Coping

Join us today on “Coping” where Kathy and Kevin discuss the value of exploring personal and family origin stories. Learn how understanding where we come from fosters connection, perspective and empowerment to overcome current challenges and practical ways you can discover your origin story to help you adjust the path you may be on now as an adult.

Kevin 

Well, hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of "Coping". We're excited to continue our conversation from our last episode.

Kathy 

Yes, welcome everyone. Last podcast, if you remember, we began to discuss this interesting topic of story and the story myths that hold us back. And in this episode, we want to continue discussing the idea of how our past stories shape our current stories.

Kevin 

That's exactly right. Our past reveals where we came from. In movies and comics, this idea is what's called an origin story. And some of the best movies are the movies that delve into those origin stories. What makes the character today who they were and that's where they came from. And so what's so fascinating is watching these backstories can actually provide us with insight into how the hero of the story or the narrator of the story acquires their superpowers, how they face loss and overcame that. And when they were dealt hardship, how they came out on the other side. And what caused them to become who they are today, flaws and all.

Kathy 

Yeah, that's all so fascinating. I personally love all things history, past origin. So let's get started.

Kathy 

Well, like I mentioned before, I have a fascination and love for things of the past and history. I loved history when I was a student in high school and college, almost considered majoring in it. I'm obsessed, sad to say, with ancestry.com and going through, clicking on those of you who know ancestry .com, you click on these leaves that are of the tree. You just keep clicking and clicking and I don't really allow myself to go on anymore because I'll just spend hours delving into the history. And a few years ago, we took a trip to New York City.

Kevin 

Yeah, and I know that you love my family history because they came through Ellis Island. So there's a lot of documentation about their travels, clicking on those leaves and then being there, standing in Ellis Island, looking at the records where my great, great grandfather on my father's side traveled from Ireland and then signed his name in the book, for the records coming over to America. And then on my mom's side, my great, great grandfather also came over from Italy. And so, just to go from a website where you're searching and, you know, creating links for my family tree and then to stand there and to see the signature written and to see the pictures of the ships that they traveled on and to create literally stand exactly where they would have stood in line. 

Kevin 

There's something really powerful about that and how it becomes so real and so vivid. And for me personally, to connect my story back generations,  fills me with a lot of meaning and connects me to my past in a way that I just didn't know existed. 

Kathy 

It's really quite powerful stuff. Yeah. We remember,  those of you who have been to Ellis Island, there's a ferry that takes you and to think that we were seeing the Statue of Liberty just like they would have,  was a very moving experience for both of us. And yeah, it just, it's about the power of connecting to your past.

Kevin 

That's right. And I have a, you know, interesting family,  immigration story of my grandparents coming from Italy and then also from Ireland. But you also have a really fascinating immigration story. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Kathy 

Yeah. So my family did not come through Ellis Island. My parents immigrated to Florida in 1971 and that's how we came to America. They came by way of plane to this country. My dad had a new job at a brand new university and I was 18 months. So I am actually an immigrant as well. I was not born in this country and I became a citizen when I was 18. Why do you think, exploring the past is so important?

Kevin 

Well, you are the history buff and I am the story buff, if you will. I think there's a few different things that make looking at our past and knowing our origin story so important. And the first thing is connection. Understanding our stories did not begin with us makes us feel less alone and helps connect us to the bigger story that's unfolding. And that's exactly what happened for me. I recognize that a lot of the struggles and hardships that I face in my life are generational. And I had a renewed sense of hope that if my ancestors were able to overcome the transition from what they knew to a new world and were able to build a better life to put me in the position that I am, surely I can overcome and deal with transition and hardship much like they did, that it's somehow in my blood, that it's in my lineage, that if they did it then I can do it too. 

Kevin 

And that story made me feel far less alone and really proud of what they did for me and that what I can then do in their honor in my story as it unfolds.

Kathy 

Absolutely. The power of connecting to the past, that connection that you mentioned, is so crucial. We're all right now feeling like we're so disconnected and this is a very tangible way to try to find some connection in our lives. Currently we are in a story class journey with Be Well and we're reading Leslie Leyland Fields, "Your Story Matters". She has a very powerful quote about the past. She says, "the past is not done. It lives on in us no matter how cleverly we disguise ourselves, no matter how fast we try to run from it. When we don't turn and look behind us, we lose our way, even our very selves." 

Kathy 

And so I think the second thing that exploring our past does for us is it gives us perspective. So as you talked about connection, I'm sure part of that was also perspective. I mean looking into the story of my family gave me a lot of perspective. It's almost like looking into an old mirror. We see ourselves in an old mirror, but we also can see those who came before us and their experiences give us a new lens from which to look at our lives. How does it give us a new lens? 

Kevin 

Say more about that new lens.

Kathy 

So for example, if I look through the lens of my life right now through the lens of my parents, again, it's a story of overcoming. It's a story of a new life, a new hope, a new future for the next generation. It's exactly what we hope for our children that my parents hope for us. And so this perspective is now connected to the story, the greater story of my family. And when I looked behind me, immediately I could see a lot of links that could frame my current perspective now. It helps diminish the feeling of being all alone and disconnected and it can provide, this new perspective can provide a lot of strength as well I would say.

Kevin 

Yeah, and that leads us into the third thing that we gain when we take time to look at our past, and that's empowerment. Empowerment is all about getting us re-engaged with how our story unfolded and how it's still unfolding. And so what that did for me really is helped me to recognize that although in my past things happened to me when they were out of my control when I was young, as an adult, I can take my story, all that has happened, and be an active participant in writing my story going forward. And so there's a sense of empowerment that if this is what has happened behind me and I look at my life that's still ahead of me, if I want my life to be different, I can make those changes. And that's really empowering to recognize that the story is not over. What has been written is not gone. And if it's not gone, if it's still with me, I can continue to write a new story for myself going forward and reframe what has happened and how I got to where I am today based on where I end up. 

Kevin 

And that's what the origin story is all about. No matter where you came from in the hardship that you've endured, those things can propel you into the kind of future you want to have and give it that much more meaning. 

Kathy 

Yes, absolutely. It just is unlocking a lot of things for us when we go back into the past. And we want to be mindful that we understand that delving to things of the past can be hard. It can be painful. It can bring up a lot of trauma. As we embark on this journey to write our stories in our journey class, we have encountered that this past week when we began to map our stories. So mapping is this process of basically putting down all the highlights and the events and the key memories and it was hard. It was challenging. Our group was saying that they wanted to give up at some point and said they wanted to shut those doors. They didn't want to delve, go there, basically.

Kevin 

Right. It's hard to look back. The origin stories are often filled with darkness. And like I said before, there's a sense of disempowerment that happened to you when you were too young to recognize that it didn't have to be that way. 

Kathy 

Right.

Kevin 

And too young to have any sort of power to affect change. Often when you are delving into your origin stories, that kind of work is best done with, and within a therapeutic relationship that you're sitting with somebody who has the training to do some meaning-making, some conversational processing with you so that you can make sense of your past and you can delve through it in a healthy and safe environment and to gain the type of perspective, connection and empowerment that we're talking about. 

Kathy 

Yeah, absolutely. It is work that, what we wanna say is this isn't work that can be done alone. In our community, we are doing it together and we were able to reconvene and decide that we're gonna continue to move forward in finding a way to our past. We're gonna unlock those doors again, but we're just gonna find a different pathway there this next week. And what we have found so far is we have found these three keys that we just talked about, connection, perspective, and empowerment. 

Kathy 

And as I mentioned, from Leslie's book, "Your Story Matters", she has this quote which I think really sums up why, again, this is so important. It's a great summary for our discussion today. She says, "writing the stories from our past enables us to live them again, but this time we live them wiser and better." 

Kevin 

So good. And so we have these three keys, these three things that we gain when we look at our story and we know that we can live our stories again wiser going forward, but how would you suggest our listeners do that in their own origin stories? Where's the starting point for that? How do you begin that work?

Kathy 

Yeah, this is a great question. This is a practical step that you can take if you're listening today. One would be if you do have any living relatives that have some stories that they can share with you about the history of your family. If you don't have any living relatives, you can go on to ancestry .com. This is not a commercial for them, but we wish they would reach out. But if you go there and you know some dates and names, and if your family has been here a couple generations in America, that would be the other thing I would say, at least two generations here in this country, you could just log on. And in the free version, you can find out a lot of discoveries. Everything from marriage certificates to census reports, ships registries; that's what Kevin found at Ellis Island. They're all online. 

Kathy 

It's so fascinating. So those are the two things that I would say is, reach out to a relative who can share stories, or you can also go online and look through that.

Kevin 

Yeah, I think the other way that I mentioned before is, if you start diving into your story and you recognize that there's more darkness than you may be able to face on your own, turn to a therapeutic relationship, initiate a therapeutic relationship if you don't have one, or bring some of those stories to your therapist to help have a trusted person walk you through some of those difficult stories. I would also say, too, take your relatives' stories with a grain of salt. If you come from a family like mine, where there's divorce and division within the family, there's different versions of the same story that are being told. And so it's hard to know what is the truth. And the reality is that whatever story is being told by that person, that's their truth.

