Connie Curtis joins host Paula Jenkins to talk about gluten free living, and how to thrive and love a gluten free life style. Connie is a allergy and gluten free specialist. 

This week is a solocast about a mashup of things: first, Paula shares about her experience at the Women’s March this last weekend in San Francisco, and then dives into the importance of taking time each year to take inventory of your life, see what’s working, and do what she likes to call, some “pruning.”

Here are the five ways of crafting your most awesome year yet, from this episode:

1. Do you have room on your plate?
2. What is it that you want to do with this one, precious life?
3. What do you want the focus of this year to be?
4. What have you created in the past that now needs new room, in the present?
5. What is your word for the year?

See all the notes at www.jumpstartyourjoy.com/episode70

Guest Deb Cooperman joins host Paula Jenkins to share about journaling as a great way to get in touch with the true you. She explains how to start journaling each day, how to get past blocks, and how it's a great tool for people in the new year.

Jo Casey joins host Paula Jenkins to talk about mindfulness. Jo also shares about her journey starting a coaching business, and how new coaches navigate the territory of becoming an entrepreneur. Full notes: bit.ly/joyep68

In the midst of the shifting world events, I’ve felt weighed down recently. In this episode, I’ll talk about how it takes real courage to follow a muse like Joy in hard times, and following joy, and love, and our own hearts is more important now, than ever before. I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over why joy has felt so awkward recently, and why it still beckons me on. And, I’ve found a lot of uplifting quotes and thoughts from others to share with you, too.

1. Define what’s true for you - regardless of what else may feel uncertain, what do you know is true for you, right now?
2. Take comfort that it’s perfectly OK (and natural) to grieve or feel sadness at the same time as you feel excitement or joy.
3. Take action: joy is an act of defiance and self care
4. Take action: caring for others spreads joy
5. Baby steps: Joy builds more joy. Little Bits of joy brought to life make room for more joy in your life
6. Look at joy in a new way: explore what joy looks like at the crossroads of whatever else you’re feeling

Christy Tending joins host Paula Jenkins to talk about how courage and vulnerability can add depth and beauty to your life, and lead you to a place that is lovingly and completely human.

In this solocast episode, I'm diving head first into how you can find your inner calm in the midst of this chaotic Presidential Election. To set the stage, this episode is focusing on what's going on behind the emotions and intensity of this election, and what each of us can do recenter ourselves. Whether you support Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, it's likely that you are feeling fearful about the outcome of the election. So let's take a look at what you can do, even when it feels like there aren't a lo of options.

Michelle McQuaid joins host Paula Jenkins to talk about the science of positive psychology. We talk about grit, wellbeing, the mastery curve, and why mindfully choosing joy is good for your health.

Host Paula Jenkins shares around what failure can teach you about finding balance in your life. What happens when you label something as a "failure?" How can you get past the right and wrong thinking and see failure as a healthy thing? 

Tess Blankenship joins host Paula Jenkins to share about the joys of delegation, hiring virtual teams, freelancing and entrepreneurship. We chat about creating process, and knowing when and how to hire for business growth.

Lara Heacock and Stephanie Ducharme join host Paula Jenkins to talk about courage, imperfection, perfectionism, and the vulnerability, love, and awareness it takes to drop the mask and live our true lives.

In this Season 2 opener, host Paula Jenkins and Christy Tennery-Spalding discuss balance, your internal landscape, & external processes (including breathing and meditation practices), and processes to support balance. We introduce our Roots & Wings class.

Host Paula Jenkins revisits favorite and standout memories as she looks back on a year of podcast episodes. Highlights? "Pants Drama," Nellie Oleson, Purpose vs Passion, Facing your Fear, practicing radical gratitude, acceptance, and hospitality.

I'm thrilled to have Tiffany Han, creative brand strategist for highly creative women, join me for this week's show where she shares about what saying yes to creativity and doing what you love has meant in her life.  Tiffany has been a life coach, business coach, and has recently segued into working as a brand strategist. And, she's the host of the wildly popular podcast, Raise Your Hand. Say Yes. 

