The Phoenix · Having Healthy Boundaries: A Necessary Way to Love To know where you begin and I end is necessary for me to respect you, for me to be respected by you, and for me to respect myself. Without respect, there is no authentic love. Every time I visit my family I come …
The Legacy of Absence: Resolving the Wounds From Uninvolved Fathers in Individuals, Families, and Society By Tim Olson Self-published / Bookbaby / Amazon Imagine a son or daughter who realizes dad has chosen work, sports, or other addictions instead of them. This is abandonment—and the consequences will leave a negative life-long legacy. But there is …
Success in marriage takes vision, focus, and letting go. Good marriages go bad not out of intent, but from misguided actions. These actions unknowingly undermine trust, respect, honesty, and appreciation. Over time, patience is replaced by impatience, excitement by apathy and pleasure by frustration. To prevent this from happening to your marriage learn how to …
At some point or another most of us have been told, “Play it safe” or “Better safe than sorry.” Perhaps it was wiser for us to not take a given risk and stay with familiar ways of doing things. The caution we felt from a loved one may have really saved us. However, what if …
Editor’s note: In the last issue of The Phoenix Spirit, John Driggs lent his more than 40 years of experience working with individuals, couples and families, to the topic of how to help foster moral character in children. Driggs aptly acknowledged that parents and other caregivers are not wholly responsible on how kids turn out, …
There was a period in my life where I spent most of my time doing one of two things: I was either worrying to extremes, or praying about what I was worrying about. My prayers were desperate. I often prayed, “Please let him come home safely.” Sometimes I prayed for something to change. At other …
“I’m sorry but I have to cancel our dinner date. I have the flu. I know this is the second time I’ve done this and I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you gave up on me. Or, maybe if you let me pay for dinner next time, we can still be friends. I can’t …
You know, e v e r y holiday and birthday is like a dagger in my back. Sometimes I just lie on my bed and cry my eyes out. I adopted Maria when she was two-years-old as I couldn’t have children of my own and had no husband. Her mom died of a drug overdose. …
