Summer is here and I can’t be the only one who wasn’t prepared. 

We have a few weeks planned (sports camp, youth camp, volunteering, grandparent trip), but there’s still an abundance of unstructured free time where my son will be happy to embody Newton’s first law of motion if left to his own (literal) devices.

For the last several summers, we’ve implemented the “Schoonmaker Summer Challenge Program” that is meant to sow in some things we found missing in his education, help him achieve goals and learn some life skills.

The list I am about to give is extensive and daunting. That’s partly the point. 

It’s a big deal to achieve your summer goals…so incentivize accordingly! We attach a big prize that he gets to pick (with our guidance). 

Additionally, the idea is that this list is pretty difficult so I don’t feel so bad when he just wants to zone out and be on screens for a bit. He’s earned it because some of this stuff is pretty tough and requires effort and discipline to achieve.

I LOVE the muscle memory we are sowing in here: Take on audacious goals! Work hard to achieve your goals in bite-size chunks. Gain the knowledge that you can do hard things. Enjoy the rewards!

Below you’ll see an outline of what we are doing this summer and some of what we have done in the past. Each summer we come up with a new list based on where we want to see him grow, but these are the general categories year after year.

Just for context, we only have one child, he’s 12 years old, and his dad and I both work full-time. If we can do it, anybody can do it!

Here’s how we set up our summer challenges in case you also want to put up a good fight against brain rot:

Reading Challenges:

Did our son like reading initially? No. Did he get a choice? Also no. Does he love it now? Not exactly. But he likes it more than he lets on.

We are at a school that still does AR tests, so for us, the school year is given to a lot of fiction reading to keep it from being a battle. In the summer, his dad and I get to pick his books! It’s not a crazy amount. I’m talking two books, maybe three. 

(And I know this is controversial, but he often listens to these. Why? Because he’s a great auditory learner, and because this is about getting the content in his heart and mind. If you’re a “listening is not the same as reading” purist, don’t come for me!)

Mindset Books:

Mental Toughness for Young Athletes

Growth Mindset Workbook for Kids

A Growth Mindset for Teens

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

Vision Casting/Character Growth Books:

Love Does by Bob Goff

The Way of the Warrior Kid Series by Jocko Willink 

Personal Challenges:

Music Appreciation: 

This has looked a few different ways over the years but this summer his challenge is to learn 2 songs on electric guitar with his grandpa. We’ve done School of Rock camp a few times and private lessons are also an option, but this approach is the right speed for us this summer! New musical skill + hanging with Paps = a win/win.

Entrepreneur Project: 

He’s tasked with finding new ways to earn money for himself. This summer he’s found a niche for dog sitting. (Yes, this then becomes my problem but it’s the mentality of hustling and doing things with excellence that’s most important to us at this juncture.) In the past he’s made “Sam Schoon Soaps: Let the suds hit ya where the good Lord split ya,” which I’m told may be making a comeback soon.

Service Projects:

This typically ends up just being helping his grandparents with things outside, but it counts. 

“Look for ways to serve, do your best job and have a good attitude,” are the only requirements for this!

Our church also provides some volunteer opportunities, so we make sure to take advantage of those (as they also scratch his itch for social time).

Memorization Challenges:

Call me old fashioned but I still believe in the value of memorizing things. It’s good for your brain health and for your heart! The stuff I memorized in childhood is still with me today and I know I’m not alone in this!

For our family, we put a particular emphasis on memorizing: 1) bible verses, 2) history facts, 3) historical speeches, and 4) adages.

When at all possible, I pair these with songs, because that makes it so much easier for our son, and thus, his mama.

(Some of the items in this section of the challenge require a high time investment and the skill of breaking big goals into chunks which adds some nice structure to your days.)

Great resources for songs:

• Slugs and Bugs
• Classical Conversations Timeline: Age of Ancient Empire-Creation to circa 450 AD (Is this huge? Yes. Is it great for their brains? Also yes.)

Other memorization options:

• The Gettysburg Address
• The Preamble of the Constitution
• The 10 Commandments
• The US Presidents
• Stuff you heard your grandparents say or Ben Franklin quotes. (You could totally turn this into a fun trivia game.)

Physical Challenges:

• Plan and lead a family workout, ideally twice a week, as schedules permit.
  • No equipment necessary! 
  • Get creative!
• Our son’s personal physical challenges for this summer include:
  • Increasing his number of sit ups and push ups per minute
  • Running a mile in under 10 minutes
  • Working towards an unassisted pull-up
  • Get soccer touches in
• Humans often need to move to process emotions, so if you don’t have a punching bag, weight bench, etc., take this as your sign to start making these investments.

Spiritual Challenges:

Generally speaking, I see the sacred in aspects of this entire list. It’s all in what you make of it and what you highlight as you live in discipleship/training mode with your kids. But if you’d like to do a specific family devotional, allow me the opportunity to be self-promoting:

The Proverbs Project is a great devotional written by yours truly (and my friend Christine Varnado) that weaves together emotional health principles and timeless Biblical truths. Plus, it’s pretty fun!

Life Skills Challenges:

• Plan and cook dinner for the family one night a week.
  • He has to pick the menu, tell me what groceries he’ll need, and then get after it! 
  • We help minimally, as needed. This week he’s doing Mexican night!
• Complete your normal chores:
  • Start your laundry (drop pods + dump clothes in machine, press play)
  • Weed eating as needed
  • Empty dish washer daily
  • Feed dogs twice a day
  • Pick up your clothes and trash
  • General hygiene stuff…of course
• Learning on YouTube.
  • My son likes watching YouTube, so as someone who uses a “work with the grain instead of against it” mindset, we incentivize learning via YouTube. (I’m aware this topic is a little controversial but we have chosen the stance of, “if you’re gonna be on it, at least learn something.”)
  • When I have a skill I want him to learn, like last week it was, “how to adjust a door that is sticking,” I send him to YouTube to learn that. 
  • We also encourage him to watch soccer training videos, drumming videos, cooking videos, etc. 
  • I’m not looking for mastery but to encourage learning and trying out new things. 

As I stated at the beginning, I KNOW this is an extensive list. Fighting off brain rot is hard! All parents know this to be true: a kid in motion will stay in motion and a kid at rest will stay at rest.

I wholeheartedly believe this fight is worth fighting.

This is more than just keeping our kids from being entitled and lazy though. The summer provides a great opportunity to target intervention and correct mindsets that might have snuck in through the school year.

You’ll always be glad for the efforts you made in training and discipling your kids! So take heart and get to work!

The post How I Keep My Kid From Brain Rot Over the Summer appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

I grew up not knowing if my father would be the same person from one day to the next. Not dramatically different. Quietly, dangerously different. The kind of different that makes a child learn to read a room the second she walks into it.

So when I got married, what I wanted most wasn’t romance. It was stability. I wanted to know the person beside me would be there tomorrow. And the day after that. And on the days he was furious with me.

I wanted to know he was staying.

“Yes, we actually got married again in the church,” I tell my sister-in-law. “Our pastor introduced covenant marriage to our congregation. Since Jim and I were married before I was a Christian, we were married by a rabbi. The pastor’s offer gave us an easy opportunity to renew our vows, this time under Christ.”

“Wow, I didn’t know this. Were the kids there?”

“Yes, lying all over the pews. They were still young. This was probably 20 years ago.”

Driving home from dinner, I’m thinking about that second ceremony while Jim drives us through the dark, assuredly not thinking about our marriage covenant at all. In June, we will have been married 38 years.

I start laughing at myself. He glances over.

