Faith & Wellbeing
WELLBEING
Recently I listened to an interview with Theodore Dalrymple, the author of “Life at the Bottom”.
You might have heard the saying “you have to spend at least 10,000 hours at a task to become an expert”. Well, Dalrymple interviewed over 10,000 people who had attempted self harm. He was looking for patterns that led these interviewees to such a low level of well being.
He discovered a list of things that contributed to a troubled life. Dalrymple would suggest that people may revert to alcohol and then drugs.
What interested me the most was the question “what were the key beliefs?”
For Dalrymple the main belief was entitlement, a sense of “I deserve this”. There are of course other factors that may lead to entitlement.
A sense of entitlement is the attitude “you owe me”, when little or nothing has been done to deserve special treatment. When someone has entitlement they see themselves as superior to others, and that impacts relationships. Bitterness and anger grows unchecked. It results in conflict in relationships, unhappiness, great disappointment and depression. When someone feels entitled they don’t strive, they don’t ask: “what do I need to do to get this?”. They don’t look at themselves in order to learn what is missing, they expect to be served and that is what they believe they deserve.
When we honestly look at ourselves we will discover that we ALL have a sense of entitlement to some degree. For example, think of the time when someone cut in front of you on the freeway - and made you brake. How dare they do that!, right? How angry and agitated did you get?
Entitled people often interview well and can land leadership roles because of their confidence. However, they often lack team spirit and avoid problem-solving in the workplace. Most of the decisions an entitled person makes are self-serving. This can quickly become apparent to their co-workers.
Where else do you notice a sense of entitlement?
What about yourself? Where in your life do you notice a sense of entitlement creep in?
A good indicator is where you are experiencing the most disappointment in your life?
There is a vicious cycle:
1) When you’re entitled, you’re always vulnerable to the threat of unmet expectations.
2) When your expectations aren’t met, it can lead to dissatisfaction and other emotions like anger and a sense of being cheated.
3) When you’re distressed, you try to fix the situation and console yourself. This results in self- reassurance that you deserve everything you've ever wanted, which reinforces the same entitled behaviour.
What about with your children?
One of the greatest lessons I learnt in life coaching was that you can’t just solve people’s problems. You have to assist them. Solving their problems by just giving the answer, is not the answer. We create a dependency, they look to us as superior. Therefore the person doesn’t learn how to solve their own problems, they expect others to solve their problems.
The next time you are teaching your child. If you feel you just want to give them the answer perhaps ask them “what are you thinking when you approach this problem?” “what is a different approach to this problem?” Use questions that open up your child’s creativity.
When your child is disappointed about failing at something, perhaps ask “what is good about getting this wrong?” “how is this an opportunity to learn something new?”
Another way to deal with a sense of entitlement is to practise gratitude. Perhaps ask at dinner time “what are you most grateful for today?”
What advice do we get from scripture? The very first beatitude Jesus taught - beatitude means “supreme blessedness” - was “blessed are the poor in spirit” Matthew 5:3. It seems Jesus was trying to save us from a spirit of entitlement. Certainly the Pharisees had a strong sense of entitlement, and this prevented them from having a relationship with Jesus and even led to the death of Jesus on a Cross.
Jesus was teaching them, and us, that to have a blessed life we need to have humility and gratitude. We need to learn from each person, not put each other down. Each person is unique and think uniquely, this is something to be celebrated. The scripture says: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Mt 7:12.
The more we grow in gratitude and humility the more we see the world as a gift and not a vending machine that swallows our money, that we need to kick and scream at, demanding what we want.
Take some time today, walk outside, take some slow breath’s, and focus on 5 things you are grateful for in your life and then in the people close to you. Find a time to repeat this each day. Make it into a habit.
Let us walk the path that leads to a blessed life, a life of well being, of humility, and gratitude, for ourselves, and for our children. Perhaps Theodore Dalrymple will write another book called “Life on the Top” and call us to be interviewed!
Kind Regards,
Corey Payton
St James Chaplain
Mrs Georgia McNamara
Student Wellbeing Leader
gmcnamara@stjamesbrighton.catholic.edu.au
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Feast of the Sacred Heart/Winter Appeal
Tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart. The Feast of the Sacred Heart (properly the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) falls 19 days after Pentecost, on a Friday. The Feast of the Sacred Heart has been in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar since 1856.
Due to being in lock down it was decided to postpone yesterday's Liturgy to hopefully reschedule for Week 10 of this term. Thank you to all the families that have donated to this year's Winter Appeal. We still need many more donations to support those in our community this winter. Each classroom has a container to place items and these will be handed over to the St Vincent De Paul Gardenvale conference to distribute to those families in our community .
Sacraments
Over the past 2 weeks, the Year 3&5 students have been participating in online lessons in preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Friday. In the first lesson, students explored ways in which we can ‘Walk in the Footsteps of Jesus’ through listening to the scripture. Yesterday we explored what will happen during the Sacrament and how we can prepare ourselves to share with Fr Dean and Fr James.
Please keep these students in your prayers over the coming week.
Friday 18th of June
Year 3 - 10am - 11am
Year 5 - 11:30am - 12:30pm
Family Faith Nights
Unfortunately both our 1/2 Story time and Preps in Pyjamas faith night will need to be postponed due to current covid restrictions. We will notify families once a new date has been established
1/2 Story time - (Postponed)
Preps in Pyjamas - (Postponed)
Important Dates
Please see below for upcoming events
April 30th - Launch of this Year WInter Appeal
June 1st - 1/2 Story night at 5:30pm (Postponed)
June 8th - Preps in Pyjamas at 5:30pm (Postponed)
June 11th - Feast of the Sacred Heart (Postponed)
June 18th - Year 3 (10am - 11am) and Year 5 (11:30am - 12:30pm) Reconciliation
For Parish Newsletters, please refer to the new Parish Website
https://www.baysidecatholicmission.org/
Emma Herbert
RE Leader
eherbert@stjamesbrighton.catholic.edu.au