Spiritual Direction for Skeptics | Mind Health Webinar

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An introduction to Spiritual Direction and a consideration of the ways language and attitudes can interfere with acknowledging an important dimension of human life with Mind Health Committee member Dalinda Reese.

Download Dalinda’s slides here.

Find more Mind Health Committee videos and events here. 

So, Good morning and good evening and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you so much for joining our Mind Health Committee webinar today. We have Dr. Delinda Rees, who’s on our committee, and she’s going to speak about spiritual direction for sceptics. And Delinda is very well qualified. She’s a functional medicine doctor. In fact, she started her career in anesthetics and then moved to functional medicine. But throughout, she’s been very interested in philosophy and spirituality. And her passion is spiritual direction. And she’s actually a spiritual director. So she’s going to introduce us to that today. And I know you’re all listening on lots of different platforms. And please feel free in the chat if you’re on Rumble or Twitter or Getter or on Steamyard or on the World Council for Health. Please, you know, if you feel like it, please say hello and say where you are today. It’s always quite exciting to know where everybody’s from. And we’ll have a discussion soon. And it’ll be, Dilynd will do about a 20 minute presentation and we then have questions and answers, but please put any questions or comments in the chat and then we’ll do our best to answer them afterwards. We’ve got about an hour and I’m just noticing my screen. I was introducing the others too. We have a sort of a partiality for ducks and this is my newly acquired one that, um, has been in the family quite a long time. So now I’m key. I’ve got, I’m meant to be the caretaker for this one. So anyway, I was showing it to the others and just realized in the background, in case you’re wondering. So anyway, we, um, please, um, any comments are very welcome and, um, we’ll have Delinda to start the presentation. Um, thank you. Thank you, Emma. And welcome to Linda. Thank you so much. It’ll be, I know it’ll be a very interesting discussion. Um, yeah, I hope, I hope everyone finds it. So please any, any questions or comments or anything you’re confused about, please feel free to check, check us out and we’ll do our best. Yes. And to sort of get to know everybody. Um, yeah. Where are you from? What time of day it is? I’m, I’m in Ontario in Canada and it’s three o’clock in the afternoon, but I understand and, and Jerry are in New Zealand and it’s sometime in the morning. I don’t know. I don’t even know what time it is there. So anyway, um, yeah, say where you’re from and, uh, and welcome, and I have some slides that I will be sharing with you all. And I am hoping that this whole presentation part will take about 20 minutes and that we can actually have some time for discussion, because that’s always the fun part in my opinion. So thank you, Anne, and yeah. So what are we going to talk about today? I thought that we would actually talk about spiritual direction for skeptics, because when you say spiritual direction, people go, what’s that? And nobody’s really seems very interested in it. in being directed or told what to do. And, you know, even spiritual has sort of fallen, I think, out of favor. And so I just want to sort of look at some things. What is the, you know, why is it that we can’t talk about, you know, spiritual matters? You know, have we lost our language of longing and that part of us, that dimension that is present but ignored? So… So let’s see if I can actually. There we go. So, first of all, a disclaimer. Basically, when I say disclaimer, that just like with the World Council for Health opening here, you know, it’s your responsibility to discern what’s important or helpful to you of what is presented. Some of what informs my own observations, reflections, and perspectives. are included here on this slide. I am a US physician. I retired from medicine in 2019. My medical background includes internal medicine, anesthesia, and integrative medicine. I actually got integrated, retooled in integrative medicine because my own health fell apart. And so a lot of what I bring to my work into my understanding actually comes from a first-person experience. I have a master’s in theological studies. I’ve done some social sciences research in forgiveness. I have a master’s in spiritual care and psychotherapy. And I trained in spiritual direction back in 2010. And this is really where I, you know, that’s where my heart sings. I really enjoy meeting people in spiritual direction and listening with them. So to talk a little bit about what we’re going to do, I want to talk, just have us notice how our current use of language and cultural paradigms sort of limit our understanding and exploration of some fundamental human dimensions. And I want to consider some potentially useful definitions if we want to talk about what we can’t talk about. want to give a brief introduction to spiritual direction. What is spiritual direction? Look a little bit about spiritual direction versus psychotherapy. Do they overlap? Are they the same, different? Are there contraindications to spiritual direction? And then briefly touch on some resources. And then I really would like some time for discussion. So that’s sort of the plan for this afternoon. And You know, there are a lot of things that we can’t talk about. We’ve known for a long time that in polite conversation, you don’t bring up politics or religion, but it seems like in the last number of years, you know, there’s a whole lot of stuff that we can’t talk about. We can’t talk about the weather. We can’t talk about climate. We can’t talk about gender. We can’t talk about values. We can’t talk about beliefs. We can’t talk about spiritual direction. We can’t talk about spiritual. We can’t talk about direction. We can’t talk about God. We can’t talk about freedom. We can’t talk about censorship. Safety, the greatest good, greater good, social justice, just a lot of stuff that we don’t talk about in polite conversation. But because we can’t talk about those things, we’ve also lost a lot of language around things like awe, wonder, reverence, beauty, longing, fullness, blessing, flow, joy, sorrow, meaning, intrinsic worth, responsibility, devotional relationship versus objectivizing relationships. And sometimes these dimensions of humanity are not very well expressed in words. And they may be expressed through laughter, through tears, through music, through dance, through poetry, through contemplation. So how do we reclaim some of this area of humanity? So I want to talk a little bit about religion and power and some of the reasons that religion has a bad name. This is nothing new. I mean, Seneca in the first century, he said, religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. And I do want to make a point that as I have looked throughout human history, I believe that ruling elites and predatory opportunists really understand the power and the pull of religion and will actually use that to their advantage and use religion to coerce people, use religion to hate each other. All sorts of atrocities have been committed in the name of religion. And again, I believe that is because it is so core to who we are, to human values. And so it is easily misused by powers that would deceive. And, you know, even, you know, a thousand years, 800 years before Seneca died, in the Proverbs, in the Hebrew scripture. You know, they’ve said, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. So is fear or awe of the divine or of the infinite, is that wise or is that foolish? And again, I just, again, this is my own opinion, but what is it that frightens the ruling elites? Prophets. They are the ones that will, you know, they will challenge the rulers when they are, when basically when they’re not following, when they’re mistreating people, when they are putting their own interests above others. good and that have you. The prophets have always been persona non grata. And yeah, rulers will go out of their way to get rid of prophets. And if you look at the religious wars and the Anabaptists and the martyrs, those who actually were martyred by the church back in the um 16th 17th century in europe um you know the the the church the rulers really feared those um who bowed to a higher authority uh those who said you know yes you say you’re representing god but you’re not acting um the way we are told to act and uh you know we are going to bow to a higher authority. And, you know, the Anabaptists actually didn’t believe in infant baptism. So they were actually punished and martyred for, and brought before the courts for getting baptized as adults. And yeah, and just look at, look at those who have been who have really made a difference, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, both of whom were speaking truth and really bringing around pretty significant revolutions, civil rights and human rights. And they were a threat to the authorities and the power that be. Again, it’s easy to sort of disregard religion as maybe being this thing that is used to divide, and horrible things have been done in the name of religion, and can we really trust institutions? And yet, on the other hand, Is there something about religion that has a staying power and reflects a dimension of life that is important? So to sort of look at some of these words, you know, spiritual, religion, and wholeness, you know, When we talk about spirituality, you know, I’m spiritual but not religious. Well, does that mean that spirituality is a part of reality or is it an escape from reality? And you don’t have to be a theist at all to be spiritual. In fact, I know some atheists that are very spiritual. people that have a real sense of meaning, of purpose, have sacred values and relationships and, again, have a dimension or reflect a dimension of life that is not well, that seems to be lost when you toss out the idea of spirituality. Daniel Siegel, who is a neuropsychiatrist, he talks about different senses of awareness. And I’ve mentioned him before, but he is a self-avowed atheist. And yet he talks about… an eighth sense, a sense of connectedness with something greater or a sense of connectedness with another person that the importance of relationships is being as being another dimension that is really important to life and well-being. And it’s what I consider a spiritual dimension. Jung talks about the collective unconscious. So that might be another way to talk about spirituality. And I’ve already mentioned religion and sort of the the bad connotations that come up when we talk about religion, institutionalized religion. However, I think it’s maybe worthwhile in terms of thinking of religions as wisdom traditions that maybe have something that is valuable, that has an effect on our culture and our lived life and community, a way of passing down wisdom. And then a third idea I’d like to suggest is the imaginal realm. The imaginal realm is, refers to, not to imagination, but