Healing the Unresolved

Parenting from Afar: When our Adult Children get Stuck

Today’s podcast answers a question from a father who is greatly worried about his adult son. His son has reached a detour in his life and has been unable to move around it. His son also lives a significant distance away, which adds to the feelings of powerlessness. While has maintained great balance in his relationship with his son, he worries about him greatly, and seeks to know what he can do without making his son feel worse or causing him to pull away.

When People Disappoint: Staying Balanced and Maintaining the Relationship

Today’s podcast answers two questions. The first, pertains to how to proceed or cope when others are not able to be responsive to the deeper things we share with them. The second question pertains to the flexibility and malleability we need in setting boundaries.

Embracing the Opportunity of Perceived Setbacks in the Healing Work.

Today's podcast answers the question of why do setbacks occur in the healing work and how do we navigate the discouragement caused by them. The truth is, these are not setbacks at all, but rather opportunities. They are movement forward, not backward.

The Nativity X-Ray of our Soul

During these dark and short days of December, we are fortunate to have the nativity light. The nativity light acts as an x-ray on our soul and illuminates all that is missing, broken, and fallen. It reveals to us the areas that need to be addressed. It is during this time of year that the urge to restore and reconcile is at its strongest. It is also during this time of year that the human heart is the most ripe for reconciliation. We must take advantage of this time while the nativity light is s...

The Robber of Gratitude and all that is Good: Identifying and Resolving Hypervigilance.

Everyone at one time or another experiences a sour mood or just feeling very negative. We complain a lot, and feel like nothing is right. However, sometimes this can become chronic, which can be indicative that there is something else going on. One of the sources of this, that is not often discussed, is when we live in a state of hypervigilance. When we live in a state of hypervigilance we are never at rest, always on guard, and overlooking everything that is right in our life; because it is not...

Letting Go of Avoidance: Bringing the Present and Future back Online

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.

Healing When we are Alone in Sickness

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.

Healing Work during the Nativity Light: Mending Relationships with both the Living and the Departed.

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.

Silver Linings: When Pain Transfigures into Gifts

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.

The Temptation of Busyness: Learning to Regain Control

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 d...

Complicated Grief: Grieving the Unfilled Parental Relationship

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.

Memory Makers: Don’t be the Jenga block

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 me...

Turning off the Song of the Past so I can more Effectively Discern the Present

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 ...

Navigating an Abusive Parent: Knowing When We Have Done Enough

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.

When Life Doesn’t Cooperate: Addressing Trauma’s Unrealistic Expectations

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.

Chasing our Fathers: Knowing when to Stop Seeking the Missing Parts of our Parents in Others

Many of us may think that we have accepted that certain aspects of our relationships with our parents went unfulfilled. However, without realizing it, we may have a lifelong pattern of putting potential parent figures on a pedestal and seeking from others what we did not get in our parental relationships. This inevitably leads to profound moments of disillusionment and disappointment. We will need to stop chasing in the present, what our parents were not in the past. Once that window closes, and...

Taking the Blame: Spiritual Medicine or Spiritual Harm?

When reading the church fathers, many often get confused about the concept of utilizing blaming ourselves, rather than seeing the wrong in the other person. It is important to be reminded that the church fathers often gave different spiritual prescriptions to different people, depending on where they were at in their spiritual life, their motives, and their life history. What is spiritual help to some could be spiritually destructive to others. How, if, and when the concept of self-blame should ...

The Life I Could Have Had: Navigating the “If Only’s”

Seeking Answers from God: Navigating the Pain of a Stillbirth

Today’s episode seeks to answer a question from a mother who suffered a stillbirth. It is difficult to have “why” questions when we cannot sit and dialogue back and forth directly with God. Knowing when to call off the search for the answer to a “why” question is difficult. Also, knowing what’s behind the why question (fears and assurances needed) is very critical. Inevitably, some of us are called to wait until we stand in the presence of God to understand why.

When Trauma or Past Pain Affects Our Prayer Life

Today’s podcast focuses on a question submitted by someone living the monastic life. It is common and normal when past pain from traumatic or profoundly painful experiences has an effect on our prayer life. We might feel that we have lost something, or that somehow spiritually we are going in the wrong direction, regressing, or even failing. It is very important to reframe these experiences, and to realize this is all part of the path forward, and that we are not experiencing an abandonment of g...

