The truth is the way you think about the world around you determines your experience of it. One of the greatest examples of this is Cory 10 Boom was a Dutch Christian woman and her family. They hid Jews during World War II, and then they were arrested. She and her sister were put in a concentration camp.

And so Cory was complaining about how awful it was, and it was really, really awful. It was overcrowded and infested with fleas, but her sister, Betsy said, you know what? Thank God for everything. And you know, I don’t know that we have like a play by play of what they said, but I think Corey said even the fleas and Betsy was like, yes. Even the fleas give thanks to God in all circumstances. Right? We see that in the Bible a lot.

And later. It comes to find out that, they had snuck a bible in, they had snuck a Bible in. And so they would pray and they would pray with other people, and they would read from the Bible. And of course if they were caught with this, they would’ve been killed, but they were never caught because where they were, their particular area. Was so infested with fleas that the guards rarely came there.

And so it ended up being that because of the fleas, the guards didn’t come and then didn’t see that they had a Bible. So this is a great example of an external circumstance, which we would all kind of collectively say is terrible. Right? Being in a concentration camp infested with fleas. Seems terrible, right?

But one of the sisters was able to say, thank God for everything. Thank God for the fleece. And we see this a lot with the Great Saints. The Great Saints were. Able to give thanks for things that were difficult. Mother Theresa said that a lot.

And then I often bring up Therese, who would thank the Lord for the nun who would sit with her in adoration and click her tongue and it drove Therese crazy. But she would just be like, thank you Lord, for this opportunity to, and she didn’t use this word, this phrase, but she would say, you know, manage my mind.

Right? Thank you for this opportunity to manage my mind around this circumstance so that I can feel closer to you. So we know that the things around us are not the things that are actually making us feel bananas, crazy in our bodies. It’s what we think about them.

Now, there are physical things that happen around us that are real. For example, if you have the physical symptoms of a migraine, I wouldn’t say like, it’s just your thoughts about your migraine that are creating your experience. There are some physical things.

And as you’ve often heard me say on this podcast, I do think collectively the sensory experience of noise and going from thing to thing to thing in the busyness of regular motherhood, life is very assaultive to the brain. And that I think is something objective that we could measure, but your ability to handle that still comes down to what you think about it.

Okay. Because we know that we can endure very intense situations and essentially just pep talk ourselves, right? Like, Hey, you’re doing a good job. I know this is difficult. I’m proud of you. There’s only two more hours until bedtime, right? Like there are ways that we pep talk ourselves through difficult situations.

And often exercise is a good example of that. For those of you who have played sports or run long distances. It’s painful to do it, but you’re kind of talking yourself through it. Like, okay, just keep going. We’ve got one more mile. You can give me two more reps on this.

And so we would say, objectively the situation is causing physical discomfort to your body, but your brain is making sense of it, and so your internal experience of it is positive or perhaps something more like determination or grit.

Okay. I got a lot of emails from you. I love you guys. After I sent out that email about giving moms trophies for Christmas, I was like, Hey moms, here’s your Christmas trophy. ’cause I know that you did everything and probably no one even thanked you on Christmas. Okay? And the number of emails that I got from you guys, some of which were like, I cried when I read that email were just a lot.

And I think it shows that. Whether we’ve done it to ourselves or whether the culture has done it to us, that there is this cultural kind of phenomenon where women do carry a significant amount of the mental load. They are doing a lot of the things, and then each of us individually has thoughts about that.

Okay. You have thoughts about it and your thoughts determine your experience. So with this example, maybe you wrapped all the presents, you purchased everything. You know, the joke is always like the husband is as surprised as everybody else to see what everyone gets because he wasn’t involved in it.

And I will tell you that personally I have a very positive thought about that. I actually really like being the one to coordinate Christmas and to purchase everything. I like wrapping the presents as well. We pick a different color wrapping paper for each kid. So the presents are kind of color coordinated in that way.

And I love picking the wrapping paper. I love wrapping them. I’m not an A type rapper. So I’m just like, fold, fold, fold. Tape, tape, tape done. Okay. I’m definitely not creasing my corners and it would probably drive some of you bananas.

