Intentional Living With Tanya Hale

So much of our society is trying to sell us on the idea that self-care involves spending a lot of money at the nail or lash salon, or at the spa.  But self care goes a lot deeper than indulging ourselves.  Self-care really isn't always a lot of fun, it can be difficult and even boring. Self-care involves doing the things we need to every day, and week, and month to keep ourselves in a good place mentally and emotionally.  Let's talk about what those things are today, shall we?

What so many of us seek for is true belonging with other people, but we often think we can get there by trying to fit in.  But where belonging is bring our true selves to the table, fitting in tries to change who we are in order to be a part of the group.  Today we are discussing how these concepts of belonging and fitting in work with ourselves and with our children and others closest to us.

Self-esteem is a topic that is constantly being covered in women's and parenting magazines.  We hear about how our self-esteem impacts our choices for both good and for bad.  And yet so much of the information about how to create a healthy self-esteem is focused on external changes, when what really needs to happen are internal changes that create more self-respect.  Let's chat about this today, shall we?

Sometimes it can seem so much easier to have compassion for others than it can be to have compassion for ourselves.  But self-compassion is a vital element in our having a life filled with peace, contentment, and happiness.  In this episode we are discussing what self-compassion is and how we can draw upon it when we need it, which is most days!

Forgiving ourselves for things we have done can be a pretty difficult challenge sometimes.  But learning to understand our life experience in the context of God's Plan of Salvation can help us see how forgiving ourselves is not only part of our human process, but a necessary one if we are to find the promised peace that we so desperately seek during these times.  

Ugh.  Divorce.  What a topic.  But I frequently have people ask me about my divorce and how I came to the decision to file after 4 kids and 24 years of marriage.  And I know I sought similar  information from other women whom I admired before I made my decision.  So today I'll tell you my process of coming to the decision to file for divorce and how I knew it was the right one.  Though my situation will not be your situation, I pray that if you're working through this that something will be helpful to you.

Do you remember the life you envisioned when you were a young 20? I do too.  And the circumstances I imagined back then are nothing like the life I'm living now.  But all is not lost!  When I come to realize that although I can’t choose the circumstances of the life I’m living, I can choose how to live with the circumstances of my life, then I can come to a place of peace, contentment, and growth.  Join me today as we discuss how we can learn to take our circumstances and turn them into growth opportunities.  

Pain.  Definitely not one of our favorite things to feel, but it is an inevitable part of life.  Today we are discussing three ways we tend to want to deal with pain that are not helpful at all: avoiding, resisting, and reacting.  But, we're also going to talk about how to process pain so that we can work through it and come out the other side in a better place.

Do you ever feel you would like a little more validation in your life?  But then we get it and it seems it's never enough, we still don't feel appreciated for all of our sacrifices and efforts.  Today we are talking about external validation versus internal validation.  Real purpose in life comes from our own internal validation rather than the external validation from other people.  So how do we get there?  Let's talk about it.  

So today we go into detail about how to coach yourself.  We will discover how to decide what the circumstance is, and what your thoughts are.  Then we'll discuss how to fill out the thought model to come to an awareness of how your thoughts impact and create your feelings, actions, and the results of your life.  This is the basic process for learning how to see yourself more clearly and understand how you can take more control of your life.

What do boundaries have to do with healthy relationships?  Everything!  Today we're going to talk about how our thoughts can help us to respect other people's boundaries so we can have greater connection and satisfaction in our relationships.  

You know that lady that offended you last week?  She didn't really offend you.  She just acted like a human.  You chose to take her words or actions and think about them in such a way that you hurt your own feelings.  Getting offended is such a "go-to" when we don't want to take responsibility for our own feelings, but feeling offended is entirely up to us.  We choose what to think about what other people do or say, they actually don't have any control at all -- unless we give it to them.  Join me today as we talk more in-depth about how we can never be offended again.

Oh my gosh!  How many of us find ourselves totally stuck in life sometimes?!?  Definitely me.  We're in a situation and we can't figure out how to get out of it and move on.  Well, today we're discussing how to get unstuck.  What are the types of thoughts that keep us stuck and what are the types of thought that get us unstuck and keep us moving forward and progressing?  I know this is a shocker, but it all begins with our thoughts.  

Adversity.  Just the word can cause us to shrink back and want to hide in a corner.  But despite all of its struggles and challenges and frustrations, adversity is one of the greatest blessings in our lives.  It can take us from a life of stagnation to a life of growth and happiness. Today we discuss all the ways adversity is actually a huge blessing in our lives.

This is the second half of an interview I had with my 19 year old daughter, Allison, almost four years after my divorce.  She showed up with some vulnerability talking about the effects the divorce has had on her, both good and bad.  If you know a teenager impacted by divorce, this is insightful to see things from one child's perspective on her parents' divorce.  

This is the first half of an interview I had with my 19 year old daughter, Allison, almost four years after my divorce.  She showed up with some vulnerability talking about the effects the divorce has had on her, both good and bad.  If you know a teenager impacted by divorce, this is insightful to see things from one child's perspective on her parents' divorce.  

For many of us, our past can be one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome in this life.  Experiences from when we were younger, or even just last week, can weigh us down with feelings of worthlessness, anxiety, frustration, and anger.  In this episode we are discussing how to see things from our past as things in the past, and not something to dictate our today or tomorrow.  Here's a hint - it has everything to do with how we choose to think about them!

It is so easy to get caught up in the blame game!  It's just such a natural part of being a human.  But blaming instead of taking responsibility is a place where we become the victim, a place where we have no control over where we are and how we got there.  Responsibility is a place of empowerment where we realize that we are in control of our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, and ultimately the results in our lives.  Join me today as we discuss what blame looks like, and how to move from blame to responsibility.

Alright.  Today we're hitting some of the basics of self-coaching, figuring out how to tell the difference between the facts in our story and our thoughts in our story.  This is the first and most important skill to master in being able to start moving towards a more healthy emotional life and being in control of our emotions and how much drama we experience.  

All of us find ourselves in a place of overwhelm at times.  Today we're discussing how to get out of it, and how to keep from going there as often and as deep.