What we’re about
This three-session workshop intends to empower people to relate to and work effectively with their emotions. A specific psycho-spiritual model provides an effective approach to working with the everyday sets of emotions that challenge us: Anger; Pain; Fear; Powerlessness. This model, developed by a spiritual oriented psychiatrist, Dr. Berenson, whom Dr. Olaf worked with for several years, reveals how we cognitively mismanage emotions and get stuck in negativity. It also reveals how we have tools of transcendent consciousness that empowers us to steward these emotions toward positivity, featured by Love, Joy, Gratitude, Compassion, “Beautiful Sadness”, Curiosity, and “Letting go.”
Additional approaches to working effectively with our emotions will also be presented. Along with this, Dr. Olaf, being both a Practical Theologian and Counseling Psychologist, will present a contextual framework from cosmology, biblical theology, and various wisdom traditions that provide a “picture” of “reality”; one that helps us to make better sense of things as we negotiate daily life.
The goal of these four sessions is to provide clear conceptual and practical tools for stewarding one’s daily emotional life in ways that enhance one’s well-being.
Dr. Olaf Lidums is an Associate Professor at Ecumenical Theological Seminary, located in downtown Detroit. Now semi-retired, he has taught there as a formally designated Practical Theologian for 18 years, teaching in the areas of: Urban Ministry; Leadership; Ethics; Recovery; Racism & Sexism; and Ecological Ministry. He has also taught as guest professor at Oakland University and UM-Dearborn. A prime focus over several decades has been to interface theology and spirituality with humanism and the natural sciences. “Dr. Olaf” is grounded in the pursuit of what Ken Wilbur terms “integral spirituality.”
Over five decades of differing modes of service, Dr. Olaf has served as: faith community leader; social services director; hospital chaplaincy director; spirituality director in addiction treatment centers; clinical counselor; consultant; and spiritual guide and life coach. In addition to teaching, he has a small private practice, offering clinical counseling, life coaching, and psycho-spiritual guidance.