I don’t explain.

We’ve made it 38 years. We’re more than halfway to “’til death do us part” — woo hoo!

I’m not even talking about the legal covenant marriage that some states offer. I’m talking about the biblical one. The promise made before God when you say your vows. After eighteen years of marriage, we chose each other again. That is the real covenant.

For me, that promise is the best part of our marriage. It means I never have to wonder. He will be there when we’ve had a knock-down-drag-out fight. He will be in the bed next to me, even on the nights I go to sleep angry, and there when I wake up.

One time, he was so angry with me that he went full silent treatment. That same week, I got a call from my sister that my mom had been rushed to the hospital. He was still my first call. He got in his car and came to meet me, and he even talked to me the whole way.

When all is said and done, he shows up when it matters. And I’ve learned what that demands from me in return. Even when he isn’t speaking to me, I do the simple things, like make his breakfast and dinner.

That is reciprocation.

I am sure he wishes he could have added a few amendments to the covenant he maybe didn’t anticipate:

Thou shalt not leave coffee cups all over the house.
Thou shalt not leave every cabinet open.
And most importantly, thou shalt move thine own laundry timely through the process.

But he does get the reciprocation of me always coming home, always putting his real needs above my mood of the day.

We have been married twice now, and not once has either of us ever mentioned divorce. Not in a fight. Not in the worst of it.

It is hard to trust someone who always threatens to leave.

God never promised easy. He promised presence. He never leaves either. And marriage, the real kind, is supposed to teach us something about what that looks like.

Unconditional. Ever present.

My father never gave me that. Jim has. Every single day for 38 years, the same person in the same bed. That is not a small thing. That is everything.

Sorry Charlie. It’s ‘til death do us part.

The post Sorry Charlie: Covenant Marriage Means No Exit Door appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

Have you ever watched someone slam a cabinet door and instantly thought, what is their problem? Or maybe you have been the one who went quiet, pulled away, or snapped over something small while the people around you had no idea what was really going on.

Most people think communication only happens through words. It does not. Communication is happening all the time through body language, tone, silence, avoidance, anger, sarcasm, and withdrawal. Long before people say what they feel, their behavior is usually already telling the story.

The hard part is that behavior can be easy to misunderstand. What looks like anger may actually be hurt. What looks like disrespect may be shame. What looks like distance may be fear.

When people do not know how to express what is happening inside them, emotions often come out sideways.

Behavior Often Says What Words Cannot

Every person has an inner conversation happening all day long. Most of it never gets spoken out loud.

Someone may think:

• Nobody listens to me anyway
• If I say how I feel, they will get defensive
• I do not know how to explain what is wrong
• I do not want to feel weak
• I am afraid of being rejected

Those thoughts shape behavior.

Sometimes people withdraw because they feel overwhelmed. Sometimes they become defensive because they feel criticized. Sometimes they lash out because they feel unseen. Other times they stay quiet because they learned a long time ago that speaking honestly did not feel safe.

Behavior is often an attempt to communicate emotions that words cannot yet carry.

Why People Struggle to Say What They Feel

People often assume that honest communication should be simple. In reality, emotional honesty can feel incredibly vulnerable.

Before opening up, most people are silently asking themselves questions like:

• Will this turn into an argument
• Will they understand me
• Will they dismiss what I feel
• Will this be used against me later
• Is it even worth bringing up

If someone has experienced criticism, rejection, shame, or emotional neglect in the past, their brain learns to protect them. Staying quiet can begin to feel safer than being honest.

This is not manipulation. It is self-protection.

Many adults are still carrying emotional survival patterns they learned years ago.

The Damage Caused by Wrong Assumptions

Relationships often fall apart because people misread each other.

A quiet spouse gets labeled as uncaring when they are actually emotionally flooded.

A teenager gets labeled disrespectful when they secretly feel like they can never do anything right.

A friend keeps canceling plans and others assume they do not care, when in reality they may be struggling with anxiety or depression.

When behavior is misunderstood, people react to the surface instead of the pain underneath it. Over time, this creates resentment, distance, and loneliness.

Most people are not asking others to read their minds. They simply want someone to slow down enough to become curious about what might be happening beneath the behavior.

Children Communicate Through Behavior Too

Children rarely have the emotional vocabulary adults expect them to have.

When children feel overwhelmed, anxious, ashamed, lonely, or emotionally disconnected, those emotions often show up through:

• Tantrums
• Defiance
• Aggression
• Withdrawal
• Avoidance
• Emotional meltdowns

The behavior may look frustrating on the outside, but underneath it is often a child trying to communicate distress.

Instead of asking:
How do I stop this behavior?

A more helpful question is:
What might this behavior be trying to tell me?

That question changes the entire tone of a relationship.

What Emotional Safety Actually Means

Emotional safety does not mean people never disagree. It means both people feel safe enough to be honest without fear of humiliation, rejection, or punishment.

Emotionally safe people:

• Listen without immediately becoming defensive
• Stay curious instead of attacking
• Allow room for emotions
• Respond calmly
• Try to understand before correcting

When people feel emotionally safe, communication becomes more direct and less reactive.

Without safety, most people go back into protection mode.

Simple Ways to Communicate More Honestly

Healthy communication usually starts with small changes, not dramatic conversations.

Pause Before Reacting

Before shutting down or snapping, ask yourself:
What am I actually feeling right now?

Try naming the feeling clearly:

• Hurt
• Lonely
• Embarrassed
• Rejected
• Overwhelmed
• Unimportant

Awareness creates clarity.

Speak From the Need

There is a difference between criticism and vulnerability.

Instead of:
“You never listen to me.”

Try:
“I need to feel heard right now.”

Complaints often create defensiveness. Honest needs create connection.

Become a Safe Person

If you want honesty from others, they need to feel safe bringing you the truth.

When someone opens up:

• Listen fully
• Stay calm
• Avoid interrupting
• Resist trying to fix everything immediately
• Thank them for trusting you

Sometimes a simple response like:
“Thank you for telling me that” can completely change a relationship.

Ask Better Questions

Many people are waiting for permission to speak honestly.

Questions like these can help:

• You seem quieter lately. What has been going on?
• Is something weighing on you?
• What do you wish people understood about you right now?
• How can I support you better?

Curiosity builds connection.

When a Relationship Does Not Feel Safe

There are times when people have tried to communicate honestly and were met with anger, ridicule, manipulation, or control.

In those situations, the answer is not simply to communicate better.

Some relationships genuinely do not feel emotionally safe.

If honesty consistently leads to fear, shame, or emotional harm, reaching out to a therapist can help you process what is happening and decide what healthy next steps look like.

Healthy relationships require honesty from both people.

Real Connection Requires Being Known

One of the deepest human needs is the desire to be truly known.

Not managed.
Not tolerated.
Not simply lived beside.

Known.

Real connection happens when people allow themselves to be seen honestly. Relationships can only grow to the depth that honesty allows.

This does not mean sharing everything with everyone. Healthy vulnerability still requires wisdom and boundaries. But there is a difference between being private and being hidden.

Private means:
“I am still processing this.”

Hidden means:
“I am afraid of what will happen if people really know me.”

The goal is not to remove every wall overnight. The goal is to slowly build doors.

Let Yourself Be Known

Your behavior is already communicating something to the people around you. The question is whether your words will eventually catch up to what your actions are trying to say.

If someone in your life has been acting differently, slow down before assuming the worst. Get curious about what may be happening underneath the behavior.

And if you are the one carrying things silently, consider this your reminder that people cannot connect with parts of you they never get to see.

