The ARMC

Choosing Happiness (Even When You're Spiraling)

• Kylie & Gina • Season 3 • Episode 16

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“Happiness is a choice” can feel like the most annoying advice on the internet when you’re an anxious mom running on fumes. We start there, get brutally honest about why it triggers people, and then pull out what’s actually helpful: you didn’t choose your childhood, your trauma, your heartbreak, or the brutal curveballs life throws at your family, but you do get a say in your response and how long you stay stuck. That’s not toxic positivity. That’s emotional ownership. 

We talk about what happens when one tone, one text, or one person pulling away can wreck your whole day and how “I’m just empathetic” can turn into emotional self abandonment. We share practical ways to pause the spiral with real-life check-ins, boundaries, and a simple tool that sounds silly but works: set a timer, feel it fully, then help your brain take the wheel again. If you’ve ever thought, “I feel everything and I don’t know how to stop unpacking it,” you’ll feel seen. 

The conversation goes deeper into coping with the unchangeable, including illness and diagnosis stress, plus how to deal with cruel comments without letting them consume your mind. We also explore the idea that a lot of adults are still operating like their eight-year-old self, why that doesn’t excuse bad behavior, and how it can help you detach and protect your peace. If you’re trying to break patterns for your kids while also learning what makes you happy, this one gives you language and steps you can actually use. 

If it resonates, subscribe, share it with a mom who needs a reset, and leave a review so more anxious moms can find us. What’s one trigger you want to stop handing your power to?

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Welcome To Anxiety Ridden Moms Club

SPEAKER_04

You're listening to the Anxiety Ridden Moms Club, the podcast for moms who love their kids deeply and still feel anxious, exhausted, and overstimulated.

SPEAKER_03

Here, we talk about the messy stuff, the thoughts we don't say out loud, the pressure to do it all, and the journey back to ourselves. Progress over perfection always. Let's go.

The Hard Truth About Happiness

SPEAKER_00

Every time I say this, it pisses people off. But happiness is a choice. Most people would rather blame circumstances than take ownership. And I get it, like life can be brutal. You didn't choose your childhood, your heartbreak, your parents, or that person who betrayed you. But the truth is, while you didn't choose what happened to you, you do choose how you respond to it. That is the only thing that you can control, how you feel and how you respond. Happiness isn't about pretending that everything's perfect when it's not. It's about deciding to find peace regardless of external circumstances. Happiness doesn't come after your life is exactly the way you want it to be. Happiness is a state of mind that you choose on this journey of life. Because happiness is not something that you chase, it's something that you practice.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. So let's talk about that. Because I hear happiness is a choice. And part of me is like, yes. And the other part of me is like, respectfully, shut up.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Because it sounds so simple. But when you're in it, when life is lifing, it does not feel like a choice.

SPEAKER_03

Like, yes, mindset mentor. I get it. Shout out. That's who the clip was from. It's the mindset mentor. We've told you guys to follow him before, and you need to, but we've all had hard hard things. Some of us had chaotic childhoods, trauma, relationships that wrecked us. So when someone says just choose happiness, it can feel invalidating.

SPEAKER_04

But I think what he's actually saying is your circumstances might not be your fault, but your response is completely your responsibility. She's staring at me down.

SPEAKER_03

Because that part is the part that pisses me off. Only because it's true.

SPEAKER_04

But see, here's the thing happiness it really isn't waking up feeling amazing every day. It's choosing how long you stay stuck.

SPEAKER_03

Deep breaths. Everybody just take a deep breath. It's choosing do I spiral for three days or do I spiral for 30 minutes and pull myself out? It's choosing.

SPEAKER_04

Am I going to let this one thing ruin my entire day? Or am I going to feel it and keep moving?

SPEAKER_03

Again, let's take another deep. Let's take another deep breath here.

