Shauna's Sisters

I recently watched Rachel Hollis’ conference on Amazon Prime called Made for More. Side note, if you haven’t watched it, I urge you to take two hours, sit down and watch it. She said something that struck a nerve with me to my core! She said that for years she used to go around saying the phrase “Everything Happens for a Reason”. I have been the Queen of that statement since about 1995! I would go around saying it every single day for every single thing that happened. What I now realize is I was running from actually dealing with things in my life by telling myself God let it happen for a reason, it must just be part of my story. While that is true, I understand that by simply making that statement, I was in turn not dealing with the real struggles I had been dealt with in life. I had not begun the process of forgiving others and more importantly forgiving myself!

My story really isn’t different than so many people. I grew up in an extremely verbally abusive household. At 19, I married somebody much older than me and what I realize now is it was a way to run away from that problem, away from that hostile home, but I literally ran right into another one. I was smart in school. I worked hard in school, I wanted to be the first one in my family to go to college, but I found another way of escape and I took it. I ran into the arms of somebody who would verbally abuse me like my father did my mother, and for 7 years, during some of my most formative years, I lived with it. Being told I was fat so I would sneak food under the seat of my car, being told I was stupid and I could never open my mouth if we had kids. Being told I couldn’t get pregnant until I lost weight because I would only get bigger. Those were just a few of things I dealt with on a daily basis. And then, when I finally had the guts to leave, I was called all sorts of names and had so much said about me.

Then came a rebound marriage, albeit to a very nice guy, but to somebody who was raising his two children and that I thought would provide me stability and the ability to be a mother. What I would learn during this marriage, I could not have children of my own. How unfair that I could raise somebody else’s kids and not be a mother of my own. This marriage was to somebody who couldn’t deal with my emotional baggage and would just choose to ignore it. And in his defense, why would you deal with it? Not to mention that fact that he was somewhat broken in his own way and had his own baggage, he couldn’t take on mine. Guess what, I was running away from years of stuff that I hadn’t dealt with and then to top it off, the loss of motherhoood with fertility drugs being pumped into my system, caused depression and insecurities to come pouring out of me so strongly that I didn’t know how to handle it. Not excuses, just telling you where I was coming from. I was by far not perfect in this marriage and I don’t try pretend I was.

Divorce number 2 and boy did the talk really reach new levels! What I have come to realize is though is that nobody else matters, what matters is I had to find a way to forgive myself. I had to find a way to realize that those things happened to me and they have made me who I am today. I have had to take responsibility for my actions through it all and realize those things do not define me and they do not define my future. I have had to realize that I have people in my past that I have had to forgive, even though I may never receive an apology, to live a life of purpose and peace. Did God let those happen to me for a reason? I don’t know, I know God gives us our own free will, but regardless of any reasons for any of that, I can maybe keep somebody else from living that way. I can maybe help somebody else be free from living years of a scar filled existence where you really aren’t living, you’re existing. Now THAT I know, is not how God intended for us to live our lives!

What about my inability to have a baby. Yes, this one I would most assuredly always say, there’s a reason here, some day I will understand, but honestly, that was just to appear strong and get people to leave me alone about it. What is the reason behind somebody who would have been an amazing and loving mother, who gave so much for other people’s kids, to not be able to be a mother? I have absolutely no idea. I don’t think there was necessarily a reason either, it’s just my story, it’s my journey, it’s just life! I can choose to let this define me, or use it again to help other people so they don’t go through it alone.

Why do I say all of that? I don’t say it for sympathy. I don’t say it to make you understand who I am. I say it all to ask you, will you take those hard things life has dealt you and stand up for another person. Will you take off your mask that says my life is perfect, everything is okay and be transparent enough to say I’m not okay, life has sucked for me, but I choose to use it for good. I am not bitter, I have forgiven and I have become better! Will you use your testimony to help somebody else instead of choosing to continue to sit around and cry for yourself and feel sorry for yourself.  How about instead of saying everything happens for a reason, we say everything happened for a reason to allow me to say I made it through, I survived and you can too! That’s the whole reason I started Shauna’s Sisters! So as Rachel Hollis says, this is me!! The good, the bad and the ugly, but I know that the sharpest words won’t stop me from helping others and being who I am meant to be!

With love for you all!

Shauna

Reflection. What does that word mean to you?Webster has this to say: an often obscure or indirect criticism, a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation, consideration of some subject matter, idea, or purpose, turning back.Wow, that says a bunch right there. Let that all sink in for just a minute. Taking time to reflect can be a negative thing, or a positive thing, depending on what you’re reflecting on.  Reflecting can bring you sorrow, or it can bring you hope. What have you been reflecting on lately?

Do you spend time reflecting on your past, on what you have done wrong or do you spend time reflecting on the future and its endless possibilities? Do you spend time reflecting on how bad your life is, or reflecting on what it could be, or how blessed you are? Do you spend time reflecting on your past and on the things you wish you could change, on the things you wish you had done, and you didn’t? The mind is a very powerful thing and can literally control you!

I can sit all day long and think about the fact that I got into the IU School of Optometry undergrad program, went through the essays and interview process and was accepted…and let a guy talk me out of going to college, but the harsh reality is that I cannot go back now and change that. What I can do is make sure my daughter doesn’t make that same mistake and understands the importance of her education! What I can do, is make sure she’s strong and independent, and makes decisions for her life based on what she wants, and not some guy. What I can do is make sure she knows how smart and beautiful she is, and that the world is at her fingertips. What good does it do for me to sit around 20 years later and cry about it? It’s done, it happened, but I can use it as a tool to help others!

I can sit all day long and reflect on my childhood and the fact that I never had the relationship with my dad that I so craved and yearned for, but all that does is make me sad and depressed. I have to simply forgive him knowing he wasn’t given the best tools and examples of parenting and learn from that. I can make sure my husband knows the importance of his relationship with his daughter and that he’s forming the kind of person she ultimately ends up with.

I’m not going to keep giving you examples. We all have them. We all have things in our past. We all did things we wish we could change. The point is what good does it do you to spend day in and day out sitting around thinking about them? Maybe you weren’t a good spouse, maybe you hurt a friend, maybe you weren’t a good parent and a good example for your kids, maybe you quit a job you wish you still had. Whatever your situation, stop reflecting on what could have been, or should have been! Start reflecting on how you can turn that negative thing into a positive thing, choose different, be different, and make the future better! Say you’re sorry to whomever you need to apologize to and choose to be a better person!

You know that none of us are promised tomorrow so why choose to live every day stuck reflecting on all the wrong? You can be a better spouse, you can be a better parent, you can be a better friend, you can love others and choose to treat people with respect. Do you know what you will receive in return? All of those things will be returned to you! Call it karma, call it sowing what you reap, but the point is you will reap what you sow so start reflecting on what good you can do and how much of a difference you can make, and how amazing your future can be. My favorite scripture in the Bible talks about weeping enduring for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. I choose to reflect on the joy that’s coming! I choose to wake up each morning with hope!

Are you headed in a positive direction or a negative one? Stop and think about what you’ve been reflecting on lately and you might have your answer. What will you spend your time reflecting on this week?

With love for you all!

Shauna

 

 

 

Heidi Powell, a trainer, bodybuilder, fitness guru posted this image on her social media recently. I had already been feeling led to write a blog on mental health and this just confirmed to me that the time was right. I believe the stigma in not discussing mental health has come a long way; however, I feel like it still has so far to go! Everybody wants to talk about our physical health, but nobody wants to discuss our mental health. I am by far no expert, but I believe the two go hand in hand.  In the day I was raised, it was thought to be that if you believed in God, which I 100% do, that all you had to do was pray and that was it. If you prayed and trusted God, then you shouldn’t be depressed, or anxious. I believe God takes care of us, but I also know how hard life can be and sometimes you need a little more help. It makes no sense to me that if you believe in going to a medical doctor for medical conditions, a trainer or nutritionist for physical conditions, but no counselor or therapist for mental conditions?

Over the course of my adult life, I have seen a few therapists. I saw two different ones during my divorces, I saw one over my infertility issues that literally almost caused me to believe I was losing my mind, and honestly, I am seeing one right now. Just like I knew I needed to hire a trainer to help with my nutrition and training and losing weight and getting physically healthy. Just like I go to a doctor when I’m sick, and to my dentist and to my eye doctor each year to maintain good health. There is no shame in therapist and counselors or whoever you need to go talk to. There is absolutely no shame whatsoever, and I hope that if somebody is reading this right now and is letting the judgment of others stop you from getting help, that you stop right now, and go get the help you need!

You can’t sit around and be depressed and have anxiety, and things going on your in your mind, and think they’re just going to go away. Just like you can’t sit on the couch and feed and shove food into your mouth and think you’re going to be toned and fit and healthy. It’s the same concept. What you feed into your mind ultimately leads to your mental health, just like what you feed into your mouth ultimately leads to your overall physical health. You shouldn’t medicate your depression with food, just like you shouldn’t medicate your mental issues with drugs and alcohol or a plethora of other things.

We all have things in life that we have to deal with that are hard, but the keyword there is deal with it. I am in no way saying that the things we go through in life are easy. We deal with death, we deal with loss, we deal with financial problems, we deal with family issues, kid issues, the list goes on and on and on. Nobody has a perfect life! If all we do is sit around and focus on the things in our life that we don’t like and that bring us down, we are only going to bring more of that into into our life. We cannot feed our minds with negativity and expect to live a positive life. We have to seek out the help we need to turn this stuff around. Life will not improve until we do. Trust me, I get it. I used to spend so much time sitting around looking at all these women who have kids, and don’t deserve them, don’t take care of them, and they’re not mothers, yet I couldn’t have a baby myself. For sure, life isn’t fair, and I used to tell myself that every day.  But you know how I spent those days? Sad, anxious, angry, bitter and depressed. It wasn’t doing me any good, or anybody around me.

