The Courtney Novak Podcast

I'm back! It's been over a year, and I finally have the time, energy and bandwidth to record a podcast episode. How are you? It's been too long. In this episode, I catch you up on the past year of my life. Long story short: I volunteered for too many things, and then my dad had some serious health issues. This led to some epic burnout, so my intentions for the upcoming school year are to (a) volun...

On Father's Day, the kids were sassy and rude, and I lost all my shits. It was not my proudest parenting hour. But then, I apologized and explained why I had overreacted to the kids, and we hugged and made up. While I would love to be the "perfect mom," my kids are entitled to my mistakes. If they think I am a superwoman who never makes mistakes, then they will beat themselves up when they invaria...

It has been a month since my last episode and life has been a lot. My uncle died in mid-January and my grandma died on February 1. I was very close to both of them and have been exhausted from all my grief. But I think I am handling my grief for my uncle and grandma well - or, at least better than I handled grief when I was nineteen and lost my cousin Kym and grandpa. When I was nineteen, I buried...

Last week, I told you about my 22 Projects in '22 to keep my momentum strong. To deepen my self-work this year, I am also launching Operation: Reclaim My Life. In this episode, I talk about why I picked "reclaim" to be my word of 2022 and my four areas of focus: Reclaim My House; Reclaim My Body; Reclaim My Inner Child; and Reclaim My Stories. Bonus: I also vent about pandemic life, including Juli...

Happy 2022! This week, I share the twenty-two projects I am pursuing in 2022 to keep my momentum strong. The projects range from "publish my first novel" to "get a posh trash can for the kitchen" and everything in between. Not all of these projects will happen, but this is my process and I'm excited to see what sticks and what gets abandoned.    Show notes are available at CourtneyHenningNovak.com...

This week, I talk about all the ways I was inspired by Julie Lythcott-Haims' book How to Raise An Adult: Break Free of The Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid For Success. The book really delivers on its promise. It showed me the ways in which I have fallen into the overparenting trap and then it gave me lots of practical ideas for how I can change my ways. Spoiler alert: chores matter! Also:...

The calendar year might begin on January 1, but the first day of school is the true beginning of the year. My kids returned to school on August 12, 2021 -- it was Julian's first day of kindergarten, Pippa's first day of third grade, their first day attending the same school ever, and the first day of "normal" school since March 2020. Whew! It seemed like an auspicious time to reflect on the 2021-2...

Holy eff, I don't know about you, but I am burned out from the pandemic. I feel a deep need to heal from this collective -- and personal -- traumatic experience. Now that school is out and my kids are both going to camp, I am thinking about what I want to do this summer to heal.  Show notes are available at CourtneyHenningNovak.com . The music is "Carpe Diem" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Li...

It's Maternal Mental Health Week 2021! Maternal mental health is a cause near and dear to my heart. When I talk and write about maternal mental health, I end up focusing on postpartum depression. That's an important subject that needs attention, but maternal mental health does not end with the postpartum period. We deserve excellent mental health our entire lives, not just when we have a little ba...

This week, I am talking about the mirrors that reflect our inner work: art! dreams! other people! especially annoying people! and signs from the Universe! We all have work to do during this lifetime, and there are so many ways to find that work. I discuss some of the things that act as mirrors to show me the work I am ignoring (or denying).  Show notes are available at CourtneyHenningNovak.com . T...

This week, I talk about the thoughts that are helping me stay sane as my family embarks on our next pandemic adventure: the hybrid hellscape.   Show notes are available at CourtneyHenningNovak.com . The music is "Carpe Diem" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. 

My feelings have helped me identify some toxic, outdated beliefs. Now I am working to replace those beliefs with new, radiant ones. In this episode, I describe the things I am doing to build these new beliefs. Spoiler alert: I am embracing the shit out of affirmations!  Show notes are available at CourtneyHenningNovak.com . The music is "Carpe Diem" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed und...

