How do you feel about transitions? Life is full of them, but that doesn’t mean we enthusiastically embrace them. Transitions—planned or unplanned, chosen or imposed upon us—provoke various responses from our internal family. Transitions include routine events, like returning to work after vacation, milestone events like launching a child into college or yourself into a new endeavor, and unexpected (unwelcome) events like illness or the death of loved ones. What transition are you navigating? Have you noticed waves of different emotions and thoughts pinballing through your mind? These are reactions of your internal family members to change. Some will be --->

There is so much loss, so much to grieve. Unrelenting waves of tragic news—deaths from Covid surpassing one million, unprovoked brutality in Ukraine, racist hatred, children gunned down in their classrooms, religious leaders hiding abuse behind hypocrisy. All of this communal loss on top of your other losses. How do you deal with the pain? How do you heal? There are no predictable stages leading in a straight line to resolution and restoration. But there is a process, a practice that supports you through the pain. The tasks required in a season of grief engage your entire inner family. They --->

Are you teetering on the edge, wondering if you should commit—or recommit? I love to ski. It’s the only activity where I push limits and take risks. Last week I stood at the top of a steep run deciding whether I was up to the challenge. Once I point my skis downhill, there’s no turning back. Do my legs have enough juice in them to navigate the terrain? At this speed, one misjudgment, and you’re tumbling. Is anyone around in case I fall? Check. Check. The snow beckoned. My heart pounding, I turned the skis, shifted my weight forward, and --->

Are you wondering if it’s possible to restore calm and hopefulness in the face of unrelenting challenges? Navigating changes you didn’t choose—in your relationships, at work, at church, in the world—provokes chaos inside. Emotions veer from anger to grief to anxiety. Brief gasps of air punctuate a pervasive sense of drowning. Your body fluctuates between being primed for action and the heaviness of bone-deep resignation. It’s time to shift from being in the storm to be with the parts of you who are overwhelmed by circumstances. You have what they need. The fearful, despairing members of your internal family have --->

You know you’re beloved, but you don’t feel beloved. No matter how many times you return to favorite verses for reassurance, you have a nagging sense that God’s unconditional love does not extend to you. You believe it for others, but not consistently for yourself. What’s blocking your ability to receive God’s love? To feel deeply, utterly beloved? The answer to one of your most perplexing questions requires understanding yourself in a new way – understanding God’s design for you and understanding how life experiences shape you. You are created in the image of God, who is multiple. Have you --->

Are you one of the many people wondering what’s so “new” about the New Year? Oh, that’s right. There’s a new variant. The overwhelm, however, feels all too familiar. You’re tired of juggling work and school or daycare closures. Maybe your job requires a lot of contact with the public, or you feel isolated working from home. You miss planning social activities without wondering if someone will think you’re spreading the virus or not taking the risk seriously. Navigating the challenges is exhausting. Naggingly persistent anxiety simmers in your system through all of the big and small decisions this context --->

Have you ever said, maybe even out loud, “Oh, grow up!” Exasperation over someone’s immaturity got on your nerves, and you couldn’t tolerate their child-like behavior one more minute. Reactivity is a signal, an invitation to explore inner terrain. This seems like an ideal time to get curious and reflect on how we feel about the child-like parts of ourselves and others. During the season when Christians celebrate the mystery of God’s incarnation, God entering our world as a baby, can we welcome our inner children? When you feel the presence of one of your inner children, a young part --->

Are you feeling ambivalent about gratitude? About participating in the conversations around the table next week where you share the blessings of the past year? I’ve already seen quite a few posts as we head toward Thanksgiving, extolling the healing power of gratitude. It’s true that gratitude, properly practiced, has a positive impact on well-being. The tricky thing is that you can use gratitude to bypass painful emotions. This Thanksgiving could be your first gathering without a loved one who died. Or, the first time you are going to more than one household because your parents divorced. Perhaps you are --->

I recently shared a quote from Anne Lamott on Instagram that got exponentially more engagement than any other post. I’m pretty sure that’s because people didn’t read the whole thing. She said, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.” I think that’s all people needed to read to say, “YES!” Hit the heart button and move on. I didn’t share the quote because I agree with her, but because I don’t. While Anne is a patron saint of writers, I disagree with her about this. Oh, I understand that the drive for perfection can feel like an oppressor, like someone --->

Do you remember the last time you believed something awful about yourself? Perhaps someone you love was disappointed in you. Or, you expressed a need, and you were ignored. Maybe you mustered up the courage to disagree, to take a stand for something you value, and you were shut down. Sometimes you enter a conversation knowing it’s vulnerable, and other times you’re blindsided by a reaction that sends you spinning. When you take the risk to be vulnerable, and it doesn’t go well, you will likely hear the voice of a part of you who believes that you are defective --->