Alisa Mortensen shares some beautiful love and relationship insights. Check out her links here:
https://www.lifecoachalisa.com/
https://www.lifecoachalisa.com/undoredo-podcast
https://www.instagram.com/lifecoachalisa/
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 #88: UndoRedo with Alisa Mortensen
I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they fill and implement love into their lives and their relationships. We have the amazing Alisa sharing some beautiful love and relationship insights with us today. Alright Alisa, briefly introduce yourself.
Alright, I am Alisa Mortensen. I am spouse to both a fire and police first responder. I have four children between the ages of 16 and 24. I also have a special needs sister whom I have always helped care for. And I help people who do everything for everyone else get a break before they break.
What a great title. Just thinking about breaking, you know, helping us before we break and just that thing of us always wanting to help everyone else, so I love that. Excellent. Alright, so how do you incorporate love into your business and life, and how does that impact your relationships?
Okay, business. That one’s first. I have been an entrepreneur for several different businesses over the years, and I love working with my hands, and I love making sense of something that’s super ugly or gross or dirty. And so I did house cleaning, like deep cleaning for houses and homes for a while, which actually was like home restoration. Sometimes it looks so beautiful after and I found a lot of accomplishment in that.
I’ve also refinished old and unuseful furniture for gosh, you know, 17 years or something like that. And I still love this. I still find time to do it. It’s like crafting only with large items and there are other people’s items. So it’s nothing that I have to keep in my own home or for myself.
And the idea of spending the time and the love undoing it and redoing it. You know, stripping it down, giving it a new fresh coat, whatever that it needs, fixing its structure. I just love the TLC that goes into it. It’s exciting for its future. It feels very accomplished to me. And I know these are anamnium objects, right? But I loved them and I worked with them to give them new purpose and for others to desire it again and make it useful. So there’s the business part.
And then with life and with people, you know, that kind of thing doesn’t work with my people. I can’t strip them down. I can’t give them a new shiny coat, throw some lipstick on it and call it good. I just made so many mistakes so often, which is just, you know, so horrible, but necessary. So if I can’t fix and mold and redo them, I just found that love really was the only answer. And I did notice that love felt so open.
So the impact that it had on my business and on my relationships, it’s just, I loved what I did and I loved my people and I felt like love was open, hopeful, and it felt light. And I like how it felt so open and I picture, and this is just silly, but I picture wood when you get it to its raw natural state and you add that stain, it’s just like open, it’s receptive. It kind of soaks it all in and it just is itself loving this thing that’s coming into it, and just soaking it all up.
So I have a lot of metaphors in my business now, which is just helping people. It’s just amazing to me to receive people as they are and loving and accepting what is. My focus on these metaphors in my business becomes; I loved the title undo redo where I get to just love what I have learned through experiences and all my trainings and I help other people undo themselves to redo themselves, and it’s with anything that has happened over time that it can be undone and redone and just the love and openness is for all to have that experience, and I help people get there.
I love that so much. And what beautiful metaphors of you working with your hands and cleaning and redoing and undo redo, that’s amazing. And how you’re pulling that into your business. I love that.
Oh, thank you. It’s very rewarding. I feel like it releases all that pressure and pain caused from being so closed, resisting and resenting and just redoing our minds for better relationships and a different outcome, a better outcome. Ah, that’s beautiful. Alright, so what is something that you love about you and why?
Okay. I feel like I’ve always been good, but I’ve gotten really good at allowing space for someone to decide, or choose, or change whatever they want. And it wasn’t always this way to the degree that it is now. There were many people that were the closest to me that I just couldn’t do this with until I’ve practiced it longer and got better at it.
And for some reason, the people that are very closest to us, are very closest to me, I’ve noticed it’s very difficult to implement those things that are easy to do with someone that’s just at an arm’s length, or not so close in a relationship. But I got better at it, and I noticed that carrying judgment over others decisions, it lasted longer than their choice did.
