Joyful Thoughts Blog

Do you ever feel like you are drowning in laundry, housework, meal prep, and taking care of your kids??

I’m a mom of 4, and I totally get it. It’s a lot.

If you want a perfect formula to have a clean house every minute…you will need to put your kids up for adoption. Sorry.

But here are 3 principles of home management that can help you create more order in your home and feel more joy in your life.

Your brain is a lot like Amazon.com.

But instead of books, socks, and vacuum filters (or whatever you buy on Amazon), your brain sells THOUGHTS. Millions of them. And you are the customer. Every day, every minute, inside your mind, you are searching for thoughts, browsing through thoughts, and clicking on the ones you want to believe.

All the thoughts in the world are available to you inside of what I call your “Mindazon.com.”

You have your own Mindazon account. Your own browsing history and purchase history. With one click you can select any thought you want, and with free 2-second shipping, you will begin feeling and acting on that thought instantly. If you believe a thought long enough, your brain will even subscribe to it, and you’ll start receiving auto shipments without even having to order it.

I use this metaphor to help people claim their power to choose their thoughts so they can feel more joy.

Here are 3 strategies that can help you shop for joy inside of your Mindazon.com:

Have you ever ordered any of these thoughts inside of your “Mindazon.com?

“This is awful.”

“This is totally the worst.

“I/he/she/they shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

“This sucks.”

When you’re faced with a diagnosis, a conflict, a failure, a death, or any kind of unmet expectation, you might think <<this is awful.>>
It can FEEL so true.
Especially if you think it over and over. But is it really true?

Maybe your response is: “Yes, Emily. This IS awful. This is the worst possible thing that could have happened. I would take ANYTHING but this.”

I don't want to minimize your pain. There are so many things we each face that are really really challenging—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

My personal experience, though, is that choosing the thought <<this is awful>> actually compounds my pain and adds layers of anger, resentment, and frustration to an already difficult situation. So of all the thoughts available to me in my Mindazon.com, I give <<this is awful>> a 1-star review.

I’ve got some great advice for you today, to help you feel inadequate, overwhelmed, and stressed. You ready?

If you want to feel uptight and unsettled as often as possible, it’s pretty simple to achieve. Here’s what you need to do: (ladies and gentlemen, drumroll please…!)

Rush around and try to be God.

Wait, what? What are you even talking about?

You know, rush around and try to be God.

Make really long, unrealistic lists of all the things you want to get done.
All the things other people are doing.
All the things anyone says you should be doing.
Say yes to everything. (Do NOT take time to consider what you might be saying NO to, when you say yes to something else. You’re way too busy for that kind of nonsense.)

Dear Ethan,

Hey.

A few days ago, I read this in a life coaching book:

“Our parents, our children, our spouses, and our friends will continue to press every button we have, until we realize what it is that we don’t want to know about ourselves, yet.
They will point us to our freedom every time.”
(From “Loving What Is,” by Byron Katie)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and realizing how true it has been for me. Today, I found myself crying tears of gratitude for the many ways that you have been an instrument to help me learn things about myself that I didn’t want to know. It has been difficult and painful, and there have been a lot of times that I have resented it. Resented you, for it. But today, I feel really, truly, deeply, grateful. So I wanted to say thank you. And share some of the discoveries I have made.

Last week, we had spring break. Which began with an epic snowstorm. It took all 6 of us over 2 hours to shovel our driveway. It was a lot of snow! We had fun in the snow, and I tried to embrace the benefits of not having lots of places we had to go… But honestly, I was also struggling that we were all home, again, for the millionth time, without a schedule and with lots of limitations (covid and the snowstorm) on what we could really do outside the house. On Wednesday, I woke up excited that it was “weekly job day” and that everyone would be spending an hour or so tidying up and cleaning. I had a utopian vision of everyone working from 10-11am, and of the lovely, clean house we would have at the end. But of course, real life turned out differently. Unexpected needs came up that we had to attend to, and my hour of everyone working got sabotaged.

I handled it really well…until I didn’t. You know those days, right? Here’s how it went:

In February of 2016, I had a powerful and slightly humorous experience as I fought to absorb the message of a church meeting amidst the grumpiness of my 4 year-old daughter. :) Here is my journal from that day:

Trevva had a rough morning, and was grumpy and defiant about getting ready for church. She went completely limp and refused to sit up to get her hair done, and dug her heels in on a lot of aspects of the morning. She finally let me do her hair, and then 2 minutes later she purposely took the braid out and messed it all up. She flailed her body around all morning and complained and refused to do what was asked of her. At one point she flopped onto the floor and said, "I need a nap!!" Truer words were never spoken, but alas, we had to forge on, and get to church.

So truth is, I was not feeling particularly loving…