The Trauma of Infidelity: Knowing when Time and Talking are not Enough

Finding out that our spouse has been unfaithful is devastating. However, many couples come through on the other side even stronger than they were before. Today’s episode focuses on a question that was submitted by an individual who has done all the work, and come through on the other side, but yet still has frustrating moments where they are hurled back into the past. Using the trauma treatment model, victims of infidelity can often find the peace and healing that has been elusive.

Navigating the Quiet Aftermath

Today’s podcast discusses something that most of humanity is ignoring. It is the subtle effects of the pandemic. It is precisely during the quiet aftermath of an intense experience that we tend to feel the effects. Telling ourselves a story and believing we can just sweep it under the proverbial rug, is not going to help us navigate the quiet aftermath; nor to regain much of what we had before those very trying years.

Bringing God into our Healing Work: A Prayer and Activity

The healing work is part of our spiritual life and very much an ascetical activity. Today’s podcast offers a prayer that any individual can use in their own healing work as well as a practical activity. Both the prayer and the activity will help increase the synergy between us and God in healing the unresolved. "Lord, please heal my soul and help me to do my part in the healing work. Give me your Grace and the Holy Spirit, and fill that which I am lacking in. Please give me insights and self-awa...

Finding Acceptance: Rooting Out the Most Destructive of Beliefs

We all struggle with interactions, the behavior of ourselves and others, events, and life changes. However, all of these things are often worsened when we believe they mean some thing about us that they do not. Some examples of these beliefs are "I wasn't good enough," "I failed," and/or "I am weak or powerless." This particular phenomenon often occurs on an unconscious level and causes much disruption in our emotional, spiritual, and family lives. One could even argue that it is the most disrup...

Over-Control: Finding Our Way Out

Today’s discussion is about over-control. It is a relating and behavior pattern that is almost universally a product of traumatic and painful experiences. It is born from avoiding, at all costs, ever experiencing anything like what we did in the past. However, when we do this, we find no rest, no peace, and miss all of the beautiful things in our lives. It causes us to see threats where there are none. This is exhausting for both us and those around us. Reversing over-control can be difficult an...

Dignity: A companion of humility and necessity in the healing work

Many are worried about asserting themselves, setting boundaries, and speaking up for themselves. Such behaviors are perceived by some as being prideful and not what God wants. In this episode the value and need for dignity is discussed and how it must be preserved and protected.

Anxiety: Is it our protective Ally or our Foe?

Anxiety is often perceived very negatively. This negative perception of anxiety often aggravates it and makes us feel even more of it. Our Anxiety is simply trying to alert us to the perception of danger. However, in the end, it will listen to us, and is very flexible in the face of new perceptions.

When the Past Prevents Us from Living Out Our Faith

Father Alexander Schmemann often talked and wrote about the benefits of our faith based worldview, which we receive upon baptism. Our faith-based worldview is to help us navigate our life in this world; to help us make sense of experiences, answer life’s questions, and navigate life stages. However, unresolved past experiences have the ability to block our faith-based worldview, as it causes us to respond to the past, rather than the present. In a future episode, we'll dive deeper into what the ...

The Strained Sibling Relationship: Knowing When a Rescue Mission to the Past is Needed

Some strained sibling relationships may indeed just be due to difficult personalities or differences in beliefs. However, very often the real cause is hidden hurts and resentments related to the family of origin. These hurts may be related to roles played, differences in perceptions of treatment, and overall lack of closure. When past pain surfaces in sibling relationships it often masks itself by being displaced on trivial issues in the present that result in years of not communicating or a sib...

Finding God and Ourselves: Navigating the Emotional Space between Anger and Happiness

In this episode, the answer is discussed as to why we tend to feel more comfortable and able to express anger and happiness, but not other emotions. It is the emotional space between anger and happiness that holds our anxiety, fear, grief, sadness, and loss. Our society has deemed these areas to be forbidden territory. However, for those doing the healing work and seeking spiritual growth, it is the land of opportunity. It is in this space that we find depth of heart, courage, perception, and hu...