But I enjoy the experience of wrapping all the presents. I usually make some tea and put on some music, and I go in my bedroom and then no one’s allowed to come in and they all respect that. And I have a very positive experience with being the one who does all of that stuff for Christmas.

Whereas a different mom. Who is doing all of that might have thoughts like, I’m all alone in this. No one ever helps me. No one appreciates me. I can’t believe my husband isn’t involved in that. And so even though our circumstances are the same, her experience of wrapping the presents might be really sad.

Or her experience of Christmas morning might be really, it might feel like self-deprecating because she’s just sitting there kind of wallowing and feeling bad about being unseen and unloved. But it’s literally just. Her thoughts about that’s creating her sadness because a different woman did all of Christmas and isn’t feeling sad about that.

Now, I certainly have areas in my mind. That are hard for me to do that with. I certainly still have like what I would call blind spots or difficult things to shift where I know that I could think about it differently, but I just, I’m not there yet.

Okay. But for Christmas, I actually am very proud of how I manage my mind around Christmas. I have a generally positive experience of it now because of life coaching and I. I’m so happy that my husband doesn’t buy anyone gifts because, and this isn’t a total exaggeration, he would not do this.

But my husband is a hardcore engineer, probably little Specy, some version of that. And so he would do something like give a 14-year-old girl a hammer and be like, yeah, because you said that you wanted to learn how to make things more. So I thought you would love this hammer that I got you for Christmas.

And he would just mean it. He would just mean like, I really thought you would like this, and she would be so crushed and disappointed and felt unloved and unseen. And so in no way do I actually want him to buy the presents. I want to be the one.

And my thought about being well taken care of, which is what we’re talking about, is that I feel so well taken care of, that my husband completely trusts me to do all of Christmas. He just completely trusts me to do it. Sometimes we talk about money, but not always, and part of that is because we’re both very prudent about our money.

And so I’m never really like extravagant. If I’m buying one of the kids something a little bit nicer, I might talk to him about that, but that didn’t come up this year, and so he completely trusts me to buy. Receive, acquire all the presents and wrap them and put them under the tree.

And that makes me feel so well taken care of that here’s this man who’s kind of like over me and protects me, and he trusts me that I have the freedom to do that. Like it’s really a privilege to be free to do things.

And this thought, I’m so well taken care of is completely a choice, and your brain will either find a lot of evidence that you’re not well taken care of, which is this default position, right? Your brain’s default position is to look for danger and pain and inefficiency.

And then I think on top of that, we live in a time where we’re all just so starving for affection and attention. We’re so lonely. Like it’s such an epidemic. It’s so, so bad. So much worse than I think we realize. And because we’re so starving for attention, one of the ways that we get attention is through complaining.

And, you know, if you were to call your girlfriend after Christmas and just be like, I can’t believe it, nobody bought me anything. Or kind of the joke, like the only thing I got was slippers or a robe or something you didn’t really want and nobody said thank you.

And like your friend would validate that. And they would say, oh my gosh, that’s so awful, and me too. And why is it like this? Right? And in that moment, you guys are experiencing a deep form of connection. Someone’s really paying attention to you, someone’s really holding your heart, and I want you to see how complaining kind of gets you what you really, really want.

In a way, it does work with the husbands too, and. There’s a spectrum there. So I think like the early complaining, the early steps of complaining, he’ll listen to and he might be like, oh, I’m sorry you had a hard day. Or, I’m sorry, that’s difficult for you. And you get maybe a little bit of consoling complaining.

The more you complain though, I’ll tell you what happens in his brain. Is he feels like a failure because men are supposed to provide for the family and protect you. So when you start complaining a lot, and it sounds like his wife is unhappy with her life, right? In a big way, he feels like a failure. And then he’s either gonna act out by being defensive and arguing with you or emotionally withdrawing. He may even physically withdraw and just leave the conversation.

Okay. And so, you want attention, and you might get some consolation from him, some compassion in those kinds of early steps of complaining, but then in the bigger steps of complaining, you might get negative attention, which by the way, still feels like something when you’re lonely. Fighting is better than being ignored.

