Identity & Narrative

“If your community is not well, then you are not well.” Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra (Fuller Theological Seminary) is an organizer, activist, and pastor whose career has shown how individual thriving is intertwined with collective justice. With respect for marvelous human complexity, she’s encouraging us to get out of our heads and into our bodies and emotions… and is inviting us to compassion for the marginalized, and to ground our spiritual health in our connectedness to the human family, across cultural and economic lines.

What would it be to dream and live unencumbered? Rev. Dr. Dwight Radcliff is a pastor, community leader, and cultural theologian who wants the pages of Christian scripture to come alive to the gritty realities of justice, equity, and social transformation. Looking through the narrative vision of hip-hop and the Black church, he weaves a story of personal and communal wholeness …. holding everything together in all the tension of life … all to find thriving and spiritual health in the embodied, emotional, and empathetic now.

If our stories about ourselves are interwoven with shame, how can others provide insight to help us rewrite those stories?

How do the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves help us through life's transitions? Why do we need others to help us gain insight into who we are becoming?

Identity is not just about acknowledging who we think we are, it is about listening to the voices within our communities–listening for the stories they are telling about who we are collectively.

How do our families shape our identities? By sharing our stories, or our tesimonios, we can gain insight into ourselves and communities.

What is our identity? How do we discover it? What would it look like to define our identity through the communities we participate in?

Awareness is a practice that allows us to train our mind and body, reorienting to the world around us.

Thrive blogger, Amy Dunn, reflects on the concept of integration and how humans navigate the river of life, avoiding the rocky shores or rigidity and chaos.

Want some of Rev. Dr. Radcliff's greatest hits from the history of hip hop? Check out the playlist here!

Thrive blogger, Amy Dunn, reflects on Miroslav Volf and creating a broad place in which we can grow and become.

Thrive blogger, Amy Dunn, summarizes Miroslav Volf's ideas about a flourishing life.

Reflecting on our experiences reinforces or disrupts our internal narratives about ourselves and our perceptions of the world.

What can the church learn from the success of Taylor Swift's Eras tour? This is Part 3 of a 3-Part Series.

What can the church learn from the success of Taylor Swift's Eras tour? Read more in Part 2 of a 3-Part Series.

What can the church learn from the success of the Eras tour? Part 1 of a 3-Part Series.

This practice provides questions to help you explore the beliefs that help you make meaning of life's circumstances.

Think of a coin—it has two sides, heads and tails. In the same way, individuality and relationality can be thought of as two sides of the same coin.

In order to assign meaning we must believe in a bigger picture.

The practice of meaning-making involves exploring our belief systems, especially our beliefs around spirituality, which offer a distinct and powerful role in making meaning.

Finding a good fit between our unique qualities and our environments helps us thrive.

What is the story you tell yourself about your life? Does it help you or keep you from thriving?

Our emotions are linked to how we make meaning of our lives, and attending to our embodied emotional selves leads to spiritual health.

Thrive Fellow, Lauren Van Vranken, offers practices for reconnecting to our bodies and asks us to think about our relationship to our embodied selves.

Why do so many people struggle with perfectionism? Dr. Kenneth Wang explains.

Research with Compassion International yielded results explaining the assets that come from spirituality across countries and challenges.

Research indicates spirituality links meaning to joy, and may provide insight into the balance and purpose we seek.

Our environments impact how we thrive. If our environments don’t support us, what can we do to support ourselves?

Pamela King reflects on the church of her youth and how it deeply formed her identity, sense of purpose, and belonging.

As the world continues to languish, Dr. Pamela King emphasizes the need for spirituality as a source of personal and societal transformation.

Rodrigo Riveros discusses the importance of life stories in promoting brain development and meaning-making in adolescents.

How can we make sense of loss and heartache? Guest blogger, Dr. Stephanie Trudeau, discusses ambiguous loss, sharing 3 ways we can cope with it.

Who are third culture kids, and what helps them adapt and find purpose?

Dr. Stephanie Trudeau continues her discussion on loss, and how meaning-making and beliefs can guide us toward healing.

Ben Houltberg, associate professor of human development, reflects on his own journey away from over-identifying with his performance as an athlete, how performance-based identity can distort faith, and and his passion to help others learn to thrive. He was interviewed by Terry Hargrave, Evelyn and Frank Freed Professor of Marital and Family Therapy.

Developmental scientist, Benjmain Houltberg outlines the warning signs that show whether an athlete suffers from performance-based identity.

Benjamin Houltberg discusses the impact performance and success have on emotional wellbeing on the I Love Success Podcast.

Author: Leidenhag, J. &  King, P. E. Abstract: The concept of ‘neurodiversity’ to speak of conditions such as autism, dyslexia, and others as differences, not disorders or pathologies, relies on a robust account of human flourishing that can incorporate these conditions. Conceptions of illness and well-being are always partially theological, whilst also having to be grounded in the empirical realities of the present time. Therefore, positive developmental psychology is a particularly apt field for developing a theology-informed psychology. This article argues that recent work in theology-engaged psychology of thriving, as opposed to subjective flourishing, is the best approach to securing a vision of well-being for neurodiverse persons.

The results provide evidence for a theory-predicated measure of youth perceptions of being known and loved and that scores for this construct covary within a nomological net specified in the Lerner and Lerner model of PYD. These findings serve international development organizations seeking theory-predicated measures for use in evaluating PYD programs in low- and middle-income countries.

Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing

Ben Houltberg and scholars examine the role of self-narrative profiles in elite athletes' wellbeing.

This pilot program by James Furrow promotes initiative and self-confidence in at-risk youth.

Author: Leidenhag, J. &  King, P. E. Abstract: The concept of ‘neurodiversity’ to speak of conditions such as autism, dyslexia, and others as differences, not disorders or pathologies, relies on a robust account of human flourishing that can incorporate these conditions. Conceptions of illness and well-being are always partially theological, whilst also having to be grounded in the empirical realities of the present time. Therefore, positive developmental psychology is a particularly apt field for developing a theology-informed psychology. This article argues that recent work in theology-engaged psychology of thriving, as opposed to subjective flourishing, is the best approach to securing a vision of well-being for neurodiverse persons.

The results provide evidence for a theory-predicated measure of youth perceptions of being known and loved and that scores for this construct covary within a nomological net specified in the Lerner and Lerner model of PYD. These findings serve international development organizations seeking theory-predicated measures for use in evaluating PYD programs in low- and middle-income countries.

Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing

Ben Houltberg and scholars examine the role of self-narrative profiles in elite athletes' wellbeing.

This pilot program by James Furrow promotes initiative and self-confidence in at-risk youth.