Episode #242 - Spiritual Origins & Mortal Shells

Mortality can be a difficult place for someone suffering with mental and emotional health issues.  It can very much feel as though your mortal body is controlling you rather than you your body.  And yet with all of this it is so important to remember that the your spirit is perfect in form and function and one day we will be resurrected perfect and "Finally Free".

Transcript

Welcome to Episode #242 – Spiritual Origins & Mortal Shells.  I am your host Damon Socha.  I am going to take you back.  Way back to your origin story. No doubt you have heard the saying that you are a son or daughter of God.  The Proclamation on the Family states it this way.

“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life.”

We had celestial parents, exalted beings with capacity to bring forth life both spiritual and mortal.  These gods as we call them experienced a mortal life previous to ours, that was in many ways identical to what we are experiencing in our lives.  They lived a mortal life.  They experienced what we currently do.  They also had parents who experienced the same mortal life.  There is no doubt that our celestial upbringing was amongst individuals who had overcome their mortal journey in the exact way we now do.  This provides for generations of experienced gods with a significant history.  No doubt we were schooled with this history and were taught it regularly.  Considering that we were to eventually experience mortality as a final testing and judgment, I am fairly certain we knew what mortality held for us.  This wasn’t the first time the plan of salvation had been implemented for the benefit of the children of God.

We possessed great knowledge and still do.  The veil is not an erasure but a covering of the spiritual mind and some emotions.  Nothing that we learned has been lost.  We learned premortal lessons so well through our experiences the Lord noted in D&C 138 that the lessons of preparation would carry over into mortality and aid us on our journey.  Now we don’t remember them, but through the Spirit of the Lord those lessons can be activated in our lives to benefit us.  So we came not only with knowledge but the ability to overcome our weaknesses and trials based on the Lord’s perfect understanding.  We were prepared in all things.  Well we were prepared as well as we allowed for it.  Our preparation and lessons learned in the premortal life depended upon our engagement and so we were prepared as we engaged with those lessons.  Unfortunately, many individuals were not as prepared as they should have been.  However, it is the feeling of many individuals including many general authorities that members of the church prepared themselves very well for the experience.  So well, we were given priesthood responsibilities and missions to accomplish.  So if you are a member of the church you very likely were in the top 1% of heaven.  I assume 1% because currently with the world population above 8 billion and church membership in the 17 million range, current membership makes up less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of the population of the earth. 

We also experienced a first judgment based on our actions during our first estate.  Not sure how this judgment occurred or when but Lucifer and his cast of minions were removed from heaven and leadership was called to begin creation and mortality.  This judgment was important and we find it in the Book of Abraham.  We were judged, found “good” and given responsibilities for the salvation of the children of god.  What does all this background mean for me?  Our spirts were fully developed with a unique identity, personality and immense understanding.  We were and are very intelligent with significant experience in spiritual things.  This ancient spirit that lives in our bodies is the core of our existence.  It is who we are.  It represents our core experiences in premortal life and in this life.  It causes our personality, our inclinations to spiritual matters, our emotions and so much more that makes us who we are.

We are then sent into a mortal body fully prepared to participate in our missions.  We are given this mortal shell with a mental and perhaps spiritual veil.  Now if our mortal shell was completely obedient to our spirit, mortal life would be far less difficult.  Now I don’t mean that our spirits have no control over our mortal bodies, because we most certainly do, but things can occur in this mortal body that can have profound impacts upon our mortal experience.  Our bodies and spirits exist in a balance that is weighted to the mortal body.  Meaning when our mortal body experiences accidents, injuries and trauma, it can cause the nature of our mind to change, which in turn can directly affect our emotions both mortal and spiritual.  Those emotions often cause the symptoms associated with mental and emotional illness.  The mortal subjecting the spiritual.  And yet depression, bipolar and anxiety do not come all at once with compliance.  We tend to fight our episodes and then eventually give in after we wear down.  I believe this fight is the conflict between what our spirit knows and feels and what our body is telling it.  We become confused, disoriented in pain and emotional confusion as the mortal body tells us there is most definitely something wrong and the spirit sends signals that all is well.  

