48. Choosing to Be Different and Setting Intentions

Hello, my beautiful friend, and welcome to the Mind Body Alignment podcast. I'm your host, Tessa Romero, and also your coach. I'm here to teach you powerful skills and tools to not only know who you are, but how to become exactly who you want to be. With a mindset that finally supports you. I'm so grateful that you're here. Let's get started. Oh, what a day, my sweet friends. How's it going? I hope that you're just showing up and rocking it as exactly who you want to be. And if you are not doing that right now, just know that that's okay too. And there is a. That you can meet yourself exactly where you're at, even if you feel like Tessa, I am completely out of alignment with who I want to be. How the heck am I supposed to meet myself right where I'm at? You can. That's when you pause, you breathe, and you really observe where you're at. And you go to that place and you say, hey, we can get out of here. We can do different. Here's the first step we're going to take. What a simple way. What a. What a profound way to start changing to meet yourself right where you're at. Instead of putting crazy expectations on yourself that honestly just adds that overwhelming amount of pressure that you're already feeling to heal your past and to stop projecting your hurt and to stop the yelling, the hitting, the. The aggressive behavior that you've been acting on. You're already trying to do all that, and I know that. And I just want to start this episode by encouraging you that no matter where you're at, that's where you're starting. It's not the finish line. It's just where you're starting. And you can decide what is one thing I can do right now? What is the first step I'm gonna take that looks like meeting myself right where I'm at and going in the direction that I wanna go in. Is that first step taking a breath before you respond? Is that first step getting down to your kid's level and just giving em a hug? Is it wrestling them on the floor? Is it deciding, you know what? Nope. I'm making dinner at home tonight. Is it choosing to just stand up and do 10 air squats? Whatever that first step looks like for you, take it. Because that's what it means to meet yourself exactly where you're at so you can get where you want to go. Because you are not going to hate yourself and you are not going to shame yourself into a version of you that you love, and all that hatred and shame that you put on yourself is not putting you on the path of changing your behaviors to be proud, to be something that you'd feel very proud of. Okay, so I wanted to start this episode with a little bit of encouragement for you, because I. I know those are things that would have helped me a lot, maybe, if I had heard them 12 years ago or so, because I was always just trying to hate myself into a version of me that I could love. I was trying to hate my body into a shape that I would love. And I was trying to hate my behaviors, hate my personality, hate everything that made me me and everything that I looked like into a version that I could love. And it never worked. It never worked. And I highly doubt it's ever going to work for you. So I just want to share a new approach with you. Right. Anyways, let's move into this episode. This episode, I want to talk about being different, parenting differently, doing things differently, and how unsettling that can feel sometimes, especially when you find yourself in similar environments and you're trying to show up differently in them. So full transparency, I'd say I parent and I live my life very differently than how I was raised. And sometimes that just feels really freaking hard on both ends. It feels hard to show up in those similar, familiar environments doing something completely different. And it also feels hard to battle that urge that I'll feel to do what is familiar. And what's familiar for me is yelling, ignoring, and saying hurtful things. Yeah, getting the last word that would be familiar for me, but I've learned that that's not who I want to be. It doesn't align with the wife I want to be with the mother that I want to be, and just the person in general that I want to be. I don't want to be the person that feels like they have to have the last word. I don't want to be the person that ignores people or yells at people because I don't know how to pause and process before I respond. And I don't want to be someone that reflects back on my behaviors and tries to justify them by looking at what everybody else around me was doing and saying, oh, yeah, they deserved for me to yell at them, ignore them, or say hurtful things. So even though it feels very honestly comfortable and familiar to go to yelling and ignoring and saying hurtful things, I choose to do different, and that feels really hard. There are still times that it feels so hard for me to flip the script in my head, because it just feels comfortable and easy to paint the picture of how my kids are doing this to me, my spouse is doing this to. To me. I am the victim in all of this, and no one understands, and it all falls on me and there's nothing I can do, and it's so unfair. And that narrative, it just feels so easy to do that. And yes, it's very familiar. That's a lot