Kathy 

Their perspective.

Kevin 

And the work I've done with my therapist is to take parts of those stories to form my own. And know that the greater truth is that all of those things are part of who made me who I am and to work through each of those things individually, but then to make sense of them for how I want my story to unfold going forward. 

Kathy 

And I would say a final way for those of you who want to dive into your stories, in addition to what we said is a couple of episodes back when we were going through grief, we talked about this process of listing. And we are using it in our current class as mapping. So basically what you do is you take some sticky notes and a poster board and you are going to map out the different time periods of your life. It's a brainstorming exercise where you're able to list memories, events, highlights. 

Kathy 

We will be able to give you a link to a resource called Life Events that might be able to jog your memory. We'll attach that to this episode notes. And I just, I'm excited for you to dive into this because we just see the value of it so much. 

Kevin 

Yeah, so just to recap, we want to encourage all of you to take some time to delve into your origin story. What makes you who you are? Where have you come from? All of those things will inform where you are going next. We hope that as you delve into those stories you'll find some connection, you'll find some perspective, and gain some empowerment in that.

Kevin 

And so to conclude our podcast today, I'd like to offer a traditional Irish blessing for the journey that you still have ahead. 

“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand. 

May God be with you and bless you. May you see your children's children. May you be poor and misfortune, rich in blessings. May you know nothing but happiness from this day forward. May the road rise up to meet you. 

May the wind be always at your back. May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home. And may the land of a friend always be near. May green be the grass you walk on. May blue be the skies above you. May pure be the joys that surround you. 

May true be the hearts that love you. Amen.”

Listen as Kevin Deegan leads you in a blessing by Jan Richardson. May it bring you comfort and solace on your path to wellness:

Kevin:

You might think this blessing lives in the story that you can see, that it is curled up in a comfortable spot on the surface of the telling. But this blessing lives in the story beneath the story. It lives in the story, inside the story, in the spaces between, in the edges, the margins, the mysterious gaps, the enticing and fertile emptiness. 

This blessing makes its home within the layers. This blessing is doorway and portal, passage and path. It is more ancient than imagining and makes itself ever new. This blessing is where the story begins.

Summary

In this episode of "Coping", Kevin and Kathy discuss personal stories and describe how to transform limiting self-perceptions. They analyze common story myths that reinforce feelings of inadequacy, loneliness or invisibility, and discuss remedies like sharing authentic experiences in trusted communities. While childhood stories can instill negative mindsets, reclaiming one's narrative by embracing the fullness of their story arc can foster growth and connection.

Kevin 

Well hello everyone, Happy New Year and welcome back to a new episode of “Coping”.

Kathy 

Yes, Happy New Year everyone. We're so excited to begin a new series this episode and it's movie award season in our household so what does that mean Kevin? 

Kevin 

Yeah it's movie award season in everybody's household but our household is special in that I am a Screen Actors Guild member which means that every year around this time we get a bunch of screeners. I used to get them in the mail as hard copies and now everything's digital so I get an awards pin and I get to sign in and watch all the movies that are nominated and it's a fun time of year because we watch more movies than we do the whole rest of the year combined and then I get to vote so it's been a really fun award season a lot of good movies this year. 

Kathy 

Yes! Speaking of stories, in today's episode we're exploring the power of story and I'm excited to dive into this issue. Let's get started. 

Kathy 

So I know both you and I love a good story. Why do you think that is? 

Kevin 

I think that our stories offer a window into our experience, into our lives, truths about who we are where we've come from and it connects us to one another because, although we may not have come from the same background, the same experience, there's this common or shared humanity that each of us has that connects us on a deeper level and our pursuit for meaning and for connection. 

Kathy 

Yes absolutely. I think that the power of story has the ability to change the way that we perceive ourselves, others, and to bring us together in a world that right now seems so divided.

Kevin 

That's right. You know, both you and I are in the business of story catching. As a hospital chaplain, I spend my days listening to people's stories and their experiences with new diagnosis and illness and recovery. I spend a lot of the time listening and hearing their story, affirming them. You do the same work as a life and vocation coach. A lot of your time is spent listening and capturing people's stories. Although we do give counsel and we do give guidance and reframing to people's stories, a large majority of the time spent is listening and hearing people's stories. 

Kathy 

Yeah, 100%. I love Harry Johnson's quote. He says, "we are all story. We are the stories we are told and we are the stories we tell ourselves." So I wonder, how are you the story you were told?

Kevin 

Gosh that is complicated, right? There's parts of my story that were told about me that I have spent a lifetime and a lot of therapy trying to overcome. Stories of being dumb, being not good enough. Stories of struggle and generational bondage, but then there's also parts of my story of being a leader, being a spiritual guide, being a compassionate human, being a support person and I think both of those stories are true, but it's complicated and easy to get stuck in the hard parts of my story and the tension of my story. But yeah, it's it's definitely complicated, and a story that continues to unfold to this day as I continue in therapy. What about you? How are you the story that was told about you?

Kathy 

Sure, so I shared this at our retreat on Sunday as we're going to explore this in our podcast today, one of the stories that I was told was that I could never measure up; I was not good enough, especially academically, and always trying to perform, please in my family of origin, and even now feeling that I don't live up to those expectations, but there was a marked period in my life where I decided to let go of that. It's still, like you said, an ongoing struggle to not live into the story we're told, but there was a time in my life where I decided, made a decision that I was not that story that I was told, but that I would be working against the story that I was told into a truer story. 

Kevin 

Can you unpack that a little bit? Like first, like how did you become aware of that story that was holding you back, that was keeping you stuck as we've talked about before?

Kathy 

Sure.

Kevin 

And what is the process of getting unstuck? 

Kathy 

Well, it was clear to me early on, this was like in college, there's an incident. I knew that I had a problem. achieved the highest levels that I could academically, and I would bring the results back to my family, and they were negatively received or not received in the way that I wanted them to be. It kept happening again and again. And even though I was more than content and satisfied with my progress, they were not. And that's where there was, if you want to call-- it's a dissonance, right? So there are two competing stories and they kept conflicting with each other. 

Kathy 

And I had to decide which story I wanted to tell. So I began to realize, even in this story that I was told that there are three main story myths: limiting stories, stories that keep us stuck throughout our lives. And that, typically, most everyone can identify with one or more of these.

Kathy 

The first step in broadening your story or the story you were told is to identify what story myth resonates with you.

Kevin 

What are those three story myths? Tell me a little bit about those.

Kathy 

Sure. So the first one is, "I am not good enough". And you and I have already talked about that story myth and how it resonates within our lives. The child that somehow cannot please their parents in whatever way, looking for attention, wanting to be a star student. Not that there's anything wrong with all of the things that we're talking about, but when that becomes your perpetuating motive in your life, you're not living into your true story. You are still trying to be good enough. So the first story myth is, "I am not good enough".

Kevin 

And how do we overcome it? Overcome if that is our story that is holding us back. How do we overcome that feeling? Because I know there's been times in my life where that was the story that was told about me, but I believed it. And the evidence that I had in my life was that what I was doing wasn't good enough. I wasn't living to my fullest potential. So, like thinking back to my 18, 19 year-old self, what could I say to him to help him in that story that he was stuck in, that I was stuck in and believed about myself because it was largely true. 

Kathy 

Well, this is where the power of story does come in. Number one would be to acknowledge maybe the places where you aren't good enough and begin to step out of the thick story into a broader story that is more a story of growth and change. So for me, for example, if I continued to believe the myth that I just wasn't good enough academically, that mindset would not help me to achieve. Instead, I had to begin to consider the possibility that maybe I was good enough and that that could potentially spark more growth and more abilities for me to step into the power and strengths that I actually had in my life. Instead of being stuck in, "Oh, that's Kathy, she just can't make the grades."

Kevin 

Yeah, the way that I think about it is sometimes the way that we tell our story is that it's set, that there's a finality to it, right? That this is who I am and I'm not going to change. I'm not capable of change. What you're saying is the power of story is considering the possibility that, although it may be true that I'm not enough or my grades are not what I want them to be or my life is not what I want it to be, considering the possibility that maybe the story isn't set, maybe it isn't finished, maybe it isn't the final chapter, that maybe it's true that it's not enough and I want something to be different. And so I'm living into a new story out of that truth of I don't feel enough, but I'm going to seek out ways to have that story unfold in a new way going forward. That's so good. I think that makes so much sense that would be super intuitive for my young self that there was a lot that was pointing to the fact that I wasn't good enough and I wouldn't really amount to anything. I don't really know how things turned around for me, but looking back, I didn't want that to be my story.

Kathy 

So you began to surround yourself with people who would write a new story for you. That's what happened in your life. I was there. You were around people like me who said, "no, your story isn't the, 'I didn't graduate from high school kid'. Your story is the story of someone who has a dream to go to Los Angeles and dream bigger than you can ever imagine for yourself and for your life." 

Kevin 

But part of it, I don't know if this is another, if this is related to another story myth, but I also believe that I was the only one that was struggling in this way that everybody else around me had their life together. I was the only one that was struggling. And what I learned is that those people around me that had their lives on a different path had come through a lot of trials and challenges and had overcome those. And because I learned that that was possible, I believed a new story for myself.

Kathy 

And so you're touching on the second limiting story myth and that is "I am alone".

Kevin 

Oh wow.

Kathy 

"I am the only one going through this. No one understands." And here's the thing. It's true that nobody has gone through exactly what you're going through, when you're going through it, how you're going through it. But it's not true when we take on a mindfulness perspective about our story that says, "Okay, I am broke. I don't have any money. I don't know, I'm gonna lose my house." That there are others going through that right now, even as you say these words, right? And the antidote to this is the power of story because then you connect. Feeling alone is disconnecting. Sharing your story is connecting.

Kevin 

How do you encourage somebody who's stuck in the "I am alone" story? It seems as though with this myth, there can be like a catch-22 scenario where they're alone and they don't have anybody to share their story with. And if sharing their story is gonna make them feel less alone, how do they break out of that? How does one who is actually alone and feels alone start using the power of their story to be less alone? 

Kathy 

Sure, and we don't wanna minimize the loneliness. The surgeon general has said that we're in an epidemic of loneliness. He's declared it a national emergency. So we're not minimizing anyone's loneliness or feelings of alone today. We wanna tell you that it is real. And so as he said, and as we say it, Be Well, "the antidote to loneliness is to reach out", is to find community, is to join a class, to go to your faith center community, to join one of our groups. We have a story class starting Wednesday mornings and it's virtual so you can join from wherever you are to reach out, to dispel the idea that you are alone, you are feeling alone. And so of course that is your truth, but to dispel that is by reaching out and connecting. 

Kevin 

Yeah, and one of the things I've learned from you and your work with students over the years is that oftentimes the student will start with you in private coaching and then you'll funnel them into a group setting and that is where they start to see some major breakthroughs in their life and start to overcome some of the obstacles in their life. Why is that? Why is it that somebody who is alone feels that their life starts to change when they're in a group setting as opposed to getting that help from a coach individually?

Kathy 

Because we were created for community and relationships. So the mere fact of being related and connected in community is tapping into the true story of ourselves, that the Creator created us to be in relationship, is a relational God and desires us to be in relation and when we're not, we are literally cutting off of ourselves to how we were created. 

Kevin 

Mm-hmm, and that's how we get stuck in our story. Our story stops unfolding because we're not in community, part of what we were created for, yeah. And you said that there's three main myths. What's that? What's that third myth?

Kathy 

Sure, so to review, "I am not enough" was the first one, the second one "is I am alone", and the third myth is "I am invisible". So this one is if you grew up as an invisible child in your family, you may struggle as an adult with a need to be seen. You know, it's the "pick me, pick me" sort of like, "oh I am not chosen." It is sometimes related to issues with belonging and fitting in. These folks grow up as sometimes literally talking louder than most people in the world to be heard and seen. It's very interesting.

Kevin 

Wow, and what is the remedy? How do folks who feel invisible and are stuck in the story that I'm invisible -- how do they overcome that?

Kathy 

So the folks that are invisible oftentimes have trouble leaning into their authentic story because they're denying their origin stories. Ironically, they wanted to be seen and then because they weren't, they deny the origin story. So one of the antidotes is a telling of their authentic story, like all the good, the bad and the ugly and sharing that authentically with the world, and with that then comes like we've said before that then they're heard and seen through the telling of their authentic story. They connect with someone who says, "wow, that happened to me too. Thank you so much for sharing that. I had no idea." And then they're no longer completely invisible, at least for that moment in time and space when they're being acknowledged for the very thing that they were denying. 

Kevin 

Yeah, I can imagine the folks who are set in the story "I'm invisible" only wanting to share the positive aspects of their story because they're wanting people to see them in a positive light. Perhaps there's this underlying belief that the reason why I'm invisible is because there's nothing valuable about me and so let me highlight the good things and leave behind the things that are causing me to be invisible. And what you're saying is that the exact opposite is true.

Kathy 

But the broken pieces are the ones, yeah, the broken pieces are actually the connecting pieces, the missing pieces of the puzzle to help us feel more empowered, more seen, more heard, more connected. 

Kevin 

Yeah, that's really good.

Kathy 

And one caveat I would say to everyone out there as you're exploring your origin story and your story misses, be sure to share your story with a trusted person. Sometimes you perpetuate this whole myth when I know someone who is an invisible person and they go back to their family of origin that continually perpetuates the idea they're invisible and they share the story and they're like, "So Kathy, they just shot me down" and I was like, "Okay, because you need to go to a safe and trusted person to share the story." 

Kathy 

So just one caveat there, don't go back to the same places where those reinforced stories were and thinking that, "oh, I'm gonna share my authentic story and now it's gonna work." Anything to say about that, Kevin? 

Kevin 

Yeah, no, I'm thinking is that we often go back to the origin of where we adopted that limiting aspect of our story to try to remedy them and thinking that if they can, if they're the ones that gave me this limiting story, they're the ones that reinforced that I'm alone, I'm invisible, I'm not enough. If I can go back and convince them that I am enough, that I'm not invisible, that perhaps that will make me feel better. And what I'm hearing you say is that, going back there is what reinforces the hurt and reinforces the false beliefs about ourselves and reinforces these myths that we believe that keep us stuck and set in our stories. 

Kevin 

And so instead we need to find safe people, new people perhaps who can see us, hear us affirm our story and set us on a new path of telling a new story and believing a new story about ourselves.

Kathy 

Right, we wanna add characters to our story and we want the cheerleaders, we want the teammates, we want all of those people cheering us on as we write the new chapters or our story. Typically we can't go back to characters that have been left behind in the script. There's new characters that are being written in to tell a new story.

Kathy 

So today we've learned the power of sharing, telling and embracing our stories to release or begin to begin a new story from our story myths. And if you love this topic, please consider joining our small group journey Reclaim that is starting Wednesdays from wherever you are. We're actually gonna be telling and writing our stories, which is a very powerful and healing in a community, a safe community. So check out our website for information to join that and thanks for joining us today.

Kevin 

And so to end our episode today, I'd like to conclude with a story blessing by Jan Richardson.

"You might think this blessing is a blessing that lives in the story that you can see. That it is curled up in a comfortable spot on the surface of the telling. But this blessing lives in the story beneath the story. It lives in the story, inside the story. In the spaces between. In the edges. The margins. The mysterious gaps. The enticing and fertile emptiness. This blessing makes its home within the layers. This blessing is doorway and portal. Passage and path. It is more ancient than imagining. It makes itself ever new. This blessing is where the story begins."

As we celebrate with Christmas lights, we should be intentional about shining our own lights spiritually. We are called to illuminate the world and bring light where it is needed through our faith and actions. Let Chaplain Kevin Deegan lead you in prayer asking God for help in shining His light and bringing it where needed most during this season.

Kevin: During the holidays, Christmas lights decorate our homes inside and out. We wrap our Christmas trees with lights and hang lights from the roof. These lights switch on at night so that they shine brightly and beautifully in the darkness. 

The prophet Isaiah spoke about light saying, People walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. Our small strung together Christmas lights not only display the beauty of Christmas, but also, as Isaiah teaches us, help dispel the darkness. 

As we celebrate with lights this season, let us intentionally shine our lights to illuminate the world around us. How has God's light dawned in your life? Where is He calling you to shine your light today? 

Let's pray: God, you are the light of the world. We hear your call to be light in the world. Help us to shine brightly this season, and give us the power to bring light where it is needed most. We pray these things in your name. Amen. 

In this episode of “Coping”, Kathy and Kevin discuss the symbolism of lights during the holiday season, highlighting familial traditions around decorative lights and the spiritual meaning of light in the Bible. Light represents hope during dark times, and as people who are called to shine their light into the world, we can think about what type of light we are, and the need to plug into spiritual sources to refill our light when it dims. The conversation covers how illness, trauma, grief, exhaustion, and lack of boundaries can dim our light. Practices like reading, walking, and unplugging can refill us.

Reflect this week on your current light using a 1-10 scale - how bright are you shining? Identify factors that may be dimming your light right now. Commit to one new practice this season to plug into spiritual sources and refill your light. Reach out to friends or helpers if your light feels dim and you need support. Intentionally shine your light this holiday season to bring hope to those in darkness.

Kathy: Welcome back to another episode of "Coping". Today's episode. We have a special advent holiday.

Kevin: That's right today We're gonna talk a little bit about the theme of lights and what that means for this holiday season. 

Kathy: Okay, let's get started.

Kevin: So it's that time of year; we start driving around the neighborhood at night and we see lights and people's lawns on their trees outside. We can see through their window, the Christmas tree is decorated. Even in our own home our Christmas tree is up and the lights come on automatically on a timer. It's such a beautiful time of year with all these Christmas lights. What was your tradition growing up? How did you guys decorate your house inside and out?

Kathy: Oh, that's a really good question. So we grew up in South Florida so it was not cold and so there wasn't like snow and that whole part of the winter celebrations.

Kevin: Right you almost have to decorate a little bit more just to bring in the Christmas season because you don't have the natural changing of the weather there.

Kathy: Sure, so a lot of people in South Florida do lots of lights because we don't have those extra winter effects. So Yeah, we would put out the lights and then one of our favorite family traditions was to drive around and look at all the lights. When we were young our parents to drive us in the car around and look at all of the neighborhood or other little neighborhood pockets where people put on big light displays. 

Kevin: Yeah, so my brother and I, when we were older, took the initiative to decorate the house ourselves and so we would pull out those dusty boxes filled with old Christmas lights. And this was back in the day where you would test one light at a time when the strand was not working and we would try to find that broken light or the one that had you know blown and we would then use a little plastic pack with like three extra ones and then refill it in. 

Kathy: The fuses.

Kevin: So we would be hours and hours just trying to get the lights to work and then we had the bright idea of, "man we've done all this work and it looks beautiful this year. Let's leave it up the whole year and see if we can just you know not have to go through--"

Kathy: Oh you were one of those families. 

Kevin: We tried until just a few weeks later the lawn guys came and cut into the bushes and destroyed all the lights. I think that was the last year that we ever did Christmas lights. Yeah, well this episode it's our holiday episode so we're going to talk a little bit about lights this season and what the symbolism of lights are for us as we celebrate this holiday season.

Kathy: So tell us a little bit about why lights are so important spiritually and the symbolism of that.

Kevin: Yeah, that's such a good question. So I think from Judeo-Christian perspective, light is such an important theme in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Some of the very first of verses in Genesis talk about God's command, "let there be light." And then we see this certainly extended into the New Testament where light starts to become a symbol of people who are set apart in the world, but also an example of our call to shine our light. 

I'm thinking about John 1 1:7, where it says, "but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another." And I think it's just such an important reminder that when there's so much darkness in the world, so much darkness around us and our personal lives, that we be a light, a light for other people when they're in their darkness. And when we shine a light, it's a symbol of hope, especially in challenging times in the world.

Kathy: Yeah, it seems like every Christmas, things are getting darker and darker, not just outside, but in the forces that are working against the light. And we come to Advent and to this Christmas wondering, "is the light actually going to overcome the darkness? And what are ways we can be spreading more light since it's just so needed?"

Kevin: Right. One of the teachings that we've done a few times with our community is to describe the kind of light that we are when we think about all the different kinds of light sources in the world. Would you mind just sharing a little bit about how you would describe yourself as a light? What kind of light do you see yourself as in the world?

Kathy: Yeah, this is such an introspective, but very powerful and fun activity to think about all the different light sources around us from the lamps to the light bulbs to the matches to the campfires, to the lightning bugs. Yeah, there's just so many, and we take it for granted, I think that's something else you could say. Our power was out recently for 12 hours, and it was very, it was a wake up call to how much we rely on the light.

Kevin: So much so we bought a backup battery just to make sure that we had a source to keep our light shining when we need it.

Kathy: Yeah, absolutely. So when I think about the light source that relates to me, I think about lighthouses. I love the lighthouses, we visited some of them, but the idea that your light can emit far away to guide ships in, I think is one of the calls for me, and being a stable source of light people can come back to resonates with me. How about you?

Kevin: Yeah, I see you definitely emit that kind of light in your work as a life and vocation coach, certainly within our family, just a very stable presence of light. That's definitely how I envision you and your light. I think for me, probably opposite to you, my light changes over time and in different seasons and depending on what's going on. And so there's times where I feel like I'm a bonfire, where my light is ablaze. Other times it feels really, really dim, almost like a nightlight. And so I think the best example of my source of light is more like a dimmer switch. There's times where I find myself shining really bright and that kind of bright light is needed if I'm teaching or speaking or leading some type of group and shining up bright light is important. And then having the ability to dim way down if I'm entering into a patient room in the hospital, sitting with somebody who's just gotten a new diagnosis and being present to them in their pain and their story. 

Kevin: And so I've developed over time this ability to toggle my light switch up and down, depending on the scenario, depending on the encounter that I'm having with somebody. So I think the best representative of my kind of light is perhaps like a dimmer switch. 

Kathy: That's really good. And you have to obviously be aware then about how your light source is emitting and when you need to turn it down. I grew up without dimmer switches. I didn't even know what that was, but it's such a powerful regulatory mechanism that we have now and for you to use that as a light. For you, I think that's really interesting, but it's very appropriate for the work you do. So you mentioned that sometimes your light is dim. I think that brings up a very good topic about what makes our lights dim. You're talking about the self-regulation of dimming, but a lot of times our lights are hidden, turned down, covered completely. What do you find often dims the light in others?

Kevin: Yeah, that's such a great question. I think, as you're saying, the most important thing to do is to first be aware that your light is dim.

Kathy: Awareness.

Kevin: Yeah, awareness, yeah, exactly. I know in the work that I do, some of the obstacles or some of the ways that our lights are impacted is illness, trauma, pain, lack of support, those types of things can certainly impact somebody's level of light. I think for me personally the ways that my light dims the most is when I feel like I'm perhaps expending more energy or expending sending out more light into the world that I'm you know filling myself up with so I'm burning out quite literally emotionally, spiritually burning out and my light source is getting dim because it's you know the energy levels are pretty low. What about for you? What are some of the things that you feel like are dimming your light that that lighthouse that you are?

Kathy: I think it's exactly the same right as helpers, we don't we're getting tired of turning our lights. We have been turning on our lights probably on maximum, full force since COVID because there's been so many needs for helpers, loss of jobs and illness and the level of crisis we've talked about through our season is very great in the world, so helpers are very tired. For me, it's exhaustion, a lack of rest and just feeling like I can't turn my light on anymore. I'm just too tired to. I can keep plugging back into sources, but it's just like not enough to light. The amount of power it takes, I think, for helpers and leaders, it's a lot.

Kevin: Yeah, I'm even thinking about my source of light a dimmer switch often a dimmer switch is coupled with an outlet and so not only am I emitting light but I'm also an outlet for others to plug into and that can be exhausting I have to have double, triple, quadruple the amount of energy being poured in to me so that I can not only shine my light, but be a source of light for others. You think about a lighthouse -- I'm sure there's several outlets and other sources of energy for folks to plug into let alone helping them, guiding them to shore after a journey at sea, if you will.

Kathy: Yeah, and I would say also that for those in our community, you mentioned illness, trauma, grief as dimming. I would also say related to that, you know, the lack of boundaries, what we're talking about, and the inability to pause, to rest, to reflect. And then not taking enough time to plug into the sources that fill us up in proportion to how much, like you said, the energy is going out. 

Kevin: Right. Tell me a little bit more about how you plug into sources of energy to keep your light bright. What does that look like for you and what advice do you have for other people that are assessing that their light is pretty dim at this time of year? 

Kathy: So one of the practices that we talk about and then I practice personally, I know you do too, is that we engage in what we call ING activities that are filling up and making us literally light up. For me, it's reading. I'm so proud to say I finished two books this week that I had started months ago, cooking, walking every day, napping. For some people, it's serving. For some people, it's cleaning. That's something that gets them filled up. There's endless possibilities. 

Kevin: Yeah, this teaching that we talk about a lot is making sure that your practices include that ING. What's the participle, what kind of word is that as an ING? I always forget.

Kathy: That's a gerund.

Kevin: A gerund. That's right.

Kathy: Of course.

Kevin: The English teacher in you is coming out, yeah. So basically ensuring that the practice that we have is something that we do and gives us not just something to strive for, but something to actually do practically. And so I have these ongoing practices, journaling, praying, fellowshiping, playing. I like to play video games as a complete breakaway, watching movies, that type of thing. But I think certainly this time of year, what I need more than just my ongoing practices of self-care and rest are practices, like my annual practices that disrupt the routines that I have, and so making sure that I'm taking time to reflect on the whole year. You and I have talked before on this podcast about our year in review workshop, but also when we talk about our favorite things from this past year, we have a journal that we do with that. 

Kevin: I also try to take some time away from work to completely unplug and to free up some mental space. So ongoing practices are super important, all those gerund words, the ING words. And then try to think at this time of year, ways to disrupt my normal patterns and routines so that I can do a real good assessment about where I'm at, how I'm doing, what I'm needing as I look back to start to envision what might be upcoming in this next year. 

Kathy: Yeah, so I think this is all very helpful, especially at this time of the year as we talk about lights and how we can dispel the darkness. The number one theme I think that we've emphasized today is to be sure that you're plugging into a greater source of light. 

Kevin: That's right. We have all these practices that we can do, activities that we can do, but the reality is that we may be a source of light, but we're not the main source. We have to plug into a source of energy bigger than ourselves so that that energy source can be filling us up as we're shining our light and being an outlet for other people's light to have energy as well. 

