Episode 290 Transcript
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[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 290 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
Welcome to the Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind. You need to be the best mom. You are created by God to be. If you want to bring more balance, more joy, and more peace to your motherhood, this is the place for you. I'm your host, certified life coach at Catholic Mom Danielle Thienel.
In the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let's get started. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining me with the podcast. So how are you all? Do you have a level of peace in your life? Do you have peace of mind going on right now or. Does it feel like you just, it's fleeting, it comes and goes, or maybe you feel like you're [00:01:00] always grasping for it and it's not there?
I hope today's episode will help you with that. A couple things. If you're listening to this podcast right when it comes out, it is back to school time. We just finished a Labor Day weekend and this around time, sometimes kids were, depending on where you are in the world, kids have already been back to school for a little while, but just a good check-in, right?
How can we make this season, which a lot of people want to call busy and hectic and chaotic, like, how can you just do a reset and say, you know what, this is what I'm gonna incorporate this go around with back to school. Hopefully that's a little reminder, and again, hopefully this episode will help you find ways to do that.
And secondly, I just want to mention I am about to leave next week for a speaking event. I will be in, Minnesota, Wisconsin. I fly into one and [00:02:00] drive to the other. But a beautiful parish has welcomed me to teach a one day speaking event around my Faith Focused Finances course which is also the
Same content as my Divine Abundance book. So we're gonna be talking about God's supply and prosperity and how to bring in more money into your life in a way that connects it to our faith. But I just wanted to bring that up on the podcast to say if any of you out there in your own church or parish or mom's groups would like a speaker, then please reach out.
Email me at [email protected], and if you do [email protected], that will also get you connected with me. I'd love to send you some information about what, what it looks like to have me come speak, or just to hear what you might have for your church or your groups or some kind [00:03:00] of event that you're having where you think I might be a good fit.
I love traveling. I love speaking. I love sharing. And one of the other really great perks is I love meeting my clients and listeners in person. So this is a little shout out to Jess. Just so looking forward to hugging you in person. All right let's dive into today's episode. And I just want to ask you this question, when was the last time you felt truly at peace?
Like not just from those mo those little tiny moments that we catch before the kids wake up, but just like a deep kind of settled piece that doesn't really get shaken by things around you. Is the answer, like not much? Are you like at the effect of what's happening, whether you are being able to hold your peace or not?
I want to offer today that there are ways, [00:04:00] I feel like this is the secret everyone, and I've broken it down into three pillars of how to have consistent inner peace. That's the difference with today's episode, that I want you to think about the consistency of having inner peace in your life.
And I know that you can hear that and be like, okay, are you kidding me, Danielle? I've got three kids. One more on the way. I have a to-do list. It never ends. I'm in the thick of it. Maybe my husband travels and I'm trying to take care of the kids on my own. And then I have this like little side business that I started, but I've got the household duties.
I get it. I totally get it. But what if I told you that the very circumstances that feel like they're stealing your peace, they could actually be the pathway for you to find it. So today I'm going to share with you the secret to consistent inner peace, because it is available to you [00:05:00] and I don't think it's gonna be what you think, right?
Because it isn't about having the perfect house or perfectly behaved children, and it's not about having all of your ducks in a row or finally getting on top of that laundry mountain. The secret is something much more beautiful and much more available to you. Right now. So let's start with what peace actually is, because I know for some of us that we've got it all wrong.
We think that peace is the total absence of chaos, right? But that's not peace. That's just not reality ever because we live in a broken, fallen world with ever-changing circumstances. Many of them that are out of our control. But true peace, at least a definite part of it. The main part of it, [00:06:00] I wanna say, is the presence of having God in the midst of whatever is happening or in and around us, right?
That is that unshakeable knowing that no matter what storms come into our lives, if what's going on in our swirl of our cyclones, that no matter what on this earth, your time on Earth, you are held, you are loved, and you are exactly at the moment where God has planned for you to be.