Real relationships are built when people stop speaking in code and begin speaking honestly.

That is where connection begins.

If you are struggling to communicate in your relationships, feeling disconnected from the people you love, or finding it hard to express what is really going on inside, you do not have to figure it out alone. Therapy can help you better understand yourself, strengthen your relationships, and create healthier patterns of communication and connection. Crossroads Professional Counseling is here for you through life’s journeys. Call 225-341-4147.

The post Every Behavior Is a Message appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

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I walked a different route to our usual pew at church on Sunday, which caused me to quite literally run into my friend. After a quick rebound from our collision, he said, “Man, Allison, you really had me messed up this week.”

“Why is that?”

“Adoration.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That video you shared on Instagram about how we need to adore our wives.”

(He’s talking about this video with Arthur Brooks that describes the evolutionary importance of a woman’s need to feel adored by her spouse as it contributes to the needs of safety and wellbeing, causing us to want to be fruitful and multiply!)

He went on to say, “we have been married over 20 years now. We’ve both hurt each other quite a lot. There’s a lot of water under the bridge, so to speak. When things are good, she’s my favorite person on the planet. When things are not going well, how am I supposed to adore her? It’s just so dang hard!” (Side note: If this type of spur-of-the-moment authenticity and vulnerability at church seems foreign to you, you should consider looking for another church!)

As is often the case, casual conversations with friends get my therapeutic wheels turning. I know this man to be a deeply loving and committed husband and dad. His wife is as steady and faithful as they come. But what he’s describing is real and what I’ve started calling “middle marriage.”

I’ve written before about middle age as it pertains to us as individuals, but it’s also true that our marriages experience their own type of middle age transition. And I think that’s what my friend is getting at.

The dichotomy of mutual infatuation combined with communication SNAFUs of newlywed life is well documented, as is the seven-year itch. But if we stay the course after those two problematic seasons, the research indicates that we don’t see another big divorce spike until year 25. From the 8th to the 24th anniversary, a lot of life is lived—both deeply good and exceedingly hard.

My own marriage is about a month away from being a legal driver on the open road. I have several friends whose marriages can vote now, others whose marriage can legally drink. And even a few whose marriages are seeing a reduction on car insurance premiums. Ha. Praise God.

This middle marriage season is different from the others. It is a season of deep commitment to one another. The kids are no longer a safety risk to be constantly monitored. Most of us are beginning to caretake our parents or learning what it is to be without them for the first time. We have learned communication and empathy skills, we know how to resolve conflict or at very least, how to skillfully avoid the ones that we know never will resolve. What started out as a cute quirk has long since become a raging annoyance. Many husbands have graduated from the occasional adorable snore to a CPAP machine. And don’t even get women my age started on perimenopause!

And this is just the cute stuff.

This next part is going to feel like an aside, but I promise it matters.

Perimenopause

One thing that is happening in middle marriage is the onset of perimenopause. When we were in our childbearing years, progesterone gave us the gift of being a little nicer and easier to deal with. It rounded out our sharp edges and decreased irritability. The logic follows that if progesterone decreases, as it does beginning in perimenopause, then hello sharp edges and irritability. Add what’s aptly named “erratic estrogen,” and we get brain fog, mood swings, anxiety, depression, fatigue.

Practically speaking, the things that always have driven us nuts still drive us nuts, but the filter we once accessed easily has gone missing. It’s not that we’re finding new things to be irritated about. But it may feel that way to our husbands. This is where I start hearing a lot of, “But you never used to care about this before!” And “we’ve always done it this way and it’s never bothered you!”

Yes, dear husbands. This is probably true. You have deeply benefited from our filter and even-keeled nature that our younger hormone production provided. But now, since we don’t need to have your babies anymore, we are ready to tell you about some things, so buckle up.

Husbands in my therapy office often report feeling blindsided by this shift and even irritated that compromise and accommodations are now needed. I get it. It can feel like a very abrupt change. But it’s time to make space for the opinions and preferences that your wife has been sitting on for all this time. This is a major part of the work of middle marriage.

Scar Tissue

And most people I know who have been married as long as us have faced some really incredible hardships, let alone multiple seasons of deep level of marital unrest. And I would say most of the people I know personally I’d describe as happily married. EVEN IN HAPPY MARRIAGE, by the time we are in “middle marriage,” most of us have accumulated a lot of scar tissue.

That’s what my buddy at church was getting at this morning. It’s not that he’s having a hard time adoring his wife because she occasionally has morning breath and a little bit of cellulite. By this stage, we have DEEPLY wounded each other.

We have made promises we did not keep. We have spoken words so unkind and unloving that they could have peeled paint off the walls. We have discovered things and confessed things that have broken our hearts. We have forgiven things our younger selves would have NEVER IMAGINED. We have chosen to move forward, with tenuous hope, again and again.

And THAT, my friend, is still what is worth adoring. Even when things are hard.

We have dealt with the things that have happened, and how the things that have happened have altered and changed us irrevocably.

And even still.

We still care. We still show up. We still want to have great marriages. Joy still finds a way. Light shines in through the cracks.

We don’t want the marriage that some of us saw, where a couple celebrated 50 years of marriage and went home to separate bedrooms. We don’t just want to stay married for the sake of staying married. We deeply desire beautiful, meaningful, engaged and enveloping, loving marriages that continue to surprise us. We want to enjoy love, even though it looks different from our early naive projections of what it “should” look like.

We want to maintain our sense of self and solo identity. We want to pull apart and come back together. We want the friction and the salve. We want to fight the fights that are worth fighting. We want to remind each other that we still see what’s charming and alluring about us and even them. We still want to be chosen and elevated and given the better part. That will keep marriage alive, long after we have done our best to damage and wound.

How Do We Choose Adoration Anyway?

My friend asked the right question. After 20 years of marriage, after the wounding and the forgiving and the choosing to stay, how do we actually adore each other?

Here’s what I notice: The couples I know who stay genuinely connected—who aren’t just cohabiting or managing logistics—they tend to stay curious about each other. Not in a self-help, “practice these five things” way. But in a more fundamental way. They seem to remember that this person is still a separate human they don’t actually fully know.

They’ve let go of the script they thought this would be. They’re not operating from the assumption that after 20 years, they have their spouse figured out. They know the patterns, the shortcuts, the top-layer stuff. But they don’t have a complete map of the other’s inner world. They can’t, really. We don’t even have a complete map of our own selves.

And so they stay genuinely interested in how their spouse is changing, even when—especially when—that change is inconvenient. Even when it means compromise and accommodation. Even when the perimenopause version of your wife is not the woman you married.

They notice the otherness. This person is a completely separate human from you. They may make a horrible version of you, but they make a wonderful version of them. That difference, that otherness—that’s where the mystery lives. And mystery is what keeps attraction alive.

You stay curious not because it’s a technique. You stay curious because the alternative is assuming you know someone you’ve been living with for 20 years. And that’s not adoration. That’s just cohabitation.

Adoration in middle marriage is choosing, again and again, to see this person as someone still unfolding, still surprising, still worth elevating. Even when they irritate the hell out of you. Especially then.

It takes endurance. It takes humility. It takes the choice, made over and over, to show up. It takes humor and authentic support from those around you. And it takes faith that this messy, difficult, scar-tissue-laden relationship is still worth tending.

Marriage isn’t static. It’s movement: expansion and contraction, togetherness and separateness, evolution and homeostasis. You need both polarities to find adoration in the other.

