185. The Courage to Break Your Own Rules | All or Nothing Mindset

Hello, my friend, and welcome back. We took a little bit of a break from the show, and this episode is going to be dedicated to why I did that. And I know that there will be parts and pieces that you so strongly relate to. And I just want to give you a heads up that this is more of a raw, real, vulnerable, pulling back the curtain type of episode. Um, and if you're looking for something more direct towards mindset and marriage or mindset and motherhood, Just scroll through the episodes and find one that's a little bit more organized than this one, probably. So anyways, welcome back. I obviously took a break from the show if you are used to listening regularly. And if you're not, I think you're going to find a lot of value in this show because I'm going to talk about having the courage to break some rules that we have created for ourselves and having the Humility and curiosity and willingness to even explore where you've created rules for yourself in your life. This is something that has been recurring for me all year long. So basically for 10 consecutive months, this has been a recurring theme for me where I believe that my awareness to these rules that I tell myself I must abide by are showing up in my life without even my full awareness or design around them, my intentionality. They're just there. And a good example of this could be the podcast, definitely. But I first want to share about my morning routine. So earlier this year, and even before that, I would say when my youngest was about 6 months old, so about 18 months ago, I got into this habit of waking up around 4:00 AM and he would do this like 4:00 AM to 4:30 timeframe feed. And then I just found that I felt better if I woke up for the day after that feed. I laid him down, this little baby. I laid him down in my bed to keep sleeping. And then I would just get up and I would stretch out and move my body a little bit, read my Bible, journal. Sip my coffee quietly, whatever I wanted to do that morning. And it felt so nice. And I felt so much better than trying to like get myself to go back to sleep and, and then try to wake up between 30 minutes to 1 hour later when inevitably one of my other kids was awake. And it just felt so much harder to try and go back to sleep than to just get up. So I got into this habit of getting up between 4 and 4:30. After my baby would nurse. And I noticed that I did feel really good. So I kept doing it and I developed a morning routine that was very early in the morning. And then I started sharing it on social media. And that's kind of my tendency is I find that I can share things that I'm doing and relate most of them back to mindset. And that's what I care so much about. And I love mindset. So I was doing that, right? Well, then time continued and I was still feeling good. It just started to feel stressful though. Like I still felt good after waking up and working out or getting out of bed and reading my Bible or journaling. And I was like documenting a lot of this on social media and I was feeling good from the effects of what I was doing. Internally though, and mentally, I felt very stressed. And it was no longer about like, well, I feel better getting up than going back to sleep right now. Just the simplicity and the weightlessness about that. It became pretty rigid for me. And I do have a tendency of that in my life where I can easily get into an all-or-nothing mentality. And I can easily get a little extreme with things, if that's not very obvious about me. It's definitely true. So as I was going through this morning routine, it was probably, um, I would say the first, I don't know, 8 months of doing that, it just continuously felt good. And then at some point in some part, I started creating these rules for myself of what time I need to go to bed, what time I need to wake up, what I need to have prepared in order to have that morning routine ready. And it definitely turned into an all-or-nothing mentality. And I was able to catch that because when I would wake up, eventually my baby was sleeping a little bit better and there wasn't the 4:30 AM feed. And I think that's kind of when this shift took place of, okay, the baby didn't wake up at 4:30, but my body's naturally waking up just kind of in this habit. And now I'm like, well, okay, I'll just get up then. I should get up and, and I need to get up in order to feel my best. And then I know this might sound just a little bit messy, so I hope that you're able to keep up with me and like my thoughts around this. It turned into an all-or-nothing mentality. Yes. And I knew that because I was able to recognize that if I woke up, let's say at 4:45 instead of naturally at 4 or like 4:15. If it were like anytime after 4:45, I would feel this stress like I was behind. And if I woke up at 5 or later, it was like— and I was still up before all of my kids. I had these thoughts that, well, now I can't do all that I want to do. And if I can't do all of those things, then what good is it getting up right now? I'm just going to go back to sleep. Even though I still know about