91. A New Tool For Hard Moments

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. Well, hey there, pretty thing. How's it freaking going, man? I feel like I'm turning a page. January's coming to an end. 2024 was far less, far less than I had hoped it would start out to be. And I learned a lot. My whole family was sick for basically the entire month. And now I feel like the page is turning, the haze is lifting. We're all feeling a lot better. And I'm feeling fired up. I'm feeling freaking fired up. So if your 2024 did not quite start out on the note, the foot, the page that you had hoped it would or anticipated, you know what? Same. And what are we going to do about it? We're going to freaking turn a new page because February is fast approaching, right? We got this. Couple more days. January, no problem. We're ending it on a high. We're going to wear clothes that we love, going to freaking do our hair the way that feels so good, wear your mascara, get out in the sun a little bit more, end the month with a workout. You know, just do. Do the things like that. They're just like, I still got this. Yep, I'm still in this thing now. The purpose of this podcast episode is to share a tool with you that I have recently come across in my parenting, which I feel like motherhood parenting. My sweet boys, they are constantly delivering me new tools, new tools just through just their perspective, being able to look at things a little bit differently and come up with a phrase or two that just change the game for me and then by default for you, because I come on here and share it. So that's what's been going on for me this month, is realizing that as every circumstance in my marriage, in my motherhood, in my life comes up and greets me, I have an opportunity to be exactly who I want to be in that circumstance. How am I gonna. How am I gonna handle this argument? How am I gonna handle this tantrum? What am I gonna say and think and do and feel when my kids are hitting each other? And that's my favorite part about this mindset work, is it gives us the opportunity to show up as who we want to be, no matter the circumstances. We get so tangled up and caught up in this idea of like, oh, my gosh, this is just bad. This is just by default bad because it feels hard, and that's just not true. Good or bad is just a perspective. So that's why I love short little phrases that we can pull out in what might feel like a hard moment and actually make it a little bit easier for ourselves by giving our mind a new direction to look in. Like adding a flashlight to that dark space so we can see what the frick we're working with. Um, and that. That's what this tool's gonna do today for you is, is be able to do that. Be one of your back pocket affirmations. Kind of. That's what I like to call em, is back pocket affirmations. And you need these because in the hard moments where you're like, yep, Tessa, this. This is a hard one. I'm not arguing with you. That's totally fine. If you feel like this is a hard moment, that's fine. The point of mindset is to equip you to be the person you want to be in the hard moment, not to sit and discuss how difficult it is, how it's so unfair, it's never going to change, and let your victim mentality take the reins. Yeah, that's not the point. So we are going to be in that empowered state and with your back pocket affirmations, they're so effective because they're so short, they're so quick, they're so short that they're very easy to implement. Sometimes our affirmations get really long winded, drug out, and we try to put so many details in there that are specific to that one circumstance that was really hard for us that one time. Instead of keeping it short, effective, broad enough to be applied to just about anything and quick that, that we can rapidly implement it in a moment where our brain might even feel fried. Have you ever, like, had a hard moment where you're like, I, I just don't even know how to think straight right now. Like, I, I can't. I can't think right now. My mind. I don't Know what the freak is doing? It's just not quite online. My. My mind does that, too. So in those moments, though, back pocket affirmations are committed to memory. They're extremely easy, and I can just pull on one of them. That puts my mind back on. On track. Even if I just repeat this, this little line that I'm going to give you guys in just a second, even if I just repeat this one for a few minutes straight, like, my mind is not back online yet, so I'm just going to keep freaking repeating this. I am certainly most guaranteed, a thousand percent going to handle my spouse, my children, and any circumstance I'm in a thousand times better than if I were to have just. Just sank down into it and let the victim mentality lead the way. So the phrase, your new back pocket affirmation, the tool of choice for today's episode is. I've done that, too. I know, four freaking words. And let's unpack this, because this is a really powerful thing, and I don't want you to be sweeping it aside as if it doesn't apply to you, because it freaking does. It does apply to you in your marriage, in your motherhood, and in your life. You have done that, too, almost always. Like, let's just apply it to our kids right now, before our mind goes to the extremes. If you look at what your kids are doing, and let's say they are pouring a bowl of cereal, and you're like, in that Monday morning, we're coming off the weekend, we gotta get the kids to school. I've gotta make everybody's lunches. We are already making breakfast now. I'm like, making double meals right now. Oh, and then my phone's