October 21, 2025 • 25 mins
Through vulnerable storytelling about near-drowning experiences and parenting struggles, Jennifer reveals that courage isn't about being fearless—it's about having strength in the face of difficulty. She shares how moving from controlling, fear-based parenting to compassionate parenting required tremendous courage, and how you can take your own courageous steps forward.
This episode is for every mama who feels like she's drowning, who's afraid of making the wrong choice, or who's carrying the full mental load alone. You'll learn the three things that make motherhood harder and the three courageous actions you can take today.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Welcome to Episode 102: Finding Courage in Motherhood
00:05 - Introduction: Courage, Confidence, and Calling
01:30 - Guided Breathing Exercise: Finding Calm
03:00 - The Beach Story: A Childhood Fear of the Ocean
06:00 - Fast Forward: Saving My Son from the Waves
08:00 - The Lesson: Until You Stand Up, Everything Feels Like Drowning
09:30 - What Is Courage? Strength in the Face of Difficulty
10:00 - Three Things That Make Motherhood Harder
11:00 - #1: Fear of the Unknown Isolates Us
12:00 - #2: Chasing the "Right Way" to Parent Frustrates Us
13:00 - #3: Doing Everything Yourself Is Debilitating
14:00 - Three Courageous Actions You Can Take
15:00 - Action #1: Make Changes & Step Out in Faith
16:30 - Action #2: Accept Grace & Let Go of Control
18:00 - Moving Away from Fear-Based, Authoritative Parenting
19:30 - My Journey: From Spanking and Yelling to Compassionate Parenting
21:00 - What Comes First: Courage or Confidence?
22:30 - Action #3: Ask for Help—You Can't Do This Alone
24:00 - "I Can't Do This" Has Two Meanings
25:30 - Guilt vs. Shame: You Made a Mistake, You're Not a Mistake
26:30 - Practical Ways to Show Courage in Motherhood
28:00 - Courage with Kids: Apologizing, Setting Boundaries, and More
29:30 - Final Encouragement: You Are Learning to Swim
31:00 - Join the Enough Mom Community & Closing
KEY TAKEAWAYS
✨ Courage = strength in the face of difficulty, not the absence of fear
✨ Until you stand up, everything will feel like you're drowning
✨ Three things that make motherhood harder: isolation from fear, chasing the "right way," and doing it all alone
✨ You have enough for the journey you're on TODAY
✨ Courage comes before confidence—doing hard things builds our belief in ourselves
✨ We cannot guide our children through journeys we haven't taken ourselves
✨ "I can't do this" can mean defeat OR an admission that you need support
✨ Guilt says "I made a mistake" / Shame says "I am a mistake" - you are NOT a mistake
✨ It takes courage to admit what you don't know
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Jennifer's Powerful Ocean Metaphors
"Until you stand up, until you are lifted out of the water, everything will feel like you're drowning. Until you decide to make certain changes and overcome or learn or get a different perspective on the struggles that you're facing, everything will feel like the waves are crashing over you."
On Parenting Transformation
"The spirits of my children are more precious than my need for them to do the thing I need them to do right now."
On Building Courage
"We cannot guide our children through journeys that we have not taken ourselves... but our kids will learn from us—from our mistakes as much as our actual lessons."
ABOUT THE HOST
Jennifer Bryant is an educational leader, having worked in every sector of school from public to private to homeschool. She is a California girl living in Hawaii, homeschool mama to teenagers, and recovering perfectionist. As an ADHD mom and former authoritative parent turned compassionate parent, she brings raw honesty and deep insight to conversations about maternal mental health. Jennifer is passionate about helping mothers find courage, build confidence, and walk boldly in their calling.
RESOURCES & LINKS
Instagram: @jennifer_bryant_
Facebook: Jennifer Bryant
X (Twitter): @jennifer_bryant_
Website: jenniferbryant.com
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*Disclaimer: Jennifer Bryant is not a licensed professional counselor. The content shared on this podcast is based on personal ex
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello friends I'm Jennifer Bryant.
I am your host and today we are on episode 102 of the Enough Mom Podcast, Finding Couragein Motherhood.
In the first episode, in the introductory return episode, I mentioned that here at EnoughMom, I'm going to be focusing on messages for mothers that encourage you to have
(00:28):
courage to be confident in your calling.
Today we're talking about courage, what courage actually means.
It's basically strength in the face of difficulty.
Okay.
We can think of many, many difficulties we experience in motherhood.
Yes, we're to talk about all the good stuff, but let's be real about the stuff that isdifficult.
(00:48):
We struggle.
We struggle to know that we are enough as a mom, whether we're doing this thing
correctly and I'm doing air quotes right now if you're watching on our YouTube channel.
It's not easy, but you know, of course, of course Jen, what else is new?
It's not easy.
So give me something I can grab onto.
Well, first I want to take you to a place where you can relax and just breathe.
(01:14):
Okay.
If you don't already know, I happen to live in Hawaii.
Okay.
Before you get jealous, don't because
You know, we have struggles over here too, but I want to take you to a calm beach just forthe sake of going.
So if you came over to my house and you said, Jen, I really need to just get away andbreathe and relax today, I'd go, okay, let's jump in my car.
