Today I’m talking to you about the hurtful belief that your value, your worth, and your identity as a mom and as a woman is in your home. Let’s jump in!

In this episode Allie discusses: 

• The connection women have to their homes 

• Identifying as your home

• Finding your fire

Mentioned in this Episode:

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Mom life. We’re surrounded by the message that it’s the tired life. The no-time-for-myself life. The hard life. We’re supposed to get through it. Survive. Cling on by the last little thread. And at the same time, Carpe Diem—enjoy every moment because it’s going to go by so fast. The typical mom culture that sends us all kinds of mixed, typically negative messages. We shouldn’t take care of ourselves; it’s selfish. The more ragged you run yourself, the bigger your badge of honor. But also, ditch your mom bod and work out. Don’t yell. Make more money. Show up. Be better, but not at the expense of time with your kids. I am putting a hard stop to all of this. While being a mom, running a business, and whatever else you might have going on is hard, it is a lot and there’s lots of giving of yourself, the idea that motherhood means living a joyless, nonstop-hustle-with-zero-balance kind of life, where you give and give and give and never take, needs to stop. 

I’m on a mission to help you stop counting down the minutes till bedtime (at least most days). Stop the mom guilt and shame game. Stop cleaning up after your kids’ childhood and start being present for it. I want to help you thrive in work, home and life. I believe in John 10:10 that we are called to living an abundant life and I know moms are not excluded from that promise. Join me in conversations about simplicity, some business and life hacks, spirituality 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, beautiful friend! Thanks for hanging out with me today and welcome to The Purpose Show podcast. 

We’re going to talk about something that I’ve been noticing my entire career but has been coming up lately. I’ve been noticing it a lot more and being able to identify what it is a little bit clearer. I feel like it’s something that’s been bothering me and sitting on me, and I really want to dive into it today. 

There’s this belief that I see out in the world about women and their homes that I think has some truth to it. But it has evolved into somewhat of a hurtful way of women thinking about themselves and their homes. I’m going to explain. 

There are a lot of studies done on men’s and women’s brains that show that women typically are more connected to the home. Basically, we are the powerful feelers. That doesn’t mean that men can’t be powerful feelers. I am married to a male powerful feeler. 

But women are typically very powerful feelers. And when you are a feeler like that, you feel deeply what is around you. You are very deeply affected by your environment compared to another person who may not be as much of a feeler. That person is less affected by their environment or affected in a different way. 

Let me give a scenario that I think we can all at least somewhat relate to. Let’s say you come home from running an errand or something and you walk in the house and it’s just a disaster. It’s a shitshow. There’s stuff everywhere. 

The kids left out what they were playing with multiple times throughout the day and throughout the house. There is just stuff everywhere. The counters need to be cleaned. It’s a mess. 

You feel it, right? You are noticing your environment. You are feeling it and you lose it. 

This is because you are feeling and connected to your space. Otherwise, if you weren’t, what is it to you? The kids can come back and clean it up. You don’t have to be the one to do it, right? 

You’re affected because you’re feeling and you’re connected to your space. The way your space feels affects you. It makes you feel something because of that connection. That connection is good.

But what I see often is that women start to take this beautiful connection that we all have naturally and they start to be so affected by their home that they’re actually starting to identify as their home, if that makes sense. 

For example, I’m connected to my home. My environment affects me. I’m a deep feeler. I’m a woman. I feel all of that. 

So when I see that my home is disordered or something’s really off, like some project was started and not finished and it’s left out everywhere, it bothers me. Especially if I need to get some work done, need to be productive, or need to use the kitchen or something, it bothers me. 

It bothers me if I wake up and my room is a disaster, which happens a lot because I actually am a messy person but the mess bothers me and I have to fix it and I hate it. But if I wake up and my room is just a disaster, there are clean clothes in a pile at the end of the bench that need be to put away and I just didn’t do it the night before. There are clothes from the last few days just thrown on the floor or whatever, it does bother me. 

I wake up and it’s harder for me to get in a good mood. Maybe I’m not losing it every time there’s a mess, but it affects me. I can feel it. 

That’s not identifying as your home. I am not my room. I can still rise above, get into a high vibe place, have a good day, and change my mood. 

But a lot of the time, especially in what I do, I see women actually identifying as their homes. And that can look a lot of different ways for a lot of different people. 

One example of that would be somebody who is so wrapped up in running their home, running their family—It can also be more projected onto their family and wellbeing, not just the home. It just depends on the person—and doing that part of their life that they are not okay if they ever leave it a certain way. They’re not okay if it’s not perfect. 

It means something about them if it’s not run perfectly. Or they’re trying to use their home to perform and earn approval from a mother-in-law, their father, their spouse, themselves, or no one and they don’t even know who. They are just doing it because they think they should or that’s how they have always lived.

They’ve lost their identity. They’ve lost sight of who they actually are. They’ve lost themselves in motherhood, in marriage, to their role in their tasks. 

It’s like they’re no longer women. And this leads them to placing their identity and their worth in the home and making it to where the home is them. They have become their home and they’ve lost who they actually are. 

Then it could also look like obsessing over cleanliness and organization. Obsessing over the running of the home. They’re hyper-focusing on details because they’re putting so much pressure on themselves based on how they’re running their home. 

How they’re doing and running their home is either an A+ or an F and there’s no in-between. And that’s a grade they give to themselves and it defines them. It’s everything to them. 

These are people that would never have someone over if the house wasn’t perfect because of perfectionism and performing syndrome. You’re making your house mean something about you. You are wrapping up your identity in your home. 

I think that there is pressure on women, because of a lot of things honestly and I don’t desire to go on a total rant on that right now, but I do think that we allow some of the pressure. We put it on ourselves. We take it from outer sources and then we put it on ourselves. We put it there un-intentionally just by not having a balanced perspective and knowing who we are.

These women that I see struggling with this, they don’t know who they are. They don’t know what their worth is. They don’t know where their worth lies. So the pressure they put on themselves as it relates to their home and how it’s going just mounts and mounts and mounts. And it’s so heavy. 

They’re seeking approval in the way they’re running their homes and their families. They’re seeking love in the way they’re running their homes. They’re seeking satisfaction and fulfillment in the running of their homes instead of standing firmly in who they are as people. 

You’re not just a mom. You are a human woman. You have a lot of different facets about you. You have a lot of different aspects, perspectives, experiences, and pieces of your journey that have led you to where you are today. You are developing or not developing gifts.

A lot of these women that I’m talking about haven’t developed any gifts. They don’t know who they are. They haven’t learned about themselves. They haven’t kept a sense of self throughout their lives, raising their families and running their home. 

They’ve really given themselves up—accidentally—to that role. Instead of knowing who they are, standing in their power, standing in that confidence and then being like, “Oh, also I have an awesome house and I love keeping it the way that makes me feel good and makes my family feel good. My identity is not my home. My home is in its place.” 

You are not your home. Your home is not a reflection of your worth. It is a reflection of the life you’re building. It’s a space to support you. Not define you and certainly not cancel you. 

That’s the problem that I see so much in my community and it breaks my heart mostly because I have been there. I am a very passionate, strong woman. I believe that I’m here to change the world big time. 

I have lost myself to the role. Also I’m an oldest child so performing syndrome is kind of in my DNA. Or it used to be; it’s really not anymore. 

But feeling the need to perform. Feeling the need to be good. Feeling the need to earn love and approval. I have been there. 

I have lost myself to being a mom and it’s not fun. It caused me to get incredibly depressed. It caused me to stop taking care of myself. It caused me to start eating junk food and not even value myself enough to spend money on organic, healthy foods. It caused me to basically just die to myself in such an unhealthy toxic way. 

And then guess what kind of a mom I was? I was a very unhappy mom who yelled a lot, snapped a lot, and couldn’t hold it together because my strength was gone because I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t allowing myself to be strong. I was throwing myself into mundane tasks. 

This is the thing that I always say and I’ll say it again: You were made for so much more than going through your days maintaining the mundane. Here’s what I mean by that…

I know that the laundry has to get done. I know that the dishes need to get washed. I know food needs to go on the table. I know you’ve got to get your work done. I know you’ve got to go through your list. I know those things.

But those are mundane things. Yes, they need to get done. But that is not where the fire is. 

The fire? Where is your fire? It’s different for every person. 

Mine is in my work with you. I love what I do. I also am super passionate about spending quality time with my kids, so I have built my life around that. 

I’m able to take walks with my kids every day. I have their hearts and I have a relationship with them. That is my fire. 

My work is also my fire. 

Honestly, my marriage is magical right now because it is my fire right now. I love learning about my husband and being better. He makes me a better person. I make him a better person. We’re doing that together. 

Hear how my tone changes when talking about these things? Those things are my fire. Do other things still need to get done? Yeah. But that’s my mundane things. 

And I lost myself at one point in time to all those mundane things. Now they are side notes. They are mundane things that need to be maintained. That’s the place they have in my life. 

And that’s what I want for all women. I want you to realize that you’re made for so much more than just maintaining the mundane things. I want you to switch into a life of fire where you know who you are. Where you love and accept yourself. 

You have those fire pieces of your life that are the priority. The place where you simplify everything else so that it’s not taking up all your time and energy. Yeah, you meal prep. You fold the laundry. You get the dishes done. 

You delegate to your kids. You raise your family like the boss you are. But you also have your fire, and your identity is not wrapped up in your home. 

You are a feeler. You are in your feminine power. You are connected to your space. It affects you and you run it like a champ because it’s important, But it’s not your identity. 

Your worthiness does not lie in how well you’re doing at home. That’s the difference. That’s the powerful difference.

Thanks so much for hanging out with me! In case you didn’t know, there’s actually an exclusive community that’s been created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions around The Purpose Show episodes. It’s designed to get you to actually take action and make the positive changes that we talk about here. I want you to go and be a part of it. To do that, go to alliecasazza.com/facebookgroup. 

Thank you so much for tuning in! If you’d like to learn more about me, how I can help you, how you can implement all these things and more into your life to make it simpler, better, and more abundant, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, online courses, programs, and other resources to help you create the life you really want. 

I am always rooting for you, friend! See you next time! I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.

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