Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with one of our own community members, who answered the call to share her story on the podcast.  Dawnbreaker Mariah Wickham is the woman behind Be Mighty Mentoring.  As she recounts her unbelievable seven year journey to add a child to their family, we explore her internal turmoil of having her formula for happiness and faith challenged to the point of wondering if there was even a God, and feeling so hollow after the miracles she expected to be just around the corner continued to be one heart break after another.  Mariah takes us down the path of Invitro, including the clinic throwing away her embryos, to a pregnancy with twins ending, to a failed adoption in Russia that led her to her rock bottom, to her eventual decision to do foster care that brought a 7 year old boy to their family.  Mariah shares her shift in mindset that came as put down her struggle trophy and began to view things in her life as invitations from God instead of definitive choices of growth or condemnation and opportunities for her to exercise her potential as a creator of her own life.   Mariah shares the beauty of the love and connection that filled her life as she continued to open herself up to this perspective.

Listen and be inspired to begin to say “thank you” for the opportunities for growth that we are presented as invitations and to continue to show up in our connections with love and vulnerability.

Show Notes:

Mariah’s website

Mariah’s Instagram Feed

Connect 52

Presentlee Foundation – donate to help families at Primary Children’s

The LifeBeats Project 100th Episode – Listen here.  Watch here. (Guest song at about minute 41)

Salt Retreat

Be You Women’s Retreat

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with Dawnbreakers Greg & Lucy Jensen of Cultiva International share their story on today’s podcast of why they decided to leave their life as they knew it here in the United States and drive down to Guatemala with their van packed with their family of 6 and all the rest of their belongings to start a new life there.  Together they share that what is right for your family may look very differently than everyone else’s and that finding a way to create the family culture you desire is worth every effort.  Greg shares how he never felt fulfilled in any of his “good” jobs and why he is so passionate about telling young people that there are so many options besides just getting a job. Lucy shares how she wanted more for her children than just the bubble they were living in and how moving to Guatemala has been the best thing for their family despite the hiccups and adjustments.  Greg tells how creating a lifestyle that you desire for your family does not require a move out of the country and shares the principles of how to do it.  They share about the circumstances of chronic malnutrition in Guatemala as the 4th highest in the world and what poverty means to them versus what it means to North Americans, explaining it in terms of internal emotions such as shame, sadness, and hopelessness instead of our typical idea of lack of material things.  They share how they have come to learn the guiding principles on how to do humanitarian work effectively to teach the people how to help themselves and what Cultiva International has done to help over 350 families to create sustainable change and empowerment in their lives.   Listen and be inspired to mold your activities, your job, your school to your relationships and your life’s desires instead of the other way around and to see that the way that things have always been done or the way others do them isn’t necessarily the best way for you and your family.

Want to know if this episode it for you?  This episode is perfect for someone who is thinking about making any real change, especially one involving their family lifestyle.  It is also perfect for someone wanting to know more about effective humanitarian efforts and more about malnutrition in Guatemala.  It is also for those who are looking more inspiration to live a life differently than the norm, to pursue a dream, and to take action on creating the family lifestyle you desire.

What is this episode about?   In this episode you will learn about:

Show Notes:

Greg & Lucy’s YouTube Channel for Cultiva International

Cultiva International Website – to learn more about how you can become involved

Greg’s website for more information about the Youth Humanitarian Leadership Week

Cultiva’s Facebook page and Instagram Feed

Greg’s Instagram Feed and Facebook Page

Clint Pulver – top youth motivational speaker

The LifeBeats Project podcast episode with Karan and Kerry Bajaj “Unlearning everything you know to learn about your true self and to connect as a couple”

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with Dawnbreaker Chelsie Hightower of So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars as she shares her journey of finding peace with herself after years of battling anxiety and a misconception about strength.  You may not be a ballroom dancing diva but I imagine you can fit yourself inside of one or more of these scenarios that we address today:  1. Have you ever been a place where you have felt so much anxiety about something in your life that you have felt out of control, that you couldn’t make it anymore and would be broken forever?  2. Have you ever experienced living your dream or reaching a goal or doing something good in your life and you just still feel empty or miserable or disconnected from something you feel like you should truly love and that should make you happy.  3.  Have you had a misconception about strength, that it was simply pushing through something without allowing yourself to feel emotion or be you, not allowing any weakness to show?

Today Chelsie shares her life story addressing these three topics.  Listen and be inspired to have a different definition of strength, learn tools to move forward through anxiety, to be on a journey to find peace.

