Intentional Living with Tanya Hale

Many of us grew up in homes where we didn't receive any training about vulnerability in relationships. We were fairly uneducated about emotions, and it is very detrimental in our marriage relationships. My previous 24-year marriage struggled with a severe lack of vulnerability, and today we're talking about why that was such a problem and the difference vulnerability will make in your emotional in...

If we are going to be all-in in our relationships, we have to be vulnerable, and that can feel super scary.  Sometimes it's difficult because we are in a new relationship and it can be hard to be the one to make the first move. Sometimes it's difficult because our decades-long relationship is struggling and it's been a very long time since we were vulnerable with each other. But until we truly ste...

Relationships can be hard. If we have created a pprotective pattern over the years, we may find that we are in a pattern of leaning out emotionally in our marriage and not having the intimate connection that we inwardly crave. When we choose to be all-in, we take a risk in our relationship, but it is also the only way to open a door that makes emotional intimacy an option. There aren't any guarant...

When a woman has devoted so many years to being a stay-at-home mom and then the kids grow up and leave, she will often feel as though she is floundering a bit to get her feet underneath her.  What are her next steps? How does she enter the workforce with not a lot of 'working outside the home' experience in the last 30 years?  Angela Ashurst-McGee is a career coach who focuses on helping women in...

There are so many things we love about the holiday season, the decorations, the gifts, the music, the family getting together. . . well maybe not always the family because, well, drama. But what if we could have holidays without all the drama?  What if we could just enjoy the people, the conversations, the sentiments and the season for what we really want them to be? Today we're going to talk abou...

I believe that the holiday season is one of the greatest reasons for stress and anxiety for a lot of people. Today I have 6 really practical tips for you on how you can step back from the stress, spread yourself a little thicker, and really enjoy your holidays this year. Thanks for listening!  Want to learn more about this concept?  Check out these podcasts: 26 Taking Offense 77 Other People's Opi...

God created us to be sexual beings. Through a lot of social conditioning in the 70s and 80s (and probably before, but I wasn't there), we got a lot of mixed messages about our sexuality as women, and one of them was not that as women we were created to be sexual and find a lot of pleasure and enjoyment there. From this conditioning, many of us struggle to be at peace with our sexuality and to enga...

How does our sense of self impact our spirituality, or our ability to connect with God? Significantly. When we have a strong sense of self we see ourselves as worthy of God's love, deserving of His mercy, and accepting of His grace.  When we have a struggling sense of self we don't beieve that God could love us and forgive us for our human frailties. Though God is always there with love and an out...

Having a strong sense of self is so valuable in our parenting journey.  It allows for us to have healthy, strong, and beautiful relationships with our children, where a struggling sense of self breaks down our relationships and actually creates more struggle with our sense of self.  The work we do to develop our sense of self will allow us to have better boundaries with our adult children and also...

This week we are continuing with our discussions about sense of self, and focusing on how it impacts our marriages.  It is really difficult, if not impossible, to have a strong, healthy, intimately connected marriage relationship if we don't have a strong sense of self.  When we have an underdeveloped sense of self, we lessen our capacity to really love and accept the other person and we severly l...

Continuing on with our sense of self series, today we are applying it to dating. When we have a strong sense of self, we approach dating with courage, confidence, and conviction. We aren't afraid of saying 'no' or being rejected. That's not to say we love it when it happens, but it doesn't rock our world because we understand that people's preferences don't mean anything about us. A strong sense o...

This week we arae digging deeper into what our sense of self is and seeing how either a reflective sense of self or a solid sense of self show up in our lives.  All of the work we do here on the podcast stems from a solid sense of self, so as we clean up our thoughts and get more clear on who we are, how we are, and why we are, we can be more empowered to create the life and the relationships we t...

Our sense of self, how we see ourselves, how we understand ourselves, and how we accept ourselves is core to our capacity to show up in healthy ways in our lives.  When we have a strong sense of self, all aspects of our lives run more smoothly, from our personal growth and happiness to our ability to have happier and more successful relationships.  When we have an under-developed sense of self, al...

Many of us, when we get divorced, create a story about our ex that keeps us stuck.  And even if you're not divorced, you may have a story about your current marriage or family that keeps you stuck.  Stuck in victim mentality, where you feel disempowered and at the mercy of someone else to change before you can feel better.  Very often, we can't change the circumstances of our lives, but we can cha...

In his book, The New Rules of Marriage, Terrence Real talks about five losing strategies that we often use in our marriages.  I think all of us are guilty of using these, but when we are aware of what they are, and are willing to see how we have and do use them in our relationships, we can start to clean up our thinking and our behaviors and really start to create relationships that are intimate a...

Some decisions are harder than others.  Everyone I have worked with or talked to who has gotten divorced says that their decision to do it was the hardest one of their life.  Whether it's divorce, or another decision that is super difficult for you to make, understanding why it's difficult and how you can process all the pieces is a valuable part for helping you to make that final decision, whethe...

Why is it that we can be so hard on ourselves for being human?  We were created, by God, to be a human, and yet we can have such a difficult time embracing our imperfect humanity.  When we can instead embrace our humanity, love the learning journey, and praise the imperfect path, we will not only grow faster and with more comfort, but we will enjoy the life journey we are on.  

We all seem to have this innate drive and desire to be right.  And yet, there's a pattern I often see that the more we are right in a relationship, the weaker the relationship is.  This is because we often push our being right on others at the expense of them feeling safe.  They feel judged, criticized, and maybe angry, but not safe.  And creating safety in our relationships is a vital part of cre...

Remember the analogy about filling our buckets?  I don't love that one.  And the reason I don't is because I feel it leaves us always in a scramble for keeping out buckets full since we're always emptying them out with acts of service.  So, here's an idea for you.  How about if we move into a space of overflow, where our service for others comes from our overflow rather than from our bucket?  How...

It can be super easy to slide into a life that we're not passionate about.  I've heard so many people say that their life isn't what they want, but it's okay.  They have leearned to tolerate a life that feels far below what their spirit is aching for.  And that's not okay.  You have great things to do and amazing contributions to make in this world, and it won't happen when you are living a tolera...

Often in middle age we get really comfortable, and in that comfort, we neglect that inner voice inside of us that says we still have great things to do, that there is still growth and understanding for us to move into.  And yet, it can feel scary to listen to that voice and courage up and do something different.  But until we do, we will never find the deep joy and satisfaction that life has to of...

One of the most important things we can do when we want to grow personally is to learn to be honest with ourselves.  And when we rely upon the phrase, 'I don't know' when things come up for us, we are being dodgy.  We are not being honest with ourselves because, we really do know.  Sometimes it's just painful and a lot of work to look deep within ourselves to see what we need to see.  And this res...

Last week we revisited a concept called 'clean love', a space where we learn to love without expectations of others.  A question I frequently get when discussing clean love is, 'But aren't there inherent expectations in relationships, such as a marriage?'  The answer to that is absolutely.  So, in this episode, we are going to be discussing how to have clean love and also have expectations in our...

Today we are revisiting episode #92 Clean Love.  This is one of my favorite concepts that I teach about, and for those of you who haven't gotten that far back in listening, here's your chance to catch up on this concept.  Clean love is a space where we learn to love without expectation, without an agenda, something that many of us don't know how to do, and may not even be aware that we are loving...

Many of us were raised to believe that not rocking the boat was the best bet for happy relationships, and yet, from my experience, not rocking the boat created an unequal relationship that caused feelings of either resentment or contempt in my relationship, both of which were very destructive.  Rocking the boat is not only necessary, but also an important part in any healthy relationship, and yet...