How Connecting Within Benefits your Healing Journey

Let's get started first by having you share a little bit about your story and what brought you to where you are.

Well, my story goes back, I think it was September 1st, 2020. I just woke up and we decided that was the year we were gonna homeschool because of COVID and everything going on. But I also just felt like I was more in a fog and not sure what I wanted to do with myself, and just that listless feeling of like, what do I like?

I've been doing everything else for everyone, but what do I want? To my utter surprise, I struggled to answer that question. That was how I started a program called “the 75 Hard” which is one of those programs where you have to do two exercises, eat right, read 10 pages a day and, so then, it was just that simple, it was like once you start that mindset shift, then things will start to change and then, you start to figure out things that you want to do.

I started to take on this program, and I did end up doing the full year, it was day 25 of phase three, which was five days away from finishing the entire year doing all these things, including talking to a stranger, taking five minute cold showers, just all the things you're supposed to do for this program to help change your mindset.

I woke up at two o'clock in the morning and realized I had not taken my picture that day. I was like, oh my gosh, what does this mean? That was when I finally came to a realization. You always hear the statement, “It is about the journey”, that was my wake-up call to that moment. I was so worried about this ‘deadline thing’ and finishing something that was really about enjoying each of my days and then, in all of this mindset shifting, the change that I was making made me realize that I couldn't be the only mom feeling like this and that there are other moms out there not knowing what their purpose is, not knowing what they want to do with themselves. We've been so busy giving everything to our kids, we want our kids to be happy, healthy adults, but it's hard for them to see, and do that without seeing the role model.

So, what makes it easier to do this?

As for me what makes it easier for us to do this is all about connection. It's about bringing us together and realising that when we do motherhood together, it becomes more fun and easier, we can lift each other up and get ideas from each other without judgment or comparison. Because it's more like I have this problem, I have this question, I have a struggle, How do I get through it? And then, that's what connecting Mamas is all about for me. It is bringing all the moms together so that we can do motherhood together. I have discovered over the last five years or so that when I get so immersed in being a mama, I give, until my cup is depleted, beyond depleted. It's negative and I think a lot of mamas can resonate with that. You give so much and you're so worried about it, providing everything that your kids need, especially in the early years, they're so heavily reliant on us for their survival.

When it becomes like this, I default to self-abandonment, Self-neglect and my connection with myself goes out the window and when I am not connected with myself, it's really, really flipping hard for me to connect to my husband or to my kids. That's when you realize you're yelling so much and you're so like on edge, it's because your cup's not filled and you're not taking care of yourself because situations aren't gonna change, Your kids are gonna throw tantrums or they're gonna do those things.

The one thing that you can control, and one thing that can change is how you respond or react to it, and the only way you're gonna be able to respond is if you are taking yourself and filling your own cup first. And like you said, connecting yourself because once you lose that, that's when the yelling, when the aggravations, when you're irritated, just so much quicker that you don't have time or, or the thought process of how to respond to situations.

Your kids are still gonna go through their mood swings, I mean, they're growing, they're gonna get hungry when you don't have a chance to give them food and those feelings are going to come out. But you as the mom, how do you respond to that? The only way to do it is when you're filling your cup as I was explaining.

What are some tips, tricks or techniques that you have found particularly helpful in creating and sustaining connections with yourself?

Well, I think connection, as I keep telling my kids, comes down to intent.

Because it's the intent behind what you are doing. For instance, for moms, we do have a busy day in front of us. We have a lot of things going on, but how do you intend to start your day? And I don't mean that you need to have an hour morning routine, because that also is the precursor to failure when we say we have to do all these things, but what you can do every single morning before you face your phone before you face anyone.

Here are a few tips on how to create and sustain a connection with yourself:

1. Take a moment to do something that does fill your cup.

Whether it's taking two deep breaths before the baby's crying, you might have that baby right there, but you can take two deep breaths, which takes 10 seconds.

To compose yourself before we go over to that baby, If you enjoy writing, you can do that. And I even had one friend say, well, her kids end up sleeping next to her, so she can't do that in the morning. Like, that's not true. Pretend you're still asleep and you can still in your mind. Set that intention and take some deep breaths, even with the kid lying next to you. It's your choice of how you intend to start your day. And so that's the first thing that I just suggest for all moms is to figure out what is that one thing in the morning that even takes a minute or two just to set an intention for your own day before the phone, before responding to kids, before responding to a spouse, before any of that, you put intention to your day and so, I just say start with one thing. You should explore that. It might be writing, it might be just having a cup of coffee by yourself if you can manage that.

