Hey, how are things in your world? How is your heart? I really do want to know. I wish you could speak back to me. There’s lots of ways to get in contact with me. You can go on the show notes and find those, but I got to update you. Uh, it has been a week since we closed on our house. Everything went through.

I was so, so nervous. I think last time I was recording, like we obviously hadn’t done all the paperwork and move the, you know, the money around and just was really kind of excited and nervous for everything to just go through and it did. So I am celebrating that everything went through really smoothly, actually.

So all the preparation, all the weeks and weeks of paperwork and figuring things out, like it all went really, really well. And we are just slowly moving our things in. We’re not living there for another like six weeks. So we got some projects. We’re really excited. Um, I will try to, I’m not. really great at doing like those before and after project videos, but I do love them.

So I will try like we’re installing a backsplash. We’re building a little, um, fakie fireplace TV thing with some shelves. We’re going to put in a yard, like there’s lots of stuff. So if I do anything cool, um, Go check me out on Instagram at amy. smoothstonescoaching. I will probably post that there. It’s going to be really fun.

I’m, I’m excited. Uh, and something I’m really excited about for you, for you listening to this podcast, I am doing some free Mother’s Day coaching. This is something I like to do that I’ve done in the past, just before Mother’s Day. And before the holidays, I’ll sometimes just throw out there some free coaching sessions.

There are no strings attached to this. This isn’t like some sneaky. sales thing, or I’m going to try to sell you my program. I don’t need to try to sell you my program. It’s awesome. If you want it. Come join me. But yeah, these are really just my gift to you. And it’s an opportunity for you to get to know me and to ask any questions and to really just bring something you need coaching on.

But most importantly, what, what we’ll be focusing on is Mother’s Day, bereaved Mother’s Day and how you’re feeling about it. Are you dreading it? Are you getting emotional? Are you afraid you’re going to burst into tears at brunch with all your family? Uh, sometimes Mother’s Day can be really heavy, not even because of our baby loss, right?

There’s relationships, there’s in laws, there’s all these expectations on our own. Like, does your partner show up and make it special or do you kind of feel disappointed at the end of every Mother’s Day? Do you not really know where you fit? Like, what is your identity? If you don’t have living children How do you celebrate Mother’s Day or do you just hide away from it?

But it’s kind of everywhere. You’re gonna see it. I noticed I’ve already got some ads about Mother’s Day and Stuff’s coming out in the stores So I’m telling you here first if you want free Mother’s Day coaching Just send me an email. So it’s really easy Amy amy at smoothstonescoaching. com and I will take care of you.

I will get you on the calendar and we will set up your session and you will leave with a plan in place to help you find peace on Mother’s Day to create the Mother’s Day experience you want. So if you want to feel special and celebrated, we’re going to do that. If you just want low drama, we’re going to do that.

If you want to honor your baby and your own motherhood, we’re going to do that. So please. Come do free mother’s day coaching. I haven’t set a limit. Honestly, I’m going to fill in as many people as I can. So tell your friends, send them over. I will hook you up as best I can as my schedule allows. Okay.

Today’s episode is so good. And I have just like so many notes and we’re just going to dive right in. I want you to know that the reason you want to listen today to this episode is I want you to feel more excited about your life. Life can be hard. Grief can be hard. There’s lots of challenges. Um, you know, there’s just a lot going on and I want you to be able to bring more excitement and fun into your everyday life.

This is not impossible. This is very doable. It’s very practical. But I wanted to kind of Base it today’s episode on this. I don’t know if I’d call it a cliche, but it’s a saying right? it’s something that we see on like posters and You know little memes and whatever But here’s the one. And I was inspired because it was very, very, very rainy when I got the idea for this.

And we’ve had a rainy cold spring where I live in Utah and it feels like it’s lasting forever, but there’s always hope. So the saying is life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain. And you have probably heard this and seen this, but I love And this is something that I see a lot in the community is people really hate cliches and they especially hate when people say cliches to them.

So, number one, I think there’s a time and a place for cliches and I never think it’s like to tell a grieving person that they shouldn’t be grieving. And usually, it’s not. Yeah, you just don’t need to say them to other people. But I, I also think there’s a lot of truth to them. And if you can find that truth, if you can just say, Hey, I can’t see that right now.

