173. Why Do You Believe Them? | Ownership

One of the very best parts about working on mindset is you are your only limit. You start to realize that your life can be as wonderful and as abundant and, and grateful and faithful and ambitious and joyful as you're willing to be. And when you remove yourself as a limit and you start taking on experiences and everyday interactions and moments with an open mind and key frameworks in your mindset that help you to show up as who you want to be, because you control that part. If you don't like who you're being, you can change that. But when we lose sight of mindset and the effectiveness of who am I choosing to be in this moment with this person, and we start getting distracted by by the focus on what other people are saying and who other people are choosing to be and what's going on around us rather than the key and crucial way that we are showing up to the moment, we lose it. We lose sight, and then we start to spiral in our mindsets. And that can look like a shame spiral where you're attacking yourself, or a victim mentality, woe is me, kicking rocks party. Where it just seems like nothing ever goes your way. But ultimately, the circumstances are never the problem, and other people are never the problem. It's where our mind is at. And I've personally experienced so much freedom here that I get just delighted to share this information with you because of the way it's touched me as a person, the way it's opened up my marriage and my motherhood and connection with others and matured me and even brought me to Christ. I didn't believe in Jesus a few years ago, so now I'm a little bit further than a few years, but it's just fascinating how much can change in your life when you're willing to work on who you are and stop the talk and the focus on everything and everyone else. Put all of that same energy back into you. So since you're here on the Momset Podcast, I know that that is what you're ready to do. I'm your host, Tessa Romero. I I absolutely love to help you think and speak positively in your life, especially in your home, because I know that you and I can be exactly who we want to be no matter where we go or who we're with. And today I want to challenge you. I want to share a question with you that I started asking myself that completely enriched and amplified the amount of accountability and ownership I was willing to take in my life. And ultimately that brought so much fruit and peace to my life. So this question that I ask myself is, why do I believe them? And when I ask myself this question, it's very important and I want to help you understand. The question is, why do I believe them? Not, do I believe them? Or, um, is it possible that I'm believing them right now? No. I just act on the assumption that I am believing them. Because I ask myself this question when I'm feeling judged or criticized or attacked by somebody else because of what they're saying. And, you know, between social media, relationships, ongoing family encounters, and all the things that come up in your life and mine, we can come face to face with interactions where It's very clear that judgment is taking place and criticism does happen. And some of these interactions can sound like someone else shaming us or blaming us, bashing us, trying to make us feel guilty, if you've ever used language like that. And ultimately, in every single one of those scenarios, we are painting ourselves out to be the victim. It's like you're playing musical chairs for the seat of the victim. And you're running in circles, racing around, pushing everybody else out of the way, trying to get that last chair when the music stops. And then you realize, I'm in the game of the victim. Do I want to play this game? Do I want to be in this chair? Do I want to win? If winning means being the victim, do I want to win? No. You're in the wrong game. You're in the wrong room. It's the wrong music for you in your life. So when we ask ourselves this question, why do I believe them, it puts us back into a position of empowerment when we face judgment, criticism, insults, because we're going to. And the better that we can condition and train ourselves to have a mindset that supports and knows who we are no matter where we go or who we're with, we start to realize that the only power others had over us all along was the power that we gave them. And I love to think of that. The only power that bullies in middle school ever had over me was the power I gave them because I believed them. I believed what was said about me. I believed what was said about my family. And growing up in the home environment that I've shared very openly here, I like to go back and think about all the times that I believed what was said about me. I believed the blame being placed on me, and rightfully so. I can see that I absolutely did the best I could to my mental and physical capacity as a child in these environments. And the adults in the scenarios and the bullies in the scenarios, everyone did the best they could to their mental and physical capacity. And I'm know that that is the formula for us to free ourselves from this idea of holding grudges and holding on to these hurtful and painful stories in our life