Author: Beth - blogger, coach, consultant

signs of emotional intelligence, characteristics of wisdom, fear of the Lord, practicing the presence, presence of the Divine, living in the flow of the infinite, the space between stimulus and response, self-motivated, emotionally resilient, emotional resilience, internalise failure, well-placed boundaries, healthy boundaries, toxic person, handling a difficult person, fuel the fire of disagreement, balanced assertiveness, tactful, present focused, avoid negative self-talk, self-awareness

Practicing presence effortlessly

Beth - blogger, coach, consultant4 Comments

I love it when I meet someone that just effortlessly is spiritually mature – they function and interact with others effortlessly, one foot in the spiritual and the other in the physical worlds. Spiritual maturity brings with it a level of inner wisdom that is impossible to imitate.

Nonetheless, from the outside, their emotional intelligence seems simply innate, as if they were born with it. Admittedly, I have no idea of all the inner work that they have done to get there! I wasn’t present to witness their perseverance in the face of difficulties – their dark night of the soul.

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living authentically, authentic Christians, fruit of the Spirit, speaking the truth in love, let love be genuine, true to self, true to God, authenticity, faith, works, show me your faith apart from your works, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, humility, the truth will set you free

Living authentically – the authentic Christian

Beth - blogger, coach, consultant2 Comments

One of the reasons that I think Christians get such a bad rap, is that we only ever talk about our struggles behind closed doors – if we admit them at all! Perhaps if we admitted our struggles to those outside of Churches – especially the struggles with ego and learning to truly love, we would find that others were more accepting when we tried to share our journey with them!

But, if your upbringing in the church was anything like mine – God forbid that we admit to others that we have doubts about faith, God and “salvation”. You parrot off that you are sharing God’s love with the world, as you Bible-bash them into salvation.

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self-help, the best self-help book ever written, metaphorical interpretation, reading the Bible, understanding the Bible, interpreting the scriptures, building a relationship with God, understanding God

The best self-help book I’ve ever read?

Beth - blogger, coach, consultant3 Comments

Someone was asking, recently, for the best “self-help” and personal development book that others had read. One of the group members suggested “The Bible”.

I admit, I initially responded (internally) with “no, definitely not“. (Possibly even more along the lines of a visceral response of “hell no”).

A few days later, I was reading a post (somewhere on the internet) about how self-help books are no good and that if we are truly interested in transforming our lives – what we really need is more stories.

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overturning tables, jesus, temple of God, sold and bought in the temple, tables of the money changers, selling doves, sexual harrassment, child abuse, sexual abuse, #MeToo, church elders, pastors, junior pastors, youth pastors, cover up, coverup, prayer, fervent hope, reconciliation, forgiveness, uncovering truth, transparency, admission of guilt, empathy, compassion, position of power, usurping power, culture of fear, impartial investigation, evidence destroyed, errors of judgement, human errors, pursuit of truth

Overturning tables: taking on the culture of abuse in churches

Beth - blogger, coach, consultant6 Comments

This morning I read Nancy Beach’s description of the final outcome at Willow Creek Church: “Nancy Beach: A Voice of Wisdom“. I found myself, once again, facing the anger at the injustices that happen within churches and missions! I wrote about this in February of this year, when NBC had a segment dealing with the abuse that happened in New Tribes Mission: Shadows of the Past.

The thought that came to me this morning as I read Nancy’s article was

This is a moment for overturning tables and complete disruption!

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do not grow weary, Galatians, do what is right, reap at harvest, reap what you sow, as you sow, so shall you reap, corruption, corrupt government officials, bribery, bribing, bribes, kick backs, standards, ruling party, public officials, corrupt businessmen, corrupt international investors, proverbs, psalms, david, oppression, love of money, righteous woman, virtuous woman, hard working, hard work, Isaiah, tired, weary, rise up, struggling, exhausted, tired, burnt out, burnout

Growing weary: why do I have to continue doing what is right?

Beth - blogger, coach, consultant3 Comments

Lectionary reading

7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. … 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up

Galatians 6: 7 & 9  (ESV)

I just finished writing a blog post about burnout and recovering from getting burnt out. It reminded me of a sermon I gave recently – based on the above reading from Galatians 6. We are challenged to not grow weary of doing good — despite the challenges.

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compassion, love, mercy, kindness, empathy, understanding , sensitive, charity, heart, generous, balanced, emotions, alignment, aligned, coherence, coherent, gratitude, coach, life coach, transformation, change, heart-centered

Compassion: loved by the Divine

Beth - blogger, coach, consultant6 Comments

I’ve spent a lot of time, these last three weeks, in silence – being still with my thoughts. I also spent a lot of time binging on Netflix in between. I was trying to work through a particular pattern in my life that I was sick of repeating!

But, I also had to recognise that I couldn’t spend 8 hours a day just in inner work. I would reach a point where I was tired of thinking and contemplating, and wanted to be mindless and entertained. It felt like too much to try to work it all out.

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Empowerment after forgiveness and repentance

Empowerment after Forgiveness & Repentance

Beth - blogger, coach, consultant1 Comment


The book of John is the only gospel in which we find this part of the story after the resurrection, especially Jesus’ questions to Peter “Do you love me?”. For me, this is a beautiful story of restoration and empowerment, after the hard road of failure, forgiveness and repentance.

Failure

Peter, many days before, had been left crying bitterly at his failure and lack of faith. The very day that Peter declared that he would die with Jesus, when asked if he was a disciple, he denied it vehemently. Peter simply caved in to fear and the dread of the unknown after seeing Jesus voluntarily submit to his arrest. When Peter had lopped off the ear of one of the guards, Jesus had healed the man.

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