The ReStory Blog
Understanding the Symptoms of Depression
Shana lost her son, Owen, to suicide two weeks after his fifteenth birthday. According to his friends, Owen was extremely kind, social, funny, and well-liked. So when he started manifesting changes in his behavior, Shana simply attributed it to a rebellious teenage phase. But before Shana could ask her son herself, young Owen had already taken his life. This is Shana's story, and it isn't a pleasant one. Unfortunately, many others are going through what Owen went through, which is why it's essential that we educate ourselves about mental health conditions, such as depression.
Therapy vs. Spiritual Direction: Which is best for me?
“Should I look into therapy or spiritual direction?” As a trained spiritual director and therapist, I hear this question frequently. While therapy and spiritual direction are both safe spaces to talk and receive care, they are quite different. Let’s take a closer look at each of them so you can have a better understanding of which one might be most beneficial for you.
5 Reasons to do a Christian Counseling Intensive in Colorado
Counseling intensives with Restoration Counseling are all about you. Our ReStory Counseling Intensive Specialists set aside 15 hours over 3 days for individual or marriage intensives focused on the stories that have shaped your present reality.
When you remove yourself from your daily surroundings to intentionally pursue healing, a depth is reached in a short time that often takes months and months of weekly counseling appointments.
With individually-crafted pre-work and post-session follow-up, a ReStory Counseling Intensive is highly individualized and delivers extreme personal care.
New Year, New Focus: Setting Goals for 2021 and Why a Life Coach Can Help
As I sit here in this moment writing this, it’s 2 weeks from New Years Eve; I know I’m not alone in saying that I am ready for 2020 to be over and am trying to be hopeful about circumstances being different in 2021. I need to believe that things are going to improve and that we all are capable of the change and growth that makes our lives and our world better.
I think so many of us are craving something new after the mundane and the chaos have both dominated this year. Maybe this time last year, we thought that our goals for 2020 were finally going to help us make that change we’ve always wanted. And then… things happened, and most of us cannot say that this was our most productive year ever. And that’s okay. We had to adapt as we never have before, deal with loss and grief, etc. If all we did was survive the year, that’s okay and it’s more than good enough.
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?
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
Permission to Feel Conflicted Part 2: Honoring the Need to Protect
Last week, we named the neediness of the human condition, the collective prolonged state of distress we are in, and some of the ways you might find yourself responding as a result of the chronic stress. Today, I’d like to explore further one of the responses you might be experiencing: the need to protect.
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.
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.
Growing Older with Wisdom and Awareness: 4 Questions Women Can Ask Themselves
It is not a myth, but my personal perspective that as we age the days, months, years, and season do increasein speed. The number of years of my life have never distressed me but in my yesteryears there were disruptions that left scars on my identity and seasons where few were the choices I was given. The journey of reflecting on yesterday and how it continues to cast a shadow into the present is a path worth surveying. I’ve moved into the golden years, and as I consider the chapters of my life, I’m left contemplating what has been uncovered in my heart, mind, and soul.