motherhood

Ep 139: Words, Self-Fulfilling Prophecies + Our Families

February 5, 2020

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I'm here to shake things up and challenge the status quo of motherhood. Let's throw out the old rulebook and create a new narrative where moms are living their dream lives unapologetically.

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The way we talk about things in our lives, the way we speak about the people in our lives has an effect on our reality. So, I really want to dive deeply into that and really get specific with self-fulfilling prophecies that people speak out all the time, and the power in those words and what they do to our families. 

I’ve talked about the power of our words multiple times on the show but I have three cliches that people say all the time that I want to really dig deep into today. So, get ready because this is on my nerves and needs to stop! 

 

 

 

 

In This Episode Allie Discusses:

  • Why Our Words Matter

  • Three Self-Fulfilling Prophesies and Why We Need to Stop Saying Them

Mentioned in this Episode:

Allie’s Instagram

Allie’s Courses (Use the code PURPOSESHOW for 10% off!)

The Purpose Show Facebook Community

Episode 004: Positive Words for Your Children

Episode 032: Kids Who Rebel vs Kids Who Don’t Rebel Feat. Rebecca Lindenbach

Why I Didn’t Rebel

 


The words you say about people have a profound effect on the way you feel about them. I believe our words are powerful and we should use them to speak love and life into our families.

I’ve created a free list of positive affirmations you can say about your kids. It’s completely free for you to download. Save it to your phone so you can pull it out whenever you need to.

 


Mom life. We are surrounded with the message that it’s the tired life. The no-time-for-myself life. The hard life. And while it is hard and full of lots of servitude, the idea that motherhood means a joyless life is something I am passionate about putting a stop to. I’m on a mission to help you stop counting down the minutes till bedtime, at least most days. I want you to stop cleaning up after your kid’s childhood and start being present for it. Start enjoying it. I believe in John 10:10 “that we are called to abundant life” and I know mothers are not excluded from that promise. Join me in conversations about simplicity, minimalism and lots of other good stuff that leads to a life of less for the sake of enjoying more in your motherhood. I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.


Hi friends! Oh my gosh! I’m so excited to be sitting in front of my microphone right now, seeing that it’s on and recording, and I get to talk to you. It’s been such a full season in my business. In my personal life, not so much—super minimal and really chill because my business is so full right now and I am loving it. 

I am in one of those seasons where I wake up in the morning, look at my calendar, and I see all the things that I’ve got going on. I look at my task list and it’s full of all these exciting new things I get to create, and I jump out of bed with so much excitement and energy. I can’t get ready fast enough because I just want to be in my office, creating all these amazing new things. It’s full of creating at my desk and then taking a walk and talking an idea out to myself in a voice memo and people walking by me looking at me like I’m crazy. It’s just so full and so good.

But it’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes, at my desk work and so I’ve just been feeling like I need to talk today. And I’m happy to be talking now because I haven’t really spoken yet today and it’s 12:30 PM. I’m just really excited to hang out with you guys. That’s my point. I don’t know why I’m rambling. 

Anyway, today we are going to get into something that has been on my mind a whole lot for a long time—for forever—but really lately. I think it’s because I’ve just been hanging out with a lot more moms lately from church and church functions who are in different circumstances. I have this new routine with Emmett (my youngest who’s five), where I’ve been taking him to the park once a week and I’ve been meeting moms there and talking to them. I’ve kind of just been back in that space, and I wasn’t really there for a while. 

So, I think this is just coming up a lot for me because I’m hanging out with a lot of parents, a lot of women, a lot of moms in real life, not just online. And I want to talk about this because it is so important. It’s on my nerves. It’s a problem and I am so done with us as humans, sometimes myself included, not realizing how powerful how we speak is. 

