Professional Coach | Speaker | Author
Does the prospect of practicing gratitude annoy you? Gratitude used to bother the crap outta me, to be honest. A voice in my head was like “so what? it’s not like gratitude puts the food on the table, drives the kids around, or helps me deal with my ex.” Right?
ahhhhh, therein lies the secret sauce of gratitude.
ahhh! read on for the sauce!Hello beautiful! How are you, and how are you taking care of yourself today? Have you had a chance to put the cold weather aside and practice gratitude for the sun bathing your bed or your favorite chair? You guessed it, my dogs and I have been jockeying over sun spots.
Me? Well, other than winter sunning, I’ve been working like a surgeon. Carefully piecing apart, investigating, and putting together how I feel about all that I’m doing. About what drains me. What brings me energy. What brings me joy. Life asks a lot of us: to take care of family, dogs, work, passions, house, bills, Facebook, volunteering, and even ingrown toenails. (Yep, I’m in-between procedures and the first was a Doozie!) So, all those important things had to be put to the side to listen.
And to do that, I had to do something that would have been impossible, just a couple years ago.
I had to show guilt the door.
How did I do this>> I had to say that rebalancing my energy, dreaming my future, and reconnecting with my joy, had to come first. I asked for help with dinner. I meditated, napped, and stayed off Facebook. I actively told myself that I am worth my dream. That it’s okay to take time to figure out what that is, if the way is unclear. That it’s okay to love myself even though I’m a hot mess. I am worth putting my happiness first.
The Result>> Once I believed in my worth and joy, there was no more guilt. I stood up for my worth and my joy, unencumbered by what others thought or did.
So, my beautiful friend, this is what I want to share with you: You are worth all the time and quiet and space you need to connect with your love, joy, and purpose. Period. Because you are a magnificent gift to our world. You are worth standing up for. 🧍♀️🥰 🌎 💕
For you>> I’m going to be chatting weekly about the path I took from an unaware, guilt-ridden, and isolated young momma to finding my joy. I call it “Peeling Your Onion”. I’ll also have some new conversations with some new friends. Also, the Live with Heidi and Heather Shows is airing monthly on YouTube, too, to talk Joy, Happiness, and Freedom.
My first “Peeling the Onion” chat airs today on my Facebook and Youtube pages. Go here to watch it live or I’ll send it to you next week via email. Would love to know if showing guilt the door is something that you would like to know more about 🙂
When burnout happens, it’s time to love yourself with abandon + break out one small but mighty sentence: I quit.
I walked next to a friend, in the crisp, late fall air. The heat generated from the first two miles let me know I’d need a shower when I got home, no matter how much i vented my coat. A fellow prolific creative, heart-centered momma, and woman finding her way to joy, we never tire of topics to connect over.
As an enneagram two, I invited her to share her recent experiences first; create that safe container for friendships. I used to think I did this because I didn’t think that much of myself. Now, I know I do it because it’s my nature.
As we started our second mile, she stopped, turned towards me, and stated
“Heidi, I don’t know if I could do what you do; sit and create every day at the same time and put out something once a week.”
As she said this, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My legs turned as heavy as anchors; I caught my breath. I could tell my defensiveness (i.e. ego) kicked in as my insides were pointing me towards something I already knew, like one of those 1950’s arrowed diner signs.
“Well, I sat down and wrote my book at the same time every day, it’s a routine that feeds my joy of writing.” my ego spoke back, then the softening occurred.
“And I have felt like butter scraped over too much bread lately.” my non-ego part of me finished the thought.
I spent the rest of the week eating and napping.
The next week, I started wondering what was going on. A word immediately came to me: Burnout. And it reminded me I’ve been blogging for eighteen months, podcasting for seven, growing Facebook for twelve, and co-hosting a Youtube show + Facebook Group for three. My focus has been on those things. Trying to be more helpful. For more people. Growing too slowly to help, at least in the monetary sense. And the hard truth, I couldn’t keep it all up. No matter how much I wanted to.
The Solution >> I journaled about what will help me. The answer: Focus on my book and course. And another word came into my sphere: Alignment. I need to align my focus with who I am. Honor my needs for rest and quiet so I can share my deep, sometimes humorous, insights with you. To do this, I need to quit some things.
My wish for you: May you take time to ask yourself what’s important, and may you remember to bring your self, your vision, your personality, and your needs for self-care right alongside it. The universe wants you brilliant, whole, and loved. For that’s how you were born and how you were made to be. And May you create your very own Burnout Balm to soothe and heal your heart and soul!
A special heartfelt thanks to the teachers who helped me uncover my own Burnout Balm: my walk with my creative friend, Alexandra Taketa’s blog post, and the books: Burnout, Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs, and Dear Writer, You need to Quit.
