Positive Psychology Tips For Increased Happiness As A Mom

Hi there. Welcome to the Design Your Dream Life podcast. My name is Natalie Bacon and I’m an Advanced Certified Mindfulness Life Coach as well as a wife and mom, if you’re here to do the inner work and grow, I can help. Let’s get started.

Hello my friend. How are you today? I hope you’re doing well and enjoying summer. Today I am here to talk with you about positive psychology tips for increased happiness as a mom. I don’t know about you, but for me, the idea of being a happy mom is sort of this subtext that I think about and I’ve been playing around with a lot and I’ve been doing a lot of work on it in my own life. And because of that, I created a brand new class that comes out on July 1st inside Grow You called How to Be Happier. So if you struggle to be happier, if you want to be happier, if you’re not really sure what that even means, but you know that you are unhappy, I want to invite you to join me inside Grow You.

And the way to do that is to go on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching if you want to learn more and talk with me more about Grow You and kind of get some free help ahead of time. There isn’t ask Natalie anything happening tomorrow if you’re listening to this live that you can register for as well. And that’s over at momonpurpose.com/asknatalie, I’m gonna be talking a lot more about happiness because I just think that, you know, culturally and on a societal level, we have this idea that we’re supposed to be happy and what does that really mean? And even when we have a better understanding of happiness, how do we go about feeling happier when we want to feel happy? If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that what I teach is we don’t wanna feel happy all of the time. If one of my dogs is sick or injured, I don’t want to be happy about that.

But I’m not talking about those instances, I’m talking about in the everyday life where there’s not a big problem or not something that I want to feel upset about. Those times when life is just normal and good and yet I still don’t feel happy, that is when I want to really intentionally increase my happiness. And I’ve been doing it and it’s felt a little bit scary because that’s how it feels to transform your life. It seems obvious that we would want to feel happier, and yet I like to think of our emotions having like this thermostat in our bodies where if we get too happy or too unhappy outside of what our normal sort of thermostat is set for, then our body will regulate back to that emotional state. So, you know, some people who are just really happy or other people who are just most of the time really angry or others who are really excited, think of someone you know who pretty consistently you recognize as feeling a particular emotion.

I think that that’s because of the kind of thermostat that we all have with our feelings where we memorize feeling patterns and get really comfortable experiencing those feelings. So anything sort of too high or too low, our body doesn’t like and will regulate back to that point. So for example, I used to be someone who felt a lot of self pity. I felt really sorry for myself and it comes up from time to time still, but I’m much more aware of it because of the, the tools that I teach inside Grow You, I apply them to my own life. So it’s been really helpful. But on default, without having those tools, what would happen is I just felt sorry for myself. That was what my internal body temperature, thermostat of emotions was set to. So if I experienced a lot of joy, I would allow it only momentarily because my body said, oh no, it doesn’t feel that comfortable to experience that much joy.

Let’s regulate back down to where we’re really comfortable, which is self-pity. Can you relate to this? I was coaching someone once who said she had the exact same experience with overwhelm and it clicked for her when I said, how long have you been overwhelmed? And regardless of her circumstances, you know, she was into the middle season of life with older kids and she was thinking back decades that she had been overwhelmed. And that’s just a really great awareness tool to kind of think about like, are you comfortable being happy? Said differently? What are you most comfortable feeling? If you think about an emotion thermostat in your body, what is that thermostat set to? And I don’t want you to try to change it at all because the change will come from awareness. So often we rush to wanna change it because we’re judging ourselves. We feel bad that our thermostat is set to self-pity.

So get rid of the judgment. You’re just a human being who has memorized thoughts and feelings. You’re not doing anything wrong. And also you can gain so much awareness from seeing what the thermostat in your body is set to and then you will be able to change it, I promise you that, just don’t rush to that change. So a little bit of a tangent there, but I wanna bring it back to the positive psychology tips that I think will be really useful here for increasing your happiness, particularly in motherhood. Positive psychology is different from other areas of psych because it’s primarily focused on kind of building those mental assets, if you will. It’s really addressing how to increase your happiness and purpose and wellbeing, your mental and emotional wellness. That’s what this podcast and all of my work is all about that is different from other areas of psychology that tend to address problems and challenges and diagnoses and weaknesses.

So when thinking about positive psychology, we’re starting from a place of of wholeness. So if you just think of the example of going to a physician because you dislocated your shoulder versus going to the gym to work out your arm muscles. That’s kind of how I think about the difference here with the different types of psychologies. If you want to repair that injury, you’re gonna go to a physician. If you want to just improve your strength in your arms, you’re gonna go to the gym. What we are doing here in this work, in this kind of, um, community that, that I’m so grateful you’re a part of, is focusing mostly on that wellness part that going to the mental and emotional gym and the branch of positive psychology really is all about that. And so I know that happiness can be sort of this broad category, like what are we even talking about?

