Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Andersen.
Hi Jennifer, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Hard work was never a problem for me. I loved the hard things until I just couldn’t do them anymore. Years of triathlon training, aggressive cycling, karate, hiking, investigating child abuse, working with children with behavior issues, marriage, and raising three boys combined with grief and loss of a brother, a sister, and my father, emotional repression, and illness all came together to create the perfect storm for an autoimmune condition. I literally couldn’t function on the level I had been on anymore. This was my worst moment that set the stage for my best moments to come.
When I found life/relationship coaching I was feeling exhausted, spent, discouraged, and defeated. As I evaluated new ways to take care of myself to physically function with a chronic illness, I found that new ways were needed to address my emotional needs as well. Working harder was not going to do it anymore. It would only make it worse. I learned to work smarter in those areas that are truly, truly important, efficient, and healthy in my life. Especially my relationships.
When it all comes down to it, relationships, connection, and belonging fill life with joy and beauty but I was spending most of my time running around, driving, maintaining, and honestly trying to control the people I loved the most. When I realized there were things that made relationships heavy, challenging, and hard THAT I WAS DOING and I could change right now, even if the other person never did. It changed my life. I learned to carry my part of the load in my marriage, with my kids, my friends, and my family, and my relationships became lighter, easier, and joyful.
I emotionally decluttered, simplified, and focused on the things I could control and let the rest go without guilt, shame, or regret. I was so grateful and free that I became a life coach myself to help other worn-out wives work smarter instead of harder to create marriages they WANT to last forever.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
All of these challenges that I met with, and more, became the basis of my business, Stronger BECAUSE Coaching. We can become stronger because of the things we have been through. Not broken. And we can do that by working on the things we legitimately control and letting the things we can’t go, with grace and peace. We can change even when others don’t. We don’t have to wait and we don’t have to work so, dang, hard.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Qualities that have helped me through those obstacles and now help me help others are:
Love: When I learned to love myself well, I learned to use self-care, set good boundaries, and my capacity to love others grew. The more I had within, the more I had for others.
Certainty: When I learned that I had it within me to fill my emotional needs, I didn’t need others to act in a certain way anymore, and I didn’t need things in the world to go as I had planned in my mind. I trust myself to work through what life has in store.
Trust: When I learned to trust in the process of growth, to trust that I could handle negative emotions without needing to run from them, I stopped needing to control others and the world to feel okay. I became able to bear my own discomfort with patience and determination to create something good from whatever came AND I became able to support others without trying to “fix” them. I trusted their journey may not look like what I had planned either.
Contact Info:
- Website: strongerbecause.com
- Instagram: @strongerbecausecoach
- Facebook: Stronger Because Coaching
- Youtube: Stronger Because Coaching
Image Credits
Mike Johnson
