67. If You Don't Use It, You Lose It. What Would You Like To Lose?

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. Hey, my sweet friend. Just checking in on you. How's it going? How you doing? I hope things are getting better in the direction that you want them to be going in, because you are walking in that direction and you are taking the time, time to focus on what sets your soul on fire and what helps you feel alive and what helps you just feel good. And that leads us to this episode of if you don't use it, you lose it. And what helps us feel good. I've been reading a lot of books lately. A lot. By two, I've finished two books, which in the past three weeks, for me to finish two week, two bucks is actually remarkable. I normally don't read very many books, and I just. I want to get into it more. So I finally just said, you know, I'm going to read every single day. I'm going to make this goal of reading. And I have literally read every single day for the past three weeks, except one day. There's one day that I didn't read. And I feel so good. I feel so much better. And I've had this limiting belief literally my entire life that I suck at reading. I'm a slow reader. It's difficult for me to comprehend what's being written in the book. Like, and I've just thought that way about reading for so long, since I was a kid and I was in, like, these special reading classes to try and help me get caught up. And I didn't have anyone, like, reading to me at home. And if I look back at my little report card things that I have since grade school, really starting in, like, second grade, I started getting these, like, report cards. And it's interesting for me to even acknowledge what teachers were saying about my behavior and that time of my life and the shift that happened in my report cards, like, when my dad passed away and how severely my behavior changed compared to when I had my dad. So it's. It's really fascinating to look at all that. And that being said, I look at those little report cards and they. The teachers would constantly say the same thing. Practice reading at home with Tessa. Practice reading at home with Tessa. Practice reading at home with Tessa. Tessa needs to be practice reading at home. Like, it was just year after year after year, these teachers saying the same thing, and it didn't happen. I didn't have help to read at home. And now as an adult, I think I just held onto this limitation of, like, oh, reading is so hard for me, when in reality, reading is difficult for me because I don't do it often enough, I don't practice it enough, I don't prioritize it enough, and I don't think positively about it enough so I can read. I'm actually a really good reader now. I just want to instill this desire in myself that reading is desirable and it's a positive thing, and it enriches my mind. And I feel so good when I do it. I want that to be my mindset about it. So that's why I am committed to reading every single day. And in the past three weeks, I finished two books. I finished Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill and. And Hunt Gather Parent. And I'm spacing the author's name right now. And it's such a good book. Um, and I'd love to do some reviews for you. And anyway, coming back to this podcast episode, if. If you don't use it, you lose it. And creating more of the feelings that we want to be experiencing. As I was reading Hunt Gather Parent, there was a portion in there about anger. And I thought it was, like, so fitting to put into this book because she's talking about in the book other cultures and how they parent and how, like, what our ancestors can teach us about parenting and how basically, the Western world has lost a lot of natural ways of parenting, and we're pretty much just doing things very differently than the rest of the world is doing things. And it makes a lot of sense why we are experiencing the feelings that we have and the thoughts that we have and the actions that we have towards our kids. So it's such a good book, Hunt Gather Parents. Such a good book. I can do a full review on that. Anyway, there was a portion in the book where she talked about she was interviewing a someone that, like, specializes in anger and parents experiencing anger. And the professional that she is interviewing, she asked her something along the lines of, like, what can parents do to, like, stop feeling so angry towards their kids? And it was. I loved the answer that this expert gave. And she said, well, for starters, they can start cultivating more awe. And in. In that idea of cultivating more awe, like, I really sat there and, like, pondered this idea of how often Am I cultivating awe in my daily life? Like, to truly stop and feel, like, isn't that amazing? Like, isn't that amazing? And the whole. The book talks about, like, walking your kids through, noticing awe and wonder and. And allowing their mind to, like, really consider, wow, how does that happen? That is amazing. And there, this whole world and the sunset on the horizon, like, there's just so many things going on that are bigger than me. And as humans, we have this desire to be a part of something that's bigger than ourselves, and it makes sense that we would include that with our kids. And anyway, this expert goes on to talk about, basically, if you don't use it, you lose it. And it just. It blew my mind. And I wanted