#55 How Your Thoughts Shape Motherhood And Relationships

We explore why parenting triggers hit so hard and how the story in our mind creates the emotion we blame on our kids. We use a simple CBT based coaching model to help us choose peace, protect our relationships, and stay grounded in faith when our children make choices we do not control. 

• the difference between circumstances and interpretations 
• the coaching model: circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result 
• why the same event produces different emotions in different people 
• how anxious thoughts lead to withdrawal, control, preaching, and pressure 
• how these reactions often create distance and reinforce fear 
• the hidden belief that a child’s choices equal a parent’s success 
• reframing faith struggles with a thought that leads to peace 
• praying from peace rather than fear and desperation 
• using discernment and examination of conscience to track thoughts 
• key reminder: your child’s life is not your report card 

If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at SharonKcoaching.com. That's Sharon the Letterk Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard. 

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Transcript

Welcome And A Snowy Week

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Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Sharon Murphy and I'm a certified life and mindset coach and I help women who seek to be happy and holy. Each week I'll bring you tools and insights to help you on your journey to the heights. I'm so glad you're here. Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm so excited to be with you today. It's been quite a week here. As many of you know, I live in the Midwest. I live in the state of Wisconsin, and a couple of days ago we got just dumped with a bunch of snow. Actually, it was a blizzard. I think it was named Elsa. I'm pretty sure that's what the name of it was. And we got like 26 inches of snow, and actually some northern parts of the state, and I don't know what other states got, but there was northern parts of our state or northeast. It's on the by the lake effect. They got like 30, I don't know, 34 inches, maybe 36, maybe even more. I'm not exactly sure, but kind of ridiculous amounts of snow. And prior to that, everything had kind of melted off, and so we were looking at the the brown grass, kind of looking towards spring. Right now, at the time of release of this episode, spring is just around the corner, but I can tell you it feels nothing like spring when I look out my window as I'm recording. We have piles and piles and piles of snow. So yeah, I'm ready for spring, even though it seems far, far away. And being locked up in our house here for how many days my kids were off of school, everything was basically closed down. So I am I had plenty of time to work on some podcast episodes, and I am really excited to actually just be to be producing and talking to you today. Even though I don't see you, I feel like I'm conversing with you because I'm picturing all of you, my listeners, as I record. With that, today I'm going to be talking a little bit more about our thoughts. You know that that's a big part of what I teach and what I help people with is the impact of our thoughts. But I want to just dive into a little bit today how that impacts us as mothers. And it can just, you know, for parents, if there's men out there listening, this applies to you just as much. But for us as mothers, what this looks like and how this can really trip us up in our relationships. So recently, I had a mom who told me that my daughter refuses to go to mass with us, and she gets upset anytime I bring anything up about it. She's like, I have no idea what to do. Now, in that moment, nothing had actually happened. Her daughter her daughter hadn't said anything to her. She hadn't criticized her. She hasn't rejected her, but the woman felt devastated. She was honestly heartbroken, and she was, I shouldn't say heartbroken. She was kind of, she was feeling just very, very frustrated, very hopeless. I'm kind of despairing. And so why, why was that? Like I said, nothing really happened. The reason she felt that was because of the story that was running through her mind. So today I want to just show you a simple framework, and I've talked about this before, but a simple framework used in cognitive behavioral coaching that explains why this happens and how you can change it. And I use something that's called the model. There's different parts to it, so I'm going to take you through it again because it is something I revisit this and I do this work in my own life, right? As part of my own growth journey. And I'm very, very, I deal with this all the time. And I still struggle to use it when it's showing up in my life. I still have to go back and revisit this and really learn how to apply this in my life. So I know if