Faith and behavior topics are often avoided because they are viewed as separate subjects or somehow taboo. However, work on yourself is more complete when you work on both your mind and your heart. There are scientific practices that connect. I see this in my learning and practice of Eastern Orthodoxy and personal growth.

My goal for writing about Eastern Orthodoxy and Personal Growth

You could choose to navigate this blog and not read the articles on faith and behavior. However, I submit that if you skip these articles you will miss part of the story.

As I share more articles on the subject, I hope it will become clear why I have decided to include this focus on faith in my blog on personal development.

For now, let me sum it up. It’s about faith and behavior.

In my process of learning scientific practices that improve behavior, I often connect what I am hearing or reading to teachings of the Eastern Orthodox spiritual life. My goal, in this section of my website, is to share the connections I see in scientific practices to practices in the Eastern Orthodox spiritual life. To do this I have committed to writing monthly articles where I will share my learnings.

I emphasize learnings. I am not expert in either scientific or Orthodox practices. I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian and I am learning.  

I invite you to learn with me.

Why write about Eastern Orthodoxy and Personal Growth?

Is not it enough to write about the Christian Church and personal growth?

Why is this discussion needed at all?

Personal development is better accomplished when all areas of one’s life are addressed. To exclude the spiritual part of your life when you are growing in other areas leads to an imbalance.

I also find the depth of the teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church assist me in understanding the larger issues of personal development. 

In future posts I want to discuss the scientific and faith connections in greater detail. Sometimes I will specifically refer to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Other times I will write about a broader faith in God.

For now, I want to share what I mean by heart and the importance of training your heart.

The meaning of train your heart

In my post on building confidence through science and faith I shared how it’s important to grow your faith and that we can affect our confidence by working on our inner being. I also shared that I train my heart through prayer and building community.

What do I mean when I say that I train my heart and how does this affect my behavior?

The following is an attempt at an introductory and foundational answer to this question. I will break the question into two parts. I will share my current understandings on this subject and I aim to share what I know to the best of my ability.

The heart is the center of our being

What does it mean to train your heart?

At the center of this question is a need to understand the Eastern Orthodox view of the human person.

When I speak about the heart, I am not talking of the heart as a muscle but as the center of our being.

I am currently working my way through the book Confronting and Controlling Thoughts by Anthony M. Coniaris and it helped me formulate what I will share in this section.

The heart can be compared to the unconscious.

The unconscious is: 1) the past 2) the passions that we inherited

Therefore, in our unconscious we have both memories and things we desire, the passions.

Fr. Stephen Freeman’s blog Glory to God for All Things has an introduction to the Orthodox understanding of the passions if you want to learn more.

How does this affect my behavior?

There can be good and bad in this unconscious heart.

The good: our conscience, knowledge of God, and a sense of right and wrong.

The bad: evil thoughts, evil actions.

Therefore, in the heart we can have self-awareness and an idea of God. However, we can also have distraction and evil.

Knowing this provides us with insight into how our heart functions in the human person and provides us with a greater understanding of where our behaviors fit into the picture. This is important when we are thinking about behavior and behavior change. It shows us how important it is to take our faith into consideration when we are making big behavior changes.

Want to dig deeper into this subject? If you’re interested in learning with me, look out for the monthly posts on faith and behavior.

Join the mailing list so you don’t miss a post on faith and behavior!

Read more posts on faith and behavior:

Faith and Behavior: Why do we keep faith and behavior quiet?

Confidence Through Science and Faith | Train your heart and mind

Do we know how to handle fear? Do we really understand what our fears are telling us? Can we use our fears to promote growth and courage? These are topics that Kate Swoboda, author of The Courage Habit, writes and speaks about.  

Courage Habits versus Fear-Based Habits

The Courage Habit, as outlined by Kate, includes 4 researched behaviors, which I will outline below. I came across this information as she spoke about it on a podcast interview by Jenny Blake of the Pivot Podcast. The researched behaviors were found to increase confidence and bring about positive changes in behaviors.

If we know what these courage habit behaviors are we can stop ourselves while in the midst of fear-based behaviors. We can break free from acting out of habits that place fear at the center of our attention and instead engage in habits that build courage.

