How to be kind to yourself as a career mum - Thriving Woman Project

Artwork for podcast Thriving Woman Project

How to be kind to yourself as a career mum

Episode 4 • 16th November 2021 • Thriving Woman Project • Wendy Griffith

Wendy: 00:00

Hi guys, Wendy here. Welcome to the healthy and thriving career moms podcast, your weekly dose of inspiration and motivation for thriving with your healthy habits, especially in the midst of the crazy mom juggle. I get that you're busy and that taking time for you is not always easy, but I'm here to help.

So let's jump in.

So hi guys, and welcome to today's episode. Which

00:30

is all about how to be kinder to yourself as a busy mom and also how to stop shoulding on yourself as a busy mom. Is it just me? Who does that? Who should them themselves? You know, the, oh, I should be doing this. I should've done that. What's wrong with you and all the things.

And as busy moms, we've got so much mental clutter in our brains on any given day, let alone a bad one. And so this is really about how we can be kinder to ourselves and kind of to

01:00

those around us. And I'm going to share a little bit more about that in a second. And really the timing of this is very serendipitous because we've actually just celebrated world kindness day.

th of November,: 2021

01:30

all the things. I mean, if you think about all the things that we tell ourselves and the thousands and thousands of thoughts that go through our brains on any given day, it's crazy.

And when you consider that, so many of those thoughts that are going through our brains are actually as a result of thinking from the day before. And we just keep carrying it through. So if you are somebody who leans more to sort of a negative way of thinking, or maybe you've got quite a lot of negative self-talk or dialogue in your life today's episode is really going

02:00

to give you the tips, tools, and tricks to get around that and to start reframing, to reframe and retell that story and your brain so that you can be in a much more positive mindset, because we all know a positive mindset is really such a healthy habit to have because.

It sets us up for positive thinking for proactive thinking for solution orientated thinking, you know, we've all been in that mode before where, you know, we feel like everything's going wrong and we just get in the spiral. It's like, oh, and then

02:30

it's done and that's wrong and not it's wrong. And anybody had one of those or was it just me, but really, and truly when we learn to catch ourselves and our negative thinking, it makes such a huge difference to our overall outlook.

People are always laughing at me cause they're always like, oh, you always search shipper and positive. Do you ever have a bad day? And I'm like, absolutely, of course I do. But I am very skilled now at being able to recognize when the negative self-talk or

03:00

dialogue kicks in and I'm able to catch myself and go, okay, And reframe that into a positive.

And that doesn't mean that I just sort of go around being all toxic glee positive. Oh, everything's fine. When the world's falling apart. Absolutely not. When someone actually asks me, how are you if you know something. Unfortunate or sad has happened. I'm going to say, yeah, I'm good, but you know what? This is going on in my life right now.

Cause I think it's really important if someone says, how are you to actually give them a genuine response? I'm not just going to be like,

03:30

yeah, everything's fine. When my world was collapsing around me, however. It's just being really conscious of getting into that negative spiral of, oh, this is wrong and that's wrong and that's wrong because negativity attracts negativity.

If you think about, you know, you're watching the news with your family and then you're like, oh, you start shouting at the TV. And then someone gets negative and it all just spirals a bit. Doesn't it. Whereas. It's about being very conscious of that negativity and how that

04:00

pervades into our everyday lives.

So I'm really going to share some great tips with you today on how to overcome. But before I do that, I just want to give a quick shout out to all of you who have left ratings and reviews for this podcast so far. I am so truly grateful for all the time that you've taken to do that because I know as busy moms, it's not easy to find the time, but if I can just ask you, when you get to the end of this, just to hop on Uber quick review, a quick rating, I would be so truly great.

And I don't know about you, but if I don't do it, when someone

04:30

tells me to like quickly straight away, then I forget. And then that becomes a negative thing. Oh, why did you forget that? Oh, no, but honestly it's fine. Just do what you can and I really appreciate it. Right. Let's get stuck in to today's top tips.

So the first thing I want to talk to you about is positive self. So this is learning to change your inner dialogue. And this definitely takes a little practice for me now for a few years now I've really been into self-development personal development,

05:00

whatever you'd like to call it. And so this has been something I've been really conscious of, and I've always stuck with, I love the phrase.

Mind your mind, mind your mind. And it's just so true. We know how powerful the mind is. I mean, goodness. But having studied psychology myself, like it's just incredible when you see how much of a connection and it is a relatively new discipline. If you think about how long medicine has it been around for, but actually psychology is only been around for about 120 or so years.

I might be dating myself

05:30

as to when I say psychology, but it's a new discipline, but more and more everyday, we're learning about the power of the mind and how much of an impact that. So first you need to identify your negative self-talk and thoughts, and you can do this by checking yourself. So things to really look for things like blaming yourself for most things, looking at negative aspects of a situation without recognizing the positive, always expecting the worst, being quite

06:00

polarized and your thoughts, you know, right and wrong, black and white and not much middle ground or gray area.

So how can you shift your mindset? Once you recognize the negative thoughts, you are halfway there recognizing, and acknowledging and identifying how you feel is really important. This step alone can be so empowering and hope the negative dialogue, but once you've identified the negative talk, then you can think of an alternative, even if you don't believe it just yet think it,

06:30

rephrase it.

We word it and put a positive spin on it. So I'm going to show you how to do that in. Also check yourself in situations which have a negative effect on you. Maybe it's an, a mums and toddlers group, maybe it's, you know, hanging out at the school gates, talking to the other moms. Maybe it's an, a work environment.

You know, you're standing in the kitchen talking to other colleagues, or maybe it's where you feel a little bit insecure. This will allow you to mentally prepare for these situations. So, you know, in advance,

07:00

like I know when I come into contact with certain people in my life, I'd be that family or friends who are maybe people that are lean more to the glass, half empty side of things.

And actually, my dear dad was one of these people, like, may he rest in peace? But he was one who tended to not always look on the positive side of things and could be a little bit of a negative Nelly. I just really had to make sure that I didn't take that on myself and take on other people's negativity.

So it's

07:30

just being very conscious of that. I know we can't necessarily cut people out of our lives, but it's just being conscious of when people come into your space. And yeah, I did a really funny reel on this, on Instagram recently, which had such a great feedback, which was, you cannot change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.

Uh, the feedback from people were like, oh my goodness, this is so true. So sometimes yes, you will be surrounded by work colleagues or family, or even very good friends that you've known your whole life that

08:00

potentially lean towards the negative, but it's just being conscious maybe about how much time you spend in those environments.

And actually mentally preparing for them. A big one for me is really surrounding myself with positive people. This has had such a knock-on effect. And certainly for me as an entrepreneur, I've raised, sought to surround myself in positive environments and entrepreneurial circles and making sure the people that I am spending time with are people that are solution focused, who are not going to sit there and

08:30

complain.

Oh goodness. You know, business is hard is a global pandemic, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these things like don't get me wrong. It's absolutely. Great to have maybe a couple of confidence. And I definitely have some business buddies and also my mentors and coaches who support me and my business, but I am very quick to check myself if I start to get into that blame cycle and that Mony, Mony cycle of like, whoa, this is wrong.

That's wrong. This has happened, right. What's the solution. And so I can

09:00

very quickly adjust myself. And so, yeah, you will tend to find the people that I hang around with certainly in my friendship circles and my business life of very happy, positive people. And I do believe that contributes to so much of the positivity that I have as a person, because a lot of the time people will say to me all the way to, how is it that you're so positive, especially with.

You know, I've shared on social media, some quite difficult things that have happened to me over the last couple of years, you know, certainly with the death of my father,

09:30

with sharing about life events, things like my fertility struggles, that sort of thing, but I truly believe it's what you do in those situations and how you can reframe it for positive.

