Christina: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Moderate Catholic, where we discuss topics that deepen faith and inspire action. I am your host, Christina Gebel, and this is Episode 8: Bonus: Overcoming Acedia with Carly Caminiti. So, we have a very special person here with us today to help us with this bonus episode of overcoming acedia, and it is my great pleasure to introduce Carly Caminiti, who is a certified executive coach, and Carly and I know each other because we overlapped for several years in Boston. We were part of the same parish. We even did some parish council years together and also share in common that we have both worked in the public health field.
Clearly, we were meant to know [00:01:00] each other, hang out, and our Catholic faith was one of the gems of how we both came to know each other and also valued each other’s friendship. So, Carly, welcome.
Carly Caminiti: Thank you. Happy to be here. And you forgot that we also have the same alma mater college, even though we didn’t know each other.
Christina: Yes.
Carly Caminiti: We probably passed each other down the hallways, down the sidewalks…
Christina: Yes, yes, yes. I did forget that because. We didn’t know each other at the time, and we only made that realization, but we have the same beloved Jesuit University alma mater for our undergrad, so
Carly Caminiti: Woo-hoo!
Christina: The similarities are endless. So, Carly, thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule today to sit here and be with us. You and I have talked a little bit outside of this episode [00:02:00] about acedia and kind of what we’re trying to do and the topic that we’re gonna talk about today with you is so appropriate to overcoming Acedia.
Before we get into that, I just want to ask you a little bit about how you’ve taken the work that you do as an executive coach and integrated faith and spirituality into that.
Carly Caminiti: Honestly, it kind of integrates itself because when people have views about themselves or things about themselves that they wanna change, it almost certainly comes down to who they are and how they wanna be.
So, if that person has any sort of spiritual life whatsoever, then it comes up and out during our sessions together. I don’t necessarily market myself as a Catholic executive coach per se, but I would say that it’s very, very interesting how many times it comes up with folks that I work with about how connected their faith is to how they feel about [00:03:00] themselves.
It’s a very easy combination when you’re working with people who are trying to reach their goals, and then they are the ones who make the connection to God, to their faith, and to how they wanna live their lives.
Christina: That’s, that’s incredible. And just hearing you speak I did have a curious question. Does it usually come up in a positive sense in terms of how they feel about themselves?
Carly Caminiti: I would say that more often than not, it’s just people mention that they believe in God and/or they tell me what kind of faith that they have. Part of the things that we’re gonna talk about today are really how do does our faith relate to how we view ourselves, and how are we shaped by those views. And, how then, can we show up better in the world today based on exactly who we wanna be and what kind of example we wanna follow. So, yes and no.
Christina: Beautiful. Beautiful.
Carly Caminiti: And Christina, I wanna ask you if you could read a prayer that I [00:04:00] adapted that’s gonna sound familiar to you, because it’s adapted from the prayer of St. Francis. But, I would like just for you to read it and then kind of think about how it feels as you read it.
Christina: Sure. I would love to. All right.
Prayer of St. Francis (Adapted by Carly Caminiti)
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is self-hatred,
Let me bring your love.
Where there is self-injury,
Your pardon, Lord.
And where there’s self-doubt,
True faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is self-despair in life,
Let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness,
Only light.
Where there’s sadness,
Ever joy.
Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
In giving of [00:05:00] ourselves that we receive,
And in dying, that we’re born to eternal life.
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Wow.
Carly Caminiti: So, clearly there were just a few adaptations by adding the word “self” in there. How did that land for you?
Christina: It is incredible because I think it flowed so seamlessly that it was almost like it was meant to be there.
Carly Caminiti: Mm.
Christina: You know, I’ve never said this prayer and thought to myself, oh, when I say where there is hatred, that also includes self-hatred, where I say there’s [00:06:00] injury, self-injury, self-doubt…I’ve never thought of that, hearing the prayer prior to now, but it fits so easily into it.
Carly Caminiti: Yeah, it’s easy when we listen to that prayer to externalize it, but we don’t often, in my case, at least, look at this prayer as something that has to do with ourselves. Even something as simple as self-doubt and how can we change that.
