Start in the Middle

Embracing Renewal: Overcoming Resistance and Creating a Life You Love at Midlife

• Kristi Ballard Falany • Episode 102

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Have you ever found yourself starting over in the middle of your life, after a major change like divorce or an empty nest? That's where I was at 42, and it led me to become a certified trauma-informed life coach dedicated to helping other women navigate similar challenges. In this episode, I'm  exploring the concept of renewal and how to overcome resistance to change as we journey together toward creating a life we truly love.

I share my own experiences with renewing my sense of purpose, creating autonomy in my life, and helping other women do the same. I discuss the importance of identifying your "why" in order to take action, and the three areas in my life that I'm focusing on for renewal: my relationship with my husband, the growth of my business, and my relationship with myself. I also address the role of pride in resistance and the value of reaching out for help when needed. So, let's embark on this journey of renewal together and make our lives truly exceptional!

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Kristi Falany:

Hi, i am Kristi Ballard Falany. I am a certified life coach who found herself at 42, freshly divorced kids off to college and having never dated in my adult life. I was starting in the middle. If you haven't yet hit start on your middle time in life, let's do it together. Let the journey begin. You are listening to Start in the Middle, episode 102. Hey there y'all. How are you guys today? I hope that you are having a fabulous day. I certainly have, and I am super excited to share this episode with you. I know that we are talking all things renewal, but before we get to that, i'd like to introduce myself, in case this is your first time listening.

Kristi Falany:

I am Kristi Falany. I am a certified trauma-informed life coach and I help women to stop letting life just pass them by. I help women to take control of their lives, to raise the bar on the things that they have been settling for in their life, and I work with them to help them to create a life that they actually love. I have to tell you I love doing this, i love this job, you see, because everything that I talked about I am on the other side of All of these things I have already been through myself. I mean, you heard it in the intro At the age of 42, i found myself freshly divorced. Both of my kids were heading out. Since then, i have remarried, i have renewed my sense of purpose in my life, i have created autonomy in my life and I love it. I love being able to share the skills and the tools that I have learned through my coaching certification with other women so that they can do the same thing. All right.

Kristi Falany:

So last week was all about resistance, why we resist a renewal. So remember I am defining a renewal as something that you are taking back up. So remember that a renewal means that you're not tearing everything down, that you are taking something back up after an interruption. So for me, the month of May was ugh, busy, busy, and so it felt like an interruption. It felt like I had too many things on my plate that I was not able to do my natural, normal things. I wasn't able to follow what I consider to be my normal routine. Okay, and so that's what a renewal is. It's deciding that what you were doing you already love and you want to pick it all back up, but you're doing it with a greater commitment. You are doing it in an upgraded fashion, you are doing it with more of fervor and sense of urgency, okay, and so when you do this, when you recommit with all of those things in mind, you are coming back stronger, you are creating something better for yourself, you are up leveling and creating something new. When you renew in that area of your life, all right, no-transcript.

Kristi Falany:

Last week we talked about resistance. Okay, resistance around your renewal. So resistance being that nagging feeling of I don't want to, i don't know if it will work, i don't know if it's right for me. Okay, and so the resistance that we have around creating a renewal, and I gave you two reasons why We allow resistance. So for just a minute, if you'll indulge me, i wanna circle back to that idea of pride. Okay, because I did have a couple of listeners reach out to me and say, hey, tell me more. Okay, someone circle back to it.

Kristi Falany:

So when we think of pride and how it shows up as resistance, we wanna go back to the definition. Okay, so when we are being prideful, remember that it means that we have a high or in ordinate which means unusually excessive Opinion of our own selves in the way that we show up with dignity, the way that we show up with importance, merit or superiority, okay, and so when we enter Into a renewal with that sense of pride, it might look like thinking that I have it all together, so I shouldn't need the renewal, or I should be able to figure it out. And what happens with this is that it gets into our brain and we start to think that I should not for help. Okay, and especially when we're going through a renewal that we are finding to be a very tough situation and we're having a hard time creating that renewal, you want to be able to ask for help. But when you're telling yourself something like I should have all, i should have this all together, or I should be able to figure it out on my own, we're not opening up ourselves to ideas of others. Okay, we're not opening up ourselves to the idea that there may be something different Available to us beyond our own thinking, okay, and so we don't reach out for help.

Kristi Falany:

And this is exactly What I am hoping to kind of break down for you is that we all are here trying to do life and we are doing it most, for the most part, the same ways. We all struggle with the same thoughts of not being enough or not showing up in an area where we think that we should be better. All struggle with these things in life, and the truth of the matter is that we were not meant to do life alone, and so when you have that mindset of what I can do, it, i can handle it right, and you're not reaching out for that help, you're missing out on the piece of community, you're missing out on the piece of being open to other things. That may be true, so remember that I shared with you know the three areas that I am recommitting a renewal for in my own life. Alright, so what I want to talk to you about today is about taking action. Okay, we talked about resistance and now we're ready to take some action. Okay, so you can pinpoint why you're resisting your renewal in Any area in your life, and now it's time to talk about how we're gonna take action. Okay, it's time to put the excuses, the procrastination, all the things that keep you stuck in a home life Aside. We're gonna put all those things aside and we're gonna talk about taking action.

Kristi Falany:

So when i mentioned this episode to my own coach, Dave Moreno, he said to me christie, it's simple, it's like that tennis shoe commercial says Just do it. Oh my gosh, if that were so true, if we just did it, how amazing what our transformations be, if we just didn't resist things and we just took the action. So we know why we're not taking action. So let's talk about how we're actually gonna do it. Okay, remember, i said that this is a journey that we're doing together.

Kristi Falany:

Okay, i am sharing my commitment to the areas of my life that i want to renewal with you, because i want you to feel like this is something we're doing together, and so you have the opportunity Choose what areas of your life that you are doing a recommitment, a renewal on. So i am doing this with you, okay, so the first thing In order to take action and in order for you to have the fuel behind taking action, is you have to identify your why. Why do you want a renewal in this area of your life? so, remember, my top three is that i want to renew my relationship with my husband, and mainly, i'm talking about our communication. Well, i say our communication, but my communication. Okay, because, remember, i can't control what the other people in my life are going to do. The only thing that i can control is myself, okay, and so i want to Recommit to how i communicate in our relationship. The other one is my renewal, my commitment to the growth of my business, and the third one is my relationship with myself. Okay, so i'm gonna use this one as an example.

Kristi Falany:

So my relationship with myself and where it gets tough is in regards to my health okay, i have a really bad habit not listening to my body, okay, especially when it comes to exercise, because I will push through soreness, i will run even when my feet hurt, and I am not talking about just a little bit of soreness, i am talking about the pain of plantar fasciitis, talking about the pain of a bone spur, okay, and so these are all areas that I just don't listen to my body, and so I've got to come up with, and I have to come in agreement with all of the reasons why I need to stop this nonsense. And you're probably going duh, christy, right, but something that I want to offer you is that your body is extremely smart. It actually knows exactly what you need, and it tries so hard to talk to us, and a lot of times it is in the form of soreness and pain. Okay, and so all you have to do is really listen to it. Okay, and here are my reasons why. All right, and I'm sure you can come up with any number, and you're probably going to come up with the same ones that I did. But here are the reasons why I really need to just listen to my body. Okay, because if I continue to push through, i could cause myself a serious injury. Okay, and if I continue to push through, my body is not properly healing And if I continue to push through, i'm not going to get the longevity out of these activities that I actually want. Okay, this year I'm going to be 51. I want to be running well into my 60s. Okay, well into my 70s, well into however long I am on this earth, all right. And so I have to really listen to my body. And these are the excellent reasons why I need to renew the way that I take care of my body and my health, because it's imperative that I take action in taking care of my body. So knowing why you want the renewal in that area will help you to fuel the process of you taking action.

Kristi Falany:

Okay, another way to fuel taking action is to identify the purpose for the renewal, okay, and so when I say purpose, what I am saying is what is it going to represent to you When you complete this renewal? so, for instance, here's some questions that you can ask yourself as you're thinking about renewing that area of your life How is it gonna make my life better? Okay, how will I be an upgrade from who I am now? How is it going to change who I am when I am no longer stuck in this home lifestyle? Okay, so these are some questions that you can ask yourself to really to identify you know what this renewal is going to represent, what is its purpose? And these are all the questions that you should be asking yourself as part of your renewal decision making, because assigning a meaningful purpose To your why for renewal is going to give you the drive that you need to really take action. It's going to help you, i, to identify what your renewal will represent for you.

Kristi Falany:

For instance, what does changing the way that I communicate my marriage represent for me? Well, for me, it represents my obedience in my faith. So it represents that I am being humble, i am talking with a gentleness, i am considering my husband with compassion. Okay, it represents my commitment to my husband and my marriage Okay, and it also represents my commitment to my own personal growth and how I can make my experience and my life better, okay, so, lastly, taking action is going to require energy, okay, so I'm going to give you a homework assignment this week.

Kristi Falany:

I want you to go through this next week until we meet again next week. I want you to go through the week and I want you to track your energy. Okay, track your energy. Really. Think about where it is that your energy is going. Okay and so and it's kind of funny because this is close to the assignment that my own coach gave me for this week Okay, for this week, he wanted me or he challenged me, to identify where I can find more energy. Okay, but that's a step ahead, all right, so let's wait on that one. I want you to first track where your energy is going, okay and so then next week, I'm going to talk to you about energy And I'm going to talk to you about identifying the possible ways where our energy goes Okay, and how we can create more energy, because obviously we need to be able to create more energy for ourselves if we are going to take action, all right, So if you have questions about anything that I discussed today, i would love for you to reach out to me.

Kristi Falany:

You can find me on my website, KristiFalanyCoaching. com. That's K-R-I-S-T-I-F-A-L-A-N-Y coaching. com. You can also hit me up on Instagram and Facebook. I would love to communicate with you through there. I'd love for you to follow me there as well. All right, so this week you're tracking your energy, seeing exactly where your energy is going, and next week we're going to pick up this conversation again and talk about where our energy naturally goes and how we're going to get more. All right, also, if you would like a free gift, go to my website, Kristi Falany Coaching. com.

Kristi Falany:

Up in the top right-hand corner, there is a button to my midlife mindset quiz. If you have not already taken that quiz and you're embarking on this renewal of creating things bigger and better in your life, that is actually a great place to start. Okay, when you take that quiz, it's like nine questions. It doesn't even take two, three minutes. You are going to get your results immediately. It's going to give you an idea of where your mindset is at this time in your life. It's going to give you some helpful hints on how you can implement some strategies today to start shifting your mindset to one that is actually more productive for you in creating things bigger, in creating a life that you love. All right, thanks for tuning in today and I cannot wait to talk to you next week about energy. Let's start in the middle together.