Psyche & Soul 58: SIGNING OFF

Psyche & Soul 58

SIGNING OFF

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Podcast Link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-58-Psyche--Soul--123-e15hk6o

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand (sumedhacentre@gmail.com) signing off with the final edition of Psyche & Soul.

……..

Dear Listeners,

This is the final podcast in the series Psyche and Soul. For the 57 weeks, I have been able to present regularly some psychospiritual reflections on these podcasts. In these reflections I used insights from psychology, sacred scripture as well as the socio-political realities of our everyday life to help us enhance our emotional wellbeing and our spiritual life – our psyche and our soul.

Thank you very much for your encouragement and appreciation which kept me going, week after week for more than a year. A special word of thanks to PT Joseph, the www.donboscoindia.com  web master, and CM Paul of Radio Salesian for facilitating the uploading of the podcast, and to Yesudas Karakkattu for composing and performing the Psyche & Soul theme song and background music.

All the 57 podcasts will be available on www.donboscoindia.com webpage, and www.anchor.fm/boscom  for you to access whenever you want. May these podcasts enhance your psychospiritual journey, take you deeper and deeper into your psyche and soul.

In this final podcast, No 58, I list the weekly podcasts under 8 themes.

Theme 1: Psychospiritual Wellbeing (5 podcasts)

1.      1.Foundations of Health and Happiness.

2.      2. Childhood Foundation of Healthy Relationships:  Trust

3.      3. Childhood Foundations of Healthy Relationships 2: Secure Attachments

4.      4. Threats To Healthy Adult Relationships: Insecure Attachments In Childhood

5.      5. Need Empathic And Admirable People Around Us

Theme 2. There were four podcasts Related to the Corona Pandemic (4 podcasts)

Covid:  A Time of Massive Disruption (19)

6.      6. Self-Care During Covid

7.      7. Coping with Stress and Anxiety During Covid – Physical, Mental and Spiritual Strategies

      Transformation through Community & Compassion (20)

Theme 3: Emotional Wellbeing (11 podcasts)

8.      8. Need Fulfilment and Emotional Maturation

9.       9. Living with Meaning and Purpose

1010 .  Self-Knowledge

1111. .  Self-acceptance

1212..  Balancing Autonomy and Dependence

1313.  Emotions, Health and Happiness

1414.  Living Gratefully

1515.  Generosity

1616.  Hope And Optimism

1717. Resilience: Thriving Despite Adversity

1818.  Stress: Prevention and Relief

Theme 4: Spirituality (6 podcasts)

2121.  Psychology, Spirituality and Religion

2222.  A Splintered, Distorted Spirituality

2323.  Holistic Spirituality: Wholeness, Not Flawlessness

2424.  Spirituality of Simplicity – “Downward Mobility”

2525.  Spirituality of Embodiment

2626.  Moving into the New Year with Hope!

Theme 6: Mental Health (12 podcasts)

2727.  Mental Health and Wellbeing

2828.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing Through Grateful Living

2929.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing Through Meaningful Living

3030.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing: Some Simple Practices

3131.  Enhancing Mental Health: 7 More Simple Practices

3232.  The Burden of Mental Illness

3333.  Major Depression

3434.  Schizophrenia - 1

3535.  Schizophrenia – 2: Symptoms and Dynamics

36.36  Schizophrenia – 3: Roots And Remedies. 

3737. Anxiety Disorder 

3838. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Theme 7: Personality Disorders (5 podcasts)

3939.  Personality Disorders: What They Are.

4040.  Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 

4141. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.  

4142. Borderline Personality Disorder., 

4343.  Paranoid Personality Disorder

Theme 8: Midlife Dynamics and the Spiritual Journey (14 podcasts)

4444.  Awakening to Midlife

4545.  Midlife Journeying

4646.  Emotional Awareness of Mortality

4747.  Time for Reassessment

4848.  Reassessment of “Dreams. 

4949. De-Illusioning 

5050.  Redeeming the “Shadow”

5151.  (Re-) Emergence of Sexuality and Intimacy Needs

5252.  Sexuality and Intimacy Needs: Women’s Experience

5353.  Balancing the Masculine and the Feminine

5454.  Moving Toward Integrity 

5555.Atonement (At-One-Men)t. 

