Empower Your Path: Faith, Family, & Fearless Ambitions

Listen to Empower Your Path: Faith, Family, & Fearless Ambitions

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Hi there everyone. I am so thrilled to be chatting with you today, and I'm going to take us through a coaching exercise here in just a moment. But before we get started, I want to talk a little bit about why I am here on a podcast and why I hope you will join me on this journey. So I am a certified life coach. I've been running Dana Buyer's coaching for a couple years now. Had loads of coaching experience from my early twenties moving forward. So I consider a really special privilege that I've had the opportunity to speak with probably hundreds of women over the last couple decades about parenting, marriage, leadership, being in ministry, working in nonprofits or corporate life. And I have seen themes not only from these conversations, but also from my own life of a tendency for us to feel like we just can't do it as if God has called us to something that we are not capable of doing.

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And when those doubts creep in, we start seeing cracks and fractures in our lives. They happen sometimes in our relationships, maybe in the work that we put out there, maybe even just in our capacity to relate to ourselves or to connect with God. So I am here because I have had so many conversations with women who just say, you know what? I don't have the time to hire a coach. I don't have the money to hire a coach. I'm not sure that this would make a difference, and I respect those comments, but I don't agree with them. So for me, the best way to respond to that would be to just show up and be here now in a free podcast that you can listen to wherever you are, because my heart really breaks for women who are burning themselves out because they think they're trying to do it all.

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And you might relate to this, and I want to say to you, I appreciate that you feel that way. I have felt that way so many times myself as well, but I also think there is no limit to what we can accomplish and experience with Christ at the center of our lives. So really my message to you would be, if you want to join me on this journey, let's have no more excuses, none from me and none from you. I am literally offering to sit at your table, to take up all the space that you will allow me to take up so that you can start living with greater freedom. And that freedom's going to allow you to sit at the table's God's called you to, and also influence other men and women and your children and your spouses, the people who are leading you in a variety of ways.

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So if you'll join me on this journey, I'm just inviting you to consider me as a coach in your life, as a mentor, as a peer, as someone who maybe is walking in the same journey that you are, or maybe I'm a few steps ahead of you. Whatever that looks like is not of concern to me, but I am concerned that you might feel that you're not make it. So take a step of faith. Join me for the next couple minutes in this episode and let's start in a really simple way, but a powerful way that's going to be a coaching exercise to give you just an opportunity to center yourself in the middle of what might be a chaotic day. So first I want to start with gratitude, and I'm going to walk through this exercise as if I'm personally going through it myself, which I am, but I'm going to show you by example how to walk through this so that you can do this for yourself as well.

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So I love to start with gratitude and truly it's a fun way for me to start this podcast to just take a moment to acknowledge all the clients I've had over the years, people who've taken a leap of faith and invested in me. And together we've watched their life improve and I have learned and grown from their experiences as well. I want to give gratitude to my family. I have an incredible, extremely supportive husband who is a great leader in his own capacity, and together we've been able to lead a lot of amazing things. I want to thank my children. They are world changers. I am raising two young adults. I recently became an empty nester, and I am so proud of the beautiful journeys and the incredible gifts that God has given my kids. I want to thank my parents and my in-laws and my sister and my friends.

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These are people who before this podcast ever came to be, I was able to text them and say, Hey, I'm feeling some imposter syndrome about this. I need your support. And I'm sharing that with you because as we show gratitude, I think it's important for you to see the authenticity behind the scenes parts of my life that yeah, there have been some wins, but I am so human. And as women, if we can support each other and empower each other by saying, Hey, yeah, behind the scenes I have people who support me on my best days and my roughest days because I will never stop being human. I'm not going to not experience obstacles or difficulties just because I have been able to experience some progress or benefit or wins, if you will in my life. So I'm thankful for all these people who are my community and my aim as we talk through this exercise would be for you to start with gratitude.

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Think about the people along the way, not only of course, your loved ones and maybe a small group or a life group that you're part of, but also maybe that teacher in high school, or it could be a neighbor or someone who took you under their wing when you were a new mom or someone at work when you were new in your role. I really want you to just stop and think about God's provision because you have come so far no matter where you are today. I know you're on a journey and you've already come so far. So I want to start with that in mind because God

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has already provided significantly for you, and it reminds us of his capacity to do more than we could ask, think or imagine. And I think the second thing I want you to look at is we started with gratitude, but I want you to take a look at proceeding with compassion. Now, compassion probably comes really easy for you. I can't think of many women I've met who don't have a strong capacity for compassion, whether you have kids or not, whether you're married or not, regardless of what sector you may work in, you feel compassion. Different friends of mine have said funny things over the years, like, oh my gosh, my heart breaks for every time one of those commercials comes on at the holiday season and they need support for pets, animals who need love and support and care during a cold season. And it's not really a funny thing to draw compassion about, but it is so true.

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We're just drawn to those things. I think God wired us. We maybe see a baby and we just think, oh my gosh, that's the cutest thing ever. We maybe see a young couple in love and just are moved by compassion. We see difficult things happening in the world. We see things on the news or on social media, and part of, I believe the Holy Spirit in us draws us to care for those things because God cares for those things. So I'm sharing that with you because I believe compassion comes naturally to you. Now, what might not come naturally to you is self-compassion. When was the last time you really had compassion for yourself? I want you to think about that and I want you to, depending upon when you're listening to this podcast, if you're driving, don't do this right now, but I want you to take out a photo of yourself, a recent photo of yourself.

