187: Stop Competing, Start Connecting: Lessons from the Forest
Release Date: 10/02/2025
203: The F*cking First Time: Learning to Sit with Silence and What It Wants to Tell You
SayTheThings's podcast
Over the past nine weeks, you've done the work. You've set boundaries, clarified your values, and practiced giving yourself grace. But now you have something you might not have had in years: space. And if you're like me, that space can feel more uncomfortable than the chaos ever did. In this episode, I'm talking about what happens when we finally create room in our lives—and then don't know what to do with it. I introduce Brené Brown's concept of the FFT (the F*cking First Time) and why doing something new always feels awkward before it feels natural. I share a recent snow day that reminded...
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202: The Grief No One Talks About in Personal Growth
SayTheThings's podcast
As we do the work of letting go of beliefs, patterns, and behavior - as we stop performing to earn value and set boundaries - something sneaks in like pre-dawn fog: grief. Grief is unexpected and often ignored, and it can hold us exactly where we are. This week I'm normalizing grief in personal growth and helping you namen what you're actually mourning. We're not just taking about capital G Grief (the profound loss of someone we love). We're talking about lowercase g frief - the ways grief weaves in and out of our lives as we grow and change. Including the strange grief of...
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201: Why You Make Yourself Small to Keep the Peace
SayTheThings's podcast
Here's the reality: when we create boundaries and make changes, we will disappoint people. There's no way around it. But until two weeks ago, I'd never really acknowledged why I worked tirelessly sacrificing myself, my time, my energy, my peace to make sure no one was ever disappointed in me. This week I'm telling you the truth about why we avoid disappointment, what we're actually afraid of, and how to sit with someone's disappointment without abandoning yourself. This one goes deep—I share how 18 years of marriage to disappointment taught me to make myself invisible, and how I'm finally...
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200: Boundaries Get Tested Before They Get Respected
SayTheThings's podcast
Understanding you need boundaries? Fine. Setting them? Different story. This week we're getting practical—I'm walking you through exactly how to set boundaries, what to say, how to hold them when people push back, and what happens when you start protecting your time, energy, and peace. Spoiler: it gets worse before it gets better. When you set a boundary, people are going to test it, question it, call you selfish, tell you you've changed. But here's what's actually happening—what you were doing benefited them, and that benefit is going away. This is Episode 200, and it's only fitting that...
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199: When You Stop Being Available, People Get Uncomfortable
SayTheThings's podcast
The uncomfortable truth is when you change your values, the people who benefited from the old ones resist. This week we're talking about boundaries and the messy, guilt-inducing, relationship-testing reality of them. I've struggled most with boundaries around my time and energy—the assumption that because I'm home, my time is everyone's time. But being home doesn't mean being available. Your time still has value, even if nobody is paying you for it. If you've ever asked yourself "why are boundaries so hard?" this episode explains exactly why—and what you can do about it. In this episode:...
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198: Words to Choose When Life Pulls You Back
SayTheThings's podcast
You can do all the deep work—understand your should storms, clarify your values, honor your seasons—but on a random Wednesday when the old patterns come screaming back, you need something you can reach for quickly. This week I'm sharing the mantras that ground me when I feel stuck or out of control, and how to create your own that actually work. These aren't stolen from Pinterest or forced affirmations—they're short, believable statements that meet you exactly where you struggle and bring you back into alignment with who you've chosen to be. In this episode: What a mantra actually is...
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197: Understanding Your Emotional Seasons
SayTheThings's podcast
I used to think something was wrong with me when I couldn't keep up with other moms who seemed to be thriving while I was barely making it to bedtime. Looking back, nothing was wrong—I was just in an emotional winter while they were in summer. This week I'm sharing the four emotional seasons we all cycle through and why your capacity to live your values changes depending on which season you're in. If you've been exhausted, depleted, or wondering why you can't do it all anymore, this episode will give you permission to stop forcing summer capacity in a winter season. In this episode: The...
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196: Whose Values Are You Living?
SayTheThings's podcast
This week, we're choosing what comes next—your actual values, not the ones you inherited. I'm sharing the moment my therapist asked what values I wanted to bring to parenting and I sat there, speechless, realizing I'd been operating from survival instead of intention. We're examining the heavy list of values we downloaded from the 80s and 90s—perfectionism, productivity as worthiness, self-sacrifice—and exploring a new list that includes rest, joy, enough-ness, and boundaries. Because you can't decide what to release until you're clear about what you need to hold onto and why.
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195: The Should Storm: How to Stop Living by Expectations That Were Never Yours
SayTheThings's podcast
This week I'm naming something I think we've all felt but rarely talk about: the should storm. You know that voice that tells you you're failing at everything while you're just trying to make dinner? I'm walking you through where these thoughts actually come from, why they feel so loud, and a step-by-step process to quiet them. We're getting curious about the beliefs we inherited without choosing them, and we're learning to rewrite the thoughts that drive our most exhausting actions.
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194: Doing All the Things Is Killing Your Tree of Life
SayTheThings's podcast
I'm kicking off a new series about letting go to uncover who we really are, inspired by John Acuff's Greatest Year Ever course. Just like the trees in fall draw their energy inward and release what no longer serves them, we need to learn to bring our energy back inside and use it with wisdom—not to meet everyone else's needs, but to sustain a healthy life. I've been questioning how our generation fell into the trap of doing all the things for all the people, treating ourselves like machines instead of humans who need rest and restoration. This week, I'm asking you to simply notice what needs...
info_outlineResearch shows that trees don't compete for sunlight – they share resources through an underground network, warning each other of dangers and supporting the whole forest's health. I'm exploring how we can shift from competition to collaboration in our relationships, especially when social media makes comparison so tempting. Your community network is probably more abundant than you realize, and it's time to tend to it with the same energy you give everything else in your life.