Ep 26: Creating Calm in the Chaos with Guest Sterling Jaquith - podcast episode cover

Ep 26: Creating Calm in the Chaos with Guest Sterling Jaquith

Sep 26, 202346 minEp. 26
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Episode description

Feeling engulfed by the whirlwind of motherhood? On the brink of giving in to the temptation of unhealthy coping mechanisms? I promise there's a calmer way to navigate this chaos and my enlightening chat with Sterling Jaquith, author of Catholic Mom Calm – Six Steps to Calm the Chaos in Everyday Life, reveals it.


In a world where we're incessantly bombarded with noise and unrealistic expectations amplified by social media, feelings of isolation can easily creep in. Sterling highlights this concerning trend and invites us to challenge the idea that we need more willpower to cope.

Instead, we delve into practical strategies for creating pockets of calm within our hectic lives and understanding that acknowledging the reality of our circumstances can instill hope rather than despair. Sterling shares practical advice on validating our emotions, setting boundaries, and nurturing self-compassion, offering us a lifeline amid the turbulent seas of motherhood.

But there's more to our conversation than just coping strategies. Sterling also sheds light on the importance of creating community and connection within our parishes, mainly by fostering a culture of staying after Mass - which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Get ready for a transformative journey into the heart of modern Catholic motherhood and discover how to be Catholic Mom Calm.

Check out Sterling's book Catholic Mom Calm - Six Steps to Calm the Chaos in Everyday Life https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Mom-Calm-Steps-Everyday/dp/B0CH2B7F75

Find her on IG @catholicmomcalm

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Transcript

Catholic Sobriety Podcast With Sterling Quith

Speaker 1

Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety podcast , the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives , women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason . I am your host , christy Walker .

I'm a wife , mom and a joy-filled Catholic , and I am the Catholic Sobriety coach , and I am so glad you're here . Okay , welcome back everybody . My guest today is Sterling J Quith , and if you are a Catholic mom , you've likely heard her name or are familiar with her work .

She just published a new book called Catholic Mom Calm Six Steps to Calm the Chaos in Everyday Life . I mean Six Steps . Does that not sound amazing ? That sounds so attainable . So now , before I introduce , have Sterling introduce herself . I just want to talk a little bit about her . I've known Sterling . I've known of Sterling for many years .

We belong to a Catholic Influencers group and almost two years ago I hired her as my business coach and it has transformed my life , like all aspects of my life really , and the reason for that is because she taught me how to invite the Holy Spirit in , and you know , just ask God what he wants from me .

So now I'm doing what I'm doing now , and so I just owe her a debt of gratitude , and I just thank you so much . So again , sterling's new book is called Catholic Mom Calm , and I'll have the link in the show notes . Welcome , sterling , I'm so happy to have you here .

Speaker 2

I'm so happy to be here . I love podcasting . I think podcasting is such a great thing . For moms Like , I think they think it's scary . But I think there's a least amount of technology involved in podcasting . Like building websites is scary to me and even social media stuff can feel overwhelming .

But I'm just telling you , guys , you could get a microphone and you don't even need to do the video . You could have like a messy mom bun and film , just record a podcast and just really have a huge impact in people's lives . I love what your podcast is about and it's just so needed .

Speaker 1

Thank you . Yeah , I think the more voices we can get out there , especially Catholic women , the better . So I would love to see more and more of that , and I'm always in for a new Catholic podcast too . I love it . So go ahead and tell us a little bit more about , tell my audience a little bit more about you and then why you wrote the book .

Speaker 2

Yeah , so I did not grow up Catholic , I didn't grow up really with any religion , and I my mom ended up having this big Protestant conversion experience when I was away at college so I was a college . I come home and she's like I love Jesus . And I was like no , I am not into that at all . And I was happy for her .

She seemed happy , so I wasn't against it , but I was like you seem happy , that seems good for you . And so at the time and I've always been an entrepreneur I was building websites and she said my pastor wants to build a website for the church . Could you help him ? And I thought , yeah , I love websites , I'll go help him .

