I want to discuss the importance of loving and forgiving ourselves throughout every season of our lives, even during moments when we may not be proud of our actions. It's vital to learn how to accept and forgive ourselves during our darkest moments, so that we can use our experiences to learn and grow, rather than letting them hinder us.

We are the authors of our own stories and must acknowledge our past versions as a part of our journey, but not the entirety of it. We must remind ourselves that our past experiences have shaped who we are, but they do not define us.

Our lives are our stories, and we are the ones in control! Despite feeling negatively about past actions, we need to love ourselves in every season, move beyond our past, and not allow it to hold us back.

[1:25] The primary thing holding me back from being the best mother and best partner.

[2:00] The key to showing up for yourself and accepting yourself wholly and fully.

[3:40] Learning to love and forgive yourself in every season.

[4:40] A quote that I use to help me anytime I am in a dark place or struggling mentally.

[6:22] An exercise that can help you make peace with things from your past.

[8:00] Examples of things from your past that may be holding you back.

[9:05] The benefits of owning your previous decisions, and moving on.

[10:10] The importance of moving beyond things in your past for the benefit of your future.

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Kelsey Smith 0:00

By holding on to these things can be so toxic, they can weigh you down. They're literally weights of baggage, stopping you from stepping into the next version of your life and yourself.

Welcome to mama has goals, your weekly reminder that you shouldn't have to sacrifice your dreams to take on the role of mom. I'm Kelsey Smith, mom of two boys. Why an entrepreneur who's passionate about helping other moms current and aspiring to reimagine mom life. I'm bringing you the resources, support and relatability to debunk that limiting belief that you may have about your ability to achieve your goals while raising a human. We're covering everything from mom guilt, marriage, relationships, careers, finances, mental health, physical health, you name it, your life doesn't have to fully shift once you become a mom, you can have it all. And we'll show you how.

When I think back to the number one thing that really held me back from going all in on myself, and I believe would have also held me back from being the best mom that I could be the best friend and the best partner I could be. It was letting go of my past. And you know, everyone's past is relative to them. Right? So what my past looks like, you might be like, Why does that even matter to you? Or you might be like, Whoa, you do have a past. And that's not what I'm here to talk about it. I mean, feel free to DM me if you're curious. But what I'm here to talk about is just truly how you can show up for yourself and how you can accept yourself wholly and fully. Because this is what I've noticed is that so often, we have to forgive ourselves. And we can't let something that we are holding as maybe a page that we want to rip out of our book or something that we're not proud of ourselves. We're letting that define who we are, rather than defining who we are. Right? A decision that you made that you're not proud of doesn't define you. But you should love it for what it is. That is something that I've learned is, why would I not love that part of me when I know that it's part of me, and that's allowing me to be who I'm going to become no one defines what's good and bad about you. Only you do. When you put meaning behind anything behind how someone else treats to behind how someone says something to you, behind a decision that you've made, or who you want to be or what you want to become, then you're putting meaning behind it. And if someone else is putting meaning behind something, you get to choose to accept that or not. So maybe there's something from your past that you've heard someone else put meaning on, and you've decided to put meaning on it as well. And now that's holding you up. But what if it just didn't have meaning? Or what if the meaning was positive? What if the meaning allowed you to take that with you and recreate who you are now and say, You know what, because of that, because of that thing in my past, I am able because of that thing in my past, I am worthy because of that thing in my past, I know that I can. Because that thing in my past I've learned. If you can learn to forgive and love yourself in every season, you are in a great place to be able to know how to navigate what is coming for you. Because if you can sit there and say okay, yep, that's the one thing about me, that isn't my favorite. I am okay with that at this point. And I can't wait to see what's coming. Because there's going to be something else that you do. There's going to be something else that you're going to be like, wasn't my shiniest best. But if you haven't learned how to love and forgive yourself in those moments, when it happens again, it's going to trip you up. But if you can learn to love and forgive yourself for when you're not in your shiniest moments. When you do trip again, you're just going to be able to get back up, you're gonna be like, Well, that was another learning. I'm not going to let this define me. I'm going to learn from it. And I'm going to move forward. You do not have to be a perfect version of yourself in every season of your story. You know, when I first started thinking about this, I was you know out one of the darker points of my life and I remember my dad telling me you know my dad has given me a lot of insight over the years but I just one quote Oh, you know, I don't remember a lot from when I was in darker places. But this one quote, always will be something I remember. And he said, Kelsey, this is your movie that you're writing, make it a happy ending. And in that moment, I was like, You know what, you're right, I am in control, I am able to write the script, I am a role to put a plot twist. And I carry that with me now, anytime I feel myself getting tripped up. And then I think back to like, an actual movie or a story, right? If everything was going perfectly all the time, if there was no drama, if there was no conflict, if there was no suspense, it wouldn't be a good movie, or wouldn't be a good book, right? Like even Hallmark has some suspense, even Hallmark has oop, is that going to work out what's going to happen, right? So if we're trying to live our movie, are you of our own our life, as a Hallmark movie, we still have to understand how to look at those different perspectives. And maybe you don't want us to be able to mark movie, maybe you want it to be something else. But you are in control of where the plot twist is, you're in control of what you do next. And you're in control of accepting the past versions of your story and understanding they were a part of the full story, but they're not the full story. So really allow yourself to just make peace. And one exercise that I absolutely love for this. And you could do this into any sort of not troll place. But write down on a piece of paper, what are the things that you are stuck on? About your past or yourself that you need to let go? Write it on a piece of paper? What's the decision that you made that you're not proud of? What's something that if your biggest hero was the first thing to hear about you, they didn't know anything else about you, you're just introduced as the thing that you're most upset with yourself for or embarrassed about that? You'd be like, Oh, my gosh, they're never gonna talk to me now. What are those things? What are the things that you're like, that's not who I am, though, I mean, I did that. But that's not who I am. Write down the list of what those things are on a piece of paper, and then rip them up in their boy, put them in a fire permanent garbage can doesn't matter to me. But they're a part of you write them out, give them acknowledgement, and then rip them up and move on. Another way to do that, before you rip it up is on this on the second side of the piece of paper. So you're writing these in a column down a piece of paper, you're writing all the things that trip you up about yourself, things that if your hero heard first about you, you'd be like, ah, write them down on a piece of paper. And then on the right hand side of it, turn it into a positive statement. Okay, so if you're not there yet, then you can take the first approach where you just rip it up and you move forward. But it is really great to be able to just move those into positive statements. So let's say it's a way that you showed up in a relationship in your past. And you're defining your future relationships around that. Right what that statement is, and then write the learning, or the way that you know, you're gonna show up differently in the future. Right Way, you know, the opposite of that is that you've overcome. Let's say that you had a poor relationship with your health in the past. And so you're saying, I'm just not a healthy person? I, you know, this past version of me, I just was so unhealthy. Will What have you learned from that? How can you, you know, acknowledge your health. Now, the fact that you acknowledge that you weren't healthy in that season means you're acknowledging now that there's something better, you've learned, you're looking for opportunity? There are decisions that I used to carry the most people wouldn't even care at all the were things that I cared about the I placed meaning on them, right. So maybe there is something in your life that you've placed meaning on, that you need to let go of, and you say, Yeah, this is part of me. This is me. This is a part of who I am. But there's a lot more to me too. And that's what I'm excited about. There are so many benefits to letting go and moving on. There are so many benefits to sharing your personal experiences. There's so many benefits to bringing these things up making peace with them and moving forward. Holding on to these things can be so toxic, they can weigh you down. They're literally weights of baggage, stopping you from stepping into the next version of your life and yourself. And it's so not worth it. We are meant to evolve. We are meant to change. We are meant to make mistakes and we were meant to learn from them and move forward. But you're the only one that can love yourself in every season. You're the only one One that can make you believe that that was part of your journey. You're the only one that can say, I loved you then and I love you now, you're the only one that can take your past and let go of it, to allow yourself to move forward to be the best mom, friend, partner, and self that you can be. So make a promise to yourself, and make a promise to me that you're not going to let your past hold you back anymore. And if this feels hard, it's okay. It's okay. If it feels really hard. It can be hard to let go of the past. If you need help, find someone that you feel comfortable sharing with. I'm always here for you send me a message on Instagram, you can message me, this is Kelsey Smith on Instagram, I'd love to hear your story. You can connect with a mom and the mom has goals app, you can find a professional to support you.

