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Post by Sophia M. on Apr 4, 2015 15:19:47 GMT
This thread will list and describe various resources that have helped me make paradigm shifts for healthier relationships in the past couple decades. The very first thing my own pastoral counselor "diagnosed" about my symptoms of distress when I started seeking help 20 years ago was this: "you seem to be suffering from a lack of significant relationships." That seemed unbelievable at first. I had a big family network, a variety of friends, an active social life and a highly functional set of behaviors in my professional, artistic and religious spheres. Something inside, though, was empty and terrified.
This "suffering from a lack of significant relationships" condition is a helpful definition for that word we call "sin" because it does not concern itself with blaming and shaming, or hiding and denying the various symptoms and behaviors that we usually focus on as "sins", but rather requires us to seek a deeper understanding of the interpersonal, and even intra-personal maladies we have in our relationships with intimate partners, family members, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, our own self, and of course our Creator. It is possible to re-conceive of the whole conversion into Christ's way as a lifetime of re-learning to practice "right relationship" or "getting love figured out". The process that starts with recognizing how much we are suffering from a lack of wholeness in our relationships. We begin to re-see the Scriptures as a place to understand the difference between relationship-orientation and rule-orientation. Often the Bible is presented to us as a thick and complex morality code or axiom source (which is why we might become overly reliant upon Church-orderish secondary texts to keep it all systematically sorted and ordered.) It has been exhilarating to rediscover these books of the Bible working together as a non-systematic multi-genred story of God drawing his creatures, all of them, into a healthy, delightful relationship with one another.
If you cannot access a counselor or make direct links to a supportive friend right now to explore new ways of seeking wholeness (shalom) in relationships, it's good news that there are many people that you can connect with "virtually" through the medium of print book or published website. Mediated contact can't replace face-to-face real-time contact with a loving gracious friend, because people need embodied love. They can help you get through a time when that kind of access is not available for some reason. There are many resources I keep near by and return to them often. Here are two for today, I will post 2 at a time in coming weeks on this thread:
1. biblegateway.org Select the letter to the Galatians and choose The Message paraphrase and read it out loud to yourself in one sitting. Read this letter straight through out loud, whenever you can, imagining Paul's frustration that people were relapsing into a slave's fear-based relationship with a harsh master, rather than living as free heirs of a loving parent. This new way of "hearing a voice speaking to me" in the Galatians letter really helped me immensely. Paul is fired up to tell others to recognize that slavery to an impersonal rule-keeping system is not where we have to stay. I wrote two columns on a paper titled: "fruit of the life-breath of Christ" and titled: "fruit of a law-dominated existence" (Galatians 5:19-21,22-23) listing the attributes word for word from the Message (it is a fresh way of describing the familiar concepts!) This has been posted in a spot where I see it often for many years now.
2. David Copperfield. (if the whole novel looks too long, the first 14 chapters are good enough for this purpose!) This is a familiar novel for adults and teens. Easily available. But beyond that, it is a resource for you. Especially note David's relationship with his step-father and the step-father's sister. Note the ways his mother and Peggotty are kept from comforting the young boy David during his understandable feelings of grief, confusion, or anger at the circumstances. Write down everything the adults say or do that brings distress to David and ask yourself if those experiences are familiar or normal in your own life. If they are, you are not alone. Charles Dickens understood what he was describing, and his willingness to narrate these scenes from a child's view is a gift for you and all readers from this author, who cares, as God does, about orphans, fatherless, and children of any age who have suffered immensely from the lack of access to a gentle and comfort-giving father (or Father.) Miss Betsey, though ornery and cranky and a bit strange, is an important advocate in David's life. She has some attributes of your own Advocate, who can get pretty fired up when standing up to your Accuser as he is trying to persuade others of the lie that he just is doing the Christian duty of looking out for your best interest.