And my mom at this point really had never asked me for anything . She raised me as a single mom and I felt very indebted to her and just grateful for all the sacrifices that she made . And so I was like , yeah , I'll go do this .

So I go to the sky's house every Wednesday and I start building a website with him and he and I would like to link it out in his office . And then we'd come out and his wife made dinner for us , so the three of us would then have dinner .

So over time and it's a long story , but really I just converted to love Jesus for real with my whole heart and I did not want to have any children or get married up until this point , so really up until 2324 , I had no interest in that .

But then when I became Christian I thought , you know , I think I should get married and if I'm going to get married I think I should have two kids . For some reason that was just very like logical to me . And then I met my husband , who was Catholic and I was like , oh , gross Catholic .

And I did not think that we could make it work or that we could get on the same page . And I wasn't like an anti Catholic Protestant and I was a baby Protestant really at this point , but really ultimately I prayed . The Protestant pastor taught me to pray and that's just all I do now and we'll talk about how that plays into the book in a minute .

But he really taught me how to discern God's will for my life and I really felt like the Holy Spirit was calling me to marry this Catholic man and because I had learned that your husband should be the spiritual leader of your household , I thought all right , lord , if you're calling me to marry this man , you must be calling me to be Catholic .

And so I just jumped . I didn't ask a lot of questions , I just said , all right , I'm signing up , I'm going to do all the things . And I knew that we would practice natural family planning . I knew that Catholics didn't use birth control . I guess I just thought that that was easy because I told my husband . I said , listen , I only want two kids .

I was like I'm not going to do this Catholic man business , I'm not doing that , and apparently for some people it is not easy . And we had six kids in eight years . So we had these six kids fast and furious . And so here I am , and I didn't even want to have kids .

I'm not very maternal , naturally and I was just drowning in all of it and I was so unhappy and life felt so difficult and overwhelming . And that's really when I set out to learn about how to make motherhood better . And this was maybe seven years ago when I started my first podcast and I just thought there have to be tools to make it easier .

It can't be this hard . And I found a lot of tools and that was amazing . And I had this podcast and I taught the tools to women and it was very helpful . But then I discovered coaching . I had never heard that word before , really like in the context of moms talking to someone and getting coached .

I'd never heard that , but coaching just completely transformed my life and then I knew that I wanted to help moms do that . And really coaching is just seeing the words in your brain and deciding if you want to keep them or not . Right , that's what it is .

Therapy is looks back , right , therapy goes oh , you've been through something and we're going to help your brain make sense of it . Coaching a little bit more present and future focus , like what's going on in your brain and is it even true or not ?

And so that's what I do now is just help people moms , catholic moms look inside their brains and go are the things I'm thinking even true ? And when we begin to start dropping the things that aren't true , suddenly our life starts feeling so much better .

And that's exactly what happened for me , and I've just now seen it happen so many times that I just know it's really the answer so many people are looking for .

Speaker 1

Yeah , that's beautiful and that's so true , and I think that that's what you've helped me with too . And a lot of times it's like I don't feel worthy . That's that's something that always comes up , like why am I stuck ? Why am I stuck ? I don't , I guess I don't feel worthy , even when you're not like consciously thinking about it .

And that's how coaching is so helpful , because you know you you're saying something but you don't always hear what you're saying , because you have that thought loop that's going on in your brain , that's , you know , like kind of clouding it so you can't pull out those things .

But a coach can pull out that and then you can look at it and be like , oh , I do feel unworthy , and then you can look at it , address it , and then that helps free you up to move forward . So I love that . And what an interesting conversion story .

I've heard you say your conversion story many different times , but I haven't heard you know all of that , some of that information . So , yeah , I love hearing you know like little bits and pieces , because we can't get it all out . There's so much I tell people all the time , like my sobriety journey , my faith journey , is so long .

I can't if I just sat here it'd be boring and it'd be like eight hours and you don't want it , yeah , but yeah . So your book , catholic mom calm . So most of my listeners are Catholic moms who have turned to substances like alcohol to cope . First of all , I just want to say this book is so stinking cute .

It's really beautiful , it's got lots of questions and like places to write in and I just love it so much it feels so good . But anyway , I digress .

