Adversity, Grief, Living intentionally
Does it sound terrible if I say that I enjoy grief coaching? While I don’t enjoy seeing others suffer in grief, my favorite part of grief work is the stories. The first thing I ask grief clients to do is to share their story. It’s such a beautiful and special thing to have those I work with share their stories and memories of their loved one with me. I think it’s actually their own stories that help them to process through their grief and to move forward.
You never know what will trigger a memory, or even a tear. Just this week I had one of those moments myself. My mom died of inflammatory breast cancer in 2011. I miss her so much, but what wonderful memories I have of her and our family life.
My memory trigger came in the form of a school lunch menu my kids brought home. I’ll be honest, I forget to look at them most of the time and I’ve been known to make spaghetti or something for dinner that they just had that day at school on more than one occasion. Oops! 🙂
My son’s lunch menu fell off of the refrigerator and landed on the floor in front of me. (I do hang them. I just don’t read them.) Suddenly, it reminded me of my own lunch menus when I was a child. My brother and I would sit and listen while Mom read them out loud to us. She used this really fun, dramatic voice that made everything sound delicious. We would laugh and giggle and ask her to read them again. (more…)
Life Balance, Living intentionally
Do you feel like your “To-Do” list is too long? Do you ever wonder how you will get it all finished each day? Or why you’re even doing some of the things on your list in the first place?
What if you simplified your life by taking the opposite approach and you made a list of everything NOT to do? By taking time to think through your “Do’s” and “Don’t Do’s” ahead of time, the decision making process is a whole lot easier. You’ve pre-determined what your priorities are when faced with an opportunity that will “fill a time slot” in your daily planner. You’ve already determined your “no’s” and it’s easier to not overload your plate with too many responsibilies.
Sometimes we have to make really tough choices and actually do less if we want to simplify our life. Do less– that’s often easier said than done! We tend to think that the solution to problem areas in our life is just adding more positive things in to “fix them”. In reality, we need to get rid of some of the negative things first in order to make room for the positive things. If we don’t we’ve just put more on our plate and the positive things we added aren’t really effective or helpful. (more…)
Living intentionally
Have you ever wanted to make a change, but you felt stuck and didn’t know what to do? Or maybe you thought of a few ideas but then got stuck and couldn’t really think outside of the box or think of anything new or creative to try? If so, this little exercise might be helpful. It will only take an hour.
- Think of something in your life that you would like to change.
- Take out a piece of paper and number it from 1-100.
- Give it a title: 100 Ways to Change _________________. Fill in the blank with what you want to change.
If you like color-coding, you may want to use different colors to write the numbers or highlight them according to the categories I list next. Who doesn’t like color coding, right? Oh wait, my husband. Ok, never mind. But if you’re like me and you love to look down and see those colors….go for it!
Are you ready?
Set your timer for 1 hour and let the creativity flow! List any and all ideas you can think of that would change that area of your life. This will get harder to do as you list more, but hang with it. The “magic” happens the further you get into your list.
#1 – #25 These will be your no-brainers. The things that come easily for you. Write them down.
#26-#50 These will take you out of your comfort zone a little. You may start feeling a little bit uneasy. 🙂 Hang in there….. you can do it!
#51 – #75 Get ready for out of the box thinking. These are going to be your ideas that may not seem feasible or practical at first. Go with it anyway. Just write them down. Don’t evaluate whether they’ll work or not. The idea is to get your creativity going and to get your brain into the next level.
#76 – #100 Like I mentioned earlier, this is where the “magic” happens. (I don’t really believe in magic, but I couldn’t think of another word to convey that idea) These will be harder to come up with but you just might get that “A-ha! moment”.
Remember, limit yourself to an hour and work on your list all in one setting. Allow yourself to be as creative as possible and don’t evaluate your ideas as you go. Just write them down and move on to the next one. You may be pretty surprised at what comes to the surface for you by the time you get to #100.
I would LOVE to hear how this goes for you. Write a comment and let me know if you try this. I can’t wait to hear the ideas God will bring to your mind.
Being a Godly Woman, Family, Goals, Living intentionally
Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe it’s 2017 already. Wasn’t it just 1991 and I was planning my wedding? Ok, so maybe it doesn’t feel like it’s that long ago, but the whole Y2K thing feels like yesterday. Here we are, already 17 years later. Wow! Even more of a reminder of what I thought I’d write about today…
Do you have a focus word or phrase for this coming year? As I’ve reflected on the past year and have thought about the coming year, one word keeps coming to mind for me. It’s “STEWARD“. As in stewardship. That word has been very meaningful to me lately and I’ve chosen it to be my theme / focus for 2017. I want to be a good steward of my life.
As I mentioned above, time seems to be flying by. One minute I’m bringing home a newborn from the hospital and the next minute (it seems) he’s now turning 23. Repeat that scene multiple times and I can really feel time passing by. We’re only given so much time with our children. Only so much time with our spouses. Only so much time here on earth in general. We don’t have time to waste with foolish choices or careless words and actions. (more…)
Life Balance, Living intentionally, Uncategorized
What’s your life like? Is it rushed and stressful? Do you have time to relax and enjoy your family and all aspects of your life? Are you content? Is it good but you would like it to be better? Do you wish you could change it but you feel overwhelmed and helpless? Is it just a “season” or has your life as it is right now become your “lifestyle”?
We all go through different seasons of life. As we age and go through the various stages of life, we often call them different seasons of life, but today I’m talking about something a little different. Let me give an example.
I just recently finished a very busy and challenging season of life (AKA- “grad school”). I’ll be honest, nothing in my life was really done to the standards that I would normally do it because I was so busy while in school. It was a lot to juggle. The house was never really organized or cleaned the way it “should” be (my standards—or probably anyone else’s at that point 🙂 ), meals weren’t always planned in advance and prepared like I love to do, ministry had to slow down and eventually stop— and even my coaching was kept to a minimal. There was a constant struggle between spending time with family or studying, I didn’t get workouts in like I had always done in the past, I didn’t have much time to just do fun, relaxing things I enjoyed—when I did, I had to pay the price somewhere else…. You get the idea.
Can you relate to that? It’s hard! It can feel like you’re spinning a lot of plates in the air and just trying to keep them from crashing down. (more…)
Goals, Living intentionally, Uncategorized
The Eagle has landed!
As you may know, I’ve been in grad school working on a master’s degree in counseling for the past couple of years. I turned in my very last paper for my very last course and began waiting for graduation! I can’t begin to tell you how good that felt to finish my goal (more on that in another post)! Sorry, I couldn’t resist the cute little cat meme. I’m sure you can relate to the feeling of finishing a major task or life goal. It’s all in good humor– I’m really not trying to be boastful by any means. I love to laugh and have fun in life!
I finished with my internship at BJC Behavioral Health in October and graduated this week! And that’s it! The end. Wow! It seemed like “one day…” would never get here.
I’m really excited about the doors God is opening and can’t wait to see where He will take me. I kept my coaching very part-time while I was in school. Seriously, it was all I could do to juggle the many hats I wore plus school and coaching. (I mentioned in the past that I have 7 children, right? 🙂 )
I have many groups I’m planning to roll out after Christmas and have a lot of ideas that I’ve been collecting and waiting to use! Details coming soon. My plan is to finally go full-time with the coaching in January 2017!
It’s so nice to know that “one day” is finally here! It’s time to write the next chapter of my life story.
I’d love to hear your story …
Pamela
Being a Godly Woman, Goals, Living intentionally, Transformation, Uncategorized
The New Year is coming! Are you ready to be more awesome? 🙂
Resolutions
With the new year, we often make resolutions or set new goals. Unfortunately, we never achieve many of them.
Maybe “being more awesome than last year” isn’t your exact resolution for the coming year, but life coaching can help you to achieve your real resolution.
What if?
What if this year could be different? What if you did make a resolution and keep it? It takes 21 days to develop a new habit. What if you went longer than that? What if you spent 3 solid months working with a life coach to develop a “New You” for the New Year? (more…)
Being a Godly Woman, Living intentionally
Do you have a Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy in your life? Do you live by that principle?
Living by this principle means you have three specific people in your life:
- Someone speaking into you
- Someone walking along with you
- Someone you are investing in
When we live by this principle and have these 3 key individuals in our life, it keeps us authentic and transparent. It’s a way to always be learning from different angles in life. (more…)
Goals, Life Purpose, Living intentionally
Have you ever been lost or confused and needed to look at a big map to find out exactly where you are? Maybe you were somewhere new and you had to ask for directions or you had to stop and pull out a visual map to get your bearings. Or maybe it was even somewhere you had been before but the way wasn’t super clear and you stopped to ask directions just for clarity (and maybe the sake of time!).
Help!
I’m at a conference at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center this week. I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve already had to stop and do all of the above! I’ve been here before, but the place is huge and the “way” to get places was a little fuzzy in my memory. I’ve stopped and asked for directions, looked at maps, wandered around and made a few wrong turns, and have even found shortcuts to get where I’m going. (more…)
Family, Living intentionally, Marriage, Parenting, Relationships
If you’re like most people, you’re probably good at noticing when your spouse or children do something wrong or something that you don’t like. Let’s face it, we all have things that just drive us crazy! Sometimes we become so focused on the negative that we don’t stop to see the positive. We don’t even acknowledge what they “do right”.
You’ve probably been on the receiving end of that before. Nothing you do is good enough. Only the negative is acknowledged. Criticism. It makes you think, “Why bother…it won’t matter anyway.” Have you even been there? Ugh, not a good experience. (more…)
Does it sound terrible if I say that I enjoy grief coaching? While I don’t enjoy seeing others suffer in grief, my favorite part of grief work is the stories. The first thing I ask grief clients to do is to share their story. It’s such a beautiful and special thing to have those I work with share their stories and memories of their loved one with me. I think it’s actually their own stories that help them to process through their grief and to move forward.