And this is where to kind of answer your question from earlier and connect it to what I’m doing now. When I think about coaching, it has to do with how people are viewing their own being. So, our being comes from God, and yet imposter syndrome and burnout and self-doubt and self-hatred and all these things tend to get in the way of how we see ourselves. There’s a disconnect between what people are feeling versus what our faith is telling us.
Christina: [00:07:00] Yes, yes. That is why I was so excited for you to come on the show and talk about this.
Because one of the insidious ways that acedia works, is by telling us lies about ourselves as created and beloved children of God. And if we have a calling put on our heart, like a true calling, a true purpose that God put us here to do, one of the ways the False Spirit tries to thwart that is by telling us that we’re not good enough. By instilling self-doubt.
So, we start to think to ourselves, oh, well who am I to be a great person? Or who am I to be the one to fulfill this mission, this God given calling here on earth? The false spirit loves that because it gets us off [00:08:00] track.
I really think the point you’re making is salient, and it fits right into the strategies that we need to overcome this idea of acedia. And actually, you have a really interesting story about how you came to feel this in your own life. Do you mind sharing that?
Carly Caminiti: Sure. Yeah. So, there was this place called Georgetown Cupcake in Boston, and it was on Newbury Street for many, many years.
I don’t know how long it was there, but one of their main things is that they gave away 400 free cupcakes a day. And in order for you to know the passcode for the free cupcake of the day, you had to go to Twitter in the morning at 10 o’clock or whatever time it was in order to get that code, and all you had to do is go up to the cashier and say the code.
So, I went one day with my friend Paul, and on the way there I realized I had [00:09:00] forgotten to look at the Twitter passcode. And so, I asked him what the code was and he said it’s, “I am awesome.” And I laughed and I was like, oh, that’s a funny one. And so, then we got inside the store, went up to the cash register and I said to the cashier, “Hey, I’m awesome,” and the cashier just kind of smiled at me and I thought he didn’t hear me, and so I just said it a little bit louder.
“Hey, I’m awesome,” I said, and still he was like, okay, can I help you? You know, he just kind of gave me this look. And so, then for a third time, because you have to have them hear you say, what this passcode is, so for a third time I said, “Hey, I’m awesome!” Like very intentionally.
And at that point, my friend Paul starts cracking up, the cashier starts cracking up. And that’s when I realized that that was not the passcode. That was just something that my friend had told me was the passcode. So why am I telling you this story and why does it relate to what you just said?
It’s because those three words are words [00:10:00] that people have a hard time with to be able to say, “Hey, I’m awesome.” It causes us to laugh. Because when we start to think about ourselves as awesome, that means that we are good enough. That means that we don’t need to be more or do more or say more.
That means that we’re already awesome. Especially people who don’t feel that way about themselves. To be able to verbalize that they’re awesome is something that is actually really difficult for them. To me, in my work, feels like we’re doing a disservice to ourselves and to our Creator.
Because if we are getting into this mindset of saying, “I’m not good enough,” how do we move past it?
Christina: Yeah, that is the question. And I love that story because it’s both funny, because I think we could all see ourselves having a similar reaction and it’s also very kind of [00:11:00] humbling, you know? Like to really sit there and unpack, well, why do I think this is so funny to say?
And it really, again, goes back to those feelings of acedia and those tactics of the False Spirit that to really know our worth, to really sit there and say, yes, I am awesome, without laughing, without making a joke or whatever, is really to connect with God because, as the song goes, “Our God is an awesome God.”
So, if God’s awesome, and we’re made in God’s own image, then we must be too, right? I would love to cue that song if I had the rights to it, but maybe another day. So, I really love that because it was a small moment, but it was so formative and profound for you.
Carly Caminiti: Yeah, it was, and I think that it just speaks to exactly what you’re saying, like, why is it funny? And if we truly believe that we [00:12:00] have the Divine inside of us, then why can we not say we’re awesome? Not from a place of ego, but from a place of just facts.
Christina: Yeah.
Carly Caminiti: You know?
Christina: Yeah. Absolutely. I love that. And you have taken this even further and said, okay, well if we’re created in His image and we’re awesome, then we have the things available to us to overcome this False Spirit type-mentality. Can you say a little bit more about that?