5656. Aging Gracefully 

5757.  Spirituality for the Post-Midlife Years

 

I conclude with some significant quotes from the podcasts, something I would like to leave as a legacy from these podcasts.

“Acceptance of oneself is …the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life.” Carl Jung

“If you have a WHY to live for, you can live any HOW.” Nietzsche

 “If the only prayer you ever say in your life is ‘Thank you’, that is enough” Meister Eckhart

 “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

 “Split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone, and there you will find me.” Jesus, in the Gospel of Thomas, #77)

 

Thank you once again, for listening, for your support and appreciation. May your life be healthy and happy!

Theme Song “Listen to the Spirit.” Lyric by Jose Parappully SDB.  Sung by Yesudas Karakkatttu SDB

The Spirit is in us, around us!

Speaking to us…

Through all that happens to us

And around us.

Inviting and exhorting us

To health and wholeness.

Come let us listen to the Sprit

Let’s grow in our psyche and soul.

Background music: Composed and performed by Yesudas Karakkattu, SDB

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Psyche & Soul 20: TRANSFORMATION THROUGH COMMUNITY & COMPASSION

 Psyche & Soul 20

TRANSFORMATION THROUGH COMMUNITY & COMPASSION 

JOSE PARAPPULLY SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Podcast link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-20-PSYCHE--SOUL-47-emfkd8

 

The podcast last week (No. 19) referred to the massive disruption of life that covid-19 has ushered in. However, in the depth of this disruption that is quite overwhelming, lies the opportunity to create a more beautiful and humane world.

SEEDS OF TRANSFORMATION

As we are used to hearing, in every crisis there is an opportunity. The world as we knew is dead and a new world is struggling to be born. We are witnesses and participants in these birth pangs.

The pandemic has forced us to ask some fundamental existential questions, disquieting questions about the deeper realities of life which, earlier, would have been smothered under the relentless pace of our driven way of life. This questioning is paving the way toward transformation of life and priorities.

As Otto Scharmer, Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) writes in his blog: “As systems collapse, people rise. People rise to the occasion in an absolutely remarkable manner. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of volunteers have shown up in their own countries and communities to help their neighbors …. The resilience of the human spirit, the activation of immense profound love and altruistic action, and the deep connections humans feel to each other in such a moment of crisis are moving and awe-inspiring.”

A TIME FOR COMMUNITY AND COMPASSION

Social scientists such as Otto Scharmer, Bob Hanson, Peter Block, Margaret Wheatley and others are reaching a consensus that the way forward from the Covid -19 disruption is through community and compassion. Today, we do not know what the future is going to be, even in the next few months. The challenge is to stay together as a strong community to face what is coming. We are challenged to create the kind of space in which we can feel together and shape together the world that is struggling to emerge.

At a time when life is disrupted and social connections fragmented the greatest need is to build community. At a time when distress is commonplace and so many are wrestling with pain and fear, the need is to reach out in compassion. At a time when loneliness is at a peak, the need is to connect with one another. It is time to reach out in empathy, to be motivated by collective wellbeing, to move from “ego systems to eco systems” to use Otto Scharmer’s favourite phrase. Covid-19 has reminded us of our interconnectedness and interdependence. We survive or sink together. As Pope Francis says in Fratelli Tutti, what we need is the realization that every member of our human race is brother or sister to every other member, no matter how distant or unfamiliar.

Bricks in the Building of Community

·        Sharing Our Vulnerability

We build communities when we share our vulnerabilities. The deeper we share from the inside of us honestly, revealing our pain, fears and anxieties, our uncertainties and insecurities, the deeper the others feel the need to share theirs. When we share our hardships and are sensitive to the hardships others face, experience one another’s pain, we create a bond. We learn to listen deeply to each other. Mary Oliver expresses this dynamic poetically in Wild Geese: “Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” This sharing and listening result in a mutual opening and expansion of the intelligence of the heart leading to widening of the circle of compassion. Community happens.