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Post by freefromprc on Apr 4, 2015 21:39:59 GMT
This thread will list and describe various resources that have helped me make paradigm shifts for healthier relationships in the past couple decades. The very first thing my own pastoral counselor "diagnosed" about my symptoms of distress when I started seeking help 20 years ago was this: "you seem to be suffering from a lack of significant relationships." That seemed unbelievable at first. I had a big family network, a variety of friends, an active social life and a highly functional set of behaviors in my professional, artistic and religious spheres. Something inside, though, was empty and terrified. This "suffering from a lack of significant relationships" condition is a helpful definition for that word we call "sin" because it does not concern itself with blaming and shaming, or hiding and denying the various symptoms and behaviors that we usually focus on as "sins", but rather requires us to seek a deeper understanding of the interpersonal, and even intra-personal maladies we have in our relationships with intimate partners, family members, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, our own self, and of course our Creator. It is possible to re-conceive of the whole conversion into Christ's way as a lifetime of re-learning to practice "right relationship" or "getting love figured out". The process that starts with recognizing how much we are suffering from a lack of wholeness in our relationships. We begin to re-see the Scriptures as a place to understand the difference between relationship-orientation and rule-orientation. Often the Bible is presented to us as a thick and complex morality code or axiom source (which is why we might become overly reliant upon Church-orderish secondary texts to keep it all systematically sorted and ordered.) It has been exhilarating to rediscover these books of the Bible working together as a non-systematic multi-genred story of God drawing his creatures, all of them, into a healthy, delightful relationship with one another. If you cannot access a counselor or make direct links to a supportive friend right now to explore new ways of seeking wholeness (shalom) in relationships, it's good news that there are many people that you can connect with "virtually" through the medium of print book or published website. Mediated contact can't replace face-to-face real-time contact with a loving gracious friend, because people need embodied love. They can help you get through a time when that kind of access is not available for some reason. There are many resources I keep near by and return to them often. Here are two for today, I will post 2 at a time in coming weeks on this thread: 1. biblegateway.org Select the letter to the Galatians and choose The Message paraphrase and read it out loud to yourself in one sitting. Read this letter straight through out loud, whenever you can, imagining Paul's frustration that people were relapsing into a slave's fear-based relationship with a harsh master, rather than living as free heirs of a loving parent. This new way of "hearing a voice speaking to me" in the Galatians letter really helped me immensely. Paul is fired up to tell others to recognize that slavery to an impersonal rule-keeping system is not where we have to stay. I wrote two columns on a paper titled: "fruit of the life-breath of Christ" and titled: "fruit of a law-dominated existence" (Galatians 5:19-21,22-23) listing the attributes word for word from the Message (it is a fresh way of describing the familiar concepts!) This has been posted in a spot where I see it often for many years now. 2. David Copperfield. (if the whole novel looks too long, the first 14 chapters are good enough for this purpose!) This is a familiar novel for adults and teens. Easily available. But beyond that, it is a resource for you. Especially note David's relationship with his step-father and the step-father's sister. Note the ways his mother and Peggotty are kept from comforting the young boy David during his understandable feelings of grief, confusion, or anger at the circumstances. Write down everything the adults say or do that brings distress to David and ask yourself if those experiences are familiar or normal in your own life. If they are, you are not alone. Charles Dickens understood what he was describing, and his willingness to narrate these scenes from a child's view is a gift for you and all readers from this author, who cares, as God does, about orphans, fatherless, and children of any age who have suffered immensely from the lack of access to a gentle and comfort-giving father (or Father.) Miss Betsey, though ornery and cranky and a bit strange, is an important advocate in David's life. She has some attributes of your own Advocate, who can get pretty fired up when standing up to your Accuser as he is trying to persuade others of the lie that he just is doing the Christian duty of looking out for your best interest. Annelm, thank you very much for taking the time to post this. I look forward to your future posts as well. Keep in mind that many many people read and do not comment for various reasons. This site has received an enormous amount of traffic, so do not be disappointed if there are not written responses, and please continue these posts!