that ultimately just keep the— that version of you that you're being alive. You need the old story to keep these problems alive. Without the story, the problem— we start to think like, well, the problem doesn't make sense if I don't have the story, so I have to keep the story alive so people can understand why I do this thing. Why I'm so reactive, why I'm so aggressive, why I'm so irritable or on edge or so triggered around them, because I have this trauma. So I have to tell them about my trauma so that they know there's a just reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. The problem with that, though, is as long as you keep that story alive and you keep thinking about it the same way and you keep taking the same role in that story and believing what was said about you and what was done and what it meant about you, consenting to all of that, you keep yourself stuck. And there are, there are just areas in your life where you're keeping yourself stuck because you're holding on to these stories and viewing them the exact same way. You're saying the same things about the same people that you've been saying for years, and you wonder why you're not feeling any better. Well, yeah, because you still think the same way about your mom, about your dad, about the abuser or the accuser or the, the unfair judge or the friend that left you hanging that double date or the guy that stood you up, the way your husband dropped the ball when you had the baby. You're thinking the same way about the same people. And what's the outcome? You feel the same and you show up the same and you treat them the same. And then you feel guilty for treating people that way. And then you try to justify it by taking the role of the victim again and keeping the story alive. And hello, here we are today, however many years later, and it's still happening. So when I ask myself, why do I, why do I believe them? Why do you believe them? Because there are times that I attach to what other people say online or in person, or what my kids are saying. Mom, you work too much. You're always working. Then you get that feeling that comes. And the problem isn't what your kids are saying. The problem is that you believe them. You're consenting to that attachment and those words spoken over you, and those are not words of life. And when I break this down, you know, I don't always love the things that my kids are saying to me. And I do know though, this foundational belief that I want you to take away from this episode Everyone's doing the best they can to their mental and physical capacity. So when my kids say something like, Mom, you work too much, I love how much I work. I love the work that I do. I love the balance that I've created. I take complete and total ownership for that. So when they say, Mom, you work too much, I don't believe them. So I don't get these feelings of guilt and annoyance and these triggering and shame spirals. I'm a bad mom. And I don't get that because I don't believe it and I don't attach to it. I don't consent to those words being, being associated with me. That's just a reflection of where they're at. It's an expression of where they're at, not a reflection of me. And the same thing goes for you. Sometimes people are giving an expression of who they are and where they're at, not a reflection of you. And when you can just listen for what others mean rather than what was said. When my kids say, Mom, you're always working. You're always on a phone call. When I come out to my office, cause they know I do calls and like this podcast episode, they would call a call, a phone call. And again, I love my work. I love that I work. I love that this is a mission, that this is a calling that I get to take part of. And I feel extremely privileged and grateful. For this position. I feel honored and I love that I get to do it. So I tell them, when you miss me and you want time with me, just say, Mom, I miss you. Sweetheart, I love to work and it is okay to tell me that you miss me. I can take— I can clear the day for you. Like, let's, let's clear the day. When you tell me that you miss me, I want to clear the calendar. And I want, and I want this time, and I get really creative and I get really excited. So just say that when you miss me, and then I can teach somebody else without putting myself down in the process. And you have the exact same opportunity to do that when you stop attaching to and believing what is being said and start listening for what is meant. People rarely say what they mean. Listen for what they mean, not what they say. You will, you will get so much further in your interactions and your relationships if you listen for what people mean. And if you— even another mindset, I mean, this is like coming— we have so many moving parts that we can play with here, but a mindset that can really help you is, my worst thought is my— or my first thought is my worst thought. I love to assume that that my first thought is my worst thought. It is so helpful because then I get this first thought and maybe I even feel frustrated because like my husband didn't do something with the dishes. I don't know. He didn't make the dinner at 4:30 that I would normally have started at 4:30 and he didn't