Mental/Psychological Changes that Healed my Bipolar

Last week I talked about the Lord helping me make physical changes to improve my brain’s chemistry and thereby heal my bipolar in a physical way.  Part 2 is about God healing my mind through changes in my thought patterns (psychology).  These changes were of equal importance in how the Lord healed my bipolar disorder.

Again, “Bipolar Depression may be described as a condition in which people go back and forth between periods of a very good or irritable mood and depression.” https://www.citrialsbipolardepression.com/

Besides the chemical factors in the brain that triggered these emotions I found that circumstances equally triggered my bipolar symptoms.  To replace being affected by the highs and lows of what was going on around me, I needed to change my thought patterns.

I am not trying to say that these things are a sure cure for Bipolar or will work for everyone.  I can only share my experiences and hope that the information may be helpful to some people.

Learning to Face Negative and Wonderful Aspects of Life in a Mature Way

I often have thought in my life, “I am a very nice person as long as things go my way.” I felt happy when everything was going right and ornery when things went wrong.  The problem was, life was full of conflict, so I was unhappy about half the time.

I thought that was perfectly normal, but now I see that there are people who live with inner peace almost all the time regardless of circumstances.  It is like living on a higher plain of consciousness.

In my experience negative thought patterns cause fear, pride, resentment, enmity, and despair.  As I retrained my mind through God’s grace, I was more constant in Him and began to have more faith, humility, love, and hope.  Here are some things helped me.

View All As “Right”

I read a quote in A Light in the Wilderness by M. Catherine Thomas that helped me start to see everything as God’s will. This really increased my faith in God because I decided to trust Him every time conflict arose.  He can stop or make anything happen, so if He hasn’t stopped it, it must be for a purpose.  This of course raises the question, “Why would God allow terrible abuse or violence?”  I believe God’s workings go far beyond what we can see and that everything fits together in a sort of complicated math problem. 

Here is what I read in Thomas’ book (p.26-27) that impacted me so much.  It is from John Taylor, an early leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  He is speaking in referring to the trials of the Church at the time and quotes the poet Alexander Pope.

“In relation to anything that has or may transpire, I feel that we are in the hands of God and all is right…. We ought to feel that we are in the Church and kingdom of God, and that God is at the helm, and that all is right and will continue to be.  I feel as easy as an old shoe.”

“What if we should be driven to the mountains? Let us be driven. What if we must burn our houses? Why, set fire to them with a good grace, and dance a jig round them while they are burning. ”

“What do I care about these things? We are in the hands of God, and all is right…. What is the position, then, that we ought to occupy- every man, woman, and child? Do our duty before God- honor him, and all is right. Concerning events yet to transpire, we must trust them in the hands of God, and feel that ‘whatever is, is right,’ and that God will control all things for our best good and the interest of his Church and kingdom on the earth. ”

“If we live here and prosper, all right; if we leave here, all right; and if we have to pass through affliction, all right.  By and by, when we come to gaze on the fitness of things that are now obscure to us, we shall find that God, although he has moved in a mysterious way to accomplish his purposes on the earth and his purposes relative to us as individuals and families, all things are governed by that wisdom which flows from God, and all things are right and calculated to promote every person’s eternal welfare before God.”

Submit Cheerfully to God’s Will

Seeing everything as God’s will gave me the opportunity to decide to submit to it cheerfully because I trust Him.  When my child woke me up at 2 am instead ranting in my head about how tired I was I started to say, “Thy will be done.” One day my tire went flat on the freeway and instead of worrying about the time it would take to get home and the groceries in the car I thought, “Thy will be done.”

I automatically turned to God for help and found this increased not only my faith, but my humility before God.  Humitlity started to mean being willing to go with His plan instead of mine and giving Him the credit for everything good.

I could accept my weaknesses and problems with faith that there might be a purpose to them.  Because of this belief I stopped viewing myself as a victim of circumstance and started repeating the mantra, “Life is happening for me, not to me.”

The last time I saw my grandmother, Patricia Byrd, before she got dementia, she told me a story from her life that illustrated this lesson.  She said that one Christmas she had mailed a package to her brother across the country and right before Christmas Day it showed up at her house again.  She was so angry with the postal workers and tried to file complaints and fix the problem.  Then, a few days later she received word that her brother’s house caught fire, and everything was burnt.  When she heard the news, she was so grateful for the postal error.  She told me it taught her not to get angry.