myself, I feel best when I get up, when I wake up. That's when I feel my best is I wake up and then I get up. But my brain was so fixated on the time and the time that I was sharing admittedly on social media. If is it in that 4 o'clock hour? Is it 4:00 AM? Is it 4:30? Oh my gosh, it's after 5:00. I'm not setting the right example. And I put a lot of pressure on myself to take this influence and what I deem to be leadership with a lot of care. And sometimes that just creates rules in my head of like, well, what does someone with this influence or with this leadership need to be doing? What should she do? What time should she wake up? And it just— Yeah. Feels very mentally tiring. Like, if even just listening to that, I was like, oh, that sounds like a lot. Yeah, it is. And there's much more to it than that. So I've just been really going through that. And I really didn't— and I just didn't like this idea of telling myself that I was behind at 5 o'clock in the morning and that You know, I would have no flexibility with myself to just go write my I Am statement in my journal. If even if it wasn't going to be a full page that morning, I could just write my I Am statement, but I wasn't doing that. I could read one verse in scripture and let one verse in scripture touch me and impact me and show me how powerful it is just with one verse. And I wouldn't do it because I was like, well, it's not going to be a whole chapter. I'm not going to read like the whole chapter inside of John. And I, I mean, what good is it to just read one verse? And it was like that idea of All or nothing. And what good is it if it's not all? Then I might as well do nothing. And that's what I saw myself do. I wouldn't like just stretch and bounce on my toes for a minute, do some type of movement if it wasn't at least a 30-minute weightlifting workout or at least 5 miles on the treadmill. What good is it to run 2 miles on the treadmill? On the treadmill. And I— When I say this out loud, I can see a few different perspectives around it. And regardless of your perspective of it, I perceive it to be a really extreme thing. Like, okay, we are making this a really big deal from my position living through it. I would love to be someone that understands what's actually most important about a morning routine. What is the most important part? Part of my morning routine, and that's actually the question that I started to ask myself when I caught on to this all or nothing mentality taking place around my morning routine. So I started asking myself, "Well, what is the most important part of your morning routine?" And I just didn't have an answer. I didn't have an answer because I would so freely give up the workout and my page of journaling and even reading my scripture. And I know that these are all good things that help me. feel amazing. When I read scripture, I feel amazing. When I journal, I feel amazing. When I work out, I feel amazing. Like, they're all good things. But when I asked myself, what is the most important part of my morning routine, none of them stood out as like, okay, this is the most important part of my morning routine. And I knew that were true because I would let them all go if I didn't wake up at a certain time. And again, Love all of them, but clearly they're not the most important part of my morning routine if I would just let them go like that. So I started just being a little bit more slow, a little bit more gentle, a little bit more open-minded regarding myself and just really getting into that curiosity, absent of judgment, just the curiosity of what is the most important part of your morning routine. And what I came to was The most important part of my morning routine for me personally is the attitude I greet my family with. Because I have done both. I have slept in until my kids wake up and I have woken up 2 hours before them and done all the great lengths and extents of a morning routine, like outside 5-mile runs at 5:00 AM. I saw a shooting star at 5 o'clock in the morning. I thought it was the coolest thing on a run one time. And, you know, I've done, I've done the all and I've done the nothing. And in the all and in the nothing, what I found was the attitude I greet my family with is what I believe is the most important part of my morning routine. And kind of just landing on that, it opened up this idea for me because at the time in trying to find that answer, I decided I'm going to turn off all of my alarms. Stop laying out my clothes the night before. Stop telling myself I have to be asleep at a certain time, which means my kids need to be asleep at a certain time. And that's where this idea of breaking rules that I had set for myself that I didn't even know I was carrying as a rule and something so important that it's this rule that our greater being is operating on us following these rules. And if it's not extremely obvious to you, I really care about rules being followed and being a good person that follows rules. That runs very deep in me. And it's also important for me to be able to recognize when I've set a rule for myself that is directly competing with what I say I value. And