I gotta be honest and tell you what happened. If you follow me on social media, you might have seen that I put out all the things, I preschedule a lot of my posts so that I have everything organized and everything goes together and I know what I’m doing. And I posted about this episode and it didn’t actually show up.

So if you checked your app and you’re wondering where is this episode? Uh, it was a little bit late. My daughter fell off a stage and we thought that she broke both her elbows. They weren’t sure. They did some x-rays and it was kind of hard to tell, but there were some signs that she might have broken both her elbows and we had to go to the doctor three separate times in one week.

And we live in a small town kind of far away from our doctors that we go to. And so I spent a lot of time driving back and forth to the city. Making sure she was okay. She was okay.

Now, during that time, I recorded this episode. I had an outline. I had it ready. I was actually halfway done editing it, and I thought I just, the vibe is off. I don’t like it.

I stand behind everything I said, it’s just that the energy was off and I really wanted to fix it, but things were just busy and I didn’t get it out. So it’s out a little bit late if you’re listening to this just in order, you wouldn’t even notice, but if you’ve been wondering where it is, that’s where it was.

And so I want to share this because I think number one, it’s good to be honest and transparent that life coaches do not have everything together, and especially being a mom, entrepreneur, there’s gonna be stuff that comes up. It’s okay to do things messy. It’s okay to do things imperfectly. It’s okay to do like C minus work and still get it done.

And actually, I think that you are gonna love this episode even more than the one I recorded before. It’s a lot of the same stuff, but it’s just, it’s in a different way and I’m in a different head space, and so I hope you really, really enjoy this episode about having productive conversations.

Why do we need help with this? Why do so many of us really struggle to have conversations that we know we need to have? That we want to have? Right in our head we’re saying. I wanna have this conversation. I wanna maybe fix this problem or get this thing resolved but we’re so scared to do it and we really can feel stuck.

I want you to think about in your own life, what is a conversation that you have been putting off. Maybe it’s something in your family, maybe it’s something with a coworker. Maybe it’s going back and talking to your doctor or your medical care team or finally sitting down and talking about what kind of urn you want to put your baby’s ashes in with your partner.

It really could be anything and. And you can feel really, really stuck. And it feels really heavy because you’re really fighting against yourself. You’re afraid to say what you want to say, right? It’s very scary. It seems really scary and dangerous to have this conversation now. One of the reasons it’s so scary is because we tend to want people to be happy with us. We want them to like us. We don’t wanna cause conflict.

We have this vision of who we are and maybe having this conversation changes that vision of ourselves. Or we’re worried that other people will think something about us if we say something.

That’s okay. I want you to understand, we wanna give ourselves love and compassion for all these reasons that we stay stuck and don’t have conversations, but also be onto your brain and notice where it’s really feeling like if I have this conversation, I might die. I might get expelled from my group. I might freeze in the cold outside of the cave, but think about how heavy it is to carry this over and over to just say, I know I need to talk to this person. I’m afraid to do it.

And sometimes we’re afraid of the answer. It’s easier to keep living in a delusion, right?

Keep living the way we’re living, not say anything, kind of pretend that everything’s fine because we’re really afraid of the answer or the consequence of having this conversation. We’re afraid of what the other person’s going to say or how they might react.

I never know how much to share on here because it’s ongoing.

But right now I have a certain teacher that one of my children has, and I’ve had to have a few conversations. And I think in those situations, sometimes you’re not only afraid of how the teacher might react, but afraid of, will this have repercussions on my child? Will it have repercussions on the person?

I want a good relationship with my children’s teachers, and so if I have a conversation, am I going to ruin that and are they going to be mad at me? Are they going to, like I said, take it out on my child? In some ways, not on purpose because I believe, you know, most teachers are are kind in doing their best, but it’s a concern.

And so notice all the ways that your brain is telling you it’s dangerous to have these conversations and notice how uncomfortable it feels, and how really there’s so many unknowns that it’s hard for your brain to even imagine this going well, and that’s why we don’t wanna have conversations.

Now sometimes we do have conversations and we go into them, but we aren’t clean in our thinking.

When I say clean, I mean you’ve coached yourself. You’ve recognized your part in this. You’ve taken responsibility for it. You go into the conversation really wanting the other person to change. So maybe if it’s a partner, you go into a conversation just wanting to tell them how they need to be different so that you can feel better.

This is something we call a manual. So a lot of conversations are just us sharing our manual and wanting the other person to just agree with us and comply.

I hate to tell you this, but most people don’t like being told what to do and most people aren’t gonna change just because you tell them to, even if they love you, even if they try.

There’s some things that we just can’t control and other human beings is one of those things.

This is where it can get really, really frustrating, is maybe we’ve had the conversation that we know we need to have again, we’ve had it over and over and over, and we just keep saying, why doesn’t it work? Why don’t they get it?

Why don’t they understand what I’m saying? But the real problem is we aren’t clean. We are expecting other people to make us feel better and. Just not how it works. The only way that we feel better is when we take care of ourselves, when we coach ourselves, when we manage our own mind, when we take care of our own emotions, everything is gonna be so much better.