I love what St. Theresa Avila says, let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing away, but God never changes. That's just, that's the foundation of this consistent inner peace that's knowing that while everything around you, it may be shifting and changing and sometimes falling apart. And again, with my [00:07:00] Cyclone Mom method, I describe it as swirling around our God remains constant.
And with that, just as the precursor to it all, I wanna now offer you three pillars to consistent inner peace. And as in all things, I relate this right to our motherhood. And so as I offer them, and I want you to decipher and think about what these things are currently in your life right now. So pillar one.
The first pillar is learning to surrender instead of trying to control everything. And I laugh as I said this because, oh mama, I can hear your thought patterns, right? And I wanna just, reiterate those, knowing that yes, this one is hard, right? [00:08:00] This one is hard. We wanna control our children's behavior.
We wanna control our husband's schedule. Maybe even the traffic on the way to soccer practice, the weather for birthday parties that we've been planning for weeks. This one, I remember I was just so obsessed with weather and thinking like, how can I avoid this ruining plans even? I remember back to the whole year, I was engaged leading up to my wedding.
That's all I literally thought about on Saturdays was. What the weather was like and how, like how I could do something to make mine be a beautiful weather day. Anyways, I digress. But this is what I've learned, that every moment that you spend trying to control things that are outside of your ability to do like outside of your influence, is a moment that you are choosing anxiety over peace.
Anytime you are [00:09:00] focused on the things like the weather, the things that are not in your control, like other people's words and behaviors, then you are choosing anxiety over peace. What I love, and this is something I'm regularly doing to help myself without to give up this type of control, is to go to the phrase.
Jesus used in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed, not my will, but yours be done, right? Like even in his anguish, he chose surrender. And so I know, our little everyday anxieties we can equate to this type of anguish. It all matters. We don't wanna belittle it by saying, oh the anguish of a dirty sink has no comparison to Jesus in the garden.
But don't allow that, don't allow you to not see that this is an [00:10:00] exact way to help you get this inner piece with this phrase. Not my will, but yours be done. I'm saying a prayer every morning now in my morning time. That has to do with this this reminder. So let's go to practical terms.
What would it look like for you to whisper those exact same words? Not my will, but yours be done when your toddler has a meltdown in Target. How about when your teenager slams their door for the third time today? We could say, not my will, but yours be done. How about when the dinner you spend an hour making gets met with complaints?
Not my will, but yours be done. Do you see this isn't about becoming like passive and not caring. About these kind of results that you want or wish weren't happening, but it is about recognizing where your true power lies, [00:11:00] and it's always in how you respond, not in controlling outcomes. So that's pillar one.
And I think for me, not my will, but yours be done is a faith-based way that immediately gets me in the action of surrendering and not controlling. Which is if you want consistent inner peace, this first pillar, surrender, not control, is vital. Okay. The second pillar, presence, not perfection, that's you choosing to be present over having perfection.
Now sometimes, I mean I've done several podcasts that talk about. That this is a part of the peace formula, right? And I think sometimes I'll say progress, not perfection, but in today's terms of having consistent peace in your life, I'm going to use presence, not perfection. So often we rob ourselves of peace because [00:12:00] we are mentally living in three different places at once.
Like we're physically folding laundry, we're mentally planning dinner, and emotionally we're worrying about tomorrow's presentation at work. But peace only lives in this moment, like right here, right now. When you're fully present to what's in front of you, AKA, your mind is directed and thinking about the circumstances, the thoughts, the feelings, the actions that you're doing.
Right now and when that happens, if you have anxiety, it has nowhere to go. It has nowhere to land, right? Worry about the future cannot touch you when you are completely engaged in the present. And i'm here to remind you when people are like, okay, how do I do that? It is literally redirecting your brain when it's off in future land, when it's off in anxiety land, [00:13:00] bringing it back to what is happening and what you wanna choose to think about what's going on in your life at that moment.
