Stronger in the Difficult Places

This episode is dedicated to Bethany Rutledge. Bethany connected with me months ago and I was originally going to have her on the show to discuss today's topic. Bethany was the author of Courage to Try, a USAT-certified coach, a mama of twin boys, and a triathlete. I recently finished reading her book and both it and her story so encouraging. Bethany dedicated her life to helping women develop cou...

I recently realized I think of myself as a boss, an entrepreneur, and a mom, but I never think of myself as a leader and I'm guessing you don't either. But you are! It's important for every woman to see herself as a leader because everyone leads at something. No matter who you are, someone is watching you and you're a leader whether you're influencing one person or one-hundred thousand people. In...

Did you know that you every bit of writing you do- email, text, twitter, etc., is a reflection of you? Carla D. Bass, author of Write to Influence, gives us some tips and quick techniques that can improve our writing and improve our influence in all aspects of our lives. Carla D. Bass is a retired Air Force colonel. For 30 years, she wrote for executives, composing hundreds of personnel reviews; n...

I really like the title of this episode, but I know not everyone else will. I know this because I've received some criticism in the past saying that my podcast is anti-feminist, but I'm not anti-anything except hate. While I have said in the past that I'm not a feminist, I know I don't need to be in order to believe in the immense strength and inherent equality of women. So, even if the title of t...

We all have a history and, in that history, we've made mistakes and been judged by ourselves and others. It's not surprising that we can sometimes be overly critical of ourselves and afraid we'll make the wrong choice again. But, I'm here to tell you the most important person in your life that you have to trust is yourself. In this episode, I talk about why it's important to trust yourself, why we...

We can talk about dealing with difficult people all day, but what if you're the difficult one? To be honest, everyone is the difficult one at some point or another and sometimes even in certain relationships and not others, but if you're the common denominator, it's time to make some changes. In this episode, I'm giving you some questions to ask yourself to determine if you're the difficult one an...

We've all been there. It's been months, years, or even decades and we find ourselves still hating our ex. How can we get past these feelings and finally move on? In this episode, I explore this topic by providing a little tough love and some support and guidance on how you can let the hatred go and move forward.   To learn more, visit www.drzoeshaw.com/88

Dr. Michelle R. Hannah is an author, motivational speaker, a cancer survivor, and a relationship coach. In this episode, we discuss how a recent stroke forced Dr. Michelle to redefine what it means to be a superwoman, why she wished her upcoming book about self-vows had been around when she was a teenager, what Dr. Michelle means when she talks about women breaking up with themselves, when it mean...

Anything you know you're destined to do in this world takes courage. We need courage to do the things we were put on this Earth to do. In this episode, we talk about courage and the strong woman; including what it is, why you should have it, how you can get more of it, and how you can live it out in your life.   To learn more, visit www.drzoeshaw.com/86

It doesn't happen all at once. It's not like you wake up on your 40th birthday and go crazy. It's usually a slow progression that can last a couple of years. In this episode, Dr. Zoe (licensed psychotherapist and life coach) discusses what happens to a woman in her 40's - why she may feel like she's going crazy, why it's okay and how you can use this stage to propel growth in the next stage of you...

I'm not really a fan of the term "best self" and I feel like we're all usually striving to be our best selves but, for the purpose of today's episode, it really just means that person that you know deep down you're meant to be. As someone who's constantly seeking growth, I think about things like this all the time. I'm on a mission to grow myself into the person I know I can be and I want to help...

I know from my years of working as a therapist, that many women are not strong and sometimes we lie to ourselves that there is strength in our sacrifice, but sometimes that's an excuse to keep doing the easy thing. Strength can be built, but it must be intentionally built and this is exactly what I help women do. It's not my aim for women to strive for strength that rivals that of a man but to ins...

