Tag: psychology

“To Be Idle and Blessed”: A Wandering Path for Vocational Discernment

This post emphasizes the therapeutic benefits of nature walks for vocational exploration. It highlights how being “idle and blessed” fosters self-reflection, creativity, and deeper understanding of one’s calling. Citing historical and scientific evidence, it encourages incorporating mindful walks into daily life to promote clarity and personal insight in a busy world.

A series drawing on a therapist’s insights into play, wandering, and presence in relation to vocational exploration and discernment.

I first came upon the tantalizing phrase, “idle and blessed,” in Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Summer Day”:

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

It is in such unhurried states—with an open heart and peaceful mind—that callings often stir. I have found that nature walks offer a practice of intentional “idleness,” which allow the mind to wander and reflect, to stir rich self-understanding “blessedly” and to deepen vocational discernment.

Continue reading ““To Be Idle and Blessed”: A Wandering Path for Vocational Discernment”

Privilege and Lies: Some Problematic Myths about Vocation

What myths about work and vocation do we convey when we talk with our students?

What lies might groups with different forms of privilege come to believe about themselves? When those lies are about their abilities and the horizons of possibility for their futures, how do they affect their sense of calling? These questions were posed by Christine Jeske of Wheaton College to a packed room of higher-ed professionals during a session held at the recent NetVUE gathering in Louisville. Trained as an anthropologist, Christine has previously worked on attitudes toward and myths about work in the South African context, where there is a stark disparity between rich and poor. But what myths about work do we convey here in the U.S. when we talk with students on vocation? And what are the unintended consequences of those problematic narratives? How can we tell a different narrative, one that more accurately represents the world in which our students will live? 

Continue reading “Privilege and Lies: Some Problematic Myths about Vocation”

Resilience and “holy grit”

EmotionalSuccesscover.jpg
Published in January 2018

A recent piece in the Chronicle (“We’re teaching grit in the wrong way,” March 18, 2018) suggests that by focusing on the development of self-control, we are missing the importance of the cultivation of virtues such as compassion and gratitude as these may go further (or is it deeper?) in helping students achieve the needed “grit” to succeed in college and beyond. The author, David DeSteno, is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University who works on “the science that underlies human virtue,” and the piece seems to promote the key claims of his new book, Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018). Not surprisingly, given his discipline, DeSteno’s analysis emphasizes the psychology of self-control, yet in nudging us to consider gratitude and compassion something even more fundamental (or is it more encompassing?) seems to be missing. In DeSteno’s hands, developing strong interpersonal relationships and the ability to cooperate helps ensure “long-term success.” Students will have increased perseverance as well as a reduction in stress and loneliness and “enhanced well-being” when they can work toward a long-term goal.

Does the content or substance of the goal matter? What are they working toward? And why? Continue reading “Resilience and “holy grit””