When Other People Run Your Mood

SPEAKER_03

This is my my my biggest struggle with this is that I let other people dictate my emotions. Yes, you do. Sometimes it's their tones, sometimes it's their actions. Someone pulling away, it will it will wreck me. It will wreck me. I will wake up fine. And one inner one interaction, one person, one thing can can send me into a full spiral. And I joke that I'm empathetic, but really I I feel like I absorb everything. Everyone's mood becomes my mood.

SPEAKER_04

That's not empathy anymore. That's emotional self abandonment.

SPEAKER_03

What what is emotional self-abandonment? What what does that mean? What are you trying to tell me here?

SPEAKER_04

Here's the thing is that just like you say about um everybody else's emotions, different things, moods can affect yours because you are allowing them to dictate everything about you, how you feel, how you go about things rather than taking care of yourself.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think for me it's like if someone else is off or feels bad or sad or mad, I feel responsible. Like I need to fix it, I need to understand it, and I internalize it. It's it's a it's fucking something I gotta talk about in therapy. It's a problem. It's a problem.

SPEAKER_04

It really, really is a problem. But there's a lot of moms who do this. So I mean, they're constantly reading the room, um, their kids, their partners, absolutely everybody. But somewhere along the way, you gotta stop and check in with yourself. You have to do check-ins. It's it's so important.

SPEAKER_03

You've helped me. I've started to pause the spiral. I've started asking myself, wait, is this actually about me? Because nine times out of 10, it's not. I've really, it was, it was probably a TikTok I saw at one point in time that was like, allow yourself a certain amount of time, whether that's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, if you need a freaking hour, whatever it is, laugh, cry, scream, but then pull yourself out of it. And I feel like in like a day-to-day situation, I can I can do that, but I still, my mood is way too dependent on someone else's. Right.

SPEAKER_04

And their mood is theirs, and your piece is yours. And don't you watch shrinking on Apple TV? Don't you remember that he had actually told the girl that she can take 15 minutes to sit on her bed and cry, scream, do whatever she needs, and then she needs to stop. Don't you remember the episode where she was in her room doing this and her dad walked by and was and then she stopped and she said, This is what I'm to do. I you have to feel the emotions that you have. You just can't let them take away.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, is that when she and is that when she wrote a letter to the guy that killed her mom? Or no?

SPEAKER_04

Is that I'm trying to think if she wrote a letter during I don't know if she did during that one, but I do know that she was um uh having a hard time. And um, she was just told, like, the problem is that and here I think this is the reality of anybody's situation. The problem is you can either decide that I'm going to sit around and be crying mad, whatever your emotion is, and I'm gonna do it all day long, and you let it run the show, or you just say, I have to feel what I feel. You can't ignore your emotions and it's not good to, but you just can't allow it to be where you feel your emotions all day long. It should be like, you know what? Right now I'm getting really upset. I need 10 minutes. Give me 10 minutes. I'm gonna cry it out, I'm gonna scream it out, whatever I need to do, and then I'm gonna get my head out of my butt and I'm gonna go keep myself busy and do something else. I'm gonna change what's happening.

SPEAKER_03

So it's not pretending that I don't feel things because I feel everything. We all know I feel everything, but I'm learning that I I guess I don't have to unpack it and and move in.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, you might not control like the trigger, but you can control how long it definitely controls you. I mean, I think that's the reality here. I mean, it's it's that's where your choice comes in.

SPEAKER_03

And I can still be kind and I can still care, but I I don't let it consume me.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Because happiness is a choice. But it's not a one-time choice. It's like a daily, daily decision. And then and even in talking about this, uh, you know, when I was younger, I would sit and think, like, uh, I would always hear this, you know, happiness is your is your choice. Um you choose to react how you react. It's your choice. And I would think that doesn't make sense. So he came up to me and was mean to me. Like, of course I'm mad. They made me mad. They're mean to me.

SPEAKER_03

I was gonna say, so let's break that down. What does it actually mean to choose happiness, to choose peace?