to do a whole podcast episode on it because I really think it would help you shift your perspective out. Out of, you know, I am sad and I am angry, and I am depressed and I am irritable and I am frustrated and I am resentful, and. And I've told you guys about I am statements like, they are not suggestions. They're actually commands for your mind. So if you're commanding your mind by telling it, I am angry, what is it then going to do? Well, it's going to think more things that truly create feelings of anger. They create feelings of disgust, they create feelings of resentment, they create feelings of disinterest, and they create feelings of frustration. And we do that with our thoughts. So we're thinking this way and we're feeling this way, and then we're doing more things and that look like anger. And when we understand, okay, this is the process that my mind is going through, how much time am I spending saying, I am angry and I am depressed and I am sad and I am resentful? You are not those things. You can feel that way. And that's totally valid. I feel that way, too. There are totally times that I feel that way. And I know I can choose to feel different. I can choose to think differently about this person that I say I hate. Well, I probably only think that way about them because I have a single perspective that I'm holding onto and white knuckling, because I like feeling this way. And even if you tell yourself, well, I don't like feeling angry, you get comfortable feeling angry. And when you don't feel angry, you start to feel uncomfortable. Then you just crave this feeling of anger, and you better believe that you will go out of your way to create more of it. It's fascinating. Your mind doesn't care if what you're doing is good for you or not. It just wants to do what's easy, what's familiar, what's predictable, what's comfortable, and sometimes that looks like anger. So going back to this idea of cultivating awe, the expert was saying how parents can spend more time helping their kids cultivate awe and doing it for themselves. Because kids, if they have a different focus, their feelings can change very quickly. And. And the more often they're experiencing good feelings, the faster they can move through the hard stuff and they're not getting, like, so sucked in so deep over this anger and frustration that they didn't get the color popsicle that they want, or their brother is sitting too close to them, or the baby is crying in the car. Like, whatever it is that your kids can feel really upset by. Kids are so amazing at showing us, like, how this process actually works for all of us, not just kids. The difference is. Listen to this. The difference is if you don't use it, you lose it. Kids are frequently throughout the day using this perspective, using the feelings of awe and wonder and curiosity and joy and gratitude and love and. And just a real. A real desire to explore and to live and. And to be happy. They are doing that so much more frequently throughout the day than we are as adults because they're playing, they're learning, they're socializing, they're. They're building things with their hands. And the more we give them the opportunity to do that, the more they can stay in their natural state of being kind and helpful and loving. That is their natural state. And it's up to us as parents, as adults, to cultivate that and to see that in them and to nurture it. And when we think about ourselves, if you don't use it, you lose it. Are you using your abilities to feel joyful, to feel grateful, to look at the world and say, wow? To really study the sunset and wonder how all the colors got there, to look at a garden and to feel absolutely amazed that a weed can grow through concrete and that a beautiful flower blooms from the tiniest seed. And now I have this monstrous tomato plant that truly started as one single seed. And I don't know if you've ever seen a tomato seed from a cherry tomato. They are tiny. They are so, so, so little. And my garden is in full bloom right now, and I'm watching the strawberries go. And have you seen a strawberry seed? They're so tiny. And have you seen a green bean seed? That one seed has everything it needs to become exactly what it's meant to be. And I believe that about us, too. And when we don't allow ourselves the opportunity to just sit back and look at nature and look at life and look at people, the fact that we're here today is a miracle. It is. It's miraculous. It's wonderful. It's wild and just so amazing that a sperm and an egg come together and form us as people and that your body can do that. And we can birth babies, and babies grow into toddlers, and toddlers become little kids, and little kids become little teenagers and many adults, and then they become adults and they learn and they grow and they adapt, and we're malleable. Like, we can change our mind. We can have one belief for so freaking long and one day decide to change our mind. Isn't that amazing? How often are you allowing yourself the opportunity to feel amazed? Or are you just putting your head down, going robotically throughout your day as if you're just this machine with no feelings? And if you ever have feelings, they're just bad feelings. I think it's really. I love. I just love this perspective of if you don't use it, you lose it. Like everything in life, if you don't use it, you lose it. If you