refers to a sense of, a sense that sort of is beyond just the physical, but that we can, that we can sort of have a sense of. So that a numinous, a numinous, presence, a sacredness of time and space. In some sense, it’s an expanded and connected consciousness that is clear, present, compassionate, and alive. And when we want to, when we sort of dismiss this realm as just being imagination and not having reality, we actually miss the realities there. In fact, Eugene Gendlin, who actually worked with Carl Rogers, he talked about a felt sense, a sense of our, a pre-verbal sense that our bodies and our senses could take in and have an awareness that was very real, that sort of went beyond went beyond just . These are dimensions of human dimensions. I believe that if we neglect them, then we sort of neglect aspects of what it means to be human. So what is spiritual direction? This actually comes from spiritual director, SDI Companions, spiritualdirectorsinternational.org is what they used to be called, but they’re SDI companions and they have a wonderful website that has lots of information. And Sister Marian Cowan talks about spiritual direction as being a time-honored term for a conversation ordinarily between two persons in which one person sort of consults another. And it’s about the ways in which God or however one names the divine, the holy or the universal, may be touching his or her life directly or indirectly. And it’s really interesting. She goes on to say it’s in our postmodern age. Many people dislike the term spiritual direction because it sounds like one person given directions or orders to another. And so there’s also the term spiritual companion. But, you know, whatever we call it. the reality remains that these are conversations about life in the light of faith. And although spiritual direction has had a burst of new life, it’s really quite ancient. Across both the Hebrew and the Christian scriptures, we find people seeking spiritual counsel. And certainly I trained in Jewish spiritual direction. And certainly spiritual direction is well known in the Catholic Church. And it’s been known more recently. It’s been embraced by many of the Protestant denominations. And today, spiritual directors come from many traditions, including Judaism, Sufism, Buddhism, and other faiths. So let’s go on to the next slide. And Emma, can you take us to the SDI website here? Just to notice that this is, it’s a very, very robust website. And you know, you have quotes by Rumi. And as you scroll down, Emma, you will see that There is just a whole lot of opportunity for discussion. It’s a learning community. What’s at the heart of a relationship between a spiritual direction or a spiritual companion and the people they accompany. And it’s a very… beautifully put together website and um I’m I’m a member uh of sdi uh companions.org and uh so you know and and people are invited to be members and to participate in the learning and uh and uh read the the blogs the information and and what have you so um if we can go back to let me the next slide there um I just uh just want to note that you know on the website we just looked at there’s a welcome there’s descriptions definitions discussions lots of resources I do want to point out that um you know spiritual directors it’s not a regulated profession However, that doesn’t mean that it’s a free-for-all and whatever anyone says goes. Spiritual directors actually do have guidelines for ethical conducts. And spiritual directors or companions recognize the responsibility that comes with the sacred work. And typically what happens is if you enter into a spiritual direction relationship with a seeker or a client, there is an engagement agreement that is basically to sort of clarify the roles and expectations. And spiritual directors are actually, they actually commit themselves to their own spiritual direction. And also they will communicate be involved in supervision so that, let’s say, if I am meeting with a seeker and something comes up that triggers me or that I have questions about that might interfere with my being present and understanding and appreciating the work of the divine in my meeting with, uh, the seeker, this would be something that I take to supervision so that I can have some clarity about how to better serve those with whom I meet in spiritual direction. So I will also say that, uh, at the, uh, on that website, there is the opportunity to find, uh, spiritual directors. And so it’s, uh, I’m just pointing that out. When you see the spiritual directors that are in a particular area, you also see their affiliations, their focus, their interests, and where they’re located. So you can sort of start sorting through that if you’re interested in finding spiritual direction. So I just want to share my own personal story of spiritual direction training. I actually took this training program in 2008-2010. It was a two-year training program. And what was interesting was that I heard that after I’d been accepted to the program, I heard that I had not the email wasn’t intended to go out to everyone. It was just intended to go out to rabbis, but there had been this glitch or serendipity or whatever you call it that many more of us ended up being invited to apply for the spiritual direction training program. The training program is actually called Lev Shomea training program, and Lev Shomea actually comes from what King Solomon requested of God when King Solomon became king. And King Solomon asked of God that he be granted a listening heart or a discerning mind to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. So Lev Shomel, as I said, means a listening heart, a discerning mind. I will say one of the first things we learned in our spiritual direction training was that we were not spiritual directors. We were not here to fix anything. And when I heard that, I almost hyperventilated because what do you mean I’m not here to fix everything or to fix anything? you know, coming from a medical background where it’s like all about, you know, fixing the problems. Like I said, the idea that I wasn’t here to fix anything and that I wasn’t in control was really pretty astounding. And so anyway, I do take a contemplative approach to deep listening, to where and how the divine is present or not in the seeker’s life. And it is about listening to their heart’s deep longing or what’s going on in their lives now. And I will tell you that it is an honor and a privilege to be able to accompany seekers in this regard. So spiritual direction and psychotherapy are complementary, but they’re not the same thing. As I’ve mentioned, psychotherapy is a regulated profession, whereas I think of spiritual direction perhaps more as a vocation or a calling to simply be present with people. I have a master’s in spiritual care and psychotherapy, and it was very interesting in training. It’s like, so never the twain shall meet. It was like we had… We had classes in spiritual care and we had classes in psychotherapy. And it was really interesting that the overlap was not, and the interaction was not as deep as I had hoped for. In some sense, I think that psychotherapy focuses on pathology or disease, whereas spiritual direction focuses on health and the normal stuff of life. And again, this is all subject to discussion and perspective, but as someone who is trained in both, that’s… That’s a sense that I give. One of my colleagues who is actually a licensed clinical social worker and a spiritual director, in fact, she and I trained together in the spiritual direction program, she is currently only doing spiritual direction. She gave up the clinical practice. And she said that a helpful guideline when thinking about… and psychotherapists versus spiritual direction is that clinicians are responsible for their patients and spiritual mentors are responsible to their mentees. So spiritual direction is not for everybody. It is important. And even on the SDI website, it mentions that, spiritual direction is for mentally stable individuals who are capable of self-reflection and conversation. It’s not therapy, so it’s not appropriate for those who are suffering from things such as addiction, suicidal ideation, personality disorders, delirium, or psychosis. What I do want to say about addictions in particular, since I did my practicum at a withdrawal management center, is that is that where individuals that are in the throes of addiction are receiving comprehensive treatment, that spiritual care is likely to be a part of that care. And spiritual direction may complement recovery. In fact, some of the seekers that I accompany are actually in recovery from various addictions. So it is, you know, again, it is not, spiritual direction is not necessarily a treatment for addiction. On the other hand, it can compliment recovery. So resources, the sdicompanions.org is a great resource. If you’re looking for spiritual directions, directors or information about spiritual direction, Retreat centers may have information on spiritual directors and on spiritual direction programs. There are training programs that are at seminaries or institutes that are associated with particular faith traditions. Some psychotherapists or chaplains may be spiritual directors as well or may be acquainted with spiritual direction. And again, be discerning in what they know about spiritual directors or spiritual directions. And if you’re asking them specifically about spiritual direction. And I would say that if you’re looking for a spiritual director relationship, a companioning, set the intention to honor your heart’s longing to come alive and to find a spiritual director or a companion to accompany you. And trust the journey. And a spiritual direction relationship needs to be a good fit. And typically what happens is you will, if you contact a spiritual director, they will typically meet with you just to get a sense of whether it’s going to be a good fit for them and for you. And I would say trust your gut. So. So in summary, I just want to say that spiritual awareness or sense of the sacred, wisdom traditions, appreciation of cultural beauty, those are all important aspects of being human. And they are important aspects of being human. And because of that, they are subject to internal and or external threats. A spiritual direction or companion relationship can help focus our attention on these dimensions of life and help us be accountable to to our own lives. And contemplative listening can help us hear our own sacred stories and come alive. So with that, that’s kind of a summary of what I have in terms of slides. And I would love to have some discussions, some question and answers, some observations. So I don’t know if there have been any comments, questions? Well, while we’re waiting, I wonder if, Anne, you’ve got anything you want to jump in with? Well, thank you so much, Daninda, for… Oh, you’ve muted yourself, or you got muted. Sorry, I thought I’d unmuted. Yeah, that was fascinating. And thank you for the explanation and, um, explaining the differences. Um, you know, I love that, you know, a company, you know, but this whole idea of, you know, your heart’s longing, helping it to come alive, you know, maybe people don’t even know they’ve got a heart’s longing or it’s not something that’s focused on, but, um, you know, it kind of nudges people the whole time into, you know, moving in a certain direction. But having, you know, this very few, you know, the whole idea that we’d have a mentor in our lives and you often think, well, teenagers need it. But I think everybody actually need, you know, a good friend or but actually, like you say, a spiritual director, if you’re getting something that you can’t understand and want to kind of explore another dimension of life because our lives are very shut down and, you know, we don’t even know our own needs and longings. And yet it does make life so much more meaningful and sacred. And, you know, I thought if you could talk a little bit about And then you were saying something about our hearts longing and how we have to shut down the dialogue. And the other one was I just loved hearing our own sacred stories come alive because maybe there’s never an opportunity for us to have that. But there were just the two things that I had a few other questions, but they were something that kind of resonated and I thought, oh, that sounds interesting. We live in a very noisy world and we actually spend a lot of time believing the things that people say about us rather than actually taking the time to listen to our deep longing and really understanding and appreciating our own value and our own worth. I just, you know, I just, I’m really saddened by our young people who so often will believe all this dystopia and it’s like, oh, well we’re just, you know, we’re just all these, we’re these horrible beings, these useless eaters that are contributing to the imminent demise of our planet. It’s like, No, each person has something unique and valuable and is a part of this amazing journey called life. And each of us can only bring value. Nobody else can bring what we uniquely bring to this lived experience of this journey of life, this privilege of interacting with the living world around us and with people in our lives. And the fact that we don’t often even recognize our own worth and have any sense of meaning or purpose or sacredness or awe. at the beauty of life, I find it heartbreaking because that’s what life is about. Yeah. And it seems like it’s, unless you have that, then you have a sense of trust in, in something greater or something more. And I think that, like you say, we’ve been convinced that it’s all very black and white and this is the way it is. And, And I’m sure that’s the rise in anxiety because people have lost trust in something more because they haven’t had that experience or that connection to, you know, like you say, connection to wisdom. I mean, there are some wise souls and very young people, but, you know, I think life generally is a journey of, gathering that and if you’ve not a lot of direction, you know, and I think that’s a huge people are very isolated on their phone, you know, like our digital world isolates us from deep connection with each other where this can flourish. But like you say, it’s a very specific area that is has been squeezed out of awareness. And it used to be that you’d be born into a religion and you’d get an opportunity. I mean, I feel lucky that I was born into a religion, even though I ended up choosing, you know, something else. And I’d say, well, I went from Catholicism to Buddhism in my adult life because it felt more practical, you know, advice at that time. And I think that But I treasure what I was brought up with because I had contemplative spaces that I could be bathed in. Even if it didn’t impinge on me, it had an effect. And I prayed or I learned to pray, which maybe at the time is, you know, like even that’s a reaching out. Isn’t that a longing? You know, that’s a kind of heart’s longing that… you know, helps, you know, you know, asking for help is the first step, you know, that, you know, to change things. Yeah. So, yeah. And all those kind of little cues I feel are missing, you know, it, well, it’s just been, we have a very bland and superficial life, which is sad. So, oh, there’s a lovely comment. But anyway, I’ll stop talking and I can pass on the comments. So I was actually attending this continuing education that is offered in spiritual direction. And there’s a series now that I’m taking that’s called Trauma and Belonging in the Spiritual Direction or Companioning Journey. And the person that was speaking last night is a therapist. And she was sharing her own journey of having grown up in a non-religious home, very non-religious. And actually, you know, the stuff of life that happens to us and the trauma, what have you. She had a lot of that and that sort of took her into psychotherapy and in terms of as a vocation. And when she was actually in college, she ended up having, for lack of a better term, an encounter with the divine love, universal love. that couldn’t be encapsulated by psychotherapy or any rational thing. And so she’s also explored the spiritual direction and explored that dimension of understanding. So she’s actually a psychotherapist and a spiritual director. And so I think that you don’t have to have grown up in a religious environment or you may have grown up in a religious environment and still not have that encounter with divine or universal love or whatever you want to, however you want to term it. Our language is very limited. couple of interesting comments coming in. Lucinda talks about how it was the death of her parents that kind of opened up herself