We often forget to take the moments to connect with ourselves. Author and Retired United Methodist minister Michael Wuehler joins Suzanne to talk about spiritual wellness, featured this month as part of the Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana.
Michael describes some tools — ways to connect with ourselves. He says, “We’re human beings, not human doings, and we tend to do — we make humanity a verb rather than a noun. I practice yoga, which some Christians have some difficulty with, but yoga has no religion. Yoga is whatever you bring to it. And some of my instructors are very devout Christians in their practice. But yoga allows you to center on and feel and connect with that inner person. In my book, I open up one of the first devotionals with the word rûaħ, that’s a Hebrew word. Rûaħ means breath or spirit. And in yoga, you learn to follow your breath, or your spirit, and your breath controls everything in the body. And without the breath, you don’t have a body and without that, that life force that God breathes into us, we don’t exist. So understanding that that breath, that life force in you, is the core of who you are. And then building upon that is essential.
“We have breathing practices that we do where you follow your breath, you listen to your breath. There’s a practice called the Ujjayi Breath, which means victory breath, where you hear your breath, and the focus is allowing other people in the room to hear that as well. It’s like sharing your spiritual being, this is very practical and I used it quite a bit in helping hospice patients still feel that breath of life in them. Obviously, hospice patients are on their end of life, but that’s a vital feeling that they can cope with.”
Michael adds, “There are three basic questions we all ask: Who am I, Why am I here, Where am I going? Who am I? — that’s a spiritual question. Hopefully, you don’t find a solitary answer, because I’m not just who I am. I am, who I am in relation to a greater being that I call God, and I am who I am in relation to that greater being, and my connection to other people. And part of my purpose in life is to connect with God and serve the people who God loves, which is you and everyone else on this Earth.”
Learn more about:
* Spirit Calling: Listening to God Within You at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Calling-Listening-God-Within/dp/1489733477
* Michael Wuehler: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08W9F8HZD/about
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/
Hear more:
* Podcasts with Michael Wuehler at Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/tag/michael-wuehler/
* Michael Wuehler’s Hearing Spirit Calling podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hearing-spirit-calling/id1663406008
* Articles and podcasts about Spiritual Wellnss: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/spiritual-wellness/
Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/
