Articles
Building Healthy Relationships Despite a Fear of Abandonment
Our past can have a profound impact on our present and future well-being. If you were hurt in a past relationship, it’s possible to carry that pain with you into your other relationships. The new relationship can end up bearing the burden of the past relationship – for instance through trust issues and having difficulty opening up due to a past betrayal – leading to fear of abandonment. It’s possible, however, to overcome these wounds and build healthy relationships. A fear of abandonment is one of the wounds that a person can carry from their past experiences. That fear can affect [...]
Toxic Shame: Causes, Attributes, and Overcoming
Toxic shame is living with feelings of being unworthy. It is a form of self-loathing that keeps you from beingconfident in yourself. Toxic shame is usually a result of how others have treated you and you now believe this about yourself. When a person struggles with toxic shame, they find it hard to differentiate between who they are as a true person and the self they are to survive. Some call these the real self and the ideal self. Suffering from toxic shame will cause the ideal self to overshadow the real self and make you believe that you are unworthy. [...]
Feeling Lonely In Marriage? What to Do About It
It may sound paradoxical to some when a married person admits to feeling lonely in marriage. However, numerous surveys reveal that loneliness within marriages is common. It can be hurtful and confusing to be someone who experiences loneliness in their marriage. This is because, in an ideal marriage, we can reach out to our partner to provide friendship and companionship and to be our shoulder to cry on. The fact that loneliness can happen in a marriage proves two things: first, loneliness is not necessarily limited to or defined by the physical state of being alone; and second, marriage is not [...]
In Your Feelings: A Guide To Understanding Emotions
Robots, commandeered by computers and codes, used to be central to science fiction films, hinting at the mystery of an unknown future. Nowadays, those same elements of technology are a regular part of our lives and worlds. Machines mimic many of our daily seen and unseen tasks and processes. The difference between humanity and our tech toys is that we were made in the image of a perfect God and loving Father. However, because of our sin, we are not perfect ourselves. Advancements abound all around us, but a robot does not experience the complexity of emotions as does the human [...]
Avoidance Anxiety and Its Affects on Your Life
Avoidance anxiety results from trying to avoid those things that cause you to be uncomfortable or fearful. When facing fears, a person experiences anxiety. Avoidance anxiety is a disorder that a person experiences when they know they are facing a situation they don’t think they can overcome. As the person tries to avoid the situation and the anxiety it causes, they may exhibit behaviors that affect how they interact with others. Being overwhelmed by anxiety can lead to extreme measures to avoid the situation. Rather than trying to understand the fear and overcome it, some may choose to completely avoid any [...]
Breaking Down and Dealing with Catastrophic Thinking
Sometimes, not only do things not go according to plan, but they go quite wrong. When that happens, you have a choice about what you’re going to do next. You can either give in and let go of what you’ve been working hard toward, or you can stay focused and come up with another plan to keep things going. In big things as well as in daily life, we are faced with choices like these and must decide how we will respond to those crises, hopefully avoiding catastrophic thinking. There is a way of thinking that can undermine a calm and [...]
Four Different Types of Attachment Styles in Relationships
Beginnings are important. However, beginnings do not necessarily determine endings. With our lives, our beginnings matter, too. Just like a good story, there can be plot twists that change everything. What this means for us is that even a rough start to our lives does not mean the ending cannot be good and transform the entire experience. We are deeply vulnerable from our earliest days. None of us has a choice about where we are born, or the family and situation into which we are born. Some of us are born or adopted into loving, stable, and nurturing families, while others [...]
How to Cope if You’re a Highly Sensitive Person
Have you ever heard someone say of another person “They’re too sensitive?” Maybe that other person was you, and you found the characterization to be unfair or a little simplistic. It’s common nowadays in popular media and through anecdotes that people share to say that people are more sensitive now than in the past. The truth is that there isn’t any evidence that backs up the claim that people are more sensitive today than in years gone by. What can be said is that in our time, there is both an increased willingness to acknowledge the sensitivities of others, as well [...]
Overcoming Anxiety and Insecurity in Your Personal Development Journey
Most humans want to see fruitful outcomes in life. We are created like the Father to want what He wants, though we may express it differently. Despite this abiding desire, life presents boulders that can obstruct not only our view but also disrupt our progress toward the future we’ve envisioned. Personal development can help. Daunted and overwhelmed, we sometimes abandon the pursuit, clouded by discouragement and cluttered by life. Dreams from God often loom larger than what we feel is possible with limited resources. We feel like we lack strength, time, finance, or other human help. Yet, the Holy Spirit pokes [...]