Creating the Holidays you truly want

So often we think about surviving the Holidays and as a single woman I am sure there are parts of the Holidays that are hard but deciding what you really want your month of December to look like is key.

So many of my clients are working on creating the life they really want instead of living in default mode. I honestly didn’t know I had a default mode when I was single.  I just did what I was expected to do. Be it the expectations of work, family, church, friends, or community group. I wasn’t mad about it. The people pleaser in me liked it, but really didn’t think a whole lot about what I wanted my December or Holidays to look like.

Many single women can fall into that trap. Their parents have created some traditions and they follow along. But as a single woman I want you to take ownership of the next month and create the life you really want to have for this season.

When it is all said and down how do you want to feel?  

Will you be disappointed that you ate all the cookies, chose not to workout and did everything for everyone else the whole month? Will you think about all the to-do’s you had and that you checked everything off your list? Or will you have strategically decided and created the Holiday season that you wanted to make this year?

Let me help you with this.

You can create the month that you really want but your power comes in you deciding. I teach all my clients how to make decisions and how to create what they want with intentionality.

So in order to give you a taste of what working with me looks like I want to ask you some questions and give you some directions, to get you started creating the life you want this month.

Think about the whole month, the next 31 days, how do you want to feel?

Often we feel rushed, busy, overwhelmed, and obligated. But let’s decide right now how we want to feel as we do the things that make up our days. You might want to feel intentional, celebratory, serving, loving, or hopeful. Whatever you want to feel this month make it purposeful and not the default feelings from before. My goal is to feel present this entire month. Engaged with what is right in front of me. So if I am coaching someone I am 100% there, if I am shopping and getting those gifts bought, I am there. But if I am home watching a movie and relaxing I am there as well. I am filling my schedule with things that I want to be doing so I might as well be present while I am doing them! 

Think about what matters the most.

You might really want to make cookies for friends or figure out a way to give back to your community. You might want to send out a Christmas card sharing your love with your people. You might want to spend time finding the best gifts for your nieces, nephews, and siblings. Or you might want to create your own traditions and make this month one for trying new Holiday adventures or activities. This month I am working on weaving Advent into our daily lives and reading Scripture daily. Whatever you are most wanting make a plan. Decide today. Put it on your calendar and then honor it. Things won’t just happen. You can make it happen though.

 Work backwards from New Year’s Eve and or Christmas and map out your days.

I know this is hard with all the unknowns but jot in when you have events and what you have to have for those events. Decide if you want to throw a party, or create your own traditions. Plan it. Plan your rest time now. Plan your workouts now. Plan your joy eating now. Plan your Holiday movie and Hallmark watching now. Do it intentionally. Know what is going to fill your days.

Create a to-do list and pencil it in on your calendar.

Then throw away the to-do list and just follow and honor your calendar.

Think through all the obstacles that will get in the way of these things happening.

Remember that your sister will ask you to babysit; your project at work might run into the evening. You might magically get tired and need to binge watch Netflix. Come up with all of that now and make a plan for it. Will you tell your sister no, will you move your evening plans into a weekend? Decide now while you are in a clear headspace and not when you feel obligated and can’t follow through on what you really want the most.

Follow those steps to create the month you truly want.

Now some of you might think this is silly. Creating the month you truly want kind of seems exhausting. But this month is happening no matter what. Will you have created what you wanted or will you wish you would have…?

Living with intentionality helps us to learn more about ourselves. We learn what really matters to us and we figure out what we can and can’t do. I know there are some things that I want to do this month but as I sit down and look at my calendar and walk through this process I am able to weed out what isn’t important. I am able to decide exactly what I really want to do and the rest I let go of on purpose. I don’t have regret or guilt because I know what I most truly want. I am fully aware of what I am capable of doing in a day and thinking I can do 10 things in a day is going to KILL me. Knowing I can proceed through the day and add 1-2 things to it is much more realistic.

