Much of what is taught about having a great marriage is not very helpful, according to marriage guru John Gottman. He says one of the biggest keys is to learn how to cultivate a deep friendship. He writes, “I rarely see small moments of connection in the tapes of couples who later divorce or report their marriage has permanently soured”. Cultivate a connection with the habit of “turning toward” your spouse. There are big moments, like being asked to do something that takes a lot of time; you are not likely to miss those! Be in the habit of also paying attention to the many small moments where you can turn toward your spouse. When they talk to you, give them your full attention. When they point something out, check it out. Look for these “bids” for attention, affection, humor, or support.    Referenced Materials John Gottman and Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert Harmony/Rodale. Rev. 2015   Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast  Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/  

Our “maps” of who we “know” our husband or wife can get outdated. We have assumptions about them that are not true anymore. We could ask better questions: curious, open-ended questions that are gentle and inquisitive. We give you some good ideas about how to ask those questions. We also discuss the five levels of sharing. It’s surprising how seldom we reach the deepest levels, even after many years of marriage. It’s a lot easier to stay at the medium levels, like making your preferences known, because going deeper can be more risky. We can’t expect our husband or wife to keep up to date on “who I am now” if we don’t share at the deepest levels. Revealing ourselves is part of discovering the depths of each other.     Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast  Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/

If you are struggling with your goals, we offer you five common reasons that goals are not accomplished. One of them is that our goal does not require taking measurable actions, so we don’t know if we are executing our plan. For example, if you have a goal to improve a certain relationship, that could be a wonderful intention but it does not require any measurable actions, so it’s not a goal. But if you thought about that relationship and decided that you wanted to have better conversations, then you are getting closer. What action could you take for better conversations? If you read a relationship book, you might realize that there are skills to being a good listener. You could list those skills and track how consistently you practice them, and how many times you missed opportunities to do so. You might use a checklist, a journal, or capture notes to your daily planner. Now you’re cooking. Join us as we discuss other common reasons you might not be achieving your goals!    Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/  

We often lack what’s needed to actually make changes.  In other words, we often have a goal and do not realize we are not ready to chase that goal. So we are not successful in creating the change. I think all of us have experienced that!! It’s not as easy as “just deciding” to do “it.” Karen shares the four requirements for change. The first one is to GET RID of the baggage that’s associated with the change. Join us as she explains what that means and shares the other three requirements for change. Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thecatholicmidlife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/  

Today’s episode is an EXERCISE to create great goals for yourself. Jump in and try it! As we practice the virtue of living in the moment (episode 101) we might wonder: Am I doing what I’m meant to do at this time? Having great GOALS helps with this question. What if you had great, inspiring goals? A strong direction? Often our goals are a glorified to-do list that provides little true direction. “Gotta do more better” is not inspiring and it’s not a great strategy for actually doing better. Join for a few minutes to get some new ideas for goals in your life! Because life is growth and growth is change and you have goals; the question is are they conscious and in focus or just sorta meh goals?    Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/  

Living in the present moment is a habit to help us reach for interior peace and integrate our lives. God is never early, He’s never late, He’s always right on time. God’s grace is found in the present moment. If you are in the present, as Jaques Philippe says, you “entrust the past to the mercy of God and trust the future to His providence, doing just what is required of you today,“ and that helps you receive grace, because “sterile regrets, rumination on the past, and worries about the future cut us off from divine grace.“ Peace and grace that’s what we need. Listen in as we discuss why this skill is invaluable and give some pointers on how to better practice this habit.    Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/podcast/

Listen to catch some new thoughts about the way you think about time! The modern mind thinks of time as a commodity. As a tool or a resource. There’s a limited amount of it. We have a lot of sayings that reflect this viewpoint, such as “time is money.” Or “living on borrowed time,” or “it’s about time.” But time is more than another object we use. Time was created by God as a way for us to participate in eternity. We often think of time as the enemy, as something we compete with, or as an unstoppable force. We could, however, learn new perspectives that lead us to trust in time, to value it as our participation in eternity, and to connect the past and the future together in the present moment by way of narrative.   Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/

