Episode 315 Transcript
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[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 315 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.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here, especially if you're brand new to me. Welcome. I love that you are here. For all of you who have been with me for a while, I just, I want you to know, I think about you on the [00:01:00] other end. I really do. Some of you reach out, you reply you email me, you send me a DM on Instagram or something like that and tell me how much the episode had helped and I really appreciate that.
And so I wanted to start out just letting you know that yes, it is just me on this side of the mic, but I do think of you all people who I might not ever meet and then hopefully there are some of you that I do. I just want you to know that I appreciate you being here. I cherish you all and I really will, just keep going to be able to help you out there who struggle.
In these subjects, areas of life for those that you are new here. As a certified life coach, I focus on bringing a faith-based approach to life coaching, the tools and strategies, the science [00:02:00] to behind life. And for me personally, it really involves you as the whole person, the whole woman. And this is the seven subjects that I just organize my mind around, that I help you in your life, and that is in relationships, in your emotional wellbeing, in your time management, your money and finances, your spiritual wellbeing.
Your physical health and wellbeing, and then your depending on, which one you fall into, either your career or your business or your vocation, and together all of those just really make up the main subjects that I help you with in your life. And today on this episode. I've called making peace with budgeting.
We're taking the money financial part of life that I feel like when you are someone [00:03:00] who is challenged in this subject, when you have struggled to have good feelings and a good belief system and feel, solid in this area, then I know that you're probably struggling in other areas.
And likewise, when you concentrate on this area of money and finances. You explore it and you make changes that support and help you in this subject, then I also know that you're gonna find the other areas, your relationships, right? Your career, business, your emotional wellbeing, many times, your physical wellbeing, they will all rise in satisfaction as well. So I love to dive into the subject of money.
And this in particular today, we're actually niching down and we're focusing on budgeting. Okay. And this was, this came out from a lot of the subject matter of the podcast is I get in real time when I'm working with real moms who are having [00:04:00] real challenges and struggles. And this was one of them from one of my clients that when we work through it and we're talking about it, then I was like, there's other people out here who.
Probably are suffering the same way she is. And so I'm gonna do an episode to address it. So here we are. For anyone who dislikes is challenged by, has been avoiding budgeting, I wanna help you make peace with it because if you do, you will. Get better at the subject of money. And again, I've already mentioned why that is important because of how it directly affects the other areas of life.
So I'm just gonna say upfront, if you, if the word itself budgeting makes your stomach twist or your shoulders tense up, first of all, I wanna let you know you are not alone. In fact, I do. I hear this a lot that I know I should be budgeting, but I avoid it or I feel guilty [00:05:00] every time I look at our spending.
Or the act of budgeting actually feels like punishment. Does that resonate with you all? If so, I totally get it. I know you carry so much out there, moms emotionally, mentally, and physically, that the idea of adding another system or a spreadsheet or adding something that will require payment of your time, right on the already full plates that you have, it just feels like too much.
And remember, your brain wants you to seek pleasure and a lot of people do not have thoughts around budgeting that. Give them some pleasure, right? A dopamine hit, and I wanna help change that for you. But here's the thing I wanna offer you today, right? What if budgeting wasn't something? What if we have it wrong that it must drain your energy?[00:06:00]
What if you become a person who budgets on the regular and you are your energy and around your finances and money and wealth, what if it restores it? What if you could actually feel peace when it comes to your money and finances? What if budgeting could become more of a tool? Not for restriction, but for confidence, clarity, and calm.
I love to give the example of a hammer, right? It is a tool when it seems like it could be a restriction. That's when you take a hammer to destroy something. But what if you use the hammer? And then I'm asking you today to use budgeting to actually build something. So like a hammer can build a house.
What if we build confidence, clarity, and calm in your life? And we use the tool of [00:07:00] budgeting. So let's talk about making peace with budgeting. All right? Most moms, they don't avoid budgeting because they're lazy. I wanna get that like from definitely. From the beginning. The reason why you avoid it is because it of how it makes you feel.
Okay? And there's a reason why it feels hard. But I want you to open up and I'm gonna invite you to think it doesn't have to. Okay? So when we're budgeting, may, maybe some of you relate that to shame. Maybe confusion, overwhelm, fear of what the numbers might say. And then, your lower brain that's trying to protect you will say, let's not look at it.
