Caring for the Human Spirit by
Building a Mindset of a Champion

Caring for the human spirit is simply too often ignored. Probably, it is ignored because we don’t truly understand what it is. The human spirit is often used interchangeable with the soul but it is more than your soul. The best way to probably define the human spirit is to look at how we have used it, not in science, but in literature, everyday use, and religion. Here are just a handful of quotes that help us define the human spirit.

  • Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. – William Ellery Channing
  • Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear and superstition. – Bernard Beckett
  • The human body has limitations. The human spirit is boundless. – Dean Karnazes
  • There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. – Ronald Reagan
  • For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. – 1 Corinthians 2:11
  • The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God - Romans 8:16

If the idea of the human spirit is about that something intangible, immaterial, and unique to humans that allows us to achieve great things despite whatever challenges life throws at us, it behooves us to pay attention to the importance of caring for the human spirit.

The human spirit is the essence of what makes us human, but more than that, it is that something that when properly cared for drives us to create, achieve, and do great things regardless of the obstacles that may stand in our way.

Caring for the Human Spirit... No Prosthetic for an Amputated Spirit

In the video clip from the movie The Scent of a Women that is shown below, Al Pacino says, "there is no prothesis for an amputated spirit."

What does an amputated spirit look like? What does it look like to be defeated? Google "defeated" and look at the images.

Probably the most common trait is a hanging head and drooping shoulders. There is a physiology associated with being defeated. There is also a mindset of defeatism that has many of the characteristics of a fixed mindset – but more complete and broader. Caring for the human spirit then means caring for both our body and our mind.

For those who have an amputated or crushed spirit, when they come to a boulder that is blocking their path they simply can't see any way around it, over it, under it, or through it. They may try to push it, but either can't budge it or allow it to roll back on top of them further crushing their spirit. The more the human spirit has been neglected the less likely it is the person will get beyond that boulder.

For many, what is on this side of the boulder is acceptable, even comfortable, so trying to get over, around, through, or under simply requires too much work. All of that is fine if that is where they are supposed to be. No regrets.

The danger lies when they have never thought about what they were meant to do. If you don't know what you were truly meant to do and look beyond the boulder you may not see the road you should be on. Listen to Kobe Bryant talk about the importance of knowing what you want.

If you know what you were meant to do but come to the boulder and don't look beyond it you may live in the land of quiet desperation - meaning you never truly have found life fulfilling. You end up justifying what you have done to protect yourself from the great plague of... if only I had... 

The solution to that problem is the proper caring of the human spirit. With the spirit of a champion you will come to these boulders in your life and embrace them as one embraces the competition of an obstacle course. They are part of what you are actually embracing. It is what makes the race fun. It is what you "signed up for."

Caring for the Human Spirit by Understanding the NLP Communication Model

The NLP communication model shows that our behavior is a function of our internal representations, state, and physiology, all of which are influenced by each other. If you don’t care for your body you can negatively influence your thinking and state and if you don’t watch what you feed your mind you can influence your body and state. We should know by now the essentials for caring for the human spirit.

First, we need to feed the body well. If you fill the body with mostly whole foods that are minimally processed you can minimize the potential development of mood disorders. The more sugars you consume such as the sugars that come from alcohol consumption and highly processed foods, the more you can increase the likelihood of developing mood disorders and an “amputated” spirit.

Exercise can help counteract the negative impact of an unhealthy diet. Exercise also improves the functioning of all the systems of the body. The human spirit relies on the functioning of the body systems to do its magic. If those systems aren’t functioning optimally the human spirit won’t function optimally.

Thinking may be the most important and powerful aspect of caring for the human spirit. I say that because it is thinking that causes us to take the action of proper feeding and exercising the body. Proper thinking is directly linked to our internal representations and indirectly linked to our physiology. It is the thinking that feeds the energy that gives us a glimpse of the spirit. We can see this in brain scans that shows the activity in the brain when we experience different emotions. Emotions are in the realm of the spiritual, as are thoughts. 

Caring for the Human Spirit by Properly Feeding and Exercising Mind & Body

Feeding your thoughts involves focusing on positive things. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he writes this, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.” If we couple that with what modern research says about the power of negative thoughts or specifically, criticism, we see we need to experience five positives (praise) for every negative (criticism). If all we are hearing, seeing, feeling is criticism and negativity we are effectively amputating our spirit.

We cannot control other people. We can control what we feed our minds. Far too often, young people who are living in less than ideal situations and face far more criticism than they should, end up feeding it even more with negative music, violent video games, violent and sexually explicit videos, never mind poor diets and exercise. Caring for the human spirit is vitally important and with children that responsibility truly falls into the realm of their parents.

For adults, we need to remember that the human spirit is an incredible, mysterious, concept. It is resilience. It will respond to love and care almost immediately. It becomes stronger the more we feed it. Caring for the human spirit then involves us learning to think good thoughts – regularly. It means reading hopeful stories and articles – regularly. It means listening to uplifting and positive music – regularly. It means avoiding the profane, violent, sexually explicit, and anti-human – regularly.