SPEAKER_04

Because I think at the end of the day, you that's when like, and we've kind of like always touched on these subjects throughout all our episodes, but the reality is that if somebody comes up to me and they're ignorant to me, it's really them, it's really their problem. That is the part that's the hardest for all of us to learn because you sit and you think, yeah, but they just did this to me. I mean, just thinking about like people on the road, you know, this person cut me off. Oh, heck no, I'm gonna go. Then there's people who've done seriously like horrible things, you know, and chased that person down and pulled them out of their car. I mean, they're so enraged. Regular normal situations, it might annoy you, but why is this guy over here so mad because somebody cut him off? So angry that somebody, whoops, sorry about that, didn't mean to do that. Oh, heck no. Sorry about uh-uh, I'll pull you out of your car. It's because that person has a lot going on in their life. They are definitely not dealing with their pain and their struggles or whatever it is that's going on.

Illness That You Cannot Fix

SPEAKER_04

And I can say this even like when I was um uh when Tommy was diagnosed with with uh FAP, I was mad.

SPEAKER_03

I mean What is FAP?

SPEAKER_04

So it's familial polyposis. It's a uh hereditary cancer that um goes after your large intestine is the most primary place that it goes after. Um, but he um it definitely can grow on any tissue. These polyps can grow on any tissue, and as you get older, polyps will for sure be cancerous is the unfortunate situation. So you have to do all you can to make sure that you try not to grow polyps. But when that happened, of course, it was I mean it was devastating that we have the situation that we have to deal with. I could be extremely angry, right? And be just mad at the world. And I had some moments of that because it's just unfair to have things like that happen to people. That's very unfair. So I think it's that's the only thing I could have chosen at that moment that I'm just gonna crow up in a ball and I'm gonna be upset and I'm gonna say, how this isn't right and this shouldn't happen, and all those feelings and thoughts went through my head. But at the end of the day, um, I could either live in that or re or just deal with the fact that it is what it is. I mean, it is what it is. This is here, it's not going away. Like we can't change what the situation is. So let's make the best of it. And even when we were in the hospital, and he had to have a classmate bag for four months. So when that happened, we had this nurse come in and she came in several different days in a row that we were trying to figure out to get this to work right for him, and there was a lot of struggles with it. And um, her and I were talking, and she said, I gotta tell you something. She said, Coming in your room is so much nicer than almost everybody else on this floor. And I was like, Oh. And I said, Why? And she's like, you guys are handling this so different compared to everybody else. Like you, everybody else is just they're sad, they're mad, they have all these emotions that they're so they're they're living in that emotion rather than just looking at it as it's just a new adventure in our lives that we have to take and handle. And so we would be in there laughing and joking and making fun of the thing and just laughing that it wasn't fitting right.

unknown

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04

It just it is what it is. I can either, we can either make the best of this or we can sit around and be sad every day, which a lot of times turns.

SPEAKER_03

I don't think I'm programmed right. Can I get a reprogramming? But I think that is so fucking hard. Like you say it like it's just so easy to just not just be happy. Rainbows and butterflies flying out of my ass. Like, isn't that naive? Because life is hard and life sucks, and like that sucks that he has that.

SPEAKER_04

And it absolutely positively sucks. But what do you want to do? Spend your life being just worried and it sucks. It's just that's all you think. This sucks. I'm so mad today. This is just this sucks. And I, you know, you know people in your life that are like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You know what? That's our last job, I think made my issue so much for freaking worse because that is a toxic environment where all people did was bitch all the time. We would never, there was never a positive outcome, things would never change. So it was just this constant, constant circle of of uh of bitching. Yes. And that draws you in negativity. And I I I haven't been able to overcome that. Like I feel consumed by that sometimes. It's just like if you don't like it, try to change it. But there are some things like cancer and illness that you you can't change. And I I, to be honest, I don't know how to live.

