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. I always knew I wanted to be a mom. From a very young age, I realized that I really enjoyed being with kids. I am the oldest of six kids and had plenty of opportunities to help take care of kids. I also did lots of babysitting in my teen years and loved it. I even went on to get a degree in elementary education and spent time. Working with kids in schools. So, when I had my first baby, I thought that it wouldn't be that hard with all the experience that I had had. But, wow, I was wrong. My first baby was inconsolable. She vomited every time I nursed her, like, a lot. She was gassy. She was always crying and upset and visibly in pain. Sadly, we actually have very few pictures of her when she was a baby because we were always trying to console her. At the time I had friends who had babies around the same time and I was also part of a mom's group and we met weekly and the moms were always talking about how much they loved being a mother. And I wanted to say that I loved being a mother too, but I knew if I was being honest with myself, I did not love being a mother. It was really hard. I loved my baby and I was doing everything I could to help her. We went to doctors, we tried medications, we did every trick there is out there to relieve. pain and colic and all of the above, but I just still didn't love being a mother. And I felt terribly guilty about that. I didn't think that that was okay, that I wasn't enjoying being a mother. I knew that being a mom would be a hard job and I knew that there were parts of it that I wouldn't enjoy. Like. Diaper blowouts or babies crying, waking you up in the night, but since you love your kids, you still had to enjoy being a mom, right? I have since discovered this concept. Life is 50 50, 50 percent amazing and 50 percent not amazing. And that is how it's designed to be. I enjoy mountain biking. And when you go on a mountain biking ride, the first few minutes are pretty easy, while you're just getting a little warm. And then the next little while, while your muscles are actually really getting warmed up, it's not fun. It's uncomfortable, it hurts, your muscles are yelling at you to stop. Oftentimes the first part of a mountain bike trail. is uphill, taking you to the parts where it's going to be downhill and it's going to be fun. And so the warm up, to me, is not fun. It doesn't feel great. I don't enjoy it. But I know that if I keep going, that it's going to get better. And so that's why I keep going. And then parts come where it's just super fun and you're flowing through sections and it's not hard and your muscles are warmed up so they're not yelling at you anymore. Until there's usually a big climb and your muscles start burning again and you start breathing super heavy and you might even have to come up out of the saddle and really push up the hill and you're not necessarily having fun. It's a lot of hard work, but then you get to the top and you get to enjoy the view. And then the downhill section comes where it's fun turns and ups and downs. And it's so much fun to ride through. So mountain biking has sections that I love and sections that I just really dislike. But I still like mountain biking. I still love mountain biking and I still do it. Just like in motherhood, there will be sections that We dislike, that are really hard, that are painful. And then there will be beautiful sections with beautiful views and great memories and wonderful experiences that we would have never had if we hadn't have gone up the hard sections. The tricky thing with motherhood is We don't have a map. When I go mountain biking, I usually look at the trail and I have a good idea of when the hard parts are coming, when the good parts are coming, and that can push me through. I know, okay, this part's gonna be hard, but it's only this long, I can get through it, or I only have this much left of the tough section, and then we get to the fun stuff. But for motherhood, we don't have a map, and we can't necessarily see what's up ahead, like when I'm riding my bike, I can see, oh yeah, here comes the uphill part, I see it up there. That was my struggle with my first baby. My first section was hard. And I couldn't see that the next section would be fun and wonderful, and I just felt really bad. Good news is, about six months into motherhood with my first baby, we were finally able to find a doctor that could help us. And turns out that my baby Did not like dairy. Even though I had taken dairy out of my diet a couple times. I didn't know how long you had to take it out and no other doctor told me. They just said take it out for a few days and see if anything changes. This doctor said take it out for two weeks. And after two weeks, I had a new baby. She was no longer upset and gassy. She was no longer vomiting. He gave her some medicine that Coated her throat until it healed because her throat was raw from all the vomiting and she was finally able to thrive and I Could finally say I loved being a mother It was so much fun and I got to know her and love her more and more But the guilt that I carried not loving it for a little while took me longer to get over. I finally learned that me enjoying being a mom had very little to do with me being a good mom. I can be an amazing mom and still not be enjoying motherhood for that section. Since that section 18 years ago, I've had many more sections that I did not enjoy and that were harder in different ways, but I was still doing a good job being a mother during those times. And then I've also had many sections that were amazing and wonderful with beautiful views and wonderful memories. There are parts of motherhood I will never like. Diaper blowouts, vomit cleaning up, and seeing my kids in physical or emotional pain. But there are also sections of motherhood That I will not enjoy and that is also okay. It doesn't mean that I'm not a good mom or that I don't love my kids. It means that I'm having a growing experience and it's part of the 50 50 of life. Now because I believe small changes on the inside bring big results on the outside, each week on my podcast I'm going to give you a small changes challenge. Something small that you can do throughout the week if you choose, that could end up bringing big results to your life. For this week's Small Changes Challenge, I would like you to first think about how there are sections of life that we don't enjoy, like during an injury, or an illness, or a loss, and we aren't Sitting here feeling guilty about not liking life during those times. Then I want you to acknowledge that there are hard sections of motherhood that you have not enjoyed or will not enjoy in the future. We don't have to carry guilt for not enjoying the hard sections of motherhood. We still love our kids and we are doing our very best even in the hard sections. You got this, mama. I know this time of year can be filled with extra overwhelm and frustration. I've created a 30 minute online workshop called How to Reduce Daily Overwhelm without adding to your to do list. I personally use this mindset shift almost daily while brushing my teeth. It's powerful. Yet, super simple. If you'd like to learn more about it, head on over to brittanyturleycoaching. com and scroll down to my workshop link. The workshop is this Thursday at 1 PM Mountain time, and it only costs 25 dollars. Hope to see you there. 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.