that's exactly what happened. I got so much into this all-or-nothing mentality and these rules and following these rules that I was pursuing that so much that I lost sight of who I was becoming in the process. And in an effort to get my kids asleep at a certain time so I could be asleep at a certain time, I was becoming very stressed, rigid, forceful, controlling, stern, and serious at bedtime. And that really got my attention. That really got my attention because that's just not who I want to be as a mom. It's not who I want to be as a wife. I don't want to decline intimacy with my husband because it's 9 o'clock. Like, it's just at any time. Like, I don't even want to do that at any time. Noon, 9 PM, midnight. Like, I— that is not who I want to be, and it is definitely who I was becoming. In the process of keeping all of these rules. So at the beginning of summer, I woke up to this idea of what I was operating under and decided, I'm going to really intentionally break some of my own rules and just see what happens, rip off the Band-Aid, throw myself into the deep end and see, do I survive? I don't know. This feels so serious. Just let the kids stay up till 9 o'clock. Like, oh boy. Just— but it was real for me. It was real and it felt scary. And I'm still so glad that I did it. I'm so glad that I threw myself in the deep end to just try. And what I found was something so beautiful, and I'm calling it the sometimes mindset, and it's helping me bridge the gap between You know, just the way, like who I want to be and, and the diversity and the complexity and the nuance of life. Like, cause I personally am not down for going to bed late, being up with my kids a couple of times, and then still expecting myself to wake up between 4 and 5 AM or even like a minute before my kids. I just, that's just not who I want to be. That's not the standard, the expectation I want to hold myself to. And sometimes I wonder like what impact social media has had on me in that capacity of sharing and trying so hard to use this influence and this leadership and for good and to share the things that I learned along the way. It's such a tricky thing. Like it, I say that social media is a mind game and it really, really is. And it has felt for a few months, actually longer than that because I took 60 days off of social media earlier this year. So we could say a long time that professionally my mindset has felt like it's been in a dumpster fire around content and Momset and this role that I'm in. And What? Just so many questions around it that I didn't feel like I had the answer to. And it was really challenging for me to have a clear vision around it because it felt so competing with what I wanted to experience personally that that's pretty much why it got to this point. Um, and again, I know this episode just has so many layers to it, but it's where all or nothing is showing up in my life personally and professionally. It's where these rules for myself are destroying my vision of who I want to be personally and professionally. And I hope that in these diverse examples, you're able to see some areas that potentially this is happening for you and you can know, okay, Tessa has been through this too. This is exactly what Tessa was talking about. And you know, this is what she did. And it might sound extreme, like you're throwing yourself into the deep end. And that is exactly what I did. I turned off all the alarms. I let myself break some rules. I recognized that it felt very uncomfortable to still see my kids jumping on the trampoline, such a good thing, at 8 o'clock at night. And that might sound so extreme to some people. And I have complete compassion and understanding for that too. And it's exactly where I was at. So for you, the rule may be just the opposite, that you can't You can't let your kids fall asleep before 8 or 9 PM. Like, I don't know, what are the rules that you've set up for yourself? You can't be intimate with your husband if it's past 9 PM or if it's before bedtime. Like, what are the rules that you are trying to keep in your life while still becoming who it is that you most want to be? And I'm willing to guess, because I've experienced this personally and professionally and physically and spiritually, I'm willing to bet that— The rules you're keeping in your life are directly preventing you and competing with the version of you that you most want to be. Because that's exactly what it—that's what it was like for me. In order for me to get out of the all or nothing mindset, I needed to allow myself to scrap what I was doing before and find what is actually most important to me. Well, the answer was the attitude in which I greet my family with is what's most important to me. And sometimes I'm gonna have the best attitude when greeting my family in the morning. When I wake up at the same time as them and I just stay present with the 2-year-old that is rolled over on his belly with his little butt sticking up in the air and he's sleeping and my husband's right on the other side of him, taking the time to notice how sweet and tender and miraculous that is for a girl like me. I think about