Episode 343 The Greatest Tool You Already Have (CMM Audiobook Part 3)
===
[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 343 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, and welcome back to the Peaceful Mind podcast. And welcome back to week two of something new. I'm giving you my entire book, The Cyclone Mom Method, free one part a week right here in your podcast feed. So if you missed [00:01:00] part one, pause right here, scroll back one episode, because this method builds on itself, and I want you to have the whole foundation.
So last week on the podcast, you heard the introduction of the book and the first four chapters, all about the cyclone swirl and the key to feeling better. But today in part two, you'll hear chapters five through seven. We'll start with understanding your greatest tool, I'm so excited for you to hear this, and then why we all need a coach.
And then we're gonna step into the method itself with the first step, calling on your faith. And as you listen, notice the part that makes you want to argue a little. That resistance is usually pointing right at the thing that's actually going to help you the most. [00:02:00] All right, everyone, here is part two of the series of the audiobook of The Cyclone Mom Method.
Chapter Five: Understanding Your Greatest Tool. "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7. The greatest tool for your quest to become a calm, in control, and confident mom is understanding the science behind your brain. Before we dive in, it must be said that I am not a doctor.
This is not high-level neuroscience. This is the explanation that helps me coach you. Stick with me. I'll make this easy to understand, and it's so important to know, especially for those of you who feel like there is something wrong with you when you can't act the way you want to all of the time. Any mamas who feel like you're broken and need to [00:03:00] be fixed, this chapter is going to be especially helpful for you.
For our purposes in this book, we're going to address two main parts of the brain. Your higher brain, also referred to as your boss brain, and your survival brain, also referred to as your lizard brain Your higher brain is in your prefrontal cortex. This is where planning takes place and is the part of your brain that consciously and intentionally makes decisions.
We sometimes call this the boss brain because anytime you show up and take charge of your life, this is the part of your brain that fires. And this concept of having a higher brain is responsible for the section of my title to step into your God-given power. This part of your brain is more deliberate.
You can engage this part of your brain with reason and logic, make a plan, do a [00:04:00] puzzle, read an article, solve a problem. Any and all of these activities can help intentionally engage your higher brain. Your survival brain is primal, and it's important to understand that the purpose of our survival brain dates back to the beginning of evolution.
This part of our brains served us to keep us safe, to survive, and to propel the human race forward. This part of our brains motivates us in three ways: to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy When you think about it, these three things make sense in the context of our survival. We call these three aspects of the survival brain the motivational triad, because these are the primal motivations we experience as human beings.
The natural reaction is to knock the motivational triad as a lesser way of living. [00:05:00] Instead, I like to think about it in the context that it was also created by God and is pretty useful in helping humans survive long enough to bring about God's work. Seeking pleasure equates to procreation. Thanks to this part of the survival brain, we have a human race today.
Avoiding pain is pretty self-explanatory in a survival context. "Don't eat those berries. They'll hurt your stomach. Watch out for the sharp-toothed bear. He'll hurt you." Conserving energy might seem an odd addition when you think about our modern-day lives, but when our ancestors lived in caves, it helped them survive to store a whole bunch of fat on their bodies and not move very much so they could survive the winter.
But understanding that you have separate parts of your brain is vital to your success here. Now, instead of helping you avoid dangerous [00:06:00] situations and hibernating through winter, your survival brain can kick in and keep you from reaching your goals. There is a Walgreens on every corner. As soon as you twist your ankle, you can head right on over, slap on some analgesic cream, wrap it in an Ace bandage, and use a crutch to help get out of that pain.
When you get a craving for chocolate, because, man, do I need some pleasure right now, you can get in the car and within two minutes have your chocolate prize. What about conserving energy? Hello Amazon two-hour delivery. I'm out of groceries. You don't even have to get up off the couch, and all of a sudden your fridge is full.
These are not bad examples. It can be pretty useful, because who doesn't like saving time and making a trip to the store sometimes? But what happens when we let this part of our brain be in charge of our lives? [00:07:00] Your brain says, "Don't start that business. It's going to be embarrassing, and you're going to have to learn how to deal with technology.
You'll be up late and get less sleep. Don't you know it's going to be hard? You'll be criticized and get hate comments maybe. But you know what? You could be absolutely wrong about everything. Go hang out at the pool. Go enjoy yourself. You don't have to work." This inner dialogue was exactly what I heard when starting my life coaching business.
