I’m proud to announce the recent release of my book To Know, Love and Serve, available now through Justin Press.

Canada’s Independent Catholic Publishing House. Dedicated to Catholic culture and apologetics reflecting the teaching of the Magisterium.

NEW FOR 2013:

To Know, Love and Serve brings the wisdom and experience to the Church’s teaching on marriage to a practical program designed to strengthen and heal the unity of spouses. The ten-week format, founded on communication, explores the different dimensions of marriage through a straightforward and sensitive approach that reflects the clinical and personal experience of the authors.

Melissa Guzik received her Master of Arts degree in Counselling Psychology from McGill University, and is a Canadian Certified Counsellor through the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. Her work in private practice in Edmonton, Alberta, includes adults and adolescents, individually, as couples, and in group therapy settings. She is the founding president of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association of Canada. Melissa is married and has been blessed with three children.

Jean MacKenzie has a Master of Arts in Counselling from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. She is a Canadian Certified Counsellor in Truro, Nova Scotia, where she has been in private practice since 2004. Her focus is on working in harmony with the Catholic faith to help couples experience a marriage that is both pleasing to God and fulfilling for themselves. She is a proud military wife and the mother of six beautiful children. $12.95

Click here to order your copy today:  justinpress.ca

info@justinpress.ca

613-729-2247

Justin Press 730 Parkdale Ave Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 1J6 Canada

As parents, sometime we can feel as though everyone else in the family is working against us.  How many times have I asked the boys to clean up their room?  How many times have I asked the kids to talk nicely to each other?  And, should I really have to remind them repeatedly to get ready when we are going on an outing that should be fun for the whole family?

As a military wife and mother of six, I know it can be really frustrating when we’re not working together as a team.   At one point when we all seemed to be particularly at odds with each other my husband and I decided that we needed to come up with a way to get all our family members on the same page.  So, we held a family meeting and proposed that we should come up with a family motto.

The kids were eager to be a part of the process, so we started by brainstorming a list of positive traits and values.  The list included Read the rest of this entry »

by Jean MacKenzie

Did you know that when a person becomes angry chemicals and hormones are released that can affect the way the brain processes information?  For this reason it can be a good idea to call a time out when arguments get heated.   A time out is a scheduled break you agree upon with your partner ahead of time, so that if touchy issues come up, you get stuck, or an argument is escalating out of control, you can say, “Time-out,” and create a little separation.

Time outs can have their problems though.  One of these is that if one person walks away from an argument without making a commitment to return to the issue at hand their partner can feel rejected and like their concerns are seen as unimportant.  Another problem is that if time outs are called but the couple never returns to the issues to resolve them resentment builds up causing a lot of tension in the relationship. Read the rest of this entry »

A human beings we often hurt one another, whether we mean to or not.  It is natural to think of things only from our own viewpoint and not consider how our actions might harm another.  Therefore, we can hurt someone’s feeling by doing something as simple as letting the door slam behind us in that person’s face, without even realizing we have hurt them. Read the rest of this entry »

Although the person whom it may be most important to forgive may be your spouse, your spouse can often times be the hardest person in your life to forgive. The intimate nature of marriage makes spouses vulnerable to each other. A spouse who knows you better than any other person has the most ability to offend you. And, because you share a life together your spouse also has the most opportunity to be a repeat offender. When the person you are supposed to be closest to refuses to see how his or her actions hurt you or if they continue to hurt you in the same manner over and over again it can seem that forgiveness is impossible. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had a week where my husband was very busy at work and as a result was working late a lot. The problem for me was that, with four kids, when my husbands work load increases, so does mine. With my husband unable to help out as much as he usually would I quickly slipped into “poor me” mode and found myself having thoughts about how terrible it was that I had to take on all these extra burdens. Read the rest of this entry »

With the New Year upon us it is time again to think about making resolutions. Unfortunately more than a few people have given up on New Year’s resolutions after one or more good intentions went awry. You see it takes more than enthusiasm and grand aspirations to keep a New Year’s resolution. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that in our society it has come to be expected that women will get together and criticize their husbands and boyfriends and men will get together and put down their wives and girlfriends. Everyone has to have a few sarcastic comments to fling at their partner, especially when there is an audience around to laugh at their expense. We tend to tear down the very person we claim to love. I think it has become so common in our society that sometimes people don’t even realize they are doing it. Read the rest of this entry »

When I started my own counselling practice I had to learn the importance of having clearly defined marketing goals before I was able to get my business off the ground. I floundered around for quite some time before hiring Juliet Austin (www.julietaustin.com), a marketing coach for healing professionals. One of the first things Juliet did was help me clearly define what I wanted to achieve. Read the rest of this entry »

Listen. What do you hear? You may hear the hustle and bustle of people around you. Maybe there is some polite conversation going on around you or perhaps your kids are screaming at each other at the top of their lungs and perhaps you’ve learned to block out that noise. Read the rest of this entry »