In today’s episode, Suzanne discusses what trauma means as well as the various types of trauma. Then, she introduces listeners to the ACEs survey and what that score can mean for you and your future.

Also available on Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen!

How does anxiety affect the people you serve and how can you help? In this episode, Suzanne presents several practical ways you can respond both biblically and physically. Minister more effectively to those battling anxiety and panic attacks through the information you’ll learn in this episode.

Also available on Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen!

How can giving financial gifts to the less fortunate be harmful?? Recognize the poverty mindset behind their material poverty or frustrate yourself when your sacrifice doesn’t magically fix their problems. Understand how a worldview of poverty is different from a lifestyle of material poverty. Learn ways to navigate around these obstacles so that you can serve your community more effectively.

Also available on Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen!

This episode features an overview of how poverty mindset, and the church’s response, can damage relationships and harm those you seek to serve and also yourselves. Understand why people ask for help from you rather than helping themselves. Gain insight into learned helplessness and entitlement mentality. Learn tools to combat it in your ministry.

Also available on Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen!

Check out this quick, funny video with Director, Suzanne, and find out why you should be encouraged when people tell you that you or your church family made them uncomfortable. As Suzanne shares this story about one of her clients, think about ways that you and your church are demonstrating a different way of life to the people you are ministering to, and how making them uncomfortable might be your best indication that you're making a difference in their lives!

Let me know what you think! I love to read (and respond to) your emails.

[email protected]

Suzanne is Founder and Director of a maternity home in Tennessee. She also offers coaching and training to churches and ministries, encouraging others to understand poverty, trauma, and addiction so that you can "Do Good - Well". Check out her most recent ebook, The Accidental Social Worker, as your free gift. 

What do you do when someone claims their bad behavior is Jesus' fault? Watch as Suzanne dissects their likely reasons and how you can nip that in the bud. 

Let me know what you think! I love to read (and respond to) your emails.

[email protected]

Suzanne is Founder and Director of a maternity home in Tennessee. She also offers coaching and training to churches and ministries, encouraging others to understand poverty, trauma, and addiction so that you can "Do Good - Well". Check out her most recent ebook, The Accidental Social Worker, as your free gift. 

Picture yourself with a roomful of 30 clients. Some of them are misbehaving in ways that derail your best efforts to help them.

Many teachers feel just like that. Every day.

Child psychologist Dr. Ross Greene, in his article on compassion fatigue, describes the troubled students whom many teachers serve:

“These students sometimes come from very unfortunate circumstances (trauma, neglect, family dysfunction, etc.) and exhibit a wide variety of maladaptive behaviors: hyperactivity, poor impulse control, inattention, inflexibility, poor tolerance for frustration, poor problem solving, social skills deficits, irritability, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse…the types of things one would see in a mental health clinic.

“Of course, there’s the rub, since schools weren’t designed to be mental health clinics and teachers aren’t typically trained as mental health professionals."

Can you relate?

Like you, teachers want to provide a service...

These are some of my favorite books for helping people understand the challenges associated with helping people in crisis. Whether their issues result from their childhood trauma, their current state, or genetic alterations that have affected how their minds operate, these books can help you better understand the needs of the person or family standing in front of you - so you can help them more quickly and more effectively. 

(Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. No pressure, though!)

1. Talking to 'Crazy': How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life

 "Let’s face it, we all know people who are irrational. No matter how hard you try to reason with them, it never works. So what’s the solution? How do you talk to someone who’s out of control? What can you do with a boss who bullies, a spouse who yells,...

Over the last decade or so, I have spent a lot of time talking with "crazy" people. I'm not referring to any mental illness diagnoses they may have - though that certainly might be a factor.

When I say "crazy", I mean irrational. People who, for a variety of possible reasons including diagnosable mental illness, are acting or speaking in a way that is completely irrational. 

What do you do when an irrational person comes into your office, expecting you to drop everything and meet their need or solve their problem?

Meet Mark Goulston. His book, Talking to "Crazy", is going to change your life! As a psychotherapist and psychiatrist, as well as trainer for FBI and police hostage-negotiation teams, Mark has seen a wide variety of "crazy" - otherwise normal people who are acting so irrationally that they can end up causing harm to themselves and others around them. 

I know you're going to be intrigued by this book and I can't wait to hear what you learned from it!

Blessings,

...

"Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. He asked the Lord, "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms...I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me." Numbers 11:10-14 (emphasis mine)

If you've been in leadership for very long, this passage probably feels quite familiar to you. 

Leadership looks like great fun - til you're the one trying to lead an obstinate people where they don't particularly want to go. 

This passage of Scripture, where Moses pours out his frustration to the Lord, is preceded by the people grumbling because they haven't eaten meat in quite a while. They've grown tired of the manna God sends each day and now the people are complaining...