So, if you can’t be with the one you love, do you really have to love the one you’re with? No, but it makes life a whole lot more awesome! A message of love for you for the holiday season! Or, really, any time of year 🙂
Dear miraculous and beautiful soul,
How the hell are you, my friend? Are you ramping up for the holidays a.la. caffeine-nation or finding some sweet time next to a lit tree or in a cozy nook? Or a little of both? Would love to know how you are taking care of yourself this season.
Over the past ten years, I’ve gone on a major Christmas-season transformation. From one fraught with parties, perfection, migraines, and lists longer than Santa’s. To one with fewer presents, commitments, and stillness to enjoy the darkness rising. Where are you on that holiday scale? More importantly, how do you feel about where you are at?
My family jokes every year that I used to hate Christmas. Which isn’t true.
The Truth>> I used to dread the holidays. All the doing. I am sure it was all the internal beatings I would give myself if things didn’t work out or get done in time. Yep, I was my own Nightmare before Christmas.
And, even with my resilience and mindfulness tools in my belt, I felt the pressure this holiday season. Pressure to move my business ahead. Faster.
The Messy Middle >> One day, I woke up and couldn’t work. Instead, I released some big, sad, been-workin-too-much-not-seeing-my-progress emotions. (Yes, I cried.) After beating myself up for a day, I woke up and said enough is enough.
The Answer >> Next, I opened up to Heather Kokx’s insightful words and gave myself mercy. I sat in long stillness, looking for guidance. And it came. The answer: Love myself. (Is love always the answer? 🧐)
And no matter if you hate or love all the festivities, may you dig deep to find your balance, your stillness, and your appreciation for the miracle of you.
So, would you like a quick reminder of how awesome you are? How you need to be a priority in your life? How you need to take care of yourself? 💌Get your Self-Love Letter Mad Libs here (pdf). 💌 And please do join us in my Facebook Group to chat about it. Would love to see your smiling heart there 🙂
More LOVE >> This week, I’m focused around helping you cultivate self-love (or self-friendliness!) in my Facebook Group. 💕Don’t forget, I’m live every Wednesday morning 9:30 am Central in the group and on YouTube Channel. Today, I’m talking about, you guessed it, self-love!
Sending you much peace and stillness to enjoy and be proud of the miraculous gift that is YOU.
With love, light and laughter,
Heidi Esther
⍰ of the WEEK (DEC 6): What’s one thing you’re proud of yourself for accomplishing in 2021? Answer here!
📺 NEXT WED, DEC 15, 2021 @ 6:30 Central: Holiday #LikeABoss on the Live with Heidi and Heather show on YouTube. Bring a fav drink, holiday recipe, and gift received and tune in!
🐉⚔️ What do you need in your life to move forward with confidence? The answer is in my Dead Dragon story! Loving The Dead Dragon show? Try another of Katherine’s other empowering interviews!
➡ Pick up your Self-Love Letter Mad Libs! ⬇️
Ready to get to Empowered Joy? Then you’ll need some Mad Libs, Dead Dragons, and Focus!
Hello, my beautiful friend! How are you and how are you taking care of yourself today? How was your Thanksgiving, if you celebrated it? Did you mask or vax up and see family? Would love to know! While I absolutely love Thanksgiving, I’m extra thankful for leftovers. (a.k.a. I don’t have to cook for the next ten days. 🦃🙏💕So….
CONFESSION: I can’t do everything. Once in awhile, I get caught up in a mindset where I tell myself “I can do everything, I got this!” I have a pretty creative and analytical brain, so both sides are always on board. What’s not on board: my time and sanity. So, inevitably, I end up taking a ton more time to do things that would be better outsourced, like to one of my kids, my wife, or to a professional.
SECOND Confession: I’ve been sitting on my book and companion workbook, telling myself I can format them myself. I have come to learn that the learning curve is steep and the results for my book could be a disaster. I am seeking help this week and starting to record it and put it in professional hands. I am becoming focused on what will help my message reach the most souls: my book.
My plan of attack: I am focusing on what I can do quickly, outsourcing what keeps me stuck, and keeping my important goal as my line of focus.
Which leads me to my new Facebook Group, My Joyfully Ever After (yes, you want to join!) My poll of the week in the group is: how do you stay focused on the important stuff with all life’s distractions? And my Question of the week is also up: what is one goal you are committed and focused on in the next 3-6 months?
FIVE things for you today!
1) FYI: I am launching my book MARCH 2022. Before then, I will be exclusively focused on sending you encouraging messages + becoming more visible + getting my book out.