of the way that I was raised. I was raised in a sense of. I truly believed that I was an inconvenience and that I made things very difficult for my family. I was the only one, quote unquote, that thought a certain way, behaved a certain way, and wouldn't just move past things. And my relationship with my mom was very unhealthy. I was extremely disrespectful towards her, and I did not feel respected from her. And that was like this constant battle in this constant tension and friction. And I. I don't agree with all of her choices, and she may not agree with all of mine. And I do believe that my mom does the absolute best she can every single day. I'm just referring to this in the sense of parenting choices. So now that I'm the mother, and you might. You might feel very strongly towards this too, now that I'm the mother and I want to choose to do something different, like, I don't want to yell, I don't want to ignore, I don't want to say hurtful things. I don't want to be the person that has to have the last word or demands respect because I am the mother. I. I want to be the person that earns respect, that earns trust, that can pause, that can process, that can respond instead of react. And that means overcoming a lot of what just feels comfortable and feels familiar and stepping into. And leaning into that, that hardness, that difficulty that it is to do something different. So when I show up in those environments and I'm choosing to do something different, I really just maintain this mentality that, honestly, I apply to just about everything, and I want to remind you of it, that everyone's doing the best they can to their mental and physical capacity. Not everyone's willing, first of all, willing to work on themselves, ready to work on themselves, has a desire to work on themselves or even sees the areas of themselves to work on. And I think that would be a very difficult way to live life. I actually know firsthand what it's like to live life that way to. To truly be so deep in that victim mentality that you 100% believe that people make you yell, that's hard to live life that way. So if I'm showing up to an environment and I'm around people that truly think that way, I'm not holding it against them. I still stand firmly in this person is doing the best they can. Even if they do differently than I do, I'm choosing intentionally to do something different. And even if they don't understand, I feel very strongly in what I'm doing, doing and confident in what I'm doing. This isn't something that I feel ashamed of and I want to run from and hide from. And I also don't control this person's perspective of me. And guess what? If I'm choosing to be in this environment around these people or wherever it is that I'm taking myself, if I'm choosing to be there, that's my freaking choice. That's my part in the circumstance. And it's so like you will feel so freaking empowered to overcome the victim mentality when. When you are aware that the victim mentality, blaming, complaining and justifying. So catching yourself doing those things and asking yourself, what is my part in this? What is my role in this circumstance? You have a part. You chose to go there. I chose to be in this environment. So instead of trying to control everyone in that room and what they're going to think about me and my different choices that I'm making as a parent or as a spouse or just as a woman in general and how. How I choose to live my life. I'm running a business. I'm spreading a message that sounds very different than the popular narrative. I feel very passionately and strongly about what I'm doing. I'm extremely energetic. I'm intentional, I'm deliberate, I'm creative. I. I love living my life this way. And that does not mean that everyone understands it or has to understand it. I don't need everyone else to understand it in order for me to do it. And you don't need everyone to understand who you are in order for you to be her. So you're choosing to parent differently than how you were raised. And that feels really freaking hard sometimes because you have comfort in what's familiar. And maybe yelling, ignoring, and saying hurtful things is really familiar and you just find so much comfort there. I get that. I really get that. And I'm here to tell you that sometimes for me, flipping the script, pausing before I respond, processing, responding in freaking general, asking questions, getting curious, being playful, leaning into, like, humor, and lightheartedness and connection with my kids and zooming out to see the freaking bigger picture. All of that feels really hard, and I choose to do it anyway. And I'll freaking keep you updated when it just becomes my natural default. I'd say it's gotten a lot easier for me over the past five years, but I would not say it's my natural default. And more like, seriously, it's easy to see examples, like on social media, for example, and you follow a mom account, and she just seems so calm all the time and put together, and she's just thriving with 18 kids, and she's calm and she's playful and she's lighthearted and she. She sees the bigger picture of what she's doing and why she does it. She doesn't get lost in the day in and day out task. And, like, the way she does it just