Martha Smalley- Licensed Clinical Christian Counselor

08/16/2025

Meditation on Social Media can work. Deep breath in - hold for 5 count - breathe out - keep listening to the water and no talking. Repeat for there times so you stop thinking about all the other intruding thoughts. Be alone with the water. Now you are ready for your prayer time or your introspection time. NO CHAOS ALLOWED.

08/15/2025

Our favorite Dr. Chris Isechi is in town. What a treat to see him and hear him speak of the great things occurring at Faith Alive Hospital in Jos, Nigeria

07/28/2025

What a day in the Big Sky today.

10/20/2024

What is CHARACTER? The set of abilities you need to meet the demands of life. We need to know this for our future choices, right?

Six Aspects to Character:🌅🌅🌅🌅

Sustain meaningful relationships
Take responsibility and have self-control in your life
Live in the reality of yours and others' imperfections
Work and do tasks competently
Have an internal moral structure
Have a transcendent spiritual life 🌫🌞

Dr. John Townsend

09/09/2024

07/28/2024

"Don't do something just because" is a phrase that means you shouldn't do something simply because it's what everyone else is doing, or because you feel obligated to do it. For example, Exodus 23:2 in the Bible says, "Don't do something just because everyone else is doing it. If you see a group of people doing wrong, don't join them". "You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice".

Pay attention to your world and don't "Do Something Just Because" the world attempts to get you to believe things without looking AT them, ABOUT them and THROUGH them. This would include who to vote for your next President "just because she is a Female, Feminist, Marxist, former Prosecutor and AG (check the results of those two stints in California) she is Jamaican and Indian (not African American) and you don't like Mr. Trump would not automatically make her the correct choice - check out the truth about both candidates more thoroughly and ask yourself to choose without the selective hearing from your circle of influence.

That's my challenge to all citizens of this Country!

06/29/2023

https://youtube.com/shorts/_65yeLi-xfc?feature=share

What are the three filters of Socrates? The story goes that Socrates was resting under a tree when one of his disciples approached him in a hurry and said; M...

06/26/2023

Counseling can help the BEAR inside you that wants to growl at everyone!

12/10/2022

WHY WE NEED TO FLUFF UP ON SOCIAL MEDIA

**Please read and share for your kids' sake.**

In an age where social media is part of our daily lives in almost every capacity, one must wonder the effects it has on our minds, both the unconscious and conscious parts. We know the research on the negative impact of social media and see this occur in the news daily, with many of us having experienced this firsthand as well.

Why are we so focused on social media? Why is there a need to post online, knowing all the reasons why it is so negative? What makes us feel the need to document our lives and post these things on social media? Why do we post the good things and not the bad? Our online behavior directly relates to our sense of worth offline. It also relates to psychological states, for example whether we have low self-esteem, narcissism, anxiety or depression can equate to the need for admiration, external validation or other traits leading us to post online.

Wilcox and Stephen (2012) found that social media sites increase self-esteem as people present themselves as socially desirable with a positive self-view to others when online. This, in turn, gives individuals a self-esteem boost, but decreases self-control. One must keep up appearances and paint a positive picture of what our lives look like, which may cover up our true personas. Obtaining our self-esteem and self-worth from social media is not sustainable. These superficial ways of receiving positive feedback do more harm than good and makes us more malleable to the comments we get and the number of likes we get, which can also lead to psychological addiction to social media usage.

There is even research to back this up, psychological addiction can lead to degrading white matter in the brain and resembles the impact drug addiction has on an individual.

Social media should not be what one turns to, to boost self-esteem as one relies on external validation to achieve a sense of self-worth, rather than looking internally for validation. By gaining a positive view of ourselves on social media, we perpetuate a negative cycle where we take short-term satisfaction as the same as long-term, meaningful work we should be doing on our own to improve our own self-esteem. Again, when we post something online, we hide the negative parts of our life, thus leaving behind the shame we have of those negatives. We lose the ability to develop a healthy sense of self-worth through personal growth and moving forward from fears related to failure and other negative thoughts.

The key here is that our sense of self-worth is not and should not originate from social media. We must be cognizant of the reality that it is not possible to fully improve our self-esteem through posting online and receiving positive feedback. Rather, looking inward to ourselves is a sustainable and healthy way to develop positive emotional and cognitive self-appraisals that build up self-esteem and self-worth.

11/19 Modern Therapy

11/16/2022

11/14/2022

Family Holiday Time or Anytime - Don’t Do Too Much