·        Transcending Categorization and Exclusion

Community building calls for trans-categorization thinking. Especially at times of crisis the temptation is to see people through categories – us and them (of all sorts). Categorization leads to judgment, contempt and exclusion. Instead of categorization what is needed is curiosity about others. We need to suspend old habits of judgment, have an eagerness to learn about others, see them with fresh eyes.  We need to listen deeply and non-judgmentally. Curiosity and non-judgmental, deep listening will lead us to discover others are no different from ourselves and hence to inclusion and empathy. It helps us break down and cross barriers that divide the world into “us and them” and create an inclusive society.

·         Transformation of Attention

Building community calls for a transformation of attention – from self to the other. We need to shift our gaze very consciously away from self to the other, to the world out there. We need to remove the blindfold of self-focus that prevent us from truly seeing the other as the other is and the situations in which the other is caught up, as they really are. It is this kind of conscious attention toward the other that awakens empathy.

·      From Competition to Collaboration

Community building calls for moving from competition to collaboration. The questions to ask are: What will make all of us flourish, not just me? What is the shared future we want to create together? Transformation happens when we come together and pursue a common purpose– the wellbeing of all. When we do that, we turn crisis into opportunity. This calls for courage to let go of self-interest and parochial thinking, to be empathic and generous, to build bridges and alliances across differences.

·       Caring for the Earth

Creating community calls for caring for our common home - the earth. As Pope Francis exhorts us in Laudato Si, we need to develop greater ecological sensitivity that heals the divide between us humans and the cosmos that we inhabit. Compassion needs to be extended to the earth that is bleeding through the uncaring and insensitive over-exploitation of resources. Currently we are consuming 1.5 times the earth’s capacity to renew itself, hastening its exhaustion.

Being a Peace Warrior

Finally, to build community we are called to be a peaceful, conciliatory presence in the midst of violent situations.  Accordingly to Margaret Wheatley this calls for cultivating virtuous dispositions and practices: compassion, courage, curiosity, kindness, understanding, empathy, vulnerability – and forgiveness. We are invited to access the deeper levels of our humanity where these abide and give them expression. For this we need to create moments of stillness, moments to connect to their source. We need to slow down and put a break on our driven life. We need to become more contemplative. Contemplation enables us to become more calm, peaceful and gentle.

And so, we are invited to journey on, chastened by the pandemic, courageously facing adversity and unpredictability, with changed perspectives and purposes, motivated to build communities of love through compassion, curiosity and courage.

Introspection

·         What is the call to transformation that we are individually and collectively sensing? How are we being challenged by this call?

·         Which of the suggested means of building community appeals to you or you feel you have to practise more? Why?

·         To which one practice will you commit yourself in order to create compassionate communities?

Prayer

In the Letter to the Colossians (Ch. 3, 12-14)St. Paul speaks of some the qualities that help us build communion in community, such as compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience and forgivness. We could read this passage and stay with whatever is evoked in us and spend some time in prayer, asking God help to build communities of compassion.

 

Have a pleasant weekend. Be well. Be safe. Be blessed.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

 

JOSE PARAPPULLY SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Psyche & Soul 56: Post Midlife -XIII AGING GRACEFULLY

 Podcast Link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-56-Psyche--Soul--119-e14sa5v

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand (sumedhacentre@gmail.com)  with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this edition I present practices that help us age gracefully.

While I was in a neighbouring country for a Workshop I visited a nearby convent where there were a few nuns I knew. While taking tea the Superior of the community told me, “You must visit the youngest member of our community.” I was taken to an upstairs room where I met Sister Gladys (name changed). She had a beaming smile and her entire face had a glow of joy which lit up the room. She engaged me in pleasant conversation. She was 97 years young! She had been lying in her bed for a few months now. She had to be helped on to a wheelchair, for her to move anywhere. Despite her condition she appeared so happy and fulfilled and had the capacity to make others happy. I said to myself, “That’s what means to age gracefully!” My encounter with Sr. Gladys happened more than 20 years ago. But the image of the beaming, joyful sister who had aged so gracefully remains an inedible and delightful memory. There are countless others like Sister Gladys who have been able live happy, graceful lives and enjoy wellbeing even in old age despite many setbacks and limitations.

