Tag: working mom

Why Your Window of Tolerance Shrinks in Summer

It usually hits right about now. You started summer with high hopes, pushed through the chaotic first couple of weeks, and now you’re yelling more, feeling stressed, and wondering what happened to the magical season you pictured. Sterling Jaquith says it’s not because you lack a plan. It’s your window of tolerance, and summer quietly shrinks it.

Drawing on a concept from her book Catholic Mom Calm, Sterling breaks down the two kinds of tolerance: your capacity for one specific stressor (hello, putting sunscreen on unwilling children), and your overall capacity for everything stacked on your plate at once. When you add camps, vacations, sibling fights, heat, and snacks without taking anything off, your ability to cope drops. This episode is the permission slip and the toolkit: expand your tolerance, drop the “shoulds” that are really just social norms, and stop beating yourself up. Because your anger is a stress response, and that is completely changeable.

WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE:

The two windows of tolerance: your capacity for one specific stressor, and your overall capacity for everything at once
How to expand your tolerance for a single stressor, with breathing and coaching yourself (the sunscreen battle as exhibit A)
Why summer shrinks your overall window: you added all the stressors but never took anything off the plate
The only real “shoulds” (the catechism and the law), and why most summer obligations are just social norms you’re free to decline
A gentler, more honest take on screen time, and why slower old shows actually help
Instituting a quiet time, feeding and sleeping yourself, and why your anger is a stress response you can change

EPISODE TIMELINE:

[00:00] – The intolerance of summer, and the window of tolerance from her book
[03:00] – Expanding your tolerance for one stressor (the sunscreen battle)
[07:00] – Your overall window, and how summer piles on without taking anything off
[11:00] – Real shoulds versus social norms (you don’t have to bake the birthday cake)
[14:00] – A gentler take on screen time and slower shows
[16:00] – Quiet time, self-care, and why anger is a changeable stress response

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Catholic Mom Calm (Sterling’s book, with the full “window of tolerance” section): https://amzn.to/4oKZRjU
Calm Catholic Kids: https://calmcatholickids.com

CONNECT WITH STERLING JAQUITH:

Website: https://catholicmomcalm.com
Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catholicmomcalm

Summer Jealousy

Sterling Jaquith caught herself feeling a very particular brand of summer jealousy. Friends whose parents are stable enough, healthy enough, and trusted enough to take the grandkids for a week or two. And watching that feeling rise was a perfect window into something we all do: we never question why we feel good, but the moment a negative feeling shows up, we start poking at it, and the poking spins into a storm.

In this episode Sterling slows the whole thing down so you can see the difference between prayerfully feeling your feelings and indulging in what a friend called “tornado thinking.” One is slow, grounded, and resolves. The other is fast, grows as it goes, and turns a bad mood into a bad day into a “bad season.” Nobody is doing that to you, and that’s actually the good news. You have more control over the weather in your mind than you think.

WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE:

The summer jealousy Sterling noticed in herself, and what it was actually about (hint: not the free time)
Why we interrogate our negative feelings but never stop to question the happy ones
The real difference between feeling your feelings (slow, grounded, done with the Lord) and tornado thinking (fast, growing, catching everything in its path)
How a bad mood becomes a bad day becomes a “bad season,” and why you control that weather more than you think
The three choices in any triggered moment: think about it later, feel it all the way through, or spin
How to walk yourself back gently and lovingly, never in an authoritarian “just get it together” voice

Our Love/Hate Relationship with Summer

We’re handed a script that summer is supposed to be fun and relaxing, beach days and popsicles and bucket lists. Then the fantasy meets the reality of little kids off their routine, eating sugar, tracking sand everywhere, and a lot of moms find themselves feeling something they didn’t expect: angry. Sterling Jaquith says that’s not a sign you’re doing it wrong. It’s cognitive dissonance, and it’s incredibly common.

This episode starts with a 30-second check-in you can do ten times a day, then unpacks why the gap between expectation and reality turns into anger, and what to do about it. Sterling walks through exactly how she thinks about her own Northern Idaho summers, lake days, outside time, and all, so she makes memories instead of yelling. And she hands you permission you may not know you needed: you don’t have to do anything this summer.

WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE:

The 30-second self-check-in (touch your skin, ask “how am I feeling?” and “what do I need?”) and why most moms never do it
Why summer creates a love-hate relationship, and the clash between the sparkly fantasy and the real thing
Why anger is the surprisingly common summer emotion for moms, and the shame or fear sitting underneath it
The one question to ask the second you feel frustrated: “What did I think should be happening?”
Setting yourself up to win (the 40-minute lake math, the outside water and bathroom systems, deciding about the food ahead of time)
Permission to do nothing this summer, and why “we’re just hanging out” is a complete and good answer

Vacationing With Kids

Every summer it happens. You pack up the little kids, drive to the beach or the grandparents, and somewhere around day three in an unfamiliar Airbnb with no blackout curtains and a toddler who won’t sleep, you wonder why you thought this would be fun. Sterling Jaquith has a reframe that changes the whole thing: stop calling it a vacation.

In this evergreen episode you can come back to before any trip, Sterling walks through why little kids won’t remember the vacation anyway, what they do remember, and the three honest questions to ask before you go. It’s permission to stop chasing “relaxing” with a houseful of tired, dysregulated humans, and to plan the trip like the world’s best personal assistant instead. Because the answer, through all of it, is always love. Including love for yourself.

WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE:

Why calling it a “vacation” is the first trap, and treating the trip like a business trip with a mission and a plan instead
The honest truth that you may not enjoy it with little kids, and why that doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong
The three questions to ask before you go: What’s my mission? What three feelings am I actually going for? How do I set myself up for those?
Creating novelty on the cheap (crazy straws, Goodwill toys, stovetop popcorn, pop rocks, and the screen time you’d normally say no to)
Planning something that’s just for you, whether it’s before, during, or after the trip
Why Catholic moms living only for everyone else isn’t how God designed you, and how to love yourself hard through the hard parts

How to Solve Any Problem

It’s a wild claim, and Sterling Jaquith makes it anyway. After asking her email list what they’re struggling with right now, she read more than 200 responses, and reading every single one she kept thinking the same thing: oh, I could help her feel so much better about that.

Not because the hard things aren’t real. They are. But because underneath every one of them is the same skill, the number one skill, and almost nobody is actually practicing it. This episode walks through several of the things moms wrote in about, completely anonymously, and shows you the one thing that changes how you experience all of it.

Do You Actually Want Your Life To Get Better?

We all say we want our lives to be better. But what if most of us don’t actually want to do the one thing that would make it better? This episode is the mirror-moment question, plus a summer update on closing loops, a 30-second way to make decisions, a new puppy, and the letter that changed how she thinks about holy water.

Handling It… When Life is Anything But Simple

Six kids home for summer, a pilgrimage to France, a schooling decision on a deadline, and a Goodwill trip that produced an accidental gel bead gun. Sterling Jaquith walks through what’s actually on her plate right now and shows the move that keeps her calm in the middle of it: stop trying to engineer a simple life, simplify your thinking instead.

WHAT WE COVER IN THIS EPISODE:

Why “just live simply” advice usually comes from people holding very different cards than you
The Summer of Kindness experiment after one week (and why Peter prayed for it out loud)
How to feel real frustration in your body without making it mean something has gone wrong
The decisions and uncertainties Sterling is actively sitting with this June — including her own food struggle
EPISODE TIMELINE:

[00:00] – Why a “simple life” is the wrong goal for most moms
[06:00] – The Goodwill trip, the gel bead gun, and weighing risk against sparkles
[14:00] – Summer of Kindness update — what’s working one week in
[22:00] – France pilgrimage, French class, and Catholic Finishing School kickoff
[30:00] – The schooling decision Sterling has to close the loop on
[36:00] – Why her thinking is simple even when her life isn’t

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Summer of Kindness – Family script
Summer of Kindness Calendar – Template Link
Calm Catholic Kids (Kindness stories coming June 10th): https://calmcatholickids.com
Good Mom Summer at Catholic Mom Calm: https://catholicmomcalm.com
France Pilgrimage (age opened up — reach out if interested): https://catholicmomcalm.com/france
Summer French class for girls (coupon code: Calm50): https://canafeast.com/frenchclass
Catholic Finishing School: www.catholicfinishingschool.com/
Rack-O Jr. board game: https://amzn.to/4akdGQn
Spirograph kit: https://amzn.to/43jNh1m
Modest long-sleeve bathing suit dress: https://amzn.to/4dTVHCL
The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher: https://amzn.to/43fIVbw
CONNECT WITH STERLING JAQUITH:

