My beautiful colleague and friend Katie Pulsifer shares countless gold nuggets in today’s podcast~
Listen or read to hear Katie’s wisdom, insightful question, her relationship with 2 mothers-in-law, the song she played at her wedding, and much more.
Welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law Podcast, where my mother-in-law, relationship expert and master certified coach, LeAnn Austin, will help you create more love and connection with your daughter-in-law and everyone else you care about.
Hey y’all, welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law, episode #104: What Else Is True with Katie Pulsifer
I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they feel and implement love into their lives and their relationships. We have the incredible Katie sharing some beautiful love and relationship insights with us today. All right, Katie, tell us a little bit about you.
Well, hi, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the invitation to be here. I am Katie Pulsifer. I am a master certified life coach. I have been coaching since 2015, experimenting with all sorts of different ways to coach and help people achieve what they want in their lives. So I’ve worked for other people. I have my own business, private coaching, group coaching, you name it, I’m in for all of it. I love that, and Katie has totally changed my life. So I’m honored that you’re here. Thank you. Oh, well, likewise, we’ve had the pleasure of working together side by side for a very long time. So yeah, it’s been fun.
Awesome. All right, so I’ve got five questions today. And the first one is, how do you incorporate love into your business and life? And how does that impact your relationships?
Okay. Well, thanks for sending over these questions in advance and giving me a moment to sit with them and formulate my answers. And it was a really great journaling exercise actually. But what I would distill it down to, I think, after I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote on this topic is, I think giving myself and others the benefit of the doubt, whenever possible, feels like the most loving thing that I can do in my business and in my life.
That can look like, I had a lot of intention to get something produced in my business, and I made a different choice to prioritize something else, and I give myself the benefit of the doubt about that, instead of beating myself up, or I missed a deadline, or gosh you can never get anything done. It’s like, no, I fully intended to do it on that day. And this other thing came up and I chose that and it’s all fine.
Or giving clients the benefit of the doubt if they are, I don’t know, unable to maybe make a decision to work with me, or need a little bit more time to figure out what their next step is and what goal they want to work on. It just feels very kind. Yes. What do you think?
I love that so much because I think we think often of giving others the benefit of the doubt, but I love that you also give yourself the benefit of the doubt. That is like both of those. Yeah. Cause I’m not confused about what I want to achieve or what I want to do or how I want to show up in the world. I just don’t always perform or get it accomplished or do it as I expected.
So it’s like having grace with myself, giving myself the benefit of the doubt. And if I’m going to extend it to others, which is very, very easy for me to do, why not loop myself in and give myself that same grace. Absolutely. Yes. I totally agree and love that.
So I think it does impact relationships in a really positive way because I think there’s just more compassion, more understanding, more bridge building, more connection, more empathy. Yes, because if someone’s communicating with you and they know hey, she’s got me, she’s going to give me the benefit of the doubt. That makes a big difference in the relationship.
All right, next one. What is something you love about you and why? Hmmm, another great question. Lots of writing on this one as well. I could say so many things that I love about myself actually, which was really fun. That’s awesome.
It was really fun to look at a long list and be like, okay, yeah, these are hard earned things that I am really proud of that I love. But I think what I would offer here is my ability to ask myself this question which is, what else is true?
And I know that may not be a typical answer of what you love about yourself and why, but I find that being able to ask myself that question allows me to dig a little deeper, explore, look for alternative views, perspectives, be a little patient with myself. Again, it’s like, kind of broadening my perspective instead of just being, and I get like this, maybe you do too, it’s like a little tunnel vision. It’s like only focused on this.
When I ask myself, what else is true? Wow, I can see someone else’s perspective. I can understand, wow, this is also happening and kind of hold all of it instead of just being focused on the one thing in front of me. So that does feel like an act of love to me.
I’m going to start using that question way more often because it just opens it up. Like the whole curiosity, the whole everything, like what else is true and just the digging, I love that. Yeah. Because we often can just want to limit things to our perspective, or our opinion, or our meaning, I get that, it’s very comforting, it’s easy.
And what we miss out on is what else is out there? What is going on for other people? And in our work, I think we ask questions like this all the time when we’re coaching others, but to ask it of ourselves, like you said, accessing curiosity, openness, a lot more we can learn. That’s going to be my new post-it: What else is true? Cool. That’s awesome.
All right, so number three, I love talking all things daughter-in-law. I know you do, you’re so good at it. So any thoughts about either having or being a daughter in law?
Hmmm, I do not have a daughter-in-law yet. And I might, I’ve got three daughters. I might have a daughter-in-law someday, I might not. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens with our three 20 year olds, or in their twenties.
But yeah, this was an interesting one for me to reflect on because I have a mother-in-law from my first marriage, and in my second marriage, my mother-in-law has passed, and I only knew my current husband’s mother for about 18 months. The entire time I knew her, she was very sick with Alzheimer’s. So I never really knew her. I knew the version of her that had Alzheimer’s. I don’t know if she ever knew me, understood me, so my entire relationship with her is based on what everyone else says about her, and the memory of her and the photos of her.
And so it’s really interesting to reflect on, okay this is a person that’s in my life, my husband’s mother. Oh my God, do I love her so much for birthing my husband. And yet, I really don’t have anything concrete with her. I have these isolated memories where I did spend time with her, but I don’t know if she ever really knew who I was, and that’s totally fine. I just have the memories and what’s amazing is we share the same birthday. Oh, no way, that’s so cool. It’s so fun to think about that. So I have tremendous love for her.
And then when I think about my first husband’s mother, who I adore and I’m still very connected with and I don’t see very often, we have so much history because I was married for 20 years, the first go around. But I remember, and maybe others that are listening to this can relate to, when my husband and I split up, feeling very confused about how she and I were supposed to still be in relationship.
And I was so worried about how to do that, and that I couldn’t turn my love for her off. I wasn’t going to deny that it existed, but I also wanted to be incredibly respectful of the transition and the change. And then my first husband remarried and I wanted to make room for her. I did not want to be in the way, and I remember really grappling with this. Does this come up for you a lot when you coach people? Oh, I’ve heard a little bit, but I love your perspective on it. Yeah. So tell me more. Anything else? Yeah, for sure.
So during that period of getting divorced and that first relationship ending, I was really concerned. I was concerned about what they thought about me. I was concerned that the love would end. I was concerned that, and I was grieving the loss of that family. Even though I was very clear after all the work my first husband and I did to make our decision about divorcing. And of course, there’s a part of me grieving our family also, but I was really grieving the loss of my in-laws, and now it’s amazing to see that I haven’t lost anything.
I don’t see them. We don’t live near each other. I think about them all the time. You know, it’s like that’s my daughter’s grandparents. I am still in relation. And the other thing I did too, and maybe this will be helpful for others that find themselves in the same spot as I. I had a conversation with my ex husband and his beautiful wife and asked them, how can I fit in here in a way that is respectful? Wow, that’s amazing. Like how can I stay connected, but that makes room for his new wife to be whatever she is going to be in that family, and I’ll follow your lead. You’ll tell me what’s okay for you all.
That’s so intentional and so beautiful to incorporate everyone into the relationship and not end anything, because like your mother-in-law is your daughter’s grandma, and to continue that, and to grieve and to continue that all, so beautiful.
Yeah, I think the part that was hard in the beginning is like I was gripping too hard on like, I’ve got to figure this out, I’ve got to know where I’m going, I got to know what the rules are, which, you know, we do this. It’s like, if I apply pressure and apply force, I’ll be able to figure it out. And often what ends up being the right answer is just like surrendering to, we will get there. I’m just going to be with the grief. I’m going to be with the loss, and I’m going to hold the hope that we will all be okay. And fast forward many, many years later, I mean 9-10 years later, and we were all fine.
Thank you so much for sharing that because that’s so beautiful how you had basically two mother-in-laws and how you’ve, you know, dealt with very unique situations. That’s amazing.
Alright, so anything else you’d like to share and where can our audience go to find out more about you? Oh, thank you. Well, I really, really wanna thank you for opening up a conversation and having an invitation to just talk about love. It doesn’t get enough time and attention, or it does in kind of a cheesy way, so it was a gift to me to be able to sit with your questions and really think about it. And also I think to be much more intentional and to also validate like, am I walking the walk? Am I doing what I say matters to me? I gave myself a gold star for that. So you totally did. And you totally are walking the walk.
I had the privilege of getting to hear Katie speak at a mastermind a few months ago, and she talked about feeling softly. And that was so touching to me. And I just felt the love and it was just beautiful. So yeah, it is just again, an honor to have you here, so thank you. Thank you.
Well, people can find me at katiepulsifercoaching.com. My website has lots of information about me and what I’m up to, and how to work with me privately or in group. I’m on all the socials as Katie Pulsifer. And you can also just send me an email and we can start talking at katiepulsifer@gmail.com. Perfect, and I’ll put those in the show notes as well, so thank you.
And our last question, what is your favorite question or quote about love and how have you used it for yourself and in your relationships? Oh my gosh, you should have seen me this week running around my house looking for all my places. So if you could go on a tour with me in my house, one thing I have everywhere is hearts everywhere, crystal hearts, wooden hearts. My dad carved me a heart for Valentine’s day, he was a boat builder and he carved me a heart for Valentine’s day every year when I was little. So I have hearts everywhere, and It’s just amazing. So lots of little love symbols everywhere, lots and lots of books on love, and I was just flipping through and it was like, okay, what is my go to? And then I realized it’s this song.
So The Book of Love by Peter Gabriel, I think he wrote it in 2006. My husband and I had it playing at our wedding when we got married a few years ago. So it’s all the lyrics, but I’ll read you this if I may. Absolutely, yes. So this is the essence of what this song is about:
“The book of love has music in it. In fact, that’s where music comes from. Some of it is transcendental. And some of it is just really dumb, but I, I love it when you sing to me, and you, you can sing me anything.”
So this whole song is about the bigness and importance of love. And it’s also about the mundane and the boring of love. And it’s the juxtaposition, it’s the tension between the two things. It’s the story we’ve said love is, and it must look like this, and, you know, we have all these rules about it. And then, what it truly boils down to, it’s just the connection between two people.
You have to go play it, it’s so good. Yes, now I’m going to have to listen to it. That’s amazing, and just the connection, that’s beautiful.
All right, well here’s to music and the book of love, something to think about. Thank you Katie, for sharing your love insights with us today. So appreciate that. I really enjoyed being here. Thank you so much. Have a good one y’all, and here’s to love.
If you enjoy this podcast, check out LeAnn’s Lovin My Daughter-in-law Program where she coaches and teaches a variety of ways to have more fun and connection in our relationships. LeAnn also shares the five secrets she uses to create a beautiful relationship with me and her other daughter-in-law. She’s the real deal. I highly recommend you check this out.
And, if you want one easy question you can keep in your back pocket and use to increase the love you feel for your daughter-in-law today, go to leannaustin.com and get the one question.
