Articles
Recognizing and Understanding Hoarding Disorder
Hoarding disorder is a mental health condition that goes beyond just having too much clutter. It is characterized by an uncontrollable need to continually accumulate things to the point where they invade your living space and make it cramped and unusable. A hoarder finds safety in the hoard, in the stacks and piles, and he or she will grieve over the loss of those items when they are gone. – Matt Paxton In extreme cases, items may be piled floor to ceiling, making it difficult to move through rooms, prepare food, or even take a shower. Yet even just the thought [...]
Owning and Working Through Your Grieving Process
There are many things in life that we wish were not so, and grief is one of them. Grief sets in after loss, and loss often means pain. The grieving process is not easy, and sometimes it’s more convenient to either deny the reality of the loss and the pain it’s caused or to deal with it in an unhealthy way. Owning and working through your own grieving process allows you to face your situation squarely, offering you a path toward healing and wholeness. Grief and loss have been an inevitable part of the human experience since the days of Adam [...]
Psychedelic Therapy and Healing the Wounds of a Traumatic Experience
Christian women sometimes experience difficult moments that feel like they shape the rest of their lives. These moments disrupted safety and rewrote how they see themselves in the world around them. A traumatic experience typically reshapes our patterns of thought, our emotional responses, and our spiritual confidence in ways that women often do not understand. Some people want relief from the heaviness, but also want their healing choices to honor God. This is where psychedelic therapy becomes more widely discussed. It raises new questions about whether these treatments bring emotional clarity or introduce a risk. This invites an important conversation for [...]
When You Want to Take Control: How the Bible Can Reframe Your Perspective
When things go wrong in our lives, it is easy to try to control the situation or the people around us. We are grasping for anything that will make us feel as though we are okay. But in trying to control what is happening, we are only hurting ourselves and often hurting others in the process. Examples of People Taking Control Throughout Scripture When we take ourselves out of God’s plans for us, we often cheapen our experiences. A good example of this is when Sarah gave Abraham Hagar because she wanted a son. Sarah started to resent Hagar and Ismael [...]
How to Deal with Anger When You’re Hurt
We all get a little bent out of shape if things don’t go our way, and it’s not uncommon for us to feel anger at someone who causes us harm. As religious people, we can set up a hierarchy of transgressions, in which getting drunk is a huge no-no, but we permit anger because we feel justified in it. We can cloak our anger as righteous, virtuous, and merited, all the while yielding to what may truly be a vice. Augustine said, “Is it any merit to abstain from wine if one is intoxicated with anger?” (Augustine) These are words worth [...]
3 Ways ADHD Symptoms in Adults May Differ from Those in Children
ADHD symptoms in adults aren’t always as recognizable. This is partly because research and awareness among adults isn’t as prevalent, and partly because the percentage of adults who have ADHD is lower than the overall percentage of kids with the condition. However, the estimated 6% of adults in the United States alone who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD, may be higher than once believed. One of the reasons 6% could be a lower reflection of the number of adults living with ADHD is that the prevalence of its symptoms can be masked or they appear to be [...]
When Today’s Headlines Feed Your Existential Anxiety
There is a constant barrage of notification pings signaling a crisis is unfolding somewhere in the world. With one phone ding, you are spiraling into questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Along with that, you wonder if anything really matters. You are not alone in experiencing this existential anxiety that results from a relentless news cycle. This goes beyond ordinary worry regarding what’s going on in the world. It is a deep questioning of existence itself that is amplified by the constant exposure to dark moments in humanity. You live in a time where information travels faster than wisdom. Every time [...]
Dishonoring Your Limits: Key Signs of Codependency
Children can sometimes persuade their parents into doing dangerous stunts. These can be dangerous because the parents are not as young or as fit and flexible as the children. The stunts in question can be as simple as doing a cartwheel or bending over backwards. If the parents accept their limits (perhaps after learning the hard way through injuries and strained muscles), they won’t go beyond them. In relationships, this is important. A key sign of codependency is failing to honor your limits and personal boundaries in relationships. Knowing the signs of codependency can help you avoid the pitfalls of this [...]
Preventive Care Vs. Reactive Care for Your Overall Well-Being and Mental Health
Often, when you think about going to mental health therapy, it’s because you have a crisis or something significant that you need to work through. Maybe it was something big that occurred, like a school shooting, a friend or family member that passed away, or something smaller like communication issues in a relationship, difficulty managing stress at work, or persistent feelings of anxiety. There’s a general misconception that therapy is only effective when we have something alarming or something important going on; that it is only necessary when we are in crisis or have something pressing to talk through. But that [...]