Your Most Beautiful Life

What if showing up for yourself isn't selfish — but part of learning to trust yourself again?
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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.
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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?
 
 

What if the life you’re ready to live requires you to choose differently before it feels comfortable?
In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores the space between what we believe and how we actually live—and why knowing something is true doesn’t always mean we feel safe enough to live as though it is.
She explores how old patterns around responsibility, anticipation, control, usefulness, and keeping everyone comfortable can continue shaping our choices, even after we’ve consciously outgrown them. And she explains why the answer isn’t necessarily more clarity, more discipline, or another plan—but learning to remain connected to yourself when choosing differently feels uncomfortable.
She also explores:⊹ Why you can deeply believe something and still struggle to live according to it⊹ How familiar patterns can continue to feel safer even when they no longer reflect who you are becoming⊹ Why discomfort, guilt, uncertainty, or someone else’s disappointment don’t necessarily mean you’ve made the wrong choice⊹ How self-trust is built through repeated experiences of choosing differently⊹ Why the new choice may be true long before it feels familiar⊹ What it means to move from awareness into alignment⊹ How midlife can create space to ask, “Who am I in this season?” and “What do I want now?”⊹ Why wanting something new doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful for the life you already have⊹ How honoring your desires can help you become more present and fully available for the life you’re already living
⊹ Why your desires don’t have to be enormous or deeply spiritual to matter
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As Mentioned In The Episode:
≫ 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. 044:  Who Are You When You Don't Have to Prove Who You Are?
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A question to take with you:
What would become possible if you stopped treating discomfort as a reason to return to what is familiar?

What if being capable, independent, prepared, and one who always figures it out isn’t just your personality?
In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores the patterns we can develop around striving, control, over-functioning, earning, and anticipating—and how the very things that once helped us feel safe can eventually make it harder to receive the support, rest, connection, love, and opportunities we desire.
She also explores what begins to change when safety no longer depends on knowing what’s going to happen, keeping everything together, or being the one who makes it all work—and why becoming safe to receive doesn’t mean becoming less capable or responsible. It means having more freedom to choose how you want to show up.
She also covers:
🫶🏼 Why being capable and needing to be capable are two very different things
🫶🏼 How striving, control, over-functioning, earning, and anticipating can become ways we create safety
🫶🏼 Why you can genuinely want support and still have a difficult time actually receiving it
🫶🏼 How caring for someone you love can quietly turn into carrying what was never yours to carry
🫶🏼 Why rest can feel uncomfortable even when you finally have the space for it
🫶🏼 What happens when you delegate something—but still find yourself managing, reminding, checking, or making sure it gets done
🫶🏼 How to begin creating safety within yourself instead of depending on your ability to control what happens around you
🫶🏼 Why receiving support, love, rest, and goodness doesn’t require you to become less strong, capable, or independent
🫶🏼 A different way to think about balance—and learning to ebb and flow with your life instead of needing everything to stay perfectly arranged
🫶🏼 The September Desire List and why your “want to” list deserves a place alongside your to-do list
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As Mentioned In The Episode:
⇢ Work with Lori privately: LEARN MORE -> https://lorijsmith.com/product/coaching/
⇢ Join the Legacy Letter: -> https://lorijsmith.com/legacy-letter/
⇢ Grab the Your Most Beautiful Life Journal + create your September Desire List: -> https://shoplorijsmith.com/
⇢ Follow Lori on Instagram: -> https://www.instagram.com/lorijsmithcoaching/
⇢ Listen next —> Ep. 043: You Don’t Have to Hold It All Together
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A question to take with you:
Am I becoming a woman who feels safe enough to receive it when it comes?

What if everything around you didn’t have to be okay for you to be okay? 🤍
In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori shares a personal part of her own journey—and the realization that some of the qualities she had always considered strengths, like being responsible, intentional, capable + willing to do the work, had quietly become ways of trying to create certainty in a life that could never actually promise it.
Also inside the episode:
🫶🏼 Why control can be much quieter than we think—and sometimes looks like anticipating, preparing, helping + trying to understand
🫶🏼 The difference between creating certainty around you + cultivating safety within you
🫶🏼 Why taking responsibility for your life doesn’t mean taking responsibility for every outcome
🫶🏼 What it looks like to allow something to remain unresolved without immediately trying to fix or change it
🫶🏼 How learning to stay connected to yourself creates more room for peace, presence + authentic connection
🫶🏼 Why you don’t want to spend so much time caring for the life you’ve built that you miss the experience of actually living it
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As Mentioned In The Episode:
⋯› Join the Legacy Letter — Lori’s monthly note filled with what she’s thinking about, learning, loving + life behind the scenes: https://lorijsmith.com/legacy-letter/
⋯› Something to Sit With ✍🏼
What if this can matter deeply to me without becoming mine to carry?
⋯› Want support creating more peace, presence + authentic connection in your own life? Learn more about coaching with Lori: https://calendly.com/lorijsmith/theconult