that for the life that I've had. I really, it is, it is bizarre to me that this is where I am today for the life that I've had and who I was choosing to be and the things that I've done. Like, who am I to have 4 incredible children that adore me? Who am I to have this husband that adores me and the opportunity to love them and to be loved? It just. It really does humble me very quickly because I don't feel like I'm deserving of it. I don't feel like I'm deserving of this platform to share things that I'm still very much figuring out, and a social media influence that I still wonder what is it that I do here again. Like, it's it's such a real experience for me. Like, I'm definitely experiencing it very deeply and very. Very real in the moment every day, personally, professionally, spiritually, and physically. And taking back to that point though, what is the most important part of my morning routine? Well, the attitude in which I greet my family with. So sometimes I'm going to have the very best attitude when I'm just present, laying in bed up before them. And Taking the time to just study the little features of my 2-year-old and study the handsome features of my 36-year-old husband and feel what it's like to be in a 32-year-old body. That's going to be it. And there are some times where I'm going to have the best attitude greeting my family when I am up at 4:00 AM and I put on the clothes that I laid out the night before and I wait until after my workout to have any coffee. And I read my scripture and I am so prayerful through it before I talk to a single person that day. And I do fill a whole page in my journal. Like sometimes that's going to be what it is. And what I learned is when I get out of the rules for my life and I just let myself stay in the vision of my life, who do I most want to be? That's when I allow myself the flexibility to be present, And do what I perceive to be what is right in that moment for the time that I'm in. And I wonder for you too, like I said, where are you holding rules in your life that are actually preventing you from being who you want to be? And then you deny your heart and you deny your soul the opportunity to just express that freely, to express your joy, your enthusiasm, your excitement, your gratitude, your— Awestruck wonder. You deny yourself the opportunity to do those things because you've got a rule in place. And, you know, it's, it's just been really freeing for me. And I'm still very much finding, finding them and finding my way. And it definitely doesn't always bring out the best side of me. Sometimes it feels like a wrestle to, to break that rule. It feels like this wrestle between Peaceful and kind and silly at bedtime and this wrestle of selfishness where I just want to be out of there. And I'm wrestling between the two. I'm wrestling with the selfishness in me and the immaturity that's still very much in me and the selflessness and maturity and just big picture perspective of like, What if this really is the last night that I have with any of my kids or their last night with me? To stop operating from this perspective as if I know I'm going to wake up the next morning and I just know that they're going to wake up the next morning. I think those are just really hard potentials to constantly contemplate. So we sometimes just get out of them altogether and we don't think about them near enough. And again, it's not something that all or nothing, you need to think about it all the time or none at all. I just have learned that when I am feeling immature and I am feeling selfish, allowing my mind to go to a place like that and using my thinking, which thinking is just a Q&A session with your brain. So using my thinking, using my redirect skill to ask the type of questions that help me gain a better perspective in that reality and a wholehearted approach to the moment that I'm in. So that way I get out of the severity of control and ultimatums and You know, give a, an extreme portrayal of what it is that I'm feeling to try and manipulate someone else. Like, very, to me, very human ways of going through life sometimes. Like, nobody's perfect. And I just know that 100% of the time that I do that, I feel awful. There's never been a single time that I have felt Like that I have rushed through something and got my kids to sleep in any means necessary and said like, ah, let's do that again. There's just, I don't know. I just, I really, I want a whole life. I want a wholehearted approach to life. And that kind of brings me over to the podcast topic too, where I took this break from the podcast and More than that professionally. And I think it's a good, like, so that was the personal experience. And then professionally, I made a few decisions this year to stretch myself and see more of what I'm capable of. And I just, I feel deep in my heart that I'm capable of so much that I can push a little too hard for these things instead of just knowing. It'll come when it comes. And I'm just going to put one foot in front of the other. I'm going to stay present in this moment and give my best to the day that I'm in. Yeah, I would really like to spend