While love in middle marriage may not be as easy as it once was when we were naive and idealistic, the flavors and textures of time allow for a beautiful and nuanced adoring love that we wouldn’t have imagined in the early days. And that kind of love—the kind that chooses, that sees, that stays curious—that’s the kind worth fighting for.

The post Choosing Adoration in Middle Marriage appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

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I am in the middle of one of those conversations today.

The kind that starts without much effort. He is sharing openly, his fears and frustrations. I am tracking and we have known each other for years.

Then he says something that just doesn’t align with his values. I know it when I hear it. And the topic is one we have covered many times. I want to challenge it. I want to ask; how does this align with your faith?

But I am simultaneously calculating his level of frustration at this moment and the experiential landing of any well-intentioned pushback. I find myself consciously making the choice. I choose to appease and keep the peace. I reflect back what he’s saying, acknowledge his frustration and fear, and leave out the harder truth:

But you know that God is in this.
You are letting fear keep you from doing what is the right thing.

That is what I really want to say.

I can tell that my actual reflection hit the right chord as he is nodding his head. He feels heard. But I also sense he feels validated. I maintained the relational connection, but did I just choose to take the easy road?

I leave feeling uneasy. I’ve been doing this a lot lately if I think about it. I’m saying things that are not untrue, but I am choosing positions to keep the peace, taking personal responsibility for my response rather than standing my ground on relational injury, and focusing on the good so other people feel encouraged, even if it hurts me or doesn’t really help them in the moment.

The worst part is I know I’m doing it. I am choosing it. Lately even if someone hurts my feelings, I find myself taking the responsibility off them and apologizing for how I feel or how I responded.

It does keep the peace. But what am I losing? What is the cost?

I vacillate between life is short, why not just ignore the slights, the offense, the differing opinions if it keeps the connection intact, and the alternate view that the connection is no longer real, safe, or built on mutual trust if I can’t just speak my mind and heart.

When I choose harmony, I am deciding for myself and the other person.

Am I really helping?  Is this really giving me any more control?  It just feels like a different kind of work and exhaustion.  I do want to maintain strong relationships and I am using the excuse that I can only control me.

But is that really the only option?

It’s complicated, I tell myself.

I can turn the narrative in my own mind until I can make almost anything feel justified. I’m very good at that. I can line up my need to stay in control with my what-is-mentally-healthy mode and my what-does-the-Bible-say mode and use them interchangeably to support whichever choice I already want to make.

I know the mental health world tells us we need self-care and boundaries and the ability to assert ourselves, so we don’t lose ourselves.  Say what you think regardless how it lands…it is the truth, right?

And I know the Christian world tells us to give, forgive, sacrifice, and love regardless of what is happening on the other end of the relationship.  Show grace.  Suck it up.

And I live in the tension between those things.

I am trying to follow Christ, but I don’t feel healthy, so I must not be doing it right. The world says, you can’t give up self, sacrifice who you are, and live comfortably. But I am pretty sure that just living for oneself results in loneliness, isolation, and the opposite of community.

Everything in moderation comes to mind. But I don’t think that is what Jesus did. Or what the Bible suggests. It is pretty all or nothing.

Pray without ceasing. No moderation here.

Forgive seventy times seven.

Submit to your husband. Always. Not when you want to do what he wants anyway.

Well, at least there is the Sabbath, one-seventh of our lives devoted to self-care.

Lately, life is hard. Not terminal illness difficult, just hecticness-of-life stress. Business adjustments required to grow, family growing and pulling your heart in different directions, relationships strained, health impacts as I age, and the everyday maintenance of life stuff.

I am not a coast-through-life-and-this-too-shall-pass kind of person. I am in a constant pursuit of growth, development, peace, and purpose. I try to figure things out. Right now, I am trying to figure out all the pieces of my life puzzle. As I lean in to do this, I struggle with the approach because this “loop” keeps playing in my mind.

I need to do this in our business because it is the right business decision. But is it loving your neighbor as yourself? But I need to be a good steward. Yeah, but you must also take care of yourself. You can’t constantly absorb everyone else’s issues. I know, I am not completely in control. God is the only one in control. If people would just do what I am saying, things would change for the better.

The cycle continues.

I am tired of carrying what isn’t mine. No one is making me. I am wearing the martyr t-shirt. And I know it is knitted together with fear.

If I surrender, will I completely lose control? The answer is easily yes. But then I also know that God is in control and that should be enough to trust in the outcome. I need to surrender to the truth. What is really on my heart to say or do?

I am calculating the math on both sides right now. If I say this or do that, the responses could be x, y, or z. Which one can I live with? So, I adjust my truth to preserve the outcome I am hoping for. That doesn’t mean lying. But sometimes I don’t say everything I think or everything I really want to say.

That is where the exhaustion is hiding. Not in loving people. Not in forgiving them. Not even in sacrificing for others. The exhaustion is in trying to love, forgive, sacrifice, preserve the relationship, manage the other person’s reaction, protect my own heart, obey God, maintain peace, and still somehow hold onto the illusion that I am not controlling any of it.

But I am.

I am trying to control the outcome by managing the truth. And maybe that is not surrender at all.

Maybe surrender is not silence. Maybe surrender is not appeasing. Maybe surrender is not carrying everyone else’s feelings, so they never have to feel uncomfortable.

Maybe surrender is just saying my truth, all of it, in a loving, Jesus-like way, and not trying to control the outcome.

Ughh. I hate the thought of that.

I know I am not really in control anyway. And I get that when I try to take control, I am taking it from God. I may not like the outcome because there are other humans involved on the other end. But I do tell everyone else that God will take care of us whatever the outcome.

I do believe that, right?

And if I do, the one direction that most takes care of my mental health, relinquishes the exhausting notion of control, and honors my faith, is to just speak the full truth.

Speak the full truth period.

The rest isn’t up to me.

The post Are You Keeping the Peace or Losing Yourself? appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

You know what you should do. So why is it so hard to actually do it?

Before you read any further, I want you to do one thing. Search YouTube for Bob Newhart Stop It and watch the clip. It is only a few minutes long. It is funny. It is also going to feel uncomfortably familiar. Watch it and then come back.

Done? Good.

Now let me ask you something. When was the last time you told yourself to just stop it? Stop worrying. Stop eating that way. Stop picking fights with the people you love. Stop pulling away. Stop numbing out at the end of a hard day. Just stop it. Just stop.

How did that work for you?

If telling yourself to stop actually worked, therapy offices would be empty. Self-help books would have fixed us all by now. We would just decide to be different and wake up the next morning changed. But that is not how it goes. And if you have ever felt frustrated with yourself for knowing exactly what you should do and still not being able to do it, I want you to hear something clearly.

That is not weakness. That is not a character flaw. That is the human experience, and it deserves a more honest conversation than most of us have ever been given.

Why “Stop It” Keeps Failing You

The patterns you are stuck in did not appear out of nowhere. They were learned. At some point in your life your mind and your body found a way to cope with something painful and that response got wired in over time. Maybe anxiety kept you alert when things felt unpredictable. Maybe shutting down emotionally protected you when being open got you hurt. Maybe reaching for something numbing was the only way you knew to quiet the noise.

Those strategies made sense when you developed them. The problem is they do not always fit your life anymore but they keep running anyway. Your brain does not easily let go of what it built to protect you. You cannot think your way out of something your nervous system put in place. That is simply not how people change.

Cognitive behavioral therapy teaches us that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected in a cycle. Shift one and you create movement in the others. But that shift takes more than awareness. It takes getting underneath the pattern and understanding what is actually driving it. Willpower addresses the surface. Lasting change goes much deeper than that.

