Vibrant Happy Women

Learn why choosing happiness is a better idea than setting yet another New Year's resolution. And how to make 2017 your best year ever! www.jenriday.com

Kate Bee grew up in a home that relied on alcohol as a coping mechanism for stress and a means to celebrate everything. Eventually Kate realized she was drinking too much and finding it nearly impossible to stop, but she pressed on and is happily living an alcohol-free lifestyle today and sharing what she has learned with others. Kate shares several great tips that are helpful for overcoming any addiction, including food, such as pushing through fear and the importance of human connection.

Learn an easy tip to help you make 2017 WAY more successful. And you can do it any time you want... while driving, while walking... and more!

Sometimes we just need to forgive and let go...

Laura Thompson Brady was happy to be a stay-at-home mom for her 2 kids, but after a time she realized she felt a deep level of sadness and a dimming of her inner light. Laura began to ask, “What am I meant to be doing?” Laura spent lots of time simply LISTENING to her intuition and thoughts and realized she had been neglecting an important part of herself: a desire to nurture other women and to improve the world, which began the Mamas on a Mission movement. Laura Thompson Brady, Ph.D. & founder of The Nourished Home, leads the Mama on a Mission Movement, where she helps visionary women step “outside of the box” and lead the way to greater harmony, freedom, healing, and joy for their themselves, their families, the communities they serve, and the larger world we call home. Laura lives with her husband and two girls in Maine. You can learn more about Laura’s work at www.thenourishedhome.com. Nuggets of Wisdom from Laura: "Resolve to be always beginning." - Rainer Maria Rilke "No matter how much we think we know, that there is always something more to learn, there is something more to grow into." "If I want that for you (Flannery), and if I want you to find the way to that, the best way I can do that is by living that and figuring that out and modeling that for you, and so that hit me really hard." "I was neglecting these parts of myself and that I really needed to lovingly tend to them and listen to them and open myself up to the possibility to what it would look like to be in the space of really loving the opportunities that I have through motherhood and being with my family as well as having the opportunity and the openness to really look at what are the other ways I am called as a human being to make impact and to show up in this world while I am here. That was the turning point that I wanted to share." "The listening and contemplation and a little bit of research, I decided that I wanted to merge my academic background with really supporting people in a very empowering and positive way." "Another piece that was so radically important that in terms of the inner work that was required for me, it was around really acknowledging with love all of the fears that I had about stepping into my work." "I’ve always felt called in some capacity to do healing work with people." "I allowed myself to really have the space to deeply listen." Some of Laura's Favorite Things: Personal habit: "Walking meditations that I do out in the woods. Simply being in the natural environment reminds us to calm the nervous system, to ground into ourselves and to get quiet." Easy meal: Crockpot Chicken Recipe from 100 Days of Real Food Possession: Chef's Knife Laura's Favorite Book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton Best advice received: "In any moment when you are not sure of what to do, or you are afraid or you do not know how to move forward with somebody, just ask yourself what would love do?" Laura's Happiness Formula: "I am happiest when I get outside everyday, when I have quiet space to listen to my intuition and to make space to do something playful or joyful or relaxing with people that I love, something that has no purpose other than to just be playful, just be joyful or just relax and be, and connect, or just be creative for the sake of creativity." A Challenge from Laura: "Let go of holiday overwhelm, to let go of all of the things that you think you should be doing to create a perfect holiday for your family or your loved ones and to all the kinds of things that we are talking about in this podcast. To really listen, how do I most want to feel during this holiday season? What do I most want to experience and share with people that I love? What is that I most value? that I do not want miss out on during this time of sacred celebration?" Resources JenRiday.com/jenclass HectictoHarmonious.com (get a copy of Laura's ebook!) TheNourishedHome.com Crockpot Chicken Recipe from 100 Days of Real Food The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton Subscribe to Vibrant Happy Women:  

Do you ever think about all the lights around you? Light through a window, streaming from a bulb, twinkling from a star? I challenge you in this HappyBit to think about LIGHT - physical and otherwise. www.jenriday.com

