...it created clarity for me around what a positive outlook is: identifying the things we have to be grateful for while being true to our feelings.
Hey there! Welcome back. Here we are, in my room together. Why? Because it's my safe space. Alright, let's get started!
So, do you ever love it when things just line up and smack you in the face so that you can't miss the message? Well, that was the beginning of my day today.
What happened was I slept in a little later than I normally do. Oddly enough, my early-rising child didn't get up early, and I was having all sorts of weird dreams. I kept telling myself over and over to wake up. I knew I was dreaming, but I just kept going back to this weird dream that actually has nothing to do with the rest of what we're talking about. So, I'll just leave you wondering on that one.
Suddenly, I became alert. My eyes weren't open, but my mind was wide awake, and I had this crazy avalanche of recognition happen. It was just a recognition of things that I have to be so grateful for, and I was so excited about it—about all of these things that just happen in my daily life. I was recognizing the miracles in all of it, and I just grabbed my journal.
Actually, you know what? Before I get there, I journal pretty regularly, and I always start off with a list of five things that I'm grateful for. Sometimes I really have to sit there and dredge my brain to come up with this list. It's not that I'm super excited about it every day, but today I was. So, I just jumped up, grabbed my journal, and wanted to do this huge gratitude dump about all the people and all the things that I have working for me in my life. I got a few paragraphs in, and of course, I heard the shuffling of my baby girl, who was finally up. So, I put my journal to the side and we got into the day.
There's nothing really spectacular about the morning. In fact, I had this list that I was ready to tackle—I was inspired from writing—and instead, I ended up watching Christmas movies with the girls. Part of me, while watching, was just kind of getting on my case because I'm such a sucker for these movies. I'm sitting there crying, and my girls are looking at me like, "What's wrong with you, Mommy? This is beautiful." The other part of me was like, "Hey, what about all this stuff you were ready to accomplish?"
Ever been there?
Those magnificent feelings of gratitude were certainly starting to go out the door. I finally got up during the second movie and decided, "Okay, let me get my workout on." After that, we ate lunch, I took a shower, and then I popped on a podcast—ironically, about gratitude and how it can hurt you.
I'm always down for hearing the other side of the story because you never know what wisdom you're going to end up piecing together, right? The lady was basically talking about how sometimes a situation can just plain be a bummer, and trying to force gratitude on the situation causes your brain to just call you a big old liar. My brain started rabbit trailing, and I began thinking about the culture of positivity and how now people are kind of railing against that because it's just not authentic. I thought about how I look for things to be grateful for, and sometimes how I just don't feel like it because I'm not achieving the things that I want to. That just kind of negates the other wonderful things that are taking place regardless of it, right?
I remembered a time when I used to have someone call me about a mutual friend in our lives. This person would go into crisis mode every now and then, and my friend would call me up whenever they were in a rampage and say, "You need to call them. You're the only one that can fix it and make them feel better." Of course, I'd call and listen to them for a minute, and then I'd start listing all the positive things going on during the crisis. One time, the person just responded to me, saying it felt like I was invalidating their feelings and that what they were experiencing wasn't okay.
That was several years ago, and it created clarity for me around what a positive outlook is: identifying the things we have to be grateful for while being true to our feelings. Sometimes you just say, "This sucks, and I don't want to feel good right now. I just want to have my feels." I learned in my high school chemistry class that every action you put out into the world has an equal and opposite reaction.
When I would call this friend and try to sweep all the ranting and raving under the rug, what I was never doing was diffusing the situation. I kept throwing kindling into the fire. I wasn't the one pouring the gas on, but I was the one that kept the flames from puttering out. I was basically telling them they were inadequate in understanding their own needs and processes.
