How To Lighten Up Motherhood

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy, mom, dog, mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

Hello my beautiful friend. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to this episode where we are talking about How To Lighten Up Motherhood. This has been on my heart because so many of you are telling me you genuinely feel like you are in the thick of it. Like it’s heavy, like you’re overwhelmed. And I don’t ever feel that way, and I say that not to sound, inconsiderate and not to invalidate your experience, but instead to show you that by switching a few things, by feeling a little bit differently and thinking differently, you can absolutely change your experience.

And I am speaking from experience. I for sure have been there where I felt very reactive, very serious. I call it in the Membership too serious, meaning it’s overly serious ’cause I’m a serious person and I like that. But when I’m too serious, when I take things personally, when I feel just way too overwhelmed or reactive, then life feels heavy. And that’s when we use phrases like I’m in the thick of it. I’m spread too thin. And it feels so real. The problem is not what you think it is. So most of the time we think the problem is our circumstance. But if you’ve been around for any period of time, you know, number one, I’m all for you changing your circumstances when you can. But typically, and definitely in this instance what we’re talking about is not circumstances that you would even want to change.

You love your family, you love your spouse, you love your home, you love all of the things that you’re doing, and yet you still would prefer that you not feel the way that you’re feeling like life is so heavy and you’re really in the thick of it. So we’re not going to do option one right now, like change your circumstance. Option two is not to wait until the end of this season. I think we think, okay, well when x, y, Z happens, it’ll get lighter, it’ll get more fun, it’ll get easier. And that’s just not true. Certainly certain things will get easier, but you sort of trade your problems and you bring your brain with you. So if you are someone who has, you know, chronic overwhelm, you have probably been overwhelmed regardless of your circumstances. You were overwhelmed in college. You were overwhelmed at your first job.

You were overwhelmed when you worked, you know, crazy hours. But then you were also overwhelmed when you cut back and you were overwhelmed as a stay at home mom. I mean, the circumstances can change so much and you can still feel overwhelmed. And I actually kind of love that because it just goes to show you, you truly do take your brain with you. And so you don’t need to change your circumstances to change how you feel. And that’s the best news ever. Because as I said, I know most of you, at least for purposes of this topic, you don’t want to change your circumstances. You like your life. You just don’t want to feel, hat weight of the mental load or the overwhelm, however you would describe it. I remember distinctly there was a time where the thought of doing less, the thought of working less felt like terror to me.

I couldn’t imagine it. It felt like things had to get done. I had to be in that go, go, go energy and it felt so real and true. And so I’m saying that to you here and sharing it with you because I want you to know that I have been there and it’s like, you know, having on a certain color sunglasses, that’s the best way that I can simply describe it. It’s like I had on dark colored sunglasses and I was looking at my life thinking that it was just dark. And in this example, dark of course is you know, signifying rushed, busy, overwhelmed in the thick of it. And all I did was I took off those dark colored glasses and I put on rose colored glasses. And now I have full life, full circumstances. I work, I have three little ones under four years old and I see my life through rose colored glasses.

I love it. I do not feel overwhelmed. I would never say I am spread too thin. I would never say I’m in the thick of it. I truly like enjoy my days and I feel light. And again, I am not saying this because I want you to think like I have it figured out. I want you to know that there are tools that can really make a significant difference. I was just talking with one of my dear friends and she took one of my courses and she said, you know what, it is like a lot of mindset, but it’s also a lot of action. Like you’re very specific with what to do. And I said, yes. Do I, do I not say that enough? So it’s not like you join the Mom On Purpose Membership or you join private coaching or any of the offers that I have.

And all of a sudden I’m just saying, you know, you know, fix your mindset, change your mindset. It’s very prescriptive. And when I encourage you to think a different mindset, I actually show you how to do that and how to practice it so it feels much more concrete than some of the other kind of offers out there. Some of the other just methodologies out there where it feels very vague. I remember reading personal development years ago and always getting kind of that dopamine hit that motivational hit when reading the book, but absolutely nothing about my life changed. And I remember thinking like, I don’t know what it means to do the work, to apply the work. And I want you to know in the offers that I have, it is all about doing the work, actually specifically doing the work. And now is as good of a time as any to let you in on a brand new free training that I have just created.