So most of my listeners are Catholic moms and they're turning to think substances for my listeners , of course , mom's buffer with all kinds of things right , like food and screen time and you know whatever , shopping , all these different things .

And I'm just wondering , in your experience , why do you think that that is such a common issue and is it more prevalent today , do you think , than it was in the past ?

Speaker 2

Yeah , I think it is , and I think it's because we're living in a really crazy modern society and nobody's saying that it's crazy . So we all just think something's wrong with us . So like , just imagine if you took a person who didn't have any context for war or war time and we just like dropped them into the Great Depression .

Right , we dropped them into the Great Depression when people are like rationing things and like squirreling away aluminum foil and like all this weird stuff , right . But you didn't tell the person that that was weird . You were just like , hey , this is the family and you can make a family here and this is how it looks to live .

Modern Motherhood Challenges Coping

That person would be like this seems really hard or this weird , I don't know . But if they didn't know what was happening , our brain just automatically tells us that something is wrong with us , right . So that person would just be like I must not be working hard enough . That's probably why I'm not finding a job .

Or , you know , I must not be budgeting really well . That's why it seems like my money isn't being stretching for the whole month . Right , and when I say that sounds silly to the rest of us , because we would understand the context of where that person is living .

That time period , and first of all , even those people didn't have a word for it , and when they were living through it , we didn't call it the Great Depression , but they knew that the war had happened , they knew that things were hard and that it wouldn't always be like this , and so they kind of rallied together and they coped in ways that only lasted for

that time , and then , when things got better , they stopped coping . So right now I think we're living through a really , really difficult time , but we don't have a word for it yet , and I have a feeling in 50 years we'll look back and go oh , that was the blah , blah , blah era . Right , it was so hard .

And so what's hard about living right now is the excessive amount of noise that we're all exposed to , the just huge volume of information , particularly conflicting information , and the lack of support . We've never been more isolated than we are now , which feels like it's not true , because we have all the phones and the apps and the things Right .

So it seems like we should be more connected , but we're not . We're more disconnected and we're just watching everyone's best moments on the internet .

So we think that's how people are living , and even though not one mom thinks that if I grab any mom off the street and I would say , do you think Instagram life is real , she'd be like of course it's not real , we know that intellectually , but when you're scrolling , that goes away Immediately .

You're like , no really , everyone's house is prettier than mine and they are all thinner than me and their kids are all getting along . We just think that's how it is . So we are living in an insane , crazy time . You are not crazy , of course .

You're turning to things to cope , because if you haven't been told that , you're in a battle for your attention and your nervous system and you're just trying to live , your brain is fritzing out and you're just trying to handle it and you're just trying to handle each day , and so , of course , we're turning to alcohol and food and shopping and scrolling .

Scrolling is one of the ways that we just cope , right , and then it makes it worse . We're just like stuck in these cycles where the thing that we're doing to feel better is making it worse . But I do think it's more now , or unique now . That's kind of just like that .

Maybe every generation has their own unique things , but I think those are very dark things and we're not talking about it like the Great Depression . Even in the Great Depression , they knew that things were dark . I don't think moms are talking about 2023 like that , but I think it is .

Speaker 1

Right , yeah , I completely agree with you and I like your take on it , because I am seeing that just so many moms are having these issues and , like you said , we're feeling so isolated and we think we're the only ones .

So a lot of my clients there they feel like , well , all my friends are fine , they can drink , they can , you know , do this and that , and it doesn't you know . They don't seem affected by it , they don't seem like it bothers them or like they are wondering if they have a problem with it .

It's just me , and so , and I think that that translates through any of those things that you mentioned . So , yeah , and I think that I love what you said that we are living in a time right now that doesn't have a name , like the Great Depression , and I'm wondering like what that would even be .

Speaker 2

Yeah .

Speaker 1

I don't know what it'll be , but I just know that it's just really bad .

Speaker 2

And , first of all , I think the number of moms that are drinking one to two glasses of alcohol every night just to make it through their life is pretty significant , I think we don't know that number right now , but my guess is it's much , much higher than we think that it is , but it's private , we don't see that .

