Personal Growth Archives

What’s in Your Emergency Mental Health Grab Bag

A crisis hits and the scaffolding around your life seems to shake, but you have a Mental Health Grab Bag, and so you know you can get through this. An emergency hits, or maybe it’s just seeing certain family members. Something gets added to your stress load, and the […]

Faith & Mental Health

Risking a Sacred Conversation

We all want to be known, held and loved, but to find this requires a level of risk to have a sacred conversation. Are you ready for that? I once had a conversation with someone, what I would call a sacred conversation, and they couldn’t handle the fire. They […]

Relationships & Connection

They make me feel

They make me feel … (add in your emotional extreme), but there is a space between stimulus and response. Use it. I was watching the news the other night and the first item was about a mother complaining about how a politician made her daughter feel. She claimed that the […]

Trauma & Recovery

Opened Too Early

There is a time for everything, and some things get opened too early, but there is hope, and God can bring release and recovery. They had been opened too soon. They weren’t ready yet. Her deep beauty had not been allowed to fully mature, but now it had been […]

Trauma & Recovery

Sitting with Shame

Sitting with shame can suffocate life, but sitting in solidarity with someone in soul talk can break its control. It’s there if you want to hear it. A sneaky, whispery voice from the past. You hear it in others. They may have said nothing directly to you, but it’s […]

Uncategorized

Nine Acronyms for Mental Health

Often you need a little acronym to remind you of a path to follow. Here are nine acronyms to help your mental health. Over the years, I have collected a set of acronyms that have helped my mental health and those I have conversations with. These are acronyms that aid […]

Mental health Spiritual Formation

What Do You Fear the Most?

Fear can be like a shadow creeping up and over you, but what do you fear the most? Understanding what you fear the most can bring assurance. It was a simple wire bridge on a confidence course. Not very high, the three-wire bridge was a challenge for some and not […]

Mental health Spiritual Formation

Are you Trying to Control the Uncontrollable?

We face struggles, so we try to control the uncontrollable, but this brings even more stress. Better to stay in the zone of what we can control – ourselves. It was out of my control. The decision on how they would treat me was beyond my control. Have you ever […]

Relationships Spiritual Formation

A Change In Behavior, A Change In the Mind

We want a behavior change, but it doesn’t seem to happen. However, it will happen with many changes in the mind (repentance). We always notice significant behavior change, don’t we? Yet, people who change dramatically are often given the stage and a microphone to trumpet the difference. I remember as […]

Getting Well Staying Well Spiritual Practices

Your Rehearsal can Change your Mind

Our self-talk can keep us depressed and anxious, but we can learn new thinking tracks. Your rehearsal can change your mind. I always marvel at how the experts seem to effortlessly do something that I would difficult. My earliest experience of this was watching shearers shear our sheep on the […]