New goal in life!

From now on I am going to work on listening to my gut and activating my gut center. Which is gonna be hard because I am very much a heart-centered person. My heart is the one that makes most of the decisions in my life. But my gut is where I’m supposed to be the most confident, the most daring, the most courageous. I want to be more of all of that! So does that mean I’m going against my Enneagram type? Not exactly. 

The Enneagram has taught me a lot about balance. I’ve learned to respect the traits of other types, even if I’m not that Type. For example, I can respect a Type 1’s organizational skills, believe that they are a bit too rigid (if you ask me), and acknowledge that I need some of that organization in my life, too. That kind of respect is what we’re working on today. I don’t usually listen to my gut, but it doesn’t hurt to try it out, like a Type 1 does.

In this very personal episode, I’ll be sharing some updates on my life, my new goals, and how I’ll be listening to my gut and not just my heart. And also why listening to my gut apparently means barreling down the side of a mountain in Slovenia at top speed on skis? Gut people are very adventurous people and I guess I’m one of them now...

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! @mil.spouse

Check out Jayla Rae’s free Enneagram guide on goal-setting here! jaylarae.com/enneagram-guide

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Post-production for this episode was provided by ⁠CCST⁠, a podcast production company. 

If you haven’t noticed, we don’t hold anything back on this podcast!

I’ll talk about the hard feelings of moving around the globe, the ups and downs of deployment, and the silver linings of every situation. Which is why I wanted to invite not one, but two, very authentic speakers to the podcast. 

This week we’re talking to Candus Griffin and Mary Monroe, the masterminds behind the Shine Sis podcast. These ladies do not shy away from the rough realities of life, including how hard it is to maintain a flourishing career as a milspouse. But, the silver lining is, it can be done. You just have to put in a little more work than usual. 

Candus Griffin is a Navy brat turned Air Force spouse. She works in TV and hosts/produces the Shine Sis podcast with her best friend Mary. 

Mary Monrose is a mother of three, a Navy Spouse, a Paralegal, and a passionate advocate.

Check out this week's episode to hear all about Candus and Mary’s advocacy for modern milspouses.  

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Candus Griffin

Candus was raised in Newport News, Va. She’s a Navy brat turned Air Force spouse who met my husband while attending the University of North Carolina. She is currently stationed at MacDill AFB, FL with her husband and two children. She has worked in TV for years. She also hosts and produces the Shine Sis podcast with her best friend Mary Monrose.

Mary Monrose

Mary is a mother of 3, a Navy Spouse, a Paralegal, and a passionate advocate. She enjoys spending time with her husband and kids, going on adventures, karaoke, and being a true Cowboys fan.

Find Mary and Candus in all the places: 

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! @mil.spouse

Enneagram typing can be tricky for people in the military lifestyle.

The frequent relocation, changes to plans, and being separated from your spouse can make you look like an Enneagram type you may not recognize. But that’s also not a bad thing, funnily enough. It’s a learning tool in and of itself! 

This is why me and my guest, Kellie Artis, love the enneagram framework! You always have a core type, which never changes, but as we move through life’s stressors, our strategies change, and learning which traits and characteristics you take on during troubling times can be incredibly useful for you and your relationships. Using the enneagram system as a way to foster better communication with our communities is what Kellie and I aim for!

Kellie Artis is a communications professional who specializes in producing authentic and engaging content for veteran and military spouse audiences. As the Communications Director at Virtual Veterans Communities, she's working to improve educational experiences for military-connected students through digital community building and virtual event production. Her work as an advocate for veteran and active-duty families at MILLIE continues to help alleviate the stress of frequent relocations on military families.

In this episode, we’ll be diving into enneagram typing and how it can help milspouses and service members better communicate their needs. 

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Never without a passion project or side hustle, Kellie also freelances as a remote live stream producer, video editor, and content strategist. She's also pursuing a Narrative Enneagram Teacher Certification through The Narrative Enneagram, with plans to use this powerful self-discovery tool to help the military spouse community. Her volunteer experience includes nonprofit board service with the Military Family Advisory Network and Sweet Tea Shakespeare.

A native of South Carolina, Kellie earned a bachelor's degree in communications from the College of Charleston. She's currently living in Fayetteville, NC with her active-duty husband - stationed at Fort Bragg - and two children.

Find Kellie in all the places: 

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! @mil.spouse

Check out Jayla Rae’s Free Enneagram goal-setting guide here! jaylarae.com/enneagram-guide

Life comes at you fast, but that’s ok! Creative Director and Business Owner Morgan Specht is ready for anything. When she first met her husband, they were both employees at their local Costco. Fast forward a few years later and they became new business owners, her husband re-enlists after 10 years, and she has to restructure her business to work from anywhere. How did she do it all?!

Morgan Specht is the creative director, brand strategist, and founder of Specht & Co. creative studio. Professionally, she loves helping clients connect with their ideal audience and grow their businesses through personalized, strategic branding and web design. 