And then when we're out with our friends and we have one or two drinks , you know everyone's doing that , but that's in a proper place . I guess like right , but we don't . And so we think oh , then we're the only ones who go home and keep doing that , right .

I just want to know , even if it's not alcohol , right , like most moms I know are really struggling with overeating , over drinking , over scrolling , like they are doing some compulsive behavior to cope with their life because they just feel like they're drowning and overwhelmed .

Speaker 1

Yeah , yeah , and that's so true

Coping With Chaos and Stress Strategies

. So your book offers solutions to kind of calm that , that chaos . So can you share ? So you have six strategies . Can you share , like one of your strategies , though , with my listeners ?

Speaker 2

Yeah , we could probably cover a couple , but I think the first one is just what we said , which is just normalizing where you're at , like whoa , like I just want to grab every woman and be like you are living in a crazy environment , right , like when we put soldiers in war .

They know there are more , they know it's crazy , and then we give them tools and we're like , hey , you got to make it buddy , right . And I think that we are living lives like that , really assaultive lives , where the noise of our kids and the television and phones is really assaultive , but we're not describing it like that .

So I think step one is just recognizing like , oh , I'm not crazy , this is really hard . Now . I think women are just superheroes and we can do really hard things . Anytime you ask a woman to step up , she's really great at problem solving and getting things done . I just think women aren't getting the message .

That's what's needed , and I'm not saying we should add more to their plate . I just mean , like you're in a battle , stop pretending . Like these are the . This is not the war time , this is the war time and we just have to fight against noise business , and really so much of the battle is our own stress and anxiety .

And so when I found these tools three years ago , the first thing that happened was I lost 70 pounds . That's crazy . I had never been able to do that before . And as soon as I learned how to calm my body down , I learned how to not need to cope with my life as much .

And so I think that that I just wanna give everyone some hope , like the one of course you're drinking , of course you are Like that's what I would say to every woman who's drinking more than she wants to right now Like of course you're doing that . I mean , in Vietnam they did heroin to cope with that , right .

And then when we just say , like you're in a battle , this is really hard , of course you're doing something to cope with it .

Now let me give you some tools and it's gonna make it feel better and we're just gonna create pockets of safety for you , and then the more pockets of safety you have in your life , the less you will feel the need to drink , eat , shop , whatever it is that we're doing just to cope . Mm-hmm .

Speaker 1

Yeah , I agree , and I also think it's important to note that just because you're let's say , you are drinking just two glasses of wine every night , let's say , but it's every night and it's something that you look forward to and you're preoccupied with it , and it's taking up brain space and then it's causing chaos because you're feeling anxious about it and you're

wondering about it . You don't have to be a quote unquote alcoholic , you don't have to even have hit rock bottom or lost all these things or have difficulty in your relationships .

Or for the women that overeat , she may not have like a ton of weight she has to lose , but she's taking up so much brain space like thinking about what she's gonna eat and feeling bad about what she ate and all of these types of things .

I think it's really important to recognize that it doesn't have to get to a place where it's a problem or creating even more chaos or problems before you start to address the issues .

Speaker 2

Yeah , and I just I want us to all stop calling in a willpower problem .

Speaker 1

You know cause ? That's all we do .

Speaker 2

We're like oh , it's just a willpower problem . I'm like , really Like , and again , just , we have so much compassion for American soldiers . We have so much compassion for them because of the sacrifice that they make and what they're willing to go overseas and do for us that we would never be like .

Let's just imagine one of them smoking , okay , and they weren't really a smoker . But now they're over there and it's stressful to be in Afghanistan and they're smoking . We wouldn't be like , can't you just get it together , man ? Like why didn't you just improve your willpower ? Like you know that smoking is like ?

We just be like honey , you do what you gotta do , I love you , and we say it to them because they're kind of , in these temporary environments , I actually think it's harder to be a modern day mom in some ways , because we don't get to break . We're not doing an 18 month tour , you guys .

We're like in it for 18 years , you know , and it just is going to be difficult , but you don't lack willpower , okay . I mean , what we have to do is right now your brain is scanning your environment and it just sees like 10 wolves staring at you .

