Sex for Saints

Losing someone can be one of the hardest experiences we have as humans. In today's podcast I share with you 8 ways you can support others through grief. Show Summary Today I want to about grief. An amazing man who recently moved out of my ward and neighborhood passed away on Saturday and a lot of my thoughts have been centered around him, his wife, their family, and then reflecting back to other times when people I know have grieved and when I have as well. I've experienced a lot of grief in my life, and it's never something that is easy, but the way we think about the person, the situation, and the death, makes a big difference in how we experience grief. For example - I've mentioned before that my Grandma passed away a few months ago. She was in her mid 80's, she had lived a long full life. She had suffered from dementia the last few years and had had two broken hips in the last 6 months. And while I love her deeply, and I was still so sad that she was gone and I wouldn't be able to talk with her and take care of her anymore, for me, I think of her death as a blessing. She wasn't suffering anymore. She had lived a long full life, and I had done what I could to love her and take care of her to the very end. Now contrast that with another experience. When I was 10-years old, my moms entire family was on vacation at lake and my 3-year old brother drowned and later passed away. My entire family was heartbroken. It was tragic. We didn't see it coming. It wasn't expected. And it caused a lot of turmoil and grief in the lives of my entire family. The grief consumed us for a long period of time. It was awful. So today I want to go over 8 points on how you can support others and yourself through grief. Realize that grief is that it is different for everyone and every situation Everyone experiences it differently and its different in every situation. Even if someone has gone through the exact same thing, their thoughts shape how they feel about it just as your thoughts shape how you feel about it. For example - I had a miscarriage in between my 2nd and 3rd child. I was only a few weeks along and because I had had 2 healthy pregnancies already, it wasn't something that I was prepared for at all. The day that it happened I was pretty upset by it. I was sad that it was happening, but my thoughts were more along the lines of "I'm not sure why this is happening, but God knows best. Maybe there would have been something wrong with this baby and God knows what I can handle. I will be ok. Everything will be ok." And I was able to recover physically and emotionally pretty well from it. Another person may experience the exact same thing quite differently and I know plenty of women who have. And their grief is valid! It is their experience. It may be absolutely devastating to them and I totally understand that. Just because that wasn't my experience, doesn't make it any less valid or important. It was a loss for them and they are allowed to grieve however they want. I do want to point out again that our feelings come directly from our thoughts. So while my thoughts about my miscarriage helped me recover fairly quickly, and someone else's thoughts about theirs are different and maybe they struggle with it more, BOTH are valid. But our feelings about it, do come directly from our thoughts and if you are choosing to stay in pain longer, that is totally fine. Meet the person where THEY are Because everyone deals with grief differently, it's important to find out where that person is in their grief how to best support them. Some people want to be surrounded by family and friends and some people want to be left alone or to grieve with just a small support group For some it may help them feel better hearing about others experiences, while some just want to focus on their own grief and not hear about others. Some people want to stay busy to keep their minds and bodies from breaking down and not focus on the loss. Others want to curl up in bed and cry. All of the examples are valid. Everyone grieves in their own way and we as friends and family (and sometimes its us!) have to realize that all of that is ok and its important to support them where they are. To not push what WE think they SHOULD be doing on them, but let them grieve how they need to. Now, that is not to say that if we are seeing signs of depression or not moving through the grieving process after a significant amount of time that we just leave it alone. But initially, it is important to let them grieve how they need to. But if it has been 6 months, a year or More and you are still seeing DAILY struggles, you may want to step in and see what can be done to help them. Stay in the present with the person that is grieving. The last thing a person wants to hear when they are grieving is "they are in a better place" or "their work was finished" or something to that effect. Just stay in the present. I love you and I'm sorry you are hurting. I'm here to support you in whatever way you need right now. Don't try to fix the unfixable Watching someone in pain and grieving can sometimes be uncomfortable and we feel the need to try and fix it and make it better for them and to make it so that we aren't uncomfortable anymore. The pain will dissipate over time, but there is nothing you can do in the present to fix that. Just be there to support. Be willing to be uncomfortable so that you can support the person who is grieving. Realize it isn't about YOU and its only about THEM. Anticipate, don't ask Don't ever say "Call me if you need anything" When someone is grieving they are so caught up in it they can't identify their own needs very well and definitely don't