Whenever I talk about this, I always get a message like, “Well I heard you cuss. I heard you say a bad word. And you say ‘crap’ and ‘hell’ and you are so sarcastic all the time, so maybe you should take your own advice.” That’s fine. You can not like the way I talk. I’m not here for everybody, but what I am saying is the way we speak (not exactly the specific words we use although that is important, and to each their own) but the way we are talking about things in our lives, the way we are speaking about the people in our lives, the way we speak that things are going to play out, that things are going to happen—it has an effect on our reality and it’s so important. 

I’ve talked about words and all of that multiple times in the show. And if you’re not sure what I’m talking about or you want to hear more about this topic, I know there’s at least one episode that I have done specifically on the power of words when it comes to our children, and I will link to that.

But I really want to dive deeply into that even more today and really get specific with self-fulfilling prophecies that people speak out just as cliches all the time and the power in those words and what they do to our families. 

I have three things in particular that people say all the time and I want to dive a little bit into each one because I know I’m not the only one who has heard these sayings thrown around. I know I’m not the only one who’s been a little bothered by it or thought or felt like, “Ugh, I don’t like that. That made me feel really sad or really low.” And I just want to talk about the power of words again. 

So, okay, we’re going to go over cliche self-fulfilling prophecy, things that people say off-hand all the time. 

The first one is kind of a common saying and maybe you’ve never heard it, but I definitely have. It came up in conversation in my Facebook group as well as on my Instagram, and then a mom at the park brought it up to me and was just talking to me about it and I was like, “Okay, this is common and we need to talk about it.” But it’s people saying things like, “Oh, a daughter is a daughter for life but a son is only a son until he has a wife.” Have you ever heard that or anything like that? Anything about how your boys are going to go away, off with their wives and their families and leave you forever once they’re married? 

I was hearing from a lot of different women online, and in person, that they were finding themselves guarding themselves from their boys and not fully connecting with their sons, subconsciously, in order to prevent future hurt when they get married and become distant. This is a very, very deeply embedded, common belief about mothers who have sons. And as a mother with three sons, I hear it all the time—“Oh well, at least you have one girl…”

If you don’t know what my family looks like, it’s me and Brian and then we have a daughter, Bella, and then three boys, Leland, Hudson, and Emmett. So, one girl/three boys. And people will say, “Oh, at least you have one girl. She’s it for you. She’s going to be your bestie. She’s going to be super close to you as those boys break your heart when they grow up and follow the women of their life.” Things like that. Anything like that is so negative and so ridiculous. 

I understand that people have seen truth to that in various scenarios, in various relationships, in  various families where they’ve seen the kids grow up and that happens. It’s not because it’s a boy. It’s because of a thousand other possible reasons. The relationship that the mother had with her son, the way that she parented, the way that she made him feel, the way that she spoke to him, the person that he married, the boundaries that boy has with his new wife—or lack thereof—the personality differences…so many things can contribute to that. And I think it’s ridiculous and so negative and unhelpful when people say things like, “Oh well, at least you have your girl, because those boys, once they get married, that’s it for you. A daughter is a daughter for life, but a son is only a son until he has a wife.” 

Get away from my family with those words. You will not speak that over my family, my future and their future. Things like that are self-fulfilling prophecies when they are spoken out by you as the parent. So, if you are saying, “I’m so glad I at least have my daughter because my son is totally gonna ditch me when he gets married and that’s going to break my heart. I don’t want him to get married. Oh my God, I’m freaking out. He’s going to get married and leave me.” 

Self-fulfilling prophecy. First of all, you’re speaking that into existence. Just Google it. Our words have power. Our words change reality. They are very powerful. I believe that we are created by the ultimately powerful Creator who spoke the universe, and everything in other universes, into existence and we are made in His image. We are like Him and our words also have power. And when you say things like this, it matters. It’s not nothing.

Everyone has experienced feeling the power of words. Think about a time when somebody that you cared about said something very hurtful to you. It probably would still make you get emotional right now to think about that time because words have power. Words alter relationships. They alter reality. They matter. I want to call BS on this statement, this cliche, this little rhyme that some sad person invented and passed down to generations. 

We are going to say there is no space for that in our families. That is complete BS. We will not identify with that. We will not let the fear that little rhyme brings into our lives, into our hearts, into our heads, into our families, into our future. Absolutely not. We are much better than that. Much stronger than that. Much smarter than that. And we are saying, “No! Get away from me with that negativity!” “My daughter is my daughter for life; My son is also my son for life and you can get away from me.” That’s the new rhyme even though it doesn’t rhyme. Allie Casazza. Quote me.

It’s just crazy, negative and depressing. We’ve got to stop talking like this! Oh my gosh. We’ve got to stop letting people talk to us like this because your kids are listening. You’re listening and that’s bothering you, bringing you down. No!

The second idea—it’s not a rhyme like this last one was, but it’s just something that is talked about a lot and is a belief that’s very common—is that teenagers have to be hard. They just are. Teenagers are just hard. I feel like this is a belief about all teenagers, but really heavily specific to girls. I hear all the time, “Oh, it’s so great that you have a great relationship with your daughter, but just wait till she’s in high school. Just wait till she’s a teenager. Oh, just wait till she turns twelve.” Everyone has their age that everything changes. 

And you know what? I understand that my daughter is a person. She’s a human person. She has a different personality than I do. She has different thoughts, emotions, reactions, and responses than I do. And I am sure that there are going to be times that I just don’t understand her. I don’t understand her thought process. I don’t understand her choices. I don’t understand the reasons that she’s upset about various things. That happens now.

But I rebuke the lie that teenagers are just so hard, so awful and there’s no way around it. It’s just the way that things are. Again, self-fulfilling prophecy. Your words are carrying truth because you said them. Because you attached belief to them. Because you said that. It matters. 

And you know, if you don’t believe me or you think I’m being dramatic, this is not the show for you because I am all about watching what you speak into existence. Ask my husband, Brian. I am so careful about the way I talk about things when I am presenting a problem to my husband. I am so careful that the way I’m saying it is not giving the fear power. I am just explaining facts and stating thoughts. I am not giving them weight or power over me, or succumbing to all the emotion and fear around this idea or this thing I’m worried about. I’m just like, “You know, this thought crossed my mind. It’s kind of sticking with me a little bit and I want to talk to you about that. What is the truth here? What could we do about this? I’m so ready to fight, ready to do something, ready to take action and not give into fear.”

And I think when you have this belief like, “Oh, teenagers are just the worst. They’re just so hard. They wreck everything. Just the worst. I’ve got four teenagers. Oh, that’s the worst!” That is so negative and you are cementing in your own brain how you feel. You are cementing in your reality how things are going to go. And if your kids are around you, you’re cementing in them what they are to you. And I don’t think that’s what any of us want.

But I think that we wear that blanket over us a lot— “Oh, teenagers are so hard. I’m not a bad parent. It’s just that teenagers are so hard for everybody.” And you know, I think if you are confident in yourself, you are confident in your parenting and your decisions in raising your kids, you would be okay with them going through a hard time and not having to identify with the “fact”  that “teenagers are just awful and they’re just hard.” You wouldn’t need that security wrapped around you. You would know, “It’s not that teenagers are just hard all the time. They suck. They’re the worst. Pity on me because I have teenagers.” Instead you could be like, “Wow, my daughter is going through a difficult time and it’s difficult for me right now to understand her. But I’m here. I’m here with her. We have a good relationship because I’m here for her. If she doesn’t want me right now, that’s okay, but I will be here for her when she decides that she wants me and she needs me.” 

Science shows us that words are incredibly powerful. The words that you say to people have a serious and deep effect on them. And the words you say about other people have a profound effect on how you feel about them and the words you’re cementing in the world.

I have personally seen this transform my children, specifically, my son, Leland. I’ve shared in a past episode specifically about him and our relationship. He was my most challenging kid and for a really long time I struggled so bad with him in just the way I talked to him. 

I didn’t know how to handle him. I didn’t know how to communicate to him. I didn’t ever feel like I had his heart and I was his mom. I’m his mom. It really sucked and it hurt. And one day I had this realization and I wondered, “What would happen if I stopped solidifying his behavior with my negative words to him, and my frustration at him and about him when I was venting to my mom friends and to my husband? And instead I started speaking positive things about him and over him?”

I saw that completely transformed his behavior, the way that I felt about him first, and then his behavior. 

I’ve done this again and again…in my marriage, with my business, about issues that have been difficult for me in my life, with our business and money story, different friendships, my relationship with different relatives. I’ve seen this same pattern follow in the way that it happened with my son and I. But in the beginning I was scrambling for what to say to my son, what to say to my kids, what positive words to speak over him and over my other kids as well because I didn’t really feel positive. I felt negative. And it’s hard to come up with positive words when you’re not in that place. 

So what I’ve done is I’ve created a super simple list of positive words specifically for your kids. So these are not a list of words about your business or your marriage. This is specifically designed to be from a mother to her child. These are the words that I used to transform the way I felt about my son in his difficult phase. And then in turn, it transformed his behavior. And you guys, I did not read a parenting book and change anything. This is literally the only thing I did and it began a serious shift in him.

The download is free, so what have you got to lose? You can go to the show notes for this episode and you can get everything that you need. Again, it’s free. 

I want to give it to you because I know how important it is. 

I’m here! I’m rooting for you! I’m supporting you in this!

To get this freebie, I want you to go to alliecasazza/shownotes/139.

It’s totally free! It’s right there for you. You can download it and look at it right away. Then take a screenshot of the page with the affirmations on it or download it to your mobile device as well as your computer and have it with you and on you all the time so you have that list to reference whenever you need it. 

These are limiting beliefs. That your daughter is always going to be your daughter but your son is not going to be once he gets married and has a new family—that’s a limiting belief. How much depression, fear, and awfulness is in that? And yet, we say these things because it’s almost like we’re protecting ourselves before it happens. We’re letting everyone know that we know this is going to happen, so that when it happens, we don’t feel so shocked. Look at what it’s causing—moms to have a guard up around their sons. That is not healthy. That’s not good. 

And then that teenagers just have to be hard is a limiting belief. You are cementing that—the very thing you don’t want, that you wish didn’t exist, that didn’t have to happen—you’re making it so. When what you could do is be aware that a lot of parents struggle with this time of life and have low expectations but high presence. 

Low expectations and high presence—being present with your kids, being present with your boys, having their heart, talking to them, having a relationship with them, being honest with them, available to them. A son doesn’t just get married, ditch his mom, and never talk to her again. That’s ridiculous. No to that! 

Stop believing that just because somebody turns thirteen they are automatically just awful and no matter what you’ve done, what you’ve taught them, or how you are, they are just going to wreak havoc. That’s B.S.! No to that! That’s a limiting belief. 

The third thing I want to bring up is the idea that girls are over-emotional and so hard. It kind of wraps into what we were just talking about. Words like: “Wait till your girl gets older,” or “Oh yeah look, she’s being a girl, just wait till she gets older.” Like when a toddler or a baby is having a complete conniption fit meltdown and somebody, usually a relative is like, “Oh, well yeah, yep! She’s a girl, that’s for sure.” 

Look, I have a girl and I have three boys and they all threw equally disturbing tantrums in the store on multiple occasions. And it wasn’t like Bella was like, “Oh, well she’s a girl. That’s why hers were worse.” My boys have freaked enough people out in public for me to know that toddlers throw tantrums despite gender. Okay? So everyone can just relax and stop with the sexist toddler speak. “Well, she’s a girl and that’s why she’s freaking out.” She’s freaking out because she’s two years old and she hasn’t had a snack in five hours. Get it together and stop blaming. You’re a sexist, and you can also get away from me and my family with that kind of talk. I’m upset right now you guys. I’m in this. 