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seeker
Seminary Student
Posts: 351
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Post by seeker on Apr 4, 2015 21:42:43 GMT
Maybe admin could move this thread to the narthex so non members could also benefit?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2015 0:27:19 GMT
Keep it coming Annelm. Beautiful sharing from your experience and from your heart. Wonderful inspiration, grace filled...good stuff.
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Post by Joacom on Apr 5, 2015 4:37:00 GMT
This thread will list and describe various resources that have helped me make paradigm shifts for healthier relationships in the past couple decades. The very first thing my own pastoral counselor "diagnosed" about my symptoms of distress when I started seeking help 20 years ago was this: "you seem to be suffering from a lack of significant relationships." That seemed unbelievable at first. I had a big family network, a variety of friends, an active social life and a highly functional set of behaviors in my professional, artistic and religious spheres. Something inside, though, was empty and terrified. This "suffering from a lack of significant relationships" condition is a helpful definition for that word we call "sin" because it does not concern itself with blaming and shaming, or hiding and denying the various symptoms and behaviors that we usually focus on as "sins", but rather requires us to seek a deeper understanding of the interpersonal, and even intra-personal maladies we have in our relationships with intimate partners, family members, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, our own self, and of course our Creator. It is possible to re-conceive of the whole conversion into Christ's way as a lifetime of re-learning to practice "right relationship" or "getting love figured out". The process that starts with recognizing how much we are suffering from a lack of wholeness in our relationships. We begin to re-see the Scriptures as a place to understand the difference between relationship-orientation and rule-orientation. Often the Bible is presented to us as a thick and complex morality code or axiom source (which is why we might become overly reliant upon Church-orderish secondary texts to keep it all systematically sorted and ordered.) It has been exhilarating to rediscover these books of the Bible working together as a non-systematic multi-genred story of God drawing his creatures, all of them, into a healthy, delightful relationship with one another. If you cannot access a counselor or make direct links to a supportive friend right now to explore new ways of seeking wholeness (shalom) in relationships, it's good news that there are many people that you can connect with "virtually" through the medium of print book or published website. Mediated contact can't replace face-to-face real-time contact with a loving gracious friend, because people need embodied love. They can help you get through a time when that kind of access is not available for some reason. There are many resources I keep near by and return to them often. Here are two for today, I will post 2 at a time in coming weeks on this thread: 1. biblegateway.org Select the letter to the Galatians and choose The Message paraphrase and read it out loud to yourself in one sitting. Read this letter straight through out loud, whenever you can, imagining Paul's frustration that people were relapsing into a slave's fear-based relationship with a harsh master, rather than living as free heirs of a loving parent. This new way of "hearing a voice speaking to me" in the Galatians letter really helped me immensely. Paul is fired up to tell others to recognize that slavery to an impersonal rule-keeping system is not where we have to stay. I wrote two columns on a paper titled: "fruit of the life-breath of Christ" and titled: "fruit of a law-dominated existence" (Galatians 5:19-21,22-23) listing the attributes word for word from the Message (it is a fresh way of describing the familiar concepts!) This has been posted in a spot where I see it often for many years now. 2. David Copperfield. (if the whole novel looks too long, the first 14 chapters are good enough for this purpose!) This is a familiar novel for adults and teens. Easily available. But beyond that, it is a resource for you. Especially note David's relationship with his step-father and the step-father's sister. Note the ways his mother and Peggotty are kept from comforting the young boy David during his understandable feelings of grief, confusion, or anger at the circumstances. Write down everything the adults say or do that brings distress to David and ask yourself if those experiences are familiar or normal in your own life. If they are, you are not alone. Charles Dickens understood what he was describing, and his willingness to narrate these scenes from a child's view is a gift for you and all readers from this author, who cares, as God does, about orphans, fatherless, and children of any age who have suffered immensely from the lack of access to a gentle and comfort-giving father (or Father.) Miss Betsey, though ornery and cranky and a bit strange, is an important advocate in David's life. She has some attributes of your own Advocate, who can get pretty fired up when standing up to your Accuser as he is trying to persuade others of the lie that he just is doing the Christian duty of looking out for your best interest. Thank you for sharing, may God bless you.
