Dorothy: [00:00:00] Many of us have benefited from some of the programs offered by the Institute for Spirituality and Health, but I had no idea that this organization has been around for 70 years, and that makes Houston a leader in exploring how spirituality and medicine work together. Leah Adams, who is the vice President of engagement of the institute comes from a very varied background. She received her degree in political science, then went to work in finance, then project management, and then she earned her certification in mind body medicine. That’s what she uses at the institute. Today she talks about all the different programs that are offered there, and she talks about how connecting science with the soul can transform patient care and become a new standard in medicine.
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Leah, thank you so much for being with us here today. We are delighted to have you come and to talk about this, the Institute for Spirituality and Health. And I want you to start off by telling us exactly what it is you do there.
Leah: Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here, and it’s a pleasure to talk about the institute and share with your audience this mission. So my role is the Vice President of engagement, and in this role, I get to share this mission, just what we’re doing today, so that the services, the programs, and really the community [00:02:00] that’s so special about the institute, uh, can be accessible to everyone in our community.
Dorothy: Well now a lot of people have never even heard of the institute. So how long has it been around?
Leah: The institute has been around since 1955. We just celebrated 70 years. It’s just incredible. Seven decades of innovating around this central mission.
Dorothy: Yes. And how did it get started?
Leah: Well, some prominent Houstonians, uh, were interested in the development of the Texas Medical Center in 1955, and they were very clear that the whole person should be acknowledged that the bedside, the whole patient, including their spiritual wellbeing.
Dorothy: 70 years ago, that’s, they were thinking that way.
Leah: They were.
Dorothy: That is amazing. And how did they uh, how, what did they do to make sure that happened?
Leah: Yeah, so they, um, this institute was the first ever chaplaincy training program, so the institute developed this idea that chaplains could be at the [00:03:00] bedside in the hospital system, attending to the patient’s spiritual wellbeing while the medical community was attending to their physical health.
Dorothy: So all of this stuff, we think that we’re just now discovering about spirituality and the importance of all of that with health has been around for a long time.
Leah: It certainly has.
Dorothy: That’s just amazing to me. And it’s amazing that Houston was one of the first places to ever have the chaplaincy program, the to have that at the bedside. My goodness.
Leah: Yeah. It was the first, there was an article in Time Magazine in the seventies that wrote about it, and the institute also, in addition to hospitals, trained all of the incoming chaplains to the United States Air Force for some time as well.
Dorothy: Oh really? My goodness. And what a role they’ve had.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: And played it our life. That’s, that’s just amazing to me. Now, another thing that I found very interesting was how you [00:04:00] found your way to the institute, I mean, from business, very much corporate America to spirituality. How, how did, how did that journey happen?
Leah: Thank you for asking that. The, my personal journey really happened by way of exposure. I think I started, you know, in my young life with, um, an experience in my family. My brother died very tragically and very suddenly. And my family fell apart. My parents divorced. I really felt very alone and I was not successful for those next 10 or 20 years in the traditional things that kids my age would be doing, like going to college.
And so I took a path to become a legal assistant, and from then went into private equity. I was fascinated with a global role and in a global role working with all people from all religions, all cultures, all faiths. And, um, I [00:05:00] transitioned into a global legal consulting role and so I traveled all over the world. I managed the eastern hemisphere for some years, and so I really was exposed to humanity um, in so many different cities and countries. And it was just incredible to me that human beings are essentially at their core love, and I’ve always had this really special internal spiritual connection, and I just saw it in the eyes of everyone I met all over the world. And so eventually, um, I decided instead of being just a volunteer for nonprofits, which I had been for two decades, that I would transition to a nonprofit leader and do everything I could to help, uh, share these missions that are so important and meaningful to our community.
Dorothy: But now, Leah, how did you handle your brother’s death?
Leah: Not well, [00:06:00] not well. Um, I was 16. He was 14. And, um, I just didn’t know what to do. I we’re from a small town in Indiana and I grew up here. I we had just moved to the Woodlands.
Dorothy: Yeah.
