mindfulness Archives

For Sabbath’s Sake Build a Fence Around That Well

Rigid rule-keeping can feed anxiety and perfectionism. But choosing relationship, grace, and mercy brings true healing over legalism. A Sabbath brings us to a deep rest. In the little country town where I live, we have a volunteer fire brigade. At times we hear the fire siren wail, and […]

Spiritual Practices

Stop the Traffic: Embracing a Sabbath Centric Life

Discover the life-changing power of Sabbath rest. Learn how to stop the busy traffic of life, plan ahead, and fill your cup today. Keep the Sabbath and the Sabbath keeps you. I live right next to a beautiful beach. Kawakawa Bay is very tidal, and at low tide it […]

Anxiety & Stress

Overcoming Anxiety. He Breathed on Them

If there is but one thing that I need the most when I am anxious, it is this. Presence. In depression, we need this. Having someone safe alongside me in my fear. It is the parent holding a child’s hand as they go off to surgery. The advocate who […]

Anxiety & Stress

The Swing and the Now: How to Ground Your Thoughts

Stop the wild swing between past regrets and future fears. Learn how to ground your thoughts in the “Now” by binding truth to your heart. Sometimes my thoughts seem to go to another time. They don’t stay grounded in the here and now. They either swing out into the […]

Faith & Mental Health Spiritual Practices

Healing Echoes: Grounding Your Soul Through Lectio Divina

It was an echo. A wave of emotion hit them, just like as if it was yesterday. Boom. They were right back there, experiencing the same thoughts and feelings. Sitting on that beach. Warm summer sun. Joyful sounds of children playing in the surf. Wafts of barbequed sausages coming from […]

Anxiety & Stress

Anticipatory Anxiety and Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

Are you waiting for the other shoe to drop? It’s called anticipatory anxiety, but you can find release and the anxiety can go. You know it’s going to happen; it’s just a matter of when. And in that waiting, in that zone of tension, you sit. How do you hold […]

Spiritual Practices

Look at the Birds of the Air. Help with Your Anxiety

Look at the birds of the air. Break the “magnetic” grip of anxiety. Discover how looking at and considering nature can ground your brain in providence. Anxiety can be like a magnet. It can grab your attention and hold it in its grip. This energy of focus can exhaust […]

A chaotic circus ring with blurred movement representing the circus of anxious thoughts and a lack of control.

Faith & Mental Health

The “Monkey Circus” of the Mind: Finding Peace in Psalm 121

Our minds can feel like a monkey circus at times, but perhaps Psalm 121 can bring some quiet to our anxiety. Off went my thoughts. Every time I thought about this situation, my mind would take my thoughts on a meandering yet whirlwind dance. Monkeys swinging in the circus of […]

Spiritual Practices

Leaning into Providence

Sometimes I feel alone in the struggle, but when listen deep I sense a providence. A providence I can lean into. It was the strangest thing I have experienced in a dog’s behaviour. Our family once had a dog that leaned. He could come alongside you, cross his legs […]

Poetry

Deep calls to deep

Deep calls to deep Deep calls to deep Soul calls to soul The silence The sound From the deepest places I seek your deepest self Where are you? Where have gone? My tears are my food My days have an oppressive tone I long for relief I long for you […]