Post midlife-years can be difficult for a variety of reasons. The slowing down of metabolism and weakening immune system can lead to disabilities and illness. Loss of hearing, impaired vision, and limited motor agility can be particularly frustrating. There can be lack of feelings of self-efficacy for a variety of reasons. The negative attitudes expressed by family/community members, colleagues, and younger people toward the incompetence, dependence, or old-fashioned ways of older people can lead many of them feel quite discouraged about their self-worth.  Despite these challenges it is possible to age gracefully.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Research on aging provides many insights as to what is required to age gracefully.

The MacArthur Foundation Study on Aging was undertaken by group of 16 scientists drawn from biology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, epidemiology, sociology, genetics, psychology, neurology, physiology, and geriatric medicine. Their conclusion on what leads to successful aging:  the ability to maintain three key behaviours or characteristics: a) low risk of disease and disease-related disability; b) high mental and physical function; and c) active engagement with life.

Mills Longitudinal Study compared cohorts of sick and healthy women at ages 41, 51, 61. This study too identified three characteristics of those who age successfully: a) increase in life satisfaction; b) reduced negative affect; c) increase in generative activities. Negative affect refers to emotions as such as anger, guilt, shame and so on. Generative activities refer to actions that express care for and attention to others.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development - “arguably the longest study of aging in the world” - consisted of three separate cohorts of 824 individuals—all selected as teenagers for different facets of mental and physical health nearly a century ago and studied for their entire lives. The first is a sample of 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920—”the longest prospective study of physical and mental health in the world.” The Second,  is a sample of 456 socially disadvantaged Inner City men born about 1930—”the longest prospective study of ‘blue collar’ adult development in the world.” Third is a sample of 90 middle-class, intellectually gifted women born about 1910—”the longest prospective study of women’s development in the world.”  

George Vaillant, a former director of study, writes in Aging Well:  “It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us: it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.” Successful aging is also facilitated by a capacity for gratitude, for forgiveness, and loving and being loved by a particular person. Alcohol abuse consistently predicted unsuccessful aging, in part because alcoholism damaged future social supports. Learning to play and create after retirement and learning to gain younger friends as one loses older ones were also significant contributors. Objective good physical health was less important to successful aging than subjective good health.  What is meant by this is that “it is all right to be ill as long as one does not feel sick.”

The Harvard Study also identified some significant characteristics of those who age gracefully: They care about others, are open to new ideas, and within the limits of physical health maintain usefulness to society and help others. They show cheerful tolerance of the difficulties of old age. They insist on sensible autonomy (doing for themselves and by themselves what they are able to) while willing to acknowledge their dependency needs and gracefully accept the help offered them. When ill, they are patients for whom a doctor enjoys caring. They are optimistic and look at the bright side of life. They maintain hope in life. They retain a sense of humour and a capacity for play. They are able to spend time in the nostalgic reminiscence of the past, yet they remain curious and continue to learn from the next generation. They try to maintain contact with old friends while making new ones.

The Nun Study, directed by David Snowdon and colleagues (originally begun as a study of Alzheimer’s disease) asked “Why do some of the sisters age gracefully, continuing to teach and serve, retaining their mental faculties into their eighties and nineties, even past one hundred? Why do others—who have lived such similar lives—appear to lose themselves, forgetting their closest friends and relatives and, in the end, becoming almost wholly disconnected from the world around them?” (Aging Gracefully, p.2)

The risk of death at any given year after age sixty-five is about 25 percent lower for the School Sisters of Notre Dame the subjects of the Nun Study than it is for the general population of women in the United States. What is it that helped these sisters to live dramatically longer (average age: 89; the youngest was 84; the oldest 106 years), and healthier, lives than their lay counterparts? The study provided the following answers:

