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Feel destroyed?: Remember the Fire Lily

I am writing this blog from a hospital room. I have had a week of feeling absolutely destroyed. Can you imagine hearing the words that after 8 years, you might be in cancer remission? I heard those words a couple weeks ago but as the days ensued, I have had side effects that have put me in fear of being fed intravenously for weeks to come.

Sometimes life brings us a break, only to slam us down with something that feels even harder than the last blow. For me, the cancer treatment has caused scarring in my intestines that has made it impossible to eat for almost two months. Two months. Everyone who knows me knows that I absolutely live to eat, so not being able to have solid foods for such a long time has been quite the humbling experience. I am jokingly calling it my “wedding weight loss plan” but it has been pretty frightening. I watched my sweet mama go through a rapid weight loss that left her looking like a Holocaust victim, so I have some trauma that recurs when I face these trials for sure.

My sweet husband read me a devotional awhile back that told the story of the Fire Lily. Fire Lillies are a beautiful flower that only regrow in the event of being destroyed, most commonly by a forest fire. But when they do experience regrowth…awww the beauty.

Isn’t that the way in our journeys sometimes? We really don’t reach our full potential, or develop real empathy, or experience God at the deepest level, until we are smothered by experiences or trauma that leave us forest-fire dead.

I have seen some images lately of destroyed people: People destroyed by war, by life circumstances. I have met with people knocked down by divorce, betrayal and abandonment. But resilience can come when the trauma lifts, the sun shines again and we realize the strength we have because of Faith and Family and Friends….

Today, I got a little break and the scarring is letting liquids pass through. They were able to remove the tube down my throat and tomorrow we will try something a little more fortified and before long, I will be eating along with my family and friends. I am determined to be a Fire Lily.

How about you? What situation in your life needs to be overcome with the perseverance that asks you to push through scorched earth?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,


Sonia

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Ministry Update: June 2022!!!



For those of you who faithfully pray and give financially to my ministry, I am forever grateful. This year has been full of health challenges that have kept me from traveling as much but I have been busy from my home office, meeting with clients around the world. Women and couples are connected with me through referrals, through my connection with Paraclete Ministries and through my connection with Thrive Ministries. They receive discounted services because of your generosity. I am letting you in on the countries reached this year and a few clients offered to share their sentiments so that I don’t have to toot my own horn….

Countries served in 2022:
Mexico
Malaysia
Phillippines
Lesotho
South Africa
Papua New Guinea
Nepal
Denver Seminary
Stateside (furloughed or serving in pastoral roles here in the states)

Here are a few of those testimonies I promised:

First off, thank you to those that donate to Sonia’s ministry so that she can counsel me. Thank you isn’t enough but I wanted to start off by saying thank you. As missionaries, you are put on a pedestal of “always having it together” when in reality, you are experiencing some of the hardest things you have ever had to experience. The pressure is suffocating and daunting…Sonia has been a breath of fresh air for this tired, weary and sometimes confused missionary. She met me where I was and gave me confidence and encouragement to talk thru how I was feeling. Please know that by helping subsidize so that Sonia can help missionaries like me, YOU are advancing the kingdom. My family may be on the front lines but you are all behind us, cheering us, supporting us, and encouraging us thru Sonia. She’s phenomenal in the way she counsels! I’m forever grateful for the time I’ve had with her “for such a time as this”…

Missionary, Papua New Guinea


I know what it is to be a missionary with support (financial, emotional, spiritual), and to be a missionary without it. When I met Sonia, it felt like I reunited with an old friend. In that season, I struggled to trust the way I heard God’s voice and doubted His interest in me, but Sonia would say a phrase at the end of every session together: “You are on the right track.” I always thought, “I wouldn’t need you if I were on the right track!” What a lie. 

Sonia is a gift from God to me to accompany me on the track and just simply keep me going forward. She has taught me to love truth and to be kind to myself. Because of Sonia, I felt God’s nearness and tender care for my heart, soul, and mind on the mission field. Thank you for supporting her and allowing her to continue being a bright light that illuminates even the darkest valley.

Missionary, Mexico



Thank you so much for all the time you have spent counseling with me! It has been such a huge blessing. I feel like I am going back to the field in a better place, with more awareness and with tools to help me be more of the person that God intended me to be. Thank you for your encouragement to take the hard steps, for your explanations of the crazy situations and for opening my mind to new ways of thinking about things. Your ministry is such a blessing! Thank you for filling a huge need that exist in the missionary world.

Missionary, Nepal

As I journey on as a global worker, missionary who advocates for spiritual, physical and mental health, the road is never clear of how the Lord plans to use me. Your partnership in my work is so important.

