Transitioning Seasons Well

The transition. Is the thing that we don’t like. And Matthew Kelly says that Matthew Kelly says, people love change.  ’cause a lot of times people will say, oh, I hate change. He says, actually, people love change. People just don’t like transition.  And I think that’s true because I don’t think we’ve been taught how to transition. 

Well,  And even though we have to transition so many times in our lives.  We are surprised every time that it’s uncomfortable.  And then of course our human brain tells us all sorts of things about that.  So.  Let’s talk about the skill.  Of transitioning from one chapter.  To the next.  When we know that something is finite and when we 

know that something is difficult, we can handle it. So much better.  If you think about.  Having a sunburn came. You get a sunburn, you know, it’s supposed to hurt.  Your skin kind of is hot and it’s difficult to sleep. And when somebody hugs you, you’re like, oh, ouch.  But your brain doesn’t have a lot of drama. It doesn’t beat you up. a ton about having a sunburn because it knows. This is supposed to hurt. Nothing is really wrong. And it’s temporary.  And you may beat yourself up a little bit for, I don’t know, falling asleep on your beach chair or something.  But in general, you’re not having a huge midlife crisis over.  Having a sunburn. And yet.  

When we transition. From summer to school, and this is true, whether you homeschool your kids. Or send your kids to school, the transition.  Is very uncomfortable.  And it is finite. And yet your brain will tell you the most wild stories. About what’s wrong with you as a mom, what’s wrong with your kids? How they’re just going to be failures in life.  How you can’t get it together. How you’re so behind your terrible managing things, you’re going to forget something.  

I mean, it will just be so mean to you. In this time, but.  I’m using this transition. Of summer, to school as an opportunity to teach all of us the skill of transitioning. Well, it is just a skill.  You probably learned how to swim, learn how to read, learn how to ride a bike.  These are just skills.  Acquiring skills.  Is also uncomfortable.  Okay, so we’re going to acquire a new skill. To do something that is uncomfortable. So it will be a little extra uncomfortable as we acquire this skill, but the process of slowing down and watching the way that we transition and learning how to transition better.  Is well worth the just little bit. Extra discomfort.  Because then there will be so many other times in your life where you will then realize, oh, we just need to transition here. And I know how to transition well.  

Examples of transitioning are moving.  Uh, your husband changing jobs.  Being pregnant, you have to transition kind of from not being pregnant, to being pregnant. And even though you get pregnant instantly. The transition is, you know, being sick and changing your routines. And then we transition again when the baby comes.  

We have to transition sometimes around may there major health issues or the major health issues of our parents.  And just think about any time that a chapter of your life is ending. And a new chapter is beginning.  There will involve a transition.  And so I’m going to teach you today how to transition? Well, because it is. Just a skillset. We can work on it and then it doesn’t have to be so scary either. And the best part is.  

You can minimize how uncomfortable it is by not adding guilt and shame and beating yourself up on top of the thing that’s regular uncomfortable, right? That would be. I like having a sunburn and then walking around all day being like you’re so stupid. I can’t believe you’ve got this. The Sunbird you’re so dumb. You shouldn’t really allow to be outside. Like, like really that, that. would be such an extreme reaction. Just getting a sunburn. And we don’t do that because.  Remember the two things we expect that it’s uncomfortable. 

We don’t make that a problem. Ian. We know that it. will end.  So those are the two thoughts.  That I want you to have.  About transitioning from summer. To school.  

And we’re going to practice those thoughts so that we can then apply it to any other transition that we experienced in our lives. Right. So the transition. From summer to school is supposed to be uncomfortable.  

Ending a chapter starting a new chapter. It’s supposed to be uncomfortable. We’re not going to be surprised by this. This is not a problem. We can handle it.  It’s not a sign that something has gone terribly wrong.  It doesn’t mean that we are in danger, some discomfort.  Means that there is impending danger and that’s, and our brains. 

