70. Mom Humor and It's Not So Funny Influence

My sweet friend, this episode has two major points within it, and I'm hoping that as we discuss those two major points, and that's going to be more so the influences in our life and what I'm learning in the Bible, I hope that it brings so much goodness to you just as much as it's bringing to me, because there's about 500 things that I want to talk about with you right now, and they all come back to the way I'm being inspired through what I'm reading. And. And it's taken me a whole 28 years to get to this place of reading the Bible. And I just want to inspire you and encourage you to know that it's okay if you don't know where to start. It's okay if you're not sure which version to get. Like, that's a thing, I guess. Like, different translations. People are like, what trans What? Which one do you have? I'm like, rick, if you could tell me where to find that, I'd be happy to give you the answer. And I just want to remind you that it's so wonderful to be a beginner. Own it entirely. Own it entirely. The bar is so low. You can find the answers. And that's a huge theme in our lives, right, is not our ability to have all the answers, but our willingness to go find them, to go find them in books, to go find them in conversation, to shift our perspective a little bit, to pray, and to allow ourselves access to new perspectives, right, to help find these answers. So that is what you need to do. You do not need to have all the answers. You just need to be willing to go find them. And that is a huge skill that we can give ourselves. So I want to start things off with this idea of motherhood and how humor has become a sneaky, subtle way to actually breathe and establish an enormous amount of negativity. And I believe that so much that humor has been written off as this. Well, we need dark humor, and it's just mom humor. And what I find to be so fascinating is you might find what they're saying to be funny. And it's important to know that your subconscious mind has no sense of humor. So, yes, you may be laughing because your conscious mind is processing this as a joke, and yet your subconscious mind is just taking it in as information and. And shifting your perspective, and you consume that content enough. This mom humor, this dark humor, the mom jokes, whatever it is, you consume that enough. When they're putting down their kids and they're putting down their spouses and they're complaining about their homes, and nothing's quite ever good enough. And they never have enough resources, they never have enough help. They really limit. They really lack wonderful things to talk about and things that they're excited about. It's. It's coming back to, oh, I'm so excited for my kids to go to school. So I'm just going to make this video of packing them in a box and throwing them out the front door. Or. Excuse me, that was actually the video about the doctor saying, you need to get rid of your stress. And then the mom puts her kids in a box and chucks them out the front door. And. Yeah, then, you know, that's the mom humor. What else is the mom humor? That, oh, well, our kids are doing this to us and mocking the things that they say. And again, your subconscious mind has no sense of humor. So while you may be laughing, you are being negatively influenced. And I just. I want to encourage you. I want to empower you to make changes, to make changes, to distance yourself from what you know is not serving you just because you find comfort in what someone else is talking about in that moment. I want you to ask yourself, do you really want to be comfortable right now, in this moment, in the way that you're feeling and the way that you're thinking about your circumstances? Is that where you want to find comfort? Or do you want to. Do you want to find comfort in knowing that there's another way, that there's actually a way to feel extremely connected and fulfilled in your home and have a heart of service and to. And to truly believe that everything you're doing is an act of service and you're willing to give tremendous amounts before you get anything, because that's the best way to live life, is to give before you get. And I believe that we can have just as much comfort in those places to know that it's possible for us than trying to stay right where we are and say, I need to find all the other people that think just like me or a little bit, you know, worse on that scale and try and find comfort in that. Because their jokes are funny. Because I relate. We've also talked about relatability, how dangerous that can be for your mind because you're the one deciding what you relate to. Just because you say, oh, Tess's positive stuff is so unrelatable, you know, someone may say that, it does not mean that my content does not do good. It does not mean that my content doesn't serve and lead with truth that our kids are innocent and that there's another way to approach motherhood and. Or that the way I'm thinking about motherhood is not obtainable. That's not what that means. It simply means that the person saying that does not relate, likely because they consume so many influences that mock motherhood and judge it and make harsh remarks towards their kids and honestly put themselves down too, not take care of themselves. So as you're going through your day, I just want you to pay attention to your influences and know that. That even though you may be laughing right now, what is it literally saying? Because that is exactly how your subconscious mind is taking it in. Oh, my kids are