(01:37):
We'll drive down to the beach.
Let's walk down, put our blankets down and hopefully if it's not too windy, we can justsit there.
And first, what I want you to do is take in a deep breath.
and breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
(01:59):
There's something so necessary about practicing slowing down our brains by actuallybreathing, learning how to breathe.
We'll go over some of that in episodes to come as well.
So we're just gonna start out here by practicing our breaths.
Pretend that you're on that white sand beach that you're watching the waves roll in andyou're letting it calm you.
(02:23):
Let's start this getaway by actually getting away in our brains, shall we?
Okay, now that you're at this place of relative calm, imagine the kids are not around you,no one's bothering you, no one's asking you for anything.
We need to give ourselves space to think about our next right moves.
(02:46):
Because having strength in the face of difficult situations requires that we return to whowe know we are, what we know we already have, the tools that we have to fight the hardest
battles.
And even though a lot of these battles are not by our own choosing,
we still get to choose how we respond to them.
(03:08):
And that's a lot of the strength that you're going to bring to your situations, mama.
It's true.
It's true.
Okay.
So now that we're on the beach relaxing, I want to tell you a story.
I have not always allowed the ocean to calm me.
Okay.
I moved to Hawaii because my husband is from Hawaii.
(03:29):
He's born and raised here.
I'm a California girl, but I didn't grow up by the beach in California.
No, no, no.
I grew up inland, inland like desert, inland empire.
Shout out to Colton, California.
Woo woo.
I grew up there.
And,
I didn't get to the beach that often.
Well, one summer, my family decided to vacation at one of the California coasts.
(03:51):
I forget which beach it was, but there weren't a lot of people there.
It wasn't like Huntington or Newport.
It was somewhere off somewhere else.
And I could not have been older than six or seven years.
No, probably more like seven or eight.
And I was learning to use the boogie board and I got brave enough because my dad wouldshow me, look, don't need to be afraid of the water.
(04:12):
You don't need to be afraid of it.
Just get on your board and let the wave take you.
So after a while of doing this, I got confident and I was able to ride it on my own.
But before I knew it, the waves, the larger waves, the further I paddled out, they tookme.
They kept kind of pulling me out to sea.
Before I knew it, I could see the end of the pier.
(04:35):
Like I was looking at the end of the pier.
toward the shore.
And at that point I knew, whoa, I was way far out there.
I was getting freaked out because in my, you know, seven or eight year old mind, you don'thave a whole lot of life experience to realize what that means to be that far out there.
And I just remember paddling and paddling.
(04:56):
And I remember the large waves coming over me and some of them took me under, but I wasable to get up.
And I remember praying.
I remember
saying, God, please keep me safe.
And I got back to shore just fine.
My dad saw me after what I think I got back and sat next to him and he said, hey, whereyou been?
(05:17):
And from then on, I had this uneasiness to say the least about the ocean because Irealized how powerful the ocean actually is, right?
It's vast, it's beyond our comprehension.
I was no match for those waves and they took me where they wanted to take me.
But thank goodness I got back to shore
(05:39):
The unknown can terrify us, right?
We can spend so much time worrying about the things that we don't know that are coming.
That young girl on that boogie board may not have been so lucky.
or so looked after.
We don't know what's lurking beneath the surface.
And I don't say that to, know, poo poo on water sport folks, my husband is a surfer and,you know, those are just things you cannot think about or else you would never go out and
(06:04):
do anything.
But there has to come at some point this desire to overcome your fear while you're stillfeeling it.
So fast forward many years later, I'm here in Hawaii and my son is about probably the sameage actually, six, seven, seven or eight.
(06:26):
And we were in Kailua on the East side of Oahu.
In front of a friend's house, we were just, you know, he was boogie boarding and there wasa strong current that day.
that pulled him, I mean, like the waves were crashing a little harder than usual.
And I saw my son having fun.
(06:47):
I saw him, his little head popping up and down as he was, you know, in the water.
And then all of a sudden his eyes got huge and I saw that terrified look in his face.
I went into mama mode, mama bear mode, and I ran to grab him.
And as I put my hands around his body, I lifted him up.
(07:13):
I lifted him up above the waves and the waves crashed over my head, but I knew how to holdmy breath long enough till I could stabilize my body to get him out.
I come back in holding him and he's of course scared and my husband runs up and right awayhe says to him and to me probably, you're okay, you're okay.
(07:37):
And he tells me later, honey, try not to respond in fear if you can help it.
If you can try to help it, I know you're scared too, but try not to respond in fear whenit comes to our kids being in the water because I don't want them to grow up afraid of the
water.
And that was wise.
Of course, it's from his own experience.
He's incredibly comfortable with the water.
(07:59):
You heard my story from before, but that's because of my lack of exposure.
My husband has been in the water all his life.
And so his fears were definitely lessened.
They're on a different level because he got himself used to it sooner.
What I want you to remember, mama, is that until you stand up, until you are lifted out ofthe water, everything will feel like you're drowning.
(08:25):
Until you decide to make certain changes and overcome or learn or get a differentperspective on the struggles that you're facing, everything will feel like the waves are
crashing over you.
