Articles
Healing the Heart: Affair Recovery
Few things are as painful as the heartbreak caused by an affair. We get married believing that something like that could never happen in our lives. The reality is that over recent years, there has been an increase in extramarital affairs. The good news is that there is a way to recover from this heartache. The basic idea of affair recovery is to navigate the process of healing mentally, emotionally, and physically. One way to start the process is to define what the affair means to you. It is not always the same for each person. Some believe that it is [...]
5 Beliefs That Are Rooted in Childhood Trauma
Many people think of trauma as a major event that has the potential to completely derail someone’s mental health. They think of abuse, accidents, sudden deaths, or physical harm as events that cause trauma. While these examples certainly could cause serious long-term damage, there are many experiences we go through as children that shape the way we think, act, and approach relationships that are rooted in childhood trauma. We can define childhood trauma as any instance where we felt unsafe, endangered, betrayed, neglected, or abandoned. No child is immune to this type of trauma, and sadly it often happens in households where [...]
Long-Distance Relationship Advice: How to Maintain Intimacy at a Distance
There’s a beautiful description of intimacy to be found in the first few pages of Scripture. The first man meets the woman who’s to be his wife, and he waxes lyrical, saying, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man – Genesis 2:23, NIV Then the Bible adds this line reflecting on what just happened: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they [...]
4 Types of Cognitive Distortions and How to Find Support
In the thirteenth century, there lived a Christian philosopher and theologian named Thomas Aquinas. Due to his meekness and physical size, his fellow students called him “the dumb ox.” Unbeknownst to them, Thomas was compiling brilliant writings on faith and reason that continue to impact the Christian Church today. Thomas is revered as one of, if not the greatest, philosophical and theological contributors to Christianity as a whole. His ability to use reason to clarify complicated theological and philosophical problems is unmatched. Reading even one sentence of his work is almost like watching a genius solve a mathematical equation due to the [...]
Engaging Your Senses to Help When You are Overwhelmed by ADHD
Those with ADHD and other people on the neurodiversity spectrum tend to feel bored, overwhelmed, or overstimulated pretty regularly. When this happens, most of us have unique methods of self-soothing, colloquially known as “stimming,” short for stimulating. This might involve us repeating certain vocalizations, fidgeting with something, speaking in a foreign accent for fun, or making facial gestures. Stimming helps soothe our agitated brains by siphoning nervous kinetic energy into a repetitive behavior. Although most stimming is done on a subconscious level, we might find even more comfort if we intentionally engage our senses to help when overwhelmed by ADHD. Stigmatized [...]
Healthy Eating and Mental Wellness: The Importance of Treating Our Bodies Like a Temple
Treating our Bodies like a Temple Our mental health is serious, and we should be actively taking care of it. It can be easy to split our lives into three separate areas: physical wellness, spiritual wellness, and mental wellness, but I am here to argue that they are all connected. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.” (ESV). With life often being stressful and [...]
Dealing Proactively with Trauma Triggers
Regardless of how much work we have put into dealing with past trauma, there will come a time when we suddenly feel overwhelmed by emotions and memories connected to that experience. Our reaction might have resulted from a physical stimulus, like a song or a smell, or it might have stemmed from an emotional situation, such as being in an argument with a loved one. This is known as a trigger, and almost everyone who has been through trauma will experience them at some point. It’s not always easy to know how to deal with trauma triggers, but the first step [...]
The Challenges and Blessings of Being a Single Father
There are many different challenges that a person can take up in life, but one of the most rewarding journeys a person can undertake is to be a parent. Being a single dad has its challenges, but it certainly has its joys, too. When you’re in the thick of it, it can be hard to pause long enough to appreciate what you have, and it can also be easy to get overwhelmed. Taking stock of the challenges and blessings of being a single father can help you direct your energies better, celebrate your wins better, and face tomorrow with a greater [...]
5 Effective Tips for Anger Management
What do you do to defend yourself when the person you need to defend yourself against is you? This is one of the hardest questions to face, and it’s raised when you find yourself struggling with emotions like anger. When you’re angry, that anger can take you to many places, some of which you don’t want to go. Uncontrolled anger can seriously harm you and damage your relationships. This is why anger management is so important. The thing to do with anger is to learn to control or manage it. Anger has its place in our lives, and it can be [...]