When I work with many of my clients regarding their one-up and one-down beliefs and behaviors, they often find themselves at a loss to describe what an equal response would look like or sound like in their circumstance. We don't live in a world where equal partnerships have been modeled for us, in fact, mostly we live in a world where the opposite …

Some of the areas where we can feel the most stuck in our lives are places where we are just dabbling with change in our lives rather than digging in and doing what needs to happen to create the change we want. And yet, dabbling is comfortable and easy and even justifiable, whereas committing to doing is scary and risky and requires some determinat…

When we're not paying close attention, we can very easily slip into critical words and behaviors in our relationships. Often, we won't even see it, because in our minds we are being helpful or just expressing concern or our opinion, but it can still very easily be perceived as criticism. And criticism breaks down relationship by treading on trust a…

We live in a society that can be a little happiness obsessed at times. And though the thought of being happy all the time can sound lovely, it's just not going to happen. Life is meant to be messy, to be challenging, and to provide us with a lot of opportunities to figure out the tough stuff. It can be difficult to remember this when we live in a w…

Most of us, at one time or another, have had a story that we are not good enough. And it can really wreak havoc in our lives. It can cause us to feel insecure, and from that place we struggle to be the person we really want to be. Understanding how to address our 'not good enough' thoughts is a life-changing skill that will bring a confident and be…

It is really easy for us to create dysfunctional and destructive relationships when we haven't learned how to respect and honor others' personalities, preferences, and perspectives. These three things are at the heart of who people are, and when we reject these things, we reject them. And when we reject them, we shut down the opportunity to create …

Although I talk about the thought model and use it here on the podcast, it's been a while since I talked about the basic parts of it and how they work together. On this podcast we will be looking at how the circumstances in our lives are neutral, how we have thoughts about those circumstances, how those thoughts create feelings, how our feelings fu…

John Gottman is a brilliant relationship expert who has done an amazing amount of research on what makes marriages successful. He has identified four elements of dysfunctional behavior in marriages that are especially destructive, and he calls these The Four Horsemen. These four elements are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. In …

Our primitive brain does some amazing things for us. However, if we aren't paying attention, it can keep us stuck and struggling to create the kind of life we really want to have. When we learn to manage our primitive brain and engage our pre-frontal cortex, we have the capacity to really show up for our life in the ways we want. On today's podcast…

Today Sione and I are celebrating our second year of marriage, and we have a lot to celebrate! In this podcast we are talking about how we have grown this past year, tools we have learned and implemented, and ideas we have come to understand better. This is a chance for you to see how the tools I teach here on the podcast are implemented in real li…

I think a lot of us grew up believing, at some level, that love was a reward for good behavior. And yet, when looked at through the eyes of God, love is never a reward. Love is actually the first and greatest commandment, it is a law. The law of love teaches us that regardless of how others act, regardless of how we're treated, regardless of what i…

Many of the people I work with who are struggling in their marriages find friendship with their partner to be elusive. It was there when they got married, and over time, they have become more and more distant, negative, and dismissive, until they find they just don't have a good friendship with their spouse anymore. And this is a huge problem. Dr. …

I hear so many people who just want us all to get along. What many of them are meaning is, why can't everyone have the same opinions and wants and needs? Why doesn't everyone just do things the way I want and then it would be easy? Of course that would be easy, it would also defeat a huge part of the reason we are here on earth, to learn to be more…

When we feel safe in our relationships, we feel we can show up with more vulnerability. When we show up with more vulnerability, we create more emotional and physical intimacy. But oftentimes, the behaviors we are engaging in in our relationships put the other person into protective mode rather than feeling safe, and so we struggle to create the co…

So many of us did not learn growing up what it means to be in a relationship. If you're like me, you thought that growing up and getting married would mean that you would have someone to love you, to shore up your insecurities, to validate you, or to agree with your opinions. If you're like me, what you wouldn't have thought was that a relationship…

When I really got serious about dating in my 50's, I used something called the 90-day Relationship. An idea baby of Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School, I took it and ran with it. Basically, you're all in, fully committed, and figuring things out for 90 days. It was a brilliant process for me to figure out relationships more and to find my p…

