Confidence Coaching with Heidi Benjaminsen: Recent Episodes

Heidi Benjaminsen

The Confidence Coach for Mothers of Teenagers, Heidi Benjaminsen, helps women stay calm and confident while navigating the turbulent waters of parenting teens. Heidi's insight into how our brain works and what creates our emotions helps women stay OFF the teenage emotional rollercoaster and regain control over how they show up. Listen and become the model of confidence you want your children to be. A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

🎙️ Episode 198: How Words Shape Us

🌱 The words we speak are not just descriptions—they're blueprints for the lives we’re building. In this empowering episode, Heidi explores how the language we use daily plants seeds that shape our identity, relationships, and even what we believe is possible. Whether you're talking about yourself, your children, your future, or your bank account—your words are either creating momentum or building barriers.

💬 What You’ll Learn:

Why your internal dialogue is the most powerful soundtrack of your life
How to stop unintentionally sowing seeds of shame, scarcity, or self-doubt
The neuroscience behind how words shape identity and emotional regulation
How to consciously choose empowered, growth-oriented language for yourself and your kids
Why how we talk about others’ success reveals our own beliefs about possibility

💡 Action Steps You Can Take Today:

🔁 Reframe disempowering language:

❌ “I can’t do this” → ✅ “I’m learning how to…”
❌ “I should…” → ✅ “I choose to…” or “I want to…”
❌ “She’s lazy” → ✅ “She’s still discovering what motivates her”

🌟 Practice empowered speech:

Praise effort, not just outcomes. “I’m proud of myself for showing up.”
Talk about your kids with growth-oriented language: “He’s learning responsibility.”
Describe your life as if possibility is the norm: “We’re making smart choices right now.”

🧠 Monitor your thoughts:

Catch victim-y language like “my life is a mess” or “must be nice” and ask: What am I attracting with these words?
Choose words that inspire agency and hope instead of helplessness and resentment.

📝 Rewrite limiting beliefs:

After visiting someone “further ahead,” ask: Do I want to believe this isn’t for me? Or am I open to growing into this possibility?

👀 Be intentional with labels:

Swap disorder → difference → superpower
Let labels lift, not limit

🪴 Remember: Words = Seeds Every sentence you say waters something in your world. Speak as if what you desire is already blooming. Your nervous system is listening. So are your children.

Your words matter more than you know. Choose them like the sculptor chooses their tools—carefully, intentionally, and with love. Speak life into your world 🌎💬

🎙️ Ep 197 – How to Apologize 💛 Repairing Relationships with Confidence and Calm

Apologizing isn’t about shame or groveling — it’s about emotional strength, humility, and staying grounded in discomfort. In this episode, Heidi breaks down how to make heartfelt apologies that build trust, not tension — and why this matters deeply for the emotional health of your family.

You’ll learn:

🧠 How real apologies shift your nervous system into connection 🪨 Why we must feel discomfort in our bodies to repair with honesty 📣 The 5-step apology that includes changed behavior (not just words) 🛑 What not to say — and when NOT to apologize at all 👀 Why modeling repair teaches our young adults emotional maturity 🤝 Personal stories of family healing and self-forgiveness

💬 “I’m sorry” is just the beginning. Real connection is built on humility, trust, and repair.

✨ Plus: Heidi shares a powerful example of apologizing not to change a relationship — but to grow into a better version of herself.

🎓 If you’re preparing to send a child to college, check out Heidi’s College Mom Course on heidibenjaminsen.com — filled with videos and tools to help you stay calm, anchored, and connected.

🎧 Tune in now and learn how to apologize with strength, clarity, and compassion.

🎙️ Episode 196: Creating Connection 💞 In this heart-opening episode, Heidi explores what it really means to connect — not just with words, but with energy, presence, and intention. 💫

You’ll learn: ✨ Why connection is an energy loop — and how we either open or close that loop 🐧 How penguins pebble and what that teaches us about human connection 📱 The subtle bids your kids, spouse, and friends are making every day 👀 What your body language says about your emotional availability 💔 The impact of disconnection — and how to gently repair it ❤️ Daily ways to build deeper relationships with your teens, college kids, and partner

Heidi shares coaching stories, practical tools, and heartfelt examples of how to stay grounded and connected — even during stressful or distant seasons of life.

If you’ve ever wondered how to love better, listen more openly, or create warmth in your home and relationships, this episode is your roadmap. 🗺️

🎧 Tune in and start offering “pebbles” of connection today.

Ready to create important connections? Set up a consult and let's talk https://calendly.com/heidibenjaminsen/

💬 Episode 195: Self-Reflection with Grace

What do you do when self-reflection stirs up guilt, shame, or regret? 😣

In this episode, Heidi walks you through how to face your imperfections with compassion, truth, and grace — so your self-awareness actually leads to growth, not shutdown. 🌱

✨ Learn why it’s hard to see ourselves clearly 🛑 Understand how perfectionism and shame hold us back 🧠 Use self-compassion to move forward with strength 🌬️ Regulate your nervous system when tough emotions rise 🗣️ Apologize without drama or over-explaining 🧭 Take one small step toward change 💞 And see how emotional maturity creates deeper connection with your kids

This episode is for every mom who wants to raise emotionally healthy humans — and model what it looks like to love yourself, even in the messy middle. 💗

You don’t need to be perfect to be powerful. You just need to be real. 👣

🔗 Listen now and breathe in this reminder: You are enough. And you’re growing.

Ready to change? Let's talk! https://calendly.com/heidibenjaminsen/

✨ NEW EPISODE! ✨

🎙️ Ep. 194 - Two (Opposite) Things Can Be True

Ever feel proud and heartbroken as your child leaves for college? Relieved and guilty for enjoying the quiet house? Worried and trusting all at once?

💡 You’re not broken. You’re human. And BOTH can be true.

In this episode, I share: ✨ Why our brain resists emotional complexity 🧠 How to train your nervous system to hold two truths 💬 A coaching story that will make you feel seen 🤝 How cancel culture and ghosting thrive in “either/or” thinking 💚 3 tools to practice both/and awareness in parenting, marriage & friendships

📌 Highlights: ✅ Name both emotions out loud ✅ Swap “but” for “and” ✅ Soothe your nervous system while holding the tension

Let’s stop expecting perfection and start making room for humanity.

✨ NEW EPISODE! ✨

🎙 Ep 193: The Power of Self-Reflection is LIVE!

Ever blamed someone else… only to realize later you were the source of the problem? 😅💡 Yep, me too – and this week I’m sharing a funny lightbulb moment (literally 💡🌙) that reminded me just how powerful self-reflection is.

Inside this episode: 🪞 How to tell if the “problem” is yours or theirs 🧠 Why self-reflection only works when your nervous system is regulated 🧘‍♀️ A life-changing tool: “Just Like Me” 🫶 How to handle stress, irritation, and tension with more compassion 💬 Real examples from my life (yes, college dorm drama included!)

Self-reflection doesn’t keep us stuck – it moves us toward connection, calm, and confidence. 💚

👉 Get the Confident College Mom Course Here

🌟 New Podcast Episode: "Helping Kids Handle College Rejections" 🌟

Parents, are you navigating the emotional rollercoaster of college application season with your kids? This week’s episode is for you! 🎧💬

Rejection letters can be tough, but they’re also incredible opportunities for growth. In this episode, I share: ✅ How to support your child when they face rejection. ✅ Ways to help them process emotions in healthy, confident ways. ✅ The importance of modeling vulnerability and resilience.

🎯 Key Takeaways to Help Your Child Handle College Rejections:

Acknowledge Their Feelings: Validate their emotions without trying to immediately “fix” them.
Share Stories of Resilience: Talk about your own challenges and rejections to show setbacks are part of success.
Model Positive Reactions: Avoid negative talk about the school or others who were accepted. Celebrate others’ wins!
Encourage Reflection: Ask open-ended questions like, “What do you want to do next?” to help them look ahead.
Remind Them of Their Worth: Rejection doesn’t define them. Confidence comes from knowing they’re more than one decision.

✨ Confidence isn’t about avoiding failure—it’s about embracing it as part of a vibrant, courageous life. Let’s show our kids how to move through disappointment with grace.

👉 Listen now and share with a fellow senior parent! 💖

🎙️ New Podcast Episode! 💡 Ep 191: Quieting the Commentators and Narrators

Are you living your truth or letting the “commentators” shape your perspective? In this episode, I share lessons from the BYU-Alamobowl game, personal stories, and practical tools to help you: ✨ Distinguish between others' narratives and reality. ✨ Identify biases in yourself and others. ✨ Trust your intuition and maintain personal authority.

Here are 5 Key Questions I use to quiet the noise and stay grounded: ✅ What am I not seeing or hearing in their perspective? ✅ What’s their motivation or stake in persuading me? ✅ Are their words aligned with the facts I can verify? ✅ Am I only agreeing because it matches my beliefs? ✅ Do I need more information before forming an opinion?

🎧 Listen now to learn how to anchor yourself in truth, confidence, and emotional maturity.

👉 DM me if you'd like to work on uncovering your calm, confident self in 2025! #Podcast #ConfidenceCoaching #EmotionalMaturity

Key Message: How we give and receive energy are deeply connected - our ability to do one affects our ability to do the other effectively

Key Points: • If you have trouble receiving help or gifts, you may unconsciously be: - Limiting abundance in your life - Blocking positive connections with others - Judging others when you give help - Teaching your children unhealthy patterns

• Tips for Gracious Giving: - Give without expecting anything in return - Avoid giving from a place of obligation or resentment - Let go of keeping score in relationships - Don't use past gifts to manipulate ("I bought you those jeans, so...") - Remember that anonymous giving can be powerful

• Tips for Gracious Receiving: - Practice simply saying "thank you" without deflecting - Accept compliments with a simple "I appreciate that" - Allow yourself to be vulnerable in receiving help - Don't feel pressured to reciprocate immediately - Remember that accepting help models healthy behavior for your children

• Practical Applications: - Write thank you notes from a place of gratitude, not obligation - Look people in the eye when receiving compliments - Accept help when needed, especially during challenging times - Let go of the need to "prove a point" by rejecting help - Model gracious receiving for your children

• Benefits of Balanced Giving and Receiving: - Stronger connections with others - More authentic relationships - Increased abundance in your life - Better role modeling for your children - Deeper family bonds

Remember: Being vulnerable enough to receive help is just as important as being strong enough to give it. This balance creates healthy connections and models positive behavior for your children.

Curious about having your own, private confidence coach? Sign up here.

Key Points:

Host Heidi Benjaminsen discusses the importance of "quiet wins" - personal victories in emotional life and relationships that often go unnoticed
These wins build confidence and strengthen family relationships, even when others don't explicitly acknowledge them

Notable Quiet Wins Discussed:

Staying calm and curious during difficult conversations, especially with children
Not participating in gossip or spreading private information about others
Declining invitations/opportunities that don't align with your values or energy
Resisting the urge to correct or give unsolicited advice, especially to children
Allowing others (particularly children) to manage their own responsibilities
Speaking positively to yourself after failures or setbacks
Apologizing without casting blame on others
Making responsible financial decisions, even when unsexy or invisible
Remaining non-defensive when facing criticism or belittling comments
Maintaining a positive attitude after committing to help, even if reluctant
Disengaging from negative discussions without feeling compelled to respond
Being direct about important issues while maintaining professionalism
Avoiding guilt trips with teens/young adults when they decline family activities

Key Takeaway: While these wins may be quiet, their impact is significant - they build trust, strengthen relationships, and develop personal integrity. As Heidi emphasizes, "A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family - not a perfect mother."

Sign up for a consult call here.

Uncertainty is the breeding ground for stress and anxiety. But it is always about a future possible event, it isn't about the present.

When our body feels uncertain, our nervous system works up into a tizzy to try to protect us from any future possible danger.

Listen to episode 188 to hear Heidi teach you how to calm your nervous system so you can anchor back into the present. Learn about:

Belly breathing
5 senses anchoring
Toe to head tensing and releasing
Positive visualization

Once we have regulated our nervous system, we can see we can handle the present... because we are.

For private coaching, set up a consult call at https://calendly.com/heidibenjaminsen/

Have you ever felt like you're butting heads with your strong-willed kid? Well, you're not alone! Episode 187 shares some fantastic tips for dealing with those headstrong, independent-minded teens we all know and love.

First off, let's celebrate these traits! Heidi reminds us that having a strong sense of self and the ability to think independently are actually superpowers. We're not trying to squash these qualities, just guide them in a positive direction.

Here are some nuggets of wisdom from the episode:

Choices, choices, choices! Whenever possible, give your teen options. This could be as simple as "Do you want to ride with your brother or us to the event?" It helps them feel empowered and invested in decisions.
Find the 'yes' in the 'no'. When your teen asks for something you're not keen on, try to find a small part you can agree to. For example, if they're always asking to eat out with friends, maybe you can say yes to one meal a week. This approach helps them focus on what they're getting rather than what they're not.
Watch your tone! Our teens can be sensitive to authoritative tones, so try to soften your approach. It doesn't mean you're not in charge, just that you're being respectful of their growing autonomy.
Invite their input. Ask for their thoughts on family decisions. It shows you value their opinion and helps them practice decision-making skills.

The best part? These strategies can lead to stronger relationships with our teens. Heidi mentioned that her daughter now comes to her for advice on almost everything!

Remember, we're not aiming for perfection here. It's all about finding ways to respect our teens' growing independence while still providing the guidance they need. It takes time and practice, but it's so worth it.

Sign up for a free consult call to see how coaching can help you show up as the mother you want to be https://calendly.com/heidibenjaminsen/

Hey there, moms! If you're getting ready to send your kid off to college, this episode of Confidence Coaching with Heidi Benjaminsen is definitely for you.

Heidi dives into understanding our nervous system and how it affects our emotions and reactions, especially during big life changes like your child leaving for college. She explains that our nervous system is like a background program constantly running to keep us safe, but sometimes it can be a bit overprotective – like a smoke detector going off for burnt toast!

She breaks down our nervous system states into three "colors":

Green: This is our happy place – calm, connected, and able to think clearly.
Red: Think fight-or-flight mode – stressed, anxious, and on high alert.
Grey: This is our freeze response – feeling low, hopeless, or burned out.

The key takeaway? It's normal to move between these states, especially when facing something as emotionally charged as sending your kid to college. Heidi emphasizes that it's not about staying in the "green" all the time, but rather about recognizing which state you're in and having tools to get back to "green" when needed.

She offers some great tips for regulating your nervous system, like breath work, exercise, and connecting with supportive people.

Oh, and heads up! Heidi's going to be releasing an inexpensive self-study course soon to help you prepare for taking your child to college. Plus, she's planning some support groups for moms who've just dropped their kids off at school – definitely worth checking out if you're interested in extra support during this transition.

Remember, moms, it's totally normal to feel a mix of emotions during this time. The goal isn't to be perfect, but to be aware of your feelings and have strategies to stay grounded. You've got this!

Episode 185 of Confidence Coaching focuses on achieving freedom from drama in life. The host, Heidi Benjaminsen, starts by defining drama as exaggerated behavior or reactions, often performed for others. She then outlines six key strategies to reduce drama in our lives.

The first strategy is to create space for thinking and curiosity about situations and people's motives. This involves slowing down and questioning our assumptions.

The second is to distinguish between facts and the stories we create about those facts, recognizing that our perceptions are colored by our experiences and values.

Heidi emphasizes the importance of staying calm when others are upset, allowing their drama to land in front of us rather than on us. This requires compassion and the understanding that we can choose how to respond to others' drama. She also advises avoiding gossip and making assumptions about people, as these behaviors often fuel unnecessary drama.

Another crucial point is to mind your own business and create boundaries. Heidi suggests that by staying in our own "lane" and limiting what we allow into our personal space, we can significantly reduce drama in our lives. She also stresses the importance of being present and not letting frustrations grow bigger than necessary.

Reducing drama can lead to more authentic relationships and genuine confidence..

As we reduce our drama, our children have a model to have less drama and negativity in their lives!

A friend told me she was sad and asked if she could call me.

Episode 184 is step by step how I validated, witnessed and helped her process her sadness.

We will all feel sad, it is a normal human emotion.

The skill of zooming in and seeing the sad is what helps all of us get to the other side of the sadness.

Listen to hear what color her sadness was and where she felt it in her body.

She now knows how to love and care for the sadness when it comes back.

This is a must listen for all parents, friends, spouses and humans who want to connect more with other humans.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Our life made up for billions of moments/experiences and each experience has three layers:

The actual experience.
Our awareness of the experience.
The story or meaning we create about the experience.

Listen to episode 183 as Heidi Benjaminsen shares and breaks down several experiences of her life into these three layers.

You'll learn that actual experiences only last a short period of time. Heidi teaches how having the awareness inside our body helps us feel any emotion and know it will pass in time. Being able to handle any emotion allows us to stay in our lane and stay calm and anchored.

Heidi shares how we are shaped most in life by the third layer, the stories we tell about each experience. She teaches how to make meaning in our life that will create the life experiences we really want.

Would you like to know how to calmly handle the silence when your college student doesn't reply to texts or calls? Click here for instant help!

It sounds like a kind desire to have towards others - wanting them to be happy and feel good.

This desire works... until it doesn't and this thought becomes toxic and creates stress (in us and them).

And disconnects us from the people we love most who experience human and negative experiences.

When others are sad, grieving, disappointed and more, they don't need us to tell them we really want them to be happy. (If we do this, they don't want to be around us - which is usually the opposite of what we want.)

They need us to witness their negativity, they need validation and support.

They don't need "fixing", which is what it feels like (unintentionally!) when we want everyone to be happy.

Ironically, as we sit with others in their negativity, they naturally feel "better" because they feel seen and loved.

Which is what we all want anyway.

Listen to episode 182 to hear the reasons why we don't want people to be happy all the time and how to create more humanity and love in our relationships.

Humans are like magnets. Something in our make-up attracts or repels certain people.

I believe OUR VIBE or our energy attracts certain people, certain successes, and certain failures in our life.

And our VIBE repels others.

Our vibe includes our nervous system - how we hold our body, the words we use, our mannerisms, how we dress, act, don't act, how we talk about ourselves and others.

This is the energy we put into the world.

And energy follows energy.

Listen to this replay of one of the most downloaded episodes to hear how to identify and change anything about your VIBE that isn't how you want your life to look.

Goodness and confidence are out there.

Now let's attract more of this into our lives!

Because our brains are "wired" on default to look for the negative, feeling more joy in life isn't an automatic process.

It requires focus and intention and practice.

First, we have to recognize what is STEALING our joy. And neutralize these "joy thieves".

Listen to a replay of episode 11 to hear the many human ways we all let joy be stolen from us.

And hear Heidi explain HOW to increase our joy - in small and big ways.

A joyful mother (who also feels the negative) is the greatest gift to her family!

All moms worry if they are "good enough"; we are biologically wired to care about this.

This "worry" becomes a problem when we look to our children or external factors to determine if we are good enough.

It's an even bigger problem if we think we need to be "perfect".

Listen to episode 179 to hear advanced certified life coach Heidi Benjaminsen discuss what makes us a good mom.

When we think we are a good mom, we act in a way that reinforces this belief.

Good moms are everywhere and doing things very differently.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Summary

- In this episode, I discuss the tendency common to everying - wishing others were different from who they are. It's something I've noticed in the people I coach, and it's a struggle I've faced in my own relationships with family and friends.
- Throughout the episode, I explore how these wishes create barriers between us and the people we care about, hindering our ability to truly understand and appreciate them.
- I challenge the notion that others need to change for us to feel differently, emphasizing the power of changing our own thoughts to shape our emotions.
- I provide listeners with practical tools to dismantle these barriers and foster deeper connections with others.
Examples:
- I share examples of common wishes, such as wanting a partner to be more handy around the house or wishing for more frequent communication from a parent.
- I discuss the challenges of accepting children for who they are, including desires for them to be more outgoing or neurotypical.
- And more!
- Lessons Learned:
- I encourage listeners to examine their beliefs about why certain traits are perceived as better than others.
- I emphasize that our emotions are shaped by our thoughts, not by the actions of others.
- I urge listeners to embrace discomfort and take responsibility for their own emotions rather than expecting others to change.
- I highlight the importance of recognizing and appreciating both strengths and weaknesses in ourselves and others.
- I advocate for a focus on personal growth while simultaneously accepting and loving others for who they are.

We all want to be liked. It's a human survival desire.

It feels good when people like us.

BUT we all encounter people who don't like us. Our brain thinks this is a problem. This isn't a problem!

If someone likes us, this represents their brain and their lane - not us!

Listen to this "best of" episode to learn how to manage what you think, feel and do when someone doesn't like you.

Let other people be wrong about you.

Our job is to focus on what WE think about OURSELVES and build OUR self-esteem.

This focuses our attention on our lane and helps us show up as people we WANT to be.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Learning how to say no when someone requests something of us is a critical skill. This skill anchors and steadies us as we stay in our lane and take more control of our life.

Listen to episode 176 (a replay of episode 9) to learn:

Importance of setting boundaries and prioritizing time
Reasons why people struggle to say no
Awareness of the consequences of saying yes to everything
Strategies for politely declining requests
Emphasis on taking responsibility for time management
Importance of being honest with oneself and others
The significance of clear communication and setting expectations
Examples of saying no graciously and firmly
Discussion on the responsibility of commitments once made
Avoiding blaming others for one's own choices
Importance of self-care and valuing one's time
Respectfully declining requests for money or other favors
Prioritizing tasks based on personal values and integrity
Admiration for those who effectively manage their time and commitments
Importance of self-worth and self-confidence in saying no

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

To set up a free consultation for coaching, go to https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult/

The episode delves into the idea of grace, drawing inspiration from a talk by Brad Wilcox titled "His Grace is Sufficient." Grace, as Heidi explains, is a gift given out of love, not fear or judgment, and it assumes worthiness without the need for earning it.

She explores how grace applies to human relationships, emphasizing the importance of shifting our mindset towards others and ourselves.

Heidi emphasizes that our relationships with others exist in our minds, shaped by our thoughts about them. She highlights the three components of a relationship:

what we think about the other person,
what they think about us,
and what we think about ourselves.

