QUESTION: "Dr. Remington, I read in your bio that in addition to psychology and theology, you have aviation in your career. Could you share something from aviation in mental health and spirituality?”
ANSWER: For the past several days I have been sad, grieving, and in prayer for the passengers, flight crew, and their loved ones in the crash of an airliner in the Atlantic Ocean.
A preliminary contributing accident cause was that inaccurate information came to the pilots and to the aircraft. This also happens to we human beings, we receive inaccurate information that may cause us to crash in life.
It is common in mental health counseling to discover that a present emotional or mental problem resulted from the person receiving inaccurate information from our parents, or parental figures, or traumas early in our life. That inaccurate information usually pertains to how we feel about ourselves, and in turn, how we perceive and approach life.
Information about ourselves pretty much comes from three levels. One level is what we hear about ourselves from others. That information is inaccurate when we are told that we are anything other than beautiful and competent.
Information about ourselves comes from what we communicate to ourselves. Read my last article, Don't Trash Trash Talk. Our bodies respond to the kind of self-talk we make. That information is inaccurate when we communicate to ourselves anything other than what is positive and optimistic about ourselves.
A third level is information we receive from our spiritual relationship. That information is inaccurate, in my opinion, when a communication is from God Who is anything other than good and loving.
Jesus gives us an excellent understanding of receiving accurate information. The Gospel tells us how His family was so concerned about Him that they decided He should have what today we call a mental status examination, a psychiatric evaluation. His family felt that He was emotionally unbalanced. Jesus rejected their inaccurate information; He selected the accurate information that he was doing His Heavenly Father's will. People doing that may be considered at least "weird", if not worse. John, chapters 8 and 10 record that Jesus was accused of possessing a "demon".
In my belief, the most accurate information comes to us from our personal times of prayer and meditation. When we have a solid spiritual foundation - receiving the most accurate information about us from the Highest Source - we have the most accurate self-portrait. Please read Matthew 5:11. The following verses describe who we really are.
That's it! Select only information from others that is upholding of you; select only information from yourself that is supportive of you; select only information from a God Who is good and love, and communicates to us that we are a unique and precious child of God.
Select only accurate information.
READER: Submit questions to Ask-A-Counselor, obtain information, or make an appointment by calling 843-448-4820, Fax: 448-9875, send to the Coastal Samaritan Counseling Center, 901 N. Kings Highway, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577, or log on to http://coastalsamaritan.blogspot.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment