Episode 335- The 3 Key Habits of Peaceful Moms
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[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 335 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, beautiful mamas. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad you are spending a few minutes with me today, and like I men-mentioned last episode, I'm challenging myself to keep these on the little bit of the shorter end. And so let's go. Okay? I've been [00:01:00] thinking a lot lately about what actually separates moms, the ones who consistently feel more peaceful, from the moms who are still searching for it.
And the way I look at this is what I think about is my kind of before coaching version of my life and then my post-coaching version of my life. And I started with myself, what kind of separates that version from the current version. And I wanna be clear, this... it's not about how everything is just gravy and wonderful now, right?
It's not about like I'm having a total easier life. As I say that, I truly do feel like it is definitely easier the way that I'm using my mind and my emotions that it is actually easier. And I want that for you too, and I know that that you do as well. And it... But what I guess what I was trying to say is that it's not that my circumstances are actually that different, right?
It's not [00:02:00] like that the reason why things are easier because you have more help than you did before, or if you have fewer kids than another person, or if your schedule is less hectic. I know plenty of moms in genuinely hard circumstances who still carry a quiet steadiness about them. Just gonna do my call-out to my particular friend that comes to mind when I think about this.
She's an amazing mom Mary Jo. And there is definitely a quiet steadiness as she's got some really hard circumstances that she's been facing lately. And on the other side, I also know a lot of moms whose lives look calm from the outside or you would say maybe put together or they've got it going on or they're just, living their best life.
And I also know that they feel completely chaotic on the inside. So [00:03:00] what is the difference? After years of coaching moms, after studying this and living it myself and applying this work myself, I believe it comes down to habits. Not dramatic overhauls, not big life changes, but just three specific habits that peaceful moms practice consistently, and that's what today's episode is all about.
So let's get to it. The first habit of a peaceful mom is that she has built faith into her daily life in small, consistent ways. I want to put a really important emphasis on both of those words, small and consistent. And if you have been a longtime listeners, this is my, what I call my 10% philosophy.[00:04:00]
And the reason why I want to emphasize small and consistent is because I think that so many of us have an all or nothing relationship with our faith life, and it quietly robs us of one of the greatest sources of peace available to us. 'Cause when we start looking at ourselves about not doing the things we think we, quote, "should be doing" to follow our faith, that is only adding heaviness and pressure, right?
But we think we have to do all of the things And it just is really stifling us and keeping us from peace. And I just want you to be able to see that, first of all, I'm not talking about I, I'm not wanting you to have to feel like you need a perfectly structured hour of morning prayer before the house wakes [00:05:00] up.
If you have that, wonderful, but that is not what I'm saying is required here. What I have seen both in my own life and in the lives of the women I coach is that the moms who feel more peaceful are the ones who have woven small moments of connection with God throughout their ordinary day, not in one concentrated block that has to look a certain way or then our brain discounts it that it doesn't count.
I want you to think about what that could look like for you. Maybe it's a few minutes in my divine time planner, and maybe it... you have some kind of routine or journal or something quick written before you check your phone There is a s- a particular section in my Divine Time Planner that is specifically for prayer and gratitude.
It has a scripture, [00:06:00] and even five minutes with that before the day gets going can completely shift how you feel walking into your morning and will bring you more peace throughout your day. Maybe it's opening the Hallow app, if you're familiar with that app, on... During your commute, you might-- could be listening maybe while you're folding laundry, just letting your mind go somewhere other than your to-do list for a few minutes.
They have such a variety of prayer, music, medica- meditations, things like that that help support your faith life and bring more peace. And then, it's a little bit of a trick, and it still counts, but sometimes we could... they have that where you have a playback speed, that you can make it a little bit quicker.
Maybe it's just doing a decade of the Rosary, not the whole thing, just one, [00:07:00] one decade, and while you are waiting in the school pickup line or you're sitting in the parking lot somewhere. Maybe it's as simple as whispering the words, "Help me, Jesus," in the middle of a hard moment. That sincerely.