And I am kind of obsessed with it. It is called How to Lighten Up Motherhood 10 Mindsets, Habits and Routines to go from feeling like you’re In the thick of it to enjoying your days. And I really want you to take this free training my friends, I have been reaching out to those of you who have enrolled and I will continue to do that. So you will personally connect with me as well because I’m just very mission driven right now and I want to make sure that you are utilizing the tools that I’m creating in a way that helps you change your life. One of the questions I always ask myself is like, how can I make it easier for my clients and the members of this community to get the results that they want? How can I make it easier for you to make motherhood more enjoyable?

How can I make it easier for you to lighten up motherhood? That’s what I’m asking myself over here. So I poured my heart and soul into this training. It is kind of like a course, okay? And I don’t want that to overwhelm you, but I just wanted to over deliver in value. It’s completely free. And you get 10 videos, you get a PDF supplemental guide with a summary of all of the videos. You also get a private podcast. How cool is that my friends, we live in the best time. So if you prefer to binge it all in audio, you can absolutely do that. If you like video, there’s a page where you get all of the videos right there. They’re small bite-sized videos, so it’s not very long. And I break down the habits, the mindsets, and the routines that are going to help you lighten the mental load.

So you have to get this course and you have to take this course and I will reach out to you and I’ll check on you and I’ll see how it’s going and we can connect. And I’m just really excited because I think that when you do what’s in this course, you’ll see a drastic difference in your life. And the content included is really simple for you to do and it will make such a big difference. It’s how I’ve been able to go from truly feeling terror at the thought of doing less and being in that go, go, go doer energy to being relaxed. I just had this recent experience, you may have seen it a few weeks ago on Instagram where I posted about how I was at the Children’s Museum and a mom came up to me and she said to me verbatim, “in case no one has told you today, you are killing it”.

You’re so calm and chill and it’s crowded here and you have three boys, how do you do it? And it was just a moment that I appreciated. I appreciated her so much for, you know, coming up to me and saying that. And you know, we chatted for a bit and I told her she was a great mom and, you know, then we parted ways and we’re running after our littles there. But I just had this moment where I truly realized that I embody this state of calm and lightness when I’m with my kids no matter what. I could be in a crazy children’s museum where there’s literally chaos there. There’s like field trips, older kids, I’ve got three kids under four. And I was calm and in her words chill enough that she came up to me and noticed it. And it was just a moment where, I felt appreciation for her.

But I also felt appreciation for the work that I do and I continue to do because it makes such a difference in my parenting. I’m not yelling, I’m not panicking, I’m not running around like a crazy woman. I’m not, you know, feeling the weight of it all. I don’t say to myself like, I’m just in the thick of it. We just gotta make it through. It doesn’t feel like that. And again, I’m over emphasizing this because I truly believe that we can get in our own heads and just think, well it’s just this season. Like this is just a fact. This is just how it is and that is not true. Okay? So I hope that I have persuaded you enough to get this training. It’s over at momonpurpose.com/lightenup. It’s all one word, L-I-G-H-T-E-N-U-P momonpurpose.com/lightenup. And all you ought to do is add your name and email in there and you’ll get access to it immediately.

I send you an email with the PDF, the private podcast, the videos and you can binge it. And I’m just really obsessed with this right now because I’m hearing from you, you want to stop yelling. You want to embrace a soft, calm motherhood in your everyday life and you just don’t think it’s possible. You just think it’s because of your circumstances. So anyways, that is what I have going on here and I want to continue to share with you how you can lighten up motherhood in a different way in this podcast so that it’s supplemental. Okay? So definitely go over there right now, momonpurpose.com/lightenup and get the free training. And for the rest of this podcast, I want to talk about lightening up in a way that I didn’t at least not in depth in that free training. So let’s get into it.

