Religion and spirituality play an important role in addressing your mental health and well-being. Yet, how you practice may determine if it helps or hinders your efforts.

A recent Dutch study in the Journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality found a critical link between self-compassion and one’s relationship with God. Those who have more positive feelings in their relationship with God tend to treat themselves with more self-compassion, which leads to less anxiety and depression and greater well-being. Those who fear God’s rejection, criticism and punishment tend to treat themselves the same way, becoming more prone to anxiety and depression and decreased well-being.

So often the inner critic arrives on the scene much quicker than the self-compassion. Our brain is just wired that way, to focus on the negative. It’s a survival thing. Get on ourselves, beat ourselves up to try to prevent that bad thing from happening again. And for some reason we think that’s how we will be happy.

This is compounded by thinking that God is now upset or disappointed with us too. Our image of God – formed in childhood by our parental images and refined by what we were taught in church – becomes one of a punitive or judgmental God in which we are never quite good enough.

It’s not a stretch to see how this dynamic leads to increased anxiety and depression. Yet, the good news is that the dynamic can also help us.  When we work on our self-compassion, we can experience a more compassionate God.  When we explore our image of God for closely, we can grow in compassion for ourselves.  Working on them together brings greater well-being and relief to our stress, anxiety and depression.

Click here to learn more about Healing Your Soul events to put this dynamic to work for you!