The worst thing that you can do is medicate your depression and your anxiety with drugs and alcohol and sitting around talking to your friends all the time about how bad your life is etc. and not seeking out the help you truly need! Or locking yourself in a dark room and just wishing the world would go away, or worse yet, end. We cannot control how our brains are wired, but we can do so many things to turn it around and still lead a positive and fulfilling life!

One thing I do know for sure, your life is not going to change without you doing something about it! I have never really been a person who has had to deal with anxiety, yes, I have been anxious before, but I don’t deal with anxiety on a daily basis. I do; however, deal with depression at times. One thing I have had to realize is how I start my day makes all the difference in setting the tone for my day. I have talked about it before in other blogs, but I HAVE to get up every day and pray, mediate, do my devotions, write down what I am grateful for and train my mind to be in a place of gratitude. Working out also changes my overall mood! I also listen to a podcast while I am getting ready. I have to train my mind to be in a good state every single day! When I don’t do those things, my days are so much worse! I wake up fearful, anxious, tired, mentally drained and I see the day from a bad place and when my day starts negative, the day is negative! You have to give yourself time every day to do what you need to feed you! You may say I don’t have time. I bet you have time to sit on the couch and play on your phone, be on social media and watch mindless TV every day right? It’s all priorities, and if your mental health and your physical health are not a priority to you, then I hate to say it, but your life most likely isn’t going to improve.

Wherever you are right now, decide right now that this week, you are going to start by doing just one thing for yourself, just one thing! You can find time to do one thing to improve your life and your overall mental state! I promise you, you can turn your life around, and if you need professional help, please go get it! God didn’t put us on this earth to live sad, depressed mediocre lives! You can lead a fulfilling life, even if you deal with mental  health issues!

With love for you all,

Shauna

Were you raised in any kind of church? If so, you know that each denomination has its own set of “rules” as people like to call them. I’m not going to start listing any, I am not educated in all religions. I don’t know all the things that set them all apart so I won’t even go there. What I do know is that in most of them are people who like to judge others. So many of them miss the mark all together on what they are really called to do. So many of them look the part, show up for church 2+ times a week and think they are the very definition of what their church professes and declares that they should live. Yet they show no mercy to others.

Why is it in life that the very place you should be able to run for safety and security is the one place that causes you the most anxiety. The reason why is because we let other people stop us. God is still there, your help is still there, but we let people who don’t matter stop us and judge us. We let people whose opinion of us doesn’t matter, nor does their opinion set us on our path of purpose and destiny, stop us from achieving great things. We let them make us ashamed. We let them hurt us and cause us pain.

You can imagine the judgment I received when I not only went through one divorce but two. Yes TWO! Pick your chin up, I have never professed to be perfect, but I have always been honest. Did I choose this path my life has taken, maybe somewhat with my choices, but not all together. I didn’t choose some of the treatment I received, and those who did it know what they did, but I also didn’t go around shouting it from the rooftops so people would take my side. No, I set by and let people judge, and say things about me that were not only untrue, but they really had no knowledge of the truth. I remember my mom saying to me one time, just hold your head up, shut your mouth and live your life. The people who truly matter in your life know the real you and know the truth. Nobody else matters. I will never forget the day I was in a local restaurant and a couple came in who literally had known me since birth. The husband spoke, the wife, I literally had to move my chair to let her by, and she acted as if I was a total stranger. It’s happened more than once over the years. In fact, it’s happened quite often. It used to crush me when this would happen. It took years to get over. It took me years to get over seeing people at school, at the grocery, at restaurants who would snicker and act like they didn’t know me because they were judging me for what they thought they knew about me.

I almost let these same people influence me and talk me out of what I felt was a God-given desire in the pit of my stomach to start writing this blog. I knew people would read it and judge me. I knew people would says she’s not all that, who does she think she is. I literally almost let the criticism stop me and almost paralyze me. You know what though? That’s what the devil wants. That’s what these people want, and I have made up my mind to not let them win. I heard recently that small people want to keep you small. Average people want to keep you average. Some people can’t stand the thought of your success!

Maybe this is where you find yourself. But you know, these people who set out to judge others and try to stop your destiny, they don’t deserve a reaction. They don’t control your destiny. They cannot stop your purpose. They cannot stop you from doing good and helping others. Trust me when I tell you that many of these people want to judge you to take the focus off of themselves. They don’t want their skeletons coming out of their closet. EVER!! Don’t let these people stop you! I’m not going to lie, some days I can do this better than others. Some days I see these people in the grocery store and the treatment stings, but some times I actually pity them for the shallow life they’re living. It truly must be exhausting keeping up a facade. We have to somehow get to a place where we just keep going despite the noise and despite the judgment, and know that no matter what our past has in it, it’s behind you! You can be different! You can make a difference! You can still go on and do amazing things! Something my mom always preached to us, and I have mentioned in other blogs, just don’t get bitter. Don’t let life change your heart! Keep believing in people and in humanity. Focus on the good people that are out there. I promise, you will find them! John Maxwell says that you are always going to have people judging you. Always! We just have to get to a place where we can simply live OUR lives, keep doing what is right and what God has called us to do! Whatever that looks like for you. Don’t spend your life trying to defend yourself! Spend your life making a difference and investing in somebody else and in return, you’re investing in you, you’re living your destiny and your purpose!

With love for you all,
Shauna

Does your significant other have a “man cave”? For years showing houses I always heard about the man cave. It never meant anything to me, just a space I thought the guys needed where they were going to watch football, play cards, whatever, didn’t really mean anything to me, and nothing I took too seriously. I never really thought too much about having your own space, the significance of it, what it means, and how important it is.

Fast forward, my son moves out, my daughter moves to his bedroom and at the time, while working at home at a desk in my living room, I tell my husband, I NEED an office. I have got to get all of this out of my living room, I can’t spread out, I have no space, it’s cluttered ( which makes me CRAZY) and I can’t do it anymore. We live in a three bedroom home so hey, it was tough, the kids needed their own space, and I get it, but one is growing up and moves in with his friend so we have space now! This process took what felt like eternity! Our home was build in the 60s so hardwood floors covered up by carpet, and our first challenge, pulling up the carpet and refinishing the hardwood. Well, my husband, and I love him, worked 40+ hours a week and my office wasn’t his first priority.  Finally, several months later….its done! New refinished and AMAZING hardwood floors, new paint, new trim, crown moulding, doors, etc. and it is AMAZING! I mean better than expected! I move the desks in, furniture that I have been gathering, my mom orders me these amazing mirrors and rug and I get a cozy chair ordered. Okay, going to have a great working space, now that I’m not really working from home anymore. So, my room gets done, life changes, and I’m not working from home anymore. Well, it looks amazing, now what???

Now what!?!?! Nobody ever told me that I really need to have my own room in the house. Nobody ever told me the significance of having my own “woman cave” or “she shed”!! Nobody ever shared with me that I really needed this room! Okay, so my mom had her sewing room, my friend Joey has her barn, my friend Denise her pool, my friend Allyson her craft room and pool, my friend Deanna her gym in the basement, but NOBODY tells me I really need to have my own space in my house. Isn’t the whole house my space!?!?! Um…NO! Who knew!?!?!

GIRLS!! We are missing out on this whole man cave thing!! I mean, this office of mine!! I could stay in here 24/7!! I come home, I’m in here, Saturday and Sunday…I’m in here! I have a cozy chair with my books beside it, my desk for working and blogging, my music is going, my vision boards are posted and I am one happy girl!! I mean, who knew!?!?! Maybe I am late to the game, but who would have ever thought that an office would hold so much significance to me. I blog here, I meditate here, I read here, I work here, I plan here, I goal plan here, endless possibilities!!

Here is my point! We all have different interests, but the lesson is this, you NEED your space!!! You need your space to grow, to dream, to goal plan, to do whatever it is you want to do!! I’m just thankful I learned this now at 44!! Find.Your.Space!! And now, not later!!

With love for you all!

Shauna

This picture resonated with me the other day. As women, well, as humans really, it’s so easy to look at what others have and get envious or jealous. The mom at pick up in the big expensive SUV, who lives in the big house, with the designer clothes and the Louis Vuitton purses. It’s so easy to think that life must be so easy, all she has to do is get up, take her kids to school, go work out with her trainer, spend the day by the pool or lounging around the house reading books all day long. Man, as we go off to work we think that would be the life. Honestly, yes, maybe that would be the life, but you also don’t know what goes on behind closed doors either. Her life may be awesome, but she could also be miserable and lonely too because her spouse is never home, always  working, or gone. We should not be so quick to judge from the outside what we think somebody else’s life looks like. Trust me from experience, you never truly know what goes on behind closed doors!

I believe we are planted where we’re supposed to be. Before I even go any farther, let me say this, if you are in an abusive relationship of any kind, you are NOT supposed to be planted there! Get out and get help! Do you know what the Bible says about that? Men are to love their wives like God loves us. Does God abuse us? NO! And no person who calls themself a Christian should be abusing their spouse! No person period should be abusing their spouse! Okay, off that soapbox. I just didn’t want anybody to read this and think wow, my spouse beats me and she thinks I am planted where I should be right now. Not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is maybe if we started focusing on where we’re planted right now, and putting some effort into it rather than putting effort into what we don’t have, things might be different for us. As for those women we see at school or at the restaurant or mall who we think have it all, you don’t know their story either. We don’t know what they’ve come from. We don’t know the people they can help from being so blessed. Don’t judge them either!

The house I live in right now is the smallest house I have ever lived in, but can I just say that it by far is the most loving home I have ever had! I love my house! Would I make some changes to it, yes, and we are little by little, but I love my home! My house feels like a home. It’s warm, it’s loving. It’s not a house of turmoil, fighting and hate! My daughter has friends here all the time. It’s more than just a structure, it’s a happy home! Would I like a bigger house? Some days I think I would, but I have had bigger houses and that doesn’t necessarily bring happiness. What brings happiness is who is in it and how much love is there. What if you started today doing things around your current house to make it warm and happy for your family? What kind of changes would you see? What if you start today to feel grateful for that home? What do you think would happen?