Just get confused about that. So they just think most discomfort.  Means, oh, no, something really terrible is gonna happen. And that’s what we have to actively tell our brain, Hey, this is okay. And you naturally do that with a sunburn, right? You’re like, well, it hurts a little bit, but we’re not going to die.  All right. You’re just not sitting there worried.  That you’re one sunburn. It’s going to ruin your life.  So we know. That we have the ability to calm our brains down. And we’re just going to do that about transition.  I mean like, Hey brain. I love you.  We are gearing up.  To transition, it’s going to be uncomfortable.  

It’s supposed to be uncomfortable.  That’s okay. We can handle it.  And here’s the second thought that’s so important. It will end.  

The transition doesn’t drag on indefinitely. We do click into some sort of school routine. Then I think we experienced this.  Again, in a much smaller way in a mini way for Christmas break. Right? And then the kids come home for a long time. We transition to that.  Which is why we help you in our, you know, Stress less for the holidays program. And then. We transitioned to, okay, now we have to stop eating chocolate and cheese, and we have to send the kids back to school or resume our, you know, family school, routine, and home.  

But it’s not as big as the transition. From summer. to fall.  

So, Hey, this is uncomfortable. It’s totally fine.  And this is going to end.  I remember hearing somebody tell me a long time ago that.  It takes kindergarteners six weeks.  To adjust to being in kindergarten.  They come home in the beginning and they’re tired.  And their little bodies, just having adjusted to the stimulation and the schedule. 

And we haven’t sent a kindergartener to school. So, I don’t know, but.  That seemed reasonable to me. I was like that tracks six weeks.  And so.  Let’s say that the transition is eight weeks.  Let’s say it’s the two weeks leading up to school. And then the first six weeks of school, we’re going to transition for eight weeks.  Now you will be thinking about school much longer than that, but the transition of your home and your household and the kids.  

For example, we don’t usually change bedtime routines. Further out than two weeks before school.  Right. So we know that that’s coming.  And we know that. There’s going to be a pushback. And the kids are going to be grumpy about that.  There’s going to be a lot of whining.  

And so when that happens, let’s use bedtimes as an example, when that happens. And there’s a lot of whining on the front end because they don’t want to go to bed. And then there’s a lot of griping in the morning cause they’re tired.  You can just go, oh, this is transition.  

And for me personally, because I love fall so much, I would tell myself, and I’m so excited to go through this transition. Because on the other end, it’s going to feel great.  

And I don’t think it takes six weeks or eight weeks to feel great. I think it starts feeling great after maybe even a week. You know, I would live with my routines.  For a week, maybe evaluate them and tweak them.  

And then probably by the end of the second week, I’d be feeling pretty good. Like, all right, we got this.  Until. We don’t have to be surprised. This year. When we changed the bedtimes of the children. That it will be difficult.  And so what are we going to tell ourselves? Oh, Hey, this transitions among this transition is uncomfortable. It’s not a problem. And to short period of time. I mean the bedtime sing particularly, right. 

It takes a week, maybe two.  And then they just click into the new schedule. And so what else I want you to just think right now, it’s not your first rodeo for most of you, maybe for some of you, maybe some of you. It’s like your first year with your first school-aged child. For the vast majority of you listening, it is not your first rodeo.  

We know that their pants are too short.  They don’t have any shoes. All the pencils from last year broken. We have to figure out how to feed them, which I don’t know why. Since we’ve been feeding them, I’ve been feeding my children for 13 years.  Why every time.  We changed to a new season. We have to, re-imagine how we feed them. And we all just experienced that, right? Because we thought we knew how to feed them and then they were home for the summer. And then it was just the wild, wild west.  So now we have to go from the wild, wild west of feeding them back to. some sense of order. And so in our family, because we homeschool the kids.  

You know, we just, we tighten up the schedule a little bit. There’s a little less outside time. Um, a little more structured reading and doing work.  A little less snacking or grazing.  

I think our mealtimes also, they’re just a lot later right now. Everything’s about an hour, an hour and a half later than it is for the rest of the year. And that’s been working great. Actually, I’m not upset about that, but I can see that we’re going to pull it all back in.  

And the girls have been waking up early to pick blueberries at this blueberry farm. It’s just this. Adorable Catholic family that.  Allows kids to do this as soon as they’re 10.  And so I’ve been waking them up at six, which they’ve acted like it’s the most awful thing of all time.  And they’ve either breakfast and then they go pick blueberries. For four hours and. It’s been such a great opportunity, but then often now they’re kind of falling asleep on the couch in the middle of the day. And so I just know we’re going to have to shift that a little bit.  As the fall comes.  

