In today’s episode, we we do a deeper exploration of avoidance. Avoidance is very common, and is often employed in everyday life in a way that’s smart and helpful. However, when it comes to the avoidance that follows after painful experiences, we often end up avoiding too much and more than we need to. As a result, it costs us the more beautiful experiences of life, precisely the ones that can serve to heal us.

How do we do the healing work if we are bedridden and have no one around us? Today’s episode focuses on utilizing our relationship with God and ourselves. So long as those two are intact, we can never be abandoned, and having those healing experiences can still happen.

When struggling with complicated grief, many of us may feel a sense of finality when our loved one departs this world. However, using the eyes of our faith we see that the relationship continues. The departed can still be part of our healing work. The relationship can continue to be healed, even though they have departed. Using the power and heightened sensitivity of the Nativity season, we can be even more productive in healing broken relationships, with both the living and the departed.

The silver linings of the healing work are many. One of the most beautiful truths, is that as we progress through the healing work, we get to keep all of the skills and gifts gained from our experience, but we leave behind all the pain and hurt. In other words, all the abilities and skills we learned as a result of our experience we don’t have to give up or turn in once we have healed. Indeed, the healing work truly transfigures.

Many have given into the belief that we just have busy lives and really have no other choice. We daily experience the effects of being on our heels and not being masters of the time that God has given us. We become stressed, overwhelmed, burned out, and develop a learned helplessness. There are many different factors that lead to us yielding to defeat in the face of the pace of this world. No one else is going to do it for us, we have to be the ones to exercise this healthy form of control and determine the pace of our lives.

Today’s episode focuses on answering a question by someone who is struggling through complicated grief. Specifically, grieving the passing of an abusive parent. Very often with complicated grief, we are not aware of what exactly we are grieving. So often, it is not what we think or realize.

Most of us strive to be kind and understanding of others. However, in this distressed world we might not realize how much can be at stake. Those who suffer the most often suffer invisibly. When we have an interaction in which we were not at our best with someone we know, we can circle back and apologize and make things right. However, with strangers out in public, we often do not have that opportunity. As a result, perhaps there is little margin for error. We have the power to create positive memories or negative memories in others. When we are not kind, understanding, or merciful; without realizing it, our interaction with that stranger could be like the Jenga block in their life that destabilizes them, takes away hope, and causes them to give up.

This episode addresses a question that was submitted by an individual struggling with a spouse who has been severely lacking in empathy, engages in chronic gaslighting, and has shown self-centered behaviors. Being able to tell whether such behaviors are just personality or defensive and protective in nature is difficult. We might also burden ourselves with pressure to forgive right away. This becomes especially difficult when the marriage dynamics remind us of painful childhood dynamics that we were subjected to in our childhood. This episode discusses learning to put everything in the proper place, so we can make the best decisions towards getting relief.

There are few things more unnatural then having an abusive parent. It is a profound breakdown in so many ways. Children and adult children are left feeling confused, guilty, and yearning and looking for that normal parent relationship. Furthermore, we may be confused by the commandment to honor our mother and father. What does that look like when the parent is abusive? God does not want us to be abused. Learning to set boundaries is for the protection, salvation, and mercy of all involved.

Today’s podcast addresses an issue that many people struggle with. As a result of traumatic or painful experiences, we often have unrealistic expectations for the rest of our lives. This can make it difficult for us to navigate and handle normal life disappointments, heartaches, changes, and losses. However, we have to reframe what these are to us; they are not the past happening again, and they are actually opportunities for us in our healing work.