The Difference Between Appreciation & Gratitude
While working on a writing project I was asked, “Why don’t you use the word gratitude instead of appreciation?” The person asking is a fan of the Joyful Journey book and the interactive gratitude process taught in it, as am I. At first, I thought, “why not?” Everyone is on the gratitude craze right now… Ann Voskamp, […]
The Life Skill of Keeping Your Cool
Did you know that your body knows what you’re feeling even before you do? In neuroscience today we’ve discovered that the right hemisphere of our brain is where our “control center” operates and it’s also responsible for the storage of “experiences”. In simple English this means that everything that you experience, and all the information […]
Quieting as a Life Skill
As a Life Coach who specializes in working with people that desire to grow in the skills associated with Life Model Works, I have noticed a very common thread amongst my clients. I see the same missing life skill in many of them that I also see missing in my friends and extended family. It […]
Relational Skills Aren't Just for My Benefit
This past weekend I was in line at Wendy’s for a quick lunch and I noticed the cashier was looking a bit frazzled. I heard her speaking to the person in front of me and she sounded angry and gruff. My first thought was, “Yikes, someone is in a bad mood!”. But almost instantly in […]
Side Effects of a Relationship with Jesus
Back in 2007 when I first made my Facebook profile, I distinctly remember pausing a bit when I saw the “religion” options. I scrolled through them and felt like I didn’t really fit into any of those neat little categories anymore. I’m pretty sure I settled on “Christian/other” and then in the About Me section […]
3 Things We Need for Emotional Health
Imagine this for a moment: you’ve been tasked with building a model airplane, but you’ve never seen a real airplane and you’re not at all sure what all these parts in front of you actually do. You pick up a propeller in your hand and you look at it from every different angle and ponder […]
3 Steps to Avoid Relational Speed Bumps
There is no way to avoid it, we all need relational skills. The problem is most of us don’t realize that we are missing some! Not until we start having problems in our relationships; or we notice that we keep repeating the same relational speed bumps over and over again. When learned in the early […]
Navigating The Emotions of Life Toward Maturity
Recently I read an “inner healing” sales pitch that promised “Freedom From Negative Emotions” and cringed. I cringed because I know that lots of people are probably thinking, “Sign me up for that!”. Visions of a life free of problems and a constant state of emotional bliss sure are tempting, but the truth is, that’s […]
Share Joy – Relational Skill #1
It’s all about JOY. Every time I begin to work on my own relational skills, and every time I recommend a client to begin working on relational skills, I always start with Skill 1: Share Joy. Yes, there are 19 Relational Brain Skills that we can grow and master, but without Skill 1 the […]
5 Steps to Talking with God on the Good Days
“I don’t want to talk about you, like you’re not in the room… I want to look right at you, I want to sing right to you”. When the worship leader sang these words, everything changed for me. I realized that there have been many times when I “prayed” that I wasn’t aware that God […]