Choosing Joy ~ Episode 7 ~ 10/19/23

Welcome back, Mamas. How are you today? I am taking a break from regularly scheduled programming. No, seriously, like this topic that I wanna talk about today is kind of a derail from what we've been talking about the last couple of weeks. But I felt like it was important because of what's happening in our world right now. So right now it is October of 2023. a lot of people that I see on social media that I talk to are sad. They are fearful. They are anxious. They are upset by what is going on this is something again, that's happening on the other side of the world. However, it does affect us, right? And so, and especially in today's day and age, like if you go back and listen to my podcast about guarding your heart, I really get into this. But just thinking about what we can control and doing that right, like doing what you can control, what can you do, like what can I do on a daily basis, What impact can I have? And you know, when we take in things like what's going on it, it takes a toll. You can't like watch, listen to, read all of the things about what's going on there and not be affected by it, right. And so for someone like me, what I do is I do not turn a blind eye to it. However, I find out what's going on and then I do what I can do, right? And So what I can do is I can pray and then that's about all I can do about the situation.
Like it does not do me any good or anybody else in my household any good if I sit there and intake all of this disaster and all of you know this tragedy that is going on. And then I try to parent from that place. I try to go about my daily life from that place, right. So anyway, on that note, I just wanted to take this time to address what actions we can take or how you would, you know, if you're facing anxiety, if you're facing depression, if you're facing sadness, if you're facing fear, grief, all of these things. I want to give you some tools, some things that you can do to help bring you out of that place. So I'm gonna start with a quote. My first quote is from Aristotle. I have a bunch of quotes today. There's some really good deep quotes that I found when I was researching this subject. And this Aristotle quote is happiness depends upon ourselves. Happiness depends upon ourselves. You guys that can feel like what? Like you know, happiness depends upon me. Like it. But it's true. We get to choose like if I I understand because I've been in that depressed place. I understand that it may not seem like you can just choose happiness, but there are things that you can do that will lead you to the happiness. And I'm actually going to read my second quote like right off the bat too, because actually this one is from my planner. I love my planner, you guys. I have this law of attraction planner and it's like it's like my everything and so in it this week. Believe it or not, this is the quote that's in it this week and I think it's so applies to what we're talking about here. So this is Dennis Waitley. Happy people plan action. They don't plan results.
Happy people plan action, they don't plan results. So when you are thinking about the result that you want is to be happy is to be, you know, out of this depression is to be less anxious. You can't, you can't plan that, right? But what you can do is you can plan actions that will bring you to that place, right? You can control the actions that you take. You can't control the result that it's going to bring. You can control yourself. You can't control other people, right? You can control what you do. You can control what you say. You can control what you think. And so I'm going to give us some things that we can do with our mind, things that we can say and things that we can literally go and do that will hopefully help bring you joy. So the first thing I want to talk about is I'm going to challenge you to do something for yourself. SO2 challenges this week. I want you to do something for yourself and to do something for someone else. So you're going to take actions and actually do something that you know brings you joy. Now, if you're not feeling the joy at the time, like this can be anything. This can be something simple, like taking a walk. I want you to get out and take a walk in nature. Get out there. Like, try not to take your dog, because who knows what they're going to do on the walk, right? Like, I know maybe you'll have to take a child pushing in the stroller, stroller, whatever. But try to get out there alone if you can. And if you can't, that's OK. But I just want you to be in nature, be doing the thing that will bring you joy. And even if you start the walk and you don't feel the joy, by the time that you're finished, my hope is that you will feel better. And this is something you can do, like walking is one thing, but you could also like, for me it would be like putting on music and dancing. Like, I can be in a mood, in any kind of a bad mood, and I put on some music and I start dancing. And even if I'm not feeling it at the beginning, by the end I am like totally immersed. You have to put on some music that you like, right? Like usually I'll be like, Alexa play 90s hip hop and she'll play some 90s hip hop and I will be like starting out maybe just like, OK, yeah, here I am. But by the end I'm like a rapping. I am singing, I am dancing, I am acting a fool by myself or with my dog in my house and in my kitchen, my living room, wherever you guys. And it does, it completely changes my mood and my mind. And there are so many things that you can do. I'm going to give you some more examples so you could sing like if that's something you'd like to do. You don't like to dance, but you like to sing. Put on some music, just sing. Sing by yourself, you know, go somewhere by yourself and just sing. Go and read a book. You can do journal like if you're more of a writing person, go and sit somewhere quietly. Find some time. Like make the time if you have to get up earlier in order to just do this or go to bed later in order to just get out your feelings on a piece of paper. Just write and write and write. If that's something that brings you joy, write it down. It will help you to release it. Meditate. That's another one. Like if you're an auditory person and maybe you don't feel the dancing or the singing, maybe listen to. There are so many things. You can Google it, Google, Google meditations, 

