In this episode, we look to see what, if any, are the similarities between our mental health and religion. We bring in Paster Ray Hardee to discuss his experience at his church, what he preaches on, and how he leads his congregation when it comes to happiness.
Most of this show is spent allowing our guest Ray and our own panelist John-Nelson Pope talk about their experiences over that last few decades. This includes how they see religion as an important part of mental health, and how they have seen changes in society lead to our current state of mental health in America and around the world.
Tune in to see the Parallels with Mental Health and Religion Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- How similar are religious suggestions compared to mental health suggestions?
- Are there any major glaring areas of difference between religious beliefs and mental health knowledge?
- Do “Religious People” consider Mental Health?
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Episode #233 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Oh, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. What is the date, John? I didn’t prepare myself. It’s 15th.
Ray Hardee: 15th. June the 15th. June’s halfway over. 15th
Chris Gazdik: June Bug. What the heck is that? Episode 2 33. A show that I intended to do likely three years ago when we, when we started, actually. So I’m super, super excited about episode 2 33.
What are the parallels with mental health and religion? With my pastor Ray Hardy, I, man, it’s
Ray Hardee: an honor to be here
Chris Gazdik: very proudly. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, Chris. So we still have Mr. John Pope over there, right? How you doing today? Did nice to meet here? More on Ray here in a moment, guys. So lemme see.
We have you
John-Nelson Pope: should have called me Your Holiness. Oh, I like that. The Pope John. Pope John
Chris Gazdik: Pope. That’s right. John Pope. The Holiness. That’s yeah. Love Pope. We’re starting to get a lot of nicknames for you, bro. Yes, that’s right. I think, I think we can calm you down though, [00:01:00] the old guy, so Yes, yes, yes. The Wiseman.
All right. This is where you get usually insights from a therapist, a panel of therapists in your own car and personal time at home. Now it’s with a bonafide pastor, coach, and a lot of other things. This guy, John, who you know well. But knowing this is not the delivery of therapy service is in any way. All right.
What else do I say? Apple, iTunes are important. Give us the three stars. Catch that John. Five
John-Nelson Pope: stars, please. Yes. Okay. I think we need to get five stars. Five
Ray Hardee: stars. Everybody
Chris Gazdik: we need, yeah. Thumbs up. Okay. Yes, sir. You know, dabs and DOPs and stuff on the thing. Seriously, it helps us to get found when you help us out by making the comments and the reviews and stuff contacted through therapist eyes.com.
Listen, this is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together. So Mr. Ray Hardy, man,
Ray Hardee: welcome. Thanks for letting me be here. It’s an honor to be here. Appreciate what you guys do. It’s a, it’s a hard thing to go hour after hour, day after day, listen to people, walk through different dark [00:02:00] stuff.
You would
Chris Gazdik: know something about that. I know
Ray Hardee: Something about that, but not nearly
Chris Gazdik: as much as you do. It’s pretty parallel. Yeah. That’s gonna be the theme I think today. Right. But
John-Nelson Pope: there’s a lot of, A lot more hospital visits. Yeah. Early in the middle of the night. Yes. Early
Ray Hardee: hours, those kinds of things.
Definitely. You see life in the raw. It is
Chris Gazdik: raw, I bet. Yeah. I. Frontline, I would imagine. Absolutely. In a lot of ways. I mean, I, I started actually my career, I don’t know if you know, in doing crisis work, you know, doing a mobile crisis team. That was, I mean, that was fun. You, you remember those, John? Yes. You ever worked with them?
Crisis? Oh
John-Nelson Pope: yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I, yeah. I forget who it was I was talking to. It wasn’t you then. I guess that actually was a part of like the original grants and uhhuh funding for all of that, but,
John-Nelson Pope: I did it my first pastorate up in West Virginia. Oh,
Chris Gazdik: that’s what you did in West. That’s the same, yeah. Yeah. Probably the same programs I ran.
Yeah. I ran with, we were, we, we did ours in Morgantown. Anyway, I do digress. My point was, you know, being on the front lines with that, like we would, we would be in scenes at people’s homes with the pastors and [00:03:00] with the mental hygiene commissioners. Right. And then us as the mental health person all kind of coming together to converge helping the, the scenario.
So I, you will see a theme. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, it’s helping. It’s helping. It’s helping. And I think there’s so many parallels between what people experience with religious teachings and mental health practices. But let me get this outta the way with, who is Mr. Ray? I didn’t even know your middle name.
McKay.
Ray Hardee: McKay, yeah. My dad named me after is Prettying Cool. Professor Seminary. Yeah. So that’s the name of a guy and he’s. Brad McKay
Chris Gazdik: guys, we really are in the presence of a dude who, who has done an amazing amount of stuff. I mean, a coach, an author, a pastor it’s humbling to kind of have been able to just be a, a person listening to you over the years, over the several, many years.
Yeah. You know, at the point, over a decade, right? At least maybe 12 years. Absolutely. 15. I mean, you know, back pulling the chairs up off the
Ray Hardee: wire. I remember the, I saw the Steelers jersey. I saw, I got like this guy, Pittsburgh
Chris Gazdik: Steelers guy. I probably did wear that day one. Yeah, you did. You’re not from
John-Nelson Pope: Ohio then?
You from
Ray Hardee: Ohio? No, no. Okay. Yeah. [00:04:00] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Best thing about Ray Hardy, he writes, is that he is one of our board is on our board and unpacking it. So first of all, what is unpacking it? You didn’t really
Ray Hardee: say unpacking the ministries is An organization to help people translate sports lessons to life. Oh really?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Awesome. And
Ray Hardee: I’m on that, that board. Okay. As far as that’s concerned. But
Chris Gazdik: it’s, there’s probably way too much to highlight of all the things you’re involved in. I mean, seriously.
Ray Hardee: Is that the cool thing about, about fantasy football’s? The thing for guys, you get to heap score, you get to play, you get to be smart.
Yeah. I’m on the board to help facilitate those people to be able to do that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s neat. I think I wanna hear more about that cuz I love sports. Yeah, it’s fun. Mary is Gartner Webb University sweetheart. Yeah. We all know Andrea. I just up there today as matter of fact you reported him for to Gaston County.
I like how you put that 38 years ago, the three kids, Anna, Alex, Abigail, and then you are a grandparent. It’s absolutely been fun. Absolutely. Four times ever. Once you become a grandparent man. Yep. Ella, Easton, Blake and yeah. Emma. Four. Emma and now Emma. Emma, yep. You did. I didn’t see
Ray Hardee: that [00:05:00] written on that.
That’s, sorry. That’s problem. I need to update that. Yes, you doll be in trouble. Should be about it. Should be your old next one. Yeah. That’s not
Chris Gazdik: fact. That’s right. How old. Should be a year
Ray Hardee: old and Blake will be, and young youngest is a year old and be four in November. Dude, that’s ridiculous. And I have one that’s six or seven, and I have one that is gonna be 10.
Chris Gazdik: He’s been a dean, a professor, and a coach. He’s the lead pastor again, my lead pastor. I love that. Yay. And cultural architect at the Point Church. He continues to teach as an adjunct professor at Human Services at Gartner Webb specializes in community cultural agriculture, architecture, sorry. Community cultural architecture.
That’s hard to say. What is that? That’s hard to say. I’ve heard of it be cultural
Ray Hardee: architecture, essentially building bridges between partnerships with people who normally don’t talk, government, nonprofits, pastors.
Chris Gazdik: I was thinking about it as doing God’s work in the community, making things happen, basically.
Right? Yeah, absolutely. I would think absolutely. That’s what it’s all about. Stewarding time and influence drew all the community together for greater purposes. He’s the continuing student ever learning you, Mr. I love [00:06:00] it. He never stops studying for a PhD in leadership studies. This is what I said. I just need to put the mics down after I’m done, John, because this dude studied religious studies at Harvard for crying out
Ray Hardee: loud.
Well, don’t hold that against me. Harvard, I, I know, right? Like
Chris Gazdik: Harvard. I didn’t know that either, by the way. Ha. Pretty cool. He said was act kind. Have, yeah, that’s it. That’s it. So you guys are just gonna do your thing tonight, John, which is a very valuable
Ray Hardee: experience and a very stretching one for
Chris Gazdik: me. Oh, I can only imagine.
I can only imagine if I gotta be challenging. The big grand finale is Ray loves to say, I’m nobody telling everybody about the one body who can save anybody and make them somebody. In him. How cool is that? That’s sort of
John-Nelson Pope: a Jesse Jackson kind of thing.
Ray Hardee: As a matter of fact, part of it was inspired by Jesse.
