Hello my friends. How are you doing? Are you doing fine? Doin’ okay? I’ve noticed we all tend to say those very vague and generic things when we aren’t really doing fine or okay - and I understand why we answer that way - but today, if someone were to ask me how I’m feeling, I would say ‘bittersweet - oh what a treat.’ and then I would grin and my eyes might get a little watery, they might well up a little bit with tears, or they might not, because I really am swimming in the bittersweet emotion lately.

We just dropped my son off for his two year mission - he’ll be serving in a foreign country if all goes smoothly - and this is kind of a big deal, right? 

Just before we said our final goodbye, he reached down and gave me a huge hug, he gives the best hugs, and he’s a full twelve inches taller than I am, with long and strong arms, he said, “I love you mom, you are the best mom, thank you for getting me here and for helping make this happen for me. I’ll miss you so much.” 

Let's talk about change, I’m giving you some insights and some tips on how to deal with it with more grace, and how to get better at dealing with change when you really don’t want to, but you have to anyway.

This topic was sparked from a recent article I read about women who approach mid-life, all three of the women interviewed still have teenage or young adult children in the home, but they see the changes coming, and all they’ve known is being a mom, they’ve given their all to that endeavor, raising children and then they’re finding themselves feeling lost, and starting to feel kind of irrelevant as their children are gone all day and they have time on their hands, wondering what to do with themselves.

I think we have to be intentional about what we decide to believe about our roles as women, and our place in society. 

I personally believe it’s never been more of an exciting time to be a woman in society. I see a lot of opportunity to go back to school, to grow our own bu...

I’m looking forward to teaching you about a valid  theory in the psychology world I think every parent needs to know. I learned about Attachment Theory in my marriage and family studies degree, my first thought was: wow, we all mess up our children. Dang. But I’ve since built upon that initial response  and want to share the insights from it, and how it can help you in your relationships to understand why you are the way you are, and why other people are the way they are.

Based on our childhoods, how we were nurtured, and based on our temperaments, we developed what I call trust templates, which is just in simple terms, your default programming with your ability to trust. Sometimes, our trust templates need some attention and updating. 

I think of it a little bit like remodeling a home, which I personally love to do. I love to update and paint, knock down walls, open things up, just tweak things so it feels more functional and beautiful. My husband and I have remodeled I ...

Hello my friends.

I just got back from Atlanta to visit my amazing bosom friend and kindred spirit from high school. We’ve been friends for a long time now, and as we were reconnecting last week, it hit me how there are certain qualities in friendships that are foundational for a friendship like ours.

I wanted to share what I was thinking about last week spending time with her. It’s worth sharing.

If you haven’t done so yet, will you take the time and leave me a review? This really helps podcasters out, helps us spread the goodness. If you have time, I would so appreciate it.

I know a lot of you listening like to share these episodes with your friends, share this one with a good friend and maybe invite her to join you on the kindred spirit journey.

I’m going to give you seven tips on friendship, how to cultivate them, and also keep your daughters in mind with their girlfriends as we discuss them.

And I love this topic so much because friends enrich our liv...

Hello my friends. I had a series of podcasts and topics I’ve drafted for release this month, but it hasn’t felt right, and mainly because well, does the world seem like it’s burning right now to you?

I don’t like the feeling of focusing on the negative, and that is not what today’s episode is about – but I see a need to address what to do when you are feeling helpless and how to handle the passion and the caring and the concern you carry in your heart when you see things unfold in the world that hurts your heart.

So that’s what I’m offering to you today. I’ve heard from so many of my clients tell me that these tips and these ideas are helping them move forward with more of a leadership energy, versus feeling helpless.

For those of us who are working on ourselves and interested in improving ourselves and the world, as we’re trying to manage our heads and our hearts – I want to offer to you that you are a leader – do you think of yourself that way? You are - if you’ve c...

I recently did a workshop and worked really hard to curate the content I wanted to teach and deliver inside this workshop called Better Mom Bootcamp.

I had a lot of fun doing it, it stretched me, because there’s so much parenting advice out there, and when moms come to me for coaching and wanting help with their children who are struggling, I hear the confusion in their voices, in their heads and in their hearts about how to best parent their children. And I don’t just mean small children, or school age children, I’m also talking about parenting adult children. We never take off our parenting hat once our children are grown, right?

As a Life Coach, I don’t tell my clients what to do, I don’t tell them how to parent. Instead, I help them clear up all the mental chatter and access their own answers – because I truly believe we know what to do deep inside. It can just get buried with all the information we’re taking in these days.

And so, even though I called this workshop ...

Have you seen the Cruella Deville movie yet? So good. I’m always fascinated with a good origin story. I have some metrics I use when watching movies, a few rules I apply on whether the story is categorized as good or not. And this is part of how I raised my children to critically think about the media – the books and movies and entertainment they take in – I wanted my children to be able to discern between heroes and heroines to look up to, or whether to dismiss them even though the story might be entertaining.

And so with that set up, let’s first talk about the metrics I use. And this comes from a philosophy I used when homeschooling my children for seven years – we applied the style of literary analysis promoted by Daniel Taylor in his book, The Healing Power of Stories, we applied his framework to how we would discuss literature.

The art of telling a good story is powerful. Stories and characters add meaning to our lives and can remind us that our actions have consequence...

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Have you ever wondered if being an artist is frivolous? Do you wonder how it's possible to honor your inner artist while also making a living?⁠
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I've noticed that 'creative' types struggle sometimes with finding the balance. (me raising my hand, too!)⁠
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Recently, I interviewed Jonny Tanner @spirit.painter, (give him a follow if you want more light & positivity to show up in your Instagram feed!) and we dive into how to honor your inner artist.⁠
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I am on a mission to mentor and help artists show up for their creativity - to create a life they are proud of with no regrets.

About ten years ago, I read a book that changed the trajectory of my songwriting career and helped me achieve some fun successes as a singer/songwriter, it’s called, “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, and I’ve since read the book countless times. It’s about honoring and even healing the creative artist all of us have within – which can be a little bit of a delicate pursuit I’ve found for many of us.

I have a pe...

I had an interesting conversation with another musician friend the other day, she said that she loved listening to my podcast over and over, and that she gained new insights with each listen.

It struck me that there are layers to this work and to the things I’m teaching here on the podcast. Our brains change every day, every week, and so it makes sense how we see things on a deeper level with repetition.

She said she wanted to start a podcast but was too scared and we talked about how it is a big deal, putting your voice and your ideas out there, but it’s worth it.

And all of this led to the topic of perfectionism. This is something I coach myself on a lot, both as a musician, as a mother wanting to be the best mom I can be, and with body image. I see it in my clients as a life coach as well, how prone we are to perfectionism and so I want to share these lessons I’ve learned with you today.

I remember reading Chip and Joanna Gaines first book, the Magnolia Story, and...

I’ve been mulling this topic over for some time now because of how often I see women telling themselves No, telling themselves that it’s not okay to give themselves permission.

This is really about how women are socially primed to prioritize other people’s opinions over their own.   

And whenever I bring this up with clients, the minute we start talking about it, there’s the resistance – the belief that if we put our own ideas and opinions in the forefront over others, then we’ll be perceived as selfish. If we give ourselves permission, then we’ll turn into jerks and have kind of a ‘screw you’ mentality.

No. This is not how it has to go. It is not an either/or discussion about whether you are selfish or whether you are altruistic. It’s about giving yourself permission to be both whenever you decide to – simply because you believe in your ability to be your own authority.

Most of us on default are doing the opposite, giving our personal authority away to other people ...