SPEAKER_04

Because we have to live. I don't know how to live. Because at the end of the day, you know, we get one life to live, and you need to make the best of whatever it is. And we everybody has problems, everybody's has situations. And I think that there's been times along the way too, you know, I met, I remember one girl told me this was before anything, all the horrible things that happened to our family medically, especially in like in a bam, bam, bam, bam. It was like very back to back for our situations. But like, I remember this lady telling me, she was like, Oh, you see this girl at this doctor's office? Because you know I was selling all these different people. So I'm like, yeah, and she's like, You, I think you need to get to know her. And I'm like, Oh, really? You know, tell me a little about her and whatever. And she's like, she is just the nicest, kindest person, and she's like, she's so cool. She's like, and her son um passed away of cancer like a year ago or something. And she's like, she's always just she's so like a genuinely just happy, good person, you know, and right away it's what you sit and think, like, she's happy. I mean, her son just passed away. And she's like, she just she's like, you know, it's sad for her what happened, but she just has the best outlook on it. And I think a lot of times those is when that's the times I would sit and think, like, how is she happy? I mean, like, how are you happy? And then you start to realize that you don't really have a choice. I mean, that's the thing. I let me say, let me say this to you. You do have a choice. You can either choose that now for the rest of her life, she sits around and she's sad and she's mad and she has all these emotions. Nobody probably will want to be around her. She probably won't want to be around everybody else. She'll get super depressed and her life will just spiral into sitting on her couch and watching TV and never doing anything. That could easily happen to her.

SPEAKER_03

Or she could choose to say, smoke a little weed while you're out in this stoned face that you don't care and treat people like they're humans.

SPEAKER_04

You're right. Or she could actually decide and choose to be as happy as she can because her son would have wanted her to be happy. He would never have wanted her to spiral out of control and sit on the couch and not do anything with her life. So she's gonna see her son again one day. It who knows when that will be? Who knows how long it takes to make that happen? But until then, I I do believe I am somebody who does believe those people are they're with you. And that, and if you pay attention enough, you'll know that they're with you. And it may be in a way that you didn't hope for, but maybe there's something good that you can do with this. Maybe there's people all the time. I mean, horrible things happen to their family, and they all of a sudden they change laws and they make things better for other people, and you can turn horrible, horrible, tragic stories into good things. And and these things to me are like very those I think are harder to me to navigate emotionally and get to find your happiness. But I think it's necessary to find so that you still can have your fulfilled life because any person that's in your life that's not in there now would want you to do that. And then there's the other avenue of somebody came up to you and just said, I think you're a freaking bitch and was and is very ignorant to you, to your face, and you have to just chuckle and like say, Oh, okay, whatever. Those things are very hard because it's like everybody wants to be defensive. And everybody nowadays is even more defensive than they ever used to be. So I just think that's where a lot of people look at as, well, that person just came up and they said, What? Oh, uh-uh, you watch this, I'm gonna be telling you. Well, I'm gonna TikTok about it. Yeah. I'm gonna tell them this or I'm gonna tell them that.

SPEAKER_03

And truth is regardless of what you've been through, though, because I I get it, there are some things that will that will wreck you to your core. It's not an excuse to be an asshole. Yes. So I want to make that abundantly clear. It's not okay to be an asshole. Yep. And there are two sides to every story, and you're probably only getting one side. So don't insert yourself in situations that you're unfamiliar with.

SPEAKER_04

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04

And a lot of people choose to do that, and that she tends to come out quite negatively when that happens. But again, you have to always remember the source of anybody who is coming to you and doing anything negative, talking to you nowadays through social media, through conversations, through whatever. It just gets to the point of like the source is kind of a joke most of the time. The person who does it is usually I could say only a lot of million things about it.