And I get this question a lot, which is, well, if my emotions and my thoughts or my responsibility, you’re just saying, I should just let everyone do whatever they want. Why would I even have a conversation if I can’t change what people think or feel?

Well, the reason is you are allowed to make requests. You are allowed to communicate. If you don’t like how things are going at your job, you can have a conversation about that. But look at the difference. If you go to, say your coworker and give them a list of all the ways that they’re messing up and making your job harder and basically just dump it all on them. They’re probably gonna react pretty defensively. It may be a little more confrontational than what you would like, and in the end, what did you accomplish? Like now you’ve just basically given them a list of complaints with no plan for moving forward. Right, and you’ve kind of just dropped your emotions and your experience at work on their lap in this way. And for the most part, that’s not gonna be productive.

What you wanna do for it to be productive is have kind of managed your own mind, figured a lot of stuff out, and come up with a solution before you go into the conversation.

And we’re gonna talk about that a little bit more in just a second but I want you to notice there’s a lot of what if questions, and this happens a lot, especially after loss. We have a lot of unknowns and we’re really worried about the future. But notice when you’re not having conversations or when you’re having these conversations and they’re just going around and around, we have a lot of what if questions.

What if they get upset? What if they take it out on my kid? What if this goes badly. What if I bring up something and I don’t get the answer that I’m looking for and I finally have to face the truth of what’s going on?

This is especially in relationships, cuz the closer we are to people, the more vulnerable it feels to have these honest conversations because it feels like there’s more to lose and we just need to be aware of that and notice it.

Here’s an example I get a lot. What if I tell my husband I really wanna have another baby? And he says, no. That seems really devastating and going into that conversation, you’re gonna have so many what ifs. What if he doesn’t agree? What if he doesn’t wanna do it right now? What if he says no, I never wanna have any more kids.

So we stay in this uncomfortable of just not having the answer, not knowing the answer, because having the answer seems really, really scary. So we almost choose that uncomfortable of not knowing. On purpose, but we’re not paying attention, right?

This is kind of our brain on default. It will do that. It will say, I’d rather stay low level uncomfortable than to have a conversation and actually get an answer.

But the thing is, if you want a productive conversation, you have to be open to anything happening. You have to be open to people being honest and make a space where they can be honest.

Notice all these what if questions, and then we’re gonna turn them around as we move into how can we make this productive?

What I want you to know is it’s so important to be open to being uncomfortable on purpose. That other kind of uncomfortable keeps us stuck. It keeps us afraid. There’s a lot of anxiety and it’s just this constant thing we’re carrying. When we decide to be uncomfortable on purpose, it means we know that it might be scary going into this conversation. We know we might have to get out of our comfort zone. We might have to be more clear, more assertive than maybe we normally are. Whatever it is, when we choose to be uncomfortable on purpose and open up to any emotion, then we get our power back because we’re not hiding from the conversation, because we’re not hiding from the emotions that we think we’ll feel if we have the conversation and all the things that might come up.

Another example is people who want to come to a connection call. I am guessing there are people listening right now who have thought, I really wanna take this to the next level. I want coaching, but they have so many what ifs and they’re nervous or they’re afraid to come and talk to me, which I don’t know why. I’m really, really nice and I think connection calls are so much fun and I love getting to meet you and hearing all about you and your babies and how you found me and what brought you here, it’s, I think it’s just such a beautiful thing.

You might have some fears, you might have some anxieties. Maybe you don’t know how to use zoom. Maybe you’re afraid to, you don’t like being on webcam. Maybe you’re afraid to let yourself dream about investing yourself in yourself. You’re afraid to let yourself say yes. You’re afraid that I’m gonna, you know, say something you don’t like.

Whatever it is that’s stopping you from coming to a connection call, I want you to turn those what ifs around, right?

What if this is amazing? What if this is so much fun? What if there’s no pressure at all? What if I don’t need to have my webcam on? We can just do it a different way and I can communicate that I’m totally open to that. There’s a lot of things that keep us stuck and, and we don’t get what we want. We don’t get help. We don’t get support. We don’t get coaching. We don’t learn how to manage our minds 10 times better than just listening to the podcast alone.

So I want you to think about that. What is the conversation that I’ve been avoiding? What’s the conversation I’ve had a million times that I know I need to approach in a different way?

So here is what I want you to do. Number one, we’re gonna use what if to your advantage. Again, what if this is the best thing I can do? What if this time we’re gonna make progress? What if it’s okay to feel some uncomfortable emotions? It’s gonna be worth it. Use that. What if to imagine the best case scenario.

Maybe you wanna ask for a raise at work, and there’s a lot of what ifs that are scaring. Well, what if you get it? What if your boss is like, yes, of course. I’ve been thinking about how we can support you in this role cuz we just love you so much and you’re so amazing and they just give you like rain down all these compliments and you get a raise.