Kathy: And so to recap, step one, take a moment to think about the awareness of your light. How is it shining right now on a scale of one to ten? How bright is it? Step two, what is dimming your light? What is causing you to be not shining as brightly as the world needs you to be shining right now? And step three, plug into the source of a greater light source than yourself. We cannot get light from ourselves.

Kevin: What are those sources of light that we can plug into when you think about a bigger source of light? What does that look like?

Kathy: I think the bigger sources of life for most people are spiritual practices. For some others, it's faith, their deep faith, and all of the practices related to hearing from God and getting truth and light into their hearts and minds instead of believing lies and darkness. For others, it may be community and hearing how they're valued and seen from a group of people. So I would just challenge you out there. If you don't have any of those, please reach out to us at Be Well Resources. We want you to be shining your light brightly. the season and throughout the year.

Kevin: And so with that, what I would like to do to close our time together today is to play one of the earliest episodes from season one of "Coping". It's a reflection on light and the type of light that we can shine amidst the darkness this holiday season. And so with that, whatever it is that you may be coping with, we want to extend this holiday season blessings to you.

Holiday Lights Reflection

Kevin: During the holidays, Christmas lights decorate our homes inside and out. We wrap our Christmas trees with lights and hang lights from the roof. These lights switch on at night so that they shine brightly and beautifully in the darkness. 

The prophet Isaiah spoke about light saying, People walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness. A light has dawned. Our small strung together Christmas lights not only display the beauty of Christmas, but also, as Isaiah teaches us, help dispel the darkness. 

As we celebrate with lights this season, let us intentionally shine our lights to illuminate the world around us. How has God's light dawned in your life? Where is he calling you to shine your light today? 

Let's pray. God, you are the light of the world. We hear your call to be light in the world. Help us to shine brightly this season, and give us the power to bring light where it is needed most. We pray these things in your name. Amen.

Listen as Kevin leads you through a simple, fill-in-the-blank meditation focused on gratitude and appreciation. Reflect on and write down two attributes of God you appreciate, one thing you are celebrating today, and three things you are most grateful for today before thanking God for all of the things you are grateful for.

Kevin: We're going to start with me asking just a few questions that I'd like you to reflect on. If you want to write your answers down, that'd be great, but if not, you can just call them to mind as well.

So the first question is, what are two attributes of God you appreciate most today?

The next question is, what's one thing you're celebrating today?

And finally, name three things you're most grateful for today. So, this meditation is a fill in the blank blessing. As I read this blessing, reflect on these things that you are grateful for. And when I pause, fill in your own words to complete the blessing. Let's pray.

God, thank you for being _______. Today, I will choose to celebrate ______ because I see this as a gift from you. Today I will take time to reflect on _______ because I'd like to remember. 

I thank you for all the blessings in my life, but today I'm most grateful for these three. The first is __________. The second is ___________ and finally _________, and so I conclude by simply saying, “thank you.”

The first episode of the 4th season of "Coping" discusses practices for celebrating Thanksgiving and carrying gratitude through the entire year. Kathy and Kevin love Thanksgiving for the food, family gatherings, and chance to reflect on blessings because reflection can bring about new direction and understanding. Practices like daily celebration and reflection can build gratitude. Learn how you can turn your Thanksgiving into Thanks-living and join us on December 7th, 2023 for our "Review Your Year" workshop.

Kevin: Well, hi everyone. Welcome back to a new season of coping. 

Kathy: Yes, today we're pausing our series on rest to have a special Thanksgiving podcast.

Kevin: Yes, we hope that you all are enjoying your Thanksgiving week. If that's when you're listening to this episode. We wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

Kathy: What's your favorite part of Thanksgiving?

Kevin: Good question. Okay, so this is going to surprise you a little bit. My favorite part about Thanksgiving is how much food is made and that it gets spread out over many more meals after the holiday itself. Which -- you know me really well --it's strange because I don't actually like leftovers other times of the year. It's really only Thanksgiving that I enjoy having the same food multiple days after the big feast. 

Kathy: And I'm the opposite. I love leftovers and I love spreading out all my meals. So I'm excited to talk about Thanksgiving, leftovers, pumpkin pie, I'm getting hungry already. 

Kevin: Yes. 

Kathy: Let's get started.

Kevin: So this week we celebrate Thanksgiving and I know it's one of your favorite holidays. Why do you love Thanksgiving so much? Tell me about it. 

Kathy: Yes, I think I love Thanksgiving. Of course, it's always about the food on the foodie. But I think the deeper celebrations of gathering around tables, it is a holiday celebrated by most everyone. I like the inclusive nature of the holiday. And I love the focus on gratitude, celebration, Thanksgiving, and the gifts of this year.

Kevin: I know also that your birthday, especially this year, falls really close to Thanksgiving. And so in our household, it's a really fun time of year where we get to do a lot of celebrations for you and then lead us right into Thanksgiving holiday meal and time with family. 

Kathy: And so let's revisit this concept of the leftovers that we discussed earlier. Talk to me a bit about that. What is this Thanksgiving leftover theory that you have?

Kevin: You know, when I think about Thanksgiving and gathering with friends and family, and food being the centerpiece of that, the thing that gathers us together. And I love that idea that we have one big elaborate feast with friends and family for fellowship, but what we take with us is not just the food and a carryout, to-go bag, but we take with us those memories that shared time together, and then it rolls itself into the rest of the weekend, into the rest of the end of the year. And it's just a, I think, a great opportunity for us to remember that giving thanks doesn't have to be just one time a year, that we should have a practice of giving thanks.

Kathy: Yeah, I really love this. One of my favorite authors Ann Voskamp says that, "our goal is to turn our thanksgiving into thanks-living." And we have done one of our previous podcasts on this, and we had a guest, Anleisha, who told us her story about that. But I think today's podcast, we wanna give some practices that will help turn this Thanksgiving into Thanks-living.

Kathy: The first is celebration. How do you use celebration as a spiritual practice?

Kevin: Yeah, oh, absolutely. Celebration is a big one. So let's start with the definition. Oxford Dictionary tells us that celebration is the action of marking one's pleasure at important events or occasions by engaging in enjoyable and typically social activities. And so we all do this in really natural ways, right? We have our birthdays and anniversaries and, you know, the holidays, it's on our minds, it's on our calendars. We gather and we celebrate these things. I think perhaps this year, more than most, the practice of celebrating in the midst of so much chaos in the world, so much upheaval in our personal lives, celebration may not feel like a natural thing. 

It may not be our natural inclination this year. And so what I want to call to mind is another type of celebration, another type of Thanksgiving in the midst of so much chaos. And I'm reminded of a quote from a dear friend of mine, Father Mark, who always likes to say, "it's always important to balance the bitter with the sweet." And what he means by that is to remember the sweetness of life when life feels especially bitter. And the best way to do that is with a piece of cake, a piece of pie, a little bit of ice cream or some candy, something just to savor and to enjoy in the midst of very unenjoyable times in our lives. 

And so I think maybe this Thanksgiving is where we take time to balance all the bitter in the world with a little bit of sweetness. And that's the food that's on the table, the friends that sit around the table with us and the fellowship that we get to share.

Kathy: Yeah, that's such a wonderful practice, an idea. Speaking from my recent celebration experience of this past week, which was my birthday, it was a great pause in the midst of a very chaotic and difficult month, I would say, to focus on joy and gratitude. And it was uplifting. It didn't seem natural. It didn't seem like, "oh, let's stop and celebrate." But we did anyway. And we were all better as a result. I love Adele Calhoun in her book, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. 

She speaks of celebration as one of those disciplines. And she says, “when we're able to set our hearts on this joy, it reminds us that we can choose how we respond to any particular moment.” When we can set our hearts on joy, that will remind us that we can choose how we can respond to any particular moment. 

Kevin: That's right. If we can choose to celebrate in the midst of chaos, that also teaches us how to respond in times of crisis. So we have this practice of celebration, and we know the importance of celebrating daily and weekly and monthly as we just talked about. What is another practice that we can do to extend thanksgiving to every day of the year? 

Kathy: Sure. The next one we want to discuss is the practice of reflection. So we just talked about celebration. And that is a pause. Reflection is also a pause, but it's the intentional practice of pausing to remember. We are doing the looking back in order to figure out how to move forward. And this could take the form of written, where we're doing like journaling, that sort of thing, or it can be oral where people are, even like if you think about reflection happens in memorial services, where we're doing a reflection back -- 

Kevin: Telling stories.

Kathy: Telling stories. Correct. You and I do a year-end review with our family, where we actually look back.

Kevin: Yeah. So we've developed this booklet, it's called Year in Review, that we do every year and as the kids have gotten older we've included them in this and it's kind of a fun ritual that we do in our family. But basically there's these questions that we look back on the year and talk about and write the answers down and some of the questions that come to mind are like your biggest accomplishment this last year, best new purchase -- 

Kathy: Favorite movie, best vacation --

Kevin: Best new hotel, best new restaurant, things like that. 

Kathy: Hardest challenge.