responsible for my stress. That's the literal message behind it. And that's exactly what the subconscious mind believes. And it's just not true. What's responsible for our stress is the way we choose to think about things sometimes our lack of action and the consequences that we face from those actions or lack thereof. And when we allow ourselves. I know it's hard, and I want you to know that you can do it. When you allow yourself to take a little bit more accountability and responsibility for the way that you're choosing to think and what you're choosing to do in your life and how you're choosing to help yourself or not, you find so many more solutions. And I think I have just been caring. And this is where it kind of takes me into like the Bible stuff now and where I'm at. In the past couple weeks of reading the Bible, I've realized that I've been living my life with this lens of what other people think about me matters most. So I don't want to stir the pot. I don't want to ripple the waters. I don't want to upset people because they're right. What they think about me would be right. And now I'm realizing as I go through the Bible and I'm reading these incredible books within there. I've read the Book of Daniel, the Book of. We've gone through Daniel, John, and now I just finished the Book of Job and all three of those. I've been able to see that the men and women in these stories are so concerned with what God thinks of them that they're willing to uphold his commandments and be the best version of themselves and repent when they sin and ask for forgiveness and know they're not perfect and do what they believe is right and take his warnings and live by his guidance. And they're not concerned if somebody else believes them or not. And that's just been so profound for me to really think about in the work that I'm doing and trying to spread this message of a new perspective in motherhood, honestly. And walking this. It feels like a mission of us getting to be this generation that enjoys motherhood now while we have it, rather than being another generation that says, I wish I would have. And if only I would have, you know, been more present and didn't sweat the small stuff and included my kids and the things that I wanted to do. I mean, I hear it from mothers every day, every day, giving. Giving these. This advice to us. And in a lot of ways, they're mocked, too. Rather than us just receiving the advice and realizing we have a choice. We can be the mothers that enjoy it now, or we can choose to keep the same frame of mind, feel the same way, do the same things, and add to another generation of women that try to young, try to warn younger moms to not sweat the small stuff and to enjoy it now while you have it, because you're gonna miss it. And that's what I believe this mission really is. And I'm so grateful that I've finally come to this place in my life where I am reading the Bible. And a thing that's helping me tremendously is to just allow it to be fun, allow myself to be a beginner. I'm not currently looking for someone else's framework to tell me how to read it or what stories to go to next or, you know, what is the best way to do it, or even someone else's interpretation of what I'm reading. I'm not looking for that right now. One day, I'm sure I will. I'm sure I would. I would love someone else's perspective and someone else's insight. I think right now, for me, it's just about how can I make this as enjoyable and fun as possible so that I'll keep coming back? Because I've wanted to read the Bible for a long time, and it. It just always felt like I. I don't know how to do that. I don't know where to start. It seems so overwhelming. My gosh, I don't even know what I'm reading and. And I would get so up in my head rather than just sitting down and reading a story and allowing myself to imagine the characters in this story and the time that they were in and what that was like and the stressors that they faced and how. How humbly they carried themselves and how all honestly they Spoke, even if it was different from what everybody else was thinking. Like, I. Right now, maybe you're in the similar spot. I just want to enjoy it. And right now, my enjoyment looks like reading stories. Reading stories, highlighting parts that I feel are very inspiring and moving to me. And then one day, maybe I'll. I'll go all in on someone else's layout of things. And I think it's also worthwhile to mention that there's a lot of different interpretations and perspectives we can have with anything that we learn and anything that we feel inspired by, and that's good. So you might read the Bible without any framework, without any guidance, and just pick it up and read through the Book of Job, and it might hit you in some fantastic way that has not been thought about yet, and you've been given access to a whole new perspective, and it applies to your life in some beautiful way. And then you go look up the meaning of the Book of Job and it tells you something completely different. You're like, well, I didn't get that at all. Like, this is what I got out of it. It doesn't mean what you got out of it is wrong. I think what is helping me do this so much is just allowing it to speak to me the way that it's meant to right now. And the way that it's meant to right now is the message that will come through. And there has not been a single thing that I read in the Bible that I was like, oh, that doesn't apply to me at all. Like, it's all been good. It's all been worthwhile. And I just want to encourage you a little bit on that. And there were a few things in the Book of Job that really stood out to me that I feel like applies to this when we're thinking about our influences in motherhood. And yes, there's this mom humor, and we need the dark humor, which, no, we actually don't need the dark humor. And humor is very healing. Laughter is very healing. And. And there's a way to have that in a really healthy way that encourages your subconscious mind to focus on the good to allow you to see how free you are to move about motherhood and be the creative woman that you are, to find your solutions and focus on what you enjoy and do more of what you love. There's a way for that to have humor, too. Just because something's funny doesn't mean it needs to tear somebody else down or dampen an experience or. Or anything like that. Like, we can really do it different and have humor. So I have a few funny things to also share as I tell you about my experience in the Bible and before I get into the book of Job and what I really took away from here in terms of, like, motherhood especially, I've been, you know, going through. And back in 2020, I. It was, you know, mid Covid, I was, like, seeing all the things happening, and I just literally said to myself, the devil is real, which means I need to lean into God. Like, I need to be on the good side of all this and figure out right from wrong and what's really true. So the Bible felt super overwhelming. I did open up the Bible at that time in 2020, and I had just had my second Luke, and I opened up the Bible to a random page, and I swear to you, it was right on the book of Luke. And I was like, wow, what are the chances? Blew me away. And then I learned that the name Luke means light. And I was like, wow. Like, literally since Luke was born in my bedroom, I called him a light. Oh, my gosh, he's just such a light. And then I learned that, and it just felt like God speaking to me, like, letting me know, like, yes, you're on the right path. You're doing good. You are on my side, and I'm on your side. And it just felt so good. And as I was reading it, like, I wasn't in this place of fun. I feel like I was coming from this place of, like, I need to do it right. I need to do it right. I need to do it the way that everybody else says to do it. And at that point, it was just, like, not my capacity. Just did not feel like it was there. So I took another approach. I. I got a children's storybook Bible, and every single day, I read one of the stories in that Bible to my kids. And every single night, I read some more of the stories in the Bible, and I read it cover to cover. And I would highly encourage you. If the Bible feels overwhelming, get the children's storybook Bible. It has the best pictures. It is just. It's so beautiful to learn the stories in that way, and it helped me tremendously. So, anyway, I did that back in 2020. So I've had a little bit of familiarity with some of the names in the Bible, some of the images, and, like, who's in the image because of that Bible. Now I'm reading the actual Bible again. These names are coming up, right? And I've been listening to Christian music for several years now and, and I draw a lot of inspiration from it. It gives me so much hope, even if I don't know exactly who they're referring to. It's been so good. So, so anyway, I feel like now that I'm in the Bible, everything's coming full circle for me and I'm making a lot of connections and I. When I was reading the book of John and I. I really want to say this, well for you and I want you to remember that I'm a beginner, so I'm just going to say it in my beginner way and if I misspeak about something, God forgives me. And honestly he's just glad. He's just glad and all giddy up there that I'm even talking about him. So I'm not currently looking for perfection, like at all. I'm just having fun with this. So anyway, I'm reading the Book of John and feel like it's so good. I feel like I could read it every day. It's so stinking good. And what's honestly surprising to me too is the stories in the Bible are very entertaining. Like they keep my attention the whole time. Like I don't even wanna go to bed. I just wanna figure out what happens. Which has kept me up a little bit later than I like to be a few nights now. So we're working on that too. Um, anyway, so I'm reading the Book of John and in there I learned that Mary, I want to say her last name so correctly, so badly. Mary Magdalene. I think that's how you say it, Mary Magdalene. In the children's storybook Bible, there's a picture of her washing Jesus's feet with her hair. And when I first saw that Picture Back in 2020, I was like, are there no cloths? Like why are you using your hair? And there was. I had no real understand at all. It was just my mind like looking at a picture, making an assumption that said a whole lot more about me than Mary Magdalene washing Jesus's feet with her hair. My assumption was coming from a lack of information. And then I just, my mind just filled in the blanks with myself and how I perceive myself and what I think about the world. Which says a whole lot about why I went to this idea of you couldn't get a rag. Like our assumptions are very insightful to who we are and very absent of who other people actually are and why they're doing what they're doing. Because when we're making assumptions, we're really just lacking Information. And that's another helpful perspective to have, especially in motherhood, when people make assumptions about you as well, it's just coming from themselves. So, anyway, there's that picture. Mary's washing Jesus's feet with her hair. And I'm just like, I have no idea why she'd use her hair. She has beautiful hair. Anyway, but then I read the Book of John and it talks about Mary Magdalene. And I had this full circle moment that I was like, holy. That's amazing. So Jesus is there and he's serving, and he's speaking to the people, and he's instilling. He's trying his darndest to, like, work miracles and prove to people like, I am the Son of God, like I am here on purpose. And you would, you know, you need to believe. And so she's, like, trying to prove that to people. And then Mary Magdalene is. Is so faithful in him, and her brother Lazarus gets sick. I believe it's her brother. So I'm again doing the best I can here. Lazarus gets sick, and they send a message over to Jesus and they're like, lazarus is sick. Please save him. And Jesus says, lazarus will not die. And he waits a few more days before going to see Lazarus. And he does all of this so purposefully and so intentionally. And Lazarus actually died. Like, he lost his life. They buried him in a tomb. And it was four days later that Jesus came. And Mary Magdalene was like, my Lord, he died. And if only you had had come sooner, then he would still be alive and you could have saved him. And it was amazing. Just the. Just the way that it all happened. Um, and again, read it. If you want to be really inspired, read it. I'm just saying my full circle moment here. And I keep reading in the Book of John, and they move the stone from the tomb. And Jesus says something like, you know, get up, Lazarus, or come out, or, you know, something like that. I could read it. It's in front of me. Anyway, he says something like that. And Lazarus rises. He comes back to life after being dead for four days. And Mary Magdalene is his sister, and she is just over overwhelmed with gratitude that she gets £40 of this expensive perfume. In which someone else tells her, I believe it's Peter that says, why would you do this? You could have sold that or given the money back to the poor who need it. And Jesus says, because Mary knows that I will not always be here and the poor always will. So she takes £40 of this expensive perfume, dumps it on Jesus's feet, and uses her hair to wash his feet. And in that moment, I understood. When I read the story, I understood the picture illustration that I had seen when my silly mind made these assumptions about Mary using her hair. I'm like, it's like, totally just this act of respect, and you know how powerful he is, and you just want to show. Show your love and show your gratitude that you're willing to use your hair and you want to use your most expensive perfume to. To wash him. And anyway, being able to, like, make all these connections, and it feels like three years of me kind of like stepping into this and hearing in the song, like, can't you hear the voice of Jesus calling us back from the dead like Lazarus? I think it says back from the dead like Lazarus, but I've heard the name Lazarus so many times, and now I understand, like, that's. That was Mary's brother, and he died, and Jesus came back and. And brought him back to life. And Mary felt so indebted to Jesus and so grateful for him that she used the perfume and washes his feet with his hair. And it's just been so exciting to, like, learn all these things. Um, and I wanted to share. Share that with you because I just. I feel like a kid. Like, I just feel like a kid learning something for the first time, and it's just. It's so exciting. Um, and now I'm in the book of Job. And in job 34, he says the ear tests the word it hears, just as the mouth distinguishes between foods. And I love that so much. Like, I highlight it because that's what I believe we need to do as mothers in a world full of so many voices and so many influences, and we have access to so much more information than ever before, and everyone's sharing their freaking perspective right now about motherhood. It is monotonous. And there's all of this mom jokes and mom humor and dark humor of motherhood and all these things. We need to allow our ears to test what it hears, just as our mouth distinguishes between foods. And I've just. I've never considered it that way. And it just blew my mind. Like, yes, I need to allow my eyes and my ears to help me distinguish between what is, what is source in what is ripe, you know, what is rotted and what is fresh. And I. And I can use my eyes and ears to do that. And they're meant to. They're meant to. And then there's another part in here that I really want to read for you. Under job 36, and. And he says so many good things in here. And I think we say his name Elihu. And this is another funny thing to tell you. I was up reading the Bible and Marcus. I was reading out loud to Marcus, who is just. He's such a big supporter for me. Like, he's just down for whatever it is that I'm gonna do, even if he's not doing it too. He's just there and willing and supportive, and I. I love it. And I love how much closer it's brought us and how much control I've been able to release and a lot of big ways of trying of, like, I don't need to control Marcus. I don't need to try and get him to do the things that I'm doing. I can just do what I'm doing in front of him and then let him make his choices. Like, that's been huge. That's a whole nother episode. Anyway, I'm reading this out loud to Marcus, Elihu, E, L, I, H, U. I'm pretty sure that's how you say it. I looked up a YouTube video, how do you pronounce E, L, I, H U? And a one minute video came up, and I was so