In Ortberg’s The Life You’ve Always Wanted (2002), I found myself drawn to three chapters. These included: A “Dee Dah Day,” An Unhurried Life, and A Life of Freedom. As I read the chapters, I found they each one seemed to build on the other. Ortberg (2002) described how to focus on the little things that bring joy to your life, slow down and appreciate the beauty in God’s work, and live your life in a manner where you seek only to follow in Jesus’ footsteps as opposed to being addicted to the approval of others. In chapter 4, Ortberg (2002) talks about how his child finds joy in little moments. This is something that came easy for me as a child, but as I’ve grown older, I find it does not come as easily. Ortberg describes this as the “illusion …show more content…
I agree with Ortberg when he stated the dangers we are most vulnerable to are the “ones that creep up on us, that are so much a part of our environment that we don’t even notice them” (Ortberg, 2002, pp. 85). I’ve found this to be true in my life. When I am honest with myself, I realize that I have become so “busy” and “stressed out” because I am trying to run away from the real problem that I need to face. Sometimes this is fear for a loved one but more often than not, it is fear of failure or not being good enough. My habits tend to be that I will go for three or four months before it hits me that I need to take some time for reflection. I generally take between 2-5 days to get away to a quiet place (generally either the lake or my grandparent’s farm) to be alone with my thoughts and prayers. Ortberg suggests combining “brief periods of solitude on a regular basis- preferably each day, even at intervals during the day. But we also need extended periods of solitude” (Ortberg, 2002, pp. 87). After reading this, I’ve determined that I need to begin my day with intentional quiet time, as well as find a time during the day to step away for 10-15 minutes to pray and recharge. This time has now been set aside in my work schedule to be at …show more content…
As I read this chapter, I reflected on the many changes I have made over the past year in realizing that God’s grace in my life does not require the approval of others. It does not require me to be perfect or meet external standards. Orberg talks about the “imposter phenomenon,” which is when we know the image we project is incongruent with who we really are. This causes “many people to go through life with a lurking fear that one day the truth will come out” (Ortberg, 2002, pp. 167). I have felt this way for quite sometime until a year ago when I realized that much of the anxiety I was experiencing was due to not being true to myself. I am flawed and that is ok. I appreciate the explanation Ortberg gives of doing something good and trying to make sure no one finds out about it, as that is a practice I have started to implement. In reading this chapter, I realize that I need to be more involved in praying for God to show me ways daily that I can find ways to bless someones life on a daily basis without them knowing. I also plan to implement the “secret service day” where I have “no agenda of my own but to simply be home and available” (Ortberg, 2002, 170). By finding ways to celebrate joy, slow down, and practice secret
...ulous, and yet increasingly, people are trying to artificially prolong and create that fleeting feeling, failing to recognize that it is its evanescence that makes it so invigorating. Both Schumaker and Bradbury attempt to convince of this, arguing that it is truly the journey and not final destination that matters. We must live by the principle of jumping off a cliff and building our wings on the way down, as Bradbury often says, for if we fail to do so, then we are reduced to little more than pigs blindly gorging ourselves at a trough, on nothingness. Both writers urge us to reject the predilection prevalent in our society to seek phony happiness and entreat us to live lives that are not one-dimensional and stilted but rather multi-faceted and diverse, positing that only in such a life will we be able to experience, among a spectrum of other emotions, happiness.
In The Twilight Zone’s “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” and Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World” it is apparent that happiness comes from stability and the ability to get what one wants with little effort, however, the price for this happiness is a loss of individuality and strong emotions, making ignorance truly bliss.
Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective
Without practicing meditation, we do not reflect on or pay attention to our everyday actions, mostly acting on habit. The world is full of defilements and everyday we are infatuated by them, sensual desires, and delusion, although we often do not know it. Meditation weakens these unwholesome temptations and desires by making us aware that they are arising, and by revealing that they are truly unwholesome. The temptation only ceases when the concentration we obtain from meditation results in greater happiness than sensual pleasures can ever provide. While the satisfaction gained from sensual pleasures is fleeting, the clarified, focused state of mind of the meditator accumulates into a constant tranquil state. Only when we have stilled the mind’s incessant wandering and momentarily abandon the attraction to sensory experiences can we become truly aware of our hidden motivations and unconscious feelings that shape our thoughts and behavior. It is also necessary for changing our views of the world and ourselves. Through confronting these delusions, desires, and feelings we are able to renounce them. “During meditation we learn to drop from the mind what we don’t want to keep. We only want to keep in mind the meditation subject. As we get more and more skilled at it, we start to use the same faculty in our daily lives to help us drop thoughts that are
My primary goal to manage stress is to achieve balance. According to Deborah Davis Ph.D., author of The Adult Learner’s Companion (Davis, 2012,2007) , “Physical and emotional balance can be a key to reducing stress. When your body and mind are in sync and balanced, you feel and look better, you think clearer, and you are more productive”. She also states that “a balanced mind is focused, directed, organized, and calm”. I have gotten a lot better at finding balance, yet I still wrangle from time to time with feelings of anxiety, despa...