spiritually. And that kind of, I want to slightly piggyback on that because my experience as a psychotherapist is that trauma often opens up a spiritual connection for people that some, one of the purposes of trauma in life seems one of the effects of it can be can be not always can be a profound opening to the spiritual dimension in a world as you say that would deny if possible any existence of any spiritual meaning whatsoever um so so thank you for that lucinda and Caro says, you know, when she looks at plants and animals, sees the intricacy of design, she cannot believe that that’s anything other than a divine creator. And I think it makes me think, Caro, of the what we call the scrapyard theory of creation which is that if by accident creation happened you know I’m far greater believer in the six days of creation versus the scrapyard theory which says that if you just put everything in a scrapyard a boeing 747 will appear it’s crazy it’s insane there’s no scientific evidence for evolution and the idea that there is a creator makes us very very central to the whole story of life and the idea that we’re some little planet spinning on some remote little there’s very little evidence for this and that idea is contrary to spirituality in my view so I’m I’m really I’m even embracing flat earth now you know I’m looking at all the questions I’m asking all the questions about all the science that reduces God to some accidental scrapyard, that we’re just products of random chunks. And I think one of the powers of religions is they say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that is false. And I think prophets today might be our flat earthers. They might be the creationists who say, no, no, God could make it in six days. So I’m throwing that out there and I’m saying, you know what? Are we insignificant or are we the centerpiece of creation? So thank you, Karen, for that. Lovely. The intricacies, what do they call it? There’s a name for it, isn’t it? Fractal philosophy or fractal awareness. Everything is a microcosm of everything. Anyway, that’s my contribution. Not really a question. Will has a question about, let’s see, noticing the world split into tribes fighting over truth and what reality is. And they can’t all be, can’t all be true. And I would, let’s see, I would say that it’s interesting because I’ve been to a world religions conference and it struck me there were like eight different religions represented. And they were talking about the golden rule and kindness and reverence and value. And it’s like the divisions that we see are perhaps more political than they are religious. And I will say that I’ll just throw out this, I’ll throw out this little incident or this thing that happened when I went to the synagogue here a couple of weeks ago. Of course, the security has been heightened because of anti-Jewish sentiment and anti this and anti that. So I went there and the synagogue actually shares space with the church. So one end is the church and the other end is the synagogue. And we had a security guard there who happened to be Sikh. So he had the turban on, a young man. And so I was sort of towards the back and I looked and I saw that the young security guard was there and he was kind of peeking in to sort of see what was going on. And so when I left, I sort of struck up a conversation with him. I said, I noticed that you were sort of peeking in there I said did it remind did this remind you at all of any of your your traditions your your uh ceremonies or what have you and he said he said oh yeah he said I was drawn in by the singing and we we all we get together and we we sing together and say and say our prayers and so anyway he was asking he was asking some more questions about it and then he said you know He says, all our religions teach kindness. And yet you’d look around and say, we’re not really living up to our religions. We’re all being pretty hypocritical. So, so, so I do think that, you know, respect for life and, and, and love of the neighbor, the golden rule, treat your neighbor as you would treat yourself or do not treat your neighbor as you would not have yourself treated. I think that those are good points of truth at which to start. So anyway, just some comments out of hand. Yeah. What would be the top three pieces of advice for people in the 25 to 45 age group where anxiety and depression are common for those at the beginning or middle of their career and how non conducive workplaces can be. And that she’s saying that she’s found a space in her career to talk openly about these matters of spirituality. Yeah, she wondered what our three pieces of advice would be, I think. What would you say to that, Delinda? I think it’s worthwhile getting back in touch with the living world around us, and getting in tune with the circadian rhythms of our life. to get in tune to calming ourselves and being present. And Jerry, you know, you’re great about talking about how just we calm ourselves and we get present to get comfortable in our bodies and begin to notice what our senses are telling us. And we can’t do that if we’re stressed out. So I think there is an important thing, whether we cultivate a mindfulness practice or some other spiritual practices or, you know, you don’t have to call them spiritual practices, but just set aside time to be present, to learn to be present. to be quiet, to be contemplative, even if it’s just two minutes of breathing. If you commit to focusing on your breath for two minutes every morning before you brush your teeth or something so that you actually have these habits