Podcast

Oh, what a blessing. What a blessing. What a blessing. What a blessing. If you ever need to know, what does Tessa say in those moments where she just kind of feels like the rug's been pulled out from underneath her, or she feels like life just came on over, tripped her while she was just strolling along the sidewalk, or, you know, just anything happens? That is exactly what I tell myself is, what a blessing. It helps me tremendously. And I'm just sitting here truly questioning and reflecting on what have I been praying about lately, what have I been talking to God about lately and telling him that I want, because I know he listens. And I am a firm believer that I'm given what I need to have what I want. And that does not mean that it's going to look really easy or it's going to be recognizable at first. I think that's a good way to say it. Sometimes when we ask for what we want and then we're given something that looks completely different, we don't understand the bigger picture that and the in the greater planet work. So I wanted to make this podcast episode for you to have just a really great mentality in your back pocket for when you're faced with something that feels really difficult and exactly opposite of what it is that you said you want and what it is that you're asking for and praying for. And there's a couple of guidelines, too, with my language that really helps me, because no matter what your faith is, you guys know I'm a huge believer in Jesus Christ. He's our Savior, and I'm a child of God. And, you know, I'm a child of God, which means there's part of him in me, and I'm meant to live that way, too. And then Jesus is here to help me every time I fall short. And, you know, that just gives me the hope and the spirit and the faith to continuing to. To continue standing back up and giving my best and whatever you believe, there's room for you to focus on your mentality. I just like to be really transparent of where I'm at with things and the way I create these mentalities. So this mentality, though, of I'm given what I need, I think at surface value, it's one of the easiest mentalities to argue with at sur. At face value, when you hear, oh, you're given what you need, it's one of the easiest things for us to feel defensive about, because the first thing that comes to your mind is all the difficult things that you've experienced and we're looking at it as like, in what reality did I need that to happen to me? And what reality did I need? All these things to take place and leave me feeling all these ways and in these terrible situations, when did I actually need that? I'm pretty sure I didn't need that. And. Well, it's really fair and valid that you've been through really difficult things. It still doesn't take away what I believe to be a fact of life that we are given what we need. And the way I like to imagine it and put it all together so that the part of us that wants to be the victim play the role of the victim. Because it feels more comfortable when it's someone else's fault. It feels more comfortable when things are happening to us because then the responsibility goes into someone else's hands and that's the way we stay, that's the way we live. For how however long we. For however long we allow it to continue. It's them. I need them to change before I can change. I need them to stop talking to me that way. I need them to stop bringing up that trigger of mine. I wouldn't yell at them, I wouldn't ignore them if they would just stop doing X, Y, Z. It's all happening to you. When the way I like to teach it is given what you need, surface value, sure, it feels really triggering. You start to get a little defensive, your brain's going to that victim mentality. And when we attach this other piece to it, we're able to see a bigger picture. So I'm given what I need to have what I want. You're given everything you need to have, obtain, receive what it is that you want. And when I think about my life and what I've been through, my biological dad passed away when I was six years old. That was extremely traumatizing for me as a child. And it just felt like my family and home life blew up from there. And I mean, I didn't know how to cope with that. I didn't know a six year old girl, I mean, I didn't know. I. My gosh, I. There's so much I didn't know. It would be easier for me to say what I did know at that point, which is very little, very little. Like it all, it all feels difficult in that sense. And that happened in my life. And then following that, my mom remarries and the first couple of years of their marriage seemed really great from what I recall. And then the following three years of their marriage were Hell on earth. They were awful. It was awful. And, you know, when I just look at that, if I were to take this mentality, I'm given what I need, and I just look at that, it's like, no, I was not given what I need because I needed a loving home. I needed a father to take care of me, to guide me, to nurture me, to walk me down the aisle, to meet my sons. Like, that's what comes to mind. I didn't need a pedophile in my home. I didn't need to lose my dad. I didn't need my mom to date other people or for her to prioritize those relationships over the relationship with me. And while all of that is really valid experiences that I've been through, I have found that healing doesn't happen there. Healing for me has never happened. In replaying the scenarios and refusing to find a different perspective of them, healing has never come to me. When I've said, oh, it's my mom's fault, or, she shouldn't have married that man. She should have known better. She should have put me first. Or I look at him and said, oh, well, he shouldn't have been a pedophile. He shouldn't have looked at me that way. He shouldn't have done those things. He shouldn't have put my family in. In danger like that. And if I look at it from that perspective, do I heal? No, I'm not gonna heal there. I'm not gonna feel any better because I'm thinking the same way about it. And I want you to just be able to capture what I'm saying here and take this perspective of you're given what you need deeper than face value. Face value? Yeah. It feels triggering. Your victim mentality