2) Get ready to soak in more Heidi stories via video and podcast. I just launched my own YouTube Channel and will also be the guest on some podcasts as well.
3) Speaking of Shows, Heather and I are going live today at NOON CST to talk “From Hot Mess to Empowered Joy” I’ll also be reading from my upcoming book, too! Join us? We’ll be live on our YouTube Channel OR Facebook Group!
4) AND speaking of podcasts, I was on one and talked about my journey from Waking up to Transforming my life. Catch my episode on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/find-your-joyfully-ever-after-with-heidi-esther/id1577159495?i=1000542891954 OR on Katharine Loranger’s YouTube Channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0e6ZSPcMDQ7HWdVP4h_Yfw/videos. If you want to see other places I’ve been featured, pop over to my Featured Page.
5) Don’t forget to pick up your Self-Love Letter Mad Libs! Get your copy at http://freebie.heidiesther.com/MadLibs. Once you do that, join me in the new Facebook Group to do the prompts in December. I promise, it will be fun! Here’s more info!
Sending you peace and focus to spend time getting to know the person who matters a lot in your life…Beautiful You!
1) What’s your goal? Name it and give it a time frame.
2) Answer these three questions: What are you joyfully looking forward to doing as it relates to your goal? What do you need to learn? What are you absolutely not looking forward to?
3) Ask for help with what you are not looking forward to doing. Be creatively resourceful if you don’t have funds. Find resources to help you learn. Keep Joy as your compass. AND ask for help with or let go of anything else in your life that is taking up time or sucking your joy away. Yes, it’s hard to ask for help. And also liberating!
Hello my dear friend! How are you and how are you taking care of yourself today? Yep, the rumors are true. I took a before-work nap today. Four nights this week, I’ve been in kid-shuffling-around mode at night. And then Elvis, my step-dog, woke me up twice right before wake up time. When my alarm went off, I groaned.
A little voice inside of me said please to go back to sleep. Then another said suck it up, you’ll be fine. A third said, get your stuff done, get the kids out of the house, and lay back down. Boom. I had my answer.
On this Thanksgiving eve, I have a word gift for you. You might associate it with a favorite hymn or your Thanksgiving meal. I assure you, this word is not only for church or holidays. The word is
We sing about grace in the Church. We hope we receive it from God when we have fallen. We give grace for bountiful food and company that nourishes our bodies and souls.
Going forward, I challenge you to think of Grace in a new way. To take Grace, wrap it up, and give it back to yourself with passionate abandon. Let it rain on you as a watershed of compassion and love and forgiveness. Give yourself grace for being and living the miracle that is You. No matter how you woke up. No matter what “they” said or did. No matter what. Period.
But I mess up all the time, you might be saying to yourself. What then? You don’t make mistakes. You are not a mistake. You have unexpected, and sometimes uncomfortable, steps along your path. Why? So you learn what you’re meant to. Why? So you can unlock and live your happiness, freedom, and joy.
So, whadda ya say? Try it with me?
And would you like to know the three other steps that help me show up every day, guilt-free, worry-free, in joy, with freedom and love for myself? Listen to Heather and I talk Personal Freedom.
Sending you love, light, grace, and laughter, Heidi Esther
Did you like the show? Don’t forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Three ways to engage Grace.
Ready for more Live with Heidi and Heather shows? Check out our page.
Or subscribe to our YouTube Channel!
Welcome to SuperStep 5: Getting Stronger! Here is more info for you on the Everyday Superhero Method. Squashy story is right below! ⬇️
The warm, autumn afternoon sunshine beamed down on our living room dog bed. Which was repositioned for the third time that day in its journey to stay with the sun. Olive, my Chiweenie, lay over the side with her front paws in prayer position, holding her orange chewy bone.
don’t pets have the best lives? IKR! read on curious soul >>>What’s up, my beautiful friend? How are you and how are you taking care of your learning spirit today? I am cuddled under two blankets on a couch next to two dogs who know something’s up.
Yep, there are suitcases, snacks, and pillows next to the front door. My wife and I are heading out for a weekend away. And (sound the trumpets!) I’ve slept in the last two days. I almost feel like my-rested self again. Kinda like I finished finals. Makes me wonder what grades I got. 🧐
Which reminds me. I grew up with two parents as teachers. I learned the deep value of learning. Somehow, I also developed a belief that, if you weren’t a teacher in a school, then I wasn’t listening. I was closed. Before I was self aware, I even told people they were wrong. 🤦♀️ No wonder I ended up on work assignments surrounded by potatoes. 🥔
Once I opened up to the humble possibility that anything could be a teacher, magic happened. My healing accelerated. Relationships improved. My anxiety got better. I’ve since learned from wise men, friends, sidewalks, my stepdog, and being quiet.
