We all know Lauren Alaina the singer/songwriter, platinum-selling artist, and newly inducted member of the Grand Ole Opry, and we love her! But today we’re getting a more personal look at the Lauren off the stage as she shares about her newly released book, Getting Good At Being You. In the book, Lauren tells stories and experiences from the last decade and a half that have shaped her into the bubbly, talented, powerhouse she is today. 

The whole book walks readers through her decade-long struggle to, as she puts it, learn to love her whole, authentic self. While the book runs the gamut of professional struggle to family issues to toxic dating relationships, much of her message focuses on struggling to embrace her body. With body image being a chronic struggle for most women, Lauren was thrown onto the public stage at just 15 when she was voted runner-up on American Idol. And while she is grateful for her childlike fearlessness looking back --

“I owe every single thing I have to that 15-year-old girl having the confidence that she had something special and could go and do that.”

 -- her overnight fame left her struggling with years of bulimia and harsh exercise regimes with false hopes of the “fitting a mold of pretty” that would prolong her success.

The heart behind the book is this:

“The book was my opportunity to share with women that everyone struggles. Struggle isn’t something to hide or be ashamed of. Struggle helps make us who we are.”

She shares everything from practical health routines and positive self-talk to the importance of keeping strong friends and faith. At the end of the day, Lauren is championing the simple but life-changing message of love – for ourselves, for others, and for the Lord – that has finally helped her get good and being and loving her true self. She is an absolute gem of a woman with a heart of gold. Thank you, Lauren, for sharing your stories and your music with the world!

Nicole Zasowski is an LMFT (marriage and family therapist), mom of 3 (under age 6!), and the author of 1 of my new absolute favorite books: What If It’s Wonderful?: Release your fears, choose joy, and find the courage to celebrate. The book was birthed out of a long season of change and loss for Nicole, one that displaced her family from coast to coast and that left her grieving five miscarriages in a span of four years. After all of her loss, Nicole found herself “terrified that hope would make a fool of me… I no longer felt brave enough to dream.”

She began to notice that even moments in her life warranting celebration left her feeling less joyful and more afraid of how or when that joy might be lost. She claims – through personal experience and much psychological research – that joy is the most vulnerable feeling we feel. Why?

Don’t we all sometimes find ourselves waiting for the other shoe to drop? We may feel like we’re protecting ourselves, but as Nicole points out, we’re robbing ourselves of the good in the present when we put up walls to protect from the future that hasn’t happened yet.

So why do we resist celebrating?

1. We’re afraid of loss or disappointment.
2. We see celebration as a reward for good news or accomplishments when it should be a rhythm that helps us cultivate joy.
3. We’re unsure how to reconcile celebration and humility (seeing them as competing or mutually exclusive).
4. We hold back for fear of hurting others in hard seasons.
5. We don’t know how to engage with God in our joy (wondering: “Will my dependence on him - thus intimacy with him - fade when life is joyful?”).

So how do we actively and practically pursue joy/celebration?

1. Savor the ordinary; take mental snapshots of daily moments of delight.
2. Notice beauty.
3. Vocalize your gratitude as expressed thanksgiving to the giver.
4. Celebrate small things as a regular rhythm rather than holding out to celebrate big things as a reward.
5. Practice differentiating between “real feelings” and “true feelings.”

Through these practices and many more, Nicole calls us to learn to “love [yourself] where you are and grown from there.” She reminds us that celebration should not just tolerated but should be a spiritual discipline and an avenue for spiritual and emotional growth.

This message is for everyone in any season of life: the crushing it people, the suffering people, and the people on the grind in the middle. We can all learn to cultivate these life-giving rhythms of celebration. Because joy is not a luxury but rather, a lifestyle we have the power to employ.

Where to find Nicole?

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook

Alita Langford is an inspirer. I don’t quite know how else to describe her. Sure, she is a self-made businesswoman, a very talented singer and songwriter, a widow, and now a wife again and mom to 8, but more than all of that, she is an inspirer.

In 2016 Alita lost her late husband suddenly to unforeseen heart issues. She was 33 with 4 kids under the age of 6 and within the following 18 months, she also lost your mom and dad. It would be easy to assume her story is a heavy one, marked primarily with pain and uncertainty, both of which she’s certainly had her fill of. But to know Alita is not to know a woman of grief; to know her is to know a woman who fights for joy and life and love. To do life with her is to witness someone who lives from the victory she knows is hers in Christ, regardless of what’s happening to her or around her.

FOR THOSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STRUGGLE

Even in the darkest days of her grief, Alita was intentional to speak truth to herself daily, discovering the powerful practice of declaring aloud what’s true about God and true about herself. Though never dismissing or mitigating her grief, she began claiming what she knew God could do and redeem in her life, speaking it and writing it on her bedroom walls even when she didn’t yet feel it to be true.

Life in general – and especially in difficult seasons – calls us to fight for joy in the present even as we are waiting and trusting the Lord with our future. In the struggle, we can do more than just survive, Alita witnesses, we can actually grow into a deeper, richer us if we accept the call to endure and overcome. 

FOR THE WOMEN IN WAITING (ON LOVE, ON DREAMS, ON THE NEXT GOOD THING)

It was after 3 and half years of fighting, claiming, and waiting that Alita met her new husband, Rodney. And though she struggled at times to imagine how God would answer her specific and resilient prayers for a new husband and family, she speaks with such gratitude now about how God refined and restored her into an even better version of herself in the waiting.

To all who are disappointed, waiting on love or dreams or anything, Alita says:

FOR THE MOMS

As a mom of 8 (4 biological, 3 adopted, and 1 “bridged,” i.e. the baby she’s now had with her new husband), I asked Alita some practical questions to encourage and bring a little life to all the moms out there. Here’s a few that we cover:

1. How do you shepherd and lead kids through hard seasons?
2. Is it important that your kids see you struggle?
3. How do you resist comparing yourself to other moms?
4. How do you prioritize time for yourself as individual & as wife?

As chosen, resilient women of God, we all have the ability to walk in victory, no matter what we’re facing. Look to the example of this inspiring woman and claim what Scripture says is true about you as you fight for the future you’re waiting on.

Where do we follow you?

The Langford Life Podcast

Alita’s music

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