Carly Caminiti: Well, if you think about when Jesus was roaming around, it’s not like He had a whole bunch of smart technology to do things with, right? Like, it was pretty simple back then. And so that was our example, is somebody who was living in a completely different time with not the same type of resources, not the same technology, and He somehow figured it out how with His own body, I mean, He came here, Ge was [00:13:00] sent here to be like us, to be fully human, to be fully divine. That, to me, and this is me just saying my own conclusion of that, is that that is enough.
Christina: Mm.
Carly Caminiti: He didn’t have some sort of rule book textbook say, this is how you survive as a human. He used what he had, and he did things with that, a.k.a., doing things with His own body. So, I’ll introduce a couple different kind of methodologies today, but one of the things I wanted to talk about was our breath.
Our breath is the most basic thing that we have. We can go days without food. We can go days without water, but we cannot go days without breathing. So, this is a tool. We might not think about it like that, but it is a tool to be able to regulate how we’re breathing. Normally, we’re just completely not conscious of it, but what happens when we slow things down or speed things up with our breath [00:14:00] is we’re sending other signals to our brain to help our nervous system calm down.
One of the types of breathing is called fire breathing. If you’ve done yoga, you might have heard of fire breath before. That’s where I’ve seen it before, in practicing it for long periods of time, something changes. We’re gonna just do it. I’m gonna ask you, Christina, to do it with me for a minute that I’ll put on the clock and figure out if this is something that changes your energy or not,
The way that fire breathing works is all you need to do is breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, and it’s about a half a second each. So let me see if you can hear this when I’m doing it, it’s fast.
[sound of fire breathing]
[00:15:00] Okay. So, it’s fast. It’s in through your nose and out through your nose, and it’s about half a second each. So why don’t you try it with me now? Ready in 3, 2, 1…Alright, do you get the hang of it?
Christina: Yes. Yes. I think I got it. Okay,
Carly Caminiti: Great. Let’s put a minute on the clock, and we’re gonna just try this together. It will feel like a long time, so if you start to feel like you can’t do it anymore, it’s okay.
Just return to your regular breathing and breathe normally and just kind of sit there. If you feel like you can do it, then keep pushing through it. If it’s uncomfortable, keep doing it. If it hurts, then stop. That’s really kind of the rules with this. You got it.
Christina: I got it. I’m ready.
Carly Caminiti: All right, let’s go.[00:16:00] [fire breathing exercises begins]
And while you’re doing this, keep your eyes closed and really just focus on your abdomen while you breathe. You can even put your hand on your abs while you’re moving in and out and kind of pull your belly button towards your spine every time you exhale. And each time that you inhale and exhale, you should be putting about the same amount of force into that.
So really just give it your all. Keep going. We’re almost there. And see how it feels inside of your body. See if you can feel some tension releasing or some sort of sensation moving around. Whatever that thing is, you’ve got this. Keep going. All right, and that’s a minute. Go ahead and stop. Return to your normal breathing.
Christina: Woo. Woo. I feel like I just went to a spin class, but I actually wasn’t spinning.
Carly Caminiti: Those are the best [00:17:00] kind, right?
Yeah. So, tell me what, just close your eyes for a second, and tell me what kind of sensations you’re feeling inside of your body.
Christina: Well, I definitely feel way more alert. I feel a little bit of a jittery energy, but not necessarily in a bad way. I think just really alert, like really present.
Like when I was putting my hand on the belly and really feeling how the breath was going in and out, like you were saying with the belly button. That’s all I could think about was just breathing, you know.
Carly Caminiti: Yes. What you just said is actually the biggest point is that that’s all you could think about.
So, we, our minds, really can’t think about two things at the same time fully. So if you are experiencing a negative situation at work [00:18:00] or if you are about ready to go into a meeting that you aren’t excited about going into, or if your partner says something that ticks you off or your kids didn’t do something that they were supposed to do, instead of giving your energy to that negative thing, you could take this minute and do fire breathing.
