How to Practice Compassionate Self-Care

In this busy world, with its unending demands on our time and energy, it’s easy to become depleted. If we want to avoid burnout, we must practice healthy self-care. In previous posts, I made the case for self-care, discussed why we don’t practice self-care, and talked about how healthy self-care involves both nurturing and limits. Now it’s time to talk about some practical how-to’s. This post will talk about the nurturing, compassionate part of healthy self-care, and next week’s post will wrap up this series on self-care by covering the disciplined, limit-setting part of healthy self-care.

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Self-Awareness and How We Impact People

Every spiritual journey takes us to the hardest realities in our lives, the monsters within us, our shadows and strongholds, our willful flesh, our inner demons.  It is essential that we understand the enemies within us or we will inevitably project them outward on to other people.”  – Peter Scazzero in The Emotionally Healthy Church

We all have blind spots. Our lack of self-awareness can cause us to offend, run over and alienate people we love. They react to what we say and we have no clue why.  We get defensive, and the battle is on.  Both parties are wounded and emotional walls go up and we are left wondering, “What just happened?

Self-awareness helps us understand and manage our emotions. It gives us a greater capacity for social awareness and empathy.  It is a critical building block for enhancing our relationships. Today we are going to take a brief look at what it is and how we can develop our own self-awareness.

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Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. In observance of this important issue, I decided to review the book HUSH and address the issue of childhood sexual abuse.

Nicole Braddock Bromley was sexually abused by her stepfather from about age 4 until she was 14 years old.  At age 14, she told her mother, charges were filed, and her stepfather committed suicide. Nicole now is the founder of OneVOICE Enterprises and travels around the country bringing a message of healing for victims of sexual abuse.

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