by Jonathan Hart, LPC
My truck is not what I want it to be. It is not new, big, heavy, or powerful. Its barely worthy of the title "truck". My house is't the greatest, either. There are a lot of ongoing repairs or refurbishments that need to happen... sometime. My computers are old and somewhat slow. My hair is starting to turn grey, and if i'm totally honest, there isn't as much of it as there used to be.
Something in our culture disposes me to see things in this way. The ads with which we are saturated in video and print and pixels paint a world that is in desperate need of repair. This I affirm. But the ads stray into falsehood thereafter. Universally, ads point to a fix. "If you have this item, pill, procedure, or experience, you will be satisfied." They hint (but never say out loud) that the product they offer will be enough forever. They, and we, know different. But we are buying what they are selling.
The truth is that even millions in the bank, a rich family life, and all the possessions and stuff that we could ask for are not going to be enough... for long. All things (people included) age and decay. All things (people included) break down and die. We rightly and achingly long for something more.
Part of living well in this world is, to quote the Man in Black from "the Princess Bride", "Get used to disappointment". Well, not exactly, but close.
The fact is that the things and experiences of this life cannot permanently or consistently satisfy us. Good comes and goes. Peace comes and goes. Contentment comes and goes. We run into trouble when we try to make these things "normal" and view anything else as sub-par or defective, when we make these temporary things more important than they really are. We run into trouble when we depend on them to give us the one thing they absolutely cannot: satisfaction.
My truck is dependable, for now. My computer is enough to do what I need it to, for the moment. My family life is really good, at the moment. My house keeps me and my family warm and dry. All of these thing will wax and wane. There is no ultimate fix that can be had for love or money in this world.
Our hunger for more is good. Our awareness of lack and need is actually something to hold on to and allow for rather than trying to fill it up or soothe it. It points us to the something more that is intangible, and to the only thing that will truly, ultimately satisfy: it is our longing for heaven and the perfect eternity that God has for his children.
April 29, 2012
April 15, 2012
Giving Yourself Grace in Change
by: Courtney Hollingsworth, PLPC
This humorous clip is obviously an example of very poor therapy that is unlikely to be helpful. People are just too complex for such a simplistic and one-dimensional approach. I certainly hope that you do not have anyone in your life who interacts with you in such a way. But how many of us have internalized this ungracious and callous voice? How often do we grant ourselves little patience and understanding in the midst of our circumstances and our attempts to change? Oftentimes, we are the harshest critic of our progress or our performance.
In what areas of your life do you need be more patient and understanding with yourself? What words play in your head on which you need to turn the volume down? Grace is not only for shortcomings and failings, it is for growth too. And lest I fall into the same trap I am speaking against, here is your reminder that changing this way of thinking will require patience and grace for yourself. When it comes to warding off contempt in order to more fully embrace grace, you cannot tell yourself to simply “STOP IT!”
April 1, 2012
Feeling Better is Not Always Better
by Jonathan Hart, LPC
In order to experience life more richly and more fully, you must become a student of your own heart and mind. Many of us walk through life working very hard to feel happy and to not feel sad. It is a human instinct. When we feel happy, we accept it as normal and good. When we feel pain or sorrow, we try to avoid it, snuff it, or overcome it because on some level we believe that it is not normal and therefore it is bad. There is little examination of how joy or sorrow take shape in our own hearts. This leads us to a blandness of experience that we find acceptable only because we have not tasted the richness that is possible.
Let me explain. When we feel sadness, our first instinct is often to try to get happy. It seems foolish to allow the sadness to stay. If we can't "get happy", we wonder what is wrong with us... which leads to more sadness, and even to shame. We try to anesthetize the pain with all kinds of things, from shopping to substances to adrenaline rushes. Somehow the sadness flattens all of these eventually. Our attempts to feel better are not what they cracked up to be. We need something different, something more authentic.
What if, instead of running from the sadness we acknowledge it and not only allow it to stay, but poke at it, study it? What if we learn what it is really about, how it works, why it is there? This is not an attempt to make it better. Rather it is an attempt to know it more fully, to give it room to exist.
"Why on earth would I do that?!" you might ask. The answer is simple: sadness is normal. If you have lost your job or a loved one, had a friend move away, had a car crash, or had a child move on to college, the sadness you feel is supposed to be there. It is a normal emotional response to loss. If you fight it, you will lose.
Rather than fighting it, I suggest making friends with it. Observe and experience your feelings at the same time. Get to know it. Learn how it works in you. Allow it to be present, and actually feel it for a change.
Do not only do this with sadness. Do this with joy and contentment and peace as well. Instead of just rolling past it, pause and examine it. Feel it more fully. Know why it is there and how it comes to be. Pick apart why the joke was funny to you, explore the layers of irony or innuendo.
In short, become a student of your own heart. Don't measure yourself against others' reactions or patterns: they are not you. Be yourself, and be yourself more fully. Stop striving for the illusion of perpetual happiness, and strive to know the full range of human experience on a deeper level.
In order to experience life more richly and more fully, you must become a student of your own heart and mind. Many of us walk through life working very hard to feel happy and to not feel sad. It is a human instinct. When we feel happy, we accept it as normal and good. When we feel pain or sorrow, we try to avoid it, snuff it, or overcome it because on some level we believe that it is not normal and therefore it is bad. There is little examination of how joy or sorrow take shape in our own hearts. This leads us to a blandness of experience that we find acceptable only because we have not tasted the richness that is possible.
Let me explain. When we feel sadness, our first instinct is often to try to get happy. It seems foolish to allow the sadness to stay. If we can't "get happy", we wonder what is wrong with us... which leads to more sadness, and even to shame. We try to anesthetize the pain with all kinds of things, from shopping to substances to adrenaline rushes. Somehow the sadness flattens all of these eventually. Our attempts to feel better are not what they cracked up to be. We need something different, something more authentic.
What if, instead of running from the sadness we acknowledge it and not only allow it to stay, but poke at it, study it? What if we learn what it is really about, how it works, why it is there? This is not an attempt to make it better. Rather it is an attempt to know it more fully, to give it room to exist.
"Why on earth would I do that?!" you might ask. The answer is simple: sadness is normal. If you have lost your job or a loved one, had a friend move away, had a car crash, or had a child move on to college, the sadness you feel is supposed to be there. It is a normal emotional response to loss. If you fight it, you will lose.
Rather than fighting it, I suggest making friends with it. Observe and experience your feelings at the same time. Get to know it. Learn how it works in you. Allow it to be present, and actually feel it for a change.
Do not only do this with sadness. Do this with joy and contentment and peace as well. Instead of just rolling past it, pause and examine it. Feel it more fully. Know why it is there and how it comes to be. Pick apart why the joke was funny to you, explore the layers of irony or innuendo.
In short, become a student of your own heart. Don't measure yourself against others' reactions or patterns: they are not you. Be yourself, and be yourself more fully. Stop striving for the illusion of perpetual happiness, and strive to know the full range of human experience on a deeper level.
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