pleased to see that 22,000 other people also looked up, how do you pronounce Elihu? And there was several different pronunciations. So anyway, pronunciation might be where I fall short in a lot of ways. And I'm working on it. And there were. So there were some things here about the innocent. For example, he says if they are bound in chains and caught up in a web of trouble, he shows them the reason. He shows them their sins of pride. He gets their attention and commands that they turn from evil. And it just like, I literally paused there, and I was like, mark, like, yes, we may go through hard things, and God is the one that gives us reason. God is the one that allows us to see where we could improve ourselves and do differently. Otherwise, things just seem completely pointless. And we're just always these innocent ones and, you know, we have nothing to work on, nothing to improve in. And when I read that, I was like, holy moly. That just, like, opened my eyes in a really big way. And there was another part in here, and he says that but by means of their suffering, he rescues those who suffer, for he gets their attention through adversity. And I can think of so many times in my life that I could have really, really used hearing that and. And actually believing it. But by means of their suffering, he rescues those who suffer for he gets their attention through adversity, and it's just so good. And then Elihu goes on to tell Job, God is leading you away from danger, Job, to a place free from distress. He is setting your table with the best food. But you are obsessed with whether the godless will be judged. Don't worry. Judgment and justice will be upheld. And those were just the few. The few things that I wanted to. To share with you because they gave me. They give me so much inspiration, and they're giving me so much inspiration on this. On this episode. So I want you to know, like, your mind is malleable, and it's perfectly capable of. Of expanding in new ways and adopting new perspectives and new ways of thinking. So if you are craving more lightness, more joy, more gratitude, more faith in your life, your mind is perfectly capable of doing that. We do not need to focus and obsess on whether the godless will be judged. And yet we do that so often rather than focusing on how God is setting our table with the best food. And it. To me, it just comes right back to, like, where am I choosing to put my focus in my life? On what's fair and what's even and what's equal? Or on who I'm choosing to be and what I'm choosing to do? And am I preparing myself to show up at that table that God is preparing for me? Like, that's what's in our control. And it's so. It's so good and so empowering. And, yeah, I just. I kind of love that I am a beginner in this in a lot of ways, and it just. It feels so good to be able to share with you. And I'm finally just focused on what does God think about me? You know, maybe somebody else doesn't want to hear about God, and maybe somebody else doesn't want me bringing this on the podcast or bringing this into my content or sharing about my faith. They just want the tools. And you know what? If you want the tools that bad, you're gonna have to hear it through God, because he's the one that gives them to me. And I'm. I just feel so good finally being in this place of being more concerned about what he thinks of me rather than what social media think about me. And a lot of people that I've never even met and even people that I've known for a really long time, instead of what people and our flawed selves think about me, I want to know what God thinks about me. Because at the end of the day. That's what matters most. That's what's waiting for me. And I know that there's a way that God wants us to show up for his children. And I want that to be my biggest concern. Not if my content's gonna go viral, just like the negative stuff, or if I'm gonna get mean comments or. Or hate in. In hurtful ways on my stuff because I'm sharing something that people don't agree with yet I believe it to be true. And I just. I know this. Like, I know this now. And it's so. It's so freeing. So I'm hoping that in sharing this journey with you, sharing some insights, you can understand where it is that I learned these tools and skills from and that I've had to go through a lot of adversity to learn these lessons, and I've had to go through a lot of suffering in order to be saved through my suffering. Like, all. Everything that I'm reading, I just feel like it applies to me so much because I am so imperfect in so many ways, and I have sinned in really big ways. And. And even as I read through the proverbs, I was like, oh, my gosh, am I the wicked? Is it me? And, you know, obviously reeling that back in, like, I am not wicked. I'm not wicked. I have made poor choices, and I have been misinformed, and I have made really poor assumptions, and those are things that I can work on and are within my control. And now's as good of a time as ever for me to start doing that. So if you really want the tools that badly, this is the shift that I'm making. And I think it's worthwhile for me to give credit where credit's due. And that's to the hand that God has put in his life and the way that he's playing things out for me and preparing a path that I finally feel courageous enough to walk on, turn the lights on, and be. Be me, just to be me. And it feels really good. So thanks for being here. Thanks for encouraging. Thanks for supporting, and I hope that this inspired you in a lot of ways that it also inspired me.