Love Your Story

Episode 184: Accept and Nurture Your Awesome No matter who you are, or where you came from, you are a beautiful miracle full of talents, ideas, light and potential. There are a lot of messy things in the process of living that can make us feel unworthy, that easily create spaces of not-good-enough. One thing I know for sure is that those stories - those voices are NOT true. No matter who you are. I’ve watched some of the most incredible people on the planet struggle with feelings of not being good enough, as I look on wondering how they could possibly even consider the idea that they weren’t incredible. If you’re one of those who feels unworthy in any way - because you were abused or unloved, because God didn’t answer your prayers, because some broken person or people told you you weren’t good enough, because you were the 7th grader that got shoved in the locker, because you didn’t get straight A’s, because you didn’t get the job, because you are ill and can’t do the things you wish you could do, because yo

The Best of 2020 As 2020 comes to an end, many of us won’t be sad to see it end. Many will be hoping that a new year will be bringing a clean, safe, healthy slate, a hope for better things than we’ve seen. If that wasn’t just the craziest year to-date. We’ve had intense social unrest resulting in riots with serious injuries and massive property damage; we’ve had the circus we call elections, COVID, of course, which meant quarantines, higher than normal death tolls, and life as we know it cancelled. We’ve had fires and earthquakes, mask shaming and job loss. And we can look at it that way, but as in all things, our realities are the stories we tell ourselves about the things going on around us. We also have the choice to focus on the positive things that came from the past year. More time with family, more time in nature, focus on our homes and personal spaces, opportunities abounded. Personally I’ve had my best year ever in real estate. It was a great abundant year. While I missed my usual social calendar

Episode 182: Miracles Abound- Interview Richard Paul Evans and Christmas Box International Direcor, Celeste Edmunds Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. Today is our Christmas episode, and since Christmas is a season of love, of miracles, of family, of wintery fun and of treats. Well, I have a treat for you. Today Richard Paul Evans, author of the Christmas Box and 40 consecutive NYT Bestsellers, that always seem to come out around Christmas time, and Celeste Edmunds the Exec. Director of Christmas Box International are here to share a little of all of that - miracles, stories of family and children, gifts and all good things to set the scene for Christmas. On top of that, The Noel Letters, Richard’s new book is out for Christmas and we’re going to hear about that as well, so stay turned. To start, you have to know who these folks are When Richard Paul Evans wrote the #1 best-seller, The Christmas Box, he never intended on becoming an internationally known author. The story was written as an expression

Episode 181 Challenge #7 Pick ONE Thing for You Elenor Brown said, “Self care is any action you purposefully take to improve your physical, emotional or spiritual well being.” Today’s episode is part of a series that explores the challenges in the book: LIFE - Living Intentional and Fearless Every day - the 21 LIFE Connection Challenges. THIS is a PERMISSION episode. Today we are on challenge #7 - to pick one thing you’ve been wanting to do or buy for yourself and just do it. I don’t know about you, but I often put off splurging on something I really want because I can’t justify the expense in my own head.  Tune in for today’s quickie episode about how and why this challenge is a beautiful one to embrace. And after you listen, I hope you’ll take the challenge. Because YOU matter.    I was talking with a friend the other day about the nature of the 21 challenges and she begged me to add it into the explanation. So, here it is -  I have a tendency in life to pick and choose what I want to do. I suspec

Episode 180: Hearts of the Fathers - Interview Sheldon Lawrence Fleeing from a deadly head-on collision, a man descends into a hellish realm to hide from Heaven’s beconing light. God can rescue him from the darkness, but escaping Hell is only the beginning. The greatest test comes as he confronts his broken relationships and sees himself and others in truth. Tune in for this week’s episode of the LYS podcast and Week 2 of story time. It’s the season of gratitude and holiday prep. To aid in your holiday prep I am sharing with you, in each November episode, a book I think shares an important message - and maybe will make your gift giving experience easier and more fun.  Last week was Six and Spider Jungle, a kid’s book about accepting everyone with all their wonderful differences, and this week we get a little more serious as the author of Hearts of the Fathers, Sheldon Lawrence, joins me for a preview of his book. Stay tuned and see if you get what so many have gotten out of this book….a changed desire to

Episode 179: Six in Spider Jungle - Interview Jef Olsen   It’s November and we are all starting to look for ideas for holiday gifts. Well, my two November episodes are going to provide you with some wonderful story gift ideas. Each episode will be a discussion with an author about a story book that may be just the thing you need. You’ll have to listen in and see, each week will be a very different type of book.  This week I’ll start out with a quote from Maya Angelou, she said, “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” Maya’s words of wisdom starts out this episode perfectly, because today you get to hear a story about a spider named Rex who had 6 legs instead of 8. Read by the author Jef Olsen, this new book is a reminder that being yourself puts something wonderful into the world that wasn’t there before.   Tune into the audio program for a little story time, and a way to get a free digital copy for yourself or someone on your gift list.   Jef O

