THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Tag: emotion (page 1 of 2)

Christian Mindfulness: How It’s Changing Me

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Christian mindfulness

My father is the broad-shouldered, strong, internal teddy bear type, with fingers like sausages. In my childhood, he was a Midwestern farmer.  In his spare time, he donates his mad skills to car repairs of missionaries, single moms, people like that. He’s that kind of guy.

And it’s common for him to come back into the house with blood zigzagging down his leg or seeping through his shirt. read more

When Your Teen Yells at You: 8 Win-win Ideas

Reading Time: 4 minutes

yells angry

So yeah. That happened.

I won’t tell you which one. It doesn’t matter. And I have this phobia my kids will need to be in therapy because their mother is a writer. read more

I Got a Feeling: 4 Ways to Help Kids Understand Their Emotion

Reading Time: 2 minutes

kids emotion

In my house, we’ve got a lot of big feels. (My husband has dubbed our house’s pet sin “self-control”.)

So we work a lot with managing emotion–so emotion doesn’t manage the whole house, m’kay? read more

Bouncing Back: Helping Your Child Open the Gift of Failure

Reading Time: 6 minutes

My thirteen-year-old and I sat across a sticky table from each other at the local donut shop. If I remember right, he had this maple-frosted thing that was the size of a small planet, totally at my permission (unusual for my Sugar Nazi tendencies). His tears had dried by now, leaving a whisper of salt on his cheeks.

“I just feel like I have more setbacks than wins,” he shrugged, so clearly in pain. read more

Best Posts of 2018!

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Blogging can be a little too much like having an imaginary friend.

Picture sitting at the smallest table at your coffee shop. (I’m having a seasonal special with half of the pumps, decaf. …Because as someone told me, with natural enthusiasm like mine, I should remain uncaffeinated. You?) read more

Why You’re Holding Christmas at Arm’s Length

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This morning I schlepped over to the home a friend of mine. A stay-at-home mom of three preschoolers, she feels limited in what she can offer the community. But my hat goes off to her: She invited an adult day program to her home to sing carols, read the Christmas story from the Bible, and a enjoy pretty great spread of snacks.

Somewhere in the middle of the singing, I remembered that besides just wanting to love on the participants or go through the happy holiday motions, I wanted the carols to sink into my heart, too.

But I also know that somewhere, a part of me resists this. read more

How Far You’ve Come: 20+ End-of-Year Prompts to Journal & Reflect

Reading Time: 4 minutes

As we waltz into December, it’s meaningful to me to look back on this year and ask my soul a few questions. How you doing in there?

David Benner, in The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery, writes,

Christian spirituality involves a transformation of the self that occurs only when God and self are both deeply known. Both, therefore, have an important place in Christian spirituality. There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self, and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God. John Calvin wrote, “Nearly the whole of sacred doctrine consists in these two parts: knowledge of God and of ourselves.” read more

10 Dashboard-light Questions: The Stressed Version of Myself

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Late one night last week, my husband arrived home to tell me we needed to get the car in the shop pronto. I decided to take it in after my dentist’s appointment the next morning (y’know, all the things I love at once: the dentist’s chair, taking an ailing car to the mechanic). As I pulled up to the stoplight, there were indeed some alarm bells going off in my head. You know it’s bad when the engine light is on. But what about when it’s, uh, flashing?

Well. Now I think it’s a little bit like the “blue screen of death”. The engine was shot. And when I say shot, I mean shot. As in, oil pumping out of a broken piston, etc. Even I, with my wee knowledge of mechanical workings, know this is bad.

So that happened.

The Safe Place Series, #2: On Giving Pat Answers the Boot

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Missed the first post? Grab it here. 

I must have been seventeen. I still remember the room and where I was sitting in it. Sadly, I don’t remember the exact nature of the trauma that had come upon one of the youth group members, which was explained as we listened in relative silence that Sunday morning. I do know someone had died. But I remember the youth leader giving us advice about how to help those around them, and I specifically remember this: Here’s what not to say. Don’t tell them this was God’s will.

Ideas for When You’re Spiritually Distracted

Reading Time: 3 minutes
1. Acknowledge and explore it.

Why am I distracted? Am I having basic needs met, like sleep, food, exercise, and white space in my day to think? (Consider grabbing a snack or some yummy lotion to spread on your feet to make this time feel more like “you time” rather than checking a “should-do” box. Moms with young kids welded to thy knees–more ideas on that here. If you’re in need of a few minutes to settle your mind, set a timer on your phone and let your thoughts wander aimlessly. It’s…actually healthy.) What’s appealing about the rabbit of my brain’s bunny trails? Is it a fantasy? Is it feeding a need that I wish I had met right now-like comfort, security, approval, or power? Is there anything in my circumstances making me hunger for this…or is it just my natural security blanket? Commit the “holes” you’re feeling to God, and meditate on verses that direct you toward His complete comfort, security, acceptance, and power.

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