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Post by Sophia M. on Apr 17, 2015 7:09:31 GMT
A couple more "virtual" people:
3. Jeff van Vonderen wrote a book that was meaningful to me at the time I first read it, and some members of this thread may enjoy its contents: Families Where Grace is In Place. It is my sense that many people can be resilient in an authoritarian or legalistic religious community if they are part of a family community which is essentially welcoming to its members. If we are in an authoritarian, performance-oriented family as well as religious community, the emotional risks are multiplied, because we are in a graceless environment whether we are coming or going. If you can't leave your church, or make changes in it, at least you may have a little more influence in your domestic environment, and this book offers some wisdom on that front. If any posters on this forum have read it recently, please share your experience of the book as it has been 12 or more years since I read it.
4. John Galsworthy, Nobel award winner and author of A Man of Property. This is a fiction book, the first in a trilogy, which is an outstanding way of thinking carefully about the dynamics of a marriage in which the husband views his wife as part of his accumulation of property. It was written for an audience which would be highly against divorce and remarriage, to persuade them to soften up their stance. In my view, it helps you humanize people who are experiencing marital agony, infidelity, or disruption, while allowing you to keep your own opinions on the benefits or faults of staying married no matter what. It is also a humorous and enjoyable novel with many interesting side characters who are part of a large family system in 19th or early 20th century England. What I appreciate about this book is that a reader can understand and empathize with the troubled main character Soames Forsythe, while also gaining confidence that if you were trapped into a relationship with a man (or a religious community ) like him, that it would be responsible and loving to do everything possible to get out of such a dangerous relationship. The BBC turned this story into a dramatic production which has won awards: titled The Forsyte Saga. It is a great experience to read the books and watch the episodes concurrently.
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Post by Sophia M. on May 26, 2015 2:36:46 GMT
A couple more helpful resources to share with readers on this thread:
Two authors that have helped me make many healthy life changes are Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. They are clinical psychologists who have been widely read by Christians who are working as adults to make some changes in order to grow in their own maturity and relational health. Many Christian adults find that they may have some difficulties in managing their transition into healthy adulthood (relational, functional, behavioral) possibly due to being raised in families or religious communities that have strong fundamentalist or legalist traits.
1. Boundaries is a classic work of their's and helps with thinking through where you and your life begin and end and someone else's begins and end, so that you can say yeses and nos that have integrity and that are loving to self as well as others. I find the material in this book to be very valuable in family of origin relationships, work/life balance decisions, and even parenting decisions. When I was first introduced to the topics in this book I was surprised about how they applied many principles from the Bible that I had not paid attention to or noticed before. This was helpful to me and did not threaten my core beliefs in God and his loving ways, but enriched and strengthened them.
2. 12 "Christian" Beliefs that Can Drive You Crazy. This is a practical guide that discusses several common sayings or guilt trips that we Christians pass on to one another, phrases that are so common that we think they are Christian beliefs or biblical wisdom. Not all of these sayings are familiar to the group we have been with most of our lives, but some of them are very common, and damaging if we believe them and let them influence us. The authors take some of these phrases apart and show the logical or biblical flaws in place. Very helpful book, I have returned to it many times for reassurance, esp. if I came out of a conversation that threw some of these phrases at me and got me doubting myself and my choices to increase my reliance upon Jesus and his grace for my value and joy, rather than my own appearance of having it together, moral efforts or religious striving.
3. Changes That Heal. Another book that is written for Christians by someone who can put complicated relational and maturation concepts into simple terms and show how relational health and maturity is something that God has meant for humans to have. These authors are sensitive to their audience: Christians who want to keep believing in their faith, but need help finding practical wisdom and advice that is both Biblically sound and relevant to the relational challenges of everyday life.