is so graceful and gentle and nurturing and motherly. And you're like, gosh freaking dang it, am I ever gonna get there? Is that ever gonna be my default? I don't have the answer to that. I don't have. I don't have the answer if that will ever be my default. I don't. I do know that we can keep trying. I do know that we will get stronger. And as we get stronger through our practice and our daily intention and focus to do this, to overcome that urge to yell, to overcome the desire to ignore, to overcome that reactive behavior of saying hurtful things, to overcome and replace all of those things, we will get so much freaking stronger. And because we get stronger, it will feel easier to do, but the challenge itself will remain. So maybe one day it will become our default friends. I. I sure freaking hope so. I'm right there in your corner with you like, yes, let's make this our default. A hundred percent. And I just. I don't have the answer to that. I do believe that it gets easier. I do believe that we get stronger. I do believe that it can become more natural and more comfortable as it. As it gets more familiar. But we also have to understand that we all have different experiences in life, different upbringings, childhoods, examples, influences, environments, and all of those things matter. So I want you to really consider what you've been through in your life, what's happened in your life, and how it's shaped you, how it's made you who you are today and why you do what you do. There's always a reason why we do what we do. And when you give yourself that space and that grace to consider those things, you'll realize, like, wow, I'm really not a bad person. You're not a bad person. You've never been a bad person. Sometimes we don't make awesome choices, sure. But there's always a reason why we chose to do that. And it's not because we want to be, quote, unquote, bad people. That's not it. We're just doing the best we can. And as you see that in yourself that you are truly doing the best you can, you'll be able to have that perspective in the environments that you go to, where maybe other people may do not agree with what you're doing, but you feel very confident in that ability to pause before you respond and to overcome the reactive behaviors and urges to just lash out and shut down. You can feel really proud of yourself and really confident in and allowing yourself to do that. And that's just what I have conditioned myself to do and believe because I have chosen to keep people in my life and I have chosen to stay in these environments to an extent. Extent. To go to the family holiday, to interact, to socialize, to have these relationships. That's my choice. And because I've made that choice, now it's my job to equip myself to remain in alignment with who I want to be, even in those environments, even in those circumstances. And you can do the same thing if you want, obviously, to remove yourself from those environments, from those relationships, from those influences. More freaking power to you. I love that for you. This is your life, this is your choice. I'm just here to provide a perspective. That's my job, is to provide you a perspective and to reassure you that if you're doing something different and it feels hard to do it, that doesn't mean that it's wrong for you to do it or you're doing it wrong. It just means that you are doing something that does not feel familiar and comfortable. And all growth feels uncomfortable. How freaking amazing is that? All growth feels uncomfortable. If you stand up right now and do 10 air squats, it's going to feel a little bit uncomfortable because you're working your body, you're tearing down those muscle tissues so that they can build back stronger, you're growing. And the same thing with that mental resistance that we feel when we say, okay, I'm going to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. And then you wake up and you're like, oh, your mind's flooded with those thoughts, like, I'll just go back to sleep. I didn't get Enough sleep. It's too early to start the day. I'll feel better if I just wake up when the kids wake up so I can have that extra sleep. And you. And you start telling yourself this story that doesn't necessarily serve you, and you're experiencing that mental resistance, you can still choose to get up. You can still say, you know what? Maybe those thoughts are true, maybe they're not. Let's get up and try. Let's get up and see anyway. Let's see what happens when I just keep the commitment that I make to myself and do it anyway. And you. And you meet yourself right where you're freaking at is possible for you. So with this episode, it's a quick one, it's a good one, and I just want you to feel encouraged, empowered, to go out there and be who you want to be, even if other people don't understand, and even if it looks wildly different than how you were raised. Just because it feels different, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, does not mean that it's not meant for you if you know that it's what you want. You want to be gentle, you want to be nurturing. You want to be like that mom with the 18 kids that seems so freaking calm and like she just sees the bigger picture every day and she's so