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Good Memories and Mental Health: Filling in the Gaps
Trauma is not only the product of bad memories but the absence of good ones as well. Extended abuse or trauma summons up visions of verbal and physical violence, but as damaging are the years barren of good memories. I faced this upon the dissolution of my first marriage, knowing that I needed to rehabilitate Christmas and birthdays. But equally as daunting, I confronted the reality of knowing I needed to create enough sense of safety that the everyday norm could begin to generate good feelings, interactions, and memories. When I married my current and wonderful husband, I did not realize I would need to rehabilitate such everyday interactions as…
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Your True Self: Tossing the Catalogue of Selves
In the parlance of psychology, a person needs two things in order to be emotionally healthy; a sense of being and a sense of well-being. The first seems obvious at first. We look at ourselves and say, “Well, of course, here I am”. But if it were so simple, we would not suffer the crisis of identity, both personally and in the church that we currently endure. A struggle with one’s identity is a battle for a sense of being, and it is reductive to claim an easy or guaranteed path to success in this endeavor. This search for who one is and what one stands for begins in infancy…
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3 Narcissists in the Bible: How God Took Them Out
God doesn’t always kill His enemies individually in the Old Testament, but when He does, they tend to be narcissists. What Onan, Jezebel, and Nabal each have in common with narcissists is an utter lack of empathy for others, overweening greed, and the suspicion that the world is out to cheat them of what should be theirs. Like the personality disorder that each display, they are self-absorbed and dedicated to taking what they want no matter the cost to others. I have always been a little fascinated by the fact that God occasionally called out a few people and pulled them into permanent time-out. When I started looking at them,…
Healing Through Art & Words
