Welcome to our Blessed Chats series! Each month, we will dedicate an entire week of blog posts to a topic that affects many of us. These conversations often come up in our Facebook groups and in our real life friendships. We want to share a variety of perspectives on the topic at hand, so we've asked women to share their stories and how the teachings of the Church have guided and comforted them. In this series, we're talking about life as single women. We'd love for you to join the conversation! What thoughts and feelings come up when you think of dating? If “ugh….” is your first visceral reaction, it could be helpful to explore why that is. Although dating can have it’s highs and lows, the process of getting to know people and ultimately choosing your life partner does not have to be filled with so much disappointment and dread. Get Out of the Dating Dumps Here are some tips to help you shift into a more positive experience along the dating process. Shift Your Mindset If the thought of dating makes your stomach tighten and makes you want to shut down, the first shift that needs to take place is in your mindset. If you are wanting to be in relationship but all your thoughts are already starting in a negative place, it is going to be difficult to find the kind of man you really want. Practical exercise // Begin to shift your mindset asking yourself, “What if it were possible to enjoy this process? What kinds of things can I learn along the dating process? What if it were possible to meet great guys and eventually my future husband with joy and ease?” Perhaps journal about this. Ask yourself, "What kind of thoughts toward men and dating could be more supportive for me in the kind of relationship and dating experience that I want?" Get Support Often, there are reasons why we continue to not get the results we want in relationship. Get help to explore what’s happening for you. What are your fears? How are you blocking love in your life? How do you show up in relationship? Where are there areas in your life of unresolved trauma or pain that has happened in your past? Do the inner work. If you want a man who is emotionally available, make sure you are also doing the work to be emotionally available and open and capable to receive another in relationship as well. Practical exercise // Go to therapy. Hire a coach. Get the help that will support you. Sometimes friends, though they mean well, do not always offer the best dating advice or the kind of support you may need. Be open to getting help and support. Investing in yourself and doing your own inner work is also a great gift to your future husband and children. Don’t underestimate this the value that this has on your ability to be in healthy relationship with others. Appreciate Men Sometimes single women say they long to be in relationship with a man, but they have so many hangups, judgments, and criticisms about men in general. Explore how this is for you. How do you feel towards men? What are your thoughts towards men? Learn to like men. Really like them. Learn about how men think, how they operate differently than women, learn about what they value and what is inspiring to them. You may have been hurt by men in the past, but there are many good and wonderful men in the world. Come to see and recognize the healthy men around you too. Practical exercise // Open your eyes. As you go about your day, notice the good things that men do. See how the work they do, how they serve and show up and provide and give and protect. See the wonderful ways that they make others’ lives better. Bonus points: Say thank you. Thank the men in your life for the gift they are to you and others (this could be a guy friend, your dad, brother, or someone you are dating). Additionally, show your appreciation by expressing what his effort provides for you (he will be able to hear and receive your words even more deeply in this way). WRITE + PRAY We invite you to sit with the Word and unpack it in a uniquely personal way, finding your own story. Discover your story within His. GET WRITE AND PRAY Date I know that it’s easier to just pray novenas to Saint Joseph and hope that God brings your man straight to your doorstep, but if you are really wanting to meet your future husband, it’s important that you actually go out and date men. Be open. Allow men to give to you. Learn to receive from men. Set boundaries when you need to and in general, be warm, open, and available. Say yes more. Get to know a lot of guys. Connect with a lot of people. Allow men to give to you, to ask you out, to treat you to dinner, to get your phone number. Allow the dating process to help you get to know yourself better, to clarify what you want, and to be continual practice for important skills in relating to others in relationship. What you can learn through the dating process is so valuable in and of itself! Practical exercise // Create your online profile! Get over your hangups about online dating and just do it. Show up to places where good quality men are. You need to be visible and available so your man can actually find you! Be open to God bringing you your man through any means. Have Fun Dating doesn’t have to be so hard. It’s when we take things too seriously or put too much pressure on a single date or on a specific guy that things turn sour. Allow yourself to relax and to connect with men and get to know them. Get curious. Become excited about all the great guys you are going to meet and get to know and all the things you will learn about yourself and others along the process. Yes, dating can have its share of disappointment as well as terrible heartbreak. But it doesn’t have to end there. Dating can also be a fun and beautiful journey as you get to know yourself and get to know other guys along your discernment of who is ultimately the right man for you. Additionally, filling up our own lives with things we enjoy and love takes the pressure off dating. Practical exercise // Let go of the seriousness and pressure. Allow yourself to meet a lot of men and to have fun. Go on lots of dates and enjoy receiving from men. In the times when you are not dating, fill your life up with things that make you happy. Treat yourself, rest, meet your own needs, and take care of your body. A woman who lives a full vibrant life is highly attractive to a good man, and this will also be a great gift for your future relationship. Let Go and Let God Sometimes it doesn’t work out. You may experience many “no's” before your ultimate “yes.” This doesn’t have to be a problem. If a man is not showing up for you in the way you need or deserve, there is no need to spend any more time with him. There is no need to put energy into the guys who are not showing up for you in a respectful way. Simply let go and move on. Practical exercise // Practice the mental discipline of not spending time thinking or analyzing those guys who do not show up for you as you want. Move on. Focus on your self-care and put your energy into being visible for the men who show up for you in the ways you deserve. Pray Prayer is key. The vocation to marriage is ultimately a calling from God. If you feel called to this vocation and are longing for your future husband, use this time to prepare well. The pain and loneliness you may have already experienced along this path can also be offered to God as prayer (this can be a great gift to your future husband as well). God will use everything. Practical exercise // Pray for your future husband. Pray for all those whom you will meet along your journey. Pray that you may develop the gifts and virtues your future husband will need from you. Additionally, allow your prayer to be expressed in action. Your inner work and perseverance through the discomfort and awkward moments of dating can ultimately bear fruit in an abundance of love and joy. Surrender the dating process to God, and allow God and His angels and saints to bless you and guide you. God will not let you down.   We want to hear YOUR story. Please share in the comments below! And if you want more help with finding your own story, our popular Write + Pray course offers 9 topics, nearly an hour of guided video, and almost 50 Scripture verses and questions for you featuring Managing Editor Nell O'Leary. Find your story today.   [bctt tweet="Blessed Chats: Single Women // Out of the Dating Dumps #BISblog #blessedchats //" via="no"]

Welcome to our Blessed Chats series! Each month, we will dedicate an entire week of blog posts to a topic that affects many of us. These conversations often come up in our Facebook groups and in our real life friendships. We want to share a variety of perspectives on the topic at hand, so we've asked women to share their stories and how the teachings of the Church have guided and comforted them. In this series, we're talking about finances. We'd love for you to join the conversation! I didn’t know if it could do it. I’d been making money before, of course, when I worked as a teacher, but now as an entrepreneur, I was my own boss. Before, my employer had figured out all the details around my salary, and I just decided if that was acceptable to me or not. Now, all the decisions were on me. I was responsible for all of it: the amount that I charged, the amount that I made, and what I didn’t make. It forced me to confront my ideas about money that I wasn’t interested to see. My Money Mentality If I got down to it, a part of me felt like money was bad. That it wasn’t so good to make it, to ask for it, and that it wasn’t even good to have it, especially a lot of it. Especially if I was going to be a good Christian. What it really came down to was a feeling of shame and a misunderstanding of money, as well as my own self. But I was now a coach starting her own business, and if I wanted to use those beautiful gifts to serve others, I needed to learn some new skills. Becoming an entrepreneur forced me to look at my own ideas of money and begin to sort out some hidden beliefs that were affecting my own relationship with God, myself, and the people I served. Underneath it all, I began to discover some beautiful and powerful transformation along the way. [elementor-template id="415212"] Shifting My Mindset There were some new ways of thinking that helped me to shift my mindset about finances, and our call to serve God and others in abundance. Money is neutral. It’s not a bad thing. When we start thinking that money is bad, we can quickly fall into a “scarcity mindset” that most often mirrors mistaken beliefs of our own lack of worth. Rather, when we consider that money is neutral, we detach from money and it can be a blessing to receive from God as well as to give generously to others. Money is a resource. Just like any resource, it can be abused or it can be used for good. When we consider that money is a resource, we become good stewards of our finances. We can have a healthy stewardship of money, its care, and even creating more money in our lives and businesses to support ourselves, our families, those in need. Money is a way to serve and bless others. Making money is a means of service. Making money means is one way that shows you are making an impact on the world. And when we work with a spirit of service, it is a way to bring about the Kingdom of God. Money can simply be a byproduct of an exchange of value and service. “For to everyone who has more will be given and he will grow rich” (Matthew 25:29). These words express the blessing of using our gifts to serve and of receiving God’s blessings of abundance. If we are Christians open to receiving God’s abundance in all areas of our lives, why not also be open to receiving God’s abundance in our finances as well? And when we receive God’s abundance through our work, we have the opportunity to be generous to others as well. In fact the more money someone makes, the more they have the opportunity to give and do good in the world. What better place for God to bestow lots of money than into the hands of good Christians? We Christians can truly use these resources for creating greater beauty, truth and goodness in the world, as well as alleviating the sufferings of others through generosity and through works of service. The Provision of God For me, I have felt the challenge to be open to accepting God’s abundance, even financially. The call to create a profitable business that serves many women to transform their lives and live as God has created them to be has been the place to explore new ways of thinking and new ways of serving. The key is detachment and poverty of spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. -Matthew 5:3 Part of my “detachment” has been to let go of the mistaken ideas that only were keeping me hidden and preventing me from serving in more powerful ways, and to open myself to receiving God’s goodness of resources through the beauty of work and the generosity that can come from giving to others. If we can remain detached and serve with generous hearts, we can truly become beautiful instruments of God’s goodness in all areas of our lives, including our finances. What are your thoughts about money? How can you become more open to receiving God’s abundance in every area of your life, including your finances? How is God calling you to greater service and generosity? If you want more on the Church's rich teachings on these engaging topics, our best-selling study, "Blessed Conversations: Rooted," dives into the Catechism's teachings and now offers a video companion series along with it featuring Theological Editor Susanna Spencer and Managing Editor Nell O'Leary. Get it here.   [bctt tweet="Blessed Chats: Finances // Money Mentality #BISblog #blessedchats //" via="no"]