What makes motherhood so heavy? Think about a very typical day that you might have where it kind of feels like you’re in the thick of it. Whether that’s like a weekday, I know for some of you it’s during the week. For others of you, it’s on the weekend. For others of you, it doesn’t even matter. But just think of a very typical day where motherhood and life would just feel heavy. It might be today or the last 24 hours or last weekend. Imagine that day and then ask yourself, what are the thoughts that you are thinking When you ask yourself this, I want you to know that there’s no morality. I don’t want you to judge yourself When you judge yourself, you can’t change. So if you think, oh, I shouldn’t be thinking that, or I know that’s just a thought or anything like that, it’s just not going to be helpful. I want you to approach looking at your brain with curiosity like fascination. ’cause that’s the only chance you have at changing it is when you’re really curious about your own thinking. The last time that motherhood felt heavy, what were you thinking? Were you thinking something like it’s never enough, the mental load, it’s just too much. I should be doing more. I can’t keep up, I don’t have enough support, or I do have enough support and there are still a million things to do. It’s never ending. It’s just this season of life.

When you think those thoughts, you feel a certain way, your thoughts create your feelings, I promise you this is true. It is the only way I am able to feel joyful and present and calm and relaxed and chill because of my thinking. The reason I told the story about the woman coming up to me at the Children’s Museum earlier in this episode is because I want you to know that I wasn’t born this way. I am naturally type A in my doer. Go, go, go energy. And people who know me personally and professionally would definitely not use the words calm and chill as their first adjectives to describe me. And yet this mom out of nowhere comes up to me and notices in her words how calm and chill I am in this crowded place. And she can see that I have like three young boys, you know, two of whom are playing in the other one I was baby wearing at the time.

That happened only because of the inner work that I have done on myself. It happened only because of the thoughts I was thinking, you know what I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t thinking, oh my gosh, it’s too busy here, we gotta get outta here, it’s chaos. I don’t like this. The boys are going to get lost or they’re going to get hurt. Or I just want to go home or I wish I wasn’t here. Or you know, I have a million things to do later on. I can’t focus on play. Like I wasn’t thinking any of those thoughts. Now would any of those thoughts have been true? Yes, that’s the kicker. That’s what I think we forget with thought work. You can think anything, anything you want, you can think. You have free agency to think, feel, and act. And here’s the thing my friend, there are so many different thoughts that are true.

Was it crowded in there? Yes. Was it kind of chaotic in there? Yes. Would I have rather been doing something else? Yes. Was I thinking any of those thoughts? No. Even though they’re true thoughts, because I knew thinking about that would not help me, it would hurt me, it would create negative emotion. I thought thoughts in that moment like I’m going to stay calm and present, keep my eyes on my kids play and enjoy our time here. You know, it’s April in the Midwest and Chicago and it’s still pretty crummy weather out. So those places get pretty busy and that’s okay. I’m used to it like there’s this relaxed lightness that I have that is with me no matter what. And I want you to know that it’s only because I expanded my capacity by doing this work. I never think thoughts like I’m in the thick of it.

It’s a never ending to-do list. I have so much to do. Now. Those are true thoughts, but there are so many other thoughts that are also true that would feel delightful, that would feel light. And I just, you know, protect my peace. I think me feeling good and positive on a daily basis is so important because there is no over there, there is no arrival. That’s the work that I really did on perfectionism, on myself and seeing like, oh, this is just for fun. I do all of this work, this growth, this goal setting for fun because alternatively it’s thinking that, oh, I’m going to be happy over there and over there never comes. So why set goals? Why do this work literally just for fun? Not because something’s wrong, you’re not broken, you’re not damaged, none of that. There are tools that you can put in your tool belt and utilize and get really skilled at to make a huge difference.

I promise you, if you are someone right now who really feels like you’re in the thick of it and that feels so true, shift and start practicing a better next believable thought. That still feels true. There are hundreds if not thousands of thoughts about any given circumstance that could feel just as true. That is why that other mom was kind of overwhelmed, like a little bit anxious, feeling a little bit of the chaos in the exact same environment. And she had fewer kids than I had. And she noticed that. And it’s only because of my mindset. My thoughts are different than her thoughts. That’s it. I was thinking it’s okay that it’s chaos here. I feel calm, I’m a calm mom. All I gotta do is play and keep an eye on my kids. This is a great day. Let’s have some fun. I’m glad to be here.

