Sound Expressions

03/02/2026

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What you focus on today quietly trains your brain for tomorrow. Research shows that deliberately paying attention to positive experiences does more than lift your mood in the moment. Over time, it physically reshapes your brain, making it more likely to notice, remember, and seek out good experiences in the future. This is not motivational talk. It is neuroscience in action.

The brain is highly plastic, meaning its structure and connections change based on repeated thoughts and behaviors. When you focus on positive moments, such as gratitude, small wins, or feelings of safety and connection, specific neural circuits are activated. Repeated activation strengthens these pathways, especially in regions linked to attention, emotional regulation, and reward. This makes positive information easier to access and more influential in shaping perception.

At the same time, focusing on the good helps calm the brain’s threat detection systems. Chronic stress and negativity keep the amygdala, the brain’s fear center, on high alert. Positive focus does not erase problems, but it balances the system. Over time, the brain learns that not every moment requires a stress response, reducing anxiety and emotional reactivity.

Dopamine and serotonin also play a role. When the brain registers positive experiences as meaningful, these neurotransmitters support motivation, learning, and emotional stability. This reinforces the habit of seeking positive input, creating a feedback loop where the brain becomes more attuned to what is going right rather than what is going wrong.

Importantly, this process does not require ignoring reality or forcing happiness. It works best when grounded in genuine awareness. Noticing something good for just 20 to 30 seconds allows the brain to encode it more deeply, increasing the likelihood that it will influence future thinking patterns..

03/02/2026

I would add that without Jesus our Healer the whole process would be incomplete. Jesus alone can heal that which this world broke...

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Trauma is not stored only in memory or thoughts. Neuroscience shows it is also held within the nervous system itself. This insight changes how healing is understood, because it explains why talking alone sometimes helps but does not fully resolve the body’s stress response.

Biologically, trauma can keep the nervous system stuck in survival mode. The brain and body remain on high alert, even when danger is no longer present. Heart rate, muscle tension, breathing patterns, and stress hormones adapt to protect the body, but over time this state becomes exhausting. Simply understanding the trauma does not always signal the nervous system that it is safe again.

Physical movement plays a key role because the nervous system learns through sensation and action. Gentle movement, stretching, rhythmic activity, or coordinated exercise sends new signals to the brain. These signals help recalibrate how the body responds to stress. Movement activates pathways that support regulation, balance, and safety, allowing the nervous system to shift out of constant defense.

Psychologically, this explains why people may still feel tense or reactive even after years of talking through experiences. The body needs experiences that contradict the trauma pattern. Movement creates those experiences by showing the nervous system that it can move, breathe, and respond without threat.

Importantly, this does not diminish the value of therapy. Talking builds awareness and meaning. Movement completes the process by engaging the body where trauma is stored. Together, they support more complete healing.

This understanding is empowering. Healing is not about forcing the mind to move on. It is about giving the nervous system new information through safe, supportive experiences.

30/01/2026

New EASE Episode #12: Words

EASE Series Episode #12 is about words. I use my voice to release a word about words with as few words as possible. Scripture is filled with instruction abou...

29/01/2026

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24/01/2026

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🚨 THE BIBLE’S MOST HEARTBREAKING MOTHER:—AND MOST CHRISTIANS DON’T EVEN KNOW HER NAME

Rizpah’s story is one of the most emotionally violent scenes in the entire Old Testament—and it’s almost never preached.

She wasn’t a prophet. She wasn’t a queen. She wasn’t “platformed.” She was a mother. And she watched the bodies of her sons hang on wooden beams—publicly displayed—while scavenger birds and wild animals circled like they owned the place.

This wasn’t a quiet funeral. This wasn’t a dignified burial. This was humiliation. It was political messaging. It was “Let this be a warning.” And Rizpah refused to let the last word be shame.
Scripture says she spread sackcloth on a rock and stayed there “from the beginning of harvest until rain fell from the heavens.” Daytime meant birds of prey. Night meant beasts. And she kept watch anyway. She didn’t have an army. She didn’t have power. She had grief—and a holy kind of stubbornness that would not move.

Rizpah “took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from heaven.” (2 Samuel 21:10)

People love to talk about “strong women in the Bible” when it’s safe. When it’s inspirational. When it can fit on a mug. But Rizpah’s strength is not cute. It’s raw. It’s ugly. It’s the kind of courage that only shows up when God doesn’t rescue you fast, and you’re left holding the weight of a world that feels unjust.

And here’s what should convict modern Christians: Rizpah didn’t preach a sermon. She didn’t write a song. She simply stayed. She refused to let death be treated like a punchline.
Her grief became a protest.
And it worked.

The Bible says King David heard what she did. Not what she said—what she did. Her endurance exposed the wrongness of the situation so loudly that a king had to respond. David gathered the bones, gave honor in burial, and the text says God’s favor returned to the land.

Read that again. A mother’s refusal to abandon her dead reshaped the actions of a king.
If you want to understand the gospel without skipping the horror, look at Rizpah. Because love doesn’t always look like a miracle. Sometimes it looks like a woman in the dirt, screaming at birds, refusing to surrender what she cannot fix.

And if you’ve ever thought, “I don’t have a ministry,” or “I don’t know my calling,” Rizpah answers you with a terrifying reminder: your obedience may not be public success. It may be private endurance. It may be staying at the rock longer than anyone thinks is reasonable.
In a world that forgets people the moment they stop being useful, Rizpah stands as a witness: God sees the ones who keep watch when nobody’s applauding. And He is not unmoved by the kind of love that stays.

24/01/2026

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Subtle Ways You May Still Be Treating Yourself Like an Orphan ☹️

In my last post, I shared about my final session with a woman of God who was doing such deep work that I stopped in the middle of it to buy her a gift. I want to clarify that this gift was not about effort or performance. It was to commemorate a real breakthrough she was experiencing in that moment.

What I want to share now is this. The list below came directly from the homework assignment she completed. These were the questions she answered privately and honestly, and then brought into our session. As we went over her responses together, something powerful happened.

She found herself again and again in her own words. The tears flowed. Not from shame, but from recognition. She began to see how often she had been neglecting herself emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And this is something people with an orphan spirit often do. They self-neglect.

The orphan spirit does not only show up in how we relate to other people. It also shows up in how we relate to ourselves. How we care for our needs. How we rest. How we allow ourselves peace. How we treat our inner world when no one else is watching.

This is not about shame.
This is about awareness.

Many of these patterns were learned in seasons where survival mattered more than softness, and connection had to be earned instead of received. They once served a purpose. But healing invites us to gently examine what no longer serves us.

Read through this list slowly. Let it be information, not accusation. Simply notice what resonates as you continue growing.

1. Overexplaining yourself so people will not misunderstand you

2. Feeling responsible for keeping emotional peace in every room

3. Second guessing your tone after conversations

4. Shrinking your personality to avoid discomfort in others

5. Assuming you are the problem when tension arises

6. Feeling guilty for choosing yourself

7. Avoiding spaces where you fear you will not be welcomed

8. Preparing for rejection even when none has happened

9. Monitoring people’s moods more than your own

10. Struggling to rest emotionally

11. Feeling like you have to earn belonging

12. Downplaying your needs so you do not feel like a burden

13. Feeling uneasy when you are fully at peace

14. Expecting misunderstanding as the norm

15. Feeling the need to be extra kind so you are not disliked

16. Holding back your truth to preserve connection

17. Feeling exposed when you are fully yourself

18. Taking on emotional weight that does not belong to you

19. Feeling like you have to prove your value

20. Hesitating to take up space

21. Feeling uncomfortable receiving support

22. Feeling safer being needed than being known

23. Internalizing other people’s bad days

24. Feeling unseen even when you are present

25. Anticipating rejection before it happens

26. Avoiding conflict at the expense of yourself

27. Feeling like peace is temporary

28. Feeling like you must stay emotionally alert

29. Struggling to believe you are fully covered and supported

30. Forgetting that you are allowed to live free

After reading this list, answer honestly. Not defensively. Not theoretically. Just truthfully.
Which of these do I recognize in myself right now?

The Power Pusher, LICSW

23/01/2026

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He Was With You the Whole Way

There are seasons in your life when you look back and wonder how you made it through. You remember the weight, the silence, the unanswered prayers, and the nights when faith felt fragile. You wonder why God felt distant, or why the path seemed so lonely.

But heaven remembers those moments differently.

You were never abandoned. You were never unseen. You were never walking alone.

There were times when your strength failed and your prayers were only sighs. Times when you could not carry the burden one more step. In those moments, the Lord did not stand back and watch. He drew near. He upheld you. He carried what you could not.

Scripture tells us that beneath are the everlasting arms. Not beside you only, but underneath you. Holding you up when you had nothing left to give. Sustaining you when your faith was trembling but still present.

You may remember the pain more than the presence, but God remembers the rescue.

When you could not see a way forward, He was already making one. When you felt forgotten, He was watching over every detail. When you thought your prayers were falling to the ground, they were being gathered, answered, and woven into a greater story.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. He does not rush past your tears. He does not minimize your suffering. He enters it with you. And when the weight becomes too heavy, He does not ask you to be stronger. He becomes your strength.

You are here today not because you endured alone, but because God was faithful. What you survived was not by accident. It was by grace.

So if you are walking through a hard season now, take heart. The same God who carried you then is carrying you now. You may not feel Him the way you want to, but He is nearer than your breath. You may not see the path clearly, but He is guiding every step.

One day you will look back again, and you will see it clearly. Where you thought you were walking alone, He was sustaining you. Where you felt weakest, He was strongest. And where you nearly gave up, His mercy held you together.

The Lord does not leave His children behind. He carries them through.

And He will carry you still.