Knowing what you should do and being able to do it are two completely different things. Confusing them is where most people get stuck and stay stuck for a very long time.

When You Don’t Even Know Where to Start

The most common thing I hear from people when they first sit down with me is some version of the same sentence. They say they do not even know where to start. Not that they have no idea what is wrong. Most people have a pretty clear sense of that. What they cannot find is the door. The actual place to begin.

That feeling is not confusion. It is what happens when you have been carrying something heavy for a long time without the right support. The weight becomes so familiar that it starts to feel like just your life. You stop being able to see around it because you have been standing in the middle of it so long.

People do not stay stuck because they do not care or because they are not trying hard enough. They stay stuck because they keep working on the outside without ever addressing what is happening on the inside. Behavior is almost always downstream from belief. What you think about yourself, what you believe you deserve, what you expect from relationships and from God shapes every choice you make, usually without you even realizing it is happening.

Proverbs 4:23 says it plainly. Guard your heart above all else because everything you do flows from it. In the ancient Hebraic understanding the heart was not simply the place of emotion. It was the center of a person’s whole self. Their will, their thinking, their deepest sense of who they are. When that foundation is shaky everything built on top of it becomes unstable too.

What Is Really Underneath the Struggle

Whether the struggle shows up as anxiety, a marriage that feels disconnected, a pattern you keep repeating, or just a low hum of something being off that you cannot quite name, the root question is almost always the same.

Who do you believe you are and is the life you are living actually consistent with that?

When what you do on the outside does not line up with who you are on the inside, that gap is where the pain lives. People feel it as restlessness, as emptiness, as the sense that something important is missing even when life looks fine on the outside. Closing that gap is not about trying harder. It is about honest self-examination and the willingness to let something shift at a deeper level.

In relationships this shows up in a specific way. Two people who love each other can still feel completely alone together. Everyone is talking and no one is landing. Everyone feels unheard and nobody knows how to break the loop because they are both inside it at the same time. What looks like a communication problem is usually something older and quieter underneath. It is people who never learned how to let someone else fully in, or who stopped believing it was safe to try.

Research on what actually keeps relationships healthy points to something simple but not easy. It is not the absence of conflict. It is whether people feel genuinely known by the person they are with. Whether they feel like they matter. Whether they believe they are chosen. That kind of connection can be rebuilt even after significant hurt, but it does not happen by deciding to just communicate better. It happens when both people are willing to look honestly at what they bring into the room.

The One Question That Opens the Door

There is a question I ask almost everyone I work with regardless of what brought them in. I do not start by asking what they want to stop doing or what has gone wrong. I ask this instead.

What is your best-hopes outcome you are wanting?

That question does something important. It moves a person from thinking about what they want to escape and into thinking about what they actually want their life to look like. It requires them to get specific. It requires them to want something on purpose, which is harder than it sounds for people who have spent a long time just trying to get through.

When you know what you are moving toward the work has direction. The hard days have context. You are no longer measuring yourself against a vague standard of being less broken. You are moving toward something real and that changes everything about how healing feels.

That is the foundation of values-based living. It asks you to identify what matters most to you and then honestly examine whether your daily choices actually reflect those values. When they do not that is not condemnation. It is information. It is the beginning of something.

You Were Not Made to Stay Stuck

Change is possible. Not the kind that lasts two weeks before the old patterns return. Real change. The kind that happens when you do the actual work with someone who can help you see what you cannot see from inside your own story.

Whatever you are carrying right now, whether it is anxiety, old wounds, a struggling marriage, a relationship pattern you cannot seem to break, or just that quiet feeling that something in your life is not right, you do not have to keep standing in the middle of it alone. And you do not have to keep telling yourself to just stop it.

You were not made for that. You were made for something more, and it is not too late to start moving toward it.

What is your best-hopes outcome you are wanting?

Not what you want to stop. Not what you want to fix. What do you actually want your life to look like? Sit with that today. If you are ready to find the door, reaching out to a licensed therapist is a good place to start. Crossroads Professional Counseling is here for you through life’s journeys.  Call 225-341-4147 today.

The post Why “Just Stop It” Doesn’t Work And What Actually Does appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

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On the first day of graduate school in New Orleans, I was fresh from St. Louis with everything I owned crammed into my Honda Civic. I sat in a classroom full of strangers who would eventually become some of my closest friends, when my first professor posed a question I’ve never stopped thinking about:

What single thing — event or relationship — has resulted in the most negative or damaging consequences in your life?

What single thing — event or relationship — has resulted in the most positive or healing consequences in your life?

My mind immediately started flipping through a rolodex of faces. People who had hurt me. People who had changed me. Challenged me. Carried me. Mostly people, not events. And when Dr. Sphar asked the room who had thought of a person rather than a thing, every hand went up.

That’s the thing about us. We are wired for relationship. The highest highs and the lowest lows in a human life almost always trace back to another person.

The quality of our lives is largely determined by the quality of our relationships.

Three Relationships. One Life.

A therapy model I was trained in during those New Orleans years — Reconciliation Focused Counseling — is built around the idea that humans are designed to connect in three specific relational domains: with God, with others, and with ourselves.

This isn’t just a clinical framework. It’s woven into the fabric of how we were made.

Jesus names all three in Mark 12: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… Love your neighbor as yourself.” God. Others. Self. Right there, in the two greatest commandments, is the whole picture.

The degree to which you are healthily connected in each of these three areas has everything to do with the quality of your life and relationships. Not perfectly connected — that’s not the goal and it’s not available to us. But genuinely, honestly engaged.

Let me show you what that looks like.

Connection to God

A strong connection with God goes beyond the observable stuff — church attendance, Bible reading, prayer habits — though those things matter. At a deeper level, it looks like this: you feel like you actually have the right to talk to God. You’re not performing for Him or trying to earn your way into His attention. You’re not walking around with low-grade resentment toward Him, or a quiet suspicion that He’s disappointed in you.

A rich connection with God looks like resting in His love. Bringing Him into the actual texture of your daily life, not just the crisis moments. Trusting, even imperfectly, that He has your best in mind.

When that connection is strained or absent, it tends to show up as anxiety (a quiet inability to trust that things are being held), a melancholy that doesn’t fully respond to circumstantial changes, or a kind of spiritual flatness — going through the motions without any sense of being known or met.

Some people aren’t sure there’s a point to connecting with God at all. I’d just say this: every major thread of happiness research in recent decades points to the same thing — connecting with something larger than yourself is not optional for human flourishing. It’s structural. God can be that, in a way nothing else fully is.

Connection to Others

A strong connection with others isn’t about having a lot of people in your life. It’s about depth with a few. You have people who actually know you — not just what you do or how you present, but what’s happening internally. And you know them that way, too. You feel both known and loved, and you extend that to others.

The problems tend to show up at the extremes.

Under-connection looks like a social life that stays permanently at the surface. You make conversation, you’re pleasant, you show up — but no one really knows what’s going on inside you. This kind of isolation is quieter and more socially acceptable than it sounds, and it tends to produce depression over time.

Over-connection is the other edge. This is when a relationship (or a few) becomes so central to your sense of self that the lines blur. You’re not sure where you end and the other person begins. Boundaries feel threatening rather than clarifying. This often presents as anxiety, emotional exhaustion, or a pattern of feeling taken advantage of.

Connection to Self

This is the one that gets skipped most often, and it might be the most foundational of the three.

A strong connection with yourself looks like knowing what you’re feeling and not judging yourself for it. You check in. You give yourself permission to be human. You’re not white-knuckling through life with your head down, and you’re also not so consumed with your own inner experience that every day feels like navigating a minefield.