Heidi stresses the importance of focusing on filling the gaps in our relationships with grace and understanding rather than judgment and criticism.

Using personal anecdotes and coaching examples, Heidi illustrates how practicing grace can transform our interactions with others and improve our self-esteem.

She encourages listeners to shift their focus from judging others to understanding and accepting them, ultimately fostering deeper connections and personal growth.

For more information go to heidibenjaminsen.com.

Schedule a free consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult/

Heidi Benjaminsen hosts "Confidence Coaching," a podcast aimed at supporting mothers in maintaining calmness and stability regardless of their surroundings.
In Episode 174, titled "Building Core Confidence," Heidi shares a personal experience from a skiing trip in Austria to illustrate the importance of developing emotional resilience and stability.
She describes how navigating challenging ski trails highlighted the role of her core muscles in maintaining balance and stability, drawing parallels to building emotional resilience in everyday life.
Heidi emphasizes the significance of staying centered, taking responsibility for one's actions and emotions, and avoiding the temptation to blame external factors.
Through her skiing experience and a subsequent encounter with law enforcement, Heidi demonstrates the importance of flexible thinking, self-acceptance, and embracing uncertainty in fostering core confidence and emotional well-being.
Learn more at heidibenjaminsen.com
Sign up for a free consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult
A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

The fastest way to changing our life is SLOWING DOWN and examining situations we want to change. When we pause and reflect on what we are thinking, we're able to change emotional patterns. Our frustration, stress, and insecurity suddenly isn't needed because we see the situation from a different perspective.

In episode 173 of Confidence Coaching, Heidi gives many examples from her own life of how she slowed down to question:

Why she was feeling insecure when not included with a group
If things she perceives as problems with other people are REALLY problems
Will getting angry and mad actually help me in this situation
What will confidence look like when meeting new people
Would I like it if my spouse had these same expectations and resentments
What am I rushing to
And more!

Emotional control and calm is quickly possible after we slow down and ask WHY we are acting a certain way and rushing through life.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

When we gain life experience, learn new information and see the perspective of how other people experience life, our opinions, our beliefs, our biases change. Confident people WANT to change their minds over their lifetime. To do so requires a lot of self-acceptance, integrity, discomfort, humility and emotional maturity.

Our lower brains will resist us changing our opinions, for fear it means we were "wrong" before and fearing what is "new" and "unknown". Remember this brain wants us to be "right" more than anything else. But this brain isn't confident and isn't getting us ultimately where we want to go.

Listen to hear Heidi explains why our brain resists being able to change our opinions and how to incorporate new data into new opinions and beliefs. Both can be true - we did our best in the past and we're doing out best now - even if opinions and beliefs are different. Changing and "upgrading" our internal software is the sign of a confident and emotionally anchored person.

Confident mothers have open minds, open hearts and empathetic ears. Confident women know change represents growth. Learn how to do this in episode 172 of Confidence Coaching with Heidi Benjaminsen.

Learn about private coaching at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

As I end each year, I share with you important "thoughts" and beliefs that carried me through the year. This year has been incredibly busy, and yet I've moved through the year without swirling chaos. I've stayed anchored to what is most important and I've chosen how I want to feel and experience everything.

Listen to hear how I've managed my thoughts around moving into a home and unpacking alone. I paid much more attention to my "trailing invisible thoughts" than I did the first thing that came to mind. Learn more about this below:

Episode about Trailing Invisible Thoughts - https://heidibenjaminsen.com/146-2/

This year was one with very high and very low emotions and I didn't make myself choose just one to feel - I stayed in the duality and felt both at the same time. I allowed the energy and sensations to move through me and I was the witness to these intense emotions.

To stay in my lane and keep myself focused on MY own lane, I made sure I wasn't solving problems that were not mine to solve. It becomes harder and hard to move problems out of my lane and put them squarely in my children's lanes. It's hard AND this is what allows them to grow into emotionally independent adults.

2023 was great! 2024 will be even better. Glad you're here.

Tis the season to be invited to a lot of events, parties, gatherings, recitals, and more. It feels great when we have the time and energy to say YES to as many things as we want. There will come a time, though, when the best way to take care of our life, our lane, is to decline an invitation. This may be uncomfortable - you and they may be disappointed you aren't able to attend. Regardless of the discomfort, declining is still the most emotionally mature and confident thing to do.

Listen to episode 170 of to hear how declining is part of creating boundaries and taking care of our lane. Learn phrases to say and how to feel any discomfort you may feel. If someone else is upset and we know we've been kind and considerate in how we have declined, we do not need to "fix" the discomfort. This is a responsibility of their lane.

Saying YES to anything is always saying NO to something and someone else, and that person may be ourselves. Resentment builds when we expect other people to manage our lane. Confidence and emotional stability builds when we learn to manage our time, needs, priorities and energy.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Overwhelm, stress, anxiety and worry are created when we're looking at a situation or person with the wrong perspective. We may be too "zoomed out" and not seeing how to get anchored and calm, or we may be too "zoomed in" and not seeing the bigger picture with peace.

Listen to episode 169 to hear an important anchoring tool. Learn questions to ask yourself to help your mind regain calm and control by zooming in or out. Heidi gives many examples of when she zoomed in to the details to be present and enjoy daily moments. Zooming in allows us to be focused, present and only worried about the task at hand.

When we zoom out and see our lives and our children's lives, we stop stressing the least important details and we stay calm and in control in our lane. This tool helps us model emotional control and calm to our children, which helps them stay in control of their lane.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Gratitude does more than increase our dopamine and increase our mood, being grateful and expressing appreciation can heal our body and nervous system. Gratitude is a super emotion that connects us to people, regulates our body and attracts more goodness into our life.

Yet... expressing gratitude is a skill and muscle we can all build.

Listen to Heidi describe how our brain and body might resist giving or receiving gratitude and learn scripts to use to express appreciation for others. Learn easy practices to use with your children to incorporate giving thanks and living in abundance, not lack.

When we give and receive thanks with grace, our children will be comfortable giving and receiving thanks. Which will heal both us and our family.

We've all heard that the way we hold out body sends messages to other people about our confidence or insecurities, if we are open to conversation or want to be left alone. Did you know our nervous system ALSO knows how WE are holding our body and ALSO sends signals of confidence or insecurity, of safety or danger?

Listen to episode 167 of Confidence Coaching with Heidi Benjaminsen as she teaches about proprioception, or the science of how our nervous system is aware of how we are positioned and how it sends messages to our brain - messages to reinforce the energy of our mannerisms.

Smiling sends messages of confidence and calm. Holding our chin and head up, shoulders back sends messages that we are valuable, confident and worthy of taking up space. Making eye contact reinforces these messages - not just to others, but more importantly - to ourselves.

Watch the micro mannerisms of others and decide which you want to mirror. Adapt new confident manners and feel your energy change!

Our vibe attracts our tribe!

Sign up for a consult call so your children see you as the most calm and anchored version of yourself: https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

A teenager's body has wildly fluctuating hormones and moods that seem to hit the highs and lows like the world's best rollercoasters. They can be angry, excited, anxious, nervous and happy all in a few minutes. Just because THEY are on this ride does not mean WE need to be on the ride with them.

In episode 166 of Confidence Coaching with Heidi Benjaminsen, learn tips to stay anchored and calmly on the "platform" as your teen experiences the emotional rollercoaster. Learn how to separate your emotions from their emotions. Hear how to normalize and validate their experience while also validating you might need a break from their outburst.

The calmer we can approach their highs and lows, the quicker they will experience the extremes and the safer they will feel with these emotions. Our teens need us to feel ok with their big emotions so they learn these emotions are feelings they don't need to avoid or numb.

Sign up for a consult call to hear about the Stay In Your Lane program with private 1:1 lessons and coaching. https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Life incudes loss and our teens need us to show them how to feel, process and manage deep sorry and grief. Helping them learn to process this human emotion (and not avoid it), sets them up in life to know how to process, feel and handle the inevitable grief that that will encounter.

Listen as Heidi shares five tips and tools to use as our teens experience grief and loss. Our teens need us to validate and normalize these hard emotions and sit with them so they are not alone in these experiences. Let your teens see you be sad and let them see the strength and courage in being sad and asking for help. Listen to hear a lot of examples of what to say and what not to say. Do NOT try to make them feel better - this makes their nervous system think these negative emotions are something and avoid and buffer from (which makes them "stay" longer).

The more comfortable we are allowing our teens to be uncomfortable and feel grief, the more maturely they will learn to process emotions. And the quicker they will move through the harder emotions.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

See how coaching can help you stay emotionally anchored https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult/

Recently I attended a funeral where I learned about early "chapters" in the life of a dear family member, whom I've only know in the last chapters of their life. These remarks profoundly moved me and I wished I had known this person as a mother of teenagers, like I am now. I wish I had seen us as more alike than I did.

Our lives are all a compilation of so many small little chapters and we often only meet people in one specific chapter. And in doing so, it's easy to think we don't have things in common with other people. Or we judge their whole "story" based on one small chapter.

Listen to episode 164 to hear several ways to gain perspective on the chapters our teens are in and how to gain hope for how the story will progress. We need to let past chapters be finished and allow change and growth. We get to choose what we think is going to happen in future chapters - what we think influences what we project to our children and how we show up.

If you would like personalized coaching to help you find hope and calm in your current "chapter", set up a free call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

For good and bad, our teens know what we are thinking, what makes us happy and sad, what stresses and overwhelmed us, our beliefs and values and much more. They "track" our body language, facial expressions, all of our non-verbal communication and they create mental "maps" that predict how we will act and react. These survival skills are what humans do between each of our "lanes" - it is how we predict where we are safe.

In episode 163, listen to Heidi discuss mapping and tracking with Dr. Jennifer Finalyson-Fife, an expert in marriage and family relationships. Hear how this relates to our teens, what they are mapping about us and how we can change the map if we desire.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family.

Below are links for books and courses mentioned in the episode:

The book "Brain Talk" by Dr. David Schnarch: https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Talk-Mapping-Science-Everyone/dp/154837153X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=J3IMBWGF3O8N&keywords=brain+talk&qid=1692129045&sprefix=brain+talk%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-1

To learn more about Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: https://www.finlayson-fife.com/

Room For Two private podcast with Dr. Finlayson-Fife: https://www.finlayson-fife.com/coaching/room-for-two

Brain Talk: How Mind Mapping Brain Science Can Change Your Life & Everyone In It

In a casual conversation recently, a friend and I were discussing how principles of thought work, emotional regulation and all things coaching have changed us. My list continued to grow and I realized the changes are quite profound and touch every area of my life.

I'm sharing with you in this episode the 17 ways coaching principles have changed my life. A few include:

My words and actions are a reflection of me, not others.
I don't have to be "right" all the time and I don't get to determine what is "right" for another person.
What other people think of me isn't my mental business.
Worry isn't love and hurts relationships.
I know where I begin and end, and where others begin and end.

And more!

Listen and see if any of these are changes you can identify in yourself!

Leave a 5 star rating or review on iTunes at: http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1479596645.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Confident people set their internal GPS and know what they "intend" to do in small and large daily tasks. Confident people bring to their consciousness the purpose and desired result of time with their children, at work, relaxing, conversations. Intensions can be to connect, to relax, anything. Without know what we WANT, we're living on default and may, or may not, get where we want to go.

