170. Guard Your Mind and Be Reminded

I have seen for years across social media platforms of all kinds that moms don't need to be reminded. They don't need to be told all these little reminders of it goes by so fast and you have it so good and you don't know what you have until it's gone from grandparents and young moms or seasoned moms. And there's just such a defensive and aggressive messaging around this, like, stop reminding us, we don't need to be reminded. It's just hard, okay? And it can be hard, and I say it's hard. And it's like this fight for hardship. Like, they just so badly, in some of these messaging and narratives being shared around and created upon, they just so badly want to defend the hardship, and they want to be right about You know, it needs to go by faster and they can't do it right now. And I'm here to spend a few minutes letting you know that I disagree, that I disagree. And I'm standing on a different message and I'm pushing for a different mission. And anyone that feels called to something like that, I'm creating this for you. So welcome back to the Momset Podcast. My name is Tessa Romero. I absolutely love to teach mothers and coach mothers. On how to speak and think positively in their home and see themselves be the moms that they want to be today in any room and in any group that they're in, no matter what your kids are doing. I just know that we can do it and I see myself do it and I get enough opportunities of doing it that I know it's so worth anything that it requires to become exactly who I want to be and I want to do it now. I refuse to wait until my kids are older or until my husband accomplishes X or I experience Y. No, I've got, I've got enough working in my favor for me to know I can make all these changes now. And I believe that about every single one of you listening to this show. And sometimes it just takes simple messages like this where we are able to recognize when there is a negative influence in our life and have the courage to Cut off its source to us, whatever is connecting that negativity and that misaligned message to us, have the courage to unplug it, disconnect from it, which can feel really scary and unfamiliar. And again, it's absolutely worth it. So in this, going back to this idea of, you know, you're on social media and all kinds of content is coming up and there's these algorithms and there's millions of creators and It's such a beautiful opportunity to connect with others and learn from each other's experiences and, you know, challenge our own perspectives through the exposure to someone else's. Those are all beautiful things and they can be used very wisely. And when there is such passion and conviction around something being shared, it is important to guard your mind. It is so important to guard your mind. It's easy to think that because someone's sharing something passionately, it must be true. It must be a fact. So when someone is very emotional about what they're saying, like motherhood is hard and I can't do it, and they say that with such conviction and passion, it's easy to believe them. It's easy to believe that it's true and like, oh, that just must be a fact. Like the fact is motherhood is hard. The fact is we can't do it. And friends, those are not facts. And, uh, individual, individual perspectives that can be shared amongst entire groups and communities. Sure. And they are still just opinions. When someone else says that their kids are— but I mean, someone messaged me yesterday saying that whining is universally annoying and irritating. And that is not a fact. Whining is not universally irritating. Whining is a child's form of communication. That's what it is. It is a child attempting to communicate. And then there's what you think about it, and there's what you feel about it, and there's what you do about it. And in our determination and exercise to control what we're choosing to think, we feel better and we do better. So I personally find great relief and renewed commitment and devotion in my motherhood when I receive reminders from people of all walks of life and in many different environments that I'm in. When I receive reminders from them, I am so grateful for them. And I think that's important to talk about here and to share with you that I am someone that wants you to remind me. I want you to remind me how good I have it. I want you to remind me how much you miss this season. I want a grieving mother to remind me how lucky I am. Like, I want her pain and her loss and her grieving to touch me. I do. Because when I'm touched in that way, I am transformed and I am further convicted and I hold myself to a higher standard and I understand how absolutely and remarkably blessed I am to have these literal walking miracles in my life. Every single person on this planet is a miracle. It is— it's fantastic to take part in a life where miracles are taking place and happening all around you. People being able to change is a miracle. People being able to live and breathe and walk and socialize and feel something going on inside of them is a miracle. Like, it's all extraordinary. And I really like to stay focused on the extraordinary things, even when it does require more from me, even when it can feel hard. Like, I just, I believe that this messaging of motherhood is so hard does more harm than good. It's just a focus. It's just where we're choosing to put our focus. Um, What would it be like for you to go through each day hoping for reminders rather than hoping for validation and hoping for this approval of your perspective when it's negative? And for someone to confirm like, oh yeah, you're right, you really can't do this. Oh yeah, you're right, motherhood is too hard. Oh yeah, you're right, mothers really aren't given what they need. And you're right, it's the kid's fault. It's not the mom. Like, you're right, it's the husband and everything's his fault. Like, we— I think it's just so powerful to start considering the fact that you can teach your brain to be right about anything. That's the— that's what the brain wants to do. It wants to make predictions and be right about them. So while you're making predictions, you got to recognize these are not facts. These are just predictions my mind is making based on experience. And when I have a lot of experience in negativity and the victim mentality and holding on to hardship and in drama and gossip and just so many heavy things, when that's where a lot of my experiences, that's the exact kind of quality predictions I'm going to be making. That's how a brain works. And then it's not just making the prediction and then acting like it's a fact when it's not. It wants to be right about it. So your brain is bending reality so that it can be right about whatever it thinks. So if you want to think that your kids stop you and they're in your way and they make you mad, let's say you really believe that your kids make you mad and Your brain wants to be right about that. So then your brain goes through every interaction with your kids with that belief, you make me mad. And then it starts trying to look for evidence to confirm that belief. And that evidence will look like your child interrupting you while you're talking to your husband. Oh, you just make me so mad. Or it will, it will be them not eating the dinner that you made. Oh, see, that's it. That's where they make me so mad. It's trying to accumulate enough evidence to be right about whatever it believes. And this is where I think communication and mindset gets so fun, so fun, because when you recognize people are just saying what they think, they're not saying what's true. They're not saying what's factual. They're not frequently calling themselves up enough. To be challenged. They're just saying what they think right now. As— and most times people are just saying what they see rather than saying more of what they want to see and being effective and really powerful communicators to speak the kind of life over people that calls everyone in the room up around them. Instead of doing that, we just gripe and moan and complain about the way things are, and then feel so surprised when they don't change without making a meaningful contribution for something to change. Like complaining about something is not a meaningful contribution for it to, for it to change. It just makes the problem bigger. And I know this episode is having a lot, and I'm going to get back into this remind me every day and to guard your mind. But this is on the point of guarding your mind before you go asking for these everyday reminders. You've got to recognize the error in your own ways of thinking. And your own ways of pursuing information for your brain and to start recognizing where in your mind does your brain want to be right about things that are extremely hurtful, they're damaging to your relationship with your kids. If you want to be right that your kids make you mad, how good of a relationship could you possibly have with them? How, how much self-control could you possibly have during the day? How much discipline are you going to be able to really experience and live with if if you still believe that your kids make you mad. The two contradict. If you want to grow, you've got to get on a clear path of clarity where everything compounds and builds on one another positively in an empowered nature. Contradictions pull you backwards, they create confusion. And when your mind is confused and you're feeling confused, you'll spiral and you stop trusting yourself. You doubt. I mean, gosh, you'll doubt what's written in the Bible. You'll doubt what a friend is saying to you. Like, there's just way too much confusion, and contradictions are a huge source of that. And what I appreciate about the Bible is there are no contradictions, which is very refreshing. So I love to read it. So Just think about that though. Really, really just sit with this idea of what am I fighting so hard to be right about? Are you someone that's fighting so hard for the narrative of motherhood is so hard to be right? What if we started putting all of that energy into fighting for the narrative that motherhood is so fulfilling? That motherhood is so rewarding, that motherhood is transformative, like just a complete metamorphosis is what it seems like. Like I came in here a little caterpillar and now I'm a butterfly. What if that's what we are fighting for? Your mind is willing to be right about that too. It just, it wants your backing. It will be right about whatever you want to be right about. If you wanna be right that motherhood is hard, your mind will work really hard to prove that to be true. It will look for all the messes around you, the times that your children say disrespectful things or just don't obey you right away or took a long time to fall asleep or got into that trouble at school or sent that mean text, whatever. It'll, it'll take everyday circumstances and say, see, I told you my kids make me mad. I told you that motherhood is so hard. And then where are you? You feel better there? Are you being the mom that you want to be? You feel free, faithful, and lighthearted? No. All you feel is right. And I would rather be free than be right every time. I love that saying by Byron Katie in her book, Loving What Is. She says, you can be right or you can be free. And it's true. It's true. I want to be free. I want to be free. I want to love the things that I'm fighting to be right about. If my brain is already