Intentional Living With Tanya Hale

Sione and I just celebrated our first anniversary.  Second marriages have a 67% divorce rate, and because that's not a space either of us in interested in, we have made some pretty intentional moves to make sure we stay connected in the ways that are most important to us.  We both have a pretty good idea about why our first marriages failed, and in creating a completely different type of relationship this time around, today we're sharing some lessons we've learned that are changing our lives.

Recognizing the value and worth of all people, knowing that there is no spectrum of value, opens us up to feeling more compassion and empathy and acceptance of others.  When we can recognize and embrace our own value, we can move into a greater space of compassion and confidence for ourselves as well.  Separating out the difference between value and contribution is where we sometimes get hung up on both of these processes, and that is an understanding that is definitely worth stepping into  as it helps us to move forward in our own lives.

Learning how to coach yourself on a daily basis is an important tool for helping you to align the life you are living with the life you really want to be living.  Today I share some of my favorite strategies that I use to increase my awareness around my thoughts so that I can gain clarity around the experiences I am having and learn how to better show up the way I really want to more often.  

Our brains have a natural tendency to always look for what is fair and what is equal.  But when we're working to create a more intimate, close relationship, fair and equal is destructive.  When our brain is keeping score of who is doing what to make sure it is fair, we are creating a transactional relationship, and that isn't going to create the deeper intimacy that we are seeking.  Learning instead, to look for what is needed in our relationship rather than what is fair will do amazing things to move our relationships forward.

The relationship circle is a concept that helps us to stay in our own lanes and resist the temptation to try and take control of things that aren't ours to control.  When we more clearly understand how to allow the other person the space to work through their own struggles and challenges and show up empathetic, supportive, and kind, we can start tapping into the intimate partnership relationships have the possibility of becoming.

This week my husband, Sione, joins me as we share a recent experience we had in which we had the opportunity to step into some pretty honest communication.  It took a lot of vulnerability, courage, and awareness for both of us to create this experience, but it ended up being a beautiful exchange.  Our hope is that by sharing how we are stepping into better communication, you can understand how you can as well.  

Circling back around is a technique that my husband, Sione, and I use in our marriage that allows us to apologize better and show up more as the partners that we really want to.  We incorporate the concepts of awareness, acknowledgement, apology, and application to increase our connection and communication.  This episode delves into these concepts more depely and helps you understand how you can become more the person you want to be.

Forgiving someone who has hurt us can seem like a herculean task sometimes.  The pain can run deep and wide and it can feel that if we forgive that we are condoning the behavior that was so painful to us.  And yet, forgiving is the path to peace and progress.  Learning to let go of the pain and lean into the love exemplified by Christ is one of the purposes of forgiveness.  There is a stronger and better you waiting on the other side.

So many of us unintentionally engage in passive-aggressive behaviors, and it's hurting our relationships.  Today we are going to talk about 18 different ways that these behaviors show up.  When we create greater awareness around our own passive aggressive behaviors, we can start to clean them up and start healing our relationships.

When we want/need to have a tough discussion with someone, we can have a tendency to blame and accuse the other person, which generally tends to lead to defensiveness and a fight.  In this podcast I'm sharing with you a tool I use to help communication around difficult circumstances that allows us to share what we're experiencing without blaming, and creates a safer space to discuss tough things.

There are times when we feel as though our cup is so low that we don't have anything left to give, and then we need to check out of our lives long enough to replenish and refill.  But what if we could get to a place where we always have more than enough and are in a constant state of overflow, never running out?  Maybe it's possible. Let's talk about it!

Sometimes it can feel as though we get a lot of complaints from our children about all the things we are doing wrong, or have done wrong, as their parents.  And that's all pretty normal, I think, because no parent is perfect, and we all fall short of being the parent our children wish they would have had.  In this episode we're going to discuss why that's all okay, and how not being enough for our children isn't the problem, it's when we aren't enough for ourselves that the real struggles begin.

We tend to put our noses into a lot of things that are none of our business, and it ends up hurting our relationships.  In this podcast we are talking about three things that are none of our business, why they are none of our business, and how to figure out what really is our business.  

Life is messy.  That's not the problem.  The problem is when we believe life shouldn't be messy, that we should always be in control and that people should always say and do the right things.  That people should get addicted or have affairs or get divorced or separate out from the family.  I'm not saying those things are easy, but they are part of life.  When we can learn to accept the messy as the part of life where we get to continue on our journey to becoming who God created us to be, then we can begin to see the mess as beautiful.

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Many of us really struggle having discussions with people we love about what might be a difficult topic.  And yet, working through things together, in a productive and healthy way, is part of what creates great relationships.  In this episode I will share with you five things you can do to help you go into the tough discussions with better skills and more confidence, and how to come out of them with a solution that moves your relationship forward.

For me, few things cause more discomfort than feeling disempowered.  The idea that someone else gets to decide what happens to me, how my life turns out, how I feel, doesn't sit well with me.  Knowing how to feel empowered in life gives us confidence and assurance and hope for our future.  Today we are talking about four things we can do to create more empowerment in our lives.

It can be so easy to look at other people's poor behavior and get really judgy about it, especially when it is hurtful toward us or someone we love.  But one of the greatest shifts that we can experience in life is when we begin to see other people's hurtful behavior coming from a place of pain.  When we can recognize that 'hurt people hurt people', and begin to look beyond the behavior and see instead the pain that is spawning the behavior, we can move into a much more compassionate and kind place.  In so doing, we can create a safe space for the other person to see and acknowledge their pain and their behavior, and we can feel amazing about how we are engaging in our relationships.

So many of us get caught in people-pleasing.  This is a space of trying to please others, often at our own expense, and seeking others' approval.  In this episode we not only talk about how people-pleasing shows up in our lives, but where it stems from and how we can begin to move out of constantly worrying about how others perceive us, and feel really good and confident about how we are showing up for ourselves.

Are you someone who gets stuck making decisions?  You just might find that it has more to do with how you respond to the decisions you make than the actual making of the decision.  In this episode we talk about the reasons why making decisions can be difficult, how to make decisions easier, and how to move with more confidence when you finally get there.