Kevin: Yeah, there's a lot of really good questions to reflect on and to remember and I'm always surprised at the end of the year, the amount of things that we did. The year goes by so fast and I think I have developed a practice of forgetting in order to cope with all of the challenges in life. But when we choose to reflect and then remember the good things in the midst of all the hard things that have happened, it's always such a meaningful practice. And I always feel like the year feels a little bit more meaningful because we take that time together as a family.

Kathy: Yeah, I love what you said about the forgetting part, right? So much is happening. We need the pause. And that reminds me of Emily Freeman's quote, where she says, "the problem isn't that we aren't learning. The problem is that we forget." So I think what happens is we're just going 24-7. And we're consuming a lot and we're never pausing to digest it and then also figure out what we have learned. 

Kevin: Right.

Kathy: So if we don't take these pauses for reflection, we're not making the most of the opportunities that come our way when we can't reflect back on that. They just are just sort of like passing us by. So let's just say that we go through the whole we go through a year, years, not journaling or making note of or highlighting things. Then we turn around and years have passed and we're like, what did we even do? And what are we doing it for?

Kevin: I know for me, especially in my line of work, I go from one crisis to the next. And the next thing you know, you look up and it's like the end of the year or like the middle of the year. And I'm like, wait, how did that happen? And what I hear you saying is that reflection helps get the control back of the time that feels like it slips away so quickly. But more than that, it's an opportunity to learn and to grow from all of our experiences so that we're living life, not just trying to cope and survive and deal with all the problems that come our way. We can actually take some of the control back, some of the slow the time down. just a little bit through taking that time to reflect.

Kathy: It lifts us out of reflection, will lift us out of survival into significance. 

Kevin: Yeah, that's really good. So how do we do that though? Like life is chaotic, there are hard things. What does that look like to take time to reflect?

Kathy: Yeah, so we can do a daily reflection practice, the practice of the examin, some of you may be familiar with, and that is a daily practice of looking back on your day. You're asking the questions, basically what happened in my day today? And where was I present? Where was I not? Oh, what happened at that moment? It's such a good reflection practice to do that daily. And then you can also go on to do this, of course, weekly and monthly. And it is just about stopping, pausing, recognizing the gifts of these days.

Kevin: Yeah, so in chaplaincy we have this philosophy "Action Reflection Action", meaning with everything that you do, especially when you're first learning like clinical pastoral education, that everything that you do, you take time to reflect, to learn from and to improve the practice. But it's certainly a philosophy that extends beyond a residency into a full-time chaplain role, that you're taking time to reflect, to make meaning, and to improve your practices going forward. And I think for me, reflection is simply looking in the mirror. And instead of just seeing yourself in that reflection, you get to see your soul. And so reflection can be something that we do looking backwards, because a mirror only reflects backwards, it doesn't reflect forwards. But when we look backwards, that's the way that we're able to make sense of where we've come from, so we have a better idea of where we want to go.

Kathy: Excellent. So, to sum it all up, we have some celebration and reflection practices that we're all going to begin to utilize. We hope that this has given you some small steps toward having thanks -living this year, instead of just Thanksgiving. And speaking of reflection, we have our annual Review Your Year workshop coming up on December 7th. Everyone is invited to this. It is a time of celebration and reflection, where we get to look back on this year, all that it brought to us. We talk about our word that we had, and we're also setting an intention. So if you are interested in that, please sign up on our website at BeWellResourcesLA.com, and we'd love to have you. To close our time today, Kevin:, would you lead us in a Thanksgiving meditation?

Kevin: Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. 

Meditation: We're going to start with me asking just a few questions that I'd like you to reflect on. If you want to write your answers down, that'd be great, but if not, you can just call them to mind as well. So the first question is, what are two attributes of God you appreciate most today? 

The next question is, what's one thing you're celebrating today? The next question, what's one thing you're reflecting on today? And finally, name three things you're most grateful for today. So this meditation is a fill in the blank blessing. 

As I read this blessing, reflect on these things that you're grateful for. And when I pause, fill in your own words to complete the blessing. Let's pray. God, thank you for being _________. Today, I will choose to celebrate __________. 

Because I see this as a gift from you. Today, I will take time to reflect on __________. Because I'd like to remember __________. I thank you for all the blessings in my life, but today, I'm most grateful for these three. 

The first is _________. The second is _________. And finally _________. And so I conclude by simply saying, "thank you."

To finish out Season 3 of "Coping", Kevin leads you through a simple prayer for rest by Kate Bowler. We hope it comforts you every time you hear it.

Kevin: This blessing of rest is from author Kate Bowler:

Oh God, again, I lie here awake, too tired, too restless for sleep to come. How will I ever get through tomorrow? Oh God, bring peace to my mind and body, and blanket me in the heaviness of slumber. Blessed are we still awake in night's loud darkness who say, oh God, help me. You know the state I'm in. My mind is a runaway train and my body It's captive. You know all that troubles me. Take hold of me. Study the racing of my heart. Breathe fresh comfort through the whole of my being. Wrap me in the secure knowledge of your love. Remind me that tomorrow's worries can wait because tonight has enough of its own. Blessed are we who wait in the silence, who remember that darkness is not dark to you. Who pray, oh God, receive me. Gather me. Strengthen me. Sustain me. And free me to tell you everything. Bless our we who listen in the quiet. for you to breathe life into all that is spent and gone, filling mind and soul and body with hope, and the beauty of your peace that passes all understanding gentle as the dawn. Welcome one sweet thought. Follow it until it grows into genuine gratitude. Rest there. Amen.

In the final episode for Season 3 of “Coping”, Kathy and Kevin have a dialogue where they discuss the seven types of rest outlined in Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith's book, “Sacred Rest”. Kathy and Kevin go into depth on each type of rest, explaining what it means and giving examples of how to practice it. They emphasize being intentional about rest, assessing your life to see where you most lack rest, starting with small rest practices, involving accountability partners, and recognizing rest as essential to wellbeing and thriving in all areas of life. The episode concludes with a beautiful blessing for rest.

To take Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith’s rest quiz: https://www.restquiz.com/quiz/rest-quiz-test/

Kevin: Hi everyone, welcome back for another episode of "Coping". 

Kathy: Yes, I'm so excited to begin a new series today, but before that, we want to say that this is our last episode of this season.

Kevin: That's right, this is the end of season three. We've had three great seasons of Coping. Kathy, thank you so much for joining me this last season. It's been really fun to have this time to talk with you every month. It's been really nice.

Kathy: It has been. So, this season, to recap what we've done is we've taken listeners through some of the retreats and journeys that our community has been through. So we began talking about fear and anxiety and some tools for that. 

In the spring, if you recall, we just finished up this series on grief and loss. We hope that's been really beneficial. And we're now in the midst of a season where we're learning about a very important topic, rest. 

Kevin: That's right. Man, we've covered so much this year. As we launch into this new series and new season starting next month, when we think about the word rest, what are some of the ideas that come to mind for you, Kathy:? 

Kathy: Yes. So I think that rest is very complicated. What happens is a lot of times I hear people say, "I'm getting my eight hours of sleep. I don't understand why when I wake up in the morning, I'm still so exhausted." And I totally relate to that personally as well.

Kevin: Yeah. And for me, I'd say it's when you lay down to go to sleep at night after a long and busy and exhausting day, and then you can't fall asleep. Clearly, I'm tired, but maybe I'm not just physically tired. That sleep isn't the kind of rest that I'm needing. Maybe there's other kinds of rest that I'm lacking. 

Kathy: Yes. And we're so excited to share with you this series on rest. So let's get started. 

Kevin: So back to our question: Why aren't we feeling rested after a full night's sleep? Or why can't we fall asleep after a really long and hard exhausting day?

Kathy: Yes, excellent question. So one of our favorite authors is Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith. Her book is called, "Sacred Rest". And one of her basic premises is that there are seven different kinds of rest. Seven. 

Kevin: Seven kinds of rest. That sounds like a lot of rest that we might be missing out on. 

Kathy: Yes, definitely. And she begins the chapter talking about physical rest, which is the first kind, the one that we know about the eight hours sleep, the naps, active and passive rest is what she begins with. 

Kevin: That's so good. One of the things that stands out to me having read this book and knowing her material is the two different kinds of rest, right? The active and the passive. We often think about rest in terms of laying down to sleep, but exercise – going for a run at the end of a long exhausting day can be rest and rejuvenating as well. 

Kathy: Yes, and active rest as well --for those of you who aren't athletic like myself-- there are ways stretching, breathing, and one of my favorites she talks about is taking a bath, is actually part of active rest. 

Kevin: Oh, that's cool. I never thought about it that way. So what about these other kinds of rest? What's the next kind of rest that she talks about?

Kathy: Yes. So the one that we are just discussing in our recent course right now is mental rest. And this is defined as the ability to quiet cerebral chatter and focus on things that matter. Does that resonate with you?

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, part of the reason why I can't fall asleep at night is because of all of the thoughts, conversations, feelings of the day are scrambled in my head. And it's often the time of the day that I remember all the things that I've forgotten and I pull out my phone, I keep adding things to my list of things I need to do. There's just so much going on in my brain that I can't shut it off. There's like an on switch and it's stuck in the on position.

