Staying Positive When Things are Hard

Today I share about some areas of my life where I have wanted to disconnect. We all go through things that are hard for us. Listen in for some examples of this for me currently and a reminder to think about the good too. 

Take Aways

•  "The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives." -Russell M. Nelson
•  When we only focus on the negative or only focus on the problems or what we perceive as problems, things that we need to solve, it just doesn't lead to a good place. 
•  Take the initiative to speak the positive, to speak the good. To review in your mind and maybe to someone else some things that are good.
• Heidi's tooth pain story
• Heidi's lost notebook story... found in answer to prayer.
• A talk by Elder Brik V. Eyre: Know Who You Really Are
• Take time to be with God
• Some blessings of the timing of Heidi's dental emergency
• Next week: Talking with Marybeth Bohn!
  
  
  

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Music 

• Music- Island Breeze by Surf House Productions |...

Transcript

Ep 96 Staying Positive Through Difficult Times

[00:00:00] Hello, this is the Living Well with PMDD podcast. I'm your host, Heidi Bradford, certified life coach, mom of five and PMDD Survivor. Happy to have you here. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be considered health advice.

Hello friends, I am happy to pop in here and just give you a short podcast episode today. It is our spring break for my kids, and it's been fun, it's been crazy, and I did not, uh, schedule a spring break for my work. So it's, it has also been stressful. Um, there are a lot of tasks that I am behind on because I didn't plan super well for this week, and I love to be with my family when [00:01:00] they are around. My husband, I knew he was taking off Monday and Tuesday, and then he ended up taking off Monday through Wednesday, and I just should have planned a little bit better. But we live and learn, right?

We did get to go to Carlsbad Caverns. It's a national Park. I think it's considered a national park. I know we used our National Parks Pass and it's in New Mexico. It's so amazing to go into structures that are made by the earth that are just natural, crazy awesome things that we would just miss if somebody hadn't discovered it. We would just never have the natural wonder of Carlsbad Caverns and you can fill in the blank with someplace that you think is amazing. And there's probably a million more out in the world that [00:02:00] hopefully maybe we'll find someday.

Um, anyway, today I want to offer you just a message of staying positive. Life isn't meant to be rainbows and butterflies all of the time. It's really meant to stretch us so that we can learn and grow. And in the process it can be really discouraging. It can be frustrating.

I personally, in the last few months have just wanted to disconnect myself from my life, the decisions I needed to make, from the sickness that we were having. Kind of wanted to just put it all aside and then just exist separately. I kind of think of it as like numbing out.

I just don't wanna deal with this anymore. I just don't wanna [00:03:00] think about this. It's really a temptation. It's not a good place to go. We, at least I do it sometimes, but I really think if we can not go there, we're better off. When we do go there and we recognize that's kind of where our mind wants to go. It's good to recognize that, and then to take some time to figure out, okay, what do I need to get through these challenges? In what way can I address this differently than I have been? That can give myself some hope or give myself a different focus. There's a quote by. Russell M. Nelson, who was the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in these past few years, he recently passed away.[00:04:00] 

But he said, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. When we are focused on what's going wrong, we cannot find the solution to this problem that we have, that we've tried and tried and tried.

Or maybe it's something new that's happening in your life, uh, the death of a loved one or a recent diagnosis for you or someone else. For me our family is being moved overseas for the military, and I've just had a hard time understanding how this fits with the goals and our overall life with my daughter leaving for college this fall and my dad being 92.

Really, I have the [00:05:00] heart to want to serve and be there for both of them. And my husband's dad is also suffering with Alzheimer's and wanting to be here to help his mom, or even just a support, right? The closer proximity we are to people, the more likely it is that we'll hear about their struggles and therefore be in a place to help them more.

So it's really hard for me this move. And then we've had a lot of sickness, so my brain hasn't been the clearest. It's like fighting for a few minutes of clarity to figure out how, how to plan these things. I do like to solve problems too. So I go down a rabbit hole of here's this problem, let's really drill into it and figure it out.

And I [00:06:00] like to counsel with my husband and get his view because he is a grounding force for me. He. It helps to ground me to reality, to what really matters, to what I might just be worrying about that isn't that significant.

Well, we were having a discussion as we were going to bed. I think it was Sunday night and there was a lot of weight, a lot of things weighing on us. When to plan our, um, packouts for our moving and then some health things for me and how to deal with them.

It was just a not dark, heavy, like not in a bad way, but very realistic. Like, Hey, this is what we're facing and maybe we need to take these measures. Just laying there I wasn't feeling particularly positive or [00:07:00] happy. But I thought I should share with him some good.

I said I really liked being at church today. I felt the spirit, it felt peaceful. I enjoyed being inquire after church and singing. We didn't say much after that. He thanked me for. I can't remember his words, but he was like, oh, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for telling me those good things. And then we went to sleep.

I was reminded of a need to weigh the negative with the positive. That when we only focus on the negative and only focus on the problems or what we perceive as problems, things that we need to solve, it just doesn't lead to a good place. It's not [00:08:00] that good. So taking time and taking initiative to speak the positive, to speak the good, to review in your mind and maybe to someone else, the things that are good.

In saying that, that day, and then the following days, I had this terrible tooth pain. I thought it might be related to sinuses.

So I got into the doctor. They saw me on an emergency basis, um, the dentist. And come to find out, from doing some pressure stuff and cold test, he's like, the nerve in your tooth is dead and that's really not good. You don't have a root canal on this tooth. You have a filling from having a cavity and you got it fixed and [00:09:00] something happened. There was also a crack in the tooth.

So my pain was bad and then that's bad. I went to being sad and being confused. I've been to one, uh, endodontist while we've lived here and the experience was okay, but I didn't really wanna go there again. That endodontist, the closest one is about an hour away. And then to go to a different one than him, it's close to two hours. That's a big time commitment and. Also, if I'm going alone, then I have to drive and will I feel well enough and making sure I have the pain medication so that I can handle all of it.

I had kind of decided from the Sunday experience that I just want to be more positive, and then I come off of this and I'm just swimming in this confusion and knowing ideally I'd go to a different endodontist, [00:10:00] but I don't even know necessarily if I know of a good one.

Knowing that this is an emergency, they wanted me to get the root canal the next day if possible. So I asked my husband, um, if he come and pray with me, and this is on Wednesday morning now. And he did. And within minutes. I had the thought , check your phone and that my phone was still on do not disturb, and I'd had a call from the endodontist that I'd used before and they looked at stuff and they had a spot today.

From praying, I felt like, yeah, I think this is the direction I should go and felt peace about that, but also knew I need some more support here. I've been struggling for months. I'm not getting through the stuff that I need to get [00:11:00] through, and I also have a tendency to take care of everyone else.

You know, if there's kids home, I feel a need to make sure they're taken care of before I can get back to my stuff or I can do what I think I need to do. It can be tricky. It's a blessing in that I get to bless a lot of people's lives, but I do also need to take time for myself.

So I prayed for help. I prayed that I would be able to find this notebook that I had been reading of church talks. If you're a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, it's the, uh, general conference talks from October, 2025. Our most recent worldwide conference. I'd been reading them and I lost it.

I'd asked this prayer [00:12:00] and, you know, I've been looking for this notebook. I just hadn't really thought to ask God to help me find it because, you know, there's other things I can read. We have church magazines, I have the scriptures, we have the come Follow Me manual.

Like I'm not at a loss. For material to uplift and inspire me. But for some reason I was really missing that notebook and I had really gained a lot from it when I was reading it.

I was leaving the breakfast table and the stack of scriptures on our fireplace, just.

Stood out to me and I walked over and I saw at the bottom of this stack of scriptures, this, uh, notebook. And I just thought, no way. But I looked and sure enough there was my conference notebook. I was like, how could it have been there this whole time? We get those out every night or [00:13:00] almost every night.

How could I not have seen that? But, um, I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father led me to it, and I've been able to read from it the past, uh, few days. It's only Friday, and this was on Wednesday morning. The talk that I read on Wednesday was just exactly what I needed.

It's almost like the notebook was lost for this moment so that I could have the moment on Wednesday where I was stressed and confused, but I prayed and I knew this was the way forward to go with this endodontist. And then sure enough, here's this talk.

The talk is know who you really are, and it's by Elder Brick v ire. He's one of the apostles right now. The whole message [00:14:00] of this talk is that you are a child of God who is so loved absolutely completely. That God has total and complete compassion for you. That the adversary is gonna label us, try to label us by our weaknesses, that we need to seek validation vertically, not horizontally. And then just a message, those that haven't felt that their prayers are being heard. I promise you that your heavenly Father knows you, loves you, and wants to hear from you. He wants to communicate with you. He wants you to remember who you are.

He encourages us to take time to be with God. When we do that in the morning, then in those moments of quick prayers and [00:15:00] urgency, we'll be able to receive more easily when we have taken time to be with him. For each of us being with him might look a little different, but I just want to give that to you today.

Stay positive. I am really working on not speaking negative. To speak the positive. The negative can exist. It's a thing. I'm not trying to push it under a rug or pretend it doesn't exist. But it doesn't need to be dwelt on and it doesn't need to be the focus. And if we are gonna focus on it, do some quick focus on it for a time and then move on. 

Just so you know, I did go and get the root canal done on Wednesday afternoon. my tooth, is taken care of. Thought I would let you know that because I ended the last recording Without giving you that closer, but I want you to [00:16:00] know that.

Some of the blessings around the timing is that we are moving overseas and we don't know what our, um, options will be for medical and dental care. Might be okay. Might not be. But also my husband already had work off, so he could come with me. He could drive, he could be my moral support. He could look at all of the x-rays that the, uh, endodontist took. He could listen and, um, just chime in with any of his questions right there.

And really could be there for me, which, um, most of the times isn't possible. His job is very demanding and he's very needed. I'm so happy in that way that it happened at a time that he already had time off and could come with me.

Okay, we will talk to you next we, I'm so excited for you to hear the discussion I had [00:17:00] with Mary Beth Bone. We will hear the first part next week. I'm working on editing that right now. She's been through so much, it's been so hard to lose her daughter to PMDD. She and her husband are doing what they can to help other people through this challenge and spread awareness of it. I really think you'll enjoy it and we'll talk to you next week.

Thanks so much for listening to the Living Well with PMDD podcast. To learn more about life coaching with me, visit my website Heidi, H-E-I-D-I, bradford coaching.com. Until next time, keep hoping, keep loving, and remember that you are not alone.