And so it still feels worth it to do that. And then when he withdraws, if he does that, not everybody does that. It’s just a kind of a personality type. But if he withdraws, then you get to be even more mad and maybe you tell your friend about that, or maybe you start spinning it up in your mind and complaining to yourself. And that’s kind of a way to give yourself attention. I’m telling you, we just want attention.

And so we’ve call ourselves in this trap, women of thinking that we’re not well taken care of, and as soon as you put on the glasses, I’m not well taken care of. You’re gonna see it everywhere. You’re gonna see examples of how the kids walk all over you and take you for granted, and the husband, and maybe you have a job and maybe your mom doesn’t call you or whatever it is, right? You’re just gonna have this general sense of I’m not well taken care of.

And women want to be taken care of. We want a man like above us to provide for us and make us feel safe. And then we want to be the nurturing heart that like cares for him and the kids. That’s our kind of natural state. But then we have this like adjusted, corrupted, kind of twisted version of it where we’re like, I have to do everything and I have to be really controlling. This is not great.

So I have been playing with this and of course, you know, by the time it hits the podcast I’ve been. Practicing it and thinking about it for a lot. And I almost always do a podcast on things that I have struggled with. So for sure I caught myself feeling like I’m not really well taken care of.

My husband doesn’t do a good job of taking care of me. You know, I kind of have an extended family story like that too, and they love me, but just don’t necessarily have the resources to help us. Like I said, as soon as you’re wearing, I’m not well taken care of glasses, you’re gonna see it everywhere and then you’re gonna feel bad.

And then the craziest thing that happens when you think that is that you end up not taking care of yourself. So this is when like you feel so rejected and unloved and uncared for that. The way that you act out will be kind of like your teenagery self, where you’re like overeating ice cream and you don’t even normally do that.

Or you know, over shopping on Amazon or. You know, going to thrift stores and buying stuff that you don’t need, scrolling on your phone, all those things that aren’t taking care of yourself on a deep, deep level, and you’re doing it from this place of feeling really unwanted and unloved and uncared form.

So I just wanna show you in today’s episode that the feeling of being well taken care of can come from your thoughts. And I think the fleas are such a good example because it’s so extreme that little Betsy was sitting there saying, thank you, God for the fleas, because I know that that is you taking care of me.

And it literally was, it literally was. The way that protected them so that the guards didn’t come see them so that they could have their Bible. And I wanna reiterate this example again, because there’s gonna be things in your life where your brain is gonna go, how could this possibly be a good thing?

And you don’t even need to know the answer. You just need to be able to tell yourself, well, maybe it’s like the fleece and I don’t see it right now, but God is good. And it’s probably like the fleas and it’s taking care of me in some way. And this is the deepest form of trusting the Lord and having interior peace no matter what is happening.

And so you can begin to see. The ways that God has taken care of you and that you are so well taken care of. Not only do you always have what you need, but I really believe that God gives us way more than we need, and he gives us these special moments, special conversations, special gifts.

One of the things that I really feel like God gave me as I went to Goodwill by myself. No, I was with my two girls, but not my middle girl. And I don’t know where she was and why we were just the two of us. The two girls and me, but we went to Goodwill and they had this beautiful pink backpack. It was like a faux leather pink backpack, and it had a pee on it.

This beautiful pee on it and. I bought it for Poppy and it was just, I had it for weeks sitting on it in my closet and I knew I was gonna give it to her for Christmas and she wasn’t expecting it and I just knew it was gonna be such an amazing gift and it was, you know, $4 at Goodwill.

And it just felt like such a gift to me from the Lord that he was like, Hey, I’m gonna give you this thing so that you can keep the cost down for Christmas, but have like a really sparkly experience with this kid. And it’s funny how we have the three girls and the three boys, but I do feel like each of the middle ones of those set kind of has middle child syndrome and it’s just true. Like they, we kind of forget about them a little bit.

The oldest one of each of the sets gets a lot of attention ’cause they’re kind of the oldest one going through these phases. And the younger ones, we pay attention to it in a different way. And those middle two. Of each of the sets really do feel like middle children. And so it was extra special to me that I could find something that was so perfect for her.

