Welcome to the podcast. I am so glad you are here. If you are new. A special welcome. And if you’ve been here for a while, thank you for being here to anyone listening. If you have a minute, would you take some time to write a review and rate the podcast? It’s really, really easy and it makes such a big difference on helping people find the podcast.

So please rate and review and share sharing is caring and it’s a great way to help people get to know the skills that we’re learning here about. An amazing life after loss. If you are struggling, I want to tell you that I have a few spots open for new clients in this new year or in 2022, kind of can’t believe it there’s a lot going on you guys.

I was just reading the news earlier and it’s a lot and grief is a lot and just life is a lot and you don’t have to do it all over. If you’ve been thinking about coaching now is the time today is the best day. Go in the show notes or go to smooth stones, coaching.com and you can easily sign up for a console call.

And I will tell you all about working with me so you can feel better in your life. Let’s talk about today.  Subject. Now, this was inspired as I was doing my dishes and looking at this little African violet that I have a friend of mine gave me a slip of an African violet that she had split. And I wasn’t sure if I could keep it alive.

I’ve kind of avoided plan. For a while just cause I don’t know. It, it hasn’t really, we don’t really have a good sunny spot or we don’t have, I don’t have a lot of time.  I’m mostly dealing with my kids and coaching and all of that. So I have this little African violet and actually it did amazing. It stayed alive and it started growing and I put it in this really cute pot and it just stays on my window sill.

And it’s the perfect amount of sun and everything has been good. But lately, or the past little while I’ve noticed, it was kind of. Weathering down a bit. And it had been blooming like crazy, like so many flowers that I was so proud of it because if you know about African violet, supposedly they are kind of tough to grow and to take good care of.

But I think my theory is I’m just neglectful enough that I do a pretty good job because you’re not supposed to over-water them. They’re sensitive to temperatures and all kinds of things. So. But mine was doing great and had so many flowers, but then it  started looking a little bit sad and it wasn’t blooming as much.

 The other day I just ended up pinching off all the old yicky blooms, hoping that it would help it feel better. And I was looking at it and noticing that it actually does look better. It doesn’t have any blue. . It doesn’t have any, it has purple flowers with little yellow centers are so cute.

It has nothing going on right now and always thinking about the new year. Now, this is my, I kind of have a stream of consciousness thing. You guys, I, I just started thinking about something then I think about something else. And then all of a sudden I’m doing a podcast on it, but I was thinking about new years and how.

January 1st is just a date on the calendar. And yet here we are telling ourselves that we should start all these new goals and we should do all these things. And especially as grievers it’s like the holidays were a lot. The holidays are a lot in general, no matter how you’re feeling, it’s called it’s dark.

And, and this is the time that we have just decided is a time that you should make all kinds of big plans and do all kinds of big things. And it’s kind of arbitrary. It just, somebody made it up , and it can be a good thing. I have nothing as new years. I, I love going into a new year. I love like thinking about goals, but this is what I was thinking.

Look at this little plant and it’s not blooming right now. It’s in a period where it is not doing that. And maybe you are too. Maybe you don’t feel like making big goals right now. Maybe you don’t feel like making changes. Maybe it’s not your season to be doing big things or maybe it is. We just, we have all these seasons and I think we fight against.

We don’t really as modern humans in our Western culture, , we really. We’re really stuck to our calendars and we’re stuck to the days of the week and we’re stuck to just being the same every day and that isn’t normal and that gonna goes against nature and it goes against womanhood and it goes against life.

So let’s talk about seasons. I. Could do a very beautiful metaphor about spring, summer, fall winter of which there are many out there. And I love those symbols and those metaphors. They’re amazing. That is not the kind of seasons I’m going to talk about today. What I want to offer you is a different way of looking at your life that will help you loosen your grip on how things are supposed to be and start leaning into how they are.

Where you are and help you love yourself in the new year.

So going back to my little flower, it’s healthy, but it’s not producing flowers right now. No one asks you the question is this little flower mad at itself about it? Is it telling itself that it’s failing?

I am guessing it is not because it’s a plant and because it, it knows that there are times to bloom and there are times to rest. Maybe it’s conserving energy. Maybe it’s growing roots that I can’t see. Maybe it’s regenerating some leaves, which are really important for its survival and flowers are not, flowers are pretty.

And , they are important for proliferation and things. But they’re not as important as leaves for staying alive. Maybe it knows that the bees are hibernating or it’s kind of a waste of its energy to make flowers right now. But we’re not as wise as this little flower. Sometimes we think we should bloom all the time or we think something has gone wrong.

If things change and we start freaking out. But that is just not how life works. Life is full of seasons and I’ve got a lot of examples. So stick with me. We have childhood, that’s a season of our life, right? We have middle school, high school, young adulthood. 

There are parts where we wish we were older, so we could do more. There are parts where being younger sounds amazing in our love lives. We have seasons there’s times when we’re single, we’re dating someone who isn’t awesome. We have seasons of heartbreak. We have seasons of being completely twitterpated there’s the newlyweds season.

They’re good times. Tough times. And as a mother, you will have seasons. This is how it’s supposed to be. Some are more challenging than others. And this is when leaning into the impermanence of anything will really, really help because things are constantly changing, shifting, and grow.

Another great example of this is pregnancy. Now I have to pause and say, we talk about pregnancy here. We talk about living kids. We talk about all of it. And if you feel like you can’t handle it, or you need to turn this off, I want to invite you to come and coach. I don’t want anybody to have to avoid children, babies, pregnancy, or any mention of those because they’re everywhere guys.

And it’s so important that instead of avoiding and trigger, warning everything, and just running away from it or feeling really, really emotionally overwhelmed that you learn the skills you need to manage. It’s totally possible. It’s a lot easier than you think when you learn how to manage your mind. And when you work with a coach.

So I’m going to talk about pregnancy. Let’s do it in the beginning. It can be really rough. Right? The first trimester that season is. It’s tough because it’s got a lot of challenges. It’s got pros and cons and then the second trimester has the same pros and cons. And then there’s a season where you get to the end and you feel better, but you’re getting bigger.

And like you can’t roll over in bed, stuff like that. , and then the baby is going to have seasons and as the mother, there’s the newborn stage where you’re just figuring things out and you’re totally sleep deprived.   Then the baby starts teething, right? When you start getting things figured out, there is a season of nursing or feeding the baby for me, I nursed all six of my living kids.

And I had to tell myself at that time, I really wanted to do it. I was blessed to be able to make it work, even though some babies were more challenging than others, but I used to tell myself, I can do this for one year because my baby’s exclusively breastfed every three hours. Like for a year when they got a little bit older and they’re eating a little bit of food, but mostly it was me.

 So that meant, I couldn’t like where the things I wanted to wear. You know, I always had to be able to nurse. I couldn’t go very far. I couldn’t go away. I didn’t get much rest. , because my husband could not get up in the night with the baby. It was always me. I was putting them to bed. I was feeding them.

First thing when they were. But I made that choice and I knew on the days that it was hard, it was like, I want to do this. And I know it’s a season. I know the challenging parts are a season and it’s worth it to me. Then your kids get older and I have teenagers and tweens and there, I have to tell myself, this is the part where they’re just mad all the time, or they’re just annoyed at everything I do.

And it just kind of know, this is a season. This isn’t going to last forever. This is the way it’s supposed to be. This is what kids do as they grow. And I’ve given you lots of examples, but I want to pause for a second and let you think about this. What seasons have you already passed through? What are some of the seasons, the hard seasons, the good seasons, different times in your life.

If you were going to write a book about it, maybe it would be different chapters of your life story. How did it feel when you’re in the middle of those seasons? And then how does it feel now as you look back when you’re not in those seasons anymore, think of a hard season and how in escapable, it felt like it would never get better, but what about now in grief?