What about the car you drive? Are you grateful for that car? Do you take care of it? If you cannot find gratefulness for what you have, for the fact that you can get to work, you can get to the grocery store, you can get anywhere you need to go, you are not going to be blessed with a better one. Take care of what you have been blessed with first and some day, you will be blessed with something better. You don’t need a Mercedes, or BMV or Audi to say I have arrived anyway! I have a dream car like everybody else, but my Toyota Camry doesn’t say anything about my status in society, and who even cares about your status! You are amazing without that big expensive vehicle! If you need a vehicle to make yourself feel special, you need to dig deep down inside, there’s deeper issues that need dealt with! Now, when you are working hard, and you’ve come to a place where you can afford that car, get it and feel pride! You earned it!

What about that body you think you want? The lady you see all the time in the work out clothes and you think I want to look like that. I love looking at fitness magazines and I follow several trainers on social media. Maybe you do too, but do you ever find yourself looking at them and thinking man, must be nice to look like that. Do you know they weren’t born like that!? Yes, some people are born with better genes or natural athletic physiques, but they still have to work at it. They still have to make an effort to meal prep, eat right and work out. You could have that too if you worked for it, and really wanted it. Don’t sit and wish for it and think they have something you don’t because they look like that! They work really hard to have that strong healthy body!

I recently heard a story of a couple who have a terrible marriage, but the wife won’t leave because she likes her homes (yes I said homes), her cars, her trips, her stuff. I don’t judge her for anything, but man that sounds miserable to me. I don’t want that kind of life. A loving marriage with somebody who I enjoy being around means more to me. I haven’t always been the role model for relationships, but I water this one, I am grateful for this one, and although it’s not perfect, nothing rarely is, this is the best one I’ve ever been in! We work at it though! We feel blessed to have each other. Do we like each other every single day? No! Do we argue, sometimes, but we try. You have to put in the work and the effort to have the kind of relationship that you want to have! I love listening to Dani Johnson and reading her books. Her story inspires me! She tells how she was headed for divorce #2, how she treated her spouse poorly, her kids poorly until one day she woke up, and realized she had to put in the effort to have the relationship she wanted. She’s now been married 25 years. She began watering that relationship and turned it around! If you didn’t have the role models growing up, change that, and be the role models for the next generation! People just want to escape where they’re at when they haven’t even tried to make it better. Don’t think that other person is going to have what you’re looking for if you’re not wiling to work at a relationship. Trust me, again from experience, you’re going to end up right in the same relationship you left, with the same issues. A new person is not going to fix that.

You have total control over the life you want to live, but make it the life you want it to be. Grow where you’re planted. Don’t spend your time focusing on what others have, and what you don’t have. Work hard for what you want, but also be grateful for where you are! Did you know you can have anything you want if you focus on it, work hard for it, put the hard work in and make it happen? Live YOUR life! Don’t try to live somebody else’s and spend time trying to fit in. That’s not living, it’s shallow, and you will never find happiness or fulfillment living that life. Who cares who likes you. You need to like you! You need to be proud of the life you have cultivated for yourself! So today, let’s start watering , fertilizing and making our grass beautiful!

With love for you all!

Shauna

As I set and watch the snow fall today in Indiana, I am thinking about seasons. Seasons change. What does snow provide for us? Snow is good for the soil, it’s a beautiful sight to see, people love to play in it, but snow can also be dangerous if we don’t heed warnings about driving in it, or going out into avalanches. Life is a like that for us! It can be beautiful if we navigate it correctly but we must also heed warnings that are sent our way at times about what to do, or what not to do. When we don’t find comfort and enjoy the season we are in, no matter how hard, we don’t see the meaning in that season, and what it is trying to teach us. What happens when we don’t like the season we’re in, is we try to make things happen on our time, and we end up making things worse. Sometimes we cause that season to last longer than it would have if we had just accepted where we were at that exact moment.

Just like the weather, life has seasons. Seasons of sickness, seasons of lack, seasons of growth, seasons of education, seasons of abundance, seasons of joy, seasons of peace, seasons of unrest. People hate change, I am one of them. But the older I get the more I understand the importance of change and the different seasons. I don’t always like it, in fact, sometimes I hate it, but a stagnant life isn’t a productive life.

Sometimes when life is good, and it’s pretty close to perfect, we take things for granted. We get lazy, we don’t grow, we don’t learn, we don’t help others, we’re not always thankful. If we can get to where we see the good in every season then maybe we can start to see life’s purpose for us, and we won’t fight the seasons that bring us to uncomfortable levels. We need to get to where life isn’t the highest highs or the lowest lows. What would happen if in every season, in every change, we simply give God thanks for where we are and try to see the bigger picture?