These are all from the early 1990's I believe and it has been a while since I carefully read them from beginning to end, but I know that I regularly think about these books when deciding when to say yes or no, or talking myself through a panicky situation, or reminding myself that Jesus is the only one who gets to decide whether I am valuable and lovable. Several of them have editions that have study questions or workbook things in the back for personal or group response.
I generally have found these authors and their published books to be reliable resources for my own needs as someone who wants to continue to practice the ways of Christianity, yet work hard to sort out the toxic from the healthy beliefs and patterns that were taught to me. They may have new books or updated editions that I don't know about, so look up some reviews if you want to pick out or buy one or two of the best.
Hope these might benefit some of you as much as they have helped me!
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Post by crazychurch on May 27, 2015 13:54:25 GMT
Some excellent info here. Thanks.
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Post by wallflower on Jun 10, 2015 16:34:23 GMT
Thanks for this. I think I may have some new reading material to pick up now.
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Post by Sophia M. on Sept 14, 2015 10:02:59 GMT
Another resource that I highly recommend is in digital form on the web: a blog area named No Longer Quivering. This was started by a woman, Vyckie Garrison, who was raised in a fundamentalist bible sect called Quiverful. Quiverful tends to put its faith and trust for the future into the project of human reproduction rather than the promise given to us by Christ's resurrection, and so has powerful motivation for keeping the bodies of its women compliant and bound into the movement from cradle to grave. No Longer Quivering is not just for women who have survived the Quiverful movement, but for anyone who has been part of an insular home/school/church culture in which spirituality and abuse are knitted up into each other. The original blog author has stopped adding in her own articles, I believe, but there is access to all of her back articles and other survivors have gathered their own stories and contribute to this blog. There are many many great posts going back a while. The link below is only one of many articles that are very helpful and encouraging to the voices who have contributed on this forum. It describes how the silencing tactic "why do you talk about your past abuse? just forgive and move on" is often used on those who need to connect, tell stories and find a supportive community to give testimony and receive validation about pervasive long term emotional and physical trauma in order to heal. Don't let those people silence your voice now as they already did for so many years. www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2010/08/nlq-faq-why-do-you-dwell-in-the-past-why-dont-you-just-forgive-and-move-on/
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Post by freefromprc on Sept 14, 2015 14:30:58 GMT
Another resource that I highly recommend is in digital form on the web: a blog area named No Longer Quivering. This was started by a woman, Vyckie Garrison, who was raised in a fundamentalist bible sect called Quiverful. Quiverful tends to put its faith and trust for the future into the project of human reproduction rather than the promise given to us by Christ's resurrection, and so has powerful motivation for keeping the bodies of its women compliant and bound into the movement from cradle to grave. No Longer Quivering is not just for women who have survived the Quiverful movement, but for anyone who has been part of an insular home/school/church culture in which spirituality and abuse are knitted up into each other. The original blog author has stopped adding in her own articles, I believe, but there is access to all of her back articles and other survivors have gathered their own stories and contribute to this blog. There are many many great posts going back a while. The link below is only one of many articles that are very helpful and encouraging to the voices who have contributed on this forum. It describes how the silencing tactic "why do you talk about your past abuse? just forgive and move on" is often used on those who need to connect, tell stories and find a supportive community to give testimony and receive validation about pervasive long term emotional and physical trauma in order to heal. Don't let those people silence your voice now as they already did for so many years. www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2010/08/nlq-faq-why-do-you-dwell-in-the-past-why-dont-you-just-forgive-and-move-on/I added bold to your text above - it is exactly the case. How many Pro PRC people have come on this site and asked that people here keep silence and move on. How many times have they come on here and tried to guilt us into silence. It is an effective tactic. Thanks for posting the link.
