Everyone's favorite advice when you're going through something hard like a deployment is "stay busy." This can be good advice and the advice givers have the best of intentions when giving it, but it can also totally backfire and do us harm instead of good.

Listen in to today pep talk to learn the two different ways you can stay busy and why one can be harmful and one can be so helpful!

When we experience fear our instinctual response is: fight, flight, or freeze. As military wives of soldiers who deploy to war zones we often experience fear for their safety, but most of us don't know how to allow fear in a way that doesn't consume or cripple us.

In this episode I talk about the differences between worry and fear and show you how worry typically does not serve you, while fear can be productive and healthy to fear. I give the example of worrying about my school aged children being harmed in a school shooting vs feeling fear that I'm a mother of school aged children and we live in a world where school shootings occur.

Happy Valentines Day! In this episode we're talking about missing the love of your life. We're talking about how we tend to miss him even more on important days, particularly days celebrating love, particularly days where it feels like everyone around us gets to be with their love.

One thing that I discovered on my husband's most recent deployment when it came to missing him was that I felt like I couldn't really let myself miss him and still feel strong and independent. Another reason I wouldn't give myself permission to miss him and remember how amazing our lives are when he's home is it felt too painful and the aching and longing that I was worried I would experience for him if I let myself go there was going to be too intense. However, whenever I would let myself miss him (like when he was going to be home soon) I couldn't believe how good it felt. I quickly learned that I was willing to feel some ache and longing because it came with so much love.

One of the hardest parts about our husbands being away for military responsibilities is when things go wrong. Whether it's something breaking in the house, something breaking with the car, everyone getting sick, naughty pets, or naughty kids...it can often feel like things either go wrong right after he leaves or that they only go wrong when he's away and not when he's home. Military wives will commonly refer to this phenomenon as the deployment cures or Murphy's Law.

If you are wanting to get some relief from this story and find some new thoughts to think when you feel like the deployment curse is real, listen to the this episode. I discuss what's going on in your brain when the deployment curse feels real and how we can take some power back from this disempowering story.

This episode is for when you're in those low moments where you struggle to get out of bed, struggle to eat right, struggle to shower regularly, struggle to leave the house, struggle to find the desire to connect with others. Basically when you're struggling to do the things that you know would help you feel better and struggling to take care of yourself.

Listen in as I discuss when to get help, how to raise your baseline, why momentum is your friend, and why self care=self love. The most important point of this episode is being so kind to yourself and giving yourself space and grace as you turn this around and get your mental health headed back in the right direction. You can do this!

Even if you love your in-laws and have a great relationship with them, they can sometimes drive you crazy. I find this to be particularly true for my clients when they are in a deployment. During deployment you tend to need them more and interact with them more, you often have to make decisions with them, sometimes they struggle with opsec, sometimes they promise to help and then don't follow through.

Whatever the reason, drama with the in-laws can really add to the overall struggle of the deployment. So listen in to today's pep talk to find some new ways to think about your relationship and interactions with your in-laws so that you can decrease the drama and get some relief from the frustration. This can be challenging work, but your efforts will be rewarded in so many ways and everyone will benefit (but most especially you). You can do this!

There are times when we really need to cry, but we are so resistant to letting the tears flow. There are lots of reasons why we resist crying...maybe you're not a crier, maybe you think crying is stupid or pointless, maybe you're worried if you start crying you'll never stop, maybe you think crying is weak and you don't want anyone to see you that way...whatever the reason, I want to offer you some new thoughts about crying that just might change your relationship with crying. I personally believe that crying is incredibly healthy and productive. Listen to the this episode to learn more about why I think that way and to learn about my beach ball analogy that helps you understand what processing emotions looks like.

You're here because you frequently feel overwhelmed and today is one of those days. Everything feels like too much. It feels like you can't catch a break and you can't catch your breath. Things keep coming at you, one thing after another. You need a break!

The problem is, we often can't get a break from the demands and challenges of our lives. So I'm sharing some of my tips and tricks with you today to think of overwhelm in a new way and get some relief from it without changing anything that is happening in your life. Enjoy!

It is so easy to be stressed about money. Whether we're stressed about spending too much, not saving enough, paying bills, not earning enough, or something else, for whatever reason stress is our go to emotion when we're having money problems. It's important to realize that stress is not at all conducive to problem solving. Feeling confident, capable, and abundant are all great ways to go into problem solving mode when it comes to money issues. Listen to this episode to learn a few new ways to think about money that will give you some relief from money stress.

One thing I have learned throughout military life and by going through deployments is there is a big difference between being alone and feeling lonely. I don't like feeling lonely, no one does. But I have learned how to enjoy being alone and enjoy my own company. I have learned why I feel lonely when my husband is deployed even when it actually feels like I'm never alone because I'm surrounded by kids. I have learned why sometimes I feel so connected to my husband even when he's across an ocean and sometimes it feels like are on two different planets rather than just two different continents. The bottom line is it's all so much more in my control than I ever knew and if you're ready to get some relief from feeling so lonely, then listen to this episode.