Author: snelson

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Donkey Dung is Your Friend: Turning the poop in your life into something beautiful

Masechaba - Sonia Nelson

In the last six years, I have been privileged to travel internationally, as a therapist, with various organizations who put on women’s retreats. In this capacity, I meet the most amazing women.  On my most recent trip to Lesotho and South Africa, I got to meet and visit the home of Ilza, known in her rural Lesotho village as Masechaba. Her story, her vision and her ability to transform, impacted me tremendously.

When the team and I arrived at Masechaba’s dollhouse sized hut, situated within a remote village, she toured us throughout the most remarkable, all-green, “small-house” I have ever seen. I have watched dozens of those small house home shows on HGTV and they got nothin’ on Masechaba and her ingenuity. She has utilized every inch of space, and powers her computer, lights and water systems with a creativity that could make her a lot of money in the states…but she is in Lesotho, in a village, saving the world one child at a time.

Part of the tour included a look at her makeshift greenhouse where she grows her food, along with trees that will eventually be used on the property. During this part of the tour, we were each handed a piece of donkey dung and instructed how to use our fingers to work it into smaller, usable shavings. We obediently put our smashed poop into a sizable bag where weeks of smashed poop had been accumulating and the ongoing joke for the weekend was birthed, “Donkey dung is your friend.”

Sonia Nelson - Moriah VenturesThe yucky parts of our life can be a thing of beauty

For those of you who know me, there is no explanation needed for my inner response to this situation. I am still unsure as to why, a therapist who likes to think of herself as pretty knowledgeable about personal boundaries, joined in this exercise at all, except that…maybe there is a lesson here for all of us. Maybe there is something that I can use, as I deal with the donkey dung of people’s lives in the counseling space. This is what Masechaba shared with us:  donkey dung is used to fertilize the garden that feeds Masechaba and her adopted daughter. The donkey dung is also used, when mixed with other ingredients, to construct walls and fix holes in her hut. Donkey dung is life saving, necessary for warmth and stability and yes, donkey dung is your friend when you live in remote Lesotho.

Obviously Masechaba’s gifts to the world and mine are very different. But like my new friend, I want to use the donkey dung in my life for something good. Masechaba’s entire hut is made of donkey dung cement and the handprints of fellow villagers are forever on the walls of Masechaba’s home. With heartfelt gratitude, she identifies by name, where each friend labored to help her construct every wall. Am I able to build a beautiful life with the donkey dung that I have been given? Am I able to let people in to shape the bad parts of my life into something beautiful? I better be, because my life work is all wrapped up in the concept of building life out of ashes!

Sonia Nelson - Moriah VenturesRomans 8:28: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

No matter who you are, you have had trials and you have faced obstacles. You may have lost a job or a friend. You may have received a diagnosis or a Dear John letter that left you feeling helpless and abandoned. A wayward child or a wayward spouse may stir up a disbelief in your relational abilities or the goodness of people. Whatever it is, as you hold the donkey dung of life in your hand, you are faced with a choice and an opportunity: Do you embrace the yucky stuff and mold it into something usable and beautiful or do you gingerly hold it away from you, or toss it aside as useless?

Masechaba has chosen, after being raised in South Africa, under apartheid, to use her life for positive change. As a former South African police officer, she has been exposed to every side of the tough political issues of this complicated region. Today, Masechaba is choosing to shave her head in local tradition, live a sacrificial life, in a hut built out of donkey dung, Her name means Mother to the Nations and the local chief and other authorities in the community know that her home is available for children in crisis. Her life has not been perfect, yet she is living a most beautiful life of redemption and promise, because she is willing to grapple with and redefine what the yucky stuff of life can do, to promote better understanding and new life.

What does the donkey dung in your life look like? Does it need to be smashed up and put to good use? Are you ready to embrace the donkey dung and shape it into something beautiful?

Sonia
[email protected]

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Ladies, it is your life: Feminism in the counseling space

Sonia NelsonWe are in the throws of the ugliest political season I have ever seen. I have given up trying to enter into discussion about which disgusting person is better for our nation. My world is small anyway. I work with women, one on one, in a room, whether in the United States or around the world. I work to promote their dreams, their worth and their purpose. My hope, my deep longing, is that while our politicians battle it out, our nation begins to realize that feminism is no longer just about getting to vote, being paid more, or promoting sexual freedom. Feminism, if we are able to embrace the bigness of the concept, involves more than being president of a company or the nation, or getting free birth control. Feminism, the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities, goes way beyond this very limited public discussion.

When I began to see clients about 6 years ago, I was shocked at how the conversation with many of the women I saw, turned to emotional and sexual exploitation in their past. The number of women that have been harassed, molested, raped or passed over for not putting out, is mind blowing. The number of women scorned for their unplanned pregnancy, their choice to birth a child or their unfortunate decision to abort, is staggering. And don’t get me started on how many women endure verbal abuse that could show up on an x-ray machine of their heart.  I have been so impacted by how even one abusive incident can wreak havoc on a life. Abuse of women can be overt but it can also be very subtle. It can be found in the unspoken expectations, the lack of safety for female voices and the encouragement of behaviors that are not in the best interest of women overall.

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Spiritual Abuse: Using God’s name for bad behavior

Couch time.net - Sonia NelsonAlmost a year ago, I was at the finish line for a part-time job at a local church. The job description involved counseling and since I am a trained psychotherapist and the church uses a Biblical Counseling model, the final interview with the lead pastor involved some detailed questions about my theological stance and how I would come to terms with the theoretical differences between my training and the Biblical Counseling model. I consider myself fairly confident in an interview setting and quite honestly, I have never not been offered a job that I was invited to interview for…until this year. (I know that was a double negative…but so is this topic…)

If I had it to do over again, I would have walked out…….

