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.

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 around our relationships and how and when boundaries can be important.

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?  Listen in and see!

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?

#314 When Boundaries Are Hard

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 the situation, it makes it impossible for us to create healthy relationships.  Understanding what fawning is, why we do it, and how to stop is an important conversation.

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.

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 creating a renewed zest and energy for life that feels amazing.  In that context, I absolutely say 'Yes, please!' to a mid-life crisis.

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?  

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.

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 the end, really turned into the beginning of an incredible life journey.  You can find Wendy at www.wendyleejohnsoncoaching.com or on her podcast 'Parenting the Tough Stuff.'