Glenn Kimball, Author at Mike and Susan Dawson ⋆ Page 2 of 22

Should I Bring my Anxiety to God?

Glenn Kimball2024-09-19T10:12:34-05:00Anxiety|

Sometimes, we act like anxiety is a new thing that we all experience in our everyday lives. But, honestly, anxiety is as old as life itself. It’s even in the Bible! King David, a man after God’s own heart, had anxious thoughts and pleaded with God to help him. The proverbs tell us that an anxious heart weighs us down, but kind words cheer us up. Even the apostle Paul says in the Book of Philippians not to be anxious but to take all our anxiety to God with prayer and thanksgiving. Obviously, that can be easier said than done for most of us, especially when our minds are racing [...]

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4 Foolproof Tips to Manage Your Thoughts When Faced With Anxiety

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:12:55-06:00Anxiety|

As we've discussed over the past few blog posts, anxiety is rampant these days. It has become a way of life for many people — perhaps even you. Maybe you feel consumed so much by erratic emotions and feelings of uncertainty, hopelessness, fear, and dread that now you can't enjoy life. It can feel nearly impossible to control and can last for a long time. When anxiety sets in with a vengeance, it's easy for us to feel like life is too chaotic. We instantly feel defeated. But learning to manage your thoughts and thinking is absolutely possible — and necessary. Many skills can be learned, regardless of whether your [...]

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Anxiety has many Facets, and we CAN Manage

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:12:57-06:00Anxiety|

While sitting down to write this blog on anxiety, I was reminded of a funny quote: “People with anxiety don't have a train of thought. We have seven trains on four tracks that narrowly avoid each other when paths cross, and all the conductors are screaming.” I have no idea who penned that line, but it’s the most vivid explanation of anxiety I’ve seen to date. It starts with a laugh and ends with the truth of how real anxiety is for many folks. It’s also the least clinical explanation, which I appreciate as a marriage counselor since I try my best to know when to be serious and when [...]

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Tips and Tricks to Maximize your Daily Marriage Dialogue

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:13:01-06:00Communication|

With all of this talk over the last few weeks in our blog posts about communication, we’d be remiss if we didn’t include important tips and marriage hacks when it comes to improving your daily marriage dialogue and daily compliments. We do this because it’s so easy to get caught up in our busy lives that we as couples forget to have all the little conversations that ultimately make a big difference in how well we communicate. We get caught in a cycle where we stop talking about anything meaningful. As a result, we don’t connect like we used to. Engaging in daily dialogue, even if it’s a simple, “What’s [...]

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Express feelings with your Spouse to unlock Secret Places

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:13:02-06:00Emotion|

It’s one thing to share your thoughts when trying to communicate with your spouse. But how would you rate your ability to actually express feelings? You know, letting loose on all that makes you vulnerable, scared, happy, loved, desired, safe, etc. Regardless of whether or not you gave yourself a passing score, I think we can all agree that expressing feelings is hard — even for women, who, let’s be honest, are great at it in comparison to many men. That’s because it still takes a lot of courage to share what’s going on beneath the surface. How will my spouse respond? Will I be validated or simply brushed off? [...]

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Listening is the Life Blood of Communication – Especially in Marriage

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:13:03-06:00Communication|

Since the theme for this month is on communicating better as spouses, we wanted to share a few insightful words from Everett Worthington. Everett is a clinical psychologist and professor who, just like Susan and me, specializes in counseling couples. And a large part of his focus is to teach people how to communicate their love by listening. This is a valuable lesson because we typically stop listening to each other when we experience troubles in our marriage. We tune each other out or only listen to a few points before going on the defensive. When we do this, the message to our spouse is: “I don’t care enough about [...]

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Communication Fails vs Love Bank 2.0

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:13:04-06:00Communication, Love|

A common statement I hear from couples who are having problems in their marriage is that they aren’t communicating. This can indicate Love Bank balance issues. “We just aren’t communicating like we used to!” “Gee, ya know … we just aren’t talking. And when we do, we end up fighting over something.” “I don’t think either of us is communicating how we really feel.” Communication breakdowns are normal. They happen to all of us. But we shouldn’t allow those breakdowns to last for too long. We need to investigate the root cause and do something about it. After all, communication is vital in marriage! It’s the only way we can [...]

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Build and Maintain Trust: Essential to a Great Marriage

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:13:04-06:00Trust|

We’ve been talking a lot over the past few blog posts about how important trust is in a marriage. It creates safety, openness, vulnerability, love, and all those other feel-good vibes that make living life with the person you love that much more special. We have also talked through how anger in a relationship erodes trust and makes trust extremely hard to build. Without trust, there’s no way any of us can expect our relationship to survive. But just because you and your spouse trust each other today doesn’t mean it will naturally be that way forever. Trust is earned over time, and then we must build and maintain it [...]

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How to Build Trust in my Most Important Relationship

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:13:05-06:00Trust|

It is my personal belief that no two people are perfectly suited only for each other. I know that’s not what most people like to think; after all, we hear and say things like, “We are perfect for each other,” and “There couldn’t be two people more perfectly suited for one another” all the time. But there isn’t “one perfect person” out there in the universe that we must “find.” Rather, by learning skills, developing tools, and doing the right things, any two people can come together as a couple and have a satisfying relationship. So, if I’m correct in my belief, why then do some couples learn these abilities [...]

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Angry Behaviors can be like an Atom Bomb in Your Marriage

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:13:05-06:00Anger|

We’ve talked a lot already about anger. And for the most part, the conversation is nothing new, right? We all know what anger is and what it looks like. Whether we can control it 100% of the time is a different story, but we all get what anger is. What most people genuinely don’t understand, however, are the long-term effects of anger and harmful, unsafe behaviors on their marriage. Are angry behaviors hurting your relationship? For a fair amount of relationships, the answer is “yes.” And the effects can last for a long time. If you need proof, think about your relationship for a second. If you become angry and [...]

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