Maybe you have to get so tired and uncomfortable with your current weight and health to wake up and realize you need a change. I know I did! Maybe you have to get sick of taking meds that maybe you wouldn’t have to if you were healthy. Maybe you have to get sick of the way bad food makes you feel and lack of exercise makes you feel, to really start taking your health seriously. We are only given one body! I love the quote that we see so often that says if you don’t take care of your body, where will you live? I don’t know about you, but I want to live a long life and there are ways I can help make that happen! I know people get sick that are healthy, bad things happen all the time, but all I am saying is that if it is within your power to live a healthy life you should!

Maybe things have to get uncomfortable at work to push you to what is ahead for you. Maybe things have get uncomfortable with your co workers to make you realize you need to move to a different department. Maybe that might be the push you needed to catapult you to that big promotion or to that department that really utilizes your strengths where you grow and find fulfillment. Maybe being uncomfortable causes you to leave your current job and follow your dreams to what you really know in your heart was meant to be your life’s purpose.

All I am trying to get us to realize is if life was always a bed of roses, if life was always comfortable, we wouldn’t grow, we wouldn’t change, we wouldn’t be pushed ahead so maybe we should spend less time crying around, feeling sorry for ourselves, asking God why am I here right now, and try to see the lesson, and the bigger picture for our life.

I think personally I needed to stop for a minute today and just enjoy the beauty of Gods creation around me. Not try to figure anything out, just enjoy this season I find myself in. I am definitely in a season of growth right now, but I feel stirring in my spirit that my season is about to change. I understand I needed this season, even more than I think I let myself admit. How can you change your perspective today and find peace where you’re at? I pray that you do!

With love for you all!

Shauna

 

People often comment about my organizational skills and how I keep it all together. I have to admit, I don’t have to work too hard at it, it’s just who I am. I do not fly by the seat of my pants well at all! In fact, I don’t even function under those circumstances. I like my house neat and tidy and clean, I like my closets organized, my drawers, my cabinets etc. I don’t do it to please anybody else but me.  I like my schedule planned and I like structure. Call me OCD if you would like but being organized and life running smoothly is how I need to roll. Back in November I begin working 2 jobs and started this blog so I was very thankful I had already laid the ground work for an organized life. This is not to say that I don’t at times struggle, get tired, get all out of whack and shut down, and if you are not the most organized, if it doesn’t come naturally to you, rest assured you can work on it, BUT don’t beat yourself up in the process! Below I am going to share just a few of my favorite tips for keeping it together.

Let me start by first saying this. I start every day with at least 10-15 minutes of prayer, mediation, gratefulness and declarations and then exercise. A great book that I can recommend that helped get me started is called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Let me urge you to start getting up a few minutes early every day and start your day this way. It will set the tone for your entire day. The days I do not do this, I feel it all day long! My days do not run smoothly when I don’t, and when I just jump out of bed and run like crazy the entire day. By the time my day is at the end, I have nothing left!

Scheduling:

Let’s just start with a schedule to begin with. My all time favorite day timer is the Whitney English Day Designer. You can check it out here: www.daydesigner.com. I have tried a few different ones and always go back to this one. The first part of the Day Designer is setting your word and your goals for the year. I love to do this at the end of the year for the new year. The other thing I love about this is each day has it’s own page and not only are there places for your appointments, there is a to do list that you can check off, a notes section, daily gratitude section, things that are due, things you don’t want to forget and a place for dinner. Aside from that, each day has a great motivational saying. I urge you to check it out. This is how I keep my days organized, get where I need to be, and have my to do list right in one spot. This year, I also added a white board calendar to the wall in my office. Six days in, this has already proven beneficial. I just ordered that at Amazon. Both of these items get me through 2 jobs, my daughter’s cheer calendar, my workouts and everywhere else I am supposed to be!

Home Organization:

The cabinets in my bathrooms absolutely looked like bombs went off recently. I went to Lowes and bought these clear plastic containers with lids. I organized them by cold and flu, pain, bandages, extra supplies, my husband has his own of the things he uses every day, the kids have one with their stuff they use every day, shoe polishes and cleaners, etc. They stack nicely in the cabinet and you can see what you need quickly and easily.  In my pantry I have an array of different things to help me stay organized. Glass jars from Walmart, cereal containers from Sam’s Club, baskets from Bed, Bath and Beyond, containers from Dollar Tree.  Anywhere I was able to find items I bought them. I like my pantry organized when the doors are open in my kitchen. Not to mention, you can easily see what you’re looking for, and there’s no digging!

Grocery Shopping:

This is a no brainer! Kroger Clicklist or Walmart grocery pick up has both saved my life! I plan my meals out for the week, sit down to my laptop and grocery shop! Pay and pick up at the designated time! Can I just tell you this saves my sanity, not to mention my wallet! And how nice they load your groceries for you! Score! I prefer Walmart grocery pick up, there’s no fee. On that note though, let me share this tip with you. I once wondered just what the price difference was between Kroger, paying their $5 fee and Walmart, which is free pick up. If you have good coupons for Kroger it’s roughly the same amount of money. I did a trial one time between the two sites and it was a couple dollars different with coupons for their prices. Walmart is just closer to me so I use Walmart. All you working moms and busy working women out there, this is a life saver. It does take a little planning but man is it worth it! While we’re on the subject of food, I am a huge crock pot person too! I have found some amazing recipes on Pinterest! This also is a life saver. Another thing I do is on Sunday’s, I always make a big meal that will feed everybody Sunday and Monday. Monday’s are hectic enough!

