Thèrése • Relationship Coach

Stumbled on this photo Jack took it of us in December 🥰, I was 29 weeks pregnant.

Can’t believe we are going to be meeting our little guy in such a short time! 🥺🤍🤍

Overwhelmed by all the love & community that came together to celebrate Baby Bellus today 💙🥺!

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you SO much to everyone who made this day special for us! 🙏🏻

And an extra BIG thank you to & for putting it all together & making everything so perfect. We love y’all so much!!

🤍

I already love this little man so much. He cracks me up with his kicking 🤣-it literally feels like he’s doing somersaults in there sometimes!!

He makes me love his father even more than I already do.

Jack asks me almost everyday what vegetable/size the baby is today(he’s the size of a large cabbage atm 🥬🙃). It melts my heart to think of these two bonding & how sweet I already know Jack will be with him.

We cannot wait to meet him 🥰.

My word of 2021: duality☀️🌪

2021 has been a wild, wild ride.

I put together some of the biggest takeaways that were inspired by things I witnessed in my client sessions & also things I lived & breathed myself.
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My second word of 2021: child. (From the lens of gentle parenting).

When we see an adult as their younger child self, it is much harder NOT to feel compassion. (For most of us anyway).

When we imagine our partner as a child amidst a struggle, something different happens in our brain & body.

We might be furious with our partner for throwing the equivalent of a tantrum- but if they were a child doing the same thing, how would we respond?

This answer might vary depending on your opinions of parenting & beliefs around how a child should act.

If your immediate response would be to not tolerate the behavior & send them to their room- I invite you to ask yourself: when you’re upset, & acting irrationally- if your partner responded in the same way, what would you do? How would you feel?

There are SO many answers to our relational issues that live in the responses we needed as children but did not get. There are so many solutions to our relational issues by replacing that response with what our partner actually needs to hear when they are disregulated & in-so-doing, repairing the pain/hurt that was caused by years of poor responses/treatment.

So grateful to be walking into 2022 with so many amazing takeaways, wishing you all a happy new year! 🎉

-T xx

A little life update ☺️👇🏻

(And: The reality of trying to get a nice photo🤪).

🤎I still love relationships & am supporting my clients.

🤎There have been A LOT of changes in our personal (Ryan & my) lives & our family. It’s partly why I’ve taken a step back from being socially present & instead chosen to be physically present. I’ve missed y’all a lot AND it has been so good for my soul, our relationship & my family. Which is always my top priority. I will be back…just not sure when 😉.

🤎The baby moves around loads & every time Ryan & I hug he chuckles because he can feel him moving from our bellies touching 🤣🥰.

🤎 I am loving being pregnant so far. I feel great & I’m so deeply grateful for that.

🤎 We started going to a Christian church two months ago. If you don’t know our backgrounds with God/church…then you might not know that church is the last place you’d think to find either of us. Might be a story for one of these days!

🤎 Our wedding/ the planning leading up to was one of the most stressful weeks/months in our relationship. The ceremony was amazing. It made all of it worth it- I still cry every time I watch the video. If it weren’t for that we would’ve said we wished we had eloped 🤣.

🤎 These new chapters in our relationship/family have been intense. There’s things you realize prior to saying yes to being in a blended family- & then there’s things that you realize as you’re going through it. I have never learned more or been so tremendously humbled in my life than I have through the experience of blending a family.

🤎 Baby does not have a name yet 🤭. Ryan & I have very different taste in names so it’s been quite an experience trying to choose one we both like 🤪😂. We will be keeping it a secret when we do decide 🤐.

That’s all for now 🤍.
Until next time -T xx

On 09.18.2021 I said yes to spending the rest of my life with my favorite human & I couldn’t be happier 🥰🤍.

THIS 🔥.

To be with someone that accepts us fully, see’s us fully, honors us fully, celebrates us fully, holds us fully - is the most healing, powerful & transformative experience of our lives. 💥⚡️

AND- practicing being that person for ourselves, ay. Friends. There are no words!

Because if I can see myself fully, if I can honor myself fully, celebrate myself fully & so on- I am showing the world what I deserve. What I will accept.

It is 100% possible.

Not only do I encourage you to practice this with yourself & to invite it into your life in the form of a partner but I also encourage you to be this for your partner.

Be their jackpot.

A little thoughts on the middle- the part where they see when we aren’t living up to our true potential👉🏻 this one is probably the most difficult to receive & to give. We all want someone who will shout from the roof tops & brag about us when we are crushing it. We all want someone who will be with us in our suffering. Most of us don’t want to hear when our s**t stinks. When we could be doing better. AND- we NEED people in our lives that love us enough to speak the truth of our reality to us. With love, with kindness & with firmness. We all need a nudge from time to time. A wake up call. And our partner’s are the people who are going to see us & know us better than anyone else.

One thing to be mindful of: all three of these are VITAL for a healthy partnership.

I’ve had many clients say to me, “well when we’re together we’re so happy!” Or, “we are so great when we do ______ together.”