have the capacity to ask at that point. So anticipate. Give concrete offers - "I will bring dinner at 5pm on Tuesday" or "I will be by each morning to take the kids for a little while." Then, be reliable Realize that the normal every day stuff may be beyond their capabilities as well. Dinner. Taking care of kids. Picking up prescriptions. Ask about specific tasks. While they may feel ok about you bringing dinner in, they may not be ok with you doing their laundry. There are some tasks after a person passes that can be very difficult. Picking out a casket, planning the funeral, flowers can be all overwhelming. Ask what you can do to help or if they want you to go with them. Run interference To someone who is grieving, the influx of people who want to show support can be overwhelming. Grief can be an intensely personal and private affair and having a bunch of different people coming in and out can be overwhelming. A lot of times people don't want to have to talk about what happened over and over and over (although some do) so minimizing the people around those that are grieving can be a good idea. Have a Gatekeeper - one who is the designated point person to coordinate well-wishers, meals, tasks that need to be taken care, childcare is a good idea. If you are NOT that person, respect the wishes of those who are grieving and go through the Gatekeeper. Get Support If you are a primary support for someone who is grieving, make sure you have support too. Supporting someone who is grieving can take a great emotional toll on you. So its important you have support behind the scenes. Love So much of grief is about love. It about loving someone who is no longer there and love that has no place to go. Above all - love that person who is grieving. Show up. Say something. Do something. Be willing to not have all the answers but be there! If possible, show the person who is grieving how much you cared about the person who passed away too. A plant they can plant in their yard as a memory. A scrapbook. A crystal box for keepsakes. A statue. And remember the anniversaries. Sometimes those can be just as hard and bring up all of the feelings again. I like to put things on my calendar so that I can show up for that person in a loving way when I know they may be struggling.

Are you living your life out of fear? Fear of the unknown? Fear of being hurt? Fear of failure? Fear of judgement? Fear of your emotions? Fear keeps us stuck and from living our best life. In this podcast we will examine all the ways emotional fear changes how we show up in the world, how it keeps us trapped, and how we can face our fears and live our best life! Show Summary Thoughts are like clothes, you have to try them on and see if they resonate with you. You don't have to agree with everything I say. You can take what you want and leave the rest and that is totally fine. I know that a lot of my view come from an LDS perspective and if that isn't ok, with that is totally fine. I think MOST things can be translated to any religion or spirituality, but if they don't for you, that is totally fine! I get that I'm not for everyone, and I'm ok with that! Now, if there is something I talk about that you have questions about or want to know how you can apply it to your own life, please sign up for a mini session or make a comment on the episode's page on my blog and I promise I will do my best to answer it. So today I want to talk about FEAR! I think a lot of us live our lives in fear. And I'm not necessarily talking physical danger here (although that sometimes can be part of it) but I'm talking more EMOTIONAL danger. Fear of the unknown Fear of being hurt Fear of our spouse or our children being hurt Fear of failure Fear of judgement Fear of our emotions Fear of being in any sort of discomfort We've come to a place in this world where everything is SO EASY and so CONVENIENT that our brain is literally trying to invent things to be fearful of! Let's talk about our brains for a minute. So our brains are super complicated and I am not going to go into much. I'm going to keep it pretty simple We have our lower brain and our higher brain. Our lower brain - it is our primitive brain. It was designed to keep us safe and to protect us. It doesn't want to seek change, to thrive, to grow, or evolve. It just wants to stay the same and be safe. It is constantly on the lookout for things that might hurt us, physically and emotionally. Personally, my lower brain is constantly on the lookout for snakes and mean girls. I am TERRIFIED of snakes. Always have been. I have an automatic gag reflex when I see them. I can't go to the reptile house at the zoo. I can't go into the room where they have them at an aquarium. I can't even look at them in a picture or on TV. And you can FORGET IT when I see them in the wild. My husband and son are constantly telling me about killing snakes in our backyard and I tell them I don't even want to hear it, because I don't want to know that there are snakes in my backyard. Well now, I can't even go out into my backyard without being constantly on high alert for a possible snake encounter. This is my LOWER brain going CRAZY! It's trying to protect me from the snakes. Now - it can do the same thing with emotional dangers if I let it. When I let my lower brain go unsupervised it is like putting a toddler behind the wheel of car. It's crazy in there! So I am constantly having to engage my higher brain to keep that craziness under control. Now your higher brain is there, but it's not very functional on its own. You really have to learn to use it. It's the part of the brain that produces purpose in our life and allows us to create