Episode 333 of The Peaceful Mind Podcast- When Life Feels Full But Not Fulfilling
===
Speaker: [00:00:00] You are listening to episode 333 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast. Welcome to The Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place where you can move out of overwhelm and into a calm, confident motherhood with God at the center. I'm Danielle Thienel, certified life coach Catholic Mom and creator of the Cyclone Mom Method. I help you create emotional, steadiness and peace of mind from the inside out.
So you can experience more balance and more joy in your busy mom life. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let's get started.
Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I am Danielle, and I am so glad you're here right now when this podcast is being released. It is summertime and you might be in the throes of it all. But what I have to say today with my [00:01:00] message literally can be applied at any time of year. But I just want to know when I'm referring to being in a full season.
I'm just thinking of all that goes in the different routines of the summer, and I am just wanting you to know that I'm thinking about all of you and all of your amazing efforts that you're doing. Mama. Okay, but this is where I'm going to focus on for this episode, right? You might be in that full season right now.
Your days might feel packed, your mind might feel full, your home might feel full, and there also might be a lot of good things going on in your life, and yet something feels off, right? Maybe not terrible, just. Not fulfilling in the way you thought it would be. Maybe there's this just quiet sense of dissatisfaction in a certain [00:02:00] area of your life.
Maybe there's just this low level like restlessness. Even if you are able to rest or have a little bit more down downtime at this point in your life, maybe there's even a thought like, why don't I feel better? Almost like I should feel better. Like everything is fine, everything is okay. If that's you, I just want you to open up to hear my message of today because.
I could be onto something when I let you know that where this is coming from might be because your experience, you're experiencing the difference between your wants that are being met and your needs being met. And today I wanna walk you through that because when we [00:03:00] understand this, it does change everything about how we kind of care for ourselves, how we show up as moms, how we create a more peaceful mind.
So let's start with this simple truth, and it's around your happiness. It is much more connected to your needs being fulfilled than your wants. Being satisfied. Okay. Stick with me here. Okay? Because I know your brain might be like, okay, are my needs being filled? What are actually those needs? Are my wants being satisfied?
What do I feel dissatisfied in What are at my actual wants? That is why I love that I'm bringing this episode to you today because I always want you to just slow things down to be able to contemplate what I am offering here, because in motherhood it is so very easy for these two [00:04:00] things to get flipped.
'cause we live in a world that constantly points us towards our wants. And believe me, and most of my clients will be like wait a minute, Danielle, you are always telling us that your ears perk up whenever you hear us say I want. And that is true, but there is needs, basic needs that a lot of you don't focus on fulfilling.
And then when we. Have those unfulfilled and we're focusing on getting the things we want. It's like going upstream, like you're just trying to swim upstream. 'cause again, more our society points us towards having more things like being more efficient, having more comfort, more upgrades, more doing. And to a certain extent, these things are all fine.
To have [00:05:00] things to be efficient, to have comfortable, to be comfortable, to get upgrades. Who doesn't love an upgrade? But your needs, your fundamental needs are what sustain you. And those things, more things, more doing doesn't actually sustain you. And when your needs go unmet, there's no amount of more that will feel like enough to you.
So let me try and get a little bit more practical, as I've been talking very general up until now, and I'm gonna walk you through categories to help you understand and like clearly give your mind a way to organize what I'm saying. And as I do, as I name out these categories, I want you to gently notice.
Where you might hear me say it and then you feel supported in [00:06:00] this and you feel something like, yes, I think I've got that going on. Yep. That's good. I don't really have any challenges there. And then I want you to notice where you are just struck in a way where you think something might be missing here, or, yes, I'm not.
I am on a scale of one to 10, I'm at a three, and this feels like something that I don't say that I have right now. Okay? So just listen and notice, okay? No judgment, just I'm trying to bring an awareness to you. And the first is your physical needs. Okay? These are more basic. So when I say. Food, water, sleep, rest, care for your [00:07:00] body, right?
This is care for your body. Food, water, sleep, rest. What just happened there? Okay. If you would've a, if you would've given me these let's say, maybe a year now. A year, definitely a year from now or in the past. And I would've been like, the water thing. Not really great at it.
