Conversations with Cinthia

Best Year Ever: Don't Believe Everything You Think, Part 1, with Guest Valerie Kondos Field

How do our thoughts influence our performance?  Our lives?  Cinthia explores the way our thoughts impact us with the help of Valerie Kondos Field ("Miss Val"), UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame gymnastics coach of seven NCAA championship teams.  She was a professional ballerina and became one of the winningest coaches in NCAA history.  Miss Val discusses the way her coaching changed when she learned to coach as herself instead of trying to mimic the techniques of others.

Best Year Ever: Building a Solid Foundation

We all want peace, but how do we actually learn to experience it?  Cinthia explores practices and beliefs that move us toward peace or away from it.

Best Year Ever, Part 4: I Am With You Always

Worry and peace cannot coexist in the same mind at the same time, but our brains try to help us survive and avoid pain by paying first attention to the negative.  So how can we ever find peace?  Cinthia explores Jesus's statement that, when He ascended to His Father, He left us His peace.

Best Year Ever, Part 3: Building a Foundation

Jesus said that obeying His words when we hear them is like building a house on a solid foundation.  Cinthia explores practices that can help us lay a firm foundation for our lives and our year.

Best Year Ever, Part 2: The Paradox of Unbelief

We say we believe.  We want to believe.  Still, we doubt.  Cinthia explores the relational nature of trust and the difficulty so many of us have truly trusting that God is not withholding good things from us.

Best Year Ever, Part 1: Trust, Closure, Guidance, and Self-Management

How can we make this year meaningful and effective, a year that -- no matter how challenging or rewarding, painful or enjoyable-- moves us toward becoming the best version of ourselves?  Cinthia explores the importance of intentionally positioning ourselves in trust, bringing 2018 to a true close, seeking God's guidance to create new beginnings, and managing our own internal and external worlds.

Preparing for the New Year

How often have you made a New Year's resolution but failed to follow through with it? Is there a more hopeful way to approach the new year?  Cinthia explores preparations for the new year that offer hope to make it past January!

The Greatest Gift

In this series, we've established that holidays are usually not a good time to address all our most serious problems as a group.  So where do we focus together?  Continuing our series on family time at the holidays, Cinthia looks further at traditions vs. rituals and the ways positive and negative traditions can impact us.  She continues with a look at gratefulness and generosity in the family context.

Surviving the Holidays with Family

Last week was a great introduction to approaching holiday family time, but this topic was too big for a single episode!  Cinthia reminds us of Jacob's revelation that the presence of the Lord was in a place, and he had not been aware of it.  God is with us, even when we are struggling with our families.  Cinthia also discusses expectations, unhelpful coping skills, boundary setting, and the way rituals and routines can help families strengthen relationships and enjoy time together more.

Holidays With Family: Doing It Better

Ever suffered from a family hangover?  Not the kind that involves alcohol, but the kind that involves waking up and realizing you have over-indulged in exposure to your family's particular brand of dysfunction...  God made family to be incredibly powerful and wonderful, but, in a fallen world, experiences with family can range from mildly irritating to dangerous and destructive.  Cinthia discusses ways we can use acceptance, boundaries, discernment, and other healthy ideas to help us navigate family holidays with minimal damage and maximum enjoyment of one another.