That was the last time I stepped in when I got one of those calls, which leads me back to this dual action play going on in my head about how I was so genuinely grateful this morning and how sometimes I grumble through my gratitude practice. Now, this is not me saying that gratitude is a crock because it's not. It's been proven over and over again that having a mindset to always be on the lookout for moments to be grateful for improves the quality of living. It decreases depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and so much more. Having an attitude of gratitude has its place and can truly be the difference maker in how you show up in life and experience any given situation.
Hey, my husband's home! So, you know, when you do have those moments of gratitude, you can truly experience the grace and beauty of life. It powerfully affects your decisions, your spirit of generosity, and can deepen and strengthen relationships.
Let's address those times when you literally feel like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of even the tiniest things to be grateful for, and you just keep coming up empty. I know someone out there is thinking, "Be grateful that you have breath in your lungs." Yeah, I feel you, because that's usually me, and someone else out there is really annoyed and doesn't even want to hear it.
I found that when we try to force gratitude, it's like telling your kids who are fighting to stop and give each other a hug and really mean it. One kid looks at you and says, "I'll give a hug that I mean, but they ain't coming out of it." It just creates all sorts of resistance, and once that happens, the fight is on like Donkey Kong. In reality, this is an emotional issue, not a logical issue, and our emotions have the maturity of about a three-year-old when we're feeling pouty.
So, how do we get past this problem? Ice cream! Who's going to keep fighting when there's ice cream, right? Kidding, kind of. Acknowledgment, that's where you start. You can't just force yourself into genuine emotions of gratitude when you currently feel like a dirty toilet. It's okay to say, "There's a big old doooo floating around in my head, and darn it if my flusher's broken right now." You're welcome—I know that was exactly the image you wanted in your head, and I apologize if you were eating. So hopefully you weren't.
The point is, we experience emotions for a reason, and sometimes those reasons are a little farfetched in our end, but regardless, we have them. Shoving them away to get into a false sense of gratitude isn't going to give you all those wonderful benefits that being thankful gives you. It's just going to be like putting a cap on a cavity without cleaning out the junk. The cavity will keep festering underneath, and even though the tooth looks pretty, it's going to end up hurting a lot. I know this because that actually happened to me—that's how I came up with that example. We don't want to hurt even more.
Let's go back to the story of my friend that I was trying to force cheer on when they weren't ready for it. I was creating a situation where that person didn't feel like they could trust me in their times of crisis because I wasn't going to let them go through what they needed to in order to get to the other side. Our brains feel the same way. If you're forcing gratitude when you don't truly feel it, your brain starts to feel like you're an incongruent person, and we wonder why we feel bad about ourselves. We need to acknowledge and allow the space to process the fit we need to have and also acknowledge that it isn't a permanent condition. Even if things become a permanent condition, it doesn't mean our state of mind and emotional well-being needs to get stuck there too.
Okay, so what might this look like in action? Let's say it has just been the craziest of days. It doesn't seem to matter what you do—it all keeps just falling apart. To top it off, your kids are going at it, no one's listening, and it looks like someone took your house and shook it up so that everything is just scattered everywhere. Okay, genius, tell me how I get grateful about that.
Start by getting all the stuff you're feeling about this day out of your head. Either give it a voice or write it out. Just to be clear, I'm not saying go yell at someone and tell them how much they have contributed to this situation. I'm saying the growing mountain of woes—get it out of your head where the story of what's going on can gain momentum and turn into something even bigger than it is. Ever been there, where you make a mountain out of a molehill? So, what is true in this moment? The house is a mess. Yes. The kids are making Mortal Kombat look tame. Check. Nothing is working. Perhaps an exaggeration. Okay, fine. My project at work didn't go the way I wanted it to. Check.
I feel really crappy about it. Truth. I want to yell at everyone right now and stuff some carbs in my face. Fact. I don't feel good about myself and I feel under-appreciated.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
There is something healing about releasing all those thoughts from being trapped in your brain. And I found that thinking this out in my brain is not as powerful as saying it out loud or writing it down. It literally takes the toxicity out of the pile of thoughts that want to grow them and swallow me up. This is where we can start to create that space for gratitude to whittle its way back in.
