God’s Work Often Happens in the Unseen
A hardwood puts a serious amount of its life underground. Root systems that spread wider than the canopy, working down through clay and rock, most of it happening in the…
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When Life Looks Bare but Isn’t Empty
Farmers around here will tell you a field in November looks like nothing. Stubble and mud. Drive past it at dusk and you’d swear the whole thing died. Underneath, there’s…
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The Fear That Comes With Release
There’s a thing that happens in therapy that used to catch me off guard when I was new. Somebody comes in month after month, working hard, doing the reading, sitting…
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Letting Go of What Once Sustained You
I want to start by defending the thing you’re about to let go of, because nobody else will. The people-pleasing kept you safe in a house where somebody’s mood determined…
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When Roles, Relationships, or Dreams Fall Away
When somebody dies, we know what to do. There’s a visitation, there’s food on the counter you didn’t ask for, there’s a line of people at the funeral home saying…
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God Is Present in Seasons of Shedding
There’s a stretch of road out past my house where the trees meet overhead all summer. Green tunnel, all of it. Then, when fall comes, it’s a skeleton. You can…
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Fall Reminds Us That Change Can Be Beautiful
Here is a piece of grade school science that changed how I see the fall coming. Leaves do not turn colors. Not really. The yellows and the oranges were in…
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When the World Slows Down, So Can You
Here is a contradiction nobody names out loud, and once you see it you cannot unsee it. The natural world spends September downshifting. Days shorten, sap withdraws, animals slow down…
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The Quiet Beauty of Letting Go
I put the garden up every September, and every year there is a strange minute in the middle of it. I stand there with the tomato cages in my arms,…
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Fall Is Not the Beginning of the End
The first cool morning always catches me off guard. You step out for the paper or to start the car. You notice that the air has changed overnight, and you…
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When Things Fall Away: The Sacred Power of the Fall Season
There is a week in western Kentucky, usually somewhere in the middle of September, when you can feel the whole county exhale. The air changes before the calendar does. The…
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Boundaries Without Guilt: Why a Screen Door Is Still a Door
I had a client tell me once that she felt like a hallway. Everybody walked through her to get somewhere else. However, nobody stopped to see what was on the…
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You Are More Than What You Survived
A woman sat in my office a while back at the good end of hard work. Years of it. She had stopped bracing when doors shut. This woman could say…
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What Healing Actually Looks Like Over Time
A client of mine, years into good, brave work, hit a hard anniversary and spent a weekend flat on the mat. Old symptoms, old thoughts, the works. She came in…
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Building a Life That Doesn’t Require Survival Mode
Here is a pattern I see all the time, and it breaks my heart a little every time I see it. Somebody does real healing work. Therapy, tools, tears, the…
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Faith, Safety, and the Nervous System
Refuge. Fortress. Strong tower. Hiding place. Shelter under His wings. A very present help in trouble. Line those words up and notice what they have in common. When the writers…
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Co-Regulation: Healing Happens Around Safe People
Watch a mama with a crying baby and you will see the oldest medicine on earth. She does not explain to the baby that the situation is manageable. She picks…
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Learning to Feel Safe in Your Body Again
Every so often a client shows up ready to charge straight at the worst memory on the first visit. They come at it with machete out and a “let’s go”….
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How Trauma Survivors Can Strengthen Their Minds and Build Lasting Resilience
This is a guest post from a contributing writer. The words and views here are the author’s own. I read every guest submission before it runs. However, publishing is not…
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Fawn Mode: When You Lose Yourself to Keep the Peace
I asked her what she wanted, and I meant it as a small question. What do you want to see change in your marriage, your week, your life? She laughed…