This transcript was generated automatically. It may contain errors.
Pam King: I’m Dr. Pam King, and you’re listening to With & For, a podcast that explores the depths of psychological science and spiritual wisdom to offer practical guidance towards spiritual health, wholeness, and thriving on purpose.
Jill Westbrook: Hello with and for listeners, I’m Jill Westbrook, and I’m senior director at the Thrive Center and With & For producer. And I’m introducing each of the episodes in this series from Pam King on the five A’s of Agility for Spiritual Health. Today’s our last installment.
But I’m very excited to share that we’ll be releasing the next season of all new guests and fully produced episodes on January 6, 2025. And until then, we’re doing two things.
First, we’re sharing these shorter clips, practical features, and other talks and interviews from Pam to add insight to what it means to thrive and pursue spiritual health.
And second, we’re expanding and asking you to join us in spreading the word about with and for word of mouth is one of the most effective ways we can grow. So if you haven’t already, please consider sharing about why you listen to, with and for, whether that’s texting an episode to a friend, or rating and reviewing our show on Apple or Spotify. We are so incredibly grateful for your support.
Now, this is it. We’re about to wrap up this series. The five A’s are a journey, but as Pam has suggested, they’re a cycle. They’re built for the rhythms and repetitions of life and can be applied in so many ways, all to help us become more agile and adaptive in our pursuit of thriving and spiritual health.
From attunement, to awareness, to alignment, and activation, Pam has led us through a process of pursuing purpose, cultivating joy, and connecting more deeply to ourselves as we live out our spirituality and refine our values. This final step of assessment is absolutely essential in that process. It’s the step that helps us take stock, adapt, and flex, ready to start fresh and begin anew each day.
So here’s Pam wrapping up the five A’s of agility for spiritual health with our final step, assessment.
Thanks for joining us on this journey.
Pam King: Today I’m going to share with you some thoughts about assessment, which is the fifth of the five A’s that I’ve been talking about . So after we attune to our feelings, we become aware of their significance and meaning, aligning them to what matters most to us. and activating on those values, we then take stock.
And this might practically be, at the end of your day, that you take time to assess the activation went. How did attempting to pursue purpose, to live in a value aligned way, or how to serve God, or neighbor, or however you articulate that, how did it go? What are the feelings that came up? Was it scary?
Was it exhilarating? Was it gratifying? A mixture of all that. Was it awful? What did you learn? Is that something you want to pursue more of or less of?
One of the ways formally within the Christian tradition that we do something like assessment is the Ignatian prayer of examen. It’s a prayer that settles us and quiets us and invites us to reflect with the guidance of the Holy Spirit over our day and ask God to give light or give insight into where we experience God’s presence or one might say where they experience joy throughout their day.
And where are places did that feel missing? I’ve personally found the Ignatian prayer extremely helpful in just a daily basis of becoming aware of where God is most active in my life or where God is calling me, or I might say where I feel most fully alive and most fully able. to honor and serve God.
I do love to journal and reflect on how’s it going? I love to share that and get feedback with friends, but I’ve really grown to love and appreciate the contemplative prayer of the examen. It is a moment that slows me down allows me to connect with God and take a perspective that’s not my own on how my day is going.
The Ignatian Prayer has become an opportunity for me to attempt to understand where God is or how God might see things going in my life
For me these A’s are really an opportunity to to think about: What are we made and created to do? What are we invited to be as full selves?
And then finally, we we want to keep accountable to other people. We want to share with them, hey, these are the things in my life that I’m seeing that really matter. These are the ways I’m feeling called to be activated.
This is what I’m learning about what my sense of purpose and contribution is in this world. What do you think? Are those strengths, are those valid for me, for our time, or am I missing something? But we need to be courageous and brave and share our curiosities and wonderings with others.
So in assessment, we pause. We assess. How this process is going, particularly our attempts of activating before God, ourselves, and one another. Assessment is not just about reflection and only using your frontal lobe but it’s also invoking that first step of attuning and being aware of how these activities make you feel. How is it going for you in your body? Does this yield joy, sadness, frustration? Use those emotions as signposts as you assess how this journey of pursuing purpose is going.
Jill Westbrook: Thanks for listening everyone. This concludes our journey through the five A’s of spiritual health. We’ll be back next week with a cross listing with our friends from Fuller Studio, where Dr. Pam King offers a sermon about bearing good fruit in your life. We hope you’ll listen in.
We’re so excited to bring you the next season of Within Four on January 6, 2025. And as always, you can find a wealth of practices and resources on our website, thethrivecenter.org.
And if you haven’t already subscribed to within four to catch each of our weekly episodes this fall, take good care.
Pam King: With & For is a production of The Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. For more information, visit our website, thethrivecenter.org where you’ll find all sorts of resources to support your pursuit of wholeness and a life of thriving on purpose.
I am so grateful to the staff and fellows of the Thrive Center and our With & For podcast team. Jill Westbrook is our Senior Director and Producer. Lauren Kim is our Operations Manager. Wren Jeurgensen is our Social Media Graphic Designer. Evan Rosa is our Consulting Producer. And special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy.
I’m your host, Dr. Pam King. Thank you for listening.
Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King
Pamela Ebstyne King is the Executive Director of the Thrive Center and the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science in the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Her life’s purpose is to help people thrive. To this end, her academic work focuses on psychological and theological perspectives of human thriving and social flourishing. Her psychological research focuses on spiritual and moral development; the role of transcendent beliefs, narratives, and emotions in virtue development; and environments that promote thriving for diverse people. TheThriveCenter.org translates research into resources that promote wholeness, thriving, and spiritual health, and she is the host of the With & For podcast.
Episode Summary
“How did it go?” As we pursue purpose and spiritual health, we need regular opportunities to take stock and understand how our efforts are making an impact in our lives and in the lives of others.
In the process of pursuing purpose, cultivating joy, and connecting more deeply to ourselves, we need to learn how to audit and assess how its going as we live out our spirituality and refine our values.
In this episode, Dr. Pam King explains assessment—the final (and absolutely essential) step in the process of cultivating agility and adaptivity for spiritual health. At this stage, we take stock, adapt, and flex, ready to start fresh and begin anew each day.
Show Notes
- Audit and assess
- Take stock, adapt, and flex, ready to start fresh and begin anew each day.
- Consider cycles and frequencies of assessment
- The Ignatian Prayer of Examen
- Becoming aware of where God is most fully active in our lives
- Slow down, connect with God, and take a different perspective
- What are we made and created to do?
- What is our purpose as full human selves?
- The importance of patience and pausing
- Accountability
- Utilize emotions as signposts
- Drawing on the first step of attunement
- How to facilitate the final step of the cycle and move toward beginning again
About the Thrive Center
- Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
- Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
- Follow us on X @thrivecenter
- Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter
About Dr. Pam King
Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. Follow her @drpamking.About With & For
- Host: Pam King
- Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
- Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
- Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
- Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa
Explore More
Self-Care
Strength Training for Thriving: How to Build our Mental Health Muscles
As mental health awareness grows, Pamela King reflects on the tools we need to live coherent, purposeful lives.
Pamela Ebstyne King, Ph.D.
Agility and Adaptation through the 5 A’s of Spiritual Health
How can we cultivate agility and adaptivity in our chaotic, shifting times? Dr. Pam King offers a research-backed cycle of practices to incorporate into the rhythms of your daily life—helping you navigate change and work through life’s obstacles. She calls them the 5 A’s of Spiritual Health: Attunement, Awareness, Alignment, Activation, and Assessment.
Agility
Assess: Are you living your values?
A practice of Introspection, assessing how the day went, can be a valuable tool for understanding where you want to go.