Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and that you are encouraged about the year ahead! I know that I am!
Exciting things are happening at Abundant Life Counseling St. Louis! Our first PICK group is launching this month, and I’m so excited about the folks who are joining us! I’m also really excited about the content that I’m working on for the upcoming year. This content will be available to you on this blog, as well as Abundant Life’s social media accounts: Facebook (@abundantlifecounselingstl), Instagram (abundantlifecounselingstl), Twitter (@ALCounselingSTL), and Pinterest (Abundant Life Counseling St. Louis). The Pinterest page is new, and I encourage you to check it out! There are boards dedicated to anxiety tips, dating and relationships, and information about therapy, as well as a board about creating a 2019 Vision Board!
I’ve been reflecting on what kind of content I’d like to share this year, and my mind keeps going back to a workshop I attended a couple of years ago. My colleague at Gateway Wellness Associates, Casey Limmer, hosted a workshop for counseling practice owners and asked us to consider our core values for our practices. This was an extremely helpful exercise for me, as I knew that I wanted my practice to be about life to the full (it’s in the title of my practice after all!), but I wasn’t quite sure how to flesh it out and explain it to folks. After staring at a page of words that described various values, three in particular stood out to me: vitality, wholeness, and freedom.
These values have stood the test of time for me. They’re values I hold strongly for myself personally, and they’re qualities I hope my clients experience throughout their experience in counseling and beyond their time in therapy. Today, I’d like to start with the value of vitality, break it down for you in terms of what it means to me, why it’s important to me, and the content that you can expect to see over the next three months that reflect this value.
When you hear the word “vitality,” what comes to your mind? I think of being alive, energy, happiness, fullness, smiling, and abundance. The dictionary defines vitality as: “state of being strong, active; energy” and “power giving continuance of life, present in all living things.” We live in a broken world, which means that we will inevitably experience brokenness in our lives. As a threat to vitality, brokenness can take various forms, be it through anxiety, depression, strained relationships, physical illness, etc. Engaging what it means to live a full, abundant life combats the threat that brokenness poses by sustaining us in the midst of darkness and reconnecting us to who we are and who we were made to be. So, how do we foster that sense of vitality, especially in the midst of struggle? This question is what I hope to explore over the next three months.
Why is vitality important, besides the fact that it gives us energy to sustain us during difficult times? Ultimately, I believe that as creatures made in God’s image—the ultimate Giver of life—we reflect His glory, and the way in which He created us to be when we seek to live our lives in accordance with how He wants us to live, how He’s made us to live. I’m not just talking about “being good” or following the Ten Commandments perfectly (although I do believe that God’s law is meant to help us live full and meaningful lives, not suck away our joy—but that’s a theological discussion for another time!). God created us to be in a relationship with Him, to find our ultimate joy, peace, rest, and life in Him. This is, to me, the ultimate definition of vitality. The verse that inspired the name of my practice is from Jesus’ words in John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
So, what kind of content can you expect regarding this theme? Later this month, I’ll be addressing the topic of Seasonal Affective Disorder (a condition many of us have heard about and some of us have even diagnosed ourselves with!) and exploring how we can thrive despite the emotional and environmental gloom of the winter months! I’ll also be exploring the topic of how we can stay informed with current events without sacrificing our emotional well-being, as well as tips for thriving with anxiety and depression, the value of emotional connection, and the concept of self-love.
Thank you for reading, for following along on social media, and joining me in the journey to living an abundant life! I’m so thankful for the opportunities God has provided, including the amazing clients He’s put in my path!
