 and welcome the quality of life. The program where we look at the influencing factors that help contribute to one's well-being and quality of life. In this episode, we are going to talk about spirituality and how it can affect one's quality of life. Joining us today to help us with this topic is Chaplain Marty Fulman. Marty, welcome to the show. Thank you, Dave, it's good to be here. Excellent. Just to start out, I'd like to try and define what is quality of life? How do you define the quality of life? I think quality of life is the degree in which you reach your potential in any one area of life, meaning mental, social, spiritual, physical, even financial, and emotional, any one of those areas to where you're at your potential. OK, would you say the level of quality of life is the same for everybody and the definitions are the same for everybody? In principle, yes, but in practice, no. What are some of the factors that could affect in practice where they wouldn't be the same? That is a good question there. Would it be like maybe somebody's job situation or their family? You could even have a job that maybe just kind of, let's call it a mediocre job, something you're just doing for the paycheck. But as long as you are giving your very best on that job, I used to work in an hospital drug store as a clerk, or even baker's square. I was a dishwasher. Let me tell you what, I put my heart into it. I loved it. It was the nuns who taught me how to turn that into a spiritual experience to just do my very best at any one time in anything that I'm doing. And I think that's what enhances one's quality of life, to really focus in on what you're doing, whatever your purpose may be, and to do it to the best of your ability. And to be happy at it. Happiness does follow them, yes, sure. Thanks for clarifying that for me, Marty. I was always wondering. Now with spirituality, what would you consider the definition of spirituality? Spirituality, the simple basic definition, Dave, is the essence of your being, who you are in here. A couple definitions I did write down here. Okay. The spirituality of the human person is that dimension which seeks quality of life in things beyond what one can produce or consume. And that's by the Reverend Richard Chiola, PhD. Another definition is an awareness of relationships with all creation, an appreciation of presence and purpose that includes a sense of meaning. And that's from professional chaplaincy, its role and importance in healthcare. So we talked about, again, relations or connectedness with higher beings, higher powers. Okay. What would you say spirituality is, and then what it isn't? Spirituality is that which holds it all together for us. We mentioned those parts of life, our mental, our social, our physical, our emotional, financial. Spirituality is what holds it all together. I have asked some patients in our hospital this month, simply, how are you doing spiritually? I've gotten some surprise responses. Men, in particular, I ask the question and I'll say, well, my mother is dying or I just lost my mother or references to their mother. Who's the mother is to men? She's the one who brought us into the world, kind of the one we always turn to. She's the one who holds it all together for us. So as your role of director of spiritual services, at St. Nicholas, what is your role in that and how does that play into one's quality of life with the patients, even the staff and those people that you touched, how do you apply that? What we do as chaplains is something that nobody else in the hospital does. When we go into a patient's room, we don't go in to do anything to them. Therapists do, nurses do, doctors do, they take tests, even the housekeepers to clean. We are there to be with patients. And I use the term, we enter into their pit of despair, to be with them in their suffering. And sometimes just to be with them has tremendous power. Silence is very important. When I've asked the question, either how are you doing spiritually or even just one time to create a safe environment for them, sometimes just through sitting at the bedside and being silent with them, then what's deep down inside here really comes out. Now they can address the questions or identify the pain that's happening deep down inside. It's very freeing for them too. Yep, I would agree. So spirituality is actually, I don't wanna say a two-fold, but one thing it helps you to be happy by being successful, but a strong spirituality background or belief also helps you cope through the hard times as well. Yes, true it does. It's like your lifeblood, spirituality. So is spirituality the same as religion or are they different? Quite different. Religion is external, spirituality is internal. Religion makes reference to an institutionalized set of beliefs or practices that's gone back through historical times, whether it be any one of our Catholic or Protestant or Jewish religions. Spiritual is internal. Okay. What would you say are the qualities of being spiritual? I, you know what? Here's a good list of them. Centered and balanced, guided and connected, confident and courageous, sensitive and intuitive, empathetic and compassionate, focused and productive and in tune with their life's purpose. And when I say that, I was looking back at some of the, some people, models in our world who are spiritual and who actually embody every one of those characteristics. And I was thinking Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, those are even our Pope Francis now. So those are some of the qualities about being spiritual. Okay. And again, to the degree of one's being spiritual, I think that's a really important factor to one's well-being and quality of life. Because as you had mentioned before, that's kind of the conduit that holds everything together as far as that goes. How do I work on my spirituality? Is it, do I have it or I don't have it or, you know? Everybody has it. Everybody has it here. It's a matter of tapping into it and developing it. Spiritual resources, one of the most common spiritual programs out there is the 12 step program founded by Bill W. A.A., Alcoholics Anonymous. There are spiritual programs, 12 step programs for every dysfunction under the sun, there really are. And it's a program for