Listen as Heidi shares a tool to quickly anchor ourselves in our lane. Learn how to ask other people what their intention is when they share information with you. Doing this helps us remain in our lane and not jump into their lane to fix potholes or offer support that actually isn't wanted or needed.

If you want personalized help finding your intentions and staying anchored in your lane, sign up for a free coaching call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Our minds can easily spend time in the past and the future, two places where we have NO control. By contrast, the present moment happening right NOW, is the only moment we can control and really experience life.

Listen as Heidi explains how she was present in her body and mind for a once-in-a-lifetime event last week with her family. She shares how she managed her mind and allowed a lot of emotions (highs and lows) - all of which allowed her to be very present.

The more present we are, the more control we have over our lives and the more change we can direct. The present is where we connect with our family and ourselves.

To learn to be more present, set up a consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult.

We take things personally (or are easily offended) when our brain thinks we are constantly being attacked. We think there is danger in the words, actions and inactions of everyone around us. Regardless of why we may take things too personally, it IS possible to become more confident, stronger emotionally.

Listen to episode 159 of Confidence Coaching with Heidi Benjaminsen to hear Heidi share very detailed examples of how to pause and pivot AWAY from being offended and taking things personally. This requires us to feel and acknowledge how we are feeling, determine if there is intent to hurt, and determine if we agree with any part of what is being said. In every situation we get to choose who we want to be, who we want to attract and who we want to repel in our lives.

Easily offended people REPEL confident people and create disconnection in their world. Learning not to take things personally ATTRACTS stable, anchored and calm people into our world. Confident women can see reality and their human qualities with grace, humor and awareness.

Our teens learn learn to be less defensive when they see us take things less personally.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family.

Set up a free consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult.

We are responsible to express and take care of our own needs and wants - this is one of the core responsibilities we have in OUR lane. Our confidence and personal power grows when we stop, ask ourselves what we need, are able to identify this need and then can fill the need - even if it requires asking for help.

We are always insecure, disempowered and will stay stuck if we're dependent on other people to see what we need and make sure this is met. Healthy relationships require that our self-esteem is not dependent on someone else "needing" us.

Our spouses, children, everyone else in our life are primarily responsible for their needs. When we step in and "take care of the needs" of other functioning adults, we disempower them. We project to them that we do NOT have confidence they can handle their life.

Listen to hear many examples of how to get what you need and want in life. Learn how to let others be responsible for their needs so they can be empowered. Allowing others to fill their needs reduces the stress and anxiety we carry around.

Sign up for a consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me/consult.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Our relationships with other people are actually much simpler to define than we are led to believe. Because we cannot control the thoughts and feelings of another person, our relationship with them is based on these three aspects:

What we think about the other person
The stories we tell and imagine about what this person thinks about us
What we think about ourselves

All of these relationship building blocks are in OUR lane and influence every part of our feelings and interactions with others.

We act, speak, text different when we think others like us, or do NOT like us. We act, speak, text different when WE like ourselves, or do NOT like ourselves.

Listen as Heidi gives several examples of how separating each of these in relationships gives us confidence and strength to improve every relationship. Learn how to release needing to know what others think about us.

Focusing on what we can control strengthens our relationships and anchors us in confidence. Focusing on what we cannot control always leaves us insecure and repelling others.

To sign up for an introductory coaching call: https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

The energy and emotions we carry with us are either repelling or attracting people. Positive emotions like love, kindness, acceptance, peace, curiosity all send energy to the people we interact with that we value and like them. Positive emotions send energy that the other person is doing okay.

Negative emotions and energy such as worry, judgment, shame, assuming, criticism and perfectionism repel people from us. These emotions send unconscious signals that we don't think the other person is making the right choices, that they can't handle what is going on in their life or they aren't good enough. These emotions do NOT help others feel good about themselves and create distance between ourselves and the people we do in fact love.

Often we show up with negativity on default, out of habit, completely unaware of the micro-messages our energy sends to others. Listen to Heidi explain how these emotions attract or repel and learn how to pivot to send the energy and influence we WANT to send to those we love.

Sign up for an introductory call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

Learn more at https://heidibenjaminsen.com

We all see the world through different and unique "lenses" formed by our life experiences, biases, strengths, weaknesses, race, and much more. We see the world through our literal eyes and with our brain. This lens is formed by basic beliefs we have about the world - such as that the world is safe place or is a dangerous place. These beliefs can be changed just like lenses to glasses can be changed.

We become kinder and empathetic humans when we respect that other people (in their lanes) have reasons for seeing and reacting to the world (and us) the way they do. They see us as THEY are, not as we are.

Listen as Heidi gives several examples of uncovering less-desirable moral beliefs, media-triggered beliefs and steps to SEE others as they really are. As we respect our differences, we gain more control over our beliefs and are calmer, more confident humans.

Episode referenced:

What Others Think of Us: https://heidibenjaminsen.com/145-2/

To schedule a free introductory coaching call: https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Corinne Crabtree is a phenomenal example of changing her confidence, her identity and pursuing her dreams. She lost over 100 pounds and has kept it off for 15+ years and has built an 8-figure business helping other women break generational curses of health and wealth.

Listen as Corinne shares with Heidi her courageous story, where her belief was when starting (she says it was a -10!) and how she slowly grew her confidence. Corinne shares how to separate our self-worth from our own behaviors, the behaviors of our teens and the scale.

Corinne shares how her goals and vision changed as she started pursuing a healthier life as well as building her own business. Listen to hear what her son thinks about her (he called her an 'expert' - a high compliment from a young adult!) and how Corinne's family has changed because she prioritized herself.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Learn more about Corinne and her programs:

Listen and Subscribe to the Losing 100 Pounds Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/losing-100-pounds-with-corinne/ id1233384453

Link to Corinne’s Free Weightloss Course & Website www.nobsfreecourse.com

Link to Corinne’s Advanced Weightloss Coaching Certification http://theweightlossuniversity.com/

Link to Corinne’s No BS Business Women Membership https://www.nobsbusinesswomen.com/

Link to Corinne’s No BS Business Bootcamp Event https://www.phit-n-phat.com/bootcamp-2023/

In the third episode in this special Stay In Our Lane series, listen as Heidi explains what happens between our lanes, between people as we communicate, behave and show up in the world. There is more than just one person being totally responsible for their emotions and not taking accountability for their influence on others.

Heidi explains the Channel of Influence that runs between us and everyone we interact with. Hear examples of how others are affected (or influenced) by the words, behavior, tone of voice, body language, gossip, sarcasm and more of others. The more we are aware of the influence (not control!) we have on others, the more we can get back in our lane, be more confident and create strong relationships with our family and friends.

Knowing what is repelling and attracting in this channel of influence, helps us curate the people and energy we want around us. Our teens become comfortable with the energy and vibe we project. We want to ensure we influence them to be comfortable with confident and attracting emotions, which is all in our channel of influence.

To schedule a free introductory call, https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

Learn more at https://heidibenjaminsen.com.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family.

In this special Stay In Your Lane series, Heidi explains foundational concepts that help us stay anchored and calm in our "own lane". This happens when we understand what everyone else is responsible for in "their lane".

Listen in episode 152 as Heidi discusses what everyone else in our life is responsible for and hear examples of how to get out of other people's lanes. When we allow people to manage their emotions, to be responsible for their actions and needs, they learn CONFIDENCE. They feel respected and learn the lessons they need to learn. They feel EMPOWERED because they learn how to take care of their needs when we aren't swerving all over the road.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family.

To set up a free consult call, go to https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

Learn more at https://heidibenjaminsen.com.

Confidence is rooted in taking full responsibility for our life, or "our lane". We are responsible to understand and manage our own thinking, feeling, doing and what we are creating. These all create a "wheel" that is constantly directing and moving us in whatever direction WE move it.

Listen as Heidi begins a "Stay In Your Lane" series that explain newly updated foundation concepts and tools. Learn what IS in your lane, or is your responsible, and what is NOT in your lane. Listen to hear why we need to take responsibility for meeting our needs, being considerate of others (in their lane), and much more.

In life we will find ourselves swerving into others "lanes". Heidi shares several ways to get control, re-anchor ourselves into what we have control over and get back in our lane".

You will not want to miss a single episode of this series!

To set up a free consult call: https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me

To learn more: www.heidibenjaminsen.com.

Sarcasm may seem harmless, and possibly is it aimed at yourself. But there is a reason sarcasm is rarely received well. That is because sarcasm means "to tear flesh". Sarcasm hurts. Sarcasm is the least mature way to communicate and often we use sarcasm to passive-aggressively communicate we want someone to change.

Listen as Heidi explains what sarcasm really is, what to do when we want to be sarcastic to others. (Hint, it doesn't involve speaking...). Listen to hear how to handle sarcastic comments aimed at us.

Set up a free consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

For more information go to: www.heidibenjaminsen.com.

It's so easy to live life on auto-pilot, day in - day out, have our schedules, priorities, focuses and forget a few important facts. Its easy to forget the mundane tasks, the daily mess, the kids hitting balls on the house is all evidence of the abundance in our life. It's easy to forget to put our challenges in perspective, realizing someone else got really bad news today. It's easy to forget we really aren't the center of our child's universe. Its easy to forget the things we have now are things our past selves greatly desired and didn't have. And more!

Listen as Heidi shares many small pivots we can make in our daily lives which change our mood, change the people we can bless, change how we respond to our family.

Learn more at www.heidibenjaminsen.com.

Set up a consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

Confidence begins with controlling our emotions and understanding what we experience is NOT dependent on other people. This is emotional independence. This is the freedom to feel whatever we want to feel, regardless of the people and the world around us.

Emotional independence is what allows us to stay calm while others are angry, to feel peace as others feel turmoil and how to feel the negative of life AND not react in ways that create more problems!

Listen as Heidi teaches specific ways to create this freedom, how to stop trying to control others, what to say to stop and anchor ourselves and how to control how we react to others.

Our actions and reactions are always a reflection of us, not others.

Set up a consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me

Learn more at www.heidibenjaminsen.com.

We "miss" our children when they leave home for college, work, military, etc. It's a big adjustment period. Its important to know how to handle our own emotions of sadness and "missing" them WITHOUT adding emotional burden to our children.

Listen as Heidi shares her experiences of taking two children to college and how she processed these bittersweet emotions while supporting her children with their own emotional journeys.

Missing our children is OUR responsibility to process. Our children are managing THEIR insecurities, challenges, loneliness, vulnerability. They need parents who project confidence and trust, not worry and insecurity.

Learn more at www.heidibenjaminsen.com.

Sign up for a consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Trailing after many of our thoughts are the REAL opinions, biases, judgments and thoughts which are creating what we experience. We are less impacted by what others do and MORE impacted by thinking they SHOULD be different. We are less impacted by the world and MORE impacted by our opinions if we can handle life or if it is too much. This is what we uncover when we learn how to identify our "trailing invisible thoughts".

Listen as Heidi shares many examples of what these invisible thoughts are, how to uncover them, how to normalize these thoughts and when to question and replace them. Doing so can change the entire emotional vibe we carry around in the world. Heidi shares how discovering many invisible biases has helped her be less judgmental and more accepting of others.