Or maybe it'll say It's not that bad, or How about this one? We'll figure out later. We'll be fine. [00:08:00] We're not behind. But that type of avoidance will. It creates like this low level stress that follows you throughout the day because there's a real truth inside that says it would probably be better if I faced it.
So maybe you're, you feel uneasy at the grocery store. Maybe you hesitate when the kids need something. Maybe you wonder if that charge we made is going to overdraft us. We have these like conversations in our marriage that feel tense or unclear. That's what I mean by that's the opposite of peace and we want to have more peace.
And those examples we're showing you how if there's this, I should look at the finances, I wanna budget, I wanna figure out how to do it, but yet we're not doing it. Then it does seep into our, the rest of our lives and it does. Of [00:09:00] our peace. Okay. And like I said, this was.
This episode is here because of a mom I was coaching, and this is what she said. She shared on one of the calls, and I really do think it'll probably resonate with many of you. She said, now she does have access to my book. On money and finances, that is called Divine Abundance.
And just check the show notes if you want more information on how to get that book or the course I have on Faith Focused Finances. And I'm also gonna offer you a free download today that would also help you on this subject. But what she said before, reading Divine Abundance budgeting felt like something to dread. It felt like a punishment or a reminder that I wasn't doing things right, but going through the book and going through again, what I'm, what I offer [00:10:00] around the subject of money, one of the things with around budgeting is in there too.
It made her realize, she said, it made me realize that budgeting isn't about restriction. It's about alignment. It helped me stop seeing money as something to fear and to start seeing it as a way to support my values and support my peace. How beautiful is that? Like she didn't, again, her answer was, I didn't suddenly make like a whole bunch of money.
She just was changing how she was thinking about the money she already had, especially around the action of budgeting. And that shift created space for her to just relax into it and to open up her perspective about what was possible or to see how she was possibly had been wrong about.
Wanting to avoid [00:11:00] budgeting before, right? So let's just go to what budgeting really is and what it's supposed to be and what it can be for you. And that is, it's a tool for peace, right? It's a peaceful, purposeful practice. Okay? So I wanna help you reframe it. I wanna help you reframe the subject of budgeting.
Budgeting is not a test. It's not a test that you're failing if you're not doing it. It's not about getting every category perfect If you do sit down, and try and budget. And it's not about depriving yourself of going in to see what you have to take out and what you can't have, like your little joys in your life, whether that's, coffee somewhere or going, the gifts that you buy friends, something like that.
You know what budgeting is? It's about making a plan ahead of time so that you are not living in reaction [00:12:00] mode. Yeah. Someone who's living in reaction mode, you, I could say they're most likely not tapping into their piece and those that have plans, they are. It's about deciding how you wanna use your resources so that your spending aligns with your values.
And Mama that does bring peace. It brings this confidence that you're making decisions because you took the time. To align and ask yourself what's important to our family, what's important to focus on? What's important to prioritize? What's important to increase? What's important to decrease, right? And it does bring a confidence, a piece.
And it's no longer about do we have enough? It's about is this what we've chosen to do with what we have? So in Divine Abundance, my latest book, [00:13:00] I talk about budgeting from a completely different perspective than what most of us were taught. I, it's not about restriction. It is about peace.
It's about aligning your money with what you actually value, not what the culture says, not what your neighbor does, not what you think you should want. It comes from a faith-based perspective. God has actually given us the instruction books. I have pulled from that and curated from that, and I help you combine your faith and what the word says about it with the.
The earthly actions, that we need to take when we are managing our money well. Okay. And when you budget this way from a faith perspective and you do it intentionally, it does become a spiritual and emotional tool, not just a financial one. This is again why I am, I'm talking [00:14:00] about when you hone in on the subject of money.
When I coach on this subject, when I help you break through those limiting beliefs and thought errors that you've carried around with you for so long, then you again get so much benefit in all the other areas of your life. It isn't just oh, I'm working on my finances. You are then working on your emotions.
You are working on your spiritual wellbeing. Okay, so I just wanted to pull from my book today and share a few key principles that will, I think help align you more when you budget. Okay. Number one, this is not gonna be a surprise, but a lot of people I can picture are definitely leaving this out of their budgeting, and that is to start with gratitude.
So before you even touch a spreadsheet or write a number, you're gonna take a moment to thank God for what's already there. [00:15:00] Whether it's a lot or a little gratitude is just that magic emotion that will shift your mindset from scarcity to sufficiency. Okay. The fact that you have anything, the fact that you ha, did cover the electric bill, right?
