144. Let Your Children Sand You Down

If parenting has ever felt physically painful for you to do the kind thing, this episode is for you. My name is Tessa Romero. I'm the host here at the momset Podcast. I am a firm believer that you can be the mom that you want to be no matter where you go or who you're with. And it does take a certain mentality in order for you to do it. And it's a mentality that you have access to as well. And it's just all these little bits and pieces that we put together in order to create that. This beautiful picture to parent from and to create our motherhood out of. So the times. Let's get into this. The times that parenting in a kind way, in a way that aligns with the mom that we want to be, has that ever felt physically painful to you? Where your kids are just fighting with one another? And the idea of you going over there and kneeling down next to them and grabbing each of their hands and dividing your attention between them and just being on all the way there with them and staying soft, Staying soft, where you just see two little kids that feel hurt and we're taking it out on one another. Two little kids that are ready for a new skill set. They're ready for tools to apply. They're ready to mature a little bit more. And you go into that with that perspective. Has it ever felt, or maybe it feels right now, just like getting that vision in your head, it feels physically painful where your throat feels tight, your chest feels like it's constricting, and one of those bones in your rib cages about to break. You swear it, your shoulders are up at your ears, and you. You're just feeling it like it's feeling physically painful. That happens. That happens, friend. That happens with me, too. And one of the best perspectives that I've been white knuckling recently over the past few months, and it has completely transformed my parenting with my three boys. In the hardest moments, I look at it as they are sanding me down. My kids have the opportunity and the ability to sand me down. Now, what exactly are they sanding down? All of my sharp edges, jaggedness, rough, coarse layer that I've put on myself and that I've acquired and accumulated through hurtful experience, experiences and misunderstandings and traumatic, traumatic events in my life. All the colors that I've painted myself to try and belong in all the different places that I've been right and to fit into this mold that I've been told I need to be in from the time that we're Children to now as adults. And now we're like parenting these innocent children. And the thing about our kids is they know who they are. They know who they are. They're pure and they're innocent and they're just love. They're love in the most palatable, concentrated form. That's who they are. And then we come up with everything we've acquired throughout our lives. We come up with this tendency to yell. And imagine like on one of your shoulders, there's just this like wooden spike coming off of one of your shoulders. That's your tendency to yell. And your left bicep is green. And that is the be. That's the. That's where you've learned to lie. And then your, like your forearm, your left forearm has all these spikes on it and this like jagged, really rough texture to it. And that's where you've learned to lecture or to blame other people instead of taking accountability and ownership. And just imagine that your body has all of these different roughness to it, sharp edges, jagged features. And all of that represents what you've learned over the years. Learning to yell, learning to lie, learning to blame. This victim mentality, self defeat, low self esteem, perfectionism, people pleasing. All of that has become the colors and these jagged shapes that are taking up you, they're making up you right now. And then when we go to our kids and their hard moments and we're feeling like it is physically so hard for me to show up as the mom that I want to be right now, it's because your kids are sanding you down. They are the sandpaper in the most beautiful sense. Where it's the only way for you to become pure again and clean again and establish the most true sense of self again, is to withstand and to endure the sanding down. It's the only way. It's the only way. And it's a choice. It's like we have a choice where our kids come up with us to us with sandpaper and we say, oh, that hurts, get away from me. And we disconnect from them. We withhold love from them. We take ourselves out of it, right? We just let that piece of us get even worse. We can choose to do that or we can choose to withstand and endure the process of being sanded down. And that looks like standing, staying on your knees in front of them with one of their little hands in each one of yours. And your eyes go from one child to the next. And your tone is low and soft and warm and your heart is leading and you still feel the pain. And you're just like, jesus, sand me down. Like, let me go back. Make me whole again. Make me new. Make me pure. What. What was I like before? I wanted to yell. What was I like before? I wanted to blame everyone else. What was I like before I went to lecturing and criticizing? What was I like before? I was trying to please everybody else with people, pleasing and fit a certain mold and care so much about what other people thought through perfectionism. What was I like before? If you want to know, if you want to know the answer to that question, then endure. Let your kids sand you down. This is such a quick episode because it's just this one perspective of the times that you're in your parenting, and it feels so hard. You just carry this perspective with you. It feels so hard to be kind. Yeah, that's because the mean criticism and comments and judgment and shame that you've been conditioned to pour out in those times, that's being sanded off of you right now. Your kid, your child has sandpaper and they're just sanding it down. And you know, if you put some sandpaper on your arm right now and you rubbed back and forth a few times, it would hurt really bad. It would hurt really bad. And if you knew this is bringing me back to my most true form, then I believe we'd be. We'd be lining up, we'd be signing ourselves up to get in line and. And experience this. And if you want a really