I want you to imagine if 10 real life wolves were staring at you and then I tried to , like , teach you algebra . You'd be like I don't even hear any of the words you're saying , sterling , because 10 wolves are staring at me right now , like it's just a gripping feeling and our thinking brain shuts down .

But in modern life , your brain is really interpreting a significant number of things in your life like wolves , and so we just don't take a person like that and say , well , you just don't have enough willpower , like that is not the problem .

The thing that we wanna do is we wanna get your brain to say , hey , maybe that's not a wolf , maybe it's a German shepherd , right , and so there's still something there , right , but it's not gonna eat your face . Your brain's like it's probably gonna eat my face , but instead we could just be like , yeah , maybe , though it's not as scary .

Navigate Challenges, Create New Habits

And then when we do that , that's what the work is . The work is looking at all these things and walking through them , and let's just use your calendar , for example okay , chrissy , we just signed the boys up for soccer . Okay , we've never done that , not just the boys . We signed five of the six kids up for soccer .

And I have two dates Been a mom for 12 and a half years and we've never done any sports , okay . But my husband convinced me and I was like , okay , we're gonna try it . When I open my calendar , okay , and I see Tuesday and Thursday nights now I'm like it feels like wolves , okay , cause the kids are all at different times .

They're at least praised God on the same field , they're at the same school , so I have to drive multiple places . But that's an example . It's just a micro example , cause this is new for me . I pull up my calendar and my brain goes , oh , we're gonna die . That's how it feels when I look at those soccer schedules on Tuesdays and Thursdays .

And so I just go , hey , brain , I see that this is new . I see that you're really scared right now . Like , it's okay , yes , we're gonna have to do a little juggling and some string cheese in the car and we're gonna have to get kids to where they need to be .

And , yes , the eight year old will probably complain in between her other sister's practices while she's hanging out . Like when you begin to tell your brain what it's really scared of and just say , yeah , that's real . I will never tell someone like , oh , it's fine , you're fine . We do that to ourselves all the time .

Right , we're very dismissive of the things that we're scared of . I validated it Like , yeah , driving and getting kids to six different practices is a lot , but it's not going to kill us , we can do it . We have a pretty good plan . It's actually going really well .

I find that the wolf moment for me is when I look at my calendar and I'm like and then I coach myself and then actually doing it has been just fine . Now I have not had to sit in the rain yet . I don't know what you all do . I don't know how you all handle that , what you have to sit . I haven't had to do that yet .

But right now , getting them to practice and feeding them and how it's folded in with our family has actually been just fine . But this is the difference between if I didn't know how to talk to myself and use some of the tools in this book .

Those are the days that I would have gone through a drive-through and gotten Wendy's hamburgers and french fries , not because we needed food , but because I was so stressed about the wolves . And now I'm like they're not wolves . Yeah , there's this new thing and it's uncomfortable and I'm adjusting .

But I bought string cheese and put that in the car in case I was hungry , the kids were hungry and it just feels so much better , like it just feels so much easier to cope with my life .

Speaker 1

Yeah , absolutely , and I love what you said about it's not a willpower problem . It's not because if we think about things that we have willpower around , it's like we have willpower . There are things that we can will ourselves .

It's really a willingness , like I have , a willingness not to do this I don't want to do that , yeah , and so with other things we don't always . We're not at that stage yet right when we have that willingness not to do it , and that's OK at that time .

It's really about like getting curious , coaching yourself through it , like you said , and being able to look at things as they are and recognizing what we're feeling , how we're feeling and why we're feeling that , and then kind of go from there .

But so what advice would you have for a mom who is questioning whether or not her drinking is becoming problematic or her eating is Maybe out of control , maybe she's eating for the wrong reasons or shopping for the wrong reasons ?

Speaker 2

Yeah , I mean , I think one of the best ways to figure it out is either to go a week without it . So I would just be like I mean , it's so scary to tell your brain like we're not going to drink at all , right , but you should be able to say I'm not going to drink Monday through Friday .