When you facing any sort of change, whether it be a something you choose (think changing careers, buying a house, etc) or something that happens to you (think losing a job, illness, losing a family member), you rely on "process" to get through the change. And before you glaze over because I'm using the coachy word "process," I encourage you to stick with me here. This stuff is actually pretty interesting! What I'm diving into here is the idea that there are really two types of process, and why it's important to recognize them and harness them to get through a change.

Host Paula Jenkins shares about how to bring your dreams to life, how to get past whatever is keeping you stuck, and the steps to start taking actiong, today.

Paula Jenkins talks about what overwhelm is telling you, and shares the four things you should do if you feel overwhelm or anxiety in your life.  

For the full show notes go to www.jumpstartyourjoy.com/overwhelm

Julie Houghton and Liz Applegate join host Paula Jenkins to talk about connection, collaboration and community in finding support as new entrepreneurs. We also share about our mastermind group, and how it's helped us navigate starting our own businesses.

Coach Jennifer Lee of Artizen Coaching, and author of the Right Brain Business Plan joins host Paula Jenkins to talk about building a sustainable creative business.

In this episode, I walk you through setting heart centered goals using my own "Ten in Three" method. In short, you check in with your heart, listening for what you want to do over the next few years, and then you narrow down what you hear to ten things you want to do over the next three years.

If you're feeling like you want to tackle some new things in the coming year, I encourage you to try this Heart Centered Goals method. The benefit of this method is that you aren't going to be tackling an enormous list of "resolutions," instead you'll be focused on working towards just three big things. It feels more like a choice, and less like a compromise. And, for that reason, I think you'll find that your heart centered goals stick in a way that resolutions never do.

About 18 months ago, I was looking to make a lot of changes in my life. I had just signed up for a program to become certified as a life coach, and there was something about that decision that made me feel like it was time to "put my house in order."  I came up with this methodology, and it worked. Not to glorify the art of busy (far from it!),  in the last two years I've gotten married, gotten certified as a life coach, led 3 in person retreats and set up and led a 10 speaker online retreat, started a podcast, launched a business, worked full time, and had time for my five year old son and husband.

The thing at the heart of this is what I call the "Ten in Three." It's the ten things you want to do over the next three years. It works because it's simple. It works because you start with your heart.

In this episode, I talk about:
- A different way to set goals, using a heart centered approach
- why the original "SMART" method for goal setting doesn't work for everyone
- how different people have different temperaments
- that depending on your personality, you may do better holding yourself accountable (and totally resist having the traditional "accountability buddy")
- my own way of setting and reaching goals
- why you should write your goals down
- why flexibility is important with goals
- how to set a narrow, defined list of goals over the next three years
- why fewer goals are better, even when (especially when) you want to accomplish a lot over a year

Resources:
Ten in Three Worksheet that accompanies this episode
Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life on Amazon
Gretchen Rubin on Lewis Howes' School of Greatness
SMART methodology for setting goals
Kathleen Davies, Episode 1 of Jump Start Your Joy
Debbie Ford's The Dark Side of the Light Chasers on Amazon
"Relaxing" music track by Bensound used during visualization exercise

The post Episode 16: Setting Heart Centered Goals appeared first on Jump Start Your Joy.

Today's episode is about Joy, Transformation and Self Acceptance, and it's my first "Solocast!" I've really loved getting to know so many of you through this blog, and the journey of the past few months has been completely uplifting. As I've mentioned in passing on other episodes, I've had a list of people that I wanted to interview for years ... and finding a home to interview them here, in a podcast format, has been just amazing.

Joy is the platform here, but there's so much more behind joy ... and I think that's why I love talking about it every week. I firmly believe that every person hits a stage in their life where they are challenged, either by physical, mental, emotional, monetary, creative challenges, each that have the potential to shake you to your core. In those hard times, you have a choice. You can choose to become engulfed in your circumstances, or you can choose to fight for joy, for love, for something that matters to you. To get there, you've got to accept yourself, right where you are. It takes embracing your shadow side, the scary parts, the stuff that you don't want to look at or admit. Acceptance is a step, even simply accepting you want or need help is a step.