And because I have been doing this work for the last couple months, it was just an example of how well taken care of I am by the Lord. I’m so well taken care of. And when you’re wearing, I’m so well taken care of glasses, you’re gonna see.

Things that the kids do, and you’re going to call it out and say, that’s so amazing that you did that. Thank you so much for helping me. Thank you for your attitude. Thank you for being a great part of this family. Like, you’re so important, you’re so special.

You’re gonna feel more free to take care of other people well, right? It’s kind of like the concept of when your cup is full, then it just spills out onto everybody else, and you’re gonna see the ways that your husband does take care of you.

Because I guarantee you everybody who had thoughts about, you know, my husband doesn’t do anything for Christmas. Probably he worked all year and made money. And I don’t know about, I mean we all have different versions of this, but my husband does a really amazing job of taking care of my car. I almost never put gas in my car ’cause he almost always does it for me.

And when I’m upset and I think he doesn’t take care of me. I think he just does that for himself. He is just kind of compulsive and obsessive about things like gas, and so he just does that. It’s not even about me at all.

But when I am thinking and in the place I’m wearing the glasses of feeling really well taken care of, I see that he does it for me. That’s the story I tell myself, and I think it’s a little bit of both. By the way, just to be honest, I think he is a little compulsive about wanting to put gas in the car, but he does it. In the mornings on the way home from CrossFit so that when I get in the car, there’s gas in it.

And I can feel so warm and fuzzy about him when I’m wearing these well taken care of glasses. And then the kicker, just like when you feel like you’re not well taken care of, the kicker, when you’re wearing well taken care of glasses, how do you think you show up for yourself?

You take care of yourself in the ways that really matter. You’re like, I should get a little bit of a walk-in. I should drink a little bit more water. I should put my phone down. I should cuddle this kid. I should kiss my husband.

And you take care of yourself, and you do a better job of meeting your needs and asking for help because we’re just walking around in this yummy energy of I’m so well taken care of. And when you feel like the Lord really cares for you. You want that feeling to come through you and out onto everybody else.

So as we head into this new year, I want you to spend the next week just almost walking around in a delusional state. Believing I am so well taken care of. And the delusion is that we are gonna think about it, even if there’s fleas around us, like nothing is gonna convince us that we are not well taken care of.

And we’re just gonna wrap ourselves in this blanket, this warm, glowy, lovely blanket, believing that we are so well taken care of by the Lord. We have more than we need. Our life makes so much sense right now. Of course this is happening. Of course, this is the chapter of life that I’m in, and it is so good, even if it’s preparing me for something else.

Right? Sometimes difficult seasons need to come because they’re preparing us for something else, and you’re gonna take care of yourself. You are gonna look at yourself in the mirror every morning and go, Hey, I love you. How can I take care of you today?

And this won’t be mysterious, by the way. You’re gonna know exactly what you need to do to take care of yourself. And then I want you to care for the children from this place, this like, I am an Olympic athlete of caring for people. I’m so good at it. I’m so warm and lovely.

And by the way, sometimes taking care of people is saying, Hey. You may not speak to your sister like that. I love you so much and you’re a gentleman. I tell my boys that all the time I’m raising gentlemen, and you may not speak like that.

So it doesn’t mean that I’m always in my like Mary Poppins energy. Sometimes taking care of a child means raising them up to the Lord, but we’re not angry. We’re not bitter. We don’t feel pressure. We don’t feel guilt. We feel so loved and supported, and then in turn we turn around and we love and support the people around us. That is how I want you walking into 2026.

And if this sounds interesting to you. If you’ve never done Mary’s Heart Mars’s order, we’ve done it so many times now, why haven’t you done it should be like the first question that I would ask. You should for sure do it. I want you to go to catholic Mom com.com and sign up. We start the first week of January. It’s a six week challenge.

And I’m gonna teach you way more of this. I’m gonna teach you the ways. That moms can grow in interior peace no matter what is happening around you because it’s gonna be chaos. You live with tiny dysregulated humans. Some of you live with large dysregulated humans.

But right now your brain is believing a lie that the way that the people act around you and the things outside of you are determining your emotional experience of life, and that is just the biggest lie ever.

