Lately, a growing number of people argue that therapy is nothing more than endless conversation. The word “ruminating” is thrown around like a curse. But is that really what therapy boils down to? Is counseling just rehashing our problems? Is good therapy simply sitting and dwelling on what’s wrong? I strongly believe it’s much more…
When Cindy Clemishire was twelve years old, a family friend and church pastor began sexually assaulting her. Five years later, she told her family. Roughly three decades later, the story went public. In those intervening years, her abuser expressed remorse over “having an inappropriate relationship” with a woman other than his wife.He never mentioned that…
Tomorrow, my interview with Cindy Clemshire will be published.I’ve received feedback from some who question why I’m doing this interview, and a few have even suggested that I shouldn’t. I want to take a moment to explain why I believe this interview is not only important but necessary. This interview is not an attack on…
Introduction: This week, I’m continuing my series on the six rules of communication. If you haven’t read rule one, go here. This post will focus on rules two and three. You can also find a great introduction to these rules and how they emerged. These rules are also found in my book, The Emotionally Secure…
Introduction: When I was going through pre-marital counseling with the pastor who would perform our service, he shared four rules with my wife to transform our communication. About two years later, working at a 501c3, I was asked to do some marriage counseling by a couple that was in real trouble. I had no idea…
I have been telling my friends for years that conservatives were going to be coming for therapy. And in many ways, it’s deserved. We have more money, time, resources, and energy focused on mental health and don’t have results that match. Therapy is mainly run by people with a liberal orientation to life and politics. As such, it is an easy target for conservatives to attack as we seem to embrace the ever-dividing line of ideology in our country. But that doesn’t absolve therapy or therapists from answering some very legitimate questions about treatment, how we do it, and what outcomes we’re getting from our current efforts.
We all have arguments and disagreements. It seems to me in the past, we have decided to stop having uncomfortable conversations because they typically go wrong. Here are ten skills that you can start incorporating into difficult conversations right away. I believe they will help us all have better difficult conversations. Seek to understand the…
We have to develop the ability to hold two things in our minds at once. I pray that we return to being people who value questions. We need to step away from our identity politics and embrace that those who disagree with us are also people just like us. We have to fight against our normal nature of craving certainty. Certainty is good until it becomes the thing destroying us. There is no such thing as a life or a relationship without danger and disagreement.
That’s it. That’s how many minutes you get in every day. For me, wasting them in arguments on Facebook that doesn’t improve or add value to those minutes seems like a complete waste of time to me.
Media Monday is a series where I focus on something that I have created in another form of media. Be sure to check back every Monday for more posts. Improve every conversation by focusing on controlling what you say.
