How does our sense of self impact our spirituality, or our ability to connect with God? Significantly. When we have a strong sense of self we see ourselves as worthy of God's love, deserving of His mercy, and accepting of His grace. When we have a struggling sense of self we don't beieve that God could love us and forgive us for our human frailties. Though God is always there with love and an outstretched hand, our feelings of worth and confidence will determine whether we are willing and able t...
Dec 02, 2024•34 min•Ep. 336
Having a strong sense of self is so valuable in our parenting journey. It allows for us to have healthy, strong, and beautiful relationships with our children, where a struggling sense of self breaks down our relationships and actually creates more struggle with our sense of self. The work we do to develop our sense of self will allow us to have better boundaries with our adult children and also stop people-pleasing in an effort to earn their love and acceptance. This strong sense of self empowe...
Nov 25, 2024•35 min•Ep. 335
This week we are continuing with our discussions about sense of self, and focusing on how it impacts our marriages. It is really difficult, if not impossible, to have a strong, healthy, intimately connected marriage relationship if we don't have a strong sense of self. When we have an underdeveloped sense of self, we lessen our capacity to really love and accept the other person and we severly limit our ability to do the repair work that is inevitable and so important to our marriage, two things...
Nov 18, 2024•37 min•Ep. 334
Continuing on with our sense of self series, today we are applying it to dating. When we have a strong sense of self, we approach dating with courage, confidence, and conviction. We aren't afraid of saying 'no' or being rejected. That's not to say we love it when it happens, but it doesn't rock our world because we understand that people's preferences don't mean anything about us. A strong sense of self approaches dating from an abundance mindset, while a reflective sense of self approaches it f...
Nov 11, 2024•33 min•Ep. 333
This week we arae digging deeper into what our sense of self is and seeing how either a reflective sense of self or a solid sense of self show up in our lives. All of the work we do here on the podcast stems from a solid sense of self, so as we clean up our thoughts and get more clear on who we are, how we are, and why we are, we can be more empowered to create the life and the relationships we truly desire. Want to know how to strengthen your sense of self? We also talk here today about six thi...
Nov 04, 2024•38 min•Ep. 332
Our sense of self, how we see ourselves, how we understand ourselves, and how we accept ourselves is core to our capacity to show up in healthy ways in our lives. When we have a strong sense of self, all aspects of our lives run more smoothly, from our personal growth and happiness to our ability to have happier and more successful relationships. When we have an under-developed sense of self, all aspects of our lives will struggle. We will constantly be floundering in our personal lives, in our ...
Oct 28, 2024•42 min•Ep. 331
Many of us, when we get divorced, create a story about our ex that keeps us stuck. And even if you're not divorced, you may have a story about your current marriage or family that keeps you stuck. Stuck in victim mentality, where you feel disempowered and at the mercy of someone else to change before you can feel better. Very often, we can't change the circumstances of our lives, but we can change the perspective, the story we tell ourselves, about the circumstance, and that has the power to mov...
Oct 21, 2024•30 min•Ep. 330
In his book, The New Rules of Marriage, Terrence Real talks about five losing strategies that we often use in our marriages. I think all of us are guilty of using these, but when we are aware of what they are, and are willing to see how we have and do use them in our relationships, we can start to clean up our thinking and our behaviors and really start to create relationships that are intimate and strong, and partnerships that are equal and engaging.
Oct 14, 2024•32 min•Ep. 329
Some decisions are harder than others. Everyone I have worked with or talked to who has gotten divorced says that their decision to do it was the hardest one of their life. Whether it's divorce, or another decision that is super difficult for you to make, understanding why it's difficult and how you can process all the pieces is a valuable part for helping you to make that final decision, whether it's to stay or to go.
Oct 07, 2024•27 min•Ep. 328
Why is it that we can be so hard on ourselves for being human? We were created, by God, to be a human, and yet we can have such a difficult time embracing our imperfect humanity. When we can instead embrace our humanity, love the learning journey, and praise the imperfect path, we will not only grow faster and with more comfort, but we will enjoy the life journey we are on.
