Live From Love

All couples have disagreements, but the ones who learn to solve their problems by fighting differently and fair are the ones who tend to stick together.  In this episode I share 5 steps to fighting fair with your spouse.

Continuing our topic from last week on communication, Celeste Davis, from MarriageLaboratory.com, joins me in discussing different experiments she and her husband have conducted in their marriage to improve communication.  She also discusses a practice they call their Marriage Inventory, a weekly check-in that helps them communicate better and increase the connectivity in their relationship. Show Notes: The Work of Byron Katie You can find Celeste Davis here: MarriageLaboratory Facebook Instagram Podcast

One of the keys to communication in marriage, is communicating well during a conflict.  Conflict is inevitable in any marriage.  Learning how to resolve those conflicts is key to sustaining that marriage.  The most popular approach to resolving conflicts, advocated by many marriage therapists is empathetic listening.  On today’s podcast we will discuss 14 ways to to learn how to listen to your partner empathetically.  This is not a skill that comes easy.  It takes sincere effort and practice.  But it is definitely possible and if you apply the skill, it can go a long way in helping the communication skills in your marriage. Play In A New Window Download

“By Small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” The little things we do to build and strengthen our marriage add up.  They compound.  What small choices are you making daily that contribute the demise or the strengthening of your marriage? Play In A New Window Download     Show Notes Get the Tips!

When something negative happens, our brains automatically make up a story to protect us.  What are the stories that you tell yourself to protect yourself from feeling negative emotions?  What stories disengage you from your spouse or make them into a villain?  While this is a great way to protect ourselves, it takes us further away from creating the emotional intimacy and connection that we all crave in our relationships.  So what stories are you telling yourself?

Have you ever thought “Did I marry the wrong person?” or  “Are we really meant to be?”  Just about every married person I know has had those thoughts.  But in this episode, we talk about why those thoughts aren’t serving you and your marriage.  

The word SHOULD indicates an expectation, an obligation, a duty, and is typically used when criticizing someone.  And usually when we “should” on others we have an expectation that they be LIKE US.  And not only do we think they should be, think, or do like us, we expect them to be the perfect version of us. We have a personal set of rules of how people should conduct their lives.  And when they don’t, it totally sets us up for anger, negativity, and disappointment.  Talk about a set up for failure! Right?  But when we drop the “shoulds” or the expectations we have of people, and just LOVE them we are able to create much better results in our lives, better relationships, and better marriages. Play In A New Window Download       Show Notes Spiritually Minded Mom - Episode 25: Mothering a Child with Mental Illness

In several scriptures in the New Testament it says that the Savior was “Moved with Compassion” and then a miracle followed.  When we have compassion for ourselves and compassion for our spouse and others, what kind of miracles will we see in our own life and around us? Play In A New Window Download Show Notes In several scriptures in the New Testament it says that the Savior was “Moved with Compassion”  The dictionary says: Moved means: to prompt or rouse to the doing of something AND Compassion means: a sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it So When it says the Savior was “Moved with Compassion” because he was a Sympathetic person He was Prompted or Roused with to do something to alleviate the distress of someone. And then if you keep reading in the scriptures when He’s moved to compassion some sort of miracle followed… So compassion for someone brought about a miracle… I talk to my clients a lot about acting from emotions that produce t

Do you often feel overwhelmed with life and everything you have going on? In this episode we discuss what is really the cause of you feeling overwhelmed and how you can overcome it so that you can be more confident, organized in your daily life, productive, and feel better. Play In A New Window Download    Show Notes I hear a lot of women today talk about how overwhelmed they are with their life.  And believe me, I’ve been there too.  We are overwhelmed by our homes, our jobs, our kids activities, our church callings.  Everything is just so overwhelming. So if we think about the The Model that I taught in Episode 17  The FEELING of overwhelm would go in the F line.  And as we know, our feelings are caused by our thoughts.  Now, lets think about what kind of THOUGHTS bring on the FEELINGS of overwhelm. Thoughts like “I don’t have enough time” “There is too much to do” “I can’t get it all done” “I’m not capable of all this” are usually some of the thoughts that bring up the feeling of OVER

Part of being an emotional adult is taking responsibility for our own emotions.  Even in our marriage.  It is not our partners responsibility for making us feel loved, secure, and happy.  We have to do that for ourselves.  Listen in to find out how… Play In A New Window Download       Show Notes So today we are going to talk about how to quit blaming others for how you feel.  So in the world of life coaching we call this emotional childhood vs. emotional adulthood.   As children, most of us were taught that we can make others feel a certain way.  We’ve probably inadvertently taught that to our children as well “Don’t do that or Mommy will be sad”   “We need to share so that Sally’s feelings won’t be hurt” “You need to invite Johnny to your party so that he doesn’t feel left out” So all of these little things taught us (and we in turn teach our children) that we  have control over how someone else feels by what we say or how we act. So if we have power over someone else’s emot

  What is friendship? A relationship we have with anyone is ONLY about what we think about that person.  The relationship only exists in our minds.  We can create friendship and connection with people just by what we choose to think about them.   In this episode I give 10 tips on how to be a good friend.  Because we all know the best way to have good friends, is to be a good friend.  

