As host of #JournalChat Live for all things journaling on Twitter, I had the delight of being introduced to the author of the book, Full Cup, Thirsty Spirit, Karen Horneffer-Ginter through her blog post, How Writing Saved My Weary, Pushed-to-the-Edge, New Mother's Soul, of which was chosen for #JournalChat Pick of the Week! It became the journaling resource for the next session of #JournalChat Live with our topic, Your Journaling: Your Life Lens (in November, 2012).As a result of connecting with Karen and her fabulous post, I was invited and delighted to join in celebrating the recent release of her terrific book, Full Cup, Thirsty Spirit, which I find to be insightful, thought-provoking and refreshing, not to mention practical, helpful and revealing. I just love some of the visual exercises she provides in several places throughout the book to make activating awareness of our thirstiness more effective. She also provides what I refer to as "refreshing" activities to help alleviate our dryness.
Below you will find a terrific introduction to Karen and her book so you can get to know her a bit better and understand her purpose in writing it. I'm so glad she did.
In Full Cup, Thirsty Spirit, psychologist Karen Horneffer-Ginter helps us understand that life’s busyness—even good busyness—can create a disconnect between our outer life and our inner self, preventing us from experiencing joy and hearing our own wisdom about what needs priority in our life.
With
an elegant narrative voice that inspires both laughter and compassion, Horneffer-Ginter
shows us how to live a fuller life rather than simply filling our time. She
focuses on six shifts to make in our daily life—teaching us to honor our
rhythms, turn within, fill up, fully inhabit our days, remember lightness, and
embrace difficulty. Through a weave of personal stories, client experiences,
and practical exercises, she shows us how to find balance in the swirl of daily
life so we can reconnect with what matters most.
A
wife and mother of two, Karen has been practicing psychology and teaching yoga
and contemplative practices for more than 16 years. She has also taught
graduate students and health-care professionals, along with directing a
university-based holistic health-care program, and co-founding the Center for
Psychotherapy and Wellness in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The
aim of Karen’s work is to reconnect people with the wisdom of their inner life
by reclaiming what gets lost amidst the busyness of day-to-day life: qualities
such as stillness, self-care, creativity, joy, humor, gratitude, and
compassion. Her intention is to support people in
finding
a sense of balance and sacredness in their lives.
Now, here are a set of Q&As Karen has provided that cover the subject of the book title, her inspiring goals, about her book's Shift focus, why she recommends a quiet tuning-in time, plus more!
Now, here are a set of Q&As Karen has provided that cover the subject of the book title, her inspiring goals, about her book's Shift focus, why she recommends a quiet tuning-in time, plus more!
Q.
Why did you choose Full Cup, Thirsty
Spirit as the book’s title?
A.
I
love how this phrase captures the paradox I so often find myself and others
attempting to name—that when life is full, even with good things, we can still find
ourselves thirsty for what we most value. Many
of us grapple with this predicament. We fill our lives in hopes of finding
fulfillment, but the level of busyness we create keeps us from experiencing the
things we’re most looking for. Whether this complaint is being voiced in a
counseling office, over coffee with a friend, or while picking up our kids; I
think it speaks not only to our frustrations, but also to our sense that life
doesn’t have to be this way—that it must be possible to find meaning, joy, and
balance without giving up the things we love. I think many of us want to have our cake and eat it too, and, in
this context, I think we can . . . at least I think it’s worth whole-heartedly
attempting.
Q.
How do you hope that Full Cup, Thirsty Spirit
inspires readers?
A.
I
hope to inspire them to see that it’s possible to lead a full life and still
feel balanced and sane. I also want to encourage them to take time to listen to
their wisdom, to be kinder to themselves and laugh more often, to take better care
of themselves as they care for others, and to sense the beauty and sacredness
of their lives. I guess you could say I’m hoping to help people fall in love
with what life has to offer.
Q.
Can you say a few words about the 6 shifts you encourage readers to make?
A.
With
these six shifts, I wanted to capture the key ingredients that I see as being most
essential—and often forgotten— in carving out a life that holds meaning, joy,
and balance. It’s so important that we find ways to honor our rhythms, turn
within, fill up, fully inhabit our days, remember lightness, and embrace
difficulty. The book encourages readers to explore each of these shifts and to
understand how they come together to support their vitality and well-being.
Q.
You strongly encourage readers to take time to be quiet and turn their
attention within. Aren’t you asking the impossible of people who are leading
busy lives?
