Episode 316: Become Mentally Strong
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[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 316 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 there beautiful Mamas. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Danielle, your host, and this month I am going to be doing something special, something I've never done before and it's just a brand new series and it's all [00:01:00] about becoming stronger. And over the next five episodes, it's because my episode comes out every week on Tuesdays, and this month has five Tuesdays.
So that's why I have thought it was like perfect time to put all of these subjects together. I wanna guide you through what it looks like to become strong in the most important areas of your life. And that is categorized by becoming mentally strong, becoming emotionally strong, physically strong, spiritually strong, and financially strong.
Because this is what I believe. I believe you all, each of you, especially you. Individual listeners, beautiful sisters in Christ, children of God who [00:02:00] care about their faith and their life. You were made to live a powerful life. A peaceful life, a purposeful life, and we don't accidentally drift into that.
You have to build it. We do, and that is what I wanna help you. Now, some of you will think of those categories and you will be like, yeah, I think I'm really good in there. Or there's one that you're like, this is the one I struggle with the most. Last year it was physically for me, but now I can say like I am, I feel so physically strong.
Now, that's a couple episodes away from this one, but again, I just want you to know that I know that there will be something in each of these that you might say, yeah, I could, raise the bar there, [00:03:00] or if I put a little bit of more focus there or made a change here. Because we do wanna be able to say that we are feeling great mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and financially.
But this episode today, we are gonna start. With mental strength. So let's even start by defining what I'm even talking about here, being mentally strong. It's not about being hard or cold or stoic. It's definitely also not about pretending to be like, fine when you're not okay. And it's not about perfection or pushing through at all costs. Okay.
But what mental strength is about is how you handle your mind. It's about how quickly you bounce back. Because life will throw us stuff. It's about how you face what's [00:04:00] hard, because there's a lot of hard in whatever stage of motherhood you're in right now. And when you become mentally strong, it will definitely separate you in how you think on purpose.
It's a control of your mind that then has you running your life instead of life running. You. And it's not something you're born with, it's something you build. That is why I always love for you to think about. We're using the word strength and we definitely think about like muscle building.
If you think of your brain as a muscle, we have to keep it strong. We need to build it, which means we need to focus on it, which means we need to stretch it and challenge it in order to build that muscle. So think of it like this, [00:05:00] right? If you've never trained it, if you've let it run wild or be filled only like with negativity, anxiety, or shame, of course it's going to feel heavy and overwhelming.
Just like a physical muscle gets stronger by going to the gym, your brain gets stronger by doing reps. Reps of intentional thought work. That's what we're doing here. That's what I'm helping you on some level when you listen to this podcast. But it, and it's definitely when you're working with a coach, when you're working like inside of my program, this is what we are doing.
We are retraining your brain every coaching session, every time we work through the actual circumstances that are going on in your life. And we come at our brain with questioning and we use certain tools. That is a rep. It's intentional thought work. [00:06:00] That's what you wanna be able in order to become more mentally strong.
So that would look like each time you notice a negative story that comes up, and then you actively choose a better one that helps you and serves you in your life. That's one rep. Each time you are going throughout your life and maybe you feel fear about something, but you take the next right step for you anyway, and you don't let fear stop you.
That's a rep. Each time you calm down, like your mental and emotional systems, and you then actively on purpose, no matter what's going on, you choose peace, you choose a thought that brings you peace in your body. That's a rep, and that's the workout, that's the retraining that will lead you to becoming mentally strong, which is part of [00:07:00] this whole framework when we're going to be go becoming mentally strong, emotionally strong, physically, spiritually, financially.
That is what will bring you all the peace of mind. That you're looking for and what I want to collectively with all of these episodes deliver to you. Now, let's get a little practical here. Okay? I wanna give you five simple but powerful tools that you can start using right now that will give you the effect, the result of building your mental strength.
And you all know who you are out there, who think that you are a little bit weak mentally, that you're a little bit more with the wind or that, one little thing and we just react to it. Or one new thing comes in and we just throw in the towel. We're just like, yep, here it is again.
Or we are just met with an un, an expectation we had wasn't met [00:08:00] or something that wasn't on your plan comes into your life and you just crumble, right? This, these are the indicators you want to focus on building your mental strength.
So here's tool number one. It's not new to any listeners who have heard me before. And it's definitely not to my clients, right? And it's called the thought download. And really what this is that there's so much swirling in your head, and in order to be someone who builds mental strength, you've got to start building your awareness of what's actually swirling and spinning and coming up again and again in your mind.