spiritual healing. We mentioned spirituality is what holds it all together for us. We come to a point on the journey to where we realize, you know what, it's broken. I can't do this on my own. Then we admit again that a greater power has taken over us and we need to surrender to the healing process. Spiritual 12 step recovery programs are one resource out there. There are many books out there. I was just checking the internet. There are also spiritual assessments you can take on the internet. There are a number of resources on the internet. Just type up spiritual assessment tools and you can take a look at, again, how they're divided up, mentally, socially, physically, we talked about that, to give yourself some kind of an understanding of your own spiritual life. And you rate yourself in various categories. There are many good books out there too on spirituality. Do you have any favorites? Yes. One of my favorite authors in terms of spirituality is Anthony Robbins. The book I've been working on, it's been about 10 years now, is called Awaken the Giant Within. And it's a book that's about just a little thinner in the Bible, but it's packed. And I've been working on the emotional wellbeing for quite a long time. But again, it talks about belief system because a lot of times what we think about anything affects our emotions. Our emotions affects how we behave. And overall, how we feel about ourselves. So Tony Robbins is one great spiritual guru out there, modern day. Some of the others, excuse me, let me take a look here. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Another great book that I've been reading, Edward Hayes, noted Catholic publisher. Ed is a Catholic mystic. Ed was from Kansas. And the Archdiocese bought 140 acres of wooded land. And they gave it to Ed, Father Ed, do what you want with it. He turned it into a retreat farm called Shanta Vanem, which means Forest of Peace. He's written many, many great books, one of which is St. George and the Dragon and the Quest for the Holy Grail. Story about a man named George, like you and me, with a job, with a wife, who realizes he's being called out on some journey, some quest. And what he winds up doing is every Saturday he goes out to his garage, which becomes his makeshift hermitage to spend the day out there on retreat. And Igor the Dragon comes to visit him. Well, through the stories told week after week after week from Igor the Dragon in between George, he begins a journey, an inner journey to discover who he really is. That is a fantastic resource. I've used that and that helped me very early on in my journey. What are some of the things that could weaken one's spirituality? We mentioned belief system. I can't because time, I'm too busy. I don't have enough time for that. Being pulled out in so many different directions. I use the analogy of a vase. We are a vase. Drop it to the ground, it breaks in a million pieces. Now it's about getting the pieces back together. And I think what spiritual healing is about. I think in as much as we are broken, we are pulled in all these different directions. But yet as much as we are one, we are more full and complete. What can you put in a vase? You can put flowers, you can put money, you can put coins, you can put water. As whole people, we can hold on to so much. But once broken, there's not very much we can hold on to. So it's spiritual healing, it's getting our lives back together. So if one realizes they do need help, or they want to regroup, so to speak, where is some place they can go? I know you mentioned some resources and books, but what about some programs or even a network of friends or groups or some place they can go? 12-step programs are probably some of the better programs out there. And again, for every dysfunction under the sun, there's AA, there's Allinon, there's Allotine, there's programs for people who are gambling addicts. There are grief recovery programs, which aren't 12-step, but they help with the healing process as well. Books, the internet, I have a spiritual director. There are spiritual directors all around. Nor routine college has them. Milwaukee Archdiocese has spiritual directors. There are also spiritual directors or any different denominations, any different religion as well. Books are fantastic. You know, a lot of times, like you said, well, when you said sitting in the room and just sitting there with somebody or even holding their hand, you know, can help as far as that goes. Would you say, let's say, you know, if I realize first of all that I acknowledge I need spiritual help, that I'm really low and my energy is gone and everything, I need help. Would you recommend going to a friend who can help you or does it have to be like a qualified, like a programmer or somebody that way? I would find somebody who's experienced and who's trained in spiritual direction or spiritual care. But before needing to run out, the best practice is sitting alone in silence. I picked up the book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. And he starts out this book by saying, spend the first hour of your day in meditation. Sit silent, don't be distracted and just quiet yourself down and spend the last hour of your day doing the same also. Now, most of our reactions are gonna be, I don't have time for that, I don't have time for a whole hour, a whole hour, but try it. Try it. And before you make a decision, if anything is for you or not, whether it's a 12 step program or meditation, with 12 step, we say, go to six sessions first before you decide that this is for you. Same with meditation. Try it six, eight, or 10 times first. You're gonna feel a difference. You will notice a difference because it's not a daily practice of most of us to sit and quiet and be still and to calm everything that's going on here. Everything that is really controlling us and pulling us out in so many different directions but to become one and to heal. We could just start by sitting and being silent. I think that's one of our, the way life has changed these days. Everything is fast paced, instant gratification. Now we gotta do this, now we gotta go here, we gotta go there. I think a lot of that has changed which actually drains on people and actually brings their quality of life and their well-being