which way is the most theraputic?

[Kay100]

I was watching an interview few days ago, this lady had experienced her brother went through a horrable car accident. It was very hard time for her, and her friends suggested she believe in God and that she can talk to God anytime and He will be listening. This had helped her a lot, and she didn't need to go find a therapist, she said God was her therapist cause she can just tell Him all her worries and fears...

 

After watching this, I was wondering is talking to God is more theraputic then talking to a therapist? It seem to me that the main difference is that, when you talk to God, there is no reply back but to a therapist, there will be a real conversation. But what's the same is that they are both letting you release whatever is bothering you. Actually I think there is a third way, which is to journal. So it's basically like talking to yourself. It can be some type of conversation with yourself, and can help you to get things out of your chest and also gain some clarity.

 

I'm not sure which of these 3 ways are most theraputic? Maybe it's different for different types of people... 

 

As for myself, I kind of like when I talk and there is someone replying back... But sometimes it's not possible, then talking to God would be good as well..... maybe for people who have faith they can really recieve calming energy from God after talking to Him..... if that's true that would be really great because the calming energy from the Universe should be a lot more powerful than any human can provide I think.....

 

Between talking to a therapist (or family, friends)  and journaling to talk to myself, I think I would choose journaling first. I like the idea of depend on myself first before asking for help from others. I don't like the thought of, when there's a difficult time I would just looking outward for help from others and not turn to myself first,  Not everyone is that lucky to always have someone that can depend on. Even if you do, it's still very important to first be independent..

Edited October 9, 2021 by Kay100

[universe]

You are right. No outside source is needed.

You where born with the innate ability to handle life.

 

Tho at times it can be helpful to reach out and have someone point you in the right direction.

Maybe it's comforting for you to know that there is no difference between inside and outside.

[Kay100]

@universe yeah right... sometimes I also don’t really like the idea of I’m all by myself, there’s no support at all... during difficult times we all naturally look around for some comfort... but I just don’t have total trust in humans... that’s just because of my own past experience..... but if you have faith in God, He is perfect and you don’t have to worry about Him ignore you or betray you...

 

well for some people, they might have people in their life that they have known for a very long time, so they can be confident that their friend is trustworthy... but looks like lots of people don’t have people like that in their lives, so many might turn to easy fixes... like drug, food, etc

 

There are a lot more talks on trauma lately..... I wonder if Leo has any videos talking about how to overcome trauma?

[Flowerfaeiry]

Talking to a good therapist can really help in ways that "talking to god" can't. 

[Ethan1]

Doing both. Some times it helps to get alternative perspectives. We some times get stuck in self-sabotage or self-avoidance. Which leads to self-destruction or self-harm at worst.

 

Soo... 

 

Self-care, self-therapy, and self-love are all important towards being responsible for one's self. 

Both are beneficial. Some therapists can only see so deep so you know yourself best.

Yet at times we might have blind spots we can't see that others can.

 At the end of the day you are truly responsible for yourself. Therapists can only nudge you to take responsibility or assist. It's your choice how responsible you want to be and how dedicated you are. 

[Kay100]

@Ethan1 yeah you are so right! It truely is hard to examine yourself, because we can't really see ourself, we can only literaly look outward heh..... self therapy is really important, but blind spot are real too.... Different things will be discovered if looking from a different perspective...

This made think of the psychologists themselves, is it true that they might be really acknowledgable and experienced in helping others, but when they are having issues themselves, sometimes they are not that good at helping themselves? I think Jordan Peterson might be like that? I'm not sure. I don't know that much about him, but I think he didn't have much health issue before he became famous? His daughter had autoimmune issues but he never mentioned that he had it himself too. But after he became famous for a few years, now he has bad autoimmune issues and in one of the podcast he said something like 'I'm a broken person...' 

I think when someone become famous they became constant target of the critics from everywhere. I guess you can say it's not fair for them, but that's how things always have been for public figures... Jordan obviously had so many critics, and when someone is psychologically stressed, it usually show up in physical illness....

I'm not sure if it's hard for him to help himself or the obsticles are just too great that even he tries his best it's still too much to handle.... And it would be hard for him to reach out to other people for therapy so he can only try to deal with things himself...

I'm not sure but those are just my thoughts.... I've always been thinking like why he's not able to help himself....

[Leo Gura]

Both have their place and function.

You can certainly talk to God and get a reply back. Just understand that you will be talking to yourself.

But also understand, when you're talking to your therapist you're just talking to yourself.

