85. Do you have an early morning riser? Here is the mindset you need!

Welcome to the momset podcast, my friend. I'm your coach, Tessa Romero, and as a woman of God, an adoring wife, and a mother of three darling boys, I am passionate about giving you the tools you need to build a mindset skill set that enriches your experience through motherhood and daily life. I've had my fair share of challenges and hardship throughout my life, and that is exactly how I came to this place of finding purpose to my pain and helping you do the same. I know we can thrive right where we are at, and it's time for us to take back motherhood by being the mommy that we want to be right right now. Thank you for being here and making this a wonderful place for me to show up alongside you. I've done it. I've finally cracked, and I mean, like, really entered in the correct code to unlock this magnificent beast of a mindset within us about kids sleep. I've done it though. I've put in the right code. I've cracked the lock. And that's what this episode is about today. The right mindset for us to be able to truly feel at ease and at peace and even excited about what time our kids wake up in the morning. Because if you have a little one like me, since the time they were born, they've just been an early riser. This sounds like I'm about to tell some type of storybook right here. Since the time they were born, they've always been an early riser, joining their mom at 4:30 in the morning or 5:30 or 6. 6. I will say Liam used to be up between 4 and 5 every single morning. And that totally was contributed to, like, his routines, eating, development. Like, there were so many things. And I dug deep. I got into every possible way that I could improve his sleep. I bought the blackout curtains, we got the special sleep sacks, the sound machines, his feeding schedule, his schedule through the day. I would not leave my freaking house if it was gonna interrupt a nap because I just did not want him waking up at 4 in the morning. So I feel very confident, very strongly that I tried a lot, a lot of different things. And there was still a huge piece of that that was just outside of my control. And his name was Liam. His name is Liam. He's still outside of my control. And I think I've just learned over the past almost six years now of having an early morning riser. His little heart that loves the morning time, however you want to say it, what I've learned is I can do all the things to try and influence great sleep in my kids. I can prioritize their bedtime. I can create the best environment, I can create the best routines and structure and do all the things within my control. And at the end of the day, they're still going to be the ones to decide when they close their eyes and when they're going to fall asleep. They're still going to be the ones to decide when they want to get up and start their day. And accepting that has been so empowering for me because I know I'm not a bad mom if my kid wakes up early. I'm not a bad mom if it takes them a little bit longer to fall asleep. I'm not a bad mom if they fall asleep quickly or sleep in late. Like we're not bad moms because our kids do things that are completely outside of our control. We're great moms because we control the things that we hold influence over. And that's what makes us great moms. And one of my favorite things about parenting and like the sayings that go around is my kids behavior does not determine like my value as a parent. And I love that because our kids control their behavior. Our kids control what they personally think about something, what they feel about something, what they want to do and what their interests and desires are. They, they control all of that. So this episode is just going to share this code that I've unlocked so that maybe it's just a tweak and a twist a few degrees to the right that helps you have a little bit of this peace and true joy and excitement and enthusiasm for, you know, your days ahead with your kiddos, however long these early mornings last. Before I do so I want us to remember that the predictions you're making about life and that's all mindset is, mindset is predictions. It's your mind making a prediction about what something is going to be like. If it's something that's going to happen today, in a minute, in 10 years, a job interview. Coming up, kids sleep tonight. What time they're going to wake up in the morning. We are constantly making predictions. That's what your mind loves to do and it loves to be right. So even though we're only making predictions, our mind loves to view it as a fact. This is a true fact happening right now. Far deeper than just a belief that I have or a perspective that I'm holding. Our mind loves to view it as truth. And the truth is these are just made up stories. I mean you have like 5% factual information inside of your story that you just predicted. And the other 95% is this fabricated story. So realize that. Give yourself the power back to understand that even if I have a thought, it doesn't make it true, it doesn't make it a fact. And changing, improving, enriching my thoughts and the stories in my mind is not lying to myself. And even if it is lying to myself, I was doing that already. I was already making up stories, I just didn't like them. So now I'm going to make up stories that I actually really like and feel good about. And that's our pursuit here, is to be honest with ourselves. Absolutely. And lean further into truth. Because the truth is your kids don't wake up in the morning to piss you off. Your kids actually wake up in the morning excited to see you. Which one's more true? That they wake up early just to ruin your morning routine or make sure you don't get enough sleep? Or they they want to be in a bad mood all day so they're just trying to limit their sleep to make that happen. Is that more true or is it more true that they feel they've gotten an adequate amount of sleep, they're up because their body told them to wake up, and they hold no resistance towards the day ahead, so they just wake up. That is more true. That's more true. So keep that in mind about your mind making predictions and know that these predictions are coming from your past experiences. So experiences come into our mind and predictions go out. And that is exactly why doing your own self discovery and healing work is so monumentally life changing and completely transformative for you. Because when you heal the experiences that are causing the predictions, it is so much easier to change your predictions because the experience itself that was causing them, you've rewritten that you've healed that you now have peace there. Where you once held trauma, you now have forgiveness and acceptance in a place that you held hatred and anger. So yes, your predictions are going to change just naturally all on their own as you pursue self discovery and healing work. That's the way your mind works. And if you need a solid place to come explore self discovery and healing work and you want all the guidance, community and coaching along with it. Join me this New Year's of 2024 inside of mind Body Alignment. Twice a year I run my signature 12 week course and this is where we unpack the self discovery and healing work so you can finally understand why you do what you do. Why this anger comes in full force. Why you're making these terrible predictions about your life and your kids, why you're thinking in worst case scenario, why you're thinking that your kids are doing this just to upset you, why you're thinking mean things about your spouse. Like where are these thoughts coming from the first place? That's the self discovery portion that we do. And then we go into the healing work because I don't want you to stay there. I just want you to know why you're there so you can have more compassion for yourself. So this beautiful combination of self discovery and healing work is how I run mind body alignment. I coach you through it personally. I've written out this coursework based off of my own self discovery and healing work that I need to do, that I needed to do in order to get where I am today. And I still continue to implement. These are lifelong skills and tools that you can continue to implement and pass down to your kids. And and I promise you, you'll be able to do so in such a beautiful way. So enrollment is open now until December 23rd. So it's 10 more days that enrollment is open. You'll want to get into the group and things officially kick off on January 1st in perfect timing for this new year. This is gonna be your year of growth, healing, change, transformation. To be calm and at peace in your life. It's completely within your grasp and you are absolutely worthy and deserving of it. So I wanted to let you know that Mind Body alignment is open for you because that's a huge piece in us. Being able to change the predictions we're making about our life is to be able to heal the experiences that are causing them. Now let's talk about this mentality that I have hacked into, cracked open the secret code and put it into the lock. So it finally opened. And this is a mentality that I truly believe is going to be the long lasting one for me because I've had other great mentalities that have completely helped me when it comes to my my kids early mornings and again, I've tried to do everything that I can think of that's within my control and I'm sure I'll discover more things like we do. And I've put in incredible efforts and the outcomes are still sometimes the same. And in doing so I've tried different mindsets. So one mindset that I used this past summer because I had a babysitter come I shared this story briefly in a past episode. I'll recap it here though. So I decided to go for a 6am run in the summer with a group of girls. And that is not like my typical, my normal. It was just a really fun invite that I got and I wanted to say yes. So a babysitter comes over. Marcus was out of town and I go for the 6am run. The babysitter gets there, and while I'm on this run, Liam wakes up and he asked the babysitter, where's my mom? And she said, oh, she went for a run with her friends and she'll be back soon. And she's like, do you want to come, like, sit with me on the couch? We can read a book. He's like, no, I'll just wait for her in my bed. So he goes back to bed and he sleeps until 8:30. 8:30. He woke up at 6:15 asking where I was, and he went back to sleep until 8:30. So I got back home at 8:00 o' clock and I see Luke and Drew up and Adam and awake with a babysitter. And I was like, where's Liam? She goes, oh, he went back to bed. He asked. He Woke up about 6:15, asked where you were at. And I told him you were on a run. He said he was gonna wait for you in his bed. And when I heard that, it was like, it clicked in my mind. It was like the same lock concept. Where it was finally opened this new perspective to me that I just felt so at peace with. And the perspective was, I'm his reason. I'm his reason to wake up early and have this morning routine. Like, I am his workout, I am his journaling, I am his reading, I am his source of renewal and refreshment and where he just feels restored and excited for the day. And this is how he fills his cup. To show up as his best for that day is when he wakes up early and gets special time with me. I am his reason and he is mine. He's my reason that I'll go for the run. He's my reason that I journal, that I read, that I pour into myself in the mornings because I want to show up as my best for him. So when I unlock this perspective of like, oh my gosh, I am his reason just as much as he is mine. I felt so good just like, wow, like we. We really just work together. We're meant to be together. We serve each other. This is so beautiful. And that perspective has still helped me tremendously. I still implement it. I know very much that, you know, I am his reason and I'm the reason why he wakes up early because, geez, if I were still in bed, he'd still be in bed. No doubt in my mind. He's done that several times where he'll wake up, see that I'm still in bed. He's like, oh, oh, okay. And he'll just keep snuggling into me, or I'm up doing my workout, and he'll come downstairs and say, mom, I wanted you to snuggle longer with me. Like, he just wants me. And I think that's really special. And it's taken me a long way with mindset work. And then just last week, it was a new perspective dawned on me because, I mean, Liam is approaching six, and he's been an early morning lover his whole life. And. And I am 29 years old, and I'm trying to love the mornings. I'm trying to establish a morning routine that just lights my soul on fire and inspires me and gets me out of bed with ease and excitement. And I'm still working on that and having the whole routine that it takes to have a great morning routine, right? So I'm 29, and this feels difficult. And he's five and does it with ease, does it with enthusiasm, does it with excitement. Not one ounce of resistance to get out of that bed in the morning. It's just like, oh, my eyes are awake. So I'm still understanding now. Like, my eyes are open. I'm just up, up, up. I'm ready. Gonna walk around, gonna go get these things done. Here's my book. Like, he's just on it as soon as he wakes up. And