2. Find those things that you can do and do not say I can't do it.

Maybe it's just getting up and doing some stretching or breathing exercises. I've been actually doing Qigong with my son, which is a form of Tai.

Tai chi is a form of Qigong. If more people have heard of Tai Chi, but, it is just exploring and finding something that works for you, still, it really comes down to intention, and intending to set your day up for success rather than letting your baby start for you from your kids or whoever else is around you.

3. Not Allowing somebody else to set the mood for your day.

Your mood for the day is where things get sticky because maybe they got up on the wrong side of the bed and again, right and set your tone for the day, but if you set first and someone else gets on the wrong side of the bed, then you're able to respond to it instead of reacting right away and being irritated, but you're like, okay, well maybe I need to give them a break or it gives you more thought process into how you'll deal with that because you put the intention behind yourself for that day.

I know we keep using the excuse, well, we're too busy as moms, we can't do these things. Those are all excuses that we keep telling ourselves, and the more we tell ourselves, those just keep repeating in our heads. I can't do that! I can't do that! We'll start saying, I can do five minutes, or I can do one minute. I can take two deep breaths before. What is it that works for you? And that consistency of just doing one minute a day saying, this is my intention for how I set my day. Make all the difference before you let the kids or someone else start your day for you, and the phone, don't let the phone start the day for you either. No! Don't let the TV, don't let any of the outside stuff.

4. Set an intention for your day. 

You set an intention for your day, for two days, because then you're connecting with yourself, and then it allows you to be more responsive to others instead of reactive.

Just with that one to five minutes. Yeah, and that consistency and showing up for yourself is that go ahead, moving out of reaction and into response is huge.

It's massive. And, we keep thinking it takes so much and again, just keep that word intention in your mind and then use curiosity to explore what intention works for you. Because, that's what it really comes down to when we do that more often, and sometimes we might need to reset that throughout the day, like when you start to feel that irritability or something, maybe it's that you start to notice what your body's doing or when you're getting tired or you need that snack, but then maybe you need that space to do whatever it is that fills your cup.

And again, we're not talking hours, we are talking minutes of just noticing and, being proactive about it though. And the proactive part comes in discovering what you are. What fills your soul? Is it journaling? Is it reading? Is it listening to a podcast? What is it that fills your soul and start discovering those? And then, those are the things you plan throughout your day, however, they fit into your day. But again, it's not that you need hours and hours of this. We're talking pockets, and especially that's why I love what I'm doing. What made me want to do what I was doing was my kids were being a little bit older and I was having those pockets of 10 to 15 minutes where they're off playing by themselves, and if I go near them, they're like, no, mom, we don't need you.

And it starts to happen. But then you're all of a sudden, what do I do with that pa of time? Do I fill it with looking at Facebook? Do I fill it with watching TV? Do I fill it with playing? I was playing Candy Crush all the time. An hour passes and you look down, you're like, oh my gosh, and then you feel worse. And listless for doing it. So when you start using that curiosity, exploring things that actually do fill your soul, and having those handy, having Music, if you love dancing, Turn on Alexa or your phone and just dance for five minutes. Like it's just finding those things that fill your cups and then leaving yourself the breadcrumbs so you're not like, oh, what do I do with this 15 minutes as soon as I have it?

You need to know what fills your cup. Yeah, I really believe that telling ourselves that we don't have time, or whatever excuse that we're coming up with, is a societally acceptable way of self-sabotaging yourself.

How many of you, how many times have you heard? I'm too busy to do that. Like, that is just the keyword for anything. Like a mom will say, I'm too busy. I have so much going on. I have three kids to take to all the activities and stuff. I have no time for that. Well, I'm staying at swim practice, I can go walk around the block while she's at swim practice. Like I can find ways to fit it in if I want to. Yeah, like I don't have to sit there on my phone while she's at swim practice. There are ways, but again, where I think it comes down to is seeing what other moms who are making those decisions happening and letting your brain process that someone else can do this since it's working for them.

And that's where bringing it, coming together and listening to these podcasts, or other moms doing these things is getting new ideas. And no, you don't have to do all the ideas, but you start listening to see, which one your gut speaks to. Oh, mm-hmm when you hear, I can do that, those are the ones that you try.

5. Start listening to your gut.

All of a sudden when your brain says, oh, that's possible, that's where we start. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be complicated. You don't need to spend all kinds of money on all kinds of equipment.

Those limiting beliefs hold you back from stepping into the life you really want and being the mom you want to be. Like taking exactly and I love how you said stepping into the mom you wanna-be like one morning, I woke up early and it was, you know, past the point where I could easily go back to sleep. So I decided to get up and just stare at a wall in my quiet house, which is never quiet. I just sat and stared at the wall thought about life and reflected. By the time my husband and my kids got outta bed. I was ready to go. And sometimes that's all you need.

it's hard to actually envision that or actually think to do that because we want to keep just being busy, we don't actually want to be stuck with our thoughts. When we realize this, the negative thoughts start to circle, but as we start to do it more often, the negative starts shifting. I think that the hard part is that it takes time for that shift to happen. And so we get afraid because if we take two minutes, like all of a sudden like, oh, I can't sit still.

I have to pick up my phone, I have to do this, I have to do that. I can't stop moving and we have those beginning thoughts that, no, I have to keep moving. But as we slowly start to do the process, then the thoughts start to shift and by the time that you're sitting there slowing down, your brain starts seeing the possibilities of what can be, and then you start working towards those possibilities.

What piece of advice would give to a Mama who is just getting started, who's maybe struggling with connection, who's maybe, yelling way more than she wants to. You flip a switch and she's triggered. What piece of advice would you give her to get started on connecting and finding her calm?

•  The first thing is noticing it.

It's noticing it and without judgment. This is because it's happening and it's happening for whatever reason, whatever you're going through. Then,

• Accepting it.

You can't do that unless you notice it, like realizing you want something different, and when you want something different, that's when you can start saying, well, what is it that feels like it's missing? Because obviously, it's not with filling the cup. For instance, I was yelling a lot and it would be a point where my son and I are so similar in personality. I'd literally throw my hands up in the air and go to my husband.

You deal with me, you can deal with him! But as a mother, I didn't feel that I wanted to be able to have a conversation with my son and, to be able to work through some of his stuff without having to call my husband in. And so for me, I had to acknowledge that and say, I wanted something different. Then, what else did it?

• Taking out moments to figure out what needed to be done so that I could respond.

And so it was that intention again with that morning and figuring out what can I do to fill my cup first so that when he does act out because you know what's coming, what am I gonna do differently?

It's not easy. Giving yourself grace because situation by situation you're not gonna be perfect. And yes, there are still days I will yell. But I'll even ask them, do I yell? As much as they're like, you hardly ever yell anymore, Mom, and I’m getting that validation from them because I wanna make sure that it's not in my head.

I want to make sure, that it’s what's actually coming across to them. And so it's, it's having that communication between them, which then brings a connection. It's you acknowledging that you want some sort of change and then figuring out that obviously, something's not filled with your cup to be able to respond. You need to fill in that piece of what's missing and then have that open communication with them and say, is this working for you or is it in my head? Or, what's going on? But that's what's gonna bring the connection. When you tell them, I want to make a change. Can you help me with it? And my kids were like, yeah, we don't wanna hear all the what can we do? And that's what brings the connection. Bring that open communication between you guys and say, what are some of the changes? And we've tried different things with like different charts or whatever it is to help with, with monitoring things and not necessarily all those things work, but it's that willingness.

And so even lately at the dinner table, we've been doing four things every day at the dinner table:

• What's one thing you struggle with?

• What's one success you had?

• What's one piece of gratitude and

• What's one funny thing that happened?

I think just creating habits as a family really helps sustain that positive thought process. Because when kids feel like they fail at things failure isn't part of growth. That also creates the atmosphere of a family and so you're a part of those growth moments. The more you just create that kind of conversation the more you all are gonna grow.

Because they're growing, there's gonna be less conflict because they're working on you. There'll be times when my son will be like, Hey, Mommy, think it's time for you to take a deep breath. Maybe you should go get some space and like, you know, what are you gonna do?

I think that what it really comes down to is just to create that environment where you're all growing together and realizing we're human. We're still gonna have our bad moments, but how do we help each other work through them? Yeah, you can't change what you don't acknowledge. Right, It's so true, and so as soon as you want!

How can people connect with you if they want to get in touch with you further?

So the best way right now is the website which is connectingmamas.com. I'm also on Instagram @MamaConnector and also on YouTube as well and I'll be launching a course soon.

My goal is to bring moms together and to create this safe space for them to want to grow.