181. Free or Right | Which One Matters More to You?

Hey friend, and welcome back to the Momset Podcast. I'm your host, Tessa Romero, and after a conversation I had with my friend this week sharing a newer perspective that I have been toying with in my mind and thinking more deeply on, I knew it would make an excellent podcast episode for us here where we could share it together and go a little bit deeper. So today I'm going to share something with you that I care more about for you than almost anything. I care more about you being free than I care about you being right. And I want the same thing for myself. I care more about me being free than being right. And every time I think that, every time I say that, I feel physically lighter. It's like this mental fog, or where the mental waters were getting a little bit muddied, begins to clear up. And by the end of this episode, I think you're going to feel that difference in your mind and body too. So before we get started, I'd love for you to follow the podcast and leave a review below. I absolutely love reading through the reviews and knowing the way that this work has elevated you to show up as who you want to be, just like it's been doing for me. So if you feel so inclined and you would like to help me out a little bit, just go ahead and leave a review below and make sure you're following the show so you always know when our newest episode is dropping. Thanks so much. Now let's dig in. Here's what I've been noticing and where this thought is inspired by. There's a story about motherhood, and I've been noticing this since I really became a mother 8 years ago. And while the narrative seems to change and there might be different details describing it, it all comes back to the same type of storyline and it floats on and on. And it's the way that we end up talking with one another in the pickup line or in group chats, on our screens behind social media, or even at the park. And it goes like this. The kids are up all night. Nobody's thanking me. I'm so unappreciated. I'm so overlooked. I don't get to do what I want to do. I would love to do that. I would love to go on a trail run. I would love to go get coffee, but I can't. I don't have help with the kids. I don't have that kind of support. I don't have that kind of opportunity. So it's like, you know what you want. And then our mind looks for all of the difficulties and ways that we can't have it or why we're not getting it. And I understand why that story spreads. It feels true. It feels validating. And I want to gently point something out. And this is the part that can feel a little bit challenging to entertain. So I want you to do it with courage and vulnerability, knowing that the most true friends in your life are going to help you realize where your own thoughts are hurting you. I want as many friends as possible in my life that are going to say, Tessa, That's a really interesting way to think about that and expect to feel better. You do realize that you just said this hurtful thing about yourself? Like, I expect more from you. I expect you to see yourself in this light because you've told me before this is what you want. You've told me before this is the type of life you're building and creating. And when we have people in our lives that are willing to call us up, I find it to be a really precious and valuable and priceless thing. So I would just love to be a person like that for you. If any of these perspectives, topics feel off-putting at times, I get that. And I've totally been the person to want to be right more than I want to be free. I have lived there. I have been there. I would have argued till I was blue in the face that people make me mad. And this is just a really good example before we get into the others and where I'm going to help guide you through it. I spent the first majority of my life, the first, I would argue, 24 years of my life, totally believing that other people, other things, even down to the weather was happening to me and making me mad. Like if I had these plans to go do something outside and then it started raining, oh, that rain is making me so mad. It's just ruining my day. It's the rain, Tessa. I just lacked the kind of person and maybe role model at the time that could help me see that. And in relationships, my husband made me ignore him. My mom makes me yell at her. Oh, my stepdad makes me so mad. Or all these experiences that I've lived through, the way I was treated has made me insecure. What I experienced as a child has made me anxious. And it's like any opportunity that I had to explain why, I was picking up a shovel and digging my own hole that felt so dark, gloomy, and miserable. Just, I was putting on the punching gloves, ready to fight for that to be right. Fight to be right about the anxiety my past created. Fight to be right about the insecurities my childhood instilled in me. Fight to be right about being a grudge holder. And it's so interesting to me that it took me so long to realize every time I fought to be right, I was paying, I was paying for that with my freedom. It required me to give up my freedom to be right about those things. And what I've learned over the years is no one's going to come save me from myself. No one's going to open up my mind and clean things up for me. And it can feel like a really lonely and challenging position to be in when it's your own thoughts that are the hardest part of your life, where your own head is