Sep 30, 2024•36 min•Ep. 327
We all seem to have this innate drive and desire to be right. And yet, there's a pattern I often see that the more we are right in a relationship, the weaker the relationship is. This is because we often push our being right on others at the expense of them feeling safe. They feel judged, criticized, and maybe angry, but not safe. And creating safety in our relationships is a vital part of creating a healthy relationship. Want to set up a free 90-min. consultation with me to get coached and find...
Sep 23, 2024•40 min•Ep. 326
Remember the analogy about filling our buckets? I don't love that one. And the reason I don't is because I feel it leaves us always in a scramble for keeping out buckets full since we're always emptying them out with acts of service. So, here's an idea for you. How about if we move into a space of overflow, where our service for others comes from our overflow rather than from our bucket? How do we get to this space of overflow? That's what we're going to talk about in today's podcast....
Sep 16, 2024•32 min•Ep. 325
It can be super easy to slide into a life that we're not passionate about. I've heard so many people say that their life isn't what they want, but it's okay. They have leearned to tolerate a life that feels far below what their spirit is aching for. And that's not okay. You have great things to do and amazing contributions to make in this world, and it won't happen when you are living a tolerable life. Moving out of this life requires courage and a boatload of work, but it is so worth it when yo...
Sep 09, 2024•29 min•Ep. 324
Often in middle age we get really comfortable, and in that comfort, we neglect that inner voice inside of us that says we still have great things to do, that there is still growth and understanding for us to move into. And yet, it can feel scary to listen to that voice and courage up and do something different. But until we do, we will never find the deep joy and satisfaction that life has to offer.
Sep 02, 2024•37 min•Ep. 323
One of the most important things we can do when we want to grow personally is to learn to be honest with ourselves. And when we rely upon the phrase, 'I don't know' when things come up for us, we are being dodgy. We are not being honest with ourselves because, we really do know. Sometimes it's just painful and a lot of work to look deep within ourselves to see what we need to see. And this resistance to self-awareness keeps us stuck. Let's explore why and how this works and how to move into the ...
Aug 26, 2024•30 min•Ep. 322
Last week we revisited a concept called 'clean love', a space where we learn to love without expectations of others. A question I frequently get when discussing clean love is, 'But aren't there inherent expectations in relationships, such as a marriage?' The answer to that is absolutely. So, in this episode, we are going to be discussing how to have clean love and also have expectations in our relationships for the best possible outcomes.
Aug 19, 2024•27 min•Ep. 321
Today we are revisiting episode #92 Clean Love. This is one of my favorite concepts that I teach about, and for those of you who haven't gotten that far back in listening, here's your chance to catch up on this concept. Clean love is a space where we learn to love without expectation, without an agenda, something that many of us don't know how to do, and may not even be aware that we are loving with conditions. When we can learn to clean up our love, we show up better, and we have more clarity a...
Aug 12, 2024•28 min•Ep. 320
Many of us were raised to believe that not rocking the boat was the best bet for happy relationships, and yet, from my experience, not rocking the boat created an unequal relationship that caused feelings of either resentment or contempt in my relationship, both of which were very destructive. Rocking the boat is not only necessary, but also an important part in any healthy relationship, and yet we also want to make sure we are sending gentle waves and not a huge tsunami. So how do we do that? L...
Aug 05, 2024•35 min•Ep. 319
We hear a lot of talk about how hard it is to raise toddlers and teenagers, but not many of us were prepared for the challenges of having adult children. In this episode we are discussing five reasons it can be so challenging and how to work through them so you can be the kind of person you really want to be with your adult children. Want to check out some more podcasts about adult children? #99 Parenting Adult Children #129 Parenting Discomfort #157 Friend-Zoning Your Adult Children #180 Better...
Jul 29, 2024•34 min•Ep. 318
In recent years, fawning has been added to the survival responses of flight, flight, and freeze. While fight is a conflict strategy and flight and freeze are avoidant strategies, fawning is referred to as an appeasement strategy. When we fawn we seek to bring ourselves into alignment with the other person, who our brains perceive as a threat, by people-pleasing, saying yes when we want to say no, or doing what it takes to avoid conflict. Though fawning can work out well short-term by diffusing t...
