Browse Tag by self-care
all i ever wrote, Contemplative Practice, Embodiment, Emotional Support, Facing Challenge, Healing, Love, Mindfulness, Peace, Poetry, Resilience, Self-care

Poem: Against Despair

Contemplative Practice, Embodiment, Emotional Support, Facing Challenge, Grief, Healing, Love, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Wellness

The Practice of Savoring

In July, my aunt Hilde left her body. After suffering from a brief illness, she left us to be with the Lord forever. During her life, she carried a beautiful joy for many things: music and singing, delicious food, travel, writing and reading, fashion, and for her service as a nurse, service she fulfilled for nearly 50 years. She lived with a true “zest for life,” as my mother calls it; she loved celebrations and gatherings, and had so many amazing experiences during her lifetime.

I was sitting in the park thinking about her, as I looked upon the horizon, where the sun was setting in a gorgeous array of colors. I thought about how our souls are given this bodily vessel and how to have that experience is a blessing. We tend to lose our awareness that it is a gift to dwell in a body, even if that body has aches and pains or things we might wish to change.

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all i ever wrote, Contemplative Practice, Digital Offerings, Emotional Support, Healing, Healing Journaling, Morning Pages, Personal Growth, Prayer, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice

New e-book! Healing Journaling: Writing in the Presence of God

I’m so excited to share a new resource with you! Now available for digital download is Healing Journaling: Writing in the Presence of God.

Journaling has been a practice of mine since I was a child. My mother still gifts me the most beautiful journals for my birthday, and I wonder if she prays over them before giving them to me, because I always end up experiencing beautiful revelations through the journaling I do in them.

Healing journaling is meeting yourself and God on the page through your most intimate reflections. Journaling can be a form of prayer, a true spiritual practice, when approached with intention. It can help you:

Develop your relationship with God

Understand yourself better

Foster your personal development and growth

Discover your wounds so that they can be healed

Find and develop your personal voice

…and so much more!

This 26-page resources guides you through five healing journaling practices, with tips for how to incorporate them into your life. You’ll gain encouragement and practical tips for starting or developing this practice, which will help you strengthen your connection with God and with your own heart.

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Calling & Life Purpose, Healing, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Spirituality

A Love Letter to You About Your Calling & Purpose

Your calling has already found you.

I was meeting with my spiritual director recently and I said, “I feel like my calling chose me – like: it has me; I don’t have it.” I was describing the experience of feeling carried by something larger than myself, for a greater purpose (which is a huge blessing, by the way), and not having ultimate control in that process.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since, how I’ve come far enough now in life to understand that our vocations and callings are not something we have to struggle to figure out. I think we’re born into a purpose and that just by living our lives authentically, we can walk our way right into it, discover that we’re part of something larger, have been placed here for a specific and worthwhile reason for being.

A lot of the time we resist, insistent on trying to accomplish the way of our own choosing. I’m sure that sometimes the two are in alignment – what we want for our life’s mission and what life wants of us – but other times, and especially if our path is not meant to be a traditional one, not the way of the crowd, we try and go another way. The way our culture, parents, peer group, or schooling dictates for us. From the time we’re born, voices are constantly shouting “This is who you are.” Part of our life journey is to discover who we really are, what we have been created for, and what life wants to create for and through us. Then to have the courage to say to the world at some point, “This is who I am.”

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