inspiring children's book to read that relates so strongly to this is it's called if Only I Had a Green Nose by Max Lucio. And it's a story of a little wooden village filled with wooden people. And Eli is the woodmaker, and he makes all the wooden people. And there's a little wooden person called Punchinello. And this is a whole book series. We have all the books in my home. They're just the best. They're faith based and they teach such wonderful messages. And Punchinello just really wanted to be like everyone else. And there was another Wemmick that decided what was cool, what was in. And it was Willie with it. Willie with it gets to decide what's in. He just knows what's with it. And he decided to. That green noses, Green noses were the thing. So all the Wemix lined up to get their nose painted green. And Punchinello and his buddies were like, mm, no, I'm. I don't want a green nose. I like the way Eli made me. God made me. And Then the colors change. And it turned out that Punchinello and his buddies actually decided one day that they succumbed to the temptation and they decided to get a green nose, too. And. And that then it was the next day or like a week later, whatever, they wake up, and now everyone's going for orange noses. So they're like, oh, man, well, I guess we'll get an orange nose then. So they get an orange nose, and then every few days, the color is changing, and they finally just get so sick and tired of trying to keep up with the trends and what other people say they should be and what color they should have on their nose and trying to fit in. They get so fed up with all of it that they're like, we. I just want this to end. I just want to go back to being me. I just want my. My color again. And their friend Lucia, who is just a cute little girl, Wemmick, says, you guys should go see Eli. And they're like, oh, do you think he'd want to see us? Like, we did all this stuff. We tried to change ourselves away from how he made us. Does he really want to see us? And Lucia's like, oh, yeah, he's been asking about you. He really wants to see you. So they go back to see their wood maker, Eli, and they walk into his shop, and Eli just has the most beautiful message to them, where it's like, well, it looks like you've been trying to. To listen to who other people say you are instead of who I say you are, and you're trying to fit in and belong when you are, like, already belong. And he had just had this most beautiful message in the book. And Eli, they're like, eli, can you help us get back to how you made us? And Eli says, yeah, it'll take some time, though. So he picks up the little Wemmick and he takes sandpaper, and he slowly sands off the color of Punchinello's nose to get it back to the most true color. And I love this picture in the book because Punchinello is crying. He has a tear coming out while Eli does this. And it even says in the story, it hurts. It hurts to get back to, like, who you were before. So it will take some time. And Eli is so gentle in his huge hands with this little Wemmick in his hand. He's standing off this color. You could just, like, see how gentle he is and how meaningful this is. And I get so teary eyed, I just cry reading these books, the. The Punchinello books. To my kids. Remember, it's called if Only I had a Green Nose. I'll link it in the show notes for you. It's such a beautiful book. All those books are just my favorite. And it's the exact message for motherhood. Here our kids are holding us steady and they are approaching us with sandpaper. God gave you children that can take you back to your most true form. Like, yes, we have Jesus, and yes, we have our heavenly Father. And they have given us children that are showing us what it looks like every single day to know who you are, to be your most true self, to. To be authentic, to feel what you feel and choose to do the right thing. Like, there we have that right here in front of us. So every time you want to yell and it feels physically painful to do what is kind and to do what is right, just imagine you're being sanded down. Like that tendency to yell, that urge to yell is being sanded off of you because you weren't born there. You weren't born wanting to hurt others or yell or give people a piece of your mind, which, which just so happens to be really hurtful and negative. Like that's not how you were. And now your kids are here trying to take you back. If you'll let them, they'll do it gladly. And I think the key part there is just choosing. Like, I, I must let my kids sand me down, otherwise I'm just going to fight and resist. And when, when I have this perspective, I, I really feel like I'm just lining up. I'm like, okay, I'm ready for this to be sanded off of me, sanded away. Because I just so badly want to be warm and soft and kind and in your hands again. Like, I just want to be pure. I want to be someone you come to when there's a mistake, when there's a problem. I want trust instilled here. I want beautiful things to grow here. And that means I must let go of everything that is harsh and cruel and ugly and mean and false and of just bad things. Like, I must let go of that. So imagine next time this comes up for you and you just really want to lecture your kids or you really want to yell at them, maybe you have a tendency or an urge to just want to like, spank them or throw something. When you endure that and you choose to withhold on that, you restrict yourself intentionally, then you can be part of this sanding down process too. And meanwhile, my three year old's knocking on my office door right now, so there's that. I'll see you inside so you can be part of this process, too. You have everything that you need in order to experience this. You have the mind that can create this picture of being sanded down. We have grace. We've been forgiven. And now we have the children that are the ultimate little handy, handy workers. And we're gonna let them. We're gonna let them have their handiwork on us. How beautiful. Let your children sand you down. Let them have handiwork on you. It's just a perspective that I have loved, Loved so much. So I hope you take this to heart. I hope it slips right in and creates a beautiful picture in your mind. My friend and I will see you real soon. On another episode.