So this doesn't mean your mind won't wander. It will. That is just the way our brain works. That's just being human. But it does mean the practice, the training of gently bringing yourself back over and over again to the right. Now. It's what I do with my clients in our sessions. There's sessions in our coaching sessions I'm getting what I call the download of what's going on in their lives, and it's, and oftentimes that is what I distinguish, okay, what was going on last week and what are you thinking about what happened last week?
And then, oh, there's something that's upcoming and you're thinking about the future. But I bring my clients back to, okay, what do we want to think, feel. Start doing or stop doing about it all right now, because that is always where your power lies, right? So [00:14:00] are you finding yourself that when you're reading bedtime stories, you're not even there completely, right?
When you're just stirring soup, you can let that be enough. When you're listening to your child tell you about their day, this is giving them the gift of your full attention. Okay, that's pillar number two, presence, not perfection. And hopefully that I've offered you some. Again, I'm always offering reminders, but hopefully I've offered it in a practical way.
It's literally just noticing when you're not present and deciding to think about what's going on in your present moment. That's that's it. Okay. Pillar three. Is to choose grace, not guilt. It's extending grace to yourself instead of drowning in guilt. Because if you hear nothing else from this podcast, let me just get your full [00:15:00] attention for this.
All my beautiful mamas out there, guilt is peace's greatest enemy. It whispers lies. About who you are as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter of God. Guilt tells you that you're not doing enough, not being enough, not loving well enough. But this is not, this is your greatest robber of consistent peace because first of all, God's love for you is not based on your performance.
Okay? You are beloved. Not because you pack perfect lunches or never raise your voice or have a Pinterest worthy home, you are beloved because you are his daughter. Period. Because you exist, okay? And guilt so often tries to steal our peace. Okay? [00:16:00] Is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
This is what Romans eight, one says, no condemnation not for. Putting on a movie or two because you were too tired to be creative, not because you chose frozen pizza for dinner, not for the moment that you locked yourself in the bathroom just to breathe as a side moment. I know that we do this, I used to do this.
Sometimes the, my coaching clients say they'll come to me from their car. They will come to me from their closet. They will come to me with a session in their closet, and I get it. I get why that's happening. All right, so let's just talk about just some practical tools. I always want to leave you in these episodes with okay, if I wanted to carry out these three pillars, what would it look like in my daily life?
So here's a few [00:17:00] suggestions. One I call the sacred pause, right? When you feel that tightness in your chest, or the overwhelming vibration in your body like starting to rise, we wanna take a couple deep breaths and I wanna offer that this quick prayer. I've said this before on the podcast many times because I use it a lot where we just say.
Jesus I trust in you. We wanna know. That's enough. It's like I'm never, you're never gonna find me saying that you need to have time for a full, big prayer session. This is about taking micro moments to reconnect with peace throughout your day. One of the ways I do that is. This will seem so random and out, but like right now, I'm doing laps in my pool every day.
I have all summer, and I'll try and do it up until, the weather really [00:18:00] changes. But when I get, I do about 50 laps in my pool, and when I get to number 33, I have created the habit of having a sacred pause. And I picked 33 because that's the age of Jesus dying on the cross and. I take that moment, I like, hold on.
I can see myself. I'm in the deep end at number 33 and I'm holding on and I take that time to pause, take a couple deep breaths, and then I actually is like I say, Jesus, I thank you. I do a moment of gratitude. That's how I incorporate like the sacred pause into my day, and I want you to know this is helping me be more consistent with inner peace.
The second kind of like practical action step I can offer you to take is to do what we can call a peace inventory. And that's simply at the end of the day to ask yourself What stole [00:19:00] my piece today and what brought me peace today? And answer it. It's for you to gain awareness of your life, of what actually are the things that steal your peace and what are bringing you peace.
It's all about awareness first. Maybe you notice that scrolling social media while the kids playing always leaves you feeling a little restless. Maybe you realize that those few minutes you spent watching your baby sleep filled you with deep contentment. I know that's something I truly miss right now.