going to do this, it's already going to fight to be right about something. Then I want to love what I'm putting up a fight for. I want to love the narrative that I'm teaching my brain to prove about the fulfillment, the transformation, the restorative nature of it all, the complete healing, the full circle, the forgiveness, the mercy, closest to God that I experience, I want my brain looking for that evidence. Like, God— like, brain, show me where God's showing up in my life right now. God shows up in my life every single day. Show me, show me where he showed up. And it's so cool because my brain sees it every day. I could tell you story after story after story every single day of the ways that I see the Lord show up in my life. And these, these narratives that I confirm to myself of I'm excellent at distinguishing the difference between my voice and the Holy Spirit. I'm excellent at it. And I teach that to myself so that my brain is looking and searching for the voice of the Holy Spirit so that I can have a differentiation between me and the Holy Spirit. And then I can feel more confident in the promptings that I'm choosing to follow are that of the Holy Spirit. And again, that is just clarity so I can live free of confusion. So I wanted to open up this episode with all of that before getting into this Remind Me Everyday message, just to try and soften your heart and open your mind to this idea that it is a remarkable blessing and a purposeful exposure and encounter that you're in when you are face to face with someone that is reminding you of something good. And when they're— when, when a mother comes up to you and maybe her kids are grown and her house is quiet and you've got 3 kids screaming in a grocery cart and this sweet woman comes up to you, maybe puts her hand on your shoulder and says, ah, I would give anything to trade places with you. Savor these days. They go by too fast. When she comes up and she reminds you, I really hope you let that touch you. That is a purposeful and heavenly encounter to just ground you again in what is true and what matters. And when grandparents come up to you and they remind you of how fast it goes— it can be your grandparents, it can be your kids' grandparents, it can be grandparents at a baseball game seeing you chase after your 2-year-old And they come up to you and say, gosh, this goes by so fast. Pretty soon he's going to be over at that park playing and he's going to be on that ball field pitching. And then he's driving a car and then they're off to college. And what if you just let that touch you? What if you started fighting for that to be true? And that's what I like to do. I love the reminders. I love— I feel so humbled and I feel so grateful when I have the opportunity to be touched by a mother that's grieving. Maybe she had a miscarriage, a stillborn, she lost a baby. Or, I mean, I have, I have friends and, and people that I've worked with personally that have lost adult children or teenage children. And just the, the sadness and the sorrow and the way they clearly miss them, the way it touches me is such a gift. It's such, it's such a tender reminder. And I want, I want all of that to be right. I want that mom grieving loss to tell me how lucky I am, because I am lucky. And life is a miracle, and it's not promised, and it's not guaranteed. And just because you get pregnant— I learned this too through my miscarriage— just because you get pregnant does not mean that you're guaranteed a baby in your arms. And a baby in your arms does not mean that you're guaranteed a boy on a baseball field 8 years later. And a boy on a baseball field does not mean that you're guaranteed a teenager driving a car and helping with the little ones. And a teenager driving a car does not mean that you're guaranteed a college graduate or an entrepreneur. 10 years from then. Like, life is so sacred and it's so fragile, and people are the most treasured things on this planet. And to me, there is a harmful push for really— I'll just call it as it is— victim mentality thinking, especially amongst mothers. And It creates suffering. And I believe all mothers deserve to feel a sense of empowerment and delight and like they're literally living in a miracle, like heaven is in their home. And we can have that. I have that, and you can have that without the victim mentality. The victim mentality will never bring you to this sacred spot to rest and understand that who you are matters more than what you do, and your worth is not dependent on how much you can get done. And to start seeing yourself in this beautiful light. So when we allow people that have more experience than us, more wisdom than us, more years than us, to remind us of something, I really just hope that we're listening. I hope that Even the women in waiting, they just want so badly to have a baby. They want so badly to grow their family. And they see me with my 4 kids and, you know, they, they just have the love and the courage to come up to me and say how badly they want just this. And they've been in fertility treatments and they've been trying for X amount of years. And here I am with 4. I'm so blessed. I'm so lucky. I— it is a gift, an enormous gift. And I refuse to be someone with such gifts, the most important gifts on the planet, 4 of them, complete miracles, that has something bad to say about it. Like, if I gave someone a gift that was so precious and treasured and sacred to me, and I said, here's this gift, it's a complete miracle, Um, there's so much beauty to it. Here you go. And then in the reception of that gift, someone just complained about it the whole time. They're just like, oh, it's not good enough for me, and I just thought it would be better. I thought it