Loving On Purpose

The most dreaded day of the year for many Mothers.  My heart goes out to those who could never be a mother whether it be from not getting married to infertility problems. Any enjoyment we get from life is generated by our thoughts.  What thoughts we think and choose to hang on to bring us pleasure or pain.  If we have a disappointing Mother's Day, it's all because of disappointing though...

Have you given up hope on actualizing a better relationship with an adult child? This episode is for YOU!  Our biggest roadblock is not being willing to wait for them to want a connection with us.  And it does happen.  I share an experience in my own life where after three years of a non-existent relationship with one of my children we are speaking and connecting with each other in a way I never d...

Are you feeling unimportant because your child don't call you or invite you out to dinner?  Are you frustrated because you always have to reach out to them?  Are you disappointed on your birthday because they didn't plan a celebration for you?  Are you already dreading Mother's Day?  If your answer was yes to any of these questions, this podcast is for you.  I discuss how to remedy...

I'm interviewing my good friend Kurt Francom who is the founder and executive director of the non-profit organization , Leading Saints.  He also has a weekly podcast by the same name, which I highly recommend.  His mission is to help us become better leaders whether it's in a church position or as a leader of a family.  His podcast covers a various range of topics.  Today I'm interv...

What you think is the problem between you and your adult children is probably not what you think it is.  We were raised to believe that the way they behave toward us causes us to feel a certain way.  If they have very little contact with us, we may feel we are unimportant to them.  Their behavior is the circumstance.  Circumstances are neutral.  They are the actual facts about the situation.  The...

Isn't it great when all of your family members can gather together?  We all have different opinions as to why or maybe even why not.  I am sharing some of my observations in navigating life with adult children of how different topics of information are shared depending on what makes up the family gatherings.  In this episode I discuss what I found happens to me and my involvement and interact...

Many of us had expectations of when we had adult children what life would be like.  We thought we would be involved in their lives.  When this expectation or need is not fulfilled we often feel unimportant and unloved.  As an adult, we are responsible for fulfilling our own needs.  One way to accomplish that is to spend more time with friends. We are fulfilling our own needs by finding like minded...

All of us have people in our lives that we dislike.  It seems especially painful when we dislike and finally own that we really don't like one our adult children. Sometimes we try to move too fast out of feeling this way instead of "being" with this emotion for a while. In this episode I tell of reasons some of my clients have chosen to dislike their children, why it’s owning our th...

The freedom to be free of non-serving emotions, feelings that don't help us live emotionally healthy lives, can happen in our lives when we are trained in how to have thoughts that empower us and give us permission to be ourselves.  First, we need to let go of the thought that we feel we need approval in order to like ourselves.  Second, we need to quit being the victim to what's happeni...

Our relationship with our spouse is probably the relationship we should be spending the most time strengthening.  I believe families can be together forever, even after we die.  But I have millions of ancestors and could potentially have millions of predecessors so that seems like a bigger gathering than I can imagine.  But I can wrap my mind around being with my husband forever.  We worry about b...

Do you fear your adult children may cut you off from having any contact with their family and your grandchildren if you disappoint them?  Feeling this way does not help in building a good relationship with them. And feeling fearful is one of the worst feelings to feel.  In this episode I give reasons why we have this fear, how this feeling is causing you to live in scarcity and six suggestions on...

It's wonderful all the adult opinions there are out there in the world.  When we collaborate we have come up with some amazing creations, inventions, advancements in medicine and technology.  But we humans often struggle in our relationships when our opinions differ.  This episode is about when we disappoint our children by a decision we have made and what we can do to have the confidence in...

We are the creators of our experiences in our lives.  If you don't like the results of the circumstances or happenings in your life, you can change them by changing how you want to feel, or contribute, or be in response to your circumstances.  We can't change our circumstances, we can't change how our adult children act around us, but we can change how we respond to their actions an...

I share in this episode three stories of past clients who loved their estranged children enough to wait until their children were ready to heal the relationship.  I recieved three emails within a month from these past clients exclaiming their joy and gratitude to God for coming forth of their children indicating they wish to restore their relationships with their parents.  Love always wins...again...

What causes us to not always act like the kind, loving parent we want to be to our adult children?  No.  It's not because they are unkind and unloving.  It's because you may think you are feeling love for your child but perhaps you're feeling resentful that they are unkind and unloving.  Feeling resentful is going to cause you to show up as resentful....not kind and loving.  Listen...

We clean our houses more than we clean out our minds.  When we practice getting rid of some of the harmful thoughts we hang onto in our minds we free ourselves to choose thoughts that serve us and help us to see things from a more beneficial perspective.  When we clean out our minds we tend to not take things more personally.  We tend to get more curious and less judgmental in our thoughts which r...

Not many parents talk about their relationships with their adult children especially if they are struggling in it.  Nobody told us we would be expecting our needs would be met at this time in our lives by our involvement with our adult kids.  No one told us that we are responsible for fulfilling our own needs, of finding our own happiness, not our children, not even our husbands.  Just because we...

Faith to me is knowing God conspirers in my favor.  Faith is knowing that God knows what's best for us and has a plan to get His children back to Him.  Faith causes me to not give up on my adult children.  Faith is knowing  what my responsibility is to my adult children and the most important is to stay out of God's business.   Faith is knowing He loves them more than we do.  Faith is kn...

We know we judge others, especially our adult children, too often but we don't know how to stop.  Even knowing that we don't like how we feel when we're judging them doesn't making us stop.   We think we have some control over them living a happier life if we just help them see their weaknesses.  But this is a little lie our brain tricks into thinking.  In this episode you&apos...

I can help people solve any problem with their adult child but that's not entirely true.  The teachings of Jesus Christ show us the way to solve any problem.  What I do is show people how to apply the teachings in their lives and where to start learning how to do that.  Listen to this episode where I offer some scriptures that can be applied to choosing love, forgiveness and compassion rather...

No excuses now.  I offer you 100 ways you can show your adult children you love them even if they don't share their love back with you.  Love is always a choice.  Love just loves.  Love will always feel best. I am no longer offering my 8-week coaching program, but I remain fully committed to supporting parents of adult children. If you have questions or need guidance, you’re welcome to reach...

This is a replay of a podcast I published a year ago but I felt it worth rebroadcasting it. The most healthiest emotion we can have is gratitude.  When we are thankful for all the good things in life we enjoy we have a better connection with God, with our family, and with ourselves.  We live in abundance rather than scarcity.  We realize we already have so much of what we want in life.  Being grat...

Are there times you feel consumed by the thoughts ruminating in your head over how you're being treated by your adult children?  And then these thoughts start impacting other relationships that are important to you.  You feel miserable because you can't stop the thoughts and you feel like you could explode with resentment and disappointment.  Listen to this episode to learn how to stop t...

Do you really want to show up at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner when you know you're going to be emotionally abused?  The better question to ask is do you know you have a choice?  What is the reason you'd be going?  Do you like your reason?  I hope this episode will shed some light on the choices you have about being around anyone that is emotionally abusive to you.  Love always wins b...

We usually use the Model to get a result we want in our lives by focusing on the feeling we want to feel and change our thoughts to cause that feeling.  In this episode I'm giving attention to the action line of the model and how changing our behavior by show gestures of love can give us the result of feeling more love that results in living a peaceful, well lived life.  Love always wins....j...