Solo Parent

Parenting alone is so hard. Often we feel isolated and ‘out there on our own’. We know that God says that He is with us, but sometimes it just doesn’t feel that way. 

Katie Haseltine is a spiritual director, a certified Enneagram and self-care coach, and author of “All the Things: A 30 Day Guide to Experiencing God’s Presence in the Prayer of Examen.” She was always looking for what was right, the correct theology, and figuring things out, while at the same time experiencing a lot of difficulty and suffering in her daily life. She was finding out that life wasn’t adding up the way she thought it would or how she had been taught. She struggled with finding peace and comfort in her relationship with God. 

Katie began exploring her personal connection to God in ways that went beyond just “doing the right things” which is what she had focused on for most of her faith journey. As she started working with people, she found many who were burnt out on religion, who felt like a failure, and like they never had the time, energy, or smarts to understand what “this” is all about. She knew there had to be another way. 

Katie’s definition of self-care is that it’s “a spiritual practice that removes the barriers to our ability to accept, receive, and give back love”. She says, “When we don’t take care of ourselves, we miss how God is speaking to us. If you are harried, exhausted, guilty, frustrated, overwhelmed, or resentful, there is no way you can see the unlimited gifts that God gives us every day.” And, whether we can see it or not, God is doing that. Often it is our unmet needs that get in the way of our ability to see those gifts of love.  

For the detailed show notes, tips and links visit SoloParentSociety.com

For more about Katie visit KatieHaseltine.com

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As single parents, we have minimal time, and often the last thing we spend that time on are things that we use to prioritize. 

God wants us to take care of ourselves physically, and that means more than just health. It is about priorities and balance. There are so many critical things at the top of our list of priorities that simple things like shaving our legs, eating well, or dressing well can move to the bottom of the list.  

For who? 

For what? 

There are so many important things to do; if we're honest with ourselves… we often 'let ourselves go'.?

Conversely, some of us may spend more time focusing on our body and appearance than while we were married. 

Maybe hoping to catch the eye of a potential suitor?

Either way, in this episode we are focusing on investing in ourselves, for the sake of ourselves… not for anybody else. (other than God… who already thinks we are pretty awesome!)

For the detailed show notes, tips and links go to SoloParentSociety.com

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In general, we all know that the Bible talks a lot about forgiveness and our need to forgive. As Solo Parent Christians who have been hurt, this can be easier said than done.

Is there more to the idea of forgiveness than just doing it because God says we should? Is it possible that there is a foundational mystery to the practice of forgiveness that unlocks our own potential, not only as Christians but also as individuals? 

Many know Brian Hardin as the vision and voice of the Daily Audio Bible, with over 20 million downloads a year. He is an ordained minister, an accomplished record producer with more than 100 albums to his credit, a best-selling author - including his latest project, The OneYear Adventure With The God Of Your Story. 

Not everyone knows that Brian himself spent time as a Solo dad raising his kids on his own. In today's episode, Brian walks us through Why Forgiveness? A Biblical Perspective.

Detailed show notes, tips and links.

For more on Brian and Daily Audio Bible

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We regularly hear from single parents who have experienced abuse of some kind and sometimes from more than one perpetrator. The pain of trauma is so deep and life-altering, is it possible to forgive those who hurt us? Therapists Laurie and Bill Lokey share their perspectives on this significant and complex question. Laurie Lokey is a licensed counselor who has worked at Onsite Workshops for ten years and in private practice in middle Tennessee. Her husband, Bill Lokey served as the senior clinical director for Onsite Workshops supervising over seventy therapists throughout the United States.

Bill shares that defining trauma is fraught with preconceptions. Some think of trauma as life-threatening events, and those events do create trauma in our brain as well as emotional pain, but trauma is broader. Bill says trauma involves emotional and physical pain as well as a sense of helplessness. Trauma sets us up to feel continually unsure of our safety and to be on high alert all the time. Our bodies are in a state of constant readiness to react even when there is no actual threat. Trauma can feel very crazy-making because our reactions are often bigger than what a situation warrants. Those with trauma are on edge and this reactivity makes relationships challenging. Recognizing trauma triggers is part of the journey to heal, as is the process of grieving.

