Lindsey Staton Life Coaching

Misunderstood

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Anybody else just HATE being misunderstood?

Some people are all blasé and confident and if someone doesn’t get them or what they’re doing, they just shrug it off. Not me. I explain and re-explain and over-explain, just assuming the misunderstander cares as desperately about making things right as I do (which is highly unlikely).

This is one of the more annoying side effects of being a people pleaser. I’ve been working hard on this problem for the past few years. I’ve made a little headway, but it’s slow going. Pleasing people was much easier when I was younger. (Probably because I was cuter then.) It’d be nice if the people pleasing getting harder were occurring at the same rate as me learning to care less. [Read more…]

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Your pain is your power

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When I was a junior in high school, our English class was American literature. We read A Farewell to Arms, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451 and the like. (Well, some of us did.) Our teacher was Mr. Gufford. He had a long ponytail and a goatee and wore jeans every day. And he had big plans for his honors students who had never had to work for our As and Bs.

Writing had always come easy to me and up until his class, I just assumed that my ability would remain unchallenged. How wrong I was. He was the first teacher (but not the last) who wasn’t blown away by my writing skills. And I loved and hated him for it.

We had to choose an American author for our second-semester research paper. (This is back when we had to go to the library and use the Dewey decimal system and the big encyclopedias of literary criticism. No internet. No Google. The dark ages.) I chose Edgar Allen Poe. [Read more…]

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Everyone’s afraid

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I remember when I was a little girl, my dad was forever trying to make his girls tough. You can’t blame him. He was outnumbered by a wife and three daughters. If he didn’t preach from the ‘be tough’ soapbox, somebody would probably be crying all the time.

So we went hunting and fishing and horseback riding and camping. We learned to pee outside at an early age. Squealing at bugs or snakes or worms was generally unacceptable. We helped clean the fish and skin the kill so we wouldn’t faint at the sight of blood.

One line comes back to me as I think about our many outdoor adventures. If we came across any critter that spooked us (snake, raccoon, gator, whatever), Dad would say, “Look. He’s just as scared of you as you are of him.” And said critter would usually let us know that with the rattle of a tail, a growl or a hiss. It was only scary because it was scared. [Read more…]

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One less broken heart

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Anybody else just get overwhelmed?

I mean, I can get overwhelmed in just my one tiny little life. But ever since God blew off my blinders a few months ago, it’s been getting harder to sleep. ISIS, sex trafficking, homelessness, abortion, poverty, racism.

And that’s the world in general. There’s stuff happening to people I know and love too: cancer, marriages hanging on by a thread, marriages that have already failed, debt, infertility, miscarriages, disabilities, broken family relationships, unemployment, addiction. [Read more…]

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Is this your best?

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I was feeling pretty strung out one morning, trying to hold it together long enough to make lunches, find stuff for people and kiss goodbyes. I got my family out the door and had a few minutes to myself before I had to leave for work. I plopped down on the couch and let the tears run down my cheeks. (Thankfully I hadn’t put my mascara on yet.) My day hadn’t even started, my hair was still wrapped up in a towel, for heaven’s sake, and I was already falling apart.

Too many things had to happen in the next 24 hours. I could only be there for half of them, which meant I had to (gasp!) let other people help me. People who would do things differently than I would. Horror of horrors! My brain was racing, my heart was burdened, and the fragile illusion of control was dissolving right in front of my face. My schedule had betrayed me. (Et tu, Google calendar?) With my head resting on the back of the couch, I closed my dripping eyes.

Lord, I don’t have it. I just don’t have it.

Then He asked me the question that He asks on a regular basis. [Read more…]

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The Elephant Journal The Purposefull Woman Podcast