I was so tired that day. That’s what makes it just fantastic that this happened. I posted that on my stories. It’s over at, mom.onpurpose, on Instagram. If you saw it about how I was just a level 10 out of 10 tired. And even then my energy came through and this mom picked up on it and saw it. And the only difference between us is our thinking with respect to how we felt. So I felt light and present and playful and calm and yes, I was tired. I was very tired that day and distinctly remember. And she felt a little bit of heaviness, a little bit of overwhelm, a little bit of like anxiety, you might call it.

She wasn’t feeling playful and light. And it’s only because we were thinking different thoughts. So the same exact circumstance can exist. And when you manage your mind and you think different thoughts, you will feel differently. But the thing is you have to, you have to do this work and come up with your own next believable thoughts or at a minimum come into the Mom On Purpose Membership and I will coach you on them. Because a lot of times what happens is when you’re first doing this work, you will just try on mantras that other people offer to you. And it’s not a bad first start, it just usually doesn’t work. So for example, you hear me, you know, teach you this on this podcast like thoughts create feelings, and you want to be a calm mom and and lighten up motherhood. And you start telling yourself, okay, I know I can become calm, I’m going to be a calm mom today.

And you’re, you’re sort of like trying to practice these thoughts that you don’t yet believe and it just pushes down the negative thoughts. And it’s really because you haven’t taken a look at what you’re currently thinking and you haven’t come up with a next believable thought. You’re trying to jump to a new thought too quickly. And that is why sometimes when you’re doing this work without a coach and without getting coached, it won’t work. It’s not going to do any harm, it just may be ineffective. I think one of the best things that you could do just from listening to this podcast episode is to notice the link between thoughts and feelings. So when you think a thought, you feel a feeling, when you think this is too much, you feel what? When you think I can’t handle this, you feel what? When you think I’m in the thick of it, you feel what?

Those thoughts do not feel good, I feel worse. Even just saying them out loud. You never have to think those thoughts my friend. I promise you, you can have the exact same circumstances and feel so much lighter and at ease and calm and it takes playing around with your thoughts a little bit at first to do this. But it’s super, super effective. It’s really the only thing that you need to be able to do. I will say that when you get into like a feeling state without having done the thought work, having in your back pocket, being able to breathe through the feeling and name it is really powerful. So I do this too, if all of a sudden I feel overstimulated or I feel just a wave of negative emotion instead of letting it in the driver’s seat and kind of run away with my thoughts.

So for example, if I feel anxious on default, that anxiety is going to produce unhelpful thoughts. Like I wonder what’s going to happen, what’s going to be next? This shouldn’t be happening. I can’t do this, right? It’s going to spiral. That’s what we call it. You know that negative spiral when you know how to name your emotions and breathe through them, the feeling’s still there, but it’s very much just in your body. It’s kind of like in the backseat and you just take deep breaths and you say, I’m feeling a feeling that’s so different. It’s a completely different experience than I’m an overwhelmed mom or I’m an anxious mom, where you take the feeling and make it a part of your identity. So all I’m doing here right now is separating out the facts from the thoughts and the feelings that those thoughts create. It’s I think, gosh, the the number one best tool that I have ever learned and continue to use on a day-to-day basis, separating out into buckets, the facts from my thoughts and my feelings.

And why is that so important? Because it leads to all my actions. No one else can see what I’m thinking and they can’t see what I’m feeling. So that mom who stopped me at the children’s museum, she saw my actions, she saw my demeanor, she saw how I interacted with my kids, she saw me smiling, she saw me being playful. She saw me keeping tabs on my kids in like a very calm and in her words chill way. And it felt very light to me because behind every action is a thought and a feeling, right? Thoughts create feelings and feelings drive all actions. So most people just say like, I want to skip to the actions and I’m all for some action taking. Like, trust me, I want to give you all the actions and I’m, I do that work myself. But when I do the identity work first of becoming someone who is light and calm and chill, the actions flow naturally.