Trauma is interesting because we are each impacted differently by events that happen so even when two people experience the same thing, they process and store the information uniquely. A sense of helplessness is often a contributor to how our bodies respond to trauma and impacts how we are triggered. When we are triggered by a seemingly separate or random event, where we feel afraid and unsafe, we react from the limbic part of our brain and go into fight or flight mode. When we get grounded again and back in our rational brain, we often think, “What happened? Why did I react that way?”

Laurie says she had to learn that pain wouldn’t kill her but not looking at trauma would. She says, avoiding it cost Laurie her first marriage. Laurie shares that it’s not just big “T” trauma events like sexual abuse or devastating car accidents but it is also the impact of little “t” trauma, the chronic daily experience of not enough or too much of something. In our lifetime, these experiences, both big T and little t trauma, add up. Untangling trauma includes processing the big T and the little t experiences that leave us feeling helpless where there was no one to protect us. And this involves so much grief.

We may see dysfunctional or destructive patterns of behavior in our own lives yet be reluctant to identify trauma as a root cause because of the shame we feel. Maybe we blame ourselves and think we are responsible for what happened to us. Some of the voices in our head may tell us we caused the abuse because we were “promiscuous” or never said “No”.

“Brilliant resilience” is how Laurie Lokey describes some of the coping strategies trauma sufferers develop. Children find ways to get what they need and try to decrease their pain in whatever ways they can. The eating disorder she developed at twelve years old was one of those ways as she tried to receive nurture when it wasn’t available through other healthy ways.

When we have experienced trauma, big or small, what is needed is healing connections with safe others including God. But the challenge for trauma sufferers is being able to move toward healthy connection when trust is difficult to find. There are benefits when you engage in the process though.

For the detailed show notes, tips and links go to SoloParentSociety.com

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Church was God’s idea for the wellbeing of his kids. It is a vital and important component in our spiritual lives. Unfortunately, though, sometimes some of us get hurt by people in the church or those in ministry. Much of the time, these hurts were unintended. Regardless, it is important for us to experience the freedom of forgiveness related to things that happen even from those in ministry. 

Jake Smith, Jr., founder of Plumline, an organization focused on wholeness and growing healthy relationships joined the podcast to talk further about this very topic. As a former pastor and church planter he helped build thriving ministries but like many of us, he too has experienced his share of hurt and the journey of forgiveness as a result. 

As someone who has been both a church member and a church leader, Jake has a perspective from both positions. Jake shares that hurt is the feeling when we have been harmed emotionally, spiritually, mentally, or physically. Harm results in feeling hurt. Another feeling follows us afterward – fear. We feel at risk of being harmed again in one or more of those ways. Whether the risk is legitimate or not, fear becomes part of our experience after we’ve been hurt. 

Forgiveness is needed after we’ve been harmed. Jake grew up in the church and served as a pastor for twenty-one years. Not only has he been hurt and harmed within the church, but Jake admits that he has also been the one who has caused hurt and harm, not intentionally, but in his own imperfection and woundedness.

We discuss the following facets of Forgiving People In The Church-

What does forgiveness look like and why is it important? 

How do we forgive a church that hasn’t been attentive? 

How do we find our way forward when church doesn’t feel comfortable or safe? 

What about when we feel judged by the church? 

How can we forgive people in the church?

As single parents, how can we safely process our hurts without it negatively impacting our kids?

For the full show notes, tips and links click visit https://soloparentsociety.com/blog/2021/09/13/forgiving-people-in-the-church-jake-smith-jr

LEARN MORE ABOUT JAKE SMITH AND PLUMLINE - https://goplumline.com

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Forgiveness is a tough topic but an important one. Sometimes we feel entitled to hang on to unforgiveness and letting go seems like letting someone off the hook, but we are called to forgive and there are benefits. Releasing things and being proactive with forgiveness can help us move forward and heal.  

This week, single mom, Amber, shares some of her journey to forgive even when she didn’t want to. Like many divorced solo parents, Amber got married expecting it to last forever. But after 17 years, her marriage hit a crisis that ended in separation. She longed to see her marriage saved, and over the course of a three years, she waited, fasted, prayed, and sought wise counsel. She did everything possible, including many things driven by control and codependency, to avoid divorce. Ultimately, though, her ex was never fully on board to work on the relationship so, after 21 years, her marriage ended. From a place of painful devastation, Amber found herself on the difficult journey of needing to forgive.  