Jane Stoller hit a low point in life after a move and changing jobs and relationships. She asked herself, "What is making me so unhappy?" and quickly realized the lack of organization was really putting a damper on her happiness. Learn how Jane survived that low point by getting organized. Jane is originally from Canada and now resides in Zurich, Switzerland and she's constantly finding new ways to get and stay organized. Jane is the author of Organizing for Your Lifestyle, which provides  inspiration to make organization fit YOUR needs. Nuggets of Wisdom from Jane: "And for every  minutes spent organizing, an hour is earned." "For me, I naturally start it with reorganizing my closet and whenever I am in kind of a low point, that is what I do, I organize my own and then sometimes I have lots of friends that love it when I come to do theirs. So that gives me kind of a feeling that I have accomplished something. " "When I am organized, I am my happiest." "If you have a perfect organizing system, sustaining that is the most important part, otherwise there is no point even getting organized. So that is where I say, 'Make it your lifestyle but do not think about it all the time. Make it a routine... Make it fit for your lifestyle'" "My day starts the night before. Planning my outfit for the next day and my meals. So I make sure that when I wake up in the morning, whether I am working out first thing in the morning or whether I am going to the office or on the weekend, I have my outfit planned, so there is no last minute stress of looking for what to wear or what not. So, I think that really helps you start off on a right foot. And if you start off on that right foot, the rest of the day, I find usually smooth flows pretty smoothly." Some of Jane's Favorite Things: Personal habit: Organizing Calendar. Planning. Easy meal: "Swiss meal. Rösti. Like hashbrowns. Lots of carbs. It is really similar to hashbrowns but they make it into a pie form. I learned it from my mom and it is my favorite side dish to make." Possession: "My juice maker." Jane's Favorite Book: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo Best advice received: "Do not sweat the small stuff." Jane's Happiness Formula: "Being with my family. Being healthy and exercising. And of course, being organized." A Challenge from Jane: "Write down three organizing goals. I think that will really help everybody start their organizing challenge. It could be small goals like organize everyday or perhaps larger ones like a creative organizing system. Whatever it is, write down three small organizing goals. " Resources Organizing for Your Lifestyle by Jane Stoller The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo Rösti - here is the recipe Jane's Book PR Contact is Kelsey McBride Subscribe to Vibrant Happy Women:  

How do you want to FEEL? And how can you find more free time for doing the things that generate the feeling you want? Join me for a free Master Class: "How to Create More Time for the Things You Love (Without Neglecting Your Family or Feeling Guilty) and learn how to create 10+ hours of free time each week. Sign up at JenRiday.com/JenClass

In this episode, I chat with Jill Savage and she shares a lifetime of experiences and struggles - including raising 5 children, facing the challenges of her husband's lifelong depression and an act of infidelity, and her triumph over breast cancer - each which helped her learn to feel with others rather than trying to fix others. Author of 11 books, Jill shares many nuggets of wisdom about building stronger relationships and not comparing our "insides" to other people's "outsides." Jill Savage is known as The Go-To Mom. She is the founder and CEO of Hearts at Home, an organization dedicated to being a moms best place for answers. She is also a popular public speaker and has written eleven books including, Real Moms ... Real Jesus, the best-selling No More Perfect Moms, No More Perfect Kids, and her most recent book authored with her daughter Anne, Better Together. Jill and her husband, Mark, live in Illinois and have five children and three grandchildren. Nuggets of Wisdom from Jill: "We have to stop comparing our insides to other people's outsides." - from Jill's friend "It is recognizing another person's pain. It is not necessarily agreeing with it. It is not giving them pat answers to pull them out of it. It is sitting in the pain with them. So being able to say, 'Wow! That must just feel really dark to you, I am so sorry that it gets hard like this.' That is a validating statement." "He starts feeling like I am distant from him when I try to fix him. But when I try to feel with him, he says that, 'That makes me feel closer..' to him, and that is huge. Me learning to feel over fixing." "Feel, don't fix." "They say people don't care what you know until they know that you care. " "Unfortunately, we just live in a very broken world. I think that the struggle, the pain, the hardship is just a natural byproduct of the human experience." "I am an introvert, and I am refueled by being alone. And so another part of self-care is figuring out ways that I can be alone. " "We cannot be a perfect parent, but we have to stop trying to be perfect and embrace being perfected. That is what God does with the broken places in our life." Some of Jill's Favorite Things: Personal habit: "Self-care is not selfish. Each morning I get up and I take an exercise class. I always also take time to have a little quiet time with the Lord. I perceive all of that as self-care. " Easy meal: Mexican. Cook lots of beef or chicken in the crockpot, add Mexican seasonings, then serve it throughout the week with veggies and toppings. Possession: My little chopper from Pampered Chef Jill's Favorite Book: How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage by Milan and Kay Yerkovich Best advice received: "You've got to stop comparing your insides to other people's outside." Jill's Happiness Formula: "Faith + Family + Friends" A Challenge from Jill: "My challenge is to stop trying to be perfect but embrace being perfected." Resources JillSavage.org HeartsAtHome.org Better Together: Because You're Not Meant to Mom Alone by Jill Savage No More Perfect Moms: Learn to Love Your Real Life by Jill Savage Real Moms...Real Jesus: Meet the Friend Who Understands by Jill Savage My little chopper from Pampered Chef How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage by Milan and Kay Yerkovich HowWeLove.com How We Love Style Quiz Eliminate Overwhelm Guide Subscribe to Vibrant Happy Women: