Episode 7: Internal dialogue, self-talk, and creating mental space as a mom during the holidays

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You are now tuned in to Wand Her Wild, the podcast. A space for the modern wild soul mother. With Monica and Carolyn. Come along with us as we explore intuitive motherhood and strengthen the connection to ourselves and to the little humans we are nurturing and guiding. Discover this and more as you listen along. Your session is now starting.

Hello, this is Monica, and welcome back to another Wand Her Wild, the podcast episode. I'm joined with Carolyn today, and with the holiday season in full swing, we want to have an open discussion about internal dialogue and self talk as a mother. And some ways to create mental space while being a busy mom.

We speak a lot in our community about slow motherhood and creating space. But we also acknowledge that there's going to be periods of time within our life or a season of the year, which we're at right now that make it significantly more challenging to slow down the holiday season and recent history has become a time of commercialization and high standards for mothers to live up to really adding to the long list.

of things already flying around in our heads, and we all know how that can be. Before we get with Carolyn, I did want to point out that we are hosting a free time bending workshop on November 12th. Especially for mothers, we're going to be working through the physical and mental load and really mapping out a plan that you can take away after that 45 minutes to implement in your life and start making real changes so that you can show up with more time, space, presence, and ease in your life.

And Carolyn and I both being reformed. Corporate nine to five job juggling motherhood, our personal businesses and all the things we know how it is and can relate. So we're really excited for you to join us in that if it feels like feels good to you. And we will share the link in the notes here for this episode.

But for today, let's dive into more on internal dialogue and self talk. So Carolyn, I want to open it up to you. And I want to ask you, what effect can our internal dialogue have on us? Because I know you do a lot of work with this, with slow motherhood and just the way that you're Speaking with yourself internally and also with your voice, and who better to ask than you?

So I would like to know first just what effect can this have on us? Oh man, no pressure. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, this is definitely work that I have been focusing on for myself, I think, over the past about five, six years as I've been going through my own personal healing journey, and So I guess I want to start by saying it can have a huge effect.

That is definitely something that I've noticed in my own personal life. And if you listen to, I think it was episode two, back when you interviewed me, Monica, about my story, I really talked about how I struggle with a lot of anxiety and fear, especially in my like twenties. And I think. Up until that point, I was like really unaware of my internal dialogue.

Like it wasn't something that I was taught or I learned about from my family or in school at all. So I was very unaware of the things that I was telling myself. So when I got in, when I started having a lot of anxiety, and I started incorporating Mindfulness into my life. I really started to become aware of my mind and like the thoughts, the stories that I was telling myself, that internal dialogue.

I started to become aware of my body too, but it's really that. Those thoughts. For me personally, I know not everyone's this way, but they were very just distorted. They weren't true. They were very negative. They were very fear based. And the funny thing about your mind and like this internal dialogue is that when we're not aware of it, we just Listen to that story throughout our day and we take it as a hundred percent truth, right?

We tell ourselves these things and if we're relating this to like Time and being busy and not having a lot of space in the holidays. I know that for me When I feel the overwhelm of this time, I tell myself like I don't have enough time I should be doing it all, right? Like I got to get all the presents.

I have to have, all the home cooked food. If I don't do that, I'm going to let everyone down. I need to be perfect around the holidays, right? And these thoughts can really spiral in my, in our minds, right? Especially when we're unconscious of these thoughts, we can tell ourselves these things and we believe them as truth, right?

And I guess the flip side of that becoming aware of our internal dialogue can be such like a power move. Like it's such a powerful shift because We can change what we are thinking we can change the stories that we're telling ourselves and in turn That affects the way that we feel right if instead of saying like I don't have enough time I'm instead saying to myself time is abundant.

I have ample time, right? It's okay to let things go that makes me feel very differently in my body right and as a result of You telling myself a different story and feeling differently in my body, I can then take different actions, steps and actions. I know that when I was having a lot of these let's say limiting thoughts or limiting stories, it was very like, like I almost was like freezing, right?

Like I can't take action. I'm too scared. And so I guess to sum that up, like just becoming aware of this internal dialogue can be just so expansive and can have this huge shift in the actions that you take and how you play out your day. I hope that kind of makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah.

And I can connect with so many of the things you're saying. Yeah it's it is funny when you start to realize how much power, like the self talk that's going on in your head or the internal dialogue in your head is really affecting like your reality. Because you are like, they're, the actual perception of reality is like going on in your head a lot of the time, and the way that we're framing it.

So when, yeah, when you start to say it like that And it's always celebrated that like busy is like good in a way. It's always Oh, you're busy. Oh, good. That's great. And it's wait, no I don't feel good when I'm busy. Like then you start to change the whole way that you're thinking about, this time of the year, and there are so many pressures on us and some are out of our control, but you're right.

We don't have to live up to everything. And. We can start to just talk differently. We can start a different dialogue in our head that's calmer and gives us more time and space. But it is something that takes time to do for sure. This, I will, yes, I will agree with that a hundred percent.

Although this can create shifts in your life quite drastically and right away. I think a lot of this healing work is like, Changing patterns that and habits I know for me, this negative self talk was really like ingrained in my way of being, and it's not something that you can just, kind of change with a snap of your fingers.

Like it takes work and time and effort. And at the same time, I think there's some sort of stat that 95 percent of our thoughts in a day are unconscious. Which is, oh wow, wild, 95 percent we are unaware of. And I also see that that's obviously a huge number. And for those of you who are listening who are maybe starting or have already started your healing journey, like maybe you're a different number than that, that's probably for the average person, but also that is just a huge opportunity to bring more awareness and to grow. And again, to take the control back be in the power because when you start to identify with This truth of like I am NOT My mind is not me It really brings you back into your power and we can really relate this to Yeah especially during like a busy time, like the holiday season, I know for me personally, that's when I'm feeling a lot of like emotion, heightened emotion, stress, overwhelm in my body.

And then there's that feedback with our brain of you feel this in your body and you almost go into this like autopilot automatic reaction of telling yourself these things. So yeah, I think that. There's just so much room for more awareness and taking that power back. Yeah. So if you're a mom listening to this right now, what advice would you give them?

If they're just getting started or maybe they're somewhere on their journey of letting go of some of these expectations and changing the narrative, but like what advice could you give us like this holiday season to just bring more awareness and And more joy, really, into the season.

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think one thing that I've really learned from this more kind of mindfulness approach that I'm bringing to my life is that when you start to become aware, you're going to notice that there's negative stories, distorted thoughts going on in your brain.

And our society. Gives us this message of just be positive. It's fine. Just be positive. And it's no, but sometimes I feel like really overwhelmed and really like shitty. And I don't want to just be positive. And so for me, it's been really about just bringing that awareness to the negative and Noting it.

So Carolyn, you're telling yourself you don't have enough time again, right? but it's almost like you are creating space between yourself and the world The thought when you do that, when you say, Hey, I see that thought, that's that story that I'm telling myself again, it, that awareness creates space between you and the thought I'm not my thought.

So it's okay to have negative thinking. It's just the hard part is when we start identifying with that negative thinking and we start spiraling. And we start reacting to that negative thinking. So it's about creating space between you and the thought. I think that's my first piece of advice. Don't shame yourself.

Don't get down on yourself when you have the negative thinking. We all have negative thinking. It's not about pushing it away or creating resistance. About, it's just about noticing. Hey, there's that thought again. So that's one step. And then. I love that. I, yeah, I really love that. It's like becoming the observer.

Yeah. Becoming the observer. That's exactly what it is. Yes, exactly. And that in itself is so powerful because it re reminds us like, again, I am not my mind. I am someone different than my mind. And so I don't have to believe what it's telling me. That is so powerful. And then when you start to get into this work even more and you do feel like you're at this space where you want to start bringing more positivity or kind of gratitude.

I think one thing is I don't know, I find this as a mom, I can be really hard on myself, but when like another mom comes to me and is like a friend of mine is I'm overwhelmed. Like I need to bake these five things for the dinner. Or I need to get like these three presents, like all of these things are going on.

I am so good at being like, I'm here for you. What do you mean? I love you. Can I help you? And we're so like, we don't say those things to ourselves. Even though we hear, the world saying be more compassionate to yourself, self compassion, it feels really like awkward and uncomfortable to speak to yourself in that way, if you're not used to it.

