Episode 51: Gratitude Practices…for When You Can’t Even Pee by Yourself - Meditation & Mindset
What You’ll Learn
Improving Your Life in Hard Seasons (00:40)
Meditate & Pray (01:40)
Notice Your Complaints & Reshape Your Mindset (09:20)
Recap (20:30)
Invitation (20:50)
This week we’re trying something new! This episode is part five of five ALL about gratitude (In a mom-friendly way). Today we’ll talk about meditation (prayer) and mindset (noticing your complaints) (and how to fit these in as a mom). Are you on our e-mail list yet? Each Monday we check in with our community of moms-and we want you there!
Improving Your Life in Hard Seasons (00:40)
Motherhood is hard. There are seasons of loss, job or loved ones, seasons of transition, new babies, toddlers, teenagers, or toddlers AND teenagers. When we look at the advice from the “experts” it can be difficult to transfer it to the daily reality for a mom.
Our goal for this week is to take the common advice for increasing gratitude and adapt it to fit into a mom’s life. We’ll talk about. . .
Journaling
Exercise
Drinking More Water
Getting More Sleep
Volunteering
Savoring Your Experiences
Write to Someone
Make a Visit or Go On a Trip
Meditation & Prayer
Notice Your Complaints & Reshape Your Mindset
We’re taking all of these common suggestions, breaking them down, and saying, “Hold Up,” what is the REALITY of implementing these things in the real-ness of motherhood.
We’ve lived these seasons. . .we’re living these seasons, and trying to do these things in our lives, and we want to encourage YOU to do these things in a way that can actually work for moms.
Meditation & Prayer (01:40)
Britt’s first thought when she hears “meditation & prayer” is of somebody sitting up on a mountain sitting quietly by themselves, uninterrupted. For a mom, we often think, meditation requires quiet—and that is something we have in really short supply—so is that really something we’re supposed to do? Is it really going to help!?
It does! There are SO many benefits to meditation and prayer. (We use these terms interchangeably, as we’re both Catholic, because even when we meditate, we do it with Christ in mind).
What good does meditation do?
First, and MOST important, it has a HUGE impact on your relationship with your creator and that changes EVERYTHING. If you are working in your relationship with your creator, it WILL overflow into the other areas of your life. Effort there will have major effects on your life (although the journey is your own).
Prayer & Meditation also…
reduce stress
reduce anxiety
reduce risk of depression
promotes emotional health
increases focus
improves sleep (Britt combines wimhoff breathing & prayer)
increases resilience (everything is a THING now!)
In my life, I’ve found that meditating and praying in the morning makes me a much calmer person ALL day, and I feel like I can handle things better.
Brittany has also noticed a big difference when she prays and meditates in the morning. It helps her cultivate an outlook of gratitude and service.
So how does a mom work these things in?
Start SMALL. Meditation and prayer can feel impossible, and we have a limited capacity each day. One of the biggest hang-ups for Britt is that it feels impossible because of how overstimulated she gets by the end of each day. Obligations start the minute the children’s eyes open, and sometimes go on long after they go to bed.
The good news is, you just need to start. With 1 minute. . .60 seconds. Just be. Don’t recite prayers. Just be quiet with God. We need to give our brains time to process in quiet, and don’t be concerned when you have thoughts about everything (just release them, and work your way gently back to inner silence).
We talk a lot about the morning, but it doesn’t have to be the morning or the evening. The goal here is consistency. Find a good time for you, and set an alarm. Do it once a day, and if you happen to fall asleep during that time, it’s ok!
Noticing Your Complaints & Reshaping Your Mindset (09:20)
Noticing your complaints is something that can be a HUGE challenge for moms. You can WANT to notice the good, but when ALL you see are the things that are wrong, it is so hard. Changing your mindset is a lot like working out a mental muscle. As you continue to work on it, it will get easier.
A small amount of complaining can be healthy, but there is a difference between complaining and latching on to negativity (without actually processing those negative feelings).
Life just feels so hard—so heavy—right now. We want to encourage you to keep building the mindset muscle. Complain if that’s what you need to do, but don’t live there, you have to look for the good.
Sometimes this life requires a little uninformed optimism. You just need to have some hope that things will get better.
What do the experts say about reshaping your mindset?
increases a positive attitude
promotes cardiovascular health
increases life span
lower rates of depression
lower rates of anxiety
promotes a healthier immune system
increases coping skills
reduces responses to pain
creates mental habits for our children
When we teach ourselves to notice our complaints and reshape our mindset, we are teaching our children at the same time!
How can a mom apply this in her day-to-day?
This is a muscle! It takes time, practice, and starting small! Even just recognizing when you’re having a negative thought is a BIG win!
When you begin to notice your thoughts and complaints, then you can do something about it! It can be enough to stop yourself from living in that complaint.
Plan for your capacity as much as possible so you’re not using up all your spoons. The spoon theory is something Britt has mentioned in an earlier podcast, and it’s basically a metaphor describing the amount of physical and/or mental energy that a person has available for daily activities and tasks, and how it can become limited. It was coined by writer and blogger Christine Miserandino.
She sat down at a restaurant with a friend, she used spoons to represent units of energy that a person might have, and she reduced the spoons to represent how chronic illness forced her to plan out days and actions in advance so as to try to not run out of energy.
For example, let’s say you start with five spoons. Going to the doctor may use a spoon, heading to the park could take a spoon, nursing the baby all day could take a spoon…and before you know it, you get to the end of the day and you have no spoons left.
Knowing what your capacity is, and working within that, will allow you to expand your capability little by little.
Recap (20:30)
Pray & meditate, pray or meditate, pray, meditate. Just do it!
Build your positive mindset muscle. Give yourself space to start small, but start. Start small and start to build this positive mindset.
Invitation (20:50)
For the next 24 hours, do your very best to catch yourself and your kids when you’re about to complain. To go a bit further, catch yourself and don’t complain to your kids! Not about them, not about your husband, your mother, their clothing, nothing. This is HARD, but you can do it!
If your husband is your sounding board when he gets home from work (which is totally understanding), try to end the conversation with a few positives from your day! Take a little time to throw in some positives, because it can be hard (as a husband) to get excited to spend time with the family when they get all the negatives right when they walk in the door. Sprinkle in some good things, and try to do it within ear-shot of whichever kid it applies to!