this isn't something that you're doing regularly, it can be easily forgotten. And I just want to stress it because it has such an enormous ability to impact your life in a positive way. And so when we're going to dive into this today, again, using the model. And the reason I want to discuss this is because once you see it, and once, you know, as you're reminded of this, you're going to start to notice it everywhere. And what the reason this is so important for our motherhood, it's because this has the ability to impact how we are able to maintain our peace. It'll help us create strong relationships, especially with our children, especially as they move into the teenage years and into adulthood. And all of us, I know all of us, I know, I know the hearts of my listeners and all people out there that are our mothers and our parents, we want nothing more than to have a strong relationship with our kids. Right? This is true for all of our family relationships. And for those of you out there who have young kids, don't run away because this is going to apply to every relationship in your life. And it's good to know this now. I wish I had known this back when my kids were younger. So it's not too, it's not too soon to take this to heart. So let's talk about what that is, the model. The model, again, is a coaching, it comes from coaching psychology. So coaching psychology of cognitive behavioral therapy. So any of you psychology majors out there, any psychologists out there, you'll understand exactly what that is. It's heavily influenced by what's called CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. And it works like this: there's circumstances in our lives. And those circumstances happen, right? They're just facts, they're things that are happening, they're proof, there's something we can prove. And when those things happen, we have a thought about them. And from those thoughts that we have, those thoughts create our feelings or our emotions. And from those emotions or those feelings is how we act. It's how we show up in the world, it's what we do or don't do, it's how we behave. It helps drive our decisions. And from there, it creates the results that we have in our life. Basically, what you have in your life today is a result of the circumstances, thoughts, feelings, and actions. That's what creates the results you have in your life. It's a reality that you're living in. So, in simple terms, again, your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings drive your actions, and your actions create your results. Now, most of us, again, believe that the circumstances are what cause the feeling. Don't believe me? Just listen. When you lost into somebody else, listen to yourself. We do it all the time. I mean, I do it myself. We talk about the snowstorm that I just mentioned. I talked about how annoyed I was by all the snow. I, you know, and I talked about how that snowstorm was affecting how I felt. Now, that snowstorm didn't really have anything to do with how I felt. What I thought about the snowstorm, what I thought, what I made it mean, is what created the emotions or the feelings I had about it. Now, when they canceled school, for example, my son, my 14-year-old, was thrilled to death, ecstatic. My husband, on the other hand, got the same news and was not very ecstatic or very excited about it. He was actually just the opposite. That is a perfect example of how a circumstance, an objective situation really has no meaning. It's what we attach to that. It's what we believe about it, it's the thoughts we have about that that are what create the emotions and what create, therefore, our drive our actions and creates our reality. So, anyway, the model shows, and it when you use this in your life, it will show very clearly that the circumstances do not create the results you have in your life. So let's break it down. The circumstance. A circumstance, again, is a neutral fact. It's something that a camera could record. It's provable in the court of law. It's just a fact. So, an example, my daughter, let's just say, my adult daughter has not called me in three weeks. Okay. Now, a thought could be she's ignoring me. You can prove that she hasn't called you in three weeks. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but a thought that you might have is she's ignoring me. Right? And that thought is just a thought is nothing more than a sentence in your mind about a specific circumstance that happened. Other thoughts that might come up was she doesn't care about me. I must have done something wrong. Or possibly even I'm losing my daughter. And those thoughts feel incredibly real. We might even talk to one of our friends and say, they haven't called. My daughter hasn't called in three weeks, right? We say it with a tone and an edge where really that doesn't mean anything because you might be telling a friend that that friend might say, Oh, I actually don't hear from my daughter very often at all, but I don't I know that we have a tight-knit relationship. I know she's probably just busy. We use that circumstance to try and prove that it's that circumstance, the way we describe it, the way we explain it. You can tell by the way the emotions are are attached to it, the way we explain it. But all of those thoughts, really underneath there, of she doesn't care about me, I must have done something wrong, or I'm losing her, they are just interpretations, thoughts. They're perceptions about what's happening, why she hasn't called. We're trying to attach meaning to that. Because the fact is that she hasn't called you in three weeks. That's it. And that really doesn't mean anything. It's just what you think about that that gives this particular circumstance meaning. After you have this thought, those thoughts I've just mentioned mentioned, those thoughts create an emotion. So now let's take that thought she doesn't care about me. That thought creates a feeling. Could be hurt, could be rejection, could be anxiousness. And this is what I want to just make sure that you really understand is that the circumstance did not create that feeling. Your daughter not calling you in three weeks does not create hurt or rejection or anxiousness. The thought did. That circumstance is neutral. And so let's talk about the actions or inactions that come from those feelings. Those feelings of hurt, rejection, anxiousness, those feelings drive behaviors. So how do we show up when we feel hurt or anxious or rejected? And those specific examples, I would say we probably show up with we withdraw. We might we might, hopefully not, but we might send like you know passive aggressive texts, a text message. We might start to you know try and over-explain. We might try and and we kind of go into, I want to say like overdrive is what happens. We get a little bit anxious, and so then all of a sudden we start to overcompensate in some respects. We might start giving unsolicited advice to her, right? Just trying to get her to to react or to engage. Or, you know, we could kind of when I'm talking about unsolicited advice, you might be kind of going at her about, you know, why she hasn't got why she hasn't gotten a hold of you, what she's up to. Or you might try and control that situation. You might just, like I said, when I talked about overexplaining, it's kind of going into like this hyperdrive of I need to figure out what's going on. And so then we just try and control the situation. And in those situations, okay, withdrawing, sending passive aggressive texts, trying to give unsolicited advice or control the situation, what kind of results do you think that creates with your daughter? Well, it's very likely that the daughter feels judged or pressured, even like passive aggressive texts, you know, sending a message that says something like, gosh, your phone must have broke. I haven't heard from you, or whatever. You know, I mean, just something like that. How do you think the daughter feels? She feels, she feels judged. She feels a little bit, you know, probably it's very off-putting, right, to receive something like that. And so what is she gonna do? She's gonna call you even less, which then reinforces your original thought, which is she doesn't care. I'm losing her. The very fact that she thinks her daughter is ignoring her or that she's losing her or that she did something wrong is actually creating more of that in her life. So this is why this matters so much. Because the fact is, most of us as moms, we carry this heavy belief in our hearts, and and it's this that our children's choices reflect our success as parents, as mothers. Now it's funny because this just came up. I'm in a women's group on Thursday mornings, and we just, this was exactly the conversation that was brought up. And I had already written this podcast, and I said, you know, that's funny because I'm touching on this. And what was brought up was one of the one of the girls that was talking about her her son or daughter. I don't remember exactly the situation, but that they had done something and they were really proud of it. Or they maybe it was the opposite anyway. And the conversation came up where another mom said, you know, I like to take credit, I I take credit for the good things, but then I just I blame somebody else or blame them for the bad ones. And isn't it true that as parents, and we were just chuckling, she was just being, she was just being kind of funny about it. But the fact is, is that we want to take credit for the good things, but then we struggle when they're bad things. And the point is, is that we can't take credit for either for the most part. I mean, yes, you know, we want to feel to some degree that we've done our jobs. I mean, and that's just natural. But if you're hanging on to that thought, my choice, my child's choices reflect my success as a mother, that's