Some of you need to know this. DON’T add in 20 things to your already full life. If you teach and already have extra stuff added at school plan your purposeful rest now. I give you permission to do it and DROP the guilt. Some of you own side businesses and make things during this time, decide now when you will and won’t work. Please don’t exhaust yourself my friends. Walk through this season knowing you are living the life you really want and not just surviving another Holiday season alone.

Cheering you on,

Angie

Thanksgiving Expectations

Friends, the Holidays are approaching. And with the Holidays come expectations for family gatherings and time spent together. A lot of you have this picture of a Hallmark movie where everyone gets along, everything goes seamless, and everyone gets along. At the end of the evening you are all playing games, throwing the football, and singing together around the guitar or piano. No, not so much. Typically the day or days if you are traveling, are filled with miscommunication, unmet expectations and conversations where people aren’t agreeing. Sometimes there is drama, frustration, and severed relationships.  Typically you leave the time either glad it is over or sad that this is the state of your family. I know that is not how you want to be feeling but you don’t really know how to change it or even where to start.

So let’s try some things this year that you haven’t before.

 1.     Define family for you. What does it mean?

Are you a group of people that should get along? Family may mean people that have shared responsibilities of taking care of one another. Family could be an obligation. You might define family as your family of origin or to your extended family. You may think family is the traditions your parents have created and that you are a part of. Some of you have stepfamilies that you include or wish you didn’t have to include. Some of you are by yourself raising kiddos of your own and you think about your current family as that tight knit group. However you define family just accept where you are with it. Don’t judge that you should have a different definition or meaning but just acknowledge and become aware of what family means for you today.

Take the time to really see where you are at when it comes to defining family. Many of us begrudgingly do the things that our families tell us to do. We show up and kind of go through the motions because we have to and we have not questioned if we want to choose them or not.  Last year my extended family got together and one of my cousins came without her husband and oldest daughter. We were chatting and she said he didn’t want to come and she didn’t want to make him be there. I loved that on so many levels. His ability to know he didn’t want to go and her ability to not force him to do the traditions just because. You will know you feel obligated if you have resentment. Start to question that by asking yourself what you do and don’t want to do. A lot of times you decide you do want to do the things your family is offering, but you show up totally different when it is a choice you make and not something that you “have to do”.

2.     What do you want family to mean?

When you think about your family what do you most want? Do you want a great relationship with your siblings, and what would that look like? Maybe you want a certain type of relationship with your sister-in-law. Do you want connection and deep conversation? Do you want to feel obligated or do you want to feel like you have a choice and you are creating the kind of family relationships that you most want? Now you might say, “Angie, my brother doesn’t talk to me, he doesn’t participate in this relationship.” But without changing anything about him at all and knowing exactly how he acts, how do you want to act towards him. Do you want to be the one that asks questions and gets to know him? Maybe you want to show kindness, compassion and care. Often we want to feel cared about by our family but we aren’t showing up and caring about them. Take the time to think through how you want to feel when you think about your family. Start with the group as a whole and then how do you want to feel about each individual relationship. Some relationships you might have to think through a bit more than others and that is okay. Each relationship is different and we show up differently to each person.

3.     What are you expecting from this gathering?

Go to the place of rainbows and daisies where everyone is sitting around singing Kumbaya. What is happening there? People are chatting together, with meaningful conversations and everyone is being nice and kind. Your nieces and nephews are obeying completely and the food is exactly what you wanted to eat. Your family is playing games and laughing. Memories are made and you are so grateful for all of these people in your life. You are not expecting arguments, or children disobeying. You might not imagine doing all the dishes or someone not showing up. These are your expectations and what you will hold reality up against. When we have high expectations we are typically met with disappointment and frustration. So the key is to see what you are wanting and why and then remove those expectations completely. We know exactly how our family really is. We know who isn’t going to bring a dish. We know who isn’t going to do the dishes and yet we continue to set ourselves up for failure when we want people to be different than they truly are.  Accept each person as is and come into this gathering with no expectations of others and with a plan for how you want to act.

 4.     What do you want to create? Who do you want to be?

I love thinking about what I really want and then how do I create it. I didn’t know that I could do that before. I thought I was supposed to just show up and let the chips fall. Which fall they did, and then I was disappointed in how I showed up. I would leave the Holidays filled with frustration in myself that I didn’t have the experience I was wanting. I wanted connection, shared memories, laughter, and love. But I wasn’t doing anything to intentionally create that. So now I know that when we play games together we are connecting, laughing, and making a memory. So anytime we can do that together as a family I really enjoy that and I try and be the one to bring the games.  I also think through who do I want to be as a daughter, and sister, and all the different roles I have. Write out your roles and then decide how you want to show up. Decide now who you want to be. I am different in how I want to show up for my parents than for my brothers. I want to be encouraging, loving and supportive to my brothers and to my parents I want to show up as loving, responsible, boundaried, and authentic.

 When you take the time to intentionally think about family and what you most want with those people you will begin to understand yourself even more. You can begin to see what your expectations are and why. You might decide you want to stop doing some of the things you are doing and you might want to intentionally start doing other things. Decide right now that there won’t be drama, anger, frustration, or outbursts from you. That is within your control. You will start enjoying your family more. You will start enjoying yourself when you are around them more. You will start owning your Holiday experience and making it what you most want. Don’t let another family gathering pass before you do this work!

 Processing right along with ya,

Angie

Reasons I needed a husband: Part 2 (It would make my life easier)

Life is hard as a single woman. Can I get an AMEN?

You have to do everything yourself, change the light bulbs, get your car repaired, make every meal and every decision. You have no one to take vacations with, or create traditions with at the Holidays. And there is the physical side of handling sexual desire and even just wanting someone to cuddle with. When I was single I was constantly thinking, why is this so hard?

And in the back of my mind I was blaming singleness for my hard. I had all of the evidence that if I were married, life would just be easier. I would have someone to help me do all of the things I had to do. I could take a night off from having to cook. I could let him make a decision or two. He could take out the trash and take care of the cars. All of that equaled easier to me.

So every time I would sit and journal I would constantly see the words ‘why is this so hard’ popping up, and then the belief: well if you were married it wouldn’t be like this. Which that thought only created this idea that I needed marriage even more.

I mean I was super independent. In my mind I didn’t need a man but if it would make life easier then YES… I needed a man.

You may be in the same spot. You might have a TON of evidence that your life is hard. I get it, but I want to let you in on a little secret.

Regardless of your circumstances there is always hard there too.  

 Singleness is hard. Marriage is hard.

Choose your hard.

Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard.

Choose your hard.

Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard.

Choose your hard.

Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard.

Choose your hard.

Life will never be easy. It will always be hard.

But we can choose our hard. Pick wisely.

 

I guess when I was single I knew intellectually that marriage wouldn’t solve all of my problems, but my brain loved to dangle that thought in there when it could. And it just added to the pain.

So, I was shocked when after I was married I kept seeing the words ‘this is hard’ coming up in my journaling. It was hard to communicate my wants and needs. It was hard to decide who would do what around the house. It was hard to make decisions together. It was hard when I would make a meal and he didn’t like it. It was hard to read his mind. It was hard to cuddle and connect. It was hard to not get my feelings hurt by his comments.

Some of the things did get easier and some actually didn’t.

What I know now that I wish I would have known then is this: our life here on Earth is the 50/50 experience, 50% positive and 50% negative emotions. 

Every single person has this. They have easy and hard, good and bad, positive and negative. Single, married, widowed, divorced, or dating, each of those has a different 50/50 experience. But everyone has it. No one is exempt from it and leaving one phase and passing into another doesn’t make it any easier or harder. It doesn’t matter if you are single or married you have a 50/50. When you are single you have single woman problems and when you are married you have married woman problems. They aren’t gone they are just different.

So now what? 

Well, understanding this is huge. As a single woman, you can sit and look at your life right now and intentionally decide what your 50/50 is. Understanding and opening yourself up to the negative creates less fighting against it. Negative emotion is absolutely harmless. Having hard in your life is totally normal. When you allow it to be there is when you can finally have authority over it. If you resist it or wish it away you actually suffer more. 

Our brains are wired to look for the hard. You unconsciously are drawn to all the negative of this season. Your brain is looking for evidence that it is hard and you might even find yourself fighting that it is harder than someone else’s life. But all of that doesn’t make your situation easier. Allowing the hard to be there does. Choosing to focus on the positive does.

Yes, there are things about being single that are hard. And there are things about being single that are easier. Understanding that and allowing the hard and purposefully looking for the easy is our job.

I often catch myself experiencing negative emotion and quickly thinking, “This is the 50/50 of course this is here.” For some reason that lessens the blow for me.  

I now expect the hard. And then I redirect and look for the easy.

So I want to encourage you to start looking at your season through this lens.  

See the hard, expect it. Know nothing has gone wrong. You don’t need marriage to fix the hard, you need to manage your mind to find the easy there to.

Knowing this before you get married allows you to enjoy your singleness even more. It gives the positive aspects of singleness a fighting chance. And the negative is apart of the human experience. Don’t try and be happy 100% of the time. Be human. Notice the negative emotions and look at them to understand the issues you can work through before you get married. Seeing what things are hard is an insight into where you struggle. These are places we have a hard time managing our minds and picking empowering thoughts for. This is where we can get stuck.

If you struggle with taking a vacation by yourself it is great for you to see what you think taking a vacation with a husband will be like. What are you thinking you will feel when you are with someone? That insight helps you see what you have a hard time believing while you are single. That insight helps you see what areas you can work on now to grow your mind before you are married.

When we use the negative emotions in our lives and we grow from them we are living a more conscious life.

That kind of life is a life lived on purpose and not a life that is just happening to us.

Once I realized that I was going to have negative emotion in my life no matter what, I started to decide what negative emotion I wanted to have on purpose to create the life I really wanted.

See you are going to feel them, so what negative emotions are you going to have to feel to start dating someone and get married?

You might have to be willing to feel uncomfortable, rejected, failure, nervous.

You are feeling negative emotion anyways but it may not be propelling you to where you really want to go.

The negative emotion you are experiencing might just be keeping you stuck?

So, grasping that the 50/50 is here and you can choose your 50 negative to get you to where you really want can start to make life exciting.

What hard will you choose on purpose? What will you create with it?

Hard is going to be there, and it is okay!

Walking with you,

Angie

Reasons I Needed a Husband: Part 1 (Someone to Help Make Decisions)

I remember being 29 and sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot talking on the phone to my best friend, trying to make a decision about whether to stay at my job or let them know I was going to end my contract. In the job I had, we had to decide every February what we would be doing in May, and boy that was a hard decision. I didn’t like making decisions! I didn’t think I was good at them.

I remember lamenting and saying, “Don’t you think when we are married and have husbands it will be so much easier to make decisions. Just another reason I need a husband. It will just make life easier.”

It is so funny because now as a married woman I think about this so differently. Now sometimes I have to make more decisions and think about his opinions too! I think at times it is harder to decide with him! Because get this, he wants to choose things that I don’t want or don’t agree with. When deciding about dinner when I was single, it was just me I was taking into account.  Now I have his opinions, and my kids have opinions too. AGH!!

Decisions are hard no matter if you are single, or married. But they don’t have to be.

Here are a few things I know now about decisions that I wish I knew then.

1.     Decisions are just you using your brain, weighing out your options and then committing to that thought. Why this may be hard for you is because when we grow up we tend to not make a lot of decisions on our own. Our parents make a lot of our early life decisions. We are taught what to believe or think. We don’t question what we are taught and take on the decisions of our parents, or society. We also may not be good at weighing out options or looking at our true desires. We might do a lot of thinking about how we should or shouldn’t act, based on others, and we don’t decide consciously what we do and don’t want. We see in the Bible in 1 Chronicles 21:10 “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’ ” God allows and wants us to make choices, He even gave David a choice on his punishment. He let David decide what he wanted and David had to weigh his options and figure out his true desires and then choose. Then God gave him his choice. So use the brain God gave you, learn to weigh your options and commit to the best choice for you at the time.

