Conversations with Cinthia

How Do You Talk To Yourself About You?

Do you ever say things to yourself that would be too mean to say to another person?  What would you do if someone else talked to you the way you talk to yourself?  Our inner conversation directly affects our experience of the world and other people's experiences of us.  In fact, research shows our self-related thoughts impact our health and can shut down our bodies' self-repair mechanisms.  If you tend to take the path of least resistance with your thoughts, going down familiar paths and believing the things your mind tells you without testing them, it's time to listen to this episode.

Negative Thinking Vs. Good Mental Hygeine

We all have thoughts pop into our brains, and we have to decide whether to challenge the thoughts or accept and follow them.  Did you know that these mental choices actually strengthen and weaken neural pathways in our brains, creating "grooves" in a sense that affect how easy it is for our brains to go down the same path again?  Cinthia looks at what the Bible says about how we manage these amazing computers we call our brains.

What Dogs Can Teach Us About Life

No offense to cat people -- Cinthia loves cats, too -- but you can learn a lot from a dog.  How much happier would we be if we learned the kinds of peaceful gazing, openness to affection, excited greeting, savoring of the good things, devotion to sleep, silent companionship, forgiveness, treat enjoyment, focus, happiness, and time outside that our dogs seem to know when they enter the world? 

Me, Myself, and I: Getting Along

We hear often about self-care, and there are lots of lists of ways to care for ourselves.  But if we don't assimilate the "why" by learning to truly value ourselves, acts of self-care can be unfulfilling.  How well do you get along with yourself?  What kind of relationship do you have with you?  Cinthia encourages exploring our foundations for self-value and working out the relationship problems happening inside us.  

Twilight: Change, Change, Change/ Self-Care In Change

Change is stressful, even when it's good change and certainly when the change is painful.  How can we take care of ourselves as we go through change?  To begin, Cinthia discusses the difference between finding the gain in a loss and simply "thinking positively."  She also discusses accepting feelings, learning to relax during pain, allowing others into our pain appropriately, gratitude, noticing, asking God how our specific, individual souls need to be nurtured, and more.

Twilight: The Power of Change/ Grieving Change

In a recent episode, Cinthia stated, "Every gain has a loss; every loss has a gain."  Today she talks more about blocks that can keep us from grieving the losses that come with change (yes, even good change), or can get us stuck somewhere in the grieving process.  There are losses that we grieve for the rest of our lives (e.g. losing a child), but grieving well frees us to accept any beauty that may also be present and honor what or whom we have lost more fully.  God grieves, too, and He can help us in our grief to grieve more as He does and accept His joy, as well.  Cinthia also discusses ways we sometimes hurt our grieving friends and family members when we most want to help.  How can we be most helpful for our grieving loved ones instead of making things worse like Job's friends did?

Twilight: Is God in the Midst of Your Change/Three Types of Change

What are you tendencies when change happens?  Do you intellectualize, manipulate, control?  Do you ask God for guidance and hope?  There are parts of change we can control and parts we have to accept, and there are losses and gains that have to be addressed.  In the last episode, Cinthia introduced three types of change.  Today she discusses more specifically how to these types and continues her look at unhealthy defense mechanisms we may use, as well as the grief and loss process as it applies to change.

Twilight: Beginnings and Endings

We often use our energy fighting change instead of adapting to it.  Cinthia elaborates on the idea that loss and gain always go together and that trust enables us to draw strength for dealing with the losses and to embrace the gains more fully.  She introduces three types of change, discusses the value of fully going through the change process, and lists some ways humans tend to short-change ourselves in the face of change.

Twilight: Helping Us Manage Change

We tend to have trouble with change because it's stressful, regardless of whether the change is positive or negative.  Growth is painful and causes strain.  Cinthia explains that the enemy of our souls wants us to weaken from change, but that God can use it to strengthen us in ways we never imagined.  How is change affecting you?  

Twilight: Using Transition for Negative or Positive

As Cinthia explained in yesterday's episode, twilight is a time of change and is crucial to our sense of rhythm in life. Sometimes we try to avoid change or just get through it, and, in our society, we tend to fight time and try to control it. Rhythm, however, is important, and times of change are powerful. Cinthia discusses ways to make the most of twilight and manage the emotions that can accompany it.