 By Abby Glaser “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…”
The holiday season is upon us after a monumental year! You may be looking forward to the holiday or you may be dreading it. You might even be feeling a little bit of both! Nothing has been typical about 2020 and that includes how we will all celebrate the holiday season. For many, holidays can bring stress, anxiety or loneliness. After a crazy year you might be unsure how to navigate this season. Here are five tips to help your days be merry and bright!
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 By Lavern Nissley
There is something good and infectious about a good laugh. The other day, on Ronda's birthday, we had a brief exchange that led us both to laughter. Me: "I think you look good in your birthday suit." Ronda: "It has wrinkles." Me: "But it looks good on you." Ronda: "I guess it still fits." While intuitively it would seem that "laughter is the best medicine", there are some interesting findings on how it affects romantic and marriage relationships.  By Grant Edwards
(Grant is senior pastor of Fellowship Church in Springfield. He's given us permission to include his reflections and suggestions from scripture and personal experience. Insomnia can affect relationships by making us more irritable and insensitive with each other!) Too many of us can't sleep. It’s so frustrating -- 3 AM and wide awake. Then 6 AM and you fall asleep with the alarm sounding at 7 AM. Someone then remarks, "You look like something that the cat dragged in from a night of prowling." We want to call down fire from heaven on them! When things in the workplace get stressful and emotions run high, it's good to push the "pause button" with a simple tip shared by this restaurant manager. Colonel Ragland is the manager of Lee's Famous Recipe on South Limestone in Springfield OH. He shares a tip he acquired during Relationship Skills Coaching.  By Lavern Nissley
(Photo: Cara Owsley/The Enquirer) Ronda and I have followed the heartbreaking story of Brooke Skylar Richardson, the young teen from Warren County who secretly gave birth to her baby in the middle of the night, then allegedly killed it (she claims it was stillborn) and buried the newborn in the back yard. Last week she was acquitted on 3 counts of aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangering. She was convicted of abuse of a corpse and sentenced to three years of community control and seven days in jail. Did any good come out of this horrendous story? Or was it pretty much all terrible?  By Lavern and Ronda Nissley
(This post is a follow up to Father's Day surprise from last week about a life-altering experience that almost took Ronda's life. If you aren't familiar with this back story, you'll want to read it first.) Robert Emmons, a leading researcher on gratitude, had this to say about it in a 2010 Greater Good Magazine post : "Gratitude is a social emotion. I see it as a relationship-strengthening emotion because it requires us to see how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people." He also provided 4 reasons on why gratitude is good. We'd like to share those 4 reasons as well as our own 7 points of gratitude surrounding a major challenge in our own marriage journey.  By Lavern Nissley
One of Ronda's goals for 2019 is to become more minimalistic. What that 5 syllable word means is that she is "on a mission" to do a lot of household item purging so that clutter is reduced and only the essentials are available to us. Scary. I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. Just under two months into this crusade for simplicity, I don't want to go back. It's had an amazing effect upon us!  By Lavern Nissley
As we head into the holidays and spend time with families and friends, many will experience fond memories and heartfelt joy. Others will experience the opposite, becoming acutely reminded of relationship dysfunctions. Many of us experience some of each. So, how do you cope effectively in the middle of this seasonal insanity? Those emotional allergies and buttons have a physiological affect, don't they? Increased heart rate and breathing. Blood pressure pounding away at your skull. Stomach churning and knots forming. Help!!! What to do?  By Lavern Nissley
On August 7 our daughter, Kristen, posted a heartfelt reflection on how she had struggled for years with "a giant to-do list that’s never-ending, meetings, projects, phone calls, photo sessions, events, weddings, deadlines, technical problems, details, filming, strategy, planning, emails, scheduling, customer service, traveling... " She called it "functional chaos" that was choking out time and energy for her marriage and family. Insert your own vocational demands, and you can probably relate, right? |
HostsLavern & Ronda Nissley are co-directors of Encompass. Married since 1978, both enjoy coffee, riding their tandem bicycle and working together to build strong relationships. 
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