Category: Wellness
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My Old Testament Class
My Old Testament class was good last quarter. It was very challenging and demanding. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to take it because I am currently working on a new book entitled The Nine Principles of Hope: Making a Difference as a Christian with my friend and fellow student Rachel Hayden, and…
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Heart Breath
By Lita Artis, MA, LMT, my massage therapist One of the most kind and compassionate acts of self-care is to breathe through our heart space. A simple practice of a 5 second in-breath followed by a 5 second out-breath for 5 minutes can not only get us out of our heads and into our bodies,…
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Middle-Aged Expansion: Hope for the Future
I am 37, about to be 38. Antipsychotics have resulted in significant weight gain for me: I am 50 pounds heavier than I would be without them. But I exercise daily and find it almost comforting to not be flirted with constantly when I go out. Perhaps I’m also less of a flirt myself because…
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Trees
I’m trying to describe to my publisher what I would like the cover of my book to feature, and now I think I want it to feature a tree. If I could name one image that gives me hope it would be an image of a tree. Trees are so helpful to our planet and…
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The Purpose of this Blog
In 2015 four years of increasing deterioration of my mental health led to my hospitalization, twice within a four month period, with schizoaffective disorder. I was not informed that I had the disorder until 3 years after, in 2018, because the news of such a devastating diagnosis itself has led people to self-hatred to the…
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Is God abusive?
I can be dramatic, but this takes the cake. Last November I wrote on my prayer card: “There you are, God, helping me see where I have to go and where I have fallen short. My prayers have started to reflect what I want instead of what you are actually calling me to do.” I…
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Breathable Love
By Lindsay Vernor *I am publishing something I didn’t write myself. This essay describes what, had I experienced it, I would have seen as a clinical problem, maybe dissociative identity disorder. It is a powerful reminder that sometimes we experience normal things but because of our illness, we assume it’s not normal. Lindsay writes: My…
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Flexible Routines are My Version of Health
It seems that as long as I have remembered I have been learning about highly successful people and their rigid routines that helped them to be so productive during their lives. One formidable figure took a walk a certain time through Heidelberg every day. Another one would write at least 1000 words a day from…
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Stability continues…: My Grandmother’s Hands
I think that it is important to realize that we are all at different stages of wellness. Medication does not guarantee wellness, but neither does avoiding medication and thinking that you’re well because you are not medicated. I have worked through more trauma in the past few months and am making serious headway in building…
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Christian Mindfulness
“The spiritual practitioner is a symbolic microcosm of the world she inhabits (and transforms). – Coakley, Powers and Submissions Does being a Christian change the way we are? In his book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, Bishop N.T. Wright talks about the virtuous circle, composed of the following elements: -Scripture-Stories-Examples-Community-Practices Indeed, he argues,…
Erin Michael Grimm 