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Post by mb19339 on Sept 27, 2016 23:01:51 GMT
This thread will list and describe various resources that have helped me make paradigm shifts for healthier relationships in the past couple decades. The very first thing my own pastoral counselor "diagnosed" about my symptoms of distress when I started seeking help 20 years ago was this: "you seem to be suffering from a lack of significant relationships." That seemed unbelievable at first. I had a big family network, a variety of friends, an active social life and a highly functional set of behaviors in my professional, artistic and religious spheres. Something inside, though, was empty and terrified. This "suffering from a lack of significant relationships" condition is a helpful definition for that word we call "sin" because it does not concern itself with blaming and shaming, or hiding and denying the various symptoms and behaviors that we usually focus on as "sins", but rather requires us to seek a deeper understanding of the interpersonal, and even intra-personal maladies we have in our relationships with intimate partners, family members, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, our own self, and of course our Creator. It is possible to re-conceive of the whole conversion into Christ's way as a lifetime of re-learning to practice "right relationship" or "getting love figured out". The process that starts with recognizing how much we are suffering from a lack of wholeness in our relationships. We begin to re-see the Scriptures as a place to understand the difference between relationship-orientation and rule-orientation. Often the Bible is presented to us as a thick and complex morality code or axiom source (which is why we might become overly reliant upon Church-orderish secondary texts to keep it all systematically sorted and ordered.) It has been exhilarating to rediscover these books of the Bible working together as a non-systematic multi-genred story of God drawing his creatures, all of them, into a healthy, delightful relationship with one another. If you cannot access a counselor or make direct links to a supportive friend right now to explore new ways of seeking wholeness (shalom) in relationships, it's good news that there are many people that you can connect with "virtually" through the medium of print book or published website. Mediated contact can't replace face-to-face real-time contact with a loving gracious friend, because people need embodied love. They can help you get through a time when that kind of access is not available for some reason. There are many resources I keep near by and return to them often. Here are two for today, I will post 2 at a time in coming weeks on this thread: 1. biblegateway.org Select the letter to the Galatians and choose The Message paraphrase and read it out loud to yourself in one sitting. Read this letter straight through out loud, whenever you can, imagining Paul's frustration that people were relapsing into a slave's fear-based relationship with a harsh master, rather than living as free heirs of a loving parent. This new way of "hearing a voice speaking to me" in the Galatians letter really helped me immensely. Paul is fired up to tell others to recognize that slavery to an impersonal rule-keeping system is not where we have to stay. I wrote two columns on a paper titled: "fruit of the life-breath of Christ" and titled: "fruit of a law-dominated existence" (Galatians 5:19-21,22-23) listing the attributes word for word from the Message (it is a fresh way of describing the familiar concepts!) This has been posted in a spot where I see it often for many years now. 2. David Copperfield. (if the whole novel looks too long, the first 14 chapters are good enough for this purpose!) This is a familiar novel for adults and teens. Easily available. But beyond that, it is a resource for you. Especially note David's relationship with his step-father and the step-father's sister. Note the ways his mother and Peggotty are kept from comforting the young boy David during his understandable feelings of grief, confusion, or anger at the circumstances. Write down everything the adults say or do that brings distress to David and ask yourself if those experiences are familiar or normal in your own life. If they are, you are not alone. Charles Dickens understood what he was describing, and his willingness to narrate these scenes from a child's view is a gift for you and all readers from this author, who cares, as God does, about orphans, fatherless, and children of any age who have suffered immensely from the lack of access to a gentle and comfort-giving father (or Father.) Miss Betsey, though ornery and cranky and a bit strange, is an important advocate in David's life. She has some attributes of your own Advocate, who can get pretty fired up when standing up to your Accuser as he is trying to persuade others of the lie that he just is doing the Christian duty of looking out for your best interest. Wow-very helpful. Beautiful use of Galatians.
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Post by mb19339 on Sept 27, 2016 23:04:27 GMT
Growing Up Holy and Wholly is the book that first made me realize I was recovering from spiritual abuse. It's written by a professional counselor, who talks about how the characteristics often true of alchololic families (don't talk, don't trust, don't feel, don't want) are also true of many rigidly controlling/abusively fundamentalist churches or homes.
