Your Most Beautiful Life

What happens when you’re so used to taking care of everything yourself that it becomes difficult to let someone take care of you? -----  In this 50th episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores the tension between being a woman who can handle just about anything and learning to receive support from others. She reflects on the difference between “I can do it myself” and “I have to do it myself,” and how the second can quietly become a rule that shapes our relationships, our expectations, and the way we move through life. Lori shares why capable women can find themselves wishing someone would notice what they need, only to minimize their desires or take everything back into their own hands when help arrives. She explores how staying mentally in charge, anticipating what might go wrong, and managing disappointment by asking for very little can make receiving support feel more difficult than it needs to be. She also reflects on how past experiences with people who were unavailable or dismissive can shape our expectations of others, and why building trust requires giving trustworthy people the opportunity to show up. Rather than abandoning our independence, Lori invites us to remain discerning while becoming more available for care, learning to express our needs, allow others to contribute, and discover that being capable doesn't mean we have to carry every part of our lives alone. Lori also shares three ways she's supporting her body in midlife, including making room for nourishing meals, exploring hormone replacement therapy with her provider, and creating a movement routine with her daughter. -----  She also explores: ⊹ The difference between being capable of doing everything yourself and feeling like you have to ⊹ Why high-capacity women may want support while making it difficult for others to provide it ⊹ How staying mentally in charge can prevent us from experiencing the relief of receiving help ⊹ Why expressing a desire can feel vulnerable when we're afraid of being disappointed ⊹ How past experiences with unavailable or dismissive people can shape the expectations we bring into relationships ⊹ Why trust grows when we give trustworthy people the opportunity to follow through ⊹ How efficiency can keep winning in the moment while connection loses the opportunity to grow ⊹ What it looks like to make a clear request, allow someone to respond, and remain discerning about the support we receive ⊹ Three ways Lori is caring for her body and supporting her well-being in midlife -----  As Mentioned In The Episode: ≫ Join Safe to Receive — Lori's intimate six-week coaching experience for women who are ready to stop living as though everything depends on them: https://shoplorijsmith.com/pages/safe-to-receive ≫ Join  Let's Talk About Safe to Receive — Lori's space to ask questions and explore whether Safe to Receive is the right fit for you: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/5145633221?pwd=NFNiRU84cHdoNHViTXk4NjhtZjVpdz09&omn=81301562605 ≫ Message Lori on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorijsmithcoaching/ ≫ Work with Lori privately: https://lorijsmith.com/product/coaching/ -----  A question to take with you: Where in your life are you still telling yourself, “I have to do it myself,” when there might be room to let someone show up for you?

What if letting someone really know you is the beginning of the connection you’ve been longing for? -----  In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores what it means to let yourself be truly seen, especially when you’ve spent years being the woman everyone assumes is okay — the one who holds things together, knows what to do, and rarely asks for much. She shares why the fear of being seen by other women may be pointing toward the very place where support is needed most, and how the reasons we give ourselves for staying out of the room can also keep us from the connection we want. Lori reflects on the courage it takes to speak honestly about the disappointment we keep minimizing, the desires we’re embarrassed to admit, the frustration we think we shouldn’t feel, and the sadness we explain away because we have so much to be grateful for. She also shares how being in rooms with other women on a similar journey has contributed to her own personal growth and healing, and what becomes possible when we discover that we can be understood while we’re still working through things. Rather than waiting until we feel completely comfortable being seen, Lori invites us to bring our fears with us and allow ourselves the opportunity to experience a different kind of connection. -----  She also explores: ⊹ Why the fear of being seen may be keeping you from the connection you want ⊹ How being the woman who holds everything together can make it difficult to let others know the real you ⊹ Why gratitude doesn’t mean you have to minimize your disappointment, desires, or sadness ⊹ How sharing honestly with other women can help you feel understood rather than judged ⊹ What can become possible when you let yourself be known while you’re still working through things ⊹ How past hurt, judgment, or exclusion can teach you to keep parts of yourself hidden ⊹ Why the cost of continuing to manage everything privately may be greater than you realize ⊹ How to make room for your own desires and look forward to something that’s just for you this holiday season -----  As Mentioned In The Episode: ≫ Join Safe to Receive — Lori's intimate six-week coaching experience for women who are ready to stop living as though everything depends on them: https://shoplorijsmith.com/pages/safe-to-receive ≫ Work with Lori privately: https://lorijsmith.com/product/coaching/ ≫ Follow Lori on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorijsmithcoaching/ ≫ Listen next → EP. 048 — You Keep Showing Up for Everyone. Except Yourself https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-048-you-keep-showing-up-for-everyone-except-yourself/id1813192402?i=1000793259096 -----  A question to take with you: What might become possible if you let someone really know you — not just the woman who holds everything together, but the woman underneath it all?

What if showing up for yourself isn't selfish — but part of learning to trust yourself again? -----  In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores what happens when you become someone everyone else can count on, but quietly stop counting on yourself. Maybe you've been looking forward to a quiet evening, a walk, a book, or something you've wanted to do for yourself — and then someone asks for something and “Of course” comes out before you've even considered what you have left to give. Or maybe no one is asking anything of you at all, but you reach for your phone and find yourself scrolling through other women's lives while the things you were excited about remain waiting. Lori explores the ways we can learn to override our own needs, feelings, desires, and limits — not necessarily because anyone is asking us to, but because we've become so accustomed to being responsible, useful, easy to get along with, and capable of handling whatever comes next. She also shares honestly from her own life about the ways she once looked to being wiser, more disciplined, more emotionally mature, or more spiritually grounded to finally make life feel certain and manageable — and what she began to understand when she realized that self-improvement could never guarantee certainty. This episode is an invitation to notice the moments when you pass yourself over, understand what may be underneath that pattern, and begin practicing something different: listening to yourself, allowing your experience to matter, and making choices that honor your actual capacity and desires. Lori also shares a little of her own “beautiful mess” as she prepares for a trip to London and Paris with Shannon to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary — including the very real challenge of leaving for Europe on Monday while having not yet packed a suitcase. -----  She also explores: ⊹ Why you can be deeply generous and still be abandoning yourself ⊹ How “Of course” can become an automatic response before you've considered what you need ⊹ Why knowing what you should do doesn't always change what happens in the moment ⊹ How protective patterns can develop around responsibility, connection, usefulness, and being easy to get along with ⊹ Why self-criticism can turn a moment that needs understanding into another demand to do better ⊹ What your nervous system may be telling you when rest still feels uncomfortable ⊹ Why having time for yourself and allowing yourself to actually occupy that space are two different experiences ⊹ How self-trust grows through small returns to yourself rather than perfect follow-through ⊹ What it looks like to reconnect with desire without immediately evaluating or justifying it ⊹ How knowing your capacity can help you give willingly, answer honestly, and honor your limits ⊹ Why receiving isn't a trade-off for strength, generosity, or accomplishment ⊹ How the Overflow Framework in Safe to Receive helps you recognize automatic patterns and practice another response ⊹ Why you deserve to reach the end of your day feeling like you belonged in it, too -----  As Mentioned In The Episode: ≫ Join Safe to Receive — Lori's intimate six-week coaching experience for women who are ready to stop living as though everything depends on them: https://shoplorijsmith.com/pages/safe-to-receive ≫ Work with Lori privately: https://lorijsmith.com/product/coaching/ ≫ Follow Lori on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorijsmithcoaching/ ≫ Listen next → EP. 047 — The Life You Couldn't Have Known to Ask For https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-047-the-life-you-couldnt-have-known-to-ask-for/id1813192402?i=1000792002203 -----  A question to take with you: Where in your life have you been asking yourself to wait — and what might change if you let your own feelings, needs, or desires matter before everything else is taken care of? And perhaps even more simply: What would it look like to let yourself belong in your own day?

What if the life you have right now contains more goodness than you ever knew how to ask for? -----  In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori reflects on the day she graduated high school and gave birth to her first child on the same day — and what it means to build a life from a place where your imagination is still limited by what you haven't yet lived. She explores how our desires are always shaped by the vantage point we're standing at, and how so much of the goodness in our lives — the people, the relationships, the callings — could never have been named in advance because our imagination is often limited by our own actual life experience. She also shares an honest look inside her own unimagined goodness and  "beautiful mess" this season, as two of her three adult children plan their homes on the same property where she lives, and what it's like to hold a full life and a squeezed calendar at the very same time. Lori also reflects on what it means to write a letter to her younger self — not a list of things to hope for, but permission to keep living and keep listening. She also explores: ⊹ Why some of life's greatest goodness arrives before we know to ask for it ⊹ How imagination is always shaped by what we've lived long enough to know ⊹ Why gratitude for what has already arrived doesn't require us to stop desiring ⊹ What it looks like to hold more than one kind of fullness at once ⊹ Why building a "family compound" was never something she prayed for — and became one of her greatest gifts anyway ⊹ How Ephesians' promise of "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" reframes desire itself ⊹ What she'd tell her 17-year-old self if she could sit beside her today ⊹ A simple, low-tech way she's learned to hold both wellness and convenience in daily life -----  As Mentioned In The Episode: ≫ Join Beyond What You Asked For — Lori's brand-new live workshop: https://mailchi.mp/lorijsmith.com/beyondwhatyouaskedfor ≫ Get your Oura Ring - The World's Smallest Smart Ring: https://on.ltk.com/+1IAOfaGmZGIEQ2N0hX7tnA ≫ Join the Legacy Letter: https://lorijsmith.com/legacy-letter/ ≫ Work with Lori privately: https://lorijsmith.com/product/coaching/ ≫ Follow Lori on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorijsmithcoaching/ ≫ Listen next → EP.046 - What Becomes Possible When You Feel Safe to Receive?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-046-what-becomes-possible-when-you-feel-safe-to-receive/id1813192402?i=1000790916433 -----  A question to take with you: What might already be here, so woven into your ordinary life, that you've forgotten it once existed only as a hope?

What if there is goodness available to you that you haven’t even known to ask for yet? ----- In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores what becomes possible when you stop treating desire as something that needs to be justified, explained, or made practical—and begin allowing yourself to imagine beyond what you already know. She explores how responsibility, practicality, anticipation, and the desire to keep everything manageable can quietly edit our desires before we even have the chance to hear them. And she invites you to consider that wanting more does not mean your life is not enough. You can feel deep gratitude for what already is and still remain open to the possibility that God may not be finished surprising you yet. Lori also introduces the Overflow Framework, a four-part progression for becoming more fully available for your own life: ⊹ Awaken — becoming available to the parts of yourself and your life that have been waiting to be experienced ⊹ Know — recognizing what is true, what matters, and what you desire ⊹ Align — bringing your choices and the way you live into alignment with that knowing ⊹ Live — becoming fully present for your life and allowing what you receive to become overflow She also explores: ⊹ Why gratitude was never meant to be the end of desire ⊹ How practical thinking and responsibility can edit your desires before you hear them ⊹ Why your desires don’t have to mean something is missing from your life ⊹ What it means to become more available for beauty, joy, connection, support, and possibility ⊹ Why receiving more can create more space for you to give from abundance ⊹ How desire can emerge from fullness rather than lack ⊹ Why your life doesn’t have to become smaller or less full for you to feel more alive within it ⊹ What it means to fully inhabit the life you already have ⊹ Why there may be more life waiting to be experienced—not somewhere beyond your life, but within it ⊹ How even simple desires for beauty, delight, and fun can matter ----- As Mentioned In The Episode: ≫ Join Beyond What You Asked For — Lori’s brand-new live workshop: https://mailchi.mp/lorijsmith.com/beyondwhatyouaskedfor ≫  Get the blake bow suede two-fur jacket: https://shorturl.at/44pQ6 ≫ Join the Legacy Letter: https://lorijsmith.com/legacy-letter/ ≫ Work with Lori privately: https://lorijsmith.com/product/coaching/ ≫ Follow Lori on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorijsmithcoaching/ ≫ Listen next → Ep. 045: When What You Believe and How You Live Don't Match -  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-045-when-what-you-believe-and-how-you-live-dont-match/id1813192402?i=1000789541600 ----- A question to take with you: What might become possible if you allowed yourself to imagine beyond what you’ve already known to ask for?