Intentional Living With Tanya Hale

The River of Misery is the place of discomfort where all good things happen in our lives.  Growing from one form of ourselves to the upgraded version of ourselves is almost always a painful, difficult process, but it's the only way to move forward.  And growing is the only way to be happy.  And the River of Misery is the only way to grow.  So it's time to be willing to embrace the discomfort if we're going become the even more amazing person that we are.

Do you ever think of yourself as a fixer-upper?  Sometimes it seems there is just so much we need to fix to get us to a healthy and happy place.  But what if we were to embrace the idea that there isn't actually anything about ourselves that we need to fix?  What if we were to accept the fact that we are perfect just the way we are?  What if we could start believing that we are completely whole and that it's just our behaviors that need tweaking?  Let's chat about it.

So today I get a little bit personal when I tell you about a recent experience I had hurting someone's feelings and what I learned from it.  Basically, that it's all about love.  If I can get my heart to a place of love, everything in my life is better.  Love really is the answer if we want greater happiness and peace in our lives.

This podcast is prompted by three situations this week where people have felt that they don't need to worry about the consequences of their behavior because it's the other person's responsibility to control their thoughts using the thought model.  And yes, it is their responsibility, but it is also your responsibility to control your own actions and take responsibility for them.  We're talking today about how consequences and boundaries fit in with The Thought Model.  

Choosing to love yourself is one of the most important things we can do in this life.  The love we have for ourself is the impetus for all emotional health and deep peace and happiness.  When we love ourselves we unleash a potential for growth that will change the world we live in.  Today we discuss how to start changing all of those negative thoughts and become a person filled with love for themselves, others, and God. 

Isn't growing up an amazing thing?  The things I know now that I didn't know when I was younger are so great and life-changing.  Today I'm going to share six of my grown-up thoughts that have changed how I view the world and made me a better person.

Finding balance as our lives get busier and busier just seems to be so elusive.  So how do we live lives that don't seem to be spinning out of control?  Let's start by how we view our lives first.  Rather than seeking for perfect balance, embracing the idea that our lives are always unbalanced in certain seasons of our lives is a great first start. The second thing we can do is begin to seek to be centered rather than balanced.  Join me today and we'll chat about it!

The reasons behind why we do things have such a huge impact on the results in our lives.  Today we are discussing how our reasons for engaging in certain behaviors affects our relationship with God, with others, and with ourselves.  This is a concept worthy of a lot of self-reflection to understand where we are and where we want to go.

Ever wonder why sometimes changing behaviors can be so incredibly difficult?  Today we're discussing why that is and how we can work to make changes in our lives that are long-lasting.

Correcting and connecting.  A small difference of two little letters, a huge difference in how to get there and the results once we are there. When we seek to correct others, especially with the wrong motivation, we are always going to run into resistance.  But when we seek to connect with others first and always, we will break down walls that will allow for stronger relationships.  It can be so easy for us to feel as though it is our responsibility to correct the world around us, when really, it is way more our responsibility to connect the world around us. 

Really?  The secret to the universe?  Yep.  Today we are talking about how to really create the kind of peaceful, content life you really want to have.  How our thoughts can create exactly what we want from our circumstances so we can have stronger connections and relationships with those people around us.  Through this you can create your universe just the way you want it.  Really.

Although we often use the words guilt and shame interchangeably, understanding the difference between them can be a real eye-opener. Guilt can actually be a quite helpful feeling to experience as it will drive us to change our behaviors and move into a better space.  Shame, however, is never helpful.  It shuts us down and stops us from progressing.  Guilt says, "What I did was bad," and shame says, "I am bad."  This has huge implications in our daily journey.

One of the more difficult things many of us struggle with is minding our own business.  This is because we've been raised with the idea that it is our responsibility to make sure that everyone is happy and everyone is progressing and things are good.  When we feel this way we can become very controlling and start stepping into everyone else's business.  Minding our own business is really one of the most loving things we can do for people.

So much of our society is trying to sell us on the idea that self-care involves spending a lot of money at the nail or lash salon, or at the spa.  But self care goes a lot deeper than indulging ourselves.  Self-care really isn't always a lot of fun, it can be difficult and even boring. Self-care involves doing the things we need to every day, and week, and month to keep ourselves in a good place mentally and emotionally.  Let's talk about what those things are today, shall we?

What so many of us seek for is true belonging with other people, but we often think we can get there by trying to fit in.  But where belonging is bring our true selves to the table, fitting in tries to change who we are in order to be a part of the group.  Today we are discussing how these concepts of belonging and fitting in work with ourselves and with our children and others closest to us.

Self-esteem is a topic that is constantly being covered in women's and parenting magazines.  We hear about how our self-esteem impacts our choices for both good and for bad.  And yet so much of the information about how to create a healthy self-esteem is focused on external changes, when what really needs to happen are internal changes that create more self-respect.  Let's chat about this today, shall we?

Sometimes it can seem so much easier to have compassion for others than it can be to have compassion for ourselves.  But self-compassion is a vital element in our having a life filled with peace, contentment, and happiness.  In this episode we are discussing what self-compassion is and how we can draw upon it when we need it, which is most days!

Forgiving ourselves for things we have done can be a pretty difficult challenge sometimes.  But learning to understand our life experience in the context of God's Plan of Salvation can help us see how forgiving ourselves is not only part of our human process, but a necessary one if we are to find the promised peace that we so desperately seek during these times.  

Ugh.  Divorce.  What a topic.  But I frequently have people ask me about my divorce and how I came to the decision to file after 4 kids and 24 years of marriage.  And I know I sought similar  information from other women whom I admired before I made my decision.  So today I'll tell you my process of coming to the decision to file for divorce and how I knew it was the right one.  Though my situation will not be your situation, I pray that if you're working through this that something will be helpful to you.

Do you remember the life you envisioned when you were a young 20? I do too.  And the circumstances I imagined back then are nothing like the life I'm living now.  But all is not lost!  When I come to realize that although I can’t choose the circumstances of the life I’m living, I can choose how to live with the circumstances of my life, then I can come to a place of peace, contentment, and growth.  Join me today as we discuss how we can learn to take our circumstances and turn them into growth opportunities.