Turning the Page - Empowering Your Mental Health

The One Thing to Remember when the Emotional Pain is too much

Emotional pain can bump our lives into behaviors that can hurt us further. But we can make a change by learning to listen to the pain, where it’s sourced, and what it wants us to do.

He was in pain. I could see it, feel it, and totally understand it. I couldn’t take his emotional pain away, but I did want him to know one thing.

She was also was in pain. In everything she said and did, there was an expression of emotional pain. I wanted her to know this one thing. Continue reading “The One Thing to Remember when the Emotional Pain is too much”

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Four steps to Build A New Trust

Trust can get broken so easily, but we can build a new trust by cognitively reassessing our situations. It takes time and effort, but it is worth it.

There was a rebuilding that needed to happen. It was a rebuilding of trust in themselves and with others.

Somewhere, some time, every one of us is going to have our trust broken. We live with an expectation that certain things will happen the way we believe they will happen. The rules won’t get broken. That the promises made will be kept.

But trust gets broken in many different areas of our lives. Continue reading “Four steps to Build A New Trust”

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15 Lessons from 2020

2020 has been a year of many incredible challenges having to be overcome, but perhaps we have learned some valuable lessons out of the year.

As I write this, it’s the last day of 2020, and what a year it has been.

Here is a list of reflections from the year.

The first three are my own. Continue reading “15 Lessons from 2020”

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I See You Need a Witness

We all have a story to tell but who is giving witness to it. A witness can help us change our plot, the next event in the storyline.

I could see them.

I was looking at my Google Analytics for Turning the Page. It’s a kind of measuring tool full of statistics of how many people come to the website and what they are looking at.

This was in real-time. As I was looking at the dashboard they were looking at the website.

I didn’t know who they were or anything about them. Nothing other than that they had come to a particular page. The page was I’ve had Enough, Take my Life God, I Want to die Continue reading “I See You Need a Witness”

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Money Falling From The Sky and a Hope Deferred

When hope is deferred, our heart grows sick, but when we see and know the hope fulfilled in the now, we can build resilience to the struggles of the day.

People traveled long distances hoping to get some of the money ‘falling from the sky.’

A few nights ago, I watched a news item about a publicity marketing stunt that made a seemingly genuine promise and failed to deliver.

A company had promised.

‘New Zealand’s first mass cash drop.’

‘We’re dropping $105,891.40 [$74,558.13 USD] in value from the sky’

‘YES. Actual money will be flying …’

Instead, it was fake money and vouchers for discounts at their online store. Continue reading “Money Falling From The Sky and a Hope Deferred”

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How to Cast Your Cares on a Clydesdale God

We can all carry too many worries, anxieties, and cares, but when we learn how to cast, we can find a new sense of wholeness, peace, and shalom.

‘That is a lot you are carrying,’ I said as they paused and took a breath.

So many worries, thoughts, and distractions going around in their head. It was, as someone described it, a monkey mind. Clattering noisy monkeys vying for your attention in the cage of your brain.

I had given them room to voice the noise, and only a little had slipped out.

For many of us, we have become so used to the noise of worry that we think it’s normal. Continue reading “How to Cast Your Cares on a Clydesdale God”

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Change Always Asks You to Walk on Water

When there is an invite to change, there is always that question of ‘Can I walk on water?’. But with repeated experiences, we can learn confidence and literally change the way our brain works.

I wanted to say ‘hi’ and introduce myself to her, but the ‘what if’s’ were started to hold me back inside my boat. What if she rejects me, ignores me, dismisses me?

I stepped out of the boat, walked on water, said ‘Hi’ and we have been married now for 34 years.

Walking on water is a brain change moment.

Continue reading “Change Always Asks You to Walk on Water”

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Three Words to Build a Bridge Instead of a Wall into the Secret Garden.

We all have a secret garden. A place we don’t want others to go near, but with three little words, we can build a bridge and not a wall.

I had been having a conversation with someone, and then suddenly, I felt the protection of a wall. The conversation changed, there was a ‘downplaying’ of the issue we talked about, and a new topic was introduced.

I could sense a wall protecting something, a tender topic, something they weren’t confident in exploring with me, yet if we were to grow in a relationship, we needed to be willing to build bridges and not walls.

“Let’s build bridges, not walls.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Three simple words build bridges and not walls. Tell me more. Continue reading “Three Words to Build a Bridge Instead of a Wall into the Secret Garden.”

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I Arise Today and Bind around my Brain

We often have the same negative thoughts going around and around in our brains, but we can change them when we arise and bind the brain with truth.

I always marvel at those men and women who lift heavyweights. It takes time, effort, and wisdom. Many of them you will see wrap a binding around their wrists or their waist. Boxers wrap their hands.

Perhaps you have seen other athletes wrap some support around their legs.

All to give some extra support to some weaker and perhaps fragile are of the body. Perhaps it has been previously injured and needs some extra support. Continue reading “I Arise Today and Bind around my Brain”

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Building a New Confidence from the Ash

There was no self confidence. It was gone like vapour from ash. But something reignited when we looked at the pebbles and not the mountain.

It was like I was looking at an empty shell. They were there in the room with me but there was very little confidence within them to do anything at all.

It had gone. Any self-belief they had seemed to have been sucked right out of them.

How did this happen? Well, they had been hammered on. Continue reading “Building a New Confidence from the Ash”

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