Wonder! Mystery! We Are Alive!

Wonder of wonders! Mystery of mysteries! We are alive! We are together, not alone. All living beings are alive and living together, right here, right now.

A few articulate and influential humans make up stories but no one really knows how or why we are alive. We just are.

Some humans welcome being alive. They are healthy, able, and willing to face the challenges of living. They are truly pro-life and pro-choice. They value and affirm their own life and the lives of all other living beings. They choose to live their lives fully and do so their way.

This world is their home. They seek no other. Here they live, work, struggle, and play.

Others are less healthy, less able, and less willing to face the challenges of living. Some even resent those who are healthy. They resent being alive. They oppose choice and life. Rather than valuing and affirming, they devalue and deny their own life and the lives of others. They restrict the choices of others.  

They dream of a better life and world, the "next life" in the "next world." They seek to escape life, work, struggle, and play.

There are three great mysteries. The first great mystery is this: the mystery of life. Wonder of wonders, we are alive!

Caring for Your Spirit: It's Up to You

I cannot care for your spirit for you. No one can. Your spirit is yours to care for. We all need you to care well for your spirit. 

I cannot tell you how to care for your spirit. No one else can either. Your spirit is unique. The difficult work of learning how best to care for your spirit is your work to do. We all need you to do your own work.

Sharing

However, I can help. I can share with you what little I have learned up to this point in my life. Perhaps something I share will help you in your own journey of discovery.

All I ask in return is that you help me. Share with me what you have learned. Perhaps something you share will help me.

One Example

So, for example, I have found it helpful to keep a log of what affects and changes my spirit. Specifically, I find it helpful in learning how to care for my spirit to identify what helps and what harms my spirit.

My log has the following categories:

My five physical senses: What do I see, hear, smell, touch, and taste that helps or harms my spirit? 

Actions: What do I do that helps/harms my spirit? 

People, places, things: Who helps/harms my spirit? What places help/harm my spirit? What things help/harm my spirit?

Events: What events help/harm my spirit?

Thoughts: What thoughts help/harm my spirit?

Imaginings: What do I imagine that helps/harms my spirit? 

Memories: What memories help/harm my spirit when I review them?

Getting Started

To get started, take small steps.

Take no more than 30-45 minutes to use the categories above to make your initial list of what helps and harms your spirit

 

Determining Our Thumic Norm, Part Two

Sample Applications

Determining our thumic norm is helpful in at least three ways. First, once we determine our thumic norm, we have a baseline with which we can compare it with other possibilities and decide if we can and want to work on changing our thumic norm.

For example, we might determine that our thumic norm is high, extroverted, troubled and changing. We can then examine the consequences that we experience with our thumic norm and decide if we want to make some changes.

Secondly, determining our thumic norm makes it possible for us to better identify conditions of our spirit that are not our norm. 

For example, if our thumic norm is somewhat low, somewhat introverted, well, and constant and it changes to, say, more extroverted and troubled, we have something to pay attention to.

Thirdly, determining our thumic norm makes it possible for us to compare our norm with our circumstances and assess if our norm and our circumstances are congruent or not. When they are congruent, we are likely to be effective in our circumstances. When they are incongruent, we can determine if we can adapt or not. If we can adapt, knowing our thumic norm and what our circumstances require, gives us insight into how we need to adapt. Knowing how we need to adapt helps us determine if we are willing and able to do so.

For example, is our thumic norm is high, introverted, well, and constant but our work requires us to be high, extroverted, well and changing, then we have some decisions to make. How long can we sustain the demand? Can we effectively set boundaries on our work and do our job from our thumic norm? Do we need to change jobs?

Determining Our Thumic Norm, Part One

Our thumic norm is how our thumos, our spirit, is naturally. It is how our spirit is when it is free to be itself.

As a way to help us determine our thumic  norm, I developed the following assessment tool with four rating scales:

My spirit is normally-

Very Low <--------------------------------------------------> Very High

               1                                     3                                5

Very Introverted <------------------------------------------> Very Extroverted

                         1                          3                                5

Very Troubled <---------------------------------------------> Very Well

                      1                             3                                  5

Very Constant <--------------------------------------------> Very Changing

                      1                            3                                  5

Explanation

The Low/High scale provides a reading  of the degree of our spiritedness. Are we normally low-spirited, high-spirited, or somewhere in between? NOTE: In this context "Low" is descriptive. It has to do with our degree of liveliness rather than our mood.

