I'm clearing up the differences between traditional counseling or therapy and certified life coaching by sharing with you the times in my life when I have utilized both for different purposes. I also share a recent realizaton I have had with current and former clients about the best format for coach

Despite my best efforts to avoid it, I became ill with Covid last week after traveling. I don't know of it was the high fever or just being forced to rest (because my body refused everything except that) but I had some realizations and revelations that really helped me get clear about some big thing

Reflecting this week on mistakes I made and sometimes still make. I used to think these were about being a mom. I used to connect these to my mom identity by making them mean something about that aspect of me, but I have a new awareness now that these are about my own past pain and the healing I am

Special Guest Episode: Christy Keating from The Heartful Parent joins me this week for an informative and open conversation about the who, what, when, and why our tweens and teens need to hear about sexual consent from us.  If you've avoided talking to your tweens or teens about sex, this episode wi

For Pride Month, I want to talk openly about what I've learned as a proud mom of a child in the LGBTQ+ community. First of all, I am learning as I go. I have made some mistakes and caught myself acting from unconscious bias, lack of awareness, fear, and insensitivity, but I've asked questions and I'

In this episode my third daughter joins the podcast to talk about her perspective growing up as the youngest in our family.  She shares a topic that has recently come up for her with her therapist around the topic of comparison, and some of the advantages and disadvantages of being the youngest. We

If you are not feeling awesome about Mother's Day either before, during or after, this episode will help you reflect and possibly shift perspective, if that's what you want. The concept of being ready to be in "receiving mode" is shared, along with a way to get curious and honest about what's really

This episode is a new format! I am reminiscing about the progress of my very first clients. I share about the mom who discovered that her boyfriend was not problem, the mom who learned how to feel her feelings instead of chasing her self-worth by doing tons of things, the mom who stopped trying to b

There is a throughline with all the hardest situations we have faced as family. I have noticed it also with moms and families I have coached. It is simple but not easy to do.  It's facing reality and radically accepting it. It is not our natural tendency to accept unexpected or painful events, espec

The first half of this episode I share a concept from coaching that I use often but was reminded of at my recent coach mastermind event in Austin, which is "don't believe everything you think," and we also review again how counseling and coaching are different. In the second half I am inviting you i

Not all moms relate to being a hot mess, but for those of us who do, I salute you.  Seriously, is having our shit together really the goal? In this episode I share some new ways of looking at the "hot mess" persona.  Personally, I learned to just own it in myself and actually love this aspect of mys

Anxiety and Fear are just indicators for us to take a pause and think "What am I fearing in this situation?" In this episode we take a step back and rethink how controlling others and our own emotions is our natural tendency as moms, but it has negative impacts and a cost to us and our relationships

You've heard me say before that behavior is communication, but what the heck is actually being communicated?  In this episode I share 4 ways to more accurately determine the real message or cause for maladaptive behaviors. First, do not assume anything other than the person would not be behaving thi

Connection is soooo important in building healthy, close, and trusting relationships with our kids. If we've missed some opportunities or just want to do better, it's not too late to begin now.  In this episode, I give you 5 ways that I've noticed have made a huge difference in connecting more deepl

In this episode, I invited my oldest daughter Jenelle to share her reflections of growing up in our often chaotic and stressful home. She shares the role she took on as a "helper" in our family and how although she liked that role at the time she learned later how that role kept her from opening up

On this episode I share three ways that have helped me lately in dealing with uncertainty which produces anxiety and fear. First we have to allow ourselves to actually feel the emotions that are uncomfortable, knowing that we can handle feeling any emotion. Next we can choose which side of the 50/50

In our family we have some special things that help us stay close as a family and in our individual relationships. I am sharing one of the things that has always been a "thing" for us. It's called "special time" and I highly recommend you consider trying this one out if any relationships in your fam

We're talking about loving some more this week. Loving when it's hard. Loving when others are not being loving toward us. Loving people when they are not being very lovable. It's hard. And, it's possible. It feels way better. 

Many of you have read my story of hustling for my self-worth on my website, and I have touched on some of the effects of my self-image issues in other podcast episodes. It's something I've wanted to "solve" for decades now, and I decided for 2022 that I would try out a new type of therapy to see if

Do you think love is the best feeling? Do you think experiencing love is our soul's true purpose? I had an experience when I was around 7 that has me trying to reconcile everything I was taught about love and how it's supposed to work, with the new information I've learned and continue to learn.  Go

We wrap up the topic of CLARITY with a tool I learned from an amazing coach, Heather Ross of the Living with Addiction podcast. It is a simple framework for deciding what we want to keep doing, being, or having, and what we want to stop doing, being, or having, and what we want to start doing, being

For our series on the concept of clarity, I share three strategies that can help clear things right up if we find that we're second-guessing ourselves. There's a simple phrase, a teaching strategy from my classroom days, and an easy-to-remember question. 

The second in a series on CLARITY, in this episode we hear 3 awesome definitions of clarity and relate them to our mom-brain. We break down exactly how we can access clarity of thinking ANYTIME we want to, and we call BS on our stories of overwhelm and confusion. To be clear, you've got everything y

Many of us have lost track of what we really truly enjoy. This denies us the chance to express fully who we are and puts us in a state of confusion instead of clarity. In this episode I share a personal story of getting back in touch with something I used to love to do, and a little journaling exerc