There's just so much gratitude to be found, and that's where you wanna start. So that, again, remember, it's how we feel behind the action. So in this case, it's budgeting is so important. So we're gonna start with gratitude. Number two, suggest giving first. This isn't about numbers. Again, remember, the way that I approach money isn't just from that logical earthly view.
I'm asking you to bring the faith in it. So in this case, when we give first, you're actually tapping in and checking off the trust muscle [00:16:00] box. It's about trust. When we give from our first fruits, when we start in you and see how much we have, before we budget what's left, we wanna start with our giving.
This reminds your brain and your heart that you are provided for, right? This definitely aligns budgets with your faith and values. Okay? Number three, we're gonna also say prayer. Prayer for clarity in our spending, right? There's infinite possibilities of where it could all go. But budgeting isn't just math.
It's about discerning how your resources can support the life that God is calling you to have and to build. And it's okay to ask, is this purchase gonna help me live more fully, or just a moment of.
Prayer into our [00:17:00] decisions into the finances, into the budgeting. Pray for clarity, guidance. Next step I want is to be a steward, not an owner. This is a sim. This is a shift, a mind shift, right? But it will change everything if you allow it. And that is to remember that we're managing God's gifts, right?
That this is from his supply and we wanna, we're stewarding it. We're not clinging like to our money. We wanna release a control and we want to just ask ourselves coming from this, if we stewarded it well, right? It was temporarily given into my control. What do I want? You're releasing the control.
And you're asking to shift from the inside to be a steward of it. So when you're [00:18:00] budgeting, if you're thinking about it that way, it will be more of a spiritual experience. I want you to also next make room, right for God's nudges. So if you are faith aligned in budgeting, it includes having margin in there.
That means we might not plan for every dollar so tightly so that we can respond as outside of the time that you were setting up the budget. You wanna leave some margin for, something you might have an inner prompting to give or to support a friend or to invest in something that feels meaningful to you and your family.
Maybe you wanna say yes to more rest, right? And so there's some nudges there and so we definitely want to. To [00:19:00] take some of these things I've offered and I'll remind you these principles behind it. It is to bring gratitude in it. That's where we wanna start, is to think about giving first, right? That re that releasing.
We want to add prayer into our budgeting. We wanna think of ourselves as being a steward, not an owner of it all. And we wanna leave room for God's nudges. Okay, so this episode I titled right make it Make Peace with Budgeting. So there's more. I want to just like more tangible action things to offer if you have been avoiding budgeting, right?
Or maybe you've been starting and stopping budgeting and I just wanna give you some more like tangible actions forward that will. Actually work for like real life. And that is like before you [00:20:00] even touch a calculator or write down everything you think about budgeting, I want you to write down everything you think about budgeting, right?
So this is going again, preparing ourselves before the act of budgeting, which trying to get you into that more. Higher emotional state, and I want you to have I'm just gonna call it like a no guilt brain dump, right? Write down everything you think about it. There's probably gonna be lots of judgment here, and that's okay.
Maybe it's I'm not good at this, or we're behind, or this is overwhelming. Okay, get it all out. And then I want you to write down next to those thoughts. This is just a thought, not the truth. And can you write that? Can you see it? Can you just be like, no wonder I just like budgeting or have avoided it if I'm really carrying around all these thoughts that I'm not good at it, that I'm behind that it's [00:21:00] overwhelming.
Okay, so this is about clearing out the mental clutter. So that you can make some space for progress. And then if you're someone who's not budgeting now, like a really practical step is just to decide. Just choose a method that you're gonna budget, right? And I wanna suggest keeping it simple. Are you gonna be someone who just literally gets out a piece of a pen and piece of paper, great.
Write some categories down, take your. Your income and what you have and then divide it up and just at least you have it like written down. Maybe you wanna do it on the computer, maybe you wanna go paperless and you do it like on a Google sheet. Okay. What about a budgeting app?
If it's on, is on your phone. Okay, awesome. Don't wait for this perfect tool. You really just wanna choose one and start. It's another tool called that I use Just start somewhere. [00:22:00] Choose one and start so that you can quiet your brain and say to it, I am budgeting. This is a little bit on what I've said before.
And I think about how from an early age, this is how I taught my kids when they either came into some money or, birthdays, holidays, things like that, got from grandma. And that is, think about budgeting in this simple order, just like this framework. It's just peaceful.
