The ReStory Blog

10 Creative COVID Christmas Ideas
COVID, Parent Tips, COVID Christmas Ideas Beth Bruno COVID, Parent Tips, COVID Christmas Ideas Beth Bruno

10 Creative COVID Christmas Ideas

Wondering how to make this Christmas special? Your family has already been home, together, for 9 months. You’ve done all the puzzles, baked all the things, made cards for the elderly, and watched all of Netflix. You are out of fun, new, socially distanced ideas. And, besides, money is tight. This is our 2020 reality, no?

Hang tight. For all you bored but hopeful, weary yet still playful, Christmas-lovers out there, we’ve curated a list of 10 unique, different, creative, mostly free ideas for you to do with your loved ones this year.

Could it be that 2020 is the year you create traditions and memories that were birthed out of Plan B?

Read More
Permission to Feel Conflicted: 4 Ways to Honor the Need to Connect Part 3
Mental Health, Relationships, COVID Guest User Mental Health, Relationships, COVID Guest User

Permission to Feel Conflicted: 4 Ways to Honor the Need to Connect Part 3

Rather than telling you to FaceTime your friends and family or to spend yet another hour on Zoom, I want to share with you other ways to access connection that are accessible wherever you are. Additionally, your need for connection doesn’t solely have to be met through interacting with others (see the previous article about the need to protect). While human connection is deeply meaningful and necessary, you can also access connection through God, Creation, and strangely enough, with yourself. Check out these ideas

Read More
Permission to Feel Conflicted: The Need to Connect vs Protect and How to Still Stay Present Part 1
COVID, Mental Health Guest User COVID, Mental Health Guest User

Permission to Feel Conflicted: The Need to Connect vs Protect and How to Still Stay Present Part 1

Today, I’d like to invite you to receive permission for any and all responses you’ve noticed in yourself- particularly as 2020 continues on. Maybe you’re desperate for human connection, but fearful of reaching out and feeling burdensome. Maybe you’re longing for meaningful time with others, but are so burnt out that you’ve shut yourself off from others in honor of self-preservation and protection. Physiologically, the body can only handle so much prolonged stress, anxiety, and fear before it literally shuts down, taking the form of numbness, feeling detached from your body, emotions, and others, and/or feeling disconnected from your life.

Read More
The Campaign for Being Needy: 4 Ways to Find True Relationship
COVID, Mental Health, Relationships Guest User COVID, Mental Health, Relationships Guest User

The Campaign for Being Needy: 4 Ways to Find True Relationship

All nine months of 2020 thus far have put our sanity and hearts to the test in untenable and unprecedented ways. Isolation, loneliness, depression, loss and crisis are woven into the fabric of our days with a bigger presence than we know how to wrap our minds around. If there has ever been a time where we have needed each other more, we don’t know of it.

Grievously, finding comfort, connection, and the kind of intimacy that heals doesn’t always feel easy on a good day, never mind during global upheaval.

We live in an individualistic American culture that has weaponized and vilified the state of being in great need, the idea of being needy. Certainly, against own ourselves and also at times judgmentally towards each other.

Read More
An Invitation to Bless The Little Girl Sheltering In Darkness: 3 Practical Steps to Take for Abused Children During COVID
COVID, Children Abuse in COVID Guest User COVID, Children Abuse in COVID Guest User

An Invitation to Bless The Little Girl Sheltering In Darkness: 3 Practical Steps to Take for Abused Children During COVID

Over the last couple of days my heart has been welling up for the little girl who is sheltering in place with her abusive and neglectful family. I am believing for her to find strength and be brave as she feels weary of being in a home where there is so much abuse and fear. If she is like me, she is wondering when I will get out of this place, when will I get to see my friends again and what can I look forward to that will bring me some excitement and joy? She spends the days in her room to avoid negative encounters with her family.

Read More
Domestic Violence: The Silent Epidemic in the Midst of the Pandemic
COVID, Domestic Violence Guest User COVID, Domestic Violence Guest User

Domestic Violence: The Silent Epidemic in the Midst of the Pandemic

You are bombarded with messages like ‘Stay safe, Stay home’ but your home is not a safe place, and because of COVID-19, being outside of your home also isn’t safe. Your home feels like a jail, and you feel like a prisoner. You used to find pockets of rest and safety at work or school, but now you are confined to being home, with your abusive partner. Your life before COVID-19 was already stressful, but now everything is exacerbated and you feel like you are in a pressure cooker.

Read More
Tired of Grieving, Ready to Hope Again?
COVID, Grief and Hope Guest User COVID, Grief and Hope Guest User

Tired of Grieving, Ready to Hope Again?

What about hope? Have you wearied of hearing about suffering, and grief and taking time to “sit with them”? Are you ready to hear about hope and what it looks like right now?

Many of us are clamoring for hope, we are hungry for it, we need it, we want it.

Hope for a the bell curve to flatten. Hope for the quarantine to lift. Hope for the market to rebound. Hope for jobs to be restored. Hope for a cure. Hope for an end to the madness of our world in the midst of Covid19.

WHAT DOES HOPE LOOK LIKE NOW?

Read More