For instance, I have a friend Abby.  I spoke about her in Episode #93.  Abby’s mortal journey has taken several deviations from what one might call a normal life and not necessarily by her own choice.  She is a walking, talking miracle.  If I remember correctly from our conversation, Abby was close to serving a mission.  A beautiful daughter of God, preaching the gospel.  Why would the Lord not protect someone ready to serve.  While on a hike, she fell 50 feet into a riverbed breaking her skull.  Miraculously she managed to survive through several miracles that accompanied the fall and recovery.  However, the injury caused brain trauma which in turn has cause all types of issues including memory loss, the need to relearn even basic skills and perhaps the most difficult an onset of bipolar disorder.  The accident has changed many things about Abby’s mortal body and that has in turn affected her personality, capacities and her mortal nature.  This has naturally been very difficult for her, her family and her close personal relationships.  It would be for anyone.  But what I want to highlight here is something very important.  The brain injury may have altered the mortal mind and body but Abby’s core spiritual nature has not changed.  Meaning the onset of mental illness is likely to change our mortal nature and emotions altering how we behave but it doesn’t change the spiritual mind.  When our mortal mind is injured our spiritual mind is not and remains as it was.  Abby is the same spiritual person she was in premortal life, with the exception of her new mortal experiences.  One day when her brain is restored to its perfect form, Abby will be the spiritual Abby everyone knew.

As Elder Holland said it so eloquently in his talk entitled, “Like a Broken Vessel” in October of 2013.

“I bear witness of that day when loved ones whom we knew to have disabilities in mortality will stand before us glorified and grand, breathtakingly perfect in body and mind. What a thrilling moment that will be! I do not know whether we will be happier for ourselves that we have witnessed such a miracle or happier for them that they are fully perfect and finally “free at last.””

Why is this important to us who face mental and emotional illness?  We are not our illness.  While our illness might alter our personality and who we are in mortality, it does not alter our spiritual nature in the sense of who we once were.  We have a fully formed individualized spirit in our body that is perfect in form and function and our body will one day be molded to that spirit entity.  But in mortality the mortal shell appears to have some ability to cover that wonderful personality we once enjoyed.  One day Abby you will be spiritual Abby once again.

So why allow for the mortal body to have this level of control of our lives.  I mean my wife once commented that she had three husbands when I was suffering with bipolar disorder, adding she only really liked one of them.  Why allow for the mortal body to have such a power over the spiritual?  Now sure that I have the complete answer for that question as the complete answer would require the Lord’s fully understanding.  But I understand enough of it to know why the Lord allows it to occur.  

Let’s assume that you play a sport.  You can choose.  By your genetic nature you are strong without really needing much practice.  The skills come naturally to you and you seem to pick up new skills with relative ease.  We often call these people natural athletes.  They have some genetic advantages. When game time comes not only do you have the skills but you just seem to understand the game better than others.  You are naturally strong and talented.  You pass skills tests and games with ease and enjoyment.

If I wanted to improve your skills and your game, I can do two things.  I can get the best competition to play against you or I can limit your skills and abilities and allow you to play with teams that don’t have as much talent.  For instance, let’s strain your ankle and then ask you to play 2 halves of soccer or 4 quarters of football or several games of tennis.  What would happen?  Well the pain is going to affect your play.  You will be slower and unable to do the things you naturally would.  But you still need to play.  When you cause an athlete to play under less than ideal circumstances where their body is not 100% able, and you cause this occur for a period of time, the athlete will learn different skills to cope with the injury and still be able to perform.  The performance is unlikely to be spectacular and it will be dauting for the athlete to continue and to learn new skills.  He or she is going to feel less than worthy to play, thinking maybe someone better should be on the field.  The more diminished the skillset due to injury the more the athlete must increase their effort and learning capacity.  Meaning I don’t have to place an athlete with the best competition for them to learn if I can reduce their capacity to perform.  I believe that almost all weaknesses perform this function to reduce capacity so that the individual can learn different skills and increase their strengths.  