1. Exercise: All the walking the sisters had done-- at a time when motorized transport was rarely available at the beginning of the last century—had helped them to live long and healthy. Exercise is one of the most reliable ways to preserve cardiovascular health. Exercise improves blood flow, bringing the brain the oxygen and the nutrients it needs to function well. Exercise reduces the stress hormones and increases the chemicals that nourish the brain cells. These changes help ward off depression and some kinds of damage to the brain tissue.
2. Education: About 85% of the sisters in the Nun study had bachelor’s degrees and about 45 % had master's degrees—“astounding statistics for any age group, let alone for women born in the early part of the [20^th] century.” Not only did the less-educated sisters have higher mortality rates, but their mental and physical abilities were much more limited if they did reach old age. These data are in keeping with earlier findings. As early as the 19^th century, British scientists had discovered a strong link between education and health.
3. Language: Language skills also had a significant impact on health and wellbeing in old age. The data from the Nun Study tended to confirm that healthy subjects were more proficient in sophisticated word use. They were apt at using multisyllabic words, such as particularly, privileged, and quarantined. In contrast, the sisters who later developed Alzheimer's more frequently used monosyllabic words, such as girls, boys, and sick.
4. Nutrition. What mattered was not just the quality of the food, the social environment of the meal also mattered. Snowdon wrote: “What I now know for sure is that nutrition for healthy aging is not just about eating certain foods or downing a certain milligrams of prescribed number of vitamins each day. It also depends on where we eat, whom we eat with, and whether the meal nourishes our heart, mind, and soul as well as our body,”
5. Positive Emotions: A positive outlook, especially early in life, contributed to longevity and wellbeing. In the autobiographies the sisters had written when they were an average age of twenty-two years old, positive emotional content strongly predicted who would live the longest lives. The sisters who scored the lowest number of positive-emotion sentences had twice the risk of death at any age when compared to those who were in the highest group. “This is a most extraordinary finding: A writing sample from early adult life offered a powerful clue as to who would be alive more than six decades later,” Snowdon observed.

Interestingly Snowdon refers to two factors that contributed to longevity and wellbeing which was not tested by the Nun Study design, “and yet after fifteen years of working with the sisters, I believe strongly in their importance” he observed.

6. Deep Spirituality. The first is the deep spirituality that these women shared. Profound faith buffers the sorrows and tragedies that all of us experience, Snowdon wrote. Moreover, evidence is now starting to accumulate from other studies that prayer and contemplation have a positive influence on long-term health and wellbeing. A Stanford Research Institution study, for example, has concluded “that the inner life, rather than externals, is central” to health and happiness.
7. Community. Convincing evidence is accumulating from other research, including those cited earlier in this article, that strong relationships as in marriage, membership in churches, clubs, or other social groups, and regular contact with family and friends all reduce the risk of death from the major killers such as coronary heart disease and stroke and enhance longevity. Community was a significant support system that the sisters shared.

A Summary

Summarising the data from research cited, here is a list of attitudes and behaviours that enable us to age gracefully:  Exercise of body and also of mind (through intellectual pursuits, maintaining curiosity and eagerness to learn), nutrition including a positive eating ambience, maintaining positive emotions, balancing independence and dependence, optimism and hope, sense of humour, thankful living, nostalgic reminiscence, helping others through generative activities, caring for and learning from future generation, healing from negative emotions, forgiveness, deep spirituality, and close relationships and community.

Introspection

• What do the research findings on aging gracefully evoke in you?
• Which of the factors that promote graceful aging are you practising? To which do you need to give greater attention?
• What are the implications for you personally, for your family or community?
• You may be aware persons like Sr. Gladys who have been able to age gracefully. Want van you learn from such persons?

Prayer

The Bible mentions a number of persons who have aged gracefully, remaining active and generative into ripe old age, such as the patriarchs Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and  David, Zechariah and Elizabeth… The Gospel of John (21, 18-19) has a scene in which Jesus describes what will happen to Peter in old age. We could read and stay with this passage or the stories concerning the other figures mentioned above and spend some time talking to God about what is evoked in us through this podcast and our reading and reflections.

Have a blessed and safe weekend.

Thank you for listening.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

\ Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com