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As a Christian mom with a business, do you ever feel forced to choose between one or the other? All the demands of family life can be overwhelming and then you add in building a business and think you might be crazy. You know you will never give up on your family so you think maybe you need to quit your business. Maybe come back to it in another season that is less demanding.

Thinking you need to choose between two seemingly incompatible choices I call “this or that” thinking. It makes you feel stuck because it is so rarely true. It is true about entering the Kingdom of heaven God’s way, through faith in Jesus. It’s true about following God’s design and principles. However, there are many more choices that don’t require “this or that” thinking.

Today I want to look at how “this or that” thinking impacts decisions around balancing family and business. There are many ways this can happen. I’m going to use myself as an example.

If you listened to the end and heard me mention a link to a video, I apologize. The video did not get posted, or the podcast re-edited. If you would like to see it, send me an email: contact@mukkovejohnson.com, subject: this ot that

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It's easy to feel stuck in life and in business. I've been in a season where I was definitely feeling stuck trying to make decisions and discern where the Lord was leading. That led me to reflect and record this week's podcast: Stuck in All-or-Nothing Thinking.

As I was reflecting on that this morning, I realized that one of the reasons that we get stuck is all-or-nothing thinking. I saw that in the past few months, and even just in the last couple of weeks, again, I see that I was doing that.

This summer when I was preparing to do a workshop on getting unstuck with God it was not coming together the way that I wanted it to. I very quickly went from, "I should reschedule," to, "I need to quit everything." Fortunately, I was working with a coach that was able to call me out on that. Looking back at it from the outside, it's almost comical, like how fast I went from zero to 60.

Then I realized I was doing that again. I wanted to continue working with the coach, actually increase my work with the coach and do not have peace about doing that right now as much as I want to do that right now. I found myself thinking, "Well, if I can't do it this way, if I can't do everything that I want, then I should just quit altogether."When you recognize the all-or-nothing thinking, you can see that there are often other options. You can get some clarity and choose something in between.

It's more helpful to go deeper and ask, "What are the thoughts and the feelings that are going with it has to be one or the other?"There could be thoughts like:

• It needs to be perfect.
• It needs to be without mistakes.
• It needs to be just everything exactly according to plan.
• A lack of trust that God is gonna come through.
• Fear of looking bad.
• If you quit, you're just a failure.
• You're pathetic.
• You're disappointing God.

When you see it's not just a matter of choosing between all or nothing, or even a matter of choosing where in that continuum between all and nothing you need to land. There are fears or wrong ways of thinking that need to be dealt with to help you see clearly where in that continuum you need to land.

God wants to use your business to make you more like Jesus. He wants to minister to you. He wants you to get to know Him better, to learn that He is trustworthy.

Listen to this week's podcast: Stuck in All-or-Nothing Thinking.

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What does it practically look like to keep going with your business when life is hard and you would rather quit?

Some of the reasons you may want to quit are business related and some are not.

I have wanted to quit when my business didn’t meet my expectations. I also wanted to quit when there were attacks on the way I was running my business, or the tools I created.

Non business related reasons include seasons of navigating life with adult children and grandchildren, as well as seasons of intense inner healing.

So why does He say to keep going?

God uses my business to make me look more like Jesus. He may have other reasons He is telling you to keep going.

In the process of making me more like Jesus God also uses the tools and lessons I learn to benefit to my clients. They are tools I understand because I use them. I know what it’s like to fight the battle in my mind to keep going when the enemy is making me think quitting is a far better option.

Some of the practical ways I keep going are staying close to Jesus through prayer, Heart Doodling with Jesus, ongoing conversations with God, and reflecting on His words. Being plugged into a coach and good support system are key for hard seasons.

If you are ready for a conversation about getting my 1:1 support schedule a call at mukkove.link/schedule

When you're ready for my 1:1 support, schedule a call at mukkove.link/schedule

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Change is a constant in this life. Some changes we know are coming, like a new school year or a grandchild. Other changes take us by surprise and can feel like they are trying to knock us off our feet, like a loss or an old wound surfacing.

With any change, you have excitement and uncertainty. You choose which one to focus on.

When you know a change is coming, you can prepare by getting things you need and getting rid of those you don't need.

When you don't know what change is coming, you know change will come. You can prepare by listening to the Lord. He may prompt you to change things. He will certainly be encouraging you to grow and mature, which involves healing and renewing your mind.

00:00 Seasons of Change
01:44 Balance in Motion
02:42 Meet Mukkove Mission
04:06 Back to School Prep
06:47 Grandparent Shift
09:47 Release Expectations
12:02 Storms You Didnt See
13:49 Listen and Prepare
16:54 Healing and Maturity
19:10 Coaching Invitation

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Why do I start with the heart when I am working with Christian women who run businesses when so much of the teaching says it's all in your mind, or control your thoughts?

