A Thinker's Guide To...

In our final episode of this season, we are attempting to wrap things up. Although, the Apocalypse is far from over. If we are going to get through it, we have to do the work.    So the call remains, the question remains - will you continue to change? Or will you go back to sleep? I promise you that the world won't always be this bad. But in some ways, that's the whole problem. When you're in this trauma of 2020, as awful as it is, at least it's clear what the issues are.   At the time of this recording, the world, as always, is brutal. I choose to stay in reality. I hope, I try, to stay awake to the beauty too.  It's a difficult paradox to hold. I think until we learn to integrate it, Apocalypse will continue to come.   It has been my goal this season to help you create a path in which you can awaken to your own depth. I'll be back with a new season in 2021. Until then, you can connect with me on Instagram @athinkersguide or on my website therapyforthinkers.com.   

When I was 12, I made myself a promise that I would be perfect. I'd be a perfect daughter, sister, wife, student, and Christian. I told myself that if I could do that, then I could be loved.     For years, I've been trying to make sense of these many promises I was taught to make in childhood, and the precious few I've remained determined to keep. In today's episode, we're letting ourselves open up to the possibility of the promise of the Apocalypse, and what it will mean to keep promises that we've been made to keep along this journey.     What promises do you make to soothe yourself? What promises do you make to challenge yourself? What promises don't you make, but you feel like you ought to?      Head to therapyforthinkers.com for full show notes and to explore more resources for the curious.   

In this week's episode, we're journeying to the stage where most of my curiosities and dilemmas have arisen...the classroom. Specifically, we're thinking about what it means to take your heart out to examine it, and what happens when you put it back inside again.   I'm sharing the story of when I attended grad school, and the professor that changed me life. He taught me about theology, about the puzzle of our hearts. While I learned a great deal, the heart is still a puzzle to me.   The dilemma of the Apocalypse is, in many ways, to pretend that things haven't actually happened. To have taken your heart out, to have examined it, and to put it back with absolutely no changes made. While tempting, choosing ignorance will never allow us to move forward.   Head to therapyforthinkers.com/podcast for full show notes and more resources.

Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see.   I disagree. Whatever will be, will only be if you allow it to. In our twelfth episode of the season, I'm asking the questions: who are you? Who do you want to be? What lies ahead?    We may not know the future, but one thing we can know is how we want to show up in the world for ourselves and for others.  First, we must learn how to bring our shadow into the light. As we near the end of this Apocalypse, join me in beginning to see the good that this journey has uncovered as much as the painful, and in celebrating the defeat of what came before.   Head to therapyforthinkers.com/podcast for full show notes and more resources for the curious.   

I've told myself many stories over the years. About the boys who would never love me, the jobs that would never fulfill me, and the people who never quite understood me. I even have stories I tell myself about you.  I have many questions about who you are and why you're here. I'm someone who likes to imagine the possibilities. But today isn't about possibilities. Instead it's about the defeat of our illusions, and how hard it is to let go of what we've projected onto others. More importantly, how we long to be seen for who we really are.   In our eleventh episode of the season, we're exploring why we tell ourselves these stories and play out the same old patterns that we're bound to regret. It begins with unmasking our patterns and recognizing them for what they are. This requires you to be able to both truly be in your subjectiveness, while also stepping outside of it to get a more objective view.   For full show notes, head to therapyforthinkers.com/podcast. You can connect with me on Instagram @therapyforthinkers.