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Cutting Through Chaos {Episode 222}
509 Plays2 years ago
Does your life feel chaotic? Are you having a hard time managing everything that's going on with your family? In Episode 222, Bonnie & Audrey address the chaos of having a large family. They share 5 practical steps for cutting through the chaos and finding peace in the midst of your crazy, busy, full family life.
Mentioned in this episode:
Episode 170: Guest Rhonda Farr
Episode 199: Sensory Processing Disorder
Episode 200: Behind the Scenes
About Outnumbered the Podcast:
Two moms, parenting a combined total of 19 kids and finding joy in the chaos. Join Audrey and Bonnie as they share real parenting tips for real people through humor, advice and compassion. Whether it's tackling how to teach kids to work or discussing where to turn when you're all out of patience, these two experienced moms are here to offer authentic tips for raising children joyfully.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Backgrounds
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, friends. You're listening to Outnumber the Podcast, episode 222, where we're talking about cutting through the chaos of motherhood. I know you know what I'm talking about. When you show up to be a mom one day, and all of a sudden, everyone is screaming and yelling at you, and they all need something at the same time, and you're about to lose your mind. So we have five concrete tips to help you get through those moments of chaos today, but don't miss number three. That's the one, Audrey, and I struggle with the most. Let's dive in.
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Understanding Household Chaos
00:00:55
Speaker
Welcome back to the podcast, you guys. Today we have a great episode for you today on cutting through the chaos and the overwhelm and the psychosis of your crazy household. And if your household is not crazy, maybe you can listen anyway and it will get that way someday. But if it's not, we envy you and good job on managing the household for the rest of us that tend to find ourselves in the middle of chaos every day or at least a couple of times a week. This is the episode for you. So let's dive in.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah. I was saying to my husband, I was like, yeah, this is what we're going to talk about this week. And he was, I was like, but I don't, like, I don't think my house, our house is that chaotic. And he's like, honey, I don't know anybody else who would walk into our house and think it wasn't chaotic. He's like, maybe somebody else who has nine kids. Oh, you've been doing it so long. It just doesn't phase you as much anymore. Yeah. I know. I know.
00:01:51
Speaker
Oh, well, that's fine. Hey, guys, just a quick second. We wanted to remind you that you can leave a review on iTunes for us. And it means so much because here's what you're doing when you leave a review. You kind of bump us up in whatever iTunes uses or the podcast app uses to
00:02:11
Speaker
put to recommend shows. And we want other moms and dads just like you to hear what we have to say. So if you could leave us a review, it would mean so much. Just takes a couple seconds to type in.
00:02:26
Speaker
Something about one of the episodes that you liked or appreciated and we'd appreciate it so much. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, if you're not driving, just hit pause right now. Go ride this one super quick. It is like lightning fast and it's not just an ego inflation. It really does show other people that we're worth listening to. If you have a podcast you love, that's always super helpful to recommend. If not, meaning an episode that you love, you can put that in there. If not, just say something about how you enjoy listening and we'd love you forever. So thanks so much for doing that.
Noise and Adaptation in Large Families
00:02:55
Speaker
Okay, so it's funny, Audrey, that you say that, you think your house is not terribly chaotic, because I will say this, when people think of chaos, they generally think of like,
00:03:02
Speaker
yelling and screaming and people running around all the time. And yes, there is some of that going on. But in my mind, chaos is also just kind of a lot of things going on and busyness, right? And what I've noticed is as my family has grown, I've had to kind of settle into that new phase of chaos with each baby or each new phase that comes up, right? So like right now, I would not call my life busy. It is full, but all my friends and family do. Oh my gosh, you're so busy. I'm like, oh, am I? Like I've just kind of gradually
00:03:31
Speaker
fallen into this phase of where I have a lot of things going on because I have a lot of children and also business other things. So this is just for anyone who has a very full life and finds themselves sometimes battling that feeling of overwhelm and how to kind of cut through that. So a few of the things that we have mentioned before is that we have both been surprised about how loud life is with a large family. So that is something that is kind of chaotic that can wear on us.