Again, as adults you are free to choose and make your own decisions. Do so wisely. If you choose to feed your depressive state with depressive music, movies, or the like to counteract that you need to feed your mind with five times as much positives. You watch a two-hour violent, depressing movie, even if it has important messaging (think Shindler’s List), you need to watch ten-hours of positive and uplifting movies to counter-act those two hours. Or you can use daily meditation, prayer, visualization, breathing, exercise, nutrition, and the like to help counteract the the negative.

I am not saying you can never watch a sad, tragic, or even violent movie. Tragedies are a powerful genre that we should experience. We need to understand the implications of this and like the food we consume moderation becomes a key word. Just know that caring for the human spirit involves becoming aware of what you put into your mind, including your own self-talk. You are in control of that. You need to recognize how much you are feeding your mind with the negative and that needs to be counteracted.

Caring for the Human Spirit, The Most Powerful Weapon Might Be...

The most powerful weapon we have against negative thinking, which can include the decision making process that prevents us from properly feeding and caring for our bodies, is the development of the habits. In particular, morning and evening rituals. Those rituals should include components of breath work, movement, prayer and meditation, visualization, reflective thinking, goal-setting and planning, and personal growth and development. All of these components do not have to be in both the morning and evening ritual. Exercise can actually be done at different times throughout the day. Still, some body movement in the morning and evening can help us wake-up and get ready for the day and can help us sleep better at night.

Caring for the human spirit is a vital skill that simply is not taught to most people. There are many techniques that should be part of your human spirit toolbox. Learning to use them is fairly simple while mastering them takes a life-time of work. Becoming a craftsman takes a lifetime and you want to become a craftsman of your life. Caring for the human spirit is at the core of developing a mindset of a champion and being a craftsman of your life.

Is society, school, popular culture crippling your child... maybe for life?

The answer is only if you allow them to...
Give your teen and yourself the anecdote to the mindset of defeatism...
Train a mindset of a champion.

We do not take everyone who is interested in our Growth Mindset Training Academy program. Our curriculum is all about caring for the human spirit. We are looking for no more than 10 individuals each month. We strongly encourage families, cohorts, or teams because they provide invaluable support and accountability for each member and we see more people graduate when done as a group.  We provide significant savings if you register as a family, team, or cohort.

This is NOT for Everybody. Here's Who I Can Help:

I do not need to enroll 10 people every month. I'm VERY picky about who I'll speak with, and I have a strict (but reasonable) set of criteria that needs to be met in order for us to proceed:

1.  You need to be able to and willing to provide structure and discipline for whoever will be going through this training – including yourself.

This offer is for those who will commit to following through by creating the appropriate physical space, emotional support, and accountability needed to complete the training. If you are not prepared to lovingly hold members of your family, team, or cohort accountable if they haven’t completed their daily tasks - no offense, but this is not for you. If you want to do this for yourself and you are unwilling to find an accountability partner to hold you accountable - no offense, but this is not for you.

2. You MUST be willing to use your influence as a parent, partner, coach, employer, friend, or colleague to guide, encourage, and excite those enrolled so they will be an elite champion and complete the training.

If you have a history of not being very supportive, or feel like you can’t be an encourager, or worse, are too self-seeking to do what is necessary to help others complete this training - no offense, but this is NOT for you.

Establishing a success loop with my clients is VERY important to me and this is a team approach to help prevent our students from being crippled by coddling. Please, be someone who doesn't mess around, and is serious about results.

That's it - if you meet BOTH of those requirements, we're good.

The next step is to watch the video below and then fill out the form below to schedule a time to talk for about 45 – 60 minutes to determine with you and whoever else needs to be part of the conversation (i.e. spouse or partner or administrator or…) about desired outcomes, procedures, and truly determine if this is right for you. Click the link below to take you to that page now.

Music is a Powerful Mood Managing Tool. Share Your Favorite Happy Songs

Will you be willing to share you favorite uplifting, motivating songs. Music creates moods. Help people by sharing the songs you love and maybe even a blurb about how each makes you feel - happy, joyful, motivated, powerful...

[ ? ]

Upload 1-4 Pictures or Graphics (optional)[ ? ]

 

Click here to upload more images (optional)

Author Information (optional)

To receive credit as the author, enter your information below.

(first or full name)

(e.g., City, State, Country)

Submit Your Contribution

  •  submission guidelines.


(You can preview and edit on the next page)

Watch our free webinar.

Please consider joining our private Facebook group: Mastering Your Growth Mindset

Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how ... Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it? Click on the HTML link code below. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.

var l = window.location.href, d = document; document.write ('<form action = "#"> <div style = "text-align: center"> <textarea cols = "50" rows = "2" onclick = "this.select ();"> <a href = "'+ l +'"> '+ d.title +' </a> </textarea> </div> </form> ');

Privacy Policy