So mama have lots of boys that is a fantastic Apple podcast, reviewer name, a little jealous of that. She says, wow, the wisdom is so practical. So many of us have been searching for knowledge passed down from those that have been through it before us. Thank you, praying for you. God’s mission for you, both so true and listen, these aren’t our ideas. They have come from women before us and they are being cast out and we’re just taking them and passing them to you. And that’s what today’s episode is about that. We want you to pass these ideas to your children. Next step, Kelly. So many beautiful eyeopening truths in this podcast that have helped me to grow and enjoy my daily life. Thank you, Kelly. That is one of our major goals here at me for greatness, which is to help moms love their daily lives. I don’t want us to be living mentally for the future. My life will be better when, Oh, I want to teach you. Mama’s how to manage your mind so that you love the life you are living right now.

And then the last one from Jean MAB, which probably stands for something that I don’t know. Okay. I like it. And she does. I wrote about the episode last episode on the art of disagreeing, which was so powerful. And she said the story about your son and seeing the monster image and the urgent care logo was really powerful way to explain your point about seeing the perspective of others. And that is so true. And we need more of that right now. We need to act from love, love, and charity. Whenever I am having an important conversation with someone, I asked myself, am I coming from love or do I have some twisted up ideas in my mind that need to be cleaned out before I speak to them? It is an ongoing process, but I I’m so thankful for the tools that I have learned and for the opportunity to share them with all of you.

So thank you ladies for reviewing our podcast. It’s so helpful for us and for other moms. And I know it’s like an Indiana Jones mission to leave those reviews, right? Like you have to actually find the place and then go and then remember your password and type them up. Right? So if you can’t do that, and I understand she just opened the latest podcast episode, click the share button and text it to one of your friends, just texted to her and be like, Sterling told me to do this. So I’m doing it because there are so many moms out there who need this information. And that is how we’re going to share it through you guys. Right. Are you ready? I don’t think that I could build this up enough because I’m just so excited about it. Okay. Raising saints. It is a six part home study.

So you can do it once a week for six weeks. You can do it once an evening for six days, you can do it however you want, but there’s six lessons. And in today’s episode, I’m just going to tell you what each of the lessons are about. You can take this information and teach it to your family, but I literally write a script for you in this study, which is in the master’s program. Okay? So if you haven’t signed up, this is the month. This is the month you should sign up so that you can get this one amazing thing and teach your children how to manage their minds. So the first lesson is all about this idea that we have a toddler brain and a Saint brain, okay, we have this primitive brain, this monkey brain, but we’re going to call it a toddler brain. And you may need to explain to your kids what a toddler is. But most of them know what a one, two three-year-old child is like and the tantrums that they throw. And I asked super funny questions, and we say, you know, toddlers just want what they want. And St. Brains need to come in

And make good choices. And God allows us to make whatever choice we want. And he gives us free will. But our same brain is what allows us to make good choices instead of just eating lots of candy and watching TV all day and not doing anything. And the kids will understand that. So that is the first lesson. We explained the difference between a toddler brain and a Saint brain. And then it’s a family. We generate some thoughts for each of those sides of our brain. And we write them down next lesson. There are no bad feelings and it’s helpful to feel our feelings. And I created by the way, Oh, like a one-page flyer with the six lessons and kind of the catch phrases from them. So you could just put that on your refrigerator. So if you don’t sign up and get the flyer, you could just listen to this podcast and type them all up.

Totally do that. All right. Number two, there are no bad feelings and it’s helpful to feel our feelings. Oh, if I could grab every child in the world and teach them this one thing, it would just change so much. There are no bad feelings, sweetie, whatever you’re feeling, it’s totally fine. God gave us the entire spectrum of feelings. We are not going to tell children that they shouldn’t feel that they feel we’re not going to shut them down. We’re not going to put them in a corner. Now that doesn’t mean we’re going to allow them to have tantrums all the time, but we’re not going to say it’s bad to be upset or sad or angry or to want something or to feel disappointed. There are no bad feelings and it’s helpful to feel our feelings. We talk about that. We talk about how, when we push feelings down and we ignore them, they actually get bigger. They get louder.