SPEAKER_03

I was gonna say, let's

Handling Cruel Comments Without Spiraling

SPEAKER_03

let's get into it. Cause anybody that's on the TikTok is that, but you know, one of not an acquaintance, acquaintance, somebody that I don't even know, but somebody that knows my boyfriend called me a crazy fat bitch. And um you've kind of coached me through, but I I literally stood there and was just like, what? You don't know me. Crazy, yes, fat, yes, working on it. Listen to the podcast. I'm on a GLP one, it's not working out for me. I'll take any tips or tricks. But I know that this person has lost someone close to them. I get it, but again, not an excuse to be an asshole. You don't know me, butt out. But it's really hard to not let those thoughts consume you in everything that you do. Like, because for me, it's like, how can this person that has never had a conversation with me one single time they've said hi and introduced themselves? That is the only interaction. And maybe he's heard horror stories about me, whatever the case may be, but like you you personally haven't met me, hung out with me. Who who are you? But it's so hard to not let that consume your thoughts, your life. Like, and I don't know, I don't know how to separate that out and and not let it control me or my mind.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, I think people say ignorant stuff, and I think it's always the more they maybe say things that are also is more of a I don't know, the more ignorant somebody is, the harder it is to just be like, okay, whatever, I don't really care. But I think that's the that the part of that is that at the end of the day, it it's really always paying more attention to the source, where the information came from, having a little bit of understanding for everybody.

Everyone Is An Eight-Year-Old Adult

SPEAKER_04

There was even something I was listening to recently, and it was talking about how you have to really um realize that everybody is basically their eight-year-old self as an adult. And the problem is that a lot of people choose life should be that you grow your entire life. Now, my dad has always pounded that in my head and always talked about growing, learning. Um, just life is fulfilling the more that you grow and you learn. It's really not that fulfilling when I, especially because I have this mindset that he always drilled in my head. You kind of feel like I feel like the people who stop trying to learn or do anything, like it's kind of boring to me. You know what I mean? Like even doing this podcast, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. You know what I mean? I'm like, what? When you want to talk about it, I was thinking a podcast. I mean, I guess I can get on here and talk about it. I mean, I don't really know technically a bunch of stuff about it. We learned that. We figure it out this morning. Right. We do some things figuring it out. And then I'm pretty proud of myself that, oh, I learned this or I learned that. And I just don't think that life is very fulfilling when you're not. And it's and so it's not about that you excuse the people for their eight-year-old mindset, but the reality is it helps you sometimes understand.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, you can see their eight-year-old self how old you feel like you are, or you're acting, I'm going to punch you in the fucking face because you're a dick. And that's period end of story. Like, what did that how did that make you feel? Did that make you feel better? Well, it probably did. Does it make you feel better to tear people down? It probably did for him. It doesn't make me feel better to tear people down. I always feel like a huge asshole. But see, it bothers, but it bothers you because of that.

SPEAKER_04

It bothers you more because you're just like, how could how could you? How can you be like that?

SPEAKER_03

Because I'm not an asshole. Right.

SPEAKER_04

But you just have to know there's assholes in this world. They do exist. There's stupid people, they exist. There are people who choose to never grow past an eight-year-old mindset that exists all the time.

SPEAKER_03

And so we're in crochet, we're we're getting somewhere here. But that is my most infuriating relationships are the people that have so much potential in the world that could do anything that they want to do, that they are fucking smart, but they have no fucking drive. Those people irritate the piss out of me. Why are you laying on the couch? Why are you smoking weed all the time? Why are you doing you could be the president of the United States. You could do anything in this world that you want to do, but you are not willing to put forth the effort. And that infuriates me. When in reality, I shouldn't really give a shit how they spend their life.

SPEAKER_04

Nope.

SPEAKER_03

But I don't know how to I do Because you invest more in other people than you do in yourself.

