Latest Blog Posts
10 Bible Verses About Thoughts and Emotions
I’ve heard pastors criticize self-help (usually stating that we don’t need to help ourselves, we need God’s help). I understand where they’re coming from, and there certainly is a lot of useless, woo-woo self-help advice out there. That being said, I’ve also found...
What We’re Getting Completely Wrong About Mental Health, Part 2
In my last blog post, I talked about how useless much of the internet advice on mental health is. We’re told to “stop worrying” or “stop caring what other people think” but we have no idea HOW to actually do that. We can’t just decide to stop a negative thought...
What We’re Getting Completely Wrong About Mental Health
Do you want to be happier, healthier, or less anxious? If you turn to the internet for tips and tricks, you’ll find plenty of vague, incredibly obvious advice, such as… Stop caring what other people think. Be compassionate with yourself. Stop worrying. You’ll find...
You Can’t Make Other People Happy
How often do you see quotes online about how you can make other people happy? I understand that these are coming from a good place, and I’m all for you being kind to others. But you cannot make other people happy. How other people feel is determined by the thoughts in...
3 Little Words That Change Everything
Thoughts are powerful. We often blame our circumstances for how we feel by saying things “this is so frustrating” or “he made me so mad.” The truth is that your emotions are caused by your thoughts, not the situations in your life. If you’re tired of feeling anxious,...
How to be Nicer to Yourself
Would you talk to your best friend the way you talk to yourself? Most people would NEVER do that. And yet, we tell ourselves self-critical thoughts all day long. Most of us (especially my fellow Type A perfectionists) think that if we’re too nice to ourselves, we...
Thoughts that are Saving My Life Right Now
Emily P. Freeman likes to share the “things that are saving her life right now” every season on her podcast, The Next Right Thing. She got this idea from Barbara Brown Taylor, and while the name of the list sounds a bit dramatic, it includes all kinds of things (both...
A Letter to My 18 Year old Self
Recently I was listening to Elevation podcast (which is AMAZING, by the way!) and Pastor Steven Furtick was talking about what his wife does when she notices that he’s taking things for granted. She likes to ask him “what would 18 year old Steven think if he could see...
Why Affirmations Don’t Work (and What to Try Instead)
You’re probably familiar with positive affirmations – short phrases like “I love myself”, “my body is beautiful”, or “I radiate confidence”. Many people like repeating these phrases to themselves – in an effort to replace negative self-talk with kinder thoughts – but...
Talk to Your Brain More Than You Listen to It
Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to complain less or to stop worrying so much? Most of us realize that we have unhelpful thought patterns, but we’re never taught HOW to change them. The average person has somewhere between 30,000-60,000 thoughts per day. The...
A More Realistic Lovingkindness Meditation
“The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor; you could tear civilization down and rebuild it from scratch, and the same dualities would rise again. Yet to fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to...
Gratitude and Grief Can Coexist
My mom asked me the other day if I still remember what my step dad was like before he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s…because she feels like her memories of him pre-Alzheimer’s are slowly slipping away. I still remember what he was like back then, but...