self awareness on Pain

What is the shape of your pain? Is your pain a gaping wound? Is it stuffed into the back corner of a closet, or is it neatly categorized and filed away with annotations that no one but you understand?...

"One learns of the pain of others by suffering own’s own pain, my father would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one’s own soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said."

In his poem Cocktail Party , T. S. Eliot captures a fundamental truth about human nature and the source of much hurt in the world. People’s actions are rarely driven by outright malice—intended t...

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

In the intro sequence of the beloved children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood , the first interior shot does not show the host. Instead, in the beat before Fred Rogers appears on the screen si...

Paradoxically, if we wish to become more aware of others and their concerns, there is perhaps no better work we can do than developing self-awareness. Consider the findings of a team of psychologists ...

In her book Confessions of a Beginning Theologian , Elouise Renich Fraser discusses how crucial it has been to listen to her body throughout her personal and theological growth. My body, once...

I was born into this world with a tortured sensitivity. For long I have puzzled over the causes of my psychological anguish.

I fyou look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God, you’ll be at rest.

True prayer is an awareness of our helpless need and an acknowledgment of divine adequacy.

As I have worked to clarify my calling, I have learned to pay attention to my energy levels in response to different activities. If I experience a particular activity as being inordinately draining, I...

Love . . . is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.

The more enlightened we are, the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.

Holy God, we realize that You know us more intimately than we know ourselves. We come before You now asking You to show us our sin, to make us aware of our failings, to open our eyes to our brokenness...

The worse a person is the less he feels it.

Holy God, You are the anchor amidst our fears. You know the sins we can’t even admit to ourselves. You show your faithfulness even when we reject You. You offer grace even when we offer judgment. Forg...

Leader: The good news in Christ is that when we face ourselves and God with the awareness of our need, we are given grace to grow, and courage to continue the journey. Friends, believe the good news o...

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Self-judgment may be the greatest barrier to self-understanding.

Psychologists have estimated that we have anywhere between twelve thousand and sixty thousand thoughts a day. The majority of those—as high as 80 percent—are thought to be negative: obsessing about mi...

Preaching Commentary Peter's and Isaiah's Confessions Jesus calling the disciples from their fishing appears in Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20, and Luke 5:1-11. Yet only Luke makes the beaut...

George Garrett, a novelist and amateur boxer wrote about a transformation that often takes place for fighters who stick with the sport. Throughout their journey to boxing excellence, in which they mus...

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

The unexamined life is not worth living.

We are not always comfortable with the true self that lies deep within us.

The examen makes us aware of moments that at first we might easily pass by as insignificant, moments that ultimately can give direction for our lives.

If I am in denial about my own weaknesses and sin, there will be a concomitant blindness to the greatness and glory of God.

Several times during the day, but especially in the morning and evening, ask yourself for a moment if you have your soul in your hands or if some passion or fit of anxiety has robbed you of it.... If ...

The road to character often involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. When they were in a crucible moment, they suddenly had a greater ability to see their own nature. The everyda...