But you are the watcher of your thoughts, you are not your thoughts. So you can have different thoughts on purpose. You can talk to your brain. You can say, Hey brain, that’s not cool. Why are you saying that? And then you can tell yourself, I’m doing a good job. I’m a good mom. God sees.

And when you believe that you are a good mom, and you feel proud, confident, capable, you will act like a better mom, that’s it. A lot of you just keep telling yourself that you’re a bad mom, and then you feel shame, embarrassment, failure, and from those feelings, you show up less like the mom you want to be.

And so, this is the Wednesday after Advent begins, and I know a lot of you woke up on Sunday or Monday thinking, Ugh, I’m so behind. I don’t even know where the candles are. It’s Advent. I’m such a horrible mom. I’m not putting the wreaths out, not saying the prayers last night. And I want you to understand that your brain is highly attuned to your community.

Okay? So, your brain looks around and goes, Oh, all the other moms put their Advent wreaths out, and are doing the prayers, and the Jesse tree stuff, and all of it, but you’re not, and that’s a big problem. You’re a bad mom. No, you’re not. I didn’t even grow up Catholic, right? So I, for bajillions of years, did not have an advent wreath.

And so, I will just tell you, you cannot have an advent wreath and still raise good children, and still be a good mom. No, I think it’s a beautiful tradition. I enjoy it, but it’s not necessary. You having a relationship with the Lord and repenting and believing that he died for your sins is necessary. So make sure you’re doing that.

And all the rest of the stuff, it’s not necessary and it is not dangerous for you not to do it. We will not kick you out of the club, right? That’s what I tell my brain when my brain starts getting spun up about. Oh, everyone’s doing this and you’re not doing it. I just go hey, this is 2023 friend. Okay, they’re not gonna burn me at the stake for not having an advent wreath. They’re not gonna kick me out of the town that I live in. They’re not gonna lock the doors of the parish and say that I can’t come in.

Now, I’m not saying that nothing matters, plenty of things matter, but let us do them from love and not from fear. Because when you think subconsciously, obviously none of you think you’re going to be kicked out of your parish by not having an advent wreath. But this is why you woke up feeling so terrible about yourself, because your brain is just wired to make sure that you fit in with the community and don’t die.

And it thinks those things are the same thing. It’s like, if we fit in with the community, then we won’t die. You can just say, Hey, brain, I love you. This isn’t a life or death matter. I am safe. I am safe. I am loved. Those are two things that I tell myself all the time. I am safe and I am loved. And I’m teaching my children to do the same thing. Hug them and say, you are safe. You are loved.

That’s it, my friends. You just calm yourself down, and you can decide if you want to take the admin wreath out or not, because you enjoy it, because you want to, not because anyone is making you, not because you have to.

I was sharing with a mom how, I forget how old the girls were, and I think I only had the two girls, but I remember feeling very stressed that my daughter was wearing a navy blue dress with black shoes, and I know some of y’all, are in recital season and nutcracker season. And I remember so clearly being so upset that she was wearing a navy blue dress with black shoes.

And my brain said, that’s not right. You do not wear black shoes with blue clothes. It should be cream colored stockings and blue shoes. And the pressure with which I felt changed this situation. And my daughter was never in any of those things. So this was probably just going to mess, right? Just going to mess.

And I look back now and I just see how much I lacked peace. What an anxious mom I was, what an anxious wife I was, I was not preparing my heart that morning for the Lord. I was hypervigilant. I was extra focused on this thing that, you know, isn’t a salvation issue.

And I remember when I finally let a lot of that go and I was like, no, we just have one pair of church shoes and whatever the outfit is, the outfit is, but my life is much calmer now when the kids get ready for mass. They wear almost the exact same thing every Sunday. I think the girls have a couple dresses now.

The boys wear the exact same thing. And it’s an okay outfit. It’s not even like an amazing, put together, from Gymboree, everything matching outfit. Their mama is calm. And when I get to church, I pray.

And I just want you to see that so many of those things are a choice.

So many of the things that we are stressed about, we have created in our mind. Now, some things are objectively stressful, right? Like running out of money really requires a great deal of surrender and trust to the Lord. But wearing black shoes with a blue dress to mass, right? I just made this big story around it.

And you know, that whoever saw my sweet little four year old girl in a blue dress would have just been like, oh, she’s so cute. They weren’t like, oh, did you see the Jaquith? They don’t even know that you shouldn’t wear black shoes with a blue dress. And I picked that example to be very silly because hopefully you see the silliness in it.

But I want you to know that you have been stressed out about something that’s not silly. We were like, Oh, well, it has to be this way, like why? And I’ll tell you why. It’s because your brain thinks, Oh, the community does this and we don’t want to be kicked out of the community. We want to be one of the good moms, but it’s just not required. We are playing for salvation here you guys, that is the spiritual battle that we are waging. And we keep getting distracted by shiny things off to the side. And they’re not all bad. I actually think advent reads are one of the shiny things off to the side. It’s not bad. It is not worth losing our peace over because it is not the main thing. It’s not the one thing.

You are a good mom. You are doing a good job. Every time I ask a mom to sit with that, I see her face change and I see her realize that it is true. You have done so many things for your family. In the last week and you love them so much and you are living a sacrificial life for them. Now, are there ways that you can improve?

Of course.

You are not as awful as your brain tells you that you are. When you believe that you are a good mom, you will show up like an even better mom.

One of the things that gets in the way of us thinking that we are good moms are these silly brains of ours that are wired to keep us safe. And we are so safe these days that it looks for anything now and makes a big deal out of it. Like black shoes and a blue dress, having the candles for the advent read.

When you believe that you are a good mom, you will let a lot of things go to protect your peace, or you will be a better problem solver from love and not fear. I just saw, well, I’m sorry, I forget what account it was, but she had these cute tissue paper wrappers around white candles. And so she had purple tissue paper and pink tissue paper and just wrapped them around the glass of the candles.

And um, and it was adorable. And I thought, that is a woman who problem solved from love. She was like, Oh, I don’t have the colored candles. Well, we can probably figure this out because it’s not a big deal.

Then she just solved it. If I could just give you one giant gift this holiday season, it would be the gift of peace. God is the prince of peace. He wants you to walk with peace.

Everything that I do is designed to lead women to the Holy Spirit so they experience more peace in their lives. And it is a continual effort. You must be vigilant against stress. You must notice when you are losing your peace. And then I think you should be a little silly and sassy with your brain. Just be like, brain, what are we doing?

Really? This, this is what we’re going to use our energy on today. And then bring it back down and just say, I am a good mom. I love the Lord and let this go or problem solved from peace. I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Maybe next week. But our goals program is coming, it’s going to be called Year of Calm, and I’m very excited about it. We made a planner. It’s just going to be so powerful and it’s going to lead women to peace.

God sees all that you do and he loves you and you can live this life from peace, I promise. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.