And if it’s more than a minute, even better. If it’s 15 minutes, amazing. If you can dance while you do it, if you can move around the room, if you can close your eyes, if you can use something to cover your eyes, all of that will add to the experience because when we shut off our visual stimulation of what we can see around us, then it’s true, what you just said is that all you could think about was the breathing.
So, that’s not accidental and it is a tool that I think is totally underused by people who really wanna regulate their own nervous systems. So, when we think about regulating stress and people can’t see straight, they can’t think [00:19:00] straight.
This is a tool to just bring you back to yourself, which again, you don’t need to be more, do more, anything like that. You just need to focus on using the tool that you have, in this case, your lungs.
Christina: Wow. Yeah, I’m thinking about just like you said, in terms of Jesus, right? Like, so simple that we were given the things we need to get through this life because we have these intentionally created bodies to help us, and I could see this helping to kind of stop the negative cycle.
Part of acedia is you are getting messages either from the external world or maybe they’re coming up internally that says you are not enough. You’re not awesome. You can’t really do the thing. You can’t make these big life changes for your call. And I could really see this kind of just being a tool [00:20:00] to shut down that negative cycle talk.
Carly Caminiti: Yes. And it’s really about shifting perspective, too, which is a totally different tool that we can talk about now, which is what kind of adjectives are we using to talk about ourselves? I remember my roommate at the time, she was about ready to start a new job and I said, oh, how are you feeling about tomorrow?
And she said, “I’m terrified.” And I said, “You’re terrified?” She said, “Yeah, I’m terrified. I’m not gonna know what I’m doing. I don’t know that I’ll get along with everybody. It’s all new equipment.” She was an ultrasound tech.
So, we sat down at the kitchen table, and I said, okay, can you think of another time when you’ve started a job that you felt similarly about that you then worked through? And she was like, “Oh, yeah, my last job. Like, I was also terrified before I started that job, but I loved that job. I didn’t wanna leave. It was so great and I loved the people and I loved what I was doing.”
And so, as she was talking about this, her [00:21:00] energy changed because instead of, again, putting her energy into the negative, she had time to stop, reflect, and put energy into the positive about how she was in a different setting, where she was able to overcome her fear of starting the new job.
And so, at the end of it, I said to her, ‘cause I definitely was in coaching mode, and I said, “Okay, you know, how do you feel now?” And she’s like, “Well, I feel way more confident, like I can do this tomorrow.”
Long story short, I’ll tell you, she’s been working there for a long time now, and she loves the job. She doesn’t wanna leave and she’s doing great. So how can we, with the power of our minds, shift what we’re thinking, and again, go to what’s good inside of us, what’s worthy inside of us. What God has already given us is our gifts and talents and be able to give ourselves the positive affirmations that we really need in those situations.
Christina: I love that. Yeah, and I’m also thinking [00:22:00] that’s another bodily thing God gave us was our memories, right? And surely, we have our negative memories, but we also have our memories of when we’ve overcome the negative talk. I can almost see her energy changing as you’re describing it because she’s talking about how much she loved her job and the people, and it just feels like God’s like, hey, nudge, nudge, uh, go back in your memory and recall all the tremendous things. And that was another really, honestly, positive way to get out of the negative spiral.
Carly Caminiti: Totally. And even if she had never had another job that she could compare it to, she could go back to memories from childhood. When was the time that she was confident? You know, 85% of people say they struggle with confidence.
Christina: Wow.
Carly Caminiti: So, if we can go back into our minds and even just say that sentence, which would be a positive affirmation of, I am confident, if you can say that over and over [00:23:00] and over again, that will help you. But if you can match it with a story from how you were confident in the past with something that you did or accomplish or something that you didn’t know that you were gonna be able to do, and it resulted in the way that you wanted it to be, that is so much more powerful to be able to put those things together because your body, again, going to what you’re talking about with memories, it understands it in a different way and it digests it to say, oh, I did that once. I was confident once so I can be confident again.
Or I was reliable once so I can do it again. Or I didn’t procrastinate in that one time and so I don’t need to procrastinate now. Again, our minds going back to previous experiences of us and the stories of us being that adjective can really help.