As mentioned in the episode, send emails to one reply of coaching to heidi@heidibenjaminsen.com.

A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family!

Sign up for a free consult call: https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me

We get hurt when people criticize or say mean things about us. And we feel loved and valued when people compliment us and love us. In reality... what other people think about us reveals everything about them and very little about us. Because people see us the way THEY are, not the way WE are.

Listen as Heidi explains how she has handled hurtful comments and learned to see how these comments were not about her. Learn how to ask how other people's comments reflect THEIR opinions, biases, life experiences and NOT ours. Doing so helps us feel love and grace for others, and not be offended. We learn not to change how we show up in the world based on what others think.

See more at https://heidibenjaminsen.com/145-2/

Learn about coaching at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

Emotionally healthy families include a mother who knows what she likes, who knows her own desires, dreams, wants - separate from those of her family. Children feel safer and more secure when they see their mother able to express and meet her desires.

Its easy while parenting to silence or ignore our own desires and wants. Listen as Heidi shares how this happens and how to "tune in" to you internal desires. Learn to do things and make decisions "because you want to". Not to hurt or thwart others getting their desires, but rather in a way to acknowledge to yourself that YOU matter.

Our desires matter. It requires confidence to listen to, acknowledge then voice our desires.

More information at: https://heidibenjaminsen.com/144-2/

Sign up for a consult call at: https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me.

We all know the feeling in the pit of our stomach - we hear about a fun party and realize we weren't invited. Or we go to a luncheon and everyone is already sitting with a friend. We feel "left out". Where does this feeling come from and why does it leave us acting in ways that perpetuate us being "left out"?

Listen as Heidi shares examples and tools to handle these situations with confidence. Hear what is causing us to feel this way, then visualize thinking and acting so you aren't "left out". Hear what NOT to say and what to say, listen for ways to hold your body, speak so you are included... if you want to be included. Because confident people don't need to go to everything and be everywhere.

We become who we think we are. If we think we are always "left out", we will be. If we think people like us and want to include us, we will be liked and included.

Set up a consult call at https://heidibenjaminsen.as.me

More episode details: https://heidibenjaminsen.com/143-2/

Our values are what is most important, above all else, in our lives. Our values are the principles and beliefs driving our actions. Often, though, we don't stop to identify exactly what we value. Listen as Heidi explains why we need to identify and name our values before we set new year's goals and resolutions. Heidi walks you through the questions to ask yourself that reveal your core values. Even if you think you know your values, listen and re-evaluate. Our values change from time to time as we gain wisdom, experience and grow.

In the last several months, Heidi has experienced a lot of changes - selling a home and moving her family, sending children to college, and more. Listen as she shares specific experiences of using the tools she teaches in this podcast to confidently stay anchored and to lessen the anxiety of her children and their new changes. Hear the incredible benefits of changing the internal relationship we have with ourselves and how it impacts emotional eating and any sabotaging behavior. Learn more at heidibenjaminsen.com.

We all are going to get accidentally and intentionally hurt by others because we’re all human. When we do get hurt (especially when there is no intent), we need to understand the purpose of pain, the purpose of guilt and be able to sit with the discomfort of both. We are responsible to validate and express our pain, while also NOT hurting back. We do not need to “take away” the guilt the other person feels, even when they hurt by accident. Guilt teaches us a lesson. Listen to hear how Heidi managed her emotions when she was physically hurt (by accident!) recently. Hear how this applies to the emotional pain we experience and unintentionally do to others.

Arrogance is not confidence, although some may confuse the two and think they are the same. Arrogant people have a low self-esteem, they are constantly comparing themselves to others and need to be better to feel good. Confident people, on the other hand, like themselves and do not need to compare themselves outward to feel good. Listen to Heidi explain the difference between arrogance and confidence and hear examples of how these emotions look different when we interact with the world. Arrogance builds walls and pushes people away. Confidence is attractive, is curious and draws people into our light.

Running a marathon, writing a book, making $1 million dollars, starting a restaurant, getting re-married… some of these feel IMPOSSIBLE to us. But they are not impossible if we decide we REALLY want to do them. Listen to Heidi talk with Felicia Broccolo, a coach who helps women turn the impossible into reality. Learn how to anticipate obstacles, why goal setting is important for mothers with children and how to find your own accountability partners.

If you’d like more information about Felicia, this is her website: https://createtheimpossiblelife.com

Here is her book, Create The Impossible Life and you can find that here.

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Asking questions that actually get your teen talking to you is a skill and one of the most powerful tools we have to create lasting relationships. We have to remember we DON’T know what they are thinking and we have to be genuinely curious. Listen as Heidi shares ways to change our mindset and ways to ask questions that get your teen talking. Learn why it’s important to pause and listen and how to remove judgment from our responses. Then prepare yourself to really hear what is on their mind!

Click here to access the 100 Questions to get your teens talking that Heidi discusses in the episode.

Raise your hand if you have a hard time accepting compliments. I hope that we all have our hands raised. I know I do. But why is that? Social Scientists have a lot of ideas why, and we can talk about those in this episode, but it all boils down to why we bat that compliment away and don’t receive the nice gift that has been given to us. That’s not right, is it? It’s not a sign of humility and meekness to not accept compliments, but it is a way to not create connections in your life. Listen to this episode to find out more about how to accept compliments and why that’s important.

Confident people use certain words and tone of voice that reflect they are okay with who they are and that they accept their strengths and weaknesses. Confident people don't over-explain or desperately need other people to understand their choices. Confidence doesn't put other people down, which reveals our insecurities. Confident people can be happy for other people. Heidi shares many situations and phrases to use to show up confidence and when to stay confidently quiet.

When a mother invests in her own confidence, security and self-love, she is in a position to “gift” these same emotions to her children. Listen to the beautiful episode where I interview a client and friend of mine who has done some amazing work over the past year. Alisha shares her insecurities before coaching, specifically her worry about telling her youngest daughter she is adopted. Listen to hear the beautiful story of what Alisha learned and the impact her own growth has had on her family.

Heidi shares a story about a trip she took a few years ago, where her GPS took her off the “direct path” and a beautiful trip that unfolded. Heidi shares many lessons from this trip about the options for worry, stress or calm and relaxation as our GPS (or the GPS of our teens) takes them on a path different from others. Learn helpful ways to support (and not disconnect from) friends on their own paths.

Envy and jealousy are emotions that, if they drive our lives, create disconnection with others and block gratitude and love. The more we like ourselves, the more we can manage our jealousy and love others. Listen as Heidi gives examples of how we act when jealous (critical, shaming, talking about others behind their back, judging) including specific things we say. Learn two tricks - one internal and one external - to turn jealousy into gratitude and confidence.

We mentally put people on pedestals when we elevate everything about them to be amazing, perfect, the greatest of all time, etc. This isn’t just admiring and respecting these people - this is expecting them to be perfect in all ways because they do excel in some ways. When we do this, we create disconnection with these people we revere and we’re set up to always be disappointed - because no one is perfect. Listen as Heidi explains why elevating people to mental pedestals is so damaging to relationships and how to equalize these relationships. Because we all crave connection - and connection doesn’t take place on pedestals.

Often we share with others how excited and happy we are to do new, exciting things... and we forget to mention that we're ALSO scared, nervous and fearful. Social media is full of excitement and we rarely post about how terrified we were as well during the adventure. Listen as Heidi shares several examples of why it is important to label and discuss the negative we feel so our teens know these emotions are normal. Knowing these emotions are normal and human will allow our teens to take action and know they aren't alone.

Everyone wants to know their feelings and experiences are "okay" and normal, and we seek this validation from other people. Our teens are especially anxious that everything they are feeling is "normal". Empathy is the fuel that will ground and anchor our teens into being confident in how they are experiencing life. They desperately want to know it's okay to feel nervous, lonely, excited, scared and ALL the human emotions. Listen as Heidi teaches you why empathy is so critical to connection with our teens and what empathetic responses sound like (and don't sound like!).

It can be tempting to use guilt as emotional fuel to get our teens to do what we want them to do. The danger of using guilt for compliance is this models inappropriate and immature communication and manipulation. Guilt will always create resentment and disconnection - two things we all do NOT want part of our relationships with our teens. Our teens need to see us have needs and wants. They need to see us model being able to ask for what we need and own our own emotions in every situation. Listen to hear how to stop the guilt trips and communicate clearly and directly with respect, love and connection.

Guilt is a powerful emotional tool humans use to get other people to do things for us. But no one likes feeling "guilted" into doing things - guilt is a terrible emotion to use as fuel and it brings resentment and disconnection along with it. Listen to hear how to recognize when someone is trying to guilt you into meeting their needs and hear examples of how to effectively, directly and maturely communicate what you are, and are not, willing to do for this person. More into at www.heidibenjaminsen.com. A confident mother is the greatest gift to her family.

Confident people take the first step, introduce themselves to others, smile, start uncomfortable conversations, apologize, invite others... confident people take the initiative. Confident people are willing to feel vulnerable and endure rejection because they want the results that come from taking the initiative - deeper relationships, more friends and connections, more money and more. Listen as Heidi shares what we fear when we hang back and examples of how to make the first move.

Everyday we have opportunities to either respond, or react, to our teenagers. Reacting feels out of control and creates disconnection and defensiveness. Responding requires us to anchor our emotions and take responsibility for our words and emotions. Listen as Heidi gives many examples of how to pause and get out of reaction mode. Hear phrases to use when responding and questions to ask instead of assumptions. Learn how to respond with humility, curiosity... and even when NOT to say anything at all.

If you find yourself navigating how to support, love and accept an LGTBQ+ teen or loved one, listen to this conversation Heidi has with Jenie Hunter - lucky mother of an LGBTQ son, coach, podcaster and all around warm soul. Jenie shares her own journey, her fears, her mistakes and the enormous blessings she has being the mother of an LGBTQ child. Listen for tools of how to handle conversations and how to deepen your spiritual relationship to get your own guidance. As Jenie said... the Lord speaks to the mothers.

Life is hard. Having the faith to keep showing up, putting one foot in front of another, to face the struggles and uncertainty of a new day... is hard. In this episode Heidi shares how she has been dealing with the hard of life recently. Its easy to think other people aren't feeling the hard like you are... but in reality... we are. We just don't see what other people are carrying. If its getting too much for you, rest. And know it IS hard. You aren't alone.

The first skill to anchor our emotions and beliefs is to learn how to watch and observe our thoughts. Being able to identify what is going on in our brain gives us power over what we are thinking and creating in life. Listen as Heidi explains how to stop, get still and observe what is going on in your head. Heidi teaches we are not our thoughts, we can't believe and act on everything that runs through our head. Learning how to observe and question what you are thinking brings emotional control and confidence.

We all have someone in our life who seems "difficult", a child who triggers everything about us, an in-law or neighbor who constantly rubs us the wrong way. Learning how to love these people is a gift we give ourselves - WE get to feel better, we grow in our capacity to accept differences. Listen as Heidi lists many "love facts" with examples of how these truths are all tools to increase our capacity to love these "difficult" people. Which is good... since sometimes WE ourselves are that person. Happy Valentine's Day!

