FINAL-Episode 323 Missing Ingredient to Your Peace
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[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 323 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 wanna 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 Tal.
In the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let's get started.
Hello, beautiful mamas. Welcome back to the Peaceful Mind Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle, and I'm so glad you're joining me today. I want you to take a moment. I want you to think about your day so far. How has it felt to you? Have you been rushing from [00:01:00] one thing to the next? Feeling like you're always just barely keeping up.
There's never quite enough time for everything that needs to get done or the opposite, but if you're nodding yes, I wanna share with you what might be that missing ingredient that could change everything about how your days feel for you. Okay. I've been reading an incredible book. You are going to hear me reference it in several episodes around this time, and I am going to link it in the show notes, but it is called Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy by Matthew Kelly, and it has really this whole springtime.
I came to the book in January and I am still soaking it in dissecting it, applying it to my life. And from it there was just so much [00:02:00] overlap with what I truly believe at my core is is helpful. To you busy moms, to be able to feel more balanced, more joy, more calm, more peace, more control. And he, there's so many things.
When I was reading it, it was just like yes. And I love that it's really, we're saying the same things, but he brings in a different angle and just the title, does that not sound amazing? Slowing down to the speed of joy, I'm like raising my hand yes. I want that and this concept today, it's literally what I want you to start seeing it as this might be the missing ingredient to my formula to get to peace.
Again, everything that I offer here might not apply. Like when I was asking those questions about how you were feeling right, or if you were, rushing or feeling like you're barely keeping up. Many of you I hope, [00:03:00] will answer and say that's not me. Or it's some of the time, it's not most of the time, but for those of you where it's more of the time.
And for those of you where it, sometimes I think you really can benefit from this concept, from this one, one ingredient. Okay. In particular this book. It really in this subject that I'm talking about, on this episode, it really shifted how I was thinking about my schedule. I have taken on this concept, this why it has, brought me peace already.
And I was just like, there are more people that need to hear it in this particular way. And the concept, the ingredient that might be missing in your life is called margin. And then you might be thinking margin like the white space around a page, right? Not exactly, but then again it's actually a pretty good analogy.[00:04:00]
Matthew Kelly, he explained margin this way. Margin is the difference between your load and your limit. I'm always talking about your limits okay, you have limited time and energy. You are not a robot Mama. But he gives an example that might make this clear. And again, it's just the same stuff coming at a different angle.
And I really wanted to share this angle. So this is the analogy I want you to think about. I want you to imagine a truck that's designed and tested to carry 10,000 pounds safely. And if you load it with 8,000 pounds, that truck is well within its limits. That 2000 pound gap between what it's carrying and what it can safely handle, that's margin.
And that margin is what makes the difference between safe operation and a potential disaster. [00:05:00] Now, what happens if you load that same truck with 12,000 pounds? Now you've got a problem waiting to happen. But here's what's really interesting, even loading it right up to its 10,000 pound limit, like you, that's the limit that the truck can take.
And then you put that exact limit in. That also can be dangerous. Let's say if you're, if that truck has to go through a storm. Those load limits represent safe operation, like normal conditions. And can you see where I'm going with this? We am comparing this to our lives, right? So even though that truck was at its load limit, when you add non-normal conditions.
Happen. So in like life, you [00:06:00] still are gonna have problems. And what that looks like for us is that we load our lives up with commitments based on our optimal conditions. If we didn't get into a little fender bender that week, then everything that I had planned, 'cause I had filled it, my schedule up to the limit, I would be able to handle it.
But what happens is we pack our schedules as if every day is gonna go exactly according to plan. We don't allow for the unexpected, even though the unexpected is inevitable. Y'all right? Every time we're like thrown off, we're like I wasn't expecting that. Why don't we start expecting the unexpected, right?
'cause it always happens. Things that you weren't expecting are always happening. And that's why so many of us feel like our lives are breaking. That's why we feel like we're constantly on the verge of falling apart when we [00:07:00] operate right up to our limits, day in, day out, or worse, like beyond them, we are flirting with catastrophe every single day.
Now, research shows that 81%. This is just a Google, y'all. I don't, I can't back up whatever this research was and where it came from, but it just offered a perspective. Okay. So take it or leave it or maybe Google it a little bit to the next level. But it's saying that 81% of people admit to overcommitting themselves to tasks, activities, and events that they don't have time for to fulfill.
And that's 81%. I would probably guess it's even more. What happens is that leads to feeling overwhelmed and inadequate. And mama, if you're a mom, that's what I'm saying, like this percentage it's higher at those, stages of motherhood. [00:08:00] We do this with our time and we do it with our money too.
