Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / The ONE Thing That Helped Me Become a Happier Mom

Transcript

The ONE Thing That Helped Me Become a Happier Mom · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

• 0:00
  Speaker: I remember that moment very clearly.
• 0:03
  I was standing at the kitchen island preparing food for the next meal.
• 0:08
  I had a million things on my mind, and I was in strategy mode.
• 0:13
  I actually felt on my game, like I was gonna get everything done today and do it
• 0:18
  all well, and I was gonna figure it out.
• 0:22
  And so I was in my head and thinking hard.
• 0:27
  I was enjoying myself, but the fact that I was enjoying myself
• 0:32
  did not make it to my face.
• 0:35
  One of my children walked by, and I could tell by their facial
• 0:40
  expression when they looked at me that they thought something was wrong.
• 0:47
  And that's when I realized that my face was communicating that I
• 0:52
  was upset even though I wasn't.
• 0:55
  And it didn't matter as much that I wasn't upset.
• 0:59
  It mattered what my face was communicating to my children.
• 1:05
  My children were little, and they needed me to look happy if
• 1:11
  I was happy and enjoying myself.
• 1:14
  It mattered that I paid attention to them and looked them in the eye and smiled
• 1:20
  And so that day I put smile on my daily card to-do list, and I kept it there at
• 1:29
  the top of my daily to-do list for months.
• 1:34
  I knew that I needed that prompt, but I was not prepared for the
• 1:38
  difference that it made in my home.
• 1:41
  And today I wanna share three reasons that this stupid simple trick worked
• 1:47
  for me and made me and my family so much happier for years afterwards.
• 1:55
  Hi, I'm Misty Winkler, and you've found the Christian homemaking
• 1:58
  podcast, Simply Convivial.
• 2:01
  Convivial means doing life together with joy, and that's the kind of
• 2:06
  home atmosphere that we are trying to create as moms, isn't it?
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  Turns out it takes smiling.
• 2:14
  Life does get to be a lot to manage, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed and
• 2:20
  to sink into a default grumpiness.
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  But we don't have to feel that way no matter how busy we are.
• 2:28
  So grab a basket of laundry to fold and let's talk about smiling more
• 2:34
  So one thing that I have learned from my reading, I haven't read the studies,
• 2:40
  but I have read books by people who have read the studies, and there is this
• 2:46
  known thing called facial feedback, where choosing to smile, choosing what your
• 2:55
  facial expression is, actually sends the signals to feel that way to your brain.
• 3:02
  So we tend to think that no matter what we feel, it will communicate
• 3:08
  itself to our face, and that that's the only direction that it works.
• 3:13
  We think that we have to feel happy to make our face look happy, or that our
• 3:20
  face is not going to look mad or sad unless we feel like we are mad or sad.
• 3:26
  And that's just actually not the case.
• 3:28
  But not only is it not the case that our feelings don't always make it to
• 3:34
  our face, it also does work in reverse.
• 3:38
  Our face makes it to our feelings.
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  So if we want to be happier, we can choose to smile.
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  We will actually feel happier after putting that smile on our face.
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  There's science there.
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  So we should definitely try it.
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  And then the second thing that I learned is that there is this smile happy
• 4:06
  cycle that happens in family life.
• 4:10
  If you as the mom, no matter how you feel and no matter what's going on,
• 4:15
  choose to smile into your children's eyes, most likely, most of the time,
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  they are going to smile back at you.
• 4:24
  And when we see other people smiling and happy, that actually helps us then smile
• 4:33
  back at them and feel happier ourselves.
• 4:35
  We are receiving that facial expression of our children.
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  And here's the thing, they are receiving ours as well.
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  And when our children smile at us, when we smile at our children, we're all happier.
• 4:50
  It's easier to enjoy one another when we're smiling back and forth at each
• 4:55
  other And then we all know that feeling of enjoying someone else's happiness.
• 5:02
  So if we take a self-conscious effort that makes our children happy, their
• 5:07
  happiness also feeds our own happiness.
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  And so it's not just our facial expression that's giving us that feedback and
• 5:14
  helping us be happier, but we're also receiving our children's happiness.
• 5:21
  So we can take our own mood and our own face in hand and create this
• 5:26
  virtuous smiling cycle in our homes
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  The trick is it's actually a difficult thing to remember.
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  It shouldn't be hard to remember to smile, but it really is.
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  And so we need to give ourself a physical, visible cue to smile.
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  Now, I have seen moms put a smiley face on their fridge or in front
• 5:52
  of their sink or in different places to remind them to smile.
• 5:57
  For myself, I just put it at, as the very first thing on the top of my to-do
• 6:03
  list And it was a little embarrassing how long I kept it there But I needed that.
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  I needed to be reminded that it was something I needed to do.
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  I needed to do it before and as a priority over anything else on that to-do list.
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  So having it at the top of my daily card made it a priority and reminded me
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  that this is what I was really working on, and this is what was going to
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  have a long-term effect in my family.
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  And it did, more so than the next load of laundry or organizing a closet
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  It took up space on my agenda for myself, and that's what
• 6:48
  I needed to make it a habit.
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  Now, if you have a friend that you like to talk mom and home shop with, then
• 6:57
  share this episode with her and commit together with her to put smile on your
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  daily to-do list for the next month
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  Ask one another how it's going and build this smile habit together
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  And if you don't have a daily to-do list, it's also a good idea so
• 7:19
  that you have a place to put smile.
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  I have a free training called From Overwhelmed to Organized: The One
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  Thing That Makes All The Difference, and that thing is the daily card.
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  So you can find that free class at simplyconvivial.com/organized
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  or in the description of this episode.
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  By smiling more as moms, we can repent, rejoice, repeat