The Survivor's Tool Kit

After reading the article in PsyPost titled “Reframing Biblical Interpretation Helps Religious Students Accept Evolution” by Eric W. Dolan (September 20, 2025, in Psychology of Religion ), I did some research of my own and wanted to share what I discovered. The intersection of faith and science is often seen as a battleground, yet with thoughtful reframing, it can become a place of harmony and growth. For many students raised in faith traditions, the classroom becomes a place of tension. On one side, they’ve inherited biblical interpretations emphasizing literal creation accounts. On the other, they are introduced to evolutionary biology as the scientific consensus for understanding the diversity of life. This clash can feel like being asked to choose between loyalty to faith and acceptance of science. Yet, reframing how biblical interpretation is approached can dissolve this false dichotomy and help students hold both faith and science in meaningful harmony. 🕊️ Scripture as Sacre...

There is something downright hilarious about how we humans blame life for things life had nothing to do with, and then take it out on whatever innocent object is closest. You have seen it. A grown adult in the driveway arguing with a truck like it personally chose today to be difficult. A coffee maker getting fussed at like a teenager who brought home a bad report card. An AI being corrected like a store clerk who keeps ringing up the wrong item no matter how many times you point at the price tag. It looks ridiculous from the outside, but inside it feels as natural as breathing. Why We Talk To Machines In The First Place When someone starts talking to a truck or lecturing a coffee maker, they are not talking to the machine. And they are not talking to life either because life is not listening. Life is not intentional. Life simply unfolds. But humans? Humans need somewhere to put the pressure. Spend a week being misunderstood, brushed off, overloaded, or stretched thin, and the sm...

When we think of safety in a relationship, most of us imagine the obvious, being protected from physical harm. But there’s another form of safety that quietly holds the relationship together: emotional safety. It’s like the invisible net beneath a trapeze artist. Without it, the risk of falling feels terrifying. With it, you can take leaps, stumble, and still know you won’t be destroyed. Emotional safety is what allows both people to show up fully, flaws, fears, dreams, and all, without worrying they’ll be ridiculed, rejected, or abandoned. 🌍 Why Emotional Safety Matters Emotional safety is the oxygen mask of relationships, you can’t thrive without it. Research on relationships consistently shows that trust and safety are the foundation of lasting connection (Gottman & Silver, 2015). When both partners feel safe, trust grows like deep roots that anchor a tree through storms. Communication flows like a steady river, carrying even difficult truths without capsizing the boat. Intimac...

Understanding the Rise in Depression and Suicidal Struggles This Time of Year The holiday season is painted as warm, bright, and full of meaning. It is the time when the world seems to expect joy, connection, and celebration from everybody at once. Yet the truth is far more human. For many, the holidays stir up a season of heaviness. Depression increases. Emotional crises rise. People who are already struggling often find themselves hurting even more when the world around them seems to be moving in the opposite direction. This rise in emotional pain has nothing to do with weakness. It is the simple truth that the holidays magnify whatever someone already carries inside them. When life has been heavy, the extra weight of the season settles into tender places. Why Depression Increases Around the Holidays The holidays intensify loneliness. When everyone else seems to have a place to go, a family to return to, or a circle to gather with, anyone on the outside of that circle feels the empti...

Most folks spend years wishing certain chapters of their life had never been written. The heartbreaks, the betrayals, the disappointments that shook them straight to the bone, those moments can feel like stains on the story. But if a person keeps walking, something shifts. One day you look back and realize the same chapters that once nearly ended you are the ones that taught you how to rise. Gratitude has a way of showing up differently once you have lived a little. Not the polite kind we save for blessings and comfort, but the kind that surprises you. The kind that visits the very places you once swore you would never be thankful for. Somewhere along this long road of becoming, we learn that true gratitude is not reserved for ease. It is born in the moments that tested our strength, stripped away illusion, and introduced us to the parts of ourselves we had never met. Psychologists call this post traumatic growth. Folks with a little more weather behind their eyes simply call it wisd...

Gossip is often treated like harmless talk, but anyone who has lived enough life knows it carries a weight most folks never see. At its heart, gossip is sharing a piece of someone’s life that was never yours to carry or pass along. It may sound light in conversation, but it can land heavy in the places it touches. Gossip slips into moments when judgment finds an opening or when talking about someone feels easier than talking to them. It becomes a shortcut for connection, yet shortcuts rarely take a person anywhere worth going. Borrowed closeness has never replaced genuine trust. Gossip moves quickly because it does not need to be accurate to spread. One small detail or uncertain comment can travel far. With each retelling the story bends, stretches, and reshapes itself until the truth is buried under emotion and assumption. People believe it not because it is real, but because it matches the fears or suspicions they already hold. That is how reputations bend. That is how trust breaks...