What if that happens? What if everything you’ve ever dreamed comes true simply because you weren’t afraid to ask for?

We need to go into it self coaching, use the model: circumstance, thought, feelings, action, result.

What is your circumstance? What are you trying to accomplish? What is your goal? Put that into the result line.

When you go into a conversation, say, what do I wanna get out of this? Right? And if your goal is just to tell someone what a terrible person they. That goal doesn’t feel good, right? But if your goal is to be honest about what you need and how you’d like to move forward, then you’re gonna be able to create that.

If you use self-coaching and you take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings and how you’re showing up, it is a night and day different. When you come into a conversation clean and prepared, rather than dumping all the responsibility onto the other person.

I want you to be clear and really make a decision ahead of time. So you need to know what you want. This is the same thing, right? We know what our result is. Make a decision ahead of time.

So maybe you’re thinking about coaching and you wanna talk to your, your partner about it. If you go into the conversation saying, well, I’m kind of thinking about doing coaching. This is what it costs, and I think it would be pretty good, but I’m not sure. What do you think your partner most likely is gonna pick up on your uncertain energy? And they’re gonna say, you know what? Probably not a great idea.

But if you decide I want coaching, I’m gonna clean up my thoughts, I’m gonna know what I’m looking for and why I want. I am going to have my decision made ahead of time, and then I’m gonna bring it to my partner and say, here is what I want, and here is why. And why I think it’s gonna benefit me and you and our whole family for me to take care of myself and why it’s worth the time and the money.

Your partner loves you and wants to support you, right? And so how are they gonna react when you bring it to them that way? Such a different energy.

So I really encourage you, whatever you are trying to communicate, be clear and be ready, know what you want and move to make that happen, right?

We’re not trying to control anybody else. We are really just trying to connect and find that feeling that we’re looking for.

And the last thing I want you to do is trust yourself. You can do this and you can do this messy. Look at me. Sometimes I throw out my podcast a few days late because life got a little wild.

Go into this conversation not needing to be perfect. With all the things that I’ve just told you. You’re still a human. There’s still a lot of factors whenever we’re dealing with other humans. So just know this might be messy. I might stumble over my words. I might not be as confident as I want. I might doubt myself or forget a point I wanted to make or whatever it is, but you did it.

Trust yourself. You’re doing it. You’re trying. And that is how we get better, right? That’s how we get more confident. That’s how we find our way. That’s how we get what we want. It is okay for you to make requests. It is okay for you to share how you feel. It is okay for you to ask for more. You deserve more.

You deserve everything, right?

I just can’t say this enough. Grieving moms are incredible and they deserve everything that they want. You’ve had to give back some of the most precious things in your heart for a little while, but you can ask for things and you can trust yourself that you’re gonna get it.

And it might take more than one try. It might take going at it a different way. It might take a lot of self coaching. To really figure out how to have a production conversation and how to get what you want, and that’s okay.

We’re all just here trying to learn to better ourselves, to become more confident, to be more of us, right? As we go into this.

Who are you? Who do you want to be? How do you wanna show up to these conversations? Be your favorite version of yourself, and love yourself as you do this.

I really wanna encourage you if there’s a conversation you’ve been putting off, please, think about this. Listen to this episode a couple times if you need to, or I want you to come to a connection call and talk to me, and I will help you.

In coaching we’re gonna dive right in, and if you say, you know what? There’s this conversation I really need to have, we are going to show you how to do that and give you the confidence and the support you need to be able to improve your relationships in your family, in your home, in your workplace, wherever it is, because your life is just so much better when you know how to have productive conversations and you don’t feel stuck anymore.

I have a special bonus, I’m not sure how long I’m gonna run it, but. For the next little while, anyone who comes to a connection call is going to get a set of Cards for Joy for free.

I really encourage you to come. If you’re serious about coaching and you, you’ve just been putting it off, what I wanna do is make it a little bit easier for you to get over that hump that hill and just say, yes, I’m gonna get on a connection call because it’s gonna be worth it, right? You’re gonna be nervous or whatever. You’re gonna get a set of cards out of it. And they’re such good cards. They’ve full of affirmations. They’ve got beautiful artwork. They were a labor of love for me to create. And I have some here, and I just thought, you know what? I want these in the world. I want people to have them.

So if you’ve been thinking about a connection call and you’ve been feeling stuck and uncomfortable, Here is your push.

You want a free set of Cards for Joy? Come on over. Go to this link to sign up. 

And don’t wait. Here’s the thing, sometimes we wanna prepare and sometimes we wanna just take action. I want you to take a chance on a conversation that will change your life.

Coaching absolutely changes lives. I’ve seen it for myself and I’ve seen it for my clients. Learning these tools, managing your minds, and learning to truly find yourself again after loss is, I mean, it’s the best thing you can do for yourself and for everyone you love. So head on over to the show notes.

I hope to be able to see your smiling faces, and I hope that this is a push you need to have some more productive conversations in your life. I’ll talk to you next time.