Meal planning to keep my nutrition on track:

Sunday is my meal prep day day. I make up a weeks worth of protein shakes and stock the fridge, make sure I have a box of protein bars to take to work and make my meals. I will cut up veggies, brown my ground chicken or turkey, and make my lunch meals. I bought enough containers to get me through a week of lunches for work. If I do not do this on Sunday, I do not stick to my meal plans. Honestly, I don’t know any other way to tell you that makes your nutrition a priority! If I can’t just grab my food out of the fridge as I run out the door on Monday morning, I will make bad choices. There are plenty of places to buy healthy food choices these days around the country, but I love to cook and I can cook so I make my own. If you do not, check out places in your area.

Vacation packing:

I have been known to have a suitcase setting out 1 to 2 weeks ahead of a trip. I begin by laying out the clothes I want for a few days. This allows me to look at them and make a final decision before packing the suitcase. I keep a bathroom bag stocked at all times so that just gets a glance over and put in. I have space saver bags and bags to keep everything organized. I just like to know that as I leave, one there’s no stress about last minute packing and two I am prepared for everything! Last minute packing is stressful and you inevitably forget something! I also have my bag packed for the plane with my books, magazines and snacks.

Just a few last tips. Every night before bed, I always pick out my clothes for work and lay out my workout clothes and tennis shoes. I lay out my shoes, jewelry and anything I will need. I also make sure my purse and briefcase are ready and sitting out on the bar. My husband and I set out the coffee, set out our mugs, and he will set the timer. I get my gym bag ready and make my workout drinks as well. Mornings can be so hectic. Anything you do ahead of time I promise will remove the stress away from your morning!

I hope you have maybe found some tips to help you be more organized in 2019 and to take some of the craziness out of life!

With love for you all!

Shauna

Websters defines a resolution as the act of determining. Websters defines a goal as the end toward which effort is directed. Both words have great meaning and we have great need for both in our lives, but for some reason I feel that when we just simply set a resolution, we don’t truly have the end in our sight. What do we really want. I talked earlier this week about where are we going? Maybe you know what you want, and where you want to end up, but are you really planning and setting a course of action into place to actually get there? As we sit and reflect on 2018 and look longingly toward 2019, I urge you to take some time for yourself over the next couple of days, and really lay out a plan and set some real tangible goals.

For me, I have a few things I plan to work toward in 2019, so today, the image above reflects a few tings I am doing to prepare. This might not be an earth shattering, inspirational blog to some today, but I hope in sharing my thoughts, maybe it will prompt something deep in your soul to take a minute for you, and really make 2019 the year you deserve. Don’t wait until this time next year to wish you had done something different to change things. I think sometimes we want to spend time blaming circumstances and blaming other people for where we’re at, but truly, wasting time blaming others is time wasted not changing, and you are the only one that can control that! What if your favorite sports team decided they didn’t need practice, they didn’t need a game plan, tonight for the big game, they just trust their talent and they’re going to show up at game time, just get out there and see what happens. What do you think would happen? I doubt they would win, and they would have unhappy fans who paid big money to come watch them. We may not be professional athletes, but it really is the same thing. It’s like Benjamin Franklin once said “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”. It really is as simple as that!

I have recently let my health take a back burner, but that’s about to change. Tomorrow at 7 a.m. I will be in the gym, back with my trainer turning that around. I have my protein shakes made up, my supplements all counted out and in containers, my gym bag ready and later I will meal prep. I love, love, love the gym, but if I don’t plan in this area, schedule my training, prep my meals, lay out my gym clothes, set an alarm etc. this takes a back burner, and I deserve to be the healthiest version of myself.

I also went to Walmart this morning, bought poster boards and I am going to be making my 2019 vision boards. Call me silly, call me crazy, but as I start to see things on that board come to fruition thought out this year, it won’t feel so crazy.

The last thing I plan to do today is set down with my Whitney English Day Designer and lay out my goals, what I want to accomplish this year, how many months it is going to take, set my top goals, and make a plan to attack them! I have said it before but even back in the Bible it talked about without a vision, the people parish. This really is not a new thought, or new idea, for generations people have talked about having a vision and a plan of attack, and without one you will accomplish nothing. You will hit nothing if you aim at nothing!

I hope today that you don’t feel like you don’t need to set goals, maybe you don’t work outside of the home, or you feel there’s really nothing you need to do to change things in your life, but we all have things we need to prepare for. Maybe planning doesn’t come naturally to you, but maybe that’s your plan for 2019, to work on planning and making your life run smoother! Life is cray cray and we are wearing ourselves down by not making a plan. I promise if you listen to me, if nothing else, you will feel just a little less stressed and pressured in the new year! Here’s to a great 2019 and great things for us all!