Stop Investing More In Others

SPEAKER_04

Huh. Here, you want to get somewhere. Yeah. So that's the truth. You invest more. So how do you put you put way more effort into somebody else before you ever put that effort into you? You spend more time, but I could fix this over here. Well, why but working on yourself actually solves a talk? You've been working on yourself. How do you work on yourself? Well, I think that's a Growing and learning things. I mean, I think that truth, truly, like you want to grow past your eight-year-old self, right? And it's easy to get really 24. So you want to grow past 24. Like you want to continually grow up. There is no such thing as a true grown-up because, in my opinion, I don't my mind, like the stuff that I think is funny, the stuff that I might, if I'm with people like laugh and joke about it. It's freaking not. It is not like somebody my age. Okay. Like I am 100% totally, I would say, in my sense of humor, all my stuff. I mean, I'm in my 20s for sure. You know, my favorite age, I would say, was 28. So I would say I'm definitely stuck there. I'm not gonna, I hope I never, like in the that aspect, I hope I never get older. But at the same time, I think that we're supposed to grow to the mature to where I don't really give two shits if somebody likes me or doesn't like me. I don't care if somebody says something. Cause most of time, like I've always said, if you say something, you do something, you have a you yourself to me have a lot of problems. Like, there's a whole lot of you. Oh, I know. We know this. We know I have a lot of problems. But you know what I mean? Like, if somebody comes out, like just like in that situation, you know, he says these ignorant things to you. I mean, to me, the first reaction I have if somebody was saying those things to me is this guy's got issues. Like you have serious, like serious issues. Like that's I think it's I almost get to like concerned in a way, like, wow. I mean, like, wow.

SPEAKER_01

That's why I referred him to our podcast.

SPEAKER_03

You need to, you need to, sir, you need to listen because because we could give you some tips on on not behaving this way.

SPEAKER_04

But see, you go on another route where you sit around and say, I don't understand why. I don't understand this. Why is that happening? This person shouldn't have done that. Well, all those are, you know, okay, whatever. We can judge on what we think is morally correct for our own compass in our own life. But the reality of it is, it just makes me say, wow.

SPEAKER_03

And then you move on. I don't have the ability to move on. I do not have the ability to let go. I I've got to train my mind and I don't know how to

Timers And Training Your Brain

SPEAKER_03

do that.

SPEAKER_04

It takes time, but that takes time. It's just like even saying, like, oh, I'm gonna have 15 minutes, that's all I'm allowed to be upset at the moment. I'm feeling upset. I'm gonna give myself 10, 15 minutes and I'm done. Like almost you to train yourself, you almost have to set a timer so when it goes off, that as much as you're not going to want to stop, that you start, your brain begins to kick in. Because you know, you have an emotional side and then you have a brain. And the emotional side is taken over. So we need to make sure that the brain kicks in. And sometimes that can be as easy as I'm setting a timer for 10 minutes. Maybe I because 15 minutes is what I'm totally allowed. So I'm gonna give it 10. If at 10 minutes I can't pull it together, I'm only allowed five more and I'll set it for five more. It literally is the stupid things we have to do to force ourselves to do something different. And it's not just because, you know, well, I know so-and-so told me I'm supposed to do it, it's not gonna work. Like you actually have to say, I'm committed to this makes sense to me, so I'm gonna start trying. It's not gonna be perfect every time. Maybe sometimes I'm I'm so mad or upset the 15 minutes went to 18. But at least I, if I watch the 18 go back to now, I'm at 17, now I made it to 14, now I made it to 10. I mean, like, you just see an improvement.

SPEAKER_03

And two points here. Like, I I 1000% understand what you're saying, and I want to be better because I can I know that I can, I can see the traits in Nora that I'm passing down on her with the inability to let things go. But then also, like, I can give myself 10, 15 minutes, whatever that it is, and then I can I can distract myself, let's say mowing the yard. And then it's like I will be distracted for a short period of time, and then whatever it is, like hits me like a ton of bricks that it comes back also. And I don't know how to just I would love to just be like, brain, we're not thinking about this right now and move on, but but but but you have to think about like this.

