Michelle Kim Therapy

My brain and I often feel like we’re in a an ongoing wrestle. I tell it to stop worrying...stop overthinking...stop ruminating and it often responds by doing th...e exact opposite. Today, the idea of being kind to my mind surfaced as I was thinking of what my doodle would be. What if I told myself it was okay to wrestle sometimes? That I’m human and have feelings and worries and fears that can often feel very real? What if I told myself to rest and choose peace...rather than beating myself up for what I think or feel? Be kind to your mind. See more

I rarely think about my sobriety in terms of years. For me, celebrating 25 years of sobriety is about reflecting back on trying to do the next right thing for... the past 9,125 days or, more honestly, for the past 219,000 hours. It also means staying humble and grateful that, with the help of countless people, I’ve been able to get back up the same number of times I’ve fallen down. And I fall a lot. The biggest learnings from the past 25 years are twofold: 1. Own the stories and the hard shit, or the stories you’re trying to outrun and the pain you’re denying will own you. The truth will set you free. It will kick your ass first, but then it will set you free. 2. We don’t have to do the hard stuff alone. We weren’t meant to. We heal in connection. This is why it pisses me off when people shove my work into the self-help category. The gifts that have accompanied my daily and sometimes hourly decision to feel instead of numb have been too many to name, but the one that I rarely talk about is how my sobriety has affected my level of self-trust. I write a lot about trust as a marble jar. We build trust like we collect marbles one small gesture at a time. It’s not a big, sweeping act or a single gesture in a stressful moment. Trust is a collection of small moments. We talk about trust between people and groups, but we often forget about self-trust. Self-trust is normally the first casualty of failure or mistakes. We stop trusting ourselves when we hurt, get hurt, feel shame, or question our worth. Here’s how we use the BRAVING tool to think about self-trust: B - Did I respect my own boundaries? Was I clear about what’s okay and what’s not okay? R - Was I reliable? Did I do what I said I was going to do? A - Did I hold myself accountable? V - Did I respect the vault and share appropriately? I - Did I act from my integrity? N- Did I ask for what I needed? Was I nonjudgmental about needing help? G - Was I generous toward myself? Today, I’m putting 25 marbles in my self-trust jar. One for every year of my messy, hard af, wonderful, wholehearted, imperfect, sober life. xo, BB

I believe this quote is by @johngreenwritesbooks a reminder today that our minds can often play tricks on us in times of difficulty. Things can get twisty an...d distorted in there when we’re in pain or faced with disappointment. There is hope, my friends. Your brain might sometimes say otherwise, but don’t let the hope escape you. Happy Monday! See more

The most important gift you have to give your relationships is the ability to show up for yourself. . When you start showing up for yourself, you learn to see y...ourself as God sees you. This means that you start to engage yourself from the core, or center, of your heart (1 Sam. 16:7). You learn how to honor your needs, desires, gifts, and limitations. You start living as if who you are matters. . As a result of showing up for yourself, you will engage other people more authentically. Instead of working to please others, you will start to see them at their core, too. . You will begin to understand that sometimes what people think they want from you is not what they actually need. . It’s no longer your primary job to react to the needs around you. Instead, you begin to enter in with intention. . It’s hard to do the work of showing up for yourself, especially if the concept is foreign to you. In fact, many of us have been conditioned only to show up for other people. Unlearning that conditioning takes practice. . You may well understand how to bend over backwards to meet their needs, empathize with their pain, and constantly buoy them up. Sometimes, this is altruistic and helpful. . Often, it gets extreme. How do you know it’s gotten extreme? Well, typically, you start noticing resentment. You start wondering: * When will someone see my struggles? * Why do they get to rest, while I’m over here working myself to death? * How come no one ever asks about me? . When you notice yourself begrudging the very people you are trying to please, pay attention. Something is out of balance. . To learn how to start showing up for yourself, click here to read the full post: https://www.alisoncookphd.com/how-to-stop-pleasing-others-/ (And, to get these articles delivered by email each Thursday, sign up for my free email newsletter.)

I think a lot about the role of the church. I get asked a lot about it. . Sometimes, I stare at these columns, and wonder - how can these 2 things *not* go toge...ther? How can we mix up the columns and create more overlap? . I am so grateful for those pastors, Bible teachers, and ministry leaders who helped me learn about God, love Jesus, understand how to dwell in the Scripture and in prayer and build a strong faith foundation. . I am also so grateful for those wise thinkers in psychologymostly those who do not share my faith who have taught me how to become more fully human, more whole of heart, mind, and body. I am so grateful for the trauma researchers who have helped us understand how to heal wounds at a deep level, and the scientists who are learning more and more every day about the brain and the nervous system and their impact on our mental and emotional health. . And, I think to myself - how can we bring the 2 together more and more? How can the church teach us how to become not only lovers of Jesus, but also more fully human, more whole as the human beings God made? . Maybe that is not the job of the church. But, I do think at the very least we ought not to leave our experience of learning about God feeling more traumatized, more shamed, and more unworthy. . And, maybe psychology needs to do its part, too. Maybe psychologists of faith need to learn better ways to incorporate spiritual tools. . If you’re new here, this is a bit of an introduction to my ongoing work. It’s also just some #fridaynightmusings . What would you add or change to these columns? . See more

Happy new year to all!