ringing and somebody's calling out from work or my husband, I don't know, got a flat tire on the side of the road. And it just feels like a hectic morning. And then you walk into your room and your bed's not even made yet. And you're like, of course, this is just one more thing for me to do. And the mind starts getting really into that negative place, right? And then your child decides to pour their own bowl cereal. And as they're pouring their own bowl of cereal, they get out their bowl, they get out their spoon, they go to the fridge, they get the milk out by themselves. They went to the pantry, they got the box out. I mean, this kid is absolutely rocking it this Monday morning. Then they go to pour it, they get the cereal into the bowl. Check. Done. Rocked it. And then they go to Pour the milk. And wouldn't you know it, that freaking milk gallon is quite heavy. Sometimes a little bit heavier than anticipated. And it dips over a little bit too far. And that whole bowl is not really full of milk. It also splashed out the rims of the bowl, and it's all over the counter, all over the floor. And wouldn't you know it, that feels hard in that moment, you know, rightfully so. It can feel like a hard moment. And you could go one of two ways. You can allow your mind to tell the story of. You shouldn't even be trying to do that by yourself. I've told you a million times that I will be the one to pour the milk. I will just get it for you. And I told you I would get that for you. If you would just have waited one minute, I could have gotten that for you. We could have avoided this whole thing. And your mind goes to this other place. Place. And granted, these are a lot of things that you're saying out loud, too, because in those hard moments, it's also very difficult to use discernment with which thoughts we're choosing to share. Because sometimes it feels like these are the only thoughts possible in this moment, which I'd like to reassure you is not true. It's a hundred percent of the time. False, false information that the mind says, this is the only way to think about this. A hundred percent of the time, that's not true. There's always a different way to think about it. So we need to exercise that discipline to withhold thoughts that we have that do not serve the circumstance that we're in. And that's why, again, little back pocket affirmations like, I've done that, too, are so helpful because they shut up the negativity. They just kick the victim mentality at its knees and, like, have it fall to the floor. So we're back into this position of empowerment of, like, I am going to intentionally choose what I think right now. Yeah. I've been running around frantically from one thing to the next this whole morning. And guess what? I've spilled things, too. I've done that, too. If your mind, it could go to all the negative places. Right. You know better. You shouldn't have done that. I told you to wait. You never listen. Of course, today's starting out like this. This is what the whole. The whole week's gonna look like. And once you know it. Yeah. This is what the rest of my life is going to look like. And our mind goes to that place. Or we use the simple phrase. We look over, we observe what had just happened, and we just pull out the phrase, I've done that, too. What are your next thoughts going to sound like? What happens next when you intentionally pause. Pause the record going on in your mind and disrupt it with, I've done that, too. I have totally spilled things before. I have absolutely, you know, thought that I could do more than I actually had the capacity to do physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. You freaking name it, I've done it. I've wanted to be the one to do things on my own. I've done that, too. Just. I've done that, too. I truly want you to practice this with your kids to today, sometime in motherhood, I promise you, the opportunity will present itself. You don't even have to go about looking for it. It will just come to you. And when it comes to you, when it happens, just have a little smile, take a little breath, and use the phrase, I've done that, too. And see where your mind goes next. And what's better than just seeing where your mind goes next? Observe how you feel after you say that. Observe what you do after you say that. Sometimes we get so fixated and focused on changing all of our feelings and changing all of our behaviors and removing all of our tendencies that we're not proud of. Like our tendency to yell or our tendency to overeat or our tendency to criticize or threaten or discipline, or our tendency to just, like, scroll our phone and numb. And we have these feelings of just sadness. We have these feelings of disappointment. We have these feelings of anger and distress and exhaustion. Like, we have all these feelings and all these tendencies or behaviors that we're like, oh, my gosh, if I could just remove those, I would be so thrilled. Which is valid. That's valid. Only it's a lot easier to remove something when you just focus on flushing it out with something different, rather than going through and trying to pick every little piece of it out. Have you guys seen that? There's a really good analogy visual of this that I'm going to paint the picture here. It was a very viral reel on Instagram, surely on TikTok too, whatever, for a good long while. And a lot of people remade it. So anyway, we're imagining there's a cup of water, and then we put a spoonful of dirt in the cup of water, and we mix it up. And the dirt is all of the, obviously, impurities. So that's our behaviors, our tendencies, our thoughts, our