the worst place for you to be. And again, I've been there, and that's why I'm so passionate and persistent in this work, is because I never want to go back to that place again. So I stay forward-focused in this work. And I invite it into every area of my life. The things that create me, uh, the relationships that I'm in, my goals and pursuits, my relationship with my children, my marriage, every area I'm applying this work because I know what it's like without it. And I, I just, I love the forward focus knowing I am so devoted to remaining in an empowered mindset. And this is just a key little phrase that I've been leaning into. I care more about being free than being right. And even if you just say that right now, I care more about being free than being right. Do you feel lighter? I care more about being free than being right. Do you want to go pursue that argument? Do you want to respond to that comment you saw on social media? Do you really want to go out of your way to prove a point? If it's going to cost you your freedom, who cares if you're right in an argument? If now you feel completely battered down and disconnected from your spouse and trapped and stuck and hurt, all for what? To be right about how a dishwasher should be loaded? Right about the best way to teach homeschool? Like, that popped into my mind. Thanks to our homeschool experience this morning, um, as my husband and I decided to take it on together. And he teaches differently than I do, and I almost got caught up in those thoughts, trying so hard to fight to be right about my way being the best way, my way being better, he should do XYZ. And I refused to let a single one of those words out of my mouth because I care more about being free than being right. My husband's an excellent father. And there's so much more that I could add to that. And yes, my example turned a little bit into a tangent, which you can gently expect from me at this season, although I am working on my discipline in it. I want to get further into this. I just really wanted you to hear that I understand it feels true when we are arguing about and entertaining. I won't even say arguing when we're entertaining these stories in our head about how we're right. About any little thing. It feels true and it feels validating. And I just want to point out that while I get it, every time we do it, every time we pursue being right over being free— and that sometimes in our pursuit of freedom we end up being right about things. More often than not though, there's something for us to learn. There's a path of correction for us to walk. Than there is for us to be right about something. So every time you fight to be right instead of fighting to be free, you give up your freedom in order to be right. And maybe that's what you're experiencing in your life that you can relate to in some of those examples I just shared. So I'm telling you this because I know you can handle being wrong about a few beliefs you've been holding, especially when you realize how much they've been hurting you. And the only option you have for freedom. You are, but you are standing between— your beliefs are standing between you and your freedom. You can feel free in any circumstance you're in, free to be who you want to be, free to believe what you want to believe, free to conduct yourself in a way that aligns with your values. You have that opportunity to do it every single day, and it's so empowering when you walk that path. Even if it means sometimes you're going to be wrong about certain beliefs, you're going to be wrong about some answers you had or some ways you thought things could, could be done or should be done. Like there's going to be a lot of humility along the way. And that honestly feels really good too, because it just reminds us that it's not your job to have it all figured out. It's not your job to be the biggest thing in the room. And as mothers, especially as wives, as women, I find it to be very relieving when I remember I want to portray myself appropriately and accurately to my size. I'm not the biggest thing in the room. No one individual is. I'm here to learn just as much as I am— I'm here to teach. I'm here to grow myself personally just as much as I'm here to help shepherd and guide and grow my children. So being right feels powerful for about 3 seconds. Let's say you, you tell your husband how he should be doing something and it feels powerful for about 3 seconds and then it traps you. What I'm right— when I'm right that my kids never listen or my husband should be doing it this way. Let's follow the my kids never listen. I feel like that's a really popular narrative. When you're right that your kids never listen and your friend agrees, oh my gosh, I know, my kids never listen either, or yeah, I just saw how they totally did that, they totally don't listen to you, it feels powerful for about 3 seconds. And then what? You feel trapped. You have now given up your freedom to be right about that thing that, if I were to guess, you wouldn't even want to be right about. So, and, and you start to wonder like, well, when I'm right about that, my kids never listen, what can I actually do about it? Nothing. I've just described a prison and locked myself in it. My kids never listen is a trap and you walk right into it. And then you wonder why you feel stuck and why you feel so helpless and gloomy in this cage. Being right about your cage doesn't unlock it. So today I want