The Love, Sophia Project Podcast

Hey friend,

Recently I found myself in a place where I needed to forgive someone and I was finding it difficult. We all have circumstances in our lives where people hurt us intentionally or unintentionally and we need to work through forgiveness for those people. You know there's a saying that if we don't offer forgiveness it hurts us more than the person we need to forgive. I do think that's true, but it do...

Hey friend,

Will you do something for me today? Will you write down a few things that make you unique? Think of a few things that make you different than others and write them down. Then, will you celebrate it? Will you write down why those things that make you unique? Or that one thing that you choose that makes you unique. Will you write down why they are good? How they add to your friend groups, or your sports teams, or...

Hey Friend,

When I was in high school I remember getting ready in the morning and I would say something like (in my head) "well, this is as good as it's going to get" and then I would go to school. Now ,that I am an adult, I still look in the mirror and I look at myself and I go "well I am who I am". But I've added some thing else lately. I've added "and who I am is good". I wan...

Hey Friend,
If you've been here with us every week this week you know we've been talking about influence. Earlier I shared that we all are influencing someone because people are watching us. I think sometimes we have a definition of what a leader is and maybe we don't include ourselves as someone who is a leader. I find that a lot. We think that leaders are loud or charismatic or upfront or have certain skills th...

Hey Friend,
So, I am a person of faith and in the Bible there is a passage where a religious person asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Jesus responds and says the greatest commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength and the second is like it -- love your neighbor as yourself." Now, there is a lot of talk in our world today abou...

Hey Friend,
I want to start by defining influence. The definition of influence is "the power to change or affect someone or something". So, you have influence. This is true -- whether you believe it or not, you do. Your life rubs up against other people. You have influence. You have the power to change or affect someone or something. The question is how are you using your influence? When you walk into the spaces where...

Hey Friend,
Today I want you to think about the places you go everyday. Do you go to school? Do you go to work? Do you go to community places, like church? What friends do you hang out with? Where are you online? Who do you encounter? And then think about the people. Think about the people at those places. The sports teams that you're on, those who are younger than you, those who are older than you. Do you see their faces?...

Hey Friend,
Sometimes we can get so caught up in our own lives and in our own stories that we don't realize how much we impact the people that we encounter every day. People watch us. People are aware of us. I know at least for me sometimes I can forget how much influence I actually have in my community and in my world. Influence is something that we talk a lot about our culture today and sometimes we can believe the untru...

There have been a few times in my life where I have really hoped for something and I've worked really hard toward something and it hasn't gone the way that I wanted to go. These times I'm thinking of, you could call it my failure maybe or those things not going the way I thought they were going to go -- this happen publicly. I really felt like I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out. Have you ever experienced ...

Hey Friend, 
I want to tell you something -- I have not always been thankful for my story. Sometimes I see other people's stories, they're living, and I wish my life and my story looks more like theirs. But I have begun, in recent years, to see the value that my unique story brings to the world. And you know what I've begun to do? Embrace it. Embrace MY story. I started to see how even the things I wouldn't ...

Hey Friend, 
I think we often aren't great at talking about when life is hard, when the world feels heavy, when inside yourself feels dark, when you feel tired and you feel alone. So what do I do when life is hard and heavy and dark and alone? I first wanna encourage you that you're not the only one that struggles with these feelings. You're not alone in these feelings. And then I wanna encourage you to feel your...

Hey Friend, 
Have you ever gone to an art museum and walk slowly around looking at all of the paintings? It's beautiful. People are talented. I love the stormy paintings -- the ones where the dark and the light, the harsh colors and brushstrokes contrast with the airy clouds or the beautiful lightness because it reminds me of life. Is it that art reflects life? Because art reflects life to me. Life is more than just one no...

Hey Friend, 
I want to ask you a question today -- do you like your story? You have a story and you are the main character! Have a main character moment because in your life and in your story you are the main character. Think about the things that have happened to you and how you've shifted and grown and changed because of the good and the hard that has occurred in your story. Think about who you have become, who you are b...

Hey Friend, 
To be authentic is to be true to yourself. I want to encourage you today. You don't have to change who you are. You don't have to change your body or the way you do your hair or the way you think or the ideas that you have to fit into some cultural mold or somebody else's idea. It's OK for you to exist as you are in the world. And not only is it OK -- it's good! However you are, there'...

Hey friend,
Have you ever felt like in order to fit into a place where you're at you have to change who you are? Like you almost have to become a different person or put on a mask? For a lot of my life I have felt that I have to be like a chamaeleon and change who am in order to be accepted in the places where I find myself. Here's the problem with that -- we're not giving the people that weren't encounterin...

Hey Friend, 
Have you ever been confronted with scarcity mindset? Scarcity mindset is when it seems like there's not enough opportunity or resources or encouragement or -- you fill in the blank -- to go around. Scarcity mindset can rob us of friendships, can rob us of co-creating, and it can rob us of our own joy in doing what we love to do and doing the things that really add value to the world that we exist in. What come...

Hey friend, 
Welcome to the space today. Today I want to talk about how every person story is different. So often we look on social media we see our friends and the people we encounter every day or people who are famous and we maybe want to be like them. But nobody is the same and nobody has the same story and really nobody's story is as easy as it looks from the outside.  So if you're struggling with your story today...

On today’s episode of The Love, Sophia Podcast, Jenn Thomas talks about being stuck in a toxic family and how that affected her as a child and continues to inform her choices as an adult. Jenn is a mom, wife, friend, and daughter. She is motivated by her experiences to show up for people and foster's children 

Family relationships are different from other relationships because there is very little choice in who your family is, ...