So stay with me on this one cause this one’s tough. Challenging and checking those negative and unhealthy thoughts. It’s easy to give in to them. To just let th...em hang out with us because they’ve hung out with us for a long time. But here are the questions I would often ask my clients when they had these thoughts: 1) Is the thought helpful? 2) does the thought encourage you to move forward or encourage peace in your life? 3) how can you change this thought so that it can fulfill the other two requirements (helpful and encouraging)? So I’ll run you through one that has been very personal to me. Thought: Your body after having a baby is pretty horrific. You look like a whale. You’re not attractive. (You’ll find these thoughts like to live in clusters). 1) is it helpful? Nope. It usually puts me in a shaming spiral. Makes me feel like things will never change. 2) encouraging or peaceful? Absolutely not. When I get deep into these thoughts it makes me want to eat more out of soothing my emotions. It creates unrest in me all day constantly thinking about how my body is gross, how everyone else can see it too...3) can you change the thought? Yep. Here’s the new thought: your body carried a life. Being a mom is a tough job. You’ve lost some of your spare time and sometimes after a hard day it’s nice to sit and have some dessert. Your body went through a lot and continues to go through a lot. It is strong and powerful but there are also parts of you that wants to feel healthy. That wants to be able to run and play with your boy without getting overly winded. That wants to be able to carry more lives in the future without so many aches and pains. That wants to not use food as a way to deal with stress. So, let’s take it one day at a time. And remember how strong you are. So, there you have it. We walked through it. Do you feel encouraged by what I said to myself in step 3? You can feel the same for yourself too. comment if you try this today and it even helps a smidge. See more

It’s funny, as I look down the column on the right, I see the exact opposite of spiritual fruit. . The person yelling at you to starve your fear is terrified. ... . The one loudest about joy is often filled up with pain. . The one judging your doubts is so walled off they’ve stopped needing the God they are preaching about. . Those cautioning you against the good work of your anger are filled with resentment they’ve denied in themselves. . Faking the fruit of God’s spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, etc.) is a form of spiritual bypassing. It’s putting on those qualities like a suit of armor, instead of growing them from deep down inside, where it’s tender. . It comes out like what you see in the column on the right. It’s hollow and lacking in the very qualities that they’re preaching at you. . Here’s the thing: You don’t grow fruit by pretending you are all set. . You don’t grow fruit by denying your pain or your human realities. . You grow fruit as you invite God in to what’s real. You grow fruit by getting honest with yourself and honest with God. You grow fruit by entering into the messy business of being human with God’s help. (That’s what Jesus did.) #soulmending See more

"How can I trust others again?"

I used to be the first one to say, All I need is God. And I really tried to live this out literally. Parts of me worked hard to rely ONLY on Jesus to meet my ...emotional needs. I was happy to give out to others; but I did not know how to receive. . Parts of me thought that was a very spiritual way to be. . Other parts of me were desperately lonely. . The truth is that I didn’t know how to forge healthy relationships with other people. And, in many ways it was easier to hide behind the I only need God refrain. It felt safer, less risky than learning how to do the hard, messy work of being in two-way relationships. . But when the bottom fell out (as it has a way of doing), I needed Jesus IN other people. I needed a counselor. I needed wise teachers. I needed to let my friends know that I needed THEM. I needed to learn to receive. . I think we need to be careful with language that suggests we only need God or that all we need is found in the Bible. I get what people are trying to say (I think), but it’s misleading. It can lead someone to believe that if they do need a friend or a counselor or a doctor to get them through a hard time that they are not quite spiritual enough. . It can also lead people to avoid the hard, messy work of forging healthy relationships with other people. . I’m not saying we don’t need God. I’m saying we take God with us into all of our relationships. God is with you when you are alone, and when you face that room full of people. God is with you as you try to learn how to trust that new friendship. God is with you as you figure out how to say No to a toxic parent. He’s with you as you recover in the arms of safe people. He’s with you as you take in the words of a wise counselor. He’s with you as you think about what the doctor is saying. . Don’t put God in a box. He lives in the hard places. . Who are the hands and feet of Christ in your life today? See more