transformative change. This is where the magic happens. When we engage that higher brain. But the problem is, most of the time we don't. We let that toddler in our lower brain run wild! And when that lower brain is running wild that fear of all the things that might possibly hurt us goes crazy. And that fear narrows our vision and makes us less able to think creatively or flexibly. We get narrowed hyper focused on all things that can hurt us and let our fear go wild. And when we are letting our fears go wild and we are living our lives from a place of fear (fear of all the things that can physically or emotionally hurt us our loved ones) we are not living our best life. We are living the complete opposite. When we are living from fear, we can NOT live from LOVE. And we know that we are our BEST self when we live from LOVE. Fear keeps us from doing things we want to do. It keeps us from reaching our potential. So my son Taylor is a senior in high school. In fact, he graduates in a week! Anyway, he is taking this communications class and there have been some assignments that have been really hard for him. So there was one assignment where they were supposed to go up in front of the class as act like the opposite sex. The toddler in Taylor's brain went CRAZY. He was calling and texting me completely freaking out. There was no way he was going to do it. His heart was racing, he was sweating. He was so afraid. And I kept trying to talk to him about it and what it came down to was that he was afraid. Afraid of failing. Afraid of looking silly and being humiliated. His body was creating a physical reaction to a completely irrational emotional fear. So I was able to help him calm down by helping him identify and process his emotions. Helped him recognize he was actually feeling fear and it actually wouldn't kill him! And guess what, he did it and he didn't die! "The only failure is quitting. Everything else is just gathering information." Jen Sincero Now speaking of Taylor…since he is getting older and about ready to graduate I have had my own fears about what he is facing over the next couple of years. For a long time I thought the worst thing in the world would be if he didn't go on a mission or our church. What would he do with his life? What would people think of him? What would people think of me? I had failed as a mother if he didn't go. And then I took a step back and realized that I was actually trying to manipulate him and the situation to make myself feel better. So I had to do some serious thought work on the possibility that he may not go on a mission. I had to shift my thinking to thoughts like "If he doesn't go on a mission he will find the path that he is supposed to go" "if he doesn't go it doesn't mean anything about me as a mother, I know I'm a good mom and I've done the best I can to teach him." I also made sure to tell him that I would love him and things would work out the way they were supposed to whether he went or not. And guess what? He's decided to go! Whew! But man, wow, those fears all came up pretty strong. And when they did, I really wasn't showing up for him in the best way I could. Instead of showing up in love, I was showing up in fear and being manipulative. So not good! But once I shifted my thinking and showed up in LOVE, things were so much better and he was free to make his decision on what was best for him. And I honestly feel like things would be great no matter what, because I had decided they would be. I have a friend who suffers from terrible anxiety. It keeps her from doing many things that she wants to do in her life and I truly believe it is because she lets her fear take over. What if I say the wrong thing, what if people don't like me, what if, what if, what if? And how is she showing up in her life? Really she's not! She's letting fear take over. Friend who was afraid in his marriage and tried to control his wife and then lost her because he tried to control her. We know that fear won't kill us. Many times people LIKE that feeling of fear. When it's controlled. When they know it's not real. Like when they go to scary movies or haunted houses. They like that feeling of fear. The rush of adrenaline. But because they know its controlled, they can take action. So what if we take control of our fears? What if we ACT even if we are afraid? What if we stop letting the fear we create in our minds stop us from doing things? Then how will we show up in our life? So how do we do this? First we need to identify what we are actually feeling (fear of being humiliated? fear of the unknown? fear of not being enough?) Feel the increased heart rate, the tense muscles, maybe the tingling. Let it move through you. Don't run away from it. Don't buffer. Find the thought pattern that is creating that fear. Think through what is the WORST thing that can happen. And then say "so what?" Realize that it actually has nothing to do with life or death, its being afraid to feel the feeling. And realize that you WILL NOT DIE from a feeling! Take action amidst fear. You can try changing your thought patterns as well, but take action will prove to yourself that you CAN do it, despite being afraid. By doing the very thing we are afraid of and exposing ourself to it. Overcome those fears and you get your dreams. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the FEAR about feeling the FEAR is worse than it actually happening? Thing about when you or your child is going to get a shot. They are freaking out because the needle is coming towards them. But when it actually goes in, its this little poke for just a minute and then its totally fine. The freak out about the FEAR was actually way worse than the actual FEAR! We hold ourselves back from so many things because we are afraid of how it might feel. And what most of the emotional fear all boils down to is the fear of not being enough. But you ARE! You absolutely are enough, just as you are right now! A lot of us have this fear of the unknown. We always want to have a clear path layer out in front of us the whole way. But I firmly believe if we take that first step, get over the fear and take action, another step in the path will be shown to us as we go. I think one of the things I was most of afraid of was failing in my marriage and how I would I handle being single. What would people think of me? What would my children think? What would my Heavenly Father think? How would I support myself? How would I support my kids? Where would we go? What would we do? That fear kept me paralyzed for a really long time. I spent many years buffering and ignoring what was happening because I didn't want to face the fear. I didn't want to be a failure and I didn't know the path path that played out in front of me. But when I faced up to things and moved through the fear, what has come out on the other side is so much better! I am strong, I am confident, and now I have an amazing marriage. Fear is part of life. We all have it. We were programmed for it. It's not going anywhere. It's pretending to be necessary. Embrace it. Expose yourself to it over and over again. Learning how to overcome those fears and face the challenges and get that crazy toddler inside our head under control….now that's when magic happens. If you can learn to deal with fear your life will be LIMITLESS! So I want you to do an exercise. I want you to take out a sheet of paper and just write. Write all your fears. Don't edit. Just write them all down. Then take a look at what you fear What you actually have is thoughts that cause you fear Question those thoughts. Is it logical? Which ones are holding you back? (a fear of sky diving may not be holding you back, but a fear of what to say when you meet new people? probably!) Now I want you to deliberately oppose those thoughts And now that you are aware of them you can change them. Need more help changing those thoughts? Let me know! I'd love to work with you!

Have you spent your whole life avoiding negative emotions? Do you stuff them down or resist them at all costs? Chances are you were never taught how to identify and process emotions. On today's podcast I will teach you in 5 steps how to identify and process your emotions so that you can live the life you were meant to! Show Summary So today we are talking about identifying and processing emotions. What is an emotion? When we think thoughts, our brains send a chemical reaction to our body which is what we know as emotions. Sometimes our emotions can seem overwhelming and we can't handle them. We are actually conditioned from very early on in our life to resist emotions that are painful. As mother's we teach our children not be angry, or sad. We do everything in our power to help our children not experience anything painful. But what we should be teaching them (and what I wish someone had taught me) was HOW to deal with them. Not resist them. Not push them deep down and pretend they are not there. Not do something to avoid them. We need to learn how to identify our emotions, how to feel them, and how to process them. Because, they are just chemicals in our body. They can't actually hurt us. And resisting them actually makes them worse. In the LDS church, we are taught that when Adam & Eve partook of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - it brought an awareness to them so that they could experience opposition in all things. This was a crucial part of the Plan of Happiness. We are supposed to experience hurt, and and frustration, and sadness. This is NOT weakness. This is being HUMAN. This life is not meant to be happy 100% of the time. I think for people who would say they are truly happy, they still experience negative emotion 50% of the time. That's normal. Do you remember that movie Inside Out that came out about 3 years ago? I absolutely LOVED that movie because I think it brought the topic of emotions to the forefront. So if you have NOT seen that move, it's a movie about a girl whose family moves across the country and she has to deal with a lot of new challenges. But the movie is mostly from the perspective of these characters that live in her head that represent her emotions - Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, and Disgust. And what I loved about this movie is that it showed how the emotions controlled this girl by putting thoughts into her head about her situation or about memories she had. It also showed us that these are our 5 main emotions and other emotions that we have are kind of "sub-emotions" of those main 5. Have you guys ever seen that poster with all the different cartoon faces that represent all different emotions? There is a HUGE range of emotions and sometimes it can take a while to figure out WHAT we are actually feeling. And because I don't think most of us were ever TAUGHT to identify and deal with our emotions properly, We often mis-identify what we are actually feeling. For example - I hear all the time from people how ANGRY they are about this and that. And what they are probably feeling is more fear, frustration, disgust, or disappointment. So today, I want to give you 5 steps to identifying and processing your emotions. This is especially helpful if you are dealing with an emotion that is overwhelming or painful. So the first thing is to identify the emotion that you are actually feeling. Sit with it. Call it by name. This