• codependent
    burden - codependency - Codependent - happiness - happy - truth

    The Happiness Manipulator: Codependent Christianity

    - By 

    One of my greatest strengths lies in my ability to lay down my own desires in order to make someone else happy.  One of my greatest weaknesses lies in the fact that I am willing to give up my desires in order to make someone else happy.  A bit of a paradox, that.  You see, I am a happiness manipulator.  We are used to seeing manipulation in a particularly virulent form on the dramas on television.  Characters lie and set up situations in order to gain power, wealth, whatever.  But me, I just want you to be happy.  And if…

  • decluttering
    decluttering - emotions - Featured - Holy Spirit - temple

    Keys to Decluttering Our Souls

    - By 

    Decluttering our souls with all sorts of negative thoughts and emotions doesn’t come easily. When I lived in Houston, road rage was… well, all the rage. The news constantly reported women getting out of their cars in order to physically attack one another.  In one almost comic plot twist, a man stole the car of one of the brawling women.  After all, she left the car running in her haste to bring it home to the woman who offended her.  But road rage isn’t that uncommon, although thankfully, yielding to its siren call is less usual.  But anger at the…

  • connection - Discernment - Featured - mindful - mindfulness - Practice - senses - spiritual discernment

    Mindfulness and Discernment: Make the Connection

    - By 

    Hannah Whitall Smith, a Quaker from the mid nineteenth century, once said, “Mind the checks.”  I respect this advice deeply, mainly as a result of not minding the checks.  I once took a personality test that was supposed to determine who in the Bible my personality was most like.  Unlike the phony Facebook tests that determine which Disney princess you should have as your maid of honor, this test based itself on the Meyers Briggs personality test.  How exactly its authors determined the results for the men and women in the Bible, I do not know.  However, my test resulted in…