The Challenge of Difficult Emotions

Fear.  Shame.  Anger.  Boredom.  Sadness.  Disgust.  These are feelings we don’t enjoy, and we can often go to great lengths to avoid them.  This was documented centuries ago by Blaise Pascal, who is quoted to say “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”   We try to suppress these emotions, especially fear and shame.  However, as Brené Brown has noted, emotions are like the old string of Christmas lights: when we deny or turn off one light bulb (such as anger) the whole string goes out.  Essentially, we become emotionally disabled in
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May 4, 2017 | by
Categories: Children, Faith issues, Family, Mental Health, Parenting, and Personal Growth.

“Remember Who You Are”

Who our children become is important to parents, and the level of this importance is seen in how much time, money and effort parents devote to their kids.   I put “who” instead of “what” because “what” our kids become is limited to doing – what they do for a career, for a hobby, etc.  Who our children become is much broader than this, and includes how they think, act, and what they stand for in their lives.   Parents have a huge impact on this.  Thinking about your own child(ren), aren’t you more concerned with “who” they become than
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February 21, 2017 | by
Categories: Children, Faith issues, Family, Parenting, and Personal Growth.

Are you Willing and Able?

Happy New Year! What I’ve been thinking about lately is will and ability.  If you think about the word “responsibility” you can think of it as “response ability.”  It’s your ability to respond to life’s demands.  Its your capacity to act.   Another thing to consider besides ability is willingness.  As great American thinker William James describes it, its the “sense of the amount of effort we can put forth.”  We all have a power of will.  It is my hope and prayer that you have an immense power of will.  It is the engine with which you drive your
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January 3, 2017 | by
Categories: Faith issues, Mental Health, and Personal Growth.

Resolutions: How about trying to make it a happy (and new) year?

Happy New Year!  Have you made any resolutions for the New Year?  Making New Year’s resolutions is a good idea, despite the bad press it gets sometimes.  This is because they really do work! Research by John C. Norcross has shown that compared to people who don’t make resolutions,  people who make New Year’s resolutions are actually twice as likely to successfully change something in their lives.  Whether you have resolved to get physically fit, quit some bad habit, or chosen not to make a resolution, let me suggest a resolution that will change your life. This is it: work
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December 28, 2016 | by
Categories: Holidays, Mental Health, Personal Growth, and Stress.

Thank You for Your Time (Without Your Phone)

What happens to us when face-to-face interactions become less important? What happens to our marriages, families, and communities? Sherry Turkle says our smart phone devices “…not only change what we do, they change who we are.” We deny each other of our full attention and we end up hiding from each other. We prefer interaction through technology because it can be more controlled than face-to-face, which is happening in real-time and can’t be edited for better presentation. What is happening is that we are losing confidence in each other and looking more to our technological devices to really “be there” for us.
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October 26, 2016 | by
Categories: Family, Holidays, Managing Media, and Personal Growth.

Empowering the Bored Child

“I’m bored.”  It doesn’t take too long before this statement is heard in the summer.  Its a monotone, depressing complaint.  It can trigger anger in parents to hear this, or at least mild irritation.  Boredom by definition is a feeling of weariness with one’s present task or lack of interesting pursuits.  Its something everyone has experienced.  Its a feeling we have to live with sometimes as its part of normal human existence.  Unfortunately, with Netflix and video games this generation of children can pacify their boredom without truly overcoming it successfully.  The result is a low-grade boredom, like a lingering
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May 9, 2016 | by
Categories: Childhood Disorders, Children, Family, Managing Media, Mental Health, Parenting, and Personal Growth.

Are You __________ Enough?

Are you _(fill in the blank)_ Enough? Good, safe, perfect, beautiful, smart, athletic, successful, funny, happy, wealthy… These are just a few of the words that we fill in the blank to the question “am I _______ enough?”  Where does this question come from?  Why do we ask this question of ourselves so much?   It comes from a mindset that there is a limited supply of what we ultimately need in order to feel happy and fulfilled in life.  This is what Brené Brown, author of “The Gifts of Imperfection” and speaker in one of the most viewed TED
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November 9, 2015 | by
Categories: Faith issues, Mental Health, Personal Growth, and Stress.

What St. Patrick Can Teach Us

Last spring my wife and I traveled to Ireland.  One of our favorite places that we visited there was the Saint Patrick Centre in Northern Ireland.  This museum is located in the region of Ireland where Patrick first came to Ireland from Britain.  He didn’t go there by choice.  At the age of 16, he was captured along with several others by marauding bands of barbarians and taken to Ireland as a slave.  He was a slave there for 6 years and forced to watch over sheep for some farmer.  Some time during his enslavement, he called out to God
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February 21, 2015 | by
Categories: Faith issues, Family, and Personal Growth.

Making the Most of Your Holiday Traditions

There once was a young mother we’ll call “Susan” who volunteered to cook the Christmas turkey for the big family dinner. This being her first time to cook a turkey herself, she recalled her careful observations of her mother’s cooking techniques from past Thanksgivings and Christmases. She remembered that her mother cut the turkey into parts and placed them in a large pan. Her husband “Barry” came in and asked “Why are you cutting that turkey up?” Susan replied “because this is what I always saw my mother do. I don’t know why she cut it up. Its just something
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November 24, 2014 | by
Categories: Faith issues, Family, Holidays, and Personal Growth.

Helping your Kids (and yourself) Cope with Rejection

There’s no question about it; successful people are those who have learned to cope with rejection.  Milton Hershey had three failed businesses before his milk chocolate candy took off.  KFC’s founder Colonel Sanders was rejected over a thousand times before he found financial support for his chicken recipe.  JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected by twelve publishers!  Imagine a world in which these three successful people allowed a few rejections to stop them; no Hershey kisses, no KFC, no Harry Potter. We have all experienced rejection in many forms.  It’s a universal dynamic in a relational society.  Since
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April 13, 2014 | by
Categories: Children, Family, Managing Media, Mental Health, Parenting, and Personal Growth.