And it just takes someone else, or maybe it's that voice inside you that says, it's okayto stand now.
(08:50):
At Enough Mom, I want you to understand how to become an Enough Mom by understanding whatit takes to put on courage and walk through the scary or unknown thing even when you don't
know what the outcome might be.
It's not easy, but it's worth it.
And I'm here to walk alongside you as you do that.
(09:12):
So again, courage means strength in the face of difficulty.
Motherhood can be challenging and so frightening when you feel like you're doing it alone.
The questions that haunt us are things like, I making the right choices for my kids, formy family, for myself?
There are three things that make motherhood harder.
(09:33):
Number one, fear of the unknown.
all it does is isolate us.
When you constantly stay in that fear or you refuse to take action or move because youdon't know what the outcome is, that can be very, very isolating for us as mothers.
when we tend to keep to ourselves and think that we're the only one going through thisstruggle.
(09:56):
And of course, the social media highlights don't help.
There are many wonderful creators out there and I appreciate the ones who areauthentically themselves and share their authentic stories.
And that's what I strive to be here for you
The second thing that makes motherhood feel harder is chasing the right way to parentbecause that will just frustrate the heck out of you.
(10:20):
Feeling that there's one right way to do it.
There's so much conflicting advice out there, mama.
We're constantly second guessing ourselves.
At some point we just have to pick one path and go, go with it.
Just go with it.
And number three, doing everything yourself.
or attempting to do it all yourself.
(10:41):
That can be debilitating, So let's go over that again.
The three things that make motherhood harder, isolating yourself because the fear of theunknown, frustrating yourself because you're chasing the right way to parent, and
debilitating feelings of doing everything yourself.
(11:01):
You don't need to carry the full mental load for everyone.
If you don't ask for help, you're going to feel very depleted very quickly and you'regoing to start running on empty.
But here are three courageous actions you can take.
You ready?
Believe me when I say that you are strong enough to make changes and all that takes isstepping out in faith.
(11:28):
The fear of the unknown does not need to isolate you.
Whether you're struggling with things like postpartum depression, identity shifts frombeing a working mom to now being a stay at home mom, and ask me how I know by the way,
because I've done all of that.
I'll share more in later episodes.
Whether you're moving to a new community, whether you have medical challenges or maybespecial needs child or several special needs children.
(12:00):
We are tempted to think that we'll never have enough, enough resources, time, energy.
We're tempted to think we'll never do enough and we're tempted to think we'll never beenough for the people in our lives.
But the answer isn't I am enough.
It's recognizing what you have and what you need for today.
(12:25):
You have enough for the journey that you're on.
You have enough for your efforts.
Even small efforts make such a difference.
You are human with limitations and that's okay.
We don't need to say yes to everything that comes along.
You really, really don't.
Okay?
So you're allowed to make changes in all of those areas.
Number two, you are strong enough to accept grace and that means letting go of control.
(12:52):
this is a hard one.
You know, there are new areas of my life where I'm still realizing after being married for19 years and having teenagers, I still find myself trying to control certain things.
And I'm realizing, wow, that's okay.
All right.
Calm it down, Jen, calm it down.
(13:12):
We'll talk more about that in later episodes as well, especially as it relates toteenagers and...
growing older with your husband.
It's tough sometimes.
It's Accepting grace and letting go of control means that many of us are running away fromauthoritative parenting.
The whole generation that was like, because I said so, do this because I said so.
(13:37):
We're not over here trying to trust that anymore.
We need reasons, right?
And maybe that's the millennial mom in me, but millennials are so very about, give me thegood reason so I can think through and so I can understand.
Teach me so that I understand, right?
That's kind of a hallmark of our generation.
We wanna step away from parenting styles that are controlling through fear and punishment,which is why the whole gentle parenting.
(14:02):
movement has come in.
Sometimes it swings too far and we need to find balance in that.
because we want to find the right way to do it, it can be hard to just kind of go withwhat you know is right sometimes.
It seems to work, you know, the fear and punishment thing, it seems to work, but at whatcost?
(14:23):
We're finding out now that
Children are much more emotionally, shall I say, hindered, sometimes scarred because ofpunishment that was used to control and instill fear in us.
I used to parent with control.
I used to spank, honestly.
It didn't feel good for either of us.
(14:44):
And I slowly backed away from it when I realized that the spirits of my children are moreprecious than my need for them to do the thing I need them to do right now.
We will talk more about that later as well.
I used to yell.
I used to tell them, do what I say right now.
But I didn't want them to do what I did, which was control with fear.
(15:07):
my attitude towards my kids used to say, how you are experiencing this world doesn'tmatter.
It's about what I'm telling you to do as the parent.
So in my attempt to shift to compassionate parenting, I had to seek to know and love andguide our kids very differently, right?
Because our job, while our job is not to be perfect parents, is to walk through thevalleys and mountain tops alongside them.
(15:31):
So I had to give myself a lot of grace.
to relearn or unlearn certain things in order to move forward in a better way.
So sometimes people ask me, what comes first, courage or confidence?
Now our motto is, know, finding courage to be confident in your calling.
I believe it goes in that order.
And others would argue that they would put it in a different order and that's okay.
