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It’s almost Mother’s Day, and I have a message for all the moms. For these episodes, I usually make a few notes and then speak freely. However, today, I felt like writing something down, as if I was sending a letter. I’m sharing a love letter to all the moms.
This is for all the mommas, grandmas, aunties, moms-to-be, hopeful moms in the thick of infertility treatment, surrogate moms, birth moms, adopted moms, and moms who had it forced up on by falling in love with someone who already had children. But to keep it simple, I’ll just say moms. This episode is for you.
Tune in this week to discover why you should never feel bad about falling short as a mother. I’m sharing what I believe all moms want this Mother’s Day, and showing you how to show yourself fierce love, kindness, and compassion when you feel like you’re falling short as a parent.
If you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. It’s available now on Amazon in print or Kindle version.
What You’ll Learn on this Episode:
- Why I’m feeling compelled to write a love letter to all the mommas.
- What I believe moms want this Mother’s Day.
- Why you should never feel bad for falling short as a mother.
- How to decide on the way you want to show up for your family.
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I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 408, A Love Letter to All the Moms.
Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master-certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.
Hello, everybody, how is it going? It’s almost Mother’s Day. And I have a message I want to share with you today. I want to just mention first of all that my team was just in town the last couple of days. We have, how many? Eight or nine people that work really consistently with us either as employees or contractors. And we brought them all to Spokane as we do on occasion and we spent two days brainstorming how to make everything better. We have some big changes and some new things coming later on in the summer and in the fall. And I’m super excited about all of that.
Can’t wait to share it all with you and I just, I love my team so much. Jake and I were talking about how much we love our team and how one of the downsides to everybody being remote is we don’t get to see each other as often as we want. But I do think that if we all worked together in the same office it would be really hard for me to get my work done because I just love hanging out with them and we just laughed and ate good food and also got a lot of work done. So that was pretty awesome.
Today what I want to share with you is what I’m calling a love letter to all the moms in the name of, of course, Mother’s Day coming up. But what I did for some reason, I normally just speak to you on this podcast. I make myself a few notes kind of an outline and then I speak sort of freely and that seems to work well. I’m going to keep doing that mostly but for some reason today I felt like writing something down as though I was going to send you a letter.
And so I’m going to read it and I hope that doesn’t take away from the podcast. I just felt like I needed to get my thoughts down on paper first. When I write, my voice tends to come out a little bit differently, a little bit less casual. And I want to read to you today the letter that I would send to you if I could send you a letter.
Says, Mother’s Day, it’s coming or it’s here or it just passed or it’s nowhere near but you clicked play on this episode because you were curious. Whenever you are listening and whatever the reason I am speaking to all the mamas, grandmas, aunties, moms to be, hopeful moms in the thick of infertility treatment, surrogate moms, birth moms, adopted moms and moms who had it forced upon them by falling in love with a man who already had children. I’ll just say, mom, to keep it simple. This one’s for you.
I know what you want for Mother’s Day, I’m pretty sure. Let me take a stab at it. You want everyone to get along. You want them to be happy. You want a break. You want a Diet Coke and a cookie and a nap. You want them to clean up the house so you can relax in a clean house without having to be the one to clean it up. You want to feel good about yourself, your body, your skin, your contribution. You want your kids to turn out well. You want to feel like you’re doing a good job.
You want your husband to talk nicer to you. You want connection with him and to feel like he’s interested in what you have to say with no strings attached. You wouldn’t mind a fun gift but you don’t really care about that as much as all these other things. And yet, you know this is a lot to ask. Each thing on its own sounds reasonable and you don’t think it’s too much to ask but when you take a look at all of it and you hear it out loud you realize it’s so far away from your current reality that it’s not likely to happen even though it’s Mother’s Day.
So when you think about what you want you answer with the same, “I don’t know. Nothing really. I’m fine.” Did I get it right? Olay. So here’s the thing, I have good news disguised as bad news and I hope you’ll receive it as my Mother’s Day gift to you because when I first learned this it felt like bad news to me. But as I’ve come to understand it better, it’s set me free more than any other news I’ve ever received. And it’s helped me find more peace and joy and freedom. It helped me have fun again. It helps me like myself.
It’s allowed me to change the way I lived day-to-day which changed the life I have overall. And it’s pretty simple but it’s important. Are you ready? The news is this. You’re a good mom. You’re a good person. You’re doing a great job. You’re amazing at so many things. You’re kind and helpful and giving and talented, you are but you’re also not. You’re not good at parts of it. Sometimes you are at best a mediocre mom but at times a terrible one, it’s true. It’s true of me and it’s true of you.
Sometimes you are selfish. Sometimes you make mistakes unknowingly or because you aren’t good at certain things. And other times you knowingly make poor choices and it’s okay, yes, really, yes, I’m sure, it’s okay. Not only okay but it’s the way of it, the reality of you and of me. We are human moms, we’re going to do some things that help our kids in the ways they need help. And we’re going to do some things that harm our kids and require them to navigate challenges in the world as a result, every one of us and it’s okay.
Oh dear, now what? Is this bad news to you? Does it sound like justification for falling short? Does it feel like thinking this way will make you a worse mom? It won’t, I promise, it will do the opposite. How do I know? I have coached literally thousands upon thousands of moms. I’ve never seen an exception to this, not once. When you feel bad for falling short you will fall even shorter overall. Feeling bad about what a terrible mom you are might help you in the short term because you can scare yourself or shame yourself into accessing willpower.
That willpower can give you a temporary improvement in behavior but it won’t last, it won’t be real, it will be forced and it will run out. Maybe you yelled at the kids and you’re feeling bad about that, the internal yelling at yourself for yelling at your kids just means more yelling. And it means the next time your kids do what kids do, you’ll already be operating from a negative place making it harder to control your temper. How do you want to react, think about or speak to the kids when they misbehave? In an ideal world if you were a perfect mom what would that look like?
You’d probably say something like, “Okay kids, guess what? That’s not appropriate. Let’s talk about it. Tell me what was going on for you when you made that choice. I see, you were afraid, you were struggling in some way. Okay, I’ll help you. Let’s figure that out. In the meanwhile let’s see if we can work on this, okay love? I love you. Nothing you do will change that, I love you fiercely.” Okay, so let’s try that on you, why did you yell? What’s going on? What are you really needing? What would make all of this easier and more fun? What are you really struggling with?
What are you missing that you need in your life? Okay, I see, I hear you. I’m going to take care of you. Yeah, we can work on this and let’s do, but in the meanwhile I love you. Nothing you do or don’t do will ever change that. I have got you, self, fierce love and compassion. And here’s what you need to know. There will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be a point at which you will arrive, when you’ll be the perfect mom or even a good enough mom that you don’t have to intentionally talk to yourself with kindness.
If you’re trying to stop yelling so you can feel good about yourself, you should know that you’ll stop yelling but then you’ll find another way in which you’re falling short. You will, I promise, it’s our human design to continue to find opportunities to improve ourselves. And yes, keep working on it, go for the next improvement, pass to the next level, but not so that you’ll be worthy of your own love because there are never ending levels to this game. So instead, love yourself as you play the game.
Level two is just as worthy of love as level 27. Yes, I’m sure. You are not the world’s greatest mom. You don’t need to be. You’re the world’s okayest mom as you should be. Find a default strength to divert to when you find your mind judging you. This is what I do, pancakes. I’m good at pancakes. I just redirect to that every time.
When I realized I didn’t sign my son up for basketball as he’d asked me to do for the last eight months. I kept telling him I would when it was time but it wasn’t time yet until I missed the deadline and couldn’t get him in. You’re the worst mom ever, Jody Moore, that’s what I thought. But I’m really good at making pancakes, I reminded myself because the truth is I am good at parts of this job and not good at others.
But I’ve noticed that the better I get at being loving and patient and curious and kind to myself, the better I get at loving and being patient and curious and kind to my kids and my husband and my clients and listeners and followers who love me. And the ones who are mad at me for having political views other than theirs or liking a post they disagree with, who write to me and tell me how disgusted they are with me. They’re full of anger and criticism and guess what, I know how to love them.
I’m so much better at loving them all because I intentionally love on myself. And loving yourself is easy to do when you check all the boxes you intended to check that day. But can you love yourself when you mess it up? That’s when you truly get better at loving.
I hope this Mother’s Day you’ll embrace all of you, embrace your light and embrace your dark. You are good and bad, selfish and unselfish, kind and mean, accepting and judgmental, or at least I am. I love me and I love you and this is true freedom. Happy Mother’s Day.
Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.
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