00:03:58
Speaker
And sometimes it's not bad loud, sometimes it's not bad chaos, sometimes it's just lots of fun and giggling and playing and it's a lot of stimulus is what we're saying.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, you know what's interesting is we've had our oldest two move out away from home now and the next two, so one and two have moved out and three and four are away most of the day at work, at college, that kind of thing. And what's interesting is all of them have told us that
00:04:31
Speaker
It's so quiet everywhere when they're not at home. My daughter will be like, well, I'm going to go to the library so that I can study without interruptions. My daughter that's in college, she'll say that, but then I'll come home and she'll come home and I'll be like, well, how did it go? And she says, well, it was great. It wasn't interrupted, but it was too quiet.
00:04:52
Speaker
They don't know how to study when it's quiet or it's just weird. It's interesting that I guess our kids have to adjust and readjust too to the area of life or the time of life that they're in, whether or not to the level of chaos as well.
Restoring Order: Tips and Techniques
00:05:13
Speaker
Going back to talking about restoring order, sometimes this is necessary. It's like the fervor has reached a pitch that is just about explosion. Everyone's fighting or crying. Everybody's calling for your attention at the same time. You're in a hurry. Everybody needs to get in the vehicle so you can go somewhere. Everybody needs you at the same time, or even just two people need you at the same time. You come back from a trip and everybody wants to talk. There's a lot of instances where
00:05:42
Speaker
Okay, as I put it to my kids, guys, I have two ears, but I actually can only listen to one person at a time. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So these are our tips for restoring that order when you just need a little bit more peace. Okay. So the first one is not going to be a surprise for you, but it is, it starts with yourself and it is learning to manage your own emotions.
00:06:02
Speaker
When everyone else is going crazy and then mom goes crazy, guess what? It doesn't help anything. And of course we know this, but it's maintaining that calm and order emotionally and mentally that becomes a real challenge for us when we're thrown into the midst of all these screaming crazy kids that all need our attention at once, right?
00:06:20
Speaker
Recently, I have struggled with this a couple of times and I've started chanting a mantra to myself and that is, I'm only in charge of my own emotions. So I'm not in charge of stopping the fight. I'm not in charge of making everything fair. I'm not in charge of making sure everybody feels loved. I'm only in charge of my emotions. So that might seem a little simplistic, but that has brought me back to my own priority, which is me. And when I am managing my emotions, guess what? The kids calm down quicker and then they feel loved more because I am
00:06:49
Speaker
this stable calming force. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally, totally. One thing, that's a great mantra to like just have a sentence you fall back on to help you. You totally need to pay attention to the stories and the sentences in your head. What are you telling yourself? But here's something that I do. I just take like in the middle of the chaos and the noise before I respond to it, I take a deep breath in through my nose, out through my mouth. Okay, so
00:07:18
Speaker
Breathe in a big, huge breath of air and then blow out anything like all those negative emotions. Let those go with your breath and then you're in a better place to respond. There's this saying that a lot of times I do yoga for exercise and I like yoga with Adrienne on YouTube.
00:07:39
Speaker
And she has this saying that when she's in your deep, deep breathing, she has you take a deep breath and she says, lots of love in, lots of love out. And okay. All right. That's, that's kind of what I'm doing. When I take a deep breath, I exhale and then I can respond. It's like just a reset because I do notice, like if I'm responding with negative emotions or emotions that I'm not proud of later, I do notice that I have been very shallowly breathing, like just kind of.
00:08:06
Speaker
Painting or not really like I don't know. I think it just gets oxygen in my brain honestly so it might seem impossible to have like a sentence that you can say or Remember to take a deep breath. But if you do it once that's the beginning and then practice it do it again Do it again. So practice makes perfect you can you just start with one breath or one sentence in your mind yeah, and if there's anything that motherhood will give you lots of it's practice and
00:08:31
Speaker
for patients and calming yourself down, right? Yeah. And I love that. I really do think that influx of oxygen helps us think better and maintain that calm. What's interesting is think about when you have a flood of adrenaline, when you go into fight or flight, you start to pant. You start to
00:08:47
Speaker
kind of hyperventilate a little bit. And I think that's what happens sometimes in these chaotic scenarios is our kind of primitive brain is like, warning, warning, warning, warning. Something is going wrong. This is not right. The fighting, the screaming, whatever, like self-protection mode. And you kind of go into the fight or flight, right? So to just come back to yourself and say, nothing's gone wrong. These kids are just psychos. It's all normal. It's totally fine. Breathe in, breathe out. I love that.