to walk you out 3 doors. Okay, let's open them together. Door number 1, your marriage and the fight to be right about who's doing more. This is such a common societal narrative and it serves no one. No one becomes free in the narrative of keeping score and tracking who does more, who's trying harder. Who's more tired? I promise you, you will never feel free there. Been there, done that. I actually declined the t-shirt. Didn't want it. And this one, it's just, you know, you're keeping the invisible scoreboard, the diapers, the dishes, the mental load, the appointments nobody else remembers, how your responsibilities in the home far outweigh his. And it's so taxing in a way he'll just never understand. Do you hear what you're fighting to be right about? What you are trying to be right about? Do you feel empowered there? Do you feel free? Do you feel peaceful, faithful, grounded? No. And you never will in that perspective. How you're feeling in that perspective is how you will feel in that perspective. Believe that experience. You want to talk about self-trust? Believe how you're feeling in the thoughts that you have. Trust those thoughts create these feelings. I am, I am witnessing it right this moment. If I don't like them, it's my job to change the thoughts. There are millions of ways to perceive one circumstance. So imagine how many perspectives are available to you right this second. That you can only see when you pursue being free over being right. And sometimes, you know, you're like, well, Tessa, I am right about this. I do do more than him. He sits on the couch and he's on his phone and he doesn't help with the kids at night. There could definitely be things that you're, that you're right about in the details. You did change that diaper. You did wipe down the counters. You did make dinner. And being right about it is making these resentful, exhausted, and alone feelings in your home. Thoughts create feelings. So again, it takes us back to, sure, that can be true. And is it where you want your focus to be? Because did you change the diaper just to say that your spouse didn't? Did you wipe down the counter, load the dishwasher, or make dinner just to say that he didn't? Focus on you. You're being the woman that you want to be, the woman that prepares warm meals for her family, that's aware of the nutrition going into each of their bodies, that does her part in creating energy and sustainability and longevity in everyone that she cares so deeply about. You're the one that gets to work with her hands in making all those meals. I feel so fortunate in how many recipes I've had the opportunity to memorize, and that might seem like such a simple or just unrelatable accomplishment, just an un— like undesirable win to experience in life. And for me, I love the idea of having a whole recipe book cataloged in my brain where I could walk into any kitchen and whip up dozens of different meals. That to me feels very safe. It's part of me building out safety. It's part of me knowing I have an excellent work ethic. Anywhere that I go, I create environments that I love. I leave places better than I found them. I have something good to say about everybody. And when your focus on your spouse is, well, he's complaining about people. He gossips about drama, or he's talking negatively about other people, so I have to be the positive one. When you witness what it's like for him to think from that place and speak from that place, does it look very freeing and desirable? Does it look like thriving to you? Do you want that? No, you don't want that anyway. So what do you care in being the one focused on the good? What do you care about building a reputation to be the one that has something good to say about everyone? I would love for that to be on my reputation. Oh yeah. You know, Tessa, it's like she just has something good to say about everyone. It's so refreshing to be around. I'm just going to focus on me. I'm gonna focus on being the best version of me because I feel free when I trust the work of my hands. I feel free knowing I enjoy being on my feet all day long. I love having a next thing to do. I love laying on my belly and building blocks with my boys and then popping up and stirring the pot of pasta for dinner. I love going to the grocery store. If I'm going to do something anyway in my life, I refuse to let scoreboards and resentment be my motivation. I've got a vision to live out, a vision of who I want to be, the type of quality life I want to live, how free I I want to feel on a daily basis. That's my driving motive. And I want it for other people just as much as I want it for myself. So catching yourself when you're carrying these storylines in your head and where your brain starts to trick you into thinking that you're only wiping down the counter or making dinner because he's not. Let's take a deeper look at who you are. You're wiping down the counter and you're making dinner and you go to bed to the clean kitchen because of who you are. What you love, what you— the way you want to walk out to that kitchen the next morning, and deeming that you're deserving of that, you're worthy of that, and you're willing to see it through and make it happen just to receive it. You stop keeping score, fighting to be right about who does more. You stop doing more just to prove that he does less. I even think about this bigger picture. Anytime I allow my mind to have a harmful view of my husband, a critical