Show Notes:

Chelsie’s Instagram feed and Facebook page

Article on Chelsie’s anxiety story

Chelsie and Mark dancing to “Bleeding Heart” on SYTYCD

Chelsie on Dancing with the Stars

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with Dawnbreaker Siobhan Sudberry of the Be Free Project and the Girl Be Free podcast, designed to help women get unstuck and get clear about what you want, to cultivate the life you desire. Siobhan shares her own story of why she felt stuck in her life and the process she took to become free. She opens up about being physically abandoned by her mother as a teenager and the effects that had on her, including the messaging she received from others on how to deal with it by simply bottling it up inside and moving on. Siobhan shares the moment in her adult life when she realized that although she had her marriage, children, job, home, all the things society tells you you need, that she was still stuck because she had not healed from her childhood. She talks about the power of therapy and the path of healing that it sparked. She shares specific things that she did moving forward that allowed her to get unstuck and create the life she truly felt God called her to live as a mother and a champion for women. Siobhan expounds on 3 ways that we can put ourself as a priority in our life without feeling guilty, including saying no, setting boundaries and having hard conversations, as well as creating a happy list.

Show Notes:

Siobhan’s website “Be Free Project”

Siobhan’s podcast “Girl Be Free”

Siobhan’s Instagram Feed and Facebook page

Siobhan’s Event Page

Siobhan honored at “Who’s Who in Black Cleveland”

Lauryn Hill 

“The Four Agreements”

“The Miracle Morning”

Siobhan’s Podcast on Putting Yourself First Without Feeling Guilty 

*Some of the above links contain affiliate links that give me a thank you if you decide they are right for you.  Thank you friends for your support.

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with Dawnbreaker Taunya Olsen from Honey + Ice Co jewelry. She has been in the jewelry business for more than 18 years, but she has had a life of creation and learning to create and the joy that comes from creating.  She shares with us what that was like as a little girl being able to create with her mother a variety of things and this love for creation that has carried throughout her life. She shares this period of time in which she had this transition that stemmed from an internal struggle that she had of wanting to be the best mom that she could be, but also wanting to be able to pursue her gifts and her dreams. She talks about this moment in her life that it actually created some depression and she was in bed for several months.  She talks about what helped change things around for her. Those things that helped her to connect with the most important things in her life. And she talks about this process of creating YOU, that one of the most important things that we can create in our life, that we can do in our life, is this process of creating you, the process of creating ourselves.

So friends, listen and be inspired to discover what your soul desires to create and that creating yourself is one of the greatest creation processes, to turn to your source of spirituality for connection and strength, and to know what is best for you and your family as you pursue your own gifts and dreams.

Show Notes:

Taunya’s jewelry website Honey + Ice Co

Taunya’s Honey + Ice Co Instagram feed and Facebook page

Taunya’s personal Instagram feed

Taunya’s runners Instagram feed @runnersgonnarun

My Hi Five Live Video on Divorce & Healing

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with Dawnbreaker Mary Shores, a successful businesswoman and CEO of a multimillion dollar company, a motivational speaker, and author of “Conscious Communications: A step by step guide to harnessing the power of your words to change your mind, your choices, and your life.

Mary shares with us a portion of her incredible story which has its beginning in abandonment, first at the age of 3 and then later at the age of 16 which resulted in her being a juvenile living in an adult world. She later becomes pregnant, gives birth, and soon loses a daughter with severe brain damage and all the emotions that comes as a result, including how feelings of desperation and being completely unworthy were the ones that led her to start her own business.

We also discuss the role of positivity and its limitations in regards to allowing ourselves to process emotions and how unprocessed emotions become a part of our cellular memory, issues in the tissues, as she calls it, if not allowed to be processed. Mary shares more about realizing her own purpose and the role that words and honest & accurate communication play in shaping her life and how she’s now taking that message to the world.

Listen and be inspired to see the moments of beauty and empowerment in our own lives, to view ourselves and circumstances honestly to allow ourselves to healthily process emotion, to find the purpose and work we are meant to do, and to give ourselves the tools in our own word choice and communication that can set is on a path for success.

Show Notes:

Links for Mary Shores:

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with Dawnbreaker Shelaine Maxfield.  This episode was recorded in the Stiry studios.  I have the privilege of introducing you to one of the most passionate people I have had the opportunity to interview.  You can feel her energy through this microphone and if you get a chance to go watch it, its even more powerful.  Shelaine Maxfield is the President of the Younique Foundation, now called Saprea, the heart and reason behind the beauty company Younique.  Shelaine shares her passion for helping others to break free from the wrong truths that we tell ourselves to awaken and live the greatness that is already inside of us.  Sound familiar?  Shelaine tells of her own wrong truths of being a “nobody from nowhere” and the feelings of never being enough that consumed her.  She tells of her own journey to come to see her own God given gifts and potential and specific things we can do to foster that in ourselves and put our awareness into action.  You will feel her conviction to help people see the goodness inside of them and to understand that we are each a child of God.

