By Charles Barnard
Caring for the human spirit is simply too often ignored. Probably, it is ignored because we don’t truly understand what it is. The human spirit is often used interchangeable with the soul but it is more than your soul. The best way to probably define the human spirit is to look at how we have used it not in science but literature, everyday use, and religion. Here are just a handful.
- Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. – William Ellery Channing
- Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear and superstition. – Bernard Beckett
- The human body has limitations. The human spirit is boundless. – Dean Karnazes
- There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. – Ronald Reagan
- For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. – 1 Corinthians 2:11
- The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God – Romans 8:16
If the human spirit is dealing with that something intangible, immaterial, and unique to humans that allows us to achieve great things despite whatever challenges life throws at us, it behooves us to pay attention to the importance of caring for the human spirit.
In this video clip from the movie The Scent of a Women Robert DeNiro says there is no prothesis for an amputated spirit.
What does an amputated spirit look like? What does it look like to be defeated? Google defeated and look at the images. Probably the most common trait is a hanging head and drooping shoulders. There is a physiology associated with being defeated. There is also a mindset of defeatism that has many of the characteristics of a fixed mindset – but more complete and broader. Caring for the human spirit then means caring for both our body and our mind.
The NLP communication model shows that our behavior is a function of our internal representations, state, and physiology, all of which are influenced by each other. If you don’t care for your body you can negatively influence your thinking and state and if you don’t watch what you feed your mind you can influence your body and state. We should know by now the essentials for caring for the human spirit.
First, we need to feed the body well. If you fill the body with most whole foods that are minimally processed you can minimize the potential development of mood disorders. The more sugars you consume such as the sugars that come from alcohol consumption the more you can increase the likelihood of developing mood disorders and an “amputated” spirit. Exercise can help counteract the negative impact of a healthy diet. Exercise also improves the functioning of all the systems of the body. The human spirit relies on the functioning of the body systems to do its magic. If those systems aren’t functioning optimally the human spirit won’t function optimally.
Thinking may be the most important and powerful aspect of caring for the human spirit. I say that because it is thinking that causes us to take the action of proper feeding and exercising the body. It is the thinking that feeds the energy that gives us a glimpse of the spirit. We can see this in brain scans that shows the activity in the brain when we experience different emotions. Emotions are in the realm of the spiritual. As are thoughts.
Feeding your thoughts involves focusing on positive things. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he writes this, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” If we couple that with what modern research says about the power of negative thoughts or specifically, criticism, we see we need to experience five positives (praise) for every negative (criticism). If all we are hearing, seeing, feeling is criticism and negativity we are effectively amputating our spirit.
We cannot control other people. We can control what we feed our minds. Far too often, young people who are living in less than ideal situations and face far more criticism than they should end up feeding it even more with negative music, violent video games, violent and sexually explicit videos, never mind poor diets and exercise. Caring for the human spirit is vitally important and with children truly falls into the realm of their parents.
For us adults the human spirit is an incredible, mysterious, concept. It is resilience. It will respond to love and care almost immediately. It becomes stronger the more we feed it. Caring for the human spirit then involves us learning to think good thoughts – regularly. It means reading hopeful stories and articles – regularly. It means listening to uplifting and positive music – regularly. It means avoiding the profane, violent, sexually explicit, and anti-human – regularly.
Again, as adults you are free to choice and make your own decisions. Do so wisely. If you choose to feed your depressive state with depressive music, movies, or the like to counteract that you need to feed your mind with five times as much positives. You watch a two-hour violent, depressing movie even if it has important messaging (think Shindler’s List) you need to watch ten-hours of positive and uplifting movies to counter-act those two hours. Or you can use daily meditation, prayer, visualization, breathing, exercise, nutrition, and the like to help counteract the the negative. Just know that caring for the human spirit involves becoming aware of what you put into your mind, including your own self-talk. You are in control of that.
The most powerful weapon we have against negative thinking, which can include the decision making process that prevents us from properly feeding and caring for our bodies, is the development of the habits. In particular, morning and evening rituals. Those rituals should include components of breath work, movement, prayer and meditation, visualization, reflective thinking, goal-setting and planning, and personal growth and development. All of these components do not have to be in both the morning and evening ritual. Exercise can actually be done at different times throughout the day. Still, some body movement in the morning and evening can help us wake-up and get ready for the day and can help us sleep better at night.
Caring for the human spirit is a vital skill that simply is not taught to most people. There are many techniques that should be part of your human spirit toolbox. Learning to use them is fairly simple while mastering them takes a life-time of work. Becoming a craftsman takes a lifetime and you want to become a craftsman of your life. Caring for the human spirit is at the core of developing a mindset of a champion and being a craftsman of your life.
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