view, a judgmental view of my husband, I remind myself, that is your husband you're describing. So if that's your husband, what does it say about you? Personally, I want to be a queen. Okay. So I'm going to put a crown on that man's head and he's going to be a king and I'm going to be a queen and I will condition and train my mind to focus on his strengths. Cause oh boy, does he got them. And I'm going to condition and train my mind to remember that the man I fell in love with became that version of him before I ever met him. So certainly I can trust him to be the man that I am madly in love with. And he knows how to do it all on his own without my control, without my influence, without my pestering with letting him be him and, and find his way. And call himself up. And for me to just love him as the man that I fell in love with is such a gift. And it's such a relief to know he literally all on his own, through his own life experiences, in his own way, became the man I fell in love with. Surely he can do it. And that, that personally just helps me. So again, like added layers to this, just remember, like instead of I do everything around here, try. I'm the kind of woman who, whose home runs on strength, and I get to invite my husband into what I need. You can be a kind communicator and want help. No amount of carrying anger and resentment improves the quality of help that you get. Really let that sink in. You do not need anger to be an effective communicator. It's actually quite the opposite. So some of these beliefs that you're carrying are stripping you of your freedom. If you want to be right about, well, people only listen if I yell, do you feel free to communicate kindly and trust that you're gonna get the help, the support, the resources? This is our responsibility to understand. Do you feel that? To live that out? One of those sentences ends a conversation. I do everything around here. The other one starts one. When you realize, oh, in my kind approach and my kind communication and knowing that this is who I am as a, as a woman, this is who I want to be cooking this dinner, and then inviting other people into it. Babe, can you get the baby? I'm going to stir this pot of pasta. Or would you like to stir the pasta and I'll get the baby? Just the kindness and the suffocation, because a family absolutely requires strength and work and kindness, a striving for more. Absolutely. It's just so powerful to see everybody running in the same direction at the same speed because we're all driven on values, not competition of keeping score and resentment. So being right about these harmful thoughts and these harmful beliefs closes the door. Being free opens it. You're not keeping score anymore. You're building the marriage you actually want with your words. Your sense of self and being— I mean, just imagine that, being the wife that always has something good to say about her husband. That just sounds so delightful to me. So let's go to door number 2, your kids. So door number 1 was your sweet marriage, and door number 2 is your kids and the fight to be right about how disrespectful or disobedient they are. When we say my kids never listen, We feel helpless because there's nothing we can do about never. There's nothing you can do about never, and your brain knows it. So remember, when it comes to our language, it's so important because we're either speaking words of life or we're speaking words of death. You're building something with your words. What are you building? A prison? Are you building these cages? Or are you building wide open spaces that you enjoy being in and a few garden beds to contain some of the special growth that you have? Definitely the garden beds for me. So, but what happens when we get free instead, instead of my kids never listen, when we get to freedom and we fight to be free instead of fighting to be right. I know the tone my children listen best for. They hear me just fine. Connection is the highway to the cooperation I'm looking for. Now I'm working on freedom. I care more about being free than being right. Even if my child just walked directly past me as I gave an instruction, maybe they rolled their eyes. You be really mindful of what you want to be right about in that moment and protect the freedom that you are still wildly accessible to. Freedom lives within you. It's not passed over by your kids or spouse. So no matter what they're doing, you still get to be who you want to be in it. And the more you choose to be that best version of you, that clear picture of the peaceful mother that trusts and is lighthearted and uses touch and connection and love, and strength and knows her incredible role as a mother and the authority that it carries in the home, she trusts that that's enough. Everything starts changing. Everything changes. Okay, so when you shift into, you know, I know the tone that my children listen best for. I'm not the victim of their behavior. I'm the leader of it. I'm parenting the 30-year-old I'm raising. I'm looking at my kids, understanding the adults that they're becoming and the process in which I would shape them to be such an adult with these values that we care so much about. How on earth are children ever going to learn values if there's no contradiction to the value that we're teaching? If they don't know the, the multiple different ways that people can choose to behave and think and live, there's no contrast to their life where they