I am a stay at home mom with a six year old in grade R (kindergarten), three and a half year old twins, who are home with me, and a new baby due some time in the next month or so. Balancing their needs (also the needs of my wonderful husband, who is usually more helpful than needy) with my needs is a daily effort. Finding ways to take care of myself, while having three little people who are very good at making their wants and wishes known, is not usually easy.

In some ways taking care of myself is very easy for me. There are a lot of activities I like that are self focused. It could be easy to spend lots of time focused on things that I find rejuvenating and re-centering, but I don’t actually prioritize it that much, partly just from lack of clarity around how much to put these things at the top of my to-do list. Continue reading Self Care: How Much is Too Much? →

It matters to me that life is fair. I know that life isn’t fair—naturally—but one of the ways that New Church teachings have really come to life for me is in finding the ways that life is fair spiritually. It has always felt very important to me to believe in a fair God. I have spent a lot of time over the past few years thinking about Divine Providence, and I think when I first was looking it seemed sort of flat and lifeless. But now it feels like one of the most healing, wonderful, and epic teachings in my life because it has showed me that God is universally fair.

Here are some of the passages that articulate some of the ideas that really matter to me. I’m including some long readings here, but bear with me. The story of Joseph from Genesis is quite long (you can read it starting here). It is a story that includes pain, difficulty and loss, much of which is referred to in the quote I am including, but to save space I’m not going to include more of the story. Continue reading Is God Fair? →

“The Lord’s Divine Providence Has as Its Goal a Heaven from the Human Race. I have explained elsewhere that heaven did not originate in angels who were created angels at the beginning, and that hell did not originate in a devil who was created an angel of light and was cast down from heaven. Rather, both heaven and hell are from the human race. Heaven is made up of people who are involved in a love for what is good and a consequent discernment of what is true, and hell of people who are involved in a love for what is evil and a discernment of what is false.” (Divine Providence 27)

Continue reading Letting Go of Anxiety →

I’m sure that I first heard the phrase “emotional intelligence” in the Psychology 101 class I took at university. While I have a vague recollection of thinking it was a cool idea it didn’t really click for me. But now, 10 years later, it is making a daily difference in my life.

Emotional intelligence has a few different definitions. Here’s Wikipedia’s brief definition:
“Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.”

I find that succinct but not very inspiring. This is most likely the sort of definition I was introduced to in school. It makes sense, but has little influence when you don’t understand the depth that this seemingly clear and understandable string of words is really describing.
Continue reading Changing My Life – One Emotion At a Time →