My survival brain was trying to convince me to avoid pain, "You'll be criticized," to seek pleasure, "Oh, just relax. You're always working. Go hang out at the pool," and conserve energy, "Go find an easier job that doesn't require you to learn a lot of new, hard things." This knowledge can make all of the difference.[00:08:00]
Imagine the difference it would make when you lose it with your kids. Instead of self-destructing into the inner I'm a horrible mom chant, you could say, "I'm sorry, kids. I listened to my survival brain. Let's try that again." When you understand this vital difference in your brain anatomy, you can not only start to recognize what part of your brain is holding the reins, but consciously tap into your higher brain to step into your power to then go after what you do want to have in your life Here are the key takeaways of chapter five.
Your brain is the greatest tool in your toolbox in becoming a cyclone mom. The two areas of the brain we discussed are the higher brain or boss brain and the survival brain or lizard brain. The higher brain utilizes [00:09:00] reason and logic. Tapping into this part of the brain is what helps you step into your God-given power.
This is where planning takes place. When you are deliberate and intentional with your life, you operate from your higher brain. Take a moment to consciously decide on one thing you will do today. Decide when you will do it. That is tapping into your higher brain. The survival brain operates off of the motivational triad.
It motivates us to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. The next time you change your mind about doing something you said you wanted to do, can you see that the survival brain came into play, motivating you to not do the hard thing? Understanding these functions of the brain make it easier for us to identify which part of our brains is holding the reins and to make [00:10:00] conscious choices accordingly.
Chapter six. We all need a coach. I shall ask the Father and He will give you another advocate to be with you forever. John chapter fourteen, verse sixteen. Everything begins with a thought. Your internal world determines your external world. This is true for everyone. The first person who said, "Huh, is there a better way to provide light than burning candles?"
started internally and then pursued the answer externally. Think about yourself, the wonderful person reading this book. Your brain and heart are inside of your body. Your emotions happen on the inside. If I just met you on the street, I would have no idea what your life has been like up until now. But you sure do because it lives inside of you.
You know [00:11:00] your history and have years of belief systems built up about all kinds of life subjects. You are also so energetically infused with people who you are with most often in your life. A metaphor I use to explain this concept, as well as how clearly we see ourselves, goes as follows. It's like you're inside of a jar, and on the outside of the jar is the label, instructions, and directions to follow.
When you're inside of the jar, like you are inside of your life, you can't read anything that's on the outside. Could you learn to maneuver and decipher the backwards writing of the label on the outside of the jar and figure it out from the inside of the jar? Yes. It takes a lot of work, but it is possible.
You could also simply hand the jar to someone else who has the skills to read and decipher and ask them [00:12:00] what your jar has written on it. The difference here is the crossroad between doing your own work privately and involving a coach who knows the way and can show you how without you having to figure it out all on your own.
What I'm trying to impart here is that if you want clear results faster, easier, and with less stress and pain than the DIY route, you need to find a life coach. Hiring your own life coach will increase your levels of satisfaction in all of life's different areas. They also help you unlock the potential your life has that you haven't even come close to tapping into yet.
Coaching has been vital in the results I have in my own life. My very first coaching session was fifteen years ago. I remember sitting at the table at Whole Foods and being honest with her about how I [00:13:00] hated everything that had to do with cooking, shopping, planning, and making meals. This aspect of motherhood was not something that I grew up doing or something my mom helped to welcome me into.
My belief system was, "This is my job. I'm the mom." My husband was working outside of the home, so it made sense that my job was all the parts of taking care of the home and everything around taking care of the kids, which in my mind included some of the things that I really didn't like to do. I felt stuck, and I felt horrible that I hated it.
I should have loved it. This was my job. My coach listened and prompted lasting change with a simple line of questioning. "Have you ever talked to your husband about it? Can you imagine that this is something you don't have to do? What is the upside to not figuring out an [00:14:00] alternative that feels better for you?
What if there was another way?" It broke my brain right open onto the floor of Whole Foods. I had never even paused to ponder that there were other options out there. In my conversation with my husband later, he heartily agreed to help with some of the things I hated doing, and he has done them ever since.
We're talking about a decade and a half of change from one coaching session. Such a simple insight forever changed the trajectory of what I do on a daily basis. However, recall back to the beginning of the book. Even though that first session had an incredible impact on my motherhood, I still struggled with blaming others for my happiness.
I told myself, "When this or that thing happens, then I'll feel calm [00:15:00] again." I did a little bit of work on my own and got one great result, but still, there was so much more, and I still wasn't living my best life. This is how we work as human beings. You can't just go to the gym once and have this whole new, beautiful, strong body.
You're undoing all of the food, calories, and sugar you've eaten. You don't eat like that for a year and then go to the gym once and call it good. It's the same process with our brains. Having a coach is going to the mental gym. Your brain is always going, constantly taking in information and forming thoughts.
