The Tr Tran e Sp Spiritual Cor ansfor sformation of of tion - - PDF document

Irene Alexander PACFA 2016

The e Sp Spiritual Cor

• re

e

• f
• f

Tr Tran ansfor sformation tion

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http://wonderfulengineering.com/35-hd-galaxy-wallpapers-for-free-download/

What d t do w we e mea mean n by by Sp Spiritu tuality ty? So Some me res esearch - th the s e shift ft in n awarene ness How is spiritu tuality ty tr trans nsformati tive? How d does es it t fi fit t with th w worldview ew? How can I n I be a be auth thent ntic i in n my my s spiritu tuality ty?

Rogers (1980) identified a fourth facilitative quality called “presence.” Being in touch with the “transcendental core” of himself. “It seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner spirit of the other. Our relationship transcends itself and becomes a part of something larger.” p129.

Rogers, C. R. (1980). A way of being. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

https://www.amazon.com/Carl-Rogers-Quiet-Revolutionary-History/dp/1883955319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472089511&sr=8- 1&keywords=rogers+quiet+revolutionary

• The spiritual life is

part of the human essence.

• It is a defining

characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.

http://www.positive-parenting-ally.com/abraham-maslow.html

Spirit rituality – conne nnecti tion,

• n, l

longi ging, ng, d desir sire

“The great homesickness we could never shake off.” - Rainer Maria Rilke in Barrows and Macy p70 That longing deep within that seeks something greater than ourselves, that seeks meaning beyond our everyday lives, that transforms our struggles and suffering into diamonds.

http://orig05.deviantart.net/87b6/f/2014/094/a/4/starry_night_sky_by_nini1965-d7d0szn.jpg

Spiri ritu tuality – conne nnection

attempts to stay focused on relationships between oneself and

• ther people, the physical

environment, one’s heritage and traditions, one’s body, one’s ancestors, saints, Higher Power, or God.

• a commitment to choose, as the primary context for

understanding & acting, one’s relatedness with all that is. With this commitment, one

It places relationships at the center of awareness, whether they be interpersonal relationships with the world or other people, or intrapersonal relationships with God or other nonmaterial beings.

Griffith and Griffith p15-16

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/be/d4/2c/bed42cbe51a423992294dd1da3928aa1.jpg

Many religions speak of oneness, compassion or love, as being central to the flourishing of humankind, so the focus

• n connection, on relationality is a

recognition that humans are part of the great web of life, and that healing and wholeness depend on this ability to connect.

“Whatever the expression, everyone is ultimately talking about the same thing – an unquenchable fire, a restlessness, a longing, a disquiet, an appetitiveness, a loneliness, a gnawing nostalgia, a wildness that cannot be tamed, a congenital all- embracing ache that lies at the centre of human experience and is the ultimate force that drives everything else…” Rolheiser p4.

Spirituality – longing, desire

http://cliparts.co/flame

“What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, is our spirituality. Thus, when Plato says that we are on fire because our souls come from beyond and that beyond is, through the longing and hope that its fire creates in us, trying to draw us back towards itself, he is laying out the broad outlines for a spirituality. …”

Rolheiser p4-7.

Spirituality – longing, desire

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. ........ Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

• ver and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

Wh When was was the l last ast t time y you

• u ask

asked y yourse

• urself

wh what at y you

• u re

real ally wan want? ? And h how l

• w lon
• ng did you
• u al

allow

• w y

yourse

• urself t

to

• ent

enter ertain t n that lo long nging ng? Th Thirty se seconds, a a coupl

• uple of
• f minutes?

What i inner nner or outer er voices es s sugges ested ed t that wh what atever r it was, was, you oug

• u ought not
• t t

to b

• be so

so fool

• olish as t

as to t

• think i

it c coul

• uld be sat

satisfied? At som some poi point did y you

• u jud

udge y yours

• urself wi

wilful

• r self

elfish?

(Ruffing 2000, p 13)

http://hdimagesnew.com/abstract-art-images/

Our desiring already originates in God desiring us…[The mystics] strongly assert that our desires, our wants, our longings, our outward and inward searching – when uncovered, expressed and recognised – all lead to the Divine Beloved at the core. As Augustine so tellingly phrased it in the Confessions, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God”

Ruffing 2000, p 11

Our desiring already originates in God desiring us…[The mystics] strongly assert that our desires, our wants, our longings, our outward and inward searching – when uncovered, expressed and recognised – all lead to the Divine Beloved at the core. As Augustine so tellingly phrased it in the Confessions, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God”

Ruffing 2000, p 11

Th Throw row aw away ay All your beg begging ng bo bowls a at G t God’s door, For

• r I have

ave heard ard the Belov

• ved

Pref efers swee eet th threa eateni ning ng shouts ts, So Some mething ng in n th the e order er of: f: “Hey, Belov

• ved,

My h heart art is s a a rag raging vol volca cano Of l f love e fo for y you! You bett better sta tart ki kissing ng me me – Or e Or else se!”