How do we do it? And positive psychology offers so many useful strategies, um, and tools that can really help you go from feeling overwhelmed, feeling kind of like you’re a victim of your own life, that that self pity, feeling stressed, um, particularly in your everyday life. I’m not talking about, uh, during a trauma or anything like that. This is really targeted at those of you in this season of life like me, who, you know, things are fine, but you want to really increase that happiness thermostat that you have in your body. Maybe you’re noticing it’s really low right now and you want to feel good, feeling good. You want to feel justified, you want to indulge in feeling happy. You want happiness to be one of your top emotions that you feel regularly. What does that mean? I think that we can take different approaches to defining happiness, and I’ve done that in the past on different podcast episodes.

Today I wanna think about the feeling of happiness, the feeling, the emotion that you experience in your body. Think of a time recently that you felt really happy. What were you thinking? It’s really important to identify your thoughts that create happiness for you. There are always going to be circumstances that make it so much easier for us to feel happy, but that’s not because the circumstances create the happiness. It’s because of what we make it mean. And the more we start paying attention to the thoughts that we have that create happiness, the more control we have over our happiness because we can’t always control our circumstances, but we can control what we think about our circumstances. This is why a lot of what I’ll be talking and teaching about inside the class in Grow You is how we don’t always want to be happy. So it would be kind of weird if I was just happy all of the time.

If something happened to Penny or Benji and my dogs were sick or injured, I would not want to choose happiness. So knowing that I think can be really helpful. And understanding when you want to feel happy can also be really helpful. And being willing to kind of change your internal happiness thermostat is something that takes courage because as I mentioned, when I’ve been doing this work on myself, it doesn’t feel good all of the time. And that sounds kinda weird, but the reason is because there’s a little bit discomfort with change. So if you just think about me and if I have a normal kind of, um, thermostat in my body of, of feelings and one of them today is content. If I normally feel content, I’m very comfortable feeling content. When I try to change that thermostat and add in happy to the mix, it requires raising that thermostat and that requires change, which even though happy feels really good, it also feels scary for my body to memorize new feelings.

So I think just knowing that and being on the lookout for that as you go about trying to be happier and really making that change to have happiness be one of your top emotions that can help you work through that discomfort. And that’s what kind of coaching yourself and getting coaching is all about. It’s the work we do inside Grow You so that you don’t give up because you are worth it if you want to feel happy and happier as one of your top emotions. No knowing how to work through that discomfort, without self-sabotage, without giving up, without taking a break, without saying this is just too hard or I can’t figure it out, that is really important. And that’s sort of the, the work that we do. So you have the support system and the accountability that you need as you’re making this transition and this change into someone who is happier.

I think it’s worth mentioning too the reasons why it can feel so hard to be happier. It seems like it’s what’s happening in our lives, but it’s never that. It’s always what’s happening in our brains. And so it can feel really hard to be happier because your brain just naturally is wired to look out for danger. And again, this is a good thing if we are, you know, crossing the street, we want to look both ways. We wanna pay attention to any danger that will help us survive. Yet that survival brain taken out of context and applied in your safe suburban home where there’s not oncoming traffic or anything particularly dangerous, really gets outta hand. And what I mean by that is it will find things to really get upset about that I think steal your happiness. So all of a sudden you could be feeling happy and then walk into the living room and see what you define as a mess.

And then have thoughts like, my family doesn’t help clean up. They don’t support me. This house is always a mess. Nothing is ever tidy. I’m such a bad wife and mom, I can’t keep a house. My friends can. And all of a sudden you are thought looping, thinking that this mess and your family are at the root cause of stealing your happiness. And it’s just not true. It’s what’s happening in your brain. Your brain wants to emphasize and look for what’s wrong. And if you can start to pay attention to your brain in those specific instances, you can learn from it and you can see, oh, this is interesting. My mindset is what’s robbing me of my happiness. It’s what’s creating that thermostat in my body. And knowing this is actually a beautiful thing because it means that I can change it. It means that I can choose on purpose what I want to think when I walk into a room and there are 25 things all over the floor, including spills, right?

You might wanna think something like, oh my goodness, I am so appreciative that I have a full life with a family who live here. I love that my house gets turned upside down because to me that’s a sign that we are doing a good job living together as a family. This can seem kind of, um, like a stretch if you are someone who really likes a tidy home. But I’ve done this work and I can tell you that it is life changing. I remember being single and wanting to get married and have kids so much, and I kept a very tidy home at that time. And now when I look around and it is a mess, I feel so much gratitude. I sort of think of it like, this is the cost of having a family and this is what I choose. And one day the mess will be gone.

One day there won’t be spills. One day my dogs won’t track dirt in, they won’t be here. The same with my kids. And it doesn’t take me to like a morbid place, but it, it gets me out of thinking that it’s so permanent and such a problem. And instead I make it mean something beautiful about me and about the life that I’ve created. This is what I want with other people sharing a home and animals and kids, the house gets messy. And instead of making that mean something negative about me, I make it mean this is a beautiful life that I’ve created. And I promise you that this was not something that I grew up thinking. It’s not something that came naturally for me. I am a very kind of naturally, um, tidy person, if you wanna call it that. And yet deciding on purpose that I can choose happiness regardless of what my home looks like has been so freeing.

Why? Because I’m in my home so much. I work from home. I’m mom from home, my wife from home. I spend so much time in my home. And so making sure that I don’t give up some of my happiness that’s totally within my control to feel is really important to me. And for me, a lot of that is tied to the home because it’s right in front of me. So if you can relate to this, just notice are you choosing thoughts that create a lot of frustration and a lot of anger or a lot of, you know, upsetness over being happy and are you willing to be wrong about that?

I think too, it’s hard for us to be happy, particularly if you have a brain that just likes solving problems. This can be really useful in a profession if you’re a physician, if you are another type of professional or doctor or lawyer. Um, I’m trained as a lawyer and then I was a wealth manager and my brain loves to look at the details and problem solve. This is very useful in a career setting. It’s also very useful in my business, not so useful at home when that same part of the brain that’s really critical looks around and tries to point out what’s wrong because then I’m not solving problems that need to be solved. I’m making up problems that are actually decreasing my happiness. And so reprogramming my brain has been the way for me to feel happier as a mom with a full life and making it a conscious choice.

That’s really what this is about. You don’t ever have to choose happy, but I want you to know that it is available to you if you want to choose it, even if it doesn’t feel like it’s possible for you right now, I promise you it is. So I want to dive into five specific tips that can help you increase your happiness as a mom. I sort of touched on some of these others I didn’t, but I think listing them out like this hopefully will be helpful as you sort of work on your own wellness to raise that thermostat of feelings that you experience on a regular basis.

Number one is appreciation. Can you look for things in your life and focus on them that you appreciate? If you hear 10 compliments and then one critique, it is very likely that you will be focused on that criticism just because of the way that the brain looks for danger and wants to focus on that. And appreciation says, I’m gonna let that critique go and I am going to focus on the 10 positives. I am going to focus on what’s going good. It doesn’t mean that the critique isn’t true, it just means that you choose intentionally what you are focusing on. This comes up a lot in coaching. It’s like, okay, Natalie, so you want me to just ignore this bad thing? And that is definitely not what I’m saying. I want you to choose deliberately how much weight you give it. So if you are, um, struggling with parenting, let’s say you have school-aged kids and one of your kids, um, is eight years old and he is, you know, exhibiting some disrespectful behavior, if you can get to a place of appreciating the season that you’re in, appreciating the lessons that you are learning as a mom and that he is going through as a child, that appreciation will keep you in a state of connection with your child even during really hard moments.

A lot of times appreciation can be really helpful because it, it also gets you into acceptance instead of resistance. So resistance would be this shouldn’t be happening, something’s gone wrong. My eight year old shouldn’t be having this challenge. He definitely shouldn’t be being disrespectful. And we sort of catastrophize and then we do the fast forward error, which is we make it mean that forever this child is going to be disrespectful and appreciation really stops all of that. It keeps us in the present moment. It keeps us focused on the goodness instead of focusing on the problem and still allows us space to show up to help solve the problem. Appreciation will help you focus on the good, and because of that you will find more goodness. It really does work.

Number two, laughter. Oh my goodness, this is one that I have been doing more of. I just absolutely love to increase my laughter on purpose. It gives me that feeling of happiness, it raises that thermostat. And just notice how comfortable you are with laughter and feeling good. And if it’s uncomfortable with you, it’s okay, but don’t let that be a sign that you should slow it down or laugh less or take life more seriously. If you want to feel happier, laughter can be a great way to kind of naturally raise that happiness thermostat and allow the discomfort anyways.

Number three, if you want to increase your happiness as a mom, define what success is as a mom and visualize it. This is really important because so many of the moms that I’ve coached, and I’ve definitely been there myself, say things like, I feel like I’m failing as a mom. And when we dive into it and there’s a Motherhood Toolkit inside Grow You where I kind of teach you how to define success in there as a mom. But oftentimes we’ll say things like, I’m such a failure as a mom, but we, we don’t know what succeeding nor what failing is. We just have this tremendous feeling of failure and we haven’t defined what’s a win or what’s a loss. And what’s most important about this step is that motherhood is constantly evolving. Our kids are constantly growing and the seasons are constantly changing. And that’s how it’s designed and that’s how it’s supposed to be. So without sort of a framework with which you are working on yourself as a mom, it’s really hard to feel good about yourself in that role. It’s not impossible, but it’s, it’s kind of hard. So that’s why I say define what success as a mom looks like for you and visualize that this can get into so much of the self-love and self-worth work that is so important for our own happiness.

Because often we realized it’s not something that we ever did that we now think means we’re a bad mom. We just have this sense that we shouldn’t give ourselves permission to think I’m a really good mom. And I think that comes from tying up our identity into actions. Sometimes there’s just no action that we’ve taken and we just haven’t brought awareness to the fact that we can think we’re a good mom. But other times it’s okay, I yelled at my kids or I forgot to register them for x, y, Z camp and we then take those actions, those mistakes to mean something about our identity. We expect perfection. And anything short of it means that we are a failure. And I think this is one of kind of the, the most toxic and hurtful ways to think about yourself. And it really will sabotage any chance of feeling happy. If you tie up any imperfection, any mistake into your worth, you will really struggle to be happy. As a mom said differently. If you make your actions determine who you are, you will expect perfection. And anything short of it means failure. And then of course you can’t be happy from that place. Now when I say this, hopefully it, it seems logical and of course doesn’t make sense that we would wanna tie up our actions in who we are, but yet so often we do this. So just notice this, the last mistake you made, whether you yelled at your kids, you forgot to sign them up for something, whatever it is, did you make that mean I’m a bad mom, I’m failing as a mom?

The more you do this, the more you decrease your own happiness. And this doesn’t mean you wanted to be excited about actions you take that you want to think are mistakes, but there’s a difference between, you know, making it mean something about your identity versus you know what, I made a mistake and I’m gonna apologize. In repair, what we want to get to is I’m a good mom, I am doing my best and I’m a human mom, which means I make mistakes. And when I get it all wrong and I mess up, I apologize and I repair. So defining what that looks like, defining success for yourself and visualizing it. I think it takes courage because I think culturally we just kind of connect over failing as a mom and it’s totally unnecessary and it really decreases and diminishes our happiness. So be brave my friend. If you want more help on this, that Motherhood Toolkit inside Grow, You will help you define success as a mom and visualize it.

Number four, normalize problems. I think this is one of the most helpful tools for me to increase my own happiness, at least it has been. There was a time where I was always trying to prevent problems and prevent challenges, and it led to a lot of anxiety and worry and I just changed it with a simple thought. Problems are forever, problems are forever. So my goal is not to eliminate all of my problems. It’s not to prevent problems, it’s to be prepared to navigate those problems. So there will be another problem that arises in my future and I just normalize that. I just expect it. And from that place of acceptance, I actually give myself more permission to be happy right now because there’s no sense in worrying about that. It’s certain there will be another problem and another challenge. And you know what? I have a 100% track record of navigating challenges just like you.

Doesn’t mean it’s not hard, doesn’t mean it’s not full of some negative emotion, but feeling negative emotion ahead of time in anticipation of the negative emotion just robs me of the happiness experience of the joyful life. So if I’m really worried that something won’t work out in the future and I feel worried about it now all I have is worry. And then in the future, if it doesn’t work out, then maybe I have disappointment or frustration. So now I have worry, disappointment, and frustration instead of what I could have had, which was happiness and joy in the present, and then navigating that disappointment in the future, which I am totally capable of. So normalize and accept problems and challenges and I promise you, interestingly enough, it actually increases your happiness.

And number five, indulge in feeling good. Give yourself permission to raise that internal happiness thermostat. When it feels uncomfortable for you, allow the discomfort and don’t talk yourself out of it. Give yourself space every day to practice feeling happy and notice what that feeling feels like in your body and notice what your thoughts are. The more that you memorize the feeling of happiness, the more comfortable your body gets. Repeating that feeling. It’s really how you change and become happier in all areas of your life. If you want to learn how to be happy, how to be happier, join, Grow You and get the new class on How To Be Happier that releases on July 1st. It’s over at momonpurpose.com/coaching. Wishing you all of the happiness this week, my friend. Take care.

If you loved this podcast, I invite you to check out Grow You my mindfulness community for moms where we do the inner work together. Head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more.