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I started my journey of blogging in 2003 — mostly to capture what I called “transitioning life’s journey”.
In 2023 I took a 3 year break from blogging, but have decided to return to it. I hope you enjoy.
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Search 20+ years of blog writing…
All writing is thought of, written and edited by me (a human), and sometimes AI is used in the research process.
How the Integration of Theology and Psychology Can Transform People’s Lives
One of the books that I have really enjoyed reading over the years because of my interest in the integration of theology and psychology, especially pertaining to pastoral counseling in the context of the Christian community is Theology and Pastoral Counseling: A New Interdisciplinary Approach by Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger. In the book Hunsinger applies […]
Transforming Your Anxiety: Welcoming Uncertainty Into Your Life
“One of the reasons we experience anxiety is that God is persistently trying to move us through the wilderness, because it is in the wilderness that we are most dependent up on Him.” (The Anxious Christian, pp. 45). About 15 years while I was reading through the book of Exodus I came across a passage […]
Mumford and Sons and the Apostle Paul on Boundaries
“Roll away your stone, I’ll roll away mine Together we can see what we will find.” I have had this lyric from Mumford and Sons playing around in my head for the last couple of months. Probably because those two lines remind me a lot of the concept of boundaries and differentiation in relationships (i.e. […]
Transforming Your Anxiety: Embrace Your Anxiety
“Anxiety has been a part of our human condition from the earliest beginnings. When we experience anxiety we are in that space where a world of freedom and possibility is opened up before us by God. And in that space we have the choice to run and hide, covering up in shame, or we can […]
Emotional Affair — Are You Having One?
The topic of emotional infidelity is a very common one in therapy. Sometimes the topic comes up because one spouse has a friendship with someone of the opposite sex that their other spouse feels is inappropriate…lots of texting…hanging out at work too much…grabbing lunch together. And more often than not the topic of emotional infidelity […]
Transforming Your Anxiety: Anxiety and Your Story
Every anxiety has a story attached to it. There are many stories to my anxiety, but The Story that I tell and that has most often come to define my struggle with anxiety is a story about “The Day I Became a Stutterer.” I write about this story in the introduction to my book, The […]
Are You One of the 60% of Americans Who Struggle with Anxiety? And is That a Sin?
While away on Spring Break this week with my family I received a text from a good friend telling me that the latest data from The Barna Group suggests that 60% of Americans struggle with anxiety. In their latest research, New Research Explores the Changing Shape of Temptation, they state the following: While most people […]
Epic Podcast Interview with Rich Roll and Byron Davis
As I have mentioned before, I’m totally digging the Rich Roll Podcast. Just ask my wife — every time I listen to one, the first words out of my mouth are “you have got to listen to this interview.” The podcasts assemble a wide variety of people from athletes, coaches, entrepreneurs, etc. Very fascinating. The […]
What Do You Look for in a Therapist?
“Good therapists” tend to embody qualities that you would look for, perhaps, in a mentor: They believe in you and in the possibility of things going well for you, they want to hear what you have to say, and they redirect you from cynicism to hope and expectancy. The above is a quote from […]
Mindfulness — Presence and Curiosity in Conversation
In my newsletter this month I made a plea to my readers to simply “Be Present and Be Curious” with themselves and their relationships. Doing those two things can reap huge rewards in relationships such as connection, intimacy and understanding. And so today, I want to close out my blog posts for the time being […]
Mindfulness — Connecting Breathe to Our Prayer
In the last couple of posts I’ve been talking about the importance of focusing on your breath as it relates to being more mindful — paying attention to your life. It’s a practice that is overlooked, but I think that is essential to being more attune to each moment. Another way to say it is […]
Mindfulness — Taking Time to Breathe
“Breathe…just breathe. Slow down and breathe.” I find myself repeating this phrase quite a bit in my life, but in two very different contexts. One is in my office when a client is about to be overcome by anxiety and they feel like they are about to succumb to a panic attack. The other is […]
Mindfulness — Paying Attention to Your Life
“Mindfulness is basically just a particular way of paying attention. It is a way of looking deeply into oneself in the full spirit of self-inquiry and self-understanding.” Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, pp. 12 Mindfulness. That is a word I […]
Have You Talked With Your Kids Yet About Their Digital Footprint?
This is an interesting question that Jon Acuff raises for us who are parenting in the “digital age.” It’s a discussion that I have had with many parents in the parenting classes that I teach on technology, social media, and parenting. What thoughts do you have on this issue in parenting?
How Much TV Do You Watch? How Much Internet Do You Surf?
How much TV do you watch? How much internet do you surf? That’s one of the first questions I ask people when they tell me that they don’t have enough time to practice self-care in their lives. We looked at what self-care is and isn’t last week, and yesterday I talked about a method of […]
Baby Steps to Self-Care
Last week I began talking about this issue of self-care in our lives. But what usually happens when I talk about this issue is that we try to take on too much too quickly. We get all excited about changing our lives — not only for ourselves — but so that we can be life-giving […]
Finding Ultra — Conversations on Self-Care
Last Friday I briefly touched on the topic of self-care because I think it is a super important issue. I know that in my work just as a marriage and family therapist, that one of the main issues that keeps couples in an endless loop of conflict is their inability to regulate their emotions — […]
Self-Care: Four Areas to Foster in Order to be Life-Giving to Others
In my work as a therapist I talk a lot about self-care. But self-care tends to be a confusing term for many people. We can define it in many ways, but a couple of definitions that I have referred to recently are the following: “The process of managing responses to stressors. Self-care includes what we […]
Have you tried befriending ambiguity (i.e. anxiety) in your life?
“Most of the things in life you truly care about are likely to be very ambiguous, and if you can’t foster some ability to make a place for ambiguity, you’re likely to be doomed to an act in the service of its elimination–which is really a fancy and roundabout way of saying that you’ll feel […]
The DIY Clear “Whiteboard”
“How did you make that clear whiteboard?” There are a lot of questions I get as a therapist, but the above question is one I get a lot of from clients…and from other therapists. I would like to say that I came up with the idea myself, but I didn’t. Rather, my good friend Aubrey […]