Spiritual Dysmorphia

My mind has been running its usual mental marathon, trying to think of a simple analogy to describe an internal spiritual  condition of humanity.

Between 4-5AM of Monday morning, the answer finally came to me… Body Dysmorphia. Random right? However, for the purposes of this blog post I will be using this to describe what I am talking about.

Body Dysmorphia (BDD) is “an anxiety disorder that causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look and to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance.” – NHS definition.

It consists of distressing thoughts about the self (body image) that do not go away. They become negative and are very impactful on an individual’s daily life. A person suffering from it believes they are ugly or defective in some way, and believe other people perceive them the same way. It is very focussed on the ‘external,’ but from an internal perspective.

It is no respecter of persons; affecting both males and females of different ages. It affects many people all over the world and is often hidden by those who struggle with it. More info.

Even though this blog post is not about BDD, this was the answer I was given. I was thinking to myself “why would Body Dysmorphia be the answer I am looking for to describe an internal concept?” The image that followed that question was a woman standing in front of a mirror, and her reflection looking back was very warped.

What Do You See?

I want you to consider something from a spiritual perspective. When using the word ‘spiritual,’ in this context I am referring to something “relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul, as opposed to material or physical things.” – Google definition. I am referring to the internal, not the external.

BDD causes an ugly image to be reflected back, when in reality the true image is different. This is where I flip the script. If we reverse BDD to a spiritual point of view (focussing on the warped reflection looking back – seeing the inside and ignoring the outside), my question to you is: IS THE UGLY, DEFORMED, WARPED PERSON IN YOUR REFLECTION REALLY YOU? This is something I have coined as Spiritual Dysmorphia.

Rather than automatically saying “no” because the outside looks fine, and you may be functioning well – everything is going good for you; no problems or you don’t sense or see any, really have a long look at the warped reflection. Bless God if it’s not true, but the problem is WHEN IT IS TRUE.

Your reflection in this context is who you are as a person: what you do, what you don’t do, your attitude (way of thinking) towards yourself and others, your behaviour in terms of how you treat yourself and others, how you generally think about things, your words and thoughts; etc. Spiritual Dysmorphia is all about the internal; what physically cannot be seen but internally exists under the surface.

Another way to think of Spiritual Dysmorphia is through the Disney Character ‘Beast‘ from Beauty and the Beast.

The Beast

The Beast was externally beautiful but internally ugly: his nature and character were horrible, his heart and mind were ugly too. He was cursed by becoming as ugly externally as he was internally.

“Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” – Mark 7:15 (New International Version).

“As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person.” – Proverbs 27:19 (New Living Translation).

What is inside of you will eventually leak out. Spiritual Dysmorphia asks you to look at the true state of your internal nature and character. It asks you to check the state and condition of your heart. What is really going on in your spirit and soul? It asks you to question what you are portraying and producing. It requires you to go deeper into the reflection and deal with what it TRULY seen. If left unchecked or sitting in deception, it will crush you, your life and others around you.

Paul from the Bible and Robert Louis Stevenson (author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde,) are two of my favourite people. They understood the dual nature of humanity – Paul describing it as spirit and flesh (the fight against good and doing what God wants, or bad and doing as ‘me, myself and I’ wants with no care or desire for God as your will is stronger) from a Christian point of view, and Robert describing it as “man is not truly one, but two,” from a novelists’ perspective.

I wanted to highlight this condition as anyone can easily fall into it. There is such a focus on the external when the true issue is our internal nature and character – our heart and mind. What we need to consider is what is really inside us.

It is hard to acknowledge all of ourselves at times, we would like to leave out the bad. But don’t be fooled by believing that you may be ‘all good’ when you may not be, or as Paul would deem as fleshy (acting in your own accord, understanding, will, desires, heart, mind, etc).

Sometimes we can be ignorant to the ugly reflection staring back at us, and sometimes we can be very aware of it. Once revealed to us, we are responsible for what we know and have the chance to change. When we are mature, there is more responsibility and accountability given to us. The problem becomes when we do not seek to change or transform our warped reflection.

“True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.” – Karl Popper.

The Bible speaks a lot about examining yourself (checking yourself). It is important to check yourself for Spiritual Dysmorphia. Praying, reading, observing, reviewing our thoughts, watching your actions and motives – the intents of the heart; etc.

“After all, we don’t want to unwittingly give Satan an opening for yet more mischief—we’re not oblivious to his sly ways!” –2Corinthians 2:11 (The Message Version).

Do not think that you can never be untouched by Spiritual Dysmorphia. Ignorance or pride un-noticed is not bliss.

Choose to take a look today and ponder your reflection. The great thing is that there is always an opportunity to change the deformity. Just remember: Your inside is much more important than your outside.

 

 

 

Resisting Venom

Spiderman 3 is one of the best movies you will ever watch, Spidey fan or no Spidey fan; you’ll like it. Not only does Marvel take you on a journey of a masked figurine fighting to keep the streets clean and rid the city of its somewhat un-natural menacing villains but also on a lesson of unforgiveness.

We have all been introduced to the ungodly beauty of unforgiveness, the bitter sister of truth. Unforgiveness is like a human’s moral high ground, the little thing in life we can control all on our own; the decision to forgive a person of their wrongs or hold it against them due to its impact on us as individuals or even sometimes with-held information we may or may not have. Venom is a beautiful demonstration of unforgiveness.

We all, if not most of us, know the introduction of the Venom character in the Spiderman 3 movie. Peter Parker has rejected the healing process of dealing with the death of his uncle. When we refuse to get delivered and healed from things of the past they eventually grow within us; unforgiveness in the case of Peter Parker. To avoid too much of a spoiler alert for those who have not seen this movie, we see Peter Parker’s heartache and pain directly affect his alter ego side, Spiderman. Peter’s unforgiveness opened up a portal for Venom in Spiderman’s life.

Venom from Spiderman

Venom is a liquid life form from another planet which requires a host to bond with in order to survive. Venom is pretty much humanities symbol of unforgiveness. Unforgiveness acts as a substance in which requires a person’s permission in order for it to survive and reproduce; reproduce its ugly family of hate, bitterness, resentment, rage, anger… basically anything that kills life. The longer you hold onto it, the shorter life becomes.

Peter Parker’s unforgiveness and refusal to find out the complete truth and receive healing allowed Venom to survive. The ugly family of unforgiveness allowed Peter to feel somewhat control and justification to act out all cruel emotions. Unforgiveness never produces or allows you to produce anything good, it is incapable of producing life; only death. Peter Parker enjoyed feeling everything that forgiveness would not dare allow him to feel, to think everything that forgiveness would not allow him to think; even act. Forgiveness justifies you acting on the wrongs of others because of hurt.

Unforgiveness even changes physical appearance, a person’s countenance. Spiderman’s suit turned black from red. Life with unforgiveness is fun but short. You can act, think, feel and treat anything and anyone without any regard and take great satisfaction in it, not truly knowing you are its slave and it controls you, not you it.

Sometimes we may be ignorant to the fact that we carry unforgiveness and should check ourselves for anything in our life if need be but if we are not ignorant of it, we have a problem.

Unforgiveness only needs to find one root issue, the problem is we have many. Once it finds one root, it finds others. Unforgiveness becomes stronger and stronger because it finds other roots and creates other roots. Peter was angry not only with his uncle’s death but also his friend Harry Osborn, Mary Jane his on/off girlfriend, work and work colleagues, etc. Unforgiveness had a field day with Peter Parker. All it took was one trigger, one gate and bam there it goes.

Unforgiveness in Peter eventually re-attacked Mary Jane, on purpose. However this was Peter’s wake up call. He realised truth; Venom was not helping him or Spiderman but actually killing them.

There is a time and place for everything. The season of unforgiveness was now over for Peter Parker. He had to get rid of Venom by choosing to forgive.

Healing must take place after deliverance. Forgiving not only those who wronged you but those who you wronged and forgiving yourself. Peter Parker and Spiderman turned back into what he was before unforgiveness took over his life; his true self.

My point is that regardless of the pain, trouble, heart ache, rage and anger fuelled emotions and hate people put you through and can often make you become; choose to forgive them. Don’t let Venom aka unforgiveness take your life and kill you. Resist Venom.

Also checkout the movie Hannibal Rising for a great lesson on Unforgiveness. All monsters come from somewhere.