Is that right? Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. That’s right. You, you know what you gotta say that San for? And
Ray Hardee: Jesse’s a great speaker, man. He, he can wind some stems. Boy, I’m sure. Boy, he was really quite
Chris Gazdik: a speaker, so, so I don’t want, I don’t want, I want to be representative, right? So you gotta say it. I, I try [00:07:00] to do my best.
But say that last part of what,
Ray Hardee: what you are, I’m a nobody telling everybody about the one body that can save anybody and make them into somebody he wants them to be. Amen. That’s straighten him.
Chris Gazdik: Perfect, brother. Perfect. Absolutely. Yes sir. So what else did I miss? Say anything about you and your local here and.
Well, my wife did
Ray Hardee: import me into this county and it’s been a great thing for me in my life. I moved nine times where I was 11 years old. Sometimes cause of tragedy. My father died young and had to move in two or three places in the last two or three moves there. But my wife is a settling firm rooted person in this area, and from time to time I would be offered jobs in Missouri and New Orleans and she’d say, were you gonna be coming home on the weekend or,
Chris Gazdik: that’s pretty solid.
Right?
Ray Hardee: Pretty clear. I knew that I needed to do something to start something here in this county. We’ve got, we’ve got good roots. That’s awesome. I grew up on the west side of Charlotte most of my life beforehand. Cool.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Yeah, you’ve had a lot of really cool journeys for sure. And you [00:08:00] know, I have, there’s a lot that makes us up.
I mean, it’s funny doing these introductions even, right? Like how do, how do you, how do you pool together? All the essence of what somebody is in, you know, just a little bio. I mean, it, it’s, it never feels like it does justice, what we’re about. Does it?
Ray Hardee: I think probably the thing that we ought to do is we’re all marked by pain and tragedy and we really should talk more about that, about our weakness rather than just our strengths and all the things we’ve accomplished and that kind of
Chris Gazdik: thing.
We are all, when it wires down to it, you know? Yeah. The human emotional experience really, really similarities. Absolutely. You know, between person to person. And, and that’s why I love to say, like my line of, you know, figuring it all together is, is just, it’s, it’s huge. Cuz you know, we, we, right, we try to think of.
You know, the, the day and age of, of, of anxiety, what was it, you, you dubbed it, John, I think you, you came with it. Were living in the, the age of anxiety. Right. Age of anxiety. Dude, I have been thinking about that a lot since you said that.
John-Nelson Pope: I would say the majority of people that I [00:09:00] see are yeah. Deal with anxiety or not dealing with it.
Right. And they’re doing it the best they can. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So, and you know, and, and it, it boils down to that. It waters down to that. And, and, and so you’re right, talking about those realities, those humility, those, those realness, right. Being genuine, that would be, that’d be a whole lot of a different interview bio,
Ray Hardee: wouldn’t it?
Plus his cell phone I’m holding Oh, is very powerful, but it’s also very anxiety producing itself. I mean, this, the world is flat now, according to Thomas Friedman in his book, and we can talk to somebody in China in a minute. It’s amazing. And that means the, my, my favorite word recently has been fomo. Fear of missing out.
My wife said, if you say that one more time, I’m not gonna let you in the past. But it’s new. I found it. That’s right. But there’s, there’s some, there’s like, whatever we’re doing, there’s always the anxiety, did I choose the right thing? Cause I could be doing that, or that, or that or that. Right. So
Chris Gazdik: I happen to believe, you know, and, and speaking of the parallels between [00:10:00] religious teachings and, you know, mental health strategies or suggestions and such Human beings have no idea how to deal with this technology cuz it’s happened so fast.
Yeah. Like we really don’t have an idea of how to incorporate it even in our subconscious psychological process. Yep. You know, the neurons don’t
understand how we’re supposed to incorporate with virtual reality and the, the, the, the spatial realities. I mean, there’s a lot of science to, to this, that our brains just don’t even know, let alone these social dynamics and the emotion.
Well, it
John-Nelson Pope: rewire rewires your brain. Literal it does. Getting on this, on the cell phone with the tablet, and you do that, you that for a long time. You basically, you relate more to the cell phone. Dig ding ding
Chris Gazdik: dopamine reactors. Yeah, that’s right. Dopamine hits and Sure. Its neurological interaction. It’s crazy.
Mm-hmm. So it is, there’s a lot to that. Yeah. We can digress. So let’s get the way we wanted to kind of maybe go about, this is John, I guess you and I did the last show [00:11:00] and we were gonna maybe talk a little bit about that and then pull you in Ray to like, you know, what’s a religious perspective on that.
And then you’re in a series right now called Happiness 1 0 1. Mm-hmm. Am I right, right, right. And then we were kind of maybe chime in on some of the things that you thought about, you know, from a, a mental health perspective. And I think that in the bottom end of it, what we’re gonna find out is that there’s so many parallels.
So you willing to play Long Ray? Absolutely. Ray, yes sir. Three questions that I forgot to mention in the top of the show. Cause I got distracted talking to my boy. Ray, how similar are religious teachings compared to mental health suggestions? That’s something I want you to think about as we’re going through.
Okay. And we’re gonna highlight those things as we go. Are there any major glaring areas of difference between religious beliefs? And mental health knowledge. And I’m gonna suggest actually bold statement, like, no. Here’s an interesting third question to think about. Guys, when you’re listening to us rap about these topics, do religious folk, do religious people consider mental health?
Let me just pop that off to you. See what you think about that. Cuz I think I [00:12:00] know the answer. Do religious people in your religious circles, pastors, pastor types, how much do they really consider or think about pure psychology and mental health perspectives, do you think? Oh, I
Ray Hardee: think all the time. Whether or not they have permission to go into it based upon their faith tradition is probably the only filter hindrance.
I think that anybody that thinks in his read, psychology and religion, their parallels are so real and they’re innumerable and there’s an interesting wall that people try to put up between the two of them. That’s just a false wall. Yeah, but I definitely believe that pastors know this and I think, what does Covid do?
The Covid pandemic brought that out even more. It just magnified that so that there’s not enough people that are doing what you and John do full-time as counselors. There’s not enough demand. There’s too much weights, no matter where you go and what lists you get on. And always tell people, get on the, get on the wait list and the cancellation list too.
[00:13:00] Make an appointment for July the 31st, but tell people you’re willing to see them and there’s a reason why it, it’s necessary to have essentially a. Counselor serve as a priest. And sometimes there’s a dichotomy in the pastoral role. Cause a pastor is supposed to be a prophet telling you, exhorting you how to live and that kind of stuff.
But also there’s a priestly role, and I learned even back in graduate school from Howard Klein, Bell’s basic types of pastoral care and counseling. Oh
Chris Gazdik: yeah. You know this guy John? Oh yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Read him at seminary.
Ray Hardee: He’s, he’s, he points out, there’s a dichotomy between those roles and here’s what happens sometimes.
So you’re preaching through a series of messages and you, you’re meeting with a group of people, a husband and a wife are in conflict right now on Tuesday night. And then Sunday you’re preach through something and you say, some of you’re struggling your marriage right now. Immediately they feel like this big spotlight’s been thrown on them in the middle of the congregation.
And that pastor’s now talking about
Chris Gazdik: them. Of course, yes. We’ve talked about that before Ray. So ultimately, that’s the
Ray Hardee: fear, right? [00:14:00] I think of myself, not of more as a, a prophet and a triage priest, meaning I wanna put people in front of people like you that are safe where they’re not gonna feel like somebody’s talking about them.
Right. And, and become paranoid or overly aware of that. And so that’s been my method over the years, is to find out what is going on in their life and then to triage them as a triage nurse would to the right
counselor
Chris Gazdik: to help. Well, lemme circle back to something though that you said that I’m interested that, that that’s curious.
And I wanna circle back by going through you, John, over to you, Ray, if, if you have corrections, what do you think he meant and do, have you experienced this same sort of, what did you call it? A wall? Yeah. Right, between like mental health kind of realities and pastors and stuff. Like, I’m really curious about that.
Have, have you experienced that? Well, do you know what he’s referring to? Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: I, I, I think so. You, you were saying that, that it’s, it’s constructed, I mean, it’s not. It’s not necessarily reality. Right. Okay. [00:15:00] So that’s how come, for example, when I was in the military, I was a Navy chaplain. Right? Okay.
They’d come see me. Sure. Instead of the psychologist or the psychiatrist because, or the social worker, because they would be afraid. The soldiers, sailors, marine airmen and Marines would be afraid to talk to somebody that might jeopardize their
Chris Gazdik: career. Sure. And I not understand the confidentiality and
John-Nelson Pope: the piece.
And so there was, so they, there was from the prospect of the, of the service person that, that there was this wall that was insurmountable. And so they could actually talk to the minister or the priest, or the chaplain a lot better. And I, I served with Marines for half of my time in the military.