Let's talk about values! Last week, I listened to the audiobook of Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. The second part of the book is called Living Into Our Values and it changed my attitude about values.  I love values. I have journaled extensively about my values. I’ve talked about values with my therapist many times. I’ve probably blogged about my values (but I don’t have the time to dig through old p...

I am a feelings amateur but this week, I talk about feelings, from my history of suppressing my feelings to my current work to use my feelings as a tool to figure out my subconscious beliefs. We live in a culture that does not value feelings, but I believe feelings are important. Feelings are vital to our work to become our best selves. I felt awkward and completely out of my comfort zone with thi...

I got a little philosophical for this episode. Over the past couple months of pandemic and distance learning life, I have noticed that I am my best self when I occupy the space between hope and despair. Hope and despair are mindsets that look to the future. Hope might seem more optimistic than despair, but it conditions future happiness on wanted outcomes. It sets me up for disappointment and disc...

Happy Almost New Year! At the end of the year, I like to look back at the year I have had and reflect on the work I did to become a better version of myself. I thought that 2020 was going to be a total dumpster fire but after thinking back on the year, was pleasantly surprised to see how much I have grown as a person over the last twelve months. I would never have chosen a pandemic or distance lea...

I love self-help books! But that has not always been the case. When I was younger, I felt drawn to the self-help section at the bookstore but ashamed at the idea of reading those books. After I I got my first Kindle, I started to make up for lost time. I have learned to be an active participant in the self help books I read, embracing only the ideas that work for me. But the past few years, I took...

This week, I talk about the upcoming 2020 holidays. Spoiler alert: the holidays will be a bit different this year because hello, #pandemic. I am trying my best to lower/change my expectations so my family can still enjoy this time of year. I talk about the mindset I am trying to embrace so I do not drive myself crazy. (Or at least, crazier than usual.)   Show notes are available at CourtneyHenning...

This week, I revisit the topic of distance learning because hello, it's 2020 and starting to feel like my second grader will never go back to "normal" school. I was in a 2020 rut at the beginning of October and feeling broken by distance learning. It is so time consuming! And aggravating! But then, my muse gave me an idea: I needed to stop working on my fantasy series and work on a new book called...

I went to Catholic school for 11.5 years, from about halfway through first grade until the day I graduated from high school in 1997. I have not practiced Catholicism since 1997, but I am starting to realize that I internalized a lot of toxic beliefs during my Catholic school years. I am now working to find those beliefs and reject them. I have felt called to do this work for a long time but have a...

When I was about eighteen and nineteen years old, I had a few experiences that made me feel like my voice, in both speaking and writing, was not good enough. There was the high school frenemy who told me that I was not funny. Then there was the college "friend" who criticized my potty mouth. And lastly, a creative writing professor basically convinced me that my writing was not any good. I took th...

This week, I talk about boundaries. Spoiler alert: I am not an expert in having boundaries! Instead, I am an expert in not having healthy boundaries. I share how my boundaries used to be total crap - in some cases, they were too extreme and I shut people out; in other cases, they almost didn't exist; and in still other cases, I would manage to set a boundary but then feel like a horrible being. I...

I love self-care. I believe it is necessary and vital to our lives. BUT: I also believe that self-care gets presented to women as the panacea to all their problems. Feeling down? Buy a scented candle. Feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied with your life? Take a bubble bath! But as awesome as self-care is, it's not a substitute for following your inner divine call. If you are feeling miserable becau...

Under the best of circumstances, parenting is tough. Add in a pandemic and some distance learning? Holy sh*t. At the beginning of the pandemic, I wished there was a “Guide to Parenting During A Historic Pandemic” that would help me navigate these stormy times. But the more I reflect on it, the more I realize that the parenting principles that helped me stay sane pre-pandemic also help me stay sane...

Under the best of circumstances, parenting is tough. Add in a pandemic and some distance learning? Holy sh*t. At the beginning of the pandemic, I wished there was a "Guide to Parenting During A Historic Pandemic" that would help me navigate these stormy times. But the more I reflect on it, the more I realize that the parenting principles that helped me stay sane pre-pandemic also help me stay sane...