Kathy: Yes, she tells the story in the book in this chapter about how her desk, she talks about her desk and how it's like littered with a whole bunch of things and how our cluttered home spaces are very related to our cluttered minds. And we have to go through the process of decluttering our mind and mental spaces, not just our physical spaces. So those of us who -- this is not me -- obsessed with decluttering my home and spaces, I'm more obsessed with decluttering my mental spaces, constantly putting things in order, even in digital spaces so that my mental space is clear as well. 

Kevin: That's so good. I love that visual of things being cluttered. And what I'm recognizing as we're talking is that when you lay your head down at night to go to sleep, that's not the time to start decluttering your mind. That's the time to be doing a different kind of rest. So maybe building up in a practice of decluttering as you're winding down your night, rather than going from working on your computer, sending emails and then shutting it down, closing the lights off and then trying to go to sleep. Like, there needs to be a wind down process. Yeah, that's good.

Kathy: And one of the ones that, one of the techniques that we've talked about is this idea of building an on-ramp to sleep. Instead of thinking of our rest and our sleep as an on and off switch, instead thinking about it as a way to build the on-ramp. Like, for those of you who are parents out there and when we had young children, we built in at least three hours before we thought they were actually gonna fall asleep. Why do we think that we as adults can automatically when our alarm goes off or the bedtime reminder goes off that all of a sudden we're going to go to sleep? Our bodies don't work that way.

Kevin: Yeah, that's so true. This is true for kids, true for adults for sure. And our next kind of rest is emotional rest. And she describes emotional rest as the freedom to authentically express feelings and eliminate, this is important, people pleasing behaviors. By show of hands, how many of you listening is guilty of people pleasing? My hand is raised. This is something that I struggle with a lot. And certainly one of the things that keeps me up at night, thinking about all of my negative interactions during the day and all the things that I could have done to win somebody over, emotional rest is definitely needed in my life from all the people pleasing. What else, what other insight do you have about this kind of rest?

Kathy: So she also discusses this idea and I think you've talked about it before, is that we sort of have an emotional tank of what we can offer. And sometimes when we come in contact with people who are, let's say challenging, let's say difficult, let's say a handful. Because of their anxious energy, because of their pain, their emotional issues, they require a lot of our emotional investment. And if we find ourselves in places with these types of people, often, we are draining our emotional energy and not having the correct boundaries is what's making our emotional rest tanks deplete very, very quickly. 

Kevin: Yeah, definitely. That's so true. And what I'm learning from her work is that a lot of these rest practices are building on one another so that if you find yourself stuck in people pleasing behavior, it's probably because you're exhausted in some of the other areas. And when you begin to practice really good physical rest, better mental rest, then this emotional rest becomes a little bit easier because you have that margin, you have that boundary for yourself to make good decisions and to discern when it is that you're seeking after people pleasing as a way of affirming and making you feel better getting that endorphin kick, right? 

Kathy: Another area that she talks about with emotional rest, I think is key, is related to our self -talk. During this week, we are exploring this idea of how do we talk to ourselves? Are we building ourselves up emotionally? Are we allowing ourselves to feel our feelings? Are we stuffing. In our last grief podcast, remember, we talked about the stuffers and the sharers? That whole emotional exchange is very healthy if we're doing that in a healthy way. But if we're not in tune with our emotions and we're also not giving ourselves permission because we're constantly beating ourselves up, that's also depleting our emotional rest.

Kevin: Yeah, that's so good. What I wanna do is jump to one of these other kinds of rest. I think it's very much related to this emotional rest and what you just shared. And that's creative rest. What does she say about creative rest?

Kathy: I love this one. This is one of my favorite ones. In the first time I read the book many years ago, creative rest is really the experience of allowing beauty to inspire awe and to liberate wonder. That's her quote. 

Kevin: I love that.

Kathy: To inspire awe and liberate wonder. Well, it sounds beautiful, but if we think about what that looks like in our lives, I know specifically if I think about during the time of COVID, I was really missing being able to be out and see beautiful things and experience beautiful experiences. So concerts, for me, it's live theater. It was very, very difficult to not be able to be in a place that would -- places and spaces -- to evoke the beauty and the art of life.

Kevin: That's so good. And I would say for working professionals who find themselves with those mental writing blocks or if you're a student and you're just like, "if I have a student, have to write one more word on one more paper I think I'm going to die." You probably are in need of creative rest. Those mental blocks that interfere with your ability to work is because you're lacking inspiration and awe. And I know it sounds counterintuitive, but in those times that you're stuck with the work that you have to get done, going and participating in some type of creative rest can be the very thing that unlocks those mental blocks for you. 

So quite literally getting up from your work, going outside into the natural beauty of the world, going into nature --

Kathy: Listening to music --

Kevin: Taking a vacation, watching a movie. All of those things can inspire you and spark in you the kind of rest that you're needing. And again, although it's counterintuitive walking away from your work, it'd be the thing that brings you back to your work much more productive, much more rested and filled, and with the ability to complete the tasks that are in front of you. 

Kathy: Right. I think one of the things that...When we discuss this week, we're gonna talk about is what we're consuming, is that giving us creative rest? Sometimes we are doing it to numb ourselves, or we're like, "oh, we need to watch that program because everyone's watching it." But the creative rest is very important again like we've been saying with all these rest to be super intentional.

Kevin: Yeah, I think that that's such an important point about intentionality, right? There's nothing wrong with scrolling Instagram. There's nothing wrong with watching YouTube There's nothing wrong with playing video games. It's about setting that as an intentional practice of rest. When you find yourself just scrolling aimlessly through Instagram or you just have the TV on in the background and you're not intentionally using it as a practice of rest, it can be numbing and then you're really not doing anything intentional and not really filling up your tank. You're just numbing yourself from all the exhaustion of the day and it's not gonna have the benefit that's intended. So I think everything in moderation, but also everything with intention, too.

Kathy: Correct. Yes, for sure, and that brings me -- we talk about YouTube Instagram; she mentions another kind of rest. Let's talk about that: the opportunity to downgrade the endless onslaught of sensory input received from electronics, fragrances and background noise. As you mentioned the mindless scrolling this is called sensory rest. We all know we can benefit from unplugging.

Kevin: Yep.

Kathy: What do you think about that?

Kevin: Yeah, for sure. We live in such an over-sensitized world from our cell phones in our pockets our Apple watches on our wrist The TVs that are on, you know 24-7 in our room, the news that goes 24-7, all of the alerts that we're getting. Working in the hospital this is especially true. I talk to the staff often about how you know, you sit at a computer all day documenting, but then you have the IV pump that's beeping, you have the codes that are being called overhead you have your your avaya phone that's ringing with the doctor that needs to put in orders, you hear the helicopter landing you have the ambulances that are sirens are going off down the street. There's just so much sensory overload in the hospital setting -- I think this is true in many workplaces -- and then when you go on your break to take a break, what do you do? You open up your phone and you scroll Instagram. You're there being hit by this blue screen off your phone and no wonder we're feeling so exhausted. We have all of this sensory -- all of our senses being triggered throughout the entire day and then as a break we do more things that are heightening our sensory receptors. So, I think of all of the rest practices, this sensory rest is the one that has been most transformative for me. 

Kathy: Right. What she says here is what we really need to do is get back to the minimal -- the basics, not the minimal -- the basics. Let's get back to the basics. What does that mean? That means that we have five senses. They're now completely overloaded 24-7 and so some of the practices related to sensory rest are not just turning down and turning off notifications or putting on screen time on your phones or powering down your phone at night. Those are all excellent, but one of the techniques for sensory rest is to get back in touch with the five senses. For example, one of the suggestions we had this week related to mental rest which goes also to sensory rest is to do a practice called mindful walking, where you just go on a walk and you are gonna use your five senses without devices. Unplug from the headphones or the AirPods and walk quietly thinking about finding one thing you can see, one thing you can touch, one thing you can hear, one thing you can smell --

Kevin: That's really good -- 

Kathy: And getting back to the basics of what our senses were intended for.

Kevin: Yeah, we talk about decluttering with it as it relates to the senses. We're talking about desensitizing or Like re -regulating ourselves when we get so unregulated by all the senses in the world. And I think there's something to say about the organic senses, the things that come from nature versus the electronic manufacturer. Senses that are triggering us. 

Kathy: Absolutely.

Kevin: Our body needs to be regulated to those organic senses. Those are organic sensory output as opposed to how we are typically regulated is by all these manufactured senses.

Kathy: Yes, this is a huge one. This is a big one: technology. 

Kevin: Yeah, for sure. I think that leads us perfectly to this next rest practice, and that's spiritual rest. Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith describes spiritual rest as the capacity to experience God in all things and to recline in the knowledge of the Holy. And I would even extend this definition of God to higher power, wherever your meaning comes from, tapping into that and the knowledge of the Holy, the thing that transcends us all. And the thing that sets us apart from all other creation is our ability to be aware of things that are greater than ourselves, to be very meta about things. 

