Videos

We all yearn for security. There’s an inherent need deep within the fiber of our being that desires to be able to lean on and lean into the things around us, knowing with assuredness that when we do they will hold us firm and steady. We want life to be safe because we have a passion to engage life. And to engage life out to its furthest edges, we must of necessity step out of ourselves and into that which is around us. To do that, we by nature need some degree of safety.  Betrayal takes trust and cruelly uses it to the advantage or purpose of the one initiating the betrayal. More often than not, the agenda in betrayal is self-centered. It’s about using trust to achieve an agenda that trust was not extended to achieve. Betrayal is taking a great gift and using it against the giver. Something painful and at times barbaric is perpetrated in betrayal. And we are left with feelings that are anything but safe.  This video uniquely discusses the issue of betrayal while outlining several, basic approaches to begin the process of dealing with and healing from our betrayal.

When it comes to forgiveness, someone once said that “forgiveness is divine.” It seems that the task of forgiving, especially forgiving those really deep offenses, is so difficult at times that it feels like it must be divine because we’re certainly struggling with it.  Many of us walk around day-in and day-out with this raging anger, or gnawing bitterness, or this deep resentment, or some degree of outright hatred, or an insistent yearning for revenge, or all of the above. And carrying all of these, or some of these resolves nothing. Now, it’s not to say that what was done to us wouldn’t naturally result in these kinds of feelings. In fact, our feelings might be quite normal and even appropriate given what happened to us. However, despite the potential appropriateness of these feelings, I don’t think we want to live out our lives carrying them around with us.

It seems that we’re all seeking this thing that we call happiness. In reality, a definition of happiness is fairly easy to find. The American College Dictionary defines happiness as a “state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy,” or “emotions experienced when in a state of well-being”. Aristotle defined happiness as “flourishing.” Others suggest that happiness is really synonymous for ‘joy’ which the Bible essentially describes as a peace that is possessed regardless of the circumstances.  Well while the basic definition is not hard to understand, genuinely experiencing happiness is terribly elusive for most of us. The desire for happiness seems to be quite universal. It seems that we all want to be happy and that a lot of our time, our efforts, and our energies seem to be spent in trying to find it, and then attempting to hold onto it once we’ve found it. And quite obviously, most of our unhappiness rests in the fact that we haven’t found happiness, maybe because we don’t exactly understand what it is.  This video outlines several basic concepts of happiness that we too rarely consider or work into the fabric of our lives. Doing so can begin to experience this elusive thing we call happiness.

Most people deal with some degree of low self-esteem. All of us are at times plagued and even crippled by self-doubt, lack of confidence and outright fear that we’re not good enough. Most of these feelings don’t truly represent who we are, but we’ve come to believe them nonetheless.  And in believing them, we’ve incorporated them into our lives to the point that we begin living out the very things that don’t represent who we are. Such an existence marginalizes who we are and what we are truly capable of becoming. There are several fundamental things we can do to begin the process of turning our self-esteem around. This brief video outlines some key insights to begin this important rebuilding process.

We all walk to some cadence in our lives. There’s some drum who’s beat we march to. But what is it? What is the thing that sets the cadence of our lives? And once we discover what it is, is it something that we should be marching to? This brief video raises some interesting questions about who or what we’re marching to.

Too often we feel that a fresh start is virtually impossible. We look at life and the mess we’ve made of it, utterly convinced that we will live out our days wallowing in the poor decisions and less than healthy choices we’ve made.  We find ourselves standing before our future believing that it will be nothing more than a sad repeat of our past. We can’t believe that we can take what we’ve done and who we’ve become and do little more than trudge forward. This brief video outlines a fresh and encouraging way to look at our futures as full of bold possibilities and new opportunities that we simply couldn’t believe would be possible.

Common sense is not all that common. Once we abandon common sense we set ourselves up for great failure and tremendous pain. This brief video outlines key reasons why we abandon common sense and what we need to do to reclaim it.

As tragic as it is, roughly fifty percent of first time marriages end in divorce. Numerous couples who enter a life-long relationship with the best of intentions end up separating with various degrees of hatred, animosity, bitterness and anger. The pain that follows can be utterly devastating, scarring many for a lifetime. Because of the immensity of the loss and the seemingly innumerable implications, we see divorce as that thing that will disrupt our lives so completely that we will live out a marginalized and handicapped existence. This brief video outlines some key but basic steps that can be taken to begin the process of deep healing and potent restoration to move us forward to a future we thought impossible.

Most of us don’t thrive, and I find that incredibly tragic. If you think about it, it seems that we get caught up in the everyday stuff of life and living. And over time, the day-in and day-out routine of fulfilling obligations, of taking care of tasks, of solving the problems that are part of life, and just getting everything done becomes the sum total of our existence. Over time, completing these things becomes our definition of life. We begin to believe that the sum total of our purpose and the rational for our existence is to carry these things out. And when this becomes our mentality, we’re not thriving. In reality all we’re doing is surviving.  It’s not that these tasks are unimportant or that we should try to avoid them. It’s not about avoiding or minimizing the obligations that are ours. It’s not about that at all. Rather, it’s about realizing that life is far more than the sum total of the tasks that we have to complete every day. It’s realizing that we’re all here for a reason that’s far beyond the tasks that we complete. It’s understanding that if the tasks become mistaken for that greater purpose, we’ll do nothing more than survive.  There are several initial steps to moving from surviving to thriving. Implementing these steps can lead us to a life of liberation and freedom.

Communication is certainly an art. Unfortunately, it is an art that few master. As an art, there are a few basic keys that can significantly and even dramatically enhance our communication skills. This brief video outlines some basic, but potent skills that can transform our communication.

There’s that still, small voice that we all have somewhere in the back of our heads or deep in our hearts. Yet, too often we don’t listen to it. And because we don’t, the consequences can be utterly catastrophic. This brief video discusses why we ignore our conscience and how we can hear it more clearly.

We seem to have lost a genuine sense of thankfulness. And because we have, we are most certainly the poorer for it. This brief video outlines practical and potent ways to recapture an authentic sense of thankfulness that both enriches and transforms our lives on numerous levels.

What do I really value? Too often we don’t ask that question to the degree that we should. What we need to realize is that what we value dictates what we do and what we don’t do. What we value will decide where we will end up or where we won’t end up. This brief video suggests several key ideas to assist us in determining what we value so that we can better understand both ourselves and our journey.

The interesting thing about wisdom is it’s absence. Too often in the world around us we don’t see decisions that appear to be wise. While the world seems rather void of wisdom, we would be wise to aggressively and carefully incorporate wisdom into our lives. This brief video suggests several behaviors that get in the way of engendering wisdom in our lives.