Conversations With Cinthia

Do you acknowledge the choices you have?  You may not always have the choices that you wish you had, but you always have a choice.  Today Cinthia discussed what it means to take ownership of your life and the choices you have.  Acknowledging your own choices means giving up the option to blame others for the entire direction of your life (although it does not mean accepting blame for things that were not your fault -- In fact, sometimes one of the choices you have is whether to accept and affirm that someone else’s choice was not your fault, however deeply it may have impacted you.).  Even people in very tragic situations (e.g., POWs) have choices within their situations, though those choices may be more limited.  Victor Frankl wrote about his experiences in German concentration camps; he observed that prisoners who chose to accept their situations but also find meaning in their suffering were more likely to survive the experience.  They chose not to accept full victimhood by owning the choices that were thei

Today Cinthia spent the first two segments with guest Aaron Knipp of Cicospace (cicospace.com), whom long-time listeners will recognize from previous shows.  The two discussed some recent changes in the business world that have implications for women.  The business world has shifted from its traditional emphasis on authority, competition, strength, and expertise to a more relational approach in which authenticity, making connections, storytelling, and developing genuine relationships is expected.  This tends to work well for women, who tend to be more relational and adaptive.  This does not negate the value of traditional male characteristics or approaches but does mean that women may have a special “time to shine” in the business world right now.  Cinthia encouraged women to pay attention to the way they come across to men in the business world so that they can implement their assertiveness in ways that communicate courtesy to men as well as women.  For example, she explained that raising the eyebrows and ph

Today Cinthia interviews Antoine Anderson, a church planter (2ten.church in southern Phoenix), men’s life coach, husband, father, and author of the book Journey to Fulfill Your Destiny (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=journey+to+fulfill+your+destiny&crid=38ZS5AS1HXZZD&sprefix=journey+to+fulfill+your+destiny%2Caps%2C93&ref=nb_sb_noss).  In this new book, Antoine explores the life of Joseph and what men today can learn from it.  Cinthia expressed happiness that the book is releasing at such a time, noting that men are often given very mixed and degrading messages in our culture; they are still expected to show up and perform but are often unsure what they are supposed to do.  Antoine and Cinthia discussed ways men are often misunderstood in our society; for example, many women do not realize that men tend to want to please, that they appreciate coaching when they have confidence in the coach, and that men, as protectors, tend to pull information to assess risk from details that women may not realize mean

Do you reject compliments, explaining why you don’t really deserve them?  Do you get nervous when someone does something nice for you, turn down offers of help even when you could really use them, or hate the feeling you get when someone forgives you or extends grace and kindness your way?  Today’s show is on letting other people love you. It can be scary and humbling to let someone love you and give you grace.  The enemy (i.e., Satan) will try to exploit this by encouraging you to think that you are in a one-down position.  Sometimes it is easier to accept good things from a stranger because we do not worry there will be an ongoing obligation in the relationship.  But grace, kindness, forgiveness, and help are meant to be gifts of honor.  Do not insult the person trying to honor you by rejecting that honor.  So how do we honor the gifts of love others give us?  Well, if we are gifted forgiveness, grace, and covering, change is the best response.  Grace helps us have energy to get up again and do it right, to

Remember that song “I Want to Know What Love Is” by the band Foreigner?  Today Cinthia discusses the lyrics of that song and the deep human longing it captures.  Love is foundational to human beings because God, Who is Love itself, made us in love.  The Bible even says that “love never fails” (I Corinthians 13:8).  Many people, however, think love has failed them because they have experienced the failure of human beings to love well.  And, as bands like Nazareth have sun in the Boudleaux Bryant classics by the same name, “love hurts.”  Many people have been hurt so deeply that they now mistrust love or castigate themselves for trying again and again to make love work.  Today Cinthia looks at some concepts we must understand about love, starting with the need to recognize God as the Source of real love and as its only perfect Example.  We often learn things about love that turn out not to be true, and we may think we have found love, only to realize that what we found was not love at all.  So how do we recogni

Following last week’s show about shame, Cinthia talked today about a life circumstance that can cause a significant amount of shame: being or having been in a toxic relationship.  People are imperfect, so our relationships are bound to be the same.  Some relationships, however, are more than imperfect – they are dangerous to your physical and/or emotional health.  Toxic relationships are often difficult to recognize at first, but, like other kinds of toxicity, they can wear away at us, making us progressively more stressed, isolated, confused, afraid, and angry.  Toxic relationships tear constantly at self-esteem and can involve abuse, gaslighting/narcissism, and exhaustion from constantly trying to avoid another person’s negative reactions.  Toxic relationships can actually harm your physical health because they cause chronic stress, which can cause long-term activation of the brain’s CTRA, contributing to chronic inflammation and potentially leading to health problems like adrenal fatigue.  Toxic relationsh

Did you know there is a healthy type of shame?  We are so used to talking about the toxic kind that we often forget it has a more helpful counterpart.  Shame is a spiritual crisis because it interacts with identity, but not all shame interacts with it in the same way.  Today Cinthia explores the many facets of shame and discusses some strategies that do and do not work for combating the ravages of unhealthy shame.  Healthy shame is simply an indicator, somewhat like a warning light. It is the concept of needing to maintain appropriate covering, which gives privacy and dignity (as opposed to the fear-based secrecy dictated by unhealthy shame).  Healthy shame tells us we are near a boundary and warns us not to cross it, or to fix what we have broken and seek forgiveness for wrong done.  Healthy shame tells us that some choices do not align with what we were meant to be and that these attitudes and actions do not make us the best versions of ourselves, the versions intended by our Creator when He designed each o

For every person in the world diagnosed with an addiction or mental disorder, there is at least one other person trying to help someone in this condition.  Families are deeply impacted, and these situations can be ripe for misunderstanding, misinformation, and stigma.  Today Cinthia explores how to love well when a loved one struggles with a mental illness or addiction.  She began at the beginning of Luke 10 and explored issues related to boundaries and codependency in several passages leading up to the parable of the Good Samaritan.  She then looked directly at the parable and discussed what he did and did not do to help the wounded man, as well as whether he might have had to respond differently if he had been trying to help his own relative.  Cinthia noted that the Good Samaritan offered simple help, not judging or lecturing, not becoming over-involved, but valuing the wounded man and helping him by giving what he could with appropriate expectations.   Sometimes humans complicate it when God asks us to hel

In the arena of identity, we often struggle to let go of negative aspects of who we think we are.  Past failures, old labels, experiences we cannot forget, mistakes we cannot change - It can be such a relief to realize we no longer have to define ourselves by those things.  But today Aaron Knipp talks with Cinthia about moving on from past successes.  Together they explore how even our talents and achievements do not define our existence as human beings created in the image of God.   In an age when crafting our own images and “personal brands” can seem like a full-time job, choosing not to park our identity even in legitimate success, talent, or the positive ways we defined ourselves yesterday is one of the best-kept secrets of a healthy self-image. Aaron has been on the show previously.  At that time, Aaron was known for having lost almost 200 pounds, writing a book about that experience, and creating and maintaining a weight-loss app for others.  Aaron’s story included working through the unexpected anger h

While freshly taught and recorded for this week, today’s topic is a Cinthia-Classic and relates to her reason for doing this podcast in the first place!  Cinthia has been saying, “Be your own best version,” since 2010, but what does she mean by that?  What is the difference between striving to meet lists of expectations (your own or other people’s) and being the best version of yourself? Cinthia recalled some highlights from her own story today, describing her struggle with performance-oriented behavior, which is a constant attempt to achieve a sense of personal value by showing others who you are and what you do.  This approach to life, says Cinthia, is a trap, a “spinning wheel,” an image-focused system that becomes deceptive and disillusioning, even for those others might think are winning at life.  In fact, Cinthia achieved quite a bit of success during that time; she met lots of goals and had a life that appeared triumphant in many ways.  Somehow, though, she found herself continually in the grip of stre

