“Time For A Referral”

The vast majority of the work I do as a pastor and public safety chaplain is providing spiritual care and support. In the more challenging situations that involve physical and mental health issues, or when spiritual care issues exceed my skills and experiences, I make referrals to other care providers. It those cases my job isn’t to provide the care as much as it is to walk beside those in need as they face the challenges of dealing with unknown and new care providers. These referrals are usually made in my work responding to incidents of pain and suffering.

Well, today I’m going to make a referral for all of you to experience some preventative care and enlightenment. There is no doubt we have a tendency to focus on the negatives in life, often spending a disproportionate amount of time dwelling on what’s wrong in life rather than what’s right. I just came across a video where a neuropsychologist explains why we do this. And it’s not all our fault! We are hardwired to behave this way. So I am referring you to this TEDx video of Dr. Rick Hanson sharing his message “Hardwiring Happiness”. He’ll explain this idea of our negative bias. Simply Google it or use this link: http://youtu.be/jpuDyGgIeh0

This is actually a mental health exercise, but I’m going to ask you to modify a part of the message. He uses some graphics that represent a vessel, a bottle or jar, to represent the brain and some colored circles to represent the life experiences we put in our brain. Watch the video straight through the first time. Then watch it again thinking of the vessel as your soul and the life experiences as spiritual experiences. It’s good stuff and a great exercise for your Body, Mind and Soul!

Take Care, Pastor Dan

Note:  About once a month I write a “Fit Spirit” exercise and distribute it to several churches and organizations for their use and sometimes internal publication.  I thought I’d start posting them here on my blog as well.