Christina: I love that. And something that’s coming up for me as you’re describing this is [00:24:00] I recently went on a walk with a dear friend who has been listening to the podcast and hopefully is also listening to this episode, who’s also an executive coach, by the way, and we were just talking about how God puts people in our lives to remind us of some of those things like to remind us how good we are at certain things. Like our faith is so communal and there’s people in our lives who see our gifts so clearly, even when we might talk ourselves out of them a little bit.
Carly Caminiti: Absolutely. And something that you said about your friend is that he really was taking time to reflect. And so that’s another thing that I think we get so busy and so tied up in our own lives and how much is going on that we don’t stop to think, hey, what am I really good at?
What are the things that people have pointed out [00:25:00] to me in the past that they say you are just amazing at this. And when we can’t find it within ourselves, a lot of times, we can find it by asking other people. That’s a coaching exercise. When I first meet somebody, or when I’ve also had people ask me to do this where we would go to five friends and say, what are five adjectives that you would use to describe me?
And sometimes people say things that you don’t necessarily think of yourself because we are so just drowning in the negative thoughts that go inside of our head all the time that we don’t take the time to reflect. But if I asked most people how they feel about themselves, truly in their heart of hearts, there’s gonna be something good there.
Christina: Yeah.
Carly Caminiti: Even if they aren’t doing great at work or in the relationship or whatever the case is, most people can drill back down to who they are. And I think that that’s when they’re talking about their soul; they’re talking about their essence.
Christina: Yeah.
Carly Caminiti: [00:26:00] And nobody can really take that away from them. So even if they got a bad performance review, they still know who they are. Or even if somebody broke up with them, they still know who they are. So, it’s kind of like this protected bubble where we need to think about how do we drown out the noise and just have time to reflect.
Christina: You have a salient experience with that, when you did that in a really big way.
Carly Caminiti: I did. I don’t think I would’ve had it if I had some of the tools that I have now, but I did take a six-month sabbatical off of my job that I’d been at over 10 years. And I flew to Argentina because I really didn’t know where else to go and somebody told me it was pretty, and so I decided to hop a plane and go there. When I got there, I sent an email to all my friends in the U.S. and I said, I am not gonna share my Argentine phone [00:27:00] number with you. If you need me, then email me and I need some time just to make friends here, experience a different way of life and to really shut out everything that I was burnt out about back in the U.S.
And so that’s what I did. I did that for four months. I was in Argentina for that whole time before I hiked for four days and climbed Machu Picchu, and that was also amazing. But in that whole time, my whole M.O. was really to be alone, to see what it felt like to be alone, to go eat dinner by myself alone, to go to a park and sit there alone, to read alone, to do all the things that one does during the day when they’re not working.
I had nobody, and I remember when I first got to Argentina, I was thinking, what did I do? This is a very strange move to come [00:28:00] across the world and not know a single person and what do I do now?
But I think going back to pulling a Jesus move there, when He was alone in the desert, He didn’t bring all of his friends. What did He do there? He went by himself to pray. And he shut away all of the noise and showed us that it’s okay to be alone. And so many people don’t know that. I will tell you from my own experience, it was very uncomfortable, even with as confident as I am as a person. It was not a pleasant experience for the first several weeks.
But then once I got into the rhythm of accepting myself for who I am and being able to appreciate my own company, and realizing that I have everything I need and I am good enough, then I really didn’t need other people.
Christina: Yeah. Wow. I mean, the courage it took to take that step, first of all, and I don’t know if you know this about me, but I also [00:29:00] climbed Machu Picchu in four days.
Carly Caminiti: Nice. No, we haven’t talked about that.
Christina: But it would be probably more proper for a standup comedy set than, um, what we’re talking about right now, because there were some really interesting moments on that trip for another day.
But yeah, I’m just swelling up with so much pride in the fact that you made that choice. Again, to take it back to acedia, one of the ways that acedia in the False Spirit tries to distract us is by all those kind of scary on one end, uncomfortable on the other, feelings of being alone. Acedia causes us to really loathe quiet and really loathe solitude because we see what is there and what [00:30:00] is coming up.
