Building a Better Family

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Are you and your family struggling to connect? Does it feel like you’re always on the go and you have no real time to be a family? This is a common occurrence. In a fast paced world, we always have more to do or another fire to put out, but this leaves very little time to fuel our family life in the ways that God intended.

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Looking for more resources on being the family that you’re called to be?

Check out:
Parenting with Grace—The Catholic Guide to Raising (Almost) Perfect Kids!

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Theology of The Body (TOB) reminds us that families are schools of love and virtue where we learn how to live life as a gift. Obviously that’s a very different vision of family life than the world has, which tends to define “family” as any group of people that lives under the same roof and shares a data plan.  God wants more for his families. He wants to use your family to satisfy the longing in your heart for a love that is honest, strong, joyful, warm, and deep. 

So how do we find time to truly connect in the midst of our busy lives? 

1. Create Sacred Moments–Want to celebrate the family life God wants for you?  Then ask him to teach you, together. Cultivate meaningful, daily family prayer times. There are lots of different ways to pray.  Just remember that prayer isn’t supposed to be about saying the right words, it’s about drawing closer to God and each other. When you pray, however you pray, make sure to thank God for the specific ways he’s blessed your family that day.  Take turns bringing real concerns to him and asking for his help. Ask for God’s wisdom to respond well to the big questions your family is facing.  Family prayer works best when you stop “saying” prayers and start offering your hearts to God in prayer. That’s the kind of prayer that lets grace be the source of the warmth in your home.

2.  Waste Time Together--Want to enjoy a closer, more joyful family life?  As Pope Francis puts it, “Waste time with your kids.”  Family life doesn’t happen when we’re busy with many things.  Family life happens in the little moments when we stop doing and start being together.  Make time to be together.  Everyday, make it a priority to take at least 15 minutes to do something fun, to talk about something more meaningful than “what happened today”, to work side-by-side on something, and to connect to God.  If you take 15 min to do those 4 things, you’re spending an hour a day learning how to love each other better, enjoy each other more, and connect a little deeper.  Wasting time with your family isn’t an obligation.  It’s a blessing.  Let God bless your family by prioritizing your need to work, talk, pray, and play together, even a little bit, every day.

3. Build Your House–Want to have a stronger, more loving family? Build each other up. Most families don’t talk about their relationship unless they’re getting on each other’s nerves. God’s families deserve better.  Regularly talk about ways you can take better care of each other, and get along better with each other.  At dinner time, talk about virtues like patience, joy, love, respect, responsibility and ask how your family can do a better job living out those qualities. Parenting is no fun if you’re just putting out fires all the time. But it gets a lot more enjoyable when you’re able to talk together about creating a stronger, more loving more joyful family life.  Make a point of making time to build your home together–instead of just always trying to put out fires.

If you would like more resources for building the family life God intended for you, visit us online at CatholicCounselors.com!

Fire! Fire!—What To Do When You’re Feeling Burned Out

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People often say they feel “burned out” by their struggles with anxiety, but most are unaware of the deeper truth behind this metaphor.

Imagine soaking your hands in bleach for several hours, even days. You would get a chemical burn that left your skin severely raw and irritated. Even brushing up against something afterward might hurt tremendously. In a similar way, the chemicals (glucocorticoids) produced by the brain’s fear response are caustic. When persistently stressful or traumatic events trigger prolonged or too intense exposure to these chemicals, they create something like a chemical burn on your amygdala, the CEO of fear/protection system. At the very least, this can cause us to feel every stressor more acutely. Making it harder to respond in a calm. Rational way. If anxiety persists, the amygdala blasts chemicals at another part of the brain called the hippocampus, which stores emotional memories.

If the amygdala is the CEO of your fear/protection system, the hippocampus is the board secretary. While the amygdala is triggered in the presence of a threat, its the hippocampus’ job to “take notes” and remember that a particular event was anxiety-producing the past. The next time you encounter that same event, or even something remotely similar, the hippocampus triggers the amygdala and reminds you that you “should” feel anxious—even if there is no practical immediate threat present.

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For more on understanding and overcoming your anxiety

Check out:

Unworried—A Life Without Anxiety

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Calming down this threat system in our brain is an important aspect to overcoming burn out and finding peace.

Here are three ways to recover from burn out:

Be aware of your physical signs of stress—Stress shows up in our body (i.e. tight muscles, sweaty palms, wrinkled forehead) before our brain is willing to admit to itself that it’s stressed (i.e. feeling stressed/overwhelmed/anxious). Be conscious of these physical signs and when you start to notice your muscles tensing, or your breath becoming shorter/your chest feeling tighter or heavier. Focus on relaxing these physical responses to stress through rolling out your shoulders, stretching your neck, or taking slow deep breaths in order to decrease the stress chemicals in your brain before they take over your feelings.

Take breaks—Taking breaks from stress to do things that occupy you mentally and physically is a great way to decrease anxiety. Go for a walk while counting how many runners or cars you see, engage in a brief exercise break like doing 25 sit ups or 15 pushups, or take deep breaths as you say a short prayer. These breaks are not about finding long escapes from stress, but instead focus on taking down your anxiety in your environment.

Focus on Controllables—Increased anxiety often leads to a sense of powerlessness. We often focus on what we can’t control or what we wish we could do which leads to greater anxiety due to a heightened sense of a perceived threat in our brain. Focusing instead on what we can control—such as our responses, our breathing, our next step towards a solution—we are able to decrease the level of perceived threat and subsequently decrease our anxiety.

If you want more tips or greater support for overcoming your anxiety, visit us online at CatholicCounselors.com

Finding Your Tribe

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It is very key for new parents to be supported by friends and family. But Lisa Popcak, Co-author of “Grace: The Catholic Guide to Raising Almost Perfect Kids,” also explains that too much support can hurt your family and must be rightly proportioned and balanced.

How to Make Homework Time Happier

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Homework is most of the time a dreaded part of the evening for the entire family, as well as the student. Lisa Popcak, Co-author of “Grace: The Catholic Guide to Raising Almost Perfect Kids,” offers some amazing but simple approaches to homework that will transform this time into a bonding and enjoyable event! Don’t believe it? Watch and see!