Episode 178: Ghost Stories Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast, it’s our Halloween 2020 episode.  Have you ever seen a ghost? Experienced energy from the unseen? Felt something you couldn’t see or had doors slam for no reason? The world is full of ghost stories. For Halloween I opened up the phone lines to have people call in and share their own ghost stories. Stay tuned for the call ins and get a little ghost story thrill to prepare you for Halloween…. I’ll start our spooky episode with this quote from George Q. Cannon -  "There are places....where the influence or the presence of invisible spirits are very perceptibly felt...and that...evil influences or spirits...affect (us)..... I have come to the conclusion that if our eyes were open to see the spirit world around us, we should feel differently on the subject than we do; we would not be so unguarded and careless and so indifferent whether we had the spirit and power of God with us or not; but we would be continually watchful and prayerful to

Episode 177: Dealing with Anger - Interview Lara Johnson Welcome back to the Love Your Story podcast. Today we are talking about ANGER and how to deal with it. Anger, like all the “negative” emotions we feel, is often something we feel like we have to suppress in order to be a “good” person. But what happens when we suppress our feelings rather than allow and experience them? I’m not advocating for zero self-control, rather I want to explore with you a real life story that can show us what suppressed anger can do to us and how acceptance and allowance of our emotions helps us heal. Today my guest is Lara Johnson. After being molested as a child Lara was angry. Anger became her constant companion, but also her shackles. Giving herself permission to BE angry changed her life and allowed her to move on once and for all. Stay tuned to hear her story and to talk to this now certified life coach as she helps us with tips and understanding for dealing with our own emotions. Tune in to the audio program to hear

Episode 175: 7 Tips from 7 InfluencersNear the end of 2019 a group of influencers met for lunch. Their purpose was for each to come to understand better the good that the others were trying to do in the world and to see how they might support each another and help each other along their individual paths. At the end of that 4-hour lunch and cram session I asked each to share with me/my audience one piece of advice that they felt, from their experience, was most important - the piece of advice they wanted to leave for the world, and we proceeded to think, laugh, and share our way around the circle. Stay tuned for these 7 tips on living well, from 7 people who aren’t just thinking about making a mark on the world, but are actually doing it.   In Oprah’s book, What I Know for Sure,  she says, “I live in the space of thankfulness - and for that, I have been rewarded a million times over. I started out giving thanks for small things, and the more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased, That’s bec

Episode 174: Challenge #5 - Giving the Benefit of the DoubtWelcome Listeners to the Love Your Story podcast. Today’s episode is a part of a series where I am going into more detail on each of the challenges in my book - LIFE  - which stands for: Living Intentional and Fearless Everyday, the 21 Life Connection Challenges - today is all about Challenge #5 - Give someone the benefit of the doubt. Just a quick recap -  In episode 12 and 89 I went into some wonderful detail about the process of doing Random Acts of Kindness, which is Challenge # 1 in the 21 Life Connection Challenges. In episode 163 I went into detail with Ashley Stuart, a de-clutter expert, and we talked about why challenge #2 - to get rid of 1 thing you no longer need - is so much more important than this simple act seems on the surface.  In episode 169 I tackled an in-depth on challenge #3 where we looked at what it really means and looks like to find the lesson in something that doesn’t go your way. Again, great stuff with

Episode173 - Rare Faith: Interview with Leslie Householder  Welcome back to the Love Your Story podcast my beloved audience. How many of you have heard of the term, “Rare Faith?” There is the simple faith that we have knowing the sun will rise each morning, because we’ve seen it thousands of times. Then there is the type of faith that makes things happen. Today on the show I have Leslie Householder. Stay tuned for lots of wisdom from this woman who has the Rare Faith Platform where she teaches universal laws.   Leslie is the ward-winning international best selling author of The Jackrabbit Factor, Portal to Genius and Hidden Treasures. These books are all about how we access heaven’s help in our money matters and how this rare faith is the key to making things happen. She has helped people all over the world discover and apply the Rare kind of faith that causes powerful life changes. She takes time to help those in her audience crush every challenge, achieve every goal, and vanquish every monster und