grateful. You want to be that it's all right if it feels uncomfortable at first or five years later and it feels unfamiliar and you're like, man, I'm still trying to get this. I'm still trying to figure out. You will be so proud of your growth and progress over the next day, two days, one year, five years, 10 years, 15 years, looking back at your entire life, you will be so proud of yourself that you never gave up and that you knew that this calling in your heart to show up and be different, do different, feel different, that you pursued that and you allowed yourself to experience it. You will feel so freaking proud of yourself. And that's where I'm at right now. It's been five years of intentionally and deliberately doing this good work, and I love it so much. And I honestly feel like the luckiest girl that I get to share this with you all. And I truly hope that I spend the rest of my life improving, improving, getting better. I know I can make better content for you. I know I can serve in better ways. I know that there's more I can teach you and give you, and I'm still learning how to do, do that. And I'm just meeting myself right where I'm at. I just Refuse to quit. And the same goes for you. Every time I have that urge to yell, and I do. I have the urge to yell. I don't. That's it. I make the choice. I make the choice to do different. And if that means that I take a really freaking deep breath instead, if I squat down to the ground and I just sit, crisscross applesauce, and I throw my hands up and say, I don't really know what to say right now. I don't know what to do right now. When I have that urge to yell, I basically just surrender. Like, I refuse to let this overcome me. And I'm not sure what to do instead right this second. So I'm going to surrender. What's the rush? Why push myself? Why force myself to have an answer right this second? I'd rather pause and find my alignment in that moment. Same thing with ignoring. I'd rather communicate. Man, this urge to ignore feels so strong right now. And I don't really know what to say. And there's so much vulnerability in that. And you choose to communicate instead of ignore. And the same thing with hurtful things that you want to say. You just want to get that last jab in there, the last word. Say the freaking hurtful thing, and you choose not to. You choose to do different. You hold this expectation of yourself and the way that you're choosing to respond. And we're going to. We need to do a whole freaking episode about expectations, friends. But really, the way that I coach their expectations is focus. If you are setting an expectation for someone else in your life, your spouse, your kids, your in laws, whatever, make sure that your expectation is realistic and communicated. You need to communicate your expectations and keep them realistic. But more than that, what I love about expectations is that you can just have expectations for yourself. What do you expect yourself to do when your children scream? When your spouse comes home late? When your in laws make that comment, when your parents make that comment, because you're choosing to parent differently. Expectations are so powerful. And you can hold yourself accountable to meeting the expectations that you have for yourself because you do control you. As much as we want to convince ourselves. I don't control myself because my kids make me yell, My husband makes me mad, my in laws make me offended. My. Like, they, they make me feel hurt. They make me do all the freaking things that I'm not proud of. Like, no, they don't. Those are our choices. Those are our freaking choices. And you know what? If you're listening to this podcast episode, good on you Good freaking Anya. I'm proud of you. I know that this stuff can feel really hard to talk about, to listen to, to think about, and to apply like an implement in your own life. And then you go back and you self reflect and you're like, oh, man, I get it. I've been there. I've walked that road. That's why I freaking paved it, to coach other women through it. You're going to experience that. You're going to experience that. That doesn't mean you sit there in it. That doesn't mean you feed it and grow it and flame that fire so that it just fan that fire so that it gets so much bigger. We're not gonna turn it into shame. We're just gonna realize I've been out of alignment with who I wanna be for a really long time and I'm done living this way. You can find clarity. You can ask yourself, why do I do what I do? And you can hold space for yourself and you can have self compassion, you can have self love, and you can freaking realize that all of these ways that you've been reacting are not who you are. Your initial reaction is not who you are. That is your programming, your. Your experiences coming out, making their projection into the world. That's what that is. Who you really are is how you choose to intentionally respond. All that intentionality in your life, that is who you truly are. And she's fighting like heck to get to the surface. She's freaking begging for an opportunity to live this life. Because the experiences and influences and projections that you and conditioning that have been projecting all this time, they've had enough time