Elusive Joy…….When Gratitude, Prayer & Meditation Just Isn’t Enough
You have a gratitude practice, regularly pray and meditate on God's Word - but it just isn’t enough……. you still struggle to connect with joy and happiness. Ever felt like this? I know I have. In fact, I have been keeping a gratitude journal for almost ten years – one of those cute little books where it is “one line a day” and it gives you space for 5 years all in one book! I am well into my second book. Gratitude is about intentionally noticing and appreciating the things in life that are meaningful and valuable to our souls. [...]
Dementia – Grief & Loss
Dementia - Grief - Christmas Each year I post on social media quite a bit to support those who are grieving through Christmas time. I also look for the posts that support my own grieving self through this time. I rarely find any that speak to my grief in the way I seem to need. You see, i am grieving the loss of my Loved One piece by piece, month by month, year by year. It's an unusual kind of grief. She hasn't died yet but so much of her is gone. I have slowly been losing her for years [...]
5 Signs You Need Couples Counselling
You feel uneasy and have a nagging sense that things just aren’t right, but surely things will settle down, right? How do you really know when you are in need of couples counselling? Here are 5 signs to watch out for: Your attempts to sort stuff out end up making things worse. A lot of relationship problems share a common factor of poor, unhealthy or harmful communication. When you and your partner consistently find yourselves trying to talk things through, but the issue seems to get lost and you end up arguing, someone storms out, becomes abusive in language or [...]
Family Patterns – Breaking Free from a Painful Past
Many people think that once they move out from their family home, they’ll also be moving away from dysfunctional family patterns and childhood pains. This is not always true. Many people who have ‘unfinished business’ from their family of origin often find themselves troubled by the same sorts of harmful patterns and relationship hurts long after they’ve left their childhood behind and moved into their adult years. Unspoken rules about emotions, closeness, control, roles and birth order of siblings all play a role in developing our personalities, habits and beliefs. In our adult years, our relationships with others often reflect [...]
Living With Someone Who Suffers From Mental Illness?
Are you living with someone who suffers from mental illness? Then you are probably living with very high levels of stress in your life. The impact of mental illness on those who are in relationship with the sufferer is often exhausting, frustrating, heart breaking, chaotic and sometimes scary. If your loved one suffers from one of the many illnesses that have psychosis, delusions, mania and/or hallucinations as part of its profile, then you may at times even be unsafe. There are often a multitude of mixed emotions that can bombard you if you are living with someone who is mentally [...]
5 Tips to Help You Recover After a Divorce
Divorce is rated as the second most distressing event a person can experience in life; being preceded only by the death of a spouse. Surprised? I doubt it if you are someone who is going through a divorce or have experienced divorce in your life. Divorce is in fact, like a death – there are multiple huge and complex losses that are experienced. Like any sense of loss, divorce has the capacity to challenge your sense of stability, identity, place and peace in the world. So how to cope with what is one of the most difficult life events that [...]
Understanding and Handling Anger in a Healthy Way
Anger is a powerful secondary emotion usually experienced in response to a sense of harm that someone has inflicted upon us (insult, criticism, abandonment, physical attack etc). Anger can also rise up in us sometimes from our own misperceptions of reality, destructive thinking about normal life issues or memories of past traumatic events. Underlying the majority of anger is: Hurt & rejection Fear Frustration Disappointment Sense of unfairness or injustice Violation of rights Vulnerability (not feeling good enough) Self loathing Longing for connection Anger is neither a good or bad emotion within itself - it is simply a signal with [...]
Blended Families – Making It Work
Blended families are as old as time, however they are becoming more and more common in today’s society. Building a new family from two previous families due to either divorce or the death of a spouse will present many challenging variables along the way that can potentially generate feelings of isolation, resentment and emotional pain amongst the family’s members. Most blended families are wrestling with one or more of the following: A biological parent who is child centred in parenting style (often out of guilt) A step parent who is too harsh Children who feel loyalty conflicts Different standards between [...]