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, I want to share something we did last year that had a great impact on the love in our family and on me. Before we dive into that, I just want to briefly talk about love. I looked up the definition of love online, and it said, Love involves deep care, attachment, and concern for another's well being. While I liked that definition, okay, I was looking for more. So I asked, An AI bot, what is love? It gave me a similar definition, but then it added on some more things that I really loved to hear also. It said, biologically, love involves neurochemical process, releases of oxytocin, dopamine, and other compounds that create feelings of pleasure, bonding, and attachment. But love is more than just chemistry. It often involves choice. commitment, and action. That last part there, I especially loved. The concept that love involves choice, commitment, and action. When we think about the love that we have for our kids, I think a lot of it is, chemical, I think, especially being the mom and actually being a part of the creation of the child and the birthing of a child, creates a lot of bonding and also just anything that you really work hard for, Are more attached to, but I do think there also is this element of love that. is a choice, a commitment, and an action. So even though as a mom, we are deeply attached to our kids and would do anything for them, there are still elements of our love for them we can increase and go deeper with, and those, I think, involve more of the choice, commitment, and actions. So last year, one of my goals revolved around love. I am a Christian and my goal was to love more like Jesus. Because of that goal, my thoughts were often turned to how I could love better, how I could love deeper, how I could create more love in our home. And by mid January, I was noticing we could really use some more love in our home. I got this idea, I don't remember how it came about, but I was thinking about how to add more love into our home, and I decided that I was going to get each one of the kids one of those small metal mailboxes that they sell around Valentine's Day often, they're usually like a dollar, and I put their name on the mailbox, and then I got a stack of heart shaped notes, and I put the mailboxes on a dresser that's in the hallway by everybody's room so that we could all see it often. And I invited the kids to write notes to each other, telling each other something that they loved or liked about their sibling and told them they could do it as often as they wanted. And this was one month before. Valentine's Day and I told them that I was going to write one note to them each day for that whole month And I would put it in the mailbox each night and the mailbox just really made it fun because you put it in the mailbox Then you put the little flag up and then they know that there's mail in there first thing they would do in the morning would be to check their mail and then put the flag back down Okay, somebody else wanted to put some mail in during the day. The kids really enjoyed it at first. They would put love notes into each other. Some of them would put little trinkets in or little pieces of candy. And they didn't want us to feel left out. So sometimes they would even put the heart notes and stick them. They were actually sticky notes. They would stick them to our bedroom door. I started each of my notes with I love, and writing the first, 10 or so notes for each kid was pretty easy, and I kept them really simple. Like, I love your beautiful smile. I love your hugs. I love hearing you sing. You have such a beautiful voice. But then I had to really start paying more attention because I wanted them to be real and not repetitive or trite. I actually went and found some of the kids notes that they had saved from last year and read through them to remind myself what I found to write about. So I thought I'd share some of the examples just if you're curious. Remember these are for A five year old all the way up to, almost 18 year old. So you can kind of tell how they're a little different. But some of the examples are, I love the positive words you say so often to others. You are a builder. I love holding you when you don't feel good to help you feel better. I love that you were able to keep your reactions more in check today. Frustration is fine and normal. I love your courage to try new things. Looks like you're ready for snowboarding. I love how you spend so much time with a smile on your face. The process of writing a note each night for six kids was a lot of fun. But it was also very hard. Many nights I was exhausted, crawling into bed late, and then I would see the reminder on my phone, and remember I hadn't written my notes, and I would go write them. As tired as I was, I decided I was committed, and I didn't miss a night. But I did start stockpiling ideas on the notes app on my phone as they would come to me during the day. So my exhausted brain didn't have to work so hard to think up ideas or remember. As hard as it was. It was also. So worth it. I noticed not long into this little experiment that my focus had shifted. I was no longer looking for ways to stop or prevent contention in my home because I was busy daily looking for a new thing to write for each child. And with six kids, that actually took some good time. It helped me see my kids better. It helped me look at them differently. I was loving them more deeply. And I think that they could feel my love each day. Most of them checked them first thing in the morning. And so they started their morning on a positive note, knowing. That they were loved. I also noticed the kids even started acting differently. There was less contention and more love in our home. When I was sifting through the notes, I actually found, uh, the last note I wrote to one of my kids. And on the last note, I wrote a longer note and, uh the first part was the same for everybody. And this is what I wrote. I hope these notes have done two things. One, remind and show you how much I love you. And two, remind and show you how much there is to love about you and helped you love yourself better. I really think those two things were accomplished through this simple little exercise. It was a really nice month. We still had fights and things happened, but it was either way less or it seemed less because I was so focused on the love. Either way, I decided it was worth repeating, so we are doing it again this year. We've actually tried a lot of other love type activities around Valentine's Day other years, but this was my favorite and the most impactful, and I think it was my family's favorite too. My younger daughters already got out the mailboxes and started writing notes to everyone a week ago. So it just so happens that today is one month until Valentine's Day. So today is day one for me as I try this activity again. And I'm really looking forward to noticing on a different level how it changes me and how it changes my kids. And just elevates the love that we feel for each other and the love that is in our home. 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 change challenge. Something small you could do throughout the week if you choose, that could end up bringing big results in your life. The small change challenge for this week is to find a way to make your focus for this week love. As the definition I gave at the beginning is, if love involves choice, commitment, and action, choose one way to let your kids know you love them, commit to it, and do it this week. 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.