I hate that right now, but maybe, you know, someday I will be able to find the truth in that. That can be really powerful, right? We want to be curious. We want to be compassionate with ourselves, but also with other people, because most of these things that people say really do have good solid roots. It’s just sometimes the timing is off.

So this can be powerful, but you also never, ever, ever, ever have to learn to believe in any sort of cliche or saying that someone says. Let’s just talk about this one because I don’t know. I just, I love it. And if you didn’t check it out, the podcast cover, I found the picture of the cutest little girls.

I try really purposely not to have like babies or bellies or, or children. But I just, as I was looking for pictures to go with this topic, I just found these two little girls giggling under an umbrella and I just had to pick it. So go check out their little faces and that’s the energy we want to go into this.

Episode with. First I want to say also, it’s okay to prefer sun. Sometimes we’re sitting there kind of beating ourselves up being like, I’m supposed to be dancing in the rain and I just, I’m cold. I’m miserable. I’m wet. I don’t like it. I would way rather have the easy path. Of course, like I totally get that.

And you are totally allowed to prefer sunny. Calm days. We all do. It’s part of being a human. We wish we could just snowplow our way through life and it would be smooth sailing the whole time. So that’s okay. Right? So can you own that part of you that sometimes wishes you did not have all these storms in your life?

Yes. And at the same time, understand that storms are going to come. They are part of life. Yeah. They’re actually an integral part of life. They do so much. I live where I live in the desert. There’s like all these washes and these, like the rocks and the, the plants, like everything actually thrives on it being really, really dry.

And then having these really stormy storms, especially in the late summer, we get these monsoons that come through and they feed life. Um, so wherever you live, whatever type of storms, if you’ve got hurricanes, if you’ve got twisters, if you’ve got, you know, if it rains off and on every day where you live, you can adapt this.

But really, um, storms are part of life. And the more we resist them, the more we hate them, the more we suffer because we’re not going to change a storm by hating it. So that’s really, really important. It’s okay to prefer sun, but also don’t resist when there are storms. So let’s talk about, it’s not about waiting for the storm to pass.

Waiting in this case is really passive. I think that, that image that comes up is someone that’s just kind of huddled down, miserable. And you know, when you wait for something to go away, it just takes longer. Right. So it’s very passive and it’s very like victim-y where it’s like, Oh, this rain.

Is doing all these things to me. And there’s nothing I can do about it. So I do think that time when we’re talking about time, and if we’re using the storms as like grief or hard challenges in our lives in this analogy, um, Um, time can be a great buffer, but you don’t have to passively wait. I want you to actively give yourself time and care for yourself intentionally in the moment.

So I remember just being really angry when my baby River died and that was our second loss and I was so angry. And I just like let myself be angry as long as I needed to and how long I needed to was about two and a half years. So I was low key angry and mad at my doctor and mad at the lab that made mistakes and mad that I almost died and mad at God.

But I just chose that. I said, Yeah, I’m going to let myself be angry as long as I need to. And I had already been through grief. I had not felt anger like this. But I knew that when I just gave myself like a year to cry as much as I wanted to be as sad as I wanted, it was such a relief. So if you are kind of waiting for the storm to pass, or for example, if I don’t know, I don’t remember what all I’ve shared on here, but we moved last fall in with my in laws.

Because we thought we had like a quick, um, change of location happening. And then it went way, way longer. And so it was really easy to go back and forth between like being really intentional and being present and being where I was and making lots of friends and, and just enjoying where we were living while we were living there.

And then also just being so frustrated that it was taking forever. Yeah, in that case, there was a lot of time to wait and we were kind of like waiting for things to happen so that it could just be easier. And sometimes we do have to wait for things. But again, it’s like, can you stay in the present moment?

Can you take care of yourself the best you can? And can you be intentional about how you’re thinking and really what’s most important is your story about the rain.

How much space is it taking up in your mind, in your heart, how much energy is it taking up? So here’s an example. I was thinking of some things that we might say if it was raining and we weren’t very happy about it. Oh, I had to stay in all day. I couldn’t even go to the store. It was so windy and so wet.