would choose kindness because they understand the consequences and effects of disrespect or, or coldness, harshness, mean behavior. That contrast is an excellent way for them to become intrinsically motivated to choose these values over and over and over for themselves. So there's opportunity all around us as mothers, and with the right perspective, we stay focused on the opportunity and we feel free in it. We're looking at our children like, I know exactly who you become, and there's zero intimidation, zero fear around this little behavior, this word I heard you say, or how you're feeling in this moment, because I know who you're becoming. And this right now that you're experiencing, this right here that you did is part of that beautiful process. It's part of that journey. And I want it here. I want my kids to do whatever they're doing. I literally view it as that's exactly what they should do because it's all part of who they're becoming. So I work with it and I feel extremely free in the process. And like, I am an excellent leader. I, I build myself up. You've got to be excellent at building yourself up, holding your sacred ground even when there's, there's unexpected circumstances that you're in, or other people are choosing different directions to walk in, to think about, to feel things. Hold your sacred ground. Know who you are. Know how valuable, how irreplaceable, how wise and mature you are. If you lose sight of all of that, you're going to behave like a child in that moment because that's the example set before you. So your mirror neurons are just going to start firing up and you're going to act like them. And we don't want more of that. Okay. So in, in having the same kids, the same kitchen, the same marriage, we become a completely different mother because we chose the perspective that set us free. We didn't care about being right. See, you never listen. You just walked right by my instruction. Do you even want to be right about that? Why are you fighting so hard for something that you don't want to be right about? Why are you fighting so hard to keep a cage you don't want to be in? What if you put all that energy into being free? Let's explore it further. Okay, door number 3, your own identity. So this perfectly flows into this, and the fight to be right about— I've lost myself. How often are you fighting to be right about you being impatient? You tell your friends, oh, I'm just so exhausted and I handled this so poorly and I'm just completely losing it and I don't do anything for myself anymore. I don't take care of myself. I don't even know what I enjoy. And you, you go on and on and on detailing out this, again, cage. Like imagine that every detail builds this cage around you and that's exactly what you're building because our words build. It's just a matter of what are you building, garden beds or crates and change? This is the one that truly, when I think about mothers fighting to be right and wanting to be right about, I've lost myself, it impacts my heart the most because so many of us are defending this story like it's a treasure. Like, I just refuse. I refuse to view myself better. I refuse to view myself as someone that's been in a metamorphosis of such a transformation, a complete revival and renewal of life with fresh perspectives, values, emotions, priorities. Like I, I want that for other mothers so deeply because I know what it's, what it's been like for me. And again, like, I, I just want to be the best version of myself in articulating that message clearly in a way that lands warmly for others. And I'm very much still working on that. So when we have this storyline though of, I don't even know who I am anymore, and every time you say it, you make it more true. You're speaking it into existence. So when you want to reframe, because that's a really powerful part of this, like your ability to especially regulate before you reframe is extremely important. And you know, I help you with that in my programs. So in the reframe part though, that you can definitely begin, it's a big one. Nothing needs to change before you do. You can be who you want to be no matter where you go or who you're with. You haven't lost yourself in motherhood. Motherhood is the exact place you get to become who you most want to be. It's finally the time that you have the priorities, the severity, the accountability, the values placed right in front of you. You have someone else depending completely on you. What are you willing to give up? Are you willing to give up control? Are you willing to give up stress? Are you willing to give up fear, anxiety? Argumentative behaviors. There were so many tendencies I had, like the tendency to ignore when I felt upset, that I became willing to give up when I met my first son. And I still wanted very much to ignore my husband when I felt offended. And I just kept thinking, like, if this is the example that I set, I mean, that's just going to be the normal. And I refuse for it to be, well, you ignore dad so I can ignore you. Or, or words like me ignoring him one day because I never learned how to stay open and remain regulated in a disagreement or a difference of opinion. Like, why does it even have to be a disagreement? Why can't it just be a contemplation of a new perspective and taking the time to consider and try it on and ask more questions? I want to be able to recognize where my tendencies, perspectives, and, and beliefs and feelings are calling