Practically Joyful Mom: Recent Episodes
Makenzie Tricola
Are you tired, Mama? Tired of feeling like you have to resign yourself to either being a “hot mess mom” who’s drowning in the chaos of motherhood or a “pinterest perfect mom” who looks like she has it all together but is actually miserable on the inside?
The world keeps telling us that these are the only options, but that’s a lie. You can get out of victim mode and make changes to bring more joy into your life. And at the same time, you can find freedom in remembering that you can’t control everything and you can stop striving for perfection.
I’m Makenzie Tricola and I’d love you to join me every week here on the Practically Joyful podcast to talk about realistic ways to bring more joy to your mom life and how to choose to be joyful even when it feels like the chaos is winning.
We’ll talk about intentional parenting, simplicity, faith and following Jesus, connecting with your kids, taking care of yourself and so much more.
Welcome in, friend. I'm so glad you're here!
Have you ever felt like a failure as a mom? Ever felt like all the moms around you have it more figured out than you? It’s easy to lack confidence as moms partly because we put pressure on ourselves to be at the end of our motherhood journey where we’ve already learned all the lessons even when we’re just starting out. Motherhood is a journey and we can have more confidence when we remember that growth, not perfection, is our goal. The journey of motherhood can also feel exhausting when we try to do it alone. But you aren’t alone. There are moms all around you who are in the trenches with you and moms who have gone ahead of you who have learned the lessons you are learning now and are willing to share their wisdom. Most importantly of all, you’re not alone because you can call on the God who created the universe to give you wisdom and rest in the midst of your motherhood journey.
Have you ever felt like a failure as a mom? Ever felt like all the moms around you have it more figured out than you? It’s easy to lack confidence as moms partly because we put pressure on ourselves to be at the end of our motherhood journey where we’ve already learned all the lessons even when we’re just starting out. Motherhood is a journey and we can have more confidence when we remember that growth, not perfection, is our goal. The journey of motherhood can also feel exhausting when we try to do it alone. But you aren’t alone. There are moms all around you who are in the trenches with you and moms who have gone ahead of you who have learned the lessons you are learning now and are willing to share their wisdom. Most importantly of all, you’re not alone because you can call on the God who created the universe to give you wisdom and rest in the midst of your motherhood journey.
Do you ever feel crushed under the weight of a to-do list a mile long? Or feel discouraged by all the areas in life you want to grow in? The feeling of overwhelm can leave us feeling powerless and unable to do anything. But today I'm talking about one perspective shift and strategy that has helped me to move forward even in the midst of feeling overwhelmed.
Do you ever feel like you spend a huge part of your day just getting your kids occupied so you can accomplish "adulting" tasks? When you are with your kids, is your to-do list constantly running through your mind? Listen to today's episode for some inspiration to shift your perspective and practical ideas to spend more time enjoying your kids and still get done what needs done.
When we are tempted to "I told you so" our kids, it can be so powerful to instead take a step a back and give them our sympathy. I recently had an exchange with one of my kids where giving them my sympathy had such a deeper impact than any lecture or "I told you so" could have.
We've all had those days where it seems like everything is going downhill, including our own attitudes. But whether it's 7:00am and it's already been a long day or it's almost bedtime and you're counting the minutes, it's not too late to turn the day around. Today's episode is full of perspective shifts and practical ideas for redeeming a difficult day.
We all face rainstorms in life, both physical rain and just challenging seasons. How we approach these rainstorms matters deeply. Are you embracing your rainstorms and choosing to see them as times to adventure and splash in the puddles, to grow in character and endurance? Or are you just miserably waiting for the rain to stop?
One of the common struggles of parenthood is those phases when our kids seem to really be struggling with listening to what we ask them to do. There are often many factors at play in these situations but today we will be discussing one powerful tool for helping out kids actually WANT to listen to us.
Fun is like currency with our kids. When we invest in fun times with them they feel closer to us and are more likely to listen to what we have to say about important issues. It can seem overwhelming to plan fun with our kids if we feel pressured to make it elaborate or Pinterest perfect. But having fun with our little can be much simpler and easier than we think and at the same time incredibly rewarding.