Awareness is the first step. It's the first step to making choices that support your piece instead of undermining it. So if you could do a quick in piece inventory, in fact, start a notes in your phone that says, my Daily Peace Inventory. And it's literally like number one would be what stole my piece today?
And number two, what brought me peace today so that you can start to see patterns. I mentioned this a little bit with my Jesus. I thank you. It's to have [00:20:00] some kind of gratitude reset in your life. When your mind starts spiraling into worry or frustration, can we do a gratitude reset? Can we name three things that you can see that you're grateful for right now in this moment?
The present moment, and again, reminding you they don't have to be big. They don't have to be life changing, just simple present moment gifts. The way the afternoon light comes through your kitchen window, your child's laugh in the next room. The fact that there's coffee in your cup, right? Gratitude, it's like a reset button for your perspective and it, and if you can come back to what am I grateful for right now?
And you're even looking around the room in your present moment, that will help you, right? It'll bring you back to what's actually true instead of what your anxious mind might be creating in that moment. Okay. That's what I have for you today. It's, this is what I want you to [00:21:00] understand. You do not have to earn peace, and I do not want you to wait for every, for all the ducks to be in a row, for you to have it.
You don't need perfect conditions to cultivate inner peace on a consistent basis. It's not something you achieve when you finally get your life together. It's not something you live. It is something you live from right now in the middle of whatever your cyclone swirl is, whatever mess surrounds you, whatever circumstances you are dealing with, you already have everything you need for peace, and that is what you all want.
So cultivate it. Create it today, and we do that by choosing higher thoughts. Thoughts that make us feel better, and we do that by these three pillars I've offered you today. Number one, to surrender, not [00:22:00] control. Number two, to be of the present moment, not perfection, and to give yourself grace and not choose guilt.
All right, everyone. Let me just ask you to try something This week instead of waiting for inner peace to find you, start living from the peace that's already available to you. When your morning feels chaotic, breathe deeply. And remember, you are loved simply because you exist. When the afternoon feels overwhelming, whisper a prayer.
And remember, you're not alone in this. And when the evening feels long and hard and tiring, look for one small gift of grace and choose gratitude for it. Okay? Thank you for going along this path with me to learn how to [00:23:00] build a life that has unshakeable peace and small steps everyone. That's what creates lasting change.
Just small consistent steps. As always, I thank you for being with me. It is a privilege to talk with you and I don't take lightly that you give me your time and attention. So thank you. And if there is a mom out there that you know that would benefit from this many episodes on the Peaceful Mind Podcast, please share.
Please help me in my mission to spread peace to us mamas, no matter what stage of motherhood you're in. Everything that I talk about on this podcast applies. Whether you have littles, whether you are entering Empt Nest like me, or even we are older with older adult fam older adult children. Okay, everyone, again, until next time, I wish you [00:24:00] peace and may peace be with you always.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Peaceful Mind Podcast. If you found value in today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you could subscribe and leave a review. It not only supports the podcast, but ensures you don't miss out on future episodes packed with insights and tools. To create peace of mind in your busy mom life.
And if you're of the Catholic faith, like me or any Christian mom seeking to feel better in any area of your life and to show up more calm, connected, and confident, I can help become an empowered mom who knows how to bring about the changes you desire, no matter the circumstances. Whether you need one-on-one guidance to get there, prefer a group coaching program with like-minded women or a self-study course I've got you covered.
Explore my private one-on-one packages. Join my Busy to Balanced group life coaching program or delve into my signature course [00:25:00] Divine Time. To find out which path is right for you, let's meet and see what's the best fit. Schedule a free call with me at daniellethienel.com or send me a direct message on Facebook or Instagram @daniellethienelcoaching.
And also don't forget to get your copy of my book. The Cyclone Mom Method: How to call on your God-given power to remain calm in control and confident as a busy mom. Dive into the digital and bonus audio version when you go to book.daniellethienel.com/new-book. You'll find all the details in the show notes too.
Until next time, peace be with you always.
