272: How to Fall Back in Love with Motherhood When It All Feels Hard // Tessa Brown
For today's episode, I pulled a beautiful interview from the archives with a friend of mine. Tessa Brown is an artist and a mother of three who strives to live each day with intention and love.
The idea for this episode came several years ago when she emailed me and shared a bit about her experience with motherhood. I'm including an excerpt from that email to introduce our episode topic and to give you a feel for the amazing woman that Tessa is. This is what she wrote:
“I feel like the joy in motherhood, or really any relationship, kind of ebbs and flows. Some weeks it all feels so happy and easy. Then other weeks it feels like motherhood is hard. In the hard weeks, my kids start to feel like so much work. I almost view them as these big obstacles in my way that I have to use all my strength to pick up and move all day long. It becomes so exhausting. I was in a week like that one time and realized that I truly wasn't looking at my children as relationships, as my little buddies, as humans. I was looking at them as a job, as just a lot of hard work. I was thinking motherhood is hard work. I needed to fall back in love with them. So now in the hard weeks sometimes I do let myself sit in the "this is hard" for a while; but then when I am done with my pity party, I decide to fall back in love with my kids, and I have come up with some really simple strategies that help me do that.”
Tessa is currently working on illustrating a children's book, and she periodically shares her beautiful artwork, much of which centers around motherhood, on her Instagram page, Tessa Lee Art. She truly has a gift for finding the beauty in life, and I'm so excited for you to hear from her today.
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3 Takeaways for when Motherhood is Hard
- Visualize the love you want to feel for your children. I love how Tessa explained that mediation and visualization doesn't have to be this cheesy or abstract concept--it's really about practicing the love you want to feel. You are giving yourself the opportunity to envision a moment and mentally practice your response, so when you are in a hard moment later, you are primed and ready to respond in a way that aligns with your deeper values.
- Savor it. Notice when a really wonderful moment is happening and use your five senses to take a mental snapshot of it. What does your child sound like in this moment? What do they look like? What do you feel inside your body? This helps you to give a beautiful moment more weight and allow it to absorb into you more fully. And it also helps you to tune out the difficulties of the moment to zero in on and savor the good.
- When your child is at their worst, do your best to respond with love instead of anger, panic, or fear. Turn towards them instead of away from them, slowing down your interaction by using a calm voice or a soft touch to change the momentum of your interaction. Our children need our love the most when it appears they deserve it the least, and this powerful shift can truly change the way you parent.
>>>Are these tips from Tessa Brown helpful? What would you add to the takeaways? Tell us in the comments below.
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-Get in touch with our Guest! -
Instagram: @tessaleeart
Website: tessaleeart.com
-Sponsors-
- BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Use the code 3in30 to get 10% off your first month of online therapy!
- Factor: Go to factormeals.com/3in3050 and use code 3in3050 to get 50% off your first box.
- Fabric: Life insurance designed by parents for parents to help you get a high quality surprisingly affordable term life insurance policy in less than 10 minutes.
-Mentioned in the Episode-
-Related Episodes like this one on loving Motherhood even when it’s hard
- 3 Simple Strategies to Avoid Mom Burn Out
- Be the Mom you are Instead of the Mom you Think you Should be
- Cultivating more Patience