How often do we tell our kids to “have fun” when we drop them off to school or anywhere else? While fun is a wonderful part of life, it’s not necessarily our highest goal in life. In today’s episode we’ll discuss some simple tweaks in how we talk to our kids to communicate our family’s values and help them view their days through a different lens.
Have you ever felt like you just don't know what to do? Maybe it's about a big decision like a move or maybe it's in the middle of a challenging situation like the oh-so-fun moment when your child has a meltdown in the grocery store. Press play for a perspective shift and practical tips about these moments when we feel unsure of how to move forward.
Olympic athletes don’t just train once, but over and over to reach a high level of excellence. Expecting our kids to change after we talk to them one time about an issue isn’t realistic either. Nor is it realistic to expect ourselves to grow by leaps and bounds in any area without consistent practice over time. Excellence takes time. Training takes time. But the good news is that we aren’t alone in our efforts to grow and help our children to do the same.
What if someone wrote a biography of your life? How would the story of this time in your life read? Would it be full of grumpiness and complaining or would it be a story of how you brought light and joy even in the midst of a difficult season?
It can be easy to let the month of Thanksgiving become all about doing and not about gratitude. Today we’re talking about why it matters to create or strengthen a habit of gratitude and how we can do it.
We live in a time when parenting advice is everywhere. There are many valuable tricks and tips out there and learning from other parents is a great way to build up our own parenting skills. But we all have those moments in parenting when we find ourselves thinking, “I don’t know what to do!”. In those moments (and all the time) one of our most powerful parenting tools is to pray for wisdom.
In a world of social media and lots of comparison it can be so easy to feel as though we aren't doing a good enough job at anything or as though our work isn't important. Today we are talking about how determining what your own work is and sinking yourself into it can be much more satisfying and fulfilling than constantly comparing your life and work with others.
We would all like our kids to know how to apologize and to do it when needed but it doesn't always seems so easy. Today's episode is all about why knowing how to apologize matters and how to help our kids learn.
As the weather gets colder and cloudier, it can be easy to retreat from the outdoors into more time inside. It’s normal to spend less time outside when it’s not warm and sunny but there are still great benefits to getting outside most days - for us and our kids. Today’s episode is all about the wonderful benefits of time outside and practical ideas to make it happen.
We all have a choice in the stories we tell ourselves about our days. We can choose to tell a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day" sort of story or we can choose to tell ourselves a story of beauty and goodness. We can narrate to ourselves the same day in two radically different ways. And our choice in how we tell the story affects how we feel, how we act towards others and even the trajectory of our day.
Bad habits are hard to break. Whether it's nail biting, being glued to your phone or yelling at your kids, it's incredibly difficult to just try to stop a bad habit. We will have much more success when we think about replacing the negative habit with something more beneficial and intentional. This applies not only to our own lives but to our kids as well.
Car time can often feel like wasted time but we can choose to reclaim these moments to prepare our kids for wherever we're going. Conversations about appropriate behavior and about loving the people we will be around are a great way to make this time worthwhile instead of wasted.
We all go through seasons in life, some are easy and some are challenging. Part of being a practically joyful mom is choosing to adapt to the season we are in rather than trying to live like it's summer when we are in the midst of a winter season.
It can be so easy to run through our days without really looking at our kids, really pausing and giving them our eyes and our attention, seeing them clearly and letting them know that they are important to us. Eye contact is a powerful tool to connect with our kids, strengthen our relationships and increase cooperation.
What’s in our hearts matters because it is what will come out in our words and actions. It can be easy to focus on our children’s behavior because it’s what we can see but what’s in their hearts is where that behavior comes from. The same is true for us as moms, what’s in our hearts is what comes out.
Moms are busy. Our days are often very full but there are also little pockets of time sandwiched between diaper changes and school drop offs, between messy meals and trips to the park. We often end up turning to time wasters during these little moments because we think we can't accomplish much in 5 or 10 minutes. But what if we chose to use those little time pockets to invest little by little in the things that matter most to us?
