Conversations With Cinthia

How can we make this year meaningful and effective, a year that -- no matter how challenging or rewarding, painful or enjoyable-- moves us toward becoming the best version of ourselves?  Cinthia explores the importance of intentionally positioning ourselves in trust, bringing 2018 to a true close, seeking God's guidance to create new beginnings, and managing our own internal and external worlds.

How often have you made a New Year's resolution but failed to follow through with it? Is there a more hopeful way to approach the new year?  Cinthia explores preparations for the new year that offer hope to make it past January!

In this series, we've established that holidays are usually not a good time to address all our most serious problems as a group.  So where do we focus together?  Continuing our series on family time at the holidays, Cinthia looks further at traditions vs. rituals and the ways positive and negative traditions can impact us.  She continues with a look at gratefulness and generosity in the family context.

Last week was a great introduction to approaching holiday family time, but this topic was too big for a single episode!  Cinthia reminds us of Jacob's revelation that the presence of the Lord was in a place, and he had not been aware of it.  God is with us, even when we are struggling with our families.  Cinthia also discusses expectations, unhelpful coping skills, boundary setting, and the way rituals and routines can help families strengthen relationships and enjoy time together more.

Ever suffered from a family hangover?  Not the kind that involves alcohol, but the kind that involves waking up and realizing you have over-indulged in exposure to your family's particular brand of dysfunction...  God made family to be incredibly powerful and wonderful, but, in a fallen world, experiences with family can range from mildly irritating to dangerous and destructive.  Cinthia discusses ways we can use acceptance, boundaries, discernment, and other healthy ideas to help us navigate family holidays with minimal damage and maximum enjoyment of one another.

Today, Cinthia gives a refresher course on three core truths she has learned in her life.  These truths are foundational to all her teachings on "being your own best version," and she emphasizes these throughout her clinical practice, consulting work, artistic endeavors, personal life, and just about everywhere else.  These involve our value and significance, our power to impact ourselves and the world around us, and the inevitability of pain and necessity of managing it.

Have you ever received a gift or gift certificate that you thought you could really use, only to come across it months (or years) later and realize you never got around to using it?  Before going to prepare a place for us, Jesus told His disciples that He was leaving His own peace for His followers as a parting gift.  Do you use this gift?  Has it taken over your life?  How do we open, use, and immerse ourselves in this gift Jesus gave?

Why do some of us who trust Jesus with our eternity have trouble living our earthly lives with abandon? Jesus told a parable in which a servant buried what was entrusted to him, keeping it safe but not letting it grow into more, and the servant's master was outraged.  What gets in the way of you living your life?  Fear?  Regret?  Lack of purpose?  Cinthia encourages us to let go of our determination to play it safe and passionately live the lives God gave us?

What would it do for your career if you could get more done in less time?  How would it change your family?  Your health?  Cinthia's guest today is a speaker, mentor, and author who works with business leaders around the world.  Today he discusses his new book, Leadership Hacks, and offers practical tips for managing emails, improving delegation skills, and more.  Cinthia then discusses how the ways we value and spend our minutes become the ways we spend our lives.  

Do you get happier as you browse Facebook?  Are you more grateful and satisfied with your life than you were when you logged on?  Social media can be a wonderful tool, but it can also foster unrealistic expectations, unhelpful comparisons, and the illusion that we are engaging in deeper relationship than we actually are.  Cinthia explores how we can manage our thinking to make the most of our social media use, rather than letting it define our ideas of how life is or should be.  

What would it mean for you to accept the things you can't change?  Would it change the battles you pick?  Alter the way you fight those battles?  Give you peace as you work toward something better, or help you enjoy what you already have?  Cinthia explores her frequent statement that acceptance is the key to all our problems, and she specifically examines the very difficult task of accepting ourselves.  If you struggle with self-acceptance, let this episode help you.

Last week, Cinthia discussed the importance of appropriate expectations in relationships.  If we know even good relationships won't be perfect, however, then what next?  How do we manage relationships that are meeting basic standards of health but could use a dose of positivity, healing, fun, or transformation?  Cinthia explores how to contribute positively where it matters most.

Have you ever heard it said that the key to avoiding disappointment is to lay aside your expectations?  Cinthia suggests that healthy expectations are, in fact, things we should keep and cultivate in our close relationships; intimacy can't exist without them!  What are healthy, helpful expectations?  Cinthia explores this in the first of a two-part series.

If you recognized yourself or someone you love in last week's descriptions of the highly sensitive person, you may be asking yourself what to do next.  Being highly sensitive can be a gift, but it requires lots of self-management.  And how do we differentiate between high sensitivity and over-sensitivity, which may be linked to poor boundaries and negative thinking patterns and behaviors?

Have you ever been told, or told someone else, "Stop being so sensitive!"  Research indicates that 15-20% of the human population is comprised of "highly sensitive" people, or HSPs.  Believe it or not, this is a real thing, and it involves a higher level of nervous system activity.  Cinthia explores how highly sensitive people tend to experience life and what can be helpful or unhelpful if you or someone you love fits into this category.

Self-improvement was a focus for lots of people in the 1970's when a psychiatrist named James Mallory worked with a pastor named Stanley Baldwin to produce a book called Kink and I: A Psychiatrist's Guide to Untwisted Living.  In it, they prescribed seven steps to "untwist" one's life.  Cinthia suggests that these steps are highly relevant today, and she continues the exploration begun last week.

The idea of "dying to self," while biblically imperative, can seem to clash with modern ideas of psychological health.  Cinthia explores what "dying to self" actually means and how it makes us more whole, not less; in fact, it both requires and creates emotional maturity.  She then introduces James Mallory's "Seven Steps to A Better You," work that was done in the 1970's but is highly relevant today.

"Dying to self"...  It's an intimidating phrase, and people often associate it with self-loathing, denial of legitimate needs, and other unhealthy practices.  Still, if we take seriously the words of Jesus, we can't ignore it.  Cinthia's exploration of the topic indicates that dying to self, once we understand the concept, is actually the best thing we can do for ourselves.  Cinthia then interviews Daniel Yohannon, Vice President of Gospel for Asia, as he talks about the organization's work and how dying to our own self-centeredness can have far-reaching impact.

Let's face it... Some of us have trust issues.  Cinthia asserts that we should not, in fact, trust too easily.  But how do you know when you need to open the gate a little wider and risk some trust?  And, once you know, how do you actually take steps in that direction?  

It's two letters.  One syllable.  One tiny word.  Why is it so hard for some people to say "no" to others?  Why is it so hard to say "no" to ourselves?  Cinthia asserts that the ability to say "no" is a gift from God, one that is meant to keep us safe, and that it can become a best friend.  She also explores the impossibility of truly owning our "yes" if we're still rejecting our "no."