Leah: And so it was a big city to me. And, um, I really turned inward. I read everything I could read. I started meditating. Um, I isolated a lot. And or in my early twenties, I traveled. I went and backpacked all over Europe, uh, with just a friend or by myself. I just took a, a soul’s journey to heal myself.
Dorothy: But was some of it avoidance or, or did you know you were doing that?
Leah: If I knew somehow that was the only way I was going to survive because I, I did not believe in tomorrow. My brother didn’t live till tomorrow. I did not believe after that experience that tomorrow would ever [00:07:00] happen. So why would I need a college degree? Right?
Dorothy: Oh my goodness.
Leah: And so I went off into the world and I wanted to meet human beings, heart to heart. I wanted to go to museums and visit other places and find out who I was.
Dorothy: Wow.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: But that’s pretty drastic. I mean, to leave what you knew. And to do that on your own. You were by yourself.
Leah: I was often by myself. I have a dear friend from high school that you know, and college roommate and we were travel buddies. But yeah, often I was alone and I find great peace in aloneness and, and that’s where I find personally for me, my spiritual connection.
Dorothy: But not everybody could handle that kind of inner journey.
Leah: I don’t think it was unique. Yeah.
Dorothy: Yeah.
Leah: And, and different members of my family had their own unique journey, which I believe everyone experiencing bereavement and grief, they each have [00:08:00] their own unique journey. They each need to look inward and look outward to their community for support. And so we find the healing through both inward and internal and external resources.
Dorothy: How did you get so wise?
Leah: I give my mom and dad all the credit in the world. Yeah.
Dorothy: But what a early, difficult experience to have to go through.
Leah: I, I challenge anyone who’s lived through heartbreak to look to the inner wisdom that that heartbreak will yield for them.
Dorothy: Hmm. Instead of becoming bitter or, that’s right. Angry or.
Leah: Feeling so disconnected from potential outcomes of growth. You know, we each are here to learn and grow, you know, however we choose to do that is.
Dorothy: But still, you spent what, 10 years, 15 years in the corporate world?
Leah: I did. Yeah.
Dorothy: What a, what a shift.
Leah: It was, [00:09:00] it was very interesting. I worked with all kinds of companies and all kinds of industries with all kinds of people in countries all over the world.
Dorothy: But then you, you were able to see into the lifestyles of other people, and I did hear what concerned them. Is it different? What concerns a mother in the us? Is it different than what would concern someone overseas or?
Leah: It’s all universal. In my experience. I’ve seen homeless people on the streets of Beijing, koala Lumpur, Moscow, Houston, Texas. You know, uh, and I’ve seen people thriving in each of those places as well. I’ve been, uh, given a hand, you know, by a stranger in every single one of those and other places I’ve been around the world and I’ve been a helping hand to people.
Dorothy: Oh, what a, what an amazing lesson to learn and to recognize.
Leah: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s been a really special [00:10:00] time. Yeah.
Dorothy: Yeah. So go back to the institute. What’s the difference in spirituality and religion?
Leah: So I like to think of religion as a source of community and learning and engagement where spirituality, we talk about at the institute, a definition that can be attributed to our Amer president Emeritus, John Graham, that centers around the idea of connection and that is connection to ourselves, connection to each other, to our environment. To the creatures of our environment and to a greater power. Something we may choose to name or not to name.
Dorothy: True.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: Here at The Rose, one of our values is spirituality. And the employees came up with this. This wasn’t something I did. And they said, we all know something bigger than us is working here. And it was so simple for them to understand and to embrace and, and you know, to say this needs to [00:11:00] be something that we include in our, our core values. And I’ve not seen that in most, you know, organizations that are not faith-based. And it was just so fascinating to me how at our very, at our most inner place, we know that, you know, we know there is something more.
Leah: That’s right. And the personal healing journey is deeply spiritual. And so to ignore that fact or to overlook that, you know, truth could be shortsighted. You know, so I appreciate deeply that your employees saw the value of a spiritual connection, talking about one spirituality, because when people are faced with their own mortality or, you know, question, the amount of time we have left here, it becomes primarily a spiritual conversation in my experience.
