Sandra Molendyk

Passion, vitality, and the art of a great life

Would you like to experience joy and vitality while you work towards your life long goals?

You are not alone.

Today, I am going to talk about how passion contributes to a meaningful and vital life, and then I will provide a method to help you to develop your passion.

Robert Vallerand, is a professor at the University of Montreal, and he is an expert on passion. This speech is based on several of Robert Valleran’s journal articles, my work with elite athletes, and my experience as an athlete.

Vallerand, believes that passion is a multidimensional construct, with 5 essential elements, which lead to Optimal Functioning in Society –also known as OFIS.

The five elements of OFIS are:

1.    Our life is satisfying

2.    We have a healthy lifestyle

3.    With positive performance

4.    We have meaningful relationships

5.    And we contribute to society with our passions

There are two types of passions:

When you have harmonious passion, you will experience very high levels in each of the OFIS elements.

With obsessive passion, you may experience high levels in only one or some of the elements of OFIS.

An easy way to determine which type of passion you are experiencing is to think about one of your greatest passions.

1.  If you are busy, and need to get some work done, but a friend asks you to join them in one of your passions, would you say yes?

2.  Do you ever feel guilty about your passion, or the time you spend on your passion?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are experiencing obsessive passion. This is dangerous because obsessive passion is draining and it is not in your control. You may fulfill your goals, but this passion won’t give you the energy and good feelings needed to enjoy yourself as you attain your goals. And obsessive passion won’t help you to achieve success in other parts of your life.

However, if you feel good about yourself for engaging in your activity and your passion gives you energy, you are experiencing harmonious passion.

Now that we have categorized our passions, what can we do to increase our harmonious passion?

To date and to my knowledge, Vallerand and colleagues have not yet found any methods to increase long term harmonious passion. In fact, Vallerand found that the type of passion we experience is relatively stable throughout our lifespan. Men showed significantly higher levels of obsessive passion, while women reported significantly higher levels of harmonious passion.

However, as a peak performance expert I have developed a method which increases harmonious passion throughout life. I work with elite athletes and business leaders and found that my work with ego and spirit engagement correlated to obsessive and harmonious passion. With ego engagement, your worries remain inside of you, whereas with spirit engagement you imagine your spirit inside of you and directing your body.

With spirit engagement, individuals who experience obsessive passion, have a chance to find their true expression of their abilities and experience harmonious passion.

For instance, one of the Olympic athletes I work with found that spirit engagement helped her to let go of her guilt. She was able to relax, be fully present, and enjoy the entire racing process, and experience ownership of her achievements.

Spirit engagement focuses us on the task at hand, creates energy in the present moment, and creates confidence and high performance. When we focus on the outcome, our energy is focused on the outcome, we lose sight of the present moment, and we have lost concentration. When we allow our spirit to be in us, we are in the present moment. We are connected to that which gives us energy, and we are focused on our task at hand.

When we take the time to fill ourselves with our spirits, nothing else exists in us: no worry, no sensitivity, no one else’s thoughts. We are part of the greater whole, so we can achieve flow, and we are flow. We are put back into the right hemisphere: where thoughts are positive and euphoric, and we feel good about what we are doing.

Once our spirits are in our bodies, we can extend this experience outward.

Our spirits are constructs that are larger than ourselves. So as we expand our spirits outwards (while our spirit is still in us), we feel ease take over, we gain an even larger comfort level and a sense of stability.

Spirit engagement does take practice.

Practicing spirit engagement will help us to know what it feels like to be in ourselves: we will feel comfortable, confident, and directed by great leadership. When we practice spirit engagement, we are able to contain our spirits within ourselves during our tasks. We can move onto new experiences that fit our current lives and what we need to experience in the moment, and we will overcome the challenges that we need to face.

It is our spirits, which give us the potential to be leaders. It is our spirits which enable us to continally develop, and apply our harmonious passion to new skills, for the benefit of our community. The experiences associated with Spirit Engagement are all associated with Optimal Functioning in Society (OFIS).

Steve King is the epitome of harmonious passion. He is the announcer for Ironman Canada and the Vancouver Sun Run. He believes that spirit gives passion and purpose to life, and this is the act of thriving. He believes that when something engages us, it gets a hold of us. For instance, when he saw the first Ironman race, he knew he would have to do it. And when he was given the book “The Death Valley 300: Near Death and Resurrection on the World's Toughest Endurance Course” he was scared to read it because he knew if he read the book he would have to do the race. In 2001, and at the age of 52 Steve became the “second Canadian to ever finish the 135 miles Death Valley race…He was fourth overall, and first in his age group.”

I believe that I embody harmonious passion, and that I am an example of how spirit engagement creates leadership. I have had the pleasure to race in Europe, Canada, and the US in triathlon and as a member of Team Canada. People follow me through the race. In me, they find hope. If I can do it, they can do it. I am able to do what I do because I engage my spirit.

Key messages:

1. It is really hard to accomplish your dreams if you are doing it for the wrong reasons. But when you engage in an activity that makes you feel good, it creates a sense of wellbeing, and it creates vitality.

2. Vallerand states that everyone at every stage of their life, benefits from harmonious passion.

3. My research has shown that Spirit Engagement increases long term harmonious passion in each of my clients. In fact: all of my athletes (Olympic, elite, and age-grouper) as well as business leaders, found  my methods increased their confidence and ease during high stress situations and important races, and they finished with exceptional outcomes and personal bests.

4. So go out and engage your spirit and enjoy your time with your passions. Your spirit will engage you in the preset moment, and ensure that you are engaged in high quality activities, and relationships.

5. When you have harmonious passion, you will experience deep inner enjoyment, contribute to society, and your life will be full of vitality and satisfaction.

 

If you would like to experience or know more about Spirit Engagement, please contact Sandy to set up an appointment: 778-861-7243

 

References:

Passion Does Make a Difference in People’s Lives: A Look at Well-Being in Passionate and Non-Passionate Individuals. Frederick L. Philippe McGill University, Canada, Robert J. Vallerand* and Geneviève L. Lavigne Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada