I started a nervous system course a few weeks ago.
Ever on the hunt for more/deeper/better information that helps me understand my brain - and its neuroses 😂 - I just keep buying stuff.
This particular course appears to be good though, I’m just at the beginning - I’ll let you know.
However there’s one landmine in many of these programs that as a Christian, I’m always trying to step over.
Where does the discussion of the nervous system, consciousness, the “parts” of us as it were - fit into my faith?
There is so much gnosticism baked into modern Christianity today as it is, and then when you layer in the meta-cognition ideas, consciousness work… well… it’s easy to slip right out of a Biblical worldview and not even realize it.
Let me give a brief example before I get to today’s musing.
If you asked the everyday person, what are the parts that make up a human being? A large majority of us would say - we’re a soul/spirit inside a body.
And then the next logical step is (and it plays out frequently in studying our consciousness) … well then that means you can actually “witness” yourself - stepping outside the limits of your brain, body, emotions etc., and this is the idea of meta cognition.
Go even further and people will talk about the essence of you being connected to the one universal god or consciousness.
None of this Biblical.
Biblically, a human being is not best understood as a spiritual self temporarily housed in a physical shell.
Scripture presents us as embodied creatures.
It’s based on Greek dualism. Think of reality divided into two levels: the physical/material world and the spiritual/non-material world. In this philosophy, the spiritual world is higher, purer, or more “real.”
When you separate out body and soul, you are layering on this philosophy:
The real you = the soul. The body = the temporary container. But it is the influence of Plato more than Jesus.
The biblical picture is not, “God made a soul and stuck it inside a body.”
It is much more integrated: God creates a whole human being. Physical creation is repeatedly called good. The body matters. Jesus becomes flesh rather than merely appearing human. And the final Christian hope is not permanent escape from the body… it is resurrection.
So maybe that wasn’t exactly a short tangent, but I’m trying to explain the nuance of how to be a follower of Jesus, study the nervous system and the brain, and not end up in murky theological waters.
Onto today’s thoughts.
The reflection activity today in this course was about the idea of “okayness”. That everything we do, feel, get triggered by, is boiled down to this one root motivation - how to feel okay again.
You get in a fight with your spouse, you want to either punish them or make up with them. Why? To feel okay again.
You’re stressed about your business revenue and need more cash? You make an elaborate launch plan to get a cash injection so you can feel okay again.
She asked this question: What would need to change about your life as a prerequisite for you to be able to access a deep sense of okayness?
As I wrote, two things became painfully clear.
First, I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to do the exercise if I first didn’t figure out what my definition of okayness actually was.
I determined (for me) it meant safe, comfortable, and pain free.
Side note… this definition means that there will be precious little of my lifetime whereby I actually feel okay. 😅
Second, there were so many prerequisites as I started journaling (too many to count!).
Here were just a few:
I assert that okayness belongs to me when I’m healthy in my body and free of disease.
I assert that my okayness rests on whether or not I have enough money in my bank account to address any and every possibility that comes up.
I assert that okayness belongs to me when I’m not doing anything that is morally questionable.
I assert that okayness belongs to me when I am free of worry, stress, panic, or anxiety.
No wonder my nervous system is shot! An impossible definition of what okay means. So many prerequisites I am subconsciously running with a decade long backdrop of life circumstances littered with uncomfortable and painful situations (a few even meeting the definition of unsafe).
Phew.
I am not sure where she (meaning the nervous system instructor) is going to take us next, but this one question has not stopped tumbling around in my mind.
How had my definition of “okayness” taken precedent over what God says about me?
And more importantly, how could I restore it?
I can read scripture. I can recite it aloud. But unless it becomes integrated into my entire operating system, I will default to this other definition.
I also don’t want to put on some ideology that the world pounds into our brains. That we’re all okay because we’re divine creatures. Or we deserve to be happy and that’s the be all and end all of life.
My nervous system defines okayness as a state of circumstances.
The world defines okayness as a state of self-actualization.*
Christianity defines okayness more like a state of relationship and reality.
*I am okay when I am living authentically, fulfilled, happy, free, becoming my highest self, and nothing outside of me gets to define me.
Here’s where I’ve landed:
Okayness is the settled reality that I belong to God, am held by God, and remain within His care even when my body, emotions, relationships, or circumstances are deeply uncomfortable.
At the risk of overspiritualizing (and breaking up our embodied nature into parts), I don’t want to suggest that we ignore our body/nervous system and deny its experience.
It does not mean, “Nothing bad is happening.”
It means, “Nothing happening right now can separate me from God.”
It does not mean, “I feel safe.”
It means, “My ultimate security does not depend upon my ability to manufacture safety.”
It seems there are two types of “okayness”: Felt okayness and fundamental okayness.
My nervous system may be screaming, We are not okay.
And rather than shaming it, suppressing it, or pretending I feel peaceful when I don’t, I can acknowledge what my body is experiencing while simultaneously locating myself inside a larger reality.
I don’t have to tell my body, “STOP FEELING UNSAFE, GOD SAYS YOU’RE SAFE.”
My body is a part of me, and as one created in the image of God, my nervous system may be correctly detecting something painful or threatening.
The Biblical worldview doesn’t require you to override that information. But it does give you a larger category than that felt experience.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- Romans 8:38-39
My nervous system may still reach for safety through felt okayness. I suspect it will for a long time.
But perhaps the goal isn’t to finally build a life where my nervous system never sounds the alarm. Perhaps it is to build a deeper pathway underneath the alarm.
I belong to God.
I am held by God.
I have not been separated from Him.
Maybe that is what “okay” means.
Yes!!! So good! I think you would really enjoy Dr. Geoff Holsclaw at Center For Embodied Faith. https://www.embodiedfaith.life He and his wife offer amazing insights into exactly what you’re exploring. 💛
Thank you for bringing this forward. I too have taken a nervous system regulation course or two. I agree that at the end of the day my hope, faith, rest and security rest in God. That is the stance I have taken in doing this work.
Thankfully the main course that I have taken is someone who takes her faith very seriously. She makes room for others but is very upfront with it in her course and coaching that her faith is the foundation of her work.