Wellness – tiffany nicole fletcher

Browse Category by Wellness

Contemplative Practice, Embodiment, Emotional Support, Facing Challenge, Grief, Healing, Love, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Wellness

The Practice of Savoring

In July, my aunt Hilde left her body. After suffering from a brief illness, she left us to be with the Lord forever. During her life, she carried a beautiful joy for many things: music and singing, delicious food, travel, writing and reading, fashion, and for her service as a nurse, service she fulfilled for nearly 50 years. She lived with a true “zest for life,” as my mother calls it; she loved celebrations and gatherings, and had so many amazing experiences during her lifetime.

I was sitting in the park thinking about her, as I looked upon the horizon, where the sun was setting in a gorgeous array of colors. I thought about how our souls are given this bodily vessel and how to have that experience is a blessing. We tend to lose our awareness that it is a gift to dwell in a body, even if that body has aches and pains or things we might wish to change.

Contemplative Practice, Emotional Support, Event Recording, Facing Challenge, Mindfulness, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Sleep Support, Spiritual Practice, Trauma, Video, Wellness

VIDEO: Learn How to Calm the Anxious Mind (Event Recording)

There is so much going on in the world, both on a global level and in the nitty-gritty of our daily lives. It can be a challenge to find ways to manage the stress of it all and remember the light and resilience we carry within.

I’ve long known that mindfulness practice is a powerful way to promote calm and reduce the effects of stress, but I recently learned the fascinating and life-changing details of just how it can achieve this.

I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Dr. Kirk B i ngaman, Fordham University professor of mental health counseling and spiritual integration, at Trinity Church Wall Street about anxiety (both personal and collective) and how mindfulness practice can help us manage it by rewiring the brain over time – toward resilience, non-reactivity, steadiness, and positivity. We discussed mindfulness practice, neuroplasticity, and how we can access calm and peace in daily life. Dr. Bingaman gave a presentation on these topics before our chat.

Click the image below to view the event recording.

*Tiffany Nicole Fletcher and Dr. Kirk Bingaman in conversation at Trinity Church Wall Street*

Did you know that the innate orientation of our brains is anxiety and hypervigilance?

This ancient design served an evolutionary purpose, as a way to help our ancestors anticipate threats and survive in the face of mortal danger a long time ago. It has helped humans survive through the ages.

Most of us no longer face the threat of being killed by a tiger, yet we all still carry a brain that is constantly anticipating danger and pain. In his book, The Power of Neuroplasticity for Pastoral and Spiritual Care (which I highly recommend!), Dr. Bingaman shares about the ways that mindfulness practice can help us steer the brain toward the positive:

Emotional Support, Grief, Herbalism, Medicinal Plants, Personal Growth, Self-care, snowdrop, Trauma, Wellness

The Power of Plants: Snowdrop and Grief Wisdom

Lately I’ve been thinking about emergence and transition, about what it’s like to move out of periods of darkness or change and come into new ways of being, living, and even loving. I’ve been thinking about the grief involved in that, about how necessary grief is as a process, how it eventually leaves a clearing…and about how often we experience a grief process but don’t recognize it as that.

The process is different when we’re able to call it what it is. Grief likes to be welcomed into the room, given a proper seat.

Facing Challenge, Healing, Nature, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Wellness

Rooted in the Source: Spiritual Connection and Resilience

One of the most important things you can do right now is to locate your true Source and keep drinking from that well. In “normal” (non-pandemic) times, we enter into our relationships and lean on each other to varying degrees, ebbing and flowing in that way based on who has energy to give, the dynamics of our relationships, how we manage stress, etc. But in these times, everyone is under intense, chronic stress in different ways. Everyone is a pot leaking water, and you are a pot leaking water, too – so if you need to truly be refilled and replenished like never before, you can’t look to another leaking pot. You have to go back to the water source.

Faith, Healing, Love, Personal Growth, Self-care, Wellness

Love Bears Pain: Facing the Shadows

Last week, we lost Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, people who inspired so many, people who infused the world with delight and creativity. We were devastated to discover the pain they were living with, the pain that ultimately led them to take their own lives. I’ve been thinking a lot about pain for the last week. About the shadow side of life and why we keep our pain hidden in darkness when all it does there is fester and eat our life away, sometimes literally devouring our very existence.

Why are we so ashamed of our pain? Why is it not safe to say to one another, “I’m hurting”? Why do we suffer alone? Why is it so hard for us to be what we already are – completely human, someone who isn’t always okay?

Somewhere I heard the saying, “When pain is shared, it doesn’t become trauma.” I’ve had pain, both physical and emotional, that I thought I would never survive nor recover from, pain that I thought would break me in half. Not only did I survive, but I have recovered, and what made the difference for me was the pain being brought to light in the safe space of someone who could bear it with me. I needed that even when God was abiding with me in my pain; I needed both. He created us for relationship and for love, and our presence can heal one another.

Pain cannot withstand the light of love. It will transform in the face of it. It will shift and change and eventually become wisdom and compassion. God is a redeemer; we have the victory, because even the darkest parts of life can be made into light when surrendered and offered to God. Sadly, sometimes we lose people before they are able to know and experience this.

If we normalize pain as what it truly is – part of the human condition – perhaps we won’t be so afraid to have our pain be witnessed. We’ll bring it out into the light, even just to one other person, where it will have to shift and change, where we can be healed.

So with the events of this past week, I want to say: don’t be afraid to look into your dark places and be honest with yourself about the ways life has broken your heart. Make sure you have at least one person with whom it’s safe to share those things. (Look for compassion, acceptance, someone who is aware of their own pain, and the ability to be fully present.) Try as much as you can to BE that person for the people you love. And seek, without shame, whatever help you need to be well. There is NO shame in therapy, counseling, crying and experiencing “negative”/difficult emotions, taking medication, and whatever else you need to heal. Pursue your healing. It is your birthright and God wants you to be well.

Love bears pain. I can only speak to the love of God, because that is what has ultimately saved me. My heart was broken, but oh I found the heart-mender! In God’s great love for us, Christ came and died a death on a cross, a death he didn’t deserve, that death, pain, loss, and suffering would no longer have the final say. Death and suffering were swallowed up in the love between Father and Son, that now all who suffer are taken up into the love of God, for God knows that place, God knows what it is to face death and pain. He knew what we needed most and He has provided it in the person of Jesus Christ.

When you suffer, God is there – God is with you, bearing it with you. And He has already given us victory over the shadow side of life in the promise of the Holy Spirit – that God will be right where we are, breathing in us. Knowing that I am never alone, even and especially when I’m in pain…that saves me every day. I wish you peace today.