She shares it wasn’t infidelity that was the most difficult to forgive. One of the hardest things to forgive were the hurts and pains her children went through in the process of divorce. 

For former single dad, Robert, one of the hardest for him to forgive was the wasted time and effort he poured into his marriage wanting it to be restored only to find out his spouse wasn’t being honest and committed in return. That was difficult to let go of and forgive. 

Kimberley shares that, like Amber, the hurts she experienced were easier to forgive than the hurts done to her children. It has been hard to see them struggling and, as they have gotten older, to become resigned to the pain and losses they have faced. As parents, it’s difficult to see our kids hurting and often we are hurting too. Forgiveness doesn’t come easy under circumstances like these so how do we work toward forgiveness?

For the full show notes, tips and links click visit SoloParentSociety.com

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Anxiousness and fear among our kids is on the rise. As single parents it is hard to know how to help them, and it is SO hard to watch. It’s hard to give them the courage they need when we feel like we don’t have it ourselves.

Today, to discuss Helping Our Kids Build Courage our guest is Max Lucado. He has served in churches around the world, and is America’s best selling inspirational author with more than 145 million products in print.

His recent releases - a full color childrens book - ‘Where’d my giggle go?’ and ‘Anxious for Nothing for Young Readers: Living above Anxiousness and Loneliness’, are specifically for young readers to help them find relief from anxiety and regain their peace and joy. We are so honored to have him with us today.

For the full show notes, tips and links click visit SoloParentSociety.com

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All of us have had to face hard stuff, scary stuff. And most of us might feel like we just scraped by. That’s why we are stopping to reflect on some of your stories this week. You are doing better than you think. Most of us beat up on ourselves, so we want to shine a spotlight… or get you to shine a spotlight on those times you have faced really scary stuff and shown more courage than you may have given yourself credit for. The discipline of remembering has come up time and time again in this podcast, the simple act of remembering can propel us forward. So that is what we are going to do this week. 

We asked single parents to reflect on an example of a time in their life when they had to exhibit courage in one of the following ways:

Courage to Surrender

Courage to Keep Going

Courage to Embrace Chaos

Courage to Be Silent

It is essential to be deliberate about looking for the glimpses that God gives that sometimes exceed what we thought possible. So, as you hear these stories, we encourage you to take a few minutes this week and jot down YOUR answers to these questions available in the complete show notes.

For the full show notes, tips and links click visit https://soloparentsociety.com/blog/2021/08/22/you-re-braver-than-you-think-solo-stories-of-courage

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This topic is ALL of our story at one point or another. At one point or another we have all thought that we were being courageous and brave, but when we look back, we say - "What was I thinking? That was so obviously stupid!"

So, as we build our lives again, how do we tell the difference between courage and stupidity. Well, today, we are going to get to the bottom of this. 

Courage, not stupidity, can be identified by the following characteristics that we explore in more detail.

What does Jesus say about Courage?

Courage is Humility.

Courage seeks counsel.

Courage will bear good fruit.

For the full show notes, tips and links click visit SoloParentSociety.com

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Courage is an important topic so it’s appropriate to have an expert on the topic join us today, a decorated Green Beret whose story of facing himself, his shortcomings, his doubts and all of the things is a perfect way for us to focus on this week's topic, which is finding the courage to face myself. 

We know we need to own our stuff, but it takes courage to face it. And that is precisely why this conversation is so important. None of us like admitting mistakes and faults. It's hard to face the times that we have fallen short. 

A lot of times, especially for single parents, if you've gone through a divorce, it's so easy to blame the other person rather than admit, “Hmm, maybe I have some stuff I've got to work on.” 

Our guest today is Scott Mann who spent 23 years in the United States Army, 18 of those as a Green Beret. He specialized in high-impact missions all over the world, including Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He appears frequently on CNN, Bloomberg Fox, Fox news, and dozens of other shows. What some may not know is that even with all the training and expertise that Scott, has and all the things he did in his life, he personally faced a significant crossroads that almost cost him his life. 

Scott Mann joined the podcast to share some of his story with us and particularly his own journey on this topic, “The Courage to Face Myself”. We are so thankful for his service and his willingness to share his story with us. 

For the full show notes, tips and links click visit SoloParentSociety.com

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