The healing power of God-consciousness will blow 20 years of therapy out of the water. But this assumes you're actually able to reach God-consciousness. Many people will need years of therapy just to be strong enough to open themselves to God's Infinite Love.

There's nothing wrong with going to therapy.

But there is nothing more therapeutic in the Universe than God's Love. If you had God's Love for long enough every single problem you have would simply melt away.

[Roy]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The healing power of God-consciousness will blow 20 years of therapy out of the water. But this assumes you're actually able to reach God-consciousness. Many people will need years of therapy just to be strong enough to open themselves to God's Infinite Love.

Even for the people that do access it, won't it be so radical and overwhelming that most wouldn't even be able to handle it or interpret it healthily? As in it wouldn't even help but actually be counter-productive?

It's like suddenly giving the average person 1 billion dollars. Most will just squander it, use it for their own selfish addictions, or become unrecognizable because of it.

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, Roy said:

Even for the people that do access it, won't it be so radical and overwhelming that most wouldn't even be able to handle it or interpret it healthily? As in it wouldn't even help but actually be counter-productive?

Could be.

Mostly they just won't access it if they aren't able to handle it.

32 minutes ago, Roy said:

It's like suddenly giving the average person 1 billion dollars. Most will just squander it, use it for their own selfish addictions, or become unrecognizable because of it.

Hence therapy and personal development.

[Hello from Russia]

2 hours ago, Roy said:

It's like suddenly giving the average person 1 billion dollars. Most will just squander it, use it for their own selfish addictions, or become unrecognizable because of it.

Why do you think so?

[Ethan1]

Therapy is not perfect. It's better than nothing in most cases. There's plenty of holes in the system on so many levels. Yet with time I do believe it will fine tuned & get better. Old ways of doing things are moving along with time. 

 

Therapists aren't perfect people. They can have transference & lack self-awareness of their own projections. Bringing in their own biases and problems. Even Jordan Peterson has his own blindspots being a professor. 

Jordan Peterson is just a normal guy with common human problems. He has social pressure to maintain his social image of "having his life together" inorder to be persuasive. Social proof causes people to view him differently.

He's a human. 

Most people typically that enter into the field of psychology go in with intentions of healing their own emotional baggage. Sorting through all the bags can be heavy. 

Everyone has their own issues in life doesn't mean there aren't some pieces of a puzzle you can find from others. 

I think once psychedelics are used in a responsible therapudic way then will we see huge transformations in accessing unconscious beliefs & repressed memories. 

Modern day therapy has not been around that long.

I do believe in the coming years therapy will look completely different than it does now. 

I'm currently doing therapy online. It helps to have someone to talk to that shows compassion and isn't trying to change you. It helps to have a sounding board to self-reflect and see the inner dialogue. Or if we're stuck in a negative self-talk pattern to have that disrupted with different perspectives. 

I believe once we feel that the therapy isn't going anywhere its best to find a different therapist. Different people have different perspectives. Helps to get multiple perspectives to learn different tools. 

Plenty of bad therapists. 

Plenty of good therapists. 

Some are both bad and good.

I can't persuade my therapist that mushrooms are transformative. I've tried. Does that mean she's bad? Not fully, she's helped me see things that I struggle to fully see. Doesn't mean all therapists think her way. Some are more open minded and some aren't.

It's your responsibility to vet what works for you and doesn't. Testing and seeing what works best. 

[Kay100]

@Something Funny I’m not sure. It’s just what the lady in the interview said, but I haven’t actually tried it myself. I guess you just pour out all your thoughts and feelings towards this Holy Spirit that you believe that cares about you. And maybe after that you might even feel a sense of comfort that this Holy Spirit instill into you...

actually I might have tried something like that before... there were a short period of difficult time for me and I would be talking to Jesus Christ in my mind all the time, imagine that He’s on my right side all the time. After a while I feel like I was making up this imaginary friend and keep talking to him was kind of funny.....

[Kay100]

@Leo Gura I wonder if you are in the stage of being able to access God's Love? And have you been accessing it for a long time?

[inFlow]

 

On 10/9/2021 at 11:42 PM, Kay100 said:

I don't like the thought of, when there's a difficult time I would just looking outward for help from others and not turn to myself first

Yeah you kind of start to depend on someone for your help which can become a crutch, while talking to God is on your own. I think it's way more deep to talk to God than to a therapist, because you can be honest to God which would make you honest to yourself because you are literally talking to - yourself.

[Kay100]

@inFlow  yeah I gue ss you are right... it's difficult to be totally honest and open up to a therapist who is a stranger to you, you are not sure if he/she is trustworthy and non-judgmental or not. Total trust can only build after you know someone over a long period of time, and certain that he/she has good character. There's no way to get to know a therapist long engough to be sure that this person is safe for me to open up to. 