as I was observing him, I just thought, it's so cool how easy it is for him, how something that feels so difficult for me is so easy for him. Like, literally, his eyes open and he stands up. Like, there's not one thought that says, it's too early to wake up, and I didn't get enough sleep, and I still feel so tired, and I don't wanna start the day yet. Not. He doesn't have one thought like that. It. I don't. I don't. I would love to know what his first thoughts are in the morning. I would love to know. I'm like, I think that's the next freaking code to help me out. It's just watching his behavior. As soon as he opens his eyes, he stands up, he gets up. Not one ounce of resistance. And I love that idea of removing the resistance in our life so that when my eyes open, I stand up, I'm awake. I'm up for the day instead of battling this narrative in my head to get more sleep, stay in bed. Oh, that extra 30 minutes, I should just snooze this alarm and I'll wake up to the next one. Or tell Shelby I'm not gonna work out this morning. Like, battling that narrative is completely exhausting. And I think it's really cool that my son doesn't even have a narrative like that. It really inspires me. And I think that's more of our natural way of being, is to wake up without that resistance and get up with purpose and enthusiasm for the gift that we have of this human existence for however long we have it. So that's been really inspiring me. And I was considering, you know, I'm 29 and Liam is approaching 6. And what if early mornings are always easy for him? What if he's just an early morning lover his whole life? And maybe in the past at, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, it's been a little bit hard for me at times to be so encouraging and supportive of it. And well, what if he texts me when he is 21 and says, I just finished the best morning routine. I did a 3 minute ice plunge and a 45 minute weight training workout and I wrote a note to my girlfriend so she can wake up to that or she, you know, is going to come back from her run and see that and I'm on my way to work and I love you, Mom. At 21, how would I feel if my son loves the mornings? Even before that, how would I feel if my 14 year old woke up each morning and as soon as his eyes opened, he just stood up and got up for the day and he made his bed and he got dressed, he brushes his teeth, he comes into the kitchen, he starts breakfast and you know, we have productive mornings together and that's just our normal. And we don't know anything different. We don't know about this resistance in our mind to battle about the morning because all we know is a real love for it. And we've never been told to, to go back to bed and you need more sleep, you're gonna have a bad day cause you woke up too early. And, and I never, I never implanted that negative narrative for him and he never learned it himself. So he just always got to be resistance free to the mornings. How would I feel about that when he's 12 and 14 and 16 and 17 and maybe he loves the morning so much that he'll even go to bed earlier as a teenager. I don't know. I know for a fact that's not what I did as a teenager. And waking up early in the morning was freaking hard for me as a teenager too. I did not have great influences and role models and this environment that. That modeled what it's like to really take care of yourself. I didn't have that. My boys do, though. So I truly believe that maybe, maybe it could look like that. I know it's not the status quo for teenagers, and I know that within each of our homes, we have the opportunity to create a normal. And I'm going to be really intentional with what I choose the normal to be. How we talk to each other, how we encourage one another, how we correct when we need corrections, how we advise or support or give guidance. How we challenge one another, how we coach each other, what kind of competition we have, what kind of responsibilities there are. I get to decide. My husband and I get to decide what that normal is in our home. And you get to do that in your home, too. So if I want a normal where teenagers are still early morning risers and lovers, why not? How hard could it be? I'm going to give it a try. So that mentality of, you know, Liam turning 21 17, however old, and just texting me one morning, talking about how much he loves his morning routine or telling me how grateful he is that mornings are easy for him because he has friends that it's not as easy for, like, to be able to hear those things from my son, which I think are completely realistic, really inspires me. It inspires me to include him and involve him in my morning routine, show him what it looks like to journal, teach him. Teach him how to journal effectively so that he's in support of his mind rather than brain dumping all this negative crap everywhere and creating more resistance in his life and reliving things that are hurt the first time, I don't want to teach him to do those things. I want to teach him how to empower himself, how to know who he is, how to feel proud of the way that he does hard things and prepare his mind for the things that he may even feel intimidated by. I'm going to teach him how to do that and I'm going to. I'm going to model the exercise and invite him into it. And that's just my. My two cents, my little perspective when it comes to early morning wakings with our kiddos. And I'm just grateful that I have it. And I hope that it's enriches your daily life as a mother too. If you have a little one that's an early morning riser or maybe you want to love the mornings more. Just think about how cool it is that our kids just wake up in the morning and are ready for the day. There's no narrative of resistance, and that's something that we can have too. It's just going to take a lot of new conditioning to get there. And it's worth it to just continue modeling these great behaviors for our kids that eventually we want them to have. And if they're showing signs of it earlier on, that's not a bad thing. It's just happening sooner than we expected it to. So I love you dearly, my sweet friend. Thanks for listening in on this week's podcast episode of Mom Mom Set Podcast and remember, Mind Body Alignment enrollment is open. If you'd love to coach with me and the fabulous community of women for 12 weeks in self discovery and healing work. Oh my sweet friend, thank you for joining me on this week's episode of the momset Part podcast. Please take a minute to leave a review and share the show. If you loved it, I'd love to stay connected as we continue to learn and grow in motherhood right alongside each other.