Welcome to episode three. I kind of have a funny story. I. Am new to podcasting, obviously, and I just recorded my entire episode without my mic plugged in, so that was really fun. So when stuff like that happens, I just have to laugh and think that I just needed another take. So this one’s totally gonna be better than that one.

And we’ll just roll with it. Um, I had a great day to day. We got to go for a drive in the mountains, which I love, and the leaves are changing. They were totally just brilliant, orange and red and yellow, and there were just tons of people out enjoying the weather. And we gotta stop by a little stream with the waterfall, which is always.

A huge perk because throwing rocks in the water is pretty exciting for us. So I hope you’ve had a good day and if you’re having one of those days, that just is not good. I’m totally thinking about you. Um, I’ve been there too. It was kind of a crazy week, but I’m just gonna enjoy that. Today was beautiful.

All right, so we’re gonna start our episode, as always, with the story of an angel, except this time we’re lucky. And it’s about four little angels. And this was sent in by my friend Jen, and so I’m just gonna read it to you. She says, I have lost four babies over the course of motherhood, and each one crushed my heart for a time, but also healed it and helped me to grow.

I had to lean on my heavenly Father to help me through the darkest days of my losses. I had to trust that he knew what was best for me. When the thought of me without each of those babies didn’t seem to me could possibly be the best thing for me. I had to learn to pick myself up and find ways to heal For me, one of the biggest sources of healing came through helping others through their own losses.

Having that true empathy of what another mother was feeling and being able to respond in ways beyond the cliche phrases that we so often hear at times of loss brought me so much peace and healing. After going through the stages of grief, I dug in deep to my gospel beliefs and held onto my knowledge that I’d one day hold my babies again, and was able to shift that pain into something positive.

A sweet reminder of where my babies are and that they’re being cared for by angels until I get to see them again. This has encouraged me to be better every day than I was the day before. I strive to be the best I can be for my earthly children and for my angel babies. I’ve had several moments over the years when I have distinctly felt my baby’s spirits near me, and this has further testified to me that they’re not gone forever.

They just, for reasons unknown to me, could not stay with me at this time. They watch over my family and are never far. I’m honored to be able to have mothered even for a brief time, four sweet children who are too special to live in this earthly estate. That is so beautiful. Thank you so much for sending that in, Jen, and I know personally how amazing she is as a friend.

When someone’s going through a loss or a tough time, she really is there for them, and I think that’s one of the best things that I learned going through loss as well. If you wanna send in the story of your baby and what they taught you, I would love to hear it. You can just submit your story on my website and I will put a link in the show notes.

All right. Today we have the best topic. I’m going to teach you how to feel better. So I have a few examples and I have four simple steps of how to actually apply this in your life. I want you to imagine a busy mom for a minute, maybe she has a whole bunch of kids and she’s pregnant, and it’s just one of those days, guys.

What are the things that she would wish for, and maybe you can put yourself in her place. Like what have you ever wished for on those tough days? Well, here are some of the things. She might want some peace and quiet, maybe some time to read whatever book she wants. She would get to sleep in. She would’ve no cleaning.

Like she would have a maid come and do everything for her. She wouldn’t have any dishes. In fact, she would just pick up the phone and delicious healthy food would just arrive at her door. She would have no one asking her to do anything, and maybe she’d have a room with a view. This sounds like a vacation in a five star resort, right?

You could imagine how she would feel. Relaxed, happy, and refreshed if she had all of those things, except that mom was actually me two years ago and I was not feeling any of those emotions. Well, I’m gonna teach you a little bit more and then I’m gonna get back to that story. That list is full of what we call circumstances, the things that happen in our lives.

Most people think that these are what, cause our emotions. They’ll say things like, if I had a bigger house, then I’d be happy. Or, I’m so stressed because money is tight. Or Sally didn’t come home until 1:00 AM and I was worried sick. We even teach our kids this by asking them, did Johnny hurt your feelings?

But these are just neutral circumstances. They just are. I’m going to give you some examples and it will illustrate better this concept. The first one is a house. Now the husband might think the house is great and he is gonna feel completely content in the house. Where the wife might think that it’s way too cramped and there’s not enough room and it’s too old and she is gonna feel frustrated, but it’s the same exact house.

Or maybe it’s your bank balance. Let’s say there’s $5,000 in the bank. Now, to some people, that would be financial disaster. They would feel completely panicked if that was. What was in their account, but a college student who had $5,000 in the bank might think they won the lottery and be so excited, but it’s the same amount of money.

And then there’s the family whose daughter is out late at night. The father might think that she can handle herself and he knows she’ll get home, and so he’s feeling fine. Where the mother is imagining having to call the police and they’re gonna find her in a terrible situation, and she is just so worried now that child is in the same place at the same time, but there’s so much else going on at home.

So if it isn’t our circumstances causing how we feel, what is it? Well, it is our thoughts. Every problem is actually a thought problem because thoughts create our emotions. That’s why the people in my examples could feel so differently about the exact same circumstance. I’m gonna let that sink in for a second and go back to my story.

I had everything on that list. But my feelings were terrified and unhappy, and these were my thoughts. I missed the first day of school. I don’t wanna be here. I want to go home. What if the baby is in the NICU for months? What if I have a stroke and die? I wasn’t at a five star resort, you guys, I was in the hospital on bedrest for preeclampsia.

I was just over 32 weeks along and having already lost two babies, I did not wanna do that again. Now, most people would stop me right there and say, of course you were terrified and unhappy. Look what you were going through. But I’m gonna say it again. Circumstances are neutral. The fact is that I was on bedrest in the hospital.

That’s it. What else could I have thought about it? Here are some options. My friends and family totally have the home front covered. Everything is gonna be fine. Hey, I don’t have to be pregnant. That lasts miserable. Huge, hot, uncomfortable six weeks of pregnancy. I am in the safest possible place for me and my baby.

See how these thoughts would create different emotions for me even as I laid in that hospital bed. Becoming aware of this is one of the most empowering things I have ever learned. It changes your life because now you’re not controlled by what happens around you. I wanna challenge you to start noticing your thoughts.

Notice how people have different thoughts about the same circumstance, because sometimes it’s easier to see it in other people. Like for example, if you took a big group of friends to a movie when you came out, there would be all kinds of different reactions and different thoughts and different emotions, but you all saw the exact same movie.

I also want you to notice what thoughts create certain emotions for you. So I told you at the beginning, I’m gonna teach you how to feel better. So many of us want things because we think it will feel better there when we have that thing than it does here. So I want you to think of something in your life that you wish would change.

Maybe something you want. Or maybe something you want to go away, keep your idea in mind as I walk through this example. Let’s talk about the woman who wants a bigger house. She thinks that an open concept, granite countertops, and a huge master closet will make her happy. Well, the first step we need to take is to become aware of those thoughts so she could start noticing them.

And then you can recognize that they are optional, right? That there are just so many choices of things you could think about your house. The second step is to figure out and ask yourself, what emotion do you want to feel?

So she wants to feel happy. What emotion do you think you’ll have when you fix your problem? Because that’s actually what we’re all chasing. Everything we do is because of how we think it will make us feel. But the truth is we never have to wait for something to change in order to feel better. We can just feel better now.

The woman in the house could feel happy now without moving. She just has to choose to, and that’s her third step. If she wants to feel more happy in her home, she just has to practice thinking thoughts that will produce those feelings, like noticing what she does love about the house and how great her neighborhood is.

The key to feeling better is all in our minds. Now, I want you to make sure that your new thought is believable and it resonates with you. This isn’t about. Positive mantras. It’s so much more effective than that when you can really see that the thing like the house is just neutral and that you can choose any thought you want, that’s when it’s gonna be really helpful.

So no matter what you’re going through now, you can feel better without anything outside of you changing. And this is truly the best news because a lot of times we can’t actually change our circumstance. And even if we could, it’s so much more powerful to manage our minds, to create the feelings that we want.

Because once we’ve mastered creating the emotions, you have all the power to choose what to do just because you want to. Right, and this is the fourth step. We just keep managing our mind and repeating this over and over in all the different situations we have in our lives. So this lady would not have to move to feel better, but she can, if it sounds fun, and she would be confident that she could be happy anywhere she lives, and that is such a powerful place to come from.

I hope this has blown your mind just a little bit. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on my website, smooth stones coaching.com, and I will see you next time.

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