Building Community and Spiritual Self-Care

[Mikkaela B]

Hello! 

How do you guys take care of yourselves spiritually? This is a huge component of my personal journey, and I have been very fortunate to be mentored and included in a group of grad students who undertake this together. I think it is hard to find this unless you expressly go hunting for it on your campus, so if this is important to you I would love to know how you balance this with your busy lives. Sometimes I feel very disconnected with my little community because I never see them around (we are all in different departments) and I would love to bring more open discussions on spiritual self-care into my department. 

[Elephas]

I don't think it hurts to hang a poster near your office or send an email to the list serv once to invite people to a bible study but I wouldn't push it past then. If you're planning on sending an email out I would check with the department to see if that's okay to do. I think that perhaps a general event on self-care and including a segment on spirituality could be an opportunity to find others interested in the same things without excluding people who do not want to partake in that type of self-care. 

[Mikkaela B]

38 minutes ago, Elephas said:

I don't think it hurts to hang a poster near your office or send an email to the list serv once to invite people to a bible study but I wouldn't push it past then. If you're planning on sending an email out I would check with the department to see if that's okay to do. I think that perhaps a general event on self-care and including a segment on spirituality could be an opportunity to find others interested in the same things without excluding people who do not want to partake in that type of self-care. 

Thanks for the suggestion! I know we have a poster up, and I don't think my classmates mind hearing about it too much, but it feels somewhat awkward bringing it up because I think many of them aren't sure how to express a "thanks but no thanks." Maybe I could figure a way to give them a convenient "out"?

[Elephas]

You could phrase it along the lines of "Hey we're having a self-care event ___ that will involve stress management techniques, tea, and discussions on spirituality feel free to stop by" and say it more so in passing so that they're not obligated to say yes or no but if they want more info they can follow up with you. You also said that people have the vibe of "thanks but no thanks" and I feel like that's a pretty good indicator of how people may feel about that event in general. I think it's okay to discuss what helps you succeed as a grad student but if the other grad students participating in that ultimately aren't in your department that's something you'll need to be okay with.