is FEAR. I am DISAPPOINTED. I am FRUSTRATED. The second thing is to ALLOW the emotion. Let it move through you. Now, remember what I said earlier that EVERY emotion you feel is caused by a thought or belief in your brain. When you believe something, then your brain sends a chemical reaction to your body and that is what your emotion is. So as strong and powerful as that emotion is - it can't hurt you! So don't resist it. The more you resist it, the more it will stick with you and intensify - which is the anxiety and panic you start to feel. But if you identify it and just sit with it, allow it, and let it move through you it will come and go a lot quicker. Now sometimes it will go away and then come back, but each time it does if you just allow it, it will move through quicker. Is to identify where it is in your body? Is it in your gut? In your chest? In your shoulders or neck? What does it feel like? Is it hollow? Is it thick? Does it move? Is it slimy? Is it sticky? What color is it? Once you have sat with the emotion for a while and you aren't experiencing it constantly then I want you to identify the thought of where that emotion is coming from. If you are having a hard time identifying the thought, ask your brain. It's really good at problem solving. Ask it - What thought is bringing the emotion of _________ and then don't answer it. If you answer, I don't know, this gives your brain permission to shut down. You are essentially turning off your brains wisdom. But if you ask it and put it to work, it will eventually solve the problem for you. Once you have identified the thought, then you can work to change that thought if needed. And sometimes you don't want to and sometimes you don't need. Its ok to experience any emotion that YOU want. The good news is, is that if you don't want to, you CAN change it. YOU have that power! I think it's important to understand that as humans we are supposed to experience the entire range of emotions. But, if you can learn to manage your thoughts, then those painful ones don't have to stay as long and you can learn to think about things differently. But, just as we should only expect to be happy about 50% of the time, the same goes with the people around us. It's OK for our husbands and children to only be happy 50% of the time too. But their emotions are based on their own thoughts about what is going on in the world. It is NOT your job to manage their emotions. With our kids, we want them to be happy all the time. But they have the right to a full range of emotions. So wouldn't it be better to teach them where those emotions come from? And how they have the power to choose their thoughts to help manage those emotions. And with our husbands…it's not OUR job to make them happy. Just as its not their job to make us happy. We make ourselves happy with our own thoughts. So if HE is unhappy, that's on him! It's not on you. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't be kind and considerate of him and his feelings. But you just need to realize that HE gets to manage his own thoughts and emotions. Which is AWESOME news! And it's important to understand that just because he is unhappy or stressed or frustrated, that doesn't mean we have to be. That is called MIRRORING emotions. But you get to choose your own thoughts. When you find yourself trying to manage His emotions or mirroring his emotions try on the thought "He can be unhappy, but that doesn't mean I have to be" instead. Now I want to talk a little bit about buffering - Buffering is what we do when we are trying to avoid feeling certain emotions. We watch TV, or scroll through facebook or Instagram. Maybe you shop and spend money. Maybe you turn to food to give you that temporary feeling of happiness. There are TONS of things people do, some more destructive that others. Drinking, Sex, Gambling, or doing anything maybe not as harmful but to excess. Sometimes things can actually be considered good and productive, but done to excess and to avoid other things, its still a buffer…working, crafting, cleaning, etc. What do you do to buffer? When I was really struggling in my first marriage, I drank Diet Coke. That was one of my buffers. I always say that Diet Coke was how I survived my first marriage. But I was also overweight, because I was eating to fill a void. I was constantly trying to find things that would make me happy because I was so unhappy in my situation. I even tried buying a new house and putting in a pool because if I was going to be miserable in my marriage, at least I'd have a nice house and pool. That's how I buffered during a challenging time in my life. It wasn't until I confronted my thoughts about myself and about my situation and dealt with the pain and other emotions that I was experiencing was able to walk away. I had to quit the buffering and deal with my life, as hard it was. Henry Cloud says "Nothing good is going to happen if you can't deal with the bad things that are going to happen." And he's right. Until you can learn to deal with the bad things. Learn to deal with the negative emotions, you aren't going to be able to experience the life in the way that you were meant to. If I hadn't dealt with what was going on in my life and in my first marriage, I'd never be where I am today. And where I am today is in a happy, healthy, successful marriage. And I am happier than I have ever been in my life. And that's what I want for you too. Ok my friends! That's all I have for you today! I hope you have a fabulous weekend. We are headed to the lake with our boat and trailer to go fishing for the weekend and I am so excited to spend some time with husband and my son. Take care!