But don't allow your past to take any more from your present or your future. Don't allow yourself to live in a place where you no longer want to be. Allow yourself to move to what is possible for you. Allow yourself to truly lift that weight off of you. If you're in a place where you can close your eyes, I recommend you do that for a moment. If not, that's okay, you can just listen. But I want you to think of all those words that we talked about earlier, all those experiences, all those times all those moments that you're carrying with you where you're not proud of, you're frustrated, you don't know how you're going to make it past, maybe this is a choice you made. And maybe it's something that was in inflicted on you. You're carrying all this baggage, think of all these weights just sitting on your chest. And you're trying to walk through life. With all of that on your shoulders, you have this weighted vest, on top of that there's more weights, than you have a backpack, all these things and you're trying to climb this mountain of life. But then you decide, You know what, I don't need these. I don't need these to hike this mountain. And so you take the backpack off. And you go a little bit farther up the hike. And you're like, you know what, I don't need these weights. Either I can I can just claim the hike. Why do I need these things? You set those down, you continue going? Then you say well, okay, if I was able to let go of the backpack, and if I was able to let go of the weights, I can get the vest off. And maybe you're able to take the vest off by yourself. And maybe you're stuck like in a tight jacket and you don't have the flexibility. So you need help. So you say hey, hey, I see you climbing over there, too. You're climbing that that climb of life, that hike of life? Do you think you could help me get this vest off? And the person goes, Yeah, I took my vest off a little bit ago, you are going to love taking your vest off. It is going to be groundbreaking for you. Let's get it off. Let's go. So you guys take the vest off and then you run you run up the hill because you don't have these weights anymore. This is real. You're not alone. You don't have to stay weighted. Reach out your hand, get help taking your vest off, take off your weights, don't let your past hold you back. Whether it was given to you or you've made the choices. I'm sorry, but I can't wait to see what you're going to do now. I love you so much, Mama. Thank you for being here. We'll chat soon. Hey Mama, I want to make sure you know about this really epic opportunity we have going on right now for you to win a woman owned product to celebrate Valentine's Day and Women's History Month from February 13. Through the end of March for Women's History Month. We are giving away a woman's own product every single day in our free phone app. All you have to do is go to your app store type mama has goals, M O M M A has goals, download the app, say hello to the community in the main activity feed group and you are up to win one of our epic giveaway prizes 46 different opportunities. So tap in say hello and see what you win.