Tag Archives: emotional health

My 10 Top Lessons on Writing

The Emotionally Healthy Leader was my most challenging writing project to date. It required 6 ½ years of journaling, pondering, and prayer, and 1½ years of intensive writing itself. By the time it was over, I wondered if I would ever write again. (My first draft of over two hundred pages, for example, ended up mostly in the trash. So I reread two of my favorite books about the art and vocation of writing– Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing and The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard. Their insights offered me, once again, both perspective and vision. They put words on the complexity of the writing experience for me. My top learnings: Why do I write? I write to become clear (Merton, 10). I find that it (writing) helps me pray because, when I pause at my work, I find the mirror inside me is surprisingly clean and deep and serene. Read more.

Quit Overfunctioning

To quit overfunctioning is foundational to our leadership. In fact, unless we take up this biblical challenge, it will be nearly impossible to raise up healthy, biblical communities that effectively engage the world with the gospel and deeply transform lives. Overfunctioning can be defined as: doing for others what they can and should do for themselves. This is a key task for every leader that requires discernment, courage, and at times, wise counsel from others. The following four realities motivate us to make this a regular topic for prayerful discernment: Overfunctioning perpetuates immaturity. In Exodus 18, Moses mistakenly believed his self-sacrifice was serving the people. Moses became the largest obstacle, the bottleneck to the people’s growth and maturity. In Numbers 11, the Israelites demanded a rescue from their pain. Moses accepted the role. In doing so, he ensured their continued immature behavior. Overfunctioning prevents us from focusing on God’s unique call for our own. Read more.

EH Leader Podcast: Slowing Down for Loving Union

In this episode of the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast Pete Scazzero and Rich Villodas discuss slowing down from our busy schedules, lives and “doing” for God to actually be with God. This conversation comes out of Pete’s most recent book The Emotionally Healthy Leader. To watch the conversation click the YouTube video below or to listen click on the podcast button: EHS Podcast on iTunes

Quit Living Someone Else’s Life

Whose life are you living — your own or someone else’s? Does your leadership reflect how God has uniquely crafted you or are you trying to be somebody you are not? This is one of the greatest challenges we face. God invites us to ignore the distracting voices around us — regardless of their source — and to pursue wholeheartedly leading out of our God-given life. This is no small task. Just consider the pressures Jesus, Moses, and David faced. 4 essential practices provide essential guidance for us in this journey: Take Time to Discover Your Integrity The journey of living your life instead of someone else’s begins when you discover your integrity. This requires recognizing and defining what is important to you. When helping someone who is struggling with an inner conflict, I often ask, “What is your integrity calling you to do?” Most people hesitate before responding because they have rarely thought deeply about what they believe and. Read more.

You Know You’re Not Doing Endings Well When…

Why are endings and transitions so poorly handled in our ministries, organizations, and teams? Why do we often miss God’s new beginnings, and the new work He is doing? We miss seeing what is ahead in part because we fail to apply a central theological truth — that death is a necessary prelude to resurrection. To bear long-term fruit for Christ, we need to recognize that some things must die so something new can grow. If we do not embrace this reality, we will tend to dread endings as signs of failure rather than opportunities for something new. Use the list of statements that follow to briefly assess your approach to endings and new beginnings: You Know You’re Not Doing Endings and New Beginnings Well When . . . You can’t stop ruminating about something from the past. You use busyness as an excuse to avoid taking time to grieve endings and losses or to allow for the. Read more.

Why Can’t We Slow Down?

Slowing down can be terrifying because doing nothing productive leaves us feeling vulnerable, emotional exposed and naked. Overworking hides these feelings of inadequacy or worthlessness, not just from others but also from ourselves. As long as we keep busy, we can outrun that internal voice that says things like: I am never good enough. I am never safe enough. I am never perfect enough. I am never extraordinary enough. I am never successful enough. Do you recognize that voice? Far too many of us use workaholism to run from these shaming messages. I count myself among them, though I would consider myself more of a recovering workaholic at this point. When meeting someone for the first time we usually ask, “What do you do?” We ask because, in our time and culture, identity is defined in large part by occupation or job title. It is how we typically define ourselves. Read more.

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