a very, very dangerous thought. And I would say it's more of a belief that we hold that we're not even aware of. But if you watch this in your life, you'll notice this because as soon as our kids, and I'm talking about our older kids here, I would say teenage years on up, if they make decisions that we're not excited about or not proud of, we filled, we're filled with shame. And we go to these thoughts of, what have I done wrong? It's my fault. I need to, and then we could fall into those patterns. So that's why this concept of using the model is so important. Because the reality is, is we we don't have that much control over our children's lives. We just really don't. So if you're someone who feels or has this belief that your children's choices reflect your success, guess what happens? That thought, when they make choices that you don't necessarily agree with, that you don't necessarily love, that thought creates guilt. It creates fear, it creates anxiety, urgency, despair. And what do those feelings lead to? It leads to actions that look like correcting or preaching or pushing or worrying out loud, right? Which is like basically venting to everyone you know, most likely girlfriends or maybe to your spouse. And it also looks like trying to control. And ironically, all of those actions, correcting, preaching, pushing, trying to control, those actions create distance, not closest. And so this is where I want to add this thought about the fact of that your child's choices don't ref reflect them as a as your mother. It's not helpful. Regardless of what your child's choices are, it's just not helpful. And so, like I said, if you're going to attach your child making good choices to your success as a mother, or that you can attribute it to you, right, naturally you're going to feel pride, right? You're going to feel some joy, you feel happiness and possibly like contentment. And we all desire this and we look around, we do this, right? But that thought is no more true than if they make poor choices. Because what happens, like I said, is when they make poor choices, then we go the other the other direction. And we need to, we need to make sure to detach from that. While we don't want to fall into those spinning into worry and control and all those things, the anxiousness, the preaching, the pushing, we also don't, we also don't want to fall into those places of pride and whatever, because we're making it about us. Either way, that can create a lot of problems for us. And so I do want to just stress that, yes, we can influence our children, and we have the responsibility to do so. They are still their own person, and we don't have that kind of power to determine every choice in their life. There's so many factors at play that affect our kids' choices and their behaviors. Think about it, outside influences in their lives, their personality, their natural skills and tendencies, their temperament, their character defects, all the things that make them who they are and the experiences that have shaped them into who they are. The same is true for us. And so that is obviously the same for our kids. I went a little bit off on a tangent there, but I think that's so important because that's really what I want to tie into for today is just the fact of how we as parents, as mothers, we take on that responsibility and we take on that blame because we have thoughts about their actions and their behaviors. When in reality, those circumstances, we don't need to make them mean that. So let's run this model again. We talked about this, the circumstance. Let's use another one here. My daughter no longer goes to mass. We talked about that earlier. The thought. Thought is, I failed as a mother. That could be a thought. Whether you think it or not, I have a feeling, whether you're aware of it or not, I guess I should say, I have a feeling that many of us would go to this place. I failed. I did something wrong. And the feeling that you have from that thought is likely shame, right? Regret, something like that. And from shame, how do you act? You might question her choices, you might pressure her to return. You go into spiraling into just self-loathing and negative patterns. That's not good for you or anybody in your family or your household. Your conversations with her then are strained. You might go into, as I talked about, that control mode, that trying to overcompensate by sending her articles or sharing things with her or lecturing about the importance of the faith or the importance of going to mass or what will happen if she doesn't go to mass. And those are all reactions from shame. And what do you get when you lecture her? You bombard her with articles, you question her choices, you pressure her, your conversation. Those are all those are all coming from shame or desperation. And what happens is she avoids faith conversations with you. She doesn't even want to talk about it.

