We are going to continue in our relationship series. Today, Larry Bilotta joins me. Larry has been helping people in their relationships and marriages for years and his heart for doing this was birthed from his own marriage. He talks about how the first 27 years of his marriage were awful and then in year 28 something changed. They have now been married for over 40 years. We talk about his marriage and what caused it to fall apart but then what helped it change. We talk about how the messages we hear in childhood shape how we experience relationships as adults. We talk about what those messages sound like, the solution to them and how to take ownership of them.
The last several days have turned everything upside down so I decided to do my monthly solo episode early after a friend encouraged me to address how to survive the quarantine. With all the unknown surrounding the CoronoVirus, our emotions are high. How in the world are we supposed to social distance ourselves and work from home and home school the kids?!
To address this, family joins me around the table to talk about what we are feeling and thinking right now about the virus. Then, I share a few tips on how to survive being quarantined.
I welcome my friend Nicole Zasowski back to the table. She first joined me back on episode 161. If you haven’t listened to that one, I highly recommend it especially if you have walked through any type of change or loss that was really hard. Nicole is a Marriage and Family Therapist and recently published a book called From Lost to Found: Giving Up What You Think You Want For What Will Set You Free and it is a beautiful and helpful book. For this episode, I pulled out a chapter in her book on relationships and talk about how to be a good partner by moving away from a dependent or independent stance to one of interdependence. We talk about how we are responsible for being loving in our relationships but not responsible for making someone feel loved. And we spend some time unpacking what it looks like to self-regulate the emotions you feel in a relationship and how to figure out what your best self looks like so that you can show up as that person.
We have a really great conversation about conflict. We talk about why there’s beauty in conflict; our different styles of conflict; how the way we were raised affects how we handle conflict; practical steps to deal with conflict, how personality plays into it, and how our nonverbal communication plays a role. We have a really fascinating conversation about congruency in our communication—what we feel and what we say—and why that matters so much. I gained so much wisdom from this conversation and I think you will too
Sarah shares a BIG announcement at the end of today's episode so be sure to not miss it! But first, Sarah talks about a little something that we all have all faced: rejection. She shares stories of her past and how those rejections defined her sense of worthiness and belonging. She also shares how to overcome the critical voice in our head in order to move from rejection to worthiness.
I am so happy to welcome my friend Katie Hearn to the table. She is the Digital and Accessible Services Coordinator for the Atlanta Braves. She focuses on assisting all fans in having a memorable experience while at Truist Park, with a special emphasis on their accessible programs.
In the spring of 2017 she suffered sudden vision loss and is now blind. She tells her story of how she lost her vision while she was in her twenties and how that affected everything in life. She shares how she is working to find a new normal, how she sees the world differently now and how losing her vision helped her find her voice. And you know, I couldn’t resist asking several Atlanta Braves related questions. (My goal is to convert all of you to Braves fans.)
I am so happy to welcome my dear friend, Meredith McDaniel, to the table today. Our friendship was birthed from proximity—literally walking the same direction on a sidewalk over 4 years ago. Meredith is a licensed counselor and author of the new book, In Want & Plenty: Waking Up to God’s Provision in a Land of Longing.
We talk about the enneagram and how that shapes how we see the world around us. Then, we spend some time talking about what it looks like to feel stuck and how to create some forward motion. She even turns the table and asks me about where I feel the most stuck. I think this is a conversation that we can all relate to. If you’ve ever said, “I’m stuck, now what?” then you will enjoy this conversation.
Today's episode is very practical. Sarah shares one thing she does on Sunday in order to have a successful week.
Be sure to download the FREE planner pages that Sarah mentioned.
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I am so happy to welcome Rachel Martin to the show. Connecting with people has been the greatest part of this show and I am so glad to be connected to Rachel. She has 7 kids and after a divorce, she was a single mom for 7 years. We talk about navigating that sense of loss with her kids after her divorce and advice for the woman who is in the middle of marriage loss. We talk about how she climbed out of a mountain of debt, how gender roles affect how we handle money and advice on changing the narrative around the phrase "cutting cost". If life has ever felt less than you imagined, this conversation will be an encouragement to you.
I am launching a Pateron page for the show which is a great and easy way to support the show financially and in return, you will receive some bonus content. For simply $3 a month, you will receive some deleted questions from each guest and for only $7 a month, you will receive those deleted questions along with a new segment called Ask The Expert where I will ask David Thomas and Sissy Goff questions about raising boys and girls. Go to patreon.com/survivingsarah to become a patron today!
I am so happy to welcome Courtney DeFeo back to the show. Courtney is an OG Surviving Sarah guest making her first appearance on the show back on episode 18. She is such a creative entrepreneur who has a big heart for helping others. She is an author and podcast host for the Treasured Podcast which is a great resource for moms of girls. Courtney has partnered with Parent Cue from Orange to create a resource for moms and tween girls so that is the basis for our conversation today.
We talk about raising tween girls, the areas in which we feel inadequate to help, and even the area that we struggled with as tweens. And since we are in the throws of the holiday season, we talk about ways to make the holidays less about what we receive and more about what we give. Courtney shares some very practical and helpful ideas to light up your community during this holiday season.
We are celebrating 200 episodes and 4 years of Surviving Sarah!!! It’s hard to believe that the show has existed for so long. It has been such a fun ride and it has afforded me opportunities that have been incredible. In this episode, I answer listener questions like how I produce an episode, how I juggle mom, kids and home, who my dream guest would be and what’s next for Surviving Sarah.
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I am so happy to welcome Tricia Goyer back to the show. To me, Tricia is one of those women that I just want to be around. She is a wife, mom, author, speaker, and podcaster. You may remember her from a previous appearance on the show where we talked about how to calm angry kids. This time around, we talk about her book The Grumble Free Year which documented a challenge that her family took to live a grumble free life for a whole year. We talk about what triggered her to take this challenge, ways that we all grumble that we may not realize is grumbling and some very practical help and phrases to say to help yourself and your kids to be grumble free.
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I think a lot about the struggles of my youth and how I never thought I’d still struggle in the same ways. But newsflash, I’m 41 and still struggle in some of the same ways—it just looks a little different. But as I am growing up, there are things that I truly no longer want to live by. There are things that I’m finding in my life that have dominated my thinking for far too long. One of those is perfectionism. In this episode, I talk about how perfectionism meets my fear of failure and how I am learning to embrace my authentic self by practicing failure.
I am happy to welcome Sarah Beckman back to the show. I always enjoy welcoming guests back. Sarah is an author and speaker who recently became an empty nester. So you know I capitalized on sitting with a mom further down the road from me and asked for some advice. She shares some really great advice for us moms who are in the tween/teen years. So have your mental pen and paper ready. Then, we talk about her latest book “Hope in the Hard Places: How to Survive When Your World Feels Out of Control.” We talk about why its so important to give yourself permission to grieve and feel during the hard times, precautions around social media during those times, how sometimes our faith prevents us from seeking what we need while walking through a hard season and some practical tips to help you get to the other side of a hard time.
Connect with Sarah Bragg: Instagram // Website