And I, I was father okay. They mm-hmm. Padre father, [00:16:00] father Po. I’m father. And I’m saying, no, I’m Chaplain Poe.
Chris Gazdik: That’s, I title is not, I’m Chap mother Chap. Right? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: But they would call, call me that. And so there was a sense that there was a
that I needed to make sure that I knew how to bring healing to people in a, in a way that they could connect.
Right?
Chris Gazdik: So it’s just fascinating to me because I guess, like from my perspective and, and let me give you, as we talk about religion, by the way, I think John, you, we’ve talked about on the show, you know, we deal with this in therapy relationships, and I qualify with people whenever this comes up as an issue.
And this is the way that I, I qualify if you’re working in therapy with me, like I will tell people, so there’s counselors that do Christian counseling and then there’s Christians that do counseling, right? Mm-hmm. So I’m of the, the latter variety. I’m a Christian that does counseling and I’m open about that.
I’m comfortable, you know, being directly honest about that. And I’m also. Respectful [00:17:00] about different faith traditions and we’ll work with whatever yours is, agnostic or just atheist or whatever it might be. And if you’re comfortable with it, we can roll it into our work together very openly. But I’m not, and there’s, you know, go ahead and there’s a
John-Nelson Pope: fee-based pastoral counselors as well.
Yeah. They’re not many and they’re not, not many of them. They’re just a handful, but they’re different than let’s say somebody that says, well, I’m a, I’m a I I’m a biblical counselor. Because I think there’s a difference in, in,
Chris Gazdik: can be very much that way. Probably. So. So that, that, that qualifier I did wanna put in a front end another show at some point anyway, so you understand where I’m coming from.
But, but from my perspective is interesting, Ray, where you say the wall or the barrier that people get in the way of, because I mean, being a Christian, I mean that’s, that’s a part of my, myself, my core and who I am, I’m very comfortable with that. Mm-hmm. As well as being a counselor, like a clinician and the mental health and substance abuse can, you know, tradition, I blend these two, like without even thinking about it.
Mm-hmm. Just because there’s such a part of me. Yeah. But, but I, in [00:18:00] the little research that I did, which I didn’t really Google that much or look at many things for the show, I usually prep a little bit more figure We’d just be
rapping. There does seem to be this like, so you’re in my, in my, I am absolutely right.
Yeah. I mean, as you typically I am, I’m kind of shocked that there would be much of a differential here. Why people would, you know what I mean? Yep. So
Ray Hardee: there’s doesn’t make sense to me. There are reasons for it though. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so it really goes back to the development psychology. Psychology developed out of the academic discipline of philosophy and religion.
And so they were married closure. But then when Freud and others that were hostile to religion became prominent Ellis, the field of psychology, and Albert Ellis, who I heard Albert Ellis, I paid friend him to listen to him one time and mm-hmm. He ged, GedEd, and FBO so many times I left halfway through the middle of it.
Cause it just felt offensive to me. I understand where he is coming from and why he was so mad, but he was like a mad, angry old man then. But although he, he is really. Effect passionate. I mean, the whole idea of rational motive therapy, [00:19:00] there’s lots of great stuff in that, but that wall, that fight began back in the early 20th century when.
The psychoanalytic school is kind of like, God, no. Your, and that’s Freud
John-Nelson Pope: and, yeah, that’s
Chris Gazdik: right. How’d Adler do with that? Oh,
Ray Hardee: Adler fought against it. Yeah, he fought
John-Nelson Pope: against, it was other near Freudians. Yeah. And so young, in young was also more sympathetic to religion, but he was more into some of the archetypes
Ray Hardee: and, and mystic mysticism and stuff like
Chris Gazdik: that.
So what am I paying for the sins of the father or the field? Like what, what it, some of that is,
John-Nelson Pope: well, in, in fact, that was one of my, my areas of of presented on that in terms of of the early psychoanalytic analyst. And, and what their view on religion was. Right. Interesting. And, and spirituality.
And that’s the other thing at least in counseling And you, cuz you’ve got counseling background. Yes. Is that, that there was counselors that were afraid to, [00:20:00] to talk about religion or spirituality because they were afraid that they would be imposing their
Chris Gazdik: beliefs. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. I know there’s that, that ambivalence for sure as well.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. But I think that’s kind of gone away now. Has it? Yeah. More, more or
Ray Hardee: less. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a false dichotomy. It’s a false wall and here’s why. Okay. So we’re physical, we’re spiritual, we’re emotional, we’re spiritual, we’re intellectual beings. Alright. How do you carve those things up? Yeah. Know we’re a being.
We’re all five of those things and more are sociological being for all ems w people, right? Yes. You gotta make sure that this is theory. I gotta do that. Absolutely appreciate that. People relating together and. Yeah. The whole idea that you don’t wanna include that or any part of that. Yeah. An intellectual thought can affect the spiritual conviction.
A relational experience can affect an emotional feeling and all the time, right? Between people that you love and people that you admire, people you don’t like, people you don’t [00:21:00] admire. It’s all we’re synthetic people. We’re all one in that kind of way. Right. And there’s a spiritual part to it. You can’t just kind of pull it out, work on it, put it back
Chris Gazdik: in.
It would make, it makes no sense. Ray, we are,
John-Nelson Pope: we are wet wired. Just, I don’t know if you read recently in archeology there was from there were the homeowner Dowdy, I believe, is that what they’re called? But they’re very, they were very diminutive and they were brains, half our size of ours, and yet they buried their dead and they did that.
There was, and also the Neanderthals had this, we were wet wired for spirituality. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And so you’re kind of going back into, so yeah, you’ve, you’ve brought this term up several times, John. Is that, is this a, a bit of a recent fascination for you that you thought you saw read or, no, I did my dissertation.
Oh. So this, this is all people bringing
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. A little part of, so, I mean, I, I’ve talked about the cave art and all that. And and then the development of religion came probably pre [00:22:00] biblical times. And and that was very and that kinda gave it more of of, like you said, the synthetic, the, the architecture, right.
And so spirituality used to be nature. You would take the power of the beast that you were gonna kill and, and, and all of this. But it’s a lot. Yeah.
Ray Hardee: Yeah. It’s a lot. It’s just we’re integrated beings. Yeah. We’re spiritual beings. Biblically from the standpoint of the creation story. God takes us and informs us from the dust of the ground, and he breathes a soul into us.
And then we go back to become dust. Mm-hmm. But the soul, we believe lasts forever. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And there’s a sense that we’re not whole unless we are in relationship with one another. Absolutely. Because the connection, spiritual connection, the second creation story where, where Eve was born out of Adam’s rib, and of course we have a way of saying, well, women are less than men and all that.
That’s just, that’s not it. It’s the story of [00:23:00] relationship Absolutely. That we’re, we’re in with somebody. Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: Well, it’s funny that you would go there. I think I’m gonna use that as a, as a, as a spinoff. Okay. To, to accomplish our goal. Looking at the, the show that we did last and then the, the series that you’re in and how we kind of combine these thoughts, because I think sounds like we kinda all agree.
I don’t know how you separate ’em. I mean, if you’re, if you’re from a religious faith tradition and a mental health perspective, I mean, they just blend and marry together to me perfectly. I don’t know what Freud was thinking, but the spinoff is in relationship. Right. So our last show that we did, I mean, it’s funny, we, well, you weren’t here when Adam was here.
We, we did a review. I feel like we’ve been talking about this for a lot. Yeah. And through a therapist as tribe, the the attraction show. Remember that’s the
last show that we did together. Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah. This was a crazy show, right? Attraction. Attraction, yeah. Yeah. Well, the, with a fundamental question of can you control the attraction with other people that you experience?
Hmm. Right. [00:24:00] And you know, there’s a lot there If we. Which is cool that we could kick it around again because I think there’s so much there. Part of the, part of the premise that we, we, we talked about and the idea is that, you know, in a therapy experience and we took a deep dive on that together. There are so many times that I get in a therapy experience and Victoria, and you have both agreed, I think John.
The, the panic that it creates when people are in marriage and they lose their feelings or they’re just freaking out as newlyweds, like, I made this major mistake. And the, the different facets that go into our psychology, when you think about, you know, attraction issues and, and you feel helpless and the, the panic that it creates, it’s really devastating to marriages.
It leads to a lot of divorce. Right. And so we kicked that around. How, how do we review all of that? John, I
John-Nelson Pope: don’t know, but, but I, I think there was a sense that we felt that you have to be willing to stay in that desert for a while where you may not have those [00:25:00] strong feelings, but you, you stay in it and you relate.
And and, and that’s where the real marriage begins, is during that time together in the wilderness. Mm-hmm. And you may feel that you’re alone, but you’re actually with somebody. And that’s where you grow. And that’s where love, love grows. And that’s
Chris Gazdik: where you get more real. I don’t think you used that metaphor or whatever when we met the first time.