Hafiz 1325 325-13 1389 89 (i (in Lad Ladinsky)

Ladinsky, D. (1996). I heard God laughing: Renderings of

• Hafiz. Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented.

https://www.lds.org/children/resources/topics/prodigal-son?lang=eng

Suffering Deepening of our being

• Faith is not assent to doctrines or

surrounding ourselves with props and

• propositions. It is trust that God – as

Christ shows us – has been there before us, goes within us, waits to find us beyond the edges of utter dark. And, found by God, we become aware that God is closer to our being than we are” (Ross 1988, p. 135

Oh guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united The Lover with His beloved, Transforming the beloved in her Lover.

http://images.randomhouse.com/cover/9781573229746?alt=cover_coming_soon.jpg

Sensitivity. Be sensitive in every way possible about everything in life. Be sensitive. Insensitivity brings indifference and nothing is worse than indifference. Indifference makes that person dead before the person dies. Indifference means there is a kind of apathy that sets in and you no longer appreciate beauty, friendship, goodness,

• r anything.

So, therefore, do not be insensitive. Be sensitive, only sensitive. Of course it hurts. Sensitivity is painful.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36942679/ns/politics-white_house/t/obama-elie-wiesel-share-good-kosher-lunch/

Elie Wiesel

Don’t surrender your Loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment you As few human Or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in your heart tonight Has made your eyes so soft Your voice so tender Your need of God absolutely clear.

Hafiz (in Ladinsky The Gift)

What is your understanding of spirituality? – Take a few minutes to reflect. What do we mean by “God”?

To speak of “God” properly, then – to use the word in a sense consonant with the teachings of orthodox Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Bahai, a great deal of antique paganism, and so forth – is to speak of the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent,

• mnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of

all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all

• things. God so understood is not something posed over

against the universe, in addition to it, nor is [God] the universe itself. [God] is not a “being”...Rather all things that exist receive their being continuously from [God], who is the infinite wellspring of all that is, in whom.. all things live and move and have their being.”

• David Bentley Hart. (2013). The experience of God: Being,

consciousness, bliss. London: Yale University Press, 2013, p.30.

Not that, at the moment, there is any real public debate about belief in God worth speaking of. There is scarcely even a public conversation in any meaningful sense. At present, the best we seem to be able to manage is a war of assertions and recriminations, and for the most part each side is merely talking past the other.

• David Bentley Hart. (2013). The experience of God: Being, consciousness,
• bliss. London: Yale University Press, 2013, p.23.

Contemporary practitioners’ religious beliefs (Shafranske 2000)

• 58% of national sample reported that religion

important to them

• 26% of clinical and counselling psychologists

reported that religion important to them

• 90% of US population reported

belief in a personal God

• 24% of clinical counselling

psychologists reported belief in a personal God

https://gointotheworld2012.wordpress.com/tag/prayer-2/

Worldview

formed and reformed Epistemology =How do I know? Metaphysics= Who am I? Axiology= What is right and wrong?

http://www.forgreaterworship.com/does-your-worldview-affect-the-way-we-worship/

Worldview

formed and reformed

Spirituality Research Epistemology =How do I know? Metaphysics= Who am I? Axiology= What is right and wrong? Praxis in the ‘real’ world

Experience

http://www.forgreaterworship.com/does-your-worldview-affect-the-way-we-worship/

Rogers (1989) identified a fourth facilitative quality called “presence.” Being in touch with the “transcendental core” of himself. At those moments, he says, “it seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner spirit of the other” p129.

Rogers, C. R. (1980). A way of being. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

In The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician’s Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (2010), Siegel identifies the capacity for presence as foundational for effective clinical work.

• He is interested in this idea of how we can bring a full and

receptive self into engagement with others.

• Presence (he says) is a learnable skill. It “involves the

flexible movement, ..so that we are not locked into some biasing propensity” to just think and do what we always think and do. p16

• “We can learn to loosen the grip of habit and ingrained

aspects of what we call personality to become more mindful. We can learn to monitor our internal world – in mind and brain - and then modify it so that we can cultivate presence as not only an intentionally created state, but as an enduring trait in our lives” p16.

http://www.drdansiegel.com/uploads/DrDS-HandsomeBlazerWhiteShirtFolageBG.jpg

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES).

• 1. I feel God’s presence
• 2. I experience a connection to all of life.
• 3. During worship, or other times when connecting with God,

I feel joy, which lifts me out of my daily concern.

• 4. I find strength in my religion or spirituality.
• 5. I find comfort in my religion or spirituality.
• 6. I feel deep inner peace or harmony.
• 7. I ask for God’s help in the midst of daily activities.
• 8. I feel guided by God in the midst of daily activities.
• 9. I feel God’s love for me directly.
• 10. I feel God’s love for me. through others.
• 11. I am spiritually touched by the beauty of creation.
• 12. I feel thankful for my blessings.
• 13. I feel a selfless caring for others.
• 14. I accept others even when they do things I think are wrong.
• 15. I desire to be closer to God or in union with God.
• 16. In general, how close do you feel to God?

Underwood, L. G. &Teresi, J. A. (2002)

The Spiritual Awareness Model

• Validity of experience –
• students invited to recognise that that can

reclaim a basic validity in their lived experience which is likely to have been eroded in the academic culture of logical positivism.

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/imonk-classic-thoughts-on-spiritual-experience

• Write down a moment that you

consider/ed spiritual? (This may be childhood)

• How does this experience resonate now?

Was there a moment when you turned away from the inner compass?

• How do you/ can you reconnect?

http://heartchildyoga.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/HCY-spiritual-child-640x240.jpg

Have you ever had a religious experience or felt a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday life?

• 3000 responses -> 8 categories
• Synchronicity and the patterning of events
• The presence of God
• A sense of prayers being answered
• A presence not called God
• A sacred presence in nature
• Experiencing the ‘all things are one.’
• The presence of the dead
• The presence of evil

Alistair Hardy in Hay, D. Religious Experience Today

Nature of survey Year of publication People reporting a spiritual or religious experience Gallup National Survey: sample size 985 1987 48% Repeat survey with BBC series Soul of Britain 2000 76% David Hay and Kay Hunt suggest: ‘people’s sense of the degree of social permission for such experience.’

Understanding the spirituality of people who don’t go to church

Centre for the Study of Human Relations, University of Nottingham, 2000.

Client perspectives on spirituality – Gockell 2011

• A qualitative study – 12 interviewees
• an example of a study that specifically looked at the
• utcomes where client preferences were

accommodated in terms of spirituality.

• Using narrative method for in-depth answers
• Question: What is the role of counselling in the

narrative of people who draw on spirituality for healing and wellness?

• Interviewees: Majority identified as spiritual but not

religious

The Humanistic Psychologist 2011

http://rowswansea.org.uk/photo-album/2007-ross-regatta/dscf0080-1024.jpg/image_large

Overarching themes

• Participants regarded spirituality as integral to an

effective counseling relationship.

• Because spirituality formed their fundamental

framework for making meaning in the world and creating healing in their lives at the time of the interview, participants conceptualized counseling through the lens of their spiritual frameworks.

• Participants name and experience these qualities

as spiritual qualities and link them explicitly to their perceptions of the spiritual development, and personal growth and integration of the counselor.

Spirituality is

.. coming back to myself and opening up and trusting my own heart, that part of God in me which resides in my heart.... Spirituality is healing... because it takes me home....When I'm in that spiritual place, where I'm in my heart, they [problems] don't exist, they just don't exist, there is such peace, such feeling of love,

• f being loved, of compassion, just peace.

..people who have done their

• wn work...

One, I think that they demonstrated to me that place [the spiritual place], they made me feel safe, really safe and they encouraged me to think beyond the box I was living in... the methods that have really helped me have come from people who have done their own work and are doing, have done their own spiritual work, it's interesting to sort of reconnect as time goes on with that, I think, I had to have a respect and just a sense of being at peace, going back to the safety.

Participants objected to working with counselors who they experienced as distant or unable to respond to their emotional or spiritual needs. Participants attributed a counselor's distance or unavailability to professional training that teaches a counselor to screen the spiritual aspect of the self from their clients.

• Research on spiritual practices and interventions is most robust

in the area of meditation (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006).

• Increases in facilitative qualities such as attention, empathy,

equanimity, compassion, and growth in interpersonal and relationship skills have been shown to result from meditation and related mindfulness practices (Shapiro, Brown, Astin, & Duerr, 2008; Walsh & Shapiro, 2006).

