What’s wrong with me? I’ve sabotaged relationships, my business is failing, I’ve gained all of this weight, and my life is a mess. Do I need medication? Am I mentally ill?“ He was sincerely distressed and desperately seeking answers. Softly, as I leaned in toward him, I said to him, “First of all, you are…
“My greatest regret is that my eyes did not light up every time my children walked into the room.“ He was in my office because their love with slipping away. I leaned forward and quietly said, “And what about her? (Pointing to his wife). Do your eyes light up when she walks in the room?…
“You never stopped pursuing me and serving me for 50 years!” Those were the words that my friend, Colleen, spoke to her husband, Steve, as they renewed their vows after 50 years of marriage. The words were so powerful, that Pastor Kendall used them in a subsequent Sunday message. Think about that! For 50 years,…
“Mother, can I just always live right here and never grow up?” It was like a fairytale when I was in the garden with her or my Mamaw as a little girl. My mother chuckled and said she wished we could both live right there together. With my Mamaw, we were watching and nurturing tomatoes,…
“Can’t you see that this is not that and that is not this?” He barked out the response when she made reference to what had happened two years previously when we had been speaking of a current crisis. I realized that his 10-word statement was a great representation of what I had just been studying…
“Well for God’s sake, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings!“ That was the husband‘s surly-toned response when I asked him to empathize with his wife whose feelings had been hurt because he missed an opportunity to support her in front of their children. To his response, I explained that we were not addressing his…
Five boulder rocks were towering in the photographs. She had stacked them while out on a hike. She called them “the five giants in her life.” They represented things like the divorce she was facing, financial ruin, terror about her past, horror about her present, and trepidation about her future. You’ve been there. You’ve faced…
I was saddened to hear him say: “I am too old, I’ve made too many mistakes, and I can’t do the things she needs.” After years of struggling, his wife had informed him that she needed things to change, or she was prepared to leave the marriage. As a last ditch effort, he had reluctantly…
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and you can’t train your brain! It’s got a mind of its own!” He was a salt of the earth “good ole boy” … but his marriage was failing. I had heard him say in an earlier session, “If you can’t run with the big dogs, you…