And if you can't make it Monday through Friday because the urge to drink is so strong , all that's telling us is that you have wired in your brain when I feel unsafe , I drink wine . I'll just pick wine , I drink some wine and then I feel safe and that has worked really , really well . I just want you to know that your drinking has taken care of you .

That's how your brain thinks about it . Your brain is like , hey , darling , your life is so crazy . Let me give you a glass of wine to calm you down . Like that is just a really effective tool , and your brain is doing that because it loves you . Now we know that there are these other consequences that come out of it and we may not want those .

And so then , if you can't make it five days without drinking , right , I just want you to pay attention , like , oh , I've just wired this in my brain very strongly . I'm just wired it very strongly in my brain .

I'm not that into hot dogs , right , but when I go to a baseball game I really want a hot dog , right , we've just been trained when we go to baseball games to want a hot dog . Ok , it's just two things have been wired together . We go to baseball games , we have a hot dog and your brain is just wired .

When you feel unsafe and stressed , we drink wine and it calms you down . Ok , that's just totally works . That's the other thing , it really works . And so instead we just want to notice , and first of all , you just try to go two days . It doesn't the number of days that you don't drink doesn't matter .

It's when you calm and the best version of yourself say I have made this plan to not drink for X number of days , and then you can't do it . Like , you want to do it but you're not being able to do it . That's where I would just say , oh , I need help rewiring my brain .

I need and it's totally possible , by the way , it's totally possible to dissolve those pathways where you actually just don't even want the drink anymore . And obviously I'm biased , but I think coaching is one of the best ways to do that , but therapy and EMDR . There's so many tools now to just help you rewire that connection and it just really is possible .

Speaker 1

Yeah , I agree . And we get all this messaging right . It's not even just what we've developed . But then we have all this messaging of like you see it on TV , like moms are stressed , they reach for the glass of wine , the bottle of wine , and they drink it . We have all these t-shirts and glasses with these catchy things and phrases .

So I mean , it's not even , it's just kind of been worked into our brains that this is acceptable , this is what the world is offering us , like it's okay , here's your comfort , right , here's your comfort . And that's as you say , you know , with made for greatness , your company it's . We were not made for comfort , we were made for greatness .

We have these graces , these gifts inside of us that are given to us by virtue of our baptism . We do not do this alone , we do not walk alone and we can always call upon the Lord to strengthen those gifts and to help us . So it doesn't have to be like I have to figure this out on my own .

It can be with a coach , it can be with a friend , it can be , you know , with your faith group , it can be talking to a priest , but most of all , sitting with the Lord and saying , lord , what do you have to say about my drinking ? Yeah , what do you think about that ?

And just get really curious about what he says and what that means for your life , and then make a plan from there .

Speaker 2

Yeah , and I think we know it's a problem when we don't feel free . And you don't need to give the definition of freedom .

Like you know , when you're a prisoner to something and you don't feel free and some of us are prisoners to anxiety or depression or people pleasing , like sometimes the prison are feelings that we're not willing to feel and sometimes it's , you know , our coping behaviors that we're doing . But I just want to give you guys hope that you can have .

You can have done something in your life for decades and then rewire your brand and stop doing it . I mean , like I think the longer the problem exists , the more we think we can't fix it , and that's just not true . As soon as you learn new information , then you can absolutely change it .

And here's the other thing when I was learning not to overeat , or learning not to stress eat , or actually now , because I have all of those tools and still sometimes I choose to overeat or eat something that I didn't want to eat or wasn't planning on eating , right , and now I just tell myself the truth .

I just say you know what , the discomfort of something in my life right now is so high that I want the dopamine . I'll just use Oreos . I want the dopamine from the Oreos right now and this is going to make me feel better right now and it will create different discomfort for me later .

But I just tell myself the whole plain truth about that , because it is uncomfortable to not like your life and to feel stressed out and to not drink . That's very uncomfortable . But also there's discomfort that comes from drinking .

So , even though the drinking in the moment really soothes us and it does give us a rush of dopamine and we feel so great , tomorrow you don't feel great , right , you're tired , you don't sleep well , your face is puffy . There's like all these things that come from chronic drinking .