• Consequently, meditation and mindfulness training are

increasingly being incorporated into psychotherapy training and practice (Fauth, Gates, Vinca, Boles, & Hayes, 2007; Safran & Muran, 2000).

• Early research in the area has provided some support for the

idea that therapist mindfulness positively influences both the therapeutic relationship and client outcome (Grepmair et al., 2007; Wexler, 2006).

• Gockell, A. Client Perspectives on spirituality in the therapeutic

relationship.The Humanistic Psychologist 2011, Vol.39(2), p.154-168

• Research on spiritual practices and interventions is

most robust in the area of meditation (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006).

• Increases in facilitative qualities such as attention,

empathy, equanimity, compassion, and growth in interpersonal and relationship skills have been shown to result from meditation and related mindfulness practices (Shapiro, Brown, Astin, & Duerr, 2008; Walsh & Shapiro, 2006). Consequently, meditation and mindfulness training are increasingly being incorporated into psychotherapy training and practice (Fauth, Gates, Vinca, Boles, & Hayes, 2007; Safran & Muran, 2000).

• Early research in the area has provided some support

for the idea that therapist mindfulness positively influences both the therapeutic relationship and client

...meditation and mindfulness training are increasingly being incorporated into psychotherapy training and practice...

Meditation

More than 1000 empirical studies and professional papers on meditation in the psychological literature. But meditation has been separated from its religious roots (“Secularised”).

Not just a ‘relaxation’ strategy. The goal from a therapeutic perspective is to: Cultivate a capacity to bring stable attention and non-reactive awareness to one’s experiences: both internal (eg cognitive-affective-sensory) and external (eg social-environmental).

Meditation: Therapeutic purposes

Meditation: Therapeutic purposes

Disengage or modulate usual emotional reactivity. In doing so, conditioned patterns of anxious reactivity, depressive hopelessness, addictive attachment

• r consuming anger may be

loosened and dissolved.

Three approaches

• Concentrative

When attention wanders – return by use of word etc

• Mindfulness practice

More open – with awareness of what arises - no judgment

• Guided practice

Led by therapist for specific purpose

John Gattuso (ed) (2006). Talking to God: Portrait of a world at prayer . Milford: NJ: Stone Creek.

From a Christian perspective

• Cloud of unknowing

Written in late 1300s Clear teaching on concentrative approach

http://covers.feedbooks.net/book/4308.jpg?size=large&t=1432135953

Cloud of unknowing =inability to know God with intellect (only love)

“No one can hope to achieve contemplation without the foundation of.. the kindness of God, ... All the same, .. leave them, and put them away deep down in the cloud of forgetting .. to penetrate the cloud of unknowing between him/her and God.”

Cloud of forgetting=to not think about

Cloud of unknowing =inability to know God with intellect (only love)

“Thought cannot comprehend God. And so, I prefer to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love [God] whom I cannot know. Though we cannot know God we can love God.” “Then let your desire, gracious and devout, step bravely and joyfully beyond it and reach out to pierce the darkness above. Yes, beat upon that thick cloud of unknowing with the dart

• f your loving desire and do not cease

come what may.” “A naked intent toward God, the desire for God alone, is enough.” Trans Johnston 1973, p. 54, 55, 56.

Brother Lawrence 1666 Served in the kitchen and found God’s presence there. He said it was difficult for the first ten years….

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Presence-God-Brother-Lawrence-ebook

“I make it my business

• nly to persevere in [God]

holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God, which often gives me joys and raptures inwardly.”

Concerning wandering thoughts

“You tell me nothing new: you are not the only one that is troubled with wandering

• thoughts. Our mind is

extremely roving… I do not advise you to use a multiplicity of words...let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes wander..do not much disquiet yourself, the will must bring it back in tranquility.”

From a Buddhist perspective

The change as a result of meditation is seen to come from a shift in the relationship to aversions or cravings... As this occurs, access to alternatives become possible. An experience of the spiritual may emerge as a sense of inner peace, higher meaning, and compassion for others grows.

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/suarez986/14510286858/

• The importance of counsellor authenticity
• – what are your mindfulness practices?
• – or those you are interested in?