You can have interior peace no matter what is going on. You can have interior peace in a concentration camp being bitten by fleas. And I will actually show you how to do that. And what’s so nice is not only do I give a ton of examples, but I’m also coaching moms. You’re seeing all these different kinds of moms with their own examples and they, and I just tell ’em, come on, complain. Put your complaining pants on. That’s what you’re supposed to do.

And they just tell me like how hard things are and then I basically just help them reframe the situation until they walk away feeling really good about their life and nothing has changed. And when you do this, it will make you feel like a superhero. It’s just probably the most common thing that I hear in the chat.

I’ll ask people like, oh, how are you doing? You know, what were some wins from the month? We kind of start our calls off that way and they will just tell me, oh my goodness, this incredibly difficult thing happened and I was cool as a cucumber through it. Thank you so much.

And it’s because they’ve learned this skill of having interior peace and. Wearing the blanket and being surrounded by the feeling of being well taken care of is just one example of this. It’s just one example of, I think, a very predominant thought that we have as women, that the culture wants us to be unhappy with men and dissatisfied in our marriage.

And of course, you know, the culture is just being perpetuated by the devil. Like it’s, I don’t mean to say that like it’s mysterious. I think it’s a very concerted effort to make women feel unhappy because if the devil can break up marriages in the family, then he wins. People won’t love the Lord.

And so I just see. Anytime I’m on the internet, this attempt to make women feel like they’re not well taken care of. And if I’m your friend and you told me all the things your husband did or didn’t do as a friend, I’d be like, oh, that is terrible. And I’m so sorry. And that feels painful. And men should do a better job of protecting us and providing for us and not needing to be asked and all of these things. Right?

But as a coach that wants you. To be a saint and want you to enjoy your own experience of life. I’m gonna say, yeah, that is difficult, but you can decide to think about it a different way and have a good day today. And that’s what I want for you.

I want you to enjoy your experience of motherhood, your day-to-day emotional life, so that you feel warm and yummy and well taken care of inside your body no matter what else is happening.

And I had just have so much more to say. But one, that’s why I created this six weeks challenge so that I could spend six weeks telling you all the things that I wanted to tell you. But also, I have some really good podcast episodes coming up where I’m just gonna keep convincing all of you that we can enjoy our lives so much more than we are. And no one is stopping us. No one is stopping us.

And in fact, I really think the Lord wants us to do that, and I think that’s why he tells us so often. Peace be with you. My peace is with you. I am inside of you. The Lord dwells inside of us. We have this supernatural ability to have peace inside of our bodies and to reach for holiness.

And I just want all of us to desire that in 2026. All the other things, all the other goals, we set our external so that we can change how we feel internally. And I’m not against setting goals. I mean, I like dreaming. But I know now that whatever goal is external, paying off debt, losing weight, making money, decluttering the house, teaching someone to read potty training someone, right?

Like all of these things. We want those things because of how we’re going to feel when we have them, how we think we’re gonna feel. By the way, you think you’re gonna feel a certain way when you achieve those goals, and what you really desire is to change your internal emotional state. But you can change that today.

And what’s so crazy is that if you learn how to change your emotional state today, it makes those things that you want either unnecessary, where you go, actually I didn’t really want that. I just wanted to like myself. Or it makes it so much easier to achieve them. For example, if you stop feeling like a bad mom and you have internal peace, you will naturally care for your home better.

And you will get more done in less time because you’re not doing it under the heavy weight of guilt, anxiety, pressure, shame. I guess it’s hard to be really great versions of ourselves when we’re drowning in those feelings.

So this week I want you to put on the blanket. I am so well taken care of. The Lord takes such good care of me, and my husband takes such good care of me. Just only look for evidence that he does, and I want you to take such good care of yourself. Repair that relationship with you. Say I’m sorry that I haven’t done a good job of taking care of you.

Please forgive me and from now on I’m gonna take care of you. I love you. You are worthy of being well taken care of, and just all of it is gonna spill out onto all of it and it’s just gonna grow. I want us to spiral up in being well taken care of and what a wonderful way to start the year.

So if you wanna come join us for Mary’s heart, Martha’s order. Go to catholicmomcalm.com and join us. I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.