the shots over my life and costing me my freedom to keep them there. And that's what I want for you too. So to me, motherhood cracks us wide open. It's, it's a very unique experience where the things you maybe got really good at concealing or disguising throughout your life now become impossible to— impossible to hide from, impossible to run from even a moment longer. They will be revealed. And I mean, even biblically, throughout the Bible, where it says like all things in dark will be brought to light, that's part of it to me. And by ways and means in which there's just beautiful designs that take place for that scripture to be true. Motherhood is part of that, bringing all of those dark parts and pieces that we've been living with, bringing them all out to life. Motherhood cracks you wide open. And sometimes we find out, you know, I didn't really know who I was before motherhood, and now I'm just extremely aware of that. And I, I believe that's more true and feels extremely more freeing than I've lost myself in motherhood. Because again, we have to ask ourselves, What am I going to do about that? What can I control in that? Now I'm at— and now I'm the victim of motherhood. And who's going to feel very free there? So notice the pattern in all three: marriage, kids, and yourself. The fight to be right always makes you smaller, and the choice to be free always hands you back your power. Being right says, look what's happening to me. Being free says, watch what I do about this. And trusting who you're going to be in that moment, that's freedom. And that brings me to our one action step this week. I want you to catch yourself in a single right statement, just one, something you're fighting to be right about. And it's actually something you would love to be wrong about. And you want to stop using your precious words to build things that are hurting you. So an example of these could sound like, The kids never listen. He never helps. I've lost myself. Just catch it by asking, do I want to be right about that? Maybe you've already said it to a friend. Oh, the baby was up all night. Do I want to be right about that? Maybe there's a more truthful way I can convey this experience. He never helps. Do I want to be right about that? Do I want to be right about having a husband that never helps? It's okay if you've changed your mind and you would rather be free. You know, I really prioritize, I really value us working as a team. That's freedom. The kids never listen. Gosh, my communication skills are getting so much sharper while like delivering instructions with my kids. I realize how important it is to be a clear communicator and respectful in communication. Like that is the road to freedom. Your kids can't stop you. Your husband can't keep you from being that version of you. And that feels extremely freeing. So first, do I want to be right about that? And then just ask yourself one of my favorite questions. What can I say that builds my freedom here? And those are the examples I gave you. I'm realizing how important it is to be a kind and clear communicator. My kids are teaching me so much about communication. I really value teamwork in my home and I'm doing a better job at setting that example. Those are things that build our freedom. So we're going to say the free version out loud, even if you already said the right, the quote unquote right thing that it's like, oh, do I want to be right about that? I actually would love to be wrong about that. It's okay if you said that one out loud, just then ask yourself, what can I say that builds my freedom here and say, actually, What I meant to say is this: give yourself the opportunity to try again to communicate something more truthful, more accurate. And when you hold yourself accountable to say the more truthful statement and you follow through on that, you actually build the discipline and you start building the muscle to say the truthful thing the first time because your brain doesn't love to be wrong about something. It wants to be right about something the first time. So when it understands like the natural consequence of me saying something that was sharp, mean, untrue, degrading, and sacrificed my freedom, ultimately sacrificed my freedom, the natural consequence of that is I will correct myself. So brain, if you'd love for me to stop correcting myself in front of all these people, I highly recommend that you give me the most freeing and truthful response the first time. And it really just takes a few times and it's amazing what happens. So say the free version out loud, one sentence out loud this week, because you get to be right or you get to be free. And I really hope that this episode inspires you to choose being free more frequently and just notice the difference that takes place emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically for you in this process. So I hope this episode reached you in just the right way. I would absolutely love for you to leave a review of the show. Sticking around here to the very end. I'm sure you have excellent feedback for me, and I would just love to hear the way this work has touched you, as I've shared so much over the years about how it's touching me. And ultimately, this podcast is inspired by the way I'm living the work, so I'd love to hear how you're living it too. Thanks so much for being here, for trusting me to be part of your journey, and I look forward to sharing more with you very soon.