Transformation through relationship

Martha Nussbaum, philosopher and scholar, argues that it is our emotions that lead us to ethics, and novels are the genre of the person’s ethical formation. As the reader identifies with the character in the novel and follows the story, feeling the joy and the pain, she thus experiences regret over poor decisions, the hope of possible grace, and the satisfaction of good triumphing over evil. Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge, 6.

http://strg.stageagent.com/images/show/2081/to-kill-a-mockingbird-0pw1ub5j.4xn.jpg

The ‘katharsis’ of Greek tragedies

Thus we are ethically shaped by the stories of our culture, the imaginary living of the hero’s journey, the vicarious grief and delight of each decision played

• ut to its final culmination.

It is the stories of our families and our religion, our society, and our nation, which make sense of our world, and model for us ‘how we should then live.’

https://www.tes.com/lessons/FraNzZp73r4AmQ/greek-masks

Composition of Place – Ignatius

As the listener, I am attentive to the story, letting it unfold and waiting for that aspect or person that takes my attention. As I listen again, I identify with a particular character. I try to imagine the real sensory experience— what I smell, see, touch, hear, taste, and feel. My senses call me to authentic presence, to really making myself attend to the experience, to make it my own. To follow a story in vicarious identification, I must touch into the parts of me that are parallel to his story

The Anointing of Christ Julia Stankova https://au.pinterest.com/pin/275704808414687762/

7 Opposites

Frank Wesley https://au.pinterest.com/pin/572731277590951907/

And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar

• f ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and

began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her

• hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with

the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with

• intment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many,

have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Practicing-Presence-Jesus-Contemporary-Meditation- ebook/dp/B013XTFBX0/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Listening for spirituality

• Metaphors
• Rituals
• Spiritual practices
• Idioms that point to spirituality
• Spiritual stories – are their stories of wounds

as well as of healing?

• Religious beliefs that suffering brings

redemption? That suffering is punishment?

• Does present situation alter – intensify or

interrupt - flow of prayer/ spirituality/ meditation?

• Spiritual community – characteristics?

http://successyeti.com/communication/8-ways-improve-listening-skills/2015/07/10

Possible questions

What sustains you? What gives you hope at the most difficult times?

• Who truly understands?
• How do you find comfort? Moments of joy in spite of

this situation?

• For what are you most deeply grateful?
• How does your life matter?
• What is your life about and how does this situation fit

in? Spirituality and religion provide many people with skills, knowledge and communion which sustain resilience.

Griffith and Griffith Encountering the sacred in psychotherapy

http://successyeti.com/communication/8-ways-improve-listening-skills/2015/07/10

Spiritual companioning questions

• Where is God for you?
• What happens when you

hold this before God?

• What is the invitation?

John Gattuso (ed) (2006). Talking to God: Portrait of a world at prayer . Milford: NJ: Stone Creek.

References

Aten, J.D., McMinn, M. R., & Worthington, E.L. (2011). Spiritually oriented interventions for counselling and

• psychotherapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Barrows, A. & J. Macy, J. (Trans). (1996). Rilke’s book of hours: Love poems to God. New York: Riverhead. Birnbaum, L., Birnbaum, A. & Mayseless, O. (2008). The Role of spirituality in mental health interventions: A developmental perspective. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 27, 65 – 73. Gockell, A.(2011). Client Perspectives on spirituality in the therapeutic relationship. The Humanistic Psychologist, v39(2), p.154-168. Griffith, J. L. & Griffith M. E. (2003). Encountering the sacred in psychotherapy: How to talk with people about their spiritual lives. New York: Guildford Press. Hart, D. B. (2013). The experience of God: Being, consciousness, bliss. London: Yale University Press. Johnston, W. (trans). (1973). The cloud of unknowing. Garden City, NY: Image. Ladinsky, D. (1996). I heard God laughing: Renderings of Hafiz. Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented. Ladinsky, D. (1999). The Gift: Poems by Hafiz. New York: Penguin Compass Pargament, K. I. (2007). Spiritually integrated psychotherapy: Understanding and addressing the sacred. New York: Guildford. Rogers, C. R. (1980). A way of being. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Rolheiser, R. (1998). Seeking spirituality: Guidelines for a Christian spirituality for the twenty-first century. London: Hodder & Stoughton. p4-7 Ruffing, J. (2000). Spiritual direction: Beyond the beginnings. New York: Paulist. Shafranske, E. P. (2000).Religious involvement and professional practices of psychiatrist and other mental health professionals. Psychiatric Annals, v30 (8), pp525-532. Underwood, L. G. &Teresi, J. A. (2002). The daily spiritual experience scale: development, theoretical description, reliability, exploratory factor analysis, and preliminary construct validity using health-related data, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Winter, v24 (1), pp22-33.