Most of us have no margin in our monthly budget. Then an unexpected expense comes up. The washing machine needs repairs, the car breaks down, someone needs medical attention, and we act surprise. We had a storm earlier this year, an ice storm. It broke our pool equipment. Total unexpected expense, right? But was it truly unexpected?
That's the question you wanna ask about these unexpected things. Like we know cars break down. I do know that pools need maintenance and equipment break sometime. So the particulars were like unexpected. But unexpected expenses arise for us every month, and the same thing can be said of our time. We schedule ourselves right up to our limits, and then life happens.
A child gets sick, [00:09:00] a friend needs help, there's a school event we forgot about, and suddenly we're scrambling, stressed. Feeling like we're behind failing at being a mom. So margin is simply a matter of knowing your limits and making decision with your limits in mind. How many of you are keeping your limits front of mind?
So I do wanna mention this story because it was in the book and it was so powerful. And again, if what I say here on this podcast and a few others that are upcoming, if it really resonates, go ahead and get this book so you can read all the things that he expands on about. But he told the story about working, was someone who taught him a really big lesson in a profound way, and what he said was that there was a man named Drew who worked in his warehouse and he was [00:10:00] responsible for like shipping orders, and he seemed calm and measured, but. He rarely, and he rarely heard him like raise his voice except in like safety situations.
And he told the story that this person Drew, was a recovering alcoholic who had once owned one of the most successful restaurants in the city, but when his alcoholism. Took his life in a different direction. He had, he sold the restaurant and he said about like rebuilding a different life little by little.
But what stood out about this person was his sense of personal responsibility, his understanding of his own limits. He would share like the wisdom that he was living out of his, like AA meetings with the things like one day at a time. Keep it simple. First things first, but one of the most powerful things that this man got to teach the writer of this book was a method called Halt.
[00:11:00] Like it was like a rule that this gentleman had for himself and halt, HALT. Stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. I'm gonna say that again. Hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. Only because my husband and I, we both read this book and I remember we were talking about our highlights and the things, and we were like, oh, yeah, I loved that halt method.
And then we had remembered what the H was. We couldn't figure out what the A was. And so that's why I just repeated it for you all in case you're okay. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Halt that he. Believe that we become susceptible to our self-destructive behavior when we are not checking in to make sure that we don't get like our limits, get to the point where we start to feel hungry, angry.
Lonely or tired. It meant being if that happened for this particular man, I think his name was Drew that I said that he might be [00:12:00] vulnerable to relapse. But these feelings are warning signs for all of us that our load is approaching our limits. So I loved and wanted to introduce that.
Like I know if I get to the point where I go too long without food, and I'm hungry, like this is just, I've reached my limit and I need to go refuel. It's the same thing with when we're tired, right? That is just a sign, right? It is that sign that I'm at my limit and then you wanna go address the tiredness.
So the whole point no, you don't have to be a recovering alcoholic to adopt the wisdom of margin. But drew, this person, he understood something that many of us are missing and that in order to flourish in your life, I love that word, flourish. Matthew Kelly he talks about this, that to have this flourishing, like [00:13:00] we need margin in boundaries, right?
And margin is most likely a missing ingredient in your life right now. If you aren't feeling the amount of peace you wanna feel. When we have no margin in our days, we will then deal with interruptions really poorly, right? Lack of margin brings out the worst in us, right? Having margin space in your schedule room for the unexpected, it brings out the best in people.
When you don't have time to get things done, the things that matters mo most to you when you don't have time for other people, right? Here's this here's the truth. We can't live out our purpose to love if we don't have margin. So think about that for a moment, right? Our capacity to love is being [00:14:00] diminished by the speed and busyness of our lives.
You can't sometimes plan and schedule love. Love makes unexpected requests, invitations. It demands us. And the more we rush around, the less capable we are of loving each other well, and let's just think about that with our kids, right? How we imagine, I've got moms all the time saying they wanna be more present from, for them.
If you're not being as present with your kids as you wanna be, it's because you're missing the magic ingredient of margin. And many of life's finest moments happen here, in the margin. There're those unexpected moments that can't be scheduled, like you just, it's, it would've been impossible to even think it if you have no margin.
Those mo moments happen without us. We'll miss them. [00:15:00] You can stretch yourself from time to be patient, and you can stretch yourself to be compassionate and courageous and generous sometimes. But when those things are thriving for you, when they're easy and abundant, they're, you have margin in your life.
Patience is so much easier if you have margin. Just think about it. Think about that when you're like. If you gave yourself space in your schedule to get to an appointment. What are we like in the car when we look at the clock and we're like, ah, we have plenty of time. We have a buffer. If we run into an accident, we're still fine.