more time in that. But it's what I'm conditioning myself and I'm prayerful there. I am referencing my scripture to keep me there. I'm journaling to keep me there. And, you know, it's just, there's more parts of me that need to be met in order for me to fully live that out. There's some parts of me that I haven't even met yet before I can get there. And I'm like, okay, well, that's a good thing we've got life to keep going through it. But with the podcast, I was like, okay, I'm gonna— you guys probably noticed this shift earlier— I'm gonna post 2 episodes a week. Like, I set this goal for myself and I I did do that the best that I could. I was like, I've got this, I've got this. I started scheduling podcast episodes out in advance and I was like, I enjoy doing the podcast. I'm going to do 2 episodes a week and I'm going to— I had my mastermind, my Good to Great mastermind going on, which is currently going on. It happens every 6 months and we're in our second cohort for it. So I was like, okay, I'm going to create this new curriculum with the same 6 skills for the Good to Great Mastermind. Absolutely love it. I stand by that curriculum. It's a complete accurate representation of the types of skills I walk myself through rapidly in the moments that my best perspectives come. And I absolutely love the way that I'm showing up. So I'm like, perfect. This is going to the Mastermind. And I'm doing my membership, the Momset membership, and I'm going to give them my best. And we're going to have these monthly challenges. Great. And I was like, ooh, and I'm also going to create Strong-Minded Mothers. So Strong-Minded Mothers is going to be this 12-week program. And it's going to be all about maintaining authority over your five key pillars and like all of these things. Well, I just you know I I I um I thought I I thought that was the right thing to do genuinely. I genuinely thought. This is the right thing to do. This is the right time to do it. And I'm capable of all this and I have the capacity for all of this. And what I soon found was, unfortunately, God let me find this all on my own. So he said, okay, you go on ahead and do that then. And you're going to learn through natural consequences. So I learned very much through natural consequences. Um, it felt extremely difficult to maintain the cadence of 2 podcast episodes a week. And in order to try and like help me sustain that, I was like, okay, well, I'll use AI stuff. So I'll feed AI the story and it can pop me out a script. So that way I'm not needing to like spend so much time and effort organizing my thoughts and like blah, blah, blah, which is literally completely opposite of me. Like I, for years, never used a script on the podcast. I feel best when I'm not following a script. I've tried using scripts for my talking head reels. When I want to teach something in like a minute or less and I overthink, it's the time that I'm like, oh, that's not good. That's not good. That's not good. And it'll take me like 50 takes. But when I just let my heart speak, I never feel like I overthink it. I never second-guess if I said that as good as I could. I just, I let my heart speak and I keep my energy about it. You know, when I try to follow the script, I lose my energy and then I lose like that runoff story that ends up being really important. So anyway, I learned through my natural consequences, you know, yes, you can pump out a higher, uh, quantity of these episodes and it's going to be lower quality. And the actual like heart in this work and my personal experiences and, and my conviction in all of this and what I'm actually thinking about My life and the people in it and who I want to be and like who I want to become is all cut out. Like all of that is cut out in every way that I've tried to do it. And for me professionally, what this has like repeatedly looked like is I seek out the guidance from people that I believe are further ahead of me. And I'm like, okay, they said this is the next step that I should take. So I'm going to take this next step. And that is just not God's plan for me. God's plan for me apparently is for me to just be present and do the next best thing when I see to do it. And if there's anything I've learned this year professionally, that is it. That is it. That I have my own path to walk in his own good time. And he's given me more than enough to thoroughly enjoy the position that I take in this life. And I just want to stay open to all that he has available for me without trying to like push things and control things and force them along. And yeah, I wonder why I got feeling so tired. Well, it's because I was trying to force everything. So that's the podcast. And then with Strong-Minded Mother, like, I already have all of these programs and all of these courses and my membership and my podcast and my Instagram and my mastermind group. Why on earth do I need to create another program? And it was just so interesting to me because I was like, oh my goodness, like heart on fire. This Authority Over Self program is going to be incredible. And I love the idea of like maintaining authority over ourselves. And I