It’s incredible that Jesus gave this example to us, especially if I’m remembering the Bible correctly, before he started his public ministry, you know? We see him so many times like Garden of Gethsemane just needing to go off and be alone.
When I was researching about acedia, one of the things that came up in the books, was that you can’t play a role when you’re by yourself, you know, you can’t be the what people think I am, what I think I am, what the world thinks I am. It’s like you can only be yourself and there’s no mask, there’s no charade, there’s no pretend. It’s like you are you.
Carly Caminiti: Yeah. Because it is true. It’s like a learning process. We don’t usually get the chance to be by ourselves for [00:31:00] that amount of time.
And so in my case, I was lucky to be able to focus on myself, but I’ve started to incorporate that in a different way through meditation in the morning that I really focus on prayer in a lot of those times that I meditate. Meditation is not something that Catholics talk about but that again, is another resource that we can use in order to calm ourselves down.
There’s so much research about meditation. If you think about all of the things that we could really bring to Jesus in meditation while we’re in this state of mind that is peaceful and calm and really tranquil, what would that do for our spiritual life? It’s like a twofer where we’re calming our nervous system down and we’re praying at the same time.
So, I’m gonna invite you, Christina, to do a meditation with me right now. Okay. If you’re up for it.
Christina: Yeah,
Carly Caminiti: Where I’ll [00:32:00] just walk you through it. Really use your imagination to fill in all the blanks, and everybody who’s listening will have a different experience if they also are able to do this with us right now.
Meditation with Jesus for Overcoming Acedia
So, with that, I’ll invite you to close your eyes and really just start to take some deep breaths, and as you do that. See if you can relax every single part of your body closer down to the floor.
As you start to breathe, really make sure you’re filling all of your lung capacity from the very top of your lungs to the very bottom. With each breath that you take, make them longer than the last breath that you had.[00:33:00]
You might even start to feel heavy on your chair wherever the kind of main pressure points are of where your body has contact with something else. See if you can find where those pressure points are and even them out if they feel uneven or lopsided.
All of this you can do still with your eyes closed and breathing deeply and focusing more and more on your breath.
That with each inhale, you breathe in peace, and with each exhale, you breathe out [00:34:00] love.
As you start to bring yourself into this more quiet place, this place of being alone and being okay with being alone, really start to notice any sort of sensations that you might be feeling in your body. The body that was given to you by God, in His image and likeness.
See what it feels like to tell yourself that you’re good enough.
Hear yourself saying it.
Maybe envision a younger version of yourself saying it to you as well,[00:35:00] that you’re good enough, that you’re worthy enough, that you’re perfect just the way that you are.
I am good enough. I’m worthy enough. I’m perfect just the way that I am.
Using that same set of mantras or affirmations, imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror with the age that you are now telling yourself those three things.[00:36:00]
I’m good enough. I’m worthy enough. I’m perfect just the way that I am.
Imagine what kind of facial expression would be looking back at you as you said that to yourself in the mirror, while still focusing on your breathing and letting go of any tension that might have come up in your body since we started.
Now finally, imagine that Jesus was looking over your shoulder as you just said these things to yourself in that mirror.
You see Him standing behind you. What kind of facial [00:37:00] expression would He have hearing you say those three things?
What kind of reaction would He have?
Can you imagine Him saying those three things to you?
You are good enough. You are worthy enough. You’re perfect exactly as you are.
Now imagine you embracing Him and [00:38:00] thanking Him for the reminder of your own worth and your own value.
That even though you might forget about it sometimes, that there He was to remind you.
Now you turn back into the mirror one final time as you tell yourself that you love yourself, and that you’re awesome.
Continue to take three more deep breaths in[00:39:00] as you inhale. Peace. And exhale, love
One last time. Take a deep breath in, and exhale out as you start to remember where you’re sitting, what you’re experiencing. Remembering your physical body in this time and place and really giving yourself gratitude for trying something different and trying something to help you remember exactly who you are and how you want to be.[00:40:00]
When you’re ready, you can open your eyes.
Christina: Wow. That that, that was powerful.
Carly Caminiti: That was powerful.
Christina: Yes. Yes. Very powerful.