speaks up. So does mine. And when you get deeper with it and you truly, truly work to understand it and apply it to your own life, you start to see a bigger picture. Because the bigger picture is for who I want to be. Those are the very experiences that allow me to. And empower me and enrich me to become that person that I want to be. Guys, look at all this work that I do. I mean, come on. It's pretty freak. Let's just take a second. It's pretty freaking cool what I do. I'm a mom of four boys. I've been married for 10 years. I work with thousands of other mothers. We just launched our own app, teaching mindset to mothers. My husband's grandma, my children's great grandma sat down with me this past weekend and Said Tess, I want to know more about what you do. What is it that you do? And I told her, like, well, I help moms think better about their kids, and that helps them have better emotional intelligence for themselves, regulation experiences, and handle things in a way that they feel really proud of. So they no longer feel like their kids are doing things to them, more so that their kids are doing the best they can, and so are they. And then they get to evaluate and decide the way they want to handle it. And she goes, oh, my gosh, that sounds exactly like what my mom was struggling with. I mean, gosh, my mom. And she went on to tell me about how her mom. So my kids, great, great grandma really struggled with these things. She struggled with negativity. She struggled with feeling alone and unappreciated. And she took it out on the kids and the marriage struggled. And I just thought it was really cool to sit there and say, wow, even my husband's grandma thinks that what I do is so amazing that it would have helped her mom. And I was able to have a heart to heart with her, too, of like, well, what resources were available to her Then she's like, oh, man, like, none, None. That was the first time that women started to consider, oh, we could actually, like, think for ourselves. We could actually decide for ourselves something. And then it got stronger in her generation and stronger in my husband's mom's generation. Now it's even stronger with us. And we are the ones that have the most amount of accessibility and tools and resources available to us that I want us to be. I want us to be fully utilizing. So when we think about what it is that I get to do, I mean, just in the professional realm of things, would I be able to do these things if I hadn't first experienced a lot of trauma and a lot of hardship and a lot. I mean, gosh, guys, I hate to tell you, my victim mentality was probably deeper than yours. Everything happened to me. Everyone made me mad. I mean, anyone could make me ignore them. They just said the right thing or did the right thing, Boom, I'd ignore them. And I just felt like I was constantly controlled by these outside factors. And then I was trying to control the outside factors instead of just controlling myself. And that felt really difficult every single time. So while you're sitting there saying, oh, my gosh, my mindset's way too far gone, I have such a victim mentality, I believe everything happened happens to me. You know what, sister? Same. Okay? Same. That's why I'm Here, because I get it. I get it. And what's so powerful is I would not have got it. I wouldn't get it. I wouldn't understand these things if it weren't for the hardship that I faced. So considering who it is that I want to be, I wouldn't be able to be the person I want to be, to do the things that I want to do if it weren't for the life experience I've been given since I was 6 years old. Losing my dad and. And my mom's following marriage and the difficulties within. I mean, gosh, my relationship with my sister, like that taught me a lot about forgiveness. And now I believe I'm. I'm really excellent at forgiveness and I'm excellent at righteous judgment, too. And that balance within, there, there's. I do believe that I obviously am only 30 years old. I have a lot of life to live. I've got a lot of room for growth, and I'm the furthest thing from perfect. And you know what? That's why I've got Jesus, because he's the only one I need to be perfect. Okay? Not me. He can. He can take care of that. And in the. In the reality of things, though, I have found healing when I turn to. I've been given what I need to become, who it is that I want to be. Those grudges that I was holding on to, that victim mentality that I lived by, all that anger and aggression that I thought was keeping me safe has been able to dissipate since I've adopted and truly lived by this fantastic mindset, this mentality. So, yeah, given who I want to be and the way I want to raise my boys, I did need that childhood. I needed the exact childhood that I have that I had to raise my boys the way that I want to raise them. Because I just believe that I'm aware of things that other people, that just goes unnoticed by other people. Like, I really pay attention to the people my boys are around. Why? Well, because of the people that I grew up with. And I understand that not everyone's intentions are good. And it's my job to protect my kids. And because of the experiences that I had with my mom, it really taught me the type of mom that I want to be. Not directly through her example, by default of her example. And maybe that's where you're at, too. And I'm telling you, there's so much healing that comes when you can appreciate the people and the life experiences they gave you, the lessons they helped Teach you all that wisdom that you say you want to have. Yeah. That comes from lived experience. Being able to see things that other people don't see. Because you've been through things that other people haven't been through, and you have that opportunity available to you, too. So when you want to heal, when you want to grow, when you want to become a very. I mean, just that next version of yourself, and the work's never done, friends. I'm still very much working on these things, too. My victim mentality chimes up, gets a little loud sometimes I fall into old behaviors. And, you know, that's why I'm asking myself, sitting in this chair, what is it that I've been praying for? What is it that I've been saying I want