And so you can begin to also tell yourself the truth like well , which discomfort do I want to choose ? Do I want to choose the discomfort of sitting here and not drinking ? We call it letting an urge go unanswered . So their urge comes up to drink and we let it go unanswered and that's very , very uncomfortable , like in your body .

It feels like ants crawling on your body . Letting the urge go unanswered is very uncomfortable , but so is how you're going to feel the next day if you do drink . And so I think it helps when we just talk about it like that and it just makes it a little less sexy . Is the truth too .

We're like it's a little like less sexy to drink when you tell yourself that story , like that's what you're choosing . And sometimes we still do it and that's okay . I want women to just tell themselves the truth .

Speaker 1

Yeah , absolutely , absolutely .

So the last thing I just wanted to touch on you talked about how we are so isolated more isolated than we have been , probably in recent decades and I'm just wondering if you have any advice about how Catholic moms can lean on their faith community for support when they're feeling overwhelmed , when they're feeling , you know , anxious , like they just can't do it ,

and then they want to turn to some of these other strategies .

Speaker 2

Yeah , I found and this is interesting , we can all just watch this I have found more support in online groups like Facebook groups or community groups than necessarily in person , and part of that is all of my friends also have a bunch of little kids and are struggling , right , and now I live in Northern Idaho where we live pretty far apart , and so there's no

like all just pop over . And so I think all of us would like to be better friends and we would like to support each other more , but like I'm not going to call my friend who has a three month old baby , a two year old and a six year old and be like hey , I'm really struggling , can you come over and have coffee with me ? Right ?

Like she's probably a no , even though she would love to do that because we're both , like in this hard situation . So one , I think , just acknowledging again it's so weird how isolated we are now that you don't have people on your street that you can have coffee with .

Okay , like how many of you want to have coffee with a woman that's on your street right now ? Very few of us . And so don't feel like something's wrong with you that you have to go online . It is just easier for us to cultivate relationships there , especially if you're just in the phase of life where you have a lot of little kids .

But if you're not and I'm starting to get out of that , my youngest is four and I have a little bit more freedom it just takes asking , right , it just takes asking . And that is really uncomfortable . It's really uncomfortable to text your friend and say Do you want to go out to dinner with me tonight ?

And I think it comes back to this worthiness thing that you were talking about . Like we don't feel worthy to just go out with our friend for no reason and spend $20 on dinner . Right , like that feels terrible and my brain is like , oh no .

And yet I've done it a few times with some of my friends and someone always says yes , by the way , right , like if I asked five people , one person will be like I would love to do that , okay . And then we like go to dinner and we talk and it feels amazing .

So I think , just asking for more coffee dates , lunch dates , dinner dates and some play dates Maybe there are moms who do want play dates You'll get a good sense of which friends want that or not . So that's kind of

Creating Community and Connection After Mass

one thing . The next thing is just really try to create a culture of staying after mass . Okay , because we've been in a couple of parishes where after mass they've copy and donuts and you walk in the room and it's all retired people , Everyone has silver hair and you're just like they're gonna be annoyed with my kids and I don't wanna sit here by myself .

I don't even like donuts that much . Right , like the whole thing is just not designed for modern day moms . And so just like , be a pioneer and be like I'm gonna bring muffins or whatever . First of all eat the donuts . I don't care about that .

But like , if you don't wanna eat the donuts , bring whatever and text your friends and say I really want us to try to stay half an hour , one hour after mass . We are literally all in the same building and if you can just get critical mass , then it works . I'm now in a parish where almost all of my friends stay for almost two hours every Sunday .

So I go to mass and the kids play and I get to talk to all of my friends . It is amazing , but we fought for that and we had to like , encourage each other , like , of course , we all wanna go home and take our tights off and like have Sunday , and so they're just .

It has to be sparkly enough that you're willing to push through your two year old crying a little bit and like pushing nap times . But I'm telling you , if you knew that four of your friends were gonna stay and that the dads would talk to each other and the moms would talk to each other , then you would do it .

So just ask yourself , like how could I get the ball rolling on that ? How could I convince people to give it a shot ? Do we need different food ? Maybe not right , but what is it ? And that has just been really helpful for creating community at the parish level for us , yeah .

Speaker 1

Yeah , I love all of that because I , as you're saying , all of those things those are things that I have done Like I was part of an online community who we were so tight knit , we felt like we were such good friends and it was because we were all having difficulty conceiving and so we talked about it and then , as each person had babies , then pretty soon

we started talking about motherhood and all of those . But what was nice about it is it kind of gets you in a group of people who are all kind of we're all talking about the same thing and the same goal , and then two at the parish level . I love that .

I say I always tell my family if they're like begrudging because I'm talking so long and the boys are like mom , can we go ? And I'm like you know what ? That's how you build community . We are a family .

That's how you get to know people and I will say not only have like my , do my friends stay after Mass , but we've gotten to meet a lot of the older people in the parish . We bless them with our presence there and they bless us with their wisdom , and so it doesn't even have to be just people of your age and your demographic and how many kids you have .

It can be such a beautiful family community , multi-generational , and it is so much support and I've gotten so much support from people of all ages within my parish . So I feel like the more you are in it and put into it , the more you get out of it , and then God just blesses it .

Speaker 2

Yeah , I'm so glad that you said that , because that is totally how it is for us too . We will sit at a table with an older couple and then they want to hear about our kids and the thing is they are really nice and they do look like the kids . They want the noise .

I mean I'm sure somewhere there's a begrudging like grumpy old man who doesn't want the kids . But I will just say , for the most part they're so happy and they want to see the kids and , yeah , I think it's the young people that just need to get over their excuses and to just decide that it's gonna be important .

My kids also do that sometimes , especially if their friends have left , and my husband and I say this is our time with our friends , this is our time with our friends , like we set up play dates and things for you , but this is when we get to see our friends and we've let them bring books .

We'll just have them bring a book in the car and I'm like , go grab a book . You can go read for a little bit , but I'm gonna stay and talk to my friends .

Speaker 1

Yeah , yeah , that's a great idea , it's so fun . So we are never alone . That is one thing that we'd definitely want to leave you with , because I think that can be part of why we turn to other things is because we feel like we just don't have that community or anybody to talk to , or like it's just us and it's not just us .

So , anyway , thank you so much for being here , sterling and sharing some incredible insights and tips that I know are gonna help my audience and for your book . So just go ahead and tell my listeners whatever you want where they can find you and all that good stuff .

Speaker 2

Yeah well , I wrote the book to be a six week parish study with a mom's group and I really think , like one , you can do it at your parish , during the day or at night , and it's just six weeks . So I want you just to make the time to do it , and I also think you can do it online , like you can have a Facebook group and then go live .

You can use Zoom Almost everybody has Zoom now . You can use Google Meet , like you could do it . If it feels too hard for moms to get together for six weeks in person , do it online . But these tools are gonna teach you how to see less wolves in your life and then when you start seeing fewer wolves , then you're not gonna wanna drink as much .

I just promise you . I promise when everything quiets down a little bit , you'll be like oh , I actually can handle my life , and it can happen pretty quickly too . I will tell you that Because I think sometimes we think everything's gonna take six to 12 months , and sometimes feeling trauma does .

But learning how to let urges go unanswered does not need to take a very long time . So you can find everything at catholicmomcom . It's hard to say those two words together , calm down , and then all my handles are catholicmomcom , so everywhere you can find someone , I'm probably there and this is what we talk about .

It's just like how we live in a crazy world , but we can handle it . We really can . God gives us the right tools and he picked us to live in this time , so he has a work for us to do in this time and I think that's really comforting for me .

Speaker 1

Thank you once again to my guest , sterling Jakewith , for joining me today . I will have a link to her new book Catholic Mom Calm in my show notes , or you can even just go to Amazon and probably type it in there and it should come up for you . Well , that does it for this episode of the Catholic sobriety podcast .

I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well , and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing . I am the Catholic sobriety coach , and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the coaching that I offer , visit my website , thecatholicsobrietycoachcom .

Follow me on Instagram at theCatholicSobrietyCoach . I look forward to speaking to you next time and remember I am here for you , I am praying for you . You are not alone .

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