On these Blogger pages we explore TOPICS in our desire to respond to Jesus' call to walk with Him in our world as his missionary disciples empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring to humanity the Good News of the Father's love manifested and given in Jesus, the Divine Mercy. G.S.
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How to Manage Your Energy Budget Every Day
First, I’d like to invite you to explore the theory and
formation principles of the Institut
de Formation Humaine Intégrale de Montréal, which was first known as the Institut
de Formation et de Rééducation de Montréal when it was founded in 1976 by Dr.
Jeannine Guindon. In the course of her
very fruitful career, this amazing woman trained educators and helping
professionals and worked with them, explored how the application of
contemporary psychological and moral development principles in education and
therapy might help people actually develop, and discovered ways to help people
participate deliberately in their own development, wherever they left off when
they became adults and left the formative years behind.[1] It is generally accepted now that we human
beings live out our lives in four realms of human powers: body, mind, psyche or
heart, and spirit or soul. In this light, I would see the six levels of human
identity mapped out by the IFHIM correlating this way.
(Please consider these
terms copyrighted to the IFHIM). The body identity and identity of the doer are rooted in the body. The individual identity and psychosexual identity are
rooted in what we have been calling the heart, or psyche. The psychosocial identity is rooted in the mind and its host of composite abilities: intellect,
understanding, imagination, memory, intuition, and consciousness. These five levels of identity come together
finally in the sixth and composite identity, the identity of the self, which I believe to be rooted in the soul.[2] It seems so reasonable to believe that our
highest human power, our will, be rooted here, in the soul; since there remains
persistent evidence of will in human beings who suffer the debilitation or loss
of just about every other human faculty, ability, or power.
In another time and place, may I suggest that you visit the stages of moral human development, which are an important parameter for assessing the degree of our development as human persons. It would also be good to consider what benefit there may be for each person to have their own “rule of life” to enshrine all the disciplines they consider essential to their ongoing human development and assure the time and energy needed to practice these disciplines, for a greater health and stability in life.
Let’s examine how the IFHIM suggests we manage our “energy budget.”
(© Dr. Jeannine Guindon, IFHIM, 55 Gouin Ouest, Montréal, Québec, H3L 1H9
An innovative and very practical way to look at the management of our overall vitality, that is, the energy built up and expended by our body/mind/psyche/soul self is what the Institut de Formation Humaine Intégrale de Montréal calls the “energy budget.” The paradigm distinguishes three types of energy and ways of being:
Ø Mobile
energy – colorful, emotional and
imaginative impulse.
Ø Bound
energy – awareness of moral, religious,
work, commitment, and all other common and personal obligations and impressions
of expected response.
Ø Autonomous
energy – taking time to filter the
other two forms of energy through the awareness of who I am, what is my
condition and situation now, including what is my available time and what are
my obligations and responsibilities, and the meaning and purpose I freely
choose to give to my life – and then freely choosing a course of action and a
timing for putting it into motion.
The operating
principle here is that, while mobile and bound energy are integral parts of how
we function as human beings, when we go directly from the mobile impulse we can
lose sight of the reality at hand or the meaning and purpose of our life, and
cause us to disturb others, forget responsibilities, or cause other kinds of
troubles.
Similarly, bound
energy can tie us up into knots if we act immediately upon it as an impulse,
because then we become driven by obligation or duty, laws and rules, or other
fixed motives that of themselves sap us of the vital energy that is only
generated by freedom, interest, and generosity.
The goal then is
to insert a discipline of awareness and reflection to follow upon the emergence
of either and both mobile and bound impulses; in order to take other
considerations into account, such as other duties, our available strength, the
needs and wishes of others, and so on.
Only then, in a moment of freedom, can we make a truly autonomous
decision to act upon the impulse, or delay it, or qualify it with certain
conditions.
The challenge is acquiring the disciplines that can help one resist the impulses generated by mobile and bound energy, by developing an internal “space of freedom” to stop, think, and discern what to do. For this, we need to find ways to recuperate from normal daily expenditures of energy. It is easier to be aware of impulses and resist them when we maintain stores of energy within our organism and psyche. Those energy reserves allow us the freedom to stop, consider, and decide what we want to freely choose to do in accord with the meaning and purpose we want to give to our life.
The IFHIM clarifies three different ways of expending and recuperating energy:
S
Physical strain, effort, and work. S = fatigue S è rest, sleep, & sensory stimulation:
Ø Psychological attention. Ø = psychic drain Ø è change of pace, i.e. mindless
physical activity: e.g. doing the dishes,
cooking a simple familiar meal
o Affective charges. o = physical tension o è vigorous sustained movement
of the whole body in direct proportion to
the intensity of the affective charges:
e.g. swim, run, cycle, aerobics, etc.
© Dr. Jeannine Guindon, IFHIM, 55 Gouin Ouest, Montréal, Québec, H3L 1H9 Canada - 514-331-6861
[1] Read Dr.
Jeannine Guindon’s own account of those years of discovery and development of
her new and quite revolutionary formation, education, and therapeutic
approaches and methods in “L’autonomie
psychique ne s’acquiert qu’au prix d’une vie engagée.” (“Psychic
autonomy is obtained only at the cost of a committed life.”) Conference of Jeannine Guindon, Foundress of the IFRM and directress of
the programs at the Colloquium of 1986, in La Vie sans frontières. Les Forces Vitales
Humaines. Histoire et développement. Tome 1.
I.F.R.M. 1991, pages 41-46.
[2] As Dr. Jeannine
Guindon herself writes: “Thus, psychic
autonomy is only obtained at the cost of a life committed to a cause, in a
profession, towards one or several persons, and further for believers, towards
God. Thus, is acquired faith in oneself,
faith in man and faith in God.” Ibid,
page 46.
© Dr. Jeannine Guindon, IFHIM, 55 Gouin Ouest, Montréal, Québec, H3L 1H9 Canada - 514-331-6861
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I received and participated in this formation at the I.F.R.M. from 1986 to 1990 and wrote up notes with my first pc in 2000 from which I've taken the excerpt above, edited for these web pages January 26, 2021.
On these Blogger pages we explore TOPICS in our desire to respond to Jesus' call to walk with Him in our world as his missionary disciples empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring to humanity the Good News of the Father's love manifested and given in Jesus, the Divine Mercy. G.S.
© 2006-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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