One thing that has helped me to practice more self compassion is a loving kindness meditation. Are you familiar with that, Monica? No. Tell me more. I'll tell you more just in case the listeners aren't aware. I really love loving kindness meditations. They can make me actually quite emotional.

So what you do in a loving kindness meditation is first you send love and kindness to someone in your life that you really love. So you think of someone, for example, like a family member or a friend and you send them love, which feels really easy. It often feels, really just loving to send that energy to somebody else, right?

And then you often think of somebody who Maybe you don't click with as much someone who maybe there's some conflict between the two of you. It's harder for you to send love to them and then you send love to them. So that feels often like a little bit uncomfortable to do. And then you end by sending love to them.

To yourself, which again, often feels like the hardest thing to do. Ooh, it feels so gross to send, tell myself like, I love you, Carolyn, like I wish you health. But It's just it's an interesting way to be introduced to the concept. And again, it's just about noticing what thoughts and feelings come up when you are sending love to you.

I think again, that helps to bring a lot of awareness and it often gets more comfortable, but at the beginning it can feel like really weird and icky. And the same thing goes for like mirror affirmations. So like looking yourself in the mirror, like catching your own gaze and like looking deeply into your own soul and saying I love you.

I believe in you. It's hard, but I'm telling you guys, like this work mindset work. I feel like a lot of us fluff it off strategy and then mindset, do the things be logical and then mindset. But I'm telling you, this work is so powerful. And I think it just helps to bring awareness because when we do these things and it's like This feels really weird.

This feels very uncomfortable. I think that in itself just says a lot too Oh my gosh, I love that. So yeah, I definitely need to try the love and kindness meditation. I've not done that before. I have done the mirror like affirmations before and agree that it can be really uncomfortable at first, but it can also feel like really empowering too when you like, when you just embrace it or give into the yeah, just The uncomfortable feelings around it.

But yeah, thank you so much. That's really good advice. I also had a thought around our kids. We're all mothers who are listening to this. What can we do? Cause this is also a big time of the year for them. There's a lot of different things in our diet. There's a lot of different expectations for them.

A lot of concerts and performances and recitals and parties. And it can be a lot for kids to really step through all these things. Is there anything that speaking to you right now to share that could help? Help our kids navigate this internal talk and self talk during holidays. Yeah, I love this as well.

I think the first thing that is coming to mind is really just like mirroring this work for our children, right? If they see you telling yourself I can do this I believe in you. Those like positive affirmations. They just know that to be normal, right? Like they just like soak it all in and they, they see you and they do that as well.

I do a lot of storytelling with Harvey. So Harvey is six and He's still not at the point where he understands I have a mind and I talk to myself, right? But he's getting there and I'm teaching him that concept as he's growing. And I'll often tell him stories of mommy had to do this really scary thing today and I was feeling like so scared in my body and so before I had to do like for example, like the talk or whatever I went into the mirror and I said like carolyn you can do this.

You can do that thing and that really helped to like make me feel confident or like it calmed me down and I was like I think that when we're like talking at kids and saying Harvey, like just do the pause, talk to yourself in the mirror, say positive things, right?

Like it almost feels like another thing they have to do or learn. Whereas when they hear like a story of wow, my mom, she did that thing. And that relates to my life in this way. Like when they hear a story, it's they, they pull something out of it in a different way or I find that for my kids.

Anyways, Harvey and Ada are also Really into reading books. They've always loved books And so I think a lot of this work is like again as they're you know very slowly learning about their mind a lot of it is like setting the foundation of Teaching them about their internal world in general, not just their mind, but also their feelings as well.

And so we have a lot of books around the house that we're constantly reading that teach them about their emotions. It teaches them about their body and how to like mindfully respond when they're feeling emotions, how they can release those emotions in an appropriate way. And so I think. Just helping them to understand that foundation of this is my internal world and these are normal things that are happening Will again set the foundation as the mind and the thoughts start to come in Because kids are very much like in the present moment, right?

And it's only as they get older that mind and those thoughts So I'm going to be talking about that and helping them to understand that as they continue to grow. But I think it really starts with them being aware of their body. And it's so funny how they pick it up. Again, this is just, normal conversation that we have around the house, but like Harvey, stole one of Ada's toys the other day.

And she's three. And she was like, Harvey, I feel very sad and mad when you do that. And I was like, that for me was like, yes, she can identify that and name that emotion. I really think that helps to set the foundation. That's so awesome. Yeah, that she can identify what she's feeling and express it.

Yeah, I love all of that so much. That's amazing. Yeah. Is there anything that's coming up for you as you're thinking about your kiddos and like how you navigate that? I think similar to what you were saying a little bit, but we, I don't know if we talk about all of our feelings as much.

I think we do a bit. We don't have as many books. I would love to get some of the names of the books that you just mentioned, that you were like talking about. But I think we do more like physical movement to Do like more release. If we feel like we have some tension or we're getting mad or angry, we go outside and do some shaking or do some breathing.

So like some more movement, I think we talk and we talk about how like that releases and moves energy through our body. So yeah, I, I think that to me, we do more often, but I think it all like has a place and like you said, to bring an awareness and give them these tools to understand Oh, I see my mom do this, so I feel comfortable doing it.

And then that's a way for them to cope and move through these different emotions that they're experiencing. I just think, the phrase, like mind, body, mind, body, right? Like the body and the mind are so related to each other and they're always exchanging information with each other.

So the more that we can get our kids to really be aware of their body, I think that's really going to serve them later in life when they also become more aware of their mind too. So yeah, I agree. And two of the books just to share with people who are listening to maybe I can put some in the show notes and, write down the authors and stuff for you guys as well.

But two that I wrote down, one is called In My Heart, a book of feelings, In My Heart, we really love. And another one's called I Am Peace. But I'll put some in the show notes so that people know and yeah, if you're in our members space community we have a whole reading corner there where I share like an extensive list of all of the books that kind of relate to mindfulness and Emotional intelligence and all of the things.

Yeah, are those two books in there right now? Okay. I need to go check that out. Yes Yeah, I love our little book corner. That's great. Yeah. All right. Is there anything else that you feel called to share right now?

I think one thing that I wrote down, like that we were going to get into conversation about was just like how I have in my own personal life really begun slowing down my overactive mind, especially again, in times where it's like, there's a lot of demands from the outside world. And I'm feeling like really busy with work life, with home life, like all of the things are coming at me.

I guess some tools or like rituals or practices that I really lean on in order to like cope in a way That serves me and serves the way that I would like to show up for myself and my family. Meditation has been like so helpful for me to bring more awareness to that overactive mind. And also to become more aware of what's going on in my body as well.

Because like I said, I, these were not things that I was taught as a child. It's I gained a lot of my awareness about my emotions and how I react to my emotions probably in my twenties. So I feel. It feels nice that my kids are maybe already a few steps ahead of that. So meditating, I really love brain dumping when I'm feeling overwhelmed.

I'll just pull out a journal and write everything out. It doesn't need to make sense to anyone else. It doesn't need to look pretty. It's just about getting it out on paper. I like going outside and distracting myself, getting fresh air or taking a nap. I feel like even though sometimes it feels like a very counterintuitive for us to take a physical break when we have so much on our to do list.

I feel like oftentimes when I do that, I actually come back feeling so relaxed. refreshed that I can work through that to do list in a more effective, efficient way. So that's what's coming up for me. And also something else that's coming up for me that we were speaking about before we pressed record on this call is like,

I have seen how much changing my thoughts and this inner internal dialogue has positively affected my life and at the same time I don't want moms, mothers who are listening, to feel bad or responsible or like shameful because they, have this kind of They lean to a more negative side of thinking.

I think that, or they get overwhelmed easy or they get anxious around the holidays. I think outside of our internal dialogue and our internal world, our society also sets us up in a way where mothers are taking on so much. And I just wanted to bring space and awareness to that as well, because It's not just about you needing to change your thoughts and you fixing you to feel better like our collective and the way our society runs puts us in a place where It's easy to feel overwhelmed and it's not our fault.

So I just felt called to say that as well. Yeah. Yeah. It's we're almost set up for failure. We are set up for failure. If we do all the things it's like, there's such an imbalance. If you are able to do all the things that moms are supposed to do, especially during these seasons where there's a lot happening, that's extra on our plates.

Then. There's something else has to give and most of the time it's like our own self, our own like self time, like our own mental health or physical health or ours, our, just our soul. So yeah, I completely agree that it's really easy to feel overwhelmed and it takes time to start to almost break those.

Chains a bit to just say I'm not going to do everything I'm supposed to do. And that doesn't mean that I'm a bad mom. That actually means that I'm just making decisions that feel right to me, like that feel good to my soul that feel good in my gut that feel right. But that takes bravery too.

And and it is difficult when You have the generations before you that have traditions. I know that's something that speaks to me. I have so many family traditions during the holidays that I want to continue because it's part of our heritage. And but I also am like, wait, but I might want to change things now.

I don't want to have all these gifts that I have to buy every year and all these things that we have to do. And so I think also just giving into What works best for you and what feels good does make a huge change, a big shift so that I'm happy that you brought that up because it is, yeah, it is a big part of the overall collective and like that underlying tone that we don't usually talk about.

And I'm glad that you brought up slow living because we do talk about it a lot and I feel like it's becoming more and more of a buzzword, like this idea of slow living and slowing down and for you to articulate like what that means to you and what you do to bring that call that into your life more is really interesting and

And yeah it's bringing me back to what we talked, I talked about in the very beginning before we started our conversation, just about our time bending workshop cause I know we're really excited to bring some new mothers who aren't currently in our community, or maybe you are in our community, but this is interesting you we're really excited to dive into like quick, short and sweet 45 minute free workshop and.

This isn't going to be like a time management, batch working strategies, email marketing type thing. This is like our real physical and mental state, how we're spending our day, what we're doing, how we're walking through it, and a lot to do with our mindset as well. And a lot of the themes that we're touching on today, I just see coming up in that workshop and it's going to be really interesting for everyone to get out a big piece of paper and colored pencils.

I love doing workshops like this. You hear me say it all the time and just really Map out different words and pictures and connections and then step away with an action plan of things that they can actually do that aren't overwhelming and aren't unachievable, but small little things that they can start implementing in their specific life in your specific life right now in your day.

That's going to be different for everybody. And I think it's really cool. It's going to be like an interactive workshop where we can all talk things through and everybody walks away with different actions too. Cause all of our lives look different and all of us have our own battles and internal struggles and outer struggles.

And, we're all on our own journey. I don't know. I just felt called to talk about that a little bit more. So if you're interested, we're going to have that in our notes. Our show notes today as well, so that you can sign up and make sure that you don't miss it. Yeah, I'm really excited just as you're talking about it.

And I know I've said this before, and I know I'm part of guiding this conversation of the time bending workshop, but Monica, you're one of my, people like, I love picking your brain about this topic specifically. I feel like I, I say this and I do ask you questions all the time because you are such an expander for me.

Like the fact that, you were working this full time job as an engineer and also created Wander Wild family retreats. You founded it and you have two little kids at home. Like sometimes I'm like, how did you have the time to do that? And yeah, it's just going to be interesting to hear your perspective.

On it all. You are a mom who is literally, I feel like both of us are embodying this work in our life, but Just to hear your perspective on it all, I think, is just going to be really something special. I can say the same for you too. Like you also were a pediatric nurse. You also have two little kids.

You also founded your own business. That stuff is not easy to juggle and be present. And you really make an effort to be mindful and intentional and present every day. So all of that takes a lot of effort. So that's, I hope that both of us can really share. Our own experiences with the women who come and join us in this workshop and they can really take something away because we know we don't have a lot of time.

It's difficult for us to ask you to spare 45 minutes of time, but we're really hoping that 45 minutes transforms into adding a lot of space. and time into your day, right? That's the whole goal. Yeah. I'm really excited for it. Yeah. Thank you, Carolyn, so much for this conversation today.

It's been really great. I'm taking some things away today to start implementing this holiday season. And I hope you're finding inspiration in this conversation and just know that you're not alone in your struggle with presence and space within the holiday period. So before you go, if you are interested in signing up for our time bending workshop, it's going to be live on November 12th at 9 15 a.m. Eastern.

So we'll have the link to sign up here and until next time.

Thank you for joining us.