Israeli where having that shift in your mindset and positive self-talk comes into it. So one of the things that you can actually try in order to reshape and reframe that is positive affirmations and placing positive quotes, even around your home. Like I have,

10:00

I mean, people Ms. Love when they come to visit me, like I have them on the bathroom mirror, on the kitchen bridge anywhere where I can see them, we could have that.

I've got them all around my desk here. As I'm recording this episode. And I love that. Remember positive. Self-talk doesn't have to be unbelievable. It's rephrasing your thoughts to be more positive. So you can say, you know, something like I am enough for I'm healing, or I am stronger than I feel you'll mind will always believe everything.

You tell it.

10:30

So feed it, hope, feed a true. Feed it love and a book that was just such a game changer for me when it came to, this was a book by the incredible author, shad Helmstetter. And I'll link to this in the show notes for you, because that's quite a mouthful. And it's the book. What to say when you talk to your.

I found this book so central to my progress in positive self-talk cause it really drilled home to me, how powerful my mind is and how powerful,

11:00

what I say to myself is so when I do start to sort of maybe go down the negative spiral, it's just catching myself, reframing it and moving it to a positive.

And the thing is guys, it's so difficult because our brains are actually working against us because our brains are designed to show us all the negative, potential dangers and issues that we could come into contact with on a daily basis. So your brain is designed to be like danger. Don't do this. This could harm you, danger, danger, danger.

11:30

And actually that is what manifests in terms of the negativity. So our brains are working against us all the time. And what we need to do is we need to rewire those neural pathways. And it's actually, it's not a woo thing. It's actually a scientific thing called neuroplasticity. And it's the way that we almost, if you think your brain has got all these like pathways, like consider it like a river that are flowing through your brain.

And they just get so used to flowing down that same train of thought all

12:00

the time. And what we're doing is actually trying to get the flow of water to go the other way. Initially can be really, really difficult to do, but actually over time it becomes second nature and the river just starts to flow the other way.

So that's how we can develop in it. And that is how now often, many, many years of practicing positive self-talk and practicing positive thinking. I am able to very quickly reframe, which is maybe why some people find me a bit strange when something really bad happens.

12:30

I can recover from it a lot quicker.

You know, they're expecting me to be, uh, quite upset about something or to really wallow on something. And I'm like, no, actually I'm moving forward with positivity and that's, that's not toxic positivity by the way. Toxic positivity is when people just try to be like, oh, everything's fine. When the world is collapsing around them.

Like, absolutely not that at whatsoever, but I truly believe that you can always find a positive. In a difficult

13:00

situation and I'm sure all of us have been through so many difficult situations, especially the extreme stress that we've all been living under for the last 18 months. Cause let's be honest, we're not back to normal things.

Aren't normal and things. Aren't going to be normal anytime soon. So we've always got this constant worry and negativity and the media and the news and all sorts of things going on. So now more than ever, we need to be kinder to ourselves. We need to be kinder to our minds. And of course, to each. So I spoke about affirmations earlier, and I

13:30

spoke about some of those, I am statements that people practice and use to really try to reframe those and rewire those neural pathways.

But I'm just going to challenge that slightly, because again, this came down to a really helpful book that I read a few years ago, which was a game changer for me. And the book was called AF formations. So let me just explain, and again, I'll link to this all in the show notes, you can go and check. But I don't know about you, but the whole affirmations thing always found like a little bit

14:00

weird.

Okay. And I know some people absolutely love it. They absolutely live by it. They do the affirmations every day. And if this is the first time you're hearing about affirmations, like what is that as a positive, I am statements. So I am fit. I am happy. I am rich. Some of the ones that people will say, but I don't know about you when I used to say statements like that in the mirror, besides the fact that my husband thought I'd lost the plot.

I used to think. Yeah, yeah. Rides. I felt like my brain was screaming back at me. Like you are.

14:30

No, no, no, no. The problem with affirmations is that our brains can immediately respond with a negativity. Like, no, you're not. Who do you think you are? Stop lying to yourself. So what does this have to do with affirmation?

So our brains are trained to find solutions. And so the premise behind our formations is to ask yourself questions designed to change your subconscious, to support you in making it a reality. Because if you think about our brains at the

15:00

front of it here in our forehead, We have, what's called our RAs, our reticular activating system.

And this is, you know, when you think about something and then suddenly like it appears, and you're like, whoa, that is just your brain being tuned into looking for that thing. It's like, want to get a new call or something. And suddenly you see that call every everywhere you go. That's because your brain is just, it's looking for those solutions.

It's looking for that. So, what you want to do is ask your rain questions so that it can

15:30

go to work on finding the solutions to that. So you can try some of these in your life and just like most things changes take time. So be gentle on yourself and give yourself permission and be kind to yourself. So affirmations, you can try things like, so say you're wanting to cultivate a more loving family environment.

Say, there's been a bit of discord going on or something you could, instead of saying, I have a happy family and then your brain's going because you know, you're fighting with your family or

16:00

something's going on. You could ask yourself the statement in the mirror. Why do I have a family that loves me so much?

And now your brain goes, why indeed. And it will start to show you all the things. As to why. So you'll start to notice. Oh, that was really sweet. How my husband empty the dishwasher or that happened, or my daughter wrote me a lovely little card. Oh, they was really loving your brain. We'll start with that reticular activating system to start showing you all the things

16:30

as to why your family loves you so much.

Another one. Why am I such a good. Like, let's be honest, ladies, how quick are we to be lambasting ourselves for being a bad mum? Oh, I'm so rubbish. Like the goat. I didn't take the cakes in for the bake sale or I forgot the wellies for Boris school today, whatever it is that you've got. I mean, if you've got teenagers, I'm sure there's all sorts of angsty and guilt going on and slamming doors and you just think, oh, so you could ask yourself the question.

Why am I

17:00

such a good. When you're standing in front of the mirror rather than jumping to, oh my goodness. Look at your muffin top. What is wrong with you? So rather than being like, I am so slim and healthy and your brain's going here, or I look at that muffin top, like straightaway is jumping to the negative.

Ask yourself the question. Why do I look so good in these clothes? And then your brain is going to go, why indeed. Well, look how great you look in that odor. You know, it's going to show you all the solutions. Another one. Why am I so healthy at

17:30

the most? Your brain's like, why indeed it's because you had that lovely, healthy breakfast, or you went and had that walk today and it's going to show you all the reasons.

So you're going to naturally focus on the positive solutions rather than your brain going. That's taught true. Another one. Why do I love my work? I know sometimes as career moms, we can have difficulties in our jobs or our businesses, and we feel like, oh, you know, and we get down on ourselves. So ask yourself, why do I love my work?

18:00

It's so easy sometimes to focus on the negative, but using affirmations really gets us to reframe, activate that reticular activating system in our brain to show you all the positive, positive solutions. And it's also guys just about remembering that we're all a work in progress, but as we become more conscious of our mental health and it becomes less of a taboo subject, like I love nowadays that people are talking about self-development they talking about mental health.

We get to

18:30

recognize in ourselves how we can support and show more kindness to ourselves. So I just want to end on this quote that I read recently, which I absolutely love. And it says, go above and beyond for yourself. You do it for your family, friends, and colleagues, but don't forget about you. It's important to include yourself, you all worthy of your own kindness.

Thanks guys. So what kind of busy mama you take my free

19:00

quiz and find out which of the four profiles you might be. You'll get your results straight away, and I'll even send you my top tips based on your results to support you on your journey, to healthy and thriving. Go to the link in my. And take a couple of minutes to find out what you are.

Thank you for listening to the healthy and thriving career moms podcast. For more resources to support you on your journey. Visit my website, wendygriffith.co.uk. And please also come join our Facebook community healthy and thriving. This is a safe,

19:30

no judgment space where we share and inspire each other.

And if you got value from today's episode, I'd be so grateful. If you would share this with other career moms who would benefit to either through social media or leaving a five-star review, you can find me at Wendy Griffith, live healthy on Instagram and Facebook until next time God. Stay healthy and keep thriving.