And as the light changes and as the weather changes, other things change with that too. The type of clothes that they wear.  What we’re doing in the evenings. I actually really love September where we live, because where we live is a kind of a tourist place. A lot of the crowds leave. But it’s still hot. And so the people who live here, like we get to really enjoy September. So we kind of keep some of that summer energy going all the way through September.  

And so I just want you to ask yourself. What. Is difficult about this transition. And then. The last thing that I want you to tell yourself, maybe two things is. I choose this.  We do love change. We do want.  To leave summer behind and to click over into school. We want to, no, one’s making us. You could just live. Summer life all year long. If you wanted.  There are a lot of reasons why we don’t want that. And I think God, in his goodness.  Knew that we would want these.  

Changing seasons, humans love change, but we also love predictability. And so he, he gave us both of those things with the liturgical calendar.  Because it’s, I just feel personally that when a season is about ready to change, I’m ready for it to change. I’m like, yeah, I’m kind of over this.  I’m ready for sweaters. And coffee. And then I look forward to winter too.  I’m like, oh, I can’t wait for the first snow. And. then I’m tired of the smell.  

And I’m ready for it to melt.  And. so liturgical seasons the same way we’ve got ordinary time. And then, you know, it feels about right when we’re ready.  For lent or advent or Easter or Christmas. So telling yourself I want to do this. I want to go through the discomfort of transition because I want the thing on the other side. And then. The last thing, which I just thought of was. And I can do this.  

I can do this. You’ve been transitioning.  Many many, many chapters.  In the years that you’ve been alive, you actually are. Very experienced at transitioning. And now.  We’re just going to do it again. But without being mean to ourselves through the whole process.  That’s the only thing that’s changing, actually, it’s just.  On the top of all of it on the top of the transition that you’re going to experience, you’re just not going to beat yourself up and tell yourself that you’re a terrible human.  

You’re just going to think. Transition is uncomfortable. This is not a problem. Nothing has gone wrong. This will end. It will only last for a few weeks, maybe even one week. I choose. I want to experience the discomfort of transition because I want the thing on the other side. And I can handle this. I can handle this. And you can just apply this to any transition that you experience. This year.  And to help you.  Go back to school. Well, and to transition. Well, I have created something new and I’m very excited about this because I am going to be creating a very large. Buckle up. A very large series.  

Of 30 day.  Audio programs.  We surveyed our list recently. And it was so clear that the vast majority of Catholic moms on our list who filled out the survey. So that they prefer to consume information through a private podcast. And that doesn’t surprise me because. We’re on the move. We’re in the car. We all have phones and it’s so easy to just throw in those headphones and listen to something it’s a lot harder to log into a computer and watch a video.  Or even to sit down and read a book. And so I’m going to create this.  Series of books. Called Catholics cultivating peace. Right? That’s my mission in life. My mission is just to help. Catholics to have more peace. And most of what I do ends up being for moms, but really so much of what I teach, like transitioning well.  Is applicable to anyone who’s Catholic to anyone really, but I’ll always target Catholics. 

So Catholics cultivating peace.  It’ll be a 30 day audio series until every day. I’m going to pray with you.  And I’m going to teach you something and I’m gonna encourage you.  

And. The first one that I’m going to release is, about back to school. So they’re going to have these themes back to school. Raising toddlers, raising teens. Um, pregnancy miscarriage. Just, if you think about all these moments in our life, all these things that we deal with, I want to walk really closely with someone for 30 days to help them.  Manage their mind. 

And. one of the things that’s so helpful about having a coach is just hearing different thoughts than the ones that are going through your mind. And then you just borrow them and you practice them.  And you can borrow my confidence.  

And so I outlined all these skills in the 30 days that I, think women need to. Experience peace transitioning from.  School. To fall.  And then it comes with a workbook and in the workbook, there’ll be a one-page summary of the audio. So it’s not a book that replaces the audio that it’s not, you can’t swap them out. You have to listen to 

the audio and then the bullet points, just give you the summary. And I really like that. I think ADHD moms really like that because we want to listen to something, but then we just want to see kind of a bullet point list of what it was.  And then there will be reflection questions, which I always encourage women to do. But I think. even if you didn’t do that, the program would be so powerful, just listening to the episodes and the episodes. Almost all of them ended up being 12 minutes, which I thought was really interesting because I just gave myself permission to. Teach the point that I wanted to teach and to be encouraging.  I just thought it was really interesting that almost all of them ended up being 12 minutes. And so 12 minutes a day while you’re doing something else.  I’m going to be teaching you things. 

And a lot of the tools will be things that you’ve heard before. Like the model or relationship manuals, but. In each.  30 day experience. All the examples will be about.  That theme. And so all the examples that I use. For this first one are about school.  And. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re sending your kids to school or homeschooling them. 

We all have a lot of thoughts about being a bad mom and not being organized and wanting to educate the kids and being frustrated by our kids or not supported by her husbands. And you know, those thoughts are pretty similar.  Regardless of.  The type of schooling option that you’ve chosen. And the other thing that I did and will continue to do is I coached moms.  Four.  

An hour and a half.  On school topics, and I will put that in the program. And so you will get to hear. What coaching sounds like.  So I’m going to teach you the principles, but then you’re going to see how I take someone whose brain is jumbled up.  And how we, we calmed down and we sorted out.  And we bring some order to the thinking and we create a plan for what that mom is going to do and think on purpose going forward.  And.  I just think this is going to be so powerful. And I was really asking myself, how can I help more people?  

And I really feel like God gave me this idea, this 30 days of audios and these different themes. And I really think that this is going to be such an accessible product for people. And.  I think it will feel like, having a friend. I think hearing someone talk to you every day. For 30 days, we’ll make you feel like you’re not alone and that you’re not crazy. Right. Feeling the pressure to educate these kids. 

Well, it feels like a lot and I think it feels so confusing.  In modern day parenting because the internet. Is telling us completely conflicting advice. And so.  That is available now. You can go to Catholic mom com.com slash school.  And normally it will be $30, but until August 15th, it will be half that it’ll be $15. So get it before August 15th.  Some of you, your kids don’t start school until September. Some of you, your kids start even the second week of August. So you are already thinking. And thinking about school. And you don’t need to listen to the 30 days before school starts. And in fact, I have you do planning on day three. Because I think most of you will start it and maybe even end up sending your kids to school right away. But the, the tools will help you.  Transition in that first 30 days from summer to school.  It’s I’m very excited about it.  And I think. it’s going to be such a gift to moms and I’m again on this mission. To show women that life can be uncomfortable. Life can be really full. You can manage a lot of moving pieces. You can hold a lot of hearts and you can do all of that. With peace.  It does not have to be stressful.  We have just collectively accepted that life is stressful and I, promise you, it does not need to feel stressful. Stress is coming from your thinking about your life. 

And even in today’s episode, you can see how we are not stressed about having a sunburn, but we are stressed about the discomfort of transitioning. From summer. to school, even though. When we stop and think about it. for a minute, we’re like, yeah, it’s uncomfortable every year and I’m not doing it wrong. And actually I’m pretty good at it.  Right. 

Most of you, if I asked you, Hey, what is your plan? You would then rattle off a very incredible mom plan.  For transitioning from summer. To fall.  You are a great problem solver.  And I just want to show you that you can enjoy your life so much more than, than you’re enjoying it right now. You can enjoy the experience of your life. Even. In uncomfortable transition seasons.  Or times when you’re managing a lot of details or a lot of hearts.  All right. 

My friends. One more time.  Catholic mom com.  Dot com. Slash school. The link will be in the show notes. Go pick that up. If you’re in the membership, if you’re in our Catholic mom call membership, it’s already in there.  So just go find it. Just log in. It’ll be in there.  And please, please, please give me feedback about it. If it’s too much, if it’s too long or too short or anything, please give me feedback because I want to make a whole bunch of these.  And so this is just the first one and I would love to know what your experiences. Of it, because I think this is a really great.  Vehicle way of getting information to moms.  All right. My friends. I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.