Sometimes I am asked how to have more faith. And whether you consider yourself as someone with a lot of faith, or you don't affiliate with an organized religion, but you know there's a loving presence that is bigger than you and wants your greatest good, I have a lot to say about faith and I think you'll find some gold nuggets in here that will change the way you think about prayer.

From prayers of fear to prayers of faith, I'm speaking to the difference between the two types of prayers, so lean in and get ready for an intimate peak into how I have found a sure way to access the powers of heaven to trust my parenting journey with more faith.

You'll discover how to take your prayers to a deeper sense of faith and connection. I'm offering advice on what I've learned from spending most of my time in my earlier years praying a prayer of fear, and why I now know those prayers left me feeling more disconnected.

Learning how to pray with more faith has shifted my confidence and connection with God in a profound way, and I'm sharing it all in this episode.

Why is marriage worth the effort? How does a couple work through challenges and keep choosing each other given their differences?

These are relationship questions I work through with my clients, as well as questions I've pondered over the 30 years I've been married to Ethan.

We just celebrated our 30 year wedding anniversary. In today's episode, Ethan and I discuss our challenges we've worked through, how we approach creating 'shared meaning' in our relationship, and based on our experiences and trials, what makes a good marriage.

I know many of you are wondering how Ethan is doing since his stroke, so I'm sharing an update on how we've rebuilt our lives together since that hardship, and how it pertains to how you can work on your marriage relationship when you experience setbacks to how you thought things would go, but life has something different in mind.

Motivation is a skill more than it is a mood, and when you learn to build it as a skill, you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

Listen in today to find out the truth about motivation, all the benefits of overcoming resistance, and how to generate motivation in yourself and your children when doing hard things.

What you will discover:

• The common myths about motivation and how to work with your resistance.
• What to do when you feel apathy or dread.
• How to cultivate motivation in your children to do their best and stick to hard things.
• Why being hard on yourself (or your children) isn't useful when motivation is low.

Our desires are important. They are the roadmap to follow towards living a fulfilled, full life that has meaning. If your motivation is low or if you have a loved one who is struggling with their motivation, this episode will give you actionable tools to start using today.

If you could go through the entire summer without worrying about your body image, what would that change for you in terms of enjoying yourself more?

Maybe you’re worried of being in a swimsuit, your legs in shorts, your weight, your lack of a suntan. Does this sound familiar?

If it does, I want to invite you to do something extraordinary with me this summer. Make peace with where your body is, today, and cultivate a little body peace, one step at a time.

I am teaching you how to do this with the things I've learned after working with women clients of all ages. It’s vital we have tools to cultivate our own version of authentic beauty standards and health and nutrition goals.

In this episode, I share what authentic beauty standards are on your own terms, and how you can quiet the loud voices of body shame if that's something that comes up for you during the summer months.

If you have the urge to enjoy a better experience with your body, it’s time to move toward health and wellness goals that are authentic to your unique body. Today, I tell you how to do just that!

How comfortable are you talking about sad or scary world events?

Maybe you are very open in your family. Maybe you don't know where to start.

But thinking about your children and building their tolerance for the hard things that happen in the world, you'll want to be in tune to your child's readiness.

In this episode, I break down why showing your children how to find answers is the ultimate key to helping your kids feel safe in the world.

I want you to feel so grounded talking about it and to start building your child's distress tolerance so they don't feel alone in the hard things.

Grab your copy of my new PDF download, Conversation Starters: How to Talk with Your Kids About Scary Things. It gives you question prompts and small scripts to facilitate connecting conversations. It's the truest shortcut to being able to talk about hard things!

In this episode you will discover:

• How to start the conversation, the soft "lead ins".
• How to take your child's emotional or sensitivity temperature.
• Why you need to be the first one in on these conversations.
• Why talking about it is so important.
• How to know if your child feels safe, moving forward.

My goal is to give you some strategies, even some question prompts and scripts to work through with your kids to help them build some resilience skills and distress tolerance, and some connection with you when they are faced with world events that are sad.

I'm passionate about helping prepare children to be emotionally resilient, especially during hard times.

And I love helping you show up in your parenting and giving you practical solutions so can start meaningful conversations that build closeness and some resiliency.

If you could clarify your parenting values in ten principles, what would they be?

Maybe you know exactly what your values are, the things that are important to you in parenting, your truths you want to pass on to your kids, your 'no matter whats'. Maybe you have no idea?

If you aren't sure, I want to invite you to do some digging with me.

I am sharing my parenting principles and teaching you how to do the same in an upcoming course. It’s in this program that you will truly parent with so much confidence, and reinvent your parenting strategy from the ground up.

This is not about being hard on yourself as a mom, or thinking you are doing it wrong. It’s bigger than that.

