{"id":1616,"date":"2016-07-11T09:42:44","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T14:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=1616"},"modified":"2016-07-11T09:42:44","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T14:42:44","slug":"three-ways-counseling-is-a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2016\/07\/11\/three-ways-counseling-is-a-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Ways Counseling is a Gift You Give Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

As someone who has benefited immensely from Christian counseling, I was thankful to get to write a piece about the gifts counseling offers us for
\n<\/em>Darling Magazine<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"3<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019re still settling into the rhythms of life in our new city, and last week we had dinner with a family that we\u2019re trying to build a relationship with; we go to church with them and our kids are about the same age, so it\u2019s an easy connect.<\/p>\n

As our kids ran around one another, I talked with Lesley about life in the last year and a half \u2014 all of the transitions that have taken place as we\u2019ve moved cities, changed jobs, and essentially started over in our adult lives. I mentioned that professional counseling has been a game-changer for me in the last season of life, and Lesley paused to ask me more. She had recently been considering counseling but wasn\u2019t sure if she should pursue it, or if it would be a good fit for her. Here\u2019s what I shared with Lesley that night \u2014 the three ways that counseling was one of the best gifts I\u2019ve ever given myself:<\/p>\n

1. Counseling helps us to walk the journey of health and wholeness intentionally.<\/h3>\n

Most of us long to live in healthy, empowering ways in our daily lives; we want to respond to ourselves and others with kindness, and we want to live from a place of love rather than fear. But there are very few practical ways to determine if we are actually growing in wholeness and personal wellbeing. There\u2019s not a to-do list that we can check off at the end of every day. Rather, the journey to healing and health is one that will take a lifetime of intentionality. Committing to counseling sets at least one clear step before us on the path to wholeness, and it offers us tools for not only coping with, but thriving in our daily lives.<\/p>\nThe journey to healing and health is one that will take a lifetime of intentionality. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

2. Counseling helps us to own our brokenness and our glory.<\/h3>\n

A good counselor \u2014 one who is seeking to help us rather than trying to appease us \u2014 is a person who will speak truth. And when that truth is about our brokenness and the ways we have failed, it can be hard to hear. But it is necessary for us to come to terms with the brokenness that we carry<\/a> so that we can better understand how we respond when confronted with pain and anger and fear. We need to hear the hard truth so that we can forgive and change and grow. And the good news is that as we better understand our brokenness, we can better understand our glory, too. For we are not solely broken; we are those who are choosing to try again, to ask for forgiveness again, to show up again. We have more strength than we know, and more resilience than we might have imagined. These are gifts that a good counselor helps us to see in ourselves.<\/p>\nWe have more strength than we know, and more resilience than we might have imagined. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

Read the rest of the article here, at Darling Magazine<\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As someone who has benefited immensely from Christian counseling, I was thankful to get to write a piece about the gifts counseling offers us for Darling Magazine.\u00a0 We\u2019re still settling into the rhythms of life in our new city, and last week we had dinner with a family that we\u2019re trying to build a relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,5,133],"tags":[831,778,829,833,124,832,834,830],"class_list":["post-1616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-post","category-life","category-parenting","tag-christian-counseling","tag-christian-writer","tag-counseling","tag-counseling-is-a-gift","tag-darling-magazine","tag-how-to-write-for-darling-magazine","tag-should-i-go-to-counseling","tag-the-gift-of-counseling","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/3-Ways-Counselingis-a-GiftYou-Gift-Yourself-1.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1616"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1619,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1616\/revisions\/1619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}