From the secular perspective it seems you can think your way to success. Then Christians teach you to take your thoughts captive and make them submissive to Christ. And I'm not disagreeing that we need to take those thoughts captive and make them submissive to Christ.

I know personally, I didn't actually know how to do that until I learned to start with the heart.

In my 10 years in business, I've learned how thoughts started in the heart and that has allowed me to keep going when I wanted to quit and God said it wasn’t time to let it go. Since I’ve been in business I’ve had major health challenges, 3 children get married and start families while also raising our surprise who is now 9. There have been church hurts and business betrayals, and more.

We experience things and involuntarily have emotions along with whatever we're experiencing in life. Based on that experience and those emotions, we create thoughts. Since the emotions are involuntary, I think we skip over them, and our culture has taught us to skip over them and just focus on the thoughts because those are more concrete and tangible.

We don't want our emotions to drive, but they do have a very important role in making decisions and even living a spirit-led life. Because the emotions are automatic, just like blinking your eye when somebody throws something at your face they're not good or bad. The thoughts that we attach to them can be. And when we're children particularly, we don't have the filters or the ability to reason, discern things, especially if someone is not walking alongside you, teaching you, and discipling you in that.

God designed for children to be egocentric, to see themselves as the center of their world. That's something that matures out of us as we grow and submit to Christ. But it's normal for a child to think, their parent’s divorce is their fault. As an adult, you can see that doesn't make any sense. To a child, it does.

The enemy knows that about our human development, about how children operate. So he is there offering those thoughts, offering solutions where we can decide, "I'm not going to ever ask for anything again because this felt so awful when I asked for this thing and was yelled at and sent away. So I'm never gonna ask for anything again." That's not the child coming up with that. That's the enemy saying, "Here's a way out. This feels uncomfortable and feels terrible. You can take this thought that you're never gonna ask for anything again, and that's gonna keep you from feeling this way in the future." And as a child, we're like, "That sounds great. I'll take that." And so that thought gets rooted in that emotion, in that pain or confusion or frustration or whatever it was, where we decide we're gonna think that way.

That's how those thoughts get in there. So without going back to the heart of what was the emotion that allowed that lie to take root in the first place, it's very, very difficult to get that lie, that decision to think that we could take care of ourselves and protect ourselves instead of trusting the Lord. It's very hard to get that uprooted if there's that emotional place in the heart that's like, "But He didn't keep me safe here, so I can't trust Him. I got hurt, so God must not be good." Because those are lies that the enemy will feed in there, that this wouldn't have happened if God really loved you. This wouldn't happen if He was really safe and really a good father.

You need a new experience.

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Have you felt like you have dealt with your fear of what people think about how you build your business, only to find yourself stuck worrying again?

Then the critical inner voice starts saying, "I thought I dealt with this already and what's going on? I was doing so good. I didn't care what anybody thought, and now here I am worrying about it again."

As a business owner for 10 years, I've been through that so many times. In this week's podcast, I talk about three different points about having already dealt with this.

One is the idea of the spiral staircase.
Two is that the enemy wants to steal.
Three is that we need community for support.

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When everything feels important, slow down and listen to the pressure.

Take a minute to listen to your thoughts and emotions. Write them down, sort them out, and clarity will come.

When you're ready for my 1:1 support, schedule a call at mukkove.link/schedule

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I didn’t know how to have an intentional emotional recovery time. I didn’t even know it was a thing until a few years ago.

I was going through a very difficult time emotionally. There were attacks on my integrity, character, health, business, friendships, and marriage.

The Lord used the attacks to reveal where I wasn’t trusting Him. Because I repented and received healing in places where the distrust was rooted didn’t mean I fully trusted. I needed to see the choices I made out of lack of trust so I could choose differently. I needed to know what it felt like so I could notice when I was there again and make a better choice. I needed to know the thoughts I was having and know what to think instead.

As I worked with my coach the Lord showed me that He had me in a cast. In our coaching sessions He was setting things to His design like setting a broken bone. The bone isn’t healed when it’s set, it’s just ready to heal.

My heart was the same. It wasn’t ready to bear weight yet. Not ready to jump back into everything. There needed to be time to rest, to let the new ideas and emotions solidify.

Recovery time in the cast looked like spending time with God, meditating on His word of how He sees me, imagining how the person He made me to be shows up in difficult situations.

There was memorizing and reciting scriptures, worship songs on repeat - Thy Will Be Done, Own Your Belovedness, and God is Not Against Me.
Intentionally reminding myself I wasn’t instantly changed. There was time to learn, grow, and strengthen myself in the Lord.

This week’s podcast is all about learning to rest and heal in the cast, held by the Father.

When you're ready for my 1:1 support, schedule a call at mukkove.link/schedule

Learn how God communicates with you in Transformational Quiet Times