Nobody can drive in the rain. I’m not getting out on those roads. Oh, someone always moves my raincoat. Why can’t anyone just leave the stuff where it’s supposed to be?

If I just had my raincoat, then I would go outside, but I don’t. So I have to stay inside. Right? That’s very victim y. It’s very like my life is being controlled by what is falling out of the sky and what temperature it is. This is draining. When you’re being mad, Instead of taking care of you, it’s super draining and it takes up so much mental bandwidth.

Now, if you observe yourself doing this again, there’s nothing wrong. Be compassionate. Give yourself some love. But notice it, like start noticing and questioning yourself and saying, Oh my goodness, like. Like in my case, when we were waiting for my husband’s job to make a decision and they were not doing it, it took up so much space in my head.

It took up so much energy. It was just like so frustrating and so exhausting if I wasn’t paying attention. But when I leaned into trusting, uh, it got a little bit easier. It was still uncomfortable, but it was easier.

So remember, this is our story and our story is going to affect how we feel and what results we’re getting in our lives. If we have this victim story, it’s not going to help us. Now, if you are dealing with a big scary thunderstorm, we also have choices. Do you want to be like a puppy? Who is shaking and whining, like hiding under the bed because they are just terrified.

And a dog does this because of their instincts, because of, I guess, their doggy nervous system, right? They do not like big, loud thunderstorms. It scares them, but we can have that story where we feel like I just don’t have control of myself. I have to curl up in a ball under the bed. Or. Do you want to get some cute candles, curl up with a book, or go get together with some other people, hop on the phone, you know, get your family gathered around you, make it fun during that big scary thunderstorm, right?

Because you always have that option. I think it’s actually kind of fun sometimes when the power goes out or, and you have to use candles, right? It can be really, really fun. And you have to cook in a different way. You have to get creative. Or the internet goes down and you’re like, Oh my goodness, I, things are just so much better when I don’t have my phone to distract me.

You can get so much done. It’s just, looking at what’s happening through a different lens and telling a different story and making a different choice. Again, we don’t want to be passive. We don’t want to let these storms in our life control us. We get to choose what we do. We get to choose how we feel. We get to choose how we support ourselves.

The other thing about the storm, we’re going to, we’re starting with the storm part and then we’re going to talk about the dancing in the rain part, but we always can learn, right? What can you learn to be prepared for the next storm? What can you do better? What is helpful? Maybe you need to get some candles.

Maybe you need to get some bottles of water. Maybe you need to get a better raincoat or an umbrella. We always, I feel like our umbrellas last, like, Two weeks. I don’t know. I buy some, my kids can’t stop playing with them later. They’re missing or gone or we can’t find them when it’s raining . So, um, you know, what can you do to prevent that from happening?

Because when we can take the things that we’re doing, and again, you might wanna wait till after, but when we can prepare for these storms, you don’t need to dread. What’s coming next? You don’t need to dread the next thing down the line. And I think for a lot of people who are grieving the loss of a baby, it’s like, what if there’s another death?

What if, what if this happens or someone else in my family dies or someone gets sick, right? And so we start dreading it and it’s like, listen, as hard and as messy and painful as the grief is, You’re learning things that are going to help you. You are doing it and you can just take that and move forward with it.

Okay, let’s talk about the dancing in the rain because like I said, I want this to be hopeful and exciting and motivating for you. Um, I love how in this saying, it doesn’t just say, this saying, Well, it’s not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about standing in the rain or it’s about staying inside watching the rain.

It’s joy. It’s movement. It’s momentum. It’s fun. It’s active. There’s action. Like there’s there’s so much to it. That energy of dancing in the rain is a beautiful thing. And I also love the part where it says it’s about learning to dance in the rain. We are always learning. Everything we go through is teaching us something.

We’re always learning and we’re creating a practice. We do not need to be perfect. Right? We don’t need to be perfect at this. Maybe we don’t like it at first. Maybe we don’t know how to move our body. Maybe we don’t want to dance in the rain. But that’s okay. We’re just going to try it. We’re going to go out there.

We’re going to be awkward. We’re going to have the neighbors staring out their windows at us. We’re going to have cars passing by wondering what the heck is going on. All of that is okay. You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to worry about what other people think. Um, this can happen a lot.