Jul 22, 2024•35 min•Ep. 317
Sometimes the decisions we need to make feel overwhelming and super scary. And because of that we hesitate and procrastinate, and we drag it out and cause ourselves extra hours, days, weeks, months, or even years of angst as we struggle to make the decision. How can we find the confidence to make decisions easier and faster? And how will we know if the decision we make is right? The answer to those question lies in our SELF confidence.
Jul 15, 2024•26 min•Ep. 316
People having a mid-life crisis is common enough that it is often the focus of movies and tv shows, memes and jokes. It is often portrayed as middle-aged people buying expensive cars or running off and having an affair. But a mid-life crisis does not need to be something that brings down the financial well-being or the family. If we understand it and approach it from the inside, rather than the outside, it can be an amazing turning point in our lives for tapping into our life's possibility, of c...
Jul 08, 2024•37 min•Ep. 315
Setting healthy boundaries is an important part in every relationship, and sometimes, it is just so hard. When the other person is not happy about the boundary, when they get angry or make accusations or threats, it can be so challenging to stick with what we feel is important for our relationship. So, when we get pushback from those few special people in our lives, how can we hold to the boudaries that we decided to set?
Jul 01, 2024•31 min•Ep. 314
This week I get to interview my husband, Sione, on his experience with moving forward after divorce. Though it can often feel as though divorce is the end, and it absolutely is in some ways, it can also be the beginning of greater self-awareness, cleaning up your dysfunctional behaviors, and creating a life, and even a relationship, you could only dream about when you were in the thick of a really difficult marriage.
Jun 24, 2024•39 min•Ep. 313
Divorce is tough, and when it happens to you, it can be devastating, and it can feel like the end. And to be honest, in many ways it is. But divorce can also be the beginning of finding yourself in a way you never have before. It can be the beginning of understanding who you really are and how you can grow into a healtheir and happier version of yourself. In this episode I am talking with my good friend and fellow life coach Wendy Lee Johnson about her divorce journey and how what seemed like th...
Jun 17, 2024•41 min•Ep. 312
There are parts of our relationships that we would consider 'business', and parts that we would consider 'personal'. When we get the two all jumbled together, we end up with a lot of drama and miscommunication. On this podcast I'm talking with my great friend and fellow coach Wendy Lee Johnson about how we can recognize these two aspects of our relationships and approach them differently to strengthen them. Check her out at www.wendyleejohnsoncoaching.com and on her podcast 'Parenting the Tough ...
Jun 10, 2024•37 min•Ep. 311
In Terrence Real's new book 'Us', (one of my newest favorites) he talks about our adaptive child. This is the part of us that learned to adapt to the dysfunctional parts of our childhoods, which we all had. And although these adaptive behaviors served and protected us as children, very often they are destructive to our adult relationships. In this episode, I am sharing Terry's insight about our adaptive child and how engage our 'wise adult' instead.
Jun 03, 2024•38 min•Ep. 310
When I work with many of my clients regarding their one-up and one-down beliefs and behaviors, they often find themselves at a loss to describe what an equal response would look like or sound like in their circumstance. We don't live in a world where equal partnerships have been modeled for us, in fact, mostly we live in a world where the opposite has been modeled, in our families or origin, extended families and friends' families, and on TV and in movies. In this podcast, I dig a little deeper ...
May 27, 2024•38 min•Ep. 309
Some of the areas where we can feel the most stuck in our lives are places where we are just dabbling with change in our lives rather than digging in and doing what needs to happen to create the change we want. And yet, dabbling is comfortable and easy and even justifiable, whereas committing to doing is scary and risky and requires some determination and courage. When we choose to move into doing, into some dogged determination to create the change we want, we will create said change. And once ...
May 20, 2024•33 min•Ep. 308
When we're not paying close attention, we can very easily slip into critical words and behaviors in our relationships. Often, we won't even see it, because in our minds we are being helpful or just expressing concern or our opinion, but it can still very easily be perceived as criticism. And criticism breaks down relationship by treading on trust and respect. When we create awareness around our critical tendencies, stop criticizing, and instead move into curiosity, we create deeper connection an...
May 13, 2024•32 min•Ep. 307