don't use your muscles, you lose them. You can work so hard for so long to put on this muscle mass to build your endurance, to run the. Those 8 miles or the 13 miles or the 26 miles, to do your marathons or whatever. And if you don't keep that up, if you don't continue conditioning for it, you will lose that muscle mass, you will lose that endurance, you will lose that. That perspective of how wonderful it is to be able to run. And then we. Then we feel amazed when someone else doesn't share the same perspective of us. Right? And I had. I had an experience of that this past weekend. We were at a cabin, and we were having a conversation, and we were talking about, okay, if you had to choose between not being able to. I think it was something like losing an arm or losing a leg or like. No, it was. You have to walk everywhere that you want to go or be in a wheelchair for one year. Like, you cannot use a car was kind of the idea of it. And if you have to choose between walking everywhere and not using a car or being in a wheelchair, and you're, like, confined to that space, and you can still, like, get where you want to go, but you can't walk for a whole year, you'd have to be in the wheelchair. I chose walking everywhere and the majority of the room chose being in a wheelchair because then they could still have access to using the car to get to the places that they want to be. And I said, well, I just, I love the idea of the freedom to move my body, that if I just want to get up and run, I can just get up and run. And there was one person that laughed at that that I like took it back to running because this person doesn't like to run. And it's, to me, it's just a perspective like, wow, I, I love to run, I love to exercise, I love to move my body because I'm doing it today in my life. It is a huge part of my life. And if I weren't doing that consistently as a huge part of my life, I would forget how good it feels. I would forget how important it is. I would lose the perspective of why I'm doing it and then just look at it as like, well, what's more convenient? And I think it's really important for us to understand that if you don't use it, you lose it just like a muscle. Feelings are the same way. It can get so freaking easy to feel angry about things that truly they don't deserve that anger from you. It can get so easy to feel disgust and resentful and depressed and anxious and fearful and all of these low vibrational emotions. It can get so easy to freaking feel that way because we've been practicing them most, we've been using them the most, and so they're the strongest. Whereas the good feelings, the high vibrational, positive feelings of joy and happiness and gratitude and awe and wonder and adoration and inspiration and all of that, that just, gosh, it makes life so freaking wonderful. And it makes every single circumstance that you go through so much easier when you have these feelings that you know how to create. And you create them often. You do so intentionally, frequently so that you can help yourself through the hard stuff rather than thinking, this is just the way my life is and of course this happens to me, just add it to the freaking list. Here's more anger. Maybe anger's so easy because you haven't been using, you haven't been actively creating and intentionally creating the emotions that you want to experience. And if you don't use something, you lose it. If you don't use and act on your interest to learn something, you're going to lose the interest of learning because you don't do it. Not because there's nothing to learn or there's nothing that interests you. It's just you haven't been making it an intentional focus in your life. And as I was reading the book Hug Gather Parent, and they referred this idea of create more awe, and that's how we can help parents too, is helping parents realize that we have the ability, we have the capacity to create more of the feelings that we want to experience. And this whole law, the literal law of if you don't use it, you lose it applies to emotions too. And I've personally never considered it to be that way. And now that I am considering it to be that way, I'm truly like, spending time when I'm watering the garden. I'm not just like standing there watering it. I'm like really studying each plant and allowing my mind to think about how incredible it is that these plants are here in the first place, that they just need some water, the nutrients in the soil, the sunshine coming down on them, and they thrive. And the same thing about my kids, like, I'm just watching them, like, wow, isn't that amazing? All of it. Their interests, their love, their joy for life, their desire to do things with me. Isn't it amazing that if I just say, hey, will you come do this with me? My 3 year old is all freaking over that task. Like they want to do something so badly that they're willing to fight us for the opportunity to do it. I want to make my bed. I want to be the one to get dressed. I want to put the toothpaste on my toothbrush. I want to stir the pot, I want to cut the vegetable, I want to do xyz. I want to hold the grocery list. Like they want so badly to do things that we often resent doing that they're willing to fight us for it. And what's fascinating is that we fight them back. I said no. Is that really helping you feel the way that you want to feel? Is that helping you cultivate the feelings that you want to experience? Or are you just doing what's comfortable, what's familiar, what's easy, what's convenient in your mind? Oh, it just sounds easier to be in a wheelchair for a year and still have access to a car than, gosh, have to walk everywhere. Well, maybe you've been living life in a wheelchair for a year and that's like you've handicapped your emotions. Let's look at it that way. Rather than putting in the work to walk where you want to go, to learn how to run there more efficiently, to build up, to go through the Freaking work and effort to build up the conditioning that it would take to be able to do it. Easier to put on the muscle mass. Like, yes, that takes more work. Sure. And you also feel a whole lot better. And you're also just proud of yourself and you feel like, I know how to create joy when I want to feel joy. And I know that a better way through anger is curiosity. So I'm going to cultivate more feelings of curiosity right now, rather than just sitting in this feeling of anger because I'm white knuckling. One limited perspective. We have this opportunity to feel the way we want to feel. We have this ability. And anyone that tells you that you don't get to feel the way that you want to feel and is literally telling you you don't get to change the way that you think because thoughts create feelings. Circumstances do not create feelings. Our kids don't stand in front of us with a little dial in their hand deciding how we're going to feel or what we're going to think or what we're going to do. It's this completely skewed perspective in parenting, in life, about ourselves, in the reality. The actual facts behind it all is that your thoughts create your feelings. Not your, not your circumstances, not the unexpected bill that came in the mail, or getting in the car and finding it on empty because your teenager was out driving it and didn't fill it up, or your spouse coming home late, or your toddler waking up in the night, or the baby having a difficult time latching for breastfeeding. That is not what creates your feelings. It's what you think about every single one of those things. And I just want you to ask yourself, how often am I intentionally creating the feelings that I want to experience, the feeling of awe. How often am I pausing and focusing on all the things that I'm grateful for so that I can feel grateful? How often am I doing all the things that I love to do so that I can feel joyful and fulfilled and interested and engaged? How often am I sitting down and spending the type of quality time that I want to have with my kids so that I can feel the way that I want to feel? If we don't use it, we lose it. And I think it makes so much sense, this perspective. It makes so much sense when we think about where a lot of parents are at and the things that they're saying about being a parent. All of this anger coming forward, all of this disinterest and resentment and aggression and irritability and frustration and Downright freaking negativity that's coming forward with all of this. It's because we ourselves are not taking the time to consider a new perspective and intentionally create the feelings that we want to experience. Because it's been so long, it's been so long that of us doing that that we have lost the ease of doing it. It's easy for kids because they do it often. They use it so they have it. If you don't use it, you lose it. So think about all the things that you'd like to lose. Maybe you'd like to lose the anger, the aggression, the irritability, the resentment, the disgust, the disinterest, the limitations, the negative thoughts. What would you like to lose? Now I just want you to consider, how could you just stop using those things? If we don't use it, we lose it. So how could you stop using your negative thoughts, your limiting beliefs? How could you stop using anger? How could you stop using aggression? How could you rewire your brain to understand this is a non negotiable change and this is what we're going to do instead? You can do that. Your brain is extremely malleable. It can learn how to do new things. You just need to get really clear on what you want. And I think that's one of the hardest questions for people to answer and to have a clear vision on is what they actually want. Because they've been spending so much time focusing on what they don't want. I don't want my kids to wake up in the middle of the night. I don't want to yell, I don't want to hear my kids fighting. I don't want to be late walking out the door. I don't want my kids going to bed at 11 o'. Clock. I don't want my kids waking up early. Like we spend so much time and mental capacity focusing on what we don't freaking want that we are literally losing the vision of what we do want. Because if you don't use it, you lose it. We're losing the ease of creating good feelings. We're losing the vision of what we want because we're not using it, not because it's not available to us. It is entirely something that you can access and you have every right to. You have every right to be who you want to be in absolutely any circumstance that you find yourself in. If your kids are screaming in the car, if they're screaming in front of you at the house, if they get hurt, if they say something hurtful, if they wake up in the middle of the night, if they wake up early, if there's a family trip planned. You have every right to be who you want to be, and you have every right to choose not to. I just want you to know that you're making a choice. So think about what you'd like to lose. What would you like to lose? And now I just want you to consider how could you stop using those things to make it a little bit easier to lose them? Now let's. Now let's consider what you'd like to gain. What would you like to gain? What new way would you like to handle your kids screaming? What new way would you like to help your kids regulate their emotions? Regulate your own emotions. What new way would you like to prioritize your health? Think about these. These new things that you want. What would you like to have? More joy, more energy, more contentment, more fulfillment, more clarity of your life. Think about what you really want. What would you like to have? Who would you like to be? How would you like to feel? And if you just go one step further than that and ask yourself, how do I start using these things so that I can get back to the ease of it all, the ease of being who I'm meant to be, just like I was as a child. The ease of desire to contribute and to collaborate and to be together with the people that you love just as you were as a child. The ease of creativity and dreaming and problem solving just as you were as a child, how can you get back to that? By using it. So what do you need to use more often so that it gets easy? And what do you need to stop using so that you can finally lose it? It's. It's just a perspective, right? And when we really consider this perspective of if you don't use it, you lose it. And we apply it to our behaviors, we apply it to our feelings, we apply it to our perspectives. We see a common theme, that this can go both positively or negatively. And unfortunately, I'm seeing it work in a really negative way for a lot of people. And I know we can get it to work in a really positive way if we just set the intention instead of losing all of the good things because we stopped using them. Remember that first time you saw your baby and you just felt the awe and the love and the wonder and the joy and the pride, and he felt all that. When did we stop creating that? When did we stop looking at our kids that way? What did they say? What did they do? How old did they get that we decided to just stop looking at them that way. And to add to that, there's another episode that I have coming for you about this perspective in parenting that has really been helping me, and I want to be able to share it with you. And I just want you to ask yourself, like, is my heavenly father ever looking at me that way? That he just stops thinking that I'm wonderful and that I'm perfectly made and that I'm his child and he loves me and he is always ready to forgive me and support me without administering punishment and disgust and anger upon me. He'll let me stray. Sure. He'll let me make my choices. Absolutely. And honestly, the consequences that I face are just so natural that I force myself to do it on my own instead of doing it with him. That is the consequence. So if you relate that to your own parenting and how we're trying to administer all of these consequences and honestly losing what we want because we're not using it, we're losing that love, we're losing that awe, that wonder, that complete inspiration when we look at our kids, just because we're not using it, we're trying to control and we're going to such negative places that that becomes more easy rather than our natural state of being, which is love. Our natural state of being, love, connection and belonging. And look at your kids. It's natural to be kind. It's natural to be helpful. It's natural to take interest and to collaborate and can to contribute. And yet we make it sound like there's all these things that we have to do because nobody else will. And it's just a perspective. So really consider what would you like to lose? How could you stop using those things that you'd like to lose just to make it a little bit easier for you to lose them? The mentalities, the behaviors, the feelings. And what would you like to gain? And how can you start using the things that you'd like to gain more often so that it becomes a little bit easier for you? Is this going to take work? Yes. The great thing is we can work with a natural law. If you don't use it, you lose it. Work with that. See how it can actually benefit you to lose the things you no longer want, that no longer serve you, and start picking up the things more naturally that you'd love to have. I hope that you use this perspective to serve you. Remember, it's inspired by the book Hunt Gather Parent. I love that book. And I can do more full reviews of books now that I'M a reader and I'm reading just very intentionally. This is how I wanna spend my time. I wanna spend my time connecting with my spouse, journaling, reading, creating, connecting, and gosh dang it, cultivating more awe in my life. That's what I'm. That's what I'm devoted to doing now, who I'm devoted to being. So I love you dearly. You're doing such a great job, and I hope this podcast episode served you in a way that was exactly what you needed. I'll see you soon. Thank you for joining me on this week's episode. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to 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.