Dorothy: Well, it is. It’s, and we’re in such unsettled times [00:12:00] how important it is for us individually or as a community to have a spiritual practice.
Leah: One would argue it’s deeply, deeply important, right? And not just a spiritual practice, but a sense of community. And so, for example, some of the things that we offer at the institute are what we call support groups, but really a couple of them are simply mind body practices for resilience, because we need to be able to bring ourselves back into balance, especially in the world that we live in today with so much media, so much information.
And then when when we are dealing with our own health and wellbeing We need to be able to really have an internal touchstone, I believe. And spirituality can play an important role in helping us feel well and balanced in the middle of what can feel like chaos. Whether that’s our health, whether that’s a [00:13:00] political situation or something like a hurricane, which we Houstonians know too much about.
Dorothy: Absolutely. I’ve heard some people say in, in all these years of being in the breast cancer community that, oh, I don’t need a support group. I, I have plenty of support. My family is my support. But I loved how you described this as a place where truly, uh, almost like, like-minded people can connect and come together and it, it puts a whole different frame around a support group.
Leah: It does, and I will challenge the idea of like-minded because at the institute everyone is welcome and some of the conversations that we have are with people who are not like-minded. And this is.
Dorothy: Oh, that’s interesting.
Leah: This is how we learn and grow.
Dorothy: Yeah.
Leah: Right? We, our institute is completely independent, meaning that it’s not connected to an educational system. Research lab or a hospital system, [00:14:00] it’s totally independent and equitable, meaning everyone is welcome. We have representation on our board of directors by each of the major faith traditions, and so many of our conversations are centered around varying perspectives, around different topics.
Dorothy: Oh, that’s so fascinating.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: So tell us about these different, uh, what did you say, four Centers of excellence. Tell us about them.
Leah: Thank you. So we accomplish our mission through programs related to each of our four centers of excellence. And the first one is the Rabbi Samuel e carf Center for Healthcare Professionals. And this is where, where we work with healthcare professionals to help provide education and integrate the idea of spirituality in the healthcare setting, and we do this through going on grand rounds with medical professionals and through our other programs such as our continuing education conferences, a Psychotherapy and Faith conference, a nursing [00:15:00] conference, and those have been around for 30 something years.
Dorothy: I’m just so blown away by how long this has been in existence, this understanding of the connection, from, you know, the spirituality and, and the importance it is to health and, and so many people think we’re just now discovering that. You know, it’s almost like it’s been poo-pooed for a while.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: And, and now it’s come back. But the institute’s always known that.
Leah: The institute has been very clear about the spiritual wellbeing and the need to share about that in our community. And one of our other conferences, which I’ll mention is the conference on medicine and religion. We are just one of many sponsoring institutions. It will be held in Houston here next year. It travels around to the medical humanities schools, and I will say that just in our research of where spirituality is taught in medical schools, we’ve we’re realizing today [00:16:00] that in less than, I believe it’s less than 30% of medical schools today are teaching about spirituality, and so these medical humanities schools, you can consider them kind of on the cutting edge of medical humanities in that they’re exploring these ideas more and more deeply all the time.
Dorothy: So what do health professionals actually learn, come to understand at one of these conferences?
Leah: They understand, uh, I would say many different topics over 30 years. But primarily what comes to mind in this moment is the power of presence. You know, there was a study done where a physician stood in, they spent 10 minutes each time in this experiment in the patient’s room. They spent 10 minutes in the first one at the door. Right? Engaging the same questions, the same conversation. The next time in this study, they went into the room and stood over the patient.
The next time they sat in a chair and engaged with direct eye [00:17:00] contact, and they asked each of those patients, how long was the physician in your room and do you know the person where the physician sat down and was fully present? They said, oh, it could have been 30, 40 minutes. I’m paraphrasing this. This was a study. Where the person in the doorway said when the physician was in the doorway, maybe five minutes.
Dorothy: Oh, really?
Leah: So the perception of time and care really comes through with the power of presence being fully with someone.