The Introverted/Extroverted scale provides a reading of the normal orientation of our spirit. Is our spirit directed inward to our thinking, imagining, and/or emotional processes; outward toward external people, places, things, and events; and to what degree?

The Troubled/Well scale helps us assesses the normal overall health of our spirit.  Are we normally ill-spirited, well-spirited, or somewhere in between?

Finally, the Constant/Changing scale gives us a reading on normal consistency of our spirit. Is our spirit consistently the same or consistently changing? 

The Constant/Changing scale can refer to the three scales above it. Are we normally the same place on the Low/High scale or is our place on that scale normally changing? Is our place on the Introverted/Extroverted scale normally the same or is it normally changing? Is our place on the Ill/Well-spirited scale normally the same or is it normally changing?

Part 2 Will be about some practical applications of determining our thumic norm.  

A Session With Me

I established a holistic health discussion group that meets once a month at the local public library. At yesterday's meeting the woman who was our presenter for the day and I were talking as we waited for others to arrive.

After hearing me answer her question about what I do, she asked, "So, what is session with you like?" Here's my answer:

As session with me is like having a confidential conversation with someone who cares deeply about the things you care most deeply about.

I believe in you. I believe that you have life-affirming desires in your heart that no one else has. They are yours alone to fulfill and no one else but you can fulfill them. 

We all need you to fulfill the life-affirming desires of your heart. However, doing so is not easy. It's very difficult. 

So, if the purpose of life is for each one of us to fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts, then sessions with me are about providing a safe, confidential place for you to talk about what you're working on. Sessions with me are about me listening to you, encouraging, supporting, and challenging you to fulfill the life-affirming desires of your heart.

Our Hearts' Desires: The Heart of Thumotherapy

In American Indian Medicine, Virgil Vogel writes, "The theory of disease causation from unfulfilled dreams or desires was most highly developed among the Iroquoian tribes." He goes on to quote the Jesuit priest Joseph Jouvency who wrote about the Iroquois: " For they think that there are in every man certain inborn desires, often unknown to themselves, upon which the happiness of the individual depends." (p.20)

In my many years in both conventional and complementary health care, I have not, until reading Vogel's book, come across a theory of disease causation so similar to my own. Based on my own experience, like the Iroquois, I believe that we each have life-affirming desires in our hearts that are ours alone to fulfill. Also like the Iroquios, I believe that we can get sick when we are thwarted or otherwise prevented from fulfilling the life-affirming desires of our hearts.

We cannot help but be frustrated, stressed, and unhappy when we feel either vaguely or acutely that we are failing to fulfill our in-born purpose in life. 

Furthermore, in my view, the life-affirming desires of our heart are those of our spirit. Here "heart" is another word for "spirit." 

Our spirit, that which makes us alive, has inherent, life-affirming desires to fulfill. Fulfilling these desires is the purpose of our life. It is vitally important for us to be conscious of our heart's desires and do our part to fulfill them. 

When we do not, we put ourselves on the path to a break in our health and an unfulfilled life. We also fail to enrich the lives of others with the gifts that we alone have to share.

In my view, identifying and fulfilling the life-affirming desires of our hearts is at the heart of thumotherapy, the therapeutic care and healing of spirits.  

On Being a Thumologist

To be a thumologist is to -

Devote your life, your spirit, to the study of spirit, that which makes alive

Understand that whatever is in motion and changing is spirited and alive, and therefore

  within your field of study

Value and affirm spirit, your own and that of all others

Care about spirit so much that you are compelled to engage in the ongoing process of

  knowing and understanding spirit in a fuller and deeper way

Study the spirit of others with deep respect, as one who is spirited, not as a living being

        studying an inanimate thing

        Study the spirit not just with one's five physical senses and analytical mind, but also with one's

       own spirit

Be dedicated to the goal of increasing humanity's body of knowledge and understanding

       of spirit

Anyone can be a thumologist to some degree.

The question is who will step up and excel at being thumologists?

Who will stand out as the great thumologists of history?