down as factors. That's why I turn to, like I said, our friendship and our past relationship working together. I turn to a lot of the times like I shared is the woods. So to speak, that's my happy place, so to speak, where I like to go and just, it's all quiet and all you hear is the nature around where you're like part of something bigger. Now you had asked, where would one wanna go? Do they need somebody spiritual? I remember back when you and I were at St. Nicholas Hospital there and you had suggested we start a spirituality group and it was just your one suggestion. You had said, as a child I went out into the woods with Roy Scalter, your school group or something like this and it was in a different setting. You were out in the wilderness in the wild there and you said, could we not transpose that? Could we not bring that here to the hospital and welcome people to participate in the spirituality group? And we did and people came and people came and then we had to start a second group because this was something that was feeding people. So that was a very great idea. Thanks. How would you say that helped the people? With what we did, the program we walked through and the steps we walked through. I mean, I am by far a spiritual expert. But yet I came to the idea with you and I guess you helped feed it and it grew. How would you say that helped contribute to the people's spirituality? Number one, we selected a time. This had this much time. We selected a safe location and we provided safety. Here's what this group is about. It's about you. It's about your spiritual wellbeing. And what really helped was we initiated we asked a couple questions and it opened people up and it began to help them to look inside. I'm trying to think some of those questions that we had were who's your favorite cartoon character? And for some of us it was underdog and well why is that? And then we just went deeper in, deeper in, deeper in. I know one of the other common ones that really worked well I thought was when we did the close your eyes and it was kind of a short meditation session but it was like going to your happy place. And try to limit the bounds where I know some people were way out past our galaxy to other people were just taking a step out of the room. And I think based on one's quality of life and how you measure it I think that's how it also ties the one bounds of who, how far do they go? And you had suggested that the happy place practice. Much later on in our spiritual group that wasn't on day one. So I think we would have started that on day one would have kind of freaked some people out and it was, whoa, I'm not ready for this. But we went deeper, we went inward. We went from your name, your favorite food to your favorite cartoon character and people went in deeper on their own spiritual journey. And now when you ask them the bigger question find your happy place, everybody was almost already there, they knew. So you pretty much answered I think my question before is should somebody do that on their own or with a group of people and I think you need that supervised or mentoring of the group which is what you provide in your daily practices. Yes. So kind of back to your role as director of spiritual services, what kind of programs do you facilitate in your daily activities? We make a goal of trying to visit every patient in the hospital within the first 24 hours. We conduct spiritual assessments with them. We find out really what's going on inside here. How are they spiritually? A lot of times they'll be coming in for an operation. That was some sort. But then you really find out that they've been out of touch with their family, their children, and they're really lonely. And they're losing their independence and they fell. They fell which means again they're losing their independence, they need more help, they need more assistance. I number of people, I fell I was down on the ground for four, six, eight, 10 or 12 hours and I'm like wow. And again, what resources do you need? Sometimes we ask patients simply the question, what do you need? And sometimes the responses are surprising in that I don't know, nobody's ever asked me that. I know my time when I worked at the hospital as well. I got to interact with some patients and I found it very rewarding as well. In my other role I played on December 5th, visiting the patients. I know there was a couple of people where they just got such a big smile, just getting their pictures taken. Which was a real rewarding thing as well. Very memorable, very memorable. What about programs outside the hospital? Are you involved with? Outside the hospital. I have been going around to different churches. I'm offering a prayer and healing talk or seminar if you would. I have found that there's tremendous power in prayer. Various medical institutions across the US, Duke University, San Francisco, Brown have conducted studies on the power of prayer and healing. They have had three groups, people that are prayed for and who know it, people that are prayed for who don't know it and people who aren't prayed for. And hands down, the results will show the people who are prayed for advance in the healing process far more faster, less times coming back to the hospital than those who aren't. So what we've begun to do is whenever we visit patients, we ask them, we have prayer groups around that are part of our healing ministry here at the hospital, prayer groups throughout the community that offer to pray for the healing of our patients. And we do this on a first name basis only to protect the patient's confidentiality. And as we say, we know God knows their last name anyway. 