Kate Motaung

About Kate Motaung

Kate Motaung is the Senior Writer, Editor, and Content Manager for a multi-state company. She is the author of several books including Letters to Grief, 101 Prayers for Comfort in Difficult Times, and A Place to Land: A Story of Longing and Belonging. Kate is also the host of Five Minute Friday, an online writing community that equips and encourages Christian writers, and the owner of Refine Services, a company that offers editing services. She and her South African husband have three young adult children and currently live in West Michigan. Find Kate’s books at katemotaung.com/books.

Reasons People Remain in Harmful Relationships

2025-01-08T06:54:17+00:00January 14th, 2023|Couples Counseling, Featured, Infidelity and Affairs, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Sometimes, despite our best intentions, we remain in unhealthy or even harmful relationships for much longer than we should. It’s not because we’re addicted to the mayhem or because we enjoy being mistreated; neither of those things are true. There is a possibility that we occasionally catch a glimpse of a sliver of hope that things are going to turn out better in the future. When we look at our partner and the dynamics of the relationship through a lens of compassion and hope, we may miss warning signs in our relationship that are obvious to others. This may be the case because we are looking at our partner through this lens. The results of our principles and beliefs in relationships. We have a wide variety of beliefs about ourselves and others, all of which influence the decisions we make. We might think that if our partner gets the right kind of assistance or support, they can realize their full potential and that it is our responsibility to provide that assistance and support. We may worry that our departure would cause them harm or that our partner’s situation would deteriorate in our absence. If we were to break up with this person, it would mean the end of our dreams because it would mean we would no longer be committed to pursuing them. Perhaps we feel that our primary responsibility is to provide care and healing to others, even if this causes us to lose sight of our own needs. We may be uncomfortable with the idea of breaking off a relationship due to unfulfilled wants and needs because we don’t want to be seen as selfish. New information and how we handle it in relationships. Cognitive dissonance is something that can affect us when we are in a [...]

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How to Improve Your Listening Skills in Marriage

2025-01-16T13:59:26+00:00January 3rd, 2023|Couples Counseling, Featured, Individual Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Premarital Counseling, Relationship Issues|

To improve listening skills in your marriage, you need to understand the reasons why you can miss significant details in what your partner is saying, even though you believe that you are listening. Why do misunderstandings happen? Misunderstandings can happen for a variety of reasons. Here are a few common problems that lead to misunderstandings in marriage.    You are preoccupied, exhausted, or both: Imagine you are thinking about a problem you had at work while the children are screaming and the television is blasting at full volume. Now your partner has started talking to you about how they expect company later in the evening. You give a satisfied nod and say okay, but were you paying attention to what was being said? Likely not. You make assumptions: A damaging attempt at mind reading, assumptions can cause a lot of trouble in a relationship. A common way this occurs is when you think that there is a secret meaning to the words that your spouse has said. In reality, you may be reading too much into the situation. Ever-shortening attention spans: A measly eight seconds is considered to be the average attention span of a human being. That means you can lose focus quickly when your spouse is talking to you, often without even realizing it. There are, however, ways to get better at this and become a good listener when you are speaking with the important people in your life, particularly your partner. Sometimes it’s difficult to listen to what each other has to say. There are so many demands that are placed on us by life, and it always seems as though a million things are competing for our attention, such as our jobs, our hobbies, our friends, and our children. Because of this, you and the [...]

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Practical Ways to Improve Your Mental Wellness

2025-01-08T06:54:31+00:00January 3rd, 2023|Featured, Individual Counseling, Personal Development|

You may hear a lot about mental wellness these days. Things like self-care or self-love are often describing things you can do to take care of yourself, but it’s easy for these ideas to get lost in the busyness of life. This can leave you feeling like you’ve dropped the ball on yet another thing in your life, which only perpetuates the problem. Instead of focusing on the ideas of self-care, consider how you can make simple changes that promote mental wellness in your life. These changes don’t need to be drastic. It is often better when they are small things that you can build upon over time. This sets you up for success far better than making big changes all at once. Small changes combined with your faith will help you intentionally work toward improving your mental health and well-being. What is mental wellness? There is a lot of good, helpful information about mental health in the world today. With increasing awareness, it is becoming mainstream to consider mental health as an important part of a person’s overall well-being. Despite the increased information, there are a lot of terms used interchangeably that have different meanings. Mental health, mental illness, and mental wellness are perfect examples. According to the American Psychiatry Association, mental health focuses on how you function in your daily life, while mental illness is caused by disorders that affect you in areas like thinking, emotions, and behavior. While it can be connected to mental illness, mental wellness is different. According to the Global Wellness Institute, “Mental wellness is an internal resource that helps us think, feel, connect, and function; it is an active process that helps us to build resilience, grow, and flourish.” Simply put, mental wellness focuses on the things you can do to promote [...]

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8 Bible Verses About Worrying

2025-01-08T06:54:38+00:00January 3rd, 2023|Anxiety, Featured, Individual Counseling, Spiritual Development|

What if it doesn’t work out? What if we fail? What if our worst nightmare comes true? These are the questions that can hold us captive. Worry is mental distress or agitation about something anticipated. Anxiety, trouble, concern, doubt, fear, and apprehension are other words for worry. Worrying can hold our thoughts captive and rob us of today’s tasks before us and the people who cross our paths. “Worry is like a rocking chair; it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.” – Unknown Worry is rarely tied to productive action. It replays possible outcomes when we experience tough times and face uncertain outcomes. It is ineffective and it takes its toll. We lose sleep and are less productive. Our focus switches to imagined scenarios rather than on our actual life. It can make us feel out of control or fearful for the future. Fear and worry are the opposite of faith. We can read Bible verses about worrying and learn to exchange our worry for trust in God. 8 Bible Verses about Worrying When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. – Exodus 14:10, ESV Can you imagine the tension in the people of Israel as each one worried about what would happen next? The Red Sea lay before them, and Pharaoh’s army came behind them. What an impossible situation. Their thoughts had to run wild and in fact, they declared that Moses led them to their death. One thing we can learn from this Bible verse about worrying is to call out to the Lord. We can stop our frantic thoughts and accusations that God has forgotten [...]

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