in the spotlight. Let me freaking tell you, mine have too. They've had enough time in the spotlight. We're done with it. We're ready to be different. We're ready to step in and fully own exactly who we want to be. The way that we want to parent, own that entire narrative and live intentionally, because that intentionality is who you are. The initial reaction, my urge to yell, my urge to ignore, my urge to say hurtful things is not who I truly am. That is the conditioning that I work tirelessly at overcoming. That's all that is. It's a reaction of my conditioning. It's a reaction to the experiences. It's the projection that my mind is making based off of a prediction. That's all who I really am, that conscious being, is the intention, the intention that I set and how I show up after it. And then the more we spend our life living intentionally and choosing who we are deliberately deciding to be different, do different, feel different. The more we spend our life there, the easier it is to overcome the initial urge without acting on it. Maybe right now you're still acting on the urge. Yeah, been there freaking too. You're going to overcome it. Just remain intentional with your response. The reactivity got the best of you for a minute. Okay, that happened. What are you going to do next? Because that's who you truly are. And you can do this. If I can do this work, you can do this work. And I promise you that I will get better for you. I promise. And I want you to promise that you'll just keep showing up with me and we'll just keep trying together because we can be who we want to be, and we deserve to be who we want to be. And you know what? The harder your life circumstances have been, the more important your mindset is, the more important your identity is and your intention and your action to heal and become who you want to be. Because no one can heal for you. No one can do this work for you. I'd say I'm an excellent coach, I'm an excellent guide. I make a great challenger for you. And there's still just no way that I can do the work for you. No one can. No one can do this work for us. So make that commitment to me. Promise me that as I continue trying to be better for you and showing up better for you and finding new ways to serve you, you'll just keep showing up and trying with me. You'll just keep on keeping on, keep on trying to be who you want to be. And I'm going to help you get there. I know that this is what I meant to do, and I just want to do it so well. And we've been doing a great job. We've been doing a great job over the past five years. And I just know that we are so close to. To finding new ways to serve and make a bigger, greater impact for mothers and for children and for families all over the world. And it's just. It's so exciting to think about. It's so exciting to think about, to just be able to finally heal, truly allow all of us to heal so that we no longer project our hurt. Because all of that anger that I feel, the yelling, the ignoring, the one who say hurtful things, those are just coming from places of me that still need healing. And the same thing goes for you. And although those tendencies and urges do not appear as often for me, when they do come, they're not who I am. It's like, oh wow, this is here I can make that observation. I can ask myself, why is this affecting me so badly and what do I need? And I can choose intentionally to show up and be who I want to be. And so can you. So moral whole, whole story wrapping up of this podcast episode is to know that it's okay to be different, to choose different, to feel different and to try different than what you were raised with. And those initial reactions that you feel are truly just your mind making predictions and you're projecting the hurt that you still feel. And it's not who you really are. Who you really are is how you show up with the intention and that comes next. And eventually you're going to set the intention first. Just like setting expectations with yourself, that's setting intention first instead of living for the reaction. You are responsive, you are intentional, you are energetic, you are deliberate, you are kind, you are gentle, you are nurturing. You are motherly. You are phenomenal. And the work that we're doing is undeniably important. So thank you for being here. Thank you for giving me this chance to share with you. And I just feel so freaking excited for what's to come because we are making a huge difference in the lives of mothers all over the world and I'm just so grateful that we get to do it together. So keep on keeping on Mama. You go ahead and focus on yourself being the mother that you want to be. That vision that you have is real and it's in your heart on purpose. So I want you to act on it. Set those intentions and do the best you can. Keep on meeting yourself right where you're at. Do the best you can and you're going to continue growing. Thank you for joining me on this week's episode. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe. Subscribe and share it. I love spreading the message of how positivity can come in so beautifully to help you through your journey of self discovery and healing. I'm cheering for you. I believe in you and I'll talk to you really soon.