believe in that wholeheartedly. And I can just teach that with what I'm already doing instead of creating a whole other program, which is just like, you know, Tessa, that would be great to do when you're 55 and all of your kids are moved out. And, you know, maybe just not at all. Maybe just not at all. I have 4 young kids. They are 8, 6, 4, and 2. And I'm living the life of my actual dreams. And I have worked so hard and done so many uncomfortable things to be in this position to experience this, and then I'm just like running on to the next thing instead of just experiencing what I dreamed about. And that is the part to me that, you know, I just don't want to be that person. I really, really don't. So I decided to table the Strong-Minded Mother program until further notice. Like, and it was so cool though because it was a similar experience to when I said like, okay, I'm just going to turn off all of my I'm going to get up when I wake up. Like, that's that's what I want. That's who I want to be. I want to be someone that gets up when she wakes up, and I'm turning off these alarms, and I'm breaking these rules. And I was doing that in my home, and I just I lingered through bedtime, and I spent quality time with my husband in the evening, and our intimacy was more spontaneous and fun. And you know, I just like surrendered in so many ways that my life got. So much better than I was trying to make everything go my way. And I set all these rules in place to ensure that it always goes my way. And then professionally, when I told myself, like, just take a break from the podcast, and it was like this mind-blowing idea to take a break. And when I told myself, Tessa, you have more than enough, just table the Strong-Minded Mother program. Take the concepts that you love, teach them with what you've got now, table the program. I felt like I could take my first breath in 6 months is what it felt like. Like I, I could breathe again. And I wonder in how many areas of our lives we just create so much stress by constantly growing our to-do list and our what's next list that we miss out on how peaceful and wonderful our present life is. That how much of your life today— and I know we've all heard this before, and it's actually worth sitting with— how much of your life today is exactly what you had hoped for, you had prayed for, you had wished for even just 5 years ago, 10 years ago? Oh my goodness. Like, this, like, I live in a safe home. That in itself— people in my home ask me questions about what I think and how I'm feeling and what I want, what I'm doing, if I'll do something with them. Mom, will you come play basketball with me? Mom, come jump with me. Watch this, Mom. I just I am invited and I'm included and I'm sought after and I'm paid attention to. And it's so easy to— I think it's so unfortunate. And I do believe that it's so easy to overlook the most important and impactful and safe-ridden and peace-giving things in our life. The details that are just, gosh, they really wake you up. They crack. They, they are what shatter your guards and defenses. You got to be able to pay attention and sometimes contemplate, what if this is my last night with them? What if, what if this is my last night with them and their last night with me? What if this is the last time I can do this? I was on a trail run last week and it was an 11-mile run. And it did sound really hard to do, and it— I didn't feel like doing it. And I'm training for my part in pacing my husband during his 100-mile race, which is coming up this weekend. And oh, so I'm just so touched and wrecked with gratitude, and, and just my mind is blown. My mind is blown by this. It's, it's changed so many things that I— perceive and believe about people and reality and what's possible in this life. And I'm so grateful for that. And I had this 11-mile run on my training. It was supposed to be one of my last longer runs, and I didn't feel like doing it. I was like, there's a lot of elevation in this. And yeah, we're going to add in even more elevation, like just so many things. And I just literally like told myself, If this is the last time I can ever run 11 miles, I'm going to make it a good time. And that really like helped me. It really did. And I think it's interesting. And I think about this probably because I'm exposed to it so much. I might be exposed to this a little bit more than you are, or maybe you're exposed to it more than me. It is on my mind though, just how frequently in, in a social construct of narrative, we're told that questions like that— if, if this is the last time, like, you know, you have a last time for everything, and what if you don't wake up tomorrow? What if your kids don't wake up tomorrow? This is your last bedtime with them. Like, questions like that are being categorized as toxic. And now you're just like this toxic person that doesn't, doesn't process feelings, and you have— you don't feel anything, and you're telling people not to feel irritated, not to feel stressed, not to feel overwhelmed. And, and that's not at all it. That's not at all it. It— and I think it's more damaging and harmful how many people