We all know that we SHOULD forgive, but sometimes we don't know how. When it's something big and the pain is too great, how do we move past it and forgive? Show Summary Today I would like to talk to you about forgiveness. And not just that you SHOULD forgive, but how you actually do that. Forgiveness is key to having a happy marriage. Our spouses are far from perfect, and as their spouse we get a front row seat too all of their bad habits and behaviors. Things that we may once have found endearing can grate on our nerves if we let it. But lets remember…we LOVE them. We do. So we can forgive them of those little annoying daily things that happen over and over and over and over…. But what about when its a big thing? How do we forgive when trust has been broken. When promises are made and broken time and time again. When we have been betrayed. This is what is hard. Right? When someone does something that you're feeling hurt by, it can be painful, but it is nothing more than a thought or belief and a feeling that you carry around. You may feel anger, frustration, resentment, fear, and maybe even hatred because of this belief that they've done something wrong and to hurt you. So, rather than blaming your spouse for how you are feeling, take responsibility for your feelings. And its ok to feel hurt… but realize that it is choice based on your beliefs about their actions. And rather than hold on to that pain and hurt, you can choose to think better thoughts about yourself and them about the situation. and THAT is the key to forgive them. When we forgive others, its not for their benefit, its for ours. We lift a burden off ourselves we forgive. When we change our beliefs about what their behavior means for us, then we can forgive them and let that burden go. Now it may make them feel better when we forgive them. But we can forgive someone without them ever knowing that they've wronged us or ever asking to forgive them. But them feeling better is about their thoughts about the situation, not us actually forgiving them. Forgiveness can take work. But if we desire to forgive and work for it, it is possible. So let's bring up a scenario - So what if your spouse is unfaithful to you. The pain comes from beliefs such as: He shouldn't have done that He doesn't love me He wouldn't have done this if I were a better wife What if he leaves me and starts a new better life with her? We BELIEVE those thoughts... And with those beliefs you have feelings such as pain anger resentment frustration fear When you have those feelings, how are you showing up in your marriage? Your probably showing up in one of two ways You are pulling away Or you are attacking Neither is great. And when you do this, your relationship will probably deteriorate further which reinforces your beliefs…. When we act out of anger, fear, and resentment we are never acting as our best self. Our best self comes when we act from love. But if you can work to slowly change those beliefs to I'm not ok with what he did, but I still love him and we will get through this OR I'm not ok with what he did, I still love him, but I'm not going to choose to stay OR What he did was choices he made because of something inside of him, it has nothing to with me. I am enough. Doesn't that feel better. With thoughts like that it will be much easier to forgive him, because you are coming from a place of love. Forgiveness brings strength and peace. It softens our heart and opens a pathway to healing and to rebuilding trust. Just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you condone the behavior. It also doesn't mean there aren't consequences for that behavior. And, it doesn't mean you have to stay with them. But it feels much better to make those decisions in peace and love (love for your spouse and love for yourself) than out of anger and resentment? I was married to my first husband for more than 13 years. We had three children together. And before I divorced him, I went through the 5 steps I discussed in Episode 1. That is how I got a place of peace before I decided to end the marriage. But after we were divorced I really felt like I needed to forgive him if we were going to move on to a place of peace and be able to co-parent our children together. And, with the Lord's help, I do feel like I have completely forgiven him. I was able to look at the things that were hurting him that made him act the way he did and have compassion for that. And while I am sad that our marriage had to end, I feel really good about where we are now. We have a pretty good relationship. We co-parent really well. Our children are happy and well-adjusted. And I look at where I am now in my life - I have a wonderful marriage with my now husband, Kevin, and I know that I wouldn't be near as happy if I hadn't been able to forgive and move through the hurt. Larry J. Echo Hawk, who is a General Authority in our church said "As we forgive, the Savior will strengthen us and His power and joy will flow into our lives." I truly believe that we get an added measure of the spirit when we choose to be obedient and forgive. When we use the atonement to help us forgive, it invites the Savior to be with us on the journey and we are able to give Him the hurt. And give Him the parts we can't handle. He is able to help us forgive, to move on, to be happy, to be at peace. Now… just as it is important to forgive others, it is just as important to forgive ourselves. We need to have compassion on ourselves. Be kind. Realize that we are human. We make mistakes. That is the nature of our experience here on this earth. So when you make mistakes…think compassionate thoughts and forgive yourself. You deserve it too! When I was going through the process of forgiving my ex-husband, I also had to take a look at the things I had done that had contributed to the demise of our marriage and forgive myself for those. I love the quote "God sees our imperfection and shortcomings, but He also sees beyond them." See beyond them in yourself. See beyond the shortcomings in your spouse. Live from love. If you are having a hard time, forgiving someone in your life, sign up for my free mini-coaching session and I'd love to help you work through it. Have a fabulous week my friends, we will see you next time….