On a personal level, Mike and I are adjusting to living in our new land of Waco, Texas, which is very different than the states of California, Utah and Colorado, where we have lived before. We are learning a new culture and language and making new friends at a stage of life where that isn’t the easiest. Moving our business and our home has had its many challenges but I continue to marvel at how God uses my personal mountains to equip me in my ministry. As I interact with women who willingly face the challenge of relocation to the ends of the earth to spread the love of God as they serve as nurses, work with sex trafficked, fly airplanes into places no one else will go, to serve and minister to the unseen and the forsaken….all for the Glory of our Lord…I am empowered to soldier on! I am blessed to be a part of the Great Commission in the way that God has equipped me.

What is your part in the Great Commission? Are you equipped to PRAY? To GIVE? To GO? Or all three? Would you like to know how to best connect with organizations where you can be a part of something bigger than yourself?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia Nelson

To give to the Nelson Ministry at Paraclete Ministries click here.

 

 

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Boundaries: Embrace your role as parent

I have some really wonderful children who constantly outshine anything I have done in my life. I wish I could take credit for it, but I am quite sure it is a blessing straight from the Lord. However, I have been very intentional in my parenting, and I think every once in awhile I think there is something worth sharing with parents who are not feeling confident in their role.

One of my proudest moments as a parent happened in a doctor’s office. I had taken my daughter for her required physical so that she could participate on her school dance team. The PA performing the exam, was unmarried, no children and looked not much older than my daughter. After discussing a vaccination specifically for sexually transmitted diseases, she asked me to leave the room so that she could have a private conversation with my daughter. My daughter looked her straight in the eye and let her know that there wasn’t anything she would confide in her that wouldn’t tell her mother. As it should be.

Parenting is much more than helping a small person become a big person. As parents, we should strive for much more than survival in our young. We have an opportunity, as parents, to instill in our children values and influence that will help them navigate life long after they leave the shelter of our roof.

There is a battle out there right now and popular culture is trying to minimize the influence of parents on their children. As a psychotherapist who also has a Masters in Education, with an emphasis in child development, I want to warn you of some of the dangers in influencing young minds with subjects that can lead to behaviors and mental health that can be very destructive.

There is a movement right now to introduce sexuality to children as young as kindergarten. On a very basic level, what rational human thinks a 5 year old needs to worry about sexuality? Let kids play in the dirt, play with dolls…but there is no need to apply a sexualized meaning to any of these activities. Children are natural explorers and experimenting with forms of play does not have to be an indicator of their adult sexual preference. In fact, when we are too eager to make experimentation a life long decision, we run the risk of sabotaging long term goals.

Data supports that children who are sexualized early in their lives tend to have more promiscuous teenage years and are more likely to experience sexual trauma. Know that if you are facilitating conversations that they are not developmentally ready to handle, you are not promoting mental health, you are sabotaging it.

For those of you who are frothing at the mouth right now, thinking that I am narrow minded and not in touch, I want you to know that I sit with many clients who suffer their entire adult lives because of early sexualization. Healthy sexuality comes not from early sexualization but from protecting the freedom of childhood that allows kids to try any number of activities without making them about sexual preference.

So parents, here is the free counseling: TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN about who they are and what interests they want to pursue, not in the light of sexuality but of personhood. Encourage your children to have individualistic thinking when it comes to the preferences they choose and confidence that comes from within, rather than from the cheering crowds. This will allow them to make choices about faith, lifestyle and even sexual preferences outside of public approval. Don’t we all know that public approval of almost anything should be questioned just a little bit?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Social Media: What is the back story?

Just yesterday, I had the opportunity to post on Social Media about my amazing kids. As a family, we looked so happy and put together as we celebrated some things we have to be grateful for in this season of life. But part of me felt a little false, even as I posted, because the pretty pictures are not really the whole story. As someone who sits in the dark places with people, I feel an obligation to shed some truth so that those who struggle know that even in the bright moments of life, there is often pain, past trauma and overall life influencing how we travel on in this life journey. What those banner weekend pics didn’t show was the pain of the past week, the years of hard work and the overhanging gloom that chronic illness brings to our family.

Oftentimes when we observe people’s lives through the lens of Facebook, Instagram, or even from across the street, there is no way to know the whole story. When we only observe the glory moments, we open ourselves up to unfair comparison which can lead to all sorts of unhealthy. For example, the headline for our family did not include the IEP meetings from grade school, the obstacles overcome for the current title, last week’s hospital stay or the crying on the bathroom floor just moments before.

It can be so easy to look at other people and make assumptions. When we see the newly divorced woman looking amazing in her bikini, we often fail to associate the pain of rejection that may have driven that physical fitness goal. Or when we hear of someone getting promoted at work, we rarely think that maybe growing up in poverty may be a trauma that haunts that individual on a daily basis, causing them to anxiously pursue wealth as a pacifier. We only see the heavenly lights shining down.