unknown 18:20

Right?

Prayer From Peace Not Fear

Discernment And Examining Thoughts

Your Child Is Not A Grade

SPEAKER_00 18:21

She avoids you altogether when it comes to that. As soon as you bring it up, you can eat whether she openly says, Mom, I don't want to hear it, or whether you can see the wall go up. Either way, it just reinforces the thought that I failed. And then you spiral into more desperation, more shame. And you go back to those same patterns, and you start to control. You start sending them more information. Maybe you've learned that saying things doesn't, it doesn't help the situation, but then you spiral into all these negative thought patterns and the self-loathing and this fear and this worry, which is really not helpful to you as a person, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. So let's take a look at this. Let's look at this from the possibility of a different thought, because we get to choose our thoughts. We can decide what we want to make circumstances mean. And I know that there's many of you listening that are going to say, if my child did this, or if my child did that, or this happened, or my spouse, right? I'm not going to make it mean it's something good. That's that's totally fair. We don't need to go into some Pollyanna place. But let's just use this as an example of my daughter no longer goes to mass. What is a thought that you could you could take? Well, I'm just gonna offer you one here, and I don't know if this is gonna land with you or not, but it's a it's an option. The thought could be my daughter is on her own faith journey, and I trust she'll find her way, just as I have. That's not saying, oh, it's totally fine. I don't care what she does, I don't care if she goes to mass, I don't care if she calls me or whatever the situation might be. It's just even that my daughter has her own faith journey. I trust she'll find her way as I have. Just how different that feels, right? Likely from a thought like that, you'll feel peace. At least more peace than you would having the other thought. The other thought that says, I failed as a mother, that led to shame and despair. So in this case, let's just say you you want to take that. You're just gonna trust. I trust she'll find her way, just as I have, and you feel peace. So how do you act from peace? Well, you're calmer, you listen, you likely ask questions instead of preaching. You're likely gonna respect her agency, her free will, you're gonna love her without pressure, without pressure, and you're gonna continue to pray for her, but you don't feel anxious. And there's an important thing I want to bring up is that as Catholic mothers, as women of faith, whether you're uh Catholic or not, if you're listening to this, it's likely you have some sort of faith. When we pray, it's so important to understand that when we pray from places of fear and desperation, our prayers are, you know, it's almost like we're just like shoving them into this uh funnel. And we're just like, you know, Lord, take it, it's like we're grasping and we're not open to what the Lord is wanting to say to us in those moments. When we pray for someone from a place of peace, our whole, our whole posture is different. Our hearts, our minds, we're open to what God wants to say to us. And what God wants to say to us is almost always messages of hope, of peace. He wants to heal us, he wants to, you know, and inspire us, he wants to empower us, right? All of these things. And if we're we're tight fisted and we're feeling shame and fear and desperation, now I'm not saying you can't take those to the Lord, God will take anything that we offer to him, right? But it makes such a difference. Difference. And so I was talking about our prayer life there, right? Because that was the last one I mentioned. But then let's look at the relationship you have with your daughter. When you come from a place of peace, your relationship stays open, right? Because you ask questions, you listen, and you respect her agency, you respect her free will. What that is felt feels like for your daughter is completely different than when you come at it from preaching. And the reality is, is your heart is in the right place. You want, we want what's best for our children, right? In the specific example, I understand that we want what's best for them, but if we're coming at it from a place of shame and fear and desperation, our actions are going to reflect that. So it's so important that we learn to come at these conversations and these situations from a place of peace. Even when it feels unattainable, it's not unattainable. You have the ability to choose thoughts, not thoughts that don't make sense, but thoughts that align with us, especially those of us of faith. We have such gifts at our disposal. We have the word to be able to rely on. We have God's peace available to us. We have his word that assures us that he works all things for good. We can use those scriptures. If you can't come up with a thought that even seems reasonable, then go to the Word of God and start reading Scripture and get those thoughts embedded in your mind. Those will help you. So I just want to say too, this model that I'm talking about, the circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, created results, this really fits in beautifully and aligns with our Catholic faith and with spiritual teaching, spiritual wisdom. So if we think about the saints, the saints constantly examine their thoughts. They constantly examined their reactions, and they constantly examined their intentions. Now, Saint Ignatius called this the examination of conscience. It wasn't just what did I do at the end of the day, but what moved my heart? What was driving that? And this is very similar to observing our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. And so I also want to just expound