Dorothy: Mm. That is so fascinating.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: And to share some other studies or, or practices.
Leah: Well, I’ll add also what comes to mind, and I do a lot of this work in mindfulness and trauma-informed care with with physicians and physicians in training and clergy in training, that what we wanna do is help them understand their own spiritual nature so that they can bring their own authentic spiritual nature to meet that with the patient or whomever they’re working with. And so it’s an authentic heart to heart [00:18:00] meeting instead of a cold, clinical, informational meeting.
Dorothy: That, Leah, that’s very hard for some of these scientific minds now, really does.
Leah: It. It’s very difficult. It gets trained right out of them.
Dorothy: Right.
Leah: It does. And that’s what we see time and time again.
Dorothy: Just so you’re training it back into them.
Leah: Yes.
Dorothy: Or you’re allowing it to come out.
Leah: We’re providing a simple invitation, you know, come home to your humanity and don’t forget it when you go to work.
Dorothy: Ooh.
Leah: You know?
Dorothy: But that’s a concept we could all use, right?
Leah: It is. I would never purport to be on the same level as a medical. Professional who’s making second by second decisions with people’s lives in their hands. I mean, there’s a reason why they sometimes have to set aside their heart you know, in their work. Uh, where in my day-to-day work, it’s all heart in this role.
Dorothy: Right.
Leah: And so there’s a difference there. But, you know, helping [00:19:00] to invite them back into their humanity, I believe helps the quality of care that we have. You know, in our hospitals and across the medical setting.
Dorothy: Do do any of the programs ever touch upon the polarities of love and fear and what comes from each one of those?
Leah: Well, that certainly came up during the pandemic very much. You know, we saw many of the primary workers having to go to work every day while those of us others could stay home safely. We, you know, as safe as possible. We saw people dying and their loved ones couldn’t be with them at the bedside. We saw people, you know, saying goodbye through windows or not at all. And so it certainly shifted the tone and content of our bereavement support group at the institute in so many ways, and that was a global shift.
Dorothy: Interesting.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: Really.
Leah: It was a global, when before the pandemic, the Institute’s [00:20:00] bereavement support group, which had been gone going on for 10 plus years at that time, was in person weekly, when as much of the world did shifted. When we shifted to, you know, virtual, um, we had people joining our bereavement support group from all over the world, from California, from New York, from Europe, someone joined from a boat in the middle of the ocean for about half a year.
Dorothy: Really?
Leah: Yes.
Dorothy: Oh my.
Leah: And so, uh, it’s just another one of those examples like we spoke about earlier, where this kind of suffering is universal. Heartbreak is universal. You know, but also community is universal and so. You know, the institute may have eventually innovated to having virtual platforms over time, but certainly not as quickly. And under as much pressure as we pivoted during the pandemic.
Dorothy: So certainly that has been a gift, but it’s also been almost like [00:21:00] so many people talk about how they lost that sense of community. They lost that being with someone. They’re the times that they couldn’t spend with with people. Do you think we’ve come to a middle ground with all that? Do you think we have learned to use both ways?
Leah: Well, I would say technology certainly assists us in staying connected in new and different ways, and some for the better and some for the worse.
Dorothy: So speak to how important community is.
Leah: So having a sense of belonging, and this is whether you have a faith home. A connection with something like the Institute for Spirituality and Health, uh, maybe your neighbors in your own neighborhood. Uh, having a sense of community helps us to stay grounded. You know, the mission of the institute is to enhance wellbeing at the intersection of spirituality and health. And so when we think about wellbeing, how many of us truly know our neighbors?[00:22:00]
You know. How many, and here in Houston, probably more than in many other metropolitan areas, right? Because we’ve had these experiences of natural disasters time and time again, and so we’re out helping our neighbors, we’re out looking for ice together and all of the other essential things that we need, and so. It’s, I think Houston is a very unique place in that regard of all of the cities across this country. Um, I believe that we have come together not just for the Houston Astros But also, you know, for our own basic survival.
Dorothy: Right.
Leah: And so that’s a great example of why community and connection is so important.