Oh, I did, but you did not. You’re adding Yeah. Yeah. That love
John-Nelson Pope: groves where Rosemary goes, oh
Ray Hardee: yeah. There we
Chris Gazdik: go. Dude, Ray, he breaks out in song way, way more than you ever thought about going on the stage. That’s good, man. It’s awesome. I’m loving listening to this. I I love it. Right? It, yeah. That’s awesome, John.
What a powerful, what a powerful metaphor in, in Sofar as doing well to
Ray Hardee: me, it’s just the whole idea of how man and woman fit together. Emotion,
Chris Gazdik: physically, emotion, but, but what’s emotion. But what’s interesting is he’s, he’s drawing that together. A lot of times. You’ve, you, you, you imagine that as I’m alone, right?
Not we are alone. And that’s the, the problem with
John-Nelson Pope: [00:26:00] psychoanalysis is, is that it, it’s, oh, there you go. It’s so self-centered. True. That it’s not in a relationship. It’s not us. We, it’s
Chris Gazdik: me. Right. That’s that’s an interesting, yeah, it’s an interesting switch that. That you just pulled? Yeah, I don’t know. Ray, jump in whenever you’re, whenever you’re thinking, you know, what’s the religious angle with this kind of stuff.
But, you know, we, we looked at a lot of like the, the, the biological kind of realities. Remember it was a, it was a bit of a mind blow, John, and how, how do we look at, I don’t know how to review all of those things, but, you know, the psychology I thought this, this study that we did come across with Dr.
Helen Fisher at Rutgers Ray, she, she broke down how love can be broken down to, to three categories, lust, attraction, and attachment. And interesting. Looking at the, the, the different stages of relationship with what happens, layering out to like, Compounds and chemicals that are part of that. Sure. So they, they layered that out as lust with testosterone and estrogen.
Mm-hmm. We’ve heard of all of those things before. Hmm. In, in the sex hormones, the [00:27:00] testes and ovaries where it gets created. Then you go to attraction, which is a process in a relationship. And at, and attraction. Attraction rather. Dopamine and norepinephrine. Serotonin. We’ve heard of those chemicals operating in the hypothalamus and the last detachment, you know, chemicals such as oxytocin and vasopressin.
I didn’t even know what vasopressin was. Do you, do you know, because it’s a new thing to
Ray Hardee: me. Tell me about, what is it? It’s impress. I’m so glad Vasopressin vasopressin sounds like a bad cousin.
Chris Gazdik: It’s actually a chemical compound that they talk about. With, at, with, with attachment and controls blood pressure, but they found that it’s interacts as a hormone with
John-Nelson Pope: people with diabetes are also given that sometimes.
But that was an, the, the, actually my son who I told you about ended up kind of losing his electrolytes basically and had to be hospitalized in icu, was given vasopressin. And you know what, when he came out
Chris Gazdik: of it, he was so calm. Yeah. [00:28:00] Yeah. He was so mellow. Right. Well it’s funny that you would say that.
I remember, I’ve remember talking on a show, it’s kind of like, look, I want like box up oxytocin and just like, you know, put it in my milk for bedtime. Yeah, that would be honest, wouldn’t it? Yeah, that’d be awesome. It’s the cuddle hormone. Have you ever heard of oxytocin? Absolutely. Right. And yeah. You know, so there’s a lot going on in these psychological realities.
So where I would
Ray Hardee: disagree with all that is kind of like you can’t segment when this happens and when that happens, I would, I would submit that maybe all six of those things happen in a sexual experience. Right. All the chemicals are expressed. Oh yeah. I think, I mean, it’s, it is good to talk about it and you’ve gotta segment it out to talk about it, right.
But God created and made a sexual beings, and from my perspective, when Adam saw Eve and he goes, I mean the whole, this is now bone of my bone in flesh of my flesh. Hebrew really basically says, Wow. It’s kinda like this is gonna fit. Yeah. And I believe that of marriage was them coming together [00:29:00] sexually.
There was no dresses, there was no mamas and daddies to come, or they didn’t go in front of the judge.
Chris Gazdik: Do what? They didn’t go in front
Ray Hardee: of the judge. No, I think, I think the ble, the blessing of their marriage was the union physically, but it was also emotional union. It was also,
Chris Gazdik: well, like you said, the spiritual union.
The communal union. The, the, the, absolutely because,
Ray Hardee: and so part of the reason so many people are messed up sexually is cause they have jumped outside of boundaries and they have done it sub submissively or, and but they don’t think
John-Nelson Pope: they can come back home. Yeah,
Ray Hardee: you’re right. Yeah. So, or they’ve attached themselves to a lot of different people.
And see,
Chris Gazdik: that’s the interesting thing, John, right? Like, yeah. What level of our topic really was trying to tackle the idea. When you look at all these chemicals, And this process that’s going on. And then you throw in psychological components such as, you know, defense mechanisms or experiences such as projection.
I mean, we know these, some of these terms and, and if, if I’m confusing you audience, you have to listen to the show. We went to deeper depth with some of those. But, you know, trauma impacts in the limbic system. Absolutely. These are [00:30:00] all things that impact the, the, the level of attraction and the, the, the question we primarily tried to.
Wrestle with is what level of influence of ourselves, what level of control do we have internally with how we’re, how we’re
John-Nelson Pope: feeling. Right. I’m just thinking cuz you were doing crisis and you were doing crisis, but there’s also r crisis work,
Chris Gazdik: you mean like
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. But, but there was a sense of people with ptsd, d servicemen and women that were injured in, in the, in the wars basically.
Or people that were sexually abused that there’s a moral injury that comes with ptsd. Mm-hmm. When they developed that. Oh yeah. But that’s all involved with the limbic system. Absolutely. Yeah. And so religion and spirituality, Actually, I think is one of those, those factors that can actually help with the healing Absolutely.
Of people that have suffered a grave moral injury.
Ray Hardee: I, I [00:31:00] think it’s not just canned. It’s is, it should. So if I believe we’re essentially spiritual beings with a body wrapped around it instead of we’re a body with the spirit is a part of it. I believe our spirit is attached, is our soul is attached to our psychology.
Our psychology is attached to our biology. Our biology is attached to our anatomy.
John-Nelson Pope: So you’re, you have more of the Hebrew view? Very much so. Holistically. Holistically, we’re, we’re mind, body, soul, but it’s there. We have the. The Hebrew ROK and the neh and that’s right. Dead are
Chris Gazdik: inside. You know, you, you’re gonna have dumbed this down for me a little bit.
Boys Neil, this is where I, where I thought we’d get to, like, I just need the mic drop and let them go. Right, man. Okay. Sorry. The Hebrew niche and the what? The
John-Nelson Pope: potok, you say, well, he can explain that he’s closer to it than I am. So that we’re,
Ray Hardee: that just kind of like fleshliness and it can be animal flesh as much as human flesh.
And so, and
John-Nelson Pope: they have a sense of spirit too. They do. [00:32:00] Right. But the, the breath of God,
Ray Hardee: right. Is the
Chris Gazdik: breath of, breath of God. Breath of God raw. Okay. I was actually talking about that in my mastermind group not too long ago. I mean, part, part of what I want our audience to understand as you guys were connecting with like amazing religious teachings and doctrine and coming at it in a way of incorporating a combined reality mm-hmm.
With what we do in our therapy office every day and what has been. Taught and learned and given to us through faith traditions. There, there’s, they’re just so
Ray Hardee: dialed in. There’s stuff to that. Absolutely. So we’ve had the discussion before that the Beatitudes and the 12 steps have extraordinary parallels.
So we’re going through this happiness 1 0 1. And so if Jesus, sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapter five, verses chapter through, rather through chapter seven. Is the most [00:33:00] important ceremony ever made me and people would make that case and you could make that case. He begins it in this way. Blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are it mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meat for shall inherit at the earth. Blessed are those who hungry and thirst have to righteousness for they’ll be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be at shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers. They believe all the
Chris Gazdik: children of God.
Here, John, I was worried about putting him on the spot with what he, gosh, what he was preaching on or whatever it is. Oh, not, there’s no problem there. Blessed
Ray Hardee: are the pure and heart for those two. God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, right? And so I believe all, all of those eight principles, Essentially become what Bill W is 12 principles.
Were in 12. 12 steps. 12, 12 steps. So when you realize you’re busted, then you begin to mourn. Cause you’re busted. When you’re mourn, you, you wanna get things in control. Meekness is power under control. When I wanna be get control, then I wanna do the right thing. That’s where righteousness and wanting to be filled.