I have, I know I don't drink enough water and this past year I really focused on being somebody that was hydrated very well on the regular. So that was my example, but wherever you are in your season of life, do you know, again, you might have a little bit in all of these categories. I'm not looking for perfection here, but which [00:08:00] one is the most that's not being met right now of your physical needs?
Is it the type of foods you're eating and how much. Is it the water, the quality of hydration, your sleep? I'm gonna probably take a best guess at a lot of you. This will be your top one for whatever reason that is not like at its optimal. And then rest, right? Which one of these, I know this, these things are often the first place that we compromise.
And if you have little ones at home, again, your sleep might be, have been interrupted for years. Now, if you're waking up with babies, maybe toddlers climbing into your bed early mornings that don't feel optional to you, or maybe if you've got. Middle school or school age, children [00:09:00] years you're in right now.
Maybe it's rushing through meals, eating, standing up, grabbing whatever is quick before driving, working, managing the home, and of course getting them to all of their activities. If you have teens or even kids leaving the house or already left the house, your schedule might really look different, but maybe now you're, you are staying up late.
Maybe you're worrying or thinking, processing, maybe you're still not getting the rest your body needs. So even though life is full, your body might quietly be saying, I am not being cared for. And this is exactly where we start. We wanna start with the basic physical needs. It matters. Okay. And now the second category that as I name, I want you to just evaluate for yourself.
[00:10:00] See, especially where your body just does a shift where you know yeah, I feel good about that. Or, yeah, I'm not really the where I wanna be with that. Okay. And because this is where I see so many of you moms quietly struggling. And that is emotional needs. Emotional needs like connection, being understood, feeling loved, feeling seen, support, encouragement, and here's what this can look like in real life, right?
Maybe you're still, you're surrounded by your children all day, but you still feel lonely. You're giving so much, but you're not necessarily receiving connection in a way that fills you perhaps, again, when you're managing all those school activities, responsibilities, you might feel like [00:11:00] you're constantly needed, but you're rarely being asked how you are doing.
And what about that dynamic shift that happens when our children are older? They need us differently. Sometimes it's less out outwardly and we might find ourself missing the closeness that used to be there. All of the stages. It's possible to feel emotionally undernourished, even in a very full life.
Okay, i'll repeat that. The second category, which was the emotional needs, it was like connection, being understood, feeling loved, feeling seen, support, encouragement, and again, the way you can help yourself the best is not to say, yes, I need and want all of those things. We get that, but if you can hone in like on one of the [00:12:00] physical needs and we put our attention there, or what's one of the emotional need that you.
That you lack and you want to grow in abundance around. Okay. And so the third category to think of is our intellectual needs. And this one often surprises moms because we don't always think about it, but your mind needs engagement. So this would be learning growth, curiosity, challenge. Yeah, that's actually one of our needs challenge.
If you've been home with young kids, you might feel like your brain is underused or stuck in the repetitive, mundane tasks. If you're balancing work and home, you might feel mentally stretched, but not in ways that feel like meaningful or [00:13:00] energizing to you. And if your kids are more independent, you might start asking things like, what do I wanna learn?
What do I want to explore? Now your mind was created to expand, and when it's not being engaged in a fulfilling way, you can feel flat like you, even if everything around you, when you look around, you're like, it's fine. It's fine. There's still gonna be this. Again, this unfulfillment going on, and so I'm just here to bring that to your attention and say, could there be something that I take up and learn?
What could I challenge myself with? What you know, where could I grow? And that could help you actually get going to hone in on something you might not be seeing right now. And then the fourth category is your spiritual needs, and this [00:14:00] is where we gently anchor back to God, right? Your soul has needs too, right?
It has a need for silence. It has a need for stillness, has a need for prayer. Connection with him, the sacraments, scripture. Again in motherhood, this can be the easiest to let slip, and not because you don't care, but because life is full. You might tell yourself, okay, I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna pray later, or I'll go deeper in my faith when things calm down or when I have more time, I'll create more space for God.