How to build confidence in yourself so that you can be happier and show up better in your marriage and other relationships. Show Summary Hello everyone, so today I want to talk about confidence and how having confidence can really help you in your marriage and it can really help you in any relationship. Confidence is a really important part of your mental and emotional health. And building confidence is not something you can just do once and be done with. It's something that requires constant maintenance and is an important skill to learn. It's also something that people also don't understand how to get better at. So that's what we are going to talk about today. So first lets talk about why we don't have confidence. Now in the LDS church, we believe that we are literal sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father. We are DIVINE. We all have infinite worth. And that's a really beautiful concept. But why do we not believe it? So there is a disconnect between this divinity and how we feel about ourselves. Inside every one of us is an innate fear that we are not enough. And its not just limited to a certain skill set, but we just aren't good enough human beings. That there is something wrong with us. That we are not worthy of love or worthy of the good things that come to us. We don't embrace our divinity. Most of you have probably heard the analogy of a $100 bill being crunched up, maybe ripped and torn…but it is still worth $100 even thought its not perfect. And that's just like us. Now I want you to think of a brand new baby. This baby is straight from heaven. It is beautiful and has never done anything wrong. And of course that baby has infinite worth and nothing can change that. But when we grow up and we experience life…that worth changes? NO! There is not a single human being on this earth that didn't start out as a beautiful baby. And that worth doesn't change over time. It doesn't change because of things we do or don't do. We all have INFINITE worth. We are are all worthy of being loved. We are all divine. Period. The problem is, we often let our worthiness or even our HUMAN-NESS make us feel less than… So why do we beat ourselves up so much for being HUMAN? For making mistakes? When we do not live up to the expectations we have for ourselves? Or why do we let others make us feel "LESS THAN" if we don't live up to their expectations? And the kicker is…when we think less of ourselves we actually show up worse in the world. It's like a self-fulfilling prophesy. I feel like I'm not enough, so I'm not going show up as my best self. And if you don't show up as your best self how are you showing up? How are people going to treat you if you aren't showing them your best, true, authentic self? Now…if we can change our thinking so instead of saying "Well…this is me. I'm not great, so I don't know if you are going to like me or not because I don't really like me" to "Hey, this is me. I am amazing. I have infinite worth. I'm also human. I make mistakes. But I will love myself in my human-ness because I know that I am a child of God and I am divine and I have infinite worth and I have some amazing talents and qualities." How will that make you feel about yourself? So much better, right? Dr. Sasha Heinz is positive psychologist and she says "Everyone's biggest challenge in life is to get over the crap in their own head. The ONLY obstacle you ever have to overcome is the stuff in your mind." I love that! So, how do we do that? To have confidence, the first thing you need to do is change that inner dialogue. I want you to start to notice the things that you think about yourself. If you walk by the mirror and you inner dialogue says "I am so fat" First, just notice that thought. You aren't going to be able to change that thought right away. You can't go from "I hate my body" to "I love my body" overnight. Your brain will reject it because its not believable when you've been telling yourself that negative thought for so long. But what you can do is Notice that thought - "yep there's that thought again" Be compassionate with yourself. Talk to yourself how you would talk to your best friend. You would never tell your best friend that she is fat or ugly or lazy. Get curious as to why you feel that way - figure it out, maybe write some things down about WHY you talk to yourself that way Slowly start to change those thoughts. Maybe instead of saying "I hate my body" when you walk by the mirror, you go to "Yep…there's my body" or "wow…my body does some pretty amazing things" or "I am blessed to have a body, even if it doesn't look the way I want it to right now" As you notice those thought and start to be more compassionate with yourself and slowly change those thoughts, you will start to feel so much better about yourself. You will learn to love yourself when you don't have so much negativity directed toward yourself. The next thing is to think about how you want to show up for yourself. Do you follow through on the things you tell yourself you are going to do? Do you let yourself down a lot? Do you give yourself excuses? Are you ok with that? and if you're not, What can you do to change that? The best way to change that is to set small, achievable goals for things that are important to you. Do things because you told yourself you would. Achieving goals (even small ones) is a great way to build confidence in yourself. Be kind and compassionate with yourself but hold yourself accountable. Don't beat yourself up. We gain confidence when we accomplish something. Toddlers learning to walk. They