Say that someone made a choice and I didn’t agree with it or like it, like my judgment on it lasted much longer than that choice did. And they would choose something different and I would still be back on the same choice and I just noticed so long ago, I don’t even remember when it’s been, it’s been quite a while and I got so good at implementing it with people from, you know, arms length differences acquaintances. Oh, that’s fine, they get to choose it. But this person that’s most close to me, oh, they shouldn’t do that, you know. And I felt myself just thinking that judgment of how they chose to spend their time, what they thought, what they said, what they did, lasted much longer because they would change their mind, and they were welcome to change their mind.
And so it just took a long time to get, to break away all those layers all the way down to the people that were closest to me, and I found that me being okay with my choices is kind of what broke that barrier. I love that. And that you recognize that, hey, when I’m okay with my choices, it’s so much easier to be okay with everyone else’s choices.
Yes. That’s when it really came to life. Ah, that is beautiful, I love that. What a great thing. That is amazing. Thank you. Alright, so I love talking all things daughter-in-law. So any thoughts about either having or being a daughter-in-law? Sure, can I touch on both? Yes, please. I love it.
My second child has been with his now fiance for three years and I’ve gotten to know her so well, and I feel so supportive towards her and all that she decides to do and finding out what does and doesn’t work for her in her life and watching her journey has been so fun.
I do not judge it as being good or bad when she does something. So that’s easy for me not to say, oh, that’s a bad thing, or that’s a good thing, or that was right, or that was wrong. I just observe her making her decisions and finding out what works for her and what doesn’t. And then I just feel like she’s so amazing, and likable, and lovable, like we all are. And that she’ll make her choices as we all get to. And that’s my thoughts about my daughter-in-law.
So my thoughts about my mother-in-law. I’ve had her in my life for about 25 years now, and she has shown me what I didn’t think was possible, because I didn’t know to what extent I could show up in helping someone who didn’t want my help. And it was necessary for me to have helped her. The people she would choose to have help her weren’t able to or willing to, or couldn’t for whatever reason, they weren’t showing up in her life.
So I impressed even myself, I really just was only willing and able and that was all that it needed. I didn’t know I could do what I did for her because she didn’t enjoy what was happening in her life. She wasn’t pleased to see me walk in the door. A lot of it meant she had to do something that was hard and do something that was difficult. And so when she was not excited to see me and when I would implement my help anyways, because these things needed to happen, I just, I didn’t know I could show up for someone who didn’t want me there, and do it anyways. And so just on the other side of that, everything got taken care of. And, you know, it’s kind of more of a plateau right now. There’s not, I just love that she taught me that I can feel nothing short of wonderful being the one to make it all happen because I did do that.
Well, and good for you for just doing things, even though she wasn’t receptive, but you still felt that. Right. And I wasn’t making her do anything necessarily. It’s just the things needed to be done. And she didn’t like what was happening. I could see that she, it was mostly about that she didn’t like what was going on in her life and she wasn’t wanting it to happen. And wanting that change. And so when I showed up and we had to get affairs in order and we had to make everything have a big move and a big shift and change.
And we made it all happen. And she’s okay with where she’s at now. She can’t actually believe that we actually pulled it off. But I did do that. And it did need to be done, even though there was some pushback and I didn’t step on her toes or make her feel bad or anything. I just kept showing up and I just kept doing it. And then it, I impressed myself knowing I now know through her that I’m able to do things like that. So that is just amazing.
That is amazing. And what a relationship strengthener too, just for you that you just kept showing up. Right. And almost more of a relationship strength with myself. It’s not receptive still, but I have a relationship with myself right now that I know I can do those things out of the most love and not be hurt or offended at someone else’s behavior when they’re asking me to leave nicely. And I know I can’t because these, these medical things and they need to happen. So, and it wasn’t forceful at all. It was just love. And I didn’t hold it. Anything against her for all the words, it was just, I need to be here. I’m able, I’m capable, I’m willing, and this needs to happen. And I’m the one to do it.
And you just choosing to come from that place of love, it happened because you chose to do that. I’d love that. Yeah. Compassionate and love that you had for her. Yeah. I knew I wasn’t her first choice. And that’s okay. Sometimes daughter-in-laws or mother-in-laws or whoever they aren’t. And yet, when we can still find that love for ourselves, it just trickles onto them as well, you know. Right. I’m not going to be everyone’s first choice. Right. Exactly. I love it Alisa. Oh that’s beautiful.
