habits on Anxiety

Have you ever seen As Good As It Gets, the late-nineties film starring Jack Nicholson? In it, Nicholson plays a cranky, misanthropic writer in New York City, snapping at anyone who crosses his p...

I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels so much like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that have become habitual…I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the ...

According to the groundbreaking book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, his research tells us that cravings drive our “habit loops.” Some of us crave escape or relaxation through the habit of a g...

For generations, psychologists thought that virtually all self-defeating behavior was caused by repression. I have now come to believe that addiction is a separate and even more self-defeating force t...

On retreat we stop avoiding the pain of the disconnect between our deepest desires and the way we are actually living. We have time and space to reflect on our life rhythms to see if they are really w...

It’s human nature to resist change—particularly when it comes in the form of adversity or challenges. But change is inevitable, and developing the trait of resilience helps us not only survive change,...

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

Perhaps you have been ensnared by a sinful habit that you will not abandon, and your guilt is so overwhelming you are ashamed to approach Christ. Whatever the reason for your broken intimacy with God,...

The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.

Freedom is found when undesirable habits are identified and the cue-routine-reward structure is defined, pulled apart, and reframed. In the context of our discussion, the cue is a desire for comfort, ...

Holy Lord, High Priest over all people, You have given us everything we need to live a life of flourishing. You have met our needs and provided a model for what a life-with-God looks like. But we oft...

Merciful God, in your gracious presence we confess our sin and the sin of this world. We are a people torn apart by racial, national, social, and theological divisions. We fail to welcome the foreigne...

Give me chastity and continency—but not yet!

Habits are the thought and emotional patterns engraved on our minds. These internal habit patterns play just as forceful a role as external influences on our actions – in fact, perhaps more so.

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.

Our brains need to engage and make decisions again, instead of floating along the paths of least resistance.

An atheist fell off a cliff. As he tumbled downward, he caught hold of the branch of a small tree. There he hung between heaven above and the rocks a thousand feet below, knowing he wasn’t going to be...

Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The structure was completel...

Gratitude is a habit of awareness that reshapes our self-understanding and the moral choices we make in the world. In short, gratitude is an ethic, a coherent set of principles and practices related t...

Living for what gives or maintains the greatest amount of personal comfort is our long-established habit. At the core, that’s what comfort is—it’s a habit, a way of life. Comfort has become the defaul...

By servitude to passion, habit is formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomes necessity. By these links . . . connected one to another . . . a harsh bondage held me under restraint.

Merciful God, in baptism you promise forgiveness and new life, making us part of the body of Christ. We confess that we remain preoccupied with ourselves, separated from one another. We cling to destr...

For the past two weeks, the Strachan family has been living, working, and playing in Southern California, primarily at the beach, thanks to a close friend (yes, I know how ridiculously blessed we are)...

What Determines Happiness?  Imagine a movie theater full of a hundred people. These hundred individuals represent the full continuum of happiness: Some are exceptionally happy, others less so, and ...

I once heard a sermon that compared believers to commercials for God. “And God doesn’t need any bad commercials,” I remember the preacher saying. It stuck with me, and from then on I often made decisi...

Gracious God–who opens Your arms wide to welcome us just as we are but who’s too loving leave us that way: in response to Your invitation we come humbly and boldly with our broken hearts and weak hand...

Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

We often get into ruts, on treadmills, caught up in patterns and habits that aren't useful. We don't stop to ask, what can I learn from this week that will keep next week from essentially bein...

A 2014 study by Wendy Wood found that approximately 40% of people’s daily activities are performed out of habit. According to Wood, “an important characteristic of a habit is that it’s automatic…We fi...