From the Rector…
The staff and I are on retreat today and tomorrow. Every June, we take a couple of days to reset, strengthen our relationships as a team, and refocus on the year ahead. This year, we are spending time growing in emotional awareness, identifying our core values as a staff, brainstorming about the coming year, and doing some calendar planning.
Emotional intelligence is a powerful tool that helps us grow to love ourselves so that we can love others. It creates space for us to belong to ourselves. And until we belong to ourselves, we have little room for others to belong.
Jesus tells us to “love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” He orders our loves. If you were to write that out, the list would look like this:
- Love God
- Love self
- Love neighbor
We have often been conditioned to think that love of neighbor should come second, but we cannot truly love others until we have learned to love and accept ourselves.
That love of self is not characterized by selfishness, but by vulnerability and sacrifice. It becomes so at home within itself that it is no longer threatened by loving others. Instead, it only expands through the act of loving.
To love another as you love yourself is revealing in what it says about how you think about other people. When we are judgmental of others, it often reflects how harshly we judge ourselves. When we are easily frustrated by others, often we are frustrated with ourselves. When we find joy and peace in another, it reflects the joy and peace we know in our own hearts. There is a direct correlation between how we think about others and our own emotional well-being. Our ability and willingness to love is a mirror of our hearts.
Our emotional well-being takes work, just as intellectual growth requires effort through reading, studying, and learning. Emotional intelligence also requires intention and practice.
One of the exercises we did as a staff involved quieting our minds and actively scanning our bodies to discover where we might be carrying an emotion. Emotions are not always found in the heart or the head. I discovered that I was holding a sense of uneasiness in the soles of my feet. That is pretty telling when you realize that holding fear in one’s feet may reflect being rooted in fear—that even my connection to the earth is filtered through it. That is something I will be thinking about for a while.
Taking time to discover who we are as emotional beings is not simply about self-awareness. By noticing my emotions and being vulnerable enough to talk about them, I make space for others to do the same. That space is what helps connect us and creates a place of cherished belonging. It allows our differences to coexist without feeling threatening. When we can name our fear, we can recognize how much power it wields regardless of the circumstances that cause it. In that place, we can begin to appreciate another person’s fears and understand how they may lead them to make choices vastly different from our own. Only then can we make room for one another.
Pray for the staff as we continue our retreat—specifically, that we might be guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit as we look toward another great program year at Ascension.
Light and Life,
Candice+