Dorothy: So I think maybe we got off onto this other thing. I want you to describe the other centers.
Leah: Yes.
Dorothy: Within the institute.
Leah: So that was one of our centers. Uh, this. I will say a second. They’re not in any particular order. Uh, so we’ve got the Center [00:23:00] for Body, spirit and Mind. And in that Center for Excellence, uh, the Anchor Program is our Greater Houston Healing Collaborative.
This work began right after Hurricane Harvey. There was a real felt need in the community for mental health support. And, you know, really helping to lift each other up. We partnered with another center who came to Houston. After Hurricane Harvey. Uh, and we trained 120 facilitators to respond to the psychosocial needs of the community.
And these are, they’re trained and I am also certified in this mind body practices. And it’s something as simple as soft belly breathing. Being able to regulate the body through the vagus nerve and really helping people understand in a way that’s truly accessible. I mean, this can be te and it is taught to children, it’s taught in war zones, it’s taught in places of natural disaster like it was here.
And there are many other modalities that we teach. And so that Center of Excellence really is [00:24:00] focused on teaching these mind body practices, which we do with partners like the Women’s Home. With clients at the women’s home. We conduct a symposium with Bose Place, so for clinicians and others who respond to bereavement in the community, and of course with chaplains and others in the hospital system. So that was the Center for Body, spirit and Mind.
Dorothy: Okay. So it’s covered spirituality and health.
Leah: But we’ve covered the carf Center for Healthcare Professionals.
Dorothy: That’s it. Yes. And then.
Leah: The Center for Body, spirit, and Mind.
Dorothy: All right.
Leah: And now we’ll move on to the, the Center for Aging and End of Life.
Dorothy: Hmm.
Leah: The Center for Aging and End of Life is where you’ll find our bereavement support group and another continuing uh, education conference called the Collective Soul Symposium, which is a palliative care conference in partnership with MD Anderson.
Dorothy: Ah.
Leah: It’s really beautiful work. We, uh, have an annual program that we talk about a lot called Silent Nights in December, where we bring the [00:25:00] community together in recent years in partnership with the Rothko Chapel and at the Chapel, um, to really spend an evening together honoring the sense of, uh, separation that can sometimes occur uh, when someone has experienced the death of a loved one, the holidays don’t feel as bright and cheery when you’re experiencing grief.
Dorothy: Right.
Leah: Yeah. So that, and we also have in that center, our Interfaith Spiritual Care Coalition. And this is, uh, the only volunteer opportunity that we can extend today at the institute, which is that individuals can come and be trained as a interfaith spiritual care volunteer and be paired with a nursing home or private care facility in their area, and they can go and, uh, be spiritually present with the, uh, the folks who live in those in nursing homes. That’s, and so just like we did with our original mission, bringing chaplaincy into the hospital setting, we’re now really focused on bringing [00:26:00] spiritual care where chaplaincies don’t reach like nursing homes.
Dorothy: And there’s such a need there.
Leah: There is a real need there. Yes. It’s very, very beautiful work. So anyone, uh, listening or watching that’s interested in having a, or being called to be a volunteer in the community, this might be an opportunity.
Dorothy: So go through that just a little bit. How, what timeline do you commit to?
Leah: We invite them to go weekly or biweekly, whatever works with their schedule. It’s a personal commitment. And so we look at what area of town they live on, and maybe they have a loved one already in a nursing home that they’re already going to, or maybe they drive by one every day. You know? And so it really is extending, you know, this heart of service into those, um, into those environments where they don’t have it.
Dorothy: And you’re trained to…
Leah: We provide training. That’s right.
Dorothy: Okay.
Leah: So, uh, the Reverend, Dr. Virgil Fry, [00:27:00] he leads our ISCC training and it’s a really wonderful community of individuals as well talk about connection and they have all kinds of very rich, uh, continuing education gatherings. It’s a really special group.
Dorothy: So before we get off this, uh, ’cause I wanna know more about how we can find out about all of these things, I, I just wanna go back to you personally, uh, this curiosity or this interest in spirituality. Only started with your brother’s death, or had you always had a tendency towards that kind of exploration?