Website: www.catholicmomcalm.com
Follow on Instagram www.instagram.com/catholicmomcalm/

Good Mom Summer

⛱️ Fun & Simple Summer: https://catholicmomcalm.com/fun-simple-summer

😎 Good Mom Summer: https://catholicmomcalm.com/good-mom-summer

🥰 Catholic Finishing School: https://catholicfinishingschool.com/

I’m a good mom. (And so are you. We’re going to practice that all summer.)

Sterling had a light bulb moment while recording the Fun & Simple Summer program — and it changed her entire summer plan.

All the pressure moms feel about screen time, summer camps, boredom, sibling bickering, what the kids are eating… it’s all sitting on top of one belief: I’m not a good mom.

In this episode, Sterling shares what she’s doing about it — for herself, for the moms inside Catholic Mom Calm, and (in a roundabout way) for her own teenagers who definitely do not want to be life coached by their mother.

You’ll hear:

Why telling yourself you’re a bad mom for 40 years is genuinely crazy — and the pilot analogy that makes it impossible to unsee
What Sterling is personally working on with her own kids this summer (hint: it involves catching people being kind)
Why she’s sneaking into Catholic Finishing School this summer to teach teenage girls how to believe new things
How believing you’re a good mom makes you a better problem solver — immediately
The 30-second version of changing what you believe about yourself
⛱️ Fun & Simple Summer: https://catholicmomcalm.com/fun-simple-summer

😎 Good Mom Summer: https://catholicmomcalm.com/good-mom-summer

🥰 Catholic Finishing School: https://catholicfinishingschool.com/

Fun & Simple Summer

A Fun and Simple Summer (How to Decide Right Now What Kind of Summer You’re Going to Have)

Grab FREE Fun & Simple Summer Here: https://catholicmomcalm.com/fun-simple-summer

You’ve seen “analog summer” all over the internet — but Sterling’s going with fun and simple. Because when you choose simplicity, especially simplicity in your mind, you stop yelling at the kids so much. Funny how that works.

In this episode, Sterling walks you through the radical idea that you actually get to decide what kind of summer you’re going to have — not based on what happens, but based on what you think about what happens. She shares the exact thoughts her brain wants to offer (“there’s so many kids, it’s so hot, it’s only 9 AM…”) and the thoughts she’s choosing instead. Plus a peek at her real summer plans: a daily reading hour, skipping the Costco pool this year, more lake days (crunchy 11 minutes and all), and what to do when an ant invasion threatens your good vibes.

No comparison summers here, my friend. Eyes on your own paper.

Grab the FREE Fun & Simple Summer Workbook + 15-minute class here: https://catholicmomcalm.com/fun-simple-summer

Sterling walks you through deciding ahead of time about screen time, snacks, “I’m bored,” sibling bickering, scheduling, plus 50 mom hacks, a thought-swap chart, and a Reset the Day plan for when everything blows up at 9:15 AM. (Because it might.)

Being Okay with an Uncertain Future

What are you doing with your life? (The answer is simpler than you think.)

Sterling’s 15 and 12-year-old came to her in genuine distress. They didn’t know if they were going to be nuns or moms, and their brains were convinced that figuring out the future was the key to feeling settled today.

Sound familiar?

In this episode, Sterling shares the conversation she had with her girls — and what she told them that changed everything. Spoiler: knowing your vocation doesn’t fix the uncertainty of being human. Being married doesn’t fix it. Having six kids doesn’t fix it.

But there is one thing that does.

You’ll learn:

Why obsessing over the future is actually a trick that keeps you from living today
What the Baltimore Catechism has to do with your anxiety about next year
The 5-minute prayer practice that makes everything clearer
Why “what do you want me to do today, Lord?” is the most powerful question you can ask
And why Idaho wasn’t even a state to Sterling before she moved there — and what that means for your plans
This episode is for the woman who is waiting to feel settled before she starts living. The good news: you don’t have to wait.