And the way you do that, we think about as a computer, if your brain's a computer, we gotta download, we gotta get out so that we can print it. I'm literally using the analogy of what we do to get information off of the computer and like on paper in front of us. Okay. [00:09:00] And so what that looks like is like maybe every morning or evening or just a few times during the week can you take five minutes to empty your brain onto paper?
Not censoring yourself, not judging what you write, but again, to build mental strength, we have to get it out. This is how you start seeing what's actually going on up there. So you would take pen and paper and you could say, just literally ask what are all the things that are, I'm thinking right now.
And it may be a list that sounds like this: I'm never getting anything done. I'm failing my kids. I'm never getting ahead. What's the point? There's no point of me even trying, I haven't made any progress on any of my goals. I'm not enjoying my life. I didn't go to sleep on time again last night. I don't like my boss. Just what's [00:10:00] going on with you.
To build mental strength, we first have to gain a lot more awareness, and the tool, the thought download is so impactful. We're not getting at the facts of your life. We're getting at what the stories are that you have about your life, and the first step to changing them is seeing them.
The second tool is what I call become the watcher of your mind. I think I have might be an early one, like a whole podcast about becoming the watcher. And that's for you to know you are not your thoughts. You're the one watching them. Do you know that we are the only species who can stop and think about our thinking? So like when a stressful or defeating thought shows up, we wanna practice by saying to ourselves, oh, that's just a thought.
It's a sentence [00:11:00] that my brain has offered me. It's not a truth, it's not a fact. It's literally a few words strung together that creates what we call a sentence and our brain is offering them all the time. So you want to grab this tool. You wanna all of a sudden become the watcher of your mind. And how I describe this to my clients is you think about those like medical shows.
So it's literally think about the medical shows and if you have it where you've seen where they're working on somebody, like his emergency situation and they're using the paddles or they're trying to get them, back, heart beating, things like that.
But at the same time, they'll show the person who's on the bed, they'll show them like in the room maybe just outside of themselves watching the team work on them. Okay. This is how I like visualize when we become the watcher of your mind. So you've got all these thoughts going on and [00:12:00] you wanna also be step out of yourself so that you can actually see yourself and say, what is it that I'm thinking?
Okay, your brain has one job and that is to keep you alive and safe and it literally doesn't care if you're thriving. All it wants you to do is conserve your energy, avoid pain, and then repeat all of the familiar in your life. So it's always gonna serve up to you old patterns of thinking. Okay, but what I'm saying today, for you to become someone who is more mentally strong, you want to be able to become the watcher of your mind.
You wanna step into this higher self, which is again, another part of your brain, where we actively then say, okay, I'm not gonna be running by the default one. I'm [00:13:00] actually gonna be on purpose. I'm gonna choose the one that is observing the thought without believing the thought. Without becoming the thought.
Okay so far to strengthen. To build our mental strengths to become mentally strong. Could we be someone who starts to do thought downloads, getting it out of our head and on paper? And then if you're not in that situation, you can then be, can you become someone who becomes the watcher of your mind when you say what am I thinking?
And then you follow that up with, oh, that is a sentence. That's just a thought my brain offered me. Okay. And then you can, just notice it, right? First you became aware of it, then you're just noticing it.
Now we wanna grab the tool question everything. Okay. Because not every thought that you have deserves you believing it, [00:14:00] okay?
When you write it down or you catch the thought when you became a watcher, let's, for example, let's say you find ,I'm behind, as your thought, or, I can't change, or this is just how life is for moms, then we wanna question it. Okay. I love these three questions and these are definitely ones you want to write down or if you're not in a place to do that now when you're listening, then you wanna go back, make a note of what the timing is of this episode so that you can ask them.
These are so powerful. Question your thoughts. And here is what I want you to ask. You wanna take the sentence that you have found that I'm behind or I can't change, or this is just always how life is for me.
And you wanna ask yourself, is this really true? [00:15:00] Is this really true? Even just take the one I'm behind. I no longer ever believe it. I think it sometimes, but then I catch it and I'm like, it's actually not true. I actually am just where I am right now, and then I can choose if I'm gonna focus on this and move myself forward or not.
Okay. The second question is, who would I be without this thought? Who would you be? Let's just say it was impossible for you to think the thought I'm behind it just wasn't part of your mental vocabulary. It's never an option. It just doesn't exist. That belief, that thought, I'm behind. Then who would you be?
If you never thought you're behind? What would happen if you did? You would just decide from the now, you would just pick the next best thing you're gonna do, and you would just take [00:16:00] action on whatever it is you wanna move towards.
And the third question is, what's a more useful thought I could choose instead? We always have that beautiful option. This is the gift God gave us to think anything we want at any time about anything and make it ours. And I'm always suggesting choose on purpose and deliberately one that supports you. That is useful. That is helpful. That feels good. What's a more useful thought you could choose instead?
