Articles
A Christian Perspective On Anxiety: What to Do When You’re Feeling Anxious
Katie is a mother of two beautiful children, happily married, and with an enjoyable career. Her life seemed perfect. However, if you were to ask Katie, she would tell you she’s anxious. She doesn’t know when exactly the anxiety started. She remembers being an anxious child. Sometimes her anxiety gets the best of her, and she begins to worry aloud in front of her husband Kevin. He tries to listen sympathetically but often feels overwhelmed by the barrage of anxiety coming from Katie. Katie has tried a lot of different things for her anxiety, including medication, mindfulness training, prayer, and reading [...]
On Becoming: Self-Growth Through Struggle
Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, represents the epitome of overcoming tragedy and making it meaningful. A Holocaust survivor imprisoned in the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz, Frankl lost nearly all of his family save one sister to genocide, including his unborn child. How do you make sense of that or find meaning in the loss? How do you keep going when all you knew, loved, and believed in is gone, and living in the world feels like a nightmare from which you can’t wake? Frankl made it his life’s work to find purpose in this struggle we call life. [...]
Navigate a New Course: Managing Depression with Meals and Movement
Many can identify with having an experience with depression. Whether it has been a short bout, an extended season, or a chronic, clinical diagnosis that has been present as long as memory allows, it looks different with every person. Some common threads give away depression’s cover. It often has signs of irritability, lack of focus, restlessness, sharp mood changes, and intense sadness. It impacts our bodies with sluggishness, dragging us physically into excessive sleep, deprivation, or insomnia, where we awaken into hopelessness, devoid of the satisfaction and replenishment that physical and soul rest can bring. Depression can multiply feelings of apathy [...]
4 Ways to Find Relief from Trauma and PTSD
The effects of trauma and PTSD on a person’s life are wide-reaching both in time span and relational bandwidth. If you find yourself wondering about whether or not you suffer from trauma and PTSD, this article may help! We’ll discuss the definition of both trauma and PTSD, some symptoms to watch for, and four types of treatment that can help a person who has been through trauma and/or PTSD. Here are some possible signs that you or someone you love is struggling. What is trauma? In its most basic form, trauma is the response that a person has to a stressful [...]
Unpacking Spiritual Abuse
Just as much as we are physical beings, we are also spiritual beings. Our ability to reach out to God and walk in communion with Him is such a privilege and an honor. Being part of a believing community is essential for our well-being as we find family, connection, and support. This is the way it should be. It is then heartbreaking to know that some people experience abuse at the very place that is supposed to bring peace and joy. Spiritual abuse is rarely talked about, but it is prevalent. In this article, we will look at what it is, [...]
12 Helpful Coping Mechanisms for Stress
Have you been feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or stressed? Whether you are experiencing the stress of your busy day-to-day activities or significant life stressor, there are several basic steps you can take to improve your mental health and well-being. Coping mechanisms for stress are linked to your physical and mental health and the health of your relationships with those you care about. 12 Practical Ways to Manage Stress Integrating some of these basic ideas into your daily and weekly routine will help you manage your stress and feel more optimistic. Many people experiment with these concepts, often making each of them [...]
Setting Boundaries in Relationships: A Form of Love
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. – Mahatma Gandhi Are self-care and self-love selfish? There is a subtle difference between loving and caring for yourself and selfishness; it lies in motive, consideration, and consequences. Choosing to leave situations or relationships that no longer benefit you, are not sustainable, or are not reciprocal, is not necessarily selfish. Is it selfish for someone to expect you, or for you to expect someone else, to remain in a relationship in which one or both parties are apathetic or emotionally destructive to one another? That [...]
Drug and Alcohol Abuse: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment Options
Drugs and alcohol permeate our culture, habitually featuring in the entertainment we consume in music, movies, plays, or television shows. In everyday life, alcohol often plays the role of social lubricant. Stoner movies are a whole genre that portray copious drug use in a typically comedic fashion. Some scenarios such as the club scene are synonymous with recreational and other drugs. Often the consumption of drugs and alcohol is portrayed as sophisticated or the hallmark of freedom from convention and boredom. While society sometimes makes light of alcohol and drugs, the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse are dire. It’s important [...]
Why is it So Difficult to Have a Positive Body Image?
Think back to when you were a child, possibly a young child, before you ever had a thought of self-consciousness about your body. Imagine the freedom and carefree sense of not feeling unworthy, anxious, or stressed about your appearance. God created us, yet sometimes we lose sight of the fact that he made us embodied souls. We are in our physical bodies, yet we are so much more than what we look like on the outside. We exist in both realities. And we fracture ourselves when we view our worth as solely existing in our bodies. We also fracture ourselves when [...]