And then He also asked the children to describe what feelings feel like in their bodies. And they will know the answer because children don’t notice that to themselves. Yet they have not been made to be scared of the world. Like we are. So when you say, what color is anger hurting? You feel it in your body? Is it hot? Or is it cold?

They will know. Okay.

We want to teach them to feel their feelings because later we’re going to tell them to find the thoughts that were causing those feelings. Okay. So less than two, there are no bad feelings and it’s helpful to feel our feelings. Number three, we get more of what we notice. This is my favorite one. I wrote this adorable story and I tell the children, okay. I mean, you would read my script and you would tell the children, kids, I’m going to read you a story. I want you to be listening for everything in the story that is green. Cause I’m gonna ask you at the end of the story to tell me all the things that are green, and then you read the story at the period. The question is, all right, you guys now tell me everything that was in the story that was red.

And they’re going to be like what you tricked us. And we were like, yes, your brain was so focused on what was green. That it wasn’t listening for all the things in the story that was red. And then, you know, you read the story again and then they hear the red things and it’s going to be great fun. And the point is our brains. When we tell them to focus on something, that’s what they look for. So then I tell a different story, just kind of an example of, if you go to school and you think that no one likes you. And then I give a few scenarios and how your brain will interpret those scenarios because it thinks nobody likes me. And then I say, but if you think everyone likes me or lots of kids like me, we go through the same example or the same situations, but I show how the brain interprets them differently because we get more loneliness.

Number four, okay.

You are worthy because God made us. And it is our job to like ourselves. So there’s kind of two lessons in this one lesson. One is that we are just completely worthy. The way that we are worthiness comes because God created us. There are no better or worse people. And I’m speaking to you mamas. You’re not going to be better. If you were thin or have more money or a different house or change your hair, or your children are different.

This is, well, the Catholicism 101, the foundation we are worthy simply because God made us and nothing can change that. He loves us so completely just the way we are.

So I do a cute exercise to help the kids understand that. And it’s really fun. And it involves a $20 bill. And then the second part of the lesson, once I’ve taught them that we are completely worthy. The way that we are is that it is our job to like ourselves,

That we don’t need to look to other people, to like us. And I explained to the children, the only reason people like us are not, is because of the thoughts that they have about us. And I list some characteristics of two boys and they like very different things. And I asked the children, which boy would you be friends with? And then I say, why is one boy better than other? But it’s quite obvious the way that I’ve laid it out, that like your kids are going to gravitate towards one boy or the other. And of course the answer is no. They just like the things that your children like, whichever one they picked. And so we’re trying to help them understand that people liking us or not has to do with their thoughts and what they’re into, not about whether we are worthy or good. And then I tell them that it is their job to like themselves. And I say, we all have this voice in our head. And sometimes our voice is nice and kind, and sometimes it’s mean, and it sounds like a hole and I give some examples of that. And then as a family, you can generate some St thoughts that the children can say to themselves to remind them that they are completely worthy of God. And we also have to make a list of the things that they like about themselves. So powerful.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that we raise a generation of children who know these things because the rest of us are going to try to untangle these things in our minds. These lies these confusions that we have these negative messages that we’ve received from the world. But let’s just say these little kids, all right, lesson number five, your thoughts create your feelings and do you control your thoughts? So I really helped them understand that their thoughts create their feelings. And I use two examples. One, we talk about how you cannot hurt someone’s feelings. We say that to children all the time don’t mean we’re like you hurt her feelings, which by the way, comes from love and good parenting, right? It is wonderful that we want our children to speak with kindness to other people. And that’s why we say you hurt your sister’s feelings.