(15:54):
I'm being willing, I'm willing to hear what other people think about it.
But the way that I think about it,
is that we need to first take action without knowing the outcome, right?
Strength in the face of difficulty is courage, in order to grow in confidence.
And this is actually how children grow in confidence as well.
(16:15):
They grow confident in themselves by learning to do hard things.
It's pretty incredible.
If you've raised children for any length of time, well, I say any length of time, ifyou've raised children who are...
about two, at least two years old, you have seen their ability to learn and achieve smallsteps and small things in their life.
(16:37):
And you see their face light up like, I did it.
I did it.
So I believe that having the courage to do the hard thing first is what builds ourconfidence.
And ultimately that's what allows us to walk in our calling.
So courage starts first.
We cannot guide our children through journeys that we have not taken ourselves.
And I'm not necessarily saying if you haven't been a doctor, they will never be a doctor.
(17:01):
I'm not talking about job roles.
I'm talking about emotional courage.
We cannot guide our kids any further that we haven't gone before.
But at the same time, believe our kids will learn from us.
They'll learn from our mistakes.
as much as our actual lessons.
They pay attention.
They really do.
So these are the courageous steps.
(17:22):
Number one, make changes, step out in faith.
Number two, accept grace and let go of control.
And number three, ask for help.
Ask for help.
You're probably listening to this podcast today or you found me somewhere in the internetworld.
because you wanted to know more about parenting or because you wanted to understand adifferent approach to it, or maybe you're just tired and you need to feel like, gosh, am I
(17:50):
really doing this thing right?
And I'm here for you, mama.
I'm here to walk alongside you.
So again, ask for help.
Stop doing it alone.
Can two things that are opposite be true at the same time?
The phrase, can't do this has two meanings.
Consider this.
I can't do this.
You can say it in defeat and give up before you start.
(18:14):
Or you can say, I can't do this.
and admit that you need support.
I can't do this anymore.
can't continue doing it in this way.
can't continue to...
do the same things and not make changes and expect a different outcome.
There comes a point when we have to surrender our pride, our will.
(18:36):
our idealistic standard based on self-sufficiency.
My daughter and I talk about this often because she's a self-admitted, lean on herselfkind of girl.
And she's like, can't, if I stop or if I don't, I feel like it makes me weak.
And I go, honey, that is so strong to even admit that out loud, right?
(18:59):
To be able to say,
I'm self-aware enough that I know that if I stop or if I don't do it this way, then thatI'm weaker, And it's not necessarily what that means, but it's a learning opportunity to
go, why haven't I been able to ask for
Do you feel like that if you do, you'll be admitting weakness or defeat or failure?
(19:24):
Please don't worry about that mama.
Please don't because your strength is going to come from the strength of other mamas whohave been there and want to walk you through it.
Okay.
We'll do other episodes about how to choose your mom friends well.
And that's going to be exciting because we don't need to be alone in this.
(19:46):
We really don't.
The context of saying this, I can't do this anymore, I need help, it matters because whatis your heart posture?
Is your heart posture hopelessness or teachability?
Is it rejection or is it growth?
It takes courage to admit what you don't know.
It takes courage to admit what you don't know.
(20:09):
Maybe you're struggling with something like guilt or shame.
But guilt says I made a mistake.
Shame says I am a mistake.
That's from Dr.
Brene Brown.
Her whole research is all about shame, what causes people to feel shame.
So you don't need to believe that you are a mistake.
and not move forward.
You can believe instead that you're going to take courageous action, make some changes inyour life, and learn to be better.
(20:37):
You can do it, mama.
So what does this courage look like practically?
Well, you can have courage to ask for help with the mental load of your home and thehousework.
You can have courage to apologize to your kids and ask for a do-over.
Maybe when you've lost your cool or yelled or even hit them, you know, I mean, no shamecoming from this mom because I had to learn that lesson hard.
(21:04):
I did.
You can have courage to try new activities alongside your kids.
You don't have to raise them the way you were raised.
You know, you can, you can all learn to do different things together.
You can have courage to set boundaries with your friends and family to say no and learn tonot feel guilty for saying no.
(21:25):
You can have courage to decide to decide what you want instead of always deferring tosomeone else.
And maybe, maybe that means holiday seasons can look different because you're choosingwhat you need for your family.
You can have courage to teach your kids healthy habits, even when it's hard.
even when the grocery stores are chocked full of food that's not really food, let's say.
(21:51):
We're gonna have some guests on the show to talk about that too.
You can have courage to watch your kids struggle without immediately intervening.
I'm doing a whole lot of that right now.
My kids are 15 and 16 and I gotta trust their choices.
I do.
(22:12):
We can have courage to step into new seasons and make new friends.
Make new friends.
It's gonna be fun.
We can have courage to have honest money conversations as a family.
Set goals for spending, set goals for saving.
You get stronger when you do that and you have more hope for the future.
(22:34):
It's so cool.
And finally, you can have courage to admit that you've been afraid to make the next rightmove.
Mama.
since we've been sitting together on this beach, watching the waves roll over our feet aswe're talking about our experiences and thinking about all the things that have held us
(22:57):
back, all the things that keep us from being the courageous woman that we are, right?