Under-connection with self is what I know best, personally. For most of my life, I would have told you I didn’t really have feelings so much as thoughts. I was wrong about that, but it took some work to find out. (If you want the full story, I wrote about it here.) When you’re under-connected with yourself, you keep moving, keep functioning, keep producing — and the cost of all that carrying goes unexamined. It tends to surface eventually, one way or another.

Over-connection with self swings the other direction — hyperawareness of every internal shift, a nervous relationship with your own emotions, a tendency toward anxiety or self-centeredness. You’re too tuned in, and it’s exhausting.

The goal is something in the middle: a settled, honest relationship with yourself that doesn’t require external approval to stay intact.

I say it to clients this way: I bring my acceptance with me. Because I have a solid enough relationship with myself, I’m not dependent on what others think of me to feel okay. What they offer me — love, affirmation, approval — is a genuine gift. I receive it gratefully. But I’m not bankrupt without it.

That’s what a healthy connection with self produces.

What It Looks Like When All Three Are Working

Shortly after I moved to New Orleans, I got into not one but two nearly identical car accidents in quick succession. Bless my heart.

The first one felt like a fluke. The second one sent me straight into a shame spiral. Why didn’t I know better? Do these wrecks mean I never should have moved here? Did I misread God completely?

I was in a bad way in my relationship with myself (shame) and in my relationship with God (doubt). And I was brand new to the city — my relational support was thin.

But a friend I knew from home came and found me at school. She sat with me. She was tender and direct in the way only a good friend can be. She reminded me that circumstances don’t determine God’s will, and that it’s okay to be human and make mistakes. She said the things I couldn’t say to myself in that moment.

After she left, something released. The shame loosened. The doubt quieted. And I went home and fell asleep almost immediately — and it felt, in a way that was almost tangible, like the kindness of Jesus tucking me into bed.

That’s what I remember from that night. Not the accidents, not the shame spiral. The tucking in.

That’s what it looks like when the three connections work together. A friend who is healthily connected to herself and to God showed up for me (others). Her presence helped me get back to a truer relationship with myself (self). And somehow, through all of it, I felt met by God in a way I hadn’t orchestrated (God).

We are wounded in relationships. And we are healed in them, too. This is not an accident. It’s the design.

A Simple Self-Assessment

So where are you?

As you read through the three domains, something probably registered — an area that feels solid, or one that’s been quietly struggling. Pay attention to that.

A few honest questions worth sitting with:

• In your relationship with God: do you feel like you have access to Him? Or does that connection feel distant, obligatory, or complicated by unresolved anger or doubt?
• In your relationship with others: do you have even one or two people who know you past the surface? Or is your social world functional but fundamentally lonely?
• In your relationship with yourself: can you name what you’re feeling most of the time? Do you treat yourself with basic compassion, or is your inner voice mostly critical?

You don’t have to be thriving in all three to have a good life. But most people, if they’re honest, know which one needs the most attention right now.

That’s enough. Start there.

If you’d like some support in strengthening one of these areas, that’s exactly the kind of work we do at Crossroads. You can learn more or reach out here.

The post The Three Relationships That Determine the Quality of Your Life appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

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I remember running through a park with my dad chasing after me, mad as a hornet. I think of that now in my counseling training in anxiety and trauma. You’ve heard of fight, flight, or freeze responses.

In that instance, I was fleeing.

Another time, we were at my uncle’s wedding, and I didn’t do something my dad wanted me to do. He was beside himself. He came at me, eyes bulging, red in the face, screaming some obscenity or another. I was 18 or 19. My response was different. It was full fight.

I got right up in his face and matched his cuss words and threats to harm me with threats of my own to call the police.

Freeze seems to be in the middle. Evidently, I am an all-or-nothing girl. I can fight or flee, but just sit there and take it? Not me.

I didn’t know then that I would one day want to be a counselor. I am the master at compartmentalizing emotions, for a while at least. But what goes in must come out. Combustion. The perfect fight response.

I haven’t been physically chased since I was nine, so I’m not sure what my response would be today. I never think about fleeing.

But I heard a podcast today on flight. Since I’m more of a fight kind of girl, I wasn’t even going to listen.

However, I am a counselor, and maybe it could help someone else. I read the caption.

It was definitely me.

Oh my gosh, it said something like my nervous system must stay busy, productive, so I can escape the feelings and emotions that once felt unsafe. Are they saying I’m leaning into work as a flight response? I literally never thought that.

How can working hard and being productive be wrong? Really?

This feels poignant right now because I can feel myself getting sucked into the same pattern. The past year has been stressful. What do I do? I get busy. I lean into work, activity, busyness.

If I’m having an issue with anything or anyone, I don’t like to dwell on it. Work is my socially acceptable escape.

Now I’m wondering what I’m hiding from.

When I sit with it, I realize I’m afraid.

It is hard to sit with fear, to reflect on what you fear without having an emotional response. And that emotional response is what makes us feel the anxiety or wreak havoc on our nervous system.

Unfortunately, all of this usually leaves me up at 2 a.m., not sleeping and writing to God. I guess I’m going to process it after all. The darkness and lack of sleep weaken me to a point where I can’t flee and just have to face it.

At least enough to get back to sleep.

Thank you, Lord, that you don’t sleep. I always need you, but I seem to need you more in the middle of the night. You are so faithful, and you are always there.

Then morning comes. It is light. I have a cup of coffee. I watch the sun rise. I feel hope again. Or so I thought.

I am ready to tackle the day, get busy, and be productive. I thought it was the light of day taking my fear away. Little did I know it was me avoiding it under the banner of productive work.

Sometimes my fears are just worry. Nothing has even happened yet, or at least the thing I most fear hasn’t. It seems like going ahead and getting stuff done isn’t such a bad intervention. That is until I finally stop. And at some point, I have to stop. If not, then I get the gift of burnout again.

God, I want a different path, please.

Wasting my time on meditation or other somatic interventions doesn’t work for this counselor. I can’t sit still that long.

But I have my own trick. I imagine the worst-case scenario. If the worst-case scenario happens, how bad is it really? If I can survive it, my anxiety diminishes.

Then I feel guilty about worrying. Jesus tells us specifically not to. But Lord, you made me Jewish at birth. Some things we are born with… just kidding.

Lord, am I being mean to you? You sacrificed your life for us. You promise to take care of us, but, you know, my worry might help me more. What even?

Okay, I need to get back to basics. I need to focus on Jesus. I can be upset about this person and how they are being toward me, I can worry about this other person, but in the end, I can’t change anyone. So I need to lean into my relationship with you, Lord. It is the only way things actually get better.

I know I can trust Jesus, and I feel His presence. He gives me clarity to deal with the actual stresses that are occurring. Then if my fears do actualize, I will be so much calmer. I might even control my fight response for once and stop the pendulum swing.

This process works for me.

But I don’t want to keep repeating the same unhealthy patterns, even if decades apart.

Why does it have to have a label? I don’t want to be seen as a flight risk or a fighter, for that matter. I just want to be at peace.

I have grown up from the nine-year-old girl who ran. I am turning around and facing the monster, I mean Dad.

The post Turns Out I am a Flight Risk appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

What Does It Mean to Be Buried?

When I ask, “Where have you been buried?” I am not talking about something dramatic or obvious. I am talking about the quieter places in a person’s life where who they really are is no longer what others are seeing, responding to, or making room for.

Being buried is when your inner world and your outer life stop matching.