With love for you all,

Shauna

I haven’t been real inspired lately to blog until a few days ago when I was scrolling through Facebook and this quote from Zig Ziglar came across my screen. It literally jumped off the page at me. I thought I had a clear direction earlier this year on where I was going, but it all came to a screeching halt back in the fall. I have written about life changes earlier in another post, about being at a crossroads, and trying to decide which way to go. It’s so easy when life shifts you in a direction you didn’t see coming to lose focus, and to totally knock you off course. I am a planner to a fault! I do not function properly by flying by the seat of my pants. Yes, I admit, I am a control freak, but that’s my nature.  I like a road map all laid out with a plan on where we’re going, and what it is going to take to get there, and I want it to stay on course! I am finding that when life gets hard and off course, I shut down, I give up, I lose focus and I lose control. I lose site of my purpose.

Where is it that you want to go but you’re scared, or life has taken a turn down an unfamiliar path. What is it that you want in life but something is holding you back? What do you want to try, who do you want to inspire, what do you want to create, what do YOU want? Stop for a minute and think about that question. Nobody can answer that question for you, but you! Nobody knows the passion that burns down deep in your soul for that thing you long to do, long to try, long to make, long to travel to. Did you start this dream and lose focus on it so now you sit around, and just look back at what you did to start it, but something has happened and you’ve quit, you’ve lost hope, you’ve given up? Now is not the time to give up! Stand up, turn around and look forward on where you’re going! Trust me when I say that if God put a dream or a desire in your soul, he has a purpose for you!

I have talked about this before but 3 years ago, I set out to get healthy. I went back to my trainer, started eating healthy and was in the gym 6 days a week. The result of that hard work was 30 pounds of fat lost! I was feeling like a million bucks and so very proud of my accomplishments! About 8 weeks ago, I had a life changing event happen and I have barely worked out.  My meal plans have been effected, my sleep pattern changed and I found a big old excuse to not set my alarm and get my butt out of bed every morning and work out. I can’t put into words how awful I feel! No, I haven’t gained weight, but only because my nutrition has also slacked off and I haven’t even been getting the amount of calories needed in a day. It’s so easy to think wow, I lost 30 pounds, I can slack a little, but that’s a lie! I had a goal to be the healthiest version of myself in my 40s and I have a path before me with a vision of where I want to go that is much brighter than even the success of that 30 pound fat loss! I’m not done, it’s not time to throw in the towel! God gave me a healthy body to use and I am taking that for granted! I can’t continue to pat myself on the back for what I did over the past 3 years, I have to re focus on where I am going!

How about this blog!? I set out to do this, felt like I had a purpose and a gift to help other women and again, let life knock me around a little, and I haven’t been blessing other people.  I literally have spent the past 8 weeks focusing on all the negative things that have happened in 2018 and have failed to see all the positive things, and the direction life is going in. Honestly, I don’t have a clear vision of where my life is going, but I know the greatest things of my life haven’t happened yet, and I know that where I am right now is just a stepping stone to where I am going. So what am I doing to prepare? What are you doing to prepare for where you’re going? Sitting around feeling jealous of other women who are already where we want to go, or feeling sorry for ourselves for where we’re at, is not going to help us get there any faster! You are where you are right now for a reason, but it doesn’t have to be where you stay forever! Fight for what you want and where you want to go! Use that passion to drive you and guide you in those times where you feel nothing is happening! We do sometimes have dry seasons for a reason, there’s a lesson there too!

What is you’re calling? Maybe your calling is to be the best wife and mother you can be, and that’s an awesome responsibility so do you approach it with everything you’ve got? Maybe you want to open a bakery. Have you started baking for your friends and family? Have you signed up for a cooking class at your local community college? Maybe you want to do social work of some kind. Are you volunteering anywhere? Maybe you want to finish your degree, but you’ve given up. Start by just taking one class at a time, do the best you can and go from there. Maybe your goal is to lose some weight and get healthy and be your best self. Join a gym, or start simply by getting some exercise every single day and eating healthier. Just start somewhere! No more excuses! 2019 is coming up in just a few short days. Let me urge you take a minute for yourself, sit down and literally write out your goals. Not resolutions, you set yourself for failure right off that bat with those, but real goals that help push you to your destiny, calling, purpose. I know we are busy with life, we’re tired, we’re stressed, we don’t see how we could ever find the time to work on that thing that we want to do, that we dream about, that wakes us up in the middle of the night thinking about, that fire that burns within us. If you have got a dream, don’t let that flame die within you! Re focus on where you want to go! I believe in you and I know great things are on the horizon for you! Get out there and do anything you need to do to make it happen but also be patient with yourself and give yourself the grace you need while you’re on the way to your calling! Don’t focus solely on the successes of yesterday, focus on the successes that are still ahead! Don’t live in the past! Live with great expectations of the future! I look forward to hearing great reports in 2019!

With love for you all!

Shauna