That is a prayer. That is connection. That counts. Maybe it's a short passage of scripture that you read right before you go to bed, right? Let it soak into your mind right before you fall asleep, or a devotional you love, or playing worship music while you make dinner. Really why I'm just trying to give examples, 'cause what I want you to see is that the specific form matters far less than you find something small and doable, and then we become consistent with it.
'Cause here's what I've come to understand about this. When you regularly, even briefly, [00:08:00] return your attention to God and Christ throughout your day, you are essentially reminding yourself of the truth, and that is that you are not alone in any of this, any walk of your life or motherhood, and that there is something that is steadying underneath you that will bring you more peace, that the swirl of your day does not have to be the only thing you're aware of.
Remember, the calm center is always there, and faith is one of the most direct paths back to it. So this key habit peaceful moms. They're not the ones who have figured out a perfect spiritual life, but they are the ones who keep coming back in small ways every day. So if that is not a habit that you have been in lately, I'm just gently inviting you back there today [00:09:00] to know that this will help bring up level the amount of peace that you have in your life.
Okay, habit number two. Peaceful moms, the second habit of a peaceful mom, it's the way she responds when things go wrong, when something unexpected lands in her lap, and when she faces a challenge she doesn't immediately know how to solve, and that is this simple response: "I can figure this out." Marie Forleo, she has a book called Everything is Figureoutable, and I love this concept because I have seen it play out so clearly in the women I coach.
There's just this... There's a certain kind of mom who, when something hard happens, she meets it with that quiet inner confidence. It might not be easy, she might not know the right answer right now, but this is what she [00:10:00] thinks: "I am capable of figuring this out." And then there's perhaps another type of mom, and then this is, what you just might think of yourself.
Which scenario do you-- meets the same kind of challenge and immediately we start to spin. We go to worst case scenario thinking, right? Where we are anxious about it, or we believe that this particular problem is just beyond me. And you're gonna find yourself that you may have a mixture of both But the difference in how the two experiences feel on the inside of moms who react this one way versus the I can figure this out, it's enormous, that difference.
And I want to be honest with you, it's a habit. It-- Your brain is going to tell you that [00:11:00] everything that is going wrong, and that everything is an emergency, and listening to it is the habit, right? It's somebody who can reply with, "I can figure this out," it's not a personality type, okay? It's a practice response that you build over time.
Kind of like last week's episode when I was talking about how to sit in satisfaction. It's a skill set, and so is this one, to have your brain default to, "I got this. I will figure this out It just it just needs to build over time. You have to have enough opportunities to be met with challenges that you can practice the response of, "I can figure this out," and repeatedly choose to think it even when it doesn't feel natural yet.
And here's how this real-life kind of example, how this habit could play out. Let's say a [00:12:00] repair bill comes in. It's more than you expected. And instead of spiraling, the peaceful mom thinks, "Okay, this is not what I wanted, but I can figure out how to handle this, or I ultimately will figure out how to handle it."
How about if your teenager is struggling, and you might not know how to support them or reach them in a way? And instead of feeling, collapsing into feeling helpless, the peaceful mom would think, "I don't have to have all the answers right now, but I'm smart, and I'm resourceful, and I will figure out the next right step."
Plans fall apart, right? This happens all the time. And sometimes... Or something that we're counting on, right? Sometimes it just doesn't come through. Maybe a relationship hits a [00:13:00] rough patch, and the response isn't... doesn't need to be panic, right? Imagine it being more grounded. And from the thought, "I can figure this out," you will have a quiet confidence.
This will slow the brain down when we think, "I can figure this out." And it will help you problem solve a lot better. This matters. It matters for peace because anxiety is almost always rooted in the belief that something is too big, too complicated, too unknown for us to handle. But when you develop the habit of genuinely believing that you are capable of meeting what comes, then anxiety will lose its grip.
And as a woman of faith, I'm just gonna add a little bit, one more little layer to this, and it's not just, "I can figure this out." [00:14:00] It is I'm not alone in doing it. And this is such a very peaceful place to live from, right? Always reminding ourself of that. All right, habit number three is peaceful moms give themself a B-minus grade.