One coaching session, reading one book, or one day of working on it isn't going to change the way your brain is currently wired. It takes time to build new muscles and stay focused on what you wanna think about: yourself, your motherhood, and your goals. [00:16:00] You'll see progress after your first session, just like I did, but if that's all you put into your system, it'll wear off.
You'll forget, and your years of thinking patterns will take over. Coming to coaching on a regular basis is key to becoming calm, confident, and in control because there is a lot we coaches do to retrain your brain. There are many options for life coaches that can help you. Of course, I would love to work with you, but I would rather you work with any coach than none at all.
Ask yourself these questions: How fast do you want to get to your goals? How do you wanna feel along the way? And do you wanna feel more positive the majority of the time? How will you make progress if there's vital knowledge that you're missing? And what's the best way to learn that knowledge? [00:17:00] I know how to read the directions on the outside of your jar.
I have the training to ask the right questions so I can learn what's going on inside of your jar and reflect back to you what's really going on. There will always be a cyclone swirling around you, always. It's never going away. As soon as you feel like you've got it all figured out, something else comes into your life and knocks you down if you're not practiced.
This is why I still choose to involve a coach in my life. I love having an expert in my corner, on my side, helping me remove the obstacles I can't see myself and providing strategies that carry me to the finish line of my life goals. I will always want to have my own life coach too, because when I do, life becomes smoother to navigate and exponentially more [00:18:00] satisfying.
That was the whole thing for me. I always told myself, "I'm smart. I went to college. I've accomplished a lot in my life, and I should be able to figure this out on my own. Why can't I figure out how to have some chill time for myself or not to get so angry with my kids all the time?" I was missing three key pieces of vital information.
I was missing a coach with life-changing tools and concepts. I needed someone who was trained to hold a non-judgmental and loving space for me to get out all of my struggles and challenges so I could receive guidance on what I couldn't change myself. I was missing someone who could challenge my thoughts and belief systems.
No matter what I had tried to do differently in my life, it was like I was trying to do the same things [00:19:00] over and over again, expecting new results each time. I think you might be missing this too. A coach who can look at your internal world and concentrate on your brain. A coach who has a blinged-out toolbox from which to draw just the right resources to help you change your mindset so you can get different results.
If you would like to explore coaching with me to speed up your results and experience less stress along the way in your busy mom life, then follow this link and there will be instructions to set up a time for us to chat. You go to www.daniellethienel.com/my-calendar-page.
I know this can feel like a lot. I imagine you listening to [00:20:00] this as you drive around or reading this in your closet while you sneak a few moments to yourself. It can feel overwhelming when you look at all of the areas in your life you want to see the results of peace and balance. I wanna tell you one thing, don't worry.
You don't have to change all the areas of your life. If you can focus on your mind and what's happening in there, then everything overflows over into your life. You don't have to run a marathon in order to be fit. You don't have to calm the storm that's raging around you right now. You simply have to go within your mind and heart to find the power you need in order to feel how you wanna feel and be who you wanna be.
Here is where you have the control to create any experience you want no matter what is swirling around you or coming at you in your [00:21:00] life. In the next section, I'll walk you through my process step by step. This isn't meant to replace coaching, but to better equip you with the knowledge that will make coaching far more effective to achieve the deep results you want in your life.
Up next is The Cyclone Mom Method. But here are the chapter six key takeaways. Having a coach can get you results faster, easier, and with less stress and pain than the DIY route. What have you already been trying on your own to make the changes you want to see in your life? Is it working for you?
Coaching has been vital to the results I've gotten in my own life. It takes time to build new muscles and stay focused on what you want to think about yourself, your motherhood, and your goals. [00:22:00] Coaching is the way to build these new muscles. And when considering a coach, ask yourself these questions: How fast do I wanna get to my goals?
How do I wanna feel along the way? Do I wanna feel more positive the majority of the time? How will I make progress if there's vital knowledge that I'm missing? And what's the best way to learn that knowledge? Part two: The Cyclone Mom Method. There are five pillars that we want to concentrate on that will help you achieve the balance and peace that you want in this life of yours right now, whatever stage of motherhood you find yourself in Chapter seven: Calling on your Faith.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians chapter 4 verse 13. This is the most vital piece of my framework, [00:23:00] which is why it is first. Whatever your faith is, you can adapt this to work for you. I am a member of the Catholic Church, and I draw on prayer, the sacraments, and what my faith teaches to give me a foundation in my life.