Alright, so anything else you’d like to share and where can our audience go to find out more about you? Let’s see, they can go to lifecoachalisa.com and I’m the same @lifecoachalisa on Instagram, @lifecoachalisa on Facebook. And I have a podcast called UndoRedo and it’s on Spotify and Google podcast. It’s where we kind of strip down what’s false and find what’s true and rebuild from there. Excellent, and I’ll put all these in the show notes as well.
Anything else that you want to share that we didn’t cover? I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. Okay alright, so the last question is, what is your favorite question or quote about love and how have you used it for yourself and in your relationships?
Okay, my favorite question or quote, I looked up trying to see where I heard it because I’ve had it in my mind for so long and it wasn’t accredited to anyone, but it’s a question and it is: What would love do?
And I think at first when I started thinking this, I was very, I was reactive and my head would spin and I would maybe be spinning for days or a week and super upset about something. And then I remember just, as it settled thinking, okay, what do I do? What do I do? And then I’m like, oh, and then I heard, I had heard something. Right, and I heard, I thought, well, what would love do now? This and I had been spinning and stewing for quite some time.
And then I would remember this and it just seemed to calm. It seemed to settle and I gained clarity. It was like getting in some water and mucking up all the mud. Right. And then it took forever for it to settle. And then I was like, what would love do? And it just instantly all got clear. And I think it brings me back to my center. I think that the practice of it has become now I’m not reactive and I don’t spin and I can catch it ahead of time. And when something happens and I feel that judgment coming on, like I want to make it good, bad or right or wrong. I actually just take a deep breath and think, well, what would love doing this situation? So, it actually takes away my reactivity to what’s going on around me and it clears the waters for me and it’s been very actionable and it’s made a huge impact.
And now there are times that are a little more dramatic than others, and I’ll flip for a little longer and, you know, slide a little further, but this, what would love do, has been my favorite. It’s like you read my mind. You knew there was a question or a quote in there somewhere that got me through. Well, and that’s so beautiful.
And you mentioned at the beginning to something about your sister. I’m sure that question has helped with that as well, has that? It has. I’m not always her favorite either. But still thinking what would love do. Yes. What would love do? I love it, something to think about y’all. That is beautiful. Oh, that’s great. Anything else that you wanted to say about her or anything before we close?
I believe my skill of allowing people to make their choices, as I spoke about it with you just a minute ago, I kind of had this hint of like, I think it’s been there longer than I think, I just wasn’t really good at it. But I was really good at it because I had the sister that did anything she wanted. And I’ll tell you a really quick, funny thing. When she was really young, she owned my parents easily. Just, she could run rickshaw on them and all she had to do was a couple of things. Now granted she’s special needs and we all can push each other’s buttons. All she had to do was strip down naked. And she owned my parents at that moment.
The funniest time for me was we were in a grocery store and she’s upset cause she can’t have something, and I’m about five years older than her. So, and I noticed she starts to take her clothes off and I noticed how she can control how my parents feel and react. And then, all of a sudden it was like, get her two ,get her five, hurry and hand them to her. You know, and I was so young too. And I remember just thinking, wow, she’s really good at getting my parents to do stuff. Now, I was the one that, that would tease and play games and get her to put her clothes back on when she would just get so mad. She’s, she’d start just stripping naked places. And it goes along through the years.
She was 14 when I met my husband, he picked us up for the first date and he said, Hey, and he was expecting to meet the parents and there was screaming in the background. And my sister goes running through the house, stark naked, 14 year old girl. And she was owning them at that moment too. And I was leaving on a date, so I couldn’t help her get her clothes back on. But I think allowing her to be herself really, really helped me allow others to be themselves and going with the flow. We’re kind of rolling with it or maybe finding some humor in it because I love laughing and it’s one of my very favorite loves is laughing. So yeah, I believe that had something to do with it. Absolutely.
Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I love that. What would love do? Something to think about. Alright, thank you Alisa, for sharing your tidbits of love with us and your insights. It’s so great being here. So good. Have a good one y’all, and here’s to undo, redo, and love.
If you enjoyed 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.