2.     Everything is optional. We don’t have to do anything. Often I work with clients and they will say, “I have to do this job, I don’t have any other options.” They feel stuck. They are giving all of their power to a belief that they have to do that thing. Often times my clients don’t realize that they have complete free will. Sometimes even after evaluating they actually do want the job, but they have to know that they don’t have to have it. They have options. You can change anything you want in your life. You can change your relationships, job, education, body and future.  You don’t have to continue the decisions you made in the past. Even if that is because of a degree you got. And you don’t have to follow anyone else’s idea of how you “should” live, even if that is your parents or your community. Everything is your choice. This is your life. Romans 14:3 says,”One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.” God lets us decide and have different thoughts than others and he accepts both of us.

3.     At anytime I can decide to change things. I am not stuck in the life I have. I can decide if I want to keep choosing my current life or if I want something different. Putting everything back on the table and choosing what I do and don’t want from a place of understanding I get to choose this, is powerful. Re-commit to the choice. This includes your job, your living situation, your weight, your clothes, your car, your friendships, your church, your budget and finances, even your dating life. Re-decide if you actually want what you currently have. Often taking the time to do this helps you actually see where you are.  Would I choose this again today? You are deciding this automatically whether you know it or not. But by making the decision consciously you are choosing to have it again and again. I am sure you will find things that are desirable and you want to keep, and some that aren’t desirable and you may want to change them on purpose.

4.     There isn’t a right or wrong decision. We decide what is right or wrong with our thinking. I often use the Bible to help me decide what is right or wrong for me but again it is my thinking that is ultimately making that choice. So when a decision is on the table you weigh your options knowing there is a 50positive/50negative to every decision. Then you just decide which 50/50 you want and make that decision the best choice. And here is the key, have your back on that decision. Often people will ask is this guy the right one? I remember thinking that over and over. “God please just tell me is he for me, and am I making the right decision here?” The reality is God allows us to choose. He wants us to decide and go all in on that. I encourage you to pray, have others pray, and fast but remember God wants you to choose. I make my decisions right by not regretting and not trying to look for evidence that this was the wrong decision. There is so much time wasted doing that. And you can change your mind in the future, that is not off the table. I know I have made decisions about people or circumstances and gone all in on that belief to then encounter them or circumstances differently and totally change my decisions about them. That is available to you at anytime, and nothing has gone wrong if you change your mind. It is a part of the process of learning about you and what you do and don’t want. Have grace with yourself.

5.     Make more decisions on purpose. The more you decide, the better you get at deciding. You are making unconscious, and automatic decisions all the time. These are decisions that you make over and over without much thought. Some of them are great and creating a life you really want. The choice to brush your teeth each and every day is an automatic decision that you don’t have to re-decide over and over. It has a wanted result. But there are decisions that you may not want. It could be about work, what you eat, self care, how you talk, how you plan and how you are showing up in your life that does have a huge impact on the results you are creating. Do you like those results that are happening from decisions without conscious deliberate choice? The best way to know is to decide on purpose. Take each one of those things and look at the result you have and how you got there. So if I you are 10 pounds overweight think about the unconscious decisions you are making. For me it was the habitual and almost unconscious dessert eating every night at 8:30 pm that was going unchecked and creating a result of my pants not fitting. Did I want that result? No. So I had to decide what I was going to do. I was going to drop the post dinner eating all together. I made a decision. Do that too. Decide more, you could start creating a life you really want.

 
You are deciding in each moment where your life is headed. Start deciding more.

You want a husband, what would you have to start doing on purpose?

You want a different job, what would you have to start doing on purpose?

You want a different living situation, what would you have to start doing on purpose? 

All of these are just decisions.

Who do you want to be? What do you want your life to look like? Where are you headed? 

Decide it all. Stop living by default. There is no power there.

Ask God for wisdom and direction and then choose. He will lead you and guide you but you have to be the one to decide and go.

Take action. Try things. Change your mind. Have your own back.

Decisions don’t get easier when you get married. They can get easier now by you practicing how to make decisions.

What will you decide?

I can’t wait to see.