of pausing, of slowing down, of paying attention to life. I think that’s important. a great place to start. And the other thing is that is very helpful is to actually do a gratitude journal. You know, before you go to bed every night, just write down three things that you are thankful for. No more, no less. Just three things that you have noticed during the day that you are thankful for. So a gratitude journal. Yes. So, um, and I will tell you that it’s very hard because we live in a very, very noisy world that is full of devices and that are constantly trying to distract us. So it’s very hard for us to value the time and to make the time to actually settle down and be present and notice what’s right here right now. Yeah, I think I think that’s right. You know, like, you know, those tips, because even, you know, wherever you are, even if you’re in an office or something, just getting outside and feeling the air or seeing the little, you know, the little flower weed that’s grown through the crack in the pavement. And I do. Actually, I was just looking at the moon last night and I remember I were up on holiday up in the far north and it was so clear that I mean, the night sky, you know, I think it’s this idea of opportunities for all, you know, like are just kind of being, you know, surprised and all, you know, and it does it kind of slows. And then you feel that, well, there must be, you know, like there must be more. Look at the moon, the stars and these little and like, I don’t know, was it Susanna or Carrie talking about the little stars? flowers, you know, and yeah, like it doesn’t have to be organised, but it is that. I mean, I love that at work, you know, setting the tone for, you know, spirituality or something more, you know, that, you know, creating space for it in a work community that because one of the you know, you’re saying, what can we not talk about? But actually, what could we start conversations about and what can we bring back to enliven our lives or kind of bring the color back into life? Yeah, it’s barefoot on the grass and yeah, all those things. And like you say, the Gratitude Journal. Yeah, wonderful. I mean, because And I know that on the resources, you know, for the World Council for Health, they’ve got these really good things for, you know, from trying direct people to just go and have a look. Because it’s all the things we need reminding about. I mean, I need reminding about. I need reminding to go out and look at the sky, go out for a walk or open the window. You know, it’s, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would like to add, I think all these are wonderful things. There’s a kind of, there’s a wonderful sort of how-to list emerging in the chat. And I’m not sure everyone can get the chat, but I’m hoping Emma might be able to put the I’ve been trying to itemise the wisdom that’s coming out, including Susanna’s wisdom about creating that talk space in her work, which I think is just wonderful. And it’s at the heart of your presentation, Delinda, isn’t it? Which is, let’s talk about these things. The only thing I would add to that, as a Christian, one of the great things about the Christian tradition is that we say all we need to do is to open our heart to God. And that’s in many traditions. It’s not just Christianity. There is a direct access that we can all have, however we perceive God, that there is this act of opening the heart, finding stillness and opening the heart to our spiritual being, despite all the external rubbish that gets talked about what we really need, you know, more houses, more belongings, more possessions, more control if you’re a psychotic world leader. But whatever it is, that at the heart of a human being is this spiritual core. And I would say that that spiritual core, like as a psychotherapist, I regard every human being that walks into my treatment room as having five layers of experience, physical, energetic, emotional, mental, and spiritual. And the most important of all of those is spiritual or indeed meaning. And there’s big schools of psychotherapy that focus on meaning. And it’s not 100 miles between what is your meaning in life to what is your spiritual journey? And I ask all my clients, how do we talk in your language of spirituality? What is your language for spiritual? Because I won’t refuse to talk about it. Although what I will often do is I will say, well, it sounds like you’re looking for something in that area. Why don’t you seek out spiritual guidance? And I tend to pass that on as a psychotherapist because that’s not been our original agreement. or a contract. But this spiritual being is present in every consultation in me. And it’s present in the group or the individual I’m working with. So the overlap is quite nuanced. I think it’s not so black and white. I think there are many complexities between the two. But at the end of the day, I regard the spiritual journey as someone I might recommend they go to the gym. Another person I might say, find a spiritual director wherever that is for you. And even if it’s not just a conversation, even just being able to be, say what you’re experiencing, you know, like just mentioning, oh, just look at this beautiful flower or, you know, bringing in flowers or, you know, like looking at the sky and the moon, you know, saying, I was, what, did you see the moon last night or something? You know, it’s, you know, like you say, it’s bringing back this conversation that’s been disallowed somehow. There’s, it’s like the elephant in the room that’s always there. I mean, it’s not, it’s, you