Leah: Yeah. I thank you for asking that. Um, I’ve always been connected in a way that I thought was very weird when I was younger. Uh, my family, you know, I grew up in Church of Christ, so I did grow up in the church in a Christian, uh, faith tradition. And I felt that I had a different connection and I [00:28:00] stayed quiet about it for many, many years.
Um, and it wasn’t until that catalyst of heartbreak when I was, and you know, as a teenager you’re searching and exploring all the time anyway. And so there just was the time and place where my heart broke wide open. And I just knew there was more to, there was more to the experience than just the sadness and the negativity of the grief and grieving. Uh, I knew that there was some gift in it.
Dorothy: Right, right. And you always had a different kind of connection with people or with.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: Nature have with…
Leah: I have. Yes and yes. My mom tells a funny story that the day, the minute I was born and they put me into her arms, she looked at me and she wept. And she just said to me, you’ve been here before.
Dorothy: Ah, all right. Yeah, that does make sense. Yes.
Leah: Yeah. So I, I have felt connected. It’s not something I [00:29:00] talk about a lot. Um, certainly not in my work because I keep it very, very focused on the institute and its mission. But I think we’re all here as servant leaders to carry forth, you know, some message and some mission. And I’ve been fortunate enough to stumble upon this institute and its mission and the very, not just accessible nature of what it shares, but the equitable nature. You know, having been around the world and met with all people, um, I believe it’s important. It’s really important to bring this message to everyone.
Dorothy: But still in sharing, you know, so many of us know there’s just something a little different that, that we pick up or we feel, but we don’t know how to express it.
Leah: That’s right.
Dorothy: So I think, I think, uh, thank you for sharing that. ’cause that is kind of personal, but Yes.
Leah: Yeah. Our stories are important. You’re right. They are. It’s important to share because everyone has a special and unique connection, right. Every single one of us.
Dorothy: Yes.
Leah: You know, it’s, [00:30:00] it’s whether or not we choose to tap into it, you know, we can choose to. Tap into it only on Easter and Christmas, when or whenever we go to the temple or the mosque. You know, or, or the beach.
Dorothy: You know,
Leah: or we can tap into it every single day in every single interaction.
Dorothy: That’s so true.
Leah: You know?
Dorothy: So very true. Now tell us how we can find out more about the institute and uh, just share a couple of events that are coming up that. The general public might be interested in?
Leah: Yes, so the website is spiritualityandhealth.org. And there they can find a link at the top for free support groups. All of our support groups are virtual and free, and, um, some of them are in person. So we’ve got a Monday Mind Body group for togetherness every Monday. Um, Tuesdays we’ve got a virtual bereavement support group.
Dorothy: Okay.
Leah: Wednesdays, we’ve got a midweek meditation, [00:31:00] just an opportunity to log in for 20 or 30 minutes and have a guided meditation experience and connect with community. And then we have lots of diabetes peer support groups. We do a lot of work through our Center for Faith and Public Health in Diabetes and chronic Disease education. And so there’s a lot of that um connectedness available for people.
Dorothy: And certainly for the healthcare professional’s.
Leah: Right?
Dorothy: Then have specific things that they can attend and learn, and.
Leah: That’s right for chaplains, healthcare professionals. Or really anyone that wants to connect with a community that’s talking about things that, that really matter.
Dorothy: Mhm.
Leah: As we all kind of co navigate this crazy world together.
Dorothy: Oh, yes. That’s so important.
Leah: Yeah.
Dorothy: Just to know it’s there. My goodness.
Leah: That’s right.
Dorothy: Well, thank you so much for coming out and for sharing all of this great information and particularly for sharing your story. That’s, that’s a very special one.
Leah: Thank you. It’s a privilege to be here with The Rose. Thank [00:32:00] you so much.
Dorothy: Yes.
Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Speke Podcasting and brought to you by The Rose. Visit therose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast. Share episodes with friends and join the conversation on social media using #LetsTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need. And remember, self-care is not selfish. It’s essential.