Looking for God’s purposes in all things (the silver lining) reminds me of Pollyanna’s “glad game”.  She found something good in every situation and focused on it.

Write

Another tool God gave me to psychologically combat bipolar was to write about things that were troubling me.  If I was very upset, I would use scratch paper and write out all the negative stuff.  This helped me get my thoughts clear and receive revelation on how to handle situations.  Then I would dispose of the paper. Overtime I needed to do this less and less.

I listened to a YouTube video about contesting negative thoughts with an A, B, C, D, E system.

A stands for adversity
B stands for beliefs
C stands for consequences
D stands for disputation
E stands for energize

I can’t find the video now, but it was based on a book by Sonja Lyubomirsky called The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want . There is a great summary of the method in the following blog. https://www.positivelypresent.com/2009/07/disputing-negativity-is-as-easy-as-abcde.html.  I used the method on paper for a while until it was automatic.

Writing in my journal each night helped me too.  I would list 5 things I was grateful for each day everyday even if I didn’t write about what had transpired during the day.  This, of course, brought out my “Pollyanna.”

Meditation and Breathing

To combat depression as well as mania, meditation taught me to free open my mind so that I can tap into my Higher Power more continually and receive guidance.  When things are going well, I think about God and thank him.  I breathe deeply and practice awareness by taking stock of everything that is going on around me and out of sight of me (the good and the bad around the world).

This short video helped me focus on my breathing as a form of meditation. The man is so cute and he explained to me the way I usually thought and suggested focusing on breathing to quiet our mind.  It is called “How to train your monkey mind.”

For me meditation is centered on God, seeking His will, and “looking to [Him] in every thought.” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:36)

Redirect Critical Thoughts

I used to constantly criticize things and people. As a result, and without realizing it, I criticized myself too.  I expected way too much of myself and when I didn’t measure up I would get frustrated and depressed…mood swings.

What is the root of criticism?  It might be the belief that our worth depends on our accomplishments and other’s approval.  Here are some things I do to redirect critical thoughts:

1. Replace criticism with a prayer for the person or situation (including myself).  If I don’t like what a person is doing I will pray for them receive help from God to stop.
2. Replace the critical thought with the mantra, “We need less judging and more loving.” I heard this phrase from a Church leader once.
3. Play devil’s advocate and contest the criticism as mentioned with the ABCDE method.  I find think of ways my critical thought is not true, or only partly true.
4. Never say anything negative about someone or something unless I am planning how to help them or the situation.
5. Only say things about other people that I think they wouldn’t mind overhearing. Choose words carefully when it is necessary to council about someone else’s problems (including my own children).  This leads me to be the same everywhere and with everyone.  It gives me an attitude that encourages unity instead of enmity and equality instead of hierarchies.

Understand that Every Human’s Worth is the Same as a Child of God

I used to respect people more that did great things and I felt to be respected I needed to do great things.  This left me feeling proud when I was doing well (mania) and depressed when I was not measuring up.  I was also self-centered because my worth depended on what I was doing.  When I realized that God is allowing me to succeed and He gives me all my powers and talents, I felt grateful instead of proud.  He is also allowing my failures and so I felt submissive instead of depressed.

I believe we all deserve the same respect from the homeless person on the street to the Presidents and Kings of nations.  This is not to say that we trust everyone the same.  We have boundaries with certain people that we know could do us emotional or physical harm, but I respect them as a child of God.

Let Go of Perfectionism

God’s will is much less demanding than ours.  He doesn’t expect perfect outcomes, just complete (or perfect) submission of my whole heart.  I have started telling myself to expect about 80% performance for myself and my children.  They are usually giving 100% of their effort.  Most of us are trying out best.

When I was young, I wanted an A+ and a 100% in school.  To get that meant I was one of the best.  It was written in black and white right in front of everyone’s face.  But there is so much more going on than we can see.  There is so much more in our hearts and our minds than people know.  If we could see inside everyone’s mind, we would only have compassion for one another.

Conclusion

Submitting to God’s will, focusing on Him through meditation, and letting go of criticism helped me find inner peace.  The Lord healed my bipolar disorder psychologically.  I see the world and everything it in differently.

Things that I saw as negative before are non-issues for me now.  I am upset by real issues only briefly and without despair because I have hope that I will be able to handle them with God.  Mania is replaced with a constant seeking for God’s will in every thought.