Category Archives: coaching

Posted on

Helping You Pivot Through Adversity and The Secret Sauce to Turning It All Around

Let’s be honest, easy and convenient are what we work for. We work hard so life can be easy. A pivot through adversity? Hardly fits the definition of convenient.

So it seems quite fitting to say, pivoting through adversity as a single mom sounds a bit like being thrown into a never-ending nightmare.

And while your pivot may be personal or professional, I would suggest, for the most part, and from personal experience, the percentage who have what it takes to pivot through adversity and bravely step into the uncertainty and inconvenience?

Itty-bitty, my friend. Itty-bitty.

For the sake of this post, let’s assume you’ve already done your homework and made the hard decision to pivot over persevering.

Or perhaps your pivot is part of the perseverance?

Either way, you are the brave single mom who’s got the audacity to grab life by the horns, go rogue, and tackle the big pivot during a crisis of any sort.

I’ve had a few pivoting moments in my life, both personal and professional. One of those occurred just after September 11th. And while I am no expert, I do believe I have a few treasures to share with you.

Through the process of picking the brains of my more brilliant minded friends and rummaging through my own backyard, here are four golden tips to help you plunge into a pivot of your very own.

Posted on

A Call Into the Wild: Trust God’s Truth to Guide You Through the Wilderness

This is an invitation. A call for those in the wilderness. Trust God’s truth to guide you through.

As the global health and economic pandemic escalates, so are your concerns about your livelihood and ability to survive this crisis at a time when you were already facing catastrophic shifts.

Custody battles, separation, and divorce are unplanned events that can leave your soul parched and your land desolate during what may feel like a season of wilderness in a thirsty desert. 

Uncultivated and uncertain places can be scary, especially if you are alone. But God promises that He will comfort you and will turn your wasteland into a garden of joy.

Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places And her wilderness He will make like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and sound of a melody. ~ Isaiah 51:3, NKJV

Mama, negative feelings around your ability to manage a household through difficult times can disrupt personal thoughts or beliefs about yourself. You may even deem yourself incapable of the discipline that is required to journey the wilderness alone.

Do you desire full restoration and recovery, but doubt if you can get you there safely?

Do you harbor a false perception of self that causes you to abandon God’s truth in exchange for a lie?

God wants you to know that believing self-defeating lies are blocking your progress. It’s time to align your belief system with His comforting truth.

Trusting God’s truth takes time. Are you ready to go deeper?

Posted on

Finding Freedom From the Overwhelm of Your Single Motherhood

Finding freedom from the overwhelm of your single motherhood

I set on the foot of the bed, holding my littlest one in one arm and wiping the tears streaming down my face with the other. I set there with little desire to move from the comfort of my bedroom.

It was just passed 8 a.m. and my husband stood in the doorway. His blank face showed zero ability to decide on his next steps as he faced a busy workday and great need for me to pull it together.

Backed into a self-inflicted corner, with a to-do list I clung to, I could barely breathe.

A moment, drenched in overwhelm, had forced its way into our home.

For both of us, the word overwhelm came nothing close to an explanation of the emotional chaos we felt that morning.

Red flags?

They had gone flat out ignored or unattended.

But this day, arriving with an early morning southern California breeze, pushed its way onto the scene. In all my exasperation, my usual ability to drive myself forward had reached, in all seriousness, an all-time low.

Confused and starring at the floor as if it were a road leading the way, I was officially stuck.

This is my most recent overwhelm story and the one I want to connect with you on.

For several reasons..

Posted on

10 Single Mom Steps To Help You Monitor Your Tween and Teens Cell Phone

Because the life of the single mom is already hectic, I’ve designed a list of 10 Single Mom Steps to Help You Monitor Your Tween and Teens Cell Phone.

Time in the world of a single parent is very precious and limited, and how much safer do we feel to be able to connect with our kids at the drop of a text or call?

Just get them a cell phone, they say. It’ll be easier.

Only— it’s not.

Posted on

Dear Single Mom, Parenting with Crazy Doesn’t Exist

And Don't be Afraid to Let the Kids Know

One of the saddest days for me, as a single mom, was the day my daughter saw her father for who he really is. The day she could no longer lie to her heart. The day she called it for what it was. That was almost 6 years ago. That day, life for us didn’t get any easier. It actually got harder.

Today, I’m speaking to the single moms who are raising their littles with a father who’s been a perpetual heartbreaker to your babies. And you, mom, continue to catch the tears on your shoulders over and over through the years.

I have walked away from too many articles like this one and this one . I’ve come across too many books, like this one and this one. I’ve left one too many front row seats where “professionals” held the mic and delivered the age-old message of the negative impact of “bad mouthing” the other parent. I’ve left those books, articles, and speeches fighting back the shame of my emotions from the truth I have spoken to my daughter through the years about who her father is. Feeling ashamed that I didn’t try hard enough to parent with crazy.