So if you were feeling behind, right? And then you're like that's not actually true. And then you ask the question. If you couldn't even think that thought, what's a more useful thought? And one of the useful thoughts could be something like, oh, I just need to start doing this right now.
And there you go. So let's [00:17:00] say the thought is I never stick with anything. What if you said, I'm learning to show up differently now, or I'm building consistency one small win at a time. I love this one so much because this I have just found to be the most helpful thing for me and in all of the areas.
What's like a small little tweak I can make. And then just do that again and build that consistency. This my friends, is how you start rewiring your brain. This is how you start becoming mentally strong.
The next tool is to use your higher brain to direct your life. I just touched on this a little bit before, right? Your brain has two modes. It has the survival brain and it has the intentional brain, and I have lots of different names for that, right? Sometimes you hear me say lower brain for the survival brain, primitive brain. And then there's your higher brain, your [00:18:00] intentional brain, the strategic, the CEO, the boss brain.
And mental strength comes with you using your higher brain again and again. And the technical name is prefrontal cortex. This is where you plan, this is where you make decisions. This is where you guide your life. This is where it has you deciding what kind of woman do I wanna be? What kind of example do I wanna set for my kids? What story do I wanna tell myself about my life?
This is using your higher brain to direct your life. You're more conscious, you're onto yourself. You're intentional. You are you're choosing direction to your brain that you want it to go find answers to that will be helpful and supportive and more positive for you.
This is where we build in [00:19:00] pause in our lives. We breathe and we redirect from the higher brain when we catch ourselves working from the survival and primitive part of our brain. And every time you do, when you've just been unconscious about things and you notice, oh, I don't like, things are going, I don't like the way I feel. And then you pause and you breathe and you redirect to this higher brain to be like, okay, what kind of woman, what kind of mom do I wanna be in this situation? Or what is it that I want to move forward confidently as, right? What do I wanna stop being mean to myself about and start being, my best friend to myself about right?
Those kind of higher brain, intentional, deliberate directions. And every time you do that, you are building your mental strength.
And the last tool I wanna offer to build your mental strength is to be kind to yourself. [00:20:00] Be kind to yourself on purpose, right? Mentally strong women do not beat themselves up when they mess up.
They do not bully themselves into change with pressure meanness. They're kind, they're firm, they're focused, and always loving. So when you hear that voice saying, you're failing, you must build your mental strength and answer it like this. I hear you. I hear you, but I'm not going there. I'm learning. I'm growing.
I'm a human. I know how to choose love. I'm amazing. And yeah, sometimes I'm a mess. But today I'm choosing peace. I'm choosing kindness. I'm choosing happy. [00:21:00] Be kind to yourself, mamas on purpose. Make this the habit you're going to build. Make this your goal. Make this your focus. Make this what you commit yourself to.
Mentally strong moms. This is what makes a mentally strong mom. You feel the fear. You don't let fear lead your life. You speak to yourselves with compassion. You keep going even when it's uncomfortable. Come on, moms, stop saying things are so hard. Yes, they're hard, but you do hard things. It's uncomfortable, but that's what builds resilience and your confidence. And you've already done a ton of hard things.
Let go of perfection [00:22:00] as you build yourself mentally strong, this one will just take you backwards each time when you think, oh, it's not good enough. I've gotta do it perfect. Or or the comparison over there, and you're like, oh, I've gotta reach for that level when it has nothing to do with where you are in your life or what you want for your family.
Ask for help. Without shame you all. Thank goodness. I did not. I probably let myself go too long without asking for help, but thank goodness I finally was able to do that so I could learn these things and apply them to my life to be mentally strong right now. It took me saying, I don't know how I don't get it.
I can read all these books and I can, but it's just not clicking, it's not like seeing it in action, and I want you all to stop apologizing for wanting more. [00:23:00] Okay, moms with mentally strong. They know that this is the abundant life as God wants for you. That there are desires in your heart for a reason, and that it's okay to be grateful and love your life and to look around and say, Hey, these are all the things I've wanted, and now I'm here.
Stop thinking that's where you should stop when there's some other kind of pull to do something different or more, or to change, stop apologizing for it. And the moms who are mentally strong, who do all these things, speak to themselves kindly they're the watcher of their thoughts.
They do thought downloads on the regular. That you use your higher brain. Most of the time in your life, you actually feel fear, keep going, let go of perfectionism and people pleasing. You're constantly asking for help to just lift you up in your life, right? They don't get there by accident.