Or I can get there early and finish reading the book in the car or whatever. How do you show up then? And then let's go to where you are. Like you just, you fit in all of this stuff right before you're like, I'm gonna do this before I go. And then you get in the car and you see the time and it's just all of a sudden you're like, you're behind and you're thinking, oh, I've got 15 minutes. But it usually takes 20 minutes to get there. And then that red light, [00:16:00] right where you get stuck behind or something. And how do you then show up and how do you feel because you don't have that margin, the wisdom of margin.
It also opens up to the possibility that interruptions can actually be a beautiful thing for us. And I am gonna speak a little bit to, more to that in another episode. It might be the next one. About, 'cause I know that we see interruptions as like annoying. And with margin it helps us to actually see interruptions a little bit differently and respond a little bit more gracefully.
So what are you thinking right now when you evaluate? Are you thinking, yes, I am someone who has lots of margin in my life. Awesome. I bet you also have a lot of peace. What does this look like practically for us mothers? For the ones who are saying, you know what, I don't have it right now. [00:17:00] It might mean not scheduling every minute of your Saturday.
Like leaving some white space for a spontaneous family time or rest. It might mean saying no to one more commitment, even if it's a good one, because you recognize that you're already at your capacity, you're at your load limit. It might mean building buffer times into your schedule. Like I just was talking about.
It normally takes 20 minutes to get somewhere, but plan for 25 or 30 maybe. The grocery run usually takes an hour, but you block out 75 minutes. It might mean having some margin in your budget each month for the inevitable, unexpected expenses. It might mean going to bed 30 minutes earlier so you're not operating on the edge of exhaustion every day.
It might meal, mean meal planning with some simple backup options for those days when life doesn't go according to plan. Build. Building margin isn't about being lazy or unproductive. It's about being [00:18:00] wise and sustainable and working with your humanness In our limited time and energy, it's about creating space for what matters most.
Oh, there are some things that I just know that I repeat to you all and I'm and I just feel like it bears repeating, focusing on what matters most and then. I love questions. As a coach, I love really powerful questions, and when I made note here, when Matthew Kelly, the author of the book, slowing Down to the Speed of Joy, when he asks this powerful question I made note.
I'm like, okay, I want to pose this to you moms. Is there room in your life for the life you want? So he says, slowing down to the speed of joy creating margin in your days, it will increase. Look at all the things it will do. Who wants this? Who wants to increase their personal satisfaction? [00:19:00] Who wants to prevent stress and burnout?
Enhance your relationships, increase your flexibility. Teach you to be more calm in a crisis. Do you wanna be more calm in a crisis? Who wants more clarity to make better decisions? Who wants an increase in their creativity? Who wants to expand their capacity to love and to be loved me? Then we need margin.
You need to give it margin to work with. Because the unexpected is inevitable and we need margin to thrive. So reserve some bandwidth for the unexpected build margin into your plan. So the unexpected doesn't throw your life into disarray, and we want it to reduce busyness. Reducing [00:20:00] busyness allows you to step into feeling more balanced more of the time.
It's time to make room in your life for the life you really want. Know your limits, live within them, create margin, and if you do, you will flourish. So maybe look at your schedule and ask yourself, where am I operating? Like at my limits? Where could I build in some margin? Is it that 15 minutes earlier for appointments?
I know I've repeated this because it's top of mind, because it's happened to me recently. Maybe saying no to the one thing that would normally say yes to just practice and don't even just what you say no to. Like even leave that space in your schedule. Don't fill it with something else. Okay. Just create a little margin somewhere in your life and notice how it feels [00:21:00] and even if it feels a little too, like a little uncomfortable, a little boring, a little blah.
I just wanna, right now, just in case you don't have to make that feel like. Like it's something's gone wrong. 'cause a lot of times we have to get to those feelings and then that's when this new idea and the creativity comes in, like you've opened the door for it, right? The goal is not to fill every moment.
The goal is to create space for what matters most, for your love, for presence, for the unexpected moments of joy. That can only happen when we have room to breathe.
Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I hope you found it helpful. I'm so grateful you're here. And if you would like to explore what it might look like to build more margin into your daily life, and we can really slow down and take a look at your schedule. And I've got some [00:22:00] wonderful questions that can really help you, like laser focus into what.
Is going on in your life, what you wanna keep, what you wanna let go of. Then the next really practical step is to schedule a free Peaceful Mom strategy call. We can definitely get strategize around getting more peace in your life if that is including margin. Okay? So you can sign up for a free call with the links in the show notes, or you can always go to www.daniellethienel.com and find the information there.
Let's talk about what's keeping you at your limits and how to create the breathing room you need. To flourish. Alright, mamas, I love you all so much. Until next time, 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 [00:23:00] subscribe and leave a review.
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