Over the Christmas break I found a new game on my iPhone called tiny tower. The premise is pretty simple: build your own sky scraper, populate it with people and businesses, rinse and repeat. It’s wildly addictive in that you can spend tons of time in the game earning money Read more…
A few weeks ago I was cooking dinner and noticed that my oldest was reading the dictionary. Curious, I asked him what he was learning. He told me that he’d gotten the dictionary at school and he was just “looking around” and continued to flip pages. I noticed that he Read more…
Lately I’ve been studying and researching on the nature/effect of shame in our lives. There are a number of fantastic resources that have provided a lot of help for me personally and professionally as I consider shame-based systems. One of the systems I’ve been considering lately is the family. One Read more…
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters Chapter 1 I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out. Chapter 2 I walk down the same street. Read more…
Recently there has been quite a stir about the Christian sub-culture around the issue of Rob Bell and his new book Love Wins. I’ve read a few of blog posts, some twitter posts (including a very prominent Author and Pastor who tweeted “farewell Rob Bell”), and some reviews of the Read more…
Ultimately, I do not have the ability to change my children. They are humans with the same free will that I have, and the same level of uniqueness that I have. So often I want them to be like me. To do like I would do, to react and respond Read more…
John Gottman, famed marriage researcher in Seattle, has said that he can predict, with a 94% accuracy rate, if a couple will divorce or not just by observing 15 minutes of their behaviors towards each other. From his research lab, he’s distilled his observations down to 4 key relational components Read more…
Over the past couple of years, my oldest has developed an addiction of sorts to watching college football. I no doubt am to blame for this, and while I feel there is some some negative outcomes of this addiction (as is the case with any addiction), it’s been a true Read more…
Where do you go when life shows it’s jagged edges, and impossible scenarios? Often times in the face of pain or fear, we look for the easy button. You know, the button that Staples has made famous. Just press that button and all the problems of life will fade away. Read more…
There are a number of ways that our body and our souls tell us that something is awry and that we’re in need of some help. Too often these symptoms are ignored or passed off as a ‘bad week.’ This is not a comprehensive list, but a few symptoms that Read more…
The world depicted in the movie Wall-E is quickly becoming a reality for us. Amidst towering issues of trash and little to no natural nourishment, we are being directed to take up residence in another world, in space … and I’m not talking about physical trash. The trash of today Read more…
There is no doubt that in revealing the fundamental fragility of the human condition, the disabled person becomes an expression of the tragedy of pain. In this world of ours that approves hedonism as is charmed by ephemeral and deceptive beauty, the difficulties of the disabled are often perceived as Read more…
“The false self can dominate even extremely talented people who are likely to be drawn to careers where life can be lived vicariously, where within safe, protective limits they can deal with emotions and activities that they avoid in their personal lives because of the fears such emotions and activities Read more…
Briefly, just read a great quote by the French author/philosopher Voltaire that rings very true for me. “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” If you wait for the perfect moment, waiting is all you will accomplish. Along with comfort, perfectionism is an enemy of success. Be bold and Read more…
Two months ago, the Middle-Tennessee area was hit with thunderstorm after thunderstorm after thunderstorm from Friday night through Sunday evening. Some areas accumulated 15+ inches of rain during that time span, which led to significant flooding in many areas. Thankfully our house was not the victim of these fast moving Read more…
To varying degrees, all of us have experienced trauma and loss (often times as a child). Because of these losses, be it physical or emotional, we tend to create internal reactions (these in turn create external reactions) that keep us from feeling the pain of similar losses in the future. Read more…
Recently I’ve been experiencing some consumption fatigue, in large part because I see an estimated 3,000 advertisements on a daily basis (some stat research here). Because of this fatigue, I’ve been contemplating some thoughts about what it might look like to consume less, and create more. The following are a few of Read more…
I’ve organized a group of marriage, family, and grief counselors to offer free counseling to those who have been affected by the flooding here in our city. I’m wanting to make this available to as many people as possible. There are a lot of hurting people that need help once Read more…
No one who is successful got so by enjoying the relaxation and perks of comfort. They took risks, put something ‘on the line’, and did things that they didn’t want to do. Don’t think, act. If you sit around and think about the consequences or perils of a scary or Read more…
“Good psychotherapy isn’t simply recounting what’s happened to you since your last visit, or how you’ve felt in the past week or month. Although that can be a small component of each weekly visit, it should never be the focus. The focus is in helping you better understand your thoughts, Read more…
Skimming the surface in life is more emotionally expensive than actually digging in and being honest of life. The lack of depth in our world feels to be expanding at an unstoppable rate. From information to nutrition, we can satisfy our most basic longings in an instant rarely stopping for Read more…
Symington, in Narcissism: A New Theory , suggests that in “people dominated by narcissistic currents there is a failure of separateness between themselves and others, and they will asume that you think in the same way that they think.” These ‘narcissistic currents’ are significant in corporate settings but it’s because Read more…
Too often insight, knowledge, and assumptions act as intermediaries for the lack of experience.