make the dinner at 4:30. He should have made the dinner at 4:30. Yeah. My first thought is my worst thought. And then I guide myself to the next thought. What's the next thought? He's playing with the boys. Okay, what's the next thought? I like that he's playing with the boys. Yeah, me too. So what's the next thought? He's an excellent dad and he cares so much and he's so attentive with them. Yeah. And what's the next thought? I can start dinner right now. I can ask him to start dinner right now. We can still have dinner right now and everyone can move forward seamlessly. But that's like 7 thoughts in that I finally get to that place and handle things really, really well. But if I just I say the first thought, you were supposed to start dinner at 4:30. I always start dinner at 4:30. Why didn't you start dinner at 4:30? What do I really mean? What do I mean behind that? What I mean is I love that you are so attentive and playful with the boys, and I can see why you guys were playing instead of making dinner. I'd like you and I to make dinner now. Great. That's what I mean. And that can be worked through. That can be worked on. And let's say someone else is saying something to you, like the exact same scenario. And maybe someone's saying something to you, um, and you're starting to associate what it means about you. And they say, oh, why don't you have dinner ready? You're always so behind. And you start to feel guilty. Why don't you have dinner ready? You're always so behind. Oh my gosh. Why am I always so behind? Then the self-talk spirals from there. What is wrong with me? Why can't I just get it together? Is it that hard to just start dinner at 4:30? What? Why am I, why am I like this? The only reason why you go down that road asking yourself all of these inappropriate questions, taking your mind to attack yourself, which is awful. The only reason why you're doing that is because you believed what they said. You took their word over you to be greater than your word over you— who you are, your identity, your mindset. Everything that Momset here stands for, everything that I stand for here with you— you have to know who you are if you want to feel free and clear and confident in any room and in any group that you're in. Otherwise, you're going to find yourself in interactions like that where sometimes people share their first thought, and their first thought is their worst thought too. So then they're speaking that, and then you're believing in them, and then you're spiraling in the emotion that comes from that. And the— and then we're blaming them that we're feeling this way, but really you believed it. So it takes us back to this powerful question that gets us back into a position of ownership and accountability and empowerment. Why do I believe them? Why do I believe them? And it puts us in this position of understanding, I just created that thought spiral. I created those emotions. I built out these facial expressions that I'm giving this other person, and what I'm saying next is all in my control. It is my responsibility. And if we just start coming back to, instead of trying so hard to like fix your facial expressions, I get, I hear that in our, in our community. Like, you know, how do I, how do I fix my facial expressions? Because it seems like my face is just a dead giveaway of what I'm thinking. And I'm trying to like have a better filter with that. How do I control my tone better? Like we're constantly trying to just like put these filters in place. For our thoughts and for our expressions and for our words and for our tone. We want all of these filters in place instead of just cleaning up the source. Purify the source of your beliefs and you will love your facial expressions. You'll love your tone. You'll love the words that you use. You'll love your heart posture and your demeanor and the way that you articulate yourself. You'll love all of that. When you clean up your beliefs, starting especially with what you're choosing to believe in the moment. And even before that moment, who am I? Who do I affirm and speak over myself every single day when I wake up? Regardless if you do this intentionally or unintentionally, I promise you, you're using I am statements all day long, from the moment you wake up to the time you fall asleep. You're using I am statements all day long. Are you doing it intentionally? Why do I believe them? Oh, because that's exactly what I've been saying to myself. I believe them because that's what I've been looking for. I believe them because I put the responsibility of who I am on them, so I believe their word over mine. How interesting. I'm the only one that's me. I know me better than anybody else, as I'm meant to. And if— and whoever I want to be is someone I can be. And what I'm choosing to believe is going to determine what I'm thinking about next and how I'm feeling and, and what I choose to do next. If I get all armored up and in conflict, That's up to me. The power though, if we come back to this, this idea of purify the source, clean up the source that these expressions and tones and words are coming from, who you believe you are, clean that up, enrich the mindset that comes with it, purify that, and then go have these