• empath
    Boundaries,  Boundary Lines,  Burden-bearing,  codependency,  Discernment,  emotional health,  Identity,  Redemptive Gifts

    The Empath Survival Kit: Loving Constructively

    Empath is a relatively new term to enter our vernacular. The dictionary defines empath as (chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual. Signs of an Empath The term has come to mean those people with the spiritual gift of burden-bearing, at least in a Christian context. Are you a burden-bearer? Those of us with this gift can sense the suffering of others and are often motivated to sit with them in their slough of despair. Please note that I am not talking about empaths as intuitives. I am discussing this, not from a New Age perspective but from…

  • Truth
    Telling the Truth,  Truthfulness

    How to Tell the Truth in Love (Even to Yourself)

    For someone who believes that Jesus is the Truth, I have sure spent a lot of my life trying to save people from the truth. Even from my childhood, I have tried to protect others from what I thought would hurt them, namely the truth about how I felt or the truth of their situations. I have a Ph.D. in tiptoeing around uncomfortable issues and if I am honest with myself, it wasn’t just to protect them, but myself from the horrors of personal conflict. Numerous reasons exist as to why I have struggled with this particular issue. Firstly, I am sensitive. You know the empath on Star Trek? The…

  • Narcissism

    Be a Narcissism Detector with 1 Test

    Now that I am seventeen years free of being held captive in an abusive marriage, I am quite a good narcissism detector. But a friend recently recommended the youtube videos of a life coach named Richard Brannon in Southern California. He made some extremely wise connections that answered some serious questions that I could never seem to get answered. (I am putting a link to his channel at the end of this blog. He is excellent, but he uses language that some might find difficult to listen to.) Seriously, he is the best narcissism detector I have heard. His first observation that struck me was that if you want to…