SPEAKER_04

There's times where you that those types of things happen to you and it it can be kicked in for an hour and you can't get past it. So imagine if you even took the hour to know more than 30 minutes. And then next thing you know, after you know, a week later, it's I'm only having things like that happen to me for 20 minutes. Yeah. Now I'm at 15 minutes. Like it just gets less and less, and you start realizing you can control it. Your emotions should never be the who's in charge of your life. It should be your brain. Emotions are there, and emotions have to be handled and dealt with, and you should feel everything in life. That's even for all the positive and good things. You want to have feelings and and feel it, but you have to be able to control it with your brain, and your brain has to kick in. And sometimes that's a I'm setting an alarm. I've just been cutting the grass, I'm just got done, and I've just gotten like slammed, hit. A thought came in my head, I'm gonna get upset again. Get your phone out and stick a timer on it and commit to it and say, and then I I have to, I'm gonna totally feel it for 15 minutes and then I'm gonna stop. You will just see that then you maybe every time you get to like, oh hell, less and less time. Less and less time, and then eventually you don't even set a timer anymore because you're pretty much over it, and eventually you're over everything completely. But you it's that's the point of like it's work. And people all think, like, especially when we're little girls, you know, you've grown up and always little girls always get talked about, you know, like I'm gonna marry somebody and I'm gonna be so happy, and this is what my wedding day look like, or and even when we're little and playing with dolls, you know, you're the mommy and you're because you already envision yourself having a family and taking care of a baby, like all these things are kind of in us, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, instilled in us that this is how it's supposed to

Defining Happiness And Setting Boundaries

SPEAKER_03

be.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so I just think it's like well, that's I mean, if to to take it back even further, is like, what does it mean to you to be happy? Right. I don't know if I could answer that right now. I don't know what makes me happy. Right.

SPEAKER_04

And also you have to remember okay, here's a big thing. Nobody's gonna come into your life, friends, relationships, whatever, to make you happy. You need to be happy. And for you to be a good partner to anybody, even you have to be happy yourself. You have to be happy with who you are, how you feel, what you're doing. And then now when you have somebody else to join in with you, it's a positive thing because you also then have probably created some boundaries in your life that you know, I'm good with this, but I'm not good with that. I like this, but I don't like that. That way when you blend with somebody, it's everybody's on the same page. It's very easy and everyone wants to be respectful of each other. But I think if you don't do that, you lose that. You worry about how can I be better for somebody else or my kids or for anything. That's not the point. The point is really to become the best version of yourself for you, which will bleed into everything and everybody else, but in a more positive way. And you'll be teaching your kids positive things and you'll be helping yourself mentally, and um life just gets better. I can tell you, I mean, 100%, believe me, the way I am today isn't that how I always was. Um, when I was little, I was extremely sensitive. Um, extremely. And then I got to, as I got older, I was thought the same thoughts, like the things that you'll think about, like, well, why would they do that? And that that's their fault that I got mad. It's that's them that did this or that, you know, or why aren't they doing this? I mean, and I'm the same thing. I would help anybody. And then I decided to, I'm going to view things. I gotta change some things about myself. And in turn, I found how much happier I am. And I find out in turn, I want to do some things for myself sometimes. And I wanna, I wanna do things that makes me feel like, I don't know, like alive. That's the way my dad would say, I feel alive. I want to feel alive. I feel good and alive. Air smells better, you know, and it does, seriously though. It's true. It's like the air just even smells better when you feel better about you, not about any, not because my kids look a certain way, not because they did something right, just because I woke up today and I just I'm just happy to be me. And believe me, you know, I I mean you could always you can always critique yourself, and that's what most people spend too much time doing, you know. Oh, I could lose weight, I could, you know, fix my hair different, it doesn't ever seem to work right. Whatever it may be. But I just think we can't dwell on that.

SPEAKER_03

I have some work to do. I have to work on genuinely finding and figuring out what makes what makes me happy and and prioritize that over making everyone else around me happy. I think I've I've I got a lot of work to do. Yeah, I think you've forgotten about you and who you are. For sure.

You Are Not Broken You Are Becoming

SPEAKER_03

If you've been letting someone else's actions control your mood, same. But this is our reminder. You are allowed to feel without falling apart. And you are allowed to choose yourself even if no one else does.

SPEAKER_04

You're not broken, you're becoming. Thanks for spending time with us.

SPEAKER_03

Take what you need, leave what you don't, and be gentle with yourself. And if you want to stay connected, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at the ARMC. And remember, you're not broken, you're becoming. We'll see you next time.