And that is to give, save and then spend, right? When you give first you practice generosity, and when you save you create this security feeling for yourself. And then when you spend what's left, like you stay in integrity because you've done, like you are living from your alignment, right?
It's not out of reaction. And then again, I mentioned this a little bit before, [00:23:00] but about this like margin, this space for real life to happen because in our budgeting, you know that saying about the best laid plans, right? You can have what you think is the perfect, categories and the amounts and you know what to work from and even, what to save, what you're gonna give, what you're gonna invest, all that. But real life will happen. Life will throw curve balls, and instead of things unfolding perfectly, we wanna plan for imperfection. We wanna leave room in our budget, there's gonna be unexpected expenses. There's gonna be changes. And again, there's gonna be those God nudges.
And I just want, like I, I want you to see the flexibility in budgeting, not the rigidness. There's flexibility there. And then for budgeting, it's just like any other [00:24:00] habit. We want to just decide when we're gonna do it. How often we're gonna do it. Maybe we calendar it, we do a calendar reminder once a week, once a month.
Who knows? Maybe you turn it to a habit where you have certain kind of music on when you do it or you light a candle, make it. Tell yourself this is just a habit on building so that it doesn't become a chore. The more consistent you are, the more confident you'll feel. And I love that the more consistent you are, you also are gonna give your brain a chance to be like, oh wow, like this isn't as bad as I was making out to be.
Or, why did I avoid this for so long? Or, look how great this feels, or look how you know how much I. I saved or I stayed on track, or something like that. And that's when the confidence comes. And then you'll reap [00:25:00] and feel those emotional spiritual benefits from faith focused, aligned budgeting. Okay? And this really does matter a lot because budgeting doesn't just help you handle your money better, right?
It will help you meal feel more in control of your life. We know that feeling better about our finances improves our marriage. It shows examples for our kids, teaches them responsibility and gratitude, especially if they're, watching you enjoy budgeting. It allows you to say yes to the things that matter and no, to the things that don't.
And that is so empowering. And most importantly, it does help you live with integrity and more calm in your motherhood. So if you are somebody that this subject, you have struggled, I want you to know you're not [00:26:00] bad with money, you're not behind, and you're certainly not alone if it comes to budgeting being a challenge for you.
It's just a new approach that you need and. I'm offering here one that works with your brain. It can work with the season You are in life and it works with your values and it brings in a faith component that is often mostly left out of this subject of money, right? Budgeting this kind of niche.
Part of finances, it can be a source of peace, not pressure. So I hope that you all will take it a step further. And there's a be few beautiful ways that I can have you do that. And I've mentioned a couple before. I have a book that is dedicated to this subject [00:27:00] to, it has a whole chapter on budgeting.
It even has a beautiful 30 day plan in the back of this book that I love. But it will help you bring a faith component and bring more abundance into your life. Again, full chapter of budgeting with clarity and more peace. And so grab that paperback book, divine Abundance, or you can also I believe you can get it if you are a Kindle Unlimited, you can get it for free and I would love you to do that if you.
You could take, if you want to have more some video, some already curated worksheets that help you in all of these subjects. If you're someone who likes to write things down and you would learn directly from me. I have a self-paced course called Faith Focused Finances, [00:28:00] and this way you can apply the tools in your own time.
You get step by step guidance and. I can also give you a very special low price on that course and the way that you can get that will be from downloading my very, you should get this anyway, everyone who's listening to this and wants to feel better about your money, I have a Money Stress to God's Abundance Cheat Sheet.
And this is already curated thoughts that take you from scarcity to abundance in these important subject when you combine your faith with money. So download that, and when you do, it'll take you to a page that will give you, I think, a link to both to be able to get the paperback book, or you can get my very, my self-paced money course at a very [00:29:00] low price.
For you podcast listeners, you'll be able to find all of that in the show notes of this episode and, as always, I just want to tell you that if you're someone who struggles in this subject, you will have more peace of mind with any of the resources or just try some of the things out from this episode today, again, to bring you more peace of mind and maybe you know somebody who is struggling also with their money and finances.
And so please share this episode. Okay, so peace is a hundred percent possible. With your money and finance area of life. Okay. That's what I have for you this week. Everyone. Thank you so much for listening, and I will be back next week with another episode. Until then, may peace be with you. Always. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of The [00:30:00] 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 Divine Time to find out which path is right for you.
Let's meet and see what's the best fit. [00:31:00] 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 Mehod: 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.