Smith observes that the inferences that she has made about life due to her experiences, may not be in compliance with the common ideas. She realizes that she experiences more than the usual amount of pleasure on a daily basis everyday because “Small things go a long way” (Joy 1). This clashes with a society that with so many unreliable sources of pleasure “turns up [their] nose to [those] so readily available” (Joy 1). Narrating her daily encounters with delight, Smith observes that they range from food to “other people’s faces”. She characterizes them as small, simple, ephemeral aspects of life. She notes that “they have the general power to turn [her] day around”.
Jim described the secret grace of God as “a dying person thanking God for blessings” or a “dying person appreciating the beauty of nature”. During the Spiritual Formation portion of the retreat, my group shared insights on the secret graces of God. As we shared, grace was renewed for me through several memories. First, I remembered how God enabled me to care for my sick husband through my own illness. Then grace was renewed through my memory of how my husband suffered with Cancer and renal failure for five years and never experienced pain. Grace according to Krisher, “reveals the character of God as self-giving, overflowing love and pure generosity”. Grace for me is the opportunity to learn the nature of Christ through history, the renewing of grace and studying His
With my anxiety high I wished I would have learned or knew now how to handle stress when dealing with high stress calls. “Officers may differ from many other traumatized populations in that they are often exposed to a greater variety of potentially traumatic situations throughout their career” (Pg, 2). This being said officers react differently than other officers though they are all exposed to greater variety of traumatic situations. Of all the things I have learned in the course I know personal reflection is integral for mindfulness. The four facets of mindfulness: observing, describing, acting with awareness, and accepting without judgment (As cited in Pg, 1-2). Though I may still arrive with high anxiety, I would be able to better handle each call by being aware of my breathing and thinking back to our reflection
If “teaching meditation or techniques of flexible, novel thinking…could be used to improve health and shorted illness earlier in life,” the lives of many individuals would drastically improve (Langer, 2014). Mindfulness encourages awareness and creative thought while providing the added benefits of improved health. For example, individuals who suffer from a great deal of stress on a daily basis may profit from the addition of meditation to their daily routine. Not only will this help them in the short term, but Langer also suggests that this strategy will improve health in the long term as well. People can use the mindfulness skill to help themselves cope with everyday stressors through meditation techniques and critical
... growth where a child is forced to start looking for solutions for everything that is wrong instead of simply being a child. This analysis prove that children have their own way of seeing things and interpreting them. Their defense mechanisms allow them to live through hard and difficult times by creating jokes and games out of the real situation. This enables then to escape the difficulties of the real world.
... satisfied with life. Through the ‘focusing illusion’ we convince ourselves that satisfaction equals happiness. Unfortunately it doesn’t. Even though we appear to have everything, we are left feeling that something is missing, but are unable to identify what that thing is.
Park, C. L., Wright, B. E., Pais, J., & Ray, D. M. (2016). Daily Stress and Self-Control., 35, 738-753.
...now he could see that I was not even taking time to keep myself full, let alone having enough to flow over to others. Origen of Alexandria, a theologian and mystic writing in the third century, articulated a vision of the resurrected life so radical and encompassing that Christians who took it seriously were compelled to reexamine their entire relationship to the society in which they lived. I truly want to live such a life.
I admire both St. Augustine and Bridgid of Kildare greatly. They began a new way of religious life by providing a peaceful place where anyone could come to rest and reflect no matter what their station in life. In our busy society we rarely have time to sit down, clear our minds, and meditate on what is important to us. Somehow our modern society is unable to combine work, pleasure, and prayer. St. Augustine and Bridgid of Kildare founded several monasteries where the above three things were woven into each day. There were times for tending the fields, giving thanks to God, and relaxing. However, personal reflection has fallen by the wayside in today's cultured. Many people have forgotten about the fulfillment that solitude and prayer can bring to one's life. This is even true in my own life. I am so consumed with social activities, schoolwork, extra curricular activities, etc that I forget to stop and take the time to be present with God and my thoughts. I think that I would be a better person and Christian if I just took ten minutes out of my day to pray, meditate, or write in my journal. Spirituality is something that I have lost, but through the examples set by St. Augustine and Bridgid ...