Christ is born to be King! He IS King, now. Merry Christmas! That makes us agents of the New Creation because Christ has already started the New Creation. Paul talks about this a lot. God wants to dwell with man and will bring heaven down to earth and they will exist together in the new creation; think of the New Jerusalem descending in Revelations. Christ, he says, is the “first fruits” of the new creation. He’s the first to be resurrected, to show us the way. He’s sent the spirit to us, and we, too have the “first fruits” of the new creation.  Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God;  for… creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.  -Romans 8:19-24 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. -Isaiah 65:17-18 All of creation is groaning, awaiting its deliverance!  We suffer with Christ and with the world, which is God’s kingdom, just as Christ suffers with us and with all creation. We are Christ’s children and heirs; we enter into his suffering and are glorified with him.  You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. -Romans 8:15-17 We have a vocation of being the people of God. It has personal and communal consequences. As Paul says, Jesus is king of the whole world. In heaven and earth he reigns. And when we're in Christ, we're fellow heirs to the kingdom. We're celebrating the new creation. We're celebrating that we are part of the new creation. We are agents of the new creation, and we anticipate the new creation right now in the present age as we wait and hope for the new heavens and the new earth.  Always God hears the “groaning.” God is victorious. God acts, and we are anchored in the hope and glory that is there for us, and nothing can separate us from the love of God. No principalities, powers, rulers of the world - whatever it is, nothing can separate us.  Merry Christmas season!   Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/

You are a citizen of Heaven - did you know that? Paul wrote that in Philippians 3. What does that mean about my situation?  Paul’s listeners in Philippi would have instantly connected that idea to being a citizen of Rome because having Roman citizenship was so important. Philippi was a colony. Roman citizens there were agents and emissaries of Roman culture, law, language, customs, and power. Roman citizens living in Philippi weren't interested in leaving Philippi and going to Rome if things got dicey. They could call on the emperor to send in back-up.    John’s gospel, which is our focus this season, explains that Jesus has already started his kingdom on Earth. You are a citizen of that kingdom. That makes you an agent and emissary of the Kingdom of Heaven’s culture, law, language, customs, power, and all of it. Citizens living on planet Earth aren’t interested in leaving Earth just so they can go to Heaven. God will bring Heaven down to Earth in the end times. That’s a process that’s already started. Jesus inaugurated it. He rose again as the first member of that blended new creation of Heaven and Earth. We will follow him.   Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.  - Philippians 3:20   Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/the-catholic-midlife-podcast/    

Happy Advent, my friends. We are getting ready to re-celebrate that first Christmas. Sometimes I get the impression that people think Jesus came to earth so that we could go to heaven. But if you think about salvation history, it runs in the other direction. It's always God wanting to come and dwell in his creation with his people. God walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. God was present in the desert in the signs during Exodus,  dwelt at the tent of meeting, was present in the Tabernacle, and was present in the temple of Jerusalem. That's the Shekhinah. That's the glory of God that the book of Ezekiel describes so dramatically coming in with an overwhelming presence and then tragically leaving. For the first-century Jewish people waiting for the Messiah to return, restoring the glory of God to the temple in Jerusalem was critical. They expected that the Messiah couldn't be the Jewish Messiah if there was no restoration of the glory of God, the Shekinah, to the Temple of Jerusalem.  The Gospel of John carefully explains that the glory of God returned to the Temple with the Messiah Jesus. You just have to know that the theme is there so you can see it. Listen to this episode so you can see this theme and why it matters so much.   Contact Info Email or text us:  Text: The Catholic Midlife podcast: 612-208-9150. Email us: [email protected] Facebook: The Catholic Midlife Podcast Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/thecatholicmidlife/ Website: https://thmlcoaching.com/podcast/