have a fear around considering a bright side, a silver lining, a possibility, an invitation that they have in a moment to be someone that they want to be. I think that's more damaging than the process in itself of wondering, who could I be in this moment? Yeah, sure. That's what they're doing. And what's the best thing I could do about it? And again, like, I— social media has really, um, played— it's played a big impact on me over the last 8 years. And I do experience a lot of fear around social media. And I was talking with a client of mine this morning and she started posting on social media and she's doing a fantastic job. And she helps women enjoy intimacy more and create a mood to be intimate with their partner rather than just wait for a mood. And it's driven for women that want to be more intimate and enjoy intimacy. And she teaches something called intimate storytelling. And I absolutely love it. I think it is so genius and phenomenal for our current reality and this desire and pursuit to enjoy intimacy with our spouse. So I was talking with her this morning and we were talking about just briefly sometimes the negative comments. And I was like, oh, those messages, those comments really, they hit me deep. She was like, really? Like, why? Like, what do you mean? And it just got me thinking, like, why does it hit me so deep? And the advice that I've always been given on that is like, you just got to put up a brick wall. I mean, people— like, I've had the incredible opportunity to talk with creators that have millions of followers and get far more, far more Criticism thrown their way than I do, that I'm aware of anyway. And the advice that I'm given is to like you just got to put up a wall, like have a brick wall kind of thing. And I thought about that, and I was like, well, I've literally worked so hard over the last twelve years to put down my guard and to put down these walls that I've built up to believe that I'm impenetrable and I don't I don't care and. I don't need— I mean, I just, I used to be a very guarded person with a lot of walls up and a lot of defenses. And I've worked so hard to become someone that can feel. Like, I didn't cry for so long. And in moments that, like when one of my grandpas passed away, I didn't feel anything. And that was really alarming to me. And that was still in high school. And then even just like a few years ago, I just, it just felt like, uh, I still had this numbness about me. And there were things that like, I wanted to be the mom that could cry studying her child's face. I wanted to be the wife that could cry at the start line of her husband's race. And I wanted to be the woman, the person that would cry driving by a tragedy. In my town, someone passed away this morning in a motorcycle accident. And I want to feel that. I want to feel tragedy and destruction. And oh man, I just— I want to feel things. So maybe that's why social media has been feeling so hard for me is because I'm actually feeling things much better and in much more healthy ways than I really ever have before. And I cry, I cry for beautiful things and I cry for funny things and I cry for hurtful things and I cry tears of anger and I cry so much more than I ever remember crying in my whole life. And I love it. I did cry at my husband's start line for one of his races this summer. And I do cry when my kids told me that I'm a great mom. And I love that. I love that. So if, if there's some like, and I'm not saying that I need to take every comment on social media so personally, I just am reflecting on why it is. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's just more proof that I really am healing and I really am softening and my heart is such fertile ground. That it just— I feel things. I feel things. And maybe that just shuts up all the messages that I have toxic positivity and I don't actually feel my feelings. Because who's the one actually processing and crying? Me. And who's the one that still sees it as a representation of growth rather than weakness? Me. So I'm gonna keep that. I'm gonna keep that even if I post less content because it takes me a minute to Find my bearings again. I think that's okay. I think that's okay. So yeah, with like the Strong Minded Mother program deciding to table that, it gave me the opportunity to feel like I could breathe again. And it doesn't mean that I'm not doing anything. Like I'm still in obviously I'm like here on the podcast and in social media content. But in everything that I do, I just want to make sure that my professional life is never harming my personal life, and that I'm actually being who I want to be in all quadrants of my life personally, professionally. Spiritually and physically, not just one and then watching the others suffer. So if something's got to give professionally in order for me to protect who I'm becoming personally, I'm more than willing to see that happen. And if something's got to give personally in order for me to protect who I'm becoming spiritually, okay, deal, game on. So maybe just evaluate that in your life. Where do you have this all-or-nothing mentality coming in? And what rules