The little things we do regularly have a much greater impact than the things we do once in a while. If we want to grow in an area, consistently making small investments can have huge effects. But it’s not always easy to consistently do the things we want to do and it can be easy to get caught up in an all-or-nothing mentality rather than choosing imperfect, but consistent action. Listen in to today’s episode for encouragement about building consistency in your life in the areas that matter most to you.
I’m so happy to be back with you after taking July off to rest and recharge! We are all designed to have people walking beside us to encourage us, to help us grow and learn. Today we are talking about ways we can support each other and how to walk together even in the messes of life.
We all have a nemesis. A thing we spend more time dreading than doing. Maybe it’s dishes or laundry or clipping your child’s nails. But we don’t have to stay stuck in a place of letting dread of these tasks drain our energy and drag us down. We can make some simple shifts in our perspectives and practices to choose joy even in the mundane tasks of everyday life.
We all have a nemesis. A thing we spend more time dreading than doing. Maybe it’s dishes or laundry or clipping your child’s nails. But we don’t have to stay stuck in a place of letting dread of these tasks drain our energy and drag us down. We can make some simple shifts in our perspectives and practices to choose joy even in the mundane tasks of everyday life.
As moms we have the power to affect the mood of everyone in our home: “If Momma’s not happy, nobody’s happy.” But instead of focusing on our ability to sabotage the mood of our entire family, we can flip this negative saying on it’s head and dare to say, “If Momma chooses joy, everyone’s happier.”
When we start and end our days with these two simple practices, we shift our focus away from the frustrating, negative and disappointing parts of our day and choose to focus on the good, the lovely and the wonderful parts of motherhood.
Starting our days by waking up grateful and ending our days by looking back on the happiest moments helps us to train our brains to focus on what was right in our day, instead of what was wrong. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the hard, sad or difficult moments of our day, but that we choose not to focus on them and give them power over our whole outlook on our days and our motherhood. The stories we tell ourselves about our days and our lives matter and have powerful effects. The good news is that we can CHOOSE which stories we tell!
Self care is good. But we can sometimes get the wrong idea about what will really fill us up.
We can end up thinking that if we could just get a massage, just go get a pedicure, just eat chocolate, or just watch a movie, it would fix what’s wrong in our lives. Massages and chocolate are good. But these things won’t necessarily nurture our souls.
We can do all sorts of skin-deep self care for our bodies, but end up neglecting soul care. Sometimes when we are soul deep weary what we need is to invest energy in an activity that will refresh and refocus our souls. Something that will not just numb our feelings, but that will bring us deeper peace.
Are you feeling weary? This year has been full of things that make us weary, worried and weighed down: a global pandemic, social isolation, political division, racial injustice, natural disasters. Add all of those things to the day to day burdens of motherhood - sleepless nights, never ending diapers, laundry and dishes, financial concerns, work stress, worries about our children and their futures, the list goes on and on. Is it any wonder that we feel weary? That life feels heavy? The good news is that we’re not left alone to try to bear all of this weight on our own shoulders.
Being interrupted is hard. And as moms, we’re interrupted all the time. I talked last week about how Jesus was willing to be interrupted and showed compassion even to those who interrupted him. This week, I’m talking about what this practically looks like in our daily lives and how it can bring wonderful and unexpected blessings.
It can be so easy in the tension of everyday life to view our kids as just a list of tasks that we need to complete to take care of them - changing diapers, packing lunches, buying food, scheduling doctor's appointments. When we take time to remember that our kids are little human souls we can connect more with them and see the work we do to care for them as deeply meaningful ministry rather than a never ending to-do list.
There are a lot of things we find ourselves hoping for in motherhood. I hope the baby sleeps through the night. I hope my kids eat the dinner I'm cooking. I hope they don’t fight with each other in the car today. And while it’s not bad to hope for these things, we need a hope that is more secure than just hoping our current challenge is resolved. Because the thing is that there will always be new challenges in motherhood. So putting our hope in our changing circumstances can actually leave us feeling hopeless. Today’s episode is all about remembering where our hope comes from and how we can remind ourselves of that hope, day by day and moment by moment.
Today, my 7 year-old son is joining me on the podcast to talk about summer and about the things that bring joy to our family. It can be so easy to get caught up in trying to give our kids the most exciting experiences and the best activities that we forget what they most want is our attention and our love. Listening to this perspective from a seven year-old helped remind me that we can choose joy for our families in very simple ways.
