In this episode of Find Your Calm, we explore practical ways to move beyond cycles of shame, imposter syndrome, church hurt, and rigid rules to cultivate a vibrant, life-giving faith. Discover how to press pause, embrace spiritual rhythms, and take your next faithful step toward healing and connection with God.

Do you long for a faith that feels out of reach somehow? Maybe you feel like you don’t have enough time, or maybe you’ve been convinced you don’t have the expertise or the “right behavior” to grow the kind of faith you long for. You’re left feeling unfulfilled, weary or even disconnected from God himself. It’s not that you don’t have faith - it’s that your faith isn’t enough. Listen in for a few things that might be holding you back from a vibrant faith.

Need help building routines to calm your chaos? I’ll share the routines that are currently working for me and encourage you to take that information, hold it against your own priorities and calendar, and discern what could be a next faithful step forward FOR YOU. Maybe it’s the actual routine, and maybe it’s the process that got me to that routine that will work for you. Let’s find out…

When life feels chaotic, adjusting your routines and rhythms can bring some calm. If you need a reset in this season, or you’d like to get ahead of the game and start considering how you can reset in the new year, listen in for a next faithful step forward towards resetting your routines and rhythms in a way that supports the things you care deeply about.

In my final conversation with my daughter on mental health matters, we talk about the light at the end of her crisis and how mental health matters just as much, and maybe even more, on the other side. 

Mental health suddenly mattered more than anything when our daughter Isabel began a long and hard journey through her own crisis. Listen in to our conversation as we pick up where we left off and talk about how we rode the waves of a mental health crisis.

We know that mental health matters, that there are early indicators, signs that point to a coming crisis. But those signs can blend into the background, especially with teenagers. Listen in for a conversation with my daughter about the signs we missed and the faithful steps we're taking forward on the other side of that crisis. 

While everyday stress is a chaos that begs for solutions, high stress seasons can leave us paralyzed under the weight of mental load and decision fatigue. Let's clear a path forward together with 3 faithful steps forward as we navigate a stressful season. 

How do we pass on a faith our kids won't have to heal from? And how do we cultivate that kind of faith for ourselves? If you're looking for next faithful steps forward towards a curious faith, then listen in to this conversation between myself and Madolyn Elmer. 

They say it’s not about religion, it’s about a relationship - but is it? With time to sort through some religious baggage, I sit here in the middle of the mess, suitcases splayed open and items strewn all over the floor. I’ve determined some parts of my religion I’m ready to lose and which I’m holding onto. Consider this my ins and outs list of 2024: religious edition.

Have you ever struggled with unmet expectations? Do you have high expectations for yourself or for others? Then listen in for a few tips on how to manage your expectations so they don’t manage you. 

It’s one thing to find your calm in the holidays - I did an episode on that last year. It’s another team up - with your partner, your kids or your extended family - and find calm together. For this episode, my husband joined me for a conversation on how to teamwork the holidays so you can enjoy the season together.

Sometimes our inner voice is the calm in our chaos. And sometimes it’s the critic that causes the most chaos. As I’ve learned to respond to my inner critic with calm, she’s become a calmer voice in my head. Listen in for a few faithful steps forward towards calming your inner critic just in case yours is here to stay, as well.

Wrestling with your faith is holy and even faithful, but it’s also disorienting. And in the wrestling, our faith can get… complicated. How do we find our calm as we untangle a complicated faith?  This is a question I’m still struggling with so I invited my Spiritual Director to join me for this episode so we could learn and navigate this chaos together. 

Have you ever felt the shifts of change inside of you, and suddenly found yourself completely disoriented? I think over the last few years we’ve all encountered change and had to make a decision - will I buckle down and hold rigidly to my routines, my beliefs, or my priorities, or will I bend like a reed and lean into the winds of change, allowing it to change even me? So if you’ve changed, if you’re changing, if you’re open to change, let me share a few next faithful steps forward through this open sea...

Do you ever worry if your kids will be ok? Or hustle to protect them from difficulty or pain? For many of us, we didn’t receive the tools to navigate hard things in healthy ways and we want something more for our kids So today we’re going to talk about raising children to be resilient so that when they face hard things - hurts, trauma or every day chaos - they’ll be able to adapt and even flourish.

As we continue the conversation about healing or recovery journeys, we’re going to look closer at what it looks like to support a loved who is on this journey. Doing our own work is hard. But supporting people we love who are doing their recovery work is hard too, and it can be difficult to find your calm and even know what a faithful step forward might be. In this episode we share a few truth bombs as well as a few practical and grounding faithful steps forward. 

Throughout life we all experience hurts, develop unhealthy habits, and get stuck on hang ups that fragment parts of us that God longs to heal. The road to recovery from these things is messy and even painful, and it often begins at the rock bottom moment we become desperate for change. Listen in to a conversation with Matt and Todd from The Recovery Guys Podcast as they have an authentic conversation about what recovery is like and how to find your calm in the throes of the recovery journey. 

If you are married, the reality is that you’ve either weathered a crisis or you will at some point. Sometimes in life, your marriage is the calm in the story. But other times, it is the storm. In this episode I share honestly and vulnerably what it was like to weather our own marriage crisis and the story of how we took broken trust and rebuilt it so that it didn’t lead to a broken marriage. 

If you're feeling the anxiety or stress building as you’re counting down to Christmas, listen in for a few last minute tips to manage the chaos and find your calm through the holidays.