If your marriage is in a season of difficulty, you will not want to miss the incredible reconciliation story of our guests this week on the podcast.In Episode 2 of I Wish You Could Hear This, our dear friends Scott and Sherry Jennings share their profound journey through control issues, addiction, and infidelity to divorce ... and finally to remarriage. Listen in to discover the really doable, simple building blocks they built their second marriage on. (Hint, kindness is one of them.)| Shaunti Feldhahn
Well, not surprisingly, there are intense feelings about the election. As was true in last week’s Part 1 of this two-part series, I am not going to tackle politics. We have enough of that whenever we look at the media or listen to our contrarian family member.| Shaunti Feldhahn
We are days from an election. Red vs. blue. Talking heads are digging in their heels on extreme positions. Political texts seem to arrive every five minutes (I live in the battleground state of Georgia, but I know it’s everywhere). And of course, there are very real and legitimate concerns.But the concerns I have are of a different nature: How do we walk through this ongoing season well?| Shaunti Feldhahn
For Breast Cancer Awareness month, I’m thrilled to introduce you to someone who puts the “special” into her title of special projects director on my staff. Charlyn Elliott is my secret weapon, my dear friend, and this week, she shares a personal breast cancer story that I know will encourage your heart.| Shaunti Feldhahn
I have interviewed and surveyed more than 20,000 men in the last twenty years, and I’ve seen this truth: You love your wife’s wins! And these two words in response could change your marriage:Tell her.If you feel pride in your wife, but don’t express it, you could be missing an opportunity to meet one of her greatest needs.| Shaunti Feldhahn
n honor of Pastor Appreciation Sunday this weekend, I’d like to give a shout out to the creative, hard-working, servant-hearted pastors out there. Jeff and I speak in churches all over the country, and have met more of you than we could ever count.Of course, we all can—and should—celebrate our pastors more than one day a year, and I want to shed light on practical ways we can do just that. Because the sobering truth is that a sense of being overwhelmed, discouraged and lonely are real a...| Shaunti Feldhahn
am delighted this week to introduce you to my Executive Assistant Amy Masaschi, who has written a courageous piece about navigating her college freshman’s anxiety and depression last year. I’ll follow up next week with statistics every college parent needs to know – plus steps to take if your college student is slipping into an uncharacteristic depression or anxiety.| Shaunti Feldhahn
Snowplow parenting sounds reasonable – and yet it can create serious risks for our kids in ways we don’t even see. Let’s look at how this plays out, first by seeing how big of an issue this is, and then sharing six steps that will help us stop.| Shaunti Feldhahn
Our human default is to feel stuck, hopeless, like a victim, self-pitying. We might get passive in response, we might get angry, we might vent. But the ‘stuck’ feeling is natural. What isn’t natural is what we have to do to overcome it: we learn a healthy sense of control. We learn that there is always something we can do, even if there are also things we need to accept. We are not helpless. We can train ourselves out of helplessness in the particular area where we are tempted to give up.| Shaunti Feldhahn
Learned helplessness is basically handling things with a sense of futility in the face of difficulty, because we don’t think we can bring about change. It may mean quitting, checking out, getting angry, feeling sorry for ourselves, becoming passive, or dozens of other responses – but the underlying feeling is a sense of helplessness and futility.| Shaunti Feldhahn
In our book, Thriving in Love and Money, Jeff and I share that there are often differences between men and women in how we close open windows – and how quickly. Turns out, if men are bothered by a concern that they don’t want to deal with, they can usually just “click the X,” so to speak, and close that worry-window. (No fair, right?) For most women, our worries keep popping up until we take action to address them.| Shaunti Feldhahn
eaders frequently write in to request help and tips for stepfamilies, and so I am honored to bring you a guest blog this week from author and speaker Debbie Alsdorf. Author of Beyond the Brady Bunch, Debbie carefully and honestly leads us into this topic — and I hope the lessons she learned will benefit you (or help you see friends or family in a fresh light).| Shaunti Feldhahn
Last month, my staff director Eileen Kirkland and I went on a five-day ministry trip to the Dominican Republic, visiting a series of areas where Compassion International works. I regularly speak and share about Compassion, but had not previously had a chance to see their on-the-ground work in person. Plus, I have two sponsored children with Compassion (and Eileen actually sponsors a boy she met on the trip!) so I was eager to get a sense for the kids’ day-to-day experience as part of the pr...| Shaunti Feldhahn
Navigating relationships can be tricky. But these are skills we need to cultivate and practice at home before heading back into the classroom. One of the best ways we can set our kids up for success is by helping them learn the simple art of being kind. If we focus on being proactively kind – especially in our relationships with our more challenging people (ugh, you know who I’m talking about!), kindness affects our own responses and feelings which can make life a whole lot better for ou...| Shaunti Feldhahn
This is Part 3 of a three-part series on what to do when life or relationships aren’t what you wanted them to be. In part 1 and part 2 we outlined three important steps that can help us move from frustration and anguish to acceptance and appreciation. This week, we’ll apply those steps specifically to relationships.| Shaunti Feldhahn
This is the second part of a three-part series on what to do when life or relationships aren’t what you wanted them to be. In last week’s part 1 we started with a challenging but important first step. Today, we explore two more.| Shaunti Feldhahn
his is the first part of a three-part series. In this part 1 we’ll tackle one major step to take when something in our life hasn’t turned out the way we wanted it to. In Part 2 we will explore two more steps that build on this one. And in Part 3, we’ll see how it all applies to life and relationships.| Shaunti Feldhahn
his week is the second installment of a two-part series in conjunction with the launch of season 4 of our Family Life podcast, Married With Benefits! Brian Goins and I have based this season on my Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages findings. In part 1, we looked at three steps to begin change in your marriage. In this part 2, we’ll tackle three steps to build the habit that all happy marriages have.| Shaunti Feldhahn
I’m excited to bring you part 1 of a two-part marriage series, in tandem with the launch of the next season of my podcast with Family Life Season 4 of the Married With Benefits podcast, with me and Brian Goins, is based on my findings from The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages. Each episode tackles a different secret – and there’s even a bonus one that didn’t make it into the book!| Shaunti Feldhahn
True rest. Our bodies long for it. Our souls need it. And yet whether we’re senior executives or stay-at-home moms, we all know the feeling of bouncing around in our own lives like we’re pinballs in a pinball machine. I know I do. Ziinng! Time to hustle the kids out the door. Zoiinnng! I’m running...| Shaunti Feldhahn
