Treadmill Tip: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

In the interest of transparency: If you've been a long-term reader of my blog, you know that my book reviews are entitled "Treadmill Tip: [title]." The series title arises from the fact that I usually read when I'm on my treadmill. But the weather's stayed pretty dry lately and I've enjoyed my walks outdoors, so this book was read while sitting in the recliner in front of the fire rather than while sweating it out on the treadmill. That said, here we go with the review...

I just finished Emotionally Healthy Spirituality this morning while the sunshine streamed in through the windows from the 20-degree (that's -6.7 for those of you who live with the sanity of Celsius) weather outside.

The sunshine, I think, is symbolic of the light shed by this book. It's the most down-to-earth, spiritually practical and inspiring book I've read in a very long time--since Douglas Rumford's Soulshaping, which I read over 2 years ago.

Peter Scazzero, the author, makes the point that you may be spiritually committed, yet so emotionally unhealthy that it renders you spiritually unhealthy. He states that unless we deal with our emotional immaturity we can't be effective or whole as Christians, and in fact it can cost us everything. Scazzero, transparent and humble in his writing, describes how his emotionally unhealthy spirituality took him to a place where it nearly cost him his marriage and his young daughter's life.

Scazzero moves quickly as he deals with his topic, outlining the problems caused by being emotionally unhealthy, and then surveying what is needed to become emotionally healthy in our Christian life. He taps into spiritual truths from the Bible, but also draws significantly on the body of research and theory including what we've learned about family systems, spiritual development, and emotional intelligence. His chapters in this section are titled thus:

• Know Yourself That You May Know God: Becoming your authentic self
  
• Going Back in Order to Go Forward: Breaking the power of the past
• Journey Through the Wall: Letting go of power and control
• Enlarge Your Soul Through Grief and Loss: Surrendering your limits
• Discover the Rhythms of the Daily Office and Sabbath: Stopping to breathe the air of eternity
• Grow into an Emotionally Mature Adult: Learning new skills to love well
• Go the Next Step to Develop a "Rule of Life": Loving Christ above all else
  

A little more about one of those chapters, as an example: Two of the most powerful approaches to becoming and staying emotionally healthy in our spiritual walk, according to Scazzero, are observing the Daily Office (silence, prayer and study) 3-4 times a day, and keeping Sabbath as a day to "stop, rest, delight, and contemplate." As a Sabbath-keeper myself, I know experientially the transforming power of stopping, resting, delighting and contemplating on Sabbath. But the Daily Office is something I'm interested in trying. Intuitively it makes sense that this would keep me more in tune with God during the other days of the week. Scazzero doesn't propose a rigid approach, but gives the general principles to the Daily Office, resources to tap into, and then essentially says "figure it out so that it works for you." Nice.

As I read the book, I recognized many truths that I've picked up in reading and in listening to friends who are in the fields of counseling and psychology. Scazzero moves quickly through this territory about which many books have been written, so I was glad it was familiar subject matter for me. Yet as I consider it, he gets the principles down clearly and explains them in ways that would also make sense even to people lacking that context. At very least, you'll see where you need to "take the bull by the horns" in your own life. Then if you are a courageous (or desperate) person, you'll leave this book and look for resources to help you address those areas. The bibliography at the end of the book helps you to find some of those resources.

I found myself finishing this book with an immediate wish to start at the beginning again, underline, take notes, meditate on it, read it more slowly, and take action as the Spirit impresses me. And I wanted to buy a copy for each of about fifteen people in my life. That, my friends, is the mark of a life-changing book.