have you set in place for yourself to protect that? And just ask like, what time do I think I need to wake up? What time do I believe I need to eat or have my coffee? Or do I have these mentalities that say, I can only be the mom that I want to be after I've had my cup of coffee? Or goodness, the narrative on social media that like, don't talk to me before I've had my coffee. And just things like that. They do impact us. You— we are instilling beliefs every single time we say phrases like that. And I always like to remember that the subconscious mind has no sense of humor, so you, you cannot just write it off as sarcasm, humor, or heaven forgive me, dark humor, and then pretend like it doesn't impact you. Oh, it does, and your subconscious mind takes it all literal. So I think there's, there's room for humor, absolutely. But humor doesn't have to be at the expense of your mental health or your emotional wellness or your marriage or your motherhood. I think there are a lot of really funny things that still protect those. So a few things look a little bit different moving forward. Um, I'm gonna do the best I can with the podcast and share what is real, true, And on my heart and really happening in my life here on this podcast. The membership, the Momset membership is where I'm putting my best effort as well as my mastermind group. So those 2 professional places where I work with clients is where I'm going to be. I'm going to be. And social media, just letting myself feel and stay in my energy. for the podcast to stay in my energy, know that that is a real gift about me, and I don't need a script. Teaching myself that. But I am doing something a little bit new. I've decided that once a month, and this is really helping me to have clarity with social media. So this is a big reason why I'm doing it too. Once a month, I'm hosting an I Am statement building workshop. So I love this idea so much because I believe everybody needs a powerful I am statement that they can see to be true for them and calls them up. So nothing that's very like comfortable. It needs to challenge you, but also call you up into who you want to be, but not be so far that you're like, I can't do it. And there is like a skill, there's an art, there's a craft to it. And I have really mastered this Over the last, goodness, 8 years of helping women, including myself, create I Am statements. So my I Am statement, I am the Father's goofy girl, certain and attuned to his will etched on my heart. And I take that with me professionally, physically, personally, spiritually, everywhere in every moment of my life. I take that I Am statement with me and it absolutely challenges me and calls me up and it's obtainable for me. So I don't want you to have an I Am statement that just kind of leads you to want to crawl out of your skin. That's not helpful either. So in this workshop, it's just a 1-day workshop unless you get VIP, then you get another extra day for Q&A time with me. And I'll coach you through your circumstances, give you a kick in the butt with your energy, help you see things a little bit more clearly, and definitely create an I Am statement that you absolutely love. And I've linked it below for you guys. So I'm going to do this once a month. I'd love to see you in the October I Am Statement workshop where I can help you there. And then you're going to leave with something actually tangible that you can use while you're making dinner and eating dinner with your family. Even if a lot of the same thing, a lot of the, a lot of things in your life remain the same for a while, your kids' behavior, your husband's attitude, your current job position, If we can get you seeing new possibilities in your life of who you can be and what is available to you and what you're good at and what your strengths are and where you want to nurture yourself and grow more as a person, I would love that for you. And it absolutely just enriches your life. There are no cons to you becoming who it is that you want to be. There are things that you give up, absolutely. But the cons of like destroying relationships, no, it's something completely different. Um, so visit the, the notes below for a ticket into that workshop. I am going to do it once a month. And then in our membership, we are sharing so much about mindset and motherhood and marriage. October is our fun in marriage topic and challenge together that I'm very much looking forward to and excited about. So if you're someone that's like, okay, I hear Tessa's heart in this. And she's not perfect and she doesn't have it all figured out and these tools are still working for her. And she does love who she's becoming in the process. And you want some of that? That's what I teach. That's what I teach. That's what I'm all about. That's what I want for you, to love who you are no matter where you go or who you're with. Be who you want to be. So I will talk to you guys really soon. I'm sure we'll have a lot of great stories too as my husband's running his 100-mile race. This weekend, and it has been a year in the making, so I'm very excited to see how it all turns out. I'll see you guys later.