Summer! It can be so easy to try to cram so many activities into the summer months and have the "perfect" summer. This usually leads to lots of disappointment and frustration when things go differently. On the other hand, we can find ourselves in September wondering where summer went and why we didn't do any of the things we wanted to. Today we're talking through some practical ideas and perspective shifts for a more practically joyful summer.
It can be so easy to feel unseen and unappreciated in motherhood and this past year has made many of us feel especially isolated. You matter and what you are doing matters. You are loved.
We all have a finite amount of time energy and attention to invest in things around us. So often we are pulled towards giving our time and attention to distractions or things that will not matter in the long term. But we can choose instead to consistently invest in the things that really do matter. And when we do, our investments will matter and build the things we actually want to grow in our lives.
We all have times where we get stuck in "serious mom mode". Where we aren't having much fun and we're not fun to be around. Today we're talking about why fun matters and some easy ways to incorporate fun into our lives.
Last week we talked about the importance of taking time to rest and today we're talking about the importance of working hard for the things that matter. There are things in each of our lives that require hard work to build and invest in and are absolutely worth it. In a world of "easy buttons" and "life hacks" we can forget that many of the most rewarding and valuable things in life are worth working hard for.
We all need rest but it can be so hard to let go of all of the things we feel like we need to be doing. This episode is full of encouragement to take time to rest and ideas for ways to make it happen.
We all have those moments or days or weeks, when we just don’t feel like it.
We just don’t feel like praying, like cracking open our bibles.
We just don’t feel like reading another board book, like talking about Thomas the train characters for hours.
We just don’t feel like listening to our husbands talk about their stressful days when we’ve had a long day ourselves.
But we don't have to let not feeling like it stop us from acting lovingly towards those we care about. Today's episode is all about perspective shifts and practical ideas for how to show love even when we don't FEEL like it.
We all have those days. Where things go differently than expected. Where everything seems to go wrong. Today's episode is all about shifting our perspectives and our practices on those days where nothing seems to go as planned.
We can feel a lot of pressure to make holidays memorable and exciting for our families. It is a wonderful thing to celebrate and enjoy Easter together but we can let go of the pressure for perfect crafts and activities. One of the ways we can make Easter deeply meaningful for our children is to deeply connect with the story of redemption and salvation and to let our children see how much joy we take in the fact that Jesus gave himself to rescue us. Our excitement and delight in the Easter story will affect our children's hearts much more than and activity or craft.
As moms we can face a lot of pressure from society to follow the latest trends, to do what everyone around us is doing. But it’s ok to be different. Like snowflakes, we are each unique and distinct and have different paths in life. Let’s dive into why it’s ok to be different and how we can focus on our own journey.
As moms we can often feel alone even when surrounded by our children. Today, I encourage us all to remember that we are not alone, that God is with us wherever we go, even if that is just in our own homes. The reality of Jesus walking with us through our days helps us to remember that we are not alone and our everyday lives really do matter.
This week, we are going back to lessons from Moana. The theme of identity and knowing who you are is woven throughout the movie and is a topic that can really benefit our families. When you have a strong family culture and identity, your children are more likely to be excited about family activities and have a solid place to come back to when they inevitably get off track.
In our modern world full of marketing, social media and comparison, it can be all too easy to live in a mindset of “I’ll be happy when . . .”. But this outlook on life leaves us feeling disappointed and discouraged and causes us to miss out on all the beauty around us in the moment. Listen today for some perspective shifts and practical ideas to find happiness right where you are.
We all have a nemesis. A thing we spend more time dreading than doing. Maybe it’s dishes or laundry or clipping your child’s nails. But we don’t have to stay stuck in a place of letting dread of these tasks drain our energy and drag us down. We can make some simple shifts in our perspectives and practices to choose joy even in the mundane tasks of everyday life.
Disappointment can feel like a crushing weight and it’s all too easy to let it rob us of our joy. But even in the midst of disappointment, we can CHOOSE to see the beauty and goodness around us. This leads us to realizing that we don’t have to let disappointment steal our joy.
