Family Spirituality–Caring for the Heart of Your Home

Last updated on: August 6, 2015 at 9:06 am by Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

Family Spirituality–Caring for the Heart of Your Home 2015-08-06T09:06:09-05:00 Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

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Spirituality is the heart of our your home. Are you caring for your family’s “heart health”? Here’s my latest article for Our Sunday Visitor’s Daily Take.

Are you attending to your family’s heart health?

Your family’s spiritual well-being represents the true heart of your family, the spiritual heart that pumps joy, meaning, and connection into your life as a family and as persons. Experts note that the degree to which your family shares a spiritual life actually predicts the degree of satisfaction you can expect from both your family relationships and life in general. Do you know how to protect your family’s “heart health”?

What is ‘spirituality’ anyway?

Psychologists assert that a healthy spirituality promotes three qualities that are essential for a joyful, meaningful life: transcendence, transformation and integration.

Transcendence refers to times of special connection with God, moments filled with a sense of wonder and awe. Transcendence promotes well-being by reminding us that we are part of “something bigger.” That we are not alone in the world and that each moment of life is packed with divine meaning and purpose.

Transformation refers to our commitment to embrace the changes necessary to become healthier, happier and more fulfilled. For the Christian, authentic transformation is all about embracing God’s plan for our fulfillment in a conscious (versus merely cultural), willing (versus coerced) and whole-hearted (versus grudging) manner.

Finally, Integration refers to spirituality’s power to promote greater peace in our lives — both between us and others and within ourselves. A healthy spirituality compels us to harmonize any conflicts between our beliefs, values and identity, and enables us to live with integrity no matter where or whom we’re with.

Properly understood, “being spiritual” is about becoming fully-formed, vital people who know who we are, what we stand for, where we are going and what we need to do to get there.

Family spirituality: what does it look like?

Families play a critical role in cultivating each member’s spiritual life and all the above benefits that flow from it.Family life is primarily about forming persons — parents and children growing together, learning from each other, supporting one another in living out a shared mission and goals — all of which has to do with spirituality. Without a strong sense of spiritual well-being, families too easily become collections of individuals living under the same roof and sharing a data plan.

Three steps to a ‘heart-healthy’ family

There are three basic activities families can undertake to promote their spiritual well-being. CONTINUE READING

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