What is your “Achilles Heel,” the weakness or “limp” that is always there in your life?  Do you judge yourself for it, berate yourself for having it?  Do you try to avoid it, chasing feelings that make it seem less painful for a while? Healthy self-esteem involves a balance, both for individuals and for society.  We tend instead to swing back and forth on a pendulum, clinging to inferiority, then over-valuing our own good qualities.  This is because we tend to cling to performance-oriented evaluations of ourselves and others, judging worth and value by achievements, accolades, approval, looks, accomplishments, etc.  The key to getting off the pendulum is to learn that our worth is separate from our performance, that we are valuable because God made us on purpose and for a specific purpose.  Secure in that knowledge, we then strive to be the best versions of ourselves, not to make ourselves worthwhile but to honor the One Who made us so well. Instead, we often try to meet our needs for self-value by “chasing a

Which is more important, friends or family?  To some, family should always come first at all ages and stages of life.  Others see the family of childhood as little more than an option once adulthood is reached since one can create a “family of choice” and no longer depend on the family of origin.  Today Cinthia explored the similarities and differences between familial relationships and friendships and offered some principles to help us navigate our relationships well.  She emphasized that relationships are vital for human beings, that family and friends are not an either/or choice, that it is okay to enjoy either or both, and that recognizing the reasons we enjoy one kind of relationship more than another can help us maturely and effectively navigate both kinds of relationships.  Family relationships and friendships have a lot in common.  They can both be comforting, and they can both be stressful.  Both can be warm, loving, healthy, and respectful, and both can be cold, neglectful, even abusive.  Both can b

Inspired by a listener’s request, today Cinthia discussed how to let go, applying it to various kinds and levels of loss: the loss of something or someone to which we have become attached, someone or something we loved, something for which we hoped, something on which our hearts were set, something to which we so looked forward, something we enjoyed, etc.  How do we move forward when the object of our desire is gone?  The answer is the grief and loss process.  Cinthia begins with John 11:35 in which Jesus weeps at the death of His friend Lazarus.  He stops and takes time for this.  God understands the physical need for tears.  Dr. William of the St Paul-Ramsey Medical Center found that tear composition varies according to the cause of our tears.  Those that stem from emotion differ from irritant-based by containing more protein-based hormones, which are actually natural pain killers, so that emotionally-based tears actually help us heal and to feel better.  When we are willing to cry over the loss, we physica

Do you let people love you?  Do you accept gifts graciously, receive compliments kindly, and gratefully experience help when it is offered?  If not, you aren’t alone; many people minimize compliments, feel uncomfortable with gifts and kindnesses given, and even reject help offered despite really needing it.  We all need love, but it can be harder to receive than we might expect.  Today Cinthia encourages us to allow ourselves to be loved, examining some reasons we may not do so and offering alternative responses that are more gracious.  Reasons for struggling to accept love can include suspicion or difficulty trusting others.  We may wonder if there are “strings” attached to a gift or fear that accepting a kind gesture will put us in debt to another person.  But a gift is, by definition, offered without the expectation of payment.  Receiving kindly means expressing appreciation, perhaps giving an authentic “thank you,” perhaps even telling the person what their kindness means to us or saying something like, “

Cinthia explained at the outset that she sees lots of problems in her practice with people thinking they are not enough, not measuring up, and that this leads to comparing and contrasting themselves with others “twenty-four, seven.”  She also explained that she has struggled with comparison in her own thoughts and has worked hard over the course of her life to address this.  Cinthia stated that always wanting “to know we’re ok” is part of “the human condition,’ but noted that comparing ourselves to each other as an attempt to accomplish this is highly problematic.  How can we compare things that are each intended to be completely unique?  Our comparisons also tend to reveal the problems in our priorities.  Most of us tend to be dissatisfied with the amount of money we have or the way we look, but God is much more concerned with our morality and whether we are living out the design He made us to live. Comparison offers us nothing to gain and so much to lose; this is why Theodore Roosevelt stated, “Comparison i