I've had my own dance with hard times. In this podcast I reference my 56 hour labor, followed by a C-section, at the birth of my son. This threw me for a curve that I didn't expect. No birth class covers the "what happens when Plan A falls apart, Plan B becomes laughable, and Plan C wasn't even written yet." I'm sure you've been through this somewhere, somehow in your own life. There are times when even with the most thorough of planning, (and in the words of Pema Chodron), things fall apart.

It's that moment, or those moments, when there's not much left to hold on to, where you define who you are. Sure, it hurts, sure it sucks, sure, you can be as mad at the world, the universe, at God, as you've ever been. But that doesn't change anything, it doesn't further the cause. It doesn't get you any closer to living or loving, or doing whatever it was you came here to do.  Mad is easy, and mad has it's place, but it's not a destination.

One of the things that kept me going in those moments was the quote by Meg Cabot, "Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear." That and some amazing spiritual and personal stories that I will share at another time, later, when they are ready to be told.

In my case, I came out of that situation with PTSD. I could sense my own ability to deal with reality just outside my grasp. I could feel that I had to fight harder than I'd ever fought for anything in my life, just to get me back. And all the while I was trying so hard not to let the feelings that "I failed at this birth, I let myself down, my own body couldn't do what it was supposed to do" take over. (And if you're in that place, in any way, I want you to know that those things are just not true. Those are such painful thoughts. You're OK, you are loved, you are cherished.)  Truly, I had to know my core, and chose to fight for joy. Joy wasn't really within my reach, I knew that, but it was still out there. So I got curious, I started asking why. I found a really good therapist. None of that could have happened if I hadn't accepted myself, where I was, accepted that at my core I knew I could fight and this was the time to dig deeper than I even knew I could.

I think each of us is wired for joy. We are wired to find our way back home. That's what the story of this podcast ultimately is, that fight for joy, that pursuit of purpose, even when it's hard, even when it seems nearly improbable. For joy, transformation, and self acceptance. We need these stories, and we need to know joy is possible.  Because it is.

This post is part of the "Weeks of Self" series coordinated by Theresa at Thrive Within.
In this podcast I talk about:

In this episode I had the pleasure of talking to Molly Larkin about meeting addiction with loving kindness. Molly is a dear. I remember meeting her for the first time in January and being impressed with her presence. Strong, comforting, welcoming. She's the kind of person who makes you feel at ease and OK in your own skin. Learning that Molly is a registered nurse and a certified life coach, makes sense, she is so undoubtedly in her element in the work that she does.

What I find remarkable about this interview is the way she dives right in and we talk about "hard stuff" - addiction, eating disorders, ego, and self worth. In the same instance, Molly exudes humor, love, and acceptance. I truly enjoyed our conversation, and I'm so glad that we have crossed paths.

In this episode, Molly and I talk about:
- Her experience with addiction and an eating disorder
- How "maitri" (loving kindness) has been a key to her unlocking painful thoughts
- "The Work" of Byron Katie
- The ego's role in painful thoughts
- How to return to joy, even when the ego is running the show, and one is stuck n the midst of painful thoughts
- Molly's work with clients, and how to begin freeing oneself from addiction

I'm super excited that Molly is one of our speakers for the Dream Into Action Retreat running this weekend (November 13-14, 2015). Sign up here.

Resources for this show:
Molly Larkin's website
Read Molly's post on eating disorders
Dream Into Action registration site.
CCTP Website and registration (tell Kate that Molly & Paula sent you)
Byron Katie's book "Loving What Is" - my favorite of her books, on Amazon - it's simply brilliant and I know you'll love it!

I am an Amazon affiliate. Links on this page (ones to items I truly love and recommend) may earn me a commission.

The post Episode 10: Molly Larkin Speaks About Meeting All things with Loving Kindness appeared first on Jump Start Your Joy.