How can these football words help in times of discouragement? Typically, St. Ignatius’s rules for “Discernment of Spirits” are applied solely to spiritual ups and downs. However, like Bill W., founder of AA, I, too, have found the rules helpful when applied to mental/emotional health. In previous articles, we’ve covered St Ignatius’ first three rules….
St. Igantius 14 Rules Discernment of Spirits Simplified PHASE ONE- Pre -Conversion / Early Conversion TITLE – 3-A’s Awareness, Acceptance/understanding, Action – The way over or through the obstacles begins with awareness of which phase (1,2,or 3) you are in. Then which rule do you need to apply? We do this by gaining a clear…
Codependency If we think of a pendulum of co-dependence: on one extreme there is dependence, and on the other extreme there is independence. In the middle is interdependence. People who are struggling with independent codependents often think they don’t need anyone and that they can do everything by themselves. Or they think it’s just easier…
Emotional, Spiritual, and Physical Boundaries: In the book Boundaries, Dr. Townshed and Cloud remind us there are physical boundaries, mental boundaries, and emotional boundaries. PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES “Physical boundaries help us decide who can touch us, how they can touch us and under what circumstances.” We have learned we begin and end at the tip of…
WARNING: ABOUT INTROSPECTION/RUMINATING The first topic we will discuss is feelings; however, one crucial thing to mention before discussing feelings is ruminating or becoming overly introspective. We do NOT want to become overly introspective. This leads to the black hole. It often sounds like. “I’m bad, stupid, unworthy, dumb. Things are never going to change….
As discussed in the last article, there is a universal phenomenon: our brains are pre-wired with a negative thought process. Everyone struggles with self-doubt, insecurity, or personal criticism. The good news is we are not stuck with what we were born with, and we can learn to rewire our brains at any age! Did you…