While she’s usually a planner, the milspouse life can mean picking up and shipping out with very little notice. In this week’s episode, we speak to Morgan about how she manages a whole new life as a working milspouse who owns her own business and how she makes it all work from anywhere. 

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Morgan is the creative director, brand strategist, and founder of Specht & Co. creative studio. Professionally, she loves helping clients connect with their ideal audience and grow their businesses through personalized, strategic branding and web design. When she's not elbows deep in her latest branding project, Morgan loves spending time outdoors with her dogs and taking road trips with her husband.

Morgan’s Free Brand Vision Planner: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/61d23e4aa247a7a541995808

Find Morgan in all the places: 

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! @mil.spouse

Check out Jayla Rae’s Free Enneagram resource here! jaylarae.com/enneagram-guide

Have you ever felt lonely and wanted to call your milspouse friends, but put down the phone because you were afraid they’d be too busy to talk?

You want to keep in touch with your friends all around the world but you just don’t know how.

This is exactly the problem our guest Mathew Shanks is solving for us today.  

Mathew hopped on a call (or three 😅) with me to talk about how he created communities halfway around the world when he had none. 

Matthew Shanks is a military spouse, dad, and entrepreneur focusing on ways to help people connect more meaningfully. He’s the founder of the Kovii app, an app that lets you know which friends would like to talk to you, anytime you’re in the mood to connect. 

While he’d never made an app before, he knew that he, especially as a male Milspouse, needed friends. He needed a community that would understand a milspouses sometimes chaotic life. This is why he made an easy way for military spouses to chat and connect from wherever they are. 

If you liked this episode and you’d like to hear more, please take a moment to leave a sparkly review and subscribe to The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast. Subscriptions and positive reviews make a huge difference for podcasters and would help us immensely. Thanks! 

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Matthew Shanks is a military spouse, dad, and entrepreneur focusing on ways to help people connect more meaningfully. He’s the founder of the Kovii app, a video chat app that lets you know which of your friends would like to talk to you, anytime you’re in the mood to connect but aren’t sure which friend to call. He’s also the founder of the Military Social Network, which helps people develop friendships through the MilSocial app, and various events, programs, and Facebook groups.

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Find Mathew in all the places:

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Resources Mentioned: 

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here:⁠ jaylarae.com⁠

Let's chat!⁠ @mil.spouse

Welcome back to another installment of the Late Career Milspouse series! This week I have the pleasure of speaking with the amazing interior designer and business owner, Brittany Zimmerman!

Brittany is the owner of Bleu Bee Designs - a boutique residential interior decorating company. Bleu Bee Designs offers in-person and virtual design services across the United States, making it perfect for the ever-changing Milspouse life!

Brittany is a half-glass-full kind of person as you will hear on this week’s episode. And while she never planned on marrying a military man, she has made it her mission to make it all work and support the man she loves. And she does make it work! This Enneagram 6 fostered a community everywhere she goes and has even been able to attract clients in the midst of every move.

Listen to Brittany’s episode to hear how she maintains her sunshiny disposition as a Milspouse.

If you liked this episode and you’d like to hear more, please take a moment to leave a sparkly review and subscribe to The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast. Subscriptions and positive reviews make a huge difference for podcasters and it would help us out immensely. Thanks!

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Bleu Bee Designs is a boutique residential interior decorating run by Brittany Zimmerman. Bleu Bee Designs offers in-person and virtual design services across the United States. Bleu Bee Designs also runs an online retail storefront “Curated by Brittany”, which sells new, vintage, and antique home décor and furnishings.

Find Brittany in all the places:

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! @mil.spouse

This week we are switching it up and speaking to male milspouse and Marine Corps veteran, Chris Molina! Chris is a girl dad and a leadership coach who finds himself navigating the female-dominated milspouse space. Chris and I discuss his experience as a milspouse, why he loves being a girl dad to his daughter, and his passion for understanding code-switching in every environment.

As a man in the female-dominated milspouse world, Chris feels the sense of isolation that many milspouses can relate to due to relocation, overseas assignments, and separation from friends and family. Chris shares a few tips on how to manage his feelings of isolation on his own and how he manages it with his wife as a couple.

In this episode, we mention Chris’s upcoming film Code-Switching. You can follow the Code Switching Instagram for updates and premiere dates.

CTA: If you liked this episode and you’d like to hear more, please take a moment to leave a (nice, hopefully) review and subscribe to The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast. Subscriptions and positive reviews make a huge difference for podcasters and it would help us out immensely. Thanks!

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Chris Molina is a two-time award-winning speaker, and an Amazon Best-Selling Author of his book I’m in a Leadership Role, Now What? The Student Edition, a Podcaster on the Professional by Choice Podcast and the How’d You Meet Podcast, a United States Marine Corps Veteran (serving 7 years on Active Duty), and a Purdue University Alum.