Shelaine shares the story of how Younique began from one conversation with a friend who had been suffering the affects of being sexually abused as a child.  This was the catalyst to find a way to help these women, 1 out of 4 women suffer this.  She shares the two fold mission of The Younique Foundation, to protect the innocent by educating parents and caregivers on prevention of sexually abuse and well as the retreat specifically created to promote longterm healing for women who have been sexually abused as children who have wanted for so long for their silent cries to be heard and understood.

Listen and be inspired to see the goodness inside of ourselves, to take ownership of our gifts and start serving others – leading awareness to action, and to join in the cause of helping to prevent childhood sexual abuse.

Show Notes:

The Younique Foundation

Defend Innocence

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library with Dawnbreaker Jodi Aman, YouTuber, speaker, practicing psychotherapist, and author of You: 1 Anxiety: 0 Win your life back from fear & panic.

Jodi shares her own journey with anxiety beginning at the age of 5 when she learned about death and felt as if her security had been taken from her.  She struggled through her childhood and early adulthood with being alone, feeling abandoned, having the lights off, and feeling nauseous and sick.  She tells of the moment in her car after realizing that she was worse than some of the patients from the psychiatric center where she worked and decided that if she had learned this, she could also unlearn this.

Jodi shares what she has since learned about anxiety, how she defines it, the biology behind it, and that it can be cured from your life.  She identifies 6 steps to curing anxiety rooted in taking down its power as well as the two main reasons people are not getting better.

She tells her triumphant story of when she realized that she had broken the legacy of anxiety in her family and she was not passing it onto her children.  She shares some things we can do to parent through a panic attack, either yours or your child’s, as well as how we can change the story and energetic imprint of our past.

Listen and be inspired to stop giving attention to or over-facing anxiety in your life, to recognize when you are getting better, and to believe that you can be cured from anxiety in your life and stop the cycle of it in your family.

Today my friends I am so honored to reshare a story from the LifeBeats Library,  Dawnbreaker Tanya Smith of A Widow’s World and Addelise Inc is a remarried widow and mother of 2 with a passion for not only supporting widows in their journey of healing, but also to help other women entrepreneurs reach their full potential and see that you can find beauty in the broken spaces of your life.  Tanya shares her story of an unraveling family life in a small midwest town that left her feeling that she would never rely on a man or put trust in a relationship.  Seeing her mother work hard for her family and learning that life is hard but is what we decide to make of it, she worked 3 jobs to put herself through college.  She met John who drew trust out of her and helped her to believe in real love that could last a lifetime.  After one year of marriage and seven years together they were getting ready to break ground on their property to build a home when John was stung by a bee.  Tanya shares the heartbreaking events of losing him and the conflicting emotions of helping to transport his harvested heart in a cooler to an airplane bound for New York to help save someone else’s life.  She tells of the days and years ahead full of hope, support, but also self-destruction, and not wanting to go on without him.  She shares what she began to do to heal and to learn to trust her inner self to step into who she was meant to be. She explains her term for widows as keepers of the flame and helps them and others to understand that the loss and love is never going to leave and they will never get over it but they can embrace their story and they can find love again.  She explains how it is possible for her to love her first husband and now love her second husband.  She tells of her experience on the 10th anniversary of her first husband’s passing and how she was able to look back at her broken self and see who she has become and how important it is that we acknowledge and take pride in seeing what we’ve overcome.  Listen and be inspired to began again and see beauty in our brokenness.

Want to know if this episode it for you?  This episode is perfect for someone who has lost someone they love, especially a spouse and is looking for support, hope, and evidence that love is possible again.  It is also perfect for anyone who is looking for a new beginning, who is wanting to heal, and is ready to make a choice to make life what they want out of it.  It is also perfect for someone wanting to understand the widow’s heart and how it is possible to love more than once.

What is this episode about?   In this episode you will learn about:

Show Notes:

A Widow’s World website – her heart is to help empower and inspire other women through loss. She would love to connect with you here

Addelise Inc website – She is offering a free consultation to help you with business development ideas and discuss branding questions you have.  If you use her service to do your website, she will provide free social media branding.  Reach out to her at [email protected] and let her know you heard her on today’s show.

Tanya’s A Widow’s World Instagram feed, Facebook Page, Facebook Group, and Google Plus account

Gift of Hope – Organ & Tissue Donor Network

***Do you want to come to our local Meetup?  RSVP at our Eventbrite event here!