Kevin
Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of "Coping". We're glad to have you guys here with us today.
Kathy
Yes today We're continuing our series entitled "Summer Soul Care", and I wonder, what are some of the reasons we don't take time to nourish our souls? We take time for some other things, but why don't we take time to nourish our soul?
Kevin
When I think about soul care, there are a lot of valid reasons why we don't have time, we don't have the space to take care of our souls -- it's a lot like when we were in school and we missed school for a valid reason like a doctor's appointment or we were sick or dentist appointment, something like that -- we get a note from the doctor and we turn it in and the absence was excused. And that's, I think, a lot like our soul care practices now where there's a lot of valid reasons why we're not able to get to it and these excuses are valid and probably excused absences like, "oh, it makes sense why you don't have this", but that leaves us still with absence in our soul care -- the opportunity to care for ourselves. So as we talk through some of our excuses for soul care today, we're gonna talk about why these excuses are so valid and how they prevent us from having really good practices of soul care in our life.
Kathy
Excellent. I think that's very helpful and also very relevant in our world today. I'm excited about our conversation today. So let's get started.
Kathy
Would you say that as a chaplain you've experienced all these excused absences from patients and those you serve?
Kevin
Yeah, what I found in my work is that we often attribute a lot of emphasis on our physical well-being. And when we're not feeling well, like we're sick, we're under the weather, we pay a lot of attention to taking care of our physical body. We take time off work, we, you know, eat soup when we're not feeling well. In this day and age, there's a lot more awareness around mental health. So taking mental health days off from work, seeing a counselor or a therapist, meditation, those sort of things are emerging as good practices to care for our mind.
Kevin
But when it comes to the soul, I don't know if as a society, we've accepted that all of us are spiritual beings, regardless of our faith background, our religious background or upbringing. Each of us are spiritual in nature. And if that is part of our nature, we have to nurture that part of us, much like we would care for our bodies and our minds. We want to care for that spirit as well.
Kathy
Yes, definitely. I would say that I see lots of people living in survival. And so if they're thinking about literally how to pay the bills this month, they are not connected to the fact that there's a spirit that needs to be nurtured as they're literally trying to figure out how to make ends meet. But we know that soul care is a crucial component of our well-being and our health. And so I think that's why this topic and the first excuse we often hear, here's the first understandable excuse is, "I don't have time for soul care."
Kathy
And would you say this is a struggle for you?
Kevin
Yeah, this is definitely a struggle for me. You know, and like I said, it's a valid excuse. We don't have a lot of time. I personally don't have a lot of time because of my work and responsibilities at home. It is so difficult to find the time to care for myself, but I've learned the hard way that when I don't make the time, things start to break down. My body starts to break down. My mind starts to break down. My spirit starts to break down. I start to have a lot less energy, a lot less motivation to do those things that I have to do, and especially the things that I like to do. And so for me, the time and not having the time to do it, although valid, does begin to catch up to me.
Kevin
And making the time in advance for soul care is just a great practice all the way around. What about for you? Do you find yourself struggling to find the time to care for yourself?
Kathy
Oh, absolutely. Of course it's a struggle. But the I think what is important to know is it doesn't have to be large periods of time and that's what we're encouraging you today to understand is that the way that we combat this understandable excuse is that we can make space for soul care and I love Emily P. Freeman's quote:
Kathy
"We are letting everyone else's agenda live for free in the sacred space of our creative mind and it's time for an eviction." We are letting everyone else's agenda live for free in the sacred space of our creative mind and it's time for an eviction and so the homework assignment this week is just carve out ten minutes for soul care. The benefit from this is that we can have breathing room so we can all find ten minutes.
Kathy
For me, it's sometimes waiting in the car after school pickups, for example. It's 10 minutes.
Kevin
Yeah, that's such a great tip. And I love the idea of, although we don't have time, we can create space for it. And it's wherever those gaps of time are. If you're in your car commuting back and forth from work, that space is enough to be intentional and mindful to offer some care for yourself and to be thoughtful around your soul. And that leads us well into our next excused absence of soul care, and that is, "I don't like being alone."
Kevin
First, I wonder if you can speak to why it's important to be alone and what the relationship is between being alone and caring for our soul. Why is it an important component of soul care?
Kathy
Sure, I think first we want to acknowledge a couple of things. One is, how do we feel about being alone? And how is that distinguished from loneliness? Being alone is different from loneliness. And we know the Surgeon General last year spoke about how we have an epidemic of loneliness in America.
Kathy
So we do wanna acknowledge that you may be feeling lonely, but that is different from having alone time. And so you need to figure out what's the difference for you and know that alone time is something that you may be afraid of, but don't confuse it with being lonely because those are two different things. And so what about you? Do you have any tips on that?
Kevin
Yeah, you know, this is one of those hard ones for me too. And like I said, very valid excuse here. I'm a two on the Enneagram and very much a dependent type. When I think about things I like to do, they are usually enhanced by going and doing it with other people. Going to the pool, playing video games, going for a walk. But I find that in the times that I'm caring for my soul, I don't make a lot of time for being alone.
Kevin
And so for me, soul care has become about carving out space for me to do things that I like, whether or not somebody else is coming with me. A lot of the excuses that I would make is that I didn't have admitted anybody to go with. And so I wouldn't go do something that I enjoyed because I didn't wanna be alone. And so recognizing that the practice itself is what's important for me. And doing it alone has been really great. And I didn't realize how much I needed it, even though I do very much like doing activities with other people, caring for myself and taking opportunities to do the things that I like to do, even if somebody else isn't joining me, has been a really wonderful practice this summer especially.
Kevin
And so I invite you to join me in an assignment this next week. I encourage you to schedule what we're calling a soul date with yourself, where you choose an activity that you really enjoy that you may typically do with somebody else and go do it yourself. Take time to go do something that you really enjoy that will fill your soul up, that will help you to feel refreshed. Yake yourself on a soul date this week and I have a feeling that when you have a soul date like this you will feel more refreshed but also more present; more present with yourself but then present with the people that you care about most in your life. That's the main benefit of taking time to be on a soul date with yourself.
Kathy
Excellent; that sounds super exciting. So let's move on to the third excuse we often hear and it's related to the last one about being alone but this is "I am afraid to hear only silence." I am afraid to hear only silence. But again the practice is key here, so the assignment that we have for you with this is to take a drive or a walk without any noise without listening to music or a podcast or talking on the phone but to drive or walk listening only to natural sounds around you or taking in the environment and once we practice entering this silence, the best benefit of this -- and I know I can attest to this when i do this -- is that we can then listen better, which i think is very valuable in our world today.
Kevin
Yeah, gosh none of these three are easy and we have a bonus fourth one, fourth excused absence, and this one relates to all of them, especially the first one about time and that this fourth excused absence is, "I don't know how to stop". Oh my gosh, you and I are both so busy, have trouble stopping -- why is it so hard for us?
Kathy
Well it's so many reasons right It's our culture, especially here in America, where we don't use vacation time, we don't have built-in, even like in other countries, they have actual siesta in the middle of their days. It's the 24-7 nonstop technology connection to devices. I can go on and on, and we just keep going on and on, and we're never unplugging, we're just not ever stopping.
Kevin
Yeah, it reminds me of one of my favorite Brene Brown quotes. She says, "stillness is not about focusing on nothingness, it's about creating an emotional clearing to allow ourselves to think, feel, and question." And so we wanna challenge you here this week to disconnect from devices for one hour a day. And, put your phone, we call it in our household, a phone fast, where you hand your phone to somebody that you love and they're gonna watch over it just in case you don't, just in case you get any important calls or messages that you have to respond to, but you get to be on a phone fast and not have to have the constant buzzing or quick glance at your phone to see what's going on the news, what's going on in your email, social media, you get to take a break and disconnect completely. And this practice will allow you to benefit from being better engaged, engaged in the present moment, engaged in the practice that you're doing and that you enjoy so much and can get easily distracted from because of your device.
Kathy
Yeah, so I'm really excited for all of these different types of assignments that are very simple. To summarize today what we talked about, we wanna think about intentionally creating space and breathing room for our soul care. It can be as short as 10 minutes or as long as one hour in some of our assignments that we gave you, but just know that anything will be beneficial to your souls. And we're excited to encourage you along with your soul care this week.
Kathy
Our souls are starving for this. So take time to feed and nourish your soul this week.
Kevin
Yes, absolutely. We hope that you find the benefits in these practices, these challenges this week. And although we have many valid and excused absences of our soul care, our hope for you is that you take the time to be present. Don't let your soul care be absent this week and this next month. And so to end our podcast episode today, I'd like to invite everybody to take a pause and to do a soul check-in as I read a meditation from Jan Richardson.
Kevin
This reflection is called "Blessing in the Chaos". To all that is chaotic in you, let there come silence. Let there be a calming of the clamoring, a stilling of the voices that have laid their claim on you, and that have made their home in you, that go with you even to the holy places, but will not let you rest, will not let you hear your life with wholeness or feel the grace that has fashioned you.
Kevin
Let what distracts you cease, let what divides you cease, let there come an end to what diminishes and demeans, and let depart all that keeps you in its cage. Let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, where you find the peace you did not think possible and see what shimmers within the storm. Amen.
