Getting Well Staying Well Archives

To be grounded in reality requires a commitment to side with the truth. It's seeing the lies we have been telling ourselves and moving into them with truth

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Practices

No More Lies. Stay Grounded in Reality

‘If you really knew me, would you still love me?’ A grounded reality of knowing God speaks ‘You are loved no matter what’.

For some reason we prefer fabricated realities to the
strong and sensitizing face of what is.
The spiritual life begins with accepting and
living our reality. Richard Rohr

I know someone who lies and embellishes the truth. They want to be known and loved but the facade of lies they have built up around themselves has become their truth.

Sometimes, when they feel safe, they let their guard down and the honesty flows. It’s beautiful to watch.

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

Isn’t It Time to Banish the Bookkeeper? Forgive

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Are you struggling to forgive yourself or others? The bookkeeper keeps score and builds a case against yourself and others. Let’s banish the bookkeeper. Underneath the kitchen bench in my childhood home was a drawer where we kept scissors, pens, paper, and the red Collins ledger book. My mother would […]

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Formation

Self Compassion for a ‘Wretch like me’

Been sold the lie that you’re a wretch? Self-compassion absorbs the failures and forgives the self. It says you’re doing ok and that you’re loved. I have probably sung into my soul ‘a wretch like me’ over a hundred times. The hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ is the most well-known hymn we have. […]

Getting Well Staying Well Helping Others

Six Keys on How to Pray for the Healing of a Mental Illness

When we pray for the healing of mental illness for ourselves or someone else, there is a divine invitation to join with God in an unfolding story. We pray for something wonderfully life-transforming. That is of course if you dare to pray that little bit deeper. You listen to someone tell […]

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Practices

Give your Mind the Spiritual Gift of Stillness

If we are going to navigate life well, we must nurture the gift of stillness. Distractions will vie for our attention, but only one that is true will be heard if we quiet ourselves and be still. Looking up at the stars through a crisp, clear winters night I wondered […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

If You Put Your Nose to the Grindstone Rough

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If you put your nose to the grindstone rough, And keep it down there long enough, You will soon conclude that there are no such things, As a brook that babbles or a bird that sings. These three things will your world compose: Just you, the stone, And your ground-down […]

How To Prayerfully Listen, Interpret, and Understand Your Dreams

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Formation

How To Prayerfully Understand Your Dreams

When I saw my mother-in-law talking very loudly in a distant relatives’ funeral, I then remembered that she didn’t have her hearing aids in, and of course, this made perfect sense … in a dream. Sleep is good and was made to be good. Within the world of our dreams, […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

How A To-Do-List Can Help You Off To Sleep

You can’t carry things while you’re asleep. That may seem a silly statement to make as it seems so obvious. So writing a To-Do list can take those items into tomorrow and give your mind a clear space to sleep. You want a rest, a real rest. One where you […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

To Sleep Like a Baby Become a Little Child

My father’s flannelette pajama shirt was always cozy and warm. As a child I would climb up on his lap, cuddle in and go off to sleep. The rhythm of mums knitting needles clicking beside me added to the feeling of being held and loved. It was a place of deep […]

The First Step To A Great Day Is To Go To Sleep With God

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

The First Step for a Great Day Is To Fall Into Sleep

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You want a great day, and you plan for it. But so much is reliant on actually having a good sleep. This is because God has always meant for the day to begin when your head hits the pillow and you rest in Gods trusting embrace. There is a rhythm […]

Getting Well Staying Well

How to Chew on the Bible with Mindfulness

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It’s not the volume of Bible reading that matters. It is the quality of the chewing. Reading and ruminating with mindfulness builds resilience and strength in the core of your being. I know of an old aunt that used to advise chewing your food 32 times. Not sure if this is the exact […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

The 3 Lies of “I Can’t,” “They Can’t” and “I Won’t”

The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. Can’t is really won’t and with stubborn self-protecting pride, we stifle life. There are three lies that will keep you stuck. I can’t change; They can’t change; Things won’t change.

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Formation

‘The Greatest Showman’ goes to Church

The greatest showman created a ‘Church’ for those on the sideline, those on the fringe. Those with a stigma came to a safe place where they found strength in their shared struggle. How you serve the sideshow is how you serve the saviour. ‘Who do we serve first’? was the […]

Getting Well Staying Well

“What are you doing here?” The Heart Revealing Question

‘What are you doing here’? Is Gods invite for us to explore our lives. To discover the reasons for what we do. It’s an empowering question to ask yourself and others. I knew where he would be. In that dark, dingy cave of a place, hunched over a machine and […]

A-Simple-Way-God-Cares-For-A-worn-Out-Soul-Mental-health-Recovery

Getting Well Staying Well

A Simple Way That God Cares For Your Worn Out Soul

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It is always a place of rest, food, and shelter where the worn out soul must go to meet the God of hope. When depression and fear are met by the God of grounded reality, then we are in good hands. Life is hard. It can grind down on your […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental Illnesses

God, I Want to die

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Overwhelming emotions can take you to where you want to die. It’s what happens when it all becomes too much for us mere humans to handle, and so we pray, ‘God, I want to die.’ The other day, I watched a news reporter standing in a stream swollen with water […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental Illnesses

Real Men get Real about Their Mental Health

No one likes being truly honest about the reality of a Mental Illness. Progress happens when we get real and learn to understand what truly is going on. John had been to see the psychologist for some personality tests for upcoming career changes. When the psychologist just dropped into the […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental health

What Harvey Weinstein got for Christmas

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Harvey didn’t quite know what to make of the whole noise and hubbub happening outside his hermit cave. He had run from all the scandal, and now he was out in the desert looking after a bunch of smelly sheep. Others too were joining him. All clothed in rags and […]

Getting Well Staying Well Mental Illnesses

Revealing the Dark World of Covert Male Depression

It’s the covert way that male depression hides that makes it scary. The blind spot that men can get taken out by. Men need ‘listening’ friends where they feel safe enough to tell their stories. It was like a fog was being lifted off around my brain. I was able […]

Getting Well Staying Well

Is it possible to Recover from a Mental Illness?

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Life would never be the same again, but whose life is after struggling with an illness. Perhaps we have to redefine recovery and discover that there is no one ‘You-er than you’. Nathan had plans of becoming a doctor. But his parents separated when he was aged 15 and his world […]