I’ll tell you, there was nothing special I did that, you know, was calm or chill. You know, I can’t even remember. I literally even remember in that moment feeling like I wonder why she like noticed that or how she noticed that. It just dawned on me that you know, your energy is something people just notice and you notice this anyways, when you see other people, you don’t have to be around someone for a very long time to notice if they’re feeling pretty good, they’re feeling happy or they’re feeling angry. She noticed that I was feeling light and chill and calm and it’s only because of what I was thinking. I was thinking different thoughts than she was. And no one teaches us this growing up. No one teaches us that our thoughts are optional. And not only are our thoughts optional, but I want to go so far as to say that it is your job to manage your thoughts.

You’re not responsible for your first thought, which often comes from your default brain, but you are responsible for thoughts. You think after that, and that will change your entire experience. I want you to manage your brain in a way that helps you create the feelings you want. So if you want to lighten up motherhood, here’s an exercise. Imagine a circumstance where you would normally feel the heaviness of motherhood. Let’s say it’s at nighttime when you are planning for the day ahead, going over your calendar, trying to, you know, prepare lunches for the next day and you’re just running through the list of things that you want to make happen. And you notice yourself thinking there’s so much to get done, even though I have support, I’m in charge of all of this, and it just feels like I am in the thick of it.

I want you to, out of the moment, meaning at a different time of day when you’re going to do this, like in the morning at lunch some other time when it’s not this activity that you’re doing. And I want you to imagine that exact circumstance and you feel differently, you feel light. What would you need to think to feel light? So for example, let’s say you’re going to do this exercise as part of your morning routine. Tomorrow morning when you get up, you are going to journal about tomorrow night when you are prepping for the next day. And tomorrow morning you’re going to journal and you’re going to say, I imagine myself tonight going over the plans for the next day, going over all of my to-dos and my calendar, getting things ready for myself, my work, my family, and all of the things that I ordinarily do. And I feel light, I feel connected, I feel present, and I feel light.

Here is what I’m thinking. To create that lightness. And then you imagine that situation exactly. And then you journal about what you want to think in that situation that would create the lightness. So here’s the thing, your brain has an amazing, incredible imagination. We just spend so much of our time imagining things from our past. So if bedtime has been very difficult lately with your kids, you are imagining it continuing to be difficult. I want you to take a situation where you ordinarily feel the heaviness and use your imagination to imagine how you want to think and feel with everyone else in your circumstances being the same. You can be completely different. Again, it’s going back to the beginning analogy. It’s taking off those dark colored glasses. You have the exact same circumstances and putting on rose colored glasses, exact same circumstances. I have done this work so profoundly and helped thousands of clients do it that I am so convicted in its effectiveness because you will feel lightness and you still get to get a lot done and you still get to do everything that you’re doing.

But with some simple brain management, you will stop thinking those toxic, unhelpful thoughts. You never have to think I have so much to do. I don’t have enough time. I’m just in the thick of it. Come up with better feeling thoughts, my friend. It will change your life. Everything that I’m doing right now, I get to do. I genuinely want to be doing all of the things on my to-do list and on my calendar. It is a privilege to be doing all of these things. It’s a privilege to have my family and my work and my life, and it’s busy and it’s full and sometimes it’s chaotic and messy and I am here for it. I feel light, I feel true joy thinking about this life and what a gift it is. And I know that if there’s a need that’s unmet that I have, it’s my job to meet it and I can do that.

Starting with managing my mind and thinking thoughts that are true and believable, and also that feel light because there is no end. This is how it’s forever. You take your brain with you. That’s all it takes, my friends, that’s all it takes, is writing down what you want to think and visualizing it true, believable thoughts. But you have to be willing to do that. You have to be willing to change your thinking, and when you change it, everything changes. I love this work. Join me inside the new Lighten Up motherhood free training over at momonpurpose.com/lightenup. I will see you inside. Take care of my friends.

Thank you for being here and listening. Now, head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more about the Mom On Purpose Membership, where we take all of this work to the next level.