When you are in a challenging situation in your life, when you are dealing with a storm in your life, There’s going to be a lot of advice. There’s going to be a lot of opinions. None of it matters. What matters is what you want to do and what you want to create. So if you want to dance in the rain, that is perfect.

There’s sometimes judgment both ways. Like if you’re grieving too much or you’re too sad or you’re too worried or you’re too whatever, but it’s also like, how are they so happy? How are they so functional? How are they, you know, going on vacation when their baby died a few months ago or whatever it is.

Listen, none of it matters. All that matters is that you live your life the way you want to live it. That’s what I want for you. So when you dance, turning it around, right? From this focusing on the storms, but when you’re dancing, what are you focused on? Where is your energy going? What is on your mind?

Children are a great example of this. Like, they just love it. They are in the moment. They are present. They don’t care if they have homework, or they were supposed to clean their room, or whatever it is. If there is some rain happening, um, They want to be out there. They want to be in it, you know, and that’s something we can take with us.

Like dig into your inner child, get in touch with that part of you that really does love finding magic and dance and movement again, this could be real or metaphorical, what is dancing in the rain mean to you? Like, in your current situation, your current storm of your life. I think that having babies who are not here, we actually believe and we tell ourself this story is like, if they were here, if they hadn’t died and they asked to go jump in muddy puddles like Peppa Pig, we would say yes, like absolutely yes, of course, go live, enjoy, smile, get dirty.

And we would think that we’d go with them. Right? We would think, if my baby had lived, I wouldn’t say no to that. I would be out there dancing in the rain with them. So, why don’t we do it now? Do it now. We, we can’t stop ourselves from living. We gotta embrace this one beautiful wildlife that we have. This is a message I want you to, to understand here is that there are going to be storms, there are going to be challenges.

They come and go, they roll in, they roll out. Sometimes the weatherman predicts them and they don’t really happen. Sometimes they don’t give us enough warning and things go crazy. Sometimes we gotta replace a roof or, you know, dig out a muddy basement. Whatever it is, the storms They’re gonna come and go.

The circumstances of our life are not in our control entirely. Challenges are part of it, but the dancing part is up to us. We do have control of how we handle these storms. We do have control of whether we just like raise our arms to the sky, tilt our head back, and be happy. Where we are just feel those feelings feel those sensations like get all wet do the laundry One of the things that holds me back a lot is like, oh, it’s gonna be messy, right?

Or oh rain boots are expensive and I don’t want to you know, whatever it is We have all these stories in our head of like why we don’t it would be so much energy to just go out and play Just go out and play Let some of that go. It’s gonna be okay and And I think that the more we can embrace life, the more we can learn to dance in the rain, the better we’re going to feel, especially in our life after loss.

So in summary, here it is. Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain. We don’t want to be passive in our life. We don’t want to give control of how we feel, what we do, where we put our energy to things outside of us. We want to go inside. And make intentional choices to make the best of crappy situations to choose who we want to be.

And in that process, in that practice, it’s going to be messy, but you’re also going to grow. You are going to become more resilient. You are going to learn what works. You’re going to learn what doesn’t work. You’re going to have some disasters. You’re going to have some scares. You’re going to have some anxiety and some uncomfortable feelings.

None of that is a problem. The only problem that I can see is when we stay stuck inside, curled up in a ball, feeling like there’s nothing that we can do. There’s always something that you can do. You are the captain of your own ship. You get to choose your life. You are the hero of your story. So get out there and dance in those spring rains.

And as a bonus little summary, like I said, those storms have a purpose in nature. There’s a reason for them. There’s a reason that on this earth. We have terrible terrible storms sometimes sometimes smaller ones But the rain is what makes us grow. It’s what makes everything grow April showers bring May flowers and we love the flowers So let that rain and that moisture nourish you.

It’s not out to get you It’s part of the circle of life and I truly believe that so make sure You Where you’re putting your energy is where you want to put your energy. Pay attention to the story you are telling about the challenges in your life, and then take intentional action. Even if your action is to wait, choose that on purpose.

It’s really, really powerful. I’ll see you next time.