You need to apologize, but it’s just not technically correct, because what’s technically correct. Is it? You said words and your sister had a thought about those words and that thought created sad feelings. And so I explain that in kind of a silly way. And then I immediately say, does that mean that we can just say whatever we want because everyone’s responsible for their feelings, of course, because God asks us to act with love and charity and we can always ask ourselves, it sounds like love and charity. And if you see a hurt, look on someone’s face, you can say, Oh, did I say something that was upsetting? Tell me about it.

We want to love people and be curious about them and apologize. We want to understand how our words affect others. I want these children to know that thoughts create our feelings because it’s important to know no one can hurt your feelings and you can’t technically hurt someone else’s feelings. And then the good news is that you control your thoughts. And so let me list a few situations that maybe as a society, we would likely have negative thoughts about, and we generate different thoughts about the very same situations that are more positive, or at least neutral your thoughts, create your feelings and you control your thoughts.

Number six, we get to choose what we think about any situation. And this is maybe this is my favorite part, either my favorite or my second favorite. But what I did was I took the model. So the model says that the model is circumstances. Something happens in the world around us. And then we have a thought about those circumstances or the circumstance. We have a thought about it. Then that thought causes a feeling. And then that feeling drives us to do certain actions or not do certain actions. And then based on our actions, we get a result. Okay. So you will often hear us say C T F a R circumstance, thoughts, feeling actions, results. And so what I ended up doing, because kids are not going to track that is I created this like cartoon flow chart with shapes. It’s fabulous. And so I explained something happens outside of us.

We have a thought about what happens when we feel a feeling because of our thoughts, we do something or don’t do something based on our feeling we get, or don’t get what we want because of our actions. And so I have this awesome live one page graphic with those cartoons on it and the shapes. And then I give an example about a kid who thinks today is going to be terrible. And how, because of that thought, the result will be that the day ends up being terrible. And then at the very end of the whole study, I give you that same awesome page with the shapes, but empty. So it’s like worksheet. So you can do the model with your kids. And I’m just so excited to see how these models end up looking with your kids. So fantastic. And so that’s it. And I’ll be honest.

I have no idea how it’s going to go. I’m pretty sure that this is for kids that are like 10 and younger. Okay. So if you’re really young, you might kind of change some of the words to even, I don’t want to say dumb it down, but simplify it even more. If your kids are older, you could kind of add, live some of this stuff and explain more things to them or give them more examples. One thing I will caution you on is I’m using the phrase toddler brain and Saint brain. I would not use the phrase toddler brain if I was teaching this to a teenager, right. I can, I’m pretty sure they would think that that was insulting and they would be mad. So you could use monkey mind or puppy brain, or just like something else that they understand is part of their brain that just wants what it wants and wants all the good things. And it isn’t thinking about the future or anyone else.

So I would pick a different word for teens and we will be putting on a teen program. Marissa, we’ll do a teen program and we will explain this, but for them, and in more serious terms with examples, for what teenagers are really going through. But I think this, this is really pitched to be like for 10 and younger. And I think they’re going to get it. I’ve been practicing it with my kids. And of course, that’s just like one sample size, but I think they’re really going to understand this. And I think it’s going to give you guys a language for saying, for helping them understand that their thoughts create their feelings and that they can have more of what they want in life. If they learn how to manage their minds. Now, I didn’t one of the things I didn’t address in the study, but you could is the idea that I didn’t really spend a ton of time creating, talking about that, your thoughts or your results, because I think it’s more important for kids just to get that their thoughts create their feelings.

The older kids might understand that thoughts create their results. And I do use a couple of examples in there, but I am back to that. A chill child would say, if I told them this, like, well, I just want to think the thought that, you know, I’m going to get candy for dinner and you have to explain to them that while we can’t just think anything we want and have the results show up, it has to be something reasonable or believable. And then our actions have to be able to lead to that result. And so you could have the thought I’m going to make the soccer team and that could make you feel excited and motivated. And then you could practice really hard. You could eat really well. You could get lots of sleep. You could train extra, you could watch videos of people.