You are strong enough to make the next right move for your life.
And whatever that courage looks like, just know that many women have been there beforeyou.
You can do it.
(23:18):
You can make good choices.
You can trust yourself.
but it might take time.
And you might want to bring in some good friends into this conversation.
Here at Enough Mom, I want you to practice building up your courage and your confidence sothat you can walk boldly in your calling.
(23:39):
You can do it.
Remember never turn your back on the ocean as my as my surfer husband tells me you need toface the waves that are coming Because the ocean is powerful struggles want to take you
down But you can learn from each struggle that comes your way But when you're tossed bythe waves stand up Stand up if you can
(24:05):
Stand up and get a different perspective.
And when you feel like you're drowning, just know that you don't have to face it alone.
You can ask for help.
You can say, is my season to ask for help.
This is the area of my life where I need help.
You're not drowning, mama.
I know it may feel like it sometimes.
But you are learning to swim.
(24:28):
Let's learn to swim together and enough of these cheesy metaphors.
Goodness, My brain just keeps wanting to make all the connections.
Another thing that you may want to know about me, or actually I mentioned the firstepisode is I'm ADHD, which means that I love deep insightful talks and I love making
(24:49):
connections to everything.
So if you can take from anything that we shared today in this episode,
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Please stick around and Come back for our next episode on what it means to buildconfidence.
And I wanna talk to you about the class that I've been teaching to teenagers aboutconfidence, because...
It's the coolest thing to see these kids learn about the next right steps that they cantake to build their confidence so that they can walk boldly in their calling.
(25:17):
Until next time, mama, thank you for joining me here on the Enough Mom podcast.
Please follow us on the socials.
Visit me at jennifer-bryant.com backslash Enough Mom and consider joining our Enough Momcommunity.
It's going to open very soon and I'm going to have wonderful things in there for you.
Thank you for listening.
(25:37):
This has been Jennifer Bryant with the Enough Mom Podcast, where you can find the courageto be confident in your calling.
Hello friends I'm Jennifer Bryant.
I am your host and today we are on episode 102 of the Enough Mom Podcast, Finding Couragein Motherhood.
In the first episode, in the introductory return episode, I mentioned that here at EnoughMom, I'm going to be focusing on messages for mothers that encourage you to have
(00:28):
courage to be confident in your calling.
Today we're talking about courage, what courage actually means.
It's basically strength in the face of difficulty.
Okay.
We can think of many, many difficulties we experience in motherhood.
Yes, we're to talk about all the good stuff, but let's be real about the stuff that isdifficult.
(00:48):
We struggle.
We struggle to know that we are enough as a mom, whether we're doing this thing
correctly and I'm doing air quotes right now if you're watching on our YouTube channel.
It's not easy, but you know, of course, of course Jen, what else is new?
It's not easy.
So give me something I can grab onto.
Well, first I want to take you to a place where you can relax and just breathe.
(01:14):
Okay.
If you don't already know, I happen to live in Hawaii.
Okay.
Before you get jealous, don't because
You know, we have struggles over here too, but I want to take you to a calm beach just forthe sake of going.
So if you came over to my house and you said, Jen, I really need to just get away andbreathe and relax today, I'd go, okay, let's jump in my car.
(01:37):
We'll drive down to the beach.
Let's walk down, put our blankets down and hopefully if it's not too windy, we can justsit there.
And first, what I want you to do is take in a deep breath.
and breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
(01:59):
There's something so necessary about practicing slowing down our brains by actuallybreathing, learning how to breathe.
We'll go over some of that in episodes to come as well.
So we're just gonna start out here by practicing our breaths.
Pretend that you're on that white sand beach that you're watching the waves roll in andyou're letting it calm you.
(02:23):
Let's start this getaway by actually getting away in our brains, shall we?
Okay, now that you're at this place of relative calm, imagine the kids are not around you,no one's bothering you, no one's asking you for anything.
We need to give ourselves space to think about our next right moves.
(02:46):
Because having strength in the face of difficult situations requires that we return to whowe know we are, what we know we already have, the tools that we have to fight the hardest
battles.
And even though a lot of these battles are not by our own choosing,
we still get to choose how we respond to them.
(03:08):
And that's a lot of the strength that you're going to bring to your situations, mama.
It's true.
It's true.
Okay.
So now that we're on the beach relaxing, I want to tell you a story.
I have not always allowed the ocean to calm me.
Okay.
I moved to Hawaii because my husband is from Hawaii.
(03:29):
He's born and raised here.
I'm a California girl, but I didn't grow up by the beach in California.
No, no, no.
I grew up inland, inland like desert, inland empire.
Shout out to Colton, California.
Woo woo.
I grew up there.
And,
I didn't get to the beach that often.
Well, one summer, my family decided to vacation at one of the California coasts.
(03:51):
I forget which beach it was, but there weren't a lot of people there.
It wasn't like Huntington or Newport.
It was somewhere off somewhere else.
And I could not have been older than six or seven years.
No, probably more like seven or eight.
And I was learning to use the boogie board and I got brave enough because my dad wouldshow me, look, don't need to be afraid of the water.
(04:12):
You don't need to be afraid of it.