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Hopefully you have one. It might be on your phone, maybe someone texted it to you. It's on social media, and I want you to look at yourself in the eyes. Okay, this is awkward. This is not easy. I'm literally doing this myself right now. I can see a picture of myself, and I want you to think about Matthew six, eight. It says, in the Bible, God already knows what you need. But when you look at that picture of yourself, that recent picture of yourself, I want you to ask yourself, what does she need? How is she feeling? And I want you to ask yourself, what is she afraid of? So you see, this coaching exercise allows you to step back and kind of look at yourself from a meta perspective, if you will. You are completely yourself. You're not a split personality, but you're able to look at yourself from a different lens, a different perspective. I want you to speak to what you see in her face, which is your face. What does she long for? And here's

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the coaching magic. The way we learn, grow, develop is to not just experience something, but to process what that experience is. So when you're looking at yourself in that moment, whatever the circumstances were that picture was taken in, you're going to acknowledge how you feel. You're going to just stop and say, you know what? Based upon this scenario, in this moment, I was feeling anxious or I was feeling proud, or I was feeling excited, I was feeling uncertain. You get to name that feeling and you're just going to acknowledge it. You're going to put a bit of a bookmark on that moment. And then the next thing I want you to do is you're coaching yourself is to validate that feeling. So we have to be really careful with validation. It's an incredible tool, and we do want to authentically validate because when someone feels a certain way, we don't need to take that away from them.

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They get to choose how they feel, but we also don't necessarily want them to get stuck in that feeling. So when you're validating, let's say you're looking at this picture of yourself, I'm looking at this picture of myself and I'm feeling uncertain during this season of when this picture was taken. And to speak to that means that I'm like, you know what? I was afraid of failing at something. What I was longing for was a sense that everything was going to be okay. So I acknowledge that and then I validate it. You know what, Dana? It makes complete sense that you're feeling uncertain based upon what you're facing right now. I completely understand why you're worried about failing. That's validation. When we just acknowledge it and we say it makes sense that you feel that way. It's okay. I can completely understand if I put myself in your shoes why you might feel that way.

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We need validation and we often don't get it because so many people that we interact with day to day may not know how to acknowledge and validate, and they're also dealing with their own drama and chaos and just all the task lists and all the things that are going on in their lives. They may not stop to say, you know what? I completely understand why you feel that way. So we do that for ourselves. And I want you to think about as you look at this picture of yourself, what am I doubting in this moment? What am I doubting? And then ask yourself to identify only one doubt, just the one doubt that is causing you the most problems right now in your life. What are you doubting the most? Yes, you might say broadly, maybe you're doubting God, maybe you're doubting that something's going to come through for you.

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Maybe you're doubting another person's capacity, but I want you to be specific about it. Whatever that doubt is, this is going to become your focus. I want you to be able to get to a point where can authentically banish this doubt. It's an all consuming doubt. Probably when I take women through this exercise, it'll start with, I just doubt that God's going to come through for me. And I'll say, well, let's get more specific. Maybe in a couple more sentences, they'll say, well, I'm doubting that God's going to provide for us financially and say, okay, tell me more about that. And she might reply, I'm specifically worried that I'm not going to get a pay increase at this year's annual review. Okay, well, now we can work with that because it's very specific, right? This has become something you can focus on. And when I say I want you to authentically banish this one, all consuming doubt, take note.

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I'm not asking you to just decide that you're not going to doubt this, okay? This is a very western approach. We often just say, oh, I'm going to fix it right now. I'm done with it. I'm saying, it's not a problem. I'm brushing it under the rug. That's not what I'm asking you to do. And in fact, I would encourage you not to do that. I'm asking you not necessarily to take action on the doubt. I'm just asking you to recognize it and name it. This is what centers you. This is what grounds you, because it kind of allows you to label or identify the circumstances you're in right now. You recognize that you have this doubt, you acknowledge that you validate it. Of course, you're doubting that thing. It makes complete sense that you do so you don't have to take action on it.

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The action is really just naming and identifying it. You could ask a trusted person to pray about it. Of course, I encourage you to just pray about it and tell God, like I said, he already knows what you need, but you're going to agree with him. You know what? God, this is a bit of a problem. I see some doubt here, and I would like for that to change. You can look up what does the Bible say about this concern that you have? And with our tendency to fix, we want to fix things and just be done with them. Well, I'm telling you, friend, probably it's not going to be authentically fixed today. And if you do think it's fixed, another problem's going to pop up. So let's just focus on this one issue right now so that you can give yourself the grace, the gift, and the benefit of gaining awareness and actually making progress.

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Let your awareness about this be enough for today. I'm going to say that again. Let your awareness about where you are right now. Be enough for today. Think about it. If you were experiencing some unusual symptoms and you went to the doctor, you would receive likely some kind of diagnosis. But a diagnosis doesn't bring immediate healing in real life. So why do we have a tendency to think? As soon as we're aware of a feeling or a concern that we have, we should be able to fix it. In fact, if you receive a medical diagnosis, it takes a little bit of time. You might have to start some medication. You might need to go through some counseling or coaching. You might have to change some life habits

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And know it's not going to happen overnight. So because you know that's not the case, I want you to give yourself the same compassion that you would if you'd been diagnosed with something. Recognize you're on a journey. You will see progress over time, and there will be moments of healing coming your way, but it's not going to happen overnight. And if you can radically accept that, you will be able to simultaneously experience difficult emotions, but also be fully present in your day to day life. Friends, I know you can do this. What is impossible with humans is entirely possible with God. I love you all, and I'll see you right here for the next episode.