What do you value? What is the culture of your family? By clearly defining your values and setting goals based on those values, you will be able to align your life and achieve the things you want most.  This episode clearly outlines the way I set goals for myself and my family to reach our dreams.  You can too! Play In A New Window Download             Show Summary I grew up in a goal oriented family.  When I was young, my mom worked part time for Franklin Day Planners.  My parents were also big fans of Stephen Covey.  Franklin merged with Covey, and then it was Franklin Covey that my mom worked for.  I think i got my first Franklin Day Planner when I was about 10.   My parents taught me about how the Franklin Covey day planner worked.  You first determined what your values were, then you set long term goals based around those values.  You broke the long term goals down in to short term goals, and the short term goals got broken down into daily tasks.  Each built upon each other to help you re

  When coaching my clients, they come to me with a variety of issues.  Any problem can be classified into 1 of 5 categories Circumstance Thought Feeling Action Result Using a model developed by Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School, I can help my clients get better results in their life no matter what the issue is.   Today’s episode will give you a very basic overview of The Model with some examples of how I have used it in my life and the lives of my clients.   I’ve also included a self-coaching worksheet here so that you can get a copy of it and work through some of your issues on your own.  While it may seem simple, it can be harder than you think, which is why you need my help.  Sign up for a free mini-session and we can work through a model together and I can help you see where you can make some small changes in your life that will give you BIG results!           Show Summary   Last week we talked about what life coaching is, and why I think everyone needs one.  This week I wanted t

I get asked the question all the time, What is a Life Coach and Why do I need one?  On today’s podcast I will tell you what I do and why EVERYONE needs a life coach!      Show Summary   So I get asked quite often what a life coach is and why do I need one?  So I just wanted to take some time today to tell you about what I do and why having a life coach is such a great thing.   I think a lot of people think a life coach is some cheesy person who gives you positive affirmations to repeat so you feel better about things.  And maybe some life coaches operate this way, but that is not what I do.   As a  life coach, I can help you get perspective on your life and your mind.  I essentially hold a mirror up and help YOU see where you can make changes in the way you think, feel, and act, so that you get the results you want in your life.   Vikki Brock, a coach whose doctoral dissertation had a major influence on the coaching profession said “Coaching came into existence to fill an unmet need, which coinci

What does success mean to you? What does a successful day look like to you?  What does a successful marriage look like to you?  Most of the time we define success with achieving these great goals and often we hang that success on things we can not control.  In today’s podcast episode, we are redefining success.  I bet you are a lot more successful than you think you are! How do you define success?             Show Summary   Today I want to talk about success.  What does success mean to you? What does a successful day look like to you?  What does a successful marriage look like to you?  Most of the time we define success with achieving these great goals and often we hang that success on things we can not control.  Then when something doesn’t work we feel awful about ourselves.   Let me share with a personal example.  I’ve mentioned before, but I was married to my first husband for 13-1/2 years.  That marriage ended in divorce.  The world, and a lot of people in it, consider that a failure.  For a lo

In this podcast I share with you 5 new thoughts that I’ve personally been working on with my life coach and in my own self-coaching that have really helped me in my marriage.  I think they could help you to, or at least get your wheels turning about what new thoughts would help you!     Show Summary   So today I wanted to talk to you about 5 new thoughts that helped me in my marriage.   I’ve mentioned this before on this podcast, but my husband Kevin and I have been married for just over 6 years.  This is a second marriage for both of us. And while marriage is never EASY, some marriages are definitely easier than others, and that is how I feel about my marriage to Kevin.  We of course have our struggles, but I absolutely adore him.  I am so in love with that man.   But even with how absolutely amazing he is and how I feel about him, sometimes I struggle with my own thoughts about myself and our marriage.  So when I began getting coached by my own Life Coach, Jody Moore, that is one of the first thin

In this podcast I talk about what patience is, what it means to be patient, how we can develop patience, and how important patience is in our marriage.    Show Summary   So this year in our Stake (which if you are not LDS, a Stake is a geographical boundary comprised of several congregations) we are focusing on a different attribute of Christ each month, and this month that attribute is patience.  So on Sunday, we had a couple of talks on patience and it really got me things about what patience is, what it means to be patient,  how we can develop patience, and how important patience is in our marriage and in our families.   I was thinking back to when I was a young mom and I was really patient with my babies and my toddlers.  I didn’t get angry at them when they couldn’t do something for themselves or they didn’t do something right when I asked them or if they did it wrong because they were still learning.  They didn’t KNOW things yet.  So it wouldn’t have been ok for me to get upset at them or mad at

So when you think about your past, are there things you don’t like about it?  Are there maybe some good parts that you have forgotten or ignored?  Let me show you how you can change your past….or at least how you think about it!       Show Summary   When I begin working with my clients I ask them to name 10 things that have happened in their life.  I ask them to do this because it gives me an idea of what they are focused on.  Sometimes they give me a list of big moments, sometimes its chronological, sometimes its all positive, sometimes it all negative.  Sometimes its a mix.  Sometimes its just the facts and sometimes there’s a lot of feelings involved.  But its really about HOW they see their life.  It’s HOW they THINK about their life.   If I were to ask you about your past, you’ll tell me a story.  You’ll tell me about how YOU think about your past.  But what most people don’t really understand is that because its in the past the ONLY thing that effects you today is how you THINK about it.  The o

Are you one of those people who gets offended by what other people say?  If someone says something about you, does it hurt you?  Let me teach you why other people’s opinions are none of your business…because they aren’t actually about YOU.  It’s really about them!  And when you figure that out, it is amazingly freeing!   Show Summary   In October of last year I was introduced to a concept that changed my life.  My life coach told me that other people’s opinions were none of my business.  There was MY business, God’s Business, and other’s business.  I could control my own thoughts and behaviors, but I couldn’t control anything else, and really, it was none of my business.  And I was like….WHAT????  As a person who really tried to control as much as I possibly could, this news was life changing.  I mean…it seems like it would be common sense, but how often do we try to control and manipulate the behaviors, thoughts, and opinions of others?  But realizing how true it actually was, was incredibly freeing!  I

Whether you are dealing with a spouse, boss, or neighbor, you often have challenging relationships.  In this podcast I’ll share how you can make them work for you no matter what the circumstance!