90% of patients say, yes, I wanna be prayed for. We started this November of 2010 and we're right now near like 6,000 patients. I mean, people are hungry. People wanna be prayed for. This is, Sheboygan has a very strong faith community really is Dave. Well, that goes to show too, you know, they always say, you know, the power of prayer, which I think is anchored with the power of belief, you know, the power of courage and then, you know, to go on it and, you know, to be strong. It's how it pulls together for one then ultimately quality of life. What about for the patients or individual who are facing more of a life terminating hardship? What type of programs do you have for them to help keep their spirituality up, you know, as part of palliative care? A lot of that, a lot of what's offered is either A, connected through their church or through B, we have our home health and hospice and palliative care and home health and hospice does have a chaplain that offers to visit patients. That's, and I used to do that in my early days there at St. Nicholas, that's such a privilege to be able to enter into a patient's life on their final journey and have them just open up, open up their life to share everything and to journey with them through the end. It's very peaceful and it's very beautiful. And it's amazing, I guess with the spiritual power that's present in people, I think, I don't wanna say with everybody, but it comes out at the end. It comes out at the end. People, the sense of surrender, the sense of, I've never, ever met anybody who says, I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid of what's on the other side. I have no clue. Maybe one, but that's the maximum. But most people, once you surrender to turn yourself over, it's a very peaceful process. Dying is a very peaceful process. And it's your spirituality that actually gives you strength to face that, to move forward. That's where that all comes from. To go on to the next step of their journey. Do you find any resistance of people with their approach to help with their spirituality? There are some people who just, we'll say, no, I'm okay. Thanks, I'm okay. I may even ask them, how are you doing spiritually? Right, no more. But then like last week, I'm sorry, this was some time ago. I asked how he was doing spiritually. God and me are buddies. Right way, that said a lot, that said a lot. And then I asked a very elderly woman one day about her own spirituality. And in a very old age, she says, I'm not being as productive as I really wanna be with my life and giving to other people. And then a lot of times I'll ask guys, how are you doing spiritually? My mother just died, I just lost my job. My wife stressed out and my children just came down with a diagnosed with some illness. So a lot of people, you ask them, how are they doing spiritually? They know, they know right there what you mean. Deep inside here, that's what it's about. That could have been a song, a country music song, what you just said. Here we go, you gotta work on that. As far as that goes, what would you say, when does one really start to explore? They already become aware of their own spirituality. You know, when you're younger, you're always, you're more for the minute, but it seems like when people get older, is when they really start to explore there. I had a flashback when you said when they're younger. When you're younger, we're free. We're pure, we're innocent. And a definition of freedom that I've always used and relied upon was by the philosopher of creativity, Dr. Henry Nelson Wyman. He described freedom as the whole self in motion, body, mind, spirit, financial, social, mental, emotional. And I personally felt free as the greatest degree of freedom when I was about 16 years old. Everything was going right. I was at my physical peak, getting great grades. He had great friends, great family. Everything was going forward. And then as it was, I reached, I had a personal best for one of my runs, a 10 kilometer run, was the fastest time I ever ran. I finished 15th out of 250. And then it all crashed the following week when I was riding a bicycle and I was hammered by a jeep. That broke me down. The wholeness was broken then. And then it was just a process of surrendering to the healing process, the process of spirituality, which brought it all back together, which took prayer, faith, belief, which took friends, which took everybody, everybody who cared, who showed me the face of Christ. That's to break down to the bottom and to admit you got a problem is where you begin recovering spiritually. Okay, almost like with any program for the recovery. You first of all admit you need help and then you go through and then you come back up. You're right on. Earlier when you said some of the definition of spirituality, then you go in the workplace. Some organizations have tests that they do on employees. Like at St. Nick, we had the Leatherman and all of this test like that or the Myers-Briggs. It almost seems like the factors that they measure with the definition you get is actually measuring or tied to one's spirituality in a workplace. That's just an observation of mine. And by taking those tests, we learn more about ourselves. And that's a continual ongoing process. It's sure as we continue to change and grow and to develop as human beings, we continue to develop ourselves in all areas of life, especially spiritually. Okay, yeah, with Myers-Briggs, what was I, ENTP, I believe that's what I was. Do you remember yours? I was an ENFJ. ENFJ. Extrovert, Intuitor, Fielder, Judger. Yep. It doesn't change, they say. No, no, exactly. So any other closing statements that you may have, Marty, as far as spirituality and... Spirituality affects your health. So I just encourage our viewers, do the spiritual work. Read the book, join the group, take the tests, develop your spirituality, because that's what life is about. Yeah, when life is a ride and you wanna enjoy it. That's right, that's true. As far as that goes. Any other closing thoughts? No, you know, one quote that I had printed out here, this was by a man who was a conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And I read this, and it's, what's it all about? The goal of life is not happiness, it is living. It is living, living, and we addressed all those areas, body, mind, and spirit. Developing your potential in any one area of life. Developing your potential in all areas of life. That's what it means to be more fully alive. So the goal of happiness, the goal of life is not happiness, it's living. Living with a capital L. To your potential. Right. Excellent. Marty, I'd like to thank you for coming on the show. I mean, this was very informative for me as well as our viewers. Thank you so much, Dave, it's been a great pleasure. Thank you. On behalf of Marty and Quality of Life, I'm Dave Augustine, thank you for watching.