For too many years,  I’ve listened and entertained the idea that my child will be eternally damaged by my words of poor expression.

I call total bull shit on this theory and for the record, parenting with crazy doesn’t exist. 

Posted on

4 Steps to Cultivate Contentment

When You Need So Much

Cultivating Contentment. Can I just start off by saying this has GOT to be a life-long learning lesson that presents unique challenges with every new and old season we encounter.

It has proven this way for me and many of my friends. Even those that I think have mastered life’s problems, seem to land in places of discontent.

Like an unfinished piece of art.

I struggled with finding contentment most when I…

Posted on

3 Benefits of Applying One of the Best Tools You Will Ever Master as a Single Mom

Boundaries

 

Boundaries. For some this concept is simple. Easy. A no brainer. They whip these things out like CHUDAN ZUKI — a wild karate chop delivered straight to their opponents gut. You’re welcome.

For others? It’s a disaster. An emotional debacle in it’s purest form.

I fall into the later category. Depending on the season I am in, the idea of setting boundaries can make my skin crawl. I am by nature the co-dependent, emotional nurturer to the state of depleted and broken. As a busy single mom with too much on my plate, the word made my head spin with one thousand three hundred and forty-two excuses.

But once I typed that seven letter word into Google and began to process the little fella, it all started to make sense. Now, six years later, I have become nearly dependent on them. They keep me safe. They keep my home in order by providing structure, guidelines, and expectations. When things get out of control around these parts I can usually track it back to slacking off on not carrying through with the boundaries I have already established.

Because starting something new and unfamiliar can be overwhelming, especially when you are inundated with so much as a single mom, I thought it would be nice to walk you through a few of the benefits you can expect to see as a result of putting a few simple boundaries in place.

Benefits that will give you more freedom and control over the mess you might currently be dealing with.

Posted on

10 Triggers That Are Sure to Make Any Single Mom Go Mad

A Two-Part Series of Self-Care

Stretched in too many directions, single moms have got a tall order of hectic on their plate. This plate, full of life’s stresses, doesn’t actually fill you up, instead, if we’re not careful, it will leave a momma hungry  — and starved. I can recall a long season of being in desperate need of some good food.  Not for the usual burger, slice of pizza or carton of ice cream, although that was and still is always welcomed. I was hungry for food that would feed my soul. Not fried chicken, chicken noodle soup or greens. No. Not that kind of soul food. But the kind of food that would set deep into my being and provide me the strength and hope to persevere the tough season I was moving through.

Being a single mom can do that to you. Turn you into a crazed and starving mad woman.

Looking back on that season, I didn’t consciously realize that I was barely hanging on. I didn’t know I was running on empty. I had been doing it for so long that it had become my new normal. Life was hard, but it was doable. I was doing it.

But I was barely doing it and at times I bet you are too. 

Posted on

Eight Proven Single Mom Strategies That Will Lead You to Success

So often, as a single mom, I was convinced I was standing in the middle of a large lake of quicksand. Regardless of the direction I stepped, it didn’t matter.  It was as if I were just hanging out in this spot, sinking in the middle of the mess. Getting ahead of the grind felt like an unobtainable task. Like sitting in a classroom waiting to take a test I never studied for over and over again. Then…..Replay. Replay. Replay.

Does what I am saying sound familiar to you? Do you know that overwhelming emotion that sits in the pit of your stomach and drives you to a nervous wreck?

Because I love you and want to see you rise above your own storms, I sat down and wrote out what tools I gathered in those many lakes of quicksand. What I walked away with and how I could help you. So here are eight of my BEST strategies to help you rise above the single mom grind. Hand delivered to your heart in hopes you won’t struggle as long as I did!

Drum roll….please!

Posted on

A Sacred Friendship

I'll Carry with Me Forever

 

The first time I spoke with her was over the phone. She wanted to go to college, and I was working at the University of Phoenix as an enrollment counselor.

Her goal was to obtain a degree in art, and because she was in and out of the hospital with ongoing medical issues, she would need a college that would allow her to earn an education online.

I must admit, I had reservations about her physical ability to move forward in the completion of an associate degree, but it was her persistence, confidence, and determination that told me otherwise. She was going to college regardless of my enrolling her or not. I came to the decision that I was glad to be a part of her journey. I was more than excited to be the enrollment counselor who would cheer her on and help her succeed in whatever way was presented to me.

And that I did.

But what I didn’t know was that our crossing of paths that day on the phone would turn into an eight-year friendship where she would be the one enrolling me into a classroom of mine own. A class that would teach me life long lessons of love, courage, and friendship.