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Now that you’ve taken the quiz, create an account to unlock your personalised profile. It’s time to rethink your ethos; to see where your values and behaviours don’t line up and explore some spiritual practices that can help.
Area to consider
Values and behaviours are in tensionYou genuinely believe every person has worth, not as an abstract principle, but you put it into practise with how you actually treat people. You have a sense of self-worth that doesn't rise and fall with other people's opinions. You welcome growth and feedback, not because your value depends on it, but because you want to grow. However, you can find it hard to hold your ground when people you re... Show full
You genuinely believe every person has worth, not as an abstract principle, but you put it into practise with how you actually treat people. You have a sense of self-worth that doesn't rise and fall with other people's opinions. You welcome growth and feedback, not because your value depends on it, but because you want to grow. However, you can find it hard to hold your ground when people you re... Show full
To be human is to be created on purpose, for a purpose.
Most of us spend very little time thinking about who we actually are. We’re too busy getting on with life.
The Identity section of Ethos invites you to slow down and look more closely at who you are – not your job title or how you’d describe yourself in a bio, but the deeper stuff. It asks questions like: how do you know what’s true? Do you trust your instincts and emotions, or do you tend to reason your way to conclusions? Where does your sense of worth come from? Is it something you’re always working to earn or prove?
Most of us have never sat down to think these things through properly. We just absorb answers from the culture around us without realising how we’re being shaped. But the answers we find to these questions affect how we view ourselves, our lives and everyone around us.
So, let’s think about you – what makes you, you. Let’s look at a spiritual practice that can help.
Start with the spiritual practice of silence
Regular rhythms of silence and solitude can help us notice what really matters and what doesn’t.
When did you last sit in complete silence, on purpose? Have you ever?
Whether you realise it or not, you have a story about yourself. You know whether you’re reliable or chaotic, funny or serious, the one who usually leads the charge or would be happy to follow along. And you probably didn’t decide that. Someone noticed something about you, described you in a certain way and slowly those voices formed how you view yourself.
The stories people tell over our lives are powerful. The voices that speak into our lives form and shape us: sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, and often without us even realising it.
So, what happens when the voices go quiet? Silence has a way of surfacing things. The voices you’ve been listening to without realising it. The questions you’ve been too busy to ask. The emotions that have been bubbling under the surface.
Silence is an ancient Christian practice. We see it in the life of Jesus. There were all these stories swirling around about who he was: a revolutionary, a troublemaker, a king. And repeatedly he’d withdraw from the crowds, get quiet, spend time with God. He knew who he was because he knew what God said about him. He’d quietened every other voice so he could hear the most important one.
And Jesus invites us, whether you’d call yourself a Christian or not, to spend time in silence, to get quiet enough to hear him speak.
So, try this: a few minutes, phone off, somewhere quiet. Breathe. Don’t worry if your mind wanders, it will, that’s fine. Just ask: what would God say about me, if I gave him space to speak?
“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10
To go deeper, click on the button to start a four-week journey on the practice of silence.