This week’s Father’s Day guest blog comes to you from singer/songwriter and co-host of the Dadville podcast Dave Barnes. I love his take this week on how home is like a lab (social media loved it too, because the post went viral)! Dave is heartfelt and hilarious, and I hope you’ll check out his music and his podcast. -Shaunti Read more
This week, we’ll look at the final two expectations that men often have. (And I encourage you to backtrack through this whole series, starting with part 1, to understand how to save confusion and heartache in marriage by avoiding all 8 expectations.) If you know a young newlywed or engaged couple, please forward this content to them. They will be so glad. Read more
Expectations are appropriate in marriage, right? Things should be a certain way. We stepped on a landmine and we’re not even three sentences into the blog. Should. What if our “shoulds” are leading to unnecessary unhappiness? More to the point, what if we have expectations of our spouse that they are just not wired to meet? Read more
Much of the unhappiness we experience in marriage is due to unhelpful expectations. I prefer “unhelpful” over “unrealistic” because I don’t want to suggest that we should lower our standards. But neither do we want to set ourselves up for heartache by setting expectations that are unhelpful. Read more
Much of the unhappiness we experience in marriage is due to unhelpful expectations. Notice that I say “unhelpful,” rather than “unrealistic.” The latter is also true, but it can sound as if we’re suggesting we lower our standards—which we aren’t. But neither do we want to create heartache by holding naïve assumptions about what we’re walking into when we walk down the aisle. There is a sweet spot in the middle where we land on and live with helpful expectations of marriage and our spouse. Read more
This is the story of this week’s podcast guests, our friends Montell and Kristin Jordan. Some of you are remembering the 90s R&B hit called This is How We Do It and wondering if it’s the same Montell. It is. Read more
The speaker life is fun and sometimes … funny. There was the time I packed only sandals and short sleeves for a February women’s event in Arizona. What I didn’t know was that although I was flying into Phoenix (which was 70 degrees and sunny) the retreat was in Flagstaff (where it was 28 degrees and snowing). My toes froze! I think feeling just returned last week. Another speaker friend confessed that she made it all the way to the... Read more
Were you surprised last week to learn how important it really is to listen to our kids? To really stop what we’re doing, pause any ideas about helping them or fixing the situation (biting our tongues if necessary), and truly just let them know they are heard? Anxiety is on the rise in kids, and as parents, we hold tremendous power to soothe their stress. If you missed last week’s blog, catch up on that quickly here, because it forms an important foundation to three more steps for calming a stressed-out child. We’ll jump right in to those this week. Read more
It’s so important to listen to what your child is saying and, more than that, to how they’re feeling. For example, let’s say they’re stressed because they had the flu two weeks ago, missed some school, and feel unprepared for the math exam on Friday. Are they feeling overwhelmed? Inadequate? Frustrated? Knowing how they’re feeling is just as important as why they’re feeling it (and can equip you with the knowledge required to help later on). Read more
If someone is being “difficult,” maybe they’re deeply unhappy and isolated. Maybe they are in that mix of statistics of people who are just very lonely. Philo of Alexandria famously said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” We never know what people are facing. Humor can mask pain just as easily as prickly behavior can be a symptom of it. Just because one behavior is easier to engage with doesn’t mean the person who is suffering is any less deserving of our kindness. Read more
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