And if we're not taking time to tap into that part of us that's spiritual, that spiritual side of us, we are living in survival mode. And so here we see ourselves needing spiritual rest as part of our holistic approach to well-being. 

Kathy: Very often when I meet with students I have students say, "I'm looking for significance. I'm looking to make a meaningful contribution to the world. I'm attempting to figure out why I am here." And I think these are all spiritual rest questions as we attempt to connect back to the essence of who we are and taking care of our souls. What does soul care look like? And it's not about a religion. It's about the essence of who we are. 

Kevin: Yeah. And I would say if you're listening today and you're like, well, I'm not a faith-filled person. I didn't grow up going to church or I used to go to church, but it's not really my thing anymore. We have to recognize that regardless of our faith background, of our belief system, we are all spiritual beings. And so whatever spirituality looks like for you, we need to build a practice of rest as it relates to our spirituality. And I would even go as far as to say, if you are somebody who's struggling with your spiritual life and you want to grow your spiritual life, but you're hitting a lot of roadblocks, it's possibly that you're exhausted in all the other six areas. And that's the thing that's preventing you from flourishing and blossoming your spiritual life. And so if you wanna grow your spiritual life and you've hit a lot of roadblocks along the way, focus on these other rest practices, the other six. 

I assure you, you will begin to see some flourishing in your spiritual life. You'll have the space to start to contemplate the things that are bigger than yourself, to start to tap back into your values and your beliefs once you can declutter some of the other areas. And I'll speak now to those that are faithful people. If you find yourself going to church every single Sunday, you serve your community as part of your faith practice and you are somebody who serves in your church and you're very involved, all of that's really wonderful. But I want you to feel the challenge of asking yourself if those practices of faith, of your spirituality, are giving you rest. Because sometimes those of us that work in full-time ministry need a sabbatical as well. 

We need to take a break away from the routine, from the schedule, from all of our commitments to connect with God. So where is your spiritual rest? If your daily practice, your weekly practice is to be serving and to be very involved in your church, what would it look like for you to take a rest from that and to connect with God on a different level? 

Kathy: Yes, very, very, very important. Something that we haven't had time for, just like everything else that we're talking about today.

Kevin: Have to carve out the time for it.

Kathy: And finally, the last rest that she describes is something called social rest. Social rest is the wisdom to recognize relationships that revive from ones that exhaust and how to limit exposure to toxic people. 

Kevin: I love that she is brave and mentions toxic people as it relates to rest. I struggled at first with this idea of calling out toxic people. We're supposed to be loving and understanding and, you know, love our enemies and all of that. But I think it's, as I've grown in my spirituality, I've recognized that it takes a certain level of faith to have the discernment to recognize who in your life is a toxic person. And what I mean by toxic is that there's somebody that's going to be draining you. If you are not preparing ahead of time for those kinds of interactions with people who are toxic in your life, you're not able to support them. You're not able to serve them and to be present to them. If you are clumping everybody in your life together as the same person and the same interaction, you're not going to be able to meet them where they're at with what the needs that they have that they're presenting to you. 

And so in faith, we discern the different kinds of people in our life, the different kinds of relationships that we have, and when we recognize toxic people that we have to interact with because of work or they're in our families, limiting those interactions or being mindful of them as we go into them. We've talked about attentive awareness in the past. Having that pre-attentive awareness is going to be so important to maintain our stores of rest, but also to be present to them, to be able to show up for those people when we have to as well. 

Kathy: We have two comments about that. I think it's very crucial what you said as a person of faith. The very famous pair that has written the Boundary series, Cloud and Townsend, have a book called, "Safe People". I think this is key because they address this ongoing issue for people of faith who have a hard time saying, oh, this person is toxic, where we're taught that everybody is good or we should treat everyone fairly. 

So that it's an excellent resource. “Safe People”, Cloud and Townsend and look it up. We use it in our community a lot. 

Kevin: It's really good. 

Kathy: The second thing I would say what I often say when people say, oh, "I have a hard time" is -- especially people of faith. -- again, we're speaking to that group right now. Jesus had very clear boundaries with toxic people. You see this in scripture, even to the point where he does not speak and refuses to give any words to his perpetrators. And we see clear boundaries against the confrontation, but then also giving away his emotional energy to literally not throwing pearls to swine, as he says in scripture.

Kevin: Yeah, that's so good. And what I really like about Dr. Saundra Dalton's definition within this chapter, this type of rest. She talks about toxic people as we're describing, but she also uses this other term. She describes energy vampires. And I love that so much, because I feel like even if the people in your life are not toxic, but they are the people who are mostly taking rather than giving, even that awareness can be really important. So when you're on the way home, on your commute, after a really long, busy day, maybe not call the energy vampire. Maybe you call the energy vampire on the weekend where you're feeling filled and you enjoy the fun that they can be, but maybe they're not the person you call when your energy stores are low, right? 

Kathy: I wanna know what the Halloween costume for that looks like!

Kevin: Energy vampire, oh my gosh, I can imagine what that looks like. But I feel like just such an important reminder of these two types of people in our life. 

Kathy: Yes, absolutely, very wise words. Because as we're ending on this last one, it's very key. Our surgeon general this year, Vivek Murthy, released a report in May. I don't know if you all are familiar, you heard about this. This is a very significant finding. And basically the report says is that there's an epidemic, and he used the word epidemic of loneliness in our country. And that this is very detrimental, not only to the fabric of our nation, but also to the health of people. 

So the studies have shown that people who do not have connection, do not have community, are lacking social rest. And that is so important for us to try to figure out the places where we can be heard, seen, valued, we find belonging, and we find connection. 

Kevin: Yeah, that's so important. There is an epidemic of loneliness. I know I have suffered from that at times, even in all the places that I am connected. So I think one big step in well-being and wholeness as it relates to good mental health is all these rest practices. 

Kathy: Yes. And so we've talked about the seven rest practices. My question is, "what do we do now? Like, how do we get to the next steps of this?"

Kevin: I think we do an assessment on ourselves. And as we think about these seven rest practices, what's the one that resonates most for you? What's the one area that you feel like you're lacking the most? I would say start there. What works for you as it relates to these rest practices? Yeah, I think that that's true. There will be a link to a little, a quiz that Dr. Smith gives in our podcast links. So go ahead and take that quiz. And then come up with a list of very simple practices that you can do. each week to fill up those tanks. And a little goes a really, really long way is what we're finding with our community as they practice this. So be encouraged that it does take time. It's not an overnight fix, but small but steady wins the race here with the rest. 

Kevin: Yeah, and I would even just say to end: find somebody else, a close friend, a trusted ally, who can join you in that rest practice. Sometimes when we have that accountability in that partnership, somebody joining in with us with a particular kind of rest, it makes it that much more enjoyable.

Kathy: So we just want to say thank you so much for joining us this season. We've enjoyed having these conversations and our hope is that it has brought you some more tools for wellness. And we want to end as a gift to you the end of the season, a blessing of rest that will also be kicking off next year's podcast. And Kevin:'s going to read that. So wherever you are today, we want to offer blessings to you.

Kevin: This blessing of rest is from author Kate Bowler:

Oh God, again, I lie here awake, too tired, too restless for sleep to come. How will I ever get through tomorrow? Oh God, bring peace to my mind and body, and blanket me in the heaviness of slumber. Blessed are we still awake in night's loud darkness who say, oh God, help me. You know the state I'm in. My mind is a runaway train and my body It's captive. You know all that troubles me. Take hold of me. Study the racing of my heart. Breathe fresh comfort through the whole of my being. Wrap me in the secure knowledge of your love. Remind me that tomorrow's worries can wait because tonight has enough of its own. Blessed are we who wait in the silence, who remember that darkness is not dark to you. Who pray, oh God, receive me. Gather me. Strengthen me. Sustain me. And free me to tell you everything. Bless our we who listen in the quiet. for you to breathe life into all that is spent and gone, filling mind and soul and body with hope, and the beauty of your peace that passes all understanding gentle as the dawn. Welcome one sweet thought. Follow it until it grows into genuine gratitude. Rest there. Amen.

In this guided meditation, Kathy invites listeners to pause and reflect on a significant loss in their lives. You are encouraged to explore the emotions tied to this loss, acknowledging feelings of sadness, anger, or fear. Be at peace knowing that you are not alone in your journey.

Kathy: We wanted to give you some time right now to think through your feelings as related to your grief. So would you pause with me a moment? Take a few moments to pause. And I want you to narrow in on one particular loss for this exercise.

Which loss is most prominent for you right now in your life? I want you to begin to think now how it makes you feel. Why is the loss so heavy for you? Does the loss make you feel sad, angry, fearful? 

Sit with your loss for a moment and think about the main feelings that arise for you. It's okay to have more than one feeling as you think on this loss. you Finally, give yourself permission to sit with the loss and the feelings that come up for you. 

If you need extra support and help with this process, feel free to reach out to us at Be Well, and most of all know that you're not alone. Thanks so much for joining us for this conversation, and whatever you may be coping with today, blessings to you.