Welcome to our Blessed Chats series! Each month, we will dedicate an entire week of blog posts to a topic that affects many of us. These conversations often come up in our Facebook groups and in our real life friendships. We want to share a variety of perspectives on the topic at hand, so we've asked women to share their stories and how the teachings of the Church have guided and comforted them. In this series, we're talking more about grief. We'd love for you to join the conversation! “Who died?” I kept asking myself. “It feels like someone or something seriously died,” I would think to myself as the grief would overwhelm me again. It really felt like something had died. But nothing had died, except for my relationship... So Close I walked up to the Shrine of Our Lady of LaLeche, and I thought of all the other women who walk this same path coming to this special place in their own grief. As Our Lady of LaLeche is the patron of pregnancy, postpartum, and child loss, many women come to this special place to ask for healing from miscarriages, the ability to conceive, and any and all of the deep and sensitive pains regarding motherhood. I thought about the unique sufferings these women feel in the deep hidden pain of grieving the losses of the babies they and the world will never get to see. I thought about their pain—a pain I do not know—and their hidden suffering that only God fully understands. I thought of so many women who come to this place that honors their hidden and unique experiences of grief, tears and loss. I myself hadn’t even gotten that far. Almost. I’d gotten close. After so much waiting and praying and longing and hoping, everything was finally coming together. And then, with more waiting and building and nurturing and praying, the dreams of marriage and family life were coming true and were going to be happening so soon. Until the truth of what was really happening came to light, and then what had seemed so close and had been so hopeful and wonderful shattered in nearly an instant. Isolated Pain As I walked closer to the doors of the Shrine that honors the hidden and often misunderstood pain of mothers, I felt isolated and alone that my own pain and grief was even so far away from theirs. Was there even a place for me at this altar where so many couples come to ask God for a baby? I no longer had the man I was going to marry anymore, the marriage we had planned, or the excitement of family life we were expecting to begin together. The dreams of our future children were gone before we had even tried for a baby. The life we were planning to share together no longer existed. And then a thought occurred to me. Perhaps I was suffering an “emotional miscarriage.” I was suffering the miscarriage of my relationship that died before it came full term at our wedding and the loss of the family life were were preparing for and looking forward to with joyful expectation. My own heart broke as I began to accept the truth that despite everything that we had been expecting, the relationship no longer had a heartbeat. Because a relationship is a real thing. And if it ends, what did exist, no longer exists anymore, and it can feel like a very real kind of death. This kind of loss deserves to be honored by feeling through the grief and the pain and with a process of letting go of the various levels of loss that now are different, changed or gone. [elementor-template id="415212"] The Grief of a Breakup The pain of a breakup can feel so overwhelming. Each person’s suffering is deeply unique, and this can feel terribly isolating. But the truth is also that our unique sufferings can also unite us together, because suffering truly is a universal human experience. Pope Saint John Paul II writes about this in Salvifici Doloris (“On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering”), as well as through his personal witness of courage and faith in the face of his own experiences of suffering. Suffering can be an opportunity for us to open our hearts and expand in greater compassion for others, as well as to come into greater intimacy with God. In that way, our grief and loss take on a power, that, offered to God, can bring out even greater good in the world and in our own lives. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. -John 12:24 God Brings Life Out of Death The beautiful truth is that, whether we experience physical, mental, or emotional loss and pain, God can bring life out of death. In fact, it’s what He does best. This is the mystery of Redemption that is possible for God to work in our individual lives as well. If one is brave enough to surrender to God, feel through the grief, release the pain, and receive support along the journey, greater life can come forth from what perhaps in the moment only felt like death and destruction. What a great gift that God brings Resurrection and new life into our hearts and bodies. May we have the patience and hope to believe that from our experience of grief and loss, God can and will bring about the most beautiful, rich, fruitful and abundant new life. If you want more on the Church's rich teachings on these engaging topics, our best-selling study, "Blessed Conversations: Rooted," dives into the Catechism's teachings and now offers a video companion series along with it featuring Theological Editor Susanna Spencer and Managing Editor Nell O'Leary. Get it here.   [bctt tweet="Blessed Chats: Grief // Devastating Breakup #BISblog #blessedchats //" via="no"]