Cognitive Distortions That Fuel Emotional Pain
Your brain is a hard worker, but it takes shortcuts. Most of the time the shortcuts save you trouble. Some of the time they cut straight through a briar patch…
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The Stories You Tell Yourself Matter
Everybody has a narrator. You know how old movies have that voice that comes in over the top and tells you what’s going on? You’ve got one of those in…
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Why Emotions Feel Like Facts (Even When They Aren’t)
“I feel like a terrible mother, so I must be one.” Not only have I said those words, I’ve heard some version of that sentence more times than I could…
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Control in Marriage and Close Relationships
Control in a marriage almost never announces itself. Nobody says they’re controlling their spouse. What they say is that somebody has to keep this family running. Frankly, that’s usually accurate….
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Choosing Presence Over Perfection
A perfectionist is never in the room. She’s four hours ahead of it, running the check. Is this going to turn out? I have to make sure everyone is happy….
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When You Relapse Into Old Control Habits
You did beautifully for about three weeks. Then, you let things go. You didn’t check. Maybe you handed something back and kept your hands still. You noticed a difference in…
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Trusting Yourself Instead of Controlling Outcomes
I asked a woman what she was afraid would happen if the thing she was managing went wrong. She gave me the practical answer first. Then I asked again, and…
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Replacing Control With Boundaries
There is a difference between what a “control” is and what a “boundary” is. A control is a rule you make for somebody else. A boundary is a rule you…
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Control in Relationships: When Helping Turns Into Managing
Helping is good. I want to start there, because this post is going to make some of you uncomfortable and I don’t want it misread as an argument for indifference….
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When Someone Else’s Choices Disrupt Your Life
Somebody made a decision and now you’re living in it. He left. She relapsed. Your business partner did something reckless. Maybe your parents sold the place. Your kid dropped out….
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Control vs Responsibility
This is the distinction I draw on paper more than any other, and once people see it they start seeing it everywhere. Responsibility is about your actions. Control is about…
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When Things Fall Away, You Remain
We started this series back at the beginning of the season with a tree full of leaves and a question about what happens when things start coming loose. Twenty-six posts…
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Trusting God With What You’re Becoming
Most of us can eventually get to a place of trusting God with circumstances. Hard, but we know the language for it. The job, the diagnosis, the kid, the money….
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What Fall Teaches Us About Identity
You can’t tell what shape a tree is in July. The leaves are in the way. Come November the structure’s right there, every fork and angle and the one heavy…
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Releasing What Was Never Yours to Carry
There’s a certain kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix. You get eight hours and wake up heavy. You take the vacation and come back the same. You keep thinking…
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Strength Looks Different in This Season
We’ve got a picture of strength in this country and it’s all summer imagery. Full canopy, heavy fruit, everything visible and abundant and going. Nobody puts a November tree on…
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You Are Not Failing, You Are Shedding
A woman sat in my office last fall and gave me a list. Marriage in trouble. Quit a job she’d had eleven years. Hadn’t been to church since June. Kids…
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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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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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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…