In this episode, I share what parenting principles guide my connection with my kids, why it's important to know yours, and how to become more grounded when you interact with your children so you can look back and truly love the way you showed up as a mom.

It doesn't matter how old or young your children are, this episode applies. If you have the urge to enjoy this thing called parenting more, it’s time to clarify what's important to you, and why. Today, I tell you how I do that so that you can too.

This episode addresses an issue that many women deal with in their marriages and I want to give you some insight and strategies on what to do with issues relating to men and anger.

One thing to keep in mind: this isn’t in the context of abuse, men and anger and abuse or domestic violence. That’s a different topic and discussion. I’m speaking to the couple who is in a healthy relationship, but experiences some tension around the emotion of anger, and who is wondering what to do with that tension. 

My main questions in addressing this topic are:

• 1. What is healthy anger, and what constitutes anger issues?
• 2. Is it okay for men to be angry? And if so, what does that look like? 
• 3. How can we reframe anger as a valid human emotion versus a character flaw?
• 4. When is Anger useful? And when is it not useful?
• 5. How can I deal with an angry husband? What strategies will help me when I’m uncomfortable with my husband’s anger?

Anger has such a negative reputation compared to other emotions. Perhaps the lack of respect for it as a valid human emotion comes from some cultural or religious reasons, and of course how it can devolve into violence.

But more and more, psychologists are giving anger its due respect as a valid emotion to pay attention to, since its valuable qualities include pointing out when we are out of alignment with our values, and how it motivates and energizes us to solve problems. 

Anger holds important information about how to love each other better. 

This is about learning how to problem solve together if you are uncomfortable with the emotion of anger and how your husband expresses it.

Being upset is part of the human experience. Now what?

Listen in this week to learn how to set boundaries and process anger, and show up in an intentional way. I share why people-pleasing and walking on eggshells isn't the answer.

Men experience anger differently than women, in general. It's true. But we don't have to fix men and anger. Instead, we get to decide how we want to show up.

How intensely do you feel the emotion 'Bittersweet'?

Maybe you aren't sure if it's something else, like Grief, or Nostalgia. Maybe you know it for exactly what it is.

But navigating this emotion can ask a lot of us, it can require us to draw on our best tools in order to avoid some of the pitfalls that this emotion can create for us; especially if we've experienced heartbreak or loss in the past.

Knowing the difference between the nuances of the Bittersweet emotion, versus Grief for instance, is everything. Because it can either leave you empowered to fight for a beautiful future, or leave you feeling super sad.

In this episode, I break down why allowing the Bittersweet emotion in a healthy way is the key to resetting a beautiful relationship moving forward. Learn how to handle the tension inside of your headspace and your heartspace and practice your skills of emotional resilience.

I want you to embrace the Bittersweet emotion with a whole heart. And I want you to know you CAN handle it.

The power of Emotional Intelligence is the most important skill we can acquire. Those who have it do better in their careers, their friendships, marriages, parenting, and so on. Emotional Intelligence is a higher predictor of success than academic intelligence. But I don’t think we believe this - especially if we have adopted the notion that expressing emotions is weak.

There are four skills that are vital components to work on acquiring. They are:

• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Management

In this episode, I’m offering to you that your most important work should be assessing which skill is difficult for you, and then building on that skill with intention.

Tune in this week to discover the true power of emotional intelligence in your life. I’m sharing where I see the most common pitfalls with emotional intelligence, and how to up-level your skills, and perhaps most important of all, why it matters.

References:

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves; Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett; Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown

Did you know it's possible to fall in love with your goals?

In this episode, you'll learn how to shift any negativity you might have with the whole goal rah rah conversation from the past that may not have left you feeling very good about yourself. 

We’ve all been there, made goals, then lost steam, and just kind of moved on - learning the lesson that goal setting might not be our thing. I want the opposite for you. I want to help you fall in love with your belief and  your capability to do what you set your mind to. 

Before you make any New Year's resolutions or write down your goals, I've given you three questions to ask yourself to help you get really clear on WHY the goal matters to you. If your reason is fear based, your experience going after the goal will look completely different than if your reason is fueled by a different emotion than fear.

In this episode you'll learn:

• how to approach goals from a place of self-respect versus fear.
• why discipline only takes us so far and what to use instead.
• how to generate motivation that is sustaining and gathers with momentum as time goes on.
• three important questions to ask yourself before making any goal.
• how to really make yourself proud.

If goals have left you skeptical in the past, then this episode is for you.

Not only will you learn how to build trust with yourself, you will feel grounded in your ability to accomplish your dreams. As you answer the three questions I’ve given you today with honesty and kindness towards yourself, you will fall in love with your new goal setting strategy. 

Let’s create our best year yet.