Some of the shiniest people have dark pasts, unseen trauma, and heavy burdens to carry. It is important to remember that, when you are going through a difficult struggle and you can’t see a way out. Hold on for the stars to come your way and keep your eyes looking up so you don’t miss them!

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Self Care: Not just a bubble bath

Y’all know that I don’t love it when popular culture runs wild with terminology used in therapy. So many terms being misused out there! Not everyone is bi-polar or narcissistic, for your information. Recently someone told me that she was recovering from a self care drunken night out with friends and I admit, I winced. People! You shouldn’t have to recover from self care!

Now before you go thinking that I am judgey and start rolling your eyes in my direction, let me clarify that if going out with the girls and throwing back a few is a good time for you, by all means go. But if you are calling this event self care, be sure that after participating in the event, you can honestly say you are a much better person for going and you are more ready to take on the world because of the time spent. A good time is a good time but it isn’t always self care.

Another misconception is that if a tired mommy can just get a bubble bath every once in awhile, she can check self care off her To Do list and be ready to take on whatever comes her way. While a long soak is a wonderful end to the day for some of us, that isn’t quite enough for most people. It might take the edge off but self care is meant to go a little deeper.

When women come to me for counseling because they feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of life, the dynamics of relationships and the pitfalls of living in this world, neither one night out with some friends or a fancy hygiene ritual is likely to be the fix. The women who pay for ongoing counseling are coming because in their journey of life, they lost their sense of self along the way and they need some tools to recapture their empowered self.

Self care, in the therapeutic sense addresses more than just the needs at the surface. It addresses the calling of one’s intellectual, physical and spiritual self. Let’s break these down practically so that you can start thinking of your own ideas of how to feed these areas of your life.

MIND: We are learners by nature. We are happiest when we are thinking about, reading about and listening to subjects and ideas we are interested in. What are you doing to feed your mind and keep your thoughts positive?

BODY: Our bodies need sustenance, rest and rehabilitation. Take a look at how you are treating your body and ask yourself if you are getting the nutrition and exercise needed for your busy life. Are you taking time to go to the doctor, the gym, the nutritionist or the salon?

SOUL: It is far too easy to overlook the needs of our heart. What are rituals that feed your soul? Do you meditate or journal? Do you spend time in nature or take time to read the Bible? Is there a self-help book you have wanted to dive into?

This just scratches the surface of self care but I hope it gets you thinking. When we take good care of ourselves, we are empowered to better care for others. You will know that your self care is effective, not because you have to recover from it, but rather you will feel prepared and able to better serve others!

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Life Goals: Embrace YOUR happy

Awhile back I was sitting with a client who self-described as situationally depressed. After spending a fair amount of time processing the events and situations ongoing in her life that seemed to be causing this, I noticed that there was a pattern of comparison that needed a little sifting. A friend of hers had just bought a cabin in the mountains, a family member had just been on a cruise, another friend had recently gone back to work and my client felt stuck at home with her children. But after I probed a little, she actually didn’t want a second home in a cold climate, gets seasick when she is on a boat and left the corporate world intentionally so that she wouldn’t miss too many moments of her children’s lives. So the issue wasn’t that she was jealous of these other people in her life, but rather, she wasn’t sure if her life was satisfying as it was.

Before you can experience contentment or happiness, it is important that you know what that means to you. It is self-sabotaging to look at another person’s life, notice how yours is dissimilar and then assume that if you had what they have, you would be happy like they are. Unfortunately, each of us have things in our past or circumstances in our present, that cloud our lens and it can be a challenge to look past these things. But when we do, we are able to usher in contentment that makes life more satisfying.

Try this. Scroll through the photos on your phone and pick 5 pictures that represent happiness in your life. Take a minute to identify what it was in that moment that made you want to snap a picture. Was it the crash of the wave, the laughter of your child, or the sweetness of the dessert? What does happiness look like, sound like, feel like or taste like to you? When you can identify these things, you can embrace the wonderful things in your life and intentionally seek out experiences that add to your photo album of life.

Happiness is not something that just happens. To be happy, you have to decide that your are going to choose it. What activities and daily practices in your life lead you down the path to a happy life? Think MIND, BODY and SOUL. Are you nurturing each of these parts of your life in a way that brings you joy?

An activity that I often do with clients requires them to dig deep to figure out who they are by identify what makes them tick. When we apply practical activities and intentional mindsets to who they are, happiness and contentment rise to the surface. It is important to remember that parts of our mind, body and soul need to be fed in order to grow. You may want ask yourself if you are purposefully tending to your heart needs, expanding your mind capacity, stretching your physical body and surrounding yourself with people who encourage you.

Life is hard but if you think about it, none of the truly great people in the world got there because it was easy. Are you resolved to be happy? Take some time to figure out what welcoming in happiness in your life looks like. As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia