Hey mama, welcome to the inside out mama's podcast. I'm Brittany Turley, mom of six, and I know what it's like to feel stuck and overwhelmed trying to be the perfect mom. But everything changed for me when I learned that small changes on the inside can bring big results on the outside. Each week, I will share simple yet powerful inside shifts or outside tips that can transform your approach to mothering, helping you thrive from the inside out. Ready to ditch the mom guilt and enjoy this season of life? You're in the right place. Today we're going to talk about rewriting your mom narrative. So what does the word narrative mean exactly? The Merriam Webster dictionary says a narrative is a way of presenting or understanding a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a particular point of view or a set of values. Another word for a narrative is a story. So a mom narrative is the story you believe and tell yourself. And maybe even others about yourself as a mother. For example, if I can't get my kids to school on time, my narrative to myself could be that I'm not a good mother. Or if my kid decides to hit her brother, even though I have taught her many times, in many ways, that hitting is not something we do, and I've taught her what we can do when we are upset. My narrative to myself might be that I am a failure at parenting. Or, if my son comes home with 100 percent on a really hard test at school that I helped him study for, my mom narrative could be that I'm an amazing mom. We feed ourselves little stories like these all day long depending on different things that go on during our day. And there's nothing wrong with the narratives we have. But they do have an effect on how we feel, on how we act, and the outcomes that we get in our day and in our life. So it is useful to take note of some of the stories we are telling ourselves and decide whether they are helpful to us or not. So for the first example I gave, if I can't get my kids to school on time, and my narrative is, I'm not a good mother. That story of I'm not a good mother will bleed into other areas of my mothering, and I will really start believing it the more I tell myself that. If I don't feel I'm good at mothering, then I might lose hope of ever being good at mothering. I might be less engaged as a mother, or I might not enjoy being a mother because I feel like I'm not good at it. We're not. usually super fond of doing things that we are not good at constantly. So if I'm telling myself I'm not good at being a mom, my days are going to get hard if that's what I am a mom. For the second example, if my kid decides to hit her brother, even though I've taught her many times, I've taught her skills to do instead of hitting and I feel like I've really done a good job teaching her, but she still hits her brother. And my mom narrative there is I'm a failure at parenting. This might cause all of my other attempts to parent to be half hearted. Again, I might give up hope that I'll ever be good at parenting. And might, Stop trying to teach my children. Then for the last example, if my son comes home with 100 percent on a test, and my narrative is that I'm an amazing mom because I helped him study, it seems like that would be a good narrative that you might want to keep. But, If that narrative is something we lean on, we lean on our kid's success to determine our value and worth, then that might not be a narrative that we want to keep. If our kid comes home with the same test that we helped him study for and he only gets 50%, does that mean all of a sudden that we're not an amazing mom? We have to be, aware and careful with the things that we tell ourself. So, what are some better stories that I could have told myself in those three different situations? The one where, I can't get my kids to school on time, and I tell myself, I'm not a good mother. Instead of saying that, I could say, the kids and I are still figuring this out. Or, maybe I'm a sleep deprived mom with a newborn baby, and I'm doing great just getting the kids dressed and to school at all, and we're gonna get better each day. Or, I might say, I'm not good at getting the kids to school on time yet. As if that is something that I will eventually be good at. I think being specific about the issue instead of being so broad in our stories is one thing that makes your whole journey as a mother, so much better because instead of just saying, well, this one thing happened, so now I'm a terrible mom. My whole career as a mother is shot, and I'm just out. And that's not how life is anyway. So, being more specific in our thoughts to ourself, instead of being so general about it, really helps. For the second example, If my daughter decides to hit her brother, even though I've taught her many times that hitting is not what we do, and I feel like I've really done a good job using all the great parenting techniques to teach her, but she still chooses to hit her brother. Instead of thinking I'm a failure at parenting, I can think, I taught my daughter what to do, but she's using her freedom to test things out. Or, learning is a process, and it takes time sometimes for kids to learn. Either one of those really gets, again, more specific about what is going on instead of broad as in like this one little instance and now all of a sudden I'm a failure at parenting. So when we're really more honest about what's happening with ourselves. I think that's when our narratives become more helpful and less, damaging For the third one, if my kid comes home with a hundred percent on a test that I helped him study for, instead of my narrative being, I'm an amazing mom, we could be again, more specific and say, I am amazing at supporting my child in his learning and helping him succeed. So again, instead of being really broad and general about, okay, this one little instance all of a sudden means that everything about me is amazing and I am amazing mom, I'm being really specific in saying, I am amazing at supporting my child in his learning and helping him succeed. Again, there's being way more honest about what's actually happening. Sometimes we get stuck in story ruts and think that our stories are just. True facts about us, but they're not. There are stories that we wrote and we have the power to rewrite. I had a story for years that I had no marketable skills. I had been a stay at home mom at that point for, I don't know, when I started this narrative, it's been a few years, but I'd probably been a stay at home mom for 16 years at that point. And I hadn't worked outside the home that whole time. At this point, our family was really needing some more income to help with some large, medical needs that we were having. And I was really struggling to think of anything that I could do to help us out. My story to myself and to my husband was that. I'm a professional wiper. All I do is wipe things all day long. I wipe counters. I wipe spills off the floor. I wipe bottoms. I wipe tears. I wipe walls. I wipe sweat off my brow from chasing kids all day. I just wipe all day long. And nobody needs that. Nobody's going to hire me for that. When I finally became aware that this was a story, and I was making it up. Then I could finally see ways that it was also not true. I mean, yes, it was true. I am really good at wiping. I've been doing it for over a decade, but there's other things that I'm also really good at that I couldn't see until I realized that this was a story. And when I could finally see past that, I was able to see that I had skills that would even benefit companies that they might want to hire me. I finally saw, you know what? I'm great at managing. I'm able to manage all these kids and all these schedules and all these different things going on. And I'm the manager of it all. I'm great at keeping up with fast paced demands. You know, when you've got a toddler and a teenager and a 10 year old and a tween, All wanting your attention at the same time. I'm good at managing that, and keeping up with all of the fast paced things that go on. I'm also great at addressing people's concerns and helping them find solutions. I mean, kids bring concerns to you all day long and they want help. And I got good at that. So getting rid of my story about having no marketable skills really opened up my mind to all the skills I actually did have. So we have stories that we have told ourselves based on things that we've experienced or things that we've seen or whatever. And we wrote those stories. And so whenever we want, we can change those stories. We can rewrite them to something that will help us thrive, especially if we see that a story is damaging, like my story of I have no marketable skills. So for this week's small change challenge, I want you to listen to what you're telling yourself. I want you to find one story you are telling yourself that is not serving you. And I want you to find a way to change your story. And then practice your new story, retell it to yourself, and notice how you feel different. Notice how you act different, and notice how things around you begin to change for the better. Remember, small changes on the inside bring big results on the outside. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Inside Out Mamas. My hope is that our time together inspires more feelings of peace, confidence, and joy in your mama journey. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss a show. And if you're ready to take these insights even deeper, head over to brittanyturleycoaching. com to check out my digital workshop designed to help you reduce daily mom overwhelm without adding to your to do list. Thanks for listening, and remember, Small changes on the inside bring big results on the outside.