and there will be free meditations that come up. Take 1015 minutes and do a meditation and really like it will help you release these emotions and something that you know, because there can be so many emotions that you're having, right? Like it might, you might actually be depressed. But if you're not like clinically depressed and you're just sad or fearful or anxious or maybe you've dealt with a lot of loss and you are experiencing grief, you know you can really take that grief and or that sadness or whatever it is and work through it, but you do. I I don't want to tell you not to feel the thing. Like you can feel the thing, but I don't want you to hold on to that right? Because if you, if you choose again choosing right, if you choose to hold on to that feeling, you can. You can live there. You can and that is not what you want though. You want the other side of that. And So what I want you to do is to release it in some way, shape or form. Have a good cry like you know it. It feels so much better after you have a good cry sometimes, right? Have a good cry, have a scream like go scream into a pillow, whatever. You need to release some of those feelings and then take some action that will bring you joy that will get you out of that place. You know, for me, over the past few months, our family has dealt with a lot of loss. And so we have had, I've had three uncles and now my grandmother who have passed. And that's a lot for one family, right to deal with. And there's a lot of grief, right? There's a lot of sadness. But for me, what I choose to do is focus, and this is what you have 

to choose. You have to choose to focus on what the good is right? Like so focus on. Don't focus on all the memories lost or all the things that you know that you can think about about the person that they may have missed out on, or you know, whatever think about. You can either do one of two things, like think about all the memories that you had with them, or think about what they would want for you now. Think about what that person would want you who is still left here on this earth to be doing now. Would that person want you to be sad? Would that person want you to be sitting in the sadness and grief all the time? No, they wouldn't, right? They would want you to get up, to go about your life, to have joy. way. It's OK when that sadness hits you and when it comes over you to feel it right, feel it. Please do like that is healthy, but don't live there. Don't stay there. Don't focus on all the what ifs or the what didn't get to happen or any of that. Focus on the good and then think about what that person would want from you. Because honestly what I believe is like I believe my grandma. You know what happened for me is I my grandma passed on Thursday and we were leaving Friday morning for Disney. Big huge family tip trip we had just planned And her funeral was the following Monday. So I was going to miss the funeral But I started to think about what my grandma would want. And I started to think about, you know, she would kill me, right? She would kill me for coming home. And so I chose to, you know, it was hard. It was a hard decision. But like, and trust me, like, there were plenty of times 

where I was like in line for a ride or watching a show or whatever, that I was just like crying, right? And but that's OK, That's OK. We are human. Like we are allowed to feel our emotions whenever we feel. And then I don't try to fight them. If someone sees me crying like they see me crying like, you know, I might. I don't want to create a scene. So I might like put my sunglasses on and try not to look like I'm crying right 'cause I don't want to ruin anyone elses time. I don't want to think moms all sad, you know, whatever. But like it was emotional. I was emotional, but I didn't live there. I didn't let myself like I was like, she actually, my grandma was probably getting to experience that with me, Like she could see me now, like she is in heaven with God, and she could look down on me now and check in on me and be with me in a way that she couldn't have before, right? And so I shouldn't be sad, even though there are times when I'm going to be sad about it, because I know I don't get to see her on this earth again. And that's hard, right? But I know that she's in a better place. She's not in pain. She's with my grandpa. She's with God now. Like, that is amazing. Amazing, right? For her. And yes, we are sad here, but like, let's not live there. Let's not live there. That's the way that I focus. And I understand that not everyone can think that way, but I just want to challenge you to try to try to think that way, to think, you know, what if she was watching over you, You know, like, what would she be saying? What would she be thinking? What would she be doing? What would she be telling you to do? Right. Like, that's some of the stuff that I was thinking. and you have no idea, right? If she was actually looking down on me or not, I have no idea. But guess what? It made me feel a lot better and I was actually like bringing her into the experience and remembering her right. So it just it can be this is just an example of how you are in control. You are in control. You control your thoughts. And this brings me to another quote. OK guys, so another quote. This one is from Mahatma Gandhi. OK, Mahatma Gandhi. I believe everyone knows who Gandhi is. And this one is happiness, is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony, what you think what you say and what you do are in harmony. Now that can seem hard again when you're in this place because what you think, what you say and what you do a lot of times aren't in harmony. Like you could be saying one thing to your kids or something and feeling a whole different way or thinking something different, right? And the problem is, is that if those things aren't all In Sync, you won't be happy, right? So that's why it's so important to think about what it is that you want. Think about what it is that you want to think about. Think about things that bring you joy. Think about things that bring you happiness. Think about what it is. And this is where I believe that affirmations can come into play in a big way. For me, when I was in like deep depression, I was in just, you know, not able to get out of bed. When I was getting out of bed, I was pulling myself out of bed because I had children and I had to get out of bed and I would bring myself to the mirror. And sometimes this would have to happen multiple times a day and I would take myself in the mirror. And this isn't necessarily an affirmation, but in the morning, I would also say in my affirmations, I'll get there in a second, But I would literally say in the mirror to myself, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And when I first started saying it, I didn't believe it. Like I can do all things through crazy strengthens me. I literally didn't even have 

the strength to like, come out of the bathroom, right? But I kept saying it in the mirror to myself until I believed it. Until I believed it. And sometimes it was like me crying, saying it into the mirror, and then I would all the sudden start to believe it. And I believe that you know. I, I, I If you don't believe in God or believe that Jesus died on a cross for us, like that is what I believe. And so I honestly believe that I gain my strength through him, that he is able to put the Holy Spirit into me and I will have his strength. And that's the only reason that I'm able to get through these times. And so I literally channeled that. But whatever it is for you that you can channel and maybe it's just your own willpower, right? That plays into my affirmation that I would always say to myself, because I still say the same affirmation, but back in the day when I started saying it, it meant something completely different than it means today to me. And it is I am in control and I create my own reality. So I would say that in the mirror to myself, in addition to a whole bunch of other affirmations, and I am a huge believer in affirmations. I believe that, you know, I'm not necessarily the kind of person who would say things like, you know, I will make $1,000,000 this year or whatever. Like, if something seems like a pipe dream to you, if it seems like a complete pipe dream and you don't have any faith in that it could happen, then that is probably not an affirmation you want to say to yourself. But like, I truly believe that I was in control at some point in my life and I did create my own reality. And so I was trying to get myself back to that place where I was in control. Type A here, and I want to control all the things, right? I want to control all the situations. Now, today, when I say that affirmation to myself, it is definitely different. Because back in the day, what I was trying 

to do is to gain back control of all of my life so that I was in control of my own reality. But I now believe that God is in control, right? But what can I control, right? I can control my thoughts. I can control what I say and I can control what I do, and I can control those things. God can control all the other things. There's so much that's outside of my control that I've now given that over to him, and I no longer worry about that. But I control what I think, what I say and what I do. It's just me, though. I can't control other people, but I can control myself. And so now when I say that I am in control and I create my own reality, I totally believe it. And I believe it by my mind. It's in my mind what I what I tell myself on a daily basis, what I believe about myself to be true, what I believe about my family, my, my, you know, again, think about what you want, not about what you don't want. If we are always thinking about what we don't want or what we're afraid of, or you know, the bad in the world or all of the turmoil, that is what's going to come out of us. That's why we have to choose what we think about and what we say and what we do and what we input. What we intake from this world is what we're going to put out. And it's all it's a law. It's a law of giving and receiving. And this plays into my next point, which is my challenge to you, that you have to do something for yourself and do something for someone else. OK, So what I want you to do is do something for yourself. We talked about the dancing and all of those things that you can do for yourself, but find something for yourself that you can do. You can get your nails done. You can get a massage like you can, you know, I find 

that when I get my nails done, like I never have my nails done. But when I do get them done and I see the nails like on a consistent basis, like through the week that I get them done every single time I see them, I'm like, oh, those are pretty, you know, so this can bring you joy. Like, you know, not just when you get them done or if you can't, if you can't go get them done, like, do them yourself. And then you can give yourself that joy, like for the whole rest of the week when you look at your nails and like, oh, look at that, I did my nails, You know, you can bring yourself some joy throughout the week, right? So do something for yourself. But then I also want you to do something for someone else. And you guys, this is powerful when you do something. We talked a little bit about this on the episode last week, I believe was either last week of the week before, but it's about outflow equaling inflow and what you put out to this world. You will get back okay. And so I want you to do something for someone else, and I want you, I want it to be genuine, like I want you to. And one thing you can do, and this may start out kind of not genuine. When you first start doing it, you might feel weird doing it. But smiling, it's proven that smiling is it chemically changes your brain. So when you smile, it releases chemicals in your brain and it changes your brain and you can't. It's really hard for you to be sad when you're smiling, right? So when you're out in public, smile at someone, hold it, smile it and hold it and that person will smile. Smile back at you, I heard Mel Robbins say. Like smile at someone when they're like 10 feet away from you and hold it until you get to 5 feet away and then say hello. And the other person, even if they don't say hello, they're going to smile back at you. They may not say hello, but they're probably going to smile back at you. OK, now who knows? Someone may look away and don't get offended. Just keep trying it. Just keep trying it. Because what will happen is you will bring joy to that person, but you're also going to bring joy to yourself 

and you will feel like if you didn't feel it at first, when they smile back at you, you will feel it, you will feel it, it will change your mood. OK, so that's something small that you can do. Something else that you can do is send a note or a text. So just write a note like handwritten note to someone, stick it in the mail or stick it in their mailbox and just thank them for anything. You can thank them for being a positive influence in your life. You can just thank them for being your friend. You can pick pick anything you want to thank them for and just drop them a note or in this day and age, just send them a text right. Send them a text and be thoughtful about your text. send them a note where they don't have to answer back and you're just thanking them for being them, for being your friend. Tell them you were thinking about them, you know, and that is going to brighten their day and they're most likely going to send you back a text that will brighten your day as well. And something else you could do is I'm just going to give you a bunch of ideas, right. So you could take like cookies up to your local, like fire department or Police Department, Deliver them some cookies. Write them a thank you note for serving your community. You know, like that hardly ever happens. Do that for a teacher, you know, your child's teacher or you know a coach or something of your child. Like send them a a little just thank you note. You know, you could make them cookies or buy some cookies if you don't bake but do something that will make them happy. But just a note alone will actually probably bring them a lot of joy because you know, they get that like on teacher Appreciation Week or something or maybe at Christmas and end of the year. But they don't get that kind of stuff throughout the year. Just little things you can do. And if you can't think of something to do, ask your church. If you have a church or a local church or nursing homes, those are great 

place to go, you know, and and I don't, you do something that's too far out of your comfort zone. but it will in turn bring you joy. So it's that, you know, outflow equals inflow. And I really believe that it could do wonders. And it's an action that you can take that's going to bring the result that you want, right? It's going to bring that joy in your life. It's going to bring that happiness in your life. We need more of that now than ever. When I think about just what's in my circle, my small circle of people that I know, love and care about, like the tragedy, the grief, the, you know, things that they are dealing with is a lot. And then when you take all the rest of this world and you put it on there, it's just a lot for anyone. And so I just really wanted to take this time to, you know, get some positivity, get you some love and some light to help you spread that to other people as well because it is so, so important. And I hope this helped you. I hope you took something from it that you can use and I would love to hear from you the things that you're going to do to bring other people joy, how it brought you joy or just any feedback that you have for me. So check the notes of the podcast. Reach out to me. I would love to encourage you to thank you for listening and you know till next week. Y'all have a great one.