But your soul. Wants it, desires it, needs it is not satisfied and it doesn't need perfection, right? It just needs the presence of your spiritual needs in [00:15:00] some form or fashion. Okay? Even small moments, quiet whispers of prayer in the middle of the day helps because when your spiritual needs are unmet, everything else can start to feel a little off.
Even if everything looks good on the outside. So when you put all of these categories together when you put 'em all together, you can start to see why life can feel full, but not fulfilling because fullness often comes from those needs being met, right? The first physical needs. But also from wants being met, and schedules are filled, homes are filled, activities filled, roles filled, but fulfillment comes right from those needs being met.[00:16:00]
And those are a little quieter. They're more like internal. They're more intentional. And which of the areas that I brought to your attention today feels a little undernourished right now? Is it your body? Is it your emotions? Is it your mind? Is it your soul? Just notice what came up. And there's absolutely no pressure to fix it all.
In fact, I don't want you to go searching and try and fix it all. Not at once. 'cause that's where your brain, it's I need to overhaul everything. You don't. That's not how this works. It's always about small, steady shifts. Come back to me if you have gone away. 'cause you wanna hear it's always about small, steady shifts.
So what's some examples? What could that look like [00:17:00] if your physical needs are low again, like me, maybe it's drinking more water intentionally today. Maybe it's going to bed a little earlier. Maybe it's sitting down to eat instead of rushing. Okay, the physical needs, which one? What's a little shift you can do to meet those better?
If your emotional needs are low, maybe it's reaching out to a friend. Maybe it's letting yourself be honest with your spouse. Maybe it's simply acknowledging your own feelings instead of brushing them aside. If your intellectual needs are low, maybe it's listening to something that stretches your thinking.
I wanna say that you're already checking that off the list today just by listening to this podcast. Okay. And reading. Reading something that sparks curiosity, letting yourself learn something again, something new, something different. [00:18:00] And if your spiritual needs are low, maybe it's one short prayer, a moment of silence, one intentional turning toward God in your day.
It's a commitment to return to a sacrament. It doesn't have to be big. It just has to be real 'cause. It's not about again, overhaul everything or becoming a different type of mom. This is about caring for the mom you already are. And the more you begin to meet your needs, even in small ways, you'll notice something shift.
You won't need as much from the outside world to feel okay. You won't be chasing that next thing to feel fulfilled. Because you'll be building it from within with awareness, with intention, with God. So let's [00:19:00] just focus on getting more clear on whether our basic needs are being met. Then what? Out of those wants of spiritual wants, of emotional wants of intellectual wants, what could just use a little bit more attention?
Okay. You will, if you focus on your basic needs, feel more fulfilled. And again we can do this even though our life is full. We don't have to wait for a future time where things are different or more settled in order to do this. Okay? God created you with these needs on purpose. They are not a burden to have more water and eat [00:20:00] well, and to exercise and to sleep, okay?
And all of your wants. Again, God created, he put these desires in our heart for more connection, for growth, for desire, for spiritual support. He put them in our hearts. They're an invitation, and I want all of you. To be able to fulfill fulfilled today. Again, not at a later time. And I hope that this point of view from your basic physical needs and wants will open up something for you, help you have a little bit more desire to focus on one that then has you feeling better.
Then we pick another and we [00:21:00] concentrate on that. And that is what I wanted to offer for all of you today. All right. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm always inviting you to share it with someone who maybe you know would benefit from this podcast. And also if you feel compelled, there is a place to put your.
Stars and to give some feedback because it really helps other moms who out there to want to hit the play button and listen and get the benefit of moving towards a more peaceful mind just like you are today here. And I'm so grateful you're here. Thanks again, and I'll be back next week with another episode.
And until then, may peace be with you. Always. Thank you for listening to The Peaceful Mind Podcast. If you've been feeling a quiet desire for more peace and steadiness in your motherhood, [00:22:00] I invite you to take the next step by scheduling a Peaceful Mom strategy. call at www.daniellethienel.com. You'll also find the link in the show notes.
It would be an honor to support you at any stage of your motherhood journey.