You may still be functioning. You may still be showing up, working hard, caring for others, leading, parenting, achieving, and doing what needs to be done. On the outside, it may even look like you have it all together. But inside, something feels unsettled. Something feels heavy. Something feels lost.

Sometimes people cannot explain it right away. They just know they do not feel like themselves anymore.

The Signs You May Be Buried

Being buried does not always look like falling apart. Often it looks like continuing on while quietly losing touch with yourself.

One of the ways I think about this is through the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When a person is buried, those qualities often begin to feel harder to access.

Instead of peace, there is anxiety. Instead of joy, there is heaviness. Instead of patience, there is irritability. Instead of love, there is disconnection. Instead of gentleness, there is tension toward yourself and others.

These shifts matter. They are not always signs that something is wrong with you. Sometimes they are signs that something in you has been suppressed, neglected, or buried for too long.

We were not made to live disconnected from who we are.

And yet, it happens all the time.

How People Become Buried

Most people do not bury themselves on purpose. It usually happens slowly and relationally.

It can happen in marriage. It can happen in friendship. It can happen between a parent and child. It can happen in family systems, churches, workplaces, and communities.

One of the clearest ways this happens is through a lack of attunement.

The Role of Attunement

Attunement is emotional responsiveness. It is when one person is paying attention to the inner world of another. It is the ability to notice, care, and respond in a way that says, “I want to understand what is happening inside of you.”

Attunement is more than hearing words. It is emotional presence.

It sounds like:
“I can tell something is going on.”
“Help me understand.”
“That makes sense.”
“I’m here with you.”

When someone is attuned to, they feel safer. They feel known. They feel less alone in what they are carrying.

But when that is missing over time, something begins to happen.

What Happens When You Are Not Attuned To

When a person is repeatedly not understood, not emotionally responded to, or not handled with care, they begin to shift.

At first, they may try harder to explain themselves.

Then they may begin to feel frustrated or hurt.

Eventually, many people start adapting in order to survive the relationship or environment they are in.

They hold back.
They minimize.
They second-guess themselves.
They become quieter.
They stop bringing things up.
They begin to shrink pieces of who they are.

This is one of the ways a person becomes buried.

Not all at once. But little by little.

Buried by Defensiveness, Blame, and Emotional Misattunement

It is very hard to stay connected to yourself in relationships where there is chronic defensiveness, finger-pointing, criticism, or emotional dismissal.

When someone is consistently met with offense instead of understanding, or defensiveness instead of curiosity, they often stop feeling safe enough to be fully honest.

Over time, this creates an internal message:
Maybe I am too much.
Maybe my feelings are the problem.
Maybe it is better to stay quiet.
Maybe it is easier not to need anything.

This is where the burial deepens.

Because what gets buried is not only emotion. What gets buried is voice, clarity, confidence, and often even identity.

The Internal Cost of Being Buried

When a person lives this way long enough, the cost shows up internally.

They may feel anxious and not know why.
They may feel emotionally numb.
They may feel resentment and guilt at the same time.
They may crave affirmation but also feel ashamed for needing it.
They may appear strong while feeling exhausted inside.

Often what they are really feeling is the weight of living disconnected from their own inner life.

This is why people sometimes say:
“I don’t feel like myself.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I’m tired all the time.”
“I feel unseen.”
“I feel like I’m disappearing.”

That language matters.

It often points to more than stress. It points to a self that has been pushed down too long.

Why People Stay Buried

If being buried hurts, why do so many people stay there?

Because emerging costs something too.

Emerging requires honesty. It requires awareness. It may require naming what has not been working. It may require grieving what has been lost in a relationship. It may require admitting how long you have ignored your own heart.

For many people, staying buried feels more familiar than facing what they know deep down.

Sometimes people stay buried because they are trying to keep the peace.
Sometimes they stay buried because they do not want to disappoint others.
Sometimes they stay buried because they have learned that being honest leads to rejection, conflict, or shame.
Sometimes they stay buried because they no longer know what it would even look like to be fully themselves.

So they survive the best way they know how.

And surviving deserves compassion.

But surviving is not the same as living.

The First Step Toward Emerging

The first step is awareness.

Not fixing. Not forcing. Not making a dramatic change overnight.

Awareness.

It begins with questions like:
Where have I stopped feeling like myself?
Where do I feel dismissed, minimized, or emotionally alone?
What parts of me have I silenced to keep things functioning?
What am I carrying that no one is really seeing?

Awareness is powerful because it helps shift the story.

Instead of assuming something is wrong with you, you begin to consider that something in your relationships, environment, or emotional world may have been burying you.

That kind of awareness is not weakness. It is wisdom.

What It Means to Emerge

Emerging is not about becoming someone brand new. It is about reconnecting with who you already are.

It is about giving yourself permission to notice what is true.
It is about letting your emotions matter.
It is about becoming honest about what has felt heavy, lonely, and misaligned.
It is about allowing your inner life to come back into view.

Emerging is often quiet before it is visible.

It may look like:

• naming your feelings more honestly
• recognizing what you need
• setting a boundary
• speaking up where you usually stay silent
• choosing not to minimize your own pain
• asking for support
• paying attention to where peace is missing

It is not always dramatic, but it is deeply meaningful.

Practical Ways to Begin Emerging

Name what you feel

One of the first ways people reconnect to themselves is by slowing down enough to identify their emotional reality.

Ask yourself:
What am I feeling right now?
What has been weighing on me?
When did I start feeling this way?

You do not need a perfect answer. You just need honesty.

Notice where you feel unseen

Pay attention to the spaces where you consistently feel dismissed, misunderstood, shut down, or like you have to edit yourself.

Those places are telling you something.

Stop immediately invalidating your experience

Many people have learned to downplay their own pain.

They say:
“It’s not that bad.”
“I’m probably overreacting.”
“I shouldn’t feel this way.”

A healthier starting point is:
“This matters because it is affecting me.”
“There is a reason this is hurting.”
“I want to understand what is happening inside of me.”

Look at the presence or absence of attunement

Ask yourself whether the people around you are emotionally responsive to you.

Do they seek to understand your world?
Do they make space for your feelings?
Do you feel safer after opening up, or more shut down?

These questions can reveal a lot.

Allow discomfort without assuming danger

Emerging can feel uncomfortable. It can feel unfamiliar, vulnerable, and even scary.

But discomfort does not always mean you are doing something wrong. Sometimes it means you are finally being honest.

A Truth Worth Holding Onto

You are not buried because you are weak.

You may be buried because you adapted to an environment that did not fully make room for you. You may be buried because you learned to survive through silence, performance, caretaking, perfectionism, or emotional self-protection.

But the fact that you adapted does not mean you are meant to stay there.

There is a difference between coping and living.
There is a difference between functioning and flourishing.
There is a difference between being present and being fully known.

Final Reflection

So I want to leave you with this question:

Where have you been buried?

Not as a criticism.
Not as a source of shame.
But as an invitation to become honest.

And then ask yourself:

What part of me is ready to emerge?

Maybe it is your voice.
Maybe it is your grief.
Maybe it is your need.
Maybe it is your honesty.
Maybe it is your peace.

You do not have to rush the process. But you do need to notice what has been waiting underneath the surface.

If this resonates with you, and you realize you have been buried longer than you thought, reaching out for help can be a brave next step. A therapist or counselor can help you slow down, make sense of what has been buried, and begin the work of emerging with support, clarity, and care. You do not have to navigate that process alone.

Crossroads Professional Counseling is here for you through life’s journeys.  We have in-person or Louisiana telehealth available. Call 225-341-4147 to schedule a session.