💔 The Nature of Betrayal Betrayal doesn’t knock, it slips quietly through the door you left open for love, trust, or friendship. And once it enters, nothing looks the same again. It is the breaking of a sacred trust, a shattering of the invisible bond that once promised safety, honesty, and loyalty. Whether it comes from a partner, friend, family member, or institution, betrayal leaves an imprint that lingers long after the moment has passed. It whispers, “You can’t trust what you believed to be true.” Trust is like glass, clear, strong, and fragile. When it breaks, it can be pieced together, but the cracks remain, catching the light of experience as a permanent reminder of where it once fractured. 🧠 The Psychology Behind the Pain At its core, betrayal triggers the brain’s survival system. Humans are wired to depend on social bonds; when those bonds are violated, the body interprets it as danger. The amygdala fires alarms, flooding the body with cortisol and adrenaline, the same ...

Escaping the Mind’s Time Machine The mind is a powerful storyteller. Yet, when it becomes lost in “What ifs” and “Should haves,” it begins to write chapters that no longer exist or never did. These mental loops act like ghosts of alternate realities, haunting what could have been, while stealing the peace that already is. “What if I had taken that job?” “I should have said something.” “What if I hadn’t trusted them?” Each thought feels like a rewind button that promises resolution, but only replays the ache. The Emotional Toll of Unfinished Endings “What ifs” are the imagination’s way of revisiting the past as if we can sculpt it differently. They are mental echoes that whisper, “Maybe there’s still a way to fix it.” But emotional energy spent on what we cannot change becomes like trying to sail against the wind, exhausting, circular, and directionless. Similarly, “Should haves” act as self-imposed verdicts. They are the inner critic’s courtroom, where you’re the defendant, the...

🌾 There comes a time in life when you realize the hardest place to find peace is not out there in the world, it is right inside your own head. You can live in a quiet house, watch the sun rise over the fields, and still not feel settled. Coming home is not about a roof or four walls, it is about learning to feel safe where your thoughts live. 🍂 For some folks, their mind feels like an old house that has been through too many storms. The floorboards creak with memories, the windows rattle with worry, and no matter how many times they clean it up, the dust of the past keeps settling again. They do not mean to keep living in the draft, it is just what they have grown used to. 🪶 Feeling safe inside yourself takes practice. It means learning how to sit with your thoughts without letting them boss you around. Most of us spend years trying to run from the noise in our minds. We stay busy, we fill the silence, and we convince ourselves that peace is found in motion. But you cannot outrun ...

Inside The Ripple Effect 💧 It starts small. Maybe a passing thought, a flash of memory, or the way someone said your name with that tone that sounds like judgment wearing perfume. You figure it is no big deal, but deep inside, the pebble has already dropped. The water that is your mind starts shifting, ripples reaching parts of you that were having a perfectly fine day until that moment. You can almost feel the movement, quiet but steady, as if your thoughts themselves were making ripples against the shore. Welcome to the ripple effect, proof that even when life looks still, something is always stirring under the surface. 🪞 The First Drop: Thought Sparks Emotion It all starts with one little thought. Maybe you tell yourself, “I probably looked foolish,” or “They did not mean that kindly.” It does not take much, one pebble, and your emotional pond starts bubbling like a catfish fryer on a Friday night. The amygdala, that tiny almond shaped drama director in your brain, yells “Action...

👁️ Sometimes ghosting is not about leaving home. It is about staying right there beside somebody while your heart and mind are off somewhere else. You know that look, eyes open but nobody’s home. That is what I call the quiet ghost. You can share the same table, breathe the same air, and still feel a mile apart. 🕯️ It does not happen all at once. It is like the sun slipping down behind the trees, one minute there is light and the next it is gone. The body stays, but the warmth fades. The words keep coming, but they do not have much soul behind them. Before long, the person across from you feels like they are talking to an echo instead of someone real. 🌧️ Most of the time, this kind of ghosting is not mean-spirited. Folks drift when their minds get tired, just like an old truck that sputters when it is low on gas. Sometimes the brain just needs a break. People with ADHD or anxiety do not mean to wander, their thoughts just take a side road without warning. It is not that they do not ...