When I was around eight years old, I saw something at our local J.J. Newberry’s store that I just had to buy for my grandpa. It was a little statue of an old man flexing his muscles with a cape and a giant S on his chest. The inscription read: Grandpa… You’re Super The first […]
Sometimes gifts come back to us Read More »
The rain started sometime after midnight. Not the violent kind of storm that rattles windows or sends people scrambling for weather alerts, just a steady Appalachian rain falling softly through the darkness. Before going to bed, I had accidentally left the door cracked open, and during the night the opening widened and the house slowly
Open Windows, Rainstorms, and Resilience Read More »
Our relationship with our parents doesn’t end when we become adults. It just changes form. And when that relationship is strained, it doesn’t stay contained in the past. It seeps into identity, into marriage, into how we see ourselves in the mirror. For better or worse, our parents are our first reference point for what
The Long Shadow of Our Parents Read More »
One of the hardest parts of being a counselor, or a teacher, for that matter, is learning how to care deeply without getting swept up in every new wave of mental-health awareness or trend. Often, someone walks into our counseling office or students speak up in my classes and say, “I just want to know
Over the years, I’ve noticed that when I speak about the diagnosis and overdiagnosis of children, or the growing tendency to label every challenge as a mental health disorder, some people assume I’m speaking from a place of privilege or outdated thinking. I understand why. I don’t fit the profile of what many would call
Pt 1 – When Labels Become Identities: What decades of experience have taught me. Read More »
When I was twelve or thirteen, my parents came home from what felt like a spiritual revival for families. They’d just returned from one of Bill Gothard’s weeklong Basic Youth Conflicts seminars; those massive evangelical events that could fill entire stadiums in the 1970s and early 80s. They brought back binders, books, games, and a
We’ve become a culture of shortcuts. Quick dopamine hits instead of slow growth. Virtual affection instead of human touch. Excuses instead of effort. And while some substitutes come from heartbreak or loss and deserve compassion, others are chosen out of fear, laziness, or comfort. Let me start with empathy. Not everyone has access to what
Stop Accepting Substitutes Read More »