Just get on your board and let the wave take you.
So after a while of doing this, I got confident and I was able to ride it on my own.
But before I knew it, the waves, the larger waves, the further I paddled out, they tookme.
They kept kind of pulling me out to sea.
Before I knew it, I could see the end of the pier.
(04:35):
Like I was looking at the end of the pier.
toward the shore.
And at that point I knew, whoa, I was way far out there.
I was getting freaked out because in my, you know, seven or eight year old mind, you don'thave a whole lot of life experience to realize what that means to be that far out there.
And I just remember paddling and paddling.
(04:56):
And I remember the large waves coming over me and some of them took me under, but I wasable to get up.
And I remember praying.
I remember
saying, God, please keep me safe.
And I got back to shore just fine.
My dad saw me after what I think I got back and sat next to him and he said, hey, whereyou been?
(05:17):
And from then on, I had this uneasiness to say the least about the ocean because Irealized how powerful the ocean actually is, right?
It's vast, it's beyond our comprehension.
I was no match for those waves and they took me where they wanted to take me.
But thank goodness I got back to shore
(05:39):
The unknown can terrify us, right?
We can spend so much time worrying about the things that we don't know that are coming.
That young girl on that boogie board may not have been so lucky.
or so looked after.
We don't know what's lurking beneath the surface.
And I don't say that to, know, poo poo on water sport folks, my husband is a surfer and,you know, those are just things you cannot think about or else you would never go out and
(06:04):
do anything.
But there has to come at some point this desire to overcome your fear while you're stillfeeling it.
So fast forward many years later, I'm here in Hawaii and my son is about probably the sameage actually, six, seven, seven or eight.
(06:26):
And we were in Kailua on the East side of Oahu.
In front of a friend's house, we were just, you know, he was boogie boarding and there wasa strong current that day.
that pulled him, I mean, like the waves were crashing a little harder than usual.
And I saw my son having fun.
(06:47):
I saw him, his little head popping up and down as he was, you know, in the water.
And then all of a sudden his eyes got huge and I saw that terrified look in his face.
I went into mama mode, mama bear mode, and I ran to grab him.
And as I put my hands around his body, I lifted him up.
(07:13):
I lifted him up above the waves and the waves crashed over my head, but I knew how to holdmy breath long enough till I could stabilize my body to get him out.
I come back in holding him and he's of course scared and my husband runs up and right awayhe says to him and to me probably, you're okay, you're okay.
(07:37):
And he tells me later, honey, try not to respond in fear if you can help it.
If you can try to help it, I know you're scared too, but try not to respond in fear whenit comes to our kids being in the water because I don't want them to grow up afraid of the
water.
And that was wise.
Of course, it's from his own experience.
He's incredibly comfortable with the water.
(07:59):
You heard my story from before, but that's because of my lack of exposure.
My husband has been in the water all his life.
And so his fears were definitely lessened.
They're on a different level because he got himself used to it sooner.
What I want you to remember, mama, is that until you stand up, until you are lifted out ofthe water, everything will feel like you're drowning.
(08:25):
Until you decide to make certain changes and overcome or learn or get a differentperspective on the struggles that you're facing, everything will feel like the waves are
crashing over you.
And it just takes someone else, or maybe it's that voice inside you that says, it's okayto stand now.
(08:50):
At Enough Mom, I want you to understand how to become an Enough Mom by understanding whatit takes to put on courage and walk through the scary or unknown thing even when you don't
know what the outcome might be.
It's not easy, but it's worth it.
And I'm here to walk alongside you as you do that.
(09:12):
So again, courage means strength in the face of difficulty.
Motherhood can be challenging and so frightening when you feel like you're doing it alone.
The questions that haunt us are things like, I making the right choices for my kids, formy family, for myself?
There are three things that make motherhood harder.
(09:33):
Number one, fear of the unknown.
all it does is isolate us.
When you constantly stay in that fear or you refuse to take action or move because youdon't know what the outcome is, that can be very, very isolating for us as mothers.
when we tend to keep to ourselves and think that we're the only one going through thisstruggle.
(09:56):
And of course, the social media highlights don't help.
There are many wonderful creators out there and I appreciate the ones who areauthentically themselves and share their authentic stories.
And that's what I strive to be here for you
The second thing that makes motherhood feel harder is chasing the right way to parentbecause that will just frustrate the heck out of you.
(10:20):
Feeling that there's one right way to do it.
There's so much conflicting advice out there, mama.
We're constantly second guessing ourselves.
At some point we just have to pick one path and go, go with it.
Just go with it.
And number three, doing everything yourself.
or attempting to do it all yourself.
(10:41):
That can be debilitating, So let's go over that again.
The three things that make motherhood harder, isolating yourself because the fear of theunknown, frustrating yourself because you're chasing the right way to parent, and
debilitating feelings of doing everything yourself.
(11:01):
You don't need to carry the full mental load for everyone.
If you don't ask for help, you're going to feel very depleted very quickly and you'regoing to start running on empty.
But here are three courageous actions you can take.
You ready?
Believe me when I say that you are strong enough to make changes and all that takes isstepping out in faith.
(11:28):
The fear of the unknown does not need to isolate you.