I've been a practicing psychotherapist for 18-19 years now and one of the biggest issues that my clients present in therapy is a fear of their feelings. They don't realize they have this fear, but they do and you might as well. In this episode, I explain how I know my clients have a fear of their feelings even they don't know, how the fear of our feelings develops in the first place, the major fee...

Do you ever just feel a little off balance? Do you ever feel like that elusive work-life or mama-woman balance isn't possible for you? Well, it's time to embrace the chaos and that's exactly what I'm talking about today. In this episode, I'm explaining how balance is just a construct, why it's completely okay to feel out of balance at times, why we should be focusing more on accepting our limitati...

Ultimatums have a bad reputation and when I started thinking about this topic, I googled it as I always do as part of my prep for the episode. I was shocked to read article after article about how much damage ultimatums cause in relationships. In this episode, I explain why an ultimatum isn't necessarily a bad thing and how it can be used as a tool to set boundaries for yourself and bring out heal...

Shondra Rhymes started out her 2014 Convocation Speech to Dartmouth by saying, "Dreams are for losers." I loved that speech and still find myself inspired by it, so I wanted to talk about it in today's episode. However, I want to be clear that I never encourage anyone to call anyone else, including themselves, a loser. So, I'm not calling anyone a loser, but our dreams can definitely trip us up. S...

We all have decisions we have to make all the time and there is power in the unmade decisions due to the amount of stress they cause. In this episode, I'm not going to help you finally make a decision. What I am going to do is help you explore why you haven't made the decision and possibly find some of the gifts in that indecision.   To learn more, visit www.drzoeshaw.com/78

Melissa Maimone is the author of The Radiant Midnight: Depression, Grace, and the Gifts of a Dark Place and Gathering Dandelions: Meditations and Musings on Faith, Fracture, and Beauty Mistaken for a Weed . In this episode, Melissa talks about her journey with depression and her struggle with understanding why God didn't take away her depression after she asked Him to, why she believes we shouldn'...

What if the words you speak to yourself are so offensive that it makes you not want to cooperate with your own self? If you are finding that you are stuck and not accomplishing something you want to in your life, this is probably the case. In this episode, I discuss the different ways you might be speaking to yourself that you aren't even aware of, and how you can change it to get more of what you...

Comparison compromises your soul. We all do it. It's way too easy to swipe your finger on your cell and find thousands of images to compare yourself to. Listen as Dr. Zoe discusses how to take your eyes off her lane and live and grow in yours. Dr. Zoe also answers a question from a wife about her disinterest in sex.   To learn more, visit www.drzoeshaw.com/75

I recently issued a poll in Instagram asking my followers what part of their lives they wanted to improve this year and the area of confidence and self-love was the very clear winner. Every woman takes a hit to her self-confidence every now and then, but low self-confidence is not a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered just like any other skill. So, in this episod...

Busyness can certainly be useful in your life. We wear it as a badge of honor sometimes, but it can also be a shield of protection. It's one of the few addictions that's socially sanctioned and even encouraged. There's no 12-step for this addiction. We're all too busy to realize we have a problem and we're definitely too busy to find the time to go to a 12-step meeting. In this episode, I share ho...

Last week's episode was dedicated to how to handle "baby mama" drama when you're not the mother of the children. This week, I'm flipping the script and talking about when you are the mother of the children and you're dealing with your ex's partner. In this episode, I discuss the imbalance in the levels of support and resources for being the mother of the children in blended families compared to th...

This week we're talking about whether or not baby mama drama is hurting your relationship. I would like to preface this episode by saying that I actually hate the term "baby mama" because I feel it's a derogatory term. It a modern term that most people do understand, however, what we we're really talking about is blended families. In this episode, I discuss why this is such a painful subject for s...

Debbie London is a self-publishing book consultant and author who's on the show to talk about the façades women sometimes bring into their relationships and the impact they have on those relationships. In this episode, we discuss how God gave her the title and purpose of her latest book, why she was hesitant to write about relationships at first, the most common façades women bring into relationsh...