Angie

The difference between coaching vs therapy

I am often asked what is life coaching and is it like therapy? So I thought I would dive into that this week and share with you the differences I see.

Therapy is a very regulated industry. You have to have a master’s degree, clinical hours, ongoing education and keep up your credentials. Therapists can diagnose depression, ptsd, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and help with suicidal thoughts. Therapists work with psychiatrists to prescribe medication.

Coaching on the other hand, is not a regulated industry. You do not have to be certified to call yourself a life coach. I got certified through the Life Coach School because I loved the tools that they teach and I knew I would be prepared because of the rigorous training I received. I had to coach and get critiqued to improve my coaching skills. I had to take tests over the curriculum to make sure I knew what I was teaching. I have ongoing trainings to keep my certification up to date.

A life coach can sometimes be described as therapy without a diagnosis.

Therapists look for what is wrong or a diagnosis.

Coaching isn’t focused on what is wrong. It is more focused on what is going on now and where do you want to go in the future.

Therapy may take you out of the fetal position when you feel trapped and unable to function to functioning. Life coaching is when you are functioning but you want more to function in your life than where you are.

Typically people seek coaching when they feel like they need a little extra help to be where they really want to be. I have learned that it starts with learning how to change your thoughts. My clients learn all about the brain and how it works and how to work with it instead of fighting against it. I give my clients lots of tools, great questions to ask themselves, and new thoughts that aren’t available to them on their own.

I help my clients reach their goals. If they want to create a business, lose weight, get married, run a marathon, transform a relationship, anything that they are struggling with.

My clients love having an hour each week where I got them. I have the questions; the exercises and I lead them. They show up, talk, learn about themselves, and are held accountable if they want it. Some women can’t wait for their session just to see what will be revealed. Most leave with excitement and things to work on between our sessions.

I have experienced both of these, therapy and coaching.

I got therapy when I was in college. I met weekly with a counselor and we talked through what I was struggling with. I worked through a sexual abuse incident that happened to me as a child, and spent time talking through my family relationships. I loved seeing her. She was a bright spot in my week and when I was done with my time with her I remember thinking I would love to help people in this same way. I always thought I would become a counselor someday. She helped me through a difficult season and I am so grateful for that experience.

I got coached the first time and didn’t know it was happening. The person was just asking me a ton of questions and it was amazing all he could show me from just question asking and getting me to really think through some things that were going on. That was the start to me looking into getting certified as a life coach. And I now get coached weekly and love the clarity I gain from each session. It is a gift I give myself to allow someone to help me sort through my brain.

I often watch the Marie Kondo show or the Home Edit stuff and think wow what a gift to allow someone to come into your space and help you organize your stuff.

I am kind of like that. People let me into their brain and I help them edit it and decide what they want to keep, what they want to get rid of, and what they want to create. I give them tools to continually keep it organized. It is amazing the transformations that take place.

You can see both a therapist and a life coach because the work you do with your life coach can be supplemental to the diagnosis a therapist has given.

I do work with people that take medication but want extra help to find the behavior patterns that they continually take. We look at what isn’t working and we figure out what is really at the root of it all. Typically they find that medication + a life coach really work well together because it is the combination of both that weekly meeting and accountability paired with the medicine that helps for them.

If you think you might be interested in working with a life coach see what the life coach has to share. I have lots of blogs, resources inside my private FB group (single women who love Jesus), and IGTV videos available for you to check out.

You can schedule a free 30 minute consult and see if working with me is right for you. The worst that could happen is you find out we don’t mesh well.  But don’t lose hope. If not me, there are many other coaches out there and you can shop around. Find what you are looking for. If I am not a good fit, I want you to find a good fit for sure.

I am a huge advocate for a counselor. If you want some help working through depression, anxiety, abuse, an eating disorder, or thinking you might need medication, check out a counselor.

But if you just need a push and want some extra help, check out life coaching.

Life coaching has helped me to create better relationships with others, create a better relationship with myself, learn how to unconditionally love, deepened my relationship with God, lose weight, create a business, and so much more.

What could life coaching do for you?

Here for you,

Angie