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Pam King: Hello, with and for friends and listeners, Pam here.
It’s hard to believe that this whirlwind of a year is drawing to a close, but this is just a part of natural rhythms of life. It’s a time to reflect and look back, a season of thanks, of joy, and of generosity, and celebration, and a time to finish strong and prepare with hope for what’s to come.
This is also the season of charitable giving. And before today’s episode, I’d like to invite you to partner with me and the Thrive Center.
If you’re still considering how to direct your year-end tax-deductible donations, I’d ask you to think about supporting our work on a monthly or annual basis.
Everything we do is funded by an operations budget we raise, whether by grants or gifts, from like minded people just like you. We’d love to have you partner with us So your gift today ensures that we continue to bring you these episodes of with and for, Along with providing so many other psychologically and spiritually informed resources for cultivating a life of meaning, purpose, and thriving.
Making a gift is simple. If you love what we’re doing, Just head over to thethrivecenter.org/contribute. Thank you, my friends.
Jill Westbrook: Hello, friends. I’m Jill Westbrook, and welcome to With & For. We’re only a month away from January 6th, our launch of Season 2, and waiting is not easy, but Advent is the perfect season to practice patience and cultivate skills of waiting well.
So today we’re starting a four part series releasing a special holiday season episode for each Sunday during Advent. As you may know, Advent is a season of hopeful waiting and expectation that precedes the glory and joy of Christmas. Every Sunday morning, we’ll be releasing a reflection from Pam King, focusing on one of the four themes of Advent, hope, peace, joy, and love. But we’re putting our own little Thrive Center twist on these themes.
What if we were to approach each of these four advent virtues through the Five A’s of Agility for Spiritual Health? you might remember our series on this process from earlier in the fall.
For each advent virtue will help you cultivate and grow in that dimension by attuning, becoming aware, aligning, and activating. In this episode, Dr. Pam King reflects on the meaning of hope and walks us through a meditative exercise to appreciate and cultivate hope in our lives. Enjoy.
Pam King: Hope has the power to transform and involves our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
As part of your advent, I invite you to spend some time taking hold of hope using these simple steps to guide you. Within the Christian tradition, hope is more than a feeling. It is something that compels us forward through darkness with anticipation of what will be. Advent provides the opportunity to attune to hope, become aware of our deepest hopes, and to Align our lives to them.
Advent also asks of us, where does your hope come from? The psalmist reminds us, it’s the maker of heaven and earth. In this meditation, I will guide you to attune, become aware, align, and activate into hope. Let us begin. First, we attune in order to feel sensations of hope in our bodies.
If you are comfortable, close your eyes.
Take one big inhale through your nose and then sigh that breath out through your mouth again. Be mindful you are breathing in the breath of God and you are in the loving presence of God. As you breathe steadily, become aware of sensations. that hope brings to you. Pay special attention to how you might be experiencing hope in any specific places in your body.
What do you feel? Are there any glimmers, or a feeling, or a tingling of hope somewhere in your body? What does hope, or maybe just the promise of hope, feel like in you? If you can’t access hopeful feelings, that’s okay. Just notice.
Next, become aware and try to name the feelings associated with hope and what those feelings say about what you are hoping for, about your deepest desires.
Although hope is often associated with joy and eagerness, sometimes with a sense of anticipation might come nervousness. What do these feelings and ideas of hope say about your deepest desires and perhaps what God desires for you? Consider also where your hope comes from.
Now we align and set our intentions to pursue hope. Given what. You are aware of hoping for today. Consider how you might align your day with your hope. How might this inform who you spend your time with or what activities or situations might you pursue in the coming weeks of Advent? What do your hopes say about how you might align with hope to reflect God’s desires for you?
Next, We activate to take action to pursue hope as the writer of Hebrew said Take hold of hope. How can you activate or take one step towards living into this? Hope today
is this action part of your normal routine, or does it require stepping out to pursue? Hope what is one thing you can do today? to lean forward into hope. In closing, share your thoughts and hopes with God.
And may the hope of Christ be with you and pervade your life this week as you anticipate the coming of God, our hope this Christmas.
Jill Westbrook: We’re so grateful that you listened today. We’ll be back with our next Advent Reflection on Peace next Sunday, December 8th. Until then, you can find a wealth of practices and resources on our website, thethrivecenter.org. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to With & For wherever you listen to podcasts.
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.
Pamela Ebstyne King, Ph.D.
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
Hope is powerful. It’s more than a feeling. It’s a foundation for getting us through even the darkest of times. The season of Advent provides the opportunity to attune to hope, become aware of our deepest hopes and desires, and then align our lives to hope.
This December, we’re celebrating Advent with you by offering four guided meditations by Dr. Pam King—considering how to cultivate the Advent virtues of hope, peace, joy, and love into our lives this year.
We’d be grateful if you considered the Thrive Center in your year-end giving. To make a year-end tax-deductible gift, visit thethrivecenter.org/contribute.
Don’t forget that Season 2 of With & For launches with all new episodes on January 6, 2025!
Show Notes
- “Hope has the power to transform and involves our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.”
- Take hold of hope with simple steps of attunement, awareness, alignment, and activation
- Breath work
- Attune, in order to feel sensations of hope in your body.
- How are you experiencing or feeling hope in your body?
- Notice, don’t judge.
- What do the feelings of hope say about your deepest desires?
- Where does your hope come from?
- How can you align your day with your hope?
- How can you align with hope to reflect God's desires for you?
- What is one thing you can do today to lean forward into hope?
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