Then when I do the right, wanna do the right thing, then I wanna be [00:34:00] merciful. The more merciful I become, the more pure and heart I become. Cause I become like God. When I become pure and heart become merciful, then I become a peacemaker, then I’ll become a peacemaker. Then I’m willing to endure the persecution of people that are gonna criticize me for going through all of that kind of stuff.
So persecution is kind of last because the rest of them are like muscles that you strengthened in order to be able to endure the last thing that you’re have to undergo. That’s crazy. You see? Except you’re coming back with alcoholic. If you’re an alcoho
Asking me for forgiveness. I’m never gonna forgive you cuz you did that. I’m never gonna forgive you cause you’re unfaithful, da da da. But if you come to this place where something’s happened inside of you, we’ve gone through this process, spiritually man’s process. Yeah. And you, you’re willing then to endure the hassle of people beating you up while you’re trying to reconcile.
Chris Gazdik: Right? Wow. Yeah. That’s that’s powerful in the way that you just took the rolling momentum of each one of those preach, won’t it? What’s that, John? It’ll preach.
Ray Hardee: Yeah, I don’t think [00:35:00] Jesus was just kind of like walking around, just randomly going, Hmm, what should I say today? Blessed is important spirit.
That’s a good one. And then blessed are those that mourn. Yeah, that’s another good thing. I mean, it’s, it’s all
Chris Gazdik: connected. It’s kind of my level. Yeah. It’s literally the way I wrote my book, Ray.
Ray Hardee: Well, but what we have to do it that way. Cause we do, we can’t digest it all
John-Nelson Pope: in one process. One of the things that I deal with if they’re, if they have, if my clients have PTSD or they have generalized anxiety or depression or their addiction is the, the ability to forgive, to forgive themselves, to forgive others, and to ask for forgiveness.
And even to be able to say, okay, even if I don’t get it from that person, that’s okay because I have done this. And so that, and reestablishes a relationship with God,
Ray Hardee: right.
Chris Gazdik: And one another, one another. Well, it’s, it’s, it goes to one of the many things that I’ve thought about over the years as both a clinician and a Christian.
It’s kind of like, you [00:36:00] know, I, I’ve started out renos from the, the old days of the Catholic experience. I was a, I was an old Catholic kid, alter boy even. And you know, you look at the sacraments mm-hmm. That you learn about and how that correlates to like mental health and its confession and mm-hmm.
You know, the idea of forgiveness. We know that having apology and forgiveness cycles are an absolutely, are an incredibly powerful part of healthy relationships
John-Nelson Pope: that you have. That’s part of ritual, which is also in a sense, part of religion. Ritual is very important. Yeah. If
Chris Gazdik: you don’t, then you’re doomed, essentially in your marriage or your friendship even, or what have you.
So just another para parallel.
Ray Hardee: So there’s psychological rituals too. Mindset rituals. Oh yes, there’s rituals about the way you’re gonna counsel me if I come to see you, you know? But we have a
Chris Gazdik: ritual starting not to show. Sure. That’s why I have a sheet that I use that I kind of propped to say the same thing, and that we don’t give
John-Nelson Pope: advice.
Chris Gazdik: There’s not delivery of therapy services in any way. All right. You know? Yeah.
Ray Hardee: There’s, so, my favorite thought about this is this. So go to [00:37:00] the word religion itself, and the word etymology means legeo. Is the same word we could get from the ligaments we have in our legs and our arms. Okay? So when you’re Gio, we’re you’re retying together things that are broken or you’re exercising them together so they can be strong.
So really there’s the whole idea of people doing something together around the thing that they’ve been created to do with somebody who’s created them to do it with. And then ultimately, you’re connecting with God and connecting with one another. So religion means to me, in its most raw sense, reconnecting with God and reconnecting with one another.
And when you’re reconnect with one another, you’re reconnecting with God. When you’re reconnect with God, you’re also reconnecting one another and you can’t
John-Nelson Pope: separate them. So, so when, when somebody says pastor I can talk to God on the golf course. Yeah, that’s, there might be some truth in that, but reality is, is that who are [00:38:00] you really connecting with?
Right. Right. So I’m guess there’s a sense that people need to have a sacred space,
Ray Hardee: right? Yeah. I honestly, I think can you have that kind of sacred space on a golf course with other people? Sure. But remember, that’s ultimately then about how you’re connecting in the conversation with those people you’re playing golf with and the creation you’re enjoying and the creation of how you’re hitting a ball or whatever, Uhhuh.
But it’s not so much in what you do. It’s, to me, golf is a great four hour conversation. Yeah. I like to play golf and I’ve, I’ve hit some good shots in my lifetime, but I’m not a great golfer. But to me, it’s a great four hour conversation with other people Yeah. About their lives. Right.
Chris Gazdik: If you’re, if you’re there allowing that, I’m saying, and if I’m just
Ray Hardee: there to, same thing as riding
Chris Gazdik: in a car.
Yeah, exactly. You know, you, you have always have opportunities for connection. As
Ray Hardee: a matter of fact, I, I will be very misogynistic here if you want to guy to get healthy. Instead of putting him across from you on the table with a cup of coffee between, you get ’em in the car and ride [00:39:00] somewhere. Hundred percent right?
Sure. Men will talk because you’re going somewhere. Mm-hmm. Cause Adam was created in the wilderness, then he was brought into the Garden of Eden. Eve was created inside of Eden. Yeah. So part of what we need to understand is men relative to our wives. Yeah. And again, this is just my opinion, this misogynistic in some people’s view, is that men that think the men’s homes is castle don’t even think understand about anything about women or homes.
Uhhuh. We get the heart, take a trash. What’s, and we get to take the trash
John-Nelson Pope: keeper of the heart. That’s the way the, the Romans view. Yeah. The, the, the role of women. That was their, their domain. So they actually had goddesses that would run the hearth that they would, would worship. But I, I digress. But you’re, you’re, I’m agreeing with you.
Yeah.
Ray Hardee: So the point I’m making is Eve was created in the garden. Yeah. So when she was kicked out, now think a woman’s home is a place where she’s attempting to create the Garden of [00:40:00] Eden. For most men, it’s kind of like, well, I’m gonna go kill something and I’ll drag it home. So you can keep doing that. But whatever the wall’s painted, I might have an opinion about that or what kinda lamp you buy or whatever.
But for a woman, it’s some, like, this is my Garden of Eden. Curious how you’ll
Chris Gazdik: take this red. So, okay. This is is cool. This pops into me just listening to the conversation, which by the way, we’ve kind of transitioned. We’re in the other segment of talking about Ray’s series that he’s currently doing with Happiness 1 0 1.
And I guess John, we’re looking at from, from a mental health perspective. Yeah. Yeah. But, but you know, I have had the longstanding thought, you know, to, to one of the questions as a show. What did I, what did I originally ask? Can I wanna get it right, where’s it at? Do are there any major glaring areas of difference between religious beliefs and mental health knowledge?
That was one of the, one of the things we were gonna try to, you know, answer or talk about. And I actually do have one. I I really do have thought many times over that, particularly in marriage counseling. This is exciting for me. I’ve, I’ve wanted to have this conversation with Ray [00:41:00] for about 12 years, so here it goes.
Right? There’s a overly focused gender difference when people talk about the closest relationship with marriage than when, and I think a lot about something called emotion focused therapy that doesn’t have as much gender differentials that are operating there, right? I mean, men or women are definitely different, but I think there’s so many things that get people twisted in, in a psychological and emotional way.
Whereas in religious circles it’s really like, well, men are this and women are this and, and, and we go about it and this is the way it was designed to, to, to work. And, and when you look at the emotions of it and you strip the genders away, the emotional stuff is really, really similar between genders. It is.
And triggers the conflicts in one direction or the other from the perspective of the psychological perspective. Mm-hmm. Not so much a gendered perspective. So I wonder if there’s a little over generalization there.
Ray Hardee: There can’t, there [00:42:00] definitely can be, I can definitely be overgeneralizing there because there men do care about the color of the paint in the house, right?
Men do care what, whether it has hardy board on the side or he has shiplap inside or whatever, right? Well, there, there, there’s those kinds of things as well. I just, I tend to think that from my perspective I’m going to, you’re gonna create this beautiful environment for us to live in and I wanna help keep it clean and all that kind of stuff.
It’s not as important to me as being out in the wilderness and fighting the battles in the wilderness, right? Because I feel like that’s where I get most of my identity from and that tends to be in a job. Or whether I’m the best golfer or whether I’m the most fit person, or if I do this, I define myself by my activities.
I, I think I’m, I’m, I’m giving away my own my own perspectives as if it’s absolute truth and it’s just a perspective.
Chris Gazdik: What do you think about that, John? Cuz you’ve been in both worlds too. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked to you about that.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I, I’m, I’m in line with what Ray’s talking [00:43:00] about. I, I, I feel very closely to that I I think that men will generally identify themselves with, they go out and kill.