Episode 172: Letting Go of the Past - Interview with Djana KazicWhat happens when you have a past that you need to let go of? My guest today is Dana Kazic, born and raised in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Caught in the middle of the Bosnian conflict, shot as a teenager during that war, Djana says the saddest thing she sees is how so many people play the victim role - she still sees it in Bosnia - people who can’t let go of wrongs done to them. Her choice to finally leave the area, despite her close relationship to her family, to create a better destiny for herself is a story she wants to share. She says, “Everyone is the creator of their own universe. Your thoughts and words become your reality. Dare to dream for fortune follows the brave.” Stay tuned for Djana’s story and what she learned having spent 3 years mostly without electricity, water, little food and grenades constantly falling on them, never knowing if she would see her family again from day to day.   Djana has spent her time since the war

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Episode 169: Challenge #3: Find the Lesson in Something that Doesn't Go Your WayWelcome Listeners to the Love Your Story podcast. Today’s episode is a part of a series where I am going into more detail on each of the challenges in my book - LIFE Living Intentional and Fearless Everyday, the 21 Life Connection Challenges. In episode 89 I went into some wonderful detail about the process of doing Random Acts of Kinds - and we got feedback from the RAK night and what they looked like, what popped up for those doing the acts of kindness, and what feelings and thoughts doing the RAK’s generated in those doing them. It’s all a lot less predictable than it sounds. In episode 163 I went into detail with Ashley Stuart, a de-clutter expert, and we talked about why challenge #2 - to get rid of 1 think you no longer need - is so much more important than this simple act seems on the surface.  These episodes open up the wonderful egg of why these challenges were included in the book in the first place by getting

Episode 168: My Last Bad Day - The SHIFT - Interview Michael O'Brien  On the morning of July 11, 2001, Michael O’Brien, an avid cyclist, was riding his bicycle on a New Mexico road when an SUV hit him head-on going 40 mph. The crushing accident left him near death as the mede-vac helicopter descended to take his broken body to be pieced back together. Today Michael is with us and will take us to the darkness of his accident and the long, slow road to recovery, but he’ll also take us to his shift - the moment when he decided it was the power of his mind that would decide the rest of his life. It wasn’t the tragedy that would define him, but how he responded to the tragedy. I recently returned from a Genius Bootcamp, put on by Leslie Householder, in Arizona. The concept behind her teachings are a greater understanding of universal law and how to implement those laws for the greatest most powerful creations of our own lives. At the very foundation of universal law is the understanding of the power of the hu

Episode 166: Life Interrupted - Problems Call Forth our Courage and our WisdomScott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled said, “Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.”  Stay tuned for today’s episode which I have created to remind you about all the courage and wisdom you’ve gained from your problems and challenges, and that life interrupted is actually just life. As most of you know, the Love Your Story podcast started from an earlier time in my life where I didn’t love my story. I felt shame and disappointment about my three failed marriages. I felt like I had failed in places where I was meant to succeed. What I wasn’t seeing during those rough years was that the relationship problems and all my efforts at saving my relationships, the struggles and the learning, the mistakes, the stretching that was required in the most painful places, and maybe especially the spiri

Episode166: Born to Succeed - Interview Braxton NielsenAugust 31, 2017 Braxton Nielsen was crushed and paralyzed by a bucking bronco in a rodeo in Filer, Idaho. Growing up his dad always told him he was born to succeed. Those comments created a mindset that would serve Braxton as he faced a broken back.  Aways interested in rodeo, Braxton placed 8th in the nation in 2017 and then went pro. His dream of becoming a world champion bareback rider was getting closer and closer, but life happened and after the accident Braxton was given less than a 5% chance of walking again.  Five fused vertebrae’s, two rods, eight screws, numbness in his right leg and can’t feel his left foot. Recover is a long road, but stay tuned today to hear about his journey and to soak in some of that positive attitude that Braxton exudes as he talks about life.   Braxton was born and raised in Roosevelt Utah where he now resides with his lovely wife Heather. He grew up loving the outdoors, spending time with family, and he w

Episode 165 COVID 19 Survivor Story:Interview Matt Newey  Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. Over the past month I’ve listened to a number of podcast hosts hop on and talk about their take regarding COVID 19 and the Coronavirus. I’m almost sick of hearing about it, but one thing I haven’t heard is a real first-hand account of having the virus. So….today that’s what I’m bringing to you. Stay tuned for my interview with Matt Newey, a 23 year old outdoor photographer/video from Centerville, UT. Who, on March 19th, was Utah’s 78th confirmed Covid-19 case.    Matt Newey most likely contracted the virus while on a ski trip to Colorado with four friends.  This is Matt’s Covid-19 story. First - let’s make Matt a real person. Here’s a little about him. Matt is a 23 year old outdoor photographer, videographer and adventurer. From the time Matt got his first Gopro camera at the age of 10 he has been videoing himself ever since doing ski backflips, rock climbing and searching