More than anything, Chris is a Father (#GirlDad), a Husband, a Son, a Brother, and an East Chicago, Indiana native.

Find Chris in all the places:

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! @mil.spouse

💁🏻‍♀️ Welcome to an episode that is the first of its kind!

Join a brave milspouse (and friend of mine), Manda Lynn McVey during a live Enneagram Typing Session!

Together we addressed:

Through a series of questions and vulnerable shares, we were able to:

It was SO GOOD (swear I’m not biased!).

I guided Manda Lynn in bringing what was subconscious to the surface, and you get to be a fly on the wall!

**Episode TW** Suicidal ideations, trauma

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➡️ BOOK YOUR OWN ENNEAGRAM TYPING SESSION HERE

➡️ OR COME HANG OUT ON MY EMAIL LIST BY SNAGGING A GIFT FOR YOUR ENNEAGRAM TYPE AT JAYLARAE.COM/ENNEAGRAM-GUIDE

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Meet Manda Lynn ❤️

Manda Lynn is Armed Forces Insurance 2022 Fort Polk Spouse of the Year, Founder & COO of Healitary Spouse, LLC, a Spouse Master Resilience Trainer, Holistic Wellness Practitioner, Behaviour Change Specialist, Fitness Nutrition Educator, and Yoga & Meditation instructor with a background in both the medical and culinary industries with over 3,000 volunteer hours under her belt leading military spouses to reconnect with their intuition in order to achieve overall wellness and resilience through a variety of modalities.

A native of Colorado, Manda lived a rather nomadic lifestyle prior to becoming a military spouse making her an extremely resourceful person she finds joy from sharing resources with fellow military spouses, creating art, and reading pretty much anything you can consider to be a book.

Learn about Manda Lynn's services on Sofia Health: https://sofiahealth.com/shop/manda-lynn-mcvey/

Send Manda Lynn a DM on Instagram to say hi!

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Late Career Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ enneagram resource here: jaylarae.com/enneagram-guide

Learn more: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! I love DM's @mil.spouse

🤓 Welcome to a new type of episode on this podcast. Join me for an impromptu, introspective conversation between me and my service member about potentially retiring from the military in the next few years.

We're in that limbo period where no decision has been made, but this conversation has come up more frequently in the past 6 months. 

If you're where we are now, we want to hear from you! Let us know what resonated with you: I love DMs! @mil.spouse

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The background music is Hostiles: the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Max Richter. 

All music rights belong to Max Richter, I do not own this song.

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Late Career Milspouse Mentor.

Grab your ✨free✨ enneagram resource here: jaylarae.com/enneagram-guide

Learn more: jaylarae.com

Let's chat about this episode - I love DMs! @mil.spouse

If you're catching this episode in real time, vote for me for the AFI Military Spouse of the Year® here (and thank you! ♥️):

https://msoy.afi.org/profiles/2023-jayla-rae-ardelean

...Everyone get ready for a dose of inspiration on what Late Career Milspouses are capable of! 

2022 AFI Army Spouse of the Year®, Monica Basset entered military life in her 30's, and has never stopped building community wherever they've been stationed since! As an advocate for fighting military food insecurity, her passion is truly infectious. This conversation will educate you and inspire you all in one!

Topics we cover:

👉🏻How to fill the gaps you notice in your own military base community

👉🏻What it's like to have a predetermined identity before entering military life, and how to shift

👉🏻Her amazing advice on how to strengthen your military marriage when shit gets rough

👉🏻Why we've seen an increase in discussing the military food insecurity issue, and how we can get LOUDER!

👉🏻Monica's inspiring permission slip to fellow Late Career Milspouses

This is Episode #8 of The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast series highlighting Late Career Milspouse/Milso stories + their experiences ♥️

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Meet 2022 AFI Army Spouse of the Year®, Monica Basset!

Monica is a military spouse and advocate for the underprivileged in the military community. Through her personal experience with food insecurity as a child and by connecting with military families facing these same struggles, she has made it her mission to ease the burden of food insecurity and shine a light on undernourishment of families. She built Stronghold to respectfully supply resources to families, provide actionable solutions, and educate others on the crisis of food insecurity in the military. Monica was named the Armed Forces Insurance Army Spouse of the Year for 2022 because of her commitment to alleviating food insecurity.

Website: www.strongholdfoodpantry.com

Keep up with Stronghold Food Pantry + Monica on Facebook:

facebook.com/monicabassett2022afiarmyspouseoftheyear/ 

facebook.com/StrongholdCommunityFoodPantry/ 

Instagram: 

instagram.com/_simplymonica_ 

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Milspouse Mentor, Speaker, and Writer.

Grab your ♥️free♥️ resources here: jaylarae.com

Let's chat! @mil.spouse