But if you talk to God or to yourself, there is no risk because God is the perfect Holy Being whome you have no risk open up to. Although you can't actually hear Him talking back to you right away, but the fact that you can totally open up and let everything out is the most important...

I'm not sure about talking to God is literaly talking to yourself. I think we are all part of God but we are still our individual beings as well. Like we are God's child so we are closely connected and loved, but we are not actually God Himself. 

For me it's like, I know it's always good to try to depend on myself first instead of looking around and count on others for surport. If you think we are literaly God Himself, it's like we are actually on our own. When I'm having a difficult time, it just feels so much more comforting to know that there is this Holy Being that unconditionally love and care about us, and we can communicate with Him. If I think this way it feels so much more comforting than to think that I'm all on my own, I have to just only depend on myself. It's so different.

And I often thought that, normally the role of parents is to love and care for their children, so when in difficult times parents should be the people whome you can turn to for some care and comfort. I use to think this way and feeling resentful when I know my parents are not the type of people who are able to stay calm during difficult times, therefor they will not be able to provide comfort and care to me, and it's kind of the opposite, I have to at least try to appear to be calm to try to comfort them so they don't panic too much. They are good willed nice people, but they just tend to get panick easily when things happen. 

In this interview, this lady was talking about the similar situation. When her brother had this horrible car accident, the whole family is panicking, and she is the one who has to appear to stay calm in order to calm down her parents. This just adds extra pressure to her. I feel very similar to her. It's like the parents are not able to provide any surport but need me to surport them instead. They only add to the panick instead of surport and calm.

I use to feel kind of resentful about the fact that I think my parents are not able to be what parents should be. But after listened to lots of other people's stories, I came to realize that the chance of someone to get the caring and surportive parents are actually low in real life. The worst case is the parents are the opposite of how they should be, instead of provide love and care they are abusive to the child. That actually happens a lot... so I guess compare to those I'm already lucky... neglective parents are also common. And then there are the type of parents like mine who are nice and good willed but are easy to get panick so can't be the source of surport... This type is already a lot better than the abusive or neglective type...

I learned that it's okay to feel resentful about it. I use to not let myself feel the resentful feeling because I thought I'm not supose to feel resentful, my parents are doing the best they can. But soon I found that when I don't let myself feel this feeling of resentfulness, I'm just surpressing my feelings and it's making me so much worse in everyway. My personality literally changed to being more fearful when talking to others, like I was loosing my normal self. Then I learned that it's okay to feel resentful. If I allow myself feel it and express it out, not to my parents but in other ways. Like I can just express my resentment without saying out loud, but just let this feeling out and not press them down. I'm not saying them to my parents so they will not get hurt so it's ok. If I just let my feelings out then they get released and I feel a lot better.

I found that every time I just release my resentful feelings right away, I get to feel a lot more peaceful sooner. And then when I'm in a peaceful state I'm more able to think from my parents perspective and understand that it's truely not their intention to not provide the surport when things are difficult. They were not provided with suport in their childhood so they only learned to panick and not anything else. They are the victum as well, so I can't actually blame them for how they are.....

And it helps to know that most people don't get the perfect surportive parents. It's like so many people have the same or even worse situation, then I don't feel like I got the short end of stick. So I'm not the rare unlucky one, knowing that helps a lot too...

 

During hard times, things are too much to handle. You want to be strong and depend on yourself, but in the darkest  moment you just don't feel strong enough to handle on your own. If there is someone around, who is able to stay calm, and provide you some surport, that would be great. I feel like all I need is a hug, he/she don't have to say a word. Just a hug. All I need to know that he/she is calm, and he/she truely cares. That's enough. But just like the perfect parent, the chance that you know someone in your life who's able to be like that is rare as well. So I guess that's when talking to God is the most helpful way in moments like that..... God is always calm and caring, don't have to worry about Him adding to the panick..... So God is the most dependable when you are lacking strength....

 

Actually I might add to this, there is something called Self Compassion. It's something like, instead of me want to get a hug from someone, I show compassion to myself and wrap my arms around myself and give myself the sooth and comfort. I can also gentlly talk to myself in a compassionate way, things like "I know it's hard, I care for you, you will be ok..." try to sooth and calm yourself physically and emotionaly. That helps as well. I wonder if anyone has tried that.....

 

First show self compassion and sooth and calm yourself, and then can also talk to God and get surport, I guess both of those helps.....

Edited October 14, 2021 by Kay100