would work out differently. I thought that it would do this for me. And like, how, how would I feel? And then You know, flipping that, what is it like for the Lord to give us such perfect gifts and then we say they're not good enough and it's too hard and we can't do it? And he gave us these gifts because he saw us as capable. He knew, I want you to be the mother of these children. Like, his plan is so good, and then we're sitting here saying that it's not. And maybe that's really bold to say, and maybe really bold things need to be said now. Maybe. But if a mother, if a woman in waiting comes up to me and says, I can't wait to be a mother, like, gosh, you, this is just such a beautiful life, this is exactly what I want, I want to be able to let that touch me and to see what she sees in that moment. Not follow it up with, oh my gosh, they never listen, and they're so rude to me, and they're so disrespectful, and they can't— they can't keep a single commitment that they make. We try to just have one chore of feeding the dogs in the morning, and it's a fight every day. Lord, help me to just— is that seriously what you want to be right about? I want to— I want to be right that motherhood is the greatest blessing, and it's a complete privilege, and it's full of miracles. And there's a lot that I'll never know about it, or how it works, or why in this order, in this pattern. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just loving who I'm becoming in the process, and I'm extremely grateful for all that I've been given. And that's exactly what I'd want to say to the the mother-in-waiting is you are going to love your children and you are going to love who you become through your children. That's what I would like to say. And you know, when a new mom comes by with a baby in a wrap and it's her first one and she's, she gets to sit next to me and I've got my 4 boys and she's reminding me of how dreamy it all is. Oh my gosh, my baby's just the sweetest and their tender soft skin and their smell. Oh, their smell. And they're just, gosh, you know, you just want to do everything you can for them and keep them comfortable. And it's just so sad when they get that little rash. And she just has this dreamy tone to her voice and this clear glimmer in her eyes of she's never experienced anything like that. She's never experienced anything so purposeful, so fulfilling, so humbling, so maturing. And she just radiates it. I want that to touch me too. And I want the seasoned mother to remind me every single day what really matters. So that way, when I start to feel stressed, when I look at the clock and it's 8 o'clock at night and my kids are running around instead of in bed, I want to remember that seasoned mother in my head and all of her wisdom of just how good these nights are and how wonderful this connection is and the memories that we're creating and the home and the safety of our home that we're establishing, like, that's what really matters. I want these reminders every single day. My mind is way too easily influenced and, and focused on problems and negativity and where things are unfair for me. Like, my mind is way too easy to go to those places. So I would appreciate these reminders every single day. Please, please send them my way. If you've got a good reminder for me, send it my way. Convict me further. Call me up. Hold me to a higher standard because I know I can do it, especially with women like you that I get to connect with. I know, I know I can keep myself here. And it is reality that there's this temptation to look at yourself as the victim. There's this temptation to take the easy way out. There's this temptation to say like, oh, I just can't do it. And I'm too tired instead of stepping up and being exactly who you want to be in it, which we're perfectly capable of. So I'm just inviting you to take a stand and go all in on the side of loving the reminders that call you up rather than fighting for things that you don't even want to be right about. If your mind is like mine and you have, you're just, you feel easily influenced by the power of someone's conviction and their passion and what they're saying. And motherhood is so hard. Like even if they're talking about things that you're like, Wow, that sounds really exhausting and stressful to think that way. Like, oh, all children are sinners and they're born sinners and you need to go home and tell your kids that they're sinners. Like, they say it with such conviction, and personally I disagree with that. So I want to be all in on the side of the reminders that these are God's children. And the Bible actually starts in Genesis 1, not Genesis 3, and to confidently plant my feet there. So if that's where you're at, where you're just kind of feeling torn in the common narrative of things and making an intentional narrative in your mind that you actually want to be right about, go all in. Go all in. That's exactly what I do is I go all in on the perspective that I want to be right about. If I don't want to be right about it, I will not. I will not entertain that perspective. I will find the one that I want to be right about. And that's something that you can do too. Call yourself up, friend. Speak life and appreciate the daily reminders while you're guarding your mind and honestly your heart in all of this process, because people are good. People are good. We are beyond blessed in this life and you are given what you need to become exactly who you want to be through it. And if you would just look to that more as truth, there would, there would unfold tremendous purpose and fulfillment in front of you. So I'll see you guys real soon, and I hope that this episode touches you the way that it clearly touched me.