The Downward Spiral
Nobody is immune or exempt from life’s challenges and trials. Leaders, including spiritual leaders sometimes get burned out or stressed to the point that they lose hope.
Fact no. 1: Leaders are people too. They, like the rest of humanity, are subject to the natural recurring emotional cycles of life on this side of Heaven (a never ending series of ups and downs).
Fact no. 2: Nobody gets out of life unscathed. Stress, trials, triumph and disaster will frequently meet all of us during our lifetimes.
Fact no. 3: Every person eventually faces a crisis or a situation in their life that overwhelms them (where you are no longer in control).
Fact no. 4: The promises of 1 Corinthians 10:13 are still true today. God measures your trials. He will never put more on you than you can bear with His help. He will not allow the dEVIL to overwhelm you with calamity, crisis or any set of circumstances that he (the evil one) custom engineers for you — so long as you depend on Him (your Heavenly Father) to enable you to ride out the storm.
Read Job chapters 1 and 2. God will enable you to endure and eventually grow, directly as the result of this almost overpowering crisis.
How much time or distance is there between losing hope and losing faith?
Not much, in my opinion.
A season of hopelessness will lead to despondency and despair. If allowed to run its course unchecked, it will eventually result in depression. In this negative emotional state, the mind will deteriorate, along with the desire and ability to continue fighting.
How far and how long does the mind detiorate before the body also begins to break down?
The gastro-intestinal system and the nervous system are probably the first two physiological casualties of longterm stress. Negative thinking leads to the increased production of stress hormones (catecholamines, cortisol, etc.) and excessive stomach acid. The longer you remain in this state, the greater and longer lasting will be the harm to your body.
The heightened physiological state triggered by negative stressors is meant to prepare your body for physical combat or a speedy escape. The endogenously produced chemicals, released into your bloodstream in response to the imminent threat that you face (or believe that you face) enable you to achieve greater physical exertion than you are normally capable of. In the absence of great physical exertion, these chemicals increase to toxic concentrations in your body and begin to harm you at a cellular, tissue and organ level.
Chronic, poorly managed stress damages the body. There is also a significant negative impact on one’s emotional, mental and spiritual well being, in addition to the injury to your body.
Sleep either becomes a stranger or your lover. Similarly, food becomes either an enemy or a constant, intimate companion, a caloric source of comfort.
If the downward spiral continues long enough, it may eventually cost you friendships, relationships and even employment, in addition to further damage to your health.
The emotional cloud that surrounds you during this dark season, combined with any or all of the following additional physiological conditions further amplify and accelerate the downward spiritual, emotional and physiological spiral that has already begun.
- chronic low blood sugar due to a loss of appetite.
- severe dehydration for those with a very low fluid intake.
- poor concentration and significantly diminished cognitive function for those who have difficulties sleeping.
Only those who have walked, crawled and wallowed in the valley of despair understand how this debilitating, oppressive, ever present, uncomfortable darkness can become your intimate companion. Those who live or have lived with a family member, close friend or a spouse who has languished beneath this emotional cloud for an extended period of time have some understanding of this plight.
Those tender, gentle, loving, compassionate and caring souls to whom are entrusted patients who are battling emotional demons or who have given up (ceased fighting) are familiar with the emotional, psychological, physiological, psychosocial and relationship breakdown that results when one falls down this rabbit hole or is dragged down by a sequence of unfortunate circumstances.
How do you get up?
How do you get out?
How do you turn your life around?
Once you have sunk or been ground down to this spiritual, emotional and mental dark place — to the point where it takes an enormous exercise of will power to get out of bed or to take a shower, is it possible to climb out without external assistance?
In most cases, I believe that the answer is no. Once you sink this deep in despair, someone else, or maybe even the gentle physical nudging of a loyal pet, is required to start you on the road to recovery.
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