And that is wonderful. However, being great when things are good or great tells me very little. It’s important, yes. But, what of the other two? How are you when things are s**t? When you’re in a funk?

Lastly, when it comes to relationships/a partner, never dream small. Dream BIG ✨.

Happy Monday loves 🤍

I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately. Partly because-often, our worst mistakes have been made in a relationship. They usually involved hurting someone deeply. Disappointing them, crushing them…or hurting ourselves deeply.

Maybe we didn’t intend to. Maybe we were too consumed with something or too afraid of facing it that we didn’t acknowledge the pain we caused. Maybe our own pain or life struggle was too great that it spilled over & impacted others. Maybe we felt out of control. Maybe we didn’t know ourselves enough, our limits, our needs, our boundaries & so we made poor decisions as a result.

Regardless of the “why”- we always have an opportunity to receive the lessons from the mistake(s) & to learn from them & grow. That is the key here. Mistakes define us when we don’t change. They define us when we don’t try to do better next time. They define us when we are victims & don’t take responsibility for the choices we made.

Your mistakes should never define you. BUT you are responsible for receiving & learning from the lessons of your mistake. You are responsible for growing from the mistakes & becoming a better person. If you are feeling defined by your mistakes, I invite you to ask yourself if you have done the above? And if not, perhaps that is why you feel trapped & defined by them.

If you’ve only dated jerks, it isn’t because you only deserve jerks. It’s because you haven’t learned the lesson for why you attract them in the first place. And it certainly doesn’t mean you’ll always date jerks.

Learn the lesson. Be curious about the mistake. Grow from it. Change from it for the better.

In less than 2 months, we’ll be saying, “I do.” 💍🤎🤩

For me, this decision- marriage, committing myself to another for as long as I breathe, is a HUGE decision.

Ryan & I have both been on a wild healing/growth journey- before we met & up until this point. It’s one of the things in our relationship that has remained a constant. For me, growth & a deep understanding of oneself & the other is very important. Knowing my partner is capable & willing to commit to those things was a necessary part of my decision.

I watched something earlier today by, where she talked about how most times relationships end because of compatibility or lack thereof. This couldn’t be more true.

It has been my mission to discover over & over: are Ryan & I compatible? Do we align on important matters? Are each of us willing to work with the other when we don’t see eye-to-eye?

My answer, time & time again? Yes.

We are far from perfect, let me tell you 🤣. But we are good together.

Often, when you resist the reality of a relationship/partner, you will lie to yourself to convince yourself of the story you want to believe.

For example, recently I asked a client, did they & their partner bring out the best in each other? Their answer was yes. But when I asked for them to give me concrete examples of how, they couldn’t.

I shared with them that it’s important that we are able to give concrete examples: because that forces us to look at the truth. If we say yes but we can’t explain why- that is concerning to me.

Before I walk down the aisle, you can trust that I have countless concrete examples of WHY & HOW this is the right decision (& the best🤎).

This, to me, has been an important part of my decision to marry this man. To know, with evidence & experience to back it up, that we are a good match & we are compatible.

Second photo is from , what else would you add to that list? And if you are considering marriage, do you have concrete evidence of health/compatibility/growth/commitment etc- to back up your decision?

Xo- T

Our culture loves to throw around the word “toxic” & label everyone that hurts us as such- so, I wanted to clear some things up. 👇🏻

Recently, I had a conversation with Jack (which inspired this post).

We were talking about whether or not you’re bad person if you do something bad.

I asked him, “when you do something bad, do you feel sad after?”

“Yes.” He said.

“And do you want to make it all better/say you’re sorry?”

Again, “yes.”

“That’s the thing, Jack. We all do bad things sometimes. Me, daddy, everyone. If we feel sad after & we want to make it better, then that actually means we are good. Because good people have big hearts & they care a lot about people. And good people make mistakes too.”

And in my head I thought to myself-“Bad people” don’t care if they hurt people & they don’t feel sad or want to make it better.”

That’s it. It’s as simple as that.

True toxic people don’t feel bad about how they’ve treated someone nor do they try to repair their wrong doings.

And the reality is, we’ve all likely been toxic at some point or another.

The key is whether or not we admit it when we’ve treated someone poorly, feel remorse for our behavior & try our best to repair.

And we have to remember, our way of repairing is different than others. Someone in your life may have hurt you & have tried or is trying to repair things- but because it isn’t in the way that you want or need, you may not feel as though they are.

Further more, some people may have not shown remorse or repaired with you- but they are able to in another relationship. A toxic person is one repeats the same patterns in every relationship.

Repair is something we are taught & if we never learned it from our caretakers, then it’s likely something we have to learn on our own. This is why some people haven’t repaired with us but might with someone else.

It’s important to remain curious. Not just about others, but about ourselves. Sometimes we are the toxic party & it can be really hard to admit that. Sometimes we ignore repair attempts because they aren’t “good” enough. These are the moments where we have an opportunity to communicate our needs.

With Love & Inspiration,
-T xx