Cinthia opened today’s episode with a famous sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, entitled “How Do I Love Thee?”  The poem famously begins, “How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways,” and then beautifully lists a variety of ways the lover in the poem loves the beloved.  Cinthia cited this as a beautiful exploration of the reality that love is acted upon, carried out, expressed in actions and gestures that mean something to the lover and to the beloved. Have you ever done something meaningful for someone you loved, only to observe that the individual didn’t seem to find it meaningful?  It is very important to know how people want to be loved.  It can be exhausting to give and give but find that the person to whom we are giving is not emotionally nurtured by the things we are giving.  In The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman listed five “languages” through which people give and receive love; these were words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, receiving gifts.   Chapman asserted th

Is attraction something that just comes and goes, completely beyond our control?  Today Cinthia explores attractiveness as a responsibility we have to others, one that is not primarily about our physical makeup.  While she introduces this topic in terms of spouses who are no longer attracted to their spouses, she explores it further as it applies to our interactions with society in general.  How attractive we are has to do with what it is like for others to be around us.  This is why men often appear more attractive when they exhibit “confidence contained.”  In all of us, qualities like kindness, gentleness, mercy, flexibility, nobleness, health, willingness to work hard, etc., tend to be attractive, while disrespectfulness, immaturity, vulgarity, being unaware of your audience, refusing to cooperate with others, and selfishness in general make us less attractive to others.  We are more attractive when we adjust ourselves somewhat to others by learning to “check the temperature of the room;” for example, we c

Are you willing to pursue virtue, or do you think of it as costing too much?  Pleasure has a price, too, one that is sometimes worth paying and sometimes not.  Pleasure is often an attempt to mitigate pain, but sometimes the price of pleasure is more pain for us and others.  How much is your pleasure costing you?  Your loved ones?  Your community and society?  Cinthia explains, “Pain is real.  Pain management, when done morally, is the best antidote and possible cure for pain… in this world.  Pleasure, however, most often masquerades as giving you positive feelings.  It seems to give you rest and relaxation and fun, but it always has a price.”  Pursuing pleasure is different than simply enjoying it as a by-product of pursuing what is good.  The single-minded pursuit of pleasure is a dangerous road, a slow burn, one that often costs us the best things in life.  We often think about the costs of our pleasure-seeking in our own lives, but we often do not consider the costs to others.  Good character understands

Today Cinthia discusses the Wedding at Cana (John2:1-11) during which Jesus performed His first miracle on earth.  The fact that Jesus performed His first miracle at a family event – a wedding, specifically – and at the request of a family member, has significance.  The Bible calls Jesus the Bridegroom and the Church His Bride.  God loves and values family, and we are His family.  However, this account also shows us Jesus as a man (yes, also God, but still a man) and a son and family member.  It gives great insight into gender issues, as well as our approach to God and His to us.  So how did Jesus respond as a man to His female family member? Jesus, as a male human being with a male brain, gave an initial response that indicated the problem Mary described was not naturally significant to Him in His role as a wedding guest.  Cinthia explored several translations and paraphrases of His response, all of which seemed to indicate that He did not see the problem as one He needed to solve as a human attending someon

Today Cinthia explains a tool she uses, one we all need in our heads: the ignore/delete button.  This idea is a way of choosing not to dwell on actions (our own or those of others) that cause us to become overly or unnecessarily upset, judgmental, arrogant, self-loathing, or agitated.  Cinthia likes to picture her ”button” in the back of her head so she can physically tip her head when she uses it – a physical exercise that uses muscle memory to help her reset her perspective.  If this surprises you or sounds unhealthy, perhaps reminding you of denial, minimization, or acceptance of abusive behavior, understand that this is a selective tool; it is not meant for use on everything.  The ignore/delete button is a gift from God, one that we learn to use by watching how He uses His own ignore/delete button.  God always knows, always sees, always hears, always feels; He is aware.  And yet He stays in relationship with His creation and manages not to kill us all instantly.  How does He do this?  Having provided for