Do did you notice we're starting small? We're not forcing ourselves to start singing from the rooftops, yet. Right now we get to move through the Truth Trail to some that don't feel so harsh like- even though my project didn't go the way I wanted it to, I did see how I can make it better. Check. I have more stuff than I thought as evidenced by the display of everything on my floors. Check. I know if anyone ever tries to beat up my kids that they are going down! My kids have mad fighting skills. Check. Even though they're acting like little shits, they're my little shits and I love them.
Oh dang! We just flip the script and this is how we start.
It's small and most importantly it's honest. And now we're in a place where we can start gaining gratitude momentum and really get to the place where it gives us all those benefits. And sometimes you might find yourself in the funk and stuck again like I have.
Now you have a process; it's the Truth Trail. Walking down the trail of what's true of my mental and emotional state in this moment and keep following that trail to what is also true that can change the direction that the funk was heading. And what's so great about this process is that it doesn't have to take a ton of time.
I'll give you I'll give you one more story to wrap this up and show you a moment of how I walked down a Truth Trail to take me from a hot mess to feeling so empowered and filled with gratitude.
So this was when I was pregnant with my first daughter and of course first child. I've never had kids before but my husband has had kids before so he's experienced. Mcy neighbors all had kids so they're experienced. Everyone's giving me advice, right? In a friendly way and I would ask because obviously I wanted to learn.
My neighbor next door, she had a friend that was part of a swap meet - moms of multiples - and so she was telling me, "Oh, hey! In April they're going to have their big swap meet. You should go!" And I'm like, "Yes!" There's going to be so much stuff there I can load up. My baby will be set! This is so cool!
And so the day finally comes. I'm probably maybe, I don't know, four or five months pregnant and I get there and it's just myself. Andrew was working and I didn't have any girlfriends who could go out that day.
I get out of the car and I start walking there and I have some mental notes in my head. And as I walk up there's all these car seats and I remember oh don't get a car seat because Andrew says you never buy a car seat that's used because you don't know if it's been in an accident. Even if it looks good, you don't want a used car seat. So I just walk past the car seats like I know. I feel great and then we get to the strollers and I'm looking at them and you know they're kind of interesting but I'm not really sure what feature I want, you know. Do I want...? They just I didn't have it there.
So I keep walking in and now we get to the clothes and there's all of these cute, adorable clothes and I'm pretty sure at this point in time I knew that I was having a girl so that wasn't an issue of do I get boy clothes, girl clothes, gender neutral- whatever. I was convinced that my baby was going to come out the size of a 2-year-old I was going to birth a toddler because I was a big baby. I mean I was still a baby but I, I was- I just had this feeling that I was just going to have this big baby.
And so I start looking at all these cute little baby clothes and I'm like, I have no idea what size I should get for my baby and like these newborn clothes just look so small I don't think she would ever fit in that but do I get like the months or do I do the T's? I don't know.
So I kind of freak myself out there.
I know you guys are laughing. Hang with me!
I keep walking. I go past the clothes and then we get to toys and I start looking at the toys and I'm thinking, "Well, do babies really play with toys? I mean I think they're just mainly sleepy for a little while. So should I get this stuff or should I wait?" And basically you start to get the idea I am second guessing myself on every single thing in this situation and it was this big U shape and I had finally made my way through the whole U and I just keep walking and I just I didn't get anything that I had been so excited to get.
And I just walk straight out to my car. I get in my car, I sit down and I just bust out bawling. Like, ugly-snot-cry-bawling.
You're going to notice the theme here. Like in the last episode I'm pretty sure I was ugly-snot- bawling, too. And this one I was just like, you know, like a up the arm to get the snot clear. It was just it was a big mess and I'm just woe-is-me up the yin-yang. And I sit there for a minute and there's no way I have a an ounce of gratitude in my body at this moment.