This is where I draw my core values from. I ask Christ every day to use me as a channel of His peace and use the gifts He has bestowed on me to connect to other moms out there who are suffering or are just not living the life they want to, and I believe that is why you're here today. Are you connecting all of the parts of your daily life to your faith?
Are you finding the time in your busy schedule to include your faith in your day? Are you calling on your faith so you can improve those areas? If you are already, great. I want to help you enhance that. If you find yourself answering with an, "I'm not really being as mindful to bring in [00:24:00] my faith to everything as much as I want to," or, "I'm not making the time I want to for prayer or deepening my relationship with Christ," then these tips I'm going to offer you will help you start connecting more with your faith.
This step of increasing your connection with your faith to your daily life and making the time to prioritize it will undoubtedly lead to a more peaceful and balanced life. In order to enhance your daily life and connect more faith with everything that's going on in your life, you must remember that your thoughts are where your feelings begin.
What you cultivate in your mind is important. Can you bring your thoughts towards Christ today? It takes practice because our minds naturally focus on the task at hand, but you can learn how to be present in a faithful way while simultaneously functioning in your daily life. It's like there's more than one track [00:25:00] running at a time.
You'll be able to remain mindful of what you're doing, but you can also dedicate one of those tracks to heaven. I admit that staying conscious of Him, of Jesus, when I'm busy can be very challenging for me. I'm thankful that He created our minds to function in a way where we can bounce back and forth in the midst of something that is troubling for us.
I want you to give this a try. Say out loud, "Today, as much as I can, I'm going to go about my daily life as I want to." Then challenge yourself by saying, "How much can I bring my thoughts to my faith?" All it takes is reading a few lines of scripture, pausing to recite a short prayer, or even a simple act of reaching out, such as, "Help me, Jesus," "I trust in you, Jesus," or "I love you, Jesus," to be mindful.
I have a picture in my [00:26:00] office that says, "Holy Spirit, you are welcome here." I love that reminder every time I see it. I wear a miraculous medal, and I consciously touch it throughout the day. I can pause in the middle of the hustle and bustle of life and just direct my mind to my faith I want to question the notion that we need to hurry in order to rush.
I find that when many of my clients first come to me, they believe that always being in a hurry is just part of life, that is how it'll always be, or that rushing is what's necessary to get it all done. I wanna question this, especially for the mom who feels the little panic and frustration of not having everything done, because God is never in a hurry.
When I'm dealing with these feelings of rushing, I ask myself, "What is God's rhythm?" Think about it. [00:27:00] Think about what we know about Christ and His time here on Earth. Does it come to mind that He was ever rushing around or that He had to hurry to get somewhere? No. How many times did He always put His time to walk off to go by Himself in prayer first?
When you think about Him and you think about His nature, He is calm, present, and unhurried. He is slow, thoughtful, and soaks things in. This is one way I connect my daily life to my faith. When I find myself feeling hurried, in a rush, just a little behind, or wanting to turn up the speed and just get something over with, I call on my faith in this way.
I say to myself, "Okay, I want to be in God's rhythm. What do I need to do? What would that look like for me in this moment if I was moving about as Christ would be?" It [00:28:00] immediately calms me down and removes the self-imposed pressure to say that there is no rush, because I am reminded His rhythm is the best rhythm to imitate.
That is something I want to offer you and invite you to try today. If you are able to slow down yourself, then you will enhance your life greatly by calling on this aspect of faith. The life of a mom is hard. We face many challenges, and to move through them will require being brave and having courage.
This is the feeling that I've come to know is imperative for us to reach the goals we have for living our best life and the feeling it takes to overcome our biggest obstacles. So another way to call on our faith is to call on courage. How many times has the Lord told us not to be afraid? I believe this is one of the most [00:29:00] repeated phrases in the Bible, "Do not be afraid."
I picture those words coming from Christ directly to me into my heart, and it automatically gives me courage. When you find yourself feeling afraid and fearful, like worrying about your children or feeling anxiety about money, relationships, or whether or not you're doing a good enough job, is the perfect time to call on your faith.
Remind yourself that He tells us, "Do not be afraid," and call upon courage in your life We can also call on our faith by knowing that we are never alone. In order to get the peace and balance you want, I cannot stress enough that I want you to incorporate this on a daily basis. If you are struggling with loneliness, there are three ways I want to illustrate that you are never alone.
First, our faith in Christ tells us He is present with us at all times. He's right there [00:30:00] with you now. I know this because it is said that wherever two or more have gathered, He is there. Even in this exchange between you, the reader, and me, the author, He is present. You can always call upon Him, even when you're feeling lonely.
