Jacquie Ellis

News flash: comparison kills relationships. The truth is many of us, including me, have a tendency to look over at other people and wish we had what they had. We look at their social media and want perfection too. But is it perfect? It might be for them, but what works for them might not work for you. I’m going to get really clear about the dangers of comparing your relationship to others, and then we can look at what to do instead. Ready? My husband and I have been married for 27 years this month. There have been good times, great times, and times I felt like it was…

Fear can be many things for different people. For me, it presented itself as a mask I wore for fear of rejection. It was the schedules I kept for fear of uncertainty. It was the procrastination I enabled to avoid letting the real me be me; to ultimately please other people first. There are so many more, but I’m sure you get the point. I’ve learned over the years that fear never goes away but we can learn to tap into the fear and use its energy to move through it faster. Tap into the power of leaning into fear and bust through barriers! For many years I hid behind…

Are you struggling with your relationship with your teen? You try and try but nothing seems to work? Does it feel like you are banging your head against the wall when you try and talk with them? There are many parents in this exact situation. You aren’t alone. If you are wondering how to start bridging the relationship gap with your teen, you are in the right place. I’m going to explain how to get started and lead you to some valuable resources you can use to keep it going. Parenting a teenager is completely different than raising a young child. We found this to be extremely true as we…

That’s right! Your people-pleasing is sucking the life out of you. The worst problem with this is you may not realize it until you are so ingrained in the people-pleasing habits that your life isn’t the one you wanted. It isn’t the life you dreamed about. It’s someone else’s. You might be thinking this is a bit of an extreme statement. Is it? Let’s dig into the typical people-pleasing habits for those of us that are choosing or have chosen to live this way. Then I’ll show you how to start shifting that mindset so you can start managing your fears, worries, and anxiety, so you can start creating a…

Who here is a perfectionist? Who knows a perfectionist? We are everywhere and most of us are high-functioning-anxiety-filled-machines that may crash or implode at some point. It’s not healthy and definitely harmful to our own personal growth. My last article talked about how to handle uncertainty in life and how that links to anxiety. Today learn how perfectionism feeds anxiety and will give you some helpful hints for shifting that harmful mindset cycle. I’ve known for a while that I tend to have some perfectionist traits. However, I wouldn’t consider myself a perfect perfectionist (does that exist? I don’t know…). At any point in time, you will see me with…

Life is uncertain, that is the one thing we can count on. We may not like it but it’s a reality, even if we are killing ourselves trying to control everything possible. I was a self-proclaimed control freak and am now a recovering control freak. I personally understand the feelings that the word “uncertainty” triggers. This is why I’m going to give you some tools to learn how to handle uncertainty in life. For years I fed into the mindset that I needed to plan everything, and think about every possible risk or outcome that might happen. After all, that was part of my job when I was designing processes…

I was stuck in the mad rush of life. Work, pick up kids, make dinner (or go through the drive-thru), take the kids to activities, home to prepare for the next day…rinse, repeat. I was drained, grouchy, and stressed. Life sucked for me and my family because I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t do it all. Let me tell you how practicing mindfulness changed my life. After all, I had it all: a loving husband, kids (two at the time and now three), a home, a career I loved. Life should be good, right? I know, first-world problems. The problem was I wasn’t happy and my family was miserable…

As a mom of a teen girl, I have a wish. My wish for all teen girls is for the cycle of judgment between females stop. I wish the constant need to feel better than others could be replaced by wanting to empower one another and lift each other up. Why do women feel threatened by each other? Why is there a need to judge another by the school they go to? Or the clothes they wear? Or any other ridiculous characteristic? A Mom’s Wish for all Teen Girls My daughter was excited to go to an event today. It was going to include friends and other girls that she…

Do you have that negative internal voice telling you that you aren’t enough? Telling you that what you offer isn’t unique? That others have more to offer than little old you? STOP. RIGHT. NOW. You are unique. Everyone is unique. That is precisely why this world we live in is so interesting. Here’s the honest truth. Are you ready to hear this truth? You can change this mindset when self-doubt blocks your dreams. The bottom line: Self-doubt is a barrier and it can seriously mess with your mindset. Seriously! Self-doubt is a monster of a barrier….when you let it. I’ve been there. After I left a job where my boss…