Ways that we handle fear that puts fear at the center of our attention

Kate Swoboda identifies 3 common ways we handle fear:

• Ignore/avoid
• Please it/placate it
• Attack it

The problem that Kate identifies is that we aren’t actually handling our fears and getting to the root of the problem when we handle fear in any of these ways.

I’ve run across these methods for handling fear in my own journey. I’ve given into my fear. I’ve tried to ignore my fear. I’ve found that some people in the personal development world suggest I attack my fears.

Yet Kate is right. When we handle our fears in these ways, we aren’t getting to the root of the problem.

All of the above methods for handling fear place fear at the center of our attention. We’re acting in response to our fear, not using our fear to promote growth or courage.

Kate Swoboda suggests that we instead embrace the courage habit.

What is the courage habit?

4 behaviors that make up the courage habit:

• Accessing the body
• Listening without attachment
• Reframing limiting stories
• Reaching out to create community

In the podcast explanation of these behaviors, Kate explained that accessing the body looks like noticing what your fear feels like and where you feel that fear. Listening without attachment and reframing limiting stories work together. Give your fear a voice, listen to it, but don’t hold on to the story that it’s telling you.

Reframing limiting stories might sound familiar as I wrote about reframing limiting beliefs here. It’s the same idea applied to working through your fears.

Here’s what really struck me about Kate’s call for reaching out to create community as a behavior that develops courage. She said that if we hideaway and don’t show ourselves -as we are- to others, that we can stop trusting ourselves in the process. It can become more difficult to bring others into our lives. That is a powerful way to look at the importance for cultivating relationships with those around us.

How to handle fear by developing a courage habit

After listening to the Kate Swoboda interview with Jenny Blake, I am interested in reading Kate’s book The Courage Habit and learning more.

Have you read the Courage Habit?

Which courage habit behavior comes easiest to you?

Which behavior is the most difficult?

Behavior Challenge: Learning about our fears.

Notice in what situations you feel fear. Write down the types of situations or circumstances where you feel fear.

This might typically be the time where you give yourself a hard time for being afraid of this or that, but think of it as research. If you know what situations or circumstances trigger your fear, you prepare yourself for the next time you are faced with that fear.

If you want to hear more from Kate Swoboda, listen to the podcast here: Cultivate a Courage Habit with Kate Swoboda.

Other posts on podcasts: How do you know you made the right decision?

Change and growth means a lot of thought and work. The process to a better life isn’t always pretty and we might not want to talk about it. Before we succeed we might look like we are failing. Yet to move from our old way of life to our new way of life we need to admit that there is a problem. This is the first step to move forward in life.

Admitting there is a problem

Y’all, we are never going to change anything in our lives if we can’t admit that there’s a problem. This is the hard truth, written by someone that has experienced this first hand.

There was a time in my life where I experienced feeling stuck and hopeless.

I couldn’t improve my living situation, because I couldn’t improve my job situation. Yet, I’m going to take that further. I couldn’t improve my job situation, because I couldn’t improve my outlook on life.

I couldn’t improve my outlook on life, because I didn’t want to admit that there was a problem. So instead of making a change to move forward in life I did what might be happening to you, or to someone that you know.

I was running in circles instead of running forward.

Only when I admitted that there was a problem, could I begin to work towards solving that problem. This is what I believe happened to me in my faith journey as well.

Admitting that there is a problem continues to help move me forward in all areas of my life. Admitting that there is a problem is huge. If you can do that, you can start to move forward in life.

Another step to moving forward is what I call doing the work.

 Doing the work

Once we admit that there is a problem we can use that momentum to help us get unstuck by reflecting, changing how we think, and setting goals.

Yet somewhere in the progress of change, we realize that we have a plan or idea that we want to do, but we can’t seem to make it happen. Or we might know what we need to do or want to change, but we find it hard to act.

Personal growth sounds great until we realize that growth requires action.

Let’s admit that we often times want the learning of the skills needed to be enough to move us forward.

Yet no one grows into perfection overnight. The journey of behavior change takes time and commitment and practice. I find that is the same with my growth in faith as well.

