Simply Resilient - A Podcast For Military Wives

I have created a year long video course of weekly classes called Resiliency Training that is designed to take everything you are learning here on the podcast to the next level. I am releasing the audio for week one from each themed month of the course so that you can get a taste of what it would be like to go through my Resiliency Training program. The theme of the first month of Resiliency Traini...

I'm thrilled to share a recent interview that I was able to do with Lizann Lightfoot aka The Seasoned Spouse. It was such a pleasure to have her on my podcast to talk about her new book, Open When - Letters of Encouragement for Military Spouses. Listen in to hear our discussion about why this book is such an incredible tool to have readily available for military spouses anywhere in their military...

Self care can be a buzz word these days, we hear about it a lot. On top of that we’re told that self care is SO important, especially during stressful times like deployments. When the buck stops here when it comes to all of the responsibilities in our lives like it does during deployment, that is a critical time to be taking very good care of yourself. But we tend to have one of two problems (or b...

When we first learn about our lower brain and what it does we tend to want to find a cure for it and throw it out. As we learn more about it, we realize that it's important and apart of us. We learn to tolerate it and even work with it. As our relationship with our lower brain progresses and improves, we can even get to the point where we don't just tolerate our lower brain, but we actually get on...

Do you struggle with felling resentment in your relationships? I know I do sometimes. The way to get a hold of this and decrease the amount of resentment you feel is to understand where it comes from. Resentment comes from giving the responsibility of creating the feelings you want to feel to other people. Take back your life by remembering that you are responsible for the way you're feeling now a...

I have a special treat for you all. I was able to interview Dariann Leigh for my podcast a couple of weeks ago. She is a country artist who has been singing since she could talk. She has released lots of awesome music over the years and she recently released a song called "10,000 Miles" about her recent experience of her military boyfriend deploying overseas. It is beautiful and meaningful and rem...

Today we're digging into buffering. What it is, why we do it, why it doesn't really work/help, and how to love ourselves as we work to decrease it in our lives. We've been talking about buffering in Resiliency Training over the last month. We've been talking about urges and managing urges, the purpose of discomfort, and net negative results. Listen in to learn more about buffering and if you're in...

Having creative outlets fills us up, energizes us, and inspires us. The problem is that many of us don't feel like we have time for these types of activities in our limited free time. At the same time, as adults we often lose the pieces of ourselves that used to be very important to us and bring us a lot of joy. Another piece of this is wanting to stay busy while our partners are deployed to help...

Our friendships are one of the most important parts of our lives. In this episode we talk about why friendships can be so rewarding and complicated and important and tricky. We get into why it feels weird and hard sometimes and why it feels easy and effortless at other times. We talk about when you get invited and when you don't. We talk about what is really happening when your friendships are exh...

Time is one of our most precious resources and yet we could all use a little help managing it better. In this episode we don't talk about time management in the way that you are used to tackling this issue, we look at the root of the problem. When you start by looking at your thoughts and feelings about any given thing than you are focused on that problem at the root instead of just trying to mana...

I'm so excited to talk to you all about money today. I have money in my blood (raised by an accountant who was raised by an accountant) and I love money. I majored in finance in college for my bachelor's degree. I was also awarded a military spouse grant to participate in a program to become an accredited financial counselor. I love coaching people on money and getting coached on money. However, m...

Have you ever noticed that sometimes reading a self help book or listening to a Ted Talk fires you up and gets you motivated to improve your life, and sometimes it makes you feel more discouraged than you were before you read it? I call this Good News Bad News. Understanding why the exact same resource could one day make us feel so great and the next day make us feel so awful is so powerful in kno...

"Vulnerability is not weakness...it is our most accurate measure of courage." -Brene Brown In this episode we talk about shame, what it is, why we struggle with it, and what that creates for us. We talk about true solutions for shame such as vulnerability and self confidence with a particular emphasis on vulnerability. We also talk about how to apply all of this into your daily life. Enjoy!

Reintegration is the adjustment and transition period that occurs immediately after our husband returns from a deployment. When it's almost time for him to come home and it's all starting to feel real, we often have some surprising feelings come up that we're not sure what to do with if we don't make a plan ahead of time. Some of the main negative feelings that come up as you anticipate reintegrat...

Whether we know the date that our husband is getting home from his deployment or not...whether his deployment gets extended or not...there are many days during the deployment that it feels as if the deployment will never end. The days are moving so slowly...it's almost as if time is standing still. While we rationally understand that the deployment will end, this feeling of time stopping feels ver...

Many of us have areas of our lives or areas of ourselves that we struggle with feeling insecure about. The problem is, in those moments it doesn't feel like there are any other options but to feel insecure about these areas. And yet we all know people who have the same circumstances we do that feel a lot more secure about it than we do. The good news is there are few simple things to understand ab...

We have all had those moments when we feel like we have nothing left to give. There are many ways to describe the way we mentally visualize our capacity: we're at the end of our rope, things are falling off our plate, we are juggling too many balls and they're starting to drop, we can't take one more step. However you visualize it, you can use the tips I offer you in this episode to understand it...

We all experience moments of anxiousness...some more than others...some live with anxiety. Sometimes it's just as mild as not quite being able to put our finger on what we're worried about. Sometimes it's much more intense and can interfere with the life we're trying to lead. Whatever your experience of anxiety is, listen to this episode for some new thoughts and ideas about living with anxiety an...

Raise your hand if you're tired of feeding people. Many of us go through ups and downs when it comes to our responsibilities in the kitchen. There are times when it feels like you just can't cook another meal and yet people keep getting hungry, even you. Funny how that works. Listen to this episode to help you understand and honor why this task can be overwhelming and daunting sometimes. In this e...

Listen to this episode to learn why we can get so angry sometimes and what we can do to understand ourselves and the people around us better. Whether you're wanting to get less angry when you get angry or if you're wanting to get angry less frequently, this pep talk will give you new thoughts to think in this area to help you make some headway. Good luck!

One of my favorite things to teach my military wife clients is how to create tons of connection with their spouse despite any challenging circumstances like lengthy deployments with bad internet. Listen to the episode for new ideas on what really counts when it comes to creating that feeling of connection with your loved ones.

One of the most painful experiences we have in this life is feeling all alone and like no one understands. We can feel misunderstood, judged, unsupported, alone, and more. Listen to this episode to learn some of my favorite ways to effectively find relief from this experience.

A huge part of life is making decisions and sometimes we experience decision fatigue where we wish we didn't have to make so many decisions, we wish someone else could make the decision for us, and decisions feel heavy and hard. Listen to this episode if you are experiencing this and wanting to improve the way you experience decision making. When you clean up the way you think about making decisio...

Are you feeling stuck? Does life feel blah? Are you finding it hard to get motivated and inspired to do anything? Do you feel like you are on the movie Groundhog Day and every day you just wake up and do it all again? This can happen to anyone and often happens when our husbands are deployed because without realizing it, we unintentionally pushed "pause" on our lives. Listen to this episode to get...

So many of us have to cope with our spouse being away on important days. Whether they are days that have personal significance to you like your anniversary or birthday, or holidays like Christmas, or days where important milestones are happening like first steps or graduation, it can be incredibly difficult for your significant other to miss these days. Listen in to see why it can be so hard and a...