on this a little bit. I use the model with people that I'm coaching, and I use it in my own life, and with anybody who has a listening ear, I share this with because it is such a powerful tool. But I want to take this to the next level for those of us of faith, because it is important to reflect on our thoughts, feelings, and actions. But the next piece is to take it to a place of discernment, like St. Ignatius talked about, or an examination of conscience. So what do I mean by this? As Catholics, I think we've pretty much gotten down the part of following the commandments and the need for repentance. We understand that. We've been taught that. At least we have an understanding of it to some degree. Not that we're doing it well. But if we're able to properly judge our actions, whether sinful or not, that's great. But if our thoughts are what ultimately are the drivers of our actions, then wouldn't it serve us to discern those thoughts? Isn't it more important to discern those thoughts? So if we think about the scripture where Jesus says that I tell you that if you look at another woman with lust, you've already committed adultery. I'm paraphrasing, paraphrasing. But that's kind of the idea, right? It starts with our thoughts. That's where the sin begins. And I know there's another scripture that I should have looked up because it's the one where basically it's it talks about stopping it as when a temptation, uh thought becomes a temptation, and so on and so on and so forth. I don't know if it's in the book of James, but it's up, it's in there anyway. And it's the same idea. The meaning is that our thoughts lead to our actions. And so we need to become aware of what's happening in our minds before they become actions. What we are thinking about and how we're thinking. So this is where I work with women is when we use the model that I've just been talking about, we go deeper into understanding these thoughts and where they're leading us to a place of virtue or vice, whether that's sin or not. So that's the importance of this work is understanding where these thoughts are leading us to. Because we'll we can get very frustrated when we go to confession and we find that we're confessing the same things over and over, which that that happens to all of us. But when we go deeper to understand why we're falling into those, we can trace it back to our thoughts. What are we believing? What are we thinking about? And so there's so much freedom when you understand this model. That is, it's the most powerful realization is that you cannot always control your circumstances. We can't. I talked about two situations here, two examples with adult children. But this is for our loved ones, our coworkers, our spouse. They're gonna make their own choices. These are circumstances in our lives. Other people's choices, their actions, their thoughts, those are the circumstances in our lives. And we can, we can't always control those circumstances. In fact, most often we can't. But what you can influence is our own thoughts, our own emotional state, how we show up. And the kind of mother, the kind of friend, the kind of sister, the kind of daughter that we want to be. And that's what changes everything. I know that this a lot of times it seems, you know, like, ah, I don't want to go through this work, or this just seems a little complicated, or I don't feel like doing this work, but you should feel empowered because this is where there's so much freedom in this when you truly understand it. So a few simple questions for you moms out there. You find yourself in those situations that I just talked about. Your daughter or son hasn't called, or they're making decisions that you don't agree with, or don't align with your values. The next time you feel upset about something, you feel triggered, especially if it's regarding a family member. Can be, I talk about children, but it could be anybody. The thing to ask yourself is what am I thinking right now? What am I making this mean? Because that thought is shaping your peace, it's shaping your response, and it's shaping your relationships. That thought, not the circumstance. The thought is shaping your peace, it's shaping your response, and it's also shaping your relationships. So as we close today, I just want to remind you, I talked about this a little bit earlier, but just remember that your child's life, I like to say this, it's not your report card. Your child's life is not your report card. We use it as such so often. We don't even realize we're doing it. And it makes sense. We spend our whole lives pouring into our kids, but we think that if we do all the right things, then we'll get all A's, right? And we're using our kids as evidence of that. And that isn't the way it works. That's good news and bad news, but we can take ourselves off the hook. But we also can't give ourselves credit when our kids are making it. I mean, we can give ourselves some credit, and of course, there are some things in our lives where we need to look back and say, I maybe could have done things a little better. That's fine, acknowledge it. But the problem is, is we stay there. That's where the problem is. So, again, your child's life is not your report card, but your love, peace, and presence, they can shape their story. Who you're becoming, your love for them, the peace that you bring to the relationship, and the presence that you have within your family unit and within those around you, that can shape your their story. And so when you begin noticing your thoughts, taking those thoughts captive, you begin showing up as the mother, the person that you truly want to be. So until next time, onward and upward, my friends, to the heights. Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at SharonKcoaching.com. That's Sharon the Letterk Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard.