All of My Thoughts and Articles
What Is In My Best Interest?
I tend to worry a lot about doing the right thing. When I was little, this worry dominated my thoughts. There were a lot of rules and restrictions to consider. My parents, teachers, and church ...
Why Advice Doesn’t Work
When people come to you with a problem or issue they are dealing with in their lives, what is your initial response? What are you pulled to do? For many of us, our initial response ...
Alignment with the Way Things Are
Often in my life, I’m working to change or improve some aspect of my life. As a psychologist, the people I work with usually want to change or improve something as well. This is all well ...
What is Up To Us
One of the key tenets in Stoic philosophy involves the following phrase: “ta eph’hemin, ta ouk eph’hemin,” which translates to “what is up to us, what is not up to us.” The Stoics thought this ...
We Have No King But Caesar
I saw a lot of social media activity from religious folks the other day about Donald Trump’s executive order on religious freedom: “Praise God!” “God is on the move.” “I praise the Lord for what He ...
Collateral Beauty
I watched a movie recently called Collateral Beauty. The film focuses on the life of Howard, played by Will Smith. Howard is struggling, because he recently lost his daughter to a rare form of cancer. He ...
The Tradition I Wish Christianity Would Borrow From Judaism
I think my favorite aspect of the Jewish faith has to do with how they deal with theological disagreement and debate. Namely, theological disagreement and debate are preserved in the sacred writings and traditions of ...
It’s Just Coincidence? Pay Attention
We all have things that happen in our lives that we chalk up to coincidence. It might be something odd, unusual, or different from our normal routine. But we usually don’t think too much about it, and ...
Fortitude and Engaging Our Obstacles
We all experience difficulties and obstacles in our lives. Sometimes they are little, but sometimes they are big. For example, a few years ago, my good friend Jamie Aten was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. I ...