The post Where Have You Been Buried and How Do You Emerge? appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.

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This may seem like an unusual confession from a therapist, but most of my regular clients already know this about me: I have an anxiety disorder.

I have struggled with anxiety really as far back as elementary school. It started in the way a lot of kids experience: upset stomach. I remember having a sense of intense panic over a crush when I was in 5th grade. (I think his name was Kevin? Sorry, Kevin. It really was me…not you, buddy.) And at many points thereafter, I can look back and see the presence of anxiety in my life.

Sometimes it’s taken a backseat, and honestly for periods of time, it was essentially bound and gagged in the trunk. But at certain points, if I’m being honest, it has been in the driver’s seat.

These days, the pattern is typically that I’ll have a brief period of increased anxiety (a week or so?) a few times a year, and then most of the year it does not play too loud of a role. This balance has come after a lot of work, trial and error, personal interventions, and attending my own therapy.

I have written before how I was a “late bloomer” when it came to emotions, and yes, there is a direct correlation between these two facts about me.

To me, this “sometimes but not always” place is really reasonable, though it took me a long time to get here. For a while, I thought overcoming anxiety completely was both possible and required (good Christians don’t worry, right?). But for most of us, while it never fully goes away, it doesn’t have to be the main focus of life either. It’s part of me but it is not the central truth of who I am.

To put it another way, I have arrived at a place of co-existence with this unwanted passenger. We learned to live in peace together.

Even when I’m not in a phase of increased anxiety, my brain is happy to serve up thoughts that could lead to anxiety. Thankfully, over the years, I have learned to listen for those thoughts and take a corresponding action or “punch back” with another more honest and fair thought, to take the teeth out of its bite, so to say.

Here are a few of the ones that work for me.

If/Thens

One of the “greatest hits” lies that my brain apparently loves to serve up is “the worst is going to happen,” (aka catastrophizing or what ifs). This can be anything from total financial collapse (of my household or the whole world…both are fair options for anxiety to serve up), nuclear war, brain cancer, elbow cancer, or everyone I love is going to leave me.

These types of thoughts are actually pretty easy to spot and refute. And so as soon as I recognize my brain has served up a nice juicy catastrophe thought for me, I get to work either running through the likely actual outcomes or the “if/thens.”

Example: If there’s a nuclear war, they’re not coming for the City of Central. If it gets to Central, there will in fact be nothing to worry about, as we will all die and nobody will be left on earth. (Hey, I didn’t say it was a happy pleasant thought, it’s just a more fair and balanced thought.)

Two-Tier System

One lie that anxiety tells me is “it’s all or nothing.” If I can’t get things exactly like I want, then what’s the point? This one tends to lead to some paralysis; where great is the enemy of good enough. My intervention for this one is to approach the thing with two tiers of goals. The first tier is the ideal tier. Getting it “just right.” Being awesome at whatever it is. Really nailing it.

The second tier is the “good enough” tier. I don’t always have bandwidth to really knock a task out of the park. But I can normally just get it done. And often this is the doorway through which I can get unstuck. Not everything has to be perfect. Sometimes done is sufficient.

Example: When I was struggling with post-partum anxiety (which now people refer to by the acronym PPA but when I was experiencing it, my husband just referred to it as “that time you were broken.” Ha. Thanks.), I had the first tier goal of showing up awesome. Being very emotionally engaged. Making a lot of facial expressions. Maintaining a ton of eye contact. Having awesome feeding sessions. Quieting and comforting him effectively and quickly. (All while liking doing this.)

Believe it or not, I did not have the capacity to show up in that way every day, all day. But! If he was fed, held, changed, loved, and appropriately attended to, that was sufficient. That’s the second-tier goal.

Some days with a newborn, that was as much as I could muster. I was terrified that he was going to die. I had a hard time coming to grips with being needed that much and such an abrupt shift in my identity. I was sure I was going to mess him up somehow. Scar him for life by not doing something right.

But if I could hit my second-tier goal, I knew that other people could fill in what I left lacking on those days. I always knew my best days of parenting would come when he was verbal. And that has proven to be the case.

Was it my greatest season? Absolutely not. Is my son still awesome? Yes! And he’s confident and hilarious enough to tell you all about it. Trust me on this!

This two-tier system has saved me from a lot of shame and getting stuck in the face of anxiety and paralysis when I was unable to operate at my best. I have found an immense amount of grace and freedom in my two-tier system.

Even Though/I’m Still

This next intervention is one I have personally been using a lot lately. If you’ve been in my counseling office the past few weeks, this will probably be familiar to you. As stated above, I proudly wear the badge of being an emotional late bloomer. (Because being late truly is better than never.)

As someone who wants to make space for my emotional responses to things, while not giving them the keys to the car, I want to acknowledge my emotions, not minimize or dismiss them. In doing so, I can work with them and not against them.

I believe in the saying, “emotions are like toddlers. You don’t want them driving the car but you can’t throw them in the trunk either.” They belong in a 5 point harness in the back seat, probably rear facing, depending on age and height!

So what I find helpful instead of my old go-to of minimizing or dismissing or even flat-out denying my emotions is to ground into that reality but pair it with a bigger truth. This often involves the phrase, “even though, I’m still.”

Examples:

• Even though my mom is not happy with my choice, I’m still an ok person and I’m free to choose what I think is best.
• Even though I messed that conversation up, I’m still deserving of grace and forgiveness.
• Even though I didn’t do the right thing as they define it, I’m still a good person.

In acknowledging what wasn’t ideal, I can ground my nervous system in a larger reality that is bigger than any one instance.

These aren’t magic. They’re not going to dissolve the anxiety. But they are the difference between being swallowed by it and staying on your feet while it’s present. If any of these resonate, they’re yours. Try one. See what happens.

Total Percentage

There’s not one thing that is going to be the magic bullet to my anxiety. (This isn’t even my complete list of interventions! It’s just what’s working the best for me right now.) Having a grab bag of resources I can pull from to use when needed gets my total level of anxiety down to a really manageable place.

Everyone has to find that point where the balance is right for themselves. Until you can regularly be within your own window of what you can tolerate about your anxiety, you need to keep stacking interventions.

For me, it’s rarely at 0%. But it’s also rare that it’s over 60%. And on an average day, it’s probably around 15-20%. I don’t think I would be a healthy or safe person if I was at 0%. Some anxiety helps me execute at my job, stay on track with my goals, and make sure everybody’s buckled up.

It houses my grit in the face of adversity because I can continue forward even in the presence of obstacles. And I’ve even been told that a wee bit of neuroticism is actually kind of cute on me. It makes me quick witted and funny.

There are pros to anxiety as well, and for me, finding the sweet spot where it helps me stay on track but does not overwhelm me has been really helpful. Life is not meant to be worry-free. No one has that life.

And honestly? I’m not sure I’d want it. A little anxiety means something matters. It means you’re paying attention. It means you’re in the game.

If you’re in it too, welcome. It’s a bigger club than most people admit.

I still have an anxiety disorder. That part hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that I’m no longer surprised by it, no longer ashamed of it, and no longer trying to evict it from the car entirely. We have an arrangement. Most days, it stays in its assigned seat.

The tools I’ve described are mine. Yours might look completely different, and that’s exactly how it should be. The grab bag is personal. But the concept of building one? That’s for all of us.

If you’ve been managing anxiety quietly and you’re tired of doing it alone, that’s what I’m here for. Reach out here to schedule a session.

The post I’m a Therapist With an Anxiety Disorder – Here’s What Actually Helps appeared first on Crossroads Professional Counseling.