Whether you're struggling with things like postpartum depression, identity shifts frombeing a working mom to now being a stay at home mom, and ask me how I know by the way,
because I've done all of that.
I'll share more in later episodes.
Whether you're moving to a new community, whether you have medical challenges or maybespecial needs child or several special needs children.
(12:00):
We are tempted to think that we'll never have enough, enough resources, time, energy.
We're tempted to think we'll never do enough and we're tempted to think we'll never beenough for the people in our lives.
But the answer isn't I am enough.
It's recognizing what you have and what you need for today.
(12:25):
You have enough for the journey that you're on.
You have enough for your efforts.
Even small efforts make such a difference.
You are human with limitations and that's okay.
We don't need to say yes to everything that comes along.
You really, really don't.
Okay?
So you're allowed to make changes in all of those areas.
Number two, you are strong enough to accept grace and that means letting go of control.
(12:52):
this is a hard one.
You know, there are new areas of my life where I'm still realizing after being married for19 years and having teenagers, I still find myself trying to control certain things.
And I'm realizing, wow, that's okay.
All right.
Calm it down, Jen, calm it down.
(13:12):
We'll talk more about that in later episodes as well, especially as it relates toteenagers and...
growing older with your husband.
It's tough sometimes.
It's Accepting grace and letting go of control means that many of us are running away fromauthoritative parenting.
The whole generation that was like, because I said so, do this because I said so.
(13:37):
We're not over here trying to trust that anymore.
We need reasons, right?
And maybe that's the millennial mom in me, but millennials are so very about, give me thegood reason so I can think through and so I can understand.
Teach me so that I understand, right?
That's kind of a hallmark of our generation.
We wanna step away from parenting styles that are controlling through fear and punishment,which is why the whole gentle parenting.
(14:02):
movement has come in.
Sometimes it swings too far and we need to find balance in that.
because we want to find the right way to do it, it can be hard to just kind of go withwhat you know is right sometimes.
It seems to work, you know, the fear and punishment thing, it seems to work, but at whatcost?
(14:23):
We're finding out now that
Children are much more emotionally, shall I say, hindered, sometimes scarred because ofpunishment that was used to control and instill fear in us.
I used to parent with control.
I used to spank, honestly.
It didn't feel good for either of us.
(14:44):
And I slowly backed away from it when I realized that the spirits of my children are moreprecious than my need for them to do the thing I need them to do right now.
We will talk more about that later as well.
I used to yell.
I used to tell them, do what I say right now.
But I didn't want them to do what I did, which was control with fear.
(15:07):
my attitude towards my kids used to say, how you are experiencing this world doesn'tmatter.
It's about what I'm telling you to do as the parent.
So in my attempt to shift to compassionate parenting, I had to seek to know and love andguide our kids very differently, right?
Because our job, while our job is not to be perfect parents, is to walk through thevalleys and mountain tops alongside them.
(15:31):
So I had to give myself a lot of grace.
to relearn or unlearn certain things in order to move forward in a better way.
So sometimes people ask me, what comes first, courage or confidence?
Now our motto is, know, finding courage to be confident in your calling.
I believe it goes in that order.
And others would argue that they would put it in a different order and that's okay.
(15:54):
I'm being willing, I'm willing to hear what other people think about it.
But the way that I think about it,
is that we need to first take action without knowing the outcome, right?
Strength in the face of difficulty is courage, in order to grow in confidence.
And this is actually how children grow in confidence as well.
(16:15):
They grow confident in themselves by learning to do hard things.
It's pretty incredible.
If you've raised children for any length of time, well, I say any length of time, ifyou've raised children who are...
about two, at least two years old, you have seen their ability to learn and achieve smallsteps and small things in their life.
(16:37):
And you see their face light up like, I did it.
I did it.
So I believe that having the courage to do the hard thing first is what builds ourconfidence.
And ultimately that's what allows us to walk in our calling.
So courage starts first.
We cannot guide our children through journeys that we have not taken ourselves.
And I'm not necessarily saying if you haven't been a doctor, they will never be a doctor.
(17:01):
I'm not talking about job roles.
I'm talking about emotional courage.
We cannot guide our kids any further that we haven't gone before.
But at the same time, believe our kids will learn from us.
They'll learn from our mistakes.
as much as our actual lessons.
They pay attention.
They really do.
So these are the courageous steps.
(17:22):
Number one, make changes, step out in faith.
Number two, accept grace and let go of control.
And number three, ask for help.
Ask for help.
You're probably listening to this podcast today or you found me somewhere in the internetworld.
because you wanted to know more about parenting or because you wanted to understand adifferent approach to it, or maybe you're just tired and you need to feel like, gosh, am I
(17:50):
really doing this thing right?
And I'm here for you, mama.
I'm here to walk alongside you.
So again, ask for help.
Stop doing it alone.
Can two things that are opposite be true at the same time?
The phrase, can't do this has two meanings.
Consider this.
I can't do this.
You can say it in defeat and give up before you start.
(18:14):
Or you can say, I can't do this.
and admit that you need support.
I can't do this anymore.
can't continue doing it in this way.
can't continue to...
do the same things and not make changes and expect a different outcome.