know, it’s actually a beautiful presence, you know, like not riding the elephants, but, you know, Um, we, we are, we are, we’re bathing in sacredness, really. We’re sacred beings that we have no idea. We actually have no, we’ve no understanding really about life, do we? You know, so, but, um, but I was just going to put Lynne McTaggart’s book because was it, um, Carol was talking about praying for friends or relatives who are having a difficult time. And, you know, that’s such a beautiful intention. You know, that’s, you know, like having the intention to stand by, be with, wish the best, you know, it’s, you know, but, but, you know, you know, Larry, you know, prayer research is actually this, it’s, it’s really powerful and they’ve prayer groups. And I was going to put Lynn McTaggart’s, is it Circle of Eight or, you know, you got eight people together? Circle of eight, yes. Circle of eight. And someone else, we had another webinar a while back and people were talking about being in a circle of eight and how it had changed their life. Yeah, and what they found in those circles is that they will actually focus their attention and their prayers for one person’s well-being and they all they are all blessed immensely and transformed by the power of that. Yeah. So it’s, yeah, there’s definitely a power there that is well worth tapping into a dimension there that of, of, of goodness and of, of, of blessing that, you know, we can tap into. Yeah. And there is something, isn’t there, about the human quality of caring for others that is actually across nature. I mean, there’s amazing videos of animals taking care of each other, even when they’re meant to be species that are at war with each other. You see this in nature. Something innate in us wants to take care and, as it were, pray for the well-being of others. And I think that’s a powerful part of spirituality, we kind of get over ourselves and we bathe. I loved your expression to bathe in the sacred. And when we do bathe in the sacred, it’s almost as if, at least speaking personally, I might set off to sit down and have some quiet space. But once I do bathe for me in Christ, I automatically want to pray for people. It’s not something I have to do to be a good Christian. It’s a yearning in me to send light and love to people who are struggling. We do this every month on the Quantum Healing Group. We don’t just focus on our own nervous system. We end up sending out that light and that love. It’s innate. It’s part of what we do. It’s not about what we get, it’s about what we can give. It’s amazing. Yeah, and maybe this is sort of a good place to remind people about what quantum healing, it’s the fourth Wednesday of every month or Thursday? Yes, it’s the fourth of every month, the fourth Wednesday from the rest of the world and Thursday morning if you’re in New Zealand. Yes, yes. So next week. Yeah, and we probably, I was going to say, we’re at the top of the hour now, so it may be a good time. Emma, are there any announcements that need to be made? Well, I was going to suggest announcing quantum healing, but you all just did that very well, including the time zone struggle. But it always works out when we promote the quantum healing session. It always ends up being very timely. You were discussing earlier what to do about that certain age group. And part of it was getting back in touch with yourself. And I just pictured right away Jerry’s quantum healing session. So anyone that’s watching right now that hasn’t attended one yet, or if you have… I highly recommend them. They happen on Zoom. We have the registration up at worldcouncilforhealth.org slash mindhealth. And it’s just a nice, safe space around an hour of a really cool experience. And it happens, yeah, at the end of every month. So if you can’t make this next one, grab the one in March. Really recommended. And I think that’s all we have to promote right now anyway. Yes, thank you so much, Delinda. Thank you for giving us a beautiful landscape to journey on with you and remember and kind of dig deep into. So, yeah, I hope it’s planted some seeds for everybody. And it’s so important these days because I feel we’re being, we’re kind of being flattened, aren’t we? You know, we need to puff up a little bit and, yeah, remember, remember. And I just want to say before we go, Caro just posted a lovely little comment about even when she’s just on the bus and feeling a bit grumpy, she likes to just, you know, connect with the people around her. You know, it’s, yeah, beautiful little comment there, Caro, how we can all lift ourselves and each other in one thought, one little neuron firing in the brain can make the difference. It’s all we need. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, people need a lot of love and smiles these days, I think. So, yeah. Thank you, everybody, and thank you all the people for joining and participating. This has been an amazing discussion and thank you to the rest of the panel for all your help. They just do it together and and thank you emma for holding it all together no problem and thank you all um thank you ann for for hosting today um and for everyone that’s watching whether you’re watching this live or later um it’ll be up on the mind health committee page so you can uh use it again visit it share it um whatever you would like to do so We’re a few minutes after an hour, so I think it’s our cue to wave to each other and hopefully all of you wave back right at us wherever you’re watching us. And we will see you hopefully at Quantum Healing next week. Same time. Bye. Bye-bye, everyone. Bye.