To be healthy, we must have a balance between the mental, physical and spiritual parts of our lives. We know that when we don't have our physical health, our mental health suffers. Almost every person who is diagnosed with a disease will experience depression. The ramifications of some diagnoses can be devastating on our personal freedom.

With a high degree of spiritual health, or faith, it is easier to overcome any challenge. While we are physically limited in what we can do about things, Spirit is not. There is always the miraculous.

The purpose of religion is to give us practices that help keep our spirituality alive and growing. Most spiritual organizations have rituals, a community of like-minded individuals, and teachings with a moral code. Daily prayer, meditation and scripture reading are encouraged and help to increase our mental and physical health.

Our spirituality gives us reasons for living, for we find our purpose in service to God and others. In another sense, our spirituality gives us the ability to look behind the scenes of life, giving us a larger perspective from which to act.

When we feel that our presence on this planet is an asset, that we have value and a necessary contribution to give, we experience a continuing sense of self-esteem that facilitates mental health. We all have spiritual drives, including a desire to better ourselves, to make something good with our lives, to join and connect with others and to evolve as a person and gain wisdom. Understanding our spiritual drives helps us understand ourselves.

Connection to God or a Higher Power gives us an energy feed that is very beneficial to the body. In my energy work with people, I find that when this connection is deficient, there is almost always an experience of depression. Open up these connections and people begin to get happy and interested in life. Just attending church or praying can energetically strengthen us to the point where disease can't get a hold on the body in spite of horrific stress on the body. The spiritually numb succumb faster to disease on every level.

Spiritual death, or complete separation from God, happens when we shut down our spirituality and fail to remember our energetic connection to God. We do this by making a person or substance into God, using our religious beliefs to gain power over others, or by not living up to our moral codes. Shame is the biggest cause of spiritual death; it is the enemy of our mental health and the worst pain a person can experience in life. In the case of drug addiction and criminal behavior, the conscious is blocked altogether to shut down the shattering feeling of shame. To the degree we can't discern right from wrong, we are spiritually dead.

Our spirituality revolves around our personal ethics, morals and values -- our own definitions of right and wrong, or what is valuable and what is not. This is as unique and individual as we are. This system is built into the fabric of our being and determines the lessons we are here to learn.

Spirituality is the realm of non-ordinary states of awareness that our five senses can't always define. We have all heard about our "sixth sense." It has one foot in physical reality and one foot in spiritual reality. Mental health professionals have put together a hierarchy of human needs. One of those needs is to "alter our consciousness and transcend the ordinary." When we can't get this need met through our imagination and daily routines (for example, prayer, exercise, reading, etc.), we will do it with alcohol, food or drugs. Humans basically need to be able alter their moods and change their mental states at will. This need drives us to keep seeking more of the spiritual side of life.

We can numb our consciousness with food and create a false sense of well-being. This is the biggest factor in obesity. To help a person lose weight who is doing emotional eating or eating from boredom, it is very important that they find a new way to deal with stress and alter their consciousness. When we learn to do this spiritually through prayer, meditation, communion and positive thinking, we are less likely to abuse substances.

So, what does it look like to be a spiritually healthy person? To me, it means always trying to do the best for everyone and hurting no one – including the earth, others, as well as our self. I say “trying” because everyone makes mistakes; that is a given. Cheating, stealing, abuse, betrayal, gossip -- all these things may make us feel bad about ourselves and cause our lives not to work. When Jesus told us to repent, it was good advice. To repent is to admit we made a mistake. Then, we try to make amends as best we can. When we don't admit we made a mistake, we will often repeat the mistake over and over again.

Spiritual health is about trusting your conscience to guide your life. It means forgiving so that you don't hold negative energy in the body that can make you sick and block your connection to God. It means pursuing your higher power and altering your consciousness in healthy ways. It means taking time to pray, study and commune. It means being grateful for and loving your life.