Dating in the middle part of our lives is a different ballgame than when we were in our 20s. Thank goodness! We have a much better understanding of who we are and what is really important to us in a relationship. And using the tools you learn here on the podcast you will be able to create something very different. I'm going to be sharing with you s…

Divorce is a major life event, and one that can leave us feeling as though our whole world has been upended, because, often it has been. It can be really tough to get our feet on solid ground with all of the emotional and even physical turmoil that divorce creates. How do we start to heal from all of the pain? And how do we move forward into the li…

If ever there is a time in our lives when our self-worth seems like it's up for grabs, going through a divorce is it. It's a time when we question our judgment, our wisdom, our value, our loveability, basically, we question so much of who we are and the choices we have made. And yet, having a strong sense of self is so vital to our abililty to move…

One-upping and one-downing in our relationships is so normal and expected for most of us, that we can often have a tough time recognizing when we are doing it. Here are two things to look for to help you be more aware: resentment and contempt. When we are putting ourselves in a one-down position, we will often feel resentment. When we are putting o…

Validation is something that we often seek from others to shore up our sense of self. And this never really works, because SELF-worth is something that can only be created within ourselves. Validation in our marriages and relationships, however, is a very important tool. It lets the other person know we see them, we acknowledge them, we accept them…

It's hard to know what to do when you're in a tough marriage. You have tried so many things to make it better, and often it seems that despite your best efforts it's getting worse. You're stuck in limbo trying to decide what to do and whether you should call it quits or keep trying. What can we do to make it better? How do we know what the right de…

Our natural tendency as humans is to go into a one-up or a one-down approach in our relationships, especially when there is conflict. And yet, this tactic is incredibly ineffective in helping us to communicate clearly and get on the same page. In addition, when we engage with one-upping or one-downing the other person, we are attacking our own sens…

Miscommunication is a silent killer in our relationships. The tricky part is, we often don't even realize we are miscommunicating, and yet it causes so many fights and so much frustration for us. When we can understand why miscommunication happens, we can behave in ways that will clear up what both of our expectations are about and we can preemptiv…

When we talk about betrayal in relationships, we most often think of the really big betrayals such as infidelity. But just as important are the small betrayals that can occur over and over in our relationships that erode trust over time. Trust is such a vital part of our relationships, and when it's not there, we also don't have emotional intimacy …

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 has shown to be 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 …

Sometimes our relationships can get difficult, or if not difficult, a little stale. In those times it can be hard not to check out and show up in a way that nourishes our relationship. Today we're going to talk about eight ways that we can be a better partner in our marriage relationships, or in any relationship. When we show up better, the relatio…

Sometimes in our relationships we find ourselves fighting a lot. The fascinating part about this is that what we're fighting about, isn't really what the fight is about. We may think it's about them being a side-seat driver when it's really about our insecurities about being thought of as not being good enough or being wrong. When we can dig a litt…

Learning to step into our God-given sexuality is a necessary step to coming into a sense of self. And having a strong sense of self is vital in being able to create the life we are capable of and develop the equal marriage relationships we desire. In this episode, Jennifer Finlayson-Fife discusses how sexuality often manifests itself in middle-age …

Living in alignment is a place where our thoughts and behaviors are aligned with our values. Just because we are human we will get out of alignment, we will say and do things that hurt others, that break down trust, or that don't exemplify our religious beliefs. Learning to offer ourselves grace in these times and then understanding how to get back…

I work with a lot of clients who don't feel they are equally yoked with their partner, meaning, they don't feel they are both 'all in' or even in at the same level, and yet they want to stay in the relationship. When this is the case, resentment and frustration will begin to take over our relationship and things start to break down and make it more…

My journey to become a life coach started when I was a teenager, and became a reality about the time I got divorced. The tools I teach have been instrumental in me learning to get out of divorce victim mode and begin to take responsibility for my life. The tools I teach have deepened my relationship with my children, my husband, and God. In this po…

Thinking that our spouse is our responsibility can cause a few different problems in our relationship. First, we can overstep boundaries when we, with every good intention, try to be responsible (take control) of their thoughts, feelings, and actions. It's more common that we realize and very subtle. Second, when we start thinking of our spouse as …

I often hear people use phrases like, 'I hate change', or 'I don't like change', or 'I'm not good at change.' And though these may seem like helpful phrases to express our discomfort with change, they are actually making the change more difficult for us. To complicate these types of phrases, using them also distracts us from the actual feeling we a…

So many of us were raised with ideas about what it meant to be a 'good' wife, mother, daughter, sister, or friend. And we now use these ideas to beat ourselves up when we don't measure up. What if I were to tell you that being that 'good' person you aspire to be is actually unattainable? What if I could show you how you step into a version of 'good…

All of have times when our behavior doesn't match up with who we really want to be. That's part of being human. Understanding why we, and others, don't always behave our best is a great way to create greater compassion and grace for ourseves and those around us. And when we interact with more compassion and grace, we have better relationships.…

Many of us were impacted by the Book The 5 Love Languages in our earlier years. For me, I was impacted negatively because I used the concepts as a weapon against my spouse, a way to prove he wasn't doing it right. In reality, focusing in on how he was or wasn't loving me was the problem. The solution? Learn to focus on the law of love, the commandm…

Learning how to stay in our own lane can be tricky because it is often disguised as love and wanting to help. And yet, when we try to control other people's thoughts or feelings, when we try to control their decisions and outcomes, we are veering into their lane. So, how do we recognize and become more aware of when we're getting in other people's …

So many of us are miserable in partnerships because we feel unseen and unheard. We feel that our wants and needs are not considered and that our worth depends on how well we fulfill the wants and needs of others, especially our partner. And yet, the true connection and intimacy we so deeply desire will never be available to us until we step into eq…

I am often asked what the difference is between people pleasing and being kind. It's a great question because often the behavior will look exactly the same. The difference lies in our motives behind the behaviors. Are we engaging from a place of fear and trying to control the other person's feelings or behaviors in some way, or are we engaging from…

The phrase 'I'm fine' can be so destructive to our relationships. Often we use it to deflect having a tough conversation, but what we're really doing is lying and gaslighting. What we are really doing is burying our thoughts and feelings and letting them fester until we've got a lot of resentment brewing inside of us. Let's talk about how to stop b…

Our tendency as humans to have a drama response to situations is so normal. But not helpful. Dropping into drama expends a lot of energy, causes us to show up in ways we're not proud of later, and often damages relationships. In this podcast I share four ways to recognize when we're having a drama response and keep from going there.…

'Should' is a word that is used way more in our conversations than it 'should' be. It's a passive-aggressive word that pulls our judgment and lack of acceptance into a nice little bundle that says, 'you're not doing it right,' and 'you're not good enough,' even though it sounds much softer and seemingly kinder. But it's still destructive to our rel…

There are things in life that happen to us that are not our fault. For example, our spouse may have an affair and want a divorce. To stay out of victim mentality, it's important that we step into responsibility for our situations in life. But how do we take responsibility when it really isn't our fault? When what we're going through is because of s…

Another blast from the past! I love this episode so much, it's a replay of episode #195, What Are You Sorry For? 'I'm sorry' is probably one of the most used phrases by women in our society. We have been conditioned to use this phrase not just when we have done something hurtful or wrong, but very often even when we are just taking up space as a hu…

Engaging in martyr behavior can be really easy for so many of us. In this week's podcast we're digging deeper into specific behaviors that a martyr engages in, and also ways that you can start to work through your own martyr tendencies.

This week I'm playing for you another great podcast from the past. Being a martyr is something that can come so easily for many of us, and being able to recognize how and when and where it is showing up in our lives can really help us to feel more powerful in our lives as we clean up our engagements with other people and show up more honestly and l…

The Law of the Lid is a concept taught by John C. Maxwell, a leadership expert. When applied to the work we do here, we are talking about how our own self love puts a lid on our capacity to both give and receive love to and from others. When applied to people in our lives with whom we struggle to connect emotionally, this concept can help you to un…

You know that phrase 'growing old gracefully'? It's time for a shift. How about we all start thinking about Growing Old Boldly? My friend, and fellow mid-life coach Kwavi, joins me today for a discussion about how we can start living more boldly as we age, and not less. We have so much amazingness to contribute to the world as we age, so let's jump…

What makes a person lovable? Is it their charisma? Their kindness? Their willingness to serve? Actually, it isn't any of those things. Those things might make it easier to love someone, but whether we do love someone or not depends solely on our love ability. If you're interested in increasing your ability to love others, listen up!…