I like, that’s what I use as a metaphor for myself. When I find a good if I go to a big box store and I look for something and I get the best deal. You killed it. I killed it. I brought it home. I brought it home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We,
Ray Hardee: I like to go hunt. Tell me when I need go hunt. I wanna go grab it, buy it, get in the shortest line, get home fast.
Yeah. That’s kinda my thing.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I think my thing is, is that there’s, there’s definitely differences between the way women are and the way men are. And, but when you look at the, the emotional ramifications, you know John from the abandonment, engulfment cycles, yeah. Women can very much be in the engulfment mm-hmm.
Camp wanting space and distance and, you know, the she shed now. Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. They want, don’t wanna deal with emotions, don’t want to talk about like, topics like, I had many, many women that act like the dude
[00:44:00] in the couple, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Relationship and, and, and people get really twisted about that.
Right. And so I, I don’t know if that’s a divergent.
Ray Hardee: You should, I don’t think you should ever go, say, You’re a woman. You need to be thinking this way and feeling this way. Mm-hmm. And I’m a man. You need to be, think way and feel this way. Well, sure. Cause it’s stupid sometimes. I’m always says, you’re more like a woman than you imagine.
I mean, so in other words, and
Chris Gazdik: she’s right. I’m the crier in the group. She’s
Ray Hardee: not tears her up and I get, I start crying when I’m preaching. Stuff like that. It’s like, same. Please don’t
John-Nelson Pope: cry. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy three and I yet cried. I cried all the way through, through it. Was
Chris Gazdik: it awful? Yeah. I was excited to watch this.
No, I don’t wanna be sad. Well, no,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s wonderful. It’s all about family. So it’s good. It’s a good crowd. Good crowd. Good.
Ray Hardee: The dreams. You wanna play cats then? Did we
Chris Gazdik: all just turn into girls? What happened? Pastors
John-Nelson Pope: tend to be, wouldn’t, would not fit the stereotype of, of males in a sense. In some ways.
Traditional. Yeah. [00:45:00] Yeah. And the other ways we are. Okay. I think the Southern Baptists are having some struggles with that. Oh yeah. With within leadership right now. Yeah. You know, they’re saying they’re taking away leadership roles of, of women in Oh,
Chris Gazdik: I’ve heard about this. I have a friend that’s a pastor in the middle of that.
Yes, yes, yes. So it yeah. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: So it’s cost. And, and I, I have, even though I’m a Presbyterian, I, I, you know, I have many Southern Baptist friends and I worry about that in terms of alienating half of the, well, it’s
Chris Gazdik: okay. We have
John-Nelson Pope: about, you know, actually more than half of the membership, we have
Chris Gazdik: about 12,357 different denominations of Christianity anyway, so we’re just to add another one variety.
Yeah. You gotta, you gotta see on YouTube. Raise, raise, facial expression. Oh, gotcha.
John-Nelson Pope: But mental health workers are also a less traditional kind of I, I think you see a lot of women that are in mental health now a lot more than were
Ray Hardee: Absolutely. I could also say [00:46:00] that mental health can be a religion too.
It becomes somebody’s religion. Mm-hmm. It’s like golf can be somebody’s religion just like Sure. Any kind of avocation can be somebody’s thing that is ultimately the way they tie themselves to God and his creation in one another. Are they always as efficacious or effective? No, because I think there’s some commonalities between how we can worship God and one another.
It doesn’t mean you gotta be on stage with a band that plays first, and then you gotta talk and then you gotta close and you gotta do things. That’s a way that brings order to it, but so much more of what is true in Undefiled religion. Even James, Jesus’ brother said, is taking care of widows and orphans.
It’s like, go do something with the love that Steven,
Chris Gazdik: which, which is in my mind, which is in my mind another parallel. Yeah, sure. It is the human emotional experience. That’s what I really think a lot about.
John-Nelson Pope: Or you could say human emotion
Chris Gazdik: connection. Well, absolutely. Yeah, and, and, and, and that’s what it’s, you just said, like, you know, religion is experiencing what you’re experiencing, and in that, what we [00:47:00] try to reconcile with and manage, you know, in the realm of psychology and whatnot.
I mean, I, I just see a very big similarity
Ray Hardee: there. Mm-hmm. Also, science bears the witness this in the same kind of way because there’s, there’s a false dichotomy between science and religion. I thought so think about the, the pandemic I’m for the science. Then the other people that were really for the faith, the pe psychology, the sociology, and they’re not in, they’re not in competition with one another.
They’re both there. Mm-hmm. They’re, they’re synthetic. So one of the greatest Christians ever was Pascal Uhhuh, the physicist who discovered vacuums. And I mean the whole idea of the physical vacuums and started science
Chris Gazdik: now, right. He
Ray Hardee: was so smart as an eight year old kid that Renee Decart in the salons of Paris was jealous of him.
Uhhuh.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Decart was the one I think therefore I am right. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Pascal.
Ray Hardee: Yeah. Pascal
Chris Gazdik: was there to keep, we’re trying to keep up with him. John. He studied at Harvard. Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: get outta place. I can’t, [00:48:00] can’t. This is 40 years ago for me, Fred. 40 years ago. Yeah.
Ray Hardee: Okay. So have you ever heard the, it’s usually Billy Graham gets this quote, there’s a Gods shaped vacuum inside of all of uss.
The only God can feel that’s where that comes from. From, that’s Pascal. That’s Pascal. Okay. Yeah. And then Augustine before then, but Pascal’s the one that discovered a vacuum physically, real
Chris Gazdik: vacuum in space and time, kind of in, in the science realm. Uhhuh. Yeah. I, I thought it’s, it’s fascinating to me that people really look at science and religion as being, you know, the antithesis.
No, that is a complete parallel. Absolutely. You know, even, even in the way of, of archeology or not archeology, astronomy, you know, and, and what, what we’re finding out with even the creation story and how that, how that works. I
Ray Hardee: mean, I love watching scientists now. There’s this new telescope. I saw the gallon on 60 minutes.
Oh, it’s powerful minutes. I like to throw stuff at TV sometimes. Sometimes I’ll, I, okay, this is good. And these guys are going like, We had no idea. It is so much bigger than we even thought about. [00:49:00] Right. It is blowing our minds. It’s beyond what we ever thought it was and I just, I kind of sense God’s up and Uhhuh, he’s experiencing all this and going, yeah, I’m glad it’s about time.
You discovered that Uhhuh.
Chris Gazdik: Well, and what’s funny to me is, is when you look, cuz I’m a geeky guy. I like science, I love skeptic. Scott of the universe, John. That’s our podcast, right? That’s right. They talk about all these amazing cool things. They drive me nuts, but I love it. They do. They can. They can particularly, I know, but
Ray Hardee: anyway, see, think about how they try to separate, oh, that’s just sciences, not God it, it’s just sciences, not
Chris Gazdik: God.
Right. Come on man. Here’s the thing. They pro test a lot. The creation is so amazing in the vastness and the largeness of what it is. And I almost like in my own Christian meanderings of. Thought, think like God made a big joke about like making it so clear that he exists because things are so dynamic and so intricate in, in how big they are.
Yeah, and that’s where I’m going, Ray. And so microscopic and nanotech level. Absolutely. Like so ridiculously, so [00:50:00] small. Ridiculously small. Super
small. Yeah. Like grains of sand and neuro neurons and neurology. That’s the great bastion of science. I think we’re gonna be finding it out. How can you not, it’s almost as blows my mind, like stuff is so freaking massive, big.
And at the same time, so massively small, and it was all created like in the way that was created. I, I, it just blows my mind with, when you think of it, how can you not join those two together? Science and, and religion? To me,
Ray Hardee: it’s just, it’s, I love science and what science has to offer, but so often I think, oh, there’s God there.
Oh, there’s God there, there’s God there. So studying religion at Harvard and war religions, so since my faith filter is Jesus Christ and Christianity. Mm-hmm. Oh, there’s Jesus and Hinduism. Oh, there’s Jesus in the Doel. Oh, there’s Jesus in Buddhism. Oh, there’s Jesus in Muslim. I’m not saying they’re Juda, I’m not saying they’re the same thing, but there is an equivalent of the ethic.
That we call the Golden Rule, and everywhere religion do unto others, you have them to do unto you. To [00:51:00] me, that doesn’t mean they’re all the same. It means that we are all the same, and that echoes out of our heart. There’s a reason that in every faith tradition, somebody has said something like that because it’s been baked into our spiritual DNA to treat people that way.