don't get down in themselves when they fall. They just get back up and keep trying until they get it. They have to build those muscles in order to learn. They keep trying and trying and eventually they get it. And they are really happy with themselves. This is them building confidence. Same thing with us. But we put ourselves down so much if we don't get it on the first try. Or even the second. We are so afraid of failing that we don't even try. Failure is ok. Just the first attempt in learning. Learn what works and what doesn't. When you are trying something new….or something you want to get better at your Brain will say "what if I fail" and what if you do? Remember it's trying to keep you safe from physical and emotional pain. But you can handle it! You can do failure! I'll figure it out. I'll keep trying. So I like to sit down at the beginning of the year and write out thing things that I value. And then I set up some big goals for the year for myself. And then I break those big goals down to manageable goals that I can accomplish monthly, weekly, or even daily. I write them down. I actually put them in an Excel sheet so I can hold myself account. I put reminders in phone. And then I have a meeting with myself on a weekly basis to see how things are going. For example - I set a goal to read our church magazine The Ensign cover to cover each month. There are usually about 30 articles in it, so it breaks down to about 1 article a day. I have a repeating reminder in my phone To read the Ensign each day. I try to read that 1 article first thing in the morning, but sometimes I don't get to it. If I don't get to it, it's ok. I don't beat myself up for it. I just try to catch up on Sundays. I've been able to read the Ensign every single month for the last 2-1/2 years. And I feel really good about that. That helps boost my confidence, it helps me be more in tune with the Spirit, and I've found so many things that are helpful for things I am going through in my life. It just makes me feel good about myself that I am accomplishing this goal. It's not an all or nothing. When I reflect on my goals I'm happy with my accomplishments. And it builds my confidence. The third thing is that you don't let others talk put you down. Get your own back! You are worth it! No one has a right to put you down. And when they do. you don't need to believe them or let them. If its a continual problem, set some boundaries (like we talked about in Episode 1). Whether this is your husband, your mother, your child, a neighbor, don't let anyone talk to you in a demeaning way. This doesn't mean you need to be mean back. You can just say "I'm not ok with you talking to be this way. If you talk to me this way then I will leave the room." or whatever boundary you want to set that feels good to you. I also want you to understand that people are allowed to feel and say whatever they want about you, but that doesn't make it true. What they think about you is really none of your business. It's more about THEM than it is about you. One of my mentor's - Brooke Castillo says "You can be the sweetest, juiciest peach on the tree, but there is always someone who doesn't like peaches" and that is ok! As long as you like you, that's all that matters. And if there are things that you don't like about yourself, you have the power to change them. Because you are awesome! And you are amazing. And you are WORTHY of LOVE. You are WORTHY of all the goodness this life has to offer. No matter what. So let's bring a real life example into this scenario. Let's Say you have a husband who is quite controlling. He has certain expectations of you as a wife and mother. And if you don't meet his expectations then he can be demeaning. It's never ok for him to speak to you unkindly or to put you down. He can make requests of you, but you are free to choose if you want to meet those requests or not. And as long as you are happy with yourself and the things that you are doing, that is ok. You need to get your own back on it. Now he may not like this…. he may not like you standing up for yourself when he used getting his way. In the past you may have just done whatever he requests to keep the peace and then resented him for it. And that's not a great way to live in a marriage. But if you learn to get your own back, have confidence in yourself, and stand up for yourself, eventually things will change. In one of two ways. 1. He'll eventually figure out that you aren't going put up with his controlling behavior anymore and he'll back down. When you show up with confidence, it can throw him for a loop at first, but eventually he'll figure it out. or 2. He doesn't. He continues to be demeaning and you'll feel so much better about yourself that you won't put up with HIS behavior anymore and set some boundaries. Just like we talked about in Episode 1, things may get worse before they get better. Be prepared for that. But have confidence in yourself and that you can handle any situation, and everything will be ok. This week, I'd like you to think about this quote "We can only love others to the capacity that we love ourselves." If that's true (and I believe it is) how will you show up differently in your marriage if you love yourself and are confident in yourself. How can that improve your marriage. When we live from a place of love…love for ourselves we show up as our best self in the world. Ok, my friends. That's all I have for you today. See you next time.

Life Coach Amanda Louder discusses 5 important steps you should take before you decide to get a divorce.