When an athlete has returned to full form, they will now possess greater strengths and a new set of abilities along with what they already once possessed.  I believe that for those of us who suffer this is the case.  Perhaps mortality would have been easy and our missions without any real issues if we had been allowed to use our full capacity.  Perhaps we needed to strengthen certain skillsets and mental illness was the best pathway to teach us.  I suppose that the real reason depends upon how well we learned the lessons of premortality and where we needed spiritual growth and support.  One of the main reasons the Lord explains to us is to “make weak things become strong.”  And I don’t think that he was necessarily talking about our mortal bodies but our spiritual nature when he said that.  Weaknesses in mortality are meant to strengthen our spiritual nature.  

However, it does require effort on our part.  We cannot simply expect the meander through life without concern for working through our weaknesses and then expect to return to our previous spiritual nature.  For some reason, not explained, the mortal body has significant capacity to make changes to our spiritual nature that are far more difficult when we our outside of the mortal world.  So if we meander and find other forbidden paths, those paths can be etched into our core spiritual nature and can be very difficult to remove.  So the Lord asks us, even with difficulties that effect how we interact with the Spirit, to continue in active participation with him and our covenants.  Remembering that active participation means that we participate to our capacity and ability.  We don’t run faster than our strength but we still run.

Weaknesses within the context of the gospel such as depression, anxiety and bipolar are intended to be celestial training grounds with all the difficulty that implies.  Yes I know that doesn’t seem right considering the nature of the illness.  Why remove or make difficult my ability to hear and respond to the Spirit?  Could this not attune our ability to hear and respond to the Spirit by making it difficult to do so?  Certainly it could and the Lord does not leave us alone to figure it out.  He is with us through the long difficult, mists of darkness covered path.  So not only is the illness tailored to our needed experiences, it is daily administered to our needs.  Our illness is a daily trial, with daily miracles, daily interaction with the Lord and daily humility.  

Perhaps that is the most important aspect of difficult weaknesses, we are brought to the sacred space of humility where spiritual learning and molding of the soul can take place through the atonement of the Savior.  Without this sacred space, the atonement would be far less effective in our lives.  Humility is the key to successful engagement with the power of the atonement.  Let’s be clear, humility is not giving up or giving in.  Humility is a deliberate emotional process where our expectations, our desires, our entitlements and personal desires are set aside so that we might engage the Lord and allow him to counsel us rather than us to counsel him.  When we come into humility, we become as little children allowing for the Savior and our Father to guide us even if that guidance may mean more suffering and steeper trails.  However, with humility comes power.  When we allow for the Lord’s will to be done, we allow for his power to be manifested in our lives.  The Savior will be more apt to provide aid, comfort, peace and eventually healing in our lives.  And yet we so often resist that sacred space in time as we attempt to go at it alone.  When we do we not only lose the power of the Atonement of the Savior, we may wander on strange roads for a time.  And strange roads and mental illness are not a good combination.  

One of the greatest things about humility and the atonement is their power to strengthen and change our nature.  When we are within the confines of humility, the Lord can mold that core nature to become as he is.  Now I say molding like the process is just a flip of the switch and that really isn’t true.  The molding and forming of the soul is often painful, very painful and includes severely difficult trials, testing and strengthening.  More often than not we find that our strengthening comes through difficult trials and the binding of ourselves to the yoke with the Savior.  Many times we tend to bear that yoke on our own, attempting in some way to earn the benefits of the atonement.  Obedience does provide for power in the atonement but only in the sense that it allows for mercy to be operative in our lives.  I have said every week in this podcast that we must do our part so that the Lord can do his.  However, this does not mean he waits for us to do our part and then he does his.  The process can and often is simultaneous and every effort we put into the yoke the Savior matches and amplifies allowing us to travel further with greater weight that we could ever have on our own.  

The importance in all of this today is that you have a marvelous spirit behind your illness.  It is powerful and capable.  The Lord does not need to know if you can live the gospel without your illness, he knows that already.  Like the natural born athlete, you have spiritual capacity and ability and likely in great quantities.  What he needs and wants to do is to strengthen that beautiful spirit even more.  He desires to get you into the humility zone and their do some spiritual heart surgery to expand your already bounteous capacities.  You are far more than your illness.  May the Lord bless you to understand just how spiritual and capable you are and most of all how he yokes himself with you.  Until next week do your part so that the Lord can also do his together with you.  Until next week.