Chris Gazdik: Right? Absolutely. Yeah. It, it just, the, the parallels run, run right in there together, all over the place. So I don’t know. Yeah. How did, how did we do with talking about Happiness 1 0 1 from a mental health perspective? I don’t know if we got to that,
John-Nelson Pope: John. Yeah. I think that needs to be another,
Chris Gazdik: A whole nother show.
You coming back,
Ray Hardee: another show. I’ll be glad to. So I’m just basically preaching through the Sermon on the Mount, and so this weekend is Father’s Day as we record this, and the title, this message is Enemy Anger. In the middle of the very first part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about not just loving.
Your neighbor be hating your enemies. Instead, he talks about how do you deal when people slap you on your face? How do you, when somebody asks you to go the [00:52:00] extra mile and then ultimately I’m gonna close with the parable
Chris Gazdik: of the product part of his son. Do you see what, do you see why John? Yeah. Do see why I’ve stuck around the point for a long time?
Well, one, thank
John-Nelson Pope: you for doing that. Well, actually, that came up in a conversation today about turning the other cheek. Yeah. Yeah. So in your session it was with a a person that we both know and she was asking about Okay. Turning the other cheek. She says, that’s so
Chris Gazdik: frustrating. It is. Oh, I know what you’re talking.
Okay. Yeah, it is right. No, I didn’t
Ray Hardee: mean to interrupt you. No problem. I was gonna say, ultimately I’m getting this message ready last night and actually saying to myself, Come on, Jesus. For real? Mm-hmm. I mean, I, I’m a, I’m a 62 year old dude. Right. I’ve lived a lot of life and I’ve been angry a lot of times too.
Mm-hmm. But immediately, and I, I planned this several months ago, so we’re gonna land at the Prodigal son story. Okay. And the father, the father gets insulted by his son. He’s basically saying, I want my [00:53:00] inheritance now. I wish you were dead. Yeah. Before he goes off, he slaps his father. Not physically, but emotionally.
Okay. And then he goes off the long way, then he comes, comes back and what does the father do? And wait for him to come home and sit up on his throne and say, okay, babe, for forgiveness, let’s get the roast. He runs, he runs to meet him. He’s,
Chris Gazdik: he’s looking, get the best pig. Let’s get the big roast. Yeah. He, he’s ready to greet, right?
Ray Hardee: So if you’re ever, if you’re ever calf, The
Chris Gazdik: fatty cat. What’s that? The fatted calf. Sorry. Yeah. No, pigs
John-Nelson Pope: are kind of an lon. Oh, is that bad? That’s where the, the prodigal son found
Chris Gazdik: himself. He was in the pig Gaines. He was stealing food from
Ray Hardee: the pigs. Ah. Which were Jewish. Boy, imagine that that’s bad. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. Most unclean animal. So now he’s gonna come home and now he’s got the Armani suit. His father puts on him. He puts on the, he gives him his American Express gold card. Gives him a ring, which is the symbol a I think symbolically.
Chris Gazdik: He’s back to the, he’s back, you know, the richest. Yeah. And then
Ray Hardee: the older brother’s mad because I’ve been
Chris Gazdik: hanging out here [00:54:00] the whole time.
John-Nelson Pope: There’s three sermons. There’s a, a whole meria, there’s a hundred sermon, hundred sermons in it. But from the perspective of the, of the prodigal son, the loving father, the lost son, the lost son is really the one that’s been closest. The other thing
Ray Hardee: is most people closest is that when he says, when he gave his younger son the money, He divided immediately the inheritance between them.
Mm-hmm. And the older son, cause he was the older son. Got more. Mm-hmm. He already had more when the brother came back.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, when the brother left. You know, what’s, what’s funny is I, I listen to that and sometimes I am, I’m in the audience listening to you preach Ray and I’m, I’m sitting there thinking, you know, to a certain extent from a, from a clinical standpoint, what I’ve known, I mean family dynamics is what you’re talking about.
Yep. And the healthy ways that we’re trying to go about. We mentioned apology forgiveness cycles before. I mean, you know, the reason why he ran out and greeted his son, I suspect, is because he was in a healthy space mentally and [00:55:00] psychologically. He had forgiven him like a long time ago. So
Ray Hardee: his son starts to apologize to him.
He’s going like, sh, come
Chris Gazdik: on. Right. Like, I, I got it. We’ve done this already. Don’t worry about it. His mind and in his heart long
John-Nelson Pope: ago. But isn’t that interesting too? So it’s another metaphor how we run away from God and God’s already forgiven us, right? Yeah. He’s running to us. He’s running to
Ray Hardee: us. Right. CS Lewis said for, to say that I was searching for God was like saying that a mouse is searching for a cat.
Yeah. Wait a minute. What he said to say that I as a human being, search for God is like saying that a
Chris Gazdik: mouth searches for a Oh, okay. I was, I was transitioning my mind. I heard that and I was like, what is he that pretty cool there?
John-Nelson Pope: You were there. Yeah. I weren’t there.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So I pulled a Psychology Today thing just to pull us out, you know, like I said, I didn’t prepare much cause I knew we’d just have a conversation that went around.
But I thought this, this was a landing spot that they said in good old psychology today, the amassed research indicates that higher [00:56:00] levels of religious belief and practice known in social science as religiosity is associated with better mental health. Like, okay, shocker, right?
Ray Hardee: In particular. But I love it when somebody like Psychology Today tells the truth.
Right? Thank, thank you for telling the truth. Right. Have you heard of Harold
John-Nelson Pope: Konick? Yeah, he, he said he’s, he’s a, a professor of psychiatry at Duke and he started a center for spirituality and Aging and at Duke University, and he’s, he has done numerous
Chris Gazdik: studies to see this correlation. See the correlation, I’m sorry.
Well, it’s probably one of the amassed research of studies. Yeah. Right. Uhhuh in particular, the research suggests that higher levels of religiosity are associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, and suicidal behavior. Right. Again, religiosity is also associated with a, a better physical health and subjective wellbeing.
So it’s like, you know, e even like people that like to think about, like, you know, Ooh, well science is different, and we, you know, we’re dealing with the,
you know, [00:57:00] this can be explained by the subconscious and the, you know, the, the, the psychological teachings that Freud gave us. And, you know, look it, it’s, it’s all in there together.
Ray Hardee: We made a case, positive psychology. You’re pointing out this stuff all the time. So the whole idea about mindfulness and mindsets and all that kind of stuff could be started long ago, encapsulated in this phrase. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever’s true, whatever’s honorable, if anything’s excellent or praiseworthy, think on these things.
Mm-hmm. It’s like, amen. Get your mindset in these things and think about those things. That’s the same stuff as positive psychology. It’s just verifying to me the essence of scripture, you know, over
Chris Gazdik: time, mostly right down the line. Yeah. Right. Well, I get. What’s that, John? I, I
John-Nelson Pope: can’t add anything.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, you have, you have added a lot, a few times I’m over there looking at your facial expressions, like, should I go to John?
What’s, what’s going on? No, no. I’m looking, I’m
John-Nelson Pope: going, same here, man. I’m, I’m just like, grooving,
Chris Gazdik: you [00:58:00] know? Same here. Yeah, absolutely. So let, let me, that makes me feel better. Cause John feels that way. Well, you know, you guys, you guys are, I feel like the, the low man on the pole because you guys are so brilliant.
It’s awesome to talk to you guys about this. Oh, I wanted to add this. So, so some of my meanderings of thought before we weren’t completely out of time of parallels and stuff that I had been thinking about. John, you, you added something recently in I think I told you when, when it came. Came across, you know, I would always say the order of priority with, with mental health, we kind of know pretty regularly that you know, God’s at the top of the list and then you know yourself and then spouse and then kids, family, friends and work.
And I’ll often say how we can invert them and whatnot. And then I’ll, I’ll add though, like if religion’s not a thing for you, then I would just say, okay, well that’s fine. And I would just sidestep that and say, Uhhuh, you know, self needs
to be at the top of the list. You can take care of yourself before you take care of others, otherwise you can’t take care of others.
That kind of thing. But you added John, that a a Go ahead. No, no. I
John-Nelson Pope: want you to do it cause I don’t remember what I said. [00:59:00] I’m 70 years old,
Chris Gazdik: so I’ll stop it. So, so, well what you said is, is that if, if God’s not in a religion practice specifically uhhuh in those doctrinal kind of thinkings and words Yeah.
That you simply replace that with a cause greater than yourself self. Oh yeah. Right. That sounds, and that needs to like me be the emotional based priority on top of, you know, all these, these other things. And so acra a
John-Nelson Pope: cause greater than oneself. Right. And so in other words, when one enters into a marriage, for example, or a partnership, that’s when, when I see people in conflict in their relationships is that they’re no, they don’t have a common goal.