reactions, our feelings, the things that we're like man, if I could just change these things. And in the video, they're going through and trying to like, pick out all the dirt in this cup of water. The freaking water now is just straight up brown. Like, you're not going to pick out all of that. No matter how badly you want it removed. They try to spoon it out, they try to pick it out. You're not going to be able to remove the dirt that way. Then they do something so brilliant, so brilliant that perfectly embodies exactly what I'm talking about here, being able to flush it out. They just take more water and pour it into the cup. They just keep pouring into the cup until all of the dirt just flushes out on its own. And your mind can work the same way way all of this negativity, the dirt floating around in your head can be flushed out with something different rather than you literally just pouring more dirt into it by attacking yourself, shaming yourself, sabotaging yourself, doing, like identifying as someone that you don't want to be. Instead of doing all of that, we could flush it out. And by flush it out, I mean bring more mindset in. Emphasize the times, I don't care how short the moment may feel, that you're truly proud of the way you showed up. Bring massive amounts of attention to that where we choose to put our focus on grows. So grow your focus on the things you're doing really well, the circumstances you handle really well. And when I say bring more mindset in, use this phrase, I've done that too. When your husband forgets to take the trash down, you're telling me you've never forgotten to take the trash down? He didn't fill up the car with gas. You've never done that? Really? When did our mind get so. To this place of thinking that we're the perfect ones? Yep. Yep. I always do it right. I always do the right thing. I never miss an appointment or a date or a time. I always call the people back. Heck, I'm always the one to call them first. I'm always thinking with everybody. Like, I. I've got everything on lockdown 100% of the time. I'll tell you that. I'll tell you right now, that is a thousand percent very far from my truth about. About me being a human. And it's so relieving to be able to see when the trash doesn't get taken down. I've done that too. And the car didn't get filled up with gas. I've done that too. And we forgot something at the grocery store or we bought the wrong thing at the grocery store. Guess what? I've done that too. And you probably have too. And I can look at the things my kids are doing. They're hitting each other. Oh, yeah, I've done that too. M. I absolutely have hit my sister. They're saying hurtful things. Gosh dang it. Wouldn't you know it, I've done that too. They're not doing the thing I asked them to do the first time. You're gonna tell me you've never done that? You've absolutely done that too. Come on, we've all done that. And when we can just humble our mind a little bit and remind it, I've done that too. It brings you to a whole new train of thought that will follow that. And when your thoughts change, guess what else changes? Your feelings. And when your feelings change and your thoughts are changed, guess what else changes? Your behaviors. And when your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors change, guess what? Your outcomes change too. They're all connected. It's silly to think that our outcomes are completely irrelevant to what we're thinking, what we're feeling, and. And who we're choosing to be, what we're choosing to do. They're all connected. We know dang well that the way we handle that cereal explosion of milk is going to change the day. And I can make it a whole lot worse. You betcha. Or I can make it a whole lot better. This is an opportunity of learning and growth. This is an opportunity of connection. And look at that. Now we're freaking laughing while we're cleaning it up. I'm so glad this happened. I'm so grateful this happened. And it slowed me down and it put me back in the right headspace to be in control of me and my day. Sometimes we need that disruption. We need that little mix up, shakeup of things to be able to do that. So you're going to start using this special tool that I have very much appreciated in my life, especially in motherhood and marriage recently, just to be able to say, I've done that too. I've fallen asleep while putting the boys to sleep. So when my husband does that and I'm like, oh, man, I thought we were going to watch a show or hang out together and you fell asleep. I'm not going to get upset about that. Why? Because I' done that too. And did he get upset at me when I did that? No, he didn't. So again, bring it back to the phrase the next time something happens that you find your mind getting a little judgmental. Yep. And your expectations are a little bit high and you might be looking at yourself as a completely innocent, never flawed one. And that's a really good indicator that it's time to pull the reins and self evaluate. That's when you're going to use the phrase I've done that to put this into practice. Keep me updated on your progress. I freaking love being here working with you. And I'm honestly so jazzed up for this year now that I feel like I can see clearly and think straight. This haze has been lifted. I'm like, I've got so many ideas. Is going to be great to serve you guys. So thanks for being here. I appreciate you and I'll see you guys again real soon. Oh my sweet friend, thank you for joining me on this week's episode of the momset podcast. Please take a minute to learn, 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.