Every time we think our teen or spouse SHOULDN'T be the way they are, think that life SHOULDN'T have gone the way it did, and WISHING our circumstances were different... we resist accepting reality. Which leaves us powerless to create any future change and feel better. Listen as Heidi walks listeners through several small ways in which we resist accepting reality and how it pushes us backward. Learn how to restate sentences in our brain to SEE life and people as they are, which gives us back our power to find solutions, more forward and create peace and calm.

There is a secret to how to connect with our teens that certified life and teen coach Ben Pugh shares in a fantastic conversation with Heidi. Listen as Ben shares that our teens think we've lost hope in them and how to change what we're thinking to feel MORE hope. Learn how to connect with our teens where THEY are and the powerful changes possible in our teens when WE change and anchor our emotions. Ben reinforces the belief that when WE change and anchor our emotions, our teens feel the change and THEY change.

We create most of our frustration, stress and worry by taking on problems and trying to control things that are not ours to control. By trying to direct and "drive" the lives of others, we aren't paying careful attention to our own responsibilities and control what we actually CAN control - our life, our responses, our actions and more. Listen as Heidi explains the three lanes of life (our lane, other peoples lanes and God's lane) and offers several questions you can ask yourself to help you feel more anchored and calm.

One of the ways we can change what we believe is possible for ourselves is to "borrow belief" that others have in us or that others have about what is possible. When we see what others have done, we can choose to believe "it is possible for me to achieve this" or "this person believes I have the potential". Listen as Heidi teaches how to look to others or look to our past achievements to fuel our future changes. Borrowing belief is often the first step to creating a new future.

At the beginning of the year, I challenge you to focus LESS on the goals you want to achieve and MORE on who you want to BECOME this year. Sure, pick a goal that seems fun. Then who you need to BECOME to achieve this. Listen as Heidi shares how to visualize a River of Becoming that has currents and obstacles in which you will BECOME someone who is committed, determined, patient, vulnerable and more.

When we're feeling "un-anchored" and out of control emotionally, there is a way to pivot our emotions and "re-anchor" them. Learn as Heidi teaches a tool to get control of our emotions and remind our body that WE are creating what we are feeling (not someone or something else). Listen to episode 115 to hear the importance of what we say after "I am...". because these are the things we attract into our lives.

Listen as Heidi shares the thoughts and questions that have anchored her through this year, especially a year full of disagreement and social discord.

Learn how to distance our own opinions about how other people are living their life with our own opinions.

Each thought and question helps get us back in our own lane and focusing on how we show up.

Learn how to reflect back on this year to fuel you to grow in 2022!

Sitting in regret of the past or worry and anxiety about the future, robs us from enjoying and experiencing our present. In the holiday season, it's easy to rush to get things done - to think the future will be better than today. Listen as Heidi teaches us tools and questions to get our mind out of "there" and back to "here" and the present. There is beauty and gratitude in the everyday, mundane. The more present we can be in our lives, the more we can improve our overall emotional baseline.

Our brains like to make opinions and assumptions like math equations - if this happens (A plus B), then the only result is this (equals C). If my child goes to college, they will be successful. These beliefs serve us well... until they don't. Until we realize life is NOT a math equation. Life is all in the gray area, where we can't see all of the variables at play. Listen as Heidi shares several examples of "faulty if-then" beliefs that we should question. When we figure out what we ultimately want, we drop much of the stress and anxiety and create more calm.

While you're deciding which side dish you'll be bringing to the holiday party, take some time to decide the Emotional Dishes you'll be bringing as well. Let someone else bring stress, criticism and perfectionism - we can bring other emotional vibes. Listen as Heidi shares how to bring Acceptance, Curiosity and Amusement to your holiday gatherings. Learn why these emotions will help you connect with others and thoughts to help create these more useful emotions.

Disappointment is what we feel when life (people, events, our circumstances) does not meet our expectations and we feel "displeasure". Learning how to "own" we are creating this emotion and feel disappointment is actually a very powerful tool to anchor us to show up calmly and securely for our children.

It's important to let our children feel disappointed (and not try to make them immediately feel better) so they learn how to be emotionally mature humans. Listen as Heidi gives many examples of how and why to feel disappointment.... which actually helps us feel better, sooner.

Resentment creeps into our life when we think life isn't fair, when things or people shouldn't be how they are or we feel betrayed. Resentment makes us the victim of our lives. Gratitude is the antidote to resentment - we can't feel resentment and gratitude at the same time. Gratitude is a courageous and vulnerable choice we make to take back our emotional control. Listen as Heidi walks listeners through many situations and how to create more gratitude and happiness.

Listen as Heidi teaches you the one way to determine if the way we "handle" emotions is healthy processing or unhealthy buffering of emotions. We don't always need to sit and feel for hours on end. We can go for walks, talk to friends, clean closets and more. What we're doing is less the issue. We always want to be considering what RESULT we create from how we handle the emotions. Are we moving FORWARD towards a positive life, or are we creating MORE negative (gain weight, debt, addiction, etc)?

In this personal episode, Heidi shares two examples of managing her emotions, the exact thoughts that kept her anchored and how this impacted her family. In the first example, Heidi's daughter has a real, angry meltdown and Heidi shares how she stayed calm (it was hard!) and the positive consequences of this. In the second example, Heidi shares how she processed negative emotions of shame, vulnerability and sadness. Being able to do both of these things, allows us to show up in complete integrity, owning all of our actions and reactions.

Few people WANT to do laundry, but we all want clean clothes. Few of us WANT to exercise but we all want the benefits of having DONE the exercise. Learning how to do things we don't want to do, learning to do things even if we don't like it is what separates people who achieve goals from those who quit... or don't start at all. Listen as Heidi teaches several mis-perceptions we have about people who do the hard (that they want to... they actually usually don't want to or like the hard) and tips to get ourselves to DO what we don't want to.

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is an LDS relationship and sexuality therapist, counselor and coach who joins Heidi for a conversation about confidence. They discuss how to acknowledge and own our imperfections, understanding our identity and how our children learn to be confident in their sexuality by watching their parents. Listen as they share their own experiences raising teens and share their own insecurities.

We're hardest on ourselves. We expect perfection, no mistakes, zero flaws, 100 on every test... so we're constantly disappointing our inner selves. Our insides have forgotten we're human and full of cracks, weaknesses and missteps. Learning to see our real human nature and give ourselves grace is our work. It's the work of building confidence to be flawed AND amazing AND loved... all at the same time. Listen as Heidi shares several examples of how she found grace and how you can turn judgement into grace!

One of the best ways to grow our confidence and build relationships is by learning how to be admit and be "wrong" when we are wrong. Our brain on default always wants to be right to protect our ego but this keeps us small and insecure. Listen as Heidi teaches the dangers of always needing to be "right" and questions to ask ourselves to see where we could be "wrong". Heidi gives many examples from her own life and helps us rewrite the subconscious thought that we're always right. Turns out... learning to be wrong is a more "right" way to live and feel better!

The fuel of change and growth is self-confidence, and to create this we need to know how to pivot from insecurity... to confidence... to self-confidence. Confidence looks to the past to what "have" I done in the past, where self-confidence looks to the future to define "who we want to be". Listen as Heidi teaches you two questions to ask yourself (what do I fear and who do I want to be) to move from insecurity... to confidence... to self-confidence.

In 1859, miners who had struck gold drown in the Royal Charter storm because they weighed their pockets and coats with gold to swim to shore. We have thoughts and beliefs that become like this gold - valuable in other situations - but the reason we drown and can't reach shore in life. Listen as Heidi gives many examples of thoughts that can be valuable at times... and can also be drowning thoughts suffocating us from peace. Learn how to learn drop these thoughts to live lighter and be on confident solid ground.

Sending a child off to college usually produces a lot of worry and stress for parents. All of the sudden we know so much less about what is going on for our child's life so, if left unmanaged, our brains will spiral and ruminate in this worry. Worry creates much unneeded negativity in our life which we project onto our children, feeding their own anxieties. Listen as Heidi teaches why worry SEEMS necessary and three simple tools to re-direct your brain to minimize worry.

Fear and hope are both motivators - we DO or DON'T do things from these emotions. Fear, though, keeps us stuck and is filled with scarcity, doubt and insecurity. Hope is a more anchored and confident emotion. Its important to know which emotion we are projecting to our teenagers because they will sense and absorb this energy. Learn the Fear or Hope anchoring tools that Heidi uses with clients to pivot them from insecurity to confidence.

Anger and the power it pretends to give us seems useful, but it rarely is. Anger is an escalated emotion coming from fear and other vulnerable emotions. When unchecked, our anger hurts us and our relationships. Listen as Heidi teaches you how to dismantle your anger, identify your fears, decide which anger is useful and re-anchor yourself to be the person you really want to be. Learn the exact tools to keep yourself off the emotional rollercoasters others around you are on.

It sounds like a lovely thought - to want everyone to be happy - but this desire and thought can end up being a toxic thought that creates negativity and stress in us, if left unchecked. This thought then fuels us to emotionally gaslight other people by telling them they "shouldn't" be sad or having their negative emotional experience, instead of just SEEing other people and validating their emotions. Listen to hear how Heidi explains the possible dangers of this thought and how to anchor our emotions to create connections with others.

"What's the difference between a life coach and a therapy" is a common question. Both professions help people improve their mental wellness, but there are very specific differences between a coach and a therapist. Both have unique tools in their toolbox and focus on different areas of our brain and life. Listen as Heidi teaches how this relates to coaches and therapists for sports teams and athletes who may be injured and this who want to improve their play in the "game".

We interpret someone making eye contact, smiling, introducing themselves, being willing to have difficult conversations as those coming from confidence. When we're trying to develop our own confidence, it is useful to visualize what other confidence people DO, what they SAY and then visualize ourselves doing the same. Listen as Heidi walks through several situations and examples of what confidence looks like. Just one new confident act reinforced to your brain that you ARE a confidence person.

Listen as Heidi explains about the background of her Lighten Up private membership for Mothers of Teenagers who want to gain more confidence and peace that they are making the right choices for their families. Lighten Up is for women who want less emotional and physical weight and want to feel more anchored in their self-esteem, emotions, and confidence. Click below to learn more and join as a founding member.

https://heidibenjaminsen.mykajabi.com/lighten-up-sign-up

While it feels good to have other people support us when we face obstacles, are weak and need help, it feels BETTER when we know WE can be that support to ourselves. We have a deep inner grounding when we know WE have the ability to have our own back. Listen as Heidi gives several examples of what this looks like in our lives and the ripple effects of building our inner confidence and strength.

The more uncomfortable emotions we are willing to feel in our life, the more growth we will experience. Handling uncomfortable conversations and situations builds confident, solid and respectful relationships with other people - but it starts with having our own solid self-confidence. Listen as Heidi gives examples of how to manage our thoughts and emotions to feel the discomfort and learn WHY this is such an important emotional skill.

We all have a space in our mind and body where we can pause, identify our emotions and thoughts and then choose how we want to respond. Achieving our goals requires us to learn how to pause and create specific emotions. In this episode Heidi explains a tool called The Why Pause that helps clients learn to shift their default emotions to more useful emotions by using their why's or reasons for setting the goals. Listen as Heidi explains many examples of how to use this simple, yet profound tool.

One of the deepest fears we have as mothers is that we might "fail" our children and they will suffer because of our deficiencies. This fear isn't rooted in truths about our human experience and fuels us to insecurely try to control our children... all so we feel better. Listen as Heidi unravels this belief and talks through what "failing" and "succeeding" looks like. Turns out... succeeding is loving, teaching, modeling resiliency... and embracing our humanness.

Our desire to be perfect ends up creating low self-esteem and negative mental talk in our own minds. On default we end up comparing and focusing on what we do "wrong", which sabotages our relationship with ourselves. Listen as Heidi shares unique tools to on how to improve our self-compassion and self-esteem as we embrace our humanness. Learn how to reframe all of the seasons of your life and improve your inner dialogue.

Perfectionist mindsets and the fear of showing weakness to others creates disconnection and distance between us and all other people. As humans, though, we have a deep emotional need to connect and be understood. As Dr. Brene Brown says, perfectionism is a 2-ton shield we carry hoping not to get "hurt"... all the while the shield blocks growth and connection we desperately need. Heidi shares many examples of how to dismantle and drop any perfectionist shields you have so you can create greater connection with people you want to connect with.

When we think being "perfect" or without mistakes is the goal of our life, we inadvertently distance ourselves from Jesus Christ. We are telling Him that we don't "need" his Atonement in our life and, as a result, we become weaker. When we release our perfectionism, we connect more with the Savior, become stronger and allow real change to make us stronger. "God loves broken things because He can fix them." Listen to hear how releasing perfectionism will allow more Divine in your life.

We all give off a vibe through our body language, our words, our tone of voice, our clothes, how we hold ourselves and show up to the world. This vibe is an outer expression of our inner thoughts, beliefs, opinions and more. It also attracts into our life other people with the same inner compass. It's important to routinely check in and make sure our vibe is consistent with who we want to be. Heidi gives you tips on how to recognize what you're attracting into your life and how to make small tweaks so your tribe is going where you intentionally want to go.

We all need to cross a river of negative emotion if we want to change and reach new goals. Listen as Heidi explains this analogy so you can visualize the discomfort, commitment, patience and more needed to lose weight or reach other goals. Heidi explains why the river is the most important experience - this is where we BECOME people who can fail and be resilient, we BECOME people who are patience, we BECOME a new person with new thoughts and beliefs.

"I'll start on Monday" is an excuse to go unconscious from our healthy goals and choices for a few days - to indulge. This mindset sabotages our health goals and is rooted in all or nothing thinking. Heidi shares why being conscious and intentional of our weekend habits sets the pattern for permanent health changes. Listen to the 7 tips and tools to make sure you enjoy your weekend AND use the time to get closer to your goals.

Our brains on default look for what is missing, they focus on the negative and offer us thoughts to make us feel "not enough". This scarcity mentality creates insecurity, stress, anxiety, fear and more than isn't helpful. Listen as Heidi gives examples of this mentality and tools to easily pivot our thoughts to see that there is MORE than ENOUGH for everyone. The world is full of enough compliments, enough money, enough love, enough raises, enough success and more.

The first step for change is owning the reality of what is, of seeing our truth. Our brain wants us to reject or deny the truth because it fears the false stories we make up that create shame and blame in our bodies. And these emotions keep us stuck. Listen as Heidi gives many examples of what it looks like to own our truth, in simple and complex ways. She gives you tools to quickly step into your truth, see solutions to problems and create calm in place of shame.

Our brains can only handle a certain amount of decision making each day before they get tired. We then start making poor choices or default to the easiest option... or worse... just don't decide (which IS a decision). Listen as Heidi explains the ways in which decision fatigue hits us in every area of our life and tools to reduce it's negative impact. Learn where to make decisions ahead of time, how to make quick and fast decisions and how to stack the odds in your favor for making the healthiest and most beneficial choices for your life.

We're all going to experience stress from time to time - it's part of how we grow. Stress itself isn't a problem - this is the clean stress of life. We create dirty stress in life when we make clean stress a problem, when we try to swerve into other people's lanes, and when we create problems where there are none. Listen to Heidi explain the difference between these two emotions and tools to eliminate dirty stress.

In this special episode Heidi teaches the foundation tool for SEEing ourselves which supports all of the belief, emotional and habit changes in her unique weight loss and confidence programs. Change comes when we realize- I am SPECIAL, - I am EQUAL - and I am ENOUGH. Much of our emotional eating is rooted in our inability to really SEE who we are. When we clearly SEE ourselves and own our uniqueness and wholeness, we develop the confidence to make permanent health changes.

Shame and blame are two of the most sabotaging emotions to have about our bodies. They make us powerless to make any change and these emotions are NOT rooted in reality. Learn from Heidi the thoughts and beliefs that put us in shame and blame and HOW to move to the middle where we find acceptance and reality. Accepting responsibility for our reality is the first step to improving our emotional and physical health.

Our brain creates an unrealistic fear of failure so it doesn't have to work hard and we stay small. It fakes us into thinking we can't handle the emotional pain of failure and that it is the equivalent to death. So, we just don't try... which is really failing in advance. Listen as Heidi teaches you how to manage these fears, what they really are, how to manage your brain, thoughts and emotions... so you DO grow, learn, stretch, fall down.... and get back up.

We are who we BELIEVE we are. We will achieve what we BELIEVE we are capable of achieving. The problem is often our beliefs aren't based in any truth or reality. And these belief creates walls, limits, ceilings and obstacles for our greatest goals and dreams. Heidi gives many examples of beliefs that hold us back and steps to dismantle and change these beliefs! Listen... then start seeing your life and potential in a whole new light!

It's easy to forget that saying YES to something today might mean saying NO to something in our future. To lose weight and make changes, we need to learn how to delay gratification. It might be saying NO to food, learning to spend time meal preppy or pushing yourself to another class at the gym. Listen to hear examples of how to talk to yourself to do what is hard or "less-desirable" in the moment... to serve and benefit your future self.

We commonly make 5 mistakes when making goals at this time of year... which result in us giving up by February! Either we make goals that are too big, we forget to make small daily habit goals to support the bigger goals or the goals don't have enough wiggle room. Giving up sugar or social media or anything will be harder to sustain, versus reducing it 90%. Listen as Heidi teaches how to overcome these simple mistakes.

Not everyone has been gaining weight in 2020. Heidi interviews her client Suzanne who has lost over 60 pounds this year and started after quarantine began. She talks about the shame she felt and how she handled failures (hint: she got back up). She shares exactly what she has been thinking and feeling about herself the whole way - and the key to the confidence she has that she WILL keep it off. This is a must listen!

Here is my holiday gift to you - three of my favorite thoughts of 2020. Listen as I share simple thoughts that have shifted my perspective so I take back my control. These thoughts have been the foundation for me acting in line with my own integrity, eating foods that help me reach my health goals (I haven't gained weight during the pandemic) and allowed me to reach impossible goals.

Our lower brain wants us to avoid pain - even emotional pain - so it creates urges to eat sweet, salty, high fat foods for a quick dopamine hit when we are sad, lonely, nervous, stressed, uncomfortable or any other negative emotion. But emotions are not problems to be solved... and food is only a solution for hunger... not loneliness! Heidi shares examples of how to distinguish emotional urges from intentional food choices, and how to stop eating to feel better.

Early in life we started creating expectations of our life and writing mental handbooks of how other people SHOULD be and act. The problem is no one can read our mental manuals AND other people are only good at one thing - being exactly who they are. Our expectations of other people create disappointment and resentment in our bodies - a nasty bitter pill - and they create disconnect and distance from others. Learn how to drop our expectations, stop judging and focus on how WE want to show up in the world.

Our inner critic sometimes works in overdrive, thinking that she can shame us into improving. And she is programmed to find the negative. BUT we don't improve from shame. Listen as Heidi teaches you how you are normal to have negative thoughts about yourself and how these thoughts are NOT you. Learn tools to manage this mean and wrong inner critic. Confident people are the ones who don't believe these thoughts!

Everyone in our life falls short of our "expectations" of them from time to time. We get to decide if we fill the gaps in our thoughts with grace and understanding, or with judgment and criticism. Learn how the judgment hurts us and how creating relationships of grace is a gift to this person AND to ourselves. Our self-worth grows when we develop empathy and compassion for others. Grace is having a relationship with someone's heart, not their behavior.

The holidays tend to be a time that we pay more attention to other people's needs and sacrifice caring for our own needs. And the side effect of this is that we have LESS to give others. Learn tools, especially for the 2020 holiday season, to have an emotionally and physically healthy season. Learn why we need to tell people what we need as we also find ways to serve them. Stack the odds in your favor that you don't use food to feel good and you set reasonable expectations all around.

Perfectionism lies to us to get us to chase it. Our brain on default wants to think that other people "like" perfect people, that we should AVOID making mistakes, that another person's opinion is VERY important, that struggling is bad and that there are only two options in life - good or bad. But none of these things are true nor helpful for our growth. When we dismantle these perfectionist beliefs, we feel so much relief, calm and confidence.

Some of the stories we re-tell of our past keep us stuck and block us from making progress today. Listen as Heidi interviews master certified coach Jody Moore to learn what from our past stories is impacting us today and how to reframe these "hurtful" stories. Learn helpful tools to adjust our lenses of our life and how to make these stories work in our favor. We can be bitter, or better. We can be victims, or heroes. Our choice!

I've been able to maintain a healthy weight over the last 14 years after struggling for decades with my weight. I used to believe I was just a "big girl". I ate lots of sweets, carbs and I ate to numb feelings of sadness, insecurity, discomfort, uncertainty and shame. I was able to break out of these cycles by changing what I believed about myself, about changing my identity... which lead to learning more about nutrition and exercising. Listen to hear how changing my inside was the key to changing my outside.

Procrastination isn't about being lazy. It is us avoiding feeling discomfort, uncertainty, fear or doubt. These are just EMOTIONS and they are the price we pay for achieving our goals. Listen and learn the tricky lies our brain tells us to prevent us from starting something and HOW to overcome these default thoughts. Learn why visualizing how you'll feel when the goal is done can fuel you to get going. So, get going!

It feels good when people like us. Then we encounter people won't don't like us. And our brain thinks this is a problem. But this isn't a problem. If someone likes us, is NOT about us and is ALL about them. Learn how to manage your brain in these situations, show up confidently and how to let other people be wrong about you. When we build our own self-esteem, we focus more on how we want to show up and who WE want to be. Even our teenagers don't need to like us... and it's all okay.

We all have opinions and it can be hard for us to have conversations with people to disagree with us. Our emotions can take over if our brain things we are being attacked. Learn tools on how to agree to disagree with others. Heidi teaches how to question your thoughts, how to determine your subconscious fears of disagreements and how to create connection and respect for other perspectives. Be okay saying "You may be right"... and nothing more!

Everybody's emotions that pass through our daily lives are like EMOTIONAL BAGS going by on a baggage claim conveyor belt. We get to take close examination and decide which bags are our responsibility - which are ours to pick up - and which should keep on going. The more emotional bags we pick up, the less energy we have to manage our own emotions. I've taught you that you can't create anything that another person feels - but that doesn't mean we don't want to be kind, considerate and compassionate fellow human travelers. Learn how to determine which are your bags and how to decline carrying other bags that don't belong to you.

We all have a list of WHO we want to change so we can feel better. If our spouse would just do this or be that, we could then feel appreciated and loved. If our mother was kinder or more supportive or more whatever, we'd feel prouder or more secure. But we have NO control over other people and ALL of this wishing builds walls between us and other people. These walls distract us from the real work of accepting and loving other people. Heidi teaches tools to dismantle these walls and why nobody else needs to change so we can feel how we want to feel.

Who thinks their life is harder than anyone else's life? That's the general theme of people who live in self-pity. It's an emotion that keeps us stuck so we can't make any progress or change. Learn how to identify the daily emotions of self-pity and pivot what you're thinking to love yourself and your life more. It's easier than you think to find more self-love, self-compassion, and curiosity to create a happier life!

One of the easiest ways to release the tight grip our brain has on judgment, opinions and painful beliefs is to add simple words before or after these thoughts. By making very small changes, our focus shifts. We see new solutions, new possibilities, our anxieties and stress are reduced. We suddenly see how we are much more like other people and our frustration calms down quite a bit. Listen as Heidi walks you through these 3 easy tools to add to your toolkit to start seeing other people and yourself in more focus. Use them everyday and suddenly life will look a lot different!

Pornography is very accessible to our teens and we need to have the tools to talk to them about it. Heidi interviews certified life coach Zach Spafford, who specializes in helping men overcome addictive behaviors, for insight into having conversations with our teens. Zach gives incredibly useful tools on what to say, what NOT to say or do (freak out!), why our brains like pornography and hope if anyone you know struggles with this over-desire.

We all have plans, goals and dreams for our lives. Sometimes, though, things happen in life that aren't what we planned for. A worldwide pandemic, a divorce, a diagnosis, delaying a return to a career, a premature death and more. Learn how to adjust your mindset and several tools to help you show up as the person you WANT to be. It could be our vision wasn't right and life is exactly what we need to be the best version of ourselves.

People-pleasing is when we try to manipulate and control other people's emotions at the expense of our own needs. We show up as our fake selves and we create disappointment and resentment - for ourselves. Listen as Heidi gives many examples of why it is dangerous and HOW to overcome this addictive tendency we all have. When we learn to manage it, we become calm, confidence, relaxed and able to show up as our REAL selves. Which most people will love.

More than anything, our brains want to be right. They think being right protects us. Instead, this desire creates anxiety, stress, and frustration. Thinking we are right creates blinders that block other options and create judgement and criticism. In this episode learn why our brain has tricked us into always wanting to be right. Listen as Heidi teaches you tools to loosen your grip on needing to be right and how to decide when you are right... and maybe wrong.

Doing "hard things" is often noble and where we learn and grow. But often we make things MUCH harder than they need to be, unintentionally. By learning to pause, and ask ourselves a few questions, we can identify "easier" routes. Taking these routes helps us have more energy for bigger priorities in life, while still reaching the same goals. Listen as Heidi gives examples of when it's important to pause and examine our reasons, our beliefs and seek "easier" solutions.

Teens experiencing anxiety need tools, support and coaching tailored to their needs and circumstances. In this special episode, Heidi interviews certified life coach, Daelene Byam, a teen anxiety coach. She shares personal experiences from her own children, as well as tools she teaches clients. She helps listeners identify when coaching could help their child and how to approach your teen about coaching.

www.daelenebyamcoaching.com

All or nothing mentality, black and white thinking, good and bad... it all creates blinders and stress in our life. It is a very limiting and "perfectionist" way of life. When we only see two options, we cause anxiety and pressure and we block out much of reality. Learn all the ways this thinking may show up in your life and how to reduce it.

It's inevitable and it hurts. Our teens lash out, from their own sense of lack of control, and say "I hate you". Then you want to crumble, cry and lash out at them. Don't. Learn how to identify what they are REALLY saying and how to respond calmly, with a lot of love for yourself and for them. You can model for them how to handle these emotional exchanges. And I have good news - their words are actually not about you.

When we feel hurt, our basic instinct is to want to hurt either the person we think is hurting us, or to hurt other people in our life. We can get control of our emotions when we feel this hurt by pausing and doing several exercises. We can stop the hurt cycle by learning to be responsible for our emotions and our actions. Because, regardless of how another person acts to try to hurt us, we can also choose how we react. And love is always an option.

Confidence and self-worth are key to us identifying and changing our racist behaviors and attitudes. We need to be willing to admit mistakes, weaknesses and flaws in order to change and be a better version of ourselves. Just like the kintsugi art of filling pottery cracks with the most precious materials, we can heal our racist past and make ourselves and our relationships much more valuable. This work will require confidence!

We get a lot of insight into our own behaviors, desires and those of our children when we understand The Motivational Triad - the 3 most basic motivators that our brain defaults to. Our brain wants us to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy - because it wants to keep us alive. This worked well for our ancestors but today it is working against us. Learn more about the 3 motivating desires and how to override these desires with our higher brain.

The most heated exchanges with our children are usually about their grades. And this is because we make their grades mean SO much about them, their future, their potential and even how good a parent WE are. Getting mad doesn't motivate them to change and it blocks us from really seeing what is going on. Learn practical tools on how to calmly talk to your child about their grades so they see you love and support them.

We often hear another person or listen to their words with the intent to reply to them. When in reality, we need to be listening with the intent to UNDERSTAND them. To see, acknowledge, witness their point of view. Heidi teaches you why this is hard work, what our brains naturally want to do, and then tips to really listen. Everyone has something to teach us (including our teenagers!), if we are willing and open to really listen to them.

It's easy to see our children as if they are the glass half-empty... only seeing what they AREN'T doing. We think good parents always push their children to reach "their potential". It sounds good, until we end up shaming our children for not being able to meet some arbitrary standard. All because we want to feel like successful parents. Listen to hear different ways to see your child's potential and love them exactly as they are.

When we fear our children failing or feeling any disappointment, we are seeing them through a perfectionist lens. Learn why it's true that "A Perfectionist walk a tight rope over the valley of low self-esteem. "Our vision of our child could be distorted by our own definitions of success and failure - and what they mean about our worth and value. Learn to separate your own sense of self from your child's accomplishments.

Our brain wants us to think that worrying about our children is necessary. Instead, all of the thoughts of what COULD go wrong in their life or what danger they MIGHT encounter is actually robbing us of feeling the real emotions of today with our children. When we look through Lens #3 thinking so many worry thoughts, we miss seeing exactly what is going on today. Learn how to clear off this lens to really enjoy the present and reduce worry and anxiety!

When we think my child is difficult or something is wrong with them, we feel judgement, criticism and negativity. And those feelings make us act and say negative things to our child. It doesn't help that the medical world likes to throw labels like 'disorder' on our children. Heidi will teach you the warning thoughts that you are seeing your child through this distorted lens. She then shares critical questions to help clean off the lens. When we honor our children are unique and will bloom in their own season - and that they are ENOUGH, COMPLETE and PERFECT, we see them different. We are calm and peaceful.

When we see the world through the Lens of thinking I Am Right, we create judgement, criticism and frustration because we only see a very narrow viewpoint. Heidi explains the distortion of this lens, the confusion it creates as we parent our teenagers and how to clear up the distortions of this lens. We create more calm and confidence when we expand our vision and understanding.

When our children turned into teenagers, no one told us that we need to change the lenses through which we see them. Our parenting lenses are cloudy and distorted, which create the frustration and anger we feel. Heidi gives an intro to her transformative 5 Clarifying Lens Method which helps mothers create the calm and confidence they want.

We say words out of habit that create emotions in our body that we might not like. Heidi walks us through three words to evaluate in our thoughts and conversations. Listen to find out the dangers of saying HAVE TO, SHOULD and WRONG too often. Changing small words will remove judgement and obligation from our lives and replace them with curiosity and desire.

Everyone feels the victim of the COVID-19 virus sweeping across the world now. And we're unsure how to get mad at this villain so we're getting mad at other people. Our teenagers even make us the villain. Learn what victim mentality is and how to change into a hero mentality. We have SO much more power right now than we realize!

When faced with challenges, people either OVER function or UNDER function. And we do either one to AVOID feeling anxiety and heightened emotions. This becomes a problem when resentment grows and our relationships become dysfunctional. Listen to know which one you are (we're all one - neither is better or worse!) and how to minimize the stress and anxiety you are feeling now. It could be... you need to practice feeling! Others need to practice doing!

We need to force our brains to separate out what is the math of life, the real facts of life. Then see the drama that we and the world add to interpret the facts. We THINK a lot of the drama is just true. But it isn't. When we become aware of the emotion around the facts, we get to decide HOW we want to interpret what is going. We have the power to change what we feel and how we act, even when we think we have so little control. Listen for great examples!

During times of stress, anxiety, and sadness we are conditioned to reach for comfort food to provide a quick moment of pleasure. We want to escape the negative feelings in our body and we crave sweet and salty foods. A little of this is okay, but with our current situation of being at home 24 hours a day, it's important to understand WHY we are reaching for those foods to limit the negative effects of over-doing it. Heidi helps you understand why you want them and gives you tools to reach for other non-food solutions to our stress.

Last week schools shut down, sports were cancelled - life as our teens have known it was ripped out from under them. Seniors are now anticipating possibly no prom, graduation, - no visits to pick colleges, etc. They are experiencing a disappointment and frustration that hasn't been collectively experienced before. Learn how you as parents can support them, and even make this a positive memory.

Right now there is a lot of uncertainty in the world. We don't know how long schools will be closed, stores and restaurants limited, work closed or everyone working from home. Travel is halted and we don't know when life will resume as we knew it. Our brains don't like uncertainty. Listen to find out why and how you can manage the uncertainty in your life.

VERY IMPORTANT EPISODE! This episode will help you manage the feelings of chaos, uncertainty and stress you may be feeling as the world deals with the effects of the coronavirus. Do not suffer needlessly. Know what causes the chaos and how to separate facts from the drama of the situation. Listen to hear important tools so you choose how you respond. Choose the type of example you want to be for your family as well.

Nothing positive comes from comparing ourselves to other people. We create insecurity and shame, disappointment and guilt - all needlessly generated if we don't manage the thoughts in our brain. Listen to find out why we compare ourselves and how to stop ourselves from going down this negative spiral. Heidi teaches great tips to get you out of the compare despair universe and into your own world of confidence and peace.

Unlike conventional wisdom, nothing outside of us hurts our feelings or makes us happy. We do that on our own, which is amazing news! Heidi explains the concept of emotional childhood and adulthood. Its life changing to stop blaming things outside of us for controlling our emotions - and to have awareness then take responsibility for controlling every emotion we feel. The good and the bad emotions!

Our brains feel like worrying about the future will solve a problem that may happen. Worry feels very necessary and almost like a way to show we love people. The problem is that worry isn't any of those things. Worry robs us of peace we could feel today and it doesn't solve anything. Worry blocks us from living today, being in the present and having confidence we can handle any problem or emotion that comes our way. Heidi will teach you about worry and how to reduce the heavy grip it has over your life.

Perfectionism isn't about achieving a high level of excellence. It is a fear of what other people think of us, it is fear of failure and fear of what we think of ourselves when we make mistakes. Learn more about what perfectionism is, and isn't. And better yet, learn tools and exercises to help you overcome perfectionism.