Category Archives: Self improvement

How to Forge Integrity (and why the strength of your relationship depends on it)

How to Forge Integrity

When I was first married and for years afterward, if you had asked me what a “good spouse” looks like, I would have said, “Someone who puts the needs and wants of their spouse ahead of their own.” Full stop. I left very little room for caveats to that sentiment. Meaning, when I had a need or want that conflicted with my husband’s and I wasn’t giving in, I thought it meant I was just being selfish. That’s not something a “good spouse” would do. My default mode when we would disagree was to give in and get over it.… Read More

Integrity: What is It and Why it Will Affect Every Other Aspect of Your Relationship

Integrity in relationships is how you know you are making right decisions and can act confidently even when its hard. Click through to read more.

For most of my marriage, I’ve had this question, that I just COULDN’T puzzle out. It is this: when do I need to bring something up with Rich and when do I just need to let it go? I face this dilemma every Sunday when we hold our weekly marriage check ins. This incident kinda bothered me. Bring it up or let it go? I’m feeling anxious about this- is that because I’m overreacting? We’ve been fighting about this- who is wrong and who is right? Who is blinded and who is speaking truth? I’ve read a lot of marriage… Read More

Embracing Negative Emotion 101: How to Feel All the Feelings

I had this thought for most of my life. A thought that seemed innocuous, but really kept me from connecting with myself and others. The thought was that I should ignore my negative emotions. I can remember so many times being bothered by something Rich said or did and consciously telling myself, “Just ignore it. Let it go. Don’t think about it. Nothing’s wrong. La la la la la.” Now, when I’m bothered by Rich it is more a reflection of what is going on with me and my head than whatever it was he did or said, so it… Read More

Why “Being Happy” is a Pretty Costly Life Goal (and three better alternatives)

What percentage of the time are you happy? 30%? 80%? Now, what percentage of the time do you think you SHOULD be happy? via GIPHY Up until fairly recently, I thought the happy to unhappy ratio in my life should be about 90/10. I thought I should be happy about 90% of the time. (I never actually quantified this, but unconsciously I assumed I should be happy the vast majority of the time). But recently I read something that sounds maybe obvious but sort of blew my mind. It said that we can expect to experience positive emotion about 50% of… Read More

Growth Means Getting Comfortable with Discomfort. Here’s How.

Getting Comfortable with Discomfort. It's so necessary to tolerate anxiety for growth. Click through to read three ways to do that.

About five years ago, I set a goal that was so far out of my comfort zone, I had NO idea whether or not I could actually accomplish it: to run a half marathon. Guys, I am NOT athletic. I never have been. I discovered this early on in elementary school when we would play Sneaky Pete where you have a scarf tucked into the back of your pants and everyone runs around trying to grab each other’s scarves and the last man standing wins. I would try to get out early every single time because I just couldn’t run… Read More