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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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All writing is thought of, written and edited by me (a human), and sometimes AI is used in the research process.
Restoration Therapy: Depression, Self-Care, and Ministry
When serving in ministry there are many opportunities to come in to contact with people who are depressed. I say this, because churches are often what I refer to as the “gatekeepers” in mental health, therefore, those employed or volunteering in ministry are often on the front lines. All of this assumes of course that […]
Restoration Therapy: Trying to Define Depression
“Are you depressed?” I asked him in session. “Depressed? What…..depression? No, I’m not depressed.” he said to me as if that was a crazy question to ask. There was some silence between us for what seemed like a few minutes, and then he said. “Well…I mean, I may have a bad day now and then, […]
Restoration Therapy: How Looking for Opportunities to Practice Through Your Anxiety Can Transform You
When I encourage people to look for opportunities to practice their anxiety, I am often given a blank stare in return. It almost sounds crazy to ask someone to practice something that is already at times, making them feel like they are crazy. But perhaps a better way to say it is, that I am […]
Restoration Therapy: The 4 Steps of RT and How They Can Change Your Life
“Deliberate practice is a behavior, and flow is an experience.” Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth When I was 21 years old and sitting alone in my college apartment, full of anxiety, but knowing my life needed to change, I had some inkling that they only way through the anxious feelings […]
Restoration Therapy: Learning to Reframe and Befriend Your Anxiety
“Learning to love ambiguity can be a very powerful, if rather counterintuitive, act. By love here, we’re not talking about falling in love or being in love. We mean love as an act. You can learn to care for and cherish ambiguity. You can invite it into your house for a while, give it a […]
Restoration Therapy: Distinguishing Between Anxiety and Fear
In October of 2016 I spoke at the first ever Restoration Therapy Summit on the topic of anxiety and fear in the Restoration Therapy model, and more specifically, trying to differentiate between what exactly is anxiety, and what is fear. I even recorded a Part 1 and Part 2 podcast episodes on this topic after […]
Rhett Smith 110 — 8 Simple Principles to Help You Achieve Your Goals This Year
One of the things that happens at the beginning of every year, or at the start of a major transition, is that you see people setting goals. If you were like me you probably thought about all the goals you wanted to achieve in the New Year, and you might have even taken the time […]
Rhett Smith 109: Managing and Using Your Anxiety in the New Year
The new near can bring forth a lot of varying emotions from people. In my experience, a large number of people come into the new year very excited about change and all the potential possibilities that await them. It’s often a time to start anew. But there is also a large number of people who […]
Restoration Therapy: Tools, Resources and Strategies for Working with Anxiety
The Anxiety Equation In an earlier post I wrote about a very powerful and transformative therapy experience I had back in 2010. It was one of those therapy sessions where insight was enough to create change. Or at least I should say, the insight alone was enough to create some initial change, but it led […]
Restoration Therapy: Anxiety and the Bible
Reframing The Meaning of Anxiety in the Bible “I am here, in your office to see you because I didn’t feel like there was anyone else I could talk to about my anxiety.” I hear some form of this statement quite often in my office. And it most frequently comes from someone who is a […]
Restoration Therapy: Discerning the Difference Between Healthy and Unhealthy Anxiety
Anxiety Changed My Life Back in 2011 when I was doing some reading and research for my book The Anxious Christian, I came across a sentence in Rollo May’s book, The Meaning of Anxiety that really resonated with what I was thinking about in regards to anxiety. In that book he writes the following: “The […]
Restoration Therapy: Identifying and Healing the Underlying Roots of Anxiety
What Is Underneath the Anxiety One of the most difficult things about anxiety is trying to define its roots. In an earlier post I wrote about the challenge of trying to define it, but in this post I want to explore more in depth what the underlying roots are that trigger anxiety. You may remember […]
Restoration Therapy: Trying to Define Anxiety
Anxiety in the Headlines Anxiety is a hot topic these days. I am not saying that it has ever gone out of style, but it seems that anxiety has been increasing at record numbers in our culture and one can hardly look at the news without seeing article after article proclaiming the findings of some […]
Restoration Therapy: The Process of Working With Anxious People
Working with Anxious Clients There are a lot of ways that one can work with anxious people, but I have found over the years a very helpful process that I would like to share with you. With any process it’s best that you make it your own and use what is helpful to you, and […]
Rhett Smith 108: 3 Important Relational Postures: Ask, Let Go, Hold On
Often when I’m working with someone in session I try to think of visual and tangible ways that they can remember some of the things that we are processing together. And what I have noticed a lot about relational interactions is that there tends to be this movement that I have found to be helpful […]
Rhett Smith 107: Life Lessons Learned from My Recent Palo Duro 50K Race
As many of you know, I love to run. And over the last 3-4 years I have been getting more and more into trail running, as well into ultrarunning (which is technically anything over 26.2 miles). And about a month ago I finished my second ever 50K race, and my second race ever at the […]
Rhett Smith 106: The Importance of Adventure in Marriage — with Director of WinShape Marriage, Matt Turvey
Over the last several years my wife and I have begun a new journey in our life. That journey has involved a couple of elements: 1) Trying to incorporate more adventure into our marriage (i.e. trips, taking on challenges, etc.); 2) Working on ways to partner together in marriage. And last month we took another […]
Rhett Smith 105: The Key to Why Some Couples Can Work Through Conflict and Problem Solve, and Why Other Couples Can’t.
One of the reasons many couples can’t solve conflict in their relationship is because they often get stuck thinking that their argument is really about the topic at hand (i.e. money, sex, parenting, work, inlaws, etc.). And as long as they believe that, then they will stay perpetually stuck. What I’ve learned in my experience […]
Rhett Smith 104: The Importance of Discerning the Different Between Feelings and Coping Behaviors to Get to Deeper Work
This is a very short podcast episode, but it’s a really important one. One of the most important tasks I have in the counseling room is to help people to discern between what their feelings and coping behaviors are. In fact, I spend a lot of time helping people understand their feelings, and what coping […]
Rhett Smith 103: A Personal Story About a Good Kind of Anxiety
I talk a lot about anxiety on this podcast. And sometimes anxiety can seem vague or too theoretical, unless one really has experienced. And even then, just talking about it can seem like an intellectual exercise. But today I had a personal experience that really makes concrete what I mean when I talk about a […]