There’s this book—I actually talked about it in an interview with the author here on the show a long time ago—called Why I Didn’t Rebel. And in that book, Rebecca, the author, had interviewed and studied a friend of hers whose mom was constantly doing this self-fulfilling prophecy thing like, “Oh, wait till you get older. You’re gonna rebel against me. You’re going to sneak out. You’re going to be a party animal. You’re going to sneak out the window and it’s going to be so hard for me to raise you during that time.” This mom is speaking this out over her daughter. And that’s what ended up happening. 

This author is interviewing that girl after she grew up and was in her twenties, and this daughter was saying, “My mom spoke those things out so much that it was the expectation for me as a teenager to be like that. And so I was. It was expected of me. She talked to me like that so much, that’s just what I ended up doing.” These things are self-fulfilling prophecies. 

I know people in my personal life (my kids are not teenagers yet at the time that I’m recording this) who have fully raised daughters and have had amazing relationships with them, and they did not go through any crazy teenager spell. I know people whose daughters did go through a really difficult time as teens, but they were there with them and present with them and just waited for them to be ready to talk and to need them. And the kids didn’t rebel, freak out, or go off the deep end. They were just going through a hard time and they recognized that their parents were great parents during that time. 

I know people who are super close to their sons. My mom is super close to my brothers—both of them, and especially my younger one. He’s not married yet, but he has his own life, his own job and he’s going to be married one day. And I can see it right now. I can see how they’ll be. 

There are people who are living against these stupid fear-based cliches, these lies, these limiting beliefs, and I think that we need to open our eyes and find stories like that. I’ve shared openly about my postpartum depression and my disconnect with my daughter, Bella, because of that. Again, I’ll link to that episode at alliecasazza.com/shownotes/139 but there is really not a lot of reason that I should have the relationship with my daughter that I have today. 

I worked against what was expected. I worked against what people were saying about me and my relationship with her. I worked against what well-meaning relatives were saying over us, that this was going to do to us. You don’t have to fall under any stereotype, any cliche, any category. You can do what you feel is right for you, your family, and your kids. 

You can show up for them and they won’t have a horrible teenage experience where they hate you and never come back from that, they just wreck everything in your life, they’re so disrespectful, so off the deep end. If you’re a good parent—you’re following your gut, you’re prayerfully walking forward in what you know to be your truth as a parent, you respect your kids and they respect you back, you talk to them, you’re there for them and you listen to them, they feel loved and valued—it just doesn’t make any sense. 

Yeah, they might have a period of time where they are not being themselves and they’re sorry for that and they come back to that. But is that really worth saying, “Oh, teenagers are so hard?” People, your kids are allowed to make mistakes, have feelings and go through something. 

I think that when we focus on the negative, when we focus on these lies and these limiting beliefs, when we gear up for our sons never talking to us because that’s what sons do, we act out in a way that mimics that belief because we’re afraid. 

When you believe that your son is going to be less connected to you because he’s a boy and he’s going to get married to another woman, you put your guard up and you act that out before it even happens, making it happen. 

These words are forming your beliefs and you act out of what you believe. So you’re acting like these things have happened before they even happen, which in turn makes them happen when the time comes. 

Are you hearing what I’m saying? We’ve got to stop this! 

So the next time somebody passes by or is hanging out with you and your family, and they mention something like this, say, “No” to that. Push that far away from you. You don’t belong there. That’s not your story. Who says? Screw that!

You make your own story. You’re a great mom. You are doing such a good job. This does not need to be your fear, your struggle, your story. No! Please know that what somebody else’s experience was does not have to be yours. 


This was an episode of The Purpose Show. Did you know there is an exclusive community created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions surrounding The Purpose Show episodes? And to get you to actually take action and make positive changes on the things that you learn here? Go be a part of it. To join go to facebook.com/groups/purposefulmamas.

Thank you so much for tuning in. If you are ready to uplevel and really take action on the things I talk about on my show, and get step-by-step help from me, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, courses, classes, and ways to learn more about what the next step might look like for you and to focus on whatever you might need help with in whatever season you are in right now.  

I am always rooting for you, friend! See ya next time!

 

Hey mama! Just a quick note, this post may contain affiliate links.

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