Practice Thriving and Resilience: Skill 5: Engage in activities that provide meaning, purpose, and care for others
Each MCD Relationship Competency identifies 6 Skills, along with specific practices for learning each. For more context about MCD Relationship Competency 9: Thriving & Resilience, see Skill 1: Describe events using neutral observations, Skill 2: Meet both positive and negative events with equanimity, Skill 3: Take action to nourish emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual needs on a consistent daily or weekly basis, and Skill 4: Express 5 positives to every one negative.
Skill 5: Engage in activities that provide meaning, purpose and care for others
Finding meaning, purpose, and a way to care for life is its own form of healing and well-being.
Suffering, without meaning, is a waste and a weight on your heart.
Your ability to find meaning in suffering liberates your heart. The moment you offer something to ease the suffering of another, you create meaning through letting that suffering be a doorway for inspiring care.
Meaning, purpose, and care for others calls you into a place in yourself that is bigger than the details and challenges of daily life. When you move into this expansive space you come home to the truth of who you are.
Practice
Deepening a sense of purpose
Reflect on a specific moment or event in which you experienced a deep sense of purpose.
If you have a study partner, share this with them and ask them to reflect back what they hear and offer guesses about feelings and needs present for you in that experience.
Have your partner, or in your reflection, ask questions like the following to more fully connect with your experience:
Where in your body do you sense that feeling?
Does the feeling move and change? How so?
Do you notice any images associated with your experience? What are they? Does one stand out as more powerful than the others?
How does your posture change as you connect with a sense of purpose?
What happens with your sense of confidence as you connect with purpose?
What do you notice about your sense of self or authenticity?