It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m wrapping up my work week before I head home to help my wife setup for a birthday party. Just as I’m about to lock up, my office phone rings. I hesitate to pick it up. I am usually finished with my office work by this Read more…
Several years ago, I got a call from a man who was in a mild panic after his wife caught him looking at porn. A few months into our work together, Jim asked me if I’d be willing to meet with he and his wife, Sarah, together. He told me Read more…
Join us on Friday, October 20th, 2023, as we invite you to a day of contemplative listening to your life with God. Led by seasoned guides, Samuel Rainey, LPC-MHSP and Danny Bryant, D.Min., this all-inclusive in-person retreat will focus on your mind, body, soul, and spirit. We will gather at Read more…
Most relationships I encounter in my office are suffering from a lack of trust. I think everyone is asking the question, “can I trust you to do right by me?” By the time most have arrived in counseling, the answer to that question is probably a “I’m not sure” or Read more…
Most of the time we don’t look at relationships as a separate, living entity. We have this idea that relationships are athereal, in existence but not enough so to have their own name, identity. I don’t think this is a helpful way of approaching relationships. Marriage is the name of Read more…
Evil is not in itself a thing or an entity. It’s the absence of an entity. Kind of like there is no such thing as cold — cold is the absence of heat. Evil is the absence of good. It will consume the good in those that let it. Evil Read more…
AlwaysBe Curious Always. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I pledge. For however long we are both here in time, the hope, plan, dream, and goal is with you, always. Be. I’m me. I’m not you. I’m not trying to get you to be me. I’m not trying to be someone Read more…
Some people will ask (aka demand) that you jump through certain hoops to prove that you are sincere, loyal, or committed to them. These requests come from very insecure or threatened people, and are done so to control and manipulate you. The problem is that early on in the relationship the Read more…
From the late Irish poet John O’Donohue: “Humans have an uncanny ability to domesticate everything they touch. Eventually, even the strangest things become absorbed into the routine of the daily mind with its steady geographies of endurance, anxiety, and contentment. Only seldom does the haze lift, and we glimpse for Read more…
When we talk about ourselves or others as being “broken,” we begin to treat them like an object to be fixed, not a Subject to be known. We are people with stories and souls, not an object to be used. Objects are made to do things. A vase holds flowers. Read more…
(Editors note: Confidentiality in our practice is of utmost importance. The story and illustration below is a combination of truth and fiction from the many marriages I have had the honor of working with over the past 14 years. Any names, details, or identifying information has been changed and is Read more…
The way we heal the wounds in our lives is to tell the story. Tell the story of your harm over and over again until you are no longer limited and harmed by what has happened. This is the essence of therapy … to become familiar with our own truths Read more…
One of the most challenging areas of a marriage is a couples’ sex life. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but in the 15 years I’ve been working with couples, I think it boils down to one core question: Who is sex for? No one makes it through Read more…
I’m sure you’ve seen it in a movie, or on the news. The scene is this: Some country breaks the demilitarized zone with an aircraft or a person. The other country interprets this as an act of war and promptly opens fire, destroying it before it has a chance to Read more…
When you’ve been alive for only five thousandeight hundredand twenty-nine days. The pathways are rarely clearhere wherethe roads keep changing. What makes senseon one daymakes nosense the next. And soto avoid exhaustionand to deepen restask yourself these questions.How would you describe today?And Have you seen anything interestingon the way?And Is it working?Is it working?AlwaysIs it Read more…
When we talk about ourselves or others as being “broken,” we begin to treat them like an object to be fixed, not a Subject to be known. We are people with stories and souls, not an object to be used. Objects are made to do things. A vase holds flowers. Read more…
Creating an environment that is “us vs them” is fine for a sports team, but when that starts showing up in organizations and family systems, you are entering the category of narcissism in the leadership. Evidence of this in organizations and families can be seen with those that have left Read more…
When men seek help in addressing the issues with their porn use, many times their wives do not seek their own help. While there are a myriad of questions that come up regarding porn use, I often hear wives ask questions like: “Do we need to have more sex?”, “Why am Read more…
Several years ago there was a similar theme showing up in my office with the couples I was meeting with: The husbands porn use. Upon reflection, I spent some time writing what I thought the wives needed to know about their husbands porn use. I’ve long thought about writing a Read more…
Fundamentally we humans are all asking two questions about each other: Do you like me; and Are you going to leave me. Both questions reveal the fragility of our identity, and to what lengths we will go to to avoid the disastrous answers to those questions. These questions have been Read more…
My office sits about 30 yards off of some very busy train tracks. I’ve yet to count out how many different trains pass by each day, but I’d guess it is 15-20. In the Spring and Fall seasons, I enjoy opening the windows in my office to let the fresh Read more…
Editors Note: This is a guest post from Marten Fadelle, clinical intern with me at my counseling practice. To learn more about Marten or to schedule a counseling appointment, visit his website here. Happy New Year! While there is much to be hopeful for, and much to be wary of, Read more…
It was spring, But it was summer I wanted,The warm days, And the great outdoors. It was summer, But it was fall I wanted,The colorful leaves, And the cool, dry air. It was fall, But it was winter I wanted,The beautiful snow, And the joy of the holiday season. It Read more…
Raise your hand if you don’t feel some twinge of anxiety about the family dynamics during the holidays. If you’re honest, you feel pretty conflicted about having your parents or siblings over for Christmas dinner, much less visiting your childhood home. And you likely feel somewhat reluctant about going to Read more…
Change: noun. A transformation or modification; alteration: Transformations happens when something, or someone, new is introduced into a relationship. Pearls grow because of bacteria entering into a clam, the Amazon rainforest gets the majority of it’s nutrients from Africa, and people transform when they accept a perspective from someone who Read more…
Now that you’ve named your parenting style, created a SWOT+, and identified some goals, it’s time to put some structure into place about how to bring all of this together. Boundaries are the lifeblood of relationships because they provide guidelines for our needs to be met. Boundaries are what make Read more…
What is your goal for parenting during this quarantine? Is it to just “survive” the process? Or perhaps might it be to “make sure I don’t screw them up too bad?” I often joke with friends that I don’t have a college savings fund for my kids, I have a therapy savings Read more…
Last week I wrote about your parenting style, which is pretty well tied into your attachment style. While these styles don’t paint the entire picture, they do give a good baseline for how we relationally approach parenting our kids. We parents carry so many stories and libraries of information around Read more…
Our style of parenting has a lot to do with our story of how we were or were not parented. How we were parented created an “attachment style” in us. These attachment styles were first developed by John Bowlby almost a century ago. His work is a guiding principle in Read more…
I’ve been having a lot of conversations with friends, family, and clients about the changes we’re all facing with our kids at home 24-7. Parenting is already hard, but doing so without the structure of school, comfort of friends, and breaks that sports provide can sometimes feel impossible. Here in Read more…