Listen in to this last episode in our series about relationships over rules. Today, we're talking about our relationships with the "stuff" in our lives and how we can change our perspective and practices to find more joy in the way we relate to the physical blessings in our lives.
In this episode we’re continuing our discussion about relationships over rules by looking at our relationships with our friends. The world throws a lot of motherhood rules at us and it can be easy to let these rules divide us instead of focusing on how we can love and encourage the other moms around us.
Some kids are rule followers. Some kids are boundary pushers.
A focus on relationships can help both.
In this episode we’ll discuss the ways we can help our children to see the “why” behind the rules and how showing love should be the focus.
This week we’re continuing our "relationships over rules" series, specifically looking at our relationships with our husbands. Becoming parents drastically changes our relationships. Sleep deprivation. A whole new set of responsibilities, new stresses. Keeping alive another human who is completely and utterly dependent on the two of you. New roles to navigate. Now he’s not just your husband but also your child’s Daddy and that adds a whole new dimension of complexity. In the midst of parenthood, it can be all too easy to let our marriages get pushed to the back burner. Join me today for 6 relationship-based ways to bring some new life and joy to your marriage.
At this time of year, the world sends us a lot of messages about New Year’s goals that we should make. Go to the gym every day. Go on a diet. Detox from social media. These things aren’t bad but when we approach any goals we have for self care from a relationships over rules perspective we end up in a much healthier place overall.
Tune in to this week’s episode for encouragement to intentionally grow in your relationship with God this year. It can be easy to fall into a view of reading the Bible or praying as boxes to check off on our to do-list rather than tools for deepening our relationship with our creator. A relationships over rules mentality enables us to set goals and intentions for spiritual growth and hold ourselves to a high standard without falling into a focus on checking off boxes.
Happy New Year! As we head into 2021 I wanted to take the time to encourage you all to take a different approach to setting goals or intentions for the coming year. Typical new year’s resolutions like “lose weight” or “be more productive” tend to fizzle out after a few months. Today, we’re looking at what it means to have a “relationships over rules” approach to determining what goals we want to pursue.
This year has been challenging and difficult in many ways but that doesn’t mean we have to consider it a wasted year. Join me in this episode to talk about choosing to reflect on the good in this year; the moments of beauty and goodness as well as the growth that has come from hard things. This was not a perfect year, but we can still choose to write a beautiful story for ourselves or all of the joy that has come out of it.
Reflection Questions:
- What were some of the things that brought you the most joy this year?
- What were some of the hardest things?
- How did you grow through the hard?
- What things were frustrating or disappointing?
- How can you choose to trust God’s good plans for your life?
- What is draining you or stressing you out that you can change? How can you take concrete action to change it?
- What is draining you or stressing you out that you can’t remove from your life but you can change how you approach it or your perspective on it.
Christmas looks a lot different this year. So many of the things that we associate with a joyful Christmas - parties, parades, concerts and other big events may be cancelled or look a lot different than usual. There may be fewer presents under the tree or fewer people in your home when you open them. There may be less of a lot of things that feel like Christmas to us. But there won’t be less Jesus. And because of that we can still rejoice always, we can give thanks in the circumstances of our 2020 Christmas, whatever it looks like.
How we greet this Christmas season matters. We can still choose joy even in the midst of sadness or frustration or whatever we might be feeling as we head into Christmas this year. Because joy doesn’t depend on our feelings. Join me in this episode to talk about focusing on the joy of Christmas even, and maybe especially, this year.
“She’s so precious!” “What a precious little guy!” We throw the word “precious” around a lot when describing babies and children without necessarily thinking about what it means. Precious items (and people) are precious because they come at a high cost, they have a high value. Raising children is not easy, it comes at a high cost, but it’s so very worth it. Join me in this episode to explore some of the implications of this idea that our children are precious (and so are we!) and how that can help us live more joyful mom lives.
It may feel harder than usual to be thankful this Thanksgiving with everything going on in the world, in our homes and in our hearts. So today we’re talking about what it looks like to give thanks even on a 2020 Thanksgiving Day. Because being thankful really does change us. It may not change our circumstances but it changes our hearts. And thanking God reminds us that our circumstances are not the most important thing and that relying on our circumstances for our happiness will never really lead to joy. Check out this episode for a reminder about choosing to give thanks in all circumstances.