recently and trying to put two and two together? Because God is always giving me what I need. Always. He's been faithful my entire life. Everything's come together exactly according to plan. It's not always my plan. It is. It is according to plan, though. It's his plan. You gotta remember that some things are always going according to plan. It just may not be your plan. It is going according to plan, though. So when I reflect on my life and God's been faithful, he's delivered, and I see how great things are. Gosh, I wanted four boys so bad, and I got the four boys. I wanted a loving marriage. I wanted a man that is just so in love with me, he'd scream it from the rooftops. And that's what I've got. Is it perfect? No. I didn't ask for a perfect marriage, though. I asked for one that I feel safe in, that I feel loved, that I feel adored, that this man just. Just loves me. And that's what I got. And there was a lot of things I needed to experience before I got what I want. So God gives us what we need in order to receive, find, and be available for what it is we say that we want. And recently I have kind of felt like the rug's been pulled out from underneath me sometimes and I've been pushed down. Things have felt really difficult. And honestly, my responses to some really simple circumstances going on, like my boy's splashing water out of the bath, or my son this morning spilled a drink on my desk and over my keyboard, and it was, like, dripping onto the floor. And one of, like, my oldest arguing with me about, I'm learning the dishes, like, little, little things have felt really big to me lately. I mean, just in. Just in the past week. And I'm sitting here thinking, I can do so much better than that. The way I've been handling these things, I can do so much better than that. I know that for a fact. So right now I believe God's given me what I need to become and receive what I want. So what is it that I've been telling him I want? What is it that I've been praying for and trying to put two and two together so I can understand, okay, this is the way I'm asking him, show me the way to be able to get what I want. Well, he's shown me the way. He's showing me. And I want you to be able to see that in your life, too. And I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that language matters tremendously in this because it's one thing for you to know what you want, and it's another thing for you to say what you don't want. And if you're just. If you think you know what you want because you're so great at saying what you don't want, you are not good at knowing what you want. That's important for us to sit with and accept when. And what I mean by that is if I were to ask you, okay, let's use the example of your kids arguing with you. And I ask you, okay, how do you want to handle your kids arguing with you? And then you go on to tell me that you don't want to yell, you don't want to belittle them, you don't want to have these consequences that honestly you don't even want to follow through on. They just fly out of your mouth so quickly. You don't want the whole day to be ruined by one little thing. You don't want the parenting obstacles that to bleed over into your marriage. Then you and your husband are arguing with each other instead of staying on the same page and having that marriage be like your little sanctuary when you're feeling the struggle as a parent, like you're telling me all these things you don't want, you still don't know what you do want. Telling someone what you don't want is not the same as telling them what you do want. So when you're in your prayer, when you're in your focus of concentrating on what you do want, asking for it, praying for it, meditating on it, thinking about it, talking about it, however you want to say, that when you're in that focus, you must remove all that negative focus and that negative language. Otherwise you're just going to get More of those things. You have to create something new. You have to be able to say, I want to handle it like this. I want to be able to just take that deep breath and feel completely free from the circumstance unfolding in front of me so I can actually observe it, so I can get curious enough to ask my kids a well thought out and meaningful question that helps them think differently about it too. I want to be able to feel connected with my kids. Even when they feel frustrated, they're fighting one another, or they're saying hurtful things to me. I want to feel like that conscious observer and supporter in their life through all circumstances that we go through, or they go through, or I go through. That's who I want to be, that's what I want to experience. And when you're clear like that, when you're clear like that, that's when the you're given what you need mentality is strongest. And it's best because then you're given the tantrum and you say, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I needed in order to be able to do the thing that I said I want to be able to do. Or your kids are refusing to get in the bath, or they splash all the water out of the bathtub and you've been talking about how much you just want to be a fun, playful, light hearted mom. Well, here's your freaking chance. And you just need that mentality. I'm given what I need to become who it is that I want to be. And sometimes what I need looks different than what I thought. And it's almost always better than I imagine. Think about your whole life. How many times in a difficult circumstance did you think it's going to last forever? It's always going to be like this, oh, it just gets worse from here. It's all downhill. That's not true. When you look at the bigger picture of things, if you allow purpose to come in, then your pain transforms. You find healing not by revisiting the past circumstances, by looking at them intentionally and with purpose to recognize what did that give me? What permission did it give me to be the person that I want to be? What knowledge did it give me? What information did it give me? What emotional capacity, intelligence, desires, vision, friendship, goals did that experience give me that I want? It's always there. It's always there. You just have to be willing to look for it and look