Healing Ministry Volume 16, Number 2

Healing Ministry Volume 16, Number 2

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Mind mapping in spiritual direction + formation Father Dn Thomas Johnson-Medland, CSJ, OSL

Mind maps are diagrams of the selected components surrounding an idea, thought, feeling, notion, dream, hope, emotion, project, action, or belief. You sketch the ideas in a radial fashion around a central theme or notion. You can create the sequencing and importance of relationships within the scheme by the way you place and connect individual items. They are a way of organizing a subject. Mind maps have been used to take notes in classes, lectures, or meetings. They have also been used to outline the steps or processes needed to complete a project or portfolio of projects. Although these functions are valuable Father Dn. Thomas Johnson-Medland, CSJ, OSL is one of the managers of the Pocono Plateau Camp + Retreat Center, Cresco, Pennsylvania. He also provides Spiritual Direction + Formation as a private consultant. He lives in the Poconos with his wife Glinda, and his two sons: Zachary Aidan and Josiah Gabriel

when it comes to mind maps, we can also use them for identifying interior landscapes in spiritual formation and direction. To use a mind map to portrait an interior item, it is necessary to talk about what they are, and how to build them. For that, we will use an exterior example. First, a mind map starts at the center of a piece of paper. They are most often drawn freehand, although there are great resources (free) available on-line for building them digitally. They are a bit complicated, so for the sake of this article it will be best to draw them by hand. Second, you start with a topic or theme at that center. You write them down, and then put a shape around it. Say, that we want to diagram our options for summer vacations. We write down “Vacations” on the center of our paper, and enclose it in an oval. Next, we write down several

options that we have for our vacation. It turns out we are thinking of five specific places to go: Florida, Jamaica, Greece, the Pocono’s, and Colorado. We write them down surrounding our central word. Then, we put boxes around them. This can be represented as in Figure 1. The shapes we choose, and the places we choose to place them around the central theme can be purely random. We could surround each vacation place with an outline of the place itself (the shape of the Island of Jamaica around the word “Jamaica” and so on) or we could just use a box, circle, or triangle. It does not matter. We may be able to identify—at a later point in time—that there is some underlying meaning to our random selection of places and objects in these charts. We may realize that we placed “Greece” closer to the center of the diagram. After contemplating it for

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Healing Ministry Volume 16, Number 2

Figure 1.

a while, we realize that we really wanted to go to Greece. These types of observations are valuable. We will want to make them after the diagrams have been made. For this part of the process, let us just assume that we should try to randomly place items around the center. Next, we start adding items that come to mind when we think about that place to go Greece, Colorado, Florida, Jamaica, and the Pocono’s. If we are trying to make up our mind about which place to go and cost is a factor, we will want to list out the costs. We may want to list out activities we could do at that vacation spot. We may just want to describe the place itself and make a decision based on which place

has more beauty. It is our choice how we describe the places. We can draw shapes around our descriptors, or we could write them out in different colors: green for costs, blue for water activities, brown for housing/hotels, etc. Conversely, we could just connect them to our “vacation place” with a central branch; like making a family tree. Mind maps are great tools for diagramming all of the things that come to mind. It can also help you remember things that you want to come to your mind when you think of a certain thing. They work well as a tool when speaking in front of groups of people because they can help display how you are thinking about something or can help you display to a group how you want

the group to picture something you are describing. The focus will be just a bit different for our purposes in spiritual formation + direction. Instead of looking at them as a tool to diagram some exterior process, action, or event, we can also use them to diagram interior values, images, or feelings. We want to use them to help us “get a visual” on what is going on inside: a map of the mind or the heart or the soul, if you wish. If we analyze them, just like as we do our journal entries, we can get a pulse on how we are, what is important, and perhaps even which direction we are heading. It really is a fun tool to help us get some solidity to the fluidity of our spirituality and interior terrain.

Healing Ministry Volume 16, Number 2

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Figure 2.

Using the same basic map that I drew earlier for vacation options, I want to diagram out a dream I had. The dream began with me standing on the edge of a field. I was myself, a person, as the dream began. However, instantaneously and with no warning, I turned into a hawk. I watched as my arms and hands, legs and feet turned to wings and talons. I grew feathers and sprung into flight. There was a strong feeling of power in my wings as I flew high into the air. At some point in the dream, I landed on the grass and was given a choice by some invisible voice. I was told that I could eat red meat—which I had to kill myself—if I wanted to stay strong and fly. Or, I could eat

vegetables and tofu, but I would not be able to fly. I remember flying away and then having to land because I felt weak as I thought about eating vegetables. Then, I flew away again and I could feel a growing strength as I thought about eating red meat. I landed again on the field. All around me there were animals running in the field, and vegetables growing on vines. There was a cadre of visual menu options prancing or growing all about me. There was an inner feeling of having to choose, and the feeling grew and grew as time went by. All of the choices that I could eat were there in front of me. I remember waking the next

morning still feeling that I had to choose. The feathers were gone, but I still felt a need to choose. This was a great dream. It was very powerful and it was in vivid color. It is no wonder that I had this dream when we were in the middle of a fasting period in the Orthodox Church. Several times a year the Orthodox Church prescribes fasting as a means of spiritual preparation for a major feast day of the LORD or the Virgin Mary. As with all fasting, it is meant to be a conscious shift in how we live so that we can refocus our efforts and beliefs. In this practice, we are asked to abstain from meat, poultry, fish, oil, dairy, wine, and marital relations. I love how the dream became a

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Healing Ministry Volume 16, Number 2

small animation of the battle going on inside me during the fast. Should I eat meat or should I fast? At any rate, I diagramed this dream as given in Figure 2. Diagramming the dream actually helped me understand how it could fit into cycle of my fasting. As I wrote it out, it became apparent how easily divided into a core struggle the dream was. I was dreaming about my fast. Diagramming the dream helped me to make the connection. It was a great exercise in self-discovery. Taking other areas of our spiritual life and diagramming them can offer us ample grist for the mill; ample opportunities to grow. The growth comes from understanding how things inside us are being lived out or are affecting us as we live our lives. We could make a mind map of prayer. What is prayer? How do we do it? What do we get out of it? When do we pray? How often do we pray? We could make a mind map of Holy Communion. What is communion? How often do we receive it? What does it mean to us? How do we feel inside as we receive it? How does it change us? You can see how valuable this

tool can be. It gives us a chance to sit down, sketch out some of the major factors in our spiritual life, and get a composite of where we are. A great place to start would be to mind map “The Spiritual Life.” Once you break it down into key components or impressions, you could do a separate map on each of them. Keep in mind that with all of spiritual formation and direction, the aim is to look back at the work you are doing and interpret it. Pretend that it is the work of someone you love and admire and see how it affects you. Ask yourself some basic questions about the work: • What does this reveal about this person’s heart? • What does it reveal about how they think? • What does it expose of their hopes and desires? • How is God/the spiritual life revealed in these pages? • Is there a common thread? • Do you sense a direction this person is headed?

• What has been revealed about this person? • Where is Love in this whole thing? • Where is nurturance in this whole thing? • What is this person yearning/crying out for or to? • What has helped you grow from this work? • Who would benefit from this kind of work? You can add your own sets of questions to these. But, these are the beginnings of some good notions to look into, or the good paths to go down when you are considering the work of spiritual formation and direction. Unlike journaling, you not need do the task of mind mapping daily. It is something that you can do at larger intervals of time—perhaps yearly or quarterly. Or, you can just do them at major transitions, decisions, or milestones. However, if you use them, I am sure you will see them as a valuable tool for individual and group growth.