interactions. And then what people say, if my kids are saying, Mom, you're always working, I know that's not true. I know I love my work and I love my home life, my work-life balance. So their words fall flat back on them. Those words are their responsibility. What? Wouldn't it be wonderful to approach every interaction with your children, your spouse, family, friends with the mentality that what they say is their responsibility? Their words are their responsibility. That means your words are your responsibility. And it is so much lighter to just focus on controlling your words than controlling everybody else's and ruminating on who said what to you and when and how they said it and what they looked like, and it was unfair and uncalled for and harsh and judgmental and critical and la la la la la, why are you believing them? It really nips drama in the bud. Like, I mean, it just really takes it out. If you were sharing that drama and complaining about that person and what they said to a friend and that friend said, why do you believe them? Really changes the atmosphere of the interaction. In the best way, in the best way. I want as many people in my life speaking that way to me as possible. If I get sidetracked, if I get distracted, because we're all human and that happens, I want my husband saying, why do you believe them? I want my kids saying, why do you believe them? My coach, my friends, my clients, I want them all saying, why do you believe them? Because it puts the ownership and accountability back on me. Like Tessa, wake up, look where you're at. Look where you're headed, look at the road you're walking on right now. You could choose any path you want. Why'd you choose this one? Wow. It's all so possible and it's all so obtainable. And then the step after that is you end up in a position that you love in your heart of hearts who you're being, and you just you're being a version of yourself you want your family to have. And that's the intention. That's, that's where your heart's at, is being the version of you that you want your family to have, being the wife you want your husband to have, being the mother that you want your— that you want your children to have. And that's who you want to be, and that's who you are. And then if someone has something to say about it, you can stand behind it indefinitely. You You can love the way you do the holidays, and you can love the way that you parent, and you can love the way that you communicate, and you can love who you are that you're intentionally choosing to be, even if other people disapprove, have criticism to share. They don't like your tone, they don't like that word that you chose, they don't like where you want to spend Christmas. That's okay. That's their right. They can have an opinion just like you. They have an identity just like you. They have a mindset just like you. And we take it back to mindset. We're all doing the best we can to our mental and physical capacity, and my responsibility is who I'm choosing to be in this moment. And you stop attaching to everything that other people are saying as if it's law and it's truth and it's factual. When it's not. It's not. Those are just their thoughts spoken out loud, and some people are saying the first thing that they think. And our first thought is our worst thought. If we just automatically assume that our first thought is our worst thought, would we say our first thought so frequently? Probably not. That's what I like to think. So yes, there's people in your life that are judging and they're criticizing and they're attacking Yes, they said that, and you believed them. Why did you believe them? My growing up, I heard so many things about me, but there was one thing that really stood out, um, and it was when my mom told me that I was the most unforgiving person she had ever met. And my mom and I are in a really great place, and I sincerely appreciate my mom, and I've come to understand and admire her character in many ways. And we just have had extremely different life experiences. And I'm really grateful that this is the life experience that I've been given. And I feel extremely fortunate and I still learn so much from my mom. And, you know, we're in this great place now. And gosh, it was probably like around the age of 17 or 18. My mom told me that I was the most unforgiving person she has ever met. And that stuck with me. I was probably 17. That stuck with me for, gosh, years. I'm trying to put a number behind it. Years. I just referred to myself as a grudge holder. And there was this like common theme, this common joke that Tessa is the grudge holder. And when my mom said that, I just thought, you know, I, I truly believed it. That was like an identity deeply rooted in me, that I'm so unforgiving, I'm the grudge holder. And then I took— and then as I started working on myself, about 5 years later, I really started working on myself, and that came up of like, I just naturally call myself a grudge holder. I naturally call myself and refer to myself as this very unforgiving person, and that's not who I wanted to be. And it came back to this story. I kept the story alive, obviously, because it feeds that version of me that I was choosing to be. I needed