Carly Caminiti: Tell me more.
Christina: You know what came up for me…In the beginning when I was just, looking in the mirror is in my own life. For those who know me personally, my body has changed a lot from the time that you and I were in Boston or so many years ago, and with that I’ve gone through a lot of medical things parallel to that with fertility and pregnancy loss and so many doctors, so many tests. I just [00:41:00] recently had a second surgery, and about a year ago I got to this place of most of the self-talk about my body was about how it wasn’t working the way that maybe everybody else’s bodies were.
And why was it so hard? I felt very out of control of the changes that I was going through. Like it was something happening to me and I was just a little bit helpless to change it. Things started turning around for me when I did yoga therapy with someone I know through the birth world who has since moved to Ireland.
But she needed a practicum student for her yoga therapy. And I said, uh, I would love to be that. I think I started out as a class project, but I very quickly ascended to practicum project. [00:42:00]
Carly Caminiti: Nice.
Christina: For the first time in many years, I started having positive feelings about my body again, and honestly those memories are what came up for me toward the end of the meditation was through doing this yoga therapy, which was so gentle, I mean the whole goal was feeling like I can do this, as opposed to sitting in some yoga classes.
I’ve been where I feel like I’m like woefully behind everybody else, you know? That’s the same feeling that I had towards the end of this reflection, honestly. And this is my first time doing it here with you and those warm feelings and those reconnections. To the body, almost like going back into the body and being like, yes, this is my home.
This is my created home. And then when Jesus came up behind me kind of like, yes, [00:43:00] yes, like happy, like, yeah, this is exactly what I want you to know, you know? And wow, what a powerful thing to move through in just moments, I think that speaks to the depth of the reflection. Also like the depth of faith.
Carly Caminiti: Well, thank you for sharing all of that, Christina. That’s a beautiful reflection on your part, too, in that you were allowing yourself to get there and really embody, if you will, what that was. And so you used your imagination, you used the power of visualization and of meditation to be able to connect all of those things that you felt to an experience in your past, which goes exactly to what we were talking about before if you can feel those positive things about your body once, then you can also get back there. And this was not rehearsed; this was just something that came up for you during this time.[00:44:00]
That is because the body is so wise. Why is that? Because we’re not just inhabiting it by ourselves. It’s also that we go to communion every Sunday, and we also have Jesus. We have God. God’s got our back. That’s what that means.
Christina: Mm.
Carly Caminiti: And so, you were able to connect to that, and by giving yourself the time in the five or so minutes that that meditation lasted, your body knew exactly what it needed to do in order to get you to that place of peace.
Christina: I love what you’re saying, and I love that you brought Communion into it because one of the remedies that the books talk about to overcome acedia is actually to meditate on the Incarnation. And when I first read that, I was kind of like, okay, [00:45:00] yeah, Incarnation, I know what it is. Feels very churchy to me, you know?
But what you’re talking about, too, is like transubstantiation. Like, we literally go and we as Catholics believe we’re receiving the body and the blood of Christ, and that is something that’s so unique about our faith. There are so many faiths out there that the deity that is being adored or worshiped doesn’t always cross the bridge.
So, pontifex means bridge maker, doesn’t always cross the bridge into human experience and dwell among us. And we have this incredible mystery in, in some ways of how Jesus did that and why it was so important to do that. Jesus has been telling us throughout our faith this is not a like pie [00:46:00] in the sky unreachable thing, like, I am coming to you literally so I can fully be here on Earth, be embodied, and know what the human experience is.
When I started thinking about those things and learning about acedia, I was like, hmm, yeah, I probably haven’t thought about that enough, but honestly, our conversation here has made me feel it even more because it is so bodily, you know? And do we think enough about our body when it comes to faith?
That’s the beautiful connection you’ve just made for me.
Carly Caminiti: Well, and I think you also made it for yourself. Like again, you’re using the power of your mind there to put two and two together for how that is for you. Thank you so much for sharing it, and I think that just really speaks to making time for these things.
It’s a practice, just like you mentioned yoga. People are happy to practice yoga two, three, four times a [00:47:00] week for an hour. How often do we practice breathing? How often do we practice doing a visualization where we can see God and bring our problems to Him and also be able to connect to our faith in that way that is using nothing else but what we’ve already got.