There are many seasons. There’s the initial crushing grief. And if you are there, I want you to know that it will not last forever, but it is very intense. And what you need to do is stop fighting it, let it be intense. Take care of yourself, learn about grief and get support. That is how you get through that season.

and then there are other seasons there’s healing and growing and finding meaning and moving forward, there’s all kinds of seasons. Then there are seasons where you feel like you took 10 steps backwards and that’s okay, too. Right?

It’s. Part of it. It’s part of the ebb and the flow and the ups and the downs and the cycles, even as a woman, . We live in kind of a man’s world where we’re supposed to work five days a week, and we’re supposed to work at the same efficiency all of those days, every day of the month, but we don’t work that way.

We have cycles. That if I think if we listen to our body and we move through it and we make plans around our energy level and how we’re feeling our lives are going to be so much better. If we know this is a season like this is the week of the month where I need to take it down a notch, and this is the week of the month where I’m going to bust it out because I’ve got all this energy and I’m feeling so good.

Being more in tune with the seasons of our everyday life. So important. I was also thinking about the seasons, even within a relationship, right with couples. Sometimes one person is strong and the other one is struggling and we can see that as a problem. But I think it’s a beautiful thing where we have seasons and cycles.

Where we go up and down and we’re not always on the same page, . We’re not always in the same place, but I don’t think we’re supposed to be. And I don’t think it’s useful to think that we are supposed to be. I think you will get a lot more leverage around what is happening around you when you allow for seasons.

Our life is basically a collection of seasons and each one of those seasons is going to be 50 50, meaning part of it’s going to be hard and you’re going to feel some negative emotions and part of it’s going to be easier and you’re going to feel some great positive emotions. And I think that. We enjoy the easy seasons more, right.

But the, the harder seasons have their place. And so what I want to tell you, as I finish up this episode is this idea of seasons can help you through anything In my life. This is something I have used just for years and years and years. I mean, even in college, it’s like, if you have a really hard class, I took calculus in the summer, which was one of the worst things I ever did.

I took a summer calculus class, which was two hours a day for six weeks. And it was. It was not fun. It did not turn out really well, even though I’m normally really good at math, but this calculus class was not okay. And, but I just think, you know, that was a season. That was a thing that I did my best and I got through and I knew it wasn’t forever.

 Because I knew it had an end date and it’s easy when it’s like a summer college class to see the end date. But in our lives, maybe we have to understand that we’re not going to know.  We don’t always know when the good times are going to end. And we don’t always know when the bad times are going to end, but know that nothing is forever and it’s actually really, really freeing.

So whatever wherever you are right now, this is a season. You are in a season of your life, and maybe you’re in a season where you’re looking for things you’re searching. And that’s what brought you to this podcast. You’re looking for healing. You’re looking for answers. You’re looking to find out why your baby died and you’re looking to move forward and see what you want to do in this world.

It’s a beautiful season. If you are in a hard season, it can be done. Cold and difficult. I want you to hold onto the thought that it will not stay forever, but it is part of the process. And part of being a human. This is a season where you can accept, help, right? We all need our times where we’re the one who is going to receive, let people help you, let people support you.

I would love to be one of those. If you’re in a good season right now that is bright and warm and easy. I want you to enjoy it. Let yourself sit in the sun. Don’t worry about what is coming. Don’t feel guilty that your life is good. And so many other people are struggling. Use your season to lift others as you can.

This is a season where you can give help. And of course there’s no hard and fast rule and this can change day to day, right? It may go up and down, but this is a beautiful thing. My challenge for you is to take a few minutes and identify some of the seasons that you are in right now. Identify one season.

That’s hard. And remember to remind yourself. It’s not going to last forever. It’s going to be okay. And then look for some things that are going well right now, a place in your life where you are in that sunny season, and then pour some gasoline on it. What can you do to really move forward and make progress and get some things done in that area?

It’s a beautiful thing to do to give yourself so much love and compassion for the hard stuff. And also push yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone with the things you want to do. And of course this isn’t cut and dry is all going to be mixed together and kind of messy and that’s okay. But know that this life is full of ups and downs and that’s how it’s a post-it.

You can do this. You’re already doing a great job and I send you so much love. I’ll talk to you next time.