So this third habit of a peaceful mom is one I've been teaching for a long time, and it is I still think it's one of the most underrated and immediately useful tools that I have in my mom toolbox especially because it was It's very special to me. It was so very vital in my transformation from the overwhelmed mom to the peaceful one as a recovered perfectionist.
Yeah, we call it B-minus, and here's the idea behind it, right? So perfectionism, it's one of the most consistent thieves of peace, and in the moms I work [00:15:00] with, I see this. Of course, I saw it very clearly in myself. At first I didn't see it clearly, but through coaching I was able to gain clarity over it.
And I learned it's not because I was doing anything wrong, but it's because the bar that perfectionists set for ourselves, it's so high that we're either exhausted trying to clear that bar or we feel like we're failing because we can't clear it. And so the B-minus is the intentional decision to aim for good enough rather than perfect, right?
Because in school, A-plus or an A is even excellent and really high and up there near one hundred, right? But if you give yourself a B-minus, for most of us, that was around like a seventy, eighty percent right? And that, it's a mindset that if you would be handling and doing things as if you would give yourself a grade of B-minus, I'm offering here that's [00:16:00] actually what is going to be lead you to a more peaceful life, right?
A B-minus, which in school it was still a respectable grade, right? It means you showed up. It means you did the thing. It means you got it done at a level that served its purpose well, even if it's not flawless, right? And so that's why we want to apply that to what we're doing in our lives, right?
Think about what that looks like in real life. It would be that dinner is not perfectly balanced, right? It doesn't have to be a beautifully home-cooked meal every single night. A B-minus could be that dinner got on the table, everyone got fed, the evening stayed relatively calm. That's a win. And we can use this when we're thinking about our h- our homes.
It doesn't have to be perfectly clean before guests come over. A B minus would be maybe we just picked up, and it was comfortable and [00:17:00] welcoming, and that's enough. The email does not have to be perfectly worded and rewritten three times. Thank goodness that this is where I give myself a B minus all the time.
You might be someone who receives my email. They may have a misspelling, grammatically incorrect or, Yeah, but I get it done, right? I send it out, and they're still helpful from what I hear. Right? The workout doesn't have to be a full hour or nothing. A B minus workout could be twenty minutes that you actually completed.
Do you see how this works? So perfectionism stalls you, keeps you frozen, keeps you exhausted 'cause you're pouring a hundred percent of your energy into things that honestly don't require a hundred percent. And the B minus frees you, brings you more peace. It gives you permission to move, to progress, to complete things, and then to keep going.
And peaceful moms the ones I know, we're almost always [00:18:00] moving and making progress in a direction, not because we have low standards. On the contrary, it's the kind of high achievers that you usually find in this category. It's because when you use B minus, we learn to reserve our energy a little bit more wisely, and hence more peace And when you apply this tool, it really will build confidence, right?
It'll build momentum in your life. W- you won't be stuck as much, and again, more p- more productive and more peaceful because of it. All right, so those are the three habits. So let me bring this all together for you. The three key habits of peaceful moms, they're not complicated. They're not really dramatic, over the top.
They're not gonna require you to overhaul your life. But with most things, if you want change, it [00:19:00] will require some intention, some deliberate action, some putting some purpose into it. So the first one, the first habit is to make faith a priority in small, consistent ways. Not perfectly, just regularly.
Let God be a daily presence in your life, not just an occasional one. The second habit of peaceful moms is defaulting to the belief that I can figure this out. Train your mind to meet challenges with confidence rather than fear. And third is giving yourself a B-minus. Release perfectionism. Choose progress.
Let good be enough, and let it just be genuinely a good enough. And just pick one of the Bs this week. Just one. Notice if it changes something for you. I have a feeling it will. All right, [00:20:00] everyone. Thank you for being here with me today. Until next week, 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, I invite you to take the next step by scheduling a Peaceful Moms strategy call at 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