all those stories to stay alive so that I can remain a grudge holder and I can remain an unforgiving person. And it required me, like, going through this work that I teach you guys. And I remember, like, when it came about that I was reflecting on why do I think about myself, I'm like, oh yeah, like, my mom said said that to me when I wouldn't forgive her then ex-husband, um, now ex-husband. And I thought about that, and it always felt like the position of power was the person saying the hurtful thing. And that was so eye-opening to me because I was spending my life as someone saying hurtful things to other people, and it was like my go-to number one way to attack when I felt attacked was just say more hurtful things than the person saying the hurtful things. Say more hurtful things, like say deeper cutting hurtful things. And this was this pattern that I had learned that the way you, the way you navigate instances like this is to hurt the other person more than they've hurt you. And that's all that you can do. And that's truly all I knew how to do. Like I can say that with complete confidence. That's what I knew, that's what I understood, and that's what I did. And now seeing it, I mean, when I was working on, working on myself, I'm still working on myself on a daily basis. Being able to identify the pattern though, the piece that really changed it for me was realizing that yes, that was said about me. Yeah, she said that I'm the most unforgiving person she's ever met. Yeah, she said that. And I believed it. Why did I believe that? And it took me to this really sincere place to take an honest look at myself and realize that I can be whoever I want to be. I was choosing to be a grudge holder. I was choosing to be unforgiving. And I can choose to be forgiving. I can choose to be unbothered. I can choose to be merciful. And I found these characteristics that really fired me up that I was like, man, if I could just be that, I would spend every day so, so delighted for the opportunity to be merciful. And, and no longer would these occurrences with other people and these interactions with other people be so bothersome to me because then I start to view them as an opportunity for me to be merciful. Rather than something happening to me. I'm not the victim, and you're not the victim either. So I hope that in this episode you're able to see the bigger picture of things, where people don't have power over you. You give it to them. You give them the power over you. They can say whatever they'd like till they're blue in the face, and you would still need to believe it. For it to touch you like that and to impact you like that. And sometimes it's definitely worth being touched and impacted by other people's words. And we want to be extremely mindful of who we're choosing to be, because if someone else's words can make you unforgiving and make you a grudge holder and make you someone that works too much and make you angry, do you feel very in control of yourself? Are you being who you want to be? That's the part that you actually live with is, am I being who I wanna be in it? That's the part in your control. And you will, you'll live with that. And to me, the weight of that, the weight of, the weight of the accountability and ownership and responsibility of who I'm choosing to be, because I would live with that forever. Has definitely woken me up as a person, as a person, and it's helped me overcome so many fears of what other people were thinking. And then as I've come to Christ, and I enjoy the idea of God-fearing— he's the only one that can judge me, and he's the only judgment that I seek and I look for and I live for. I'm not going to live for the judgment of my neighbor. And the way I body trained my son But I, I will live for the judgment of the Lord. I'll do that. It's extremely freeing. So for you, no one can make you feel angry and ashamed and guilty without your consent and the attachment to what it is that they're saying. So just start asking yourself when you're feeling that way. It's all right if the feeling comes, just sit with it peacefully. And ask yourself, why do I believe them? Because even just in that question, even if you're not sure the answer, even in the question, you take back the position of empowerment, accountability, and ownership over yourself. And you start realizing the only thing that I can control is myself and who I'm choosing to be. And if I love who I'm choosing to be so much and I keep my heart in the right Christlike place, then I can live with the way I choose to spend my holidays and the way I choose to parent and the way I choose to communicate, even if it's misunderstood, because sometimes it will be, and even if it's judged, because sometimes it will be, even if it's criticized, because sometimes it will be. I can live with it and I can love it, and that much is in your control. So yeah, sometimes those things are said to you and about you, and You believed them. So why did you believe them? I adore you guys. I love that you're sharing in this work with me, and I hope that this episode touched you in just the way you needed. And if it put a pep in your step, that's even better. I will see you guys real soon, and see you later.