They don’t have something greater than themselves. Mm-hmm. And so you have to have that individually, but also corporately in a relationship, like in a marriage or a partnership or a family.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Or work. Right. And it’s, and it’s what I hear you preach on. It’s what I hear in, in religious beliefs and cycles [01:00:00] and what we are working on, you know, in the, in the mental health, health offices.
And the greatest things
Ray Hardee: we accomplish are with God’s power and one another’s help. With God’s power and one other’s help. And if we try to do it alone, we shouldn’t be surprised if we feel alone.
Chris Gazdik: A hundred percent. You know, one of the things I was gonna point out as a substance abuse clinician, I mean, I don’t know Ray, how you feel.
He sounds like you know about the 12 step work and then John, I know you’re very familiar with it. You know, with God’s help and coming together in aa, they would say a higher power. Okay. You know, I know it’s not a religious
organization, but I flat out have made the statement, I feel like that program was divinely created.
Oh, I
Ray Hardee: think so too. And I think you talk about the wall, part of the, that’s a wall they’re trying to create to make sure that people don’t think that they’re trying to convert them. Mm-hmm. So in other, but, but they, it’s, in other words, it’s like a false wall. It’s a false
Chris Gazdik: dichotomy between religion and the program.
Right. The program.
Ray Hardee: Exactly. It’s kinda like, We won’t God this much, but not that [01:01:00] much. Well, and that,
John-Nelson Pope: and, and that may be a way for people that are, are, are so hurt in their lives and so traumatized and they have addiction issues that they have to have that, that because they may have had somebody’s vision, a distorted vision of God pounded into them.
And so there has to be some sort of healing. Right. Yeah, so
Chris Gazdik: absolutely. I, it, there’s so many parallels in my mind on the human condition when you look at bipolar and schizophrenia and insecurities and emotions and religious ailment and struggles with, you know, demonic pressure. You know, the evil versus good and what happens with religion circles and all.
I mean, it, it, it’s really all about healing. And so we need to taxi in a little bit. And I, I, I think, you know, it’s, it’s funny, Ray, I’m, I’m glad that you came on to talk and, and yeah, maybe we get together and talk about the happiness thing more.
Ray Hardee: So [01:02:00] pleasure to meet John and talk with him more too.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s
Chris Gazdik: like table talk.
Well, yeah, we, we have conversations, we know where we’re going. Exactly. Do we? But, but there’s, there’s part of the reason why I’m grateful is because I, I think there is some hesitancy that people have to talk about these topics in, in, in blended form. And I’m realizing the contradiction to my mind, cuz I’ve been aware of that factor.
I don’t know that many people are comfortable. Just chatting, just publicly, you know, we got a worldwide podcast here Right. That is going around, you know, and talking about, ooh, if I say something wrong, you know, if I, what am I gonna do if I did somebody,
Ray Hardee: if somebody don’t, if some don’t see attachments and they violently oppose them, alright, there’s probably a reason behind that.
Mm-hmm. And I have to understand there’s pain behind that too. More than likely. Right. But I, I, I tend to see the attachments
Chris Gazdik: behind that. Yeah. How many, how many times have I sent somebody with religious trauma? Mm-hmm. Your way Right. To help. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. You know that that bridging that gets, that gets broken in the connection.
Yeah.
Ray Hardee: And so a [01:03:00] lot of those that cause religious trauma then take religious power and use it towards selfish ends of their own. That’s why they cause the trauma
John-Nelson Pope: so bad. Did you, did, so you’ve read toxic Christianity? Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s one of the textbooks we used at Montreat for our counseling program is toxic Christianity.
And
Ray Hardee: it can, it can get toxic. Yeah. Oh, it can get nasty. If God’s, here’s the deal to make it simple. If God’s a god of truth and grace, if you just hammer truth, you’re gonna hurt people. Mm-hmm. If you just sloppy agapi people with grace, that every everything goes is just as bad. Mm-hmm. The, the, the messy middle is where it involves sloppy a Agapi.
Oh yeah. I love that. That’s exactly what it is. Oh, wow. And that’s what the extreme left is. The extreme right is like off with their head. Yeah. They don’t
straighten up, fly right off of your head. Right. And Jesus is not in either one of those. Mm-hmm. I use the seesaw as a metaphor. God’s always imperfect.
He’s always [01:04:00] justice. That’s, and he’s not blind. He can see everything. It’s always imperfect perfection for him, but for us it’s always moving. Yeah, the fulcrum is always moving and we’re having to try to discover the truth so the truth can set us free and be appropriately gracious. But if you get on a seesaw, and if it goes too hard this way, it’s not any fun for the, on this side.
If it goes too hard this way, it’s not any fun for the guy on this side. So it’s the balance of law and grace. Exactly.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Law and grace. Yes. Long and grace,
Ray Hardee: truth and righteousness or versus grace and love. And it’s, they’re, they’re not, and God, they’re not in conflict with one another. We just tend to make them a
John-Nelson Pope: conflict with one another.
Yeah. I had a client that was, who was a gardener web guy. Mm-hmm. And he was always talking about his conflict with law and grace. And he, he couldn’t find that balance. He couldn’t live that balance. Just
Chris Gazdik: lived in. He con disconnect, he’d
John-Nelson Pope: go one extreme to the other. Yeah. And it just, and part
Chris Gazdik: of that, well, it’s funny, again, another parallel rings in my mind, Uhhuh, I mean, a lot of [01:05:00] times when I’m in therapy with somebody, whether it be a husband and a wife, or, you know, confidence and, and assertiveness, it’s like, you know, balance.
Mm-hmm. I, I, I’m, I’m always like focused on what’s out of balance here and how do we get back into a state of homeostasis balance. So it’s just, you know, all things in
John-Nelson Pope: moderation. Even moderation. Oh, now we’re getting
Ray Hardee: this Socrates and Plato. Oh yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Aristotle. Where, where religion and, and, and psychology began.
Oh, absolutely.
Ray Hardee: Yeah, absolutely. Peter Creef, who’s a Catholic theologian from Boston University. Mm-hmm. Or Boston College. One of my favorite authors is, he wrote a book years ago called Socrates Means Jesus. And it’s like this conversation between Jesus Socrates, that’d be fascinating. And it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating to read.
He’s brilliant guy. I really enjoy listening to Peter Creef. He’s got a lot of really good common sense. Nice. Cree, K r e e e f T. If you’re watching out there, go look at his graduation speech at Boston University during Covid is magical. It’s just wonderful. And [01:06:00] he’s funny and he’s not mad about things.
He’s just
Chris Gazdik: wise. Powerful. Strong. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds interesting. Amen. For
Ray Hardee: all my friends at Belmont Abbey that are watching this, please notice that I as a Protestant, am quoting a Catholic theologian because I love you guys and we all have something to
Chris Gazdik: offer one another. It’s fantastic. And, and I love your spirit, Ray, and thank you.
And it’s one of the reasons why I knew that, that we would have a good connection, you know, with our two fields as we have over the years, you know, helping each other out doing, you know, be in God’s hands and feet. Amen. I just appreciate it. And I don’t know, John, how would we, how would we taxi out here?
What, what do we you got closing thoughts, comments? I think it’s,
John-Nelson Pope: Been a good conversation. No, I, I think he had a wonderful ending. So, I mean, it’s just absolutely, it’s a beginning, right? So maybe let’s look at it this way. We continue the conversation and we, we see where there is a radical acceptance of one another, and yet at the same time, balance [01:07:00] that in, in terms of accountability.
And so that’s, And that is what real love I think is, is to be able to sense of ex of that radical acceptance and yet that comes from God and yet also that sense that we are to, to go and and live fruitful lives.
Chris Gazdik: You know what? I think you played off of what Ray took us out with and you built on it and worked together.
I think that’s a perfect way to kind of get outta here. Guys, thanks for Thank you. Thanks for
Ray Hardee: coming. Ray, thanks to all those you watching YouTube. It’s awesome to have you guys out there. Those of you on Spotify, keep listening to through a Therapist’s eyes. It’s gonna be a great part of
Chris Gazdik: your learning.
Check Ray out on, oh my gosh, goodness. Next step podcast. The next Step podcast would’ve been podcast Evil. Wrong to have done that. Tell us the next step podcast real quick. The next step, how are they gonna find you over there? Next,
just
Ray Hardee: the next step podcast is on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, various, it’s not on Stitcher yet, but it’s almost the rest of them.
And it’s essentially real people with real stories that are taking steps in their faith and we’re just like to [01:08:00] highlight who they are.
Chris Gazdik: Fantastic. Yeah. Appreciate your work in so many of the things you
Ray Hardee: do, sir. You too. Keep it going. Thank you much. And Tom, my new brother over here by another mother. We got the same
Chris Gazdik: father.
That’s right. You guys stay well through therapist and we will see you next week. Take care.