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Post by qazwsx on Jul 7, 2021 10:54:11 GMT
A couple more helpful resources to share with readers on this thread: Two authors that have helped me make many healthy life changes are Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. They are clinical psychologists who have been widely read by Christians who are working as adults to make some changes in order to grow in their own maturity and relational health. Many Christian adults find that they may have some difficulties in managing their transition into healthy adulthood (relational, functional, behavioral) possibly due to being raised in families or religious communities that have strong fundamentalist or legalist traits. 1. Boundaries is a classic work of their's and helps with thinking through where you and your life begin and end and someone else's begins and end, so that you can say yeses and nos that have integrity and that are loving to self as well as others. I find the material in this book to be very valuable in family of origin relationships, work/life balance decisions, and even parenting decisions. When I was first introduced to the topics in this book I was surprised about how they applied many principles from the Bible that I had not paid attention to or noticed before. This was helpful to me and did not threaten my core beliefs in God and his loving ways, but enriched and strengthened them. 2. 12 "Christian" Beliefs that Can Drive You Crazy. This is a practical guide that discusses several common sayings or guilt trips that we Christians pass on to one another, phrases that are so common that we think they are Christian beliefs or biblical wisdom. Not all of these sayings are familiar to the group we have been with most of our lives, but some of them are very common, and damaging if we believe them and let them influence us. The authors take some of these phrases apart and show the logical or biblical flaws in place. Very helpful book, I have returned to it many times for reassurance, esp. if I came out of a conversation that threw some of these phrases at me and got me doubting myself and my choices to increase my reliance upon Jesus and his grace for my value and joy, rather than my own appearance of having it together, moral efforts or religious striving. 3. Changes That Heal. Another book that is written for Christians by someone who can put complicated relational and maturation concepts into simple terms and show how relational health and maturity is something that God has meant for humans to have. These authors are sensitive to their audience: Christians who want to keep believing in their faith, but need help finding practical wisdom and advice that is both Biblically sound and relevant to the relational challenges of everyday life. These are all from the early 1990's I believe and it has been a while since I carefully read them from beginning to end, but I know that I regularly think about these books when deciding when to say yes or no, or talking myself through a panicky situation, or reminding myself that Jesus is the only one who gets to decide whether I am valuable and lovable. Several of them have editions that have study questions or workbook things in the back for personal or group response. I generally have found these authors and their published books to be reliable resources for my own needs as someone who wants to continue to practice the ways of Christianity, yet work hard to sort out the toxic from the healthy beliefs and patterns that were taught to me. They may have new books or updated editions that I don't know about, so look up some reviews if you want to pick out or buy one or two of the best. Hope these might benefit some of you as much as they have helped me! Boundaries is a must! Such a great book.
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Post by qazwsx on Jul 7, 2021 11:04:05 GMT
If you haven't heard of Brene Brown... get to knowing her Her stuff is fascinating, engaging, life-changing, and easy to follow. Her TED talk from about 10 years ago is what really helped her go mainstream. She has decades of actual, empirical data gathered on studies of shame and guilt. She has a couple of books, which are wonderful, but I'd start with the TED. Recently, she's started a couple of different podcasts, and has been guest interviewed by a lot of influential people. She's a phenomenal person. She is also a Christian, but she is intelligent enough to compartmentalize that, so it NEVER becomes a factor in her work. 1) Link to the original TED from 2010: (only 20 min!) 2) Link to the next TED in 2011, which focused on shame: (also fairly short) 3) Link to the third TED in 2013, on dealing with critics: 4) Link to "Daring Greatly," my personal favorite of her books: www.amazon.com/Daring-Greatly-Brene-Brown-audiobook/dp/B07DX6TNR1/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=brene+brown&qid=1625655661&sr=8-3 5) Link to "Braving the Wilderness" (I just purchased but haven't read yet): www.amazon.com/Braving-Wilderness-Brene-Brown-audiobook/dp/B074G5P4WN/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=brene+brown&qid=1625655661&sr=8-4Feel free to DM if you'd like more info on her, or any other support!
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