What if loving the people in your life was never supposed to require leaving yourself? 🤍
In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores how easily the people we love can become the organizing principle of our lives—and how, somewhere along the way, our own lives can become the one thing we keep putting off.
Also inside the episode:
🫶🏼 How the burdens of the people you love quietly become the burdens you live under
🫶🏼 Why your needs and desires can start to feel optional when everyone else’s feel necessary
🫶🏼 The difference between loving sacrifice and always being the one who disappears
🫶🏼 Why you may be waiting for someone else to finally say, “You’ve done enough. It’s your turn.”
🫶🏼 What changes when you realize you are also one of the lives God entrusted to your care
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As Mentioned In The Episode:
⋯› Get Lori’s FREE Plan to GRO Journal — simply subscribe with your email at checkout: https://shoplorijsmith.com/
⋯› Lori’s favorite monthly journal tabs for planning your next 12 weeks: https://on.ltk.com/+4kZ6-ZUt3ScEVi0Oq07nmA
⋯› Join the Legacy Letter — Lori’s monthly note filled with what she’s thinking about, learning, loving + life behind the scenes: https://lorijsmith.com/legacy-letter/⋯› Journaling Prompts ✍🏼*Where have I been waiting for margin to appear instead of intentionally making room for myself?*What have I been wanting that I keep telling myself can wait?*If wanting it were reason enough, what would I give myself permission to desire right now?*What is one desire I want to intentionally walk toward over the next 12 weeks?*What would it look like to faithfully steward the woman God has entrusted to me as I pursue it?
⋯› Ready to make more room for your own life, desires + the woman you’re becoming? Learn more about coaching with Lori: https://calendly.com/lorijsmith/theconult

You love your life. You're grateful for your family. You've worked hard to build something beautiful. So why do you still feel like you're carrying the weight of the world?
In this episode of Your Most Beautiful Life, Lori explores the hidden pattern she's witnessed in countless coaching conversations: the women who love deeply, serve faithfully, and hold everything together often find themselves quietly exhausted—not because they're doing more than they really want to, but because they've learned to live from survival instead of receiving.
Together you'll explore why more routines, better boundaries, or additional help often don't create the peace you've been longing for, why receiving can feel so uncomfortable for high-capacity women, and how God may be inviting you to loosen your grip on control and begin living from a place of trust, safety, and overflow instead.
If you've ever wondered why peace always feels like it's waiting in the next season, this conversation may help you discover that the life you're creating is always shaped by the place you're living from.
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As Mentioned In The Podcast:
⇢ FREE Plan to GRO Journal (Free + Shipping)
https://shoplorijsmith.com/
⇢ Join Lori's Monthly Legacy Letter
https://lorijsmith.com/legacy-letter/
⇢ Book a Complimentary Clarity Chat with Lori
https://calendly.com/lorijsmith/theconult
As Mentioned In This Episode:
Lori's Summer Favorites
Perfect Linen Button-Up Shirt
https://on.ltk.com/+8hxcwfXd8Ur5XyRKOcrgEg
Perfect Linen Striped Shorts
https://on.ltk.com/+Id9Ifc2hP_HAV2CWpJxUtQ
Bow Bucket Hat
https://on.ltk.com/+pdTH2NxR4zINBb5KN2f02g
Try TrendSend for Yourself
If you've been looking for an easier way to refresh your wardrobe, this has been one of my favorite discoveries.
https://www.trendsend.com/members/register?referral=IAoBzNDIa8E9
⇢ Follow Lori on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/lorijsmithcoaching/
https://www.instagram.com/atloloshouse/
⇢ Browse All Podcast Episodes
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-most-beautiful-life/id1813192402
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Listen Next
⇢ The Invisible Life You're Creating (Episode 39)
⇢ The Beauty of Stepping Into Your Feminine (Episode 38)
⇢ You Don't Need More Time, You Need a Decided Life (Episode 37)
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If this episode encouraged you, would you leave a written review on Apple Podcasts? Your reviews help more women discover Your Most Beautiful Life and encourage them to begin creating a life that nourishes the best of who they are.
Thank you for being here. 🤍
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Keywords
Christian podcast, Christian women, Christian life coach, faith-based personal growth, emotional healing, nervous system healing, healing from survival mode, survival patterns, receiving, learning to receive, safe to receive, emotional safety, nervous system regulation, Christian mindset, renewing your mind, feminine embodiment, feminine leadership, feminine presence, control versus trust, striving, overwhelm, burnout, exhaustion, emotional resilience, Christian coaching, living from overflow, creating from overflow, living from peace, peace that lasts, emotional maturity, high-capacity women, women over 40, motherhood, marriage, identity, self-worth, intentional living, wholehearted living, purpose-driven life, peaceful productivity, quarterly planning, 12-week planning, Your Most Beautiful Life, Table Rock Lake, wake surfing, Evereve, 30A, Rosemary Beach, Christian podcast for women.