[00:24:00] They do the inner work. I did not get where I am. I can really honestly say I am strong mentally, and as the weeks go by, I look at the different categories too, and I feel like, yeah, I am strong in all of these areas, right? I've done the inner work. I have invested in myself. I have put myself first. I have made self-care a priority.
I have hired coaches and joined programs to help me learn the things that I wanna get better at. I have concentrated on building the skills that will help me be able to create peace no matter what is happening. I have showed up for my mind the way that we would show up at the gym, or we show up for our kids or for our jobs.[00:25:00]
So let me leave you with this. Mental strength isn't something you either have or don't have. It's not like a personality trait. It's not just reserved for people who've had it easy in life, or those who have never faced struggle. Mental strength is built it's practiced, it's learned.
And some of the strongest people I know, the most emotionally steady, grounded, forward moving women and mothers are the ones who have walked through very hard things and who decided not to let it define them. And I just wanna take a second here to just shout out to every and all of the moms that I have worked with over the years who have said yes to themselves, who put themselves into the container to become mentally strong.
You know who you are. You're listening now, and I just wanna say way to go. Great job. [00:26:00] Congratulations. And also just like I'm super proud of you and keep going, right? The women who have become mentally strong, myself included have taken ownership over their inner world. We've learned how to show up with intention and we've made peace with our mission.
And you can too. If you are somebody who feels like they question themselves or in self doubt, doubt a lot. They let others guide them. They're not really sure of their own opinions, what they want, haven't really taken the time to, take control of their life, or just maybe feeling like you're up going upstream all the time then this episode was for you and I hope you found it helpful.
Okay. Before I [00:27:00] leave, I just want to give you all some truths about becoming mentally strong. Okay. Mentally strong does mean that we have a plan. Okay. Planning ahead, preparing for obstacles, choosing what's best for our long-term goals, not just our short term, our short-term comfort.
If something is causing you anxiety, it's often because we don't have a plan on how to handle it, and that's where your power is in creating a plan. And I would love to help you create a plan. That is specific to you and where you are in your motherhood and your life.
And mentally strong women, aren't constantly overthinking or spiraling with the what ifs and preparing for the worst. Remind yourself, you're [00:28:00] not supposed to know the future. Mentally strong women, they stay present, they take aligned action, and they trust themselves to handle whatever comes next. So again, if you or somebody who is really grasping at what the future looks like, then this might be a call to to come talk with me.
Also mentally strong women honor their discomfort because discomfort is not the enemy. It is a gift. It's trying to tell you something. It's trying to tell you that you're deserving of better or you're meant for something greater than this, and I wanna help you lean into that discomfort. Again, becoming mentally strong will require you to be, for you to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable, listening to the discomfort, letting [00:29:00] it guide you to your next brave step. That's how you grow. And whether you like it or not, everyone, this is what part of the human experience is about, is that we're always going to need to be growing. I know sometimes that's not the best news, but if we lean into it.
If you're like, okay, I'm open to that. What would that need to happen for me to always then be growing? That's when you actually feel the release of all those pressure. Okay. In this specialized world that we have where everybody has like their gift or their focus, I want you to know you're not supposed to know everything.
Just like you wouldn't expect yourself to perform surgery or play a concert piano without having training, why would you expect to master your mental strength or inner peace alone? Again, ask for help. That's wisdom, not weakness. [00:30:00] Okay, and. The last sort of tidbit I wanna lead you about is be careful if you go into that all or nothing thinking pattern, right?
When something hard happens, it doesn't mean that everything's over or failure. Okay? Mentally strong women hold both grace and growth. We wanna learn how to be more resilient and bounce back, rewrite the story about what's happening to ourselves, and this is how we become mentally strong. So next week I'm going to step into becoming emotionally strong, and this is how I want you to learn how to feel better by processing, not avoiding, life is not supposed to feel good all the time. In fact, learning to process complex emotions, grief, anger, shame, fear, like it's the cornerstone of strength. And it's how you move through that pain [00:31:00] without numbing it, spiraling yourself, abandoning yourself. That is also one of the subjects.
So mama, if something inside of you is stirring, if you're tired of spinning in the same thought loops, if you're ready to stop doubting yourself, stop apologizing who you are and to stop settling for survival mode, then please come to a Peaceful Mom Strategy Call with me.
It's to help you retrain your brain. It's to show you how to manage your mind. It's to strengthen your inner world so you can live with clarity, confidence, calm. So let's meet. Let's talk about what mental strength looks like for you. Okay? You don't have to figure it out alone.
Your peace is worth it. Your life is worth it. You are worth it, and I am so grateful that you are a listener of this podcast. Thanks for being here with me this week, and I will see you again next week as the series continues. Thank you again for being here, and until next time, [00:32:00] 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 Divine [00:33:00] 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.