Confronting what we want to change

In both cases we have to confront what it is in our life that we want to change and then seek out ways to change it. Growth and change are not magical experiences even when you are faced with a powerful faith experience, like I was, or a killer science based growth tool. You have to do the work.

Sometimes doing the work is messy or takes a long time. Sometimes we are doing the work and making progress, but to others it seems like we aren’t because they don’t have the full picture. They either don’t know where we started from or they can’t see the changes happening.

It’s in this space where it is important to acknowledge your small wins and seek out people who will listen to and celebrate your growth wins–no matter how small the wins are.

Move forward in life

In conclusion, the best way to move forward in life is to admit that there is a problem and stick with the work that needs to be done to solve the problem.

I hope that in sharing what has helped me move forward in life that others will gain some encouragement that there is hope for a better day.

Feeling stuck doesn’t have to be a permanent feeling.

As someone that tried time and time again to figure out the process of how to move forward in life, admitting that there is a problem and doing the work are the best steps that I know to take at this time.

Is there another step you would add that would help someone wanting to move forward?

Behavior Challenge: What is the easiest step that you could take right now to work on a goal that you made but are having a difficult time following through with?

In my last post, Faith and Behavior: Why do we keep faith and behavior quiet?, I stated that in this blog, I want to provide a safe place to share behavior change goals and growth. I also stated that I want to open the dialogue of faith and behavior. As I continue to figure out how this works in the format of this blog, I appreciate your thoughts and feedback.

Talk about our behavior change goals is almost as non-existent as talk about our religious practices. Do we feel that we have to hide our behavior change goals? Do we feel that we have to hide our faith practices? For some people, faith and behavior might seem separate topics. Talk that connects the science of behavior change to our religious practices is limited. Why do we keep faith and behavior quiet?

Our religion is very close to us so it’s sometimes difficult to share it with others, because we are certain that others wouldn’t understand. It’s easier to stay quiet.

We tend to view our behavior in this same manner. Therefore, very few people know what we are working to change in ourselves and we want to keep it that way.

Sharing is risky

Why do we not share what we are working on in ourselves? Could it be that we are worried that, similar to telling others of our religious beliefs, we might be viewed as weak? Or that we might be misunderstood?

3 thoughts that prevent us from sharing our behavior change journey with others:

1) People will judge me based on what I am currently working to change. We are afraid that people will say or think things like, “You’re still working on that?” or “How can someone like you struggle with something like that?” Admitting that we’re not perfect can leave us feeling vulnerable.

2) If people find out that I’m working on _____ they will expect me to act like I’ve already changed that area. We fear being held accountable for a skill that we haven’t yet mastered. We don’t want people to throw our change goals in our face. “I thought you said were working on _____”.

3) If I admit that I am working on _____ maybe my boss will think I’m not a good a candidate for the promotion. Similar to fearing judgement, we can fear being viewed as incapable due to sharing what we want to improve.

There might be other reasons that we hold back what we are working on from other people. There also might be things that keep us from sharing how our faith impacts our behavior.

Faith and behavior

In an effort to open the dialogue of faith and behavior, I want to share my experience with living out my faith practices and how it affects my behavior change goals.

However, this is such a huge topic that I won’t be able to do it justice in one article. Consider this the first of articles and other possible media where I begin to discuss how my Christian faith fits into the process of behavior change.

To begin, I offer you a brief summary of how I currently see this process working in my life.

As I seek out and apply science based behavior change practices, my faith guides me to those practices that align with my faith. I am learning that my Christian faith often prepares me for some of the science based strategies. This isn’t too much of a surprise if you really think about it.

It’s my first summary statement so it will probably grow with me. Do you have a summary statement?

You can share here

I want this blog to be a safe space for people to share their behavior change goals. I also want to provide a safe space to learn how to talk about faith and behavior.

Did I miss any reasons why we don’t share our behavior change goals with the people around us?

If you think of a reason not listed, share your reason in the comments.

Behavior Challenge: Write your own summary of how you currently view the interaction of faith and behavior in your life.

Read more of my articles:

Why is Personal Growth Important?

Why is Behavior Change Important for Personal Growth?

Embracing the small changes