The body gives back what you’re giving to it, but you have to be the one to make the effort for that.
Christina: Wow. Well, Carly, honestly, your gifts and your skills and what I feel like I’m sitting here with your calling, has helped us to do that. I mean, it’s really given us a set of tools here today. I know I’ve benefited from it.
I wanna thank you so much for sharing that with us and one final question for you before we wrap up. What would you tell someone that’s just starting to kind of tiptoe into this place and feels maybe a bit [00:48:00] overwhelmed by it because I imagine until you get into that habit that you’re talking about practicing those first tries might feel a little inundating.
How would you approach that as a coach and as a person of faith?
Carly Caminiti: As a coach, I would always ask somebody what feels like the smallest action step they could take in order to practice what they wanna practice. So I’m gonna ask you that in a second.
Christina: Okay.
Carly Caminiti: But I’ll give you, I’ll give you a couple of other things in the meantime, especially for something like prayer, meditation, even setting your alarm for five minutes earlier a day and making that five minutes about that thing is a great place to start. I know it can seem small, but the thing with small things and small wins is that the more you do them, the more they snowball into bigger things and people then get the confidence that they need to be able to extend it to 10 minutes or maybe 15 or maybe an hour. So, it [00:49:00] really comes with time though.
One of those tools too is really tracking your small wins. So especially before you go to bed, if you have a journal next to you, and you can write a couple of things that you really feel like were the wins of the day. It could be two, it could be five, it could be 10, whatever those things are. But it’s going back to the idea of reflecting, not just getting into your bed and turning out the light and having the day be over, but actually stopping and thinking, hey, what actually went well here?
Because like we discussed before, the more you focus on the positive aspects of it, the easier it will be for you to continue to kind of build on those things as opposed to letting yourself spiral into things that aren’t inside of your control, into things that are rather negative. If people are also curious and wanna learn more about this, I sometimes do workshops. For free and they’re always posted on my website, which is www.carlycam.com, and people can sign up for [00:50:00] those and get the basics and really practice with a group of people, which could be helpful.
And I think that is the place to start. I would ask you, though, based on today’s conversation, Christina, what’s one small action that you are willing to take to practice? One of the things that we went through.
Christina: I think I could start with just looking in the mirror in the morning and just pausing and saying, I’m worthy and I’m perfect as I am.
I think a lot of people put little things around the mirror, and I’m always thinking like quotes and stuff like that, but I don’t think I’ve spent a lot of time saying something to myself that comes from myself. So, yeah,
Carly Caminiti: What you said is beautiful, too, because it’s coming from you.
So again, going back to the fact that you know what’s best for you. So, I could give you a list of 20 different things that you could try, and I just gave you a couple of ideas, but truly [00:51:00] anybody who’s listening to this will probably have something different that comes up that they’re willing to do.
Our bodies are wise. We need to listen to what they’re saying. The intuition is strong. So, if that’s what’s going to be your action step, then that’s a beautiful action step to take, and I would love to hear how it goes for you.
Christina: Yes. I fully expect a text in a couple months, um, especially as we’re going into Lent, right?
Like this would be a really great time to commit to adding something into our lives. So, thank you again, Carly. This has been such a pleasure, such a joy. I’m so glad that God put us in each other’s lives, and even though it’s been a minute since we’ve lived in the same place together, I think reconnecting with you around this episode has only made me miss you more, love you more, appreciate you more, and I just thank you for being here.
Carly Caminiti: Well, thank you so much for having [00:52:00] me, and I wish you the best of luck in upcoming episodes and would obviously love to keep in touch and you need to come visit.
Christina: Yes, yes, I do. And speaking of upcoming episodes, so there is one final bonus that is going to be offered as part of this first season, and that is the next episode.
And that episode is going to be an adaptation of the Examen to help us understand where acedia came up for us that day.
I feel even better about this bonus now that we have these incredible tools that Carly has given us. So, when acedia comes up, we have the tools within our body, within ourselves to overcome it.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christinagebel.substack.com