Minimalism is a huge cultural trend these days. Decluttering and simplifying are buzz words all over the internet. Simplifying our possessions and our lives can make a huge difference in our stress levels and our happiness. But we have to be careful to not put all of our hope in decluttering or to view minimalism as a substitute for the gospel. Today’s episode is a challenge to look at where we can declutter and simplify while remembering that our ultimate joy is not found in our possessions; either in the abundance of them or in minimizing them.
As moms we can often feel un-listened to or ignored. And we find ourselves saying, “I just want someone to listen to me!” We may mean that we want our kids to follow our instructions and do what we ask them to or we may really mean that we want someone to listen to our hopes and dreams, our stresses and frustrations. We want to be heard. No matter what you are feeling when you say, “I just want someone to listen to me!” There are practical shifts and perspective shifts that we can make to move out of feeling like no one is listening to us.
Are you feeling weary? This year has been full of things that make us weary, worried and weighed down: a global pandemic, social isolation, political division, racial injustice, natural disasters. Add all of those things to the day to day burdens of motherhood - sleepless nights, never ending diapers, laundry and dishes, financial concerns, work stress, worries about our children and their futures, the list goes on and on. Is it any wonder that we feel weary? That life feels heavy? The good news is that we’re not left alone to try to bear all of this weight on our own shoulders.
After listening to episode 9 and writing out your “Who do I want to be?” statement.You might find yourself wondering, “Now what?” We can feel paralyzed sometimes by how far we are from where we want to be. This usually results in either throwing up our hands and saying, “Oh well, just forget it.” because we’re too overwhelmed, or spending endless hours trying to plot our whole course and plan for every possibility and follow every bit of advice Instagram has to offer and end up going nowhere because we’re afraid of doing it wrong.
We can’t know the whole road ahead and we can’t always see how to get to where we want to go. But we can take the next step. Today’s episode is all about what taking the next step looks like and how we can know what the next step should be.
Who do you want to be at the end of your life? What character qualities do you want to have developed? How do you want to spend your one life on this Earth?
It’s so easy to just follow whatever trend is sweeping the internet and get really wrapped up in spending tons of time on this or that without really knowing where you want to be headed. Or to just move through our days from one task that needs to be done to another, from one poopy diaper to the next or one toddler meltdown to the next.
It's so easy to completely lose sight of where we're headed and who we want to be. Join me today to talk about how we can determine how we want to spend our lives and how to remind ourselves who we want to be even in the midst of the chaos of everyday mom life.
Being someone’s mom means lots of time spent preparing meals (that they may refuse to eat), changing diapers, cleaning up messes, buying new clothes and so many other mundane jobs. It means lots of time spent doing the necessary tasks to keep these small people in our homes fed, reasonably clean and clothed. And when we are solely focused on these things, having kids can really feel like it steals our joy.
But when we take the time to build a strong connection with our children, the inevitable tasks of motherhood feel less like work because we remember that we’re doing these things to love and serve little people who mean so much to us.
When we have a strong connection with our kids, they feel loved and secure. And then they are able to act from that place of love and security which can transform how they interact with us and others. Connecting with our kids brings so much joy to us and to them.
But in our busy, electronically “connected” world, it can be hard to build face-to-face connection with the people in our homes. Join me today to talk about a simple practice to build connection with our kids and bring joy to our homes.
What if you could lower your blood pressure, release stress, boost your immune system, connect with your kids and help increase their cooperation all with one simple activity? The good news is that laughing with your kids can actually help with all of these things. And for a bonus: laughing is enjoyable! Join me today to talk about some of the incredible benefits of laughing and being silly with your kids as well as inspiration and ideas for how to build laughter and lightheartedness into your days.
Self care is good. But we can sometimes get the wrong idea about what will really fill us up.
We can end up thinking that if we could just get a massage, just go get a pedicure, just eat chocolate, or just watch a movie, it would fix what’s wrong in our lives. Massages and chocolate are good. But these things won’t necessarily nurture our souls.
We can do all sorts of skin-deep self care for our bodies, but end up neglecting soul care. Sometimes when we are soul deep weary what we need is to invest energy in an activity that will refresh and refocus our souls. Something that will not just numb our feelings, but that will bring us deeper peace.
In Matthew 11:29, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Join me today for a discussion about ways we can get away to be with Jesus and trade our weariness and burdens for his rest so that we can be replenished, recharged, encouraged, and joyful in a way that Netflix or chocolate or social media can never offer.
All the demands of having little people who depend on you for survival can start to make everyday life feel like constant drudgery. But just because motherhood brings with it a load of “not fun at all” moments, that doesn’t mean that our whole lives have to stop being fun. We are designed to have fun sometimes, to celebrate and enjoy life, even in the midst of the chaos that motherhood inevitably brings.
We can be intentional about choosing to celebrate our everyday lives and not just wait for big holidays. As moms, we tend to put lots of pressure on ourselves to make big holidays like Christmas and birthdays extra special for our families. This can lead us to getting stuck in the futile pursuit of “perfect” celebrations.
In today’s episode, you’ll find inspiration and ideas for creating your own “everyday celebrations” that will be a source of enjoyment and fun for your family, without adding extra stress to your already overflowing to-do list.
Are you tired of going to sleep at night feeling bad about the way you talked to your kids?
Our words have an incredible influence on our kids. They will hear our voices in their heads for years to come. But in the chaos of life, it’s so easy to fall into negative patterns where our kids hear us say, “Why won’t you put your shoes on?” more than they hear us say, “I love the way God made you.”
Changing our words and speaking life to our kids isn’t always easy, especially when we feel stuck in disaster mom mode and we are just verbally reacting to the frustrating things our kids do. We can’t just change our words, because our words come from what’s in our minds and in our hearts.
Tune in to this episode to check out how you can work on changing your thoughts so that you can change your words and start speaking life to your kids. If you want step by step guidance to developing your own daily blessings for your kids, you can go download my free pdf blessings guide at bit.ly/blessingsguide
As moms we have the power to affect the mood of everyone in our home: “If Momma’s not happy, nobody’s happy.” But instead of focusing on our ability to sabotage the mood of our entire family, we can flip this negative saying on it’s head and dare to say, “If Momma chooses joy, everyone’s happier.”
When we start and end our days with these two simple practices, we shift our focus away from the frustrating, negative and disappointing parts of our day and choose to focus on the good, the lovely and the wonderful parts of motherhood.
Starting our days by waking up grateful and ending our days by looking back on the happiest moments helps us to train our brains to focus on what was right in our day, instead of what was wrong. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the hard, sad or difficult moments of our day, but that we choose not to focus on them and give them power over our whole outlook on our days and our motherhood. The stories we tell ourselves about our days and our lives matter and have powerful effects. The good news is that we can CHOOSE which stories we tell!
The world gives us lots of messages about motherhood that can make us feel so discouraged, so grumpy, so inadequate and so tired. Today, I’ll be talking about the two stereotypes of “hot mess mom” and “pinterest perfect mom” which both leave us feeling miserable and the third alternative that I believe exists of choosing to be a practically joyful mom. We’ll look at how you can change your perspectives and practices to get unstuck from disaster mode and find freedom from the futile quest for perfection.This episode will leave you feeling inspired to let go of the mom life stereotypes that culture shows us and begin changing your thoughts and actions to start your own journey of living a more practically joyful mom life.
The decision to start the Practically Joyful Mom podcast was actually prompted by a recent tantrum at my house. In this episode, I share about how the podcast came to be and some lessons I learned in the process.
We’ll discuss:
How we can look to God for help instead of expecting our families to do for us what only he can. Why a clean sink and an empty laundry basket will never make us happy.
Why our frustrations about laundry and dishes are sometimes about something completely different and what we can do about it.
Action steps that you can take to change your perspectives and practices to make a shift towards being a more practically joyful mom.
Welcome to the Practically Joyful Mom podcast! Please check out this trailer and look for the first few episodes to launch on Friday August 28th.