You could ask your coach. Like, what is it really going to take to make the team to the bliss, all these actions out and probably ended up with a result of making the soccer team. So those are things that we can have control over. So these are the conversations that I’m interested to hear from you, how your kids react and the conversations that you’re having. And I will for sure update this program based on your feedback, I will add to it. I’ve thought about creating some games that will go with it. And so I know that the area of masters about teaching children, how to manage their minds is going to grow. This is just the beginning. And I’m really looking to you guys to tell me what the kids do and do not understand, or any ideas that you have because you are so intelligent and you are such good moms and you were such beautiful Catholic women.

And when we put our minds together, we create better tools. And so please, any time that you have an idea about how to teach this stuff to your children, and you think we can add it, please reach out to me and please let me know. Or if your kids have a question and you don’t know how to answer it, I would be happy to help you with that because we really want to raise a generation of saints, want to raise a generation of children who know how to manage their minds, discover the emotional regulation earlier than needed, know how to quiet their mind enough to hear what God wants them to hear. And that’s what I tell my ten-year-old. I say, listen, I don’t know who you’re supposed to be, or even what you’re supposed to do. God knows, but you have to give him the space to tell you. And that is what I’m going to teach you. I’m going to teach you how to hear what God wants you to do with your life. And it will be up to you whether you want to do it. And I really consider that my mission as a mom, with all of my kids.

And I really believe that teaching them the model is going to better equip them to hear what God has to tell them otherwise, if they spend most of their time thinking that nobody likes them, or they’re not good enough, or they’re bad at math, or they don’t like being in a large family, which my daughter totally said in front of my in-laws, by the way, this weekend, she was just in a really shoot. We had had a wonderful five days. And it was just this one moment where my second oldest daughter got to stay up just as late as she did. And she was kind of upset about that. And so she saw him on the verge of tears and said, I just wish I didn’t have any siblings. And I let her have that moment because I know she doesn’t mean it. She was just upset. And I said, Oh, sweetie, your brain is just sad. Right now it is confused. And you are in the basement thinking dark thoughts. And it is very hard to think clearly when we are in the basement thinking dark thoughts, I said, but it is okay. I see that you are so upset and disappointed.

And I said, do you feel like nothing is yours? That they share everything? And she said, yes, that’s what it is. I said, Oh, that must be. And I just let her feel her feelings. I didn’t try to talk her out of it. I didn’t try to rush her. And I said, you know what, sweetheart, I love you. And you’re going to wake up tomorrow. Won’t be in the basement anymore. You’re on the first or second floor and you’ll see light coming in the windows. And you’ll remember, you love being in this family. Love your sisters, your brothers. Those are the kinds of conversations I want you guys to have with your kids. And I want you to feel like you have the words and the tools to do it.

We’ll begin with this program, raising saints, there will be more programs and more tools because I feel very passionately, not only about teaching moms to love their daily life and for them to hear what God wants them to do, but that we then teach our children the same thing. All right, mama says, she wants you to pray for me. A lot of funky things happen to me and I just always Chuck them up to spiritual attacks. And we just had a lot this week. And I knew it was because I was going to be releasing this program. And you know what, I just, I just say, not today, Satan, you can’t keep me from releasing it. It’s going to be fine. And some very weird text things that always pops up too. So if you could just cover me in prayer and I know a lot of you are and you email me and say that, and it’s so important for me to know that because I just feel like there’s this army behind me.

And that really propels me to keep working and to keep creating content and thinking about new ways to share this, you and then, you know, to your kids as well. So thank you so much, ladies, for being a part of this, please join Nasser’s. Even if you just joined for this one month to get this one thing that would be totally worth it, outward change you as a parent and change the tools that your kids have to manage their minds. That is an incredibly powerful thing. I’m praying for you mama. And remember you were made for greatness.

Thank you for listening to the Maine for greatness podcast. Come join our Catholic life coaching community at www.madeforgreatness.co that’s made for greatness.com. Have a blessed day.