Contemplation and Application
Part 2: Contemplation and Application
Parts 1 and 2 cover Contemplation, Isolation, Limitation, and Application. To listen to Part 1, which concerns isolation and limitation click here. Part 2 focuses on contemplation and application.
Contemplation
Some have called this time “the great pause.” It is not a pause for everyone (for example, nurses, first responders, parents of school-age children). Whether you have a pause or not, contemplation can help you maintain health.
Contemplation Practices
Practice Presence – focus on what is happening right now; not the past or the future. Check this Bible verse.
Practice Intention – fill the space with healthy ideas, people, and things. If you rely on the world to fill the space, it will fill your space with ideas, people, and things that serve its purposes. These may not be healthy for you. Be intentional! Fill the space with positivity. You may remember (past) the positive. You may plan for the future. You may NOT dwell on these. You should be predominately in the present.
Practice Self-Awareness – quiet the yammering from the world and from your self so you can hear God.
Practice Other-Awareness – when we quiet ourselves and our environment, this opens us up to hear others.
Practice God-Awareness – finally, all these practices together add up to God-awareness.
Application
Contemplation, Isolation, Limitation, and Application are the four parts of the 40 Days podcast series. Application focuses on new habits emerging from the experience of quarantine or lockdown.
Application During the Crisis
If you are an essential worker…I want you to know that you are loved, respected, and prayer for.
If you are a non-essential worker, you can still help!
Spiritually
Prayer
Positivity – do not participate in the negativity and bickering
Materially
Express your love, respect, and prayers for essential workers
Offer your skills and talents virtually or a safe distance. Do as much as you can at low cost to others. You need to support yourself, but if you can contribute freely, do so.
Follow the advice of the scientists.
Application After the Crisis
Continue the good habits you started during the crisis.
Take a more active role in your personal development.
Rely less on the media and more on your own reason, research, and creativity.
Be grateful for those who serve and what you have
Find ways to be interdependent
Develop sound finances. This should be a key goal for us all. More about this in episodes to come.
Build a better, fairer, more equitable, more sustainable, more just society and world.
Our system in the US (as it exists) is broken. It will not fix itself.
Live locally and with peers.
BECOME A MORE LOVING PERSON!