I am just lost. I feel like I am going to be the worst parent ever, that I don't know what I'm doing but everybody else does, and what business do I have having a child and all of the thoughts! I know if you're mom listening to this you know what it's like that first time you have the baby. There's a moment where you're just like I'm going to mess everything up. Like this kids - forget about a college fund - I need this psychology fund, right?
And so I take a couple of minutes where I'm having this bawl session and finally I I get it out, you know. Alright, and then I start to think and I walk on my Truth Trail, right? I gave all the truths out there.
Okay, I'm going to be a bad Mom. I don't know anything. People know more blah blah blah blah. So it's out it's out of my head. I physically voiced it and I sit there for a minute and then I start thinking, you know what? Maybe I don't know as much as moms that are already moms. There's a reason because they've had the kids and they've had the experience so I know that I'm going to end up getting experience and I'll learn as I go.
And I love to research. I love to ask people questions. I love to learn so you know I've been gathering information from my friends. I feel like, you know, I'll be fairly equipped. Hey! I've got Andrew who has experience so he's right there in the house. I need a question question or I need some help- go to him.
And then it finally was my ding ding ding moment and I thought to myself, "You know what? God put this baby in me and I am the mother of this child. We are a part of each other and there is no one better equipped in this world to be this kid's mom. And I am going to be the best effing mom in the world and we are going to have a great relationship and I don't need anything at this place and we are going to rock!!!"
And finally, I was in a place where I could be grateful again and not have all of that building woe-is-me in my brain.
And yes, I did say the full word not just "effing". But I felt very certain about it in that moment.
And so obviously, here I am quite a few years later and and it's turned out okay beyond those Momster moments that we talked about in that first episode.
Again, walking down that Truth Trail can really make the difference, because if I had just tried to stuff down all of those feelings and make myself wrong for feeling bad, for feeling weak, for feeling incapable and all of the things. And then just try to be like, "Put on a happy face you'll be a great mom"-- it would have been alarms going off in my head saying, "No! No! This is not right! That's not right! We gave you these feelings for a reason. We need to get them out, let them out, acknowledge them!"
Don't force us to believe something that we don't feel is true right now. That is such an important element of when you find that you can't get into gratitude right away. Don't force it. Acknowledge. It's okay that I feel kind of crappy right now. I need to feel crappy right now. I don't have to feel crappy forever, though.
I'm telling you-- I'll probably talk about this in every episode-- condensing those time frames makes such a huge difference! Because I had that moment last 5, 10 minutes maybe at the most, versus letting it ruin my day, my week, getting me nervous. Becoming a nervous Nelly and then end up letting it grow into something that actually affected the way that I parent. I allowed myself the space to have it. I gave myself the time that I needed and it was an honest amount of time. It wasn't something that I cut myself short and said no you can't have these feelings anymore. I got it out and because I did my body said, my mind said, my emotions everything was like, "Okay, thank you! We just needed to release that. We needed to acknowledge that it was there now we can move forward and still be in truth about it."
Hopefully you had some fun listening to that story. Maybe some of you can relate. I think we all go there sometimes in our motherhood journey and now you can get back into- Hey you know what this is? Why I've been having a hard time thinking of five things a day to feel grateful about? Because I wasn't acknowledging the things that I needed to get out of my head before, so I could really get into the nitty-gritty of, oh man, there are just little beautiful things happening all over the place.
And then we can start growing that muscle. Every now and then, of course, we're going to have to come back and acknowledge some things that are going on. But our gratitude muscle has been built and is getting stronger and stronger during that time.
Okay! That is it for me today. I've had so much fun talking to you and I hope that you are having a fantastic day. And if you need to walk that Truth Trail, stop and make it a priority so that you can get your brain back into the right space and feel better about what you're doing.
Until the next time, make it a fun rich life and I will see you later Mama. Bye!
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