A. I
don’t think it’s impossible, but I do think it’s a bit radical. It certainly
goes against most cultural norms suggesting that in order to lead a productive
and successful life we have to be constantly busy. It also challenges the idea
that being busy is an acceptable excuse not to tend to our inner-life or our
self-care. It can be tricky to develop these habits because we don’t learn
these skills in school, and they run counter to our modern day tendencies to be
on-the-go and to do things quickly—whether it’s eating, working, or running
errands. They also runs counter to our habits of communicating, with quick bursts
of texts and emails and the constant stream of information
and requests arriving in our in-boxes. The inconvenient reality is that those
of us who are busy and want to keep our spirits alive need to find ways to slow
down and listen within if we’re going to deeply quench our thirst—we just need
to be more creative and flexible in approaching the task.
Q.
Why do you feel so passionate about promoting self-care?
A.
The
notion of self-care sometimes gets a bad rap, based on the idea that those who
want to achieve great things and help others and the world around them
shouldn’t waste their time and energy focusing on themselves. Today, there seems
to be a growing awareness that this isn’t an either/or
issue—that
if we’re going to be effective and successful in our life endeavors we need to
tend to the vehicle that’s allowing for these things to come through. By taking
care of ourselves, we’re better able to stay connected to our wisdom, which allows
us to do good well.
Q.
You encourage readers to lighten up, but also to embrace their pain. Can you
say more about this pairing?
A.
It’s
important that we stay connected to life’s lightness and that we’re able to support ourselves through difficult times. I
think there’s an art and a skill to both, and that sometimes we’re at risk of hanging
out at one end of the continuum and forgetting about the other. Certain
approaches to psychotherapy are guilty of this, focusing exclusively on what
wrong with people’s lives. It’s also possible to see the bright side of things,
but end up using humor as a way of masking our pain and avoiding what needs
attention in our lives. Having the capacity to embrace life’s moments that call
for lightness and whimsy, and the ones that deserve compassion and depth is
important for our health—especially in recognizing that the word health means wholeness. To me, this suggests
the importance of embracing all of who we are and all that life brings our way.
And now for several questions I asked Karen personally after my reading and note taking of her terrific book, Full Cup, Thirsty Spirit. (Yes, her book had the kind of value I would take notes with!)
Q. In Shift One, Honoring our
rhythms, you share how we may feel hesitant to create breaks in our day since
we might confront feeling disconnected from our ability to lounge, meander,
relax, enjoy life, have fun or simply be. How important is re-creating that
connection for our well being?
I think it’s extremely
important because it represents the skill of being capable of be-ing vs. do-ing. I realize that phrase is overused and may seem more silly
than serious, but I think it points to a way of experiencing life that is
central to knowing joy. When we’ve programmed ourselves to always be on the go,
working through our to-do lists and continually engaging in tasks, it’s all too
easy to lose this capacity of feeling relaxed and at ease with simply being present
in the moment. I think this way of being is as natural to us as rushing
around—we just need to dust off this skill set as well.
Q. After we have immersed ourselves
in an activity that depletes us or tires us out, you suggest choosing an
activity that is opposite of what we just engaged in order to quench our thirst
for nourishment. Why do you recommend an opposite activity?
It’s somewhat similar
to doing a “counter-pose” in yoga, or having an acupuncturist aim to balance
out the ways in which we might be “deficient” or “excessive” in terms of
certain qualities in the body. Often, doing the opposite of what we’ve been
doing too much of (resting when we’ve been overly-exerting or getting outside
and walking when we’ve been sitting at our desk) is what we’re intuitively
drawn to as a way of meeting our needs and feeling more rejuvenated. Of course, as with everything, I’m sure there
are exceptions to this as well!
Q. You share in Filling Up how we
construct our lives that end up feeling like prisons which keep us from
engaging in activities that most deeply nourish us. What do you find to be the
most effective way to unlock that "prison" and find that nourishing
freedom?
As a first step, it’s
helpful to schedule in time for self-care activities. I think most of us would
agree that the great illusion we fall into is thinking a time will come when
we’ve completed our to-do lists and then we’ll
have time to take care of ourselves and do the things that bring us joy. If we
tend to be planners and schedulers, it’s often most effective to write in self-care
and leisure activities as well, so at least they get a spot in our calendar.
Doesn't Karen have some insightful, thought provoking words to share here? I just love her focus on taking the time to nourish and refresh ourselves on a regular basis, tuning into our inner hearts and tuning into the world around us in our fresh awareness.
Here's a final Q&A from Karen on where you can connect with her!
Q. How can readers connect with you?
A. They can connect with me through my website: www.fullcupthirstyspirit.com. From here they can email me, subscribe to my monthly eNewsletter, and find links to my pages, postings and offerings on Facebook, Huffington Post, YouTube, GoodReads, Beliefnet, and DailyOM.
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