Embracing Chaos as Growth
00:09:12
Speaker
So there's a couple of default sentences that I find myself holding onto when things get crazy. And I'm gonna share them with you, see if they sound familiar to you guys, okay? These kids are driving me crazy. I have that one like on a loop in my head. These kids are driving me crazy, right?
00:09:28
Speaker
I can't handle this. I think that a lot. And sometimes it's subconscious, but when I'm poking around in there, I find that one a lot. I also think, why is everyone so loud? Why is everyone screaming? Why is everyone fighting, right? What those do is they just reaffirm that there's a big problem here and that I don't know how to handle it, right? So like I said, what I've worked on instead is something like,
00:09:52
Speaker
my only job is to control me or another one I like is of course everyone needs me at once because there's all these kids and just one mom or of course they're fighting they have some sort of obstacle here just to kind of just accept that of course this is happening this is normal
00:10:08
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Going back to that fight or flight response, you guys might remember in our episode on sensory processing disorder that I have that going on. So I'm with loud noises. I'm especially prone to go into that fight or flight. So if you, if you're especially bothered by loud noises too, you might go listen, give yourself a refresher on that episode. But yeah, I really, I really appreciate that. Like accepting this is the way my life is.
00:10:35
Speaker
I do have a big family. We do make lots of noise. There is a lot of chaos. Helps. Because, like, what are you going to do? Kick out through the kids? Like, you know, go live somewhere else? Well, you did. I want to kick some out. They moved out. Oh, I guess that's different. Whatever. You know, that's funny because back at the beginning of quarantine, there was this thing where I think the government was thinking about limiting it to, like,
00:11:04
Speaker
10 people in one place at a time or something, you remember that? And my husband and I were like, okay, so which of us gets to go live somewhere else? Or yeah, or which of our kids can go live at the neighbor's house? I was like, I volunteer as tribute. I will leave and I will go live at the neighbor's house so that you guys can all quarantine in place with only 10 people. I guess I'll take one child with me.
00:11:29
Speaker
All right, moving on to step two. Acknowledge that where much is given, much is required. You guys, as the moms of many children, we are so, so, so blessed. We experience the joys of babies, toddlers, teens over and over again. We get to have every, every stage and we get to go through it because we have a large family. It's like we get to do it so many times.
00:11:55
Speaker
Sometimes we're in the middle of it. It seems like a curse, but you guys it really is a blessing I have Oftentimes one of our kids will say oh when you know one of our older kids Oh, we're not when little kids were my age you guys never you know or you guys always we always had to but often I say to them but guys I'm so glad I have a second chance because I I don't feel like I did that right with you I
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I love this concept because how often is it that some of our greatest struggles can't come from some of our greatest blessings, right? Marriage, right? One of my greatest blessings to be married to my husband. And some of my biggest struggles is learning how to live with my husband in peace and harmony.
00:12:37
Speaker
Same thing with my children, right? And so with these blessings come responsibilities, lots of work. If anybody knows about hard work, it's moms of large families, right? Logistical struggles, like how do we go on vacation and find a place where everybody can sleep, right? How do we feed this giant crowd, right? So lots of challenges there. But when we remind ourselves that these challenges come,
00:12:59
Speaker
as a direct result of amazing blessings, it just is a little bit of a paradigm shift, right? Instead of, oh, my life is so hard, it's, oh my goodness, all these blessings make my life beautiful and also uniquely challenging. What a blessing. Yeah, I love to think of that verse in the Bible that talks about, I'm sorry, I didn't look it up beforehand, but it talks about,
00:13:22
Speaker
you won't be given more than you can handle, more than you can bear. You will be given grace for the things that you have been given, like with your gifts or with your trials. God knows what we can handle, and He's not going to give us more than that. And I will say in regards to that, you might disagree with that. There have been times when I've thought, uh-uh, I can't handle this. But I will say that we have an infinite amount of potential, right?
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah, what's important to remember is that you might feel like it is pushing you beyond your limits, but God will make us so that we can expand to fill the capacity that we need. Does that make sense? We have this infinite amount of growth, and if we're just open and willing to be pushed past our limits, then we can grow into the next chapter. I know that you right now can handle so much more
00:14:14
Speaker
than you could five or 10 years ago, right? I look at myself as a young mom and just think, oh, that poor thing. She was so overwhelmed all the time. And now that amount of chaos doesn't bother me anymore because I've upleveled, right? But we just have this infinite amount of potential.
00:14:30
Speaker
I know, I know. How often do my husband and I, some kids are gone or somebody's doing something and it's my husband and I and we've only got like five or six kids and we're like, oh my goodness, this feels so like, where is everybody? We feel like this is such a small family. Whereas when we had one or two, we'd be like, oh my goodness, please don't tell those poor young couple that they're about to have seven more.
00:14:57
Speaker
But you know this is another aspect of managing our mind and our emotions. It's choosing to operate from a place of gratitude.
00:15:07
Speaker
instead of lack. It's an abundance mindset. Like who has more abundance than a large family, right? Moms of large family. It's operating from that place of abundance rather than a place of lack. And it can offer us a huge shift in attitude. Yeah. If you don't believe your life is abundant, go look at your sock pile. You have a life full of abundance, right? And this potential is so much good even amongst the chaos. I love that.
00:15:36
Speaker
Okay, so step three is going to move us into some logistical
Avoiding Distractions and Implementing Systems
00:15:38
Speaker
steps. Now that we've worked on our mindset a little bit, right? And my biggest tip for this is to put down any distractions and stop buffering, right? If you don't know what buffering is, that is when we do something to avoid feeling emotion. And when there is chaos around you, there will be a lot of emotion coming up for you, right?
00:15:56
Speaker
frustration, resentment, anger, whatever it is. And we very often immediately go to a distraction, right? But if you're paying attention to what's going on around you, you'll be able to manage the chaos so much better, right? So my thing is my phone, that's my buffering. When my kids go crazy, I pick up my phone and I scroll Instagram or I check my email or anything to disconnect myself from all of this that's going on because it's just too much, right? I just want to get lost in the internet.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, but okay, so here's what you're doing to yourself. I submit to you that you're actually creating more chaos. When your kids see you disconnect, they are going to try harder to get your attention. You tell your brain to try to ignore the chaos and they get more frustrated because you're resisting, you're not giving them attention.
00:16:44
Speaker
And then it just, it's just a spiral. It gets worse. So then it's just creating more frustration in them, but more frustration in you because you're like resisting the negative emotions about all this chaos. You're just like, Oh, what was it? Who was it that talked about one of our guests in their episode about shoving the beach ball down. I could see her face. I can't remember her name.
00:17:05
Speaker
We'll link that one in the show notes. You like shoving, trying to keep the beach ball down underneath the water, you know, the negative emotions and like pretending they're not there, but who can hold a beach ball under the water, right? Then all your time. I think it was Rhonda. Wasn't it Rhonda? Yes, it was Rhonda Farr. Rhonda Farr. Yeah. Yes. Then all your time is spent trying to keep this beach ball under the water, these negative emotions down, and you really don't have any capacity for anything else. So like, go back and listen to that episode too. It was really good. She addressed like,
00:17:35
Speaker
what you can do, how you can get through that, because there is a temptation. Well, I don't want to feel negative emotions, so I'm just going to go to my happy place on Pinterest or wherever it is. That's not your kid's happy place.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And like you're saying, the negative emotion doesn't go away. You're just pushing it down and making it harder for yourself and it's going to come back up. I would suggest allowing yourself to feel the frustration or whatever and then going to work to help manage the chaos with maybe a reward for yourself at the end. So this is what I do. I will just say, okay, things are chaotic, crazy. I want to just go grab my phone and check out for a minute, but instead I'm going to
00:18:09
Speaker
take care of what's happening here. Maybe it's lunchtime chaos. Maybe it's getting kids ready for bed, whatever. And then when I'm done, this is the reward I'm going to give myself. And very often it's, I'm going to go read that novel I've been putting off or I'm going to go lay in my bed and take a nap or I'm going to go lock myself in the bathroom and text my friend back. I've been trying to text all day long, right? Just allow myself to have something fun to look forward to after I get through this chaotic time right now that I want to avoid.
00:18:35
Speaker
Yes, yes. So step four, create and follow a system for regaining order. So have the kids line up or wait patiently. Um, that's really hard when there's chaos. So sometimes I'll say to my kids, everybody go outside and run her in the house three times. And I'm going to respond to this text because this is my friend and she's wanting to know when we're going to, you know, meet her next, right? So often when I have to do something on my phone, I will tell my kids,
00:19:06
Speaker
exactly what I make them do. Tell me what they're going to do when they're, you know, how long they're going to be on the device and when they're going to be done. So that's one of our rules for our devices with our kids. So I will, I will observe that as well, because if I'm making them to observe it, it's respectful for me to observe it as well. So I say, you guys are going to go outside for five minutes and have a recess or climb a tree or run around the house three times, do 10 pushups, whatever.
00:19:28
Speaker
Well, I respond to this text and as soon as I'm done, I'm going to call you guys and you're going to come in and we're going to have a snack and then we're going to try this again, whatever this is that has devolved into chaos. Yeah. I love that plan. Yeah. Especially when you are doing something that looks like buffering, right? But you actually have a task to complete. Yeah. I love that. So I know you, I remember in another episode, Audrey, you talked about how when multiple kids need you at once, you have them just touch you, like put their hand on you. And so you can kind of go in order of hand. I love that system too. That's great.
00:19:57
Speaker
What I've noticed is when I'm disconnecting a little bit, so I'm distracted with my phone or something else, and kids are getting crazy, I often just, by default, give my attention to the loudest kid or the one who's crying, and that's not the one who's been patiently waiting the longest or who has something a little bit more urgent. So I really need my brain to focus, to go, wait a minute, you might be crying the loudest, but she's been standing here for a while and really needs my help so she can get out the door or whatever it may be.
00:20:24
Speaker
And then I can communicate with them. Oh, I see that you're upset really, you know, there was a fight going on I'm actually gonna finish talking to her about what's going on with her and then I'll be right there with you and you'd be surprised how quickly a kid can calm down when they know you are coming to them as long as you honor that and don't like then go get distracted not come to them and see what they need even it's something simple like they just want to show you a drawing that can devolve into chaos quickly if you do not follow up and say What did you want to show me show me right?
00:20:50
Speaker
And some days I just think, gosh, it's not so bad having 10 kids. And other days I'm thinking, what did I do? This is chaos. They all need me. It's crazy. So these are the times when I just have to really focus on what's going on, give my kids the attention they need.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yes, yes. You know, when you do respond to that loudest voice or that most terrible crying just to make it stop, that's reinforcing that whoever's loudest gets attention first, which you're not doing yourself any favors. But you don't want that game. No, you know, kids don't function well when there's chaos either. But if they know you're gonna you're gonna respond,
00:21:34
Speaker
Oftentimes, one thing I say to my kid is when they're talking to me in a crying, yelling, whining voice, I say, I really want to know what the matter is, but I can't understand you when you talk like that. And that makes sense to them. They're like, oh, I want to communicate with mom in a way that she can understand so she can fix this for me because my kids think I can fix all their problems.
00:21:57
Speaker
Oh, but so they'll calm down enough where they can take a breath so that they can speak in a normal voice instead of a crying, whining, yelling voice. And even sometimes, you know, if a kid is, you know, completely out of it, you know, and they're so bad, you can't understand and I'll say, Listen, can you understand me? Blah, blah, blah. And they'll be like, Oh, no, actually, I can't understand that either. Because in their mind, they hear what they're saying clearly, like,
00:22:26
Speaker
So I'll kind of mimic it back to them, not in a rude or mocking way, but just be like, listen, this is what it sounds like to me. Can you help me? Can you interpret? Yeah, that's so great. And you probably know if you have one or two children that are more prone to this than others. I have one who struggles with a lot of things and she gets herself worked up.
00:22:49
Speaker
and just cannot communicate in any way that we can understand her. And we have to bring this up almost on a daily basis. Like, ooh, calm down. You know, just tell me in simple words, or even wait until you're calm to come tell me, because I know you're so frustrated and you want to communicate, but we can't understand you. So, so good.
00:23:08
Speaker
All right, so step five, take care of yourself,
Self-Care and Recognizing Stress
00:23:12
Speaker
okay? So we probably could have made this one. Maybe we should have made this one step one, but you guys know this is what we harp on all the time, right? I've noticed that when I am not taking care of myself, I can only take so much chaos, right? And I really have to watch out for those warning signs, which we talked about in the sensory processing episode, right? When we start to notice, oh, my frustration is coming up. I'm getting overstimulated.
00:23:36
Speaker
If I don't have good self-care habits in place, that comes so much faster, right? When you haven't had enough sleep or you're hungry, et cetera. Yeah. You have to become familiar with your own warning signs, whether you're getting overstimulated, you're getting tapped out, and you have to have, like we were saying, a system or solution. So before I address the chaos, sometimes I will just, I'll note my signs, okay? I'm breathing more shallowly.
00:24:01
Speaker
I'm feeling like almost dizzy, you know, from this huge fight or flight response I've got responding in me. So I'll step outside and I'll take three breaths instead of that one breath. Like nobody's going to die if I step outside and take three breaths of fresh air. And then I come back in and I can handle it. Like that's just a little part of my process when I'm really like almost on the edge. It's, it's.
00:24:26
Speaker
You just have to know like your signs and, and if you fail and you scream at your kids or you, you know, you don't handle it in a way that you, you don't show up in a way that you want to, it's okay. Use that as education for next time. Okay. What was I feeling right? What was I feeling physically in my body? What was I thinking? What was I experiencing right before I snapped? Okay. And, and next time.
00:24:51
Speaker
step outside and take three breaths or do, you know, there's whatever your thing is right before you hit that. I mean, if you start doing that, then you'll be able to step it back a few steps from the edge next time, right? If you are continually like, okay, now I felt myself like I was two steps from the edge and I started to feel this and so take care of it at that moment and then step back.
00:25:14
Speaker
Oh, I love that. I love that system. Please be careful and gentle and compassionate with yourself. This is not something that is solved in one day or one year. It takes practice and practice and practice to
00:25:29
Speaker
allow all this stimulus to come in and to process it appropriately and to still show up the way you want to for your children. That's why a patient mother who's raised all these kids and left them out of the house is like a saint because she has years and years and years of experience handling kids that are screaming at her and freaking out about things. It just
00:25:51
Speaker
It develops something amazing in you. It refines you, right? The refiners fire. This is what we're going through as moms. So allow it and just have so much grace for yourself when you freak out and scream and lose your patience. Just go, oh, there it is. I hit my limit. What can I do next time to push that off a little bit? What can I do next time to take care of myself a little bit more before that happens, right? It's a beautiful process if we let it be. Just don't be hard on yourself because it takes
00:26:21
Speaker
forever. It takes a lifetime to be really good at this, right?
00:26:26
Speaker
Okay, so a few of my solutions when I feel myself getting kind of tapped out are leave. If at all possible, leave the situation, right? So for the me, that looks like maybe going for a quick walk around the neighborhood, maybe just locking myself in my room or my office. I often go to scripture to call myself down or just breathe a little bit. Sometimes I have an errand that I need to do and I just go, mom's leaving for a half an hour. I'm going to go run this thing, come back, and I've had a chance to cool down.
00:26:54
Speaker
If you are in a situation where you just have little kids around and there is no leaving, then you might just want to start noticing your habits of when you kind of lose control and schedule some babysitter time or schedule some time when your husband can be home dealing with them so that you know you've got that coming, right? That's what I did when I had little kids. I thought, okay, Tuesdays are crazy and I tend to lose my patience. If I can just make it to six o'clock, I can make it to six o'clock, my husband will come and I will step out and recenter myself.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. This is so, so important to Bonnie and I that you guys learn to do this or try to do this because if you go back and listen to our episode, our two year anniversary episode, where we talked about why we started this podcast is super, super, super important to us that
00:27:41
Speaker
You guys learned to try this. It's really important. It's like bettering yourself and your kids. Pay attention to your physical care. If you're hungry, if you're tired, if you're thirsty, if you haven't been exercising, you will not be able to handle as much chaos. It's like motherhood is an Olympic sport and you haven't been training for it. So you've got to eat right. You've got to exercise. You've got to take care of yourself.
00:28:10
Speaker
how can you participate in this activity, this Olympic activity of motherhood if you're not training for it? So definitely that physical self-care goes huge, is it? A long way. And I really appreciate what you said about taking a minute to read something in the Bible or hum a few lines of a hymn or something to just draw yourself back
00:28:34
Speaker
connect again with something higher than you that really can help you. It will help you to be able to handle more chaos.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, don't forget prayer. That is a good one. I have said many a prayer, sobbing in my closet, banging my head against the wall, like, I can't do it anymore. You're going to have to help me. And I love this concept of training for this Olympic marathon of motherhood, right? Because look at so many moms. Our default is just
00:29:06
Speaker
eating our kids leftovers as we're hustling off to nap time. It's also buffering with food. We don't want to feel the negative emotions, so we start putting candy and junk in our mouths to calm ourselves down. And all we're doing is destroying our body that we need to be functioning at its highest level to show up the way we want to show up for our kids. So I know it sounds like one more thing on your list, but this is essential. Treating your body in such a way that it can show up for motherhood the way you want it to is just so, so, so essential.
Public Behavior and Superwoman Growth
00:29:37
Speaker
Okay, so a couple of final thoughts. This time really is short, you guys. I know everybody says that. All the annoying grandmas in line at the grocery store is like, oh, you're gonna miss this phase. You're like, oh, shut up. I can't cope. But it really is. And more chaos will come. It will just be of a different variety, right? So to remember that is really, really powerful. And these coping strategies will need to change and adapt as things change, right? So like maybe the chaos of my little kids might not be as much as it was 10 years ago, but now I have some chaos
00:30:05
Speaker
for my teenagers, right? And I need to learn how to manage myself around their drama and their issues. But you really are developing superpowers. You are becoming the superwoman mother that you always envisioned and you always admired, but there are growing pains and it's going to be painful sometimes, but just know you are heading in the right direction and allow yourself to shift and to grow and to become this amazing person.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yes, that is so eloquent. I wanted to add a final thought here. I notice that the chaos bothers me the most or I'm the most sensitive to it or have the most hard time dealing with it when I'm in public. So we go to the library or we go to a park or we go to some situation where
00:30:54
Speaker
It's going to be observed, the chaos. And I know that everybody else is not used to it like I'm used to it. And so those are times that I kind of have to prepare myself, do the mental things that we talked about. But I also spend a lot of time preparing my kids. I honestly have no problem seeing my kids. Guys, we're a loud family. We are a large family and we're allowed
00:31:15
Speaker
And people aren't used to that, like we're used to that. So we're all going to make an effort to be super conscious of how other people are perceiving us, like just to be respectful at the library. If we go in, you know, six of us, nine of us, whatever, and we're just at the top of our lungs, we are going to be, they're going to think like they're being invaded by a mob or something. And they kind of are.
00:31:37
Speaker
I think kind of are, but we're going to work on, I would like everybody to work on being quiet and helping one of your younger siblings be quiet too, because like they don't even understand the words that I'm saying. Like, so if everybody can work on themselves,
00:31:53
Speaker
and controlling themselves and help one of your siblings do that. Like I just give them a little pep talk and then I talk about, and then we'll go home and we'll all run around and scream, or maybe we'll go to a park afterwards or something they've been wanting to do or looking forward to. If we can get through the grocery store with no meltdowns and everybody helping everybody else, like, cause like I put, I put this crew to work for me. I like, I don't have to, like you were saying, I don't have to manage everybody's emotions. Like they can manage their own and they can help their siblings or they're actually really good at it.
00:32:20
Speaker
So I put my little crew to work for me and I said, if we can get through the grocery store with nobody having a meltdown, then we'll go to a park afterwards. And they work together. They become a team. So it's one of those ways that kind of the curse and the blessing are hand in hand and you can really use it to your advantage. Yeah. I'm really glad you brought up public because don't forget.
00:32:41
Speaker
when you start putting yourself into other people's minds, right? Like, oh, what do they think of me? And oh, they're judging me or whatever. That's when you're resolved to maintain order, just kind of.
00:32:51
Speaker
falls apart, right? So remember, it's not about, doesn't have anything to do with these people. It's all just you and your family and do the best you can. So don't let yourself fall into that, right? So we hope this was helpful, you guys, whether you have two or three kids or 15, there is chaos involved in motherhood, but following these steps should get you to a place of peace and karma, even while everyone's going crazy. So we'll talk to you next week. I'm Bonnie. I'm Machi, and we're Outnumbered.
00:33:19
Speaker
Thanks for listening friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.
00:33:46
Speaker
Are you laughing? Inappropriate timing. Inappropriate timing. Let me start that part again. On the tackle.