Like, thanks to what I learned from my sleep deprivation, I know I need support with my son’s soccer stuff. I’m setting up a carpool for his next soccer group. Regular bedtimes, here I come! 👊 🛌
So, my beautiful friend. Here’s an invitation for you.
Stay humble, open, and curious. The world can be your teacher. You can learn from the least and most of beings. Even the sky on your dog’s potty break can reveal to you that presence is a precious gift.
Heidi Esther
And with that, I give you Episode 002 of Live with Heidi and Heather. We talk about personal development, and why, like teachers, it can make your life.
Sometimes we get so focused on what we’re doing, or how much we got accomplished, we forget to stay open. To all the world is trying to teach us.
Curiosity. In my upcoming book, it is one of the first mindsets I adopted before I could move forward. In the companion workbook that will come out with my book, I talk about how to cultivate curiosity. And…it usually starts with a question. “Would releasing my money blocks be interesting?” OR “Why am I not happy?” OR “I wonder how it would feel to…”
When your inner critic arises, thank them for their input and years of service. Tell them they can still ride in the car but they no longer get to drive OR choose the podcast. Tell them that your curious, brave, creative soul is in the driver’s seat.
Open yourself up to your inner curiosity. Let your voice be heard. Then, follow your curiosity up and down the winding roads. Breath and learn from the road blocks. Why? Because you’ll soon be driving alongside the joyful love of your life: YO.U.
Hello, my beautiful friend! How is your heart these days? And how are you taking care of your gentle, bright spirit?
I have a random question for you…would you say you’re a soul-searcher? Like, someone who’s not afraid to look inside, connect with, and dig up (the good and the bad) to find more in your life? More You? More Joy? I came across that word, and then I wrote this about what I’m trying to do here:
I encourage fellow soul-searchers to greater Joy and Authenticity with relatable true stories, playful printables & mindfulness tools.
Anyway, that one sentence is the culmination of a book I read, called Building a Story Brand. It’s draft #1. Would love to know how you feel about that sentence. It could be why you and I click, or why you feel I’m coming from outer-space sometimes! Or Both!
Speaking of outer space… My new show that aired last Wednesday, Live with Heidi and Heather, is somewhere out there. 😂 🪐I don’t know where it went, but it didn’t go where it was planned. So, it’s now in the NEW! Live Heidi and Heather Facebook Group. Or you can listen to it on my pod!
So, all future live shows will stream to our Live With Heidi and Heather YouTube channel. Next one is October 20th at noon CDT. Don’t Forget, Please go to our YouTube channel and subscribe!
So, all social media aside, I’m learning lots of lessons these days. I’ve got an interrupting-chicken sleep schedule with some late nights, some early mornings. I’ve been a little “spicy and stressed. Somedays I drink Diet Coke, cry, or nap. Or all three! Yesterday, I journaled. And uncovered my feelings.
I wrote down what I could control (how I take care of myself / my attitude) and what I couldn’t (my son’s soccer, my wife’s work.) I admitted something I would NEVER have before. Back when I was perfectionistic-codependent stay at home mom. I’m having a hard time. And I need help.
It felt like I unlocked a door from a dark room and bathed in a warm flood of sunshine. ☀️So, my dear friend, may you know that you are strong and brave. And loved and supported. May you take time to be honest with yourself. So you know what you need. And ask for it. Like a car-pooling buddy, a friend to lean on, or some takeout. 🌮🥡🍕
Why ask for help? Because Your Joy Matters. Because you deserve the sunshine. Because you are strong and you need help.
So, being honest with oneself is hard. Harder than you might think. Here’s what I did to uncover my honest truth.
You have to overcome some hurdles to get to your truth. When you find yourself saying “I just wish..” or “I should…” or “Why me?” take out your journal or talk these things out with a trusted friend.
SuperStep5 (Getting Stronger) EveryDay Superhero Method EXTRA CREDIT: Do the above exercise, then ask yourself what kinds of lessons the universe might be showing you right now. Then, practice feeling gratitude for those lessons!
ZRRRRRAAAAACCCH. Again, the noise. ZEEEEERRRACH. Again, louder. The noise sounds like it could be harmful.
I’m laying on a patchwork quilt beside a happy little stream where a family of ducks paddles by. Around me are the rolling meadows. Here, the soft grasses are tall, with sweet, little flowers. The early summer sun is gentle and low, yawning and stretching her arms, blanketing a part of the sky in a mellow orange. Which caresses and intertwines fingers with the light blue of the day, like lovers parting.
This place sounds too good to be true… do you think so, too? Read on!
