What does being too nice to ourselves look like? Vanity, selfishness, rudeness, and a lack of self control. That’s quite the collection, isn’t it? Let’s get into it. One of the most self absorbed and prideful things we can think is “Everyone is looking at me,” and almost everyone does it. Any … [Read more...]
Nice-oholic Pt 13: Is God even Nice?
In the last lesson we considered how God isn’t a nice-oholic by looking at how He doesn’t answer all of our prayers because He’s not a cosmic Santa. Instead, He’s a loving parent who disciplines His children because He’s more worried about making us good people rather than making us spoiled. When … [Read more...]
Nice-oholic Pt 12: Is God a Nice-oholic?
Is God a nice-oholic? There’s an interesting question. I think everyone at some point has at least wanted God to be a nice-oholic: “God, I have this thing I really want… You’re going to give it to me right? You say You love me, so You have to… don’t You?” Unfortunately, it’s easy to forget that … [Read more...]
Nice-oholic Pt 11: Dealing with Shame
One of the greatest struggles for nice-oholics (and others) is dealing with shame. Like all of our emotions, shame is a gift from God (there’s a fun thought). In its proper form, shame is meant to be a threat of repercussion to keep us from doing really dumb things. It’s like the threat of being … [Read more...]
Nice-oholic Pt 6: Being Nice can be Confusing
Being nice isn’t always clear cut. It can actually be confusing, and if you start thinking about whether something is nice or not, it’s easy to over think the variables (thereby not being nice to yourself). But let’s consider some options to demonstrate what I mean. The other week I was writing a … [Read more...]
Nice-oholic Pt 5: Nice is Worth It
Maybe you’re like me, but I wish I knew what I know now when I was younger, especially back when I was starting as a youth pastor almost 20 years ago. (I just choked hard after realizing how long it’s been.) As a therapist I’m supposed to be a professional at dealing with conflict, but back then I … [Read more...]
Nice-oholic Pt 3: 3 Types of Nice
This past weekend I experienced three different types of nice. The one made me feel great, one fine, and the other left me a little sad. How can nice leave someone feeling sad? Let’s get into it (or you can skip to the end to see them). This past weekend I went to Fan Expo in Toronto. … [Read more...]
Nice-oholic Pt 3: 7 tips to be properly nice
So far we’ve looked at how we can be overly nice and how that causes us by default to be mean to someone else, which is normally ourselves and sometimes someone else like a spouse. We also considered how being overly nice can cause collateral damage to others as the nice-oholic is indirectly mean … [Read more...]