That loneliness comes from not having the focus of where you wanna go. From now on, tell yourself, "He is here with me, so I am never alone." Second, notice how we are born. We are born into a family, even if circumstances are less than ideal, and our families gather in communities. Sprawling communities give way to nations that make up our planet.
We were never meant to go it alone. In fact, modern science backs up this phenomenon with what they call tribe mentality. The straight definition is the human tendency to seek [00:31:00] out and connect with like-minded people who share common interests, beliefs, or habits. When you hear another person's story, it allows you to connect with them.
Even if only a small principle of their story resonates with you, you feel less lonely. The problems you are dealing with aren't only happening to you. Isolation and shame breed best in the dark. Shine a light by connecting with others in your family and community. I personally love the team atmosphere.
As a professional ballet dancer, which was my first career many years ago now, my favorite performances were ensemble shows. We all had separate parts, which had its fun too, but for me, there was nothing quite like the feeling of accomplishment in performing all together. Lastly, I know there are times when it's difficult to connect to your family and friends, or when a stranger's stories feel a [00:32:00] million miles off from what you've experienced.
While you can always know that Christ is there, I know there are times when you can't grasp His presence or feel like He is physically there This is when having a coach is vital. You don't have to take on a new, big, scary goal all by yourself. You can have a partner, a guide. This is the exact reason I hired my own life coach to help me.
It would take me so much longer, be so much harder, and be way less fun if I were to do all of this by myself. I echo my words from chapter six, hire a coach. And then when we call on our faith, there is always our ultimate goal Even though our brains will fight it, we don't know when we are going to die and move on from this world.
It is unknown to us, but we are [00:33:00] all going to meet that day at some point. Going through your life knowing that your ultimate goal is to spend eternity in heaven can bring daily peace. When you have a circumstance that you're having trouble meeting, a problem you're trying to solve, or a challenge you're having to endure, it's all okay.
This is the experience we have on Earth. Ultimately, if I know that I'm on track to go to heaven, that knowledge brings an instant injection of peace and calm into my life. Keeping the destination of eternity as what truly matters releases any heaviness if and when I get caught up in the meaningless intricacies of daily work and life.
When you connect your faith to your daily life, you will have a more peaceful, balanced, and joyful life. You will be mindful of your faith, following a rhythm Christ used in His own life, drawing on [00:34:00] courage, remembering you are not alone, and guiding each day with your ultimate goal of eternity in mind.
When you focus on making the necessary shifts in your internal life, physical results will then tangibly begin to reflect in your external life, allowing you to move more peacefully and joyfully along the journey to eternal life. It is my hope that you can act on these principles starting today and build upon this practice continually.
If you want to automatically become the person whose mind is wired to do this regularly, this is the work I help moms do inside my coaching program. I invite you to explore what may be an amazing option for you in your life right now. Go to daniellethienel.com/my-calendar-page. And here we'll be able to explore the [00:35:00] options that I have to help you right now in your life.
Here are the chapter seven key takeaways. Calling on your faith is the most vital part of my framework. Increasing the connection to your faith will lead to more peace and balance. Incorporate mindfulness by asking how you can bring your thoughts towards Christ today. Can you think of three ways that you can build in more mindfulness towards Christ by the time you go to bed tonight?
Adopt God's rhythm. Ask yourself, "What would that look like for me in this moment if I was moving about as Christ would be?" The Lord has advised us to not be afraid. Take courage in your role as a mom. Do one thing today outside of your comfort zone that requires you to be brave. What is the result when you hand over your fear to God to take care of it?[00:36:00]
Remember, you are never alone. He has promised us to be near us always. Make a list of three people, perhaps including another faith-filled mom, that you can call upon when you feel alone. And keep in mind your ultimate goal, eternity. Okay, we're gonna stop there for today. Now you have the foundation and the first step of the Cyclone Mom Method, mama.
And I hope you're starting to see that peace was never about your circumstances changing. It's always about what you now know how to do inside of those circumstances. Okay, now next week's episode, the next part, we will keep moving through the method. I will deliver chapters eight, nine, and 10, and those are about clarifying your goals, connecting with yourself, and [00:37:00] confidently being mom.
So come back for it. And if this series is helping you, would you take a few seconds and share it with another mom who may need it? That's how this help will travel, and that's how you help me with my mission to deliver more peace of mind to more moms. So 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 of scheduling a free coaching consultation with me. We'll meet over Zoom to explore options and possibilities of how having a personal life coach and mentor could help you experience the exact motherhood and life your heart desires.
To talk through current options, schedule a free coaching consultation today. You'll find the link to schedule in the show notes. It would be an honor to support you at any stage of your motherhood [00:38:00] journey
