Ep #75: Moms – A Special Episode for Anyone Who is, or Has a Mom

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 75. Welcome to Weight Loss for Successful Women, a podcast for women who are ready to break the diet cycle and end their struggle with weight for good. Here’s your host, fortune 100 executive, and certified life coach, Shannan Christiansen.

Hello Love. I am so happy to be back with you. I am excited about today’s show. Can you believe episode number 75. I can’t believe it. Every 25 episodes. I like to talk about relationships, time leadership, something that helps support our weight loss journey. Today. I want to talk about moms. This episode is going to release on the anniversary of my mom’s passing, and I want to dedicate this episode to her. So if you are a mom, have a mom or a mother-in-law that is hard for you, you will not want to miss this episode.

But first, I want to give a listener shout out. This is where I read a review of the podcast every week. And this week’s listener shout out is to Andrea Abeln. Andrea says, in December 2019, I was introduced to Shannan, her podcast and her program for the first time. I am so thankful for that. I did not like myself at all and thought I was a failure, especially when it came to weight loss. I had been on the diet roller coaster for over 40 years. Through listening to Shannan’s podcasts and participating in her program, including her free mini course, I’ve learned a way to lose weight for good, in a way I can do forever. Joining Transform has not only shown me how to lose weight, but more importantly, it has taught me how to love myself for the first time ever. I now know I’m worthy and treat myself accordingly. Investing in myself by joining Transform was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Thank you Shannan for changing my life forever. So much love to you and all the wonderful ladies in Transform.

Oh Andrea, I loved your review. I mean ladies, these reviews are just amazing. I am so appreciative of every lady who just takes a moment and spends her own time rating and reviewing the show. It really means a lot to me. And you know Love, if you love the show, if you rate it and review it, again I read every single one of them and I would just be so appreciative.

So ladies, I can’t believe it is March already. I mean this is how time flies. I am so excited about Transform this month. We are doing our annual book club on Gay Hendricks book, the Big Leap. I love this book. It is all about how to stop sabotaging your success. We do this every year in Transform. We go deep on how to stop quitting on yourself, how to have more success in your life. If you’re not in Transform, you can join us now and jump into the book club with us, go to bflycoaching.com/join to check it out.

So today’s show is all about relationships as a mother and the one we have with our moms. Today I’m going to dive in on our relationship with our mothers, mother-in-laws, and then I’m going to talk a bit on being a mom or a step-mom. Ladies, we are women and human. We are complicated. And one of the most complicated relationships we have are the ones with our moms or mother-in-law’s. Relationships with our moms and mother-in-laws can go from they are the best, most amazing to we don’t even speak, and everything in between.

My relationship with my mom was no different. Throughout the years, we went from the best relationship to some months not talking, and everything in between. Most of my relationship with my mom I didn’t have this work. There were times that my relationship with my mom was really good and amazing, and there were times where it was so hard and difficult. My mom was really ill and addicted to pain pills the last five years of her life. I, as her daughter, had all kinds of thoughts from empathy to resentment. I wanted her to be different. I wanted her to be the mom of my youth.

See, no matter the relationship with your mother or mother-in-law, it’s complicated, because for most of us, we put mothers, all mothers, all women on pedestals. We believe they should be smarter, more loving, perfect, better, supermom, like our friend’s mom or the one on TV. We have all of these expectations of them. We are so critical of them. We want them to be better. Then we tell ourselves, how could they be like that? How could they think that or do that? But Love, they are just humans with their own suffering, pain and trauma. They too did not get a manual on how to be a mom or how to be a human. This is so important because no matter where you are in your relationship with your mom, you get to decide to love them.

Even if they’re not in your life. You get to forgive them. You get to think about your story with your mom any way you want. Because when you believe thoughts like, they don’t love me, they should be different, they are judging me, they expect perfection, I can’t believe they did that, it causes you pain, you suffering. Not because of what they did, but because of the way you are thinking about it. You get to decide. If you want to feel the pain and suffering you get to, you can. If you want to believe something else, you get to do that too. When we believe that someone treated us in a way or did something to us, it takes all our power. We become victims. But Love, you are powerful, and I want you to take your power back. What do you want to believe? What do you want to feel about your mom or your mother-in-law or your stepmother?

I choose love. This is so important. I coach in Transform on this a lot. My mom said this, my mom did this, or I have guilt because I should be a better daughter. When we have a thought about our mom, our brain goes to work and finds the evidence to support it. If you think my mom does not love me or my mom is so critical of me, then that is what you’ll see. She could show you a million other ways that she loves you, but your brain will look for the evidence that she does not. Our brains are biased, so biased. They are consistently scanning for evidence to prove ourselves right. We love to be right.

What you think and believe will also drive how you show up in the relationship. If you think that your mom doesn’t love you, or that she should be different, then you will feel something like sadness or frustration. Then you will act from those feelings. You might distance yourself or show up with a chip on your shoulder. Has your mom ever said something and then you just like totally lost your mind. She standing there like, I was just hoping you’d come over, but I guess you don’t have to. I mean, I might have done this.

Love, we have built all of these expectations, this manual for how moms should be. I’m just saying let’s let them go. Not because it will serve your mom or your mother-in-law, but because you want to feel better, you want to show up differently.

I want to talk to all the moms and step-mom’s for a moment. We have placed a lot of pressure and expectations on ourselves for being a “good mom.” We have these expectations and manuals again for how moms should be. If I were just a better mom, if I spent more time, if I had helped more with their homework, if I get them into sports, if I, shoot, if I had chosen a better father, I mean, we have a lot of thoughts. We then take our judgments that we have for ourselves about being a good mother and we judge other women on their parenting. We shame them. They should be different. We do this because we want to feel better about ourselves. When we judge someone else we feel better for a moment, superior, but then Love, it comes back to us.

In our subconscious we actually start to beat ourselves up because we have those same judgments about ourselves. I just want to offer a thought I practice for myself. I love my son and stepchildren. I love them so much. I am the best mom I know how to be, back then and now. I was an imperfect mom and step-mom. I failed. I did things I wished I had done different. But when I decided that I was the best mom I could be, gave some forgiveness to myself, asked for some forgiveness from them, and just chose to think thoughts that produce the feeling of love, then I show up different, different for them and different for myself.

See, it starts with us. When we can love ourselves and forgive ourselves, we can then forgive and love them. I love my mom so much. I feel so lucky that I was chosen to be her daughter. She loved me so much and nothing else really matters.

If you want to learn more on how to get off the diet roller coaster for good and go deeper on this work, I invite you to join Transform Weight Loss Program. This program is based on three elements, coaching, community, and a weight loss course. This program will help you implement the tools so that you can live your very best life in a body you love. Go to bflycoaching.com/join. So much love for you. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and want to learn more come on over to bflycoaching.com.