at it through the right frame of mind. And that's what I'm here to help you do, is to have the right frame of mind around these common circumstances, really difficult, defeating circumstances, traumatizing circumstances that we all face throughout this life. No one person on this planet is just going through life without ever getting hurt, without ever experiencing pain. It's in the hurt. It's in the pain that we find purpose, that we find meaning, that we grow into who it is that we told our heavenly Father that we want to be in the first place. And he's over here just trying to give us the right plan for it to take place. And we're. And we get so worked up and so frustrated, like, oh, my gosh, I said I want. I want peace. Why does this look so disrupted? Well, just because you want peace. If you want peace, you need something disrupted in order to create peace. You said you want forgiveness. I said I want forgiveness. Why am I given this? Why are these people continuing to do things that I don't like or hurt me or say things? Why are they still doing that? If I said I want forgiveness? Because you need people to forgive. You need experiences to be able to forgive. You need people to do things that would require you to forgive. If you're ever going to view yourself as a forgiving person, if you're ever going to know I'm excellent at forgiving. There's something that I tell myself that I really want to be excellent at asking questions. Like, I want to ask the right questions at the right time in the right way that produce, I mean, just one of the most beautiful outcomes you've ever seen. That's the kind of questions I want to be great at asking. And I journal about it, and I pray about it, and I think about it often, and I really listen closely to the way other people talk and books and podcasts and just constantly learning how to ask better questions. And the thing is, like, in order for me to get better at asking questions, what I've noticed is since that's been my focus, it's almost like the people that I want to be able to help really struggle to ask questions. They really struggle to give me the information that would allow me to ask a better question. It's been a difficult road, a difficult journey. And what I've learned is absolutely transformative. It's amazing. I've learned, instead of taking things that my clients say at face value, that the first question they ask is the one they want the answer to. Instead of believing that nonsense, I'm able to get deeper, faster with my clients because I'm no longer caught up on this idea of I need them to say the right thing. No, I don't. I just need them to talk from their heart. And now I know what I'm listening for. And I need to remember that they're perfectly equipped to solve their own problems. They just need a tool and a friend to walk. To walk through it with them. They need someone that believes in them a little bit more than they do right now. And that can be me. And again, it goes back to give him what I. I'm given what I need to have what I want. I'm given the client that's in. That's all twisted and tangled up in her own thoughts. And that is what I need in order to become excellent at asking questions and listening really intently for the right information that can take us deeper, faster. So that's how I get what I want from it. And the same thing with you and your kids, you and your spouse. Everything you say you want in your marriage, you are given what you need. In order to get those things, it just might be a road and a journey that looks different than you would have thought. And with your language, you must stay focused on the language you're choosing to use, and it must stay aligned with positive language. You. You need to remove all the times you're saying what you don't want, what can't happen or what you can't handle, what you won't tolerate, what won't work. Every time you use words like that, can't, don't, won't, wouldn't, shouldn't. Every time you use words like that, your mind is now going right back to focusing on what you don't want. And, you know, I really believe that the same thing is true. You could flip this mentality. And when you're focused on things that you don't want, you're probably given things that you don't need because you've been so focused on things that you don't want. And when you're focused on the things that you do want, you are given the things that you do need to get those things that you want. And that frame of mind, it's been absolutely transformative for me. So I just want to give you a little bit of encouragement that you are given what you need. God gives you what you need to receive the things that you say you want. Be it through your identity, your mindset, your emotional capacity, your friendships, your marriage, your relationship with your children, your parenting gosh, your career pursuits, your health, all of that, you're given. You're given what you need. And sometimes it looks a lot different than you would have chosen for yourself or what you imagine it would have looked like to get what you want. And that doesn't mean that it's wrong. It doesn't mean that you're on the wrong path or doing the wrong thing. It's just different than you imagined. And that's kind of like one of my favorite mentalities to marry to this frame of mind. Like, yes, I'm given what I need and sometimes what I need looks different than I thought it would. And it's almost always better than I imagine it's going to be. And living in that state of hope and faith is what we all need more of. So I hope you can feel that for me. I hope that this is something that serves you too and that you put it into practice as quickly as you can to start seeing the benefits come from it. So remember, I'm given what I need and you gotta go deeper than that face value of it. If you start to feel rattled and defensive with it, sit with it a little bit longer and really start to consider what is it in my life that I have said that I wanted? And when I really take the time to reflect, I have been given what I need to receive the things that I want. I promise you, they're there. You just gotta spend some time connecting the dots. So I love you, dearly, sweet friend. I'll see you soon.