No one that I know of that I've ever heard of knows for sure how we got here, how, where we go when we leave here, right? But the talking to other folks, the working through, you know, self-blame and survivor's guilt and things like that with groups, there's, you know, so many different groups that we have to have faith to be part of, or faith can be central to, faith and religion, so that we can have a common understanding that then makes us not feel isolated and on an island. Because we're isolated and on an island, and we don't have a common understanding that then makes us not feel isolated and on an island because we're isolated on an island and we don't have a common understanding and we don't have togetherness. That's when things get sticky, right? That's when folks feel isolated and they kill themselves.

That's when folks can fall into a deep depression, um, you know, have anxiety and anxiety. Depression has gotten so bad, at least, you know, the past few years with people being isolated. So I know it helped me a whole lot being isolated, a whole lot working on my own at home to get back out in the world, to go to some groups, to go to church and be around people and just get more involved. And so I'm still working on the understanding piece. That's something I'll probably work on forever. You know, why these people, why was it there? What happens when we die? Those kinds of things, either concerns or fears or just, you know, sadness. But, you know, I'm, I'm taking the leap of faith, which makes me think of the quote from Man of Steel, one of my favorite movies, that sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, which makes me think of the quote from Man of Steel, one of my favorite movies,

that sometimes you have to take a leap of faith first. The trust part comes later. So if you're out there listening to this and you're not sure about faith or spirituality or religion or you're stuck or depressed or you're anxious or you're alone, take a leap of faith. Get out, find a group that you identify with a religion you're interested with try a few and see how it goes and see if they build your trust and it will make a difference it will make a difference the last thing that nami mentions on there is helping others and this is something that has really helped my mindset and not because i didn't help others. My really whole life has been about helping others largely medically with disaster management, project management, customer service and IT. But it's different in your personal life.

It's different maybe when you get to a place where you're really self-focused or you're just not focused on things because you're depressed, you're upset or something like that. But having faith, having spirituality, having religion, all those together, one of each, it makes a big difference when you start to say, okay, how can I help other people today? How can I not focus on myself? How can I focus on something bigger than me? Whether it's just the natural world, the spiritual world, those that are hurting because

something happened to them or their family members, the folks behind me in the Starbucks line that I'm going to buy a coffee, the kids I'm going to coach at youth football. It makes a difference in your mind, and it feels good, right, which is a big deal. It's not a pat on the back, look at me, look what I'm doing, because a lot of things that we do that help others don't necessarily need to be that. Um, I guess this podcast wouldn't count as that since it's out all over the place. But when you start to help others, um, whether it's you volunteer at your church, whether you volunteer in your community, um, whether you just become

more helpful around the house, cleaning your room when you're supposed to, that changes your mind and the way you think and your happiness. And it's a big pillar of helping your mental health because first you've helped yourself, right? To get strong enough to get up, get going. And you have then realized, you know what? I'm good enough. I'm going to go help other people. And it takes also the focus off some of your troubles because you're focused on helping other people. And it takes also the focus off some of your troubles because you're focused on helping other people. You know, say you're having a bout of insomnia. We did got sleep right on episode two. And I had that bout and I just some days so upset, right? Just, just so upset. I'm crying in the morning. I'm so tired. I can't sleep. I get up three, four times a night,

not sleeping well. And no, I have to, I have to be there. And no, I have to be there for my kids today. I have to be there for my wife today. My faith that I can do it. Folks have done this more tired with less than me. So I'm going to focus on helping others. Helped pull me through days that I thought I just couldn't do it. Honestly, I thought I just, my mind's not working. I can't get my body to work, but I was wrong, right? I was wrong. And the faith in the words, my wife said that, yes, you can the faith. And for me, the prayer that I did, the meditations that I did and the focus on helping others got my feet moving, made me step forward. And I know it's done the same for others. And I know it can do the same for others. Maybe for you, if you're listening and you're stuck like that too,

if you're tired, if you're upset and you're focused on all your own problems, point your focus outward and focus on helping others. And your problems won't necessarily go away, but they will be a little bit less with each step, with each task that you do, with the increased patience that you have with other people. So I think this is a good list from NAMI. It's some good benefits. There's a lot more.

I may revisit this, but meditation, right? It's a very similar to faith, to prayer, to spiritual being somewhere, fostering togetherness, right? It's a very similar to faith, to prayer, to spiritual, you know, being somewhere, um, fostering togetherness, right? Faith-based groups, um, of all different kinds that get together. You're together in a group with like-minded people. You can have a common understanding of the good, of the bad, of the worst, of the best, you know, we can help, which can help give you perspective. I, one thing I found out really over the past six months when I've had anxiety and panic and dealing with PTSD and just family stuff, man, it just builds up, right,

is that a lot of other people have a lot of problems. And when you're not in a great place and you feel bad, you think it's just me. I'm the only one with this problem. We're similar. Everybody else's life is great, but it's not true. And I the only one with this problem. We're similar. Everybody else's life is great, but it's not true. And you know, I found that out togetherness, going out, being with other groups, being with other people, getting a common understanding that, yeah, I had that.

I've dealt with PTSD. I've been depressed, right? From folks that you would never know it. And you don't know unless you reach out and again, helping others. You can build up folks, right? You can be so helpful to other people, a smile, a how are you today? That's helping others, right? That could change their whole day. So I want to quote from Nami again, and this is a really good one about, you know, the connection between the mind and body and spirituality and things from NAMI. I think this is a really good one. Quote, as we learn more and more about the connections between the mind and body, it becomes clear that spirituality, religion, and faith can help some individuals live well with mental health conditions. Some individuals and families turn to faith in times of crisis

to help in their recovery, while others find that spiritual practices help them continue to manage their mental health. So what can you do, listener, to help your mental health? My opinion is to start a mindful meditation practice. I've mentioned Headspace. I use it, but there's so many meditation things. You can look up stuff online, YouTube, everywhere. Just something. Or go sit outside for five minutes without your phone and just listen. Or 10 minutes. Build up to 10 minutes. Go see other people if you don't already regularly. Go sit in the back of a church during service. Go to a community meeting. Something. Find some kind of group.

Find a hobby or a group about a hobby that you have. It's pretty cool whether it's a virtual meeting or in person, depending on your comfort level. Do some research. If you have interest in a religion, in a spirituality, in something that you can believe in, that you have interest in, that you've thought of. We've all kind of thought of something. Look it up. Try and understand. Try and get a common understanding or just your own understanding of it. And then when you've done some research, then go join somebody at that, you know,

denomination or group or team or whatever it is and say, hey, I read about this. I had interest in it. What do you think? And that dialogue is very helpful to get your mind going and get you thinking and get that understanding and figure out a way to help others. Start a podcast. Start a blog. Say hi to someone.

Smile at someone. When you see somebody that's down, that's looking down and they don't look happy, hey, how are you? That makes a big difference in the world. I thank you all for making a big difference for me by hitting play on this podcast. I hope this helps. A little more vulnerable on the KevTalks podcast, as I think we all should be, right? Some folks are, myself included before, very shy or scared about revealing being human, but we're all human. I believe all humans need some level

of faith. It doesn't have to be my faith. It doesn't have to be your neighbor's faith. But you have to believe that you can do things. You can believe that a higher power empowered you to do things. You can believe that nature and science empowered you to do things. But you have to reestablish your faith. Too many people have lost faith in themselves these days. We can't have that. We need to pick each other up, build each other up. Thank you so much. Remember, have a plan, stay informed, and get involved.