There comes a point when we have to surrender our pride, our will.
(18:36):
our idealistic standard based on self-sufficiency.
My daughter and I talk about this often because she's a self-admitted, lean on herselfkind of girl.
And she's like, can't, if I stop or if I don't, I feel like it makes me weak.
And I go, honey, that is so strong to even admit that out loud, right?
(18:59):
To be able to say,
I'm self-aware enough that I know that if I stop or if I don't do it this way, then thatI'm weaker, And it's not necessarily what that means, but it's a learning opportunity to
go, why haven't I been able to ask for
Do you feel like that if you do, you'll be admitting weakness or defeat or failure?
(19:24):
Please don't worry about that mama.
Please don't because your strength is going to come from the strength of other mamas whohave been there and want to walk you through it.
Okay.
We'll do other episodes about how to choose your mom friends well.
And that's going to be exciting because we don't need to be alone in this.
(19:46):
We really don't.
The context of saying this, I can't do this anymore, I need help, it matters because whatis your heart posture?
Is your heart posture hopelessness or teachability?
Is it rejection or is it growth?
It takes courage to admit what you don't know.
It takes courage to admit what you don't know.
(20:09):
Maybe you're struggling with something like guilt or shame.
But guilt says I made a mistake.
Shame says I am a mistake.
That's from Dr.
Brene Brown.
Her whole research is all about shame, what causes people to feel shame.
So you don't need to believe that you are a mistake.
and not move forward.
You can believe instead that you're going to take courageous action, make some changes inyour life, and learn to be better.
(20:37):
You can do it, mama.
So what does this courage look like practically?
Well, you can have courage to ask for help with the mental load of your home and thehousework.
You can have courage to apologize to your kids and ask for a do-over.
Maybe when you've lost your cool or yelled or even hit them, you know, I mean, no shamecoming from this mom because I had to learn that lesson hard.
(21:04):
I did.
You can have courage to try new activities alongside your kids.
You don't have to raise them the way you were raised.
You know, you can, you can all learn to do different things together.
You can have courage to set boundaries with your friends and family to say no and learn tonot feel guilty for saying no.
(21:25):
You can have courage to decide to decide what you want instead of always deferring tosomeone else.
And maybe, maybe that means holiday seasons can look different because you're choosingwhat you need for your family.
You can have courage to teach your kids healthy habits, even when it's hard.
even when the grocery stores are chocked full of food that's not really food, let's say.
(21:51):
We're gonna have some guests on the show to talk about that too.
You can have courage to watch your kids struggle without immediately intervening.
I'm doing a whole lot of that right now.
My kids are 15 and 16 and I gotta trust their choices.
I do.
(22:12):
We can have courage to step into new seasons and make new friends.
Make new friends.
It's gonna be fun.
We can have courage to have honest money conversations as a family.
Set goals for spending, set goals for saving.
You get stronger when you do that and you have more hope for the future.
(22:34):
It's so cool.
And finally, you can have courage to admit that you've been afraid to make the next rightmove.
Mama.
since we've been sitting together on this beach, watching the waves roll over our feet aswe're talking about our experiences and thinking about all the things that have held us
(22:57):
back, all the things that keep us from being the courageous woman that we are, right?
You are strong enough to make the next right move for your life.
And whatever that courage looks like, just know that many women have been there beforeyou.
You can do it.
(23:18):
You can make good choices.
You can trust yourself.
but it might take time.
And you might want to bring in some good friends into this conversation.
Here at Enough Mom, I want you to practice building up your courage and your confidence sothat you can walk boldly in your calling.
(23:39):
You can do it.
Remember never turn your back on the ocean as my as my surfer husband tells me you need toface the waves that are coming Because the ocean is powerful struggles want to take you
down But you can learn from each struggle that comes your way But when you're tossed bythe waves stand up Stand up if you can
(24:05):
Stand up and get a different perspective.
And when you feel like you're drowning, just know that you don't have to face it alone.
You can ask for help.
You can say, is my season to ask for help.
This is the area of my life where I need help.
You're not drowning, mama.
I know it may feel like it sometimes.
But you are learning to swim.
(24:28):
Let's learn to swim together and enough of these cheesy metaphors.
Goodness, My brain just keeps wanting to make all the connections.
Another thing that you may want to know about me, or actually I mentioned the firstepisode is I'm ADHD, which means that I love deep insightful talks and I love making
(24:49):
connections to everything.
So if you can take from anything that we shared today in this episode,
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Please stick around and Come back for our next episode on what it means to buildconfidence.
And I wanna talk to you about the class that I've been teaching to teenagers aboutconfidence, because...
It's the coolest thing to see these kids learn about the next right steps that they cantake to build their confidence so that they can walk boldly in their calling.
(25:17):
Until next time, mama, thank you for joining me here on the Enough Mom podcast.
Please follow us on the socials.
Visit me at jennifer-bryant.com backslash Enough Mom and consider joining our Enough Momcommunity.
It's going to open very soon and I'm going to have wonderful things in there for you.
Thank you for listening.
(25:37):
This has been Jennifer Bryant with the Enough Mom Podcast, where you can find the courageto be confident in your calling.
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