However, since I am pretty good at “the body language read”, I can identify the moment where almost in slow motion, I saw the change in his stance, the shift in his facial affect and the slight turn away from me, that indicated we were no longer on the same page. The question posed was, “What would you advise a couple struggling in their marriage where there had been abuse?” I did not hesitate with my response, “God hates divorce but God also hates bad marriages. If someone is in a marriage where there is physical or emotional abuse, the couple needs to separate until it is determined that the danger is gone. Only then can they pursue reconciliation.” I don’t regret my answer. What I regret is that I tried to save the interview. I should have stood up and walked out right then. I later received a curt note, from the secretary, that my theoretical stance was not in line with the church’s. No duh.

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Parenting is a life-long commitment: Why have some parents already left the building?

My husband and I were some of the first parents we knew that allowed our 5th graders to have cell phones. You would have thought we bought them cocaine with all the flack from parents in our little community, who thought our use of cell phones was pre-mature. It makes me laugh out loud now because we would be normal today. Our decision at the time, appeared indulgent but in fact, we were trying to parent wisely. Mike traveled most of every week and when I dropped one child off for soccer practice and drove the other across town for dance, I needed to feel like both kids could get in contact me if there was an emergency. I am not sure if you have noticed but there is no such thing as a pay phone anymore.

Be encouraged. We did not hand our impressionable angels their devices and then act as if they were equipped in any way to use them in a mature way. We parented. No phones at the dinner table, no phones after we go to bed (this one changed later on), and absolutely nothing that could keep them from getting into college or getting a job was allowed on their phone. Early on, we established a family policy that allows any member of the family to view the contents of any other member’s phone and yes, we all have a tracking application so that any time, we can find one another if need be. You would actually be surprised at how the tracking device comes in handy for someone like me, who is directionally challenged. This policy started from day one and as a result, communication has always been open and now 7 years later, there is little need to check or track anything that is happening on our girls’ phones. Little need, because the communication was established before any crisis demanded that we intervene.

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Protecting Your Heart: Knowing When to Back Away from the Raisin Cookie

protecting your heartEvery once in a while, my daughter Emilee drops a pearl of wisdom that leaves us giggling for days. Today she said, “ Sometimes people are like that cookie that you think is chocolate chip and it turns out to be raisin.” Isn’t that the truth? So often in life, we enter relationships and circumstances believing that an experience similar to eating a chocolate chip cookie, fresh out of the oven, is waiting for us, only to be disappointed in the counterfeit.

For those of you who like the raisin cookie or somehow think it is the healthier option, let’s be honest. The raisin cookie has just as much sugar, just as many calories and no chocolate. Choose to eat it if you want, but don’t think for a minute that you have made the wiser choice. A raisin cookie is okay but it is not as good as the chocolate chip. Period.

I will assert however that not all is lost when we grab the cookie and then realize that it is not what we had been craving. Experiences, even the somewhat negative ones, can provide us with information very necessary for making wise choices. The only way for some of us to learn how to identify the wolf in sheep’s clothing is to go through a little heartbreak. Sometimes the best way to fully understand what we don’t like in relationships, jobs, or even extra-curricular hobbies comes from living through a situation where we are negatively impacted. It can be difficult in the moment, but life lessons are rarely pleasant. Furthermore, there is no shame is tasting the raisin cookie and then putting it down to go in search of a cookie with the chips.

The mistake that many of us make, which can lead to couch time with a therapist is when we finish the raisin cookie, feel dissatisfied, but then reach for a second. Before we know it, we think we like the less-than-yummy cookie, talk ourselves into thinking it is “good enough”, eventually concluding that we can never do better. One day, we wake up and we are sick of the cookies we never wanted in the first place. We may even blame the cookie for our inability to stop eating. Quite simply, it is better to lay the cookie down before walking down the aisle, signing the contract or giving your blood, sweat and tears to a relationship that is not going to be reciprocated.

Personal boundaries have to be adjusted as we navigate life and encounter people and situations that promise to be something important in our lives but then as time passes, alter to a point that we are being hurt far more than necessary. It is important to remember that we have choice in who we give influence to, who we give our time to and what situations we need to run away from. We also need to educate ourselves on how to protect our emotional health when we are stuck with people, for whatever reason, who habitually stomp on our hearts. Our personal mental health and physical safety are primarily an individual responsibility and blaming others when we allow them to steal our worthiness is not healthy.

If you are eating too many raisin cookies, PUT THE COOKIE DOWN!

Sonia
[email protected]
720.449.2235
@soniaknelson

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If there is no “i” in your team, you might be spelling it wrong

IMG_2591Just days ago, I returned from being part of an all-female team, serving global women who in turn, dedicate their lives to the lost and forgotten of the world. Experience says that all that estrogen in one setting is a recipe for tension but as I have experienced with this group before, when team is done well, it is a beautiful thing.

We have all been raised on the mantra that there is no “I” in TEAM. Technically and grammatically speaking, this is obviously correct. However, as one who works in and with teams, I have come to realize that most dysfunction occurs when individuals within a team feel misunderstood, unappreciated or ignored for their individual contribution. This can be applied to a team as small as a nuclear family and